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Syracusa, are you male or female? I am curious because the above doesn't sound like a woman talking to another woman...
again, not the topic of the thread but please, stop all the ignorant comments about children not wearing helmets.
Please read my post about what can happen to your child!
It happens, people need to stop thinking that "this can't happen to my child" or this "won't happen"........
Wearing a helmet is not overprotecting your child, it is the responsible thing to do....
Sorry-again, I know it isn't the topic but people keep referring to it and the comments are ignorant.
I've been thinking about these kinds of parents you speak of and I think I know of one source: competitive parents.
Example: A woman, who was homecoming queen at her school, ended up getting pregnant as a teenager by a guy who wasn't all that great in high school. Well, he stepped up to the plate, when to college and graduated top honors. While he attended college they lived in government housing and got food stamps. When he finished he landed an awesome paying job. They moved in to the same property as their in-laws to save money for a house so that meant her child went to a poor school. On the first day of school, the mother came to me and said, "Well, my daughter was best dressed. She had leather KEDS shoes and the others had canvas ones, probably from Payless."
She is still like this and talks about how wonderful her daughter is on Myspace.
I think these are the parents you are speaking of. They brag about their kids and they tear down other kids (like gossiping) in order to elevate their kid even higher.
Sorry, but I don't think this is majority of people.
...there are larger and larger numbers (parents) who encourage friendships strictly via organized activities - which, by definition, involves large groups, focus on some kind of organizational goal and hardly any bonding at the personal level. Children's relationships today have a planned out, engineered, non-spontaneous, adult-controlled character to them...This is a clearly recongizable trend, especially among the middle classes.
I think one of the reasons parents shepherd their kids to activities and sign them up for group sports, etc, is that there are no kids to play with in their neighborhoods, so parents are desperate for their children to have some social interraction with other kids. Why exactly neighborhoods are not teeming with children as they were 25-40 years ago is something to ponder. (Are all the kids in daycare or at a sitter's house because everyone works? Do people tend to live in homes longer, thus their kids have grown up?) I know we signed our kids up for numerous activites when they were little--especially in the summer--because there was no one in the neighborhood to play with and I ended up being their companion far too much.
I think one of the reasons parents shepherd their kids to activities and sign them up for group sports, etc, is that there are no kids to play with in their neighborhoods, so parents are desperate for their children to have some social interraction with other kids. Why exactly neighborhoods are not teeming with children as they were 25-40 years ago is something to ponder. (Are all the kids in daycare or at a sitter's house because everyone works? Do people tend to live in homes longer, thus their kids have grown up?) I know we signed our kids up for numerous activites when they were little--especially in the summer--because there was no one in the neighborhood to play with and I ended up being their companion far too much.
Very true. I don't think every play date is engineered down to the exact minute. These may exist but I think these are in the minority. Other activities are poorly chosen by parents. For example, I took my daughter to story-time (18 mos to 3 yrs.) and the story teller read three books in a row. Then she had them sit in a circle so they could WATCH her catch paper fish with a fishing rod. There was a little boy who wouldn't sit still. He wasn't being bad, just moving around but people were giving him the look. The rest of the children were mainly girls who sat quietly. The story teller then said "Who ever is sitting quietly can try to catch fish." She approached a very quiet little girl and said, "you". The girl was frightened and didn't take the rod. LOL!
I won't be taking my daughter there anymore. She was too young anyway.
I have thought a lot about this. If I, through some quirk of fate, found myself today responsible for the upbringing of small children, I would immediately head for Mexico. There is no way I would allow my children to be forced, under penalty of law, into the mold of modern American child-rearing.
I in fact know Mexican families who lived in the USA, and decided to go back to Mexico, solely for the benefit of having their children raised in a healthful and caring environment where they could learn about life from their own experiences, instead of constant warnings of vague dangers spoon-fed to them in their bubble. Children in Mexico run free, organize their own play, and take their knocks in a community where everyone knows each other and everyone watches out for each other, and everyone learns who to trust, instead of the blanket 'nobody'.
I have thought a lot about this. If I, through some quirk of fate, found myself today responsible for the upbringing of small children, I would immediately head for Mexico.
(kidding)
Kids here don't need to be raised like that either. Mine isn't.
It is a worrisome trend, no matter how you put it. Children and young people have always had and have always needed best friends, close friends, a few good friends who stood apart from the larger crowd of classmates, playmates, team mates, etc. When childhood/youth is all said and done, the latter will amount to little more than social noise.
The former endures, even if only in memory.
From the fictitious Three Musketeers, Charlotte + Wilbur etc ... all the way to the real friendships of those like Tolkien and Lewis, best friendship has been inspirational with all of its intimacy, bonding, complicity, sense of having found one's soulmate and secure identity.
Best friendships have made humans more human over the centuries.
But leave it to our "expert" contemporaries to destroy all of that with hollow ideology - and to sheeple parents to follow like the good disciples that they are.
They're the "experts".
Quote:
Originally Posted by syracusa
Shoot. We're D-ed.
I swear it is the same book, exactly the one that had the "milestone" thing and the "control play dates with activities or else gossip will happen" thing, all in one!!!!
Now everyone back to the matrix.
But NoExcuses, feel free to PM me with some gossip!!
Same book. I burned the only one I've ever seen. I don't go by the rules.
Quote:
Originally Posted by renovating
Syracusa, are you male or female? I am curious because the above doesn't sound like a woman talking to another woman...
What is THAT supposed to mean?
FOLKS, WE HAVE AN "EXPERT" HERE. One who is an expert in how women talk to other women as opposed to how we talk to the opposite sex.
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(kidding)
