Multiple parenting
I got ranty on a multiplicity community and thought I’d share some love here. Also I’m elated because I finally got the Google Maps out to the parents of the kids who are coming to Noah’s birthday party next week, a task on which I’d been procrastinating for err… 2 weeks. I can’t even explain why.
So here’s what’s surprised me the most about parenting as a multiple system.
1. The amount of parenting-related drama has been really, really low. I credit the therapy we did mostly for this, combined with losing Emily and the trauma of her birth. (Note: Not saying this was a lesson from the universe. Universes do not send message via dead baby.) Although there has been parenting chatter within the system (Lynn makes remarks she thinks she would like to make, but wouldn’t) really…it’s been smooth.
I don’t know why and if I did I would write a book about it. But it’s the most holistic thing we’ve ever done. Ever.
2. It’s surprised me how much we’ve been able to retain about ourselves, except for having a home where Carl refers to us by name. We have decided not to talk to Noah about the system for a good long time because we believe it’s unnecessary and might make him feel less secure.
But it hasn’t stopped people being themselves. And Noah has learned (subconsciously I presume) how to game the system a bit. I’ve noticed that when he wants boisterous play he starts by inviting a (Nerf) sword fight, which always gets the warriors engaged. And when he wants information he asks to go to the library - which makes logical sense, but it’s also JJ who takes him there and she’s really good at explaining shit. And I don’t think it’s quite so Noah-driven, but he and Lyr cook together and play outside.
What surprises me the most though is how close Lynn and Noah are, especially after his appendicitis. Lynn was so able to sit with him in that, totally accepting of his every feeling - anger, fear, sadness, pain. And she was the one who found the roleplaying game he still goes to when he’s processing stuff (it involves a house getting knocked down by the bad guy and getting rebuilt and then knocked down, over and over. Very Jungian stuff.) And they do a lot of musical things together.
I think we’ve struck reasonable balances around being careful with media and that kind of thing, but I also think we’re a little abnormally direct about some things. Like death…Noah knows how Emily died and where her body is and all that; he’s asked over time and been given direct answers.
Most recently, he’s learned how babies are made by reading a book with JJ that is age-appropriate in its illustration and language but also goes into quite a lot of gory detail - “special cuddle” between mummy and daddy, the penis helps the sperm into the vagina, ultrasounds, most babies come out the vagina but some come out with surgery. (It’s Australian.) This fits with the anatomical knowledge his school has imparted (”mummy, arteries carry blood that has lots of oxygen but veins carry blood that needs oxygen”). But it may have been a little over the top and slightly more driven by a need to be right than a need to be a good parent.
And we share a lot of jokes and laughs with each other as a family and when those moments come people do say the odd outrageous things. Like “your mom’s a fairy sometimes” or Noah knows I have a real sword.
As Noah turns 5, he’ll start to become more obsessed with peers and categorization and the way other people do things and I do wonder how this will sort out - and how we can support him.
But for now I feel like it’s gone really, really well. We’re keen to do it again with a different person. And out of everything we’ve done in our lives so far, I have to say that we are most whole (not integrated) doing this.
This time, we left Sick Kids with a live child
But - it was a little too close for comfort.
Tuesday night: Stomach flu
Wednesday night: First ER visit, sent home with confirmation of stomach flu.
Early Thursday morning: Second ER visit (local hospital); Get This Child Some Tests STAT.
Thursday morning, 9 am: Likely appendicitis, prepare to transfer to Sick Kids. IV insertion.
Thursday, 11 am: Noah has a seizure
Thursday, 3 pm: Noah is transferred to Sick Kids by ambulance with a nurse (and Carl)
Thursday, 3:45 pm: Noah has hives all over his body as a reaction to something
Thursday, 7 pm: Decision is made to just operate
Thursday, 8 pm: Noah enters ER
Thursday, 10 pm: Wow that was a really burst appendix and a belly full of infection, but Noah is ok - has a tube in his nose to his belly, a catheter, and morphine, but is ok
Friday, 2 am: Big fever, pack in ice
Saturday - ICU; Noah throws up a lot until they figure out his NG tube is kinked way up high where the x-ray they’d done to look couldn’t see
Saturday night - Noah discovers Treehouse
Sunday - transferred to room, eventually catheter is out, NG tube comes out; Noah discovers COOL PLAYROOM on ward
Tuesday- home we are, 6 pm.
Exhausted. Weird to be back on the sleep-at-Sick-Kids schedule. Carl and I were pretty shut down until it was clear Noah was leaving, and even so, I don’t think we’ve processed the fear. The seizure was AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL and from there until they got the NG tube sorted out I don’t think we could think about much, either one of us but definitely me. Constant obs (icu) is soooooooo like a NICU.
Have managed to stay employed thus far although still have a ways to go.
It was traumatic and scary for Noah. I was very sad to see his faith in the world get soundly shaken up. There is a whole post in that. But one of us was there the whole time, no exceptions. Hopefully we can help him through the feelings and hopefully we started.
Noah is really doing well physically and even better emotionally; I have some pictures of the recovery. Sick Kids is amazing amazing. More later. We’re ok.
Drama III, Robert Munsch, and more
Last weekend I took Noah to the Robert (Bob) Munsch reading at Chapters. Munsch hasn’t been doing too many readings; he had a pretty major stroke at least a year ago and so I had sort of given up on the idea that Noah would get to see him. But, he did - along with 220+ of his neighbours at this end of town. It was quite energizing to be in a group of people who had all rushed out for a reading. That is my tribe. The publishing industry is in chaos, but Mortimer remains.
Noah had a blast, after all the waiting. The waiting was looooooong.
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Friday Noah had his doctor’s appointment to follow up on this anemia thing and we have a requisition for more tests. He has had a vitamin most every day and I have been food combining like mad - beef and lentil and kale stew, for example. (Liver is pretty much out for a variety of reasons.) We also have switched over to cold cereal a few times a week, so as to get all the additive iron in it.
After that, Noah and I had made plans to go to the museum together; I’d actually booked the whole entire day off work. Just before our doctor’s appointment who called but my mother; apparently the ex-communication was lifted.
Before I knew it, another system member had invited her and my dad along to the museum. I was pretty grumpy; not only was this supposed to be Our Day Out but I thought there should be penalties for all the shit. However, I didn’t care enough to call back and cancel. I have told myself:
- One trip to the museum does not entirely wreck boundaries that have not yet been set.
- I get bonus karma points for not going off on my parents.
However it still doesn’t sit right with me. But the truth is, I (and others) had not done the system work to get everyone on board with a plan, so no plan was implemented and the good girls took the day. This is both human and multiple; I think it’s human to find yourself doing things you wish you hadn’t. But it’s multiple to be really REALLY sure you’re not going to do something, and find yourself doing it anyway.
The person who went ahead is part of the MMC, which is a whole other post.
In any case, it actually was a nice day regardless. The museum was pretty quiet, and Noah hooked up with a docent in the kids’ area and uncovered a whole bunch of dinosaur bones in the dig-your-own spot and she helped him figure out which each one was.
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Noah’s swim teacher remains excellent. In three days he’s gone from dreading the lesson to crying that it ends too soon, and has put his head underwater and swum a bit holding onto a noodle.
~~
Taking the day off was really good for me. There is so much to like at my job, but the other parts are horrid. I don’t have a strategy in place. But I do need to exercise ’cause it really is high stress.
The power of fathers (Carl)
So this is my post about Carl and Noah, which sort of touches on Thursday.
The thing is…I can walk out of my house 4 hours after a vomiting episode. And I will still feel bad and guilty because I just want work to STOP and stay home with my kid (and yes, I can if it is “an emergency” but one thing I’ve learned about the job-kid-life dance is that it’s not the clear-cut emergencies that are hard; it’s working out when to give up trying to decide if it is/find alternate care/etc.)
But I will know that Noah will be having the best care. Maybe even just slightly better than me, when it comes to illness, only because I tend to get a little more nervous and communicate that nervousness to Noah. Whereas Carl still will respond and take him to the doctor, but he doesn’t get as tense about it.
And that’s the thing about Carl as a dad…he’s not the second parent, he’s the other-first-parent. There was a time, around when Noah was one, that I didn’t think this would happen. And in some ways I think going back to work hastened the process because as far as the morning routine goes, after Noah and I eat breakfast together and I leave, I have no idea what happens. He shows up eventually at school clean and dressed and with the proper snack/paperwork/whatever. He and Carl have their thing. It helped, to carve out that space without me.
But of course the root of the goodness is that Carl’s an excellent dad. He’s much more in the moment than I am, and it’s a good match - I plan things, sign up for swim lessons on time, and get the laundry done while playing Magnet Man/Baby Cat with Noah along the way (two different games, in case you were wondering); then we head out together to the library and cosy up with some books for quality time. But Carl sits down with Noah and focuses on painting or Legos for 30 intense minutes and then has a mad tickle-fest. He’s really good at just being there in the moment and not obsessing on the mess. It’s quite lovely.
He’s also gentle and kind. He’s always treated everyone in the system with pretty much infinite patience (I’m sure I don’t know who screamed down the stairs that this wasn’t her life and she was going to go fuck random strangers to prove it *cough*) within firm boundaries (I did not go do the fucking) and it turns out that’s the kind of dad he is. He has loads of patience with Noah, but he doesn’t just give him carte blanche to behave however he wants either (when necessary).
When Noah is having big emotions, Carl helps him identify them. Sometimes they paint them out. Sometimes after I leave in the morning they paint a dream Noah had or a nightmare. So I come home a lot of days to a whole little history in art. (We have an easel set up in the kitchen.) They laugh together a lot (actually we all do). There is an ease between them that is so genuine, and so primal. When Noah was in pain today he cried for me and in the next breath he cried for Carl. He truly feels safe with us both.
It’s really lovely. I really hope there is nothing that ever really interferes with that; obviously, if mythology is to be believed, there will come a day that Noah has to take Carl on in some way. But I have faith it will work out. Noah has a real man and a real father. It’s super neat.
Noah, Montreal, and music
Noah’s in some kind of hyper developmental phase that knocks my socks off. No one ever told me having a child was going to be this good. And it’s not about the mind, although that does excite me, I admit it. It’s just about the enthusiasm.
We went to Montreal for the weekend. I know I used to write about these things in advance but lately this is how it goes. It was a combination of a Via (train) sale, corporate rates at the Fairmount Queen Elizabeth, and my recent PR-fed travel bug that made me book a random self-created long weekend in October, and Carl actually managed to clear his schedule, and we actually went. The train is soooo easy from my house: get on at the station 5 minutes away. Given that the QE is above the Montreal train station, getting off and checked in and settled involved a 2 minute stroll and a couple of elevators. It was super easy-peasy.
Noah loved every minute of it. He even got brave enough to try a little french (Merci, S’il vous plait, Je m’appelle Noah-et-toi?) and we swam in the hotel pool and messed about in the underground shopping (oh god, the shopping). The weather sucked so we did less exploration than planned and more relaxation and that was just fine. And we ate a ton of good food. And we got amazingly cool made in France art stuff.
This is what I love about Montreal: you stay over the train station and when you want to eat but you don’t want to be bothered patrolling your child at a restaurant, you go down to said train station and there is not one but about three full-on deli counters with fabulous bocconcini, roasted vegetable, prosciutto, or brie and tomato sandwiches -plus- a full-serve patisserie with not only eclairs and pain au chocolat, but terrines like… rabbit terrines. And duck confit for your potato pie. I am so not kidding. And this is the train station, mon dieu. So you haul that back up, with a bottle of wine, to your room via the elevator and then you admire your view up to the mountain while you eat, my god, fresh bocconcini with your wine while your child watches Teletoon… in french, so you can pretend it’s educational even.
And then you go down to the hotel pool and swim in the salt water and sit in the whirlpool and trade off sitting in the warm wading pool with Noah.
It was glorious. We all cried when we had to come home. Even Mr. Bada, who came along but “doesn’t like french.” He does, however, like croissants avec jambon et fromage. And Noah was great on both 5-hr train rides.
So developmental leaps: Noah was really tired out today and after dinner I let him have a popscicle (homemade smoothie sort, if anyone is keeping score) in front of a video (Metal Monsters from the library, which is scenes of… yup… a junkyard with cars getting crushed). Noah eventually got bored of the crushing and was exploring the big bookshelves when he pulled out a few books and shrieked: These are music books!
(Consider this a tone like: Why didn’t you tell me we won the lottery 2 years ago!)
So I said yes and we sat down and looked at one and Noah pointed out the treble clef and the bass clef and that when the notes go up you sing the higher pitches and when they go down you sing the lower pitches.
Oh yeah. I’d forgotten that we signed him up for music lessons at Montessori, which I had assumed would be like… singing Old MacDonald. But no. Noah recognizes middle C in both treble and bass clefs. Who knew? I did not.
And that, smarmy mother story though it is, is how it goes these days. You’re sitting there minding your own business when suddenly there’s a shriek like “THIS PAPER SAYS BOG!” (well actually it says dog, but you know, reversals aside that’s pretty good) or you get a random fact like “Mummy, did you know bats sleep upside down?”
Of course there are also the moments like “C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me… P IS FOR PENIS, THAT’S GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME.”
(Errrrr… good for you? Stop saying Penis? Cookie Monster doesn’t have one? How does one respond? Well if one is me, one hides in the bathroom laughing.)
We are having some power plays; he’s four. But also incredible moments of sheer generosity. Like having two gummies left and offering one each to Carl and I.
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One sad moment though: Noah came home upset because of a “new game” at school that his teachers banned. It turns out it’s that Chinese burn (I know, I know) game where you twist someone’s arm until it… burns. This makes me sad. The Lord of the Flies age approaches.
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I still haven’t decided how I feel about the slow revelation of minor bits of people in the system to Noah through play, but my instinct says it’s okay where it was at. It hasn’t come up much since, and Mr. Bada decided to go as a boy fairy. It will be interesting to see if he gets any candy.
Happy birthday report
The party went surprisingly well. Having it at the beach was genius. (The weather held: overcast but fine.) We had a pirate party, and yes, I supplied pirate swords (they were so flimsy as to do little damage). There was arguing in the system over this but… a) I am a warrior queen. B) Noah wanted them. C) - there is no C.
We buried treasure in the sand (cheap pretend jewelry) and had the kids dig it up. We played pirate soccer (which looks like soccer, except you say ‘argh’ a lot). They walked the plank (long jump.) It was loads of fun. We only had three guests (one friend + two cousins) but that turned out to be a great amount. (Note for next year: invite everyone in the summer, ’cause they will all be away.) The party favours were their pirate hats (bandana-like ones), swords, shovels, jewelry, and “dubloons” (gold choclate coins).
We also put temporary tatoos on them. We were going to crack a coconut, but I rethought this at the last minute ’cause we didn’t have a good way to wash it off after cracking.
I had it at 10 am - noon which was also good timing for this age. We had a very, very simple menu: melon, grapes, mini-bagels, cheese, cream cheese, carrot sticks, cucumber rounds, chips, and cake. Apple and orange juice and water. The kids all picked water ’cause the bottles had sport tops. The carrot sticks were the big hit. Most of the kids didn’t even want cake, because that would mean stopping playing.
Noah was really happy. Which was pretty much the point.
Noah… is the world’s biggest joy. I don’t even know what to say about him at four because he’s just so much him there is no way to sum it up or write him a letter, at least not today. This will sound ultimately corny but I feel privileged to be his mum. He also has pretty good cousins and an amazing father.
Parenting epiphany
You know how some groups of parents (myself included) try to accept our kids where they are as well as guide them. For example, although I know that Noah cleans up after himself at Montessori pretty well and that he could do more tidying here, and I kind of wish he would, and I would like him to grow up to be the sort of man who cleans up after himself… I also think he is young and this is his home and it is okay to not demand all good things all the time from him.
So I was thinking about this the larger contexts: Should our kids respect that there is some authority with which we just have to comply? (Like a police officer’s request to get out of the vehicle.) That life is unfair? That you have to work hard for money, generally?
Is it our role as parents to create an environment that closely resembles the so-called real world, or to lean towards something a bit more idealistic?
And I realized that I want to raise a child who fundamentally expects to be treated well, fairly, and so on. But who can adapt to less than ideal circumstances.
I feel like for me, I have the adaptation down okay, but each roadblock seems to confirm a darker, more adversarial world view.
The week in review
Work… hard. It got better as the week went on. But today I was trying to book a room for a meeting next week, and all the meeting and conference rooms in the whole building are booked for the entire week.
By HR.
Which does not bode well, I tell you. Although I have my little plan and I’m ok with it.
~~~
Family: Noah has been okay with the weaning bit. He asked every night for a few nights and then last night and tonight he didn’t ask, but he looked like he wanted to. He’s still, I think, a bit angry or confused. Of course he’s also 3.5. But anyways, he’s latched onto Carl and stepped away from me a bit, which was happening anyway, but now I don’t have the Boobs Of Power to make it all about me again. We have snuggled and read books and everything though.
I guess what I’m saying is I’m still a little sad myself, even though it truly was time. I actually think it is helping my body, despite the hormone roll. I think I need my nutrients just now. On the other hand this may just be rationalization.
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Although I was berating myself for taking on some roleplaying & game responsibilities at this difficult and energy-depleted time, in fact playing is opening up this whole other element that has been shut down for a while. Magdalynn wrote a (not great, but still) prose poem (below). I’m contemplating the box that holds my book notes. And at work I’ve felt lighter in spirit, although heavier in just getting snowballed under things.
There is something to making room for play that is very powerful.
~~~
We found another school option: there’s a francophone public school in the area that is willing to talk to us. I accidentally tripped over it; I’d only looked at the Catholic (public) board. It’s unclear whether French Immersion counts towards the legal right for Noah to attend that school (if one parent was schooled in french for elementary school in the province of Ontario, the child has the right, but FI may not count. I do have my certificate at least.) But even if it doesn’t, they are willing to talk to us.
A few things have come out of that exploration.
One is that I coldly believe that it’s an amazing opportunity for really good second language instruction. I mean, as long as it’s a decent school, it would develop better french than most FI programmes. If we want to jump for it though, we probably have to leap this fall and not go the extra Montessori year. That’s not for sure, but it’s just if you’re going to put a child into a classroom where he doesn’t speak the language of instruction and that the kids (presumably) use, it’s probably better to go earlier.
But when I attach my heart to it and my memories of being scared that the teacher didn’t understand me, it feels a little bit like too big a leap. And then I get into the maybe-for-kindergarten-and-we-could-teach-more-french-meanwhile space, which might be good space.
And then weird things come up like, my grade one/four teacher was a mean mean woman who beat the kids (in grade 1, when it was legal) and humiliated them brutally (in grade 4, when hitting was no longer on the table) and in my mind I’ve associated this a little bit with francophones.
And my dad made a really - well - ignorant comment. He went off on a tangent about how francophones who live in Toronto probably are a really great elite group. I think in his mind he’s thinking they’ll all be people from France and Belgium and a few from Quebec or something. And maybe that’s true in certain areas of down/mid town. But here in the east end I’m thinking the francophone students are probably hailing from Haiti and Senegal and Rwanda, and other African countries in which the vast majority of the world’s francophone population resides. I’m still shaking my head at the disconnect and contemplating whether I care enough to take it up with him before we set foot in the school.
~~~
Slightly mad to post this here but you may be aware it’s a certain doll’s (let’s just call her Babs) 50th birthday this year. Due to the nature of my work, I have been up to my eyeballs in Babs’ PEOPLE. In good ways (I have sooo many pictures of Babs in couture, Babs’s cars, etc., and had a crowd today looking at them.) I may get to interview Babs, which would be pretty surreal - doubly surreal if you think that in a sense, I don’t exist either. It makes me laugh from time to time that I have a job where I have to listen to Babs’ peeps ask me to ensure that she is treated respectfully.
And actually, despite my feminist misgivings… it’s darn fun to work with Babs.
~~~
Magdalynn’s draft, composed on the subway, not indicative of what we could do were it polished, insert other disclaimers here, poem:
Prologue, a poem of ending
I think, beloved, we must have met long before the womb. Perhaps on an island of souls, marooned to wait the passage over the waters into the flesh.
I think there in the midst of those castaways - the two groups, those who stand in the sun with their eyes to the horizon, and those content to wait in the shade with eyes close - there were two who did neither; two to whom the darkness of the jungle sang.
I think we must each have ventured into its depths, feeling the green resist us and delighting in the need to set mettle against the task of exploration.
But I think you would have found the quicksand, sinking into its mire. And I would perhaps have reached to you were it not for the snake and its poisonous bite.
Then, perhaps, we fell together, the edges of our souls touching. Twice dead.
That is why, perhaps, born as strangers, our hearts each sought the other. And perhaps as well, that is why your eyes mirror the death I know to be in my own.
Parenting: Predators, Internet, etc.
I’m in two conversations at once about kids’ use of social media on the Internet: at the lovely Ask Moxie site and also over at MotheringDotCommune, my hippie hangout of choice.
Bearing in mind that I:
- am the parent who was totally paranoid about a nanny and who does not have cable television
- am a person who spent/wasted much of her young adulthood poking around every. sordid. corner. of the Internet, sometimes to negative emotional results
- am a survivor of incest and rape
- am a mother who lost an infant
Here is what has gradually occured to me.
I think what I most want for Noah is a really great life.
And although I see protecting him from abuse, drugs, and crap as a huge part of that, I am becoming increasingly sure that fear is the enemy.
Knowledge and skepticism are not.
I am after all the person who followed Protecting the Gift to the letter and asked both our future nanny and our future school director: “Have you ever hit a child? Abused a child? Has anyone on your staff ever abused or hit a child?” Not that I expected a yes even if so, but the reaction to the question went a long way. I am not into pretending everything is fine. It is not fine. Life just isn’t safe. You do so much and then you have to let it go. The question is how much.
Anyways how does this relate to the net? There is a lot of fear about social media and the Internet. I think we can break this down into a few categories:
Exposure: I don’t particularly want my 9 year old to come across pictures of bestiality, for example. Or my 90 year old. Or anyone. Ew.
Predation: There are undoubtably not only pure pedophiles on the ‘net, there are also card-carrying members of NAMBLA, college boys seeking 12 year olds, 16 year olds seeking 16 year olds, and serial killers.
General unhealthiness: Time on the ‘net leads you to be discontent with reality, takes over your life, etc.
So one at a time:
Exposure
Err, yah. I do not want my son exposed to a hell of a lot of stuff on the Internet. I also don’t want him exposed to the evening news, where there are many images I find extremely disturbing. But as he gets older, I feel like I have to accept two things:
1) By the time he is say, 16, he will be fully capable of finding whatever he wants whenever he wants, Internet at home or no Internet at home. There are such things as adult book and video stores and all you have to do is have a big coat, a hat, and slouch a lot. Not only that, but you could be me at 14 and be babysitting and snoop around and come across a lot of disturbing porn.
2) No matter what he finds at any age, I would like him to be able to express and discuss anything that is disturbing to him. When I found the aforementioned porn, there was no one in my life - not even a peer friend - with whom I could discuss any of that, and it was actually that that messed me up more than anything else.
Conclusion: My goal between age 3 and age 16 is to try to limit exposure to Bad Things and maximize exposure to Good Things, with a gradually decreasing emphasis on the limiting part over time. My other goal is to try to build a strong relationship so that any disturbing things can be… well, I’m not sure any teen boy is going to discuss them with his mother, but he might hang out and do the dishes that day to be reassured he has a home or something. You probably get what I am going for here. Love, acceptance, and a sense that there is no livid, raging, grounded consequence for having chosen to click on the wrong link or enter the wrong store.
Corollary: I find I do actually believe that exposure to good things - quality literature, art (including nudes!), and music - will help to buffer the spirit. I also find I think there’s a place for funny YouTube videos in that.
Additional corollary: What I have always loved about the ‘net is that kids/people can make their own YouTube videos (ok, it used to be web pages). Sure they need help deciding what is appropriate - but what power and voice and learning and information! I love the little Lego movies people make. That is SO COOL. If I were a teen today I would be ALL OVER that.
Predation
I have spent a lot of my life steeped in abuse - my own abuse, being attracted to abusive situations, joining survivor circles, being multiple and finding other multiples, being in therapy, etc. I have gut-wrenching, hands-on experience with the lifelong impact of abuse. I feel frequently as if I would literally die if Noah were abused - or more to the point live in absolute agony. I think it would be hell on earth…
… except
… I’m also aware that that feeling is probably what would keep him from telling me if he were. I mean if your mother’s giving off vibes that this is the One Thing She Cannot Handle, a lot of sensitive kids would kind of pick up on that?
So, I’ve actually spent some time and energy trying to work through this. And here’s what I’ve come up with:
1) I actually don’t believe the Internet is a big risk. The stats bear this out. If you don’t believe me, look it up. (I am awed by this study.)
Yes there are pedophiles. But their approach to kids online is by nature of the medium risky and clumsy: logs can be made; emails can be found and even, to a point, traced. It’s a lot of work. Sure there are a lot of disgusting things that can happen quickly: they can convince your child to send pictures or use a web cam; they can engage in sexual talk or send links to porn.
These are serious and real things. But they also are a step away from being held down and sodomized. I would prefer none of them happen, and they would be a violation. But I do feel they are a lesser risk in some ways, if we are having to sort “bad things that can happen to you” out into risk categories.
And if you read that study you’ll find the danger is a lot where it always has been: the 17 year old who just invited your 14.5 year old to the prom.
2) The most dangerous people are the people who have physical access to one’s child already. Especially family and trusted adults - teachers, priests, etc.
3) After reading Michael Kimmel’s Guyland, and interviewing him, I’m increasingly convinced that the most dangerous place you can put your son in particular is on a team, and your daughter at a party with teammates present. Not only are coaches potential abusers and locker rooms big time risky situations; hazing and other sports rites (drinking, proving things) seem to put kids at particular risk. Especially teens and young adults.
4) Given all this, I think it’s probably more responsible to let my son onto social media at the appropriate age (I’m thinking 10 supervised, 12 less supervised, and so on towards that 16 year old goal) than it is to let him play sports. And let me be clear: I will probably let him play sports anyway.
Because here I have to circle back to this new realization: I want Noah to have a great life. And a great life may well include soccer and Facebook (well that will be dead by then, but whatever replaces it.) Trips to the mall. Trips to the park.
It makes me sad in a way that so many kids are sitting home IMing people because we don’t let them outside any more.
… except I was let outside and I was outside until 9 pm and then on the phone as late as I could get away with it. Kids are insatiable that way.
Corollary: I also have come to realize that strong connections to good people - who exist on the internet too! - are a bonus in life. I don’t think it’s good to live so much in fear that you get disconnected, because that is when you are most vulnerable. So I actually start to come out on the fan side of the social part of the media, if the social part is good. A lot of teen social stuff is not good no matter how you slice it… sigh.
General unhealthiness
As with all things I think moderation is important, and I think knowing your kid and your values is important. I myself have been on the ‘net unhealthily - still am at times - and I get that it can be a big fat zero. At the same time, the job I have is because I was on the ‘net and the spouse I have I met on the ‘net and several of my best friends have come via the ‘net.
So no, I don’t think social media is inherently unhealthy; I don’t think the phone is unhealthy and I don’t think conversation or letter-writing is unhealthy.
I do think that health comes from aligning activities with values and being active and all that. But I think the ‘net is a good tool in the arsenal - not the only one - for defining that. And I think teens today are actively involved in that process as they have been for decades now: who am I? What do I like? Who likes me? What do I want to do with my life?
And I guess I don’t really want to limit Noah’s access to the tools kids today (oh my god, “Kids Today”) are using to do that, without cause.
So final conclusion: I find myself pro-social media in the end, as long as it is in the context of generally good week. I think the risks are outweighed by the benefits of the relative safety of experimentation online and the connection to the social conversation that occurs on the Internet.
You’re welcome to… comment. Hee.
Piccolo dreams / update
A couple of weeks past the first trimester of Emily’s pregnancy Carl and I were at the symphony and I realized that this baby might stick and that we might get to take her to the kids’ TSO (Toronto Symphony Orchestra) concerts. So that would have been somewhere in 2003.
Going to live classical performances is one of Carl’s and my things and it was kind of that realization that I would get to introduce that to our children.
So today we took Noah to his first TSO concert and it was fantastic. We rode the GO train down, got lunch at Gabby’s, walked about on a lovely fall day, and attended a great concert.
The conductor, under the guise of searching for the “magic of music,” talked about melody (Respighi’s The Dove), rhythm (Saber Dance) and imagination (Sugar Plum Fairy) and emotion (Symphony #5 by Beethoven) and oh I don’t remember everything but it was super. She had the kids up conducting at one point. Noah was a bit overwhelmed by sound from time to time, and had to “go to the bathroom” (check out the pay phones) at about the 45 minute mark of the hour-long show. But generally his behaviour, within the framework of the kids’ show, was absolutely fine.
It was just as good as I imagined it, only better.
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Health-wise the ENT didn’t find anything wrong with me, which is good, but frustrating. I have more tests scheduled with him and the MRI next week. I actually am feeling a bit better and have had fewer headaches, so maybe whatever it is is resolving regardless. I’d still like to know what it is, but I am glad it’s receding enough at least to get through normal things.
The actual ENT experience just got worse and worse though - anaesthetic down the throat, along with a scope, while looking out over the same view as I sat watching as my first OB explained (”explained”) why Emily died. Spaciness afterwards to the point that I had to wait a while before I could drive. And a day after that of lack of concentration and a lot of free-floating rage. But I think I’ve worked through it okay.
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And although I really missed that wee Emily who (later in her term) kicked inside me to the Rach 3 and Lord of the Rings, who was already tuned into rhythm and sound, and who never got to go anywhere with us outside the womb, having Noah there was - well let’s say I found the magic of music, and it might’ve been the delight in my son’s eyes.