Whoever invented “grounding” as a form of behavior modification for children was probably not the mother, the nanny or the primary caregiver, whichever the case may be. In the case of my family, it was me, the mother.
The errant inventor was probably a behaviorist who had no kids and who sat in a soundproof, air-conditioned, child-free, dust-free environment and postulated that if a kid were cooped up in the house with his mother for a week, it would certainly change someone’s behavior. He was right.
I began to change into a really irrational person. After only a day or two I started wondering just who was being punished and tried thinking of ways to get out of the grounding.
After all, I was not the one who messed up. In one instance, short of grounding, I threatened to change the kid’s last name and let him move in with the neighbors. When that didn’t work, I threatened to change mine. It would be easier than changing the kid’s behavior.
When I ran out of threats, I grounded him. A little alarm went off somewhere in the back of my mind. But it didn’t ring soon enough or loud enough.
This kid should have grown up to be an arbitrator. When it came to dealing and compromising, he made Benjamin Franklin look like a rookie.
This is how it goes on Day One:
He shows up after school with a couple of friends in tow and says, “Mom, we are going outside and ride bikes, okay? I made my bed this morning.”
His reference to his voluntary act of pulling up the covers by yanking on one corner and then foul-shooting the pillow towards the head of the bed was all it took for me to temporarily forget that it is Day One. So I say something useful like, “Okay, be careful.”
An hour later I remember what day it is, but by then the kid is riding in the next county.
If I want to maintain a sense of control and an absence of guilt, I have to go find him which takes a while.
Then the arbitration procedures begin.
“I don’t have anything to do. I can’t play games because it is boring to play by myself, and I can’t watch TV because no good shows are on.”
“Go read your book.”
“I can’t. I left it at school”
“Go play with your trucks.”
“That’s no fun.”
“You go find something to do. Being grounded is not supposed to be fun.”
(Time passes—two whole minutes.)
“I’ll just go sit on the back porch and play with the dog.”
“Okay, but you can’t play with any friends.”
He won that point, so he assumes a new stance:
“Mom this isn’t any fun. I’m going to play in the back yard.” (The back yard is full of kids.)
“Do you know what it means to be grounded?”
“It means I can’t play with my friends.”
“Right.”
“I’m not going to play with my friends; I’m going to play with someone else’s friends.”
“What? No.”
“Well, if I can be ungrounded today, I will be grounded for two more days next week.”
“No.”
“Three more days?”
“Absolutely not.”
Now I can’t fit the rest of Day One’s dialogue into a single column, but you get the point. I do remember saying that grounding wasn’t supposed to be any fun. Believe me, it was not. But I never learned.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Smart old wives' tales
As I was wondering about some of the good old superstitious notions (sometimes called old wives’ tales) that have prevailed through the centuries, and pondering how anyone could ever really believe them, I hit upon this breakthrough:
I don’t know about the rest of the population, but the old wives didn’t really believe such things. It was merely advantageous to promote them.
So here are some old wives’ tales, invented, quoted or perpetuated by “smart” old wives.
Just so you know, I have recited the occasional O.W.T. myself and at this point in my life I have enough years on me to have earned the privilege.
1. It’s bad luck to open an umbrella in the house. What the old wife really had in mind: put that umbrella away unless or until it rains.
2. Handling toads will give you warts. What she means: don’t you bring that creepy thing anywhere near me.
3. Breaking a mirror will bring seven years of bad luck: quit dragging that thing around and put it where it belongs.
4. Never walk under a ladder: let’s put that thing away and not leave it out where the neighbors can see it or I can trip on it.
5. Find a penny, pick it up; all the day you’ll have good luck: maybe someone will gather up all the pennies lying around the house.
6. Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise (I am sure that the really smart old wives change the indirect object from “man” to “kid” and leave out the part about early to rise.): you kids go to bed and give me some peace.
7. Children should be seen and not heard: you kids pipe down; I’m getting a headache.
8. An apple a day keeps the doctor away: somebody eat these things up so I won’t have to make something out of them.
9. Eating dough makes you sick to your stomach: I made this dough and either I am going to eat it, or I am going to bake it.
10. Putting shoes on a table brings bad luck: I really don’t want to eat on this table after your shoes have been there.
Hang in there, wives. I know kids are pretty sophisticated and probably not very superstitious these days, but don’t give up control because of it.
If kids are rejecting these old wives’ tales, you just have to be a step ahead of them. You can probably think of something on the spot. How about “toads could carry West Nile virus” or “these sharp things on umbrellas could poke your eye out”? (Now that’s a new one.)
I actually did a little bit of research while writing this. I hadn’t hit my usual 500 words yet and thought I needed a little more material. So I came across this dandy old wives’ tale (maybe someone can explain it to me.)
“If you have chills up and down your back, it means someone is walking on your grave.” Last time I checked I didn’t have a grave for anyone to walk upon, and if I did, I wouldn’t be having chills; however the person doing the walking might.
It reminds me of the quote by the great baseball player and philosopher, Yogi Berra, who is neither an old wife nor dead, “Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t go to yours,” and smart old wife that I am, I’m not sure what he meant.
I don’t know about the rest of the population, but the old wives didn’t really believe such things. It was merely advantageous to promote them.
So here are some old wives’ tales, invented, quoted or perpetuated by “smart” old wives.
Just so you know, I have recited the occasional O.W.T. myself and at this point in my life I have enough years on me to have earned the privilege.
1. It’s bad luck to open an umbrella in the house. What the old wife really had in mind: put that umbrella away unless or until it rains.
2. Handling toads will give you warts. What she means: don’t you bring that creepy thing anywhere near me.
3. Breaking a mirror will bring seven years of bad luck: quit dragging that thing around and put it where it belongs.
4. Never walk under a ladder: let’s put that thing away and not leave it out where the neighbors can see it or I can trip on it.
5. Find a penny, pick it up; all the day you’ll have good luck: maybe someone will gather up all the pennies lying around the house.
6. Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise (I am sure that the really smart old wives change the indirect object from “man” to “kid” and leave out the part about early to rise.): you kids go to bed and give me some peace.
7. Children should be seen and not heard: you kids pipe down; I’m getting a headache.
8. An apple a day keeps the doctor away: somebody eat these things up so I won’t have to make something out of them.
9. Eating dough makes you sick to your stomach: I made this dough and either I am going to eat it, or I am going to bake it.
10. Putting shoes on a table brings bad luck: I really don’t want to eat on this table after your shoes have been there.
Hang in there, wives. I know kids are pretty sophisticated and probably not very superstitious these days, but don’t give up control because of it.
If kids are rejecting these old wives’ tales, you just have to be a step ahead of them. You can probably think of something on the spot. How about “toads could carry West Nile virus” or “these sharp things on umbrellas could poke your eye out”? (Now that’s a new one.)
I actually did a little bit of research while writing this. I hadn’t hit my usual 500 words yet and thought I needed a little more material. So I came across this dandy old wives’ tale (maybe someone can explain it to me.)
“If you have chills up and down your back, it means someone is walking on your grave.” Last time I checked I didn’t have a grave for anyone to walk upon, and if I did, I wouldn’t be having chills; however the person doing the walking might.
It reminds me of the quote by the great baseball player and philosopher, Yogi Berra, who is neither an old wife nor dead, “Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t go to yours,” and smart old wife that I am, I’m not sure what he meant.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
I was conned by the best
At the risk of sounding dusty and nostalgic by writing about the old days, I am going to reach back into the dim past to the years when all of my kids were still at home and I was trying to keep the family functioning and the household solvent.
But with my kids, I didn’t have a chance. They were con artists. I don’t know how they got to be con persons. (Back then it was okay to call all of them “con men” regardless of their gender.) They didn’t learn it from me. I can’t even spin about what time we are having dinner. But they could talk a golf pro out of his clubs.
This is how they ran the trip-to-the-water-slide scam:
“Mom, can we go to the water slide today? Okay, hey you guys (loud enough for the neighbors to hear), we’re going to the water slide! Everybody get ready. I get the blue beach towel. We’re leaving at one o’clock. Mom, I’m inviting three friends.”
In case you didn’t notice, this was a one-sided conversation. It took only one set of quotation marks to repeat it. There aren’t any other sets because I wasn’t allowed to participate. I barely collected my senses in time to grab the phone out of the kid’s hand and say, “No you’re not. You’re only inviting two friends.”
Here is how I remember that the get-a-new-toy swindle worked:
“Mom, if I get all of my work done can we go to the store and look at baseball cards? I have my own money.”
“All right then, get your work done, and I’m going to check it.”
The mistake I made was in picking up on the “work” part of the proposal. I felt pretty safe because there was a ninety-to-one chance that he wouldn’t get his work done until after the stores were closed three days later. And the part about his having his own money didn’t escape me either.
But about an hour later I was confronted with a clean room and a deal I made. So we went to the card store, and the kid looked at the cards and picked out a few packs, all the while reminding me that he had brushed his teeth three times the day before, didn’t get any Legos for his birthday the year before, and that he got a couple of “As” on his first-grade report card.
When we got to the checkout counter, after the cards were rung up, the trap was sprung. “That will be $6.79, please.”
“Okay, where’s your money?”
“All my money’s in the bank. You know that, Mom; you made me put it there. Remember?”
(I don’t think, to this day, that I have been paid back.)
Then there was the get-a-ride-home-from-anywhere hijack which went like this:
I got a phone call, usually after my bedtime.
“Mom, can you come and get us?’
“I thought you were getting a ride home with your cousin.”
“He had to go to work.”
“Well, you will have to walk home then.” (We didn’t live twenty miles from town then.)
“Mom, we can’t walk home in the dark. Somebody might kidnap us. What are you going to tell Suzie’s mom if we get kidnapped?”
I know—it was tempting.)
At least I didn’t say that those were the good old days.
Okay, I know what you are thinking—that I deserved what I got. I should have been smarter or at least tougher than the kids. In my own defense, I can say none of them grew up to be actual con men. I think that they are all dumber than their own kids though.
But with my kids, I didn’t have a chance. They were con artists. I don’t know how they got to be con persons. (Back then it was okay to call all of them “con men” regardless of their gender.) They didn’t learn it from me. I can’t even spin about what time we are having dinner. But they could talk a golf pro out of his clubs.
This is how they ran the trip-to-the-water-slide scam:
“Mom, can we go to the water slide today? Okay, hey you guys (loud enough for the neighbors to hear), we’re going to the water slide! Everybody get ready. I get the blue beach towel. We’re leaving at one o’clock. Mom, I’m inviting three friends.”
In case you didn’t notice, this was a one-sided conversation. It took only one set of quotation marks to repeat it. There aren’t any other sets because I wasn’t allowed to participate. I barely collected my senses in time to grab the phone out of the kid’s hand and say, “No you’re not. You’re only inviting two friends.”
Here is how I remember that the get-a-new-toy swindle worked:
“Mom, if I get all of my work done can we go to the store and look at baseball cards? I have my own money.”
“All right then, get your work done, and I’m going to check it.”
The mistake I made was in picking up on the “work” part of the proposal. I felt pretty safe because there was a ninety-to-one chance that he wouldn’t get his work done until after the stores were closed three days later. And the part about his having his own money didn’t escape me either.
But about an hour later I was confronted with a clean room and a deal I made. So we went to the card store, and the kid looked at the cards and picked out a few packs, all the while reminding me that he had brushed his teeth three times the day before, didn’t get any Legos for his birthday the year before, and that he got a couple of “As” on his first-grade report card.
When we got to the checkout counter, after the cards were rung up, the trap was sprung. “That will be $6.79, please.”
“Okay, where’s your money?”
“All my money’s in the bank. You know that, Mom; you made me put it there. Remember?”
(I don’t think, to this day, that I have been paid back.)
Then there was the get-a-ride-home-from-anywhere hijack which went like this:
I got a phone call, usually after my bedtime.
“Mom, can you come and get us?’
“I thought you were getting a ride home with your cousin.”
“He had to go to work.”
“Well, you will have to walk home then.” (We didn’t live twenty miles from town then.)
“Mom, we can’t walk home in the dark. Somebody might kidnap us. What are you going to tell Suzie’s mom if we get kidnapped?”
I know—it was tempting.)
At least I didn’t say that those were the good old days.
Okay, I know what you are thinking—that I deserved what I got. I should have been smarter or at least tougher than the kids. In my own defense, I can say none of them grew up to be actual con men. I think that they are all dumber than their own kids though.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Olympic gold--is it worth it?
I guess that having the Olympic Games is good for world unity. And I guess it’s good that the athletes have a chance to be on the “world’s stage” and make history. You don’t have to be in Beijing to see them do it either.
With television coverage, the internet, and a few other media formats, you can “be there” while all of this Olympic history happens, live or delayed by only a little bit.
There’s a problem with all of this up-close-and-personal participation, though. It’s the kids. I now have about ten Olympic hopefuls—grandchildren who have picked their sports, set their goals and begun practicing the duly required number of hours per day. It’s driving everyone crazy though.
Some of their sports require complicated and expensive equipment, the kind that is only to be found in Olympic training centers. But that doesn’t stop them. They improvise. And they help each other.
For instance, the two-year old thinks that he is now a springboard diver. Yes, he got to practice his skills at the pool. It was great. Mom was there to catch him and of course he didn’t drown. He is getting the “double-lean, two-and-a-half hesitation crouch” down pretty well. He could stand to work on his entry, though. It’s not too clean yet.
Okay and all, but his parents aren’t yet ready to make the commitment that can take him to the next level. They need some more time to decide whether they want to change their place of residence to the rec center swimming pool.
So, during the interim, he has to practice at home. His improvised diving board is the couch which has plenty of spring, and he works out on it every chance he gets.
During one session, he watched the TV closely while a diver took a flying leap. and then he “copied” the dive. He showed good elevation and nice form for the first try. But it’s the entry; he still needs to work on the entry.
He suffered his first sports-related injury, and took a trip to the doctor, during which visit his form and sportsmanship were terrible, but I am sure he will be back in training in a couple of weeks, after the brace comes off the ankle.
Another grandchild caught the first-ever BMX bike racing Olympic event. “Now that looks like a sport!” She and her friend became the dynamic duo of the neighborhood. (They are eight now. By 2012 they should look old enough to compete.)
So they improvised with the gear for that, too. They used boards on the curbs for jumps. For their protective clothing, they dug helmets out of the closet and found their winter coats, snow boots, snow pants and mittens. Their mothers’ volleyball kneepads and some swimming goggles completed the cover-up.
Now I don’t know whether real bmx clothing has its own built-in cooling system, but the ninety-degree temperatures last week made it pretty difficult for the two of them to get in much training before they had to stop for water and a cool-down. In fact, a couple of times around the track like that and they were done with the gear.
About that time a third Olympic trainee needed a board to hold down his soccer net. So the BMXers, sans gear, crash and burn when they next shoot the curb. I could understand that accident if they still had their goggles on. The last I heard were these words: “Waaaaaaaaah. No, don’t clean it.”
Not long after that, the soccer hopeful slide tackles the board behind his net and thereafter needs medical assistance in the form of a few stitches to hold his knee together.
The “Olympic phenomena,” which is Butterbean for the increased incidence of visits to the ER during the month of August on leap years, sort of gives a whole new meaning to the term “Olympic Gold.” Dad may have to pawn his watch to pay the medical bills.
With television coverage, the internet, and a few other media formats, you can “be there” while all of this Olympic history happens, live or delayed by only a little bit.
There’s a problem with all of this up-close-and-personal participation, though. It’s the kids. I now have about ten Olympic hopefuls—grandchildren who have picked their sports, set their goals and begun practicing the duly required number of hours per day. It’s driving everyone crazy though.
Some of their sports require complicated and expensive equipment, the kind that is only to be found in Olympic training centers. But that doesn’t stop them. They improvise. And they help each other.
For instance, the two-year old thinks that he is now a springboard diver. Yes, he got to practice his skills at the pool. It was great. Mom was there to catch him and of course he didn’t drown. He is getting the “double-lean, two-and-a-half hesitation crouch” down pretty well. He could stand to work on his entry, though. It’s not too clean yet.
Okay and all, but his parents aren’t yet ready to make the commitment that can take him to the next level. They need some more time to decide whether they want to change their place of residence to the rec center swimming pool.
So, during the interim, he has to practice at home. His improvised diving board is the couch which has plenty of spring, and he works out on it every chance he gets.
During one session, he watched the TV closely while a diver took a flying leap. and then he “copied” the dive. He showed good elevation and nice form for the first try. But it’s the entry; he still needs to work on the entry.
He suffered his first sports-related injury, and took a trip to the doctor, during which visit his form and sportsmanship were terrible, but I am sure he will be back in training in a couple of weeks, after the brace comes off the ankle.
Another grandchild caught the first-ever BMX bike racing Olympic event. “Now that looks like a sport!” She and her friend became the dynamic duo of the neighborhood. (They are eight now. By 2012 they should look old enough to compete.)
So they improvised with the gear for that, too. They used boards on the curbs for jumps. For their protective clothing, they dug helmets out of the closet and found their winter coats, snow boots, snow pants and mittens. Their mothers’ volleyball kneepads and some swimming goggles completed the cover-up.
Now I don’t know whether real bmx clothing has its own built-in cooling system, but the ninety-degree temperatures last week made it pretty difficult for the two of them to get in much training before they had to stop for water and a cool-down. In fact, a couple of times around the track like that and they were done with the gear.
About that time a third Olympic trainee needed a board to hold down his soccer net. So the BMXers, sans gear, crash and burn when they next shoot the curb. I could understand that accident if they still had their goggles on. The last I heard were these words: “Waaaaaaaaah. No, don’t clean it.”
Not long after that, the soccer hopeful slide tackles the board behind his net and thereafter needs medical assistance in the form of a few stitches to hold his knee together.
The “Olympic phenomena,” which is Butterbean for the increased incidence of visits to the ER during the month of August on leap years, sort of gives a whole new meaning to the term “Olympic Gold.” Dad may have to pawn his watch to pay the medical bills.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Paper Chased
You have probably heard of the movie, “Paper Chase.” It’s about a college law student and the quest for that all-important piece of paper—the diploma.
Well, I am here to tell you that whoever turned that phrase, “paper chase,” only needed to add a couple of letters to come up with a phrase which is more to the point—paper chased. Ask anyone. The trick these days is not working for four years to acquire paper but to keep from being eaten alive by it ever after.
I’ll bet the character in the story, after he earned his diploma, settled down and bought a three-bedroom house in suburbia which gives him mortgage companies, banks and insurance companies to deal with. They will each give him a pack of paper an inch thick and tell him not to lose it.
Yes, I know. You were thinking that Bertha needs to learn to use online banking, Ebay, and e-mail. Well, I have. All it means is that there is now more than one way for computers to talk to me, which is another article for another day.
I remember when computers first came on the market, they were going to single-handedly save the forests and free up rooms full of storage space because we wouldn’t need to keep hard copies of all the world’s data. Well, there is as much paper as ever.
Computers have just made it easier to “make” more paper. Now everyone can make papers.
In order to try to solve the paper overload problem, inventors have done their best to help us sort and organize all of this paper. You can use any of the following tools to try to dispatch all of your paper: besides electronic filing there are paper weights, files, folders, staplers, round files, paper airplanes, trays, boxes, crates, scrapbooks, attics, day planners, fireplaces, cedar chests, recycling bins, cupboards, drawers, jockey boxes, shredders, binders, etc., but it is never enough. There are always papers left over.
There really is a paper tiger and if he isn’t growling at my heels, he is at least always right behind me breathing down my neck. What to do with all of the papers is the nail-biter. What will happen if I don’t keep this receipt? What if the IRS wants to see my medical expense records? Will I need to keep the fortune from my cookie? Where should I put it? What if someone comes to repossess my groceries? Am I covered? Well, the desk is, and so is the counter, and the nightstand, and…
The newspaper—not this one of course, but the daily—gives me a daily headache. I feel guilty if I subscribe to it and then don’t read it—which would be a big waste of paper, so I save it, hoping that I will get a chance to read it the next day. By then I have two to read. Try doing that for a week. I did finally unsubscribe and cut that much stress out of my life, but it is never enough.
On the days that I did read the paper though, I read, more than once about how many pounds of sugar Americans consume in a year. It’s up 26 pounds in the last 20 years to a whopping 135 lbs. per person per year. I am sorry to say that I probably eat and carry my per-capita share of that sugar.
Well, it can’t be more than the per-capita consumption of paper. Maybe someone has already figured it out. I might be able to find it here in one of these piles…oh yes, I printed it on paper from the internet.
“The per capita consumption of paper in the US is currently over 748 lbs.”
It’s a good thing I don’t have to carry all that around my waist.
Well, I am here to tell you that whoever turned that phrase, “paper chase,” only needed to add a couple of letters to come up with a phrase which is more to the point—paper chased. Ask anyone. The trick these days is not working for four years to acquire paper but to keep from being eaten alive by it ever after.
I’ll bet the character in the story, after he earned his diploma, settled down and bought a three-bedroom house in suburbia which gives him mortgage companies, banks and insurance companies to deal with. They will each give him a pack of paper an inch thick and tell him not to lose it.
Yes, I know. You were thinking that Bertha needs to learn to use online banking, Ebay, and e-mail. Well, I have. All it means is that there is now more than one way for computers to talk to me, which is another article for another day.
I remember when computers first came on the market, they were going to single-handedly save the forests and free up rooms full of storage space because we wouldn’t need to keep hard copies of all the world’s data. Well, there is as much paper as ever.
Computers have just made it easier to “make” more paper. Now everyone can make papers.
In order to try to solve the paper overload problem, inventors have done their best to help us sort and organize all of this paper. You can use any of the following tools to try to dispatch all of your paper: besides electronic filing there are paper weights, files, folders, staplers, round files, paper airplanes, trays, boxes, crates, scrapbooks, attics, day planners, fireplaces, cedar chests, recycling bins, cupboards, drawers, jockey boxes, shredders, binders, etc., but it is never enough. There are always papers left over.
There really is a paper tiger and if he isn’t growling at my heels, he is at least always right behind me breathing down my neck. What to do with all of the papers is the nail-biter. What will happen if I don’t keep this receipt? What if the IRS wants to see my medical expense records? Will I need to keep the fortune from my cookie? Where should I put it? What if someone comes to repossess my groceries? Am I covered? Well, the desk is, and so is the counter, and the nightstand, and…
The newspaper—not this one of course, but the daily—gives me a daily headache. I feel guilty if I subscribe to it and then don’t read it—which would be a big waste of paper, so I save it, hoping that I will get a chance to read it the next day. By then I have two to read. Try doing that for a week. I did finally unsubscribe and cut that much stress out of my life, but it is never enough.
On the days that I did read the paper though, I read, more than once about how many pounds of sugar Americans consume in a year. It’s up 26 pounds in the last 20 years to a whopping 135 lbs. per person per year. I am sorry to say that I probably eat and carry my per-capita share of that sugar.
Well, it can’t be more than the per-capita consumption of paper. Maybe someone has already figured it out. I might be able to find it here in one of these piles…oh yes, I printed it on paper from the internet.
“The per capita consumption of paper in the US is currently over 748 lbs.”
It’s a good thing I don’t have to carry all that around my waist.
How to get out of school shopping
When I was a kid, there was no such thing as school shopping. Instead there was a brief (about twenty minutes) and mild concern over whether a kid had a paid of shoes that were suitable for school (broadly speaking).
But things have changed since then and there seems to be a prevailing notion that stores close on the first day of school and will not open again until it is time for that other buying institution, Christmas shopping.
And so there is the ceremonious and stress-ridden rush to buy everything a pupil may need for the whole school year and put it away for the first day of school, which incidentally is probably the only day of school said pupil will be excited about it anyway.
But you don’t have to fall for it. I have been out to the stores on the first day of school more than once, and they were all open.
School shopping as an institution and the myth about the stores closing
forever is perpetuated by kids who are just trying to get more goods out of you, and the marketing industry which is trying to get more money out of you.
So don’t get excited—at least not about buying clothing and supplies. (Save that excitement for the really good things about the first day of school like the few hours of quiet that you will be able to enjoy.)
If you think the school shopping system is an institution you will have a hard time bucking, never fear, Bertha Butterbean is here, and she was a pro at finagling her way out of new wardrobes and such. Here is how you hold out against all the pressure:
1. Remember that on the first day of school the sun comes up and goes down as usual, in fact is it just another day, not even printed in red on the calendar.
2. Remember that your kid can only wear ONE outfit on the first day of
school He doesn’t need five new outfits for the first day.
3. Remember that the stores will be open on the first day of school, and the day after that and the day after that.
4. Remember that it is still summer weather when your kids become pupils. Remind them that only government offices, and not schools, are air conditioned. Stress the parts about turning red-faced and sweating which no self-respecting student ever wants to do. The point is that they can wear their summer clothes for a few more weeks, and their classmates will wish they were cool and comfortable like your kids will be.
5. Remind your children that is isn’t cool to show up on the first day looking like they never got any new clothes during the whole summer. It is better to wear something not quite new than to go looking like their social calendars had nothing on them during vacation.
6. You might also be able to convince the kids that they don’t want to go looking like they live for school.
7. A little persuasion may convince them further to hold off on the shopping until they see what everyone else is wearing. They, especially the girls, wouldn’t want to get caught in an outfit just like someone else has.
And now we come to the objective of the whole exercise. If you can contrive to get your students through the first week of school without actually buying new clothes for them, you’ve got it made. After that, everyone’s clothes are old anyway, and no one will know the difference.
But things have changed since then and there seems to be a prevailing notion that stores close on the first day of school and will not open again until it is time for that other buying institution, Christmas shopping.
And so there is the ceremonious and stress-ridden rush to buy everything a pupil may need for the whole school year and put it away for the first day of school, which incidentally is probably the only day of school said pupil will be excited about it anyway.
But you don’t have to fall for it. I have been out to the stores on the first day of school more than once, and they were all open.
School shopping as an institution and the myth about the stores closing
forever is perpetuated by kids who are just trying to get more goods out of you, and the marketing industry which is trying to get more money out of you.
So don’t get excited—at least not about buying clothing and supplies. (Save that excitement for the really good things about the first day of school like the few hours of quiet that you will be able to enjoy.)
If you think the school shopping system is an institution you will have a hard time bucking, never fear, Bertha Butterbean is here, and she was a pro at finagling her way out of new wardrobes and such. Here is how you hold out against all the pressure:
1. Remember that on the first day of school the sun comes up and goes down as usual, in fact is it just another day, not even printed in red on the calendar.
2. Remember that your kid can only wear ONE outfit on the first day of
school He doesn’t need five new outfits for the first day.
3. Remember that the stores will be open on the first day of school, and the day after that and the day after that.
4. Remember that it is still summer weather when your kids become pupils. Remind them that only government offices, and not schools, are air conditioned. Stress the parts about turning red-faced and sweating which no self-respecting student ever wants to do. The point is that they can wear their summer clothes for a few more weeks, and their classmates will wish they were cool and comfortable like your kids will be.
5. Remind your children that is isn’t cool to show up on the first day looking like they never got any new clothes during the whole summer. It is better to wear something not quite new than to go looking like their social calendars had nothing on them during vacation.
6. You might also be able to convince the kids that they don’t want to go looking like they live for school.
7. A little persuasion may convince them further to hold off on the shopping until they see what everyone else is wearing. They, especially the girls, wouldn’t want to get caught in an outfit just like someone else has.
And now we come to the objective of the whole exercise. If you can contrive to get your students through the first week of school without actually buying new clothes for them, you’ve got it made. After that, everyone’s clothes are old anyway, and no one will know the difference.
Monday, August 4, 2008
That might be overkill
Hey, I have lived through the feminist era. I believe that feminist rhetoric has been around for over forty years now, but that’s not long enough to change my mind.
You can’t tell me that men and women are the same. I’m sorry, maybe on some other planet—not Venus or Mars though.
It’s the way they tackle problems that is so different. And I’m not talking about emotional ones where opposite ends of the galaxy might describe the gulf.
I’m referring to just plain old tasks like putting a letter in an envelope, for instance. When women have a big letter and a small envelope, they carefully fold the letter until it fits just right. Men, well they start jamming the letter into the envelope. If it doesn’t slide right in, they use a little more muscle, and then a little more. Soon they need a new envelope.
I’m sure it has something to do with their being the stronger of the species: “Yes, I am stronger than this piece of paper and I can put it inside this envelope.” It’s like they approach everything with a “muscle mentality.” Now there’s an oxymoron.
My daughters and I have code words for the phenomenon. We can comment without the men in our lives even getting it.
It goes like this:
“Dad, will you empty my kitchen garbage can while I answer the phone?”
“Okay, hang in there. The weather is almost over. I have to see if it is going to rain.”
Dad rattles around in the kitchen and finally sits back down to watch the news.
Later, the women are cleaning the kitchen.
“Mom, remind me never to ask Dad to empty the garbage again, especially when I have a brand new $90 commercial can.”
“Was it ‘pull a little harder’?”
“No not this time.”
“It must have been ‘push a little harder.’”
“Well, actually—this might be a new one—it was ‘stomp a little harder.” Since the lid didn’t fly up to a ninety-degree angle and the garbage bag jump right out into his hand when he stepped on the “foot-pedal,”
he stepped a little harder. Now I need a new garbage can.”
“I get it. But what happened to the wall in the dining room? Someone is going to have to spackle that mess now.”
“Well, ‘my man’ was hanging that calendar you gave me, and it was a case of ‘square peg, round hole,’ if you know what I mean.”
“Oh yeah, I believe I do. And what about those chips in the front sidewalk? Was someone smashing ants?”
“That’s right.”
“Let me guess. He couldn’t kill them fast enough, so he had to ‘get a bigger hammer?’”
“How did you guess?”
“He got that from his dad.”
Me again: “Okay, but I still don’t understand why is his brother is limping.”
“Well, you know how those firebugs keep swarming on the driveway? So he was squashing bugs as well, only he wasn’t using anything but his feet. He could kill them fast enough alright since there were hundreds in a clump, but he simply thought that dead wasn’t good enough. So he…”
“He got that from his grandpa.”
You can’t tell me that men and women are the same. I’m sorry, maybe on some other planet—not Venus or Mars though.
It’s the way they tackle problems that is so different. And I’m not talking about emotional ones where opposite ends of the galaxy might describe the gulf.
I’m referring to just plain old tasks like putting a letter in an envelope, for instance. When women have a big letter and a small envelope, they carefully fold the letter until it fits just right. Men, well they start jamming the letter into the envelope. If it doesn’t slide right in, they use a little more muscle, and then a little more. Soon they need a new envelope.
I’m sure it has something to do with their being the stronger of the species: “Yes, I am stronger than this piece of paper and I can put it inside this envelope.” It’s like they approach everything with a “muscle mentality.” Now there’s an oxymoron.
My daughters and I have code words for the phenomenon. We can comment without the men in our lives even getting it.
It goes like this:
“Dad, will you empty my kitchen garbage can while I answer the phone?”
“Okay, hang in there. The weather is almost over. I have to see if it is going to rain.”
Dad rattles around in the kitchen and finally sits back down to watch the news.
Later, the women are cleaning the kitchen.
“Mom, remind me never to ask Dad to empty the garbage again, especially when I have a brand new $90 commercial can.”
“Was it ‘pull a little harder’?”
“No not this time.”
“It must have been ‘push a little harder.’”
“Well, actually—this might be a new one—it was ‘stomp a little harder.” Since the lid didn’t fly up to a ninety-degree angle and the garbage bag jump right out into his hand when he stepped on the “foot-pedal,”
he stepped a little harder. Now I need a new garbage can.”
“I get it. But what happened to the wall in the dining room? Someone is going to have to spackle that mess now.”
“Well, ‘my man’ was hanging that calendar you gave me, and it was a case of ‘square peg, round hole,’ if you know what I mean.”
“Oh yeah, I believe I do. And what about those chips in the front sidewalk? Was someone smashing ants?”
“That’s right.”
“Let me guess. He couldn’t kill them fast enough, so he had to ‘get a bigger hammer?’”
“How did you guess?”
“He got that from his dad.”
Me again: “Okay, but I still don’t understand why is his brother is limping.”
“Well, you know how those firebugs keep swarming on the driveway? So he was squashing bugs as well, only he wasn’t using anything but his feet. He could kill them fast enough alright since there were hundreds in a clump, but he simply thought that dead wasn’t good enough. So he…”
“He got that from his grandpa.”
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