Puppies Recall, Children Fly

I’ve learned many things from having a new puppy. The most important being that there is a very big difference between raising puppies and raising children.

Yes, I know, that sounds like it should be obvious. But that’s the problem. I don’t think it is. And I don’t think I’m alone in this.

After all, puppies and babies are both bundles of joy that we love to cuddle and kiss and snuggle.

And they both need us to dote on them, love them and teach them how to live as members of our society.

Like many people do, I often think of my new puppy as the second baby I never had. And I often treat him that way too.

So what’s the problem?

The Apple Falls Far From The Tree

My son is twenty-two. So far, he has not lived up to the shining example of transitioning to adulthood that I set for him so many years ago.

When I was his age, I was a high school dropout with a toddler in tow. I had no clear idea of what I wanted to do with my life, or how I intended to support myself and my son. I was immature, irrational, and quite certain that money grew on trees. I was also possessed of a thick skull and a stubborn streak, both of which were very resistant to the learning of life’s lessons through my mistakes.

My son has failed to embrace this marvelous heritage.

For one thing, he graduated from college yesterday. He is now a graduate student with a vision for the life journey he’d like to carve for himself.

For another, he already demonstrates a level of maturity, rational thought and financial sensibility that remain (to my husband’s chagrin) foreign and incomprehensible to me.

But most importantly, at twenty-two, my son knows who he is. He is happy, well in his own skin, and full of life, love and laughter. A feat that took me decades to accomplish!

The apple of my eye, it seems, has fallen so very, very far from the tree :-)!

 

My Child Is Gone – It’s A Beautiful Thing!

I loved being a mommy.

When my son was born, I nuzzled his nose and fell head over heels in love with him.

He was my very own little person to love and nurture, and I could snuggle and cuddle and kiss him to my heart’s content.

I knew immediately that motherhood was the greatest gig on the planet.

As my son grew older, though, my mommy role changed. Cuddling and snuggling were replaced with homework help, driving lessons, and, one day, a ride to college.

For years, I secretly yearned to have my little boy back, the one who needed me to hug him, kiss him, and make his booboos all better.

Fortunately, despite having me as his mother, my son has completely failed to fail-to-launch.

He graduates from college next week.

My child is gone. My days of motherhood are over.

And I’ve never been happier.

It took me a long, long, long, looooooong time – but I finally realized that motherhood is not about me. It never was.

Motherhood was only ever about me giving all of myself for my son – love, worry, fear, hope, money, time – in hopes that, if I was truly lucky, one day, he would:  leave me, thrive without me, and even, fall in love with, and cuddle, someone other than me.

The entire purpose and hope of the journey of motherhood is for it to end.

My child is gone.

In his place is an amazing man.

And with this man, I’m embarking on a new journey – a journey of friendship.

Unlike motherhood, the journey of friendship is a journey that need never end.

It turns out that the end of motherhood is just the beginning of a beautiful, beautiful thing!

A Shorter Lifespan – Giving Our Children An Early Edge?!

I’m not sure what amazes me more – the research studies that we humans perform, or the conclusions we choose to draw from those studies.

Take this article about a recent study: “How Red Squirrels Are Like Tiger Moms”

The very first sentence says, “Red squirrel moms know how to give their offspring an early edge in a crowded forest.”

Research, the article claims, has shown that squirrel moms can intentionally increase the size of their offspring, and hence increase their chances of survival, by using the same magic ingredient as Tiger Moms everywhere – stress! From the initial tone of the article, this would appear to be a good thing.

Except, it turns out that in the study, the squirrel moms themselves didn’t actually do anything to “give an early edge” to their offspring. It was their intrinsic hormone response to stress that influenced the size of their babies.

A stress, I feel compelled to add, that the researchers introduced in order to study the impact of stress on poor mommy squirrels. I doubt the mommy squirrels had any idea what was going on.

Certainly to liken squirrel moms to Tiger Moms is misleading. Tiger Moms actively structure their children’s lives.  Any stress that occurs is a result of an intentional act.

The so called “edge” afforded by said stress is a result of two very different mechanisms. One is a physiological response. One is a parenting style.

And the edge in question comes at a heavy price.

For although the baby squirrels were born bigger, giving them a greater chance of survival due to their larger size, they also had shorter life spans due to the increased exposure to stress hormones in utero.

Despite this pesky little side effect, the researchers suggest that the study proves that stress may not be as bad as we have thought.

The article cites Ben Dantzer as saying, “Despite the widespread perception that being stressed is bad, our study shows that high stress hormone levels in mothers can actually help their offspring.”

Um, living long enough to die young may be construed as a benefit in the squirrel world, but it’s not exactly the edge I think we should be striving to give our children.

Not to mention the fact that the study says nothing of what the stress does to mom. I think it’s a bit of a leap to hint that this study proves that “stress…the key to the mother’s gift,” may be a good thing.

If anything, the study proves the opposite.

Because, ostensibly, we humans are more enlightened than squirrels – although I question this assertion – and theoretically, as such, we would consider that which could shorten our children’s lifespan to be the opposite of giving them an edge.

So, researchers performed a study which involved playing recordings of territorial squirrel vocalizations to stress out mommy squirrels.

The researchers discovered that squirrels have a physiological response to stress that causes them to give birth to bigger babies who also happen to have shorter life spans.

They call this an edge, and liken it to the edge that Tiger Moms give to human children.

Seriously?!

It’s Okay to Lie to Kids if Society Says it is

It’s that time of year again, the time when a big bunny lays and hides a bunch of yummy chocolate eggs for children to find.

Never mind that bunnies don’t lay eggs…..this is what a big bunny does on Easter. At least, that’s what we tell our children.

In fact, the Easter Bunny is only one of the many lies that society has deemed to be acceptable to teach, as truthful, to our young trusting children.

Here are some others:

• A big fat dude will come down the chimney and bring you lots of gifts. That is, only if you’re good. And leave him milk and cookies.
  • On a side note, at any other time of year, if some other dude with toys comes along, he is dangerous, don’t talk to him, and don’t give him cookies.
  • Nor is it okay, at any other time of year, to sit on a strange man’s lap and tell him exactly where you live so he can bring you presents.
  • But Santa is real.
• If you place your tooth under your pillow, some tiny fairy will give you money for it.  How awesome is that!
  • Of course, it is best not to ask questions like – why does she want your teeth, and what if she gets greedy for them? And what else might she take when she comes?

Is it any wonder that the aliens came, took one look at Earth, decided we humans were the nuttiest species ever, and left?

As an adult, it astounds me that we have made it okay to lie to our children.

Some would argue that generations of children have grown up with Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, and are no worse for it.

But how do we know this? How do we know that these tales haven’t contributed to trust issues in our adult life?

For passing these tales off as true is a breach of the trust a young person places in adults.

Take Santa. When I was a child, it wasn’t just my parents who fooled me with this one, it was every adult in my young life. The people that I trusted told me that Santa was real. And I believed it. Because I trusted them, and that’s what kids do.

And, yet, one day, on the playground, standing up for what I knew to be true, because I trusted the people who had told me that it was true, I was ridiculed and laughed at for still believing in Santa Claus.

But, ironically, shortly later, when I started asking those same adults questions about Santa, I was told that if I didn’t stop questioning the truth of Santa, I would get no toys that year.

I was confused. The kids made me feel ashamed for believing. And the adults made me feel ashamed for doubting. Who to trust?

When I later found out that Santa did not exist, I felt silly and embarrassed. Santa was a joke, a story that only little kids believed, and I was the fool who bought it.

Yet, I’d only believed in Santa because the people I had trusted had told me to.

I’d been duped, and it did not feel good.

How could we see this as anything but an abuse of a child’s trust? And how can we justify a claim that abusing a child’s trust is not harmful?

No, I’m not going to blame all my neuroses on the Santa lie, but it makes me wonder.

Why have we as a society deemed it acceptable to tell these lies to children?

And more importantly, why do we continue to do it?

We’ve turned the whole “learning that Santa is a fraud” event into a childhood rite of passage and convinced ourselves that that somehow makes it okay.

“Haha, joke’s on you, but guess what? Now that you’ve figured it out, you’re officially no longer a baby! You’ve completed the transition to big kid status. Congratulations!”

Talk about putting a positive spin on violating a child’s trust while simultaneously invalidating their feelings of hurt and betrayal!

The irony is that we tell these lies to our children as part of the so-called fun of giving them gifts.

Yet, in so doing, we rob them of the greatest stories and gifts we have to give them.

What if, instead of bunnies that lay eggs, fat men that come down chimneys, and fairies that pay for teeth, we told our children these true, and extremely cool stories:

• Mommy and daddy work hard and save money all year long so that they can splurge and shower you with gifts.
  • And, for children whose parents struggle financially, the presents under your tree are the result of the generosity of others.
  • And for children who have few/no gifts under the tree, it isn’t because they were bad.
• When you lose a tooth, let’s do something cool to celebrate.
• In the spring you’ll spend a whole day playing fun games and at the end, everybody will gorge themselves and fall into a chocolate induced coma.
  • You’ll do the same thing again in the fall, except it will be too cold to play outside, instead, you’ll dress up in cool costumes and knock on doors for candy.
• And the coolest story of all – You can trust that the things that mommy and daddy tell you are true, really are true!

And what if, in addition to chocolate and candy and toys and trinkets, we give our children these amazing gifts, gifts they can keep with them for a lifetime:

• Truth
• Honesty
• Trust

How cool would that be?

Pretty cool I think!