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The Story About the Toddler, Volume 8.



 
 
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  #1  
Old October 24th 03, 11:04 AM
Spiderweb Software
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Default The Story About the Toddler, Volume 8.

The Story About the Toddler, Volume 8.
by Jeff Vogel

Our daughter Cordelia is now twenty months old. As the loyal and, sadly, honest
biographer of her young life, I must relate that she has truly begin to
discover her inner obnoxiousness.

Whenever we try to deny Cordelia constant access to things she wants (the
outdoors, liquor bottles, mommy), she cuts loose with long strings of horrible,
blood-curdling screams. It is then our parental duty to harden our hearts to
her cries of woe. This is, in fact, twice as easy as you probably think it is.

Right now, our job is to break Cordelia's will, the way you might break a fine
stallion. We need to hold her back from what she wants for so long that the
effort of screaming outweighs the benefits of getting what she wants. We need
to sap her strength so much that she loses the ability to want, but not so much
that she loses the ability to eat.

So the process basically goes something like this: she tries to swallow a
penny. I stop her. She screams, flings her body backwards, and smacks her head
into the wall. She then wails at me for a while, and I find myself eerily
unable to even fake sympathy for her.

Also, she is now reliably feeding herself. Toddlers do not understand the
concept of gross, so I am spending a lot of my meals staring morosely at my
plate, ignoring what my daughter is doing. Then I will look up and see her take
a massive handful of salami, drop it into a glass of water, fish it out, and
noisily gnaw on it. And then drink the water. It's unpleasant to watch, but at
least it's not half as disgusting as breast-feeding.

* Awww! She Took Something That Wasn't Hers!

Cordelia is now old, mobile, and conscious enough to enjoy playgrounds. We
take her all the time. It gives her the chance to run and climb and interact
with other children. It also teaches her valuable lessons about the
obnoxiousness of other humans and the nature of the cold, cruel world in which
she lives.

An illustrative anecdote.

The local mall has these big plastic cars in its play area. Kids love them.
Through some miracle of organization, there is always one less car than there
are children who want to play with them. Watching a pair of three year olds
learn their first lessons in the Art of War while jockeying for control of the
cars is, of course, hugely entertaining.

Cordelia was playing in one of the cars. She got distracted and wandered away
from it for a few seconds. A five year old girl, seeing the free car, jumped
into it. And Cordelia, realizing that someone had seized something she saw as
hers, pointed at the little girl and started screaming.

My wife and I tried to get Cordelia to stop. We picked her up. We shushed her.
We tried to interest her in something else. But she kept pointing at the other
little girl and screaming. The other girl made a valiant effort to ignore the
din and enjoy her play. But after a few minutes of this, she got out of the car
and stomped over to her mother, pointing back at Cordelia and shouting "SHE
MADE ME VERY ANGRY!"

Cordelia ran and regained possession of the vehicle.

I can see absolutely no positive or valuable lessons Cordelia could have
learned from this incident. Through sustained obnoxiousness, she obtained what
she wanted. As parents, there wasn't even much that we could do. We tried to
get her to stop screaming, but you can only take that so far. I was hardly
going to take my sock off and jam it into her mouth. Very few parenting books
give that as an option. So Cordelia ended up learning, thanks to that other
little girl's thin skin, that crude and repellent behavior will get you want
you want if you just keep at it long enough.

But, on the other hand, maybe Cordelia learned the right lesson. Maybe the real
problem was the other girl, for being such a weak-willed little punk. All she
did was teach Cordelia that it is possible to crush the weak. And I suppose if
you have to learn that lesson, you might as well do it as the crusher instead
of the crushee.

* Very Satisfying Parental Moment

Cordelia fell while walking down some plastic steps. I managed to grab her foot
to keep her from tumbling too far, so she only got a solid clunk on the head.

She sat up, shook her head a little bit, got up, and continued to play.

Another father watched this. He looked at me, surprised, and said "Tough kid."

Yeah.

* Other Things Cordelia Is Learning On the Playground

This world contains only limited resources of things people want. Sometimes, to
get them, you must succeed in a conflict.

When someone is running straight at you, the odds of them stopping are directly
proportional to the amount of physical harm you are capable of causing them (in
Cordelia's case, none). Therefore, if you are a one year old, you should get
out of the way.

The vast majority of the time, other people are an obstacle.

When you fall, daddy will try to catch you. Usually. Daddy feels that his job
as a parent is to keep you from being injured, not to keep you from falling.

I am increasingly feeling that the "Stranger Anxiety" children always get
around Cordelia's age is an entirely rational response to the evidence of their
eyes.

* "It's OK, Susie! You Can Do Anything If You Just Wish Hard Enough!"

How many years will it be before Cordelia watches TV shows that aren't
retarded?

I'm sure that I'm in the wrong here. I'm sure that, somewhere, there is a raft
of scientific evidence to show that all TV shows for pre-schoolers have to be
these cuddly, warm fuzzy, saccharin nightmares of pure, unconditional love. It
helps the little ones come to terms with the fact that they've been shoved out
into this world that really doesn't give a **** about them.

Gravity will continue to suck them down and pull their little falling faces
into rocks, and it doesn't care how sad this makes them. Chocolate won't appear
in their hands just because they want it to be so. Mommy and daddy, despite
putting on a good show of affection, occasionally and inexplicably want to
disappear from the room together from time to time. They're starting to realize
that it's a cold world, and the occasionaly bit of fictionalized pap which
pretends that they are in some way significant is probably a good thing.

But look. We are trying to put the First American Empire together here. Sooner
or later, we're going to have to hand our kids guns and send them off to pacify
the brown people, and anyone who objects to this is helping the terrorists.
Which means that, at some point, we're going to have to stop showing them the
gooey "Everybody loves everybody." crap. Not to mention the fact that those
shows are driving me out of my mind.

So when can it STOP?

I'm not sure what the cut-off age is, but it's probably somewhere around five.
I know this because, when I was five, my favorite TV show was Batman. I loved
the cliffhangers, where the Caped Crusader and his lovable sidekick were about
to be drowned in plastic, or squished in a gigantic card printing machine, or
simply administered a charmingly retro, entirely lethal beating by a pack of
thugs. I loved this when I was five, because it had not occured to my
undeveloped brain that there were so many ways a person could die.

* "Don't Worry, Billy. You Don't Have To Be Afraid Of Anything If You Just
Cover Your Brain With Happy Dust!"

Sure, we might not show things like this to kids, because they might get scared
and have nightmares and run into our rooms late at night and interrupt our sex.
But face it. Kids are odd. The things that will terrify any given child are
ENTIRELY RANDOM.

Cordelia is driven into fits of screaming terror by the Teletubbies' vacuum
cleaner. And she is terrified of the cute stuffed bunny I bought her, which has
five legs and two heads. She might just as easily be terrified by Oscar the
Grouch, or the Sesame Street theme song, or some other small, random thing it
never occured to us might terrify them.

So just give up. That's what I say.

* "Come On, Jenny. You Know That Your Lies Will Always Be Exposed In the Harsh
Light of the Sun."

The insanely happy shows probably stop working on little kid brains about the
time their owners start experiencing life and realizing that grown-ups were
lying to them.

No amount of messages about how people can always love each other and work
together in harmony will overcome the head-clearing effect of one good, solid
playground ass-thumping. And the world comes lavishly equipped with
opportunities to get confused, not understand, and just plain fail, no matter
how much you Think You Can Do It.

* Now I'm Starting To Depress Myself

TV shows and books for small children are the narrative equivalent of the
demeaning, frilly, lace trimmed outfits we sometimes put them in. They are for
our benefit, not theirs.

For the average grown-up, life is a slow, choking process. We all feel like
we're being suffocated by the giant, sweaty balls of a Star Trek fan, covering
our face and slowly shutting off our air, and as we struggle pitifully and gag
on the little curly hairs caught in our teeth, we think "It shouldn't be like
this for the babies!"

So we show the kids the blandest, cheeriest pablum, the dramatic equivalent of
jars of strained peas we shovel into them. We tell them that everyone is nice
and you can do anything if we just dream it. It helps kill time until they can
believe for themselves that there is a Heaven where good people are rewarded
and a Hell where people we dislike will burn.

###

(Considerable numbers of earlier installments available at
http://www.ironycentral.com. Copyright 2003, Jeff Vogel. And so on.)

- Jeff Vogel
Spiderweb Software, Inc.
Award-winning fantasy role-playing games for Windows and Macintosh.
http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com
  #2  
Old October 24th 03, 11:34 AM
Herself
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Posts: n/a
Default The Story About the Toddler, Volume 8.

Spiderweb Software wrote:

It's unpleasant to watch, but at
least it's not half as disgusting as breast-feeding.


Nice one Jeff. Thanks. You don't like it, don't watch. It's not for
you, it's for the baby. Get over it.
--
'Tis Herself
  #3  
Old October 24th 03, 10:28 PM
Sue
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default The Story About the Toddler, Volume 8.

Spiderweb Software wrote:
It's unpleasant to watch, but at
least it's not half as disgusting as breast-feeding.


Herself wrote in message
Nice one Jeff. Thanks. You don't like it, don't watch. It's not for
you, it's for the baby. Get over it.
--
'Tis Herself


Oh geez, lighten up.
--
Sue (mom to three girls)
I'm Just a Raggedy Ann in a Barbie Doll World...



  #5  
Old October 25th 03, 09:01 AM
Herself
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default The Story About the Toddler, Volume 8.

Sue wrote:

Spiderweb Software wrote:
It's unpleasant to watch, but at
least it's not half as disgusting as breast-feeding.


Herself wrote in message
Nice one Jeff. Thanks. You don't like it, don't watch. It's not for
you, it's for the baby. Get over it.


Oh geez, lighten up.


No. He let me know how he felt about breastfeeding, I'm letting him
know how I feel. Problem?
--
'Tis Herself
  #6  
Old October 25th 03, 01:16 PM
Sue
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default The Story About the Toddler, Volume 8.

Herself wrote in message
No. He let me know how he felt about breastfeeding, I'm letting him
know how I feel. Problem?
--
'Tis Herself


And why do you care so much what he thinks about it. It sounds like Cordelia
was breastfed, so he is making jokes about it.

I just get so tired of the lactivists and no one being able to say anything
bad about breastfeeding. And I am a very strong proponent of breastfeeding,
did it myself. It's not all roses and sunshine. Sometimes it can be
disgusting. And sometimes people don't like doing it even though it is
important for the baby. Doesn't mean Jeff is against it. He's making HUMOR
about everything in raising a child.
--
Sue (mom to three girls)
I'm Just a Raggedy Ann in a Barbie Doll World...



  #7  
Old October 25th 03, 09:30 PM
Sara
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Posts: n/a
Default The Story About the Toddler, Volume 8.

Herself wrote:

Spiderweb Software wrote:

It's unpleasant to watch, but at
least it's not half as disgusting as breast-feeding.


Nice one Jeff. Thanks. You don't like it, don't watch. It's not for
you, it's for the baby. Get over it.


Heh. I think it's funny.

--
Sara, NIP'er
  #8  
Old October 25th 03, 09:48 PM
Herself
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default The Story About the Toddler, Volume 8.

Sue wrote:

And why do you care so much what he thinks about it. It sounds like Cordelia
was breastfed, so he is making jokes about it.


If that's the case, why do you care what I think about it?

I just get so tired of the lactivists and no one being able to say anything
bad about breastfeeding. And I am a very strong proponent of breastfeeding,
did it myself. It's not all roses and sunshine. Sometimes it can be
disgusting. And sometimes people don't like doing it even though it is
important for the baby. Doesn't mean Jeff is against it. He's making HUMOR
about everything in raising a child.


If you're a proponent of breastfeeding, aren't you a lactivist too?

I know Jeff is funny...I've forwarded on his ramblings for months to
friends.

I've never seen bf'ing as disgusting, sorry. And I said so. My
perogative. And yours to say what you want.
--
'Tis Herself
  #9  
Old October 25th 03, 10:14 PM
Sue
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default The Story About the Toddler, Volume 8.

Herself wrote in message
I've never seen bf'ing as disgusting, sorry. And I said so. My
perogative. And yours to say what you want.
--
'Tis Herself


Yep and I did. )
--
Sue (mom to three girls)
I'm Just a Raggedy Ann in a Barbie Doll World...


 




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