My mantra, for the last seven years, has been if it's not good for a pregnant woman, it's probably not so great for my kids, or for me either. I remember this everytime I eat sushi, and I don't let my children eat the raw fish. Veggie rolls are fine, though, and my daughter loves them. Similar rules for nuts, uncooked meats, and soft cheeses. I also fail to grasp the whole unpasturized milk thing happening in Ontario right now. If I remember my grade 10 science, milk and other foods are pasturized for a reason.
So with my mantra in mind, off we went to a hotel for a family vacation over March Break. All my kids need on vacation is a pool. Not a schmancy waterslide-y fun village, just a basic, preferrably shallow, hotel pool, and the quieter the better. I've tried organizing events, doing tours, dragging my offspring from pillar to post. I finally realized this year that the kids are just too young. They don't remember visiting Mackenzie the Fireboat from Mighty Machines, or touring the Toronto Police Services Horse Stables and meeting all the police horses. They don't even remember getting lost at Ikea (my heart still stops when I remember). All these great memories, designed to inspire warm, fuzzy thoughts of a perfect childhood are manufactured by me, and require little participation from my children. They simply get to be viewers. After many years, I've learned that this isn't enough for them. My kids require activity, and on vacation they prefer that activity to be unstructured and aquatic. Now, the added bonus for me is that basic pools cost buckets less than a double room at a fun village.
But I was really alarmed at a growing trend I've noticed among families - parents and caregivers taking young children into hot tubs. I always check out the warning notices, and without fail, they always say 'persons under 16 years not permitted in the hot tub.' I remember when I was pregnant that I could only watch, enviously, as my husband soaked his aches away, while the most I could do was dangle my feet in for a few minutes, and steam figuratively. This was because high heat, like that in a hot tub, could damage the baby incubating inside me. So, I get pretty concerned when I see toddlers and preschoolers paddling around in the 92 degree plus bubbles of a public hot tub.
I can't imagine how little thought must go into allowing this, and I think it's because it's a public place therefore it must be safe. People see one family do it, and next thing you know it's a toddler fest. But that doesn't make it right. This past week, I saw the cutest 2 1/2 year old girl complaining to her grandmother that she didn't want to go in the hot tub, that it was too hot. Her grandmother convinced her to stay and she played happily for about 20 minutes. I happened to be there too, enjoying my allotted, non-pregnant 20 minutes. However, just as I was getting ready to leave, the little girl splashing in front of me began vomitting profusely. I was out of there faster than a flash, letting the attendant know. I later saw the woman and her granddaughter again, and the older woman was at pains to let me know that the girl had swallowed too much water, leading her to vomit. I suggested that perhaps the hot tub had been too hot for a little one, but the woman brushed aside my concern. Oh well. Maybe her granddaughter will remind her the next time. For now, though, I'm learning to follow my children's lead and resist manufacturing 'ideal' memories, having their kind of fun, and letting us create the good times for ourselves.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Sarcasm?! Not!!!
I haven't posted recently because I was quite sick. Ironically enough with the H1N1 flu! (Please see previous posts about the culture of fear.) So I relied on children's movies and television to help me through the couple of hours between when my children finished lunch and when my husband finished work since I was completely exhausted and, by 2pm, just couldn't move or function. So, I saw A LOT of children's films this fall, and I'm quite concerned about what I've seen.
As an older mom, who came of age in the 80s, I grew up in a particularly disfunctional relationship with Barbie. As a child, she was my best friend - always cool, always popular, always accepted by her peers. As a teen, she was dismissed as an archaic remnant of a less modern time when women had no role I ever wanted to be in. As a young woman, increasingly aware of my "flaws", she was a symbol to be mocked - I remember laughing at different, unorthodox versions of the doll. And, I distinctly remember telling anyone who would listen that I would never, ever let my daughter play with a Barbie.
Well, twenty years and three children later, Barbie is firmly ensconced in her pink plastic carrying case in our playroom. I treasure the moments I get to play 'barbies' with my children (all of them), and remember with tears how my mom used to sew the coolest clothes for my doll. I wish I had the time and the talent to do that. And now, after my illness and reliance on children's movies, I REALLY treasure the Barbie films. They are appropriate in content for my young children, they deal with subjects like equality and tolerance, kindness and friendship. This fall, we watched Barbie and the Three Musketeers and later, Barbie in A Christmas Carol. Both films are awesome. My son asked, "Why weren't girls allowed to be musketeers?" It just doesn't make any sense to him that girls aren't equal to boys in some people's minds. And I feel like Supermom! (And then I go overboard and show the kids School House Rock's "Suffering Until Sufferage"!) Disney fairy movies (Tinkerbell and Tinkerbell 2) are in the same vein as the Barbie films, and have the benefit of showing an attractive young fairy working with tools and thinking about the mechanics of things (engineering!). But that's where it ends.
I made two significant mistakes this fall (aside from relying on movies & tv, but let's put that aside for now). I allowed my children to watch G-Force, the Disney/Bruckheimer film about special ops guinea pigs, and Home Alone, the classic Chris Columbus film with Macaulay Culkin. G-Force was truly the silliest film every made, but that wasn't the problem. In the film, one of the characters passes gas and says, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning!" And the chorus of mice shout "The horror, the horror". I laughed, of course, not realizing what had just happened. Then a week later my son starts chiming "I love the smell of napalm in the morning!" Trust me, it's not really that funny when a 6 year old says it, and then asks, "Mom, what's napalm?" Ok. How to answer that?! Because I'll have to answer in such a way that makes the humour of the line ok with my kids, and I finally concluded that that was just not possible. There's no way you can equate the reality of napalm with humour. Ever. So, I used the question as an opportunity to talk about what's appropriate for characters in kids films to say, and what's not. Seriously, the sheer disgust you feel watching Apocalypse Now, when that line is delivered, is totally undermined by a furry tail-less rat repeating it about his own flatulence. I don't want to get all Tipper Gore, either though. There is a place for sarcasm and biting humour - in films geared to pre-teens and older. I love sarcasm, but I don't use it with my children. Which brings me to Home Alone.
I had forgotten the disdain with which the McAllister family treated each other. It's horrible to hear Kevin (Culkin) call his mom a 'dummy' and the kids call each other 'jerks' and 'morons'. This is the same parenting era that gave rise to Barbara Coloroso and Mazelich and Faber's "How to talk so kids will listen". It just doesn't compute. It's awful, and really undermines all the work I've done to teach my kids to respect each other. How did parents tolerate this film when it was released? It's off our dvr now, and won't be returning, even though my kids laugh like nothing else when they watch it. The long-term cost of Home Alone is too great. And I realize now that Barbie and her fashion-forward friends are not the enemy anymore. It's the complacency and disdain and distrust that Hollywood promotes as 'model' families. Home Alone is a direct ancestor to the Simpsons, Two and a Half Men, and now Modern Family. Enough is enough. Real families aren't like that. Real families love each other. But real children can't distinguish between Hollywood fantasy and reality. They need us to guide them, nurture them, and show them how Hollywood doesn't decide how we behave.
As an older mom, who came of age in the 80s, I grew up in a particularly disfunctional relationship with Barbie. As a child, she was my best friend - always cool, always popular, always accepted by her peers. As a teen, she was dismissed as an archaic remnant of a less modern time when women had no role I ever wanted to be in. As a young woman, increasingly aware of my "flaws", she was a symbol to be mocked - I remember laughing at different, unorthodox versions of the doll. And, I distinctly remember telling anyone who would listen that I would never, ever let my daughter play with a Barbie.
Well, twenty years and three children later, Barbie is firmly ensconced in her pink plastic carrying case in our playroom. I treasure the moments I get to play 'barbies' with my children (all of them), and remember with tears how my mom used to sew the coolest clothes for my doll. I wish I had the time and the talent to do that. And now, after my illness and reliance on children's movies, I REALLY treasure the Barbie films. They are appropriate in content for my young children, they deal with subjects like equality and tolerance, kindness and friendship. This fall, we watched Barbie and the Three Musketeers and later, Barbie in A Christmas Carol. Both films are awesome. My son asked, "Why weren't girls allowed to be musketeers?" It just doesn't make any sense to him that girls aren't equal to boys in some people's minds. And I feel like Supermom! (And then I go overboard and show the kids School House Rock's "Suffering Until Sufferage"!) Disney fairy movies (Tinkerbell and Tinkerbell 2) are in the same vein as the Barbie films, and have the benefit of showing an attractive young fairy working with tools and thinking about the mechanics of things (engineering!). But that's where it ends.
I made two significant mistakes this fall (aside from relying on movies & tv, but let's put that aside for now). I allowed my children to watch G-Force, the Disney/Bruckheimer film about special ops guinea pigs, and Home Alone, the classic Chris Columbus film with Macaulay Culkin. G-Force was truly the silliest film every made, but that wasn't the problem. In the film, one of the characters passes gas and says, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning!" And the chorus of mice shout "The horror, the horror". I laughed, of course, not realizing what had just happened. Then a week later my son starts chiming "I love the smell of napalm in the morning!" Trust me, it's not really that funny when a 6 year old says it, and then asks, "Mom, what's napalm?" Ok. How to answer that?! Because I'll have to answer in such a way that makes the humour of the line ok with my kids, and I finally concluded that that was just not possible. There's no way you can equate the reality of napalm with humour. Ever. So, I used the question as an opportunity to talk about what's appropriate for characters in kids films to say, and what's not. Seriously, the sheer disgust you feel watching Apocalypse Now, when that line is delivered, is totally undermined by a furry tail-less rat repeating it about his own flatulence. I don't want to get all Tipper Gore, either though. There is a place for sarcasm and biting humour - in films geared to pre-teens and older. I love sarcasm, but I don't use it with my children. Which brings me to Home Alone.
I had forgotten the disdain with which the McAllister family treated each other. It's horrible to hear Kevin (Culkin) call his mom a 'dummy' and the kids call each other 'jerks' and 'morons'. This is the same parenting era that gave rise to Barbara Coloroso and Mazelich and Faber's "How to talk so kids will listen". It just doesn't compute. It's awful, and really undermines all the work I've done to teach my kids to respect each other. How did parents tolerate this film when it was released? It's off our dvr now, and won't be returning, even though my kids laugh like nothing else when they watch it. The long-term cost of Home Alone is too great. And I realize now that Barbie and her fashion-forward friends are not the enemy anymore. It's the complacency and disdain and distrust that Hollywood promotes as 'model' families. Home Alone is a direct ancestor to the Simpsons, Two and a Half Men, and now Modern Family. Enough is enough. Real families aren't like that. Real families love each other. But real children can't distinguish between Hollywood fantasy and reality. They need us to guide them, nurture them, and show them how Hollywood doesn't decide how we behave.
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