Dear Auntie Leila
First of all, I want to sincerely thank you for all that you have shared on this blog. I have been reading it for a few months, and I cannot tell you how much influence you have had in my family's life. We are Americans living in Portugal, and I recently started a little St. Greg's Pocket here. My group has met twice now, and we've had a lovely time together. Unfortunately, all mothers here (except for me, of course) send their children to school starting at about age 2, so the only children attending besides mine have been infants. I have two girls — a four-and-a-half-year-old and a 21-month-old. The older one is generally calm and fairly well-behaved. However, when I have people over she goes absolutely bonkers. She pesters the guests and me, bounces around on the furniture, and otherwise calls attention to herself at every moment. Why is she doing this? What can I do? Thank you for your help!
Heather
You are welcome, Heather, and I'm really happy about this question because it allows me to address several things at once!
First, the bonkers issue. Why is she doing this? Because she's four! She's excited! How do you show your excitement? What? You don't jump on the furniture?
Say, you must be old!
I actually get lots of mail about fours. They can be all over the map (with some being unnaccountably unresponsive and shy, so go figure). Many children at this age combine a remarkable ability to appear knowledgeable about the world and to be completely in the dark as to its norms. They trick you into thinking they get things. Many do not.
So the issue is that here you are, trying to be all cool with your group and your lovely friends whose children are invisibly going bonkers at their daycare, allowing them, your friends, to judge you with impunity. They are too nice to judge, of course. They confine themselves, no doubt, to quietly wondering why you don't take advantage of the handy solution of filing your children away so they don't disrupt get-togethers!
And yet, you do have something to impart to them in this new friendship (and I'm sure they have really positive-yet-crazy-seeming things to share with you too): viz., that young children can be at home, that a bit of wildness is to be expected, and that sending them to school every day is hard on them.
Still, your goal for her is to overcome the attention-seeking. Nothing could be more normal than for a small child to want attention! It's literally a survival tactic, among other things. But little by little, a child has to be shown and must learn that others exist, that we need to attend to their comfort and well being, and that calling attention to self doesn't actually bring the satisfaction we think we remember from those halcyon days of infancy.
For our part, we want to be sure that we are heading for that goal, and not getting sidetracked with the false one of impressing our friends with the stellar behavior of our children.
So, and this is the news flash portion of this post, parenting does involve humility! Because…
… sometimes what's best for our child also embarrasses us! A certain amount of acting out is normal for a child of this age — and it wouldn't be so disruptive if all the other children were there as well, doing their normal thing right along with her. In fact, you could send them all outside and they could be wild together but not amongst the tea things.
Some practical thoughts to get you through to the stage of your child's development where she can be there without going bonkers (and that will arrive!):
1. Practice acts of hospitality that she can do. Show her how to pass a bowl of nuts or offer a plate of cookies to people. She can try her skills with Dad and with the occasional guest.
Show her how to collect used napkins and dispose of them. Teach her to pick up used glasses and put them by the sink. All this must be built into normal life at home.
One thing that is missing from what I've seen in American social life is the concept of children being integrated in a limited way in our hospitable efforts. We either scoot them completely away with the sitter or before guests arrive, or we show them off and then scoot them, or we make them the center of things the whole time.
Instead, one type of gathering could begin early enough for the young children to be there to greet guests, chat with them brightly (for instance, a six-year-old can answer questions about school and what his favorite subject is), offer them crackers and cheese, and then skeddadle, having eaten before. They can have their dessert off stage and exit to bed with the promise of an audio book to listen to or a short movie to watch. Yes, you will have to excuse yourself once or twice, but it's worth it in the end.
All that might be juuuust out of reach for a four-year-old, but she will get there. See what she can do at this point — I bet it is more than you think.
2. Talk to her beforehand about what you expect when the guests actually arrive. Remind her that jumping on furniture is not really allowed and that you will have to stop her if she gets out of hand. Let her know exactly what will happen — that she will not get to pass cookies. There probably isn't much you can deny her, in that you probably have to take sole care of her during the get-together and won't want her screaming in her room for you, but little by little, she will get the idea.
Even if there is a little jumping on the furniture, that's not the end of the world. You are aiming for a gradual increase in situational awareness. Just keep working on it. (And fours get easier when there are older siblings for them to look to for cues, so you really only have to figure this out once or twice, which is the good news!)
Remember this scene? Well, aside from cousins playing with the dog, you also have here, behind the tree, a four-year-old (Pippo). Just… standing behind the tree. Because, four.
Give her some examples of questions she may ask guests. She wants to talk to them but doesn't know yet what to say! Hence the “pestering.” Then prepare something for her to do near the guests but not in the very center of things — something that you've talked over with her beforehand and piqued her interest with. Play-dough time, fun stickers, an audio book, a toy that usually resides on a high shelf.
A bribe, in short.
3. If you are really hung out to dry with this (utterly normal) behavior, due to the (utterly abnormal) lack of other four-year-olds to distract her, you might want to alternate activities with your group so that some of them can take place without her, say, in the evening. I wouldn't exclusively switch, because in the end she will calm down and it's good for everyone to observe the process and ponder it, but it's okay to have some bonkers-free events.
I know it can be hard, but have confidence in what you are trying to do, mistakes and all. Smile and trust your friends to appreciate that you are doing the best you can.
And — I was thrilled to think that a St. Greg's Pocket is in Portugal! So I get to talk about that too.
One thing for sure that the St. Gregory Pocket is going to provide us — and that is the opportunity to be a sort of occasionally undignified witness, or unwitting guidepost, to the kind of life that is different from the conventional one most people have in mind. Even with our mistakes and our children's bad behavior, we are putting ourselves out there as a willing friend to those who haven't even begun to think that a different way of life is possible.
That is why the St. Greg's Pocket is more than a reading group or a mother's group or a couple's group — although it is any or all of those. It's a Building the Culture group, one friendship at a time, over the long haul.
Naturally some of the things that go into an authentic Christian culture will appear… uncontrolled to many people! That is because everything in today's world is about control. We pay people to manage our difficulties and be able to present a smooth, unruffled front to others. However, life with children (that is, life) is anything but smooth and unruffled! And we ourselves do it so badly (well, I do). Still.
As you get to know your friends and the circle widens, you will find that some are not as entrenched in their practices as you think. Some are on the road to questioning their assumptions — even assumptions about their own children's development — and they see your life very differently from the way you think it's appearing to them.
And of course, you yourself are still learning! With all your seeming failures and lack of control, the fact that you are trying to live according to your principles will be very heartening to others. You will learn from them and they will learn from you! So keep at it and don't be discouraged.
Thanks for writing! Keep up the good work!
{Update: In the comment section I have posted a reflection on what life is like with universal, European-style daycare and why I oppose it strenuously.}
Helen Aardsma says
So true! As a mother of ten, and a leader/teacher in mothering support groups for many years (always with a nursing baby and or toddler in tow, as well as a four year old!) your advice and wisdom is so true! Thanks for taking the time to share. It is so needed!
Sheila says
I am so disappointed in you for this comment: “They confine themselves, no doubt, to quietly wondering why you don’t take advantage of the handy solution of filing your children away so they don’t disrupt get-togethers!” You don’t know why people send their kids to school/preschool. You do not know their story. Yes, there MAY be parents who occasionally find it to be convenient, but to assume that everyone or even most do is downright snarky. I couldn’t even read the rest. I think you meant to be humorous, and I’ve not ever known you to be mean, but this completely brought tears to my eyes, and I do not even have small children.
Leila says
Well, Sheila, I’m sorry that you are disappointed and didn’t read even one sentence further. Here I am trying to imagine that a woman who is hosting and has the ONLY four-year-old (who is going bonkers) is feeling vulnerable — what she might be thinking that others are thinking.
The rest of the post is about how they are probably admiring her and certainly learning something from her, and she can learn from them as well.
The fact is that if you have a whole society that acts a certain way — and in certain European countries 97% of the children go to daycare– the norms for children’s behavior will change.
Even here in the US, children are not allowed to do what children have always done, and that changes the way people look at how children really are. The news is about children who can’t walk alone and now even can’t sled in a certain town!
So yes, if sending the children to daycare is normal where she is, then her normal four-year-old will make her feel judged.
Rachel Allison says
“Here I am trying to imagine that a woman who is hosting and has the ONLY four-year-old (who is going bonkers) is feeling vulnerable — what she might be thinking that others are thinking.”
YES! And the reason she might be thinking that they are thinking that is because….SHE is thinking that! Even those of us who are usually convinced beyond all doubt that the right thing for us is to keep our children home…do experience doubt. Especially when the currently obnoxious 4-yr. old is, ahem, MINE. And would be so much less obnoxious, ahem, ELSEWHERE.
Spot-on insight into those little stinkers! And you’re right…conquer the first one, and the following ones are far more manageable.
Auntie Sue says
Sheila, Leila is talking about a particular group of women. They are relatively affluent European women who are not employed during the day and could be at home with their children but who live in place where it is a given that all children must go to daycare AKA”school” from age 2 on regardless of need. I don’t see how that is an indictment by Leila of women who send their children to school.
Kate says
There are many reasons why a 4yo is in school. One of them is that the parents really do think children should receive some type of education at this age and don’t see themselves (rightly or wrongly) as being able to provide it at home. Sometimes 4yo’s are in a Montessori program. My sister is a Montessori teacher and claims the 3yo/4yo age group is her favorite age to teach. They are such open and delightful characters for the most part. My daughter has just started her teaching adventures in a Catholic Montessori school which has a toddler program. Some people may not agree with sending young children away from home for a couple of hours a day, but I don’t think we should judge the intentions of those parents who send their children to school.
The parochial school which I attended did not have a kindergarten and kindergarten was not mandatory in my state when I was young, so my parents did not send me and my sister. However, the next six siblings, my parents decided to send to kindergarten at the local public school. Their reasoning was a mixture of getting some rest for my mother (who had a baby yearly), carving out some time for her to help out with the family business and hoping their children would obtain some school skills for first grade before starting at the parochial school (I struggled in the primary grades and since my mother was an immigrant she was worried about the effect of her English on our learning). They were all pretty valid reasons it seems to me and I don’t question their judgement. I didn’t have any of those concerns, so I have been a “marsupial mom” with by little ones and eventually homeschooled.
Cristina says
As always, this is wonderful advice! In our house it’s our six year old that usually leads the “look at me!” parade every time we have company and of course he usually brings his four year old brother along for the ride…and now the two year old has begun to follow suit. Do you have any tips for six year olds especially? I think the training in hospitality could do wonders for him. He would probably love to play host! I can’t believe I never thought of trying that before. You have quite the knack for making me slap my own forehead after reading your commonsensical genius 🙂
Jenny says
Oh, four year olds! I’m on my third four year old and they are still an enigma to me. Still such babies, but willful in a way that young toddlers just aren’t. They disobey to get a rise out of you. My current four year old will not speak to anyone in public. If an unfamiliar adult tries to be friendly, he clams up and refuses to move, talk, anything while making a silly face. It *is* embarrassing because all he has to say is ‘Hi,” but no. My first four year insisted on constantly being the center of attention. We still work on that with reminders to think of other people, but it is better than it was.
One thing to try is to make sure these get-togethers don’t happen around a rest time. My oldest especially gets hyper when she is tired instead of cranky. So if we tried to do things when she wasn’t well-rested, she would just bounce off the walls and then collapse all at once at some later point.
Rachel says
Hello Jenny! Isn’t an “unfamiliar adult” also known as a stranger? And we deeply impress on our little ones that they should not talk to strangers……and then we tell them that they should! Sometimes, in some situations which they can’t distinguish themselves.
I always think this is a clear example of the conflicting and confusing “rules” we expect our children to live by. I am quite happy when my children, whatever age they are, are cautious to speak to strangers or people they don’t know very well. I consider it a very healthy trait and I support them in their reticence by not insisting that they speak.
What worried me considerably more, is observing the total lack of inhibition some very young children exhibit with complete strangers in every situation. I believe that these children have had their natural boundaries broken by being passed to too many people other than their parents for “care”. It really worries me when I see little ones in public places going too close to an unknown adult, imparting personal information and generally behaving in a very over familiar and inappropriate manner. I believe this leaves the children very vulnerable to being groomed later on.
Any thoughts?
Jenny says
Well, I don’t deeply impress upon my children that they should not talk to strangers because I think that’s a load of nonsense. We talk to strangers all the time and the vast majority of them are harmless. I talk to my children about specific behaviors which should ring alarm bells, like a stranger adult asking a child for help. Unknown adults don’t need help from children. There are other behaviors we discuss, but that’s neither here nor there. Even though I am not on the ‘stranger danger’ bandwagon, I don’t force my children to speak either. I believe in a healthy reticence in children. I think it serves them well and I am not one to try to have them override their natural instincts when it comes to interacting with the public.
But I did speak imprecisely. When I said ‘unfamiliar adult,’ I really meant ‘ an adult who is not a family member.’ People who my son will not speak to but will only make coy faces at include our parish priest, fellow parishioners, our neighbors, his sisters’ school teachers, store clerks, and on. Many of these people we have known for longer than he has existed. 🙂 So it isn’t a matter of them being total strangers, but they aren’t family either.
Tia says
This is such wise advice. I can get caught in the habit of disciplining out of the fear of embarrassment, rather than a prudent judgment on whether something is teaching my son virtue or how to get along better in the world.
I’d also like to add some encouragement to the woman in question. I’m guessing that those other mother’s aren’t judging her daughter and parenting skills. As mothers we’ve all been there (or are going there shortly!). I am sure most of them find it to be a valuable resource, to see where their kiddos are heading as they grow out of infancy. Hopefully she can find a community of like-minded families where her kids and theirs can grow up together.
Melissa Diskin says
I have to confess that when I had just one VERY docile child, I was judging left & right! My 2nd was the one who shattered my illusions of control. “Spirited child” did not begin to describe her. Our sitter (who is from half the world away) asked if I should call in a priest to say a prayer over #2, her tantrums were so bad, so long, so frequent. To drive away the evil spirits.
So…I really don’t judge other moms much these days. And a little melatonin at night pretty much cured #2’s awful temperament. I joke that she’s my favorite child now. Then I had #3, and when you have 3, you just don’t have enough eyes, hands and arms to take care of everyone at once. You still have goals, but you can’t ensure the details so completely, and you transform them into, I think, character goals rather than behavior goals. You aim higher, knowing that you may have a messy interim. (Thanks for the great ideas on getting kids involved with family hospitality.)
Leila, thanks so much for mentioning that issue of control. It’s held up as the pinnacle of success, but it’s such an empty goal in itself! It never helps families thrive! And the problem for kids, of course, is that control is different from self-control. I really believe that the increase in rules, “rigor,” constant testing, less recess, no talking at lunch or in the halls or in the bathroom (this is new to our school this year!), and a lengthened school day is really about control creep. (All 3 of mine are in public school at the moment, but we’re pulling them out after this year, as are many of our friends.) Having kids later, having fewer of them — we’re becoming an entire generation unfamiliar with how kids are, with what children need. Worse, we’ve forgotten that it’s what they’ve always needed.
To the reader above, I think it’s not Sending Them to School that’s a bugbear of Leila’s per se, it’s the knee-jerk reaction that any and every small child will of course learn how to BE (be a good kid, a Christian, etc)– only at school. That school is the heart of a child’s upbringing now, instead of home and family. And schools have changed so very much in just a generation!
Tia says
Also the hospitality advice is just great. This was standard in the Indian community growing up — kids offered the adults snacks and tea, and as they got older were trained in polite conversation and questioning. They were part of the family get-togethers, not the star or hidden out of sight. In the short term does prevent kids from bouncing off the walls somewhat, but it also has a long-term benefit. My friends who were raised this way are just much more poised in social settings.
Jennifer H. says
Thank you for pointing out that sometimes what is best for the child will embarrass us as the mother. I see very often parents who seem to be more concerned about their image in front of others than the true needs of their child. It is a struggle I face myself almost every week at church and elsewhere. Prideful parenting is a trap… Our kids are not here to make us look good as parents. Among other things, they are here to teach us many lessons about ourselves as we try parent them in a sensitive and sensible manner. Thanks Auntie Leila!
Rebekah says
This is just so timely! I have a particular friend who we have dinner with on occasion, and this very problem always comes up. I just dread these dinners! I’m always looking for ways to make the situation work better, and basically after 5 kids have realized that I need to accept some chaos and judgement. Sigh. This is much appreciated encouragement. And the hospitality tips will be greatly enjoyed by my children.
Helen says
This post epitomises the attraction of your blog for me – recognising what is a normal developmental stage while, at the same time, gently suggesting practical ways that a child can be encouraged to move forward.
I also agree with the reader who said that her child became more active as she became more tired; that was my experience with my first (and then she only needed about 5 minutes rest and she was ready to go again for several more crazy hours!)
Helen
Julie says
I’m also an American living in Portugal and I was SHOCKED when I saw there is a St. Greg’s pocket here! How can I find out more about it? I can’t find it on the page with local groups. I live in Lisbon.
Thanks!
Leila says
Julie, we will have the info up shortly on the St. Greg’s page!
Heather says
A real live LMLD reader in Lisbon?!! I would love to meet you! You can find us on Facebook as the Lisbon-Cascais St. Greg’s Pocket.
Maria Lima says
Hi julie,
This is Maria lima. I am trying to reach Heather since she is living in Portugal… When you find out more, please let me know!! We should all get together… How are you?
Anne says
I loved this post! Thanks, Auntie Leila! On the same topic, another mom said to me recently about her 5 year old “Oh well, she’s a work in progress, and so am I!” I found that so heartening! I’m not perfect yet, they aren’t perfect yet, and that’s to be expected! Ah, deep breath of relief. 🙂
Julie says
Yes, Thank you. I always love your posts. We have college students over on a regular basis, and I am occasionally horrified at my children’s behavior (not always, but occasionally.) When my 3rd was four, I was shocked at some of her behaviors, and then realized that I was to blame, I had forgotten to instruct her about certain things, and because she generally did what the older two were doing, I didn’t realize until it was embarrassing. I now have to pause in my mothering and consider -have I really instructed this child on this particular thing (not jumping up on guests laps without permission) or do I just think I have because the older two know better?
Julie
Leila says
So, I would like to address the issue of daycare as a way of life. You will note that the reader, Heather, writes from Portugal. Like most European countries, Portugal offers government-funded “free” daycare — “School” — for young children.
It also has a catastrophically plummeting birth rate.
What Americans don’t understand is that here we take for granted a certain state of affairs centering around our spirited resistance to having anyone tell us what to do. Even when we profess certain progressive ideas modeled on the European ones — universal government services, generous maternity and paternity leave, egalitarian work policies towards women — we don’t share the European mindset that produces those ideas. We cherish our independence and also, we work hard and still have some children. Europeans (of the sort who make the progressive policies) never had independence to cherish, don’t work hard (don’t yell at me about this until you have worked with Europeans), and don’t have children (which makes it much easier to be generous with programs!).
This inconsistent position of ours will lead to the loss of all we hold dear, precisely because we have a distaste for telling others that their choices are not ordered to the common good. Our rugged individualism dictates that we let others do what they see fit. However, we just have no idea what a society is like where people have handed over the basic structure of their day-to-day life to the government.
For instance, even as we insist on not judging those who use daycare, we are still picturing our own town where some women do, out of necessity, and some don’t, and even those who do still go to parks and play soccer on fields that one French father living in Rome described to me as “astounding,” and go to Scouts. We can’t imagine a world where 97% of the children are completely out of view in daycare, as in Denmark.
Behind our seeming openness to all models is the confidence that WE will always have the choice to do what we like, including enjoying the old-fashioned model of raising children in a neighborhood where they can run around freely, enjoying the safety of a family-oriented culture. Even if we use daycare, we still assume that this will be the way things are.
We fail to recognize that vision as the hard-won fruits of a specific, somewhat austere, way of life, not the “normal” to which things inevitably default.
We can’t imagine what one reader living in Denmark described to me in an email: Coming to the realization that *I* do not want to put my 6-month-old baby in daycare, but if *I* stay home, I face two realities: 1. The loss of income and day-care stipend from the government, which assumes that I, like all the other women, will work and take advantage of the “free” daycare (without the economic system that would give me the flexibility to find other ways to make ends meet) and 2. literally no one else anywhere with whom to share my daily life. No other mothers who don’t want to leave their babies. No places to go to meet up with toddlers. No one to talk to all day long in Denmark!
You see? This “choice” that we have such faith in will be no choice.
While we are busy telling ourselves and each other that we can’t judge, there’s no way to know why someone does something, no harm is done, etc etc, the world is marching on according to a vision that is based on something inimical to this ideal of freedom.
And very quickly, due to the dearth of actual children, the memory of what it’s like to have children around (by which I mean the messy reality) fades; children seem ever more burdensome and disruptive. Already here in the US we are not going to be able to leave an 11-year-old in the car with a sleeping baby while we run into the store (what could be more reasonable than that?) or have our kids walk home alone (together of course) from school.
So yes, there is a disorder there. It’s time that families wake up and recover some of the messiness of life and the joy of doing something other than slog off to work — before it’s our only “choice.”
Donna L. says
Wow…thank you!
I am often surprised and shocked when someone says, or writes, that “we may not judge” someone’s actions. Of course we can! Actions that affect others, particularly. What we cannot do is FINAL judgment, for what lies in their heart–as that is God’s duty.
Someone may say, in the interest of understanding/ tolerance, that “the person was sincere” in doing what they did. However, I believe that someone can be “sincerely WRONG” about an action they take–whether it’s through misguided notions, thoughtlessness, or selfishness.
Auntie Leila, I appreciate when you tackle the tough stuff, when others seem to be concerned more about what someone may think, than helping us all get to Heaven!
Keep up the good work!
God bless you!
Helena says
I’m English (still European at least until Brexit goes through) and many of us work incredibly hard. As do the many other people of many different natiIonalities who work in Britain. Just so you know.
Carrie says
Could I please ask you, on behalf of your European readers, to explain why you state that ‘Europeans don’t work hard’? I ask this nicely, hoping for understanding, and don’t mean to appear snippy.
Stephanie says
Carrie…when I read that I saw first that she did say the Europeans making the “progressive policies” which is in my very limited knowledge referring to a type of people that could easily be said to exist here in the US also…the same type of people we Americans are rallying against tomorrow in our Right to Life Marches across the country. “Rights ” for women overrules the right to life….very “progressive” in destroying families one mother and child at a time.
Christine says
This: „Europeans (of the sort who make the progressive policies) never had independence to cherish, don’t work hard (don’t yell at me about this until you have worked with Europeans), and don’t have children “ is about as meaningful and true as saying „Americans (of the sort who go abroad at all) are ruthless and shallow (don’t yell at me about this until you have worked with Americans) and don’t care a fig about the local culture“. A dreadful piece of generalization on an otherwise excellent post.
As to the childcare issue, European childcare varies from everyone being in daycare from a very early age in some countries to virtually no childcare at all and secondary school age children routinely coming home for lunch in between school lessons in others. So your four-year-old at home might be on his own in one European country and the norm in another.
Leila says
Christine, the difference is that I accept your generalization *as* a generalization.
There is no other way to get at the main point, which is that those who take exception to my observation that universal daycare is not healthy are overlooking the cultural and social norms where it obtains.
When societies like those of France, Germany, Spain, Italy, etc are imploding and unsustainable, it’s just as well to point out that mandated vacations, work hours, etc exist. In America, such things would never be acceptable, and you can travel here in August and expect people to be where you are going and to be working. In Europe, you can’t. That’s they way things are done. They don’t work as hard as we do!
That said, I think we work too hard and I personally would appreciate a long vacation! Preferably in Europe! However, not in August and not a government-mandated one!
Christine says
Leila, I suppose from the European point of view a lack of statutory holidays/vacation would be an unacceptable step back into the dark ages when people were serfs 🙂 The question of government interference aside, I’m not entirely convinced that being physically at a workplace equals being productive; you may well find that as much work is achieved in fewer hours. Besides, I seam to be surrounded by people who routinely work 12-hour days, despite all the worker protection laws.
As to childcare, I agree that universal childcare is problematic if it becomes the norm regardless of whether it is needed or not. I live in England and my children had to start full-time school at the age of four and a bit, which I thought was terribly early, seeing that in my home country children start school at the age of seven. There was no choice. I would have hated to live in a country where it is expected to hand over your children at the age of two or even earlier! And the trend here is to provide earlier and earlier child”care” aka “school” with ever earlier testing. Every time the country falls behind on some international measure of literacy, the recipe is to start formal schooling even earlier. It’s not a family-friendly state of affairs at all. But then society as such isn’t very family-friendly, and insofar the childcare appears to be the result rather than the cause of the changes in society.
I am in my forties. When I was a child, a woman of my mother’s generation who had school age children and chose to work was frowned upon. In my generation a woman who has school age children and does *not* work is frowned upon. There has been this massive change in attitudes within only one generation.
Leila says
Carrie, If I’m going to make a sweeping generalization, you can ask what I mean 🙂
I just mean that for instance, in France, it’s the norm to have 6 weeks vacation, the hours one can work per week are limited, and one’s teenager can’t legally work.
When my husband tries to contact a journalist colleague, for example, he can’t get him, because he’s always at lunch.
Americans would never consider any of that normal.
Perhaps it makes it feel better if I say that I think it could also be said that Americans work too hard. Also a generalization. Also true (and of course, plenty of exceptions!).
Carrie says
Good morning, and thank you for your reply. I can better understand the general point you’re making. If I may join in the generalizing (wink) I would caution American readers against thinking of ‘Europe’ as being at all homogeneous. I feel completely unqualified to comment on daily life in Germany, for example. Here in the North of England my children attend excellent (though obviously not perfect!) free local schools. They began going to a free state nursery school aged 3 and a bit for two hours most mornings where they thrived because they were ready developmentally. I feel privileged to be able to stay home with my children but am aware this is due in large part to my husband’s salary. He, incidentally, works VERY HARD (wink). Just thinking about this issue has made me realise how his general mental health has improved since the European Working Time Directive was changed to apply to his profession (physicians were formerly exempt). Also, we have almost always holidayed in Europe (mainland and in the UK) and found the countries to be ticking along nicely, even in August.
Tia says
Interesting point. I’ve always thought there should be more generous leave policies for working parents (and all workers, period — we really grind people into the ground with our schedules and many workers have ill family members or others in the community they’d like to support). But I never thought about the consequences for people who don’t have a two-working-parent family structure. I guess there are some advantages to having such a heterogeneous mix of work-life situations and a suspicion of government.
I’m not convinced though that our schizophrenic system is so hot. We tell women they must work, then penalize them once they have kids. We provide no paid leave or even job protections for many women or men, but yet the tax code is structured to favor single-earner families. We expect people to work pointlessly long hours and elevate working in the capitalist economy as the only way to be productive, while simultaneously selling a kind of glowy, sentimental picture of women at home. But we also caricature SAHMs as bored, indulgent women getting manicures. In short, we are peddling discontent at all levels. It’s all a big muddle.
On the plus side, we allow for a lot of flexibility in working (how I am able to work full-time from home starting at 6am and ending very early) that I KNOW Europeans mostly don’t enjoy. My mom used to work in Belgium and she described everyone getting up to go eat lunch after a bell rang, and coming back to sit at their seats only once the bell range again. In a software company!!!
Behind many of the European government models is the notion that parents aren’t the appropriate point of socialization, that collective socialization and upbringing is superior. And that people can’t be trusted to form community bonds strong enough to produce that kind of upbringing without a government stepping in. It’s a very pessimistic outlook on human culture, though Europe has had its share of tribulations so perhaps that’s where it comes from.
Leila says
Yes, Tia, a lot of what you say is true. But you are leaving one thing out, which is that whatever its putative pros or cons, the European model is based on a collapsing birth rate. Where there are no children, things get distorted.
Insofar as our system is not working, I believe it is because we are consciously trying to adopt this doomed system and/or have assumed that one or two children are the proper number.
No system will be perfect, but I prefer one that is being worked out where there are a lot of children — and that is increasingly not an option.
Cn says
And now i have to go and think big thoughts about all of this. I’ve always thought a more European way would be better, and now I’m not convinced. I had never considered this side of it.
corina says
I totally agree with you, Auntie Leila: the European system is a collapsing system. I hope Americans will not look to Europe for lessons, except perhaps for what not to do in order to survive. The birth rate is the main problem and I don’t think it’s possible to reverse the trend, because of a strongly established mentality against big families and because of many constraints that have accumulated over the years. I live in Italy, where one or two children is the norm, although we have noticed in our area a trend toward having 3 children, but probably not enough to change the tendency of the last four decades. In Romania (my home country) is even worst. The result of all this is a society with few children, where people subject their freedom to a soft totalitarism chanelled through the school and media system. There’s no critical mass formed of those who still oppose and want to exercise their freedom and some bold choices, like homeschooling in America, are not contemplated here yet.
And then there’s the other aspect: by relaying so much on government assistance for schooling, maternity leave, health benefits, we basically became less resilient. Add to this the low birth rates and the fact that civilizations, like nature, don’t accept void, and you can see how a more resilient people (with more children and stronger beliefs) has started to occupy that void. And all this happens because Europe has opted for suicide.
Emma says
Hi Leila! I loved your advice on being realistic about 4 year olds and thought your ideas on integrating them into social life were great. However I have to concur with other commenters saying there isn’t really a “European” way of rearing children. The birth rate in France is same as the US for example (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.CBRT.IN) and they have formal schooling from a young age. Germany has a low birth rate and they don’t have universal daycare. And although universal daycare might remove choice for some families (i.e. for those who actively don’t send their kids to daycare rather than simply those who can’t afford it), it provides a great way to help kids in lower socio economic circumstances do well at school – which I believe is the reason countries with universal daycare support it, as they tend to favour less income and social inequality.
Leila says
Emma, thanks for your comment. All I can say is that one must take a step back and see the big picture. France’s birthrate has risen a bit, but it’s problematic to know what it means, as in France no distinctions can be made as to ethnic background. Thus, the birthrate is rising for those who have two parents born in France — but that doesn’t say anything about whether they are, in fact, French!
The only reason it matters is cultural, of course — whether there will be a society that is the thriving one that attracted people from elsewhere in the first place.
Germany does guarantee daycare for children over the age of 1. But what difference does it make if there are no children?
It’s simply incontrovertible that Europe as Europe is clinging to a memory and will disappear in the next generation. At some point, demographics just take over. Each country is different and has its own issues, of course. What they will become remains to be seen.
As to whether daycare helps those in lower economic classes, I haven’t seen data to support that. I don’t doubt that it’s the *reasoning.* It certainly enables both parents to work, and Europe is starved for workers. It’s not the only place where that is true, but since the writer of the question is living in Portugal, that is what I was discussing.
Helena says
Confused about what the statement’Europe as Europe’ means exactly. Please could you explain.
Mrs. B. says
Perhaps it would help to think of the idea of Europeans not working as much as Americans in terms of culture, not individual persons. In this sense, looking at the French law of the 35 hours, we could say it would be unthinkable here – but that doesn’t mean to imply that every single Frenchman is a lazy person who should be ashamed of himself. I don’t know if this helps.
Having European roots, I am scared for my birth country and the continent as a whole. I am scared of what they will look like when my nieces and nephews are grown. Oh, the premises of everything were so generous, after WWII: the economic boom following such a collective shock made governments promise to take care of everything – no more worries, no more inequalities. It worked while the “tax base” was big enough, and life became so comfortable, too much so. We have to face the truth that in general, not having children is a sign of selfishness, of an egocentric mentality. But now this is coming back to bite them: the costly programs have become unsustainably so, besides becoming more and more inefficient as they have to serve more and more people and have to be organized in bigger and bigger bureaucracies. The laws that were meant to protect you from losing your job and give you security have become an entry barrier that prevents your grown kids to land their first job, and in general, the largesse of the government has taken away the need to forge community bonds, as I think Corina was saying. I see this happening in America, as well: busybodies report kids walking home because they have no idea who their neighbors are – they can’t say: Oh, there go the Miller kids, on their way to the park as usual! Sometimes I think we’re all on our way to become Mrs. Jellybys, ready to save a mass of unknown faces, and thinking so well of ourselves for doing so, while completely oblivious of those right under our noses.
Well, end of rant 🙂
Mary Eileen says
This great post and thread have brought a couple things to the simmer in my mind over the last day or so.
For one, right before reading it I watched and enjoyed that new treacly Similac commercial about “the Sisterhood of Motherhood,” wherein various Mom gangs (the breastfeeding moms vs. formula vs. working vs. baby-wearing plus some cutesy stay-at-home-dads) converge on the playground and begin to sling funny slurs at each other, until somebody’s stroller starts to roll down the hill with a baby in it and everyone present realizes they have all the important things in common.
So the moral of the commercial is to stop judging each other and to remember that we are all parents first. On the one hand, this expresses something true and brings to mind something you said once, Leila, about being open to friends of all stripes, because you really never know who (perhaps despite all appearances) is actually deep down trying to do the same thing you are doing, and what you can teach and learn from each other over time.
On the other hand, from the perspective of a blog like this, it’s very sappy and annoying to be constantly told that every possible method of parenting is dandy when we know darn well that is not true. And we shouldn’t be afraid to call a spade a spade, not a big teaspoon.
The second thing is that I’ve been reading A Pattern Language here and there, which you recommended a little while ago. I LOVE this topic and my brain has been exploding a little here and there, with the OBVIOUS notions of how to live a human life and all the lovable hippy-ness (composting toilets, let’s do it).
Anyway I thought of that book because I was just the other night reading about the pattern for “Children’s Homes.” This is a pattern which imagines a substitute for the absence of lots of extended family and wonderful cousins and aunties in the very near vicinity to your house. It would be neither like a daycare nor a school. It would be someone’s house, to which your child would be assigned (along with a bunch of other kids) and where your child could go for a few hours or even as long as a week, just whenever. But you would pay to use it. Your child could have meals there or just go to play or hang out, whatever. And there are all different recommendations for how such a home could be designed.
Truthfully I find this pattern extremely disheartening, not encouraging and not inspiring at all. Basically pay someone to be the family members you lack. I personally have an extremely uncommon situation, which I realize more each day is almost unheard of among moms – living within a half mile of most of my six brothers and their wives and all their babies.
It can feel incredibly depressing to realize that a closely bonded family unit, making up a piece of a well-bonded social community of neighbors, is more or less a thing of the past. Children’s Homes. Yuck.
Then again, how much better is that idea than the idea that you wouldn’t need ANYWHERE for your children to go during the day at all – because they were at “school?” Who needs a home, genuine or faux, when you could just send them to the professionals right from the start?
Leila says
Dear Mary Eileen — I love your take.
Okay, so can we just step back a little from the Similac ad, make a disclaimer, and then figure it out?
Disclaimer: sometimes formula and bottles are needed. Got it. Further disclaimer: It’s a funny ad – especially when the guy says “it’s not all about breasts” and the other guys say, “Yes it is, yes. It is.” Further disclaimer: there are actually a lot of subtexts in this ad, including that line (which supports the formula-fed notion that the breast is exclusively sexual). I can’t go into all my thoughts here, but notice that it’s the men who are strong and fast enough to catch up to the carriage. (You’ll note that I finally did click 🙂
BUT — is not the message self-serving? The company sells formula and bottle feeding. They are not okay with the moms who need it being their only customers. They want all the moms and all the customers. Essentially, this is propaganda, and even their concession elsewhere (but tellingly, not here) to “breast-feeding is best” is propaganda to stave off criticism for profiting from cultural bias towards bottle feeding.
But even further — and again, taking a long view, not a personal one — bottle feeding supports a certain way of life because anyone can feed your baby. Thus, the woman is “free”in short order to regain her place in the work force. Widespread bottle feeding is a necessary component to the model of economics which values only the monetary contributions of the units of production; that is, the people.
(We, as Americans, approach this all from the idea of “personal choice,” but it’s quickly becoming something else — something the results of which we can see in other countries where there are virtually no children who are not imported, let’s not forget.)
There are countless differences in the ways that people bring up their children. When you take into account all the variations of temperament, situation, and circumstances, it would be the height of unreality to demand one, uniform mode of approaching child raising.
But of course there are unacceptable things people do.
How to navigate this? We have to have our ends in mind, like everything else. If the end or goal of any choice — even one that appears unacceptable to *me* — regarding child raising is the good of the child and the unity of the family, we can accept things we wouldn’t do ourselves, especially when we consider that we ourselves are always making mistakes and facing situations that baffle us.
But if the goal or end is to deny that there is a goal or end, or deliberately frustrates the goal or end, then we have to set our face against it. If your parenting choice, to take one I think everyone reading this would agree on, is to capture the win for your five-year-old in a beauty pageant, tarting her up in makeup and suggestive attire, then you are seriously misguided about your role as a mother and you need a reality check in the form of whatever constitutes an honest reaction from me. And I will wish you well, but I doubt we will be friends, if by friends we mean someone we can share important bits of our life with.
If the good of society rests upon strong families who share intimate bonds, then what purpose can be served by emptying the home, sending the parents to work and the babies to daycare? Other purposes, goals, and ends. But not society’s good.
Interestingly, the Similac ad trades on a sentimental version of agreement about the ultimate goal of motherhood — the good of the child (in this case, his physical safety in the stroller) — without acknowledging that there must be a whole host of choices that one makes along the spectrum of choices, from trivial to life-preserving, all of which tend towards or away from that ultimate goal. The trivial ones turn on preference and are meaningful only as they apply to THIS baby and THIS mother — for instance, carrying a baby in a sling, which may matter very much to one infant and not at all to another, and thus be outside any kind of universal determination, although they reflect *my* desire to do what is best for *this* child. Some are not about physical things at all – for instance, teaching right from wrong — I wonder which of the women in the ad would say that right and wrong are relative, and there is no way to teach a child about morality, nor should you.
When we make friends with all sorts of people, it’s only realistic to get over the idea that we will be finding other “me’s.” We will find other persons, with all their differences and takes on life. Sometimes they will make us shake our heads, but then, we will make them do the same, so it’s good to be a bit detached from our particular way of doing things.
BUT we are trying to find that basic understanding of aiming at the good and honestly, openly trying to pursue it. This is a very different thing from deliberately unhooking that part of our brain that considers and weighs the relationship between actions and what we understand as the nature of things.
What is served by this insistence (as exemplified in the ad) that judgements not be made? What is the result of accepting this philosophy that there are no wrong choices? The result is that the conscientious people concede the hard-won ground of true freedom. “Let’s agree to disagree and do it my way.” That’s tyranny.
You will remember that when I first talked about A Pattern Language I indicated that I don’t agree with all Alexander says or recommends. I do find it an incredibly fruitful way to look at things we take for granted.
In the book, I noticed two implicit criteria. One is a healthy respect for the way things are and for tradition — the reasonable, thoughtful person’s realization that life is not a rationalistic proposition, that experts can’t account for knowledge gained through experience, and that it’s dangerous to discard and deliberately dismiss a way of doing things just because it’s not reducible to some sort of formula.
The other criterion is that he accepts the premises of modernity in ways he doesn’t understand. He assumes the notion that the family will be limited. He might acknowledge that the town or city of the past centered around the church or cathedral (I can’t remember — it’s such a big book and I don’t have it handy right now). But he doesn’t see that without a spiritual center, a community cannot become what he wants it to be, and in fact will devolve to the level of whatever institution DOES loom above it. He succumbs without realizing it and against his own principles, to a sort of spiritual anti-subsidiarity, even though subsidiarity — the location of authority as near as possible to its source — is fundamental to his philosophy.
In suggesting the Children’s Home, he overreaches. He succumbs to that quintessential progressive trap: thinking that you can remake the givens of life — indeed, that there are no givens. He fails to abide by his own idea, which is to describe how things actually worked when people had access to the collective memory — that if you arrange things for maximum expression of what matters, like home and community and work (and worship), these details will take care of themselves.
If parents in a community want a little place for their young children to go for a few hours a week, then it will undoubtedly appear — as long as there aren’t a host of far-off big government regulations to suppress it. Where it’s not wanted, it won’t. Yes, there will be differences according to the wealth or poverty of the community, and that’s just life, and can change as people change their circumstances for better or worse. The meddlesome way doesn’t eliminate that reality, it just makes it so that ONLY the rich can have what they want.
Jenny says
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thought that formula commercial wasn’t all that and a bag of chips. I did notice the men rescued the child! And I thought the “Kum-ba-ya” at the end was weird because in real life, they wouldn’t all be congratulating each on how great they all are. What would really happen is that the baby-wearers would tell the stroller users that the incident wouldn’t have happened if she was wearing her baby. So, yeah, I was unimpressed.
Mary Eileen says
Dear Leila, Thank you sincerely for your fulsome response. It is very good to spell out that in a conversation about “judging others” – why it is legitimate, in various circumstances, to pass judgment on the appropriateness or prudence of another person’s decisions – what we are really talking about is discerning not only whether this or that method of achieving a result is good, but whether the actual result is one we should be seeking.
The sad dilemma we have to live with I think is caused by the confusion it seems many parents feel in understanding their goals. For example it IS important, in fact, for humans to develop the skills necessary for full participation in the life of the community and to absorb the customs and attitudes of the surrounding culture – aka for children to be “socialized.” It’s a fine thing for parents to realize they have part to play in the process by which their children become functioning members of society. But the goal seems very hard to grasp to for many parents. I can think of more than one friend who felt it was important for a child (perhaps an only child, or one with only one sibling) even as young as 9 months to go to daycare (for anywhere from a few to every day in a week), in order to have exposure to other children. This is because they recognize the changing street culture, they don’t ‘plan’ to have very many children, and they rightly see it as the easiest, if not only, way to get their kid into a gaggle of kids.
Of course there’s confusion on more than one level there, which definitely goes back to the Similac ad somehow – when did people forget that children under a year old are not normally even weaned? Don’t we know all the research about how and why children play, and that a 9 month old is still at a rudimentary (and comfortable) place of discovering his surroundings, NOT at a place of interacting with peers? That even 18 month olds are just beginning to engage in parallel play? It does seem that we all forgot babies belong at their mother’s breast REGARDLESS of whether that is their source of food, once we began to give bottles in large numbers. This is not a knock at bottle feeding if that is a road one finds oneself on – but more a nod to one of your old posts about how “every mother can nurse her baby.”
Back to the point which is that all parents recognize “socialization” as a process every child undergoes which they should aim to facilitate or at least not impede. I can respect a mother’s concern that her only baby will grow up to be weird because she isn’t having any more kids and there are no kids on the block. There’s no denial of the goal/good; and it is being pursued honestly with good intentions (“Since there aren’t a ton of kids playing on the street all day, I will give my child the opportunity to be with other kids by sending her to daycare three days a week for 8 hours.”) . But there is massive confusion about what the end result is supposed to look like!
It doesn’t help that children have the appearance of being very resilient and that they are so adaptable to their surroundings, leaving the impression that they are thriving in [name your modern day setting] when in fact they might be a little stunted.
Lastly I certainly did not make the mistake of believing that you endorse every aspect of Pattern Language and did have your cautionary words in mind. In some ways the flaws in the book’s philosophy make for interesting thought experiments…but mostly just leave you thinking “huh?” at missed connections.
His thoughts on bathrooms, might I add, really do leave me feeling quizzical.
Kristina Cyr says
Just a quick note about having our children be social when we are hosting guests: I recently hosted a large (80+ people) 40th birthday party at our home for my husband. We wanted to have our children be part of the festivities. My four sons (ages 12, 8, 5 and 2.5) ran a “greeting station” where they took our guests’ coat and helped them get name tags (in addition to our guests writing their names, we had them write what year they met the birthday boy- it was a great ice-breaker). My daughters (ages 14 and 10) ran a mobile photo booth: one carried a basket with the photo booth accessories and the other offered to photograph our guests with the accessories. All of the kids were a huge hit and we received many compliments from our guests. Around 9, I excused myself from the party for a bit and the 14 year old and I settled the kids down with a short movie in the master bedroom.
What made this all work is: we explained to the kids what each of their jobs were and we explained to them what the rhythm of the night would be. We also fed them before the party guests arrived. They were satisfied until it was time for dessert, which I had planned for them to have with us, so there was no badgering me for food. It was a great experience for all the kids.
Emily says
Your point in an earlier comment that we’re culturally not accustomed to having children around anymore really resonated with me. Just last week, I was asked if I was my kids’ nanny. Apparently our cultural norm has shifted so much that a 32 year old with four small children in tow is more likely to be their nanny than their mom! The woman who asked me was our neighbor’s nanny, and she herself is a mom to a 19 month old who she’s feeling pressure to wean so that she can send her off to daycare to “be socialized” while Mommy cares for somebody else’s child. Just by being at home with my kids in the middle of the afternoon, I’m getting to be maybe the only person in her life presenting an alternative to this sending-the-baby-to-daycare option. I love how you say it: “that young children can be at home, that a bit of wildness is to be expected, and that sending them to school every day is hard on them.” So true!
Therese says
For some reason, this Auntie Leila completely passed me by and I SO needed to read it. Probably because when it was posted it wasn’t relevant to me. This is exactly my family, except we are living in a different European country where I haven’t even been able to connect with other American families with 4 year olds at home. And my daughter (who was 3.5 at the time) acted exactly like this when trying to play with other families. Unfortunately, I just felt it was better for her and my younger one to just stop forcing it on her. I wish I would have payed attention to this post. Because it IS normal for a 3-4 year old to be bonkers. And though I know this, I was tired of having to defend my reasons for keeping her home! One mom made a comment to another mom within my earshot that I should have just put her in school and she wouldn’t need to act this way. But it’s so true, their children were just acting bonkers out of sight!
Though, we feel in our heart of hearts it is the right decision for us. She is in no way “behind” compared to her peers and I believe has learned how to better play/be involved with her siblings and our home. But man, it was difficult at times. She did feel left out that she wasn’t in school. And would complain she was not a “baby.” that’s why I stopped planning meetings with the other families and just focused on my family. Sometimes it’s best. But I so wish I had read this post again.
Ruth says
I know that this is a very old post, but I am reading this in an hour of need and greatly appreciative. My 3rd 4 year old is a 6 year old sized boy ready for the NFL. He has a tendency to treat all interactions like tackle football. Some busybodies think that school would “fix” him. I need to think more about what is developmentally appropriate for him and less about what people think of me as a parent. Children are so great for humility!