Outdated

I just had a birthday recently, and while I'm not going to start lying about my age anytime soon, I have to admit to feeling a little over the hill. I know, silly thirty-three-year-old whining. I'm the latest birthday among my closest friends, I've no grey hair to speak of, and all my faculties are intact. Maybe just a tiny amount of complaining?

The two main things that made me start feeling outdated were my daughter starting kindergarten and my attending classes at the junior college. On the one hand, I'm of the average age for parents of Small Person's classmates. On the other, I'm a generation older than my classmates, most of whom graduated high school recently. I feel somewhat out of place in both environments. Walking through campus to attend my own class, however, I feel like I stick out like a sore thumb. I'm so obviously (to my mind) older, uncool, unaware of the social conventions. The texting, the clothing, music, slang, is all unfamiliar. I'm old.

To be fair, I felt very similarly when I actually was in high school. I didn't really fit in, and always felt some level of anxiety about that. I guess I had a coinciding level of impatience with those who did fit in, also. Maybe I was just old before my time. The phrase "those dang kids" already leaping to my lips a good forty years before it was necessary. Whatever. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop giving those kids dirty looks when their phones ring mid-class.

As for the kindergarten... That's just another arena for my social dysmorphia. What can I say, I'm a mess of issues. This one reads like this: I'm old enough to be more successful, better dressed, more organized, etc. than I currently am. Why am I not? These other people seem so much more together than I am. Except when they don't, and then I hope I look better in comparison. Lame.

The moral of this post? I apparently worry too much about what other people think of me. Quit it.

And, I should get some eye cream.

Daddy types

I want to be a man – but not any man, a stay-at-home dad.

You see them now and again in my liberal neighborhood, and they’re always so relaxed, rolling with their kids in the dirt at the playground; calmly reading a newspaper at the coffeehouse while the kid drives a hotwheel along the bench; looking relaxed and unfussed and handsome in their hipster trilbies or blue Oaklandish tees with an adorable toddler on their shoulders.

They seem so calm – maybe they didn’t remember extra clothes, a water bottle, the favorite stuffed bunny, but they don’t seem to care. They’re just taking the world as it goes.

It’s just that man thing, isn’t it? Less stuff to worry about so less worry. The optimism of the young, white, well-off bay area guy is justified, because things are pretty great for him. I just want to relax sometimes, not worry about all that household executive crap and just have some of the confidence of these men.

And then I pass a guy struggling to put his screaming baby in a backpack, looking harried and close to panic, obviously wishing with all his might that the mother would come and work that magic…

Then I pity them.

(T-shirt)

My old ponies

Butterscotch and Blossom sit on the windowsill in my daughter’s play area. They were born in 1982, so they’re getting on in age – Blossom’s got missing hair, artfully replaced by a bunch of lilac and yellow ribbons – but their expressions are still patient and placid, friendly and calm.

They’re My Little Ponies -- the Barbies of the animal kingdom, with their girlish prancing forms and large, coy eyes. And they are my My Little Ponies, accumulated during the years when pre-teen horse craziness and an affinity for bright colors intersected.

I had many, and last time we were at my mother’s house we dug them out of the closet for my daughter.

But I feel weird about them, the way they are anthropomorphized – in a way that suggests, if not overtly, sexiness and all the “girl” qualities of flirtatiousness and shiny, shiny hair.

Blossom and Butterscotch are from the first run of ponies, before they got quite so bad, but I have some from later years, too, and they only get more ridiculous.

I’m not sure if I want my daughter to subtly absorb all this weird stuff -- I mean, these ponies come with everything from sparkly combs to wedding dresses, disco gear and roller skates (all of which I own). I try to gracefully accept the fact that I should relax and let her organize them by size, which is what she does with them, and stop worrying. (Of course I could always sell them…)

But they do sort of bug me out. I don't approve and at the same time I cherish them in the way one cherishes a loved toy from a happy childhood.

Especially old Blossom.

Totally normal

Yesterday was my first day of volunteer time in Small Person's classroom. Oddly, the most reassuring thing about it was the evidence that my kid is excessively normal. Goofy, smart, distractible, entertaining, cute; but not any more or less than the rest of the class. I know the law of averages theoretically proves that most of us do not fall greatly out of the norm under any circumstances, and nowhere better to observe that than in kindergarten. 

The class is more noticeably full of individuals, and less raging herd than I expected. I managed to remember a few names, and I could definitely see the range in skills of varying types. I would like to say that Small Person was the most smart, the best in class, but I would be wrong. We like to believe that our children are the most unique, the most special, the cream of the crop, and although it is the exception that proves the rule, for the most part, they are not. It doesn't stop us trying to prove it though. All those high-priced preschools with infinite waiting lists, the private/prep schools with their innumerable extracurriculars, and the skyrocketing numbers of applications to well-regarded universities are better examples of tense parents than special kids, in my opinion. Believe me, I'm not excluding myself from this high-strung group, but I am trying to manage it.

How does a parent walk that line between interference and involvement? We're told over and over that we need to pay attention, help with homework, play sports, join healthy social group activities, all for the benefit of our kids' successful lives. It's another push-me-pull-you dilemma that is written about a lot, but rarely with any concrete, useful answers. Sure, kids need attention, but how does that translate to filling their lives with so much activity that they do not have time for the business of being kids? I do want my child to grow up to be a successful adult, but maybe my definition of success is different from yours. I'm delighted that she is having so much fun with school, in large part because I really didn't. I always felt awkward and left out, and would have given anything to feel normal and usual.

Normalcy is underrated. Who knows what angst we have yet to face, but I can take my shoulders down a notch about this one.

Speaking of parenting...

My Small Person is having so much fun in kindergarten. Every day is an adventure for her; new friends, activities, tasks, experiences. Unlike Mom, she relishes the new, the unexpected, exciting novelty of different people and places. I try not to telegraph my uneasiness too obviously to her. It's her life, she deserves the respect of making her own choices, decisions, and mistakes. Can she climb that tree? Run x distance away from me at the park? Pour her own juice? I don't know, and neither does she, but we will never find out if I always tell her no, or impose restrictive limits that equal "no" just the same.

Obviously, every circumstance has different variables to take into account. And, maybe not obviously if you don't know me, I would never jeopardize my child's safety. I'm observant, I pay attention, I do freak-out when she gets too close to the street and hover like the best helicopter parent around the pool. The point is, to rein her in too much is to do a disservice to her development as a person.

For example (and what precipitated this topic), there is a fun task each child in her class gets to do, turn by turn. They get to bring home the class plushie animal, with journal, to enjoy cosily, privately. The journal is to record whatever the family would like about the day's activities with the rabbit. We were all introduced to rabbit and journal during orientation, when the teacher explained that the kids could draw a picture, or write something, or, perhaps, have a parent write for them. I know, it's kindergarten, not a lot of writing happening yet, although most kids in the class can write their own names. Today was Small Person's turn! Hooray! But, I was a little surprised when I opened the journal to find tidy, detailed, essays in grown-up handwriting, with nary a drawing or childish scrawl in sight. Why? Too messy? Too childish? I felt confused, and, I admit, judgmental. Why wouldn't these parents "let" their kids draw in the book? Are these folks going to be typing their term papers later? 

Yes, I'm paranoid. And reactionary. And, what else? A crazy hippie permissive attachment parent? Yep, that too. The point is, which is more important; neatness, or creativity? Her ability to follow directions, or her ability to think for herself? Self-esteem, or self-abasement? Okay, maybe that last one was a little harsh. It's late, I have issues of my own. I'll reserve further judgment until Back-to-School Night on Thursday. I'll keep you posted.

I don't like the way you parent

The other day I saw some bad parenting. Nothing horrible – no slap or vicious words. It’s just I was talking to this woman and every word that came out of her mouth was the antithesis of the kind of parenting I value.

This is America – so it’s none of my business what you do and how you live your life, unless you back your car into my house or something. Right?

Only when it’s about babies, it’s hard for me not to – at least – trash talk her in my mind. Some kin of maternal protectiveness, I suppose, makes it difficult not to hate someone that is damaging a child in some way, whether it’s their health or creative development or mental stability or whatever.

And I think that the fact I don’t engage people like that mother (constructively) probably means I don’t have the guts.