Currently Craving: Go Lean Crunch Honey Almond Flax cereal (that stuff rules)
This weekend max and i ran around and just did some random tasks. we were at Stony point fashion park and it was kid and dog central. two of our favorite things at the moment. and of course, all we could talk about was kid stuff. baby stuff, bigger kid stuff..."how adorable is that baby" stuff. to the point that max said 'we are such parents!' and i said yeah but that's ok. this is probably the only time in our lives that we'll ever be so excited about it so we should just enjoy it.
So at dinner on saturday night max asked the question...."what is your child absolutely NOT allowed to do?" hmmmmm... prostitution, hardcore drugs, run an illegal gambling ring? what does he mean? the thing is, we're pretty liberal, creative, free-spirited people (max is getting free-spirited i promise). and we came from pretty liberal accept-you-as-you-are parents who didn't really put up fights over haircuts or choice of career... things like that. (it did come up on friday night that i was NOT allowed to get a perm in elementary school even though ALL of my friends had one. i SO wanted a spiral perm but i guess now i'm glad i don't have any blackmail pics of that. if i could just undo the bangs i'd be all set) the essential answer to the question was 'if it's not illegal they'll probably be allowed to do it'
.... but the real question is .... WHEN?
Tattoos and body piercings we decided are totally wait until legal age and you can pay for it, then you're on your own sister.
since we're having a girl i asked him: How old does she have to be to get her ears pierced? wear make-up? wear heels? date? the ears pierced and make-up were age requirements in my house. i mean at some point she'll be totally age appropriate to do those things but not at age 2. hmmm.... ten year olds these days wear short shorts and for them it is actually age appropriate, but in my opinion, it's not necessarily age appropriate to wear those shorts with a short belly shirt, tall shoes, and tons of make-up making her look slutty. max agreed but said 'maybe we wouldn't tell her she looks slutty' well obviously!
so then he poses the question 'what if she wants to play a sport like fast pitch softball?? or wants to be on a guy's team like football or something?' and for that i say more power to her. if she wants to play a particular sport and it's only offered for the men at her school i don't care if she tries out for the team
so i asked him... 'what if your son wants to be an ice skater? or a ballerina?' so that made him pause to think.
why is it more acceptable for a girl to head towards a traditionally male role than for a male to head towards something more traditionally woman dominated??
anyways. funny that we're thinking of all these things. welcome to the reality of the next 20 years or so. many of these things don't really matter in the grand scheme of life (like i care if Babe gets her ears pierced and they are pierced for the rest of her life) but i guess as parents you have to make guideline decisions for the small and the big and help guide the way until the kids are out there and realize how unimportant it all is too.
1 comment:
Exactly. You would not believe some of the comments we get about Cillian's long hair, and we have learned to laugh off the usual misidentification of his gender, because we feel it is more important to his self-confidence to wear his hair as he likes it, despite society norms. I think that as long as you let your children express themselves and teach them to be confident in doing what they love to do, then that is the most valuable gift you can ever give them.
Unfortunately, having confident children also makes it more difficult when you deny them those age-inappropriate things, because they try to debate with you!! You cannot plan for everything ahead of time, but parents do need to settle what their philosophy regarding certain things will be, like watching TV, playing video games, signing up for classes, buying toys, etc. Trust me, those things pop up before you know it, and it helps to have already settled your battle plan ahead of time.
Right now we are disagreeing on the age appropriateness of nakedness... of all the silly things. John wants to teach him not to be naked unless in the shower, whereas I think he should be taught to not be ashamed of his body, not that I condone full moons in public. Sometimes, if a 4 year old wants to go pants-less at home or display the phases of his personal moon at home, then I applaud his comfort levels. I think he should have at least a couple more years before he has to keep everything covered... but I see him as much younger than John due to my breastfeeding bond. Trust me that we never thought we would be arguing over this one!!
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