Slow Down for Children

I was working with a friend at a library computer. Over and over she expressed frustration with the speed with which the computer was loading. So I said to her, "Remember when it took an hour and a half to cook dinner? Now eight minutes in the microwave seems forever." Both of us are old enough to remember many things that used to take time and planning.

Take cooking, for instance. First of all you had to plan your shopping. Grocery stores closed in the sixties. Really, someone actually locked the door and turned out the lights at five or six o'clock. You could not buy anything until the next day, unless of course, it was Sunday. Nothing was open on Sunday. Once grocery stores started staying open until nine, the butchers union would not allow the grocery to even SELL meat after six p.m. So plan ahead.

If you had all the ingredients you needed, you prepared them. Peeling potatoes, shucking corn, snapping beans, shelling peas, and chopping vegetables, were jobs for children  in the kitchen. That left boning, trussing stuffing, marinading, stewing, roasting, boiling, frying, breading, and baking for adults. The table had to be set. Food was transferred to serving dishes. When dinner was served thanks was given before anyone took a bite.

I hear there is a slow food movement afoot. I think this is a great idea. Personally, I am not much for cooking, but I am not a big fan of speedy food either. Slow is good.

Especially when it comes to children, I feel the need to slow things down. Not that children cannot deal with speed. Many children are quite capable of fast. No, we need to slow things down for children so that there is room to breathe.

Children need time to develop observation skills. The ability to perceive things in the environment is an important thinking skill. Staring at the clouds, watching the rain fall, crunching through the leaves, smelling the flowers, basking in the sun, listening to the insects buzz, licking the spoon are sensations to be savored. Quiet contemplation reveals solutions. Keen observation inspires inventions. Sensation calls to action. Stillness opens us to creation.

It is in the pauses between thoughts that the brain makes new connections.

"The brain is trying to weave ideas together even when you don't think you are thinking of anything," notes Johns Hopkins behavioral neurologist and memory expert Dr. Barry Gordon.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1957114,00.html

So take the time to slow things down, sit and do nothing, watch the world go by with the children you love. And when your child says to you, "I'm bored." you can reply, "That's good."

A Rose by Any Other Name

People have been apologizing for using terms which other people, the people demanding the apology, find offensive. This is problematic on many counts. Most importantly, free speech is a right in the United States which is protected by the constitution. Also, these terms are perfectly legitimate words that carry meaning. They are not some made up derrogatory terms. And, the people complaining about these words were not even present when the words were uttered. What gives them the right to be offended?

Free speech, especially speech among friends, should require no apology to anyone outside of the group. Correct usage of words in public requires no apology. Complainers, your ignorance (lack of knowledge) is showing.

Negro and retarded are the most recent words to make the "Apologize to All the People Who Are" list.  Historically people have used a variety of terms for the groups of people referenced by these words. In my lifetime I have heard perfectly respectable television reporters use the terms colored, negro, black, African American and for a more general group "people of color." At one time the correct labels for the three levels of below normal intelligence were idiot, imbecile, and moron. I was taught the labels educable mental retardation, trainable mental retardation, severe and profound mental retardation when I was in college. Retarded became handicapped. Handicapped became differently-abled. Differently-abled became special needs.

It seems terminology changes when terms become insults. When a term is well understood and people do not want to belong to the group described, a new term is invented. How sad. If members of the described group could embrace their identity with pride there would be no insult intended or not.

Which brings me to my final point. You have a choice. You can be offended by something someone else says or you can not. Taking offense tells more about the person who is offended than about the person making the offending remark. The fact that any of this makes it to the news is very telling about the state of news reporting today.

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

You Think?

Things I think are messed up:

Economists talking about education reform.
Take the log out of your own eye before pointing out the speck in your brother's eye.

Micromanagement of everything everywhere.
What makes anyone or any agency think they know more about anything than the people who do that thing everyday?

Goals and objectives equated with quality.
How many business quality management programs have we gone through in the last  30 years?
The flaw in the "objectives equals quality" equation is that the quality of the outcome is proportional to the quality of the goals and objectives. Measuring outcomes only works if you are measuring things that matter.

Blame it on the unions.
Hey unions are made up of workers. The auto unions are the people who put your car together in the factory. The teachers unions are the teachers who wipe your kids noses. So you can blame the "workers" in unions all you want but what you are really criticizing are the people who make the world run so that "executives" can pretend that poop, vomit, and snot don't happen. The most important people in the world are the ones who clean up after everyone else goes home.

Blame it on the government.
Again, you are talking about "We the people." Anytime you say "the government" you should substitute  "The American People." The American people spend too much.  The American people are controlled by  lobbyiests. Even better, you could substitute "I." I invaded Iraq. I tortured people who were turned in as enemy combatants by people who were paid to turn them in. I was so angry that I was willing to lock up people and deprive them of liberty for years without a trial.

"Enemy Combatents" and all other euphemisms.
My favorite euphemism is "potentially English proficient." I like to call myself potentially Japaneese proficient. What it really means is "doesn't speak English" and "doesn't speak Japaneese."

Apologies
A fourth grade teacher I know told us on curriculum night that she teaches children that often "Sorry" isn't enough. For example, if you go to  a restaurant and order a steak and the waiter brings you a hot dog, would you be satisfied with an apology? No, you want the waiter to bring you a steak. When you make a mistake you need to try to fix it.
Even worse is the demand for an apology. Demanding that one feel regret and further demanding that this regret be anounced pubically, well that's messed up.

This "Standardization" movement
Here's a great idea, let's sell clothes in standard sizes. It would be great if a size 12 was always a size 12.  That way we could be sure that clothing makers were putting out correct sizes. Of course we would have to keep tailors from making alterations because then the clothing would no longer be a standard size. We should also do away with those pesky size 12 tall and 12 petite that mess with the standards. Designers shouldn't be able to cut the calf wider or shorten the rise on a particular line because that defies the concept of standard and reduces quality.

So for today, that's what I think is messed up.

Eight is Enough

I am the sixth child of nine children in a Catholic family growing up in the fifties and sixties. I went to a Catholic school with children who typically came from large families. Our family was outnumbered by at least two other families. Most of the many children on my block went to the Catholic school too. A small family in my neighborhood had four children. There was one kid in my class who was an only child. The rest of us wondered how she managed.

This is the perspective I bring to the issue of the 19th child born to the TLC reality show family the Duggars. I know what it feels like to be just another kid in the crowd. I know what it is like to be counted rather than named. I know what it is like to have a strong religious background on display to the world. I even know what it is like to have your family verbally attacked for overpopulating the world.

Like the Duggars, my parents had the resources to feed and clothe all of us. My parents paid for our education in private schools and sent us all to college without aid. It is hard to fault people who can take care of themselves.

As a reality show family I really like the Duggars. They appear easygoing, happy, healthy, and tolerant of differences. The children are allowed to be children. The family spends time together. This is more than can be said about many modern families in America today.

BUT 19 children? Two parents, no matter how wonderful, do not have enough love to nurture 19 children. Let me rephrase that. Love is not enough. Children need to be held, carried, sung to, read to, and listened to in a one on one relationship with a consistent caretaker.

We have decades of research demonstrating the need for gentle physical contact and movement to maintain physical health, a consistent caretaker to maintain emotional health, one to one vocal interaction to develop language and cognitive abilities.

The Duggars have certainly tried to provide for the needs of each child. I just question how they would know if any one of the children was struggling. It is easy to get lost in a crowd.

So on principle as well as experience, I take issue with people who choose to bring up children in a crowd. Not that I would take away the right of any adult to make their own decisions about these matters, but I also have the right to have an opinion and discuss it in public.

The Duggars can espouse to accept each and every child the Lord sends to them. I can encourage self restraint. Michelle Duggar was barely six months from having a cesearian section when she conceived Josie, baby 19. I do not believe there is a biblical injunction to copulate profusely. Common sense would have cautioned against conception so close to surgery. Not using birth control should have cautioned against copulation so close to surgery.

My heart goes out to this family and their beautiful baby Josie who was born way too early.
You can call it the will of God, but God gives us free will. How about exercising a little self-control?