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childhood
November 2009 
What would you tell someone about to become a mother?
Posted on Aug 18th, 2007
by 
tinkonthebrink
tinkonthebrink
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for August 16, 2007:
Keep in the back of your mind, while you're head-over-heels gaga over this little being, that your job is to send them out into the world. You're their first guide and you'll always be special, but the job is to launch them. It will happen so fast your head will spin. Try to plan ahead for that and wear your anti-spin hat.
Try to jettison all the plastic icky crap that well-meaning people will give you.
If your house looks like the FisherPrice army of chinese sweatshop children had a war and left their arsenal behind, you're on the wrong track.
Children live in the same world you do. They can eat from your regular plates, drink from regular cups, use your flatware, sit on your furniture. Barring special needs, they don't need adaptive devices. These devices won't really make your life easier and they will make your home feel hellish.
You might think your child won't notice if their watercolors aren't the real, nice grownup kind, or their paintbrushes have plastic bristles, or their sheets or pyjamas have polyester in them. You would be mistaken. Start at birth teaching them what real things are like.
Make lots of forts, play lots of music, blow bubbles. If you have snow, make snow angels and snowballs and snowpeople. Start having them help you cook as soon as they can stand on the chair to reach the counter. Give them tastes of odd foods from your plate even if it isn't something they eat yet. Read them Walt Whitman and ee cummings and Pablo Neruda. Laurie Anderson's music makes fabulous lullabies. If you don't own a nice hand drum, get one. Get two. Show them movies they won't understand at first - Mirrormask and Wings of Desire and Amelie, Big Fish, What Dreams May Come, The Fisher King and Monty Python movies. Watch with them, over and over again, and make lots of popcorn.
If you live in the United States at least (I don't know about other places), be prepared to look for an alternative to public school. If you can possibly home school, do it. If you can trust this person's innate drive to learn, unschool them; they'll be fine, really.
They're trying to learn the language. Don't confuse them with baby talk. But if you speak a second language, talk to them in both.
Don't get mad. Don't be punishing. That doesn't mean don't say no, but there's no point to beating them down. Some very nice people get panic-stricken and think their children won't take them seriously if they don't get angry, and then the kids will be undisciplined and antisocial and their lives will be huge failures and they'll be miserable, plus they'll reflect badly on their parents. None of this is real. Try to keep in mind that only one of you is actually a two (or whatever number) year old.
On the other hand, expect polite behavior, and be polite with them. Start early taking them to restaurants, having them join the early parts of dinner parties, introducing them to others the way you would introduce any other human being, and give them all the tools and social lubricants that common courtesies offer.
Let them struggle a little. Don't handicap them by making their lives too easy.
And most of all, enjoy every second.
Getting to orient a newbie human to the planet is the most amazing adventure ever and as huge as it is for you, it's even bigger from their perspective. Their whole history, their entire context is days, weeks, months, a few years at most. Everything that happens is written huge on them. Even the things they don't consciously remember are the foundation of who they are later. If you hope for them to enjoy who they are later, jumpstart them by enjoying every second with them now.
Besides, it's just fun.
Try to jettison all the plastic icky crap that well-meaning people will give you.
If your house looks like the FisherPrice army of chinese sweatshop children had a war and left their arsenal behind, you're on the wrong track.
Children live in the same world you do. They can eat from your regular plates, drink from regular cups, use your flatware, sit on your furniture. Barring special needs, they don't need adaptive devices. These devices won't really make your life easier and they will make your home feel hellish.
You might think your child won't notice if their watercolors aren't the real, nice grownup kind, or their paintbrushes have plastic bristles, or their sheets or pyjamas have polyester in them. You would be mistaken. Start at birth teaching them what real things are like.
Make lots of forts, play lots of music, blow bubbles. If you have snow, make snow angels and snowballs and snowpeople. Start having them help you cook as soon as they can stand on the chair to reach the counter. Give them tastes of odd foods from your plate even if it isn't something they eat yet. Read them Walt Whitman and ee cummings and Pablo Neruda. Laurie Anderson's music makes fabulous lullabies. If you don't own a nice hand drum, get one. Get two. Show them movies they won't understand at first - Mirrormask and Wings of Desire and Amelie, Big Fish, What Dreams May Come, The Fisher King and Monty Python movies. Watch with them, over and over again, and make lots of popcorn.
If you live in the United States at least (I don't know about other places), be prepared to look for an alternative to public school. If you can possibly home school, do it. If you can trust this person's innate drive to learn, unschool them; they'll be fine, really.
They're trying to learn the language. Don't confuse them with baby talk. But if you speak a second language, talk to them in both.
Don't get mad. Don't be punishing. That doesn't mean don't say no, but there's no point to beating them down. Some very nice people get panic-stricken and think their children won't take them seriously if they don't get angry, and then the kids will be undisciplined and antisocial and their lives will be huge failures and they'll be miserable, plus they'll reflect badly on their parents. None of this is real. Try to keep in mind that only one of you is actually a two (or whatever number) year old.
On the other hand, expect polite behavior, and be polite with them. Start early taking them to restaurants, having them join the early parts of dinner parties, introducing them to others the way you would introduce any other human being, and give them all the tools and social lubricants that common courtesies offer.
Let them struggle a little. Don't handicap them by making their lives too easy.
And most of all, enjoy every second.
Getting to orient a newbie human to the planet is the most amazing adventure ever and as huge as it is for you, it's even bigger from their perspective. Their whole history, their entire context is days, weeks, months, a few years at most. Everything that happens is written huge on them. Even the things they don't consciously remember are the foundation of who they are later. If you hope for them to enjoy who they are later, jumpstart them by enjoying every second with them now.
Besides, it's just fun.
Access: Public
Very Loving…:)
Lingchao
You know I hate to say this… I mean a baby is a baby is a precious thing… we are all God's children, yadda yadda yadda … but the man in the picture… shhh! … (( his baby looks like a dog! ))
Oh dear.
Now that you mention it…I mean, they're both my babies and all, but she does have kind of a doggish demeanor. Funny how I didn't notice that straight away.
That might explain her challenges with speech.
And the absence of thumbs.
Wow, this is going to change everything.
Jumping Jehosaphat! This is your son, isn't it? Let me pry my foot out of my mouth and get my glasses!
(Now I have my reading glasses on) Oh! No, what a darling baby girl. She doesn't look like a dog at all. Thumbs? She has thumbs, I'm sure, just can't see them in this picture. Challenges with speech? Nonsense, normal with one so young. That baby doesn't look like a dog at all. Christ no. Beautiful little girl. Darling.
It's funny - he's held her that way, with her head nuzzled into his shoulder, since they were puppies together. Now he's the only one tall enough to still do it. When he comes to visit she jumps right up to get her fix.
“Children live in the same world you do. They can eat from your regular plates, drink from regular cups, use your flatware, sit on your furniture. Barring special needs, they don't need adaptive devices. These devices won't really make your life easier and they will make your home feel hellish.
You might think your child won't notice if their watercolors aren't the real, nice grownup kind, or their paintbrushes have plastic bristles, or their sheets or pyjamas have polyester in them. You would be mistaken. Start at birth teaching them what real things are like.”
And everything else you wrote! Yes! Listen all new Mama's to this woman! Would you like to drink out of a little pink plastic sippy cup? I remember (and still have) the paint set my mother got me when I was in Kindergarten. A real wood box, water color brushes so soft with beautiful tapered handles..and almost fifty years later still used and appreciated and knowing my mother felt that art was important and I was too. Thank you!
A mom compliment coming from you is a big thing - the two of your children who's voices I know are wonder-full, articulate, creative beings, and you are amazing.
It's so much more rewarding, and actually easier I think, not to be seduced by the “conveniences”.
It was so easy not to have hi-chairs and special bathtubs and strollers and things everywhere. And for Adrian, he grew up in the world he was going to live in. Otherwise it seems kind of like trying to teach someone English by speaking pig latin…
Wow, great post! I, too, love the idea especially about the real things and not cheaping out on the newbies thinking they won't notice. :)
“If your house looks like the FisherPrice army of chinese sweatshop children had a war and left their arsenal behind, you're on the wrong track.”
lol!!
:) Wow. AGAIN, thanks for providing a vivid performance of the human being real world live show after providing that wonderful suggestion!
The dogs & children's world is much more beautiful, actually…:)
Lingchao
I think the dog and children's world is maybe the most real world.
Dogs especially never lie, and it takes children awhile to learn. Dogs and children have a little corner on the truth.
Which is beautiful, yes.
” Would you like to drink out of a little pink plastic sippy cup?” said Farland.
Not a sippy cup but my favorite glasses when I was little were normal glasses but they had my favorite disney characters on them, and they were MY big girl glasses. Kid's do like the visual stimulus of color and characters, but its that they were -my- big girl glasses, that made me feel grown up when I was little. :) So yes they can use your silverware, glasses, plates, but having some nice Big Kid glasses or a plate of their own (so they take care of it and take care not to break it) is great too.
Very wonderful, dearie, and that's coming from an old bear with no kids. I copied to my mom and will be curious about her reaction. She started having us kids very early in her young life. I will have this printed up and it will be a standard handout available to all who ask, and especially to those who don't.
Now, about special drinking glasses, I am saving my set of 4 (count 'em, 4) Howdy Doody drinking glasses that were originally Welches grape jelly glasses, for the twins. I ate a lot of grape jelly back in 1953 and 1954 to get that set, so they are the most valuable gift I can think of to give the girls.
And about that marvelous photo, truly a more wonderful father and child photo has not been taken. Thanks so much!
lovely mom, thanks.
Makes me want to start over!
Makes we want to be sweeter than ever, to each little one I get a chance to be around.
I have 2 granddaughters, one 11 and the other 2 years old. I guess I could let um eat on the couch for a start. thanks babes, I passed this along to my young mothers. bobJuan.
sigh. I wish I could’ve found your mommy advice in the library when I was pregnant with Jordan. although I did much of what you say with him, I heard so much bad advice too and sometimes allowed myself to be confused by the “experts”. I was a young, young mommy with very few role models to look to. my own mother was under siege of abuse from first my father and then my step-father when I was young and working all the time just to survive, but she pulled off some of your best advice too.
the happy news is that jordan is turning out a-ok. he just got his first “real” car. an old jeep that my husband is helping him to rebuild. he’s kind and compassionate and real with his younger cousins and he’s a sensitive, intelligent, inquisitive, wild teenager.
“Keep in the back of your mind, while you’re head-over-heels gaga over this little being, that your job is to send them out into the world. You’re their first guide and you’ll always be special, but the job is to launch them. It will happen so fast your head will spin. Try to plan ahead for that and wear your anti-spin hat.”
This is what I have to do everyday, especially now while he is 15 going on 27. :-) Every interaction I have with him is, for me, about realizing that he will fly away from the nest very soon and all the time I have with him now, I am thinking of what tools and gifts I can give him, share with him, that will help him build his own whole, full, gorgeous life. It takes my breath away. Last night I spent 5 hours gazing at a photo of him that I took with my camera phone 2 years ago, while enlarging it from 2 inches by 2 inches to 36” x 36” in photoshop and composing a poem about him in my head. He has promised to hand make the metal frame for me and I want to etch the poem into the metal of the frame. Parenthood has been so unmanagable and terrifying and enriching and fun and weird and again terrifying and growth causing for me.
Thanks for this incredible advice!
Jeannie,
I've always known that Adrian is an amazing person. I also always knew why but now I can see the why in print.
You've written a “Concordia” on how to mom, or better, how to mom or dad or mentor or nurture or raise or….or…or anything to do with newbies.
I am going to print this, emboss it with artwork, frame it, and give it to Jilia and Lily for them to use as a guide if they ever decide to add another human or two to our Ark.
I want the love and understanding in those words to pass through them to the next generation.
Thank you,
Albert
Wow! What wise words. Such a natural way to bring up children. Yours are fortunate, Jeannie. This definitely needs to be on a primer of childcare. To be natural and not all plastic-ky [hiding my head at the memory that mine was quite a fisher-price mothering!].
I like the mix of care and carefree sharing you incorporate into your advice. Thanks for sharing this!
Is it okay if I share this in the Collective Wisdom: The Library of Community Threads– in the board on THREADS about General Life Wisdom?
Oh of course, and I just joined your group which I didn’t know existed, so this is a nice little gift!
Done! Feel free to visit and post your comment on the entry being in the Library, or affirm it. Discussions on the blog itself, will continue here.