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June 5, 2008 Validation, of sorts 
Yesterday when I dropped Frances off at her daycare there was only one other little girl there so far, A. The two of them have one of those peculiar preschool friendships where they love each other and play together all the time and fight all the time because they can't agree on how the playing should be done--Frances has very definite opinions, and A often disagrees and ignores her, and sparks fly. As I was walking out of the room, Frances said to her, "A, I really love my Mommy." "Aww," said A's mom. "That's so sweet." "Yes it is," I said by the door, and turned to grin at Frances. "I love you too, sweetpea. I'll see you this afternoon." I've said before that the only judgment of our parenting skills that counts is the one given by our children. The strangers in the playground and our own parents and in-laws and our friends and doctors and the parenting experts are simply not the relevant audience. If our kids love us and we have a good relationship as adults then we were good parents, case closed. (Which isn't to say that if they don't love us and we don't have a good relationship as adults that we were necessarily bad parents; there are outside factors that could influence this.) Still, I'm not sure I want to accept the judgment of a four-year-old at face value, even if it was immensely grafitying and made me feel like a Rock-Star Mommy for at least several hours afterwards. (Further reinforced by an article in Scientific American Mind I read yesterday about how traumatic or positive experiences alter the expression of genes involved in emotional regulation. Apparently, physically affectionate mothering (fathering was not mentioned) actually assists the genes involved in stress and anxiety regulation to function more effectively, so if you give your kid a lot of hugs and tell them you love them all the time, give yourself a pat on the back. I might blog this article later.) Like most mothers, I spend more time feeling badly about all of the things I'm not doing than feeling great about the things that my daughter obviously thinks that I am doing. Like letting her play by herself so long as she's not asking for me. Oh, we've raised the practice of benign neglect to a high art at our house; I tell myself it's a step up from Malignant Neglect, the kind where kids don't get shoes or coats or food or any sort of positive attention or feedback, then I mostly go back to reading or writing. I love my daughter, she is my favourite person on earth and the best thing that ever happened to me, I am dreading our summer schedule when she will be at her father's half the time; it still happens that I hate playing with her Calico Critters and manufacturing the super-squeaky Mommy Toy voice that says "I love you!" fifty gazillion times in a row while jumping up and down and rescuing baby toys who somehow managed to get on the roof of the dollhouse again, and I hate making the baby lion jump up and down for five minutes, and I hate making all of the Little People into cast members from Shrek the Third. I do it when she asks me to, but when she doesn't ask, I don't do it. I give myself all kinds of reasons to believe it's good for her too (it gives her privacy! helps her foster her imagination! allows her to develop independence!) but the truth is, I do it for me, as evidenced by the sinking feeling of dread I experience whenever she does say, "I don't want to play by myself now. I want a friend to play with me. Won't you play with me?" Oh, god. If I have to. You want me to be the Mommy Dalmation? We're going to take her clothes off again? And put them on again? And take them off again? Can't we just leave them on? Bea's post yesterday about Benign Neglect in kiddie lit and how it is, of course, adults writing about how great benign neglect is for kids, and whether it's really great for the kids or if we just want to think it is because it lets us off the never-ending entertainment hook, touched a nerve in the comments section. Evidently, it touched mine; even when Frances brags about me to her friends, I still feel guilty about exactly how much time she plays on her own, and how much I dislike playing the kinds of games she likes to play, and how much I would rather it if she enjoyed being silently curled up on the couch with a good book or engaged in some little low-mess crafty project. Like me. On the way home from school yesterday we passed C on her way to a party. "I want to go to the party!" said Frances. "We weren't invited, sweetie," I said. "I'm sorry." "But I want to be invited!" "I know, but we weren't. It's hard to be left out, isn't it?" "Yes! I want to be invited! I want to go to the party!" (This isn't a girl shy about expressing her wants, let me tell you.) "Honeybun, I don't even know where the party is. I don't know whose party it is. I don't know when it's starting." "But I want you to know where the party is! I want to go to the party!" Ah, the Omniscient Mother. If only. I knew what to do! I'd be supermom! "Sweetie, I'm sorry, but you can't go to that party. I know it's disappointing. But if you'd like, we could have a Mummy and Frances party." "Ok." "What do you think we should do at our Mummy and Frances party?" "Cake." "Ok. I have a little cake in the freezer, we can have that. What else should we do?" "Macaroni and cheese!" "Sure, you can have some leftover macaroni and cheese for supper. But what would you like to do?" "Umm...raspberries!" "That's fine. But besides eating. What would you like to do?" "A drink?" This was going to be a dinner party, I could tell. Macaroni and cheese and a bowl full of raspberries, and then when that wasn't enough a bit of leftover spaghetti with homemade sauce, and then a cake. Four candles in the top ("Mummy, you have to put fire on it") that she blew out, and then we shared a little cake before her Daddy called. While she ate and I waited for my dinner to heat up, do you know what I did? I read a few pages from a book, ironically, about how to use creativity to boost family closeness and the happiness of children. Benign neglect + hyperparenting = a winning combination every time. I'm not sure mothers can ever do enough to silence the critical voices in our heads, voices that come mostly from media and experts and family. We had a Mummy and Frances party and I spent part of it ignoring Frances to read a parenting manual. I snapped out of it and we talked, instead, until she asked to watch a few minutes of Bambi before bed, when I went back to my book. On balance, who knows. Ask Frances when she's 22. In the meantime, I'm really hoping this new parenting manual will give me some ideas of things my daughter and I can do together that don't make me feel like my brain is dribbling out of my ears. Gardening, maybe. Simple crafts. Frances wants to help me paint the living room red. She has not yet convinced me. Posted by Andrea at June 5, 2008 10:29 AM under Mothers and Anti-Mothers EMAIL this entry (comments fields are below this section) Comments Oh, the part about the tediousness of actually playing WITH your child, and all the justifications for NOT doing it ... that so touched a chord. I feel like I've spent Emma's whole life making up excuses not to be the dollhouse mommy, or whoever she wants me to be at the moment. So far she doesn't seem too badly scarred, and she's getting old enough now that her choice of things to do is sometimes mine as well (I offered to take her on a mom and Emma date next week and she picked bowling, so I'm cool with that). But as you say, only time will tell. Posted by: TrudyJ at June 5, 2008 11:17 AM
Do you know I WISH A would play those tedious kinds of playings. Nope he's most content listening to music with headphones or watching movies. I try to engage in actualy pretend play, he's not having it. I hear Goodbye at least 10 times. I'm dreading summer to. The guilt that I'm not doing anything with him that I should be doing like typical mothers and kids do eats at me. I've been blue for 2 days for this very reason. Posted by: LauraJ at June 5, 2008 12:11 PM
Oh, I don't know. Frances didn't want to play with you initially, she wanted to play with her friend. She accepted you as an alternative. In this house I find that my children would rather play with each other than play with me. I'm not saying they don't like me around -- they do like to talk with me and they're always saying, Watch me! watch me! and looking for me when they fall down & hoping that I'll resolve disputes. But for playing, they prefer each other. There's a difference between not playing with your kids and not paying attention to them. Benign neglect to me means that you're not engaging with your kids, and not dictating how & with what & with whom they play. It doesn't mean that you've got headphones on & your head down while they're throwing rocks at each other. Posted by: Jennifer at June 5, 2008 1:23 PM
Oh, this resonates with me. I'm at a loss as to how much play time with me is right. I usually go by how I feel about it, if I'm feeling genuine guilt (not a vague sense of the shoulds) or if I feel irritated with them for no reason, then I know it is likely time to play. I'd like to know what book you are reading. :) Posted by: Chris (Mombie) at June 5, 2008 1:25 PM
Jennifer, that's true--but I'm the only one there, most of the time. Mombie, it's The Creative Family. It had some lovely ideas in it. I'll probably post when I do them. Posted by: Andrea
I don't know about kids being the best judge of parents (even grown-up kids). After all, part of what we're judging is the quality of the results, and there the kids are a prejudiced panel of judges. I am friends with two sisters who have very different perspectives on their parents. They are six years apart, and from the perspective of the older one, the younger one was spoiled. Of course, from the perspective of the younger one, her parents did a fantastic job, and the results were splendid! (I'll let you figure out which one I agree with.) Posted by: bea at June 5, 2008 3:41 PM
Wow, I had a conversation just tonight about this, about how much attention they need. Can they play by themselves or will they try to beat each other senseless with maracas? Is my just being in the room enough or do I need to play with them all the time? Some of the time? And how do I not feel guilty (and keep them from beating each other senseless with maracas) when I go do something involved, like cook a meal or *gasp* read email? And where do you draw the line between being the All-Singing, All-Dancing, Mama Entertainment Center and being woefully neglectful? I have yet to figure that last one out. Posted by: Major Bedhead at June 5, 2008 10:22 PM
I think its great for kids to be the judge of parents, because I can assure you, adults can carry the whole "judgemental" aspect of the who's-the-better-parent game waaaaay too far! Posted by: jeanie at June 6, 2008 12:41 AM
I actively encourage Isaac to play by himself and I don't think my reasons for doing so are glib justifications. It only makes sense that independent play fosters independence. Sure, I play with him when he asks (and believe me, endlessly pushing Thomas & Friends around and around the train track is also tedious beyond belief) but I refuse to feel guilty when he's playing by himself in his room and I'm somewhere else reading, or blogging, or doing chores. I love the dinner party. Cute. :) Posted by: Hannah at June 6, 2008 8:53 AM
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Change is God (Octavia Butler, Parable Series) "Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little course, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble." Ralph Waldo Emerson Email Frances! frances AT athenadreaming DOT org You can email her mother too (that's me):
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