Ask and Ye Shall Recieve!

Before I go forward, let me preempt this (and all future entries, by proxy - that's right Sarah - I am giving a "Gumpert Disclaimer") by saying this: I love my friends and I love my friend's children. If I criticize the behavior a child, it's a personal opinion and while it IS a reflection on you as a parent, it is NOT a reflection of my opinion of you as my friend - your parenting techniques does not change my opinion of you in the slightest. It is not meant to forshadow that Olivia will become President of the United States while your kid is flipping burgers at the nearest Burger King (hollah to my homies from the B-ville BK!) with one finger in his/her nose while contemplating the definition of "ambition". We ALL choose to raise our kids differently as we are ALL the products of our own environments growing up. I am able to distinguish that who you are (the person I love) is raising a child the way you see fit. I can love you (and your parenting) in spite of your kid's shenanigans. No child is the same, no parent is the same. But I DO believe that there are certain, fundamental things that define our generation of parents from the generation we all grew up in. More on that in a bit.

Moving on.

This past Saturday, the stars aligned, my sun sign was in Jupiter, and I saw a pig fly by window - well at least it felt like it. For the first time in months I got a chance to sit down with a cup of coffee and talk on the phone with one of my dearest friends. Every mommy out there can relate with the idea that there comes a point in your life when you start making appoitments to have phone calls with the (adult) people who matter most to you. Coordinating this type of phone call between TWO moms is just about as impossible as lighting a candle with a strong wind blowing.

As we chatted about our kids, the conversation shifted, slowly, to a more global discussion on parenting and our parenting styles.

When Olivia was still nothing more than an idea, my husband and I talked endlesslessly about the types of parents we wanted to be. I grew up in a household with strict limitations. My husband grew up in a household with none. You can imagine my reaction when I learned that he believed that teenages shouldn't have curfews as long as they are responsible and get good grades. Right - because the kids with good grades are NEVER the ones that get into trouble at all hours of night. Never. Ever.

I mentioned earlier that I believe that there are key, fundamental differences between the generation me and my peers were raised in and the generation that we are raising kids in. When I really sit back and think about what these differences are, I am able to come up with the following:
1) We are in the generation of the working mom. Other than gender equality, there is nothing great about this. More than ever, households need two incomes to survive. The result? A bunch of moms who carry with them a guilt that they don't get to spend much time with their kids. I see Olivia a whopping 1.5 hours a weekday - including daycare travel time and cooking dinner. The result of this maternal guilt is that we don't want the small increments of time we DO get to spend with our kids to be spoiled with time-outs and the enevitable crying that comes with it.
2) We are raising kids in a generation of instant gratification and lax parenting. The other day I was reading a local mom magazine that had a four page article on "Free Range Parenting" - the most incredible thing to me is that everything that was included in this article was EXACTLY how I was raised. There is a TERM for it now? But in the era of too-much-information, a mom has everything to worry about: from preservatives to aspertame, from drinking water to diaper cream, from lead-painted toys from china to carseat recalls. Addmittedly, my parenting philosophy is this: If I did it and it didn't kill me, Olivia can too. Now, if there is some new research that specifically an unequivocally identifies a link between the play-doh and cancer, I will OF COURSE reevaluate the 50-gallon barrel of play-doh I have stowed in my garage for the day when Olivia could play with it.
3) Today's generation of parent is weak. We have this incredible aversion to listening to our parents when it comes to basic parenting (by basic parenting I mean eating, sleeping, discipline and boundary setting as opposed to computer usage, television viewing, etc... too much has changed in the last 20 years so we are "on our own" to some extent with the more mature subject matter). The difference between our parents and us is that mom and dad were NOT afraid to tell us "No" and they ingrained into us that there would be consequences for talk-back. It didn't come easily to mom and dad to be so mean to us. Look into the eyes of your son or daughter when you tell them "no" and their tears well in their little eyes, their lip pouts and they cry as though they were in the greatest pain imaginable - and then TRY to remember when mom or dad switched their position and said "oh - ok... please don't cry. I'm sorry". I can tell you in my house it didn't happen. When the answer was "no", crying got you sent to your room until you could calm down. Why do we have such an aversion to listening to our parents? Is it JUST that we "don't want to be like them"? Is it JUST the idea that "this is MY kid and I can do it on my own"? If that were true - then basically you are saying that you don't like YOURSELF... your parents raised you to be the person you are today. If you love your husband, you have mom and dad to thank for giving you the right idea of what you were looking for. If you are proud of your career, you have mom and dad to thank for the drive they instilled in you and the support that they gave you as you developed through school and beyond.

When I was collecting my thoughts for this week's blog, I decided to ask my facebook friends what they would like to see on my blog. Here is where the real fun begins!

Two friends asked about how to get their children to sleep through the night. Now, provided that your child is OLD enough to sleep through the night (meaning that they are not so young that they should be regularly waking up for feedings), the suggestion I have is the simplest/hardest thing you will ever have to do - but there are few factors involved in this answer:

1)If your baby isn't TIRED they will NOT sleep through the night. Rocket science, I know. The ONLY thing that got Olivia to regularly sleep through the night was a consitant nap schedule during the day. Without a good nap routine, you have NO hope for an overnight sleeper. I have my mom to thank for this. Olivia woke up at 6:30am. If she didn't wake up, we woke her up. That's right - we woke her up. There is NO sleeping late. Mommy and daddy hated it, but the change in Olivia was so stark that we couldn't bear to sleep late. Olivia would be put down for her nap every day at 9:30 and 2:30. It didn't matter if she was tired or not and now, as she gets older, it doesn't matter if she sleeps or not. That time is "quiet time" - she can do with it what she likes. We keep no toys in her bedroom (or if there are toys they are put away) so that there is no desire to play. I would rather my living room be a mess if it means that she is going to sleep in her bedroom. Each of these naps were two hours. If she slept later, we would wake her up. By the time 7:00pm rolls around, that kids is TUCKERED OUT. Now, at 6:50, Olivia will grab me or her fathers hand, grab her favorite stuffed animal and her nuk and drag US to her bedroom for bedtime.

2) If your child DOES wake up in the middle of the night: Listen to the cry. Is something wrong? Or is your little one just calling to you. If they are calling to you, let them sit for a little bit. They may fall back asleep. If they begin to CRY for you - go in (leave the lights off!!), make sure they covered, that they have their favorite things with them and LEAVE THE ROOM. By picking them up, soothing them or stroking their hair, you are conditioning them to NEED you to fall back asleep. I say this as a parent who tried EVERYTHING to get Olivia to sleep through the night. Finally, my desire to keep my own sanity in check allowed me the strength regularly walk out of the room and not come back. If Olivia's cries turned from sadness to panic, I repeated the routine. This is the HARDEST WEEK OF CONDITIONING YOU WILL EVER HAVE TO GO THROUGH but by the time a kid is old enough to be able to sleep through the night without waking up, its time to play hardball.

3) Lastly, and most importantly, do not deviate from the routine - every. single. day. No excuses. We will work our entire day around being home for naptimes and being home in time for bed. The ONE exception was on Halloween when we took Olivia trick-or-treating. She was 18 months old and could handle it (but she didn't get to sleep in the next day!) Now that Olivia's closer to two, we DO skip naps from time to time, but bedtime is a non-negotiable. Yes, it sucks. Yes, you want to hang out with people after dark - but having Olivia not acting like a terrible two in the grocery store is FAR more desireable.

The other question I got from a friend was how to "survive mobility". I LOVE the way she worded it. Here is where the "Jenn's a bad parent" letters start flowing into my inbox. Ready? I don't childproof. There. I said it - it's so LIBERATING!!!!!

I have plug covers on every plug in the house for the sake of OTHER people's kids. I started telling Olivia "no" when she was 5 months old. "No plug". "No table". "No wire". Sometimes, at 18 months, she gets defiant and devilishly touches a lamp wire the interaction goes as such:

"Olivia. No. Wire." *touch touch touch* "Olivia. No. Wire. 1.... 2.... 3" at which point Olivia goes into time-out for one minute. IF she comes out of time-out early (which is rare as she is VERY used to time out), I add a minute. I DO use the Suppernanny methodology of discipline (so does my daycare provider which is SO important cause she is reinforcing what I am doing at home).

As a result, Olivia closes doors, rather than opens them. She doesn't TOUCH the cabinets (she has be taught not to). She doesn't touch the dishwasher. She doesn't open the refridgerator. She doesn't touch plugs or lamps or glass-top tables. She has been walking since she was 8 months old and by 10 months, most of the "No Cabinet" discussions were over.

So when it comes to childproofing my philosophy is pretty simple: Teach the child not to touch it, rather than challenging them to break into it.

I have heard HORROR stories about kids that will do ANYTHING to get into the cabinet. Wouldn't you? If someone told you not to do something and then, on top of it, gave you a little puzzle to figure out that would let you INTO it? Literally - cabinets ripped off the hinges! Drawer faces pulled clean off the drawer!

So, hang in there moms and dads! No one ever said that parenting was easy - but we have a responsibility to our kids to do the RIGHT thing rather than the easy thing! Don't let the judgement of the parents next to you (who wouldn't DREAM of telling their kid "no" in public) sway you from the mission you have to raise a well-rounded kid with set boundaries!!!

United - we stand - divided... well, our kids run through the grocery store, half-naked, with a giant box of sugared cereal clutched in their hands as they threaten to call DCFS from their cell phone.