Category Archives: no manual for parenting

My Chinese babysitter is going to FIRE me soon

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I sometimes feel very sorry for my children: because how I am caught between two worlds, they too are caught between two worlds.

Many of you have commented on my responses to the Tiger Mom Controversy with great insight, grace and kindness. One comment that made me pause and reflect upon the factual state of what I am doing to my children came from MacDougal Street Baby:

Nobody knows what happens behind closed doors. We can pontificate all we want about how others are raising their kids but, really, there’s no way to know what’s going on. Believe in your own way. Trust yourself. And then deal with the fallout.

It is this unwavering conviction that has been eluding me ever since I became a parent. I am torn between the “Chinese way of parenting” and the, for the lack of a better term, “Modern American” way.

So I wobble.

One day I am a Chinese mother. The next day I am an American mother. I feel so schizophrenic and now am worried what this kind of wishy-washy parenting is doing to my children: they have no way of knowing which mother will be greeting them every morning. It is like living with Eve White.

Either way, I am constantly feeling guilty because of the pressure coming from both sides.

I am either too strict and overprotective or too lenient and permissive.

The worst would be when I am “confronted” by other Chinese parents either in this country or back home.

I am not kidding when I mentioned my brother asking me whether he could discipline my children on my behalf. “Just a slap on the face will solve all your problems!” In fact, he did not even need my approval since he is my elder brother and as their uncle, he has all the “right” to discipline my children the way he sees fit. Even my nephew, who was a so-called “problem child” in his youth  (with petty misdemeanors, unfinished high school and truancy which constituted as “family scandals” that shall not be spoken of, and who, one would thought, should hate this kind of heavy-handed, literally, parenting style), asked quite a few times with exasperation, “What do you mean you cannot beat your child? Oh I am telling you, it pangs me to watch them misbehave so much that my hands are itching. Could I please just hit them upside the head?”

(If you are wondering WHAT crime did my children commit to deserve such wrath? My kids were simply, according to the American standard, “being independent, rambunctious boys”.)

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We have a babysitter that comes every morning to accompany Mr. Monk to his bus stop: I have to leave before that in order to catch my train downtown and my husband travels a lot. We are now on our second babysitter who started last month. Our babysitter does not need this job: she lives in a house bigger than ours and drives a Mercedes. As a fellow Chinese, she is doing this as a favor for me and for that, I am very grateful. But I am afraid that she is going to quit very soon.

Mr. Monk was reading at the kitchen table and ignoring both of us when we asked him what he would like for lunch. I could see his finger moving across the page. I could tell that he was frantically trying to get to a place where he could stop without losing his place on the page.

He is a child of many peculiarities since birth. I have learned to go along with these special requirements of his to keep a smooth and orderly existence. I have learned the hard way.

If it were his elder brother at the table this morning? I would have punished him for blatantly ignoring me.

“You are very permissive. I would have snatched that book away this instant.” My babysitter commented in Chinese.

I explained to her what Mr. Monk was trying to do and his needing such an order in his life.

“You should have fought to get him to change. You should have made him change through persistence. If it were my daughter, I would have taken that book away already.”

I made some feeble attempt to explain why I did not. Could not. “He’d be harping on this for the rest of the day if I did so. Maybe even tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. He’ll remember this for the rest of his life.”

“My daughter remembers everything too. Oh she fought but I persisted. You just have to be persistent and make them change their ways. It is not possible for him to not change if you just work harder.”

“You must have been very strict with your daughter?” I asked, as a compliment.

“Yes, I was.” She beamed with pride as she should since her daughter is now a VP at a prestigious investment bank on Wall Street.

“Oh she hated me back then. I am pretty sure she hated me but I persisted. She is very nice to me now, she calls me all the time. I think she finally understands why I needed to do what I did. She can see now.”

“You know, I cannot do that.” I admitted to her. “It must have taken a lot of strength on your part to remain strict.” I stopped short at telling her, “But I need my children to like me, and I cannot stand the thought that they may hate me.”

“Yes.” She paused. “But I did what I had to do.”

In traditional Chinese culture, (Warning: Gross generalization ahead. Buyer beware!) your success as a parent is not evaluated by how happy your children are but by how obedient they are when young and how successful they are when grown-up. Providing your children with a happy childhood is not a requisite for being a good mother. I am not suggesting that Chinese parents go out of their way to make their children miserable but rather that IT is not a priority.  Or rather, the definition of happiness is quite different, and also who gets to define happiness is debatable since we were often told, “You don’t know what you want. You don’t know what will make you happy. You will know when you are older.”

I am happy for her and for her daughter’s accomplishment. As I said, I am grateful for her coming here every morning so that I could keep my job. But it feels like an indictment of me as a parent every single morning. I will be getting out of the house as soon as she arrives from now on.

The Need for Convenient Justification

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This is a different reaction from my reading of the controversy surrounding Amy Chua’s WSJ article, “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior?”

Yesterday, I said, Bring it on! The can of worms has been opened! Today, I will continue to clear this raging case of “Oh oh oh I have something to say Pick Me Pick Me” via pontificating on my blog.

Disclaimer needed, again: I am not agreeing with Chua’s parenting style. This is simply ONE of my reactions as all these conflicting thoughts racing through my brains…

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Like many, I felt great anxiety and anger when I was reading Chua’s article. But I get anxious easily when it comes to parenting. Heck, I felt like screaming when I watched a holiday video from a Chinese friend showing her kids playing piano AND violin at a recital, speaking fluent Chinese AND French. Again, not because I wished my kids were better but because that video, akin to a resume for the future “survival of the fittest” audition, raised my anxiety level over whether I am doing enough to prepare my children for their future. And you know what? I wish my friend were a Tiger Mom, so I could easily dismiss her accomplishment as a parent by thinking, “Well, but her kids are like robots, and she is cold and unemotional.” They are not, and she is not.

To parent like this (ok, sans the name calling, BUT I did call my kids dumbasses more than once when they were, well, being dumbasses), it takes a lot of dedication and efforts. I am too selfish to devote myself like that to my children.  I cannot even spend an hour every day teaching my children Chinese. It really is easier to say, “To hell with it. Who needs to know Chinese anyway? [Ha!]” than to deal with all the crying and resisting. I WANT my children to like me. I don’t want to be the mean parent. My husband can be the bad cop. Me? I want to be the good cop.

I thank Amy Chua, not for the article since I knew all about “The Chinese Way of Parenting” and there was no surprise there, but for the 7000+ hateful comments and the public condemnations.  They reassured me, “Hey, what I am doing or not doing is OK. She thinks she is so successful, and her children are so successful, and her family is so successful, but you know what? They are all zombies with no emotions. And the Americans, including the Chinese Americans, HATE her.” Hopefully when I go home this February, when my parents cannot communicate with my children because they do not speak English, when people ask me why my children cannot speak Chinese and how come so-and-so’s American grandchildren can not only speak but read and write fluent Chinese and why I did not beat their asses so they would learn Chinese against their will, when my brother asks for the Nth time whether it is ok if he gives my independent children a beating and I say “Of course not” and he relents with a sigh “Americans…”, I will feel less like a failure.

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As the kids and I hurried along Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago this Sunday night in the freezing temperature, I spotted a mother bundled up with her two children on the sidewalk. There was a can in front of them with a few coins inside. She was trying to cover the little one’s head with a tiny scarf. My heart skipped a beat. I stopped to give her some money and quickly walked away. My oldest patted my arm as we walked further.

“It is freezing. Those kids must be freezing.” I said. “I don’t know why she’s sitting on the sidewalk in the cold. There are shelters. Doesn’t she know there are shelters?”

In an effort to comfort me, he said, “I heard a story about this guy who would go into the city every day and beg and then every night he comes home to a big house and car and everything.”

“Do you know why this story became so popular and everybody likes to talk about it?”

“Because it gives you the justification you need for not doing anything?”

“Exactly.”

If it is round and comes in pairs…

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My boys are becoming more and more uncouth each day, and I am not doing anything about it because deep down I think I am a 13-year-old boy.

I am going to blame it on Austin Powers though. Lately they have been watching Austin Powers. All three of them. Yeah. I know.

Mr. Monk loved all the bathroom humors and antics and in fact, was so excited that he could not sit still,  jumping up and down through the movie. I could hear his excited, high-pitched laugh all the way downstairs through the closed door to the master bedroom where the TV is.

Nowadays the easiest way to start a fit of giggling around our house is to show them something round, and in pairs.

The boys saw the failed muffins

and decided that the muffins looked like boobs.

Mr. Monk: Oh mom!  They look like, you know, boobs!

12-year-old: (To his brother, with his mouth stuffed with one of the burned and misformed muffin tops) Hmm. If you don’t want to eat your boobs, I will have your boobs.

Me: (Trying not to laugh) Do not make fun of boobs.

Mr. Monk: Yeah. We would have died without boobs. You know mommy would not have been able to feed us… and we would have starved.

Me: Staying out of this topic because I did not want to explain to him, again, that I only breastfed for less than two weeks

12-year-old: Or we would not even have been born if daddy were not attracted by mom’s boobs…

Fortunately, at this moment, the conversation was derailed by my asking Mr. Monk what he was doing [No. Don’t ask] and we moved onto a discussion of penis vs. balls vs. ball sack vs. scrotum.

Boobs and balls. Boobs or balls? Boobs or balls?! Cake or death?! (Sorry. Got carried away a bit over there…)

Hey, at least we are using the correct anatomical terms.

The Unnecessary Saga of the Travelling Jacket

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I have no idea what’s been going on with me as a mother. The fact that I am away from home on a business trip while leaving mu children to the care of a babysitter does not bode well for my chance of winning Mother of the Year anyway. But I did figure out why I am loving people over the Internet so much better in real life.

You do not witness my suckiness up close and personal.

You do not get to witness my parenting fails.

You do not get to be rubbed the wrong ways by my mere presence. My smugness. My suburban privileged life. My undeserved whining. My coy yet relentless pursuit of youthful appearances.

For that, I am grateful.

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Mr. Monk my recently-turned-8 younger child came home with the wrong jacket last Tuesday. It was size XL, way too big for him. When I finally noticed it on Wednesday afternoon, I rushed over to the care facility where he had to stay that Monday and Tuesday because school was out and I had to work on those days.

I made the director at the center check the coat hooks. The cubbies. Different classrooms. I made her call the “suspects” aka kids who were also there on Monday and Tuesday and were BIG enough to be wearing a size XL jacket.

No dice.

I became more and more indignant.

What kind of parents would not notice that their son had gone home with a jacket that’s too SMALL for him?! Wouldn’t they have noticed by now since it is freezing?! Are they keeping our better and brand new (!) jacket on purpose?! Jerks!

I was also mad, unfairly, at my child for coming home with the wrong jacket and for not noticing it till Wednesday afternoon, the day before Thanksgiving, with the entire weekend forecast to be cold cold cold. And on top of that, I had to rush to get everything ready for Thanksgiving. It was hugely inconvenient to say the least. [Oh how I sound like a spoiled brat inside my own head!]

I had purchased the jacket from Gap when there was a 35% off sale. I did not want to pay full retail price. Mr. Monk did not want anything else but his old jacket back because he had been wearing the same style for several years. And if you ever wonder why I am calling him Mr. Monk in this blog: Extremely dislike of changes or disruption to routines and sensory sensitivities.

It was my personal, trivial, perfect storm.

Oh it was a saga alright. Albeit a perfectly unnecessary one. And if I really think about it, quite embarrassing and I really should not be writing about it for the world to know… (i.e. of course I absolutely need to blog about it…)

There have been quite a few coupons floating around in the Cyber space for Gap but none of them could be used for in-store purchase AND the online store did not have the jacket any more. There was ONE left in our local store and I do have a 35% off coupon for in-store but that did not become effective until this Friday. So on Wednesday, after much whining from Mr. Monk and everybody else that had to help him zip up the hand-me-down-too-big-and-a-bit-tattered-with-a-non-working-zipper jacket, I broke down. I called the store in the morning and asked for the jacket to be held for me till the end of day. I drove over there at night and lo and behold, the road to the mall was closed. No problem. I would take the detour. When I finally got there, with 10 minutes till closing time, LOOK! Best parking space ever! Why? Because the entire mall was shut down due to power outage!

I went back again the next day, clearly agitated, and paid for the jacket in full price, fully aware that if I had waited one more day, I could have got the jacket at 35% off. But I did not want to risk the possibility that someone could have walked in the store on Friday morning and snatched that stupid prized jacket away from me.

I hate paying full price. I absolutely hate paying full price for clothing items. I really really do. I hate it. Hate it. HATE IT!

I came home with the jacket and guess what? The zipper did not work!

By then Mr. Monk was so defeated and had come to terms with the fact that he simply had to live without his jacket. [Oh the Horror!] It was like Morgan Freeman telling me to give up on this stupid prized jacket and hop over to Lands’ End to order a jacket with their 40% off +Free Shipping promotion. I bit the bullet and ordered a damned jacket and by doing this, I triggered some Cosmic Law about lost clothing items:

Guess what? The jacket, the original one, came back.

When I picked up Mr. Monk from the weekly Chinese school on Sunday, he presented me with the beloved jacket.

I was horrified.

For this meant many things:

1. I did not notice that he had come home with the wrong jacket for an entire weekend PLUS the Monday AND Tuesday AND Wednesday Morning.

2. I had shown my indignation by mistake.

3. I now need to track down the too-large-jacket that he had come home with [Are you still with me?!] that I had shoved into the hands of the childcare facility director, mind you, with great, visible, indignation and annoyance.

4. I need to go over and pick up the jacket from the childcare facility director with my newfound humility and embarrassment, offering up apologies for causing her so much unnecessary trouble.

5. Then I need to bring the jacket back to the mother of the jacket’s owner who asked incredulously, “You mean, you did not notice it was the wrong jacket when you picked up your child last time?!”

She proceeded to tell me how she had made her son wait with her when the school ended.

“I told him that for sure the mother would notice that the jacket does not belong to her child and she would bring it back right away! How can you not notice that the jacket is too big?!” She laughed jocusingly (Joking + Accusing). And then she said it again for good measure, “You mean you really did not notice it until later that day?”

I did not tell her that not only did I NOT notice it that Sunday, I did not notice it until the following Wednesday afternoon…

As I was leaving the Chinese school with my boys in tow, crestfallen, embarrassed (Did I ever tell you that “fear of embarrassment” is one of the two driving forces in my life?), I was accosted by another mother who made an effort to traverse all the moving and converging children in the hallway to deliver her assessment of my appearance that day,

“You really do look cute in that age.” She delivered her line with a smug expression, indicating the hat I am wearing, pointing it out to the young girls surrounding us (who probably are in the right demographics to be sporting this hat…)

Bah Hum Bug! The hat I am sporting this winter season...

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Did I ever tell you that I hate Other Mothers even though in a different telling of this story, I am probably That Mom?

I am on the down cycle (i.e. Y < 0 ). Catch you all when I come up from below the X axis…

Let Them Eat Cake

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The night before Thanksgiving my then 7-year-old boy, Mr. Monk, found it difficult to fall asleep because he was giddy with excitement: grandparents and uncle were flying to celebrate the holiday with us, and his birthday fell on Thanksgiving this year.

“Mom, you know why I love Thanksgiving?”

“Why?” I asked, knowing he was excited about his birthday and the presents.

“Because I can ask you to cook and you wouldn’t ask, ‘So are you going to eat it?’ And you wouldn’t be too busy to cook.”

Yeah, I am Mother of the Year.

Because of his temperament, Mr. Monk has never really looked forward to a big birthday party at one of those dreadful places with crappy rides, screaming ruffians and giant horrid animals (Think: Chuck E Cheese). Since his birthday is always in the Thanksgiving week, he is content, and possibly happier, to simply celebrate it with the grandparents.

This year though I feared that he might have been shortchanged. On the morning of his birthday, after I wished him a Happy Birthday with lots of kisses and hugs, I started dishing out assignment for him to help get the house ready for our guests from out of town.

“I know it’s your birthday, but Thanksgiving takes precedence today!”

Mother Of The Year.

To make it up for him, I let him help me prepare the dishes.

The morning after Thanksgiving, I was beat. I slept till 10:30 am when Mr. Monk came to wake me up.

“Mom. Mom. Mom. Wake up. WAKE UP!”

“GO AWAY!”

It took me another half an hour to remember that it was supposed to be his “make-up birthday” day.

Mother. Of. The. Year.

I sort of made it up for him by letting him help crack the eight eggs required for the recipe, zest the lemons, squeeze lemons with the citrus press, bake his own birthday cake, make the frosting, and frost the cake.

This was our first try at making a “fancy” cake (i.e. NOT cupcakes) from scratch complete with homemade frosting: When I saw Velva’s Luscious Lemon Cake on her blog Tomatoes on the Vine, I knew I had to make this for Mr. Monk because

1) he’s been begging for a homemade birthday cake forever (Remember he somehow envisions me to be some sort of a June Cleaver without even knowing about June Cleaver)

2) he loves the lemon loaf at Starbucks (and yes it IS indeed kind of embarrassing how familiar he is with Starbucks)

The results?

The cake was a hit! (Thanks, Velva!)

Mr. Monk had loads of fun in the kitchen with mom and grandma.

And he LURVed the lemon frosting.

It was well worth it even though I burnt the hand mixer making it, with smoke coming out of it and all…

So.

Mother of the Year?

Mens Size Small

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This Sunday I dragged my kids shopping.

I would like to emphasize how unusual this was: I am not crazy. I do not go shopping with them any more because I treasure my sanity and I dislike turning into a banshee inside the store. My secret banshee identity is reserved for inside the house, away from prying eyes. Thank you very much. I shop online. I shop online for everything, including shoes for everybody. But there was a rumor that it would start snowing on Sunday night. And that it would continue to snow the whole week. (Later I checked online and could not find any evidence of such a rumor even existed. I decided to change my radio alarm clock away from the classic music station because Mozart must have given me that piece of false intel when I was still groggy at 6:45 am on a Sunday morning… I was perhaps extremely susceptible to such intel because of 20 Prospect’s pictures of snow-covered MLPS which is only, after all, 7-hour drive away.)

I was on a mission: Winter jackets. Snow shoes. Snow pants. Gloves. Besides, Gap and Old Navy was having the 30% off everything sales.

Like almost all 7th grade boys, my son does not want to be bothered with his outward appearances. T-shirts. Sweat pants. If I ask him to dress up, he wears jeans. He does not own clothes with collars except his band uniform polo shirt. Don’t get me wrong: this coolness towards fashion, I am pretty sure, saves us a lot of money and I am not complaining.

But there was a sale going on at Old Navy! I practically had to beg him to let me buy him some clothes since Christmas is not far away and I prefer not to have to pay regular price for “emergency good clothes” later. As soon as he granted me the permission, I realized that he has outgrown the Boys’ Department.

We are now in Men’s territory. My son, according to the fashion industry and the arbitrary sizing chart, is now a young man.

A rite of passage. Right inside the dressing room at Old Navy. He is now Mens Size Small.

I am not sure whether he saw this as anything significant, but he clearly was energized by the clothes that I brought into the dressing room: Military-inspired Dress shirts (which by the way was $15 plus 30% off. SCORE!). Zip Pullover Cable-Knit Sweaters.

He looked all of a sudden so grown-up in these men’s clothes and he himself noticed it too. For the first time, I watched him “modeling” in front of the mirror, soaking his new image all in, feeling self-assured, proud, and probably a bit cocky too.

He showed me the latest dance moves. (When did he learn these things?) The pop singer hair flip. Then he did what he called an “ab roll” (Huh?) and I realized that my son actually has a six-pack or at least the sign of it and he clearly has developed some nice biceps. When did this happen? Is this the same picky eater who is able to put on and take off his jeans without unbuttoning first? He topped this all with that famous dance move by MJ. (At this, I had to roll my eyes and tried hard not to laugh while giving him the tsk tsk appropriate amount of disapproving look)

He’s growing up so fast. Noooooo. 12 is still a small number in the scheme of things right? Right?

All of a sudden I regretted ever forcing him to look less like a bum. Looking like a bum is fine by me now, really. I swear!

“Do you really think I look good in this?”

“No you look absolutely awful!” I said with exaggeration.

He laughed. “Good. Could I get these please?”

The new shirts and sweaters are now hanging in his closet away from his day-to-day clothes (t-shirts, sweat pants and jeans) which are crammed into his dresser. I wonder how long before he actually remembers the older him that he had a glimpse of and decides to wear the Men’s Clothes we got him this Sunday.

Update:

One tricky thing about parenting boys during the awkward period (say between 12 and 18?) is that you never know which one you are going to get at any given moment, the boy or the man?

My son is sitting here at the kitchen table doing his math homework. I thought I head him humming, “It’s raining men. Hallelujah!”

“What? Are you singing ‘It’s raining men’?” I chuckled.

“Oh yeah. So that’s it. I thought it says ‘It’s raging mad’…”

Reality bites. No. Reality kicked my ass.

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There is no other way around it: I am a hypocrite.

Isn’t it an ironic coincidence that after my holier-than-thou tirade against bullying and my immagonnakickyourpunkass battle cry, my 12-year-old son told me tonight that he has been called all sorts of names at school?

Names such as gay, nerd, retard. Hurled at him, in passing, on a daily basis.

And the worst perpetrator is the 13 year old son from a family we know (whose youngest child does the same extracurricular activity as my son and therefore we see and hang out with them very often).

As soon as I heard this, all the blood rushed to my head: I could see the Samurai sword in my bedroom and I could see, in my mind’s eye, me wearing a bandanna that says VENGEANCE, going over there right now to kick that little shithead’s ass. The visualization was so vivid my fingers curled around the imaginary sword in my hand and I felt my legs twitch as I kicked the door down.

Of course I did no such thing.

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Not able to coax more details out of my son, I did the only thing I could do: I went to his Facebook account and changed the setting so the little fuckhead and his mother could not see my son’s wall posts any more since, as you probably guessed, unfriend the little fucking curd is probably going to addle him more.

Finally after I put the little one to bed, I had some quiet time with my 7th grader before he went to bed.  I pretended to be calm (not very successfully since I mentioned samurai sword and kick ass and something about moving to Taiwan) and asked him more about what really goes on at school.

Son: Mom. You are over-reacting again! I am not going to tell you anything any more!

Me: Ok ok. I promise I won’t do anything crazy. I just need to get it out inside the house now so I can remain calm about this. I just want to know that you are ok.

Son: You are so lucky that I talk to you! Most kids don’t tell their parents these things…

Me: OK. I promise I will not do anything without asking you first. I will not even tell Miss _________ about [FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT]. I just want to know more and make sure that you are doing ok…

Son: I probably exaggerated a bit. I am not bullied, I guess. People just call me names… like gay, retard, nerd. [Fucking piece of shit] calls me gay all the time.

Me: (Taking a deep breath) Does it bother you?

Son: Nah… Well, it kind of bothers me because I don’t like it when people use those words. When my friends say ‘gay’ or ‘retard’ I tell them to not swear and they say, “What? I am not swearing! I just say retard!” Ugh.

Me: (Taking a really deep breath) Do they single you out? Or do they do it to the other kids?

Son: It’s what the cool kids do. In order to look cool, you have to casually swear all the time, call people gay and retard all the time, and talk about sex non-stop.

Me: (Thinking to myself WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?! Taking a really really deep breath, and slowly) Ok. So… these kids. They call you names if you cross path. But if you stay away from them, do they seek you out to pick on you? (Wistfully) They don’t bother you right? Right?

Son: Not really… I just feel that they do it to me more. They call me nerd all the time.

Me: Does this make you not want to go to school? Are there other “non-cool” kids that you can hang out with?

Son: (Exasperated) Mom! I have a lot of friends at school! And they think I am cool. But even they call me a nerd. Well, because I am a nerd.

Me: (Exasperated. Hey, I am not Perfect & Wise Mom!) Why do you have to label yourself like this? [Yes, then I launched into a tirade against anti-intellectualism in this country and the stupidity of all this. ALL THIS! Probably did not help. I did say I am not Perfect & Wise Mom…]”

Son: It is kind of annoying that people think I am a nerd. I know Kung Fu very well and I can do a back flip, and I am probably stronger than a lot of them.

Me: Honey, I am not saying this because I am your mother, but I really really think that people are just jealous. I want to let you know that if somebody touches you, you have my permission to, wait, I’d better check with dad before I give you the permission…

Son: We are told this rule at school: If you are punched, cover your face. You are allowed to shove the person back but you are not allowed to make a fist and punch back. [Chuckles] I can probably shove the person back all the way to the locker.

Me: I just want you to know that we will not be mad at you for defending yourself. I also want to let you know that, although your friends seem to know better than to use ‘gay’ or ‘fag’ in front of grownups, if I hear them using these words, I will call them out on it.

Son: Just make sure you don’t do it to someone who can beat me up! Can I go to bed now?

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I am not sure what I should/could do. I am still in shock while at the same time feeling embarrassed by my naiveté for being shocked at all.

I did not grow up here. I did not experience anything like this: Not name calling. Not having words unapproved by adults hurled at you. To this day I cannot curse in Chinese; that’s how effective cultural and social conditioning combined with physical punishment, or simply the threat of it, is in disciplining children. And behold: Surprise surprise! All the news about bullying did not prepare me for when it actually happened to my own child. Obviously I had no idea what the fuck I was talking about when I was running my mouth. Please accept my sincere apology.

In all honesty, what my son is living with now is mild compared to some of the horror stories we have heard. But it still hurts. It hurts so much. My son is a part of me. When he is hurting, my heart hurts too. I can actually feel the pain inside my chest. It is already rousing all the primal maternal instincts I have. “You mess with my family? You mess with me.” And I’ve already had to calm myself the fuck down.

I cannot imagine having to deal with full-blown bullying as a parent. I cannot imagine having to deal with it as a child.

Deep down, I am wondering whether name calling truly is a lot more sinister: The school district does have a Zero Tolerance policy but only if there is physical contact. (And I am not going to spell out what is going through my mind right now. It suffices to say, IF they touch my son, it is open season). For words, mere words, there is nothing you can do about it, realistically. What’s the school going to do? There is no proof. And even if there is, what kind of punishment is the school going to dole out? Telling them to not do it again? “Be nice!” Slap the kids’ hands?

Hardy har har. Big fucking deal.

HOW FUCKING STUPID IS THIS?!

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I suck. I seriously do. Full of hot air. Nothing more. It’s been only one night, and I am ready to strike a bargain with the devil to make all this magically go away.

Why didn’t anybody tell me how awful it is going to be? Perhaps someone should have included this in the book “What to Expect When You Have Children”: Prepared to feel murderous rage against other teens but of course you cannot act on it and to feel the primordial urge to protect your young no matter what but of course you cannot do so when they are in school.

If I had known bringing up children in the United States of America means watching them being called names and not being able to do a fucking damned thing about it, I would not have married an American.

If I had known bringing up children means you have to sit and watch their innocence being stripped away bit by bit at the school yard where they are supposed to be fucking safe and protected, I would have hesitated.

I am most likely blowing everything up out of proportion. But this is how I feel right now.

Opening up a can of whupass

30 Replies

I am fuming. Ok, what’s new, right? But this time it is something personal. It may be trivial but it has consumed me ever since I had the following exchange with my son this past Friday. After a whole weekend of thinking it over and calming down, my anger and indignation has been only stewing and seething… Oh my dear friends, the Mama Bear inside me has reared her ugly head. Hold me down please before I get ourselves run out of town with pitchforks and torches…

In a casual conversation last Friday, my 7th grader brought up that he was reprimanded by the lady of the house at the bottom of our street to “Get off of my driveway!” He in passing mentioned something else the woman said to him which got my attention. I did not think that I heard it correctly or that he had remembered accurately so before he went to bed, I interrogated him. Hit them when they are groggy and sleepy.

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Me: Can you tell me what happened at Mrs. S’ house today?

Son: Me and N (another 7th grader from the same block) were racing and he was on his motorbike and I was on my scooter. He said that he won, and I said that I won. And then he said the F word. [F _ g] Then E [Mrs. S’ daughter who is also a 7th grader] came out and she’s like, “Hi Guys.” Then she said, “Don’t say that. My mom is here.” We kept talking and then Mrs. S came out and said,

“Hey, get off of my driveway. I don’t want you here, especially you, [First Name of my son] [Last name]. One of these days we’re going to look in the newspaper and see that you are in jail.”

Me [taking a deep breath]: And you are very sure you are not the one that said the F word?

Son [looking me in the eyes]: I am sure.

Me [taking another deep breath]: And do you think she said that because she thought you were the one who said the F word?

Son: I have no idea. At first I thought she was sarcastic. She said, “One of these days you are going to get into big trouble, mister!” But I don’t know. She did the sarcastic thing wrong because she was not smiling. I didn’t say anything bad though.

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I really thought long and hard about how this could have happened and what to do about it. I of course tweeted about this already and several of you have offered to put a foot (or two feet) in her ass, beat her with a shovel and a riding crop. (Thank you m’ladies for getting my back!)

It’s possible that she was upset because she heard some kid using the F word and she totally went berserk? If she is such a strong proponent for LGBT rights that she has such a strong reaction from hearing this word spoken right outside her house, perhaps I should give her the benefit of a doubt?  I tried to put myself in her shoes but still I can’t see myself saying anything like that to anybody’s child. I would have admonished the kids, told them to not use such hurtful languages and possibly threatened to have a talk with their parents.

What do you think?

And I’ll own up, yes, I want to open up a can of whupass on this woman who will not know that I am opening up a can of woopass on her right here.

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cartoon from nataliedee.com

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Hey, it’s making me feel better already so it works, and that’s all that matters, right? Sigh. Parenting sucks. Parenting sucks ass when you are forced to see other parents as adversaries.

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p.s. Although children do lie to save their own behind and my son is definitely not a saint, he knows to not use the F word or even the word “gay” in the “wrong” way. I monitor all his email communications, IM and Facebook, and although he’s constantly surrounded by kids using the word “gay”, he has never used it even when other kids use the word to diminish him and his possessions. It is possible that he does after all take my “death by wrath” threat to heart. As for the other kid, N? Oh he knew he was in trouble. Or he thought he would have been in trouble since he told my son before he ran home, “Ok, I said ‘Fatty’, ok? That’s all I said!”

First Day of School – The Obligatory Post

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Actually this year, the first day of school IS special:

My oldest will be going to junior high. THIS, is the first day of the rest of his life without his mama hovering over him…

Or at least that’s how it feels to ME. I am pretty sure from his perspective I am a pesky fly that won’t go away.

I could tell he was nervous because he woke up at 6:30 this morning without an alarm or me threatening to pour cold water on him. Well, that and the fact he said, “I am nervous.”

“I am nervous too, honey.” I said. “Ooops. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you that, huh? Probably didn’t help…”

Tentatively I suggested that I drive him to the bus stop because of “the huge heavy bag of school supplies” (and not because I wanted to be there on his first day as a 7th grader). He startled me with a brilliant smile, “AWESOME!”

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You can never be sure when they want to be treated like an adult, and when, a child.

Trial and error.

Today, when I thought that he would want to look cool and not be seen with his mom, he asked, “Are you going to bring your camera?”

“I wanted to but I was not going to because I assume you will be mortified?”

“Nah. I don’t care…  Where is [younger brother]? Is he still asleep? I want him to say goodbye to me at the bus stop…”

Today is full of surprises. The two of them sometimes behave as if they were mortal enemies.

“Well, go wake him up then. Tell him that you are going to a different school from now on. That the two of you will never be in the same school again.”

When my oldest came downstairs again, I asked him whether his brother was going to the bus stop with us.

“Nah. He’s still asleep.”

“Oh. He didn’t want to wake up? What did you say to him?”

“Nah. I just said ‘I am going to junior high today’ and then I kissed him on his cheek.”

Today is indeed full of surprises.

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It is still possible that when he comes home from his first day in junior high this afternoon, I am blamed for ruining his life.

For taking pictures of him at the bus stop even though I tried to do it surreptitiously by hiding behind the neighbor’s big SUV.

For standing too close next to the neighbor who was chanting, “Junior High! Junior High!”

For laughing too loudly when she called out, “You guys are moving up in the world! Look, your bus has tinted windows!”

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For raising my hand and waving as the bus drove away. It’s a force of habit. I will try and remember to stop doing it.

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Two little monkeys jumping on the bed, one fell down…

Now that his older brother is going to junior high, the quieter, less outgoing Mr. Monk will be for the first time by himself in the school. No more living under the shadows of his older brother. He will be known by his name, not a little brother, and definitely not “So and so’s brother”.

He looks all of a sudden so grown-up. His own person.

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This is so silly on my part since this is not the first “First Day of School” I have gone through. Yet I know many mothers are the same: We cannot help the tears coming out even as we laugh at ourselves.

When they turn around to wave goodbye as they step onto the bus…

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When you look at their anxious faces through the window…

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Something tugs at your heart.

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