Franklin

When Franklin was a toddler he was extremely interested in trains. Trains on train tracks, trains in books, Thomas the Train, the parts of a train (especially the wheels) and how a diesel engine worked as opposed to a steam engine.

Later is was about dinosaurs. He was correcting my mother on the pronunciation of all the different names and had a collection of dinosaur literature, figures and puzzles that we still have kicking around 5 years later. We even went to Drumheller when he was four years old and it blew his mind.

Soon after dinosaurs it was sharks. We’ve been wanting to visit my brother in California and see the aquarium there for awhile now. Sharks swimming above your head! ack. He has a Jaws poster in his bedroom. He can tell you all about the megalodon and has seriously considered entering into the profession of Cryptozoology.

I was never into any of these things – as a child, anyway. I had an obsession with blue whales but that’s as close as I’ve ever come to sharing Franklin’s interests. These days he’s got a mixture of fantasy (dragons), a smattering of video game (Little Big Planet), a dollop of Pokemon and an unwavering stream of Lego. Underneath all of that interesting stuff is his love of science – most especially physics. It seems to crop up with almost everything he does, actually. Physics was not a strong subject for me. I could understand what would happen in all those college physics scenarios but I always had a horrible time explaining how it would occur and the measurements to predict where that bloody ball would end up.

Also, math. I’m good at it. I even enjoy discussing a little math theory with the odd theoretician. However, to explain it to an elementary school kid? I’m not that good at it. Thankfully, Franklin’s a smart kid who, when left alone or left with his father, understands math quite well now. The words, “I’m the best at multiplication in my class!” uttered yesterday were music to my ears. I know I’m not responsible for that – it’s all his determination and intelligence. And Dickson’s ability to not get anyone worked up about anything.

How does he do that?

Anyway, my husband’s laid back personality aside, I find parenthood quite challenging in that I am constantly entering into worlds I would never voluntarily enter on my own. The science of space, the physics of thermodynamics, electrical resistivity, the earth circumference, Galileo’s gravity experiments… my head spins while I try and tackle kits like the one we gave him for Christmas.

But it’s amazing. It is really all so wonderful. He’s into such incredible things and it’s great to see him so independent. If he was drawing the interior of imaginary buildings, writing in journals and reading Nancy Drew, it would also be cool because we would have shared interests but he’s into solar flares, mythical beasts and how to propel a car using a rubber band. It’s part of being a parent, I suppose – letting your kids explore the world outside of your own bubble and supporting their interests even when they are wildly outside of your own comfort zone. It’s one of those things that you can’t dispute, having children enriches your life in many more ways than you can ever know.

Vintage 1972 Fisher Price School Days Desk and Chalk Board, originally uploaded by PhotographicAmy.

Back in the day, I thought it would be cool to be a teacher. That particular goal quickly burst when I tried to show my sister how to write her name. My sister has a long name – seven letters long. She’s also 4 years younger than I am. I think I tried to teach her how to write when she was about 3 years old. I think she screamed at me. It was painful.

Painful because I have very little patience when it comes to teaching. Not due to the teaching subject being unable to grasp what I’m trying to explain (although there is a bit of frustration in there, to be honest) but because I have a difficult time communicating what I see as, more often than not, intangible logic. In other words, I don’t know why I understand, it just makes sense because…. well, the higher one is more high… and it wouldn’t make sense for it not to be… high… and so the other is…. lower… but not the lowest… you know? What? Can’t you understand it like this as well? You know, without any coherent explanation?

Yeah.
Math tutoring in our house is sometimes a mixture of my sitting on my hands and tongue while Franklin finally tells me to let just him figure it out on his own. Probably for the best, anyway. Then the light bulb came on and I finally realized that I am married to a man who went to university to LEARN HOW TO TEACH. Why was I, the person who absorbs things without being able to verbalize any coherent explanation, teaching my son math? I mean, Dickson no longer teaches and, frankly, doesn’t like teaching (only within the school system) but he is a good teacher!

I’m no longer the one helping Franklin with math.
So thanks, Bernice and Wray. Thanks for sending your son to university to be a teacher because although he may have not known what he wanted to do back then and went into the profession because it was “a job” kind of study track, it has paid off.

Speaking of good teachers… we are pretty happy so far with Franklin’s Grade Three teacher. He’s about 8 ft 36 inches so I have to look at him from afar or else my neck snaps off but other than that, pretty good. (By the way, why are there no short, male elementary teachers? I’ve actually never seen one.)

One of the cool things about Franklin’s teacher is that he used to be the computer teacher in the school. He’s quite technologically confident and so has a Smart Board in his classroom. Apparently, each elementary school has only one Smart Board in each school at this point. It’s usually the teacher with the most tech savvy that gets to use it in their classroom.
That’d be Franklin’s teacher.

Franklin is stoked.
On Tuesday he told me that he got a chance to use the Smart Board and that he was “a natural”. Franklin doesn’t say this about himself much – really about anything else other than Lego. Even his insane ability to see the subtle distinctions between animal species and his preference for scientific names does not impress him. He also doesn’t see his amazing insight into people’s personalities or from stories he’s read as anything all that special. I could go on and on about his talents (I’m his mother, it’s what we do). However, Franklin knows he is good at Lego. Now he knows he is good at Smart Boards.

I can’t believe that this kind of technology is all over the middle schools and high schools and soon will be standard in the elementary schools. All those chalk boards are becoming old skool. I am old skool (perhaps I have been for a long time?). I remember giggling when my teacher accidentally wiped chalk on his ass. I remember chalk fights where we would pretend to be cleaning the brushes but were actually slamming the two boards in each others faces to make puffs of chalk dust fly everywhere. I remember my 7th grade teacher owning a “chalk holder” and thinking she was so classy and civilized. Even that simple wipe of the hands that teachers do/did after they finished writing on the board will be a thing of the past.

I proudly copied that wiping movement when I tried to teach my sister to write her name. Not that this helped at all. Instead, a few years later, she wrote my three letter name all over everything in order to get me into trouble. She’s a sly one.

hide & seek, originally uploaded by Ella Pedersen.

We had a friend over for dinner last night. He is an avid gardener and so we discussed the weather, the trends, should we grab all the tomatoes now or wait for a dry spell? Will there be a dry spell? Isn’t there usually a dry spell?

It doesn’t seem like there will be. The community garden is full of tomatoes and squash. People are optimistic, I think. So am I. My red kuri is still on the vine. I have a zucchini that is still wee – I’m hoping it will grow a little bit more before I pick it. The soy beans seem to not mind the change in weather because I can’t keep up. I wish it were the same with my kale. I should have planted more kale.

But yes, my tomatoes are still on the vine. I probably should have stripped the leaves by now. If my father were here he would have done it, I know. I just keep thinking that this is akin to taking off their clothes. Won’t they be cold?

I’m a gardening idiot.

I think it’s time to face the fact that summer is over. We aren’t going to be seeing any dry spell – not the kind I’m waiting for. This morning we walked to school through a fine mist of gentle rain. I love this kind of weather. It makes Franklin’s hair get amazing large and curly so that when he moves, there is a split second delay between his head and the mass of curls that come after.

Of course, this reminds me that we need to make sure all of our rain gear is ready for the winter.

I think Eliza’s covered. We gave away our large stroller to a family that really needed it (and we didn’t so much) so now we have to make sure Eliza is going to be covered in gear for the trip to school in the collapsible stroller. No more deluxe covered bubble for her – not that she was a fan of this anyway. If that girl had her way, she’d be walking to school. We’d have to leave an hour earlier if this was the case – something that would be physically, emotionally and psychologically impossible.

Franklin, on the other hand, needs gear. He is growing like a weed. The coat we got him at Value Village in the summer is too damn small already. His head is past my shoulders now – and I don’t’ think it’s the hair. I actually think it’s his height. Of course, there are certain criteria that must be adhered to when shopping for Franklin’s gear. There can be no suspenders, it must not be hard to pull off when wet and it cannot be any of the following colours: purple, red, orange or pastel anything. I, on the other hand, am hoping to find gear that is both inexpensive and pvc free. Usually, these two things don’t come in a package together so I’ve got a challenge ahead.

Wish me luck.

West Coast Rain Forest – Ferns, originally uploaded by janusz l.

While we get further and further along in the planning of the new Campus Community Garden, there is a little part of me that keeps asking me if this is all a good idea. Most of this nagging feeling is owned by Franklin and his resentment of his field being taken away from him. However, there is also the deer, the rabbits and even the rats. Here I am deciding that there is a real need for families to provide food for themselves in this city and yet I’m feeling guilty.

This is crazy.
I’m constantly making remarks about how there will soon be a clash between animal rights activists and urban food activists on this campus – with me firmly on the side of the food and very much against the side of the rabbit population that threatens this food. Nevertheless here I am, feeling a pang of guilt as I walk by this field everyday.

I mean really, rabbits and rats?
wtf?

The deer?
These are the deer I shake my fist at whenever I wake up and see more and more of my herbs eaten, or my butterfly bush or the hydrangea that my mother-in-law so thoughtfully bought us that is very nearly down to a bare numb of a plant… these deer will lose even more of their world when this field goes.

But it’s not just this field.
And I’m not egotistical enough to think I’m the contributor to their plight. Their plight began 50 years ago when this area began populating. Heck, further back still. Jeez, I could get even more philosophical about the clash between species but you know the story.

So much has contributed to their narrowing existence in recent years. Just this summer, a rugby field was built next door. This also was once a field of tall grass. As more and more of the campus and surrounding area is filled in, their habitat will consist of backyards and designated protected greenspace such as Mystic Vale and Haro Woods.

When I lived in Salmon Arm, I used to walk through a large field and orchard on my way to school or downtown. There was a creek that ran through it and it was full of animals and food. One year, I returned from university to find it had been subdivided and built on. The houses were incredibly close together and there wasn’t much of the land or the trees left. It was flat and as developed as it could get. A girl I knew told me that when she saw what had been done, she cried. Twenty-some me, in my unfortunately unsympathetic way, explained that the way the town had run sewer lines and power lines all over the place to reach homes in pockets around the area was wasteful. We don’t live in isolation. If you really look at our lifestyle, we don’t even want to live in isolation. We only want the appearance that we have space. This appearance comes at a cost of encroaching on the actual space left. I don’t want to live in the wilds of British Columbia because we need to leave it the fuck alone.

It didn’t go over well.
She wasn’t really my friend, anyway.

However, this doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate protected greenspaces. I’m not saying we need to cram ourselves into urban centres like sardines. There is value in empty fields and overgrown orchards. However, they come at a huge cost that most of don’t appreciate or are willing to pay. Places like Haro Woods and Mystic Vale are few and far between. We are really very lucky to live so close to both of these areas.

The other day I went to a meeting for Franklin’s after school care and a mother asked one of the leaders about the level of supervision in the woods (Haro Woods) when they go there to play. I’m always worried about parents like this. I worry that they will insist on such tight supervision that independent exploring will no longer be possible. For the limited amount of wild spaces our kids have available, I want them to be able to take full advantage of it. Franklin knows those woods like the back of his hand. If I close my eyes, I could take you through that orchard and by that creek in my mind. I remember every inch of it. So does Dickson as, funnily enough, he explored the same orchard (while visiting his grandparents) and played in this same creek 10 years before I did.

These places are not for constant supervision and cougar paranoia (what cougar is going to attack a group of 20 screaming elementary kids?) but for imagination and exploration. They are too valuable and too rare to spoil. Even though I’m contributing to the colonization of his field of tall grass so 50 families can grow food all year round, at least I’m understanding enough to protect his right to scream like a awkward banshee through Haro Woods while wearing his t-shirt like a ninja mask.

I get points for that, right?
Right?

DreamBox Learning’s Lesson Map with Pirate Rewards, originally uploaded by DreamBox Learning.

I don’t endorse many things. I try to try and be one of those people who will tell you what worked for me, but also remind anyone listening that my advice should be taken only as an example and not as a recommendation.

I remember asking other mothers around me what to do in certain circumstances – what kind of stuff to buy, what was the hardest, how to deal with certain ailments… At first, I just wanted direction. I wanted someone to give me instruction that I could follow and then I could go about my day.

Breastfeeding, for example. Not the easiest task. I was frustrated that no one could tell me what was wrong. It wasn’t until I spoke with my father and realized that breastfeeding wasn’t what needed to be corrected but my outlook on breastfeeding that I finally had relief and I was able to navigate the problems and solve them myself.

Another question I had was about cloth diapers. I needed an alternative to what my mother used (folds and pins) because I knew that wouldn’t fly with Dickson. I got a billion different solutions from many people but in the end, I needed to find out what worked for Franklin (and later, Eliza).

About 6 months into the business of new motherhood, I started to appreciate the wisdom of a few of my friends who would resist giving me any advice. From these few, I got quite a bit of “it’s different for everyone” and “every child reacts differently”.

It was frustrating at times because there seemed to be very little middle ground. There were those with nothing to recommend and then those with everything – recommendations that had to be followed to a tee and “This is the only way it will work and you have to try it for AT LEAST FIVE MONTHS”.

Argh.
I just wanted a few suggestions and a little bit of discovered rational.

Cue my friend, Joelle.
Back in the day of new parenting, Joelle was a year ahead. Her son was born almost exactly a year before Franklin and if anyone had an opinion, it was this woman. If I wanted research and history and informed decision making, it would be her.

She knew that while all new mothers are going through the trenches like everyone else; every single individual needs to find her own path. This is not to say that she didn’t do research and had ideas and stories about what worked for her. She was/is/will hopefully always be an abundant source of information. However, she was also good at telling me why it worked in her case and she always had other options.

In other words, Joelle is a gold mine.
A wonderful mother and a true friend. There are only a few people I would want to survive the apocalypse with and she is in the top five. I swear, if the water was contaminated and zombies were beating down the door, she’d have about 7 different solutions on how to deal with the present situation as well as a few options on what we will do once we get out and will need to find shelter, food and water for the coming winter.

So when other parents ask me for advice, I try to think this way. Like Joelle, I am a researcher. I need to investigate all possible options and then objectively decide where I stand on each opinion and where my issue fits considering my family’s situation. I don’t feel good about a decision without doing all of this stuff.
However, this doesn’t mean other people are the same. As a result, if I tell someone else what kind of cloth diaper system worked for me, I would hope this doesn’t result in them spending $200 on a system that wasn’t a good fit for their baby. You’d hope.

You think I’m flattering myself but seriously, I’m not. New motherhood is hard and I remember those days of “Give me the solution. I’ll make it work if it’s the last. thing. I. do. I’m wary of telling anyone desperate for a solution what worked for me. I don’t want my solution to backfire on someone else.

So, it is with this loooong introduction that I give you my endorsement of the following website: Dreambox Learning. It is really really great – for Franklin.

It is a math game site with curriculum ranging from Kindergarten to Grade 3 (The American system but that’s fine as it’s just a supplement, not a replacement for his schooling). There is a free trial but in the long run, you must pay for the service once you delve further into the program. For me, the cost is worth it.

And it’s good.
Really good.
At least, it’s good for us.

Franklin is doing really well. He still gets frustrated and he still worries about not getting everything right every single time (apparently every wrong answer takes him further away from his chosen career as a Mechanical Engineer – perfection, anyone?) but he can see progress and he doesn’t hate working on it every day.

The thing with math is that to get better, you need to work on it daily – if only for 15 minutes. This is what I’ve learned, anyway. Doing math sheets or a math booklet with Franklin is torture – for all of us. This website does the same thing, but in various ways and with various incentives. It’s been amazing to see his progression.

Of course, once school gets going and math class begins, we’ll have to see how our work has paid off but I’m pretty optimistic.

So… yeah.
Check it out.

, originally uploaded by Ada I dirtyolive.

“Okay”, he says, “only SOME humans are stupid”.

I let him think and we walk a few more metres.
He’s crying.

“I wish I wasn’t a human.”

He’s mad, frustrated, hurt and confused and I know there isn’t much I can say to console him at the moment. I’m a part of the problem, actually – although I haven’t admitted this to him yet.

There is a field near our house that has remained untouched by the university (read: no bulldozers and no construction in a campus that seems to be constantly building) ever since we moved in here a few years ago. We’ve launched rockets and flown airplanes, we’ve explored the trees (both under and above) and Franklin has learned to ride his bike along the soft sides of the path that runs through it. It’s been wonderful to have such a large place to run right next to our home.

Lately, it’s been even more wonderful due to the university’s decision not to cut the grass. As the photo above shows, it was up to his chest. It was way over Eliza’s head. They loved running through it. There have been times when Dickson and I have brought the kids out there, sat down and promptly lost them. Eliza was close by (really! – although Dickson told me he fell asleep in there once…) but Franklin went off on his merry way and explored. It’s amazing what a field of long grass will offer – more than a playground or a manicured field can do times a million trillion zillion.

Last week, they mowed it all down.

Here’s the thing. Sometimes in life you see the same issue come at you in a few different ways all at once and it seems to say, “Hey, Ada! Pay Attention!” And I’m getting better at it – the paying attention. The thing I’m paying attention to is this:

Kids need open spaces. Wild open spaces.

Now, I’m not talking about how every kid needs an acreage of forest behind their house. Wild can be an urban concrete jungle or a forest in the middle of a suburban landscape. Wild can be the beach and wild can be a field of grass up to your chin. Whatever the case, it needs to not be managed – mowed, trimmed, trailed and marked off. There needs to be room to explore, be reckless and to make your own rules.

The weed free Starbucks neighbourhood park doesn’t give a child that – neither does constant supervision or demarcated trails and sidewalks. Kids need to get wild in the wild. It’s just as important as knowing where your food comes from – and I don’t mean the romanticized version Mom and Dad perpetuate when we plant food in the backyard and then eat it as a nice summer hobby. I’m talking about understanding that we are connected to our food. We kill for our meat. We use water, a hell of a lot of water, to grow our vegetables. We need to know how to survive when the rules no longer apply – not for the doomsday scenario, but for the understanding, appreciation and revelation of where we all fit in the world.

A friend of mine mentioned a book on facebook, “Last Child in the Woods” by Richard Louv. This was around the time I saw the affect that the wild long grass field had on Franklin. Then this spot, this wonderful spot with the long grass and the wild space… I helped snag this very spot for the new campus community garden. A few months ago I pointed to one of the last remaining non-building designated spots on a campus map and said, “That looks like the best spot, in my opinion”.

WTF, Mom?

I’ve read Richard Louv’s book. It’s good. I’ve just started to read it once more because the last time I went through it, I didn’t have the experience I have now – of seeing Franklin’s confidence and independence grow as he is left more and more to his own devices in Haro Woods, Mystic Vale, the beach or this grassy field. When I was reading it a few years ago, Franklin was probably about 4 years old. Supervision was pretty standard and non-negotiable. It’s different now. When you let a child wander off on their own it is a little scary but I have to remind myself of all the times I took off on my own when I was a kid. Have we taught him to make sound choices? Yes, I believe we have. Will he panic in a situation that’s unfamiliar to him? Probably. All the more reason to let him go though, right?

I want him to be able to get caught on the higher branch of a tree and figure out for himself how to get down. I also want him to stand on the edge of an unknown field, no houses in sight, and feel a mixture of fear and longing. I want him to have a special spot in the woods, inside a tree stump or along a dried up creek bank that is his secret place. I don’t want to be a part of that. I want that to be his own.

Louv is correct in that you don’t see kids finding these spaces on their own very often. You don’t see kids getting in trouble for grabbing their parent’s tools, a jar of peanut butter and a sleeping bag to make a fort in the woods. In fact, kids are looked down upon for wandering free. Our building maintenance guy once told me that in his experience, “It’s the kids who aren’t enrolled in any camps during the summer that get into trouble – because they’re bored”.

I don’t think they are bored. I think they would have a great time, they just are getting “in the way” and as they are required to stay close to home they are supervised so much that they (read: the parents) will run out of options and “activities” for them to do. What happened to the phrase my mother used to yell at us, “Get OutSIDE! – and take your little brother with you!” I can hardly wait to yell that at Franklin.

Of course, this will be after I apologize for helping to turn his wild open space into a plant colonizing, highly organized, and routinely managed community garden landscape…. sigh.

Go !!!!!!!!!!!!!!, originally uploaded by lorpailleur_62.

I’ve been reading a lot these days. I haven’t had a large need for sleep due to nothing too horrible or stressful but as a result, I’ve found myself reading almost a book a week – something I certainly had no trouble accomplishing, and more, while childless but something I certainly didn’t think would be in my cards again until retirement!
It’s been nice. I tend to read before heading up to bed and then there are times when I’ve woken up in the middle of the night and read a few chapters. I used to read on the way to work after dropping Franklin and Eliza off at daycare and school as well as on my way home after work but I’ve recently realized what kind of amazing scenery I miss with my head stuck in a book.

I also tend to step in roadkill.

Interestingly, I’ve been reading quite a bit of fiction. I think it’s an escape, in a way. Of course, now that I write that… that’s pretty much the definition of fiction, isn’t it. Regardless, since I’m a non-fiction, fact-finding, research driven kind of gal so I can’t seem to completely leave my comfort zone altogether. As a result, I have found myself reading about little boys.

Wow. That sounded creepy.

Regardless of that creep factor, I’ve been pretty fascinated with the topic. I think this is because Franklin has become so independent lately. Also, since I’ve never been a little boy, the entire process is a bit of a mystery. I can’t really search down in the recesses of my brain for memories of playground fights and triumphant red ant massacres. I’ve certainly had my share of these things but it’s different.

Yes, I admit it.
Boys are different from girls.
In a whole whack of ways that I now can only remotely understand but very much respect.

If you had asked me ten years ago if I would ever say that I would have laughed in your face.
With age, comes wisdom.

The thing I’ve really begun to realize, from reading books like J.M. Coetzee’s Boyhood and Roddy Doyle’s Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha is that being a boy can be chaotic and intensely structured all at the same time.

Of course, from reading these two novels, I can’t even begin to presume that I understand the world but at least I know enough to know that it’s a train I need to step away from – something I cannot control. In fact, my tolerance for rambunctiousness seems to have risen quite a bit since reading these memoirs.

Truth be told though, I don’t really think that I can recommend anything to you from my reading. I think my experience is personal. I think I have to have a nudge every now and again to understand that Franklin is fully capable of navigating the waters of childhood. I can guide him in that I can answer questions and most especially, I can show a good example – but I can’t solve his problems. I can’t control the play ground fights or the tests of strength – emotionally and physically. However, after reading a few well written books from the viewpoint of a little boy, I can sit back and marvel at the process of childhood and the opportunity I will get by standing by and watching Franklin experience it all.

I think this is a hard lesson for many parents these days. We are pushed to control so much of our children’s lives. The media keeps giving us grisly reminders of what happens if we lose sight of them and ramifications of bullying is hammered into our brains every 3 months with another suicide. To be able to step back and let our children get a sense of themselves on their own almost goes against every aspect of society.

It’s hard – and, in my opinion, even more of a reason to let go.

A Varied Lawn, originally uploaded by ZhivanaDesigns.

`I would allege to you that the ultimate pollution is pollution that affects the cognitive ability of future generations.´
- Dr. David Carpenter

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There’s a lot of “meh” that goes around these days. I think much of it stems from the overwhelming barrage of information thrown our way as a parent – research about immunizations, vaccinations, allergies to peanuts, floride toothpaste, organic food, formula, breastmilk, ADD, ADHD, capital versus small letters of the alphabet, PVC, and Phathalate in raingear…oy, the list goes on and on.

I think it’s basic survival “meh”. I think there is only so much we can take before we give up with the pathetic, “My parent’s fed me Chef Boyardee everyday and I’ve turned out just fine” excuse. Of course, if you take a step back and take a look at us, we aren’t “just fine”, are we? Rates of cancer are increasing (and not just with our baby boomer parents), allergies and sensitivity to nuts are everywhere (we can’t always blame the over-protective mothers), the amount of children with ADHD is higher than every before (it can’t all be chalked up to more accurate diagnoses). When do we stop and wonder if what we did as children was actually healthy? When do we finally admit that the adage “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger” is actually quite inaccurate in that it only makes you die… slower?

I’m a doomsday kinda person. I’m sure you’ve realized this. David Suzuki and Micheal Ruppert are not doom-and-gloomers in my eyes. Instead they are loraxes and how-to-manuals. I eat their stuff up. Suzuki take less chewing on, mind you, but I’m a firm believer that things are happening to the general population not because we don’t care but because there is a business out there to make sure we can’t absorb the information in order to make an informed decision.

Thus, the “meh”.
It’s the equivalent to the white flag of surrender.

Sometimes this “meh” is a survival tactic. We can’t always know what to do. Even the experts are fed erroneous information. Facts change. We interpret with the only history we own and often we can’t see the forest through the trees.
Sometimes it’s too difficult a battle. We see the problems and we can only shake our collective heads and worry about the world we’ve brought our children into. Will they survive this? Can we change it before it’s too late?

Many times I sit myself down in front of this computer and research issues until the wee hours of the morning. Then I go to bed feeling defeated. Sure, I can make sure my children wear PVC free rain gear and eat organic food. I’ll also charge through breastfeeding and immunize for all those forgotten diseases. I’ll even teach my children about where their food comes from and the importance of recycling. Nevertheless, there are things that no matter how many safe choices I make and how much information I give them, they will be in danger.

But right now! Right now we have an amazing opportunity. We can read, become informed and then act on an issue that we would normally have very little control over. These times don’t come all that often!

Last Thursday I went to a screening of the documentary, A Chemical Reaction.

The reason why the documentary is so important is not only because the issue is vital to the health of our world, most especially to our children, but because the BC government is considering “new statutory protections to further safeguard our environment from cosmetic chemical pesticides.” Canada’s two largest provinces, Quebec and Ontario, have already banned the use and sale of many landscaping pesticides. This is our chance to be heard – but we have only until February 15th, 2010 to tell them!

Read about how pesticides can be associated with serious illnesses, including cancer, damage to the immune system, and neurological problems. Children and pets are particularly vulnerable.

David Suzuki Foundation

The Canadian Cancer Society

Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment

Toxic Free Canada

The New War on Cancer: Against All Causes – Mitchell L. Gaynor, MD

A Silent Pandemic: Industrial Chemicals Are Impairing The Brain Development Of Children Worldwide – chemicals in some pesticides may be linked to lower intelligence, behavioural disorders, autism, ADHD and asthma in children, even in low-dose exposures.

Please send an email to the BC government to tell them how you feel. You can bet that there are corporations, the same ones who are suing Ontario and Quebec for breach of NAFTA due their provincial bans, who will make their voices (and money) heard.

Do it for our children.
Do it for June, my hero.

Stormtroopers’ Picnic, originally uploaded by smokebelch.

Sometimes I wish parenting were this easy. Plug into your child’s interests and run with them. Set up a few mini-figs, make a few lego creations and pretend you’re having a picnic with Stormtroopers after an eventful journey through space.

I can do this. This has never been a problem for me. Many times, our house is like an episode from Toopy and Binoo where we are all pretending our way through a day. Dickson is Donatello, I’m Leonardo, Eliza is Raphael and Franklin is always Michelangelo. Bedtime is run like a scene from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Things get done, but it’s fun.

Other times, this is not the case. Other times… many times, I feel like a crappy Mom. I say things that make sense in my head but once they’re said out loud, it is crazy. Things that make Dickson and I laugh later in the evening but which stick with me and remind me that I’m not doing this parenting thing all that well.

For instance?

For instance, I know – from experience and from research – that praising your child for the result is not teaching them how to believe in themselves. Rather, praising them for their effort is what makes them understand how to navigate life successfully – to be able to trust in yourself enough to try, to try harder, to be comfortable with failure, to get up and try it again.

But can I trust myself enough to do this?
Apparently, not.

And this is where I break my rules for blogging. This is where I become vulnerable and think about my own happy but nervous childhood and I start trying to type through watery eyes. Blech.

I don’t think I was taught about effort – more likely, I was too caught up in my own self pity to hear anything about effort. I certainly remember being taught about success and I certainly remember my brother being incredibly smart. I also remember being told that I was expected to rise higher than my parents. My father was a doctor – a surgeon. My mother was a politician, ran an office, a nurse, a Mom to 5 kids… I was to do what?!? How?!? I felt crushed under the weight of that expectation. All I could see was my older and incredibly intelligent brother so I figured, “This just isn’t going to happen, parents. You guys are going to have to depend on the other kids in the family” and subsequently bowed out of the success game. One assessment of my brother by…. pretty much everyone around, was all that was needed to ensure that someone was going to do my parents proud. Of course, my parents are going to be shocked to read this. It’s gotta be a little crappy to find out goes on in your kid’s head years after the fact.

I don’t blame my parents for any of my failures. I know they love me very much and parented me the best way they knew how. I know this. But have I learned anything? Even though I recognize much of Franklin in that New York Magazine article, can I change my behaviors and outlook to benefit my son? Am I just doing the same thing over again? Incredibly, I have even told Franklin the same line about rising above his parents. WTF?!?! Where did that get me? With a perfectionist that is horrified to get less than perfect on his spelling, that’s where.

I always tell Franklin how much I love him and what a wonderful human being he is – smart, caring, kind, funny… I mean, I’m his mother! My parents love me too and would have naturally believed that all of their children could do anything they wanted – that we had the entire world in the palm of our hands. Sadly though, I don’t think I ever knew how to grasp this world. The result is that even though something they tried to teach me got through my thick head and I find myself living a wonderful life, I’m lost as to how to teach my own children. How do you close your fingers around your goals and squeeze? How do you calmly step through life without fear? I truly have no idea.

How do I teach my child that he’s not perfect? It’s not as easy as it seems. As widely read as that article is about the problems with superficial praise, the world doesn’t work this way. Franklin is told he is smart all the time by well meaning, loving people. Effort is not a valued commodity. In fact, if someone were to tell me that it looked like I had put a lot of effort into my painting instead of praising its final product I would take it as thinly veiled criticism and ask them why they didn’t like it. Obviously, I still feel the need to be perfect and frustration is too bland of a word for how I feel about this.

A solution? I really don’t have one. I’m learning as I go that all is not really lost. Franklin is only 7 years old. He’s only just started to navigate the world of timed math exams and weekly spelling tests. I need to listen to him and understand that he is not me. Even though I see so much of him in me as he grows older, I need to realize that my memories are not his and he is not seeing the world through my eyes. I wish I had something more as a conclusion. Something better. Something that made sense.

Instead, I have the following: Franklin and I are laying in bed this evening. He has just finished telling me a few stories that they are listening to in class, one about a Mexican boy and his grandfather needing to lie to get work and another about a boy named Elmer Elephant who wants to free a dragon. Franklin has an amazing memory. He can recall the tiniest details of a story just by listening. I am in awe – like always. When he’s done I make the effort not to tell him how amazing his memory is but remark on how much I enjoyed hearing the stories and I thank him. Then I mention that today I read an article that the brain is a muscle that will make you smarter when you give it a work-out, just like your arm muscle or your leg muscle. He asks if solving his rubix cube will make him smarter at math and I say, excited because he is easily discouraged by this particular puzzle, “Yes! Exactly!”

And then he’s sad.
Why?

Because he wants to take the stickers off the cube to solve it “just like you did when you wanted to show Uncle Sami (my older brother) how you solved the puzzle”.

Excellent.

School Mural: inspired by the work of Henri Matisse, originally uploaded by ladylucente.

My friend Jenn asked me about homework in the last post and I wanted to write about it a little more than my response to her in the comments but then I thought… what more would I have to say without more research? I mean, I only have one child in the school system and I only have my own experience to draw from so… maybe not.

Then a few people on facebook asked me about the level of homework Franklin gets and we began a discussion over email.

Then, to top it all off, Rex Murphy got in on the action and centered Sunday’s Cross-Country check-up around, you guessed it, “What’s the Value of Homework?“. Apparently, Calgarian Tom Milley’s two elementary school children were getting too much homework at home and it was what he considered “busy work” – cutting and pasting, colouring, filling in the blanks, or the same math homework type questions 40-50 times in a row. I’d consider that pretty questionable if it came home too – although if you were to ask Matisse, cutting and pasting is pretty useful. Regardless, this kind of work hasn’t appeared in Franklin’s day planner quite yet.

In fact, the only kind of work that has come home is what Dr. Paul Cappon mentioned as the “good kind of homework” in that,

Still, homework in Grade Two? Well, it’s not required homework. In fact, it is pretty evident that the majority of it (the homework that isn’t assigned from missing days) is totally optional. They practice the spelling in class, they do the math in class, and they work on printing in class. Anything that comes home, anything that Franklin may need to work on, is not expected back. In other words, it’s not marked. As a result, I don’t really call this homework.

I guess after all of this discussion and listening to the cbc, I’m satisfied with Franklin’s school. The biggest reason we chose the school he is currently going to is because a large majority of his peers from the University’s Kindergarten were going there and because the public elementary, middle school and high school path led most of it’s graduates onward to post secondary school. As well, he’s a two minute sprint from my work. This isn’t just disaster planning though, this means he is a 10 minute walk to see him at lunch, attend his assemblies, visit his craft fairs, etc.

There is a long overdue email from a friend asking for my feedback on French Immersion. Like Franklin, her son has been assessed as leaning toward high linguistic achievement. So French Immersion was a no brainer, right? We thought so when he was 3 years old. Many people call French Immersion the “poor man’s private school” because of the parental involvement. Don’t listen to that, by the way, as it’s not true. Looking back now, it seems like such an odd thing to say.
The more research I did, the more I found that early French Immersion wasn’t what we wanted at all*. Late Immersion is a choice for us, and we will look into it when we come to it, but right now Japanese lessons are filling our time nicely. The most important lesson Franklin can learn from school at his age is confidence in his achievements. So far, so good.

There are so many choices I’ve made as parent that have made me wonder if we made the right decision but this one, the school he’s attending and the English stream he’s in, I do not regret.

* Compulsory disclaimer: Please believe me that this is not a reflection on what I think of your parenting and your choices with your own French Immersion child.