Facebook Frustrates Me

As I was mindlessly scrolling through Facebook this morning, I saw this post.  It came from a friend of a friend of a friend.  I'm pretty sure I have no connection to the person who originally posted it, and I don't think we will ever meet.  Yet there it was in my newsfeed.

"Please share My niece came to me crying saying she was getting bullied at school kids are telling her she is ugly and fat can you please share and like this pic of her or even comment to show her she is  beautiful lets see how many people think she is pretty lets make this go viral. STOP THE BULLYING✋✋✋✋✋✋"
It included a picture of an elementary aged girl and had hundreds of commenters assessing her appearance. I didn't read the comments.  I assume that most of them were favorable.

And, despite the fact that I take almost nothing I ever see on social media seriously, this post bothered me.  The teacher in me wanted to proofread and edit it a bit.  More importantly, the mother in me wanted to challenge the underlying messages.  If I were acquainted with the original poster, this would have been my comment to her:

It is a shame that your niece is being bullied.  I wish with all my heart that people would be kind to each other.  What a wonderful aunt you are to offer support in this difficult time.  This little girl is beautiful, but I wonder how helpful this kind of approach is.  If her self esteem is based on a tally of how other people feel about her appearance, it will always be fragile.  Hopefully she will be able to find more people who think she is beautiful than who will tell her she is ugly.  But what if the day comes that she can't?  And what happens if she looks in the mirror and just doesn't feel like she looks beautiful?  In that case, it won't matter how many internet strangers will compliment her appearance.  She will still feel badly about herself and believe that people are only lying to her.

Far more important than convincing this girl that a lot of people think she is beautiful, is teaching her that her value has nothing to do with her appearance.  She is not an object that exists simply to decorate the world.  Rather, she is a human being deserving of dignity and capable of accomplishing great to things no matter how she looks.

On the Road

We spent basically the entire month of April in the doctors' office.  We started with routine annual well checks.  Then each of the red heads took a turn with the never ending ear infection.  I don't think ear infections are especially contagious, but my kids are a pretty tight knit crew, so maybe sympathy sickness is a thing.  There was also a drug reaction and an unfortunate incident wherein an infant sought to ingest a fire ant pile.

On one of our drives to the doctor, my little girl was adamant that it was not her turn to get a shot.  I assured her that she wasn't getting a shot, and the doctor only wanted to look in her ear to see why it was still hurting.  She got excited and said, "And then I will show her my hurting toes."  In the same tone of voice you would expect if she were saying, "Tomorrow's my birthday and I want chocolate cake."  I laughed and told her that the doctor would probably remind her to wear shoes when she rides her bike.

The four year old joined the conversation at this point: "Mommy, doctors don't give directions because they are not Mom and Dad."  Sometimes it's nice to know that he does hear what I tell him, even if he doesn't quite get it.  I told him that doctors give us directions about how to keep our bodies healthy.  He asked why.  I told him that doctors spend a long time in college to learn about how bodies work.  He asked why.  I told him that when you go to college you get to choose what you want to learn about.  I gave some more examples  "Daddy learned about money in college.  Mommy learned about history.  Aunt Heather learned about food that is good for you. Grandpa Justin learned about making cool movies on the computer (sorry Justin.  I don't actually know what your degree is in.) Aunt Megan is learning about...[pause while I try to think of a preschool description of chemical engineering...I've got nothing] chemistry."

Somewhere in the middle of this list I realized how silly it was to be talking to 3 children who are not yet school age about college degrees.  So I decided I might as well go completely crazy and start laying on the pressure for academic achievement.  "Ashley, what do you want to learn about when you go to college?"  She thought about it briefly and then said, "I want to learn about going somewhere."

Well played little one.  Well played.

Band-aids

A very long time ago (I realize I'm not really old enough to say that. But it was many major life transitions ago, so the phrase feels appropriate.) I had a campus security job.  I worked on a campus where students were accustomed to compliance, and my assignment was in the library.  One of the reasons I enjoyed the job was because it was significantly less stressful than my previous employment.  Our biggest emergencies usually happened during finals week.  They would usually involve students who would spend all day in the library studying, forget to eat, and then pass out when they stood up to use the bathroom.  The crisis could generally be resolved with some apple juice and a graham cracker.  Now that I think about it, many a crisis in raising three young children is averted in exactly the same manner.

Occasionally a backpack or wallet would be stolen from a computer lab.  Other than that, the job was extremely low key.  The University did have extensive and expensive special collections which is why library security was even a job.  And it was a very fun very relaxed job.  The most intense regular assignment was walking through the library at closing time to wake the sleeping studiers and tell them it was time to leave.  My secret fear was always that I would find a dead person tucked away in a study carol somewhere.  People would fall asleep in the library all the time.  It didn't seem all that far-fetched that someone might have a heart attack and die.  Everyone who walked by all day would just assume the person was napping and leave them alone.  Then I would be left to wake them up only to discover they were dead.  In my mind this always happened in the farthest corner of the lowest basement and always after the main lights had been turned off.  

When I wasn't working the closing shift, my job was basically care free.  However, I did have a coworker who seemed to have a difficult time differentiating between library security and the Secret Service.  To him everything was ultra high intensity.  Someone forgot to stop by circulation and check out their books on the way out?  He would chase them down, and interrogate them like it was part of some deep assassination plot.  Someone tried to bring Jamba Juice into the library?  He would be sure to use his whistle, authoritatively declare the library's no food policy, and issue a written reprimand.  Sometimes I secretly wished he would encounter a dead person during the closing sweep.  It might be entertaining to see how he would handle it.  

One day I was working in the control room (our fancy, self important name for the place where we would eat our lunches and watch security cameras to monitor the elderly librarians in the special collections vaults.  And occasionally reset the fire alarms.)  Mr. Secret Service was just outside the door at the front desk actively scouring the crowd of harried students searching for potential threats.  In the periphery of my awareness I heard someone come up to the desk and talk to him.  He turned around and ran the three steps into the control room and breathlessly declared, "We have an emergency!"  I briefly considered the possibility that my shift that day might be eventful.  The he shouted, "Get me a Band-aid. STAT!"  I burst out laughing.  He looked confused and slightly irritated.  He didn't agree with my assessment when I told him, as I handed him our first aid kit, "any problem a Band-aid can solve is not an emergency."

When it comes to Band-aids I am still pretty cold and heartless.  And super cheap.  Normally I totally embrace the placebo effect in parenting and harness it to my benefit.  But I simply refuse to give my kids unessesary bandages.  They ask frequently, and I always say no.  I've explained repeatedly that Band-aids are only useful when blood is involved. If they want a Band-aid, I have to see blood.  They are starting to get it.  Now requests for Band-aids are quickly followed by, "Look.  I have blood."

A few days ago my oldest little redhead had a bloody nose.  It wasn't a big deal, and we got it stopped fairly quickly.  He had friends over, so he wanted to go back to playing immediately.  I didn't notice that he had gotten some blood on the back of his hands.  About an hour later he came to me.  "Mama, I just need a Band-aid for my hand.  Look there is blood."  

Kindness: Part 6 - In Which My Groceries are Once Again Saved by Someone Else

I think it is likely that my little girl will grow up to be a world traveler.  Or at least want to go to college out of state.  Every morning she wakes up (often before the sun), finds her way into my bed, pries my eyelids open, and says, "Mama, I want to go somewhere."  Every time she hears a door open she drops what she is doing, comes running, and says, "I want to go with you."  Even if I'm just going outside to throw away a smelly diaper.  

Sometimes, when she wakes me up, I want to tell her that recent science indicates that the biggest threat to her safety and well being is the driving of her sleep deprived mother.  But, since she is only two, I figure she doesn't care much about the similarities between fatigued and intoxicated driving.  Instead I get up, nurse the baby, find some breakfast for the older kids, get clothes and shoes on everyone, and a few short hours later we are ready to go somewhere.

She used to ask to go to the museum.  That made my little nerdy heart swell with pride.  We went through a phase shortly after her surgery and our new baby when she would ask to go to the hospital.  That would make me a little bit sad for her.  Now she usually asks to go to Costco.  I am apathetic about this request.  It usually seems reasonable and practical, so often I agree.  I like shopping with my kids at Costco.  The carts have two seats, so, with my youngest in a baby carrier, everyone has a place.  And there are samples on every isle, so I don't even have to bring my own fruit snacks to keep everyone happy.  

Last time we went to Costco it was a chilly day.  After we finished our trip through the maze of industrial sized laundry detergent I bundled everyone up and we headed outside.  About halfway between the door and my car I commented about how the weather had warmed up considerably since we had first arrived at the store.  Just as I was removing the hat from my overheating infant, the rain started.  And it didn't start gradually.  We were all soaked completely through before I could finish saying "darn."  Since I was already in the middle of the parking lot, I decided there was nothing to do but keep going.  I piled my kids in the car and loaded the groceries as quickly as I could.  

When we got home it was still pouring.  Everyone was already wet, so I tried to hurry them inside and started bringing our soggy boxes of goldfish inside.  My baby was no longer too warm and was starting to fuss.  As my three year old ran inside he slipped on the wet tile and hit his head on the corner of the bottom stair.  And my little girl stood inside the door insisting that she wanted to go somewhere again.  With three upset children and a 10 pound bag of chicken nuggets that needed to go in the freezer I stared at the pouring rain and decided that my 3 gallons of milk would just have to wait.  

And then my neighbor drove by.  She and two of her boys rushed over and started unloading my car for me.  They brought in everything.  And the checker at Costco did not give me a box, so every single unreasonably large item had to be carried individually.  They made at least a dozen trips, and the boys even politely wiped the water off their feet every time they came into my house.  (Their mom did too, but I felt like such thoughtful behavior from children was especially noteworthy.)

With the groceries taken care of I was left to attend to my cranky kids.  Within a few minutes everyone was dry and cheerful (and ready to go somewhere else.)

Kindness: Parts Previous