I'm No Tiger Mom

I'm no Tiger Mom; in fact, I'm a sort of Hostess Suzy Q sort of Mom, all soft filling inside, and, well, pretty soft on the outside, too.

Yesterday I sat next to a whiny nearly-9-year-old on the piano bench. This son hadn't practiced his piano for three days, much less for hours a day without being allowed to have a drink of water or take a pee break. He struggled with his review pieces in his second-level book. He said "You see, Mom, I'm no good at anything."

No, I don't see. I see that you haven't looked at these pieces in weeks or months in some cases, and your teacher asked that you review them before moving on to the next book. That's why we are sitting here together, reviewing pieces you had once mastered. I thought but didn't share: this is no picnic for me, either, buddy.

The whining was deafening and annoying, and I probably shouldn't tolerate it, but when a child tells me "I'm no good at anything," it is not in my nature to berate him and yell. Instead, I coddle and hug.

If that means I'm a soft, Western sort of parent and that my son's chances of playing at Carnegie Hall are nil, well, then I'm guilty as charged.

Hugs.

It Doesn't all Suck

Today I was on a filled-to-capacity, three-to-a-seat school bus, representing just a fraction of my son's entire third grade class. We were off to a Chicago Wolves game, a brilliant marketing coup by the hockey league to lure young children into the lair of professional hockey.

Everyone was given a Legoland-sponsored "Get Schooled By Skates" (the Wolves' mascot, who made a personal appearance to the class last week ... very cool) 'workbook' and encouraged to study Wolves Geography (Boris Valabik comes from Slovakia ... is that in Europe, Asia, Africa ... etc.) as well as math (what is the volume of the puck?) and other clever exercises to make hockey an educational experience. Sharp marketing.

The group of 140-plus children was really amazingly well mannered. Not that I was surprised. My kid's a good kid, and all his friends are good kids, so why wouldn't the class as a whole be, well, good kids, right?

But a couple of things put me off-kilter. One was the fact that most of these kids could recite the words to every Katy Perry and Beyonce and Black Eyed Peas and Brittney Spears song ever aired. I asked one cherubic little girl, "What radio station should I listen to in order to hear these songs?", because, in fact, most of them I'd never heard in my life. "B-96 or Kiss-FM," she replied. So I did, on my drive home. Yikes! I do realize that they have no idea what the lyrics to these songs mean, but I had to be at least 14 or 15 before the music I listened to made my parents cringe.

Times, they are a-changing.

The more disturbing development was the use of the word "suck" and the general unsportsmanlike behavior at the stadium. On the bus, a few boys around me started a "Chicago Wolves Suck" chant, until I, in my best Wicked Witch of the East Side of Prospect voice, told them that their choice of language was highly inappropriate.

Then there was the booing at the stadium when the opposing team took the ice. Granted, I don't get out much, and maybe that's the way it's played these days, or the way it's played at hockey games, but booing, I thought, should be reserved to gross misconduct by a player or official? And it was the entire stadium, which was filled with elementary and middle school children from the entire metropolitan area, not just to our group of third graders.

It was just eye-opening to me. That's all I'm saying. Not judging.

But two truths made my day. The first was when a few students seated behind me reacted to some very rough play against the glass. "Well, he's just being a bully, isn't he?" one said while the others agreed.

The other truth was when at home later I asked Luke what he liked best about the field trip. His answer: the mechanical pencil he received from his teacher to fill out the workbook.

Let's just say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

The Princess and the Pee

The turning of the calendar is always a good time to think about what I might want to do differently in the new year, but I don't make official new year resolutions. I just quietly file away my self-improvement ideas deep in my consciousness and hope to do a little better this year than last, no matter what the topic (money, diet, patience).

I made one of those un-official resolutions on January 1st with my boys: mark my words, we are going to try our best to not rack up library late fines in 2011. Our municipal library could create The Burkum Brothers Reading Nook after the fines it collected from us last year.

So I hopped on the library website to check what was due and when. Immediately, I thought there must be some mistake; this can't be my account. Among the expected Goosebumps for Luke and the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series for Kevin & me, I saw:

Tales of friendship [videorecording (DVD)
Snow White and the seven dwarfs [videorecording (DVD)]
Beauty shines from within [videorecording (DVD)
Enchanted tales. Follow your dreams [videorecording (DVD)
Disney princess. Enchanted journey [electronic resource (Wii)

But I don't have any daughters, I thought. Then I remembered, ah, yes, TJ is in his Princess Stage. And he's holding on to it with dear life.

Luke went through his Princess Stage around the same age rather quietly and without incident. Now that TJ is in his, Luke is not making it easy for him. The more Luke says, "that's for girls," the more TJ says "NO IT'S NOT. I LIKE PRINCESSES. THEY ARE NICE. YOU ARE NOT NICE. YOU ARE NOT A PRINCESS."

Like Luke at the same age, TJ is challenged with staying dry at night, so even though he's been in underpants since a few months after he turned two (although lately he has chosen to go commando most days), he wears pullups at night, just in case.

So of course he is wearing princess pullups.

That doesn't bother me. What bothers me are these princess DVDs. Not that he wants to watch them; but I watched one with him, and I was appalled. I thought I'd time-travelled back to 1953. This is what we're still feeding little girls, and the occasional boy in touch with his princess side? I thought we dropped that whole "prince saves the day" fairy tale soon after Prince Charles and Princess Diana called it quits? I had no idea they still made these stories, and that girls still watched them. Someone should be ashamed.

Our DVDs are on their way back to the library, on time I might add. While TJ's princess stage continues (remarkably longer than Luke's), he'll just have to settle for his princess coloring books.

Oh, and the pullups. Of course, the pullups. A diaper-free house is the real fairy tale here.