"What's up with people today, Mama?"

The other day my younger daughter happily and carefully picked out an outfit and accessories. She even snuck on a little make-up. I let the make-up slide even though normally it is only allowed for dress-up at home because it was just a bit of peach eye shadow and some lip gloss. She was feeling proud, fierce, beautiful. Her older sister barely brushed her hair and threw on soccer shorts, a Puma tee, and some running shoes. The younger sister was definitely winning the effort award for the day. Then we went out.

The exact outfit she wore: white shirt, pink blazer, silver necklace and broach, metallic silver fedora with pink bow, skinny jeans, black patent leather booties with metallic silver laces. She was so proud of this combo!

She walked into the doctor's office with confidence and was discouraged almost instantly. The nurse came out and looked at my two kids saying, "A girl and a boy? Yeah, boy. Right?" I corrected her calmly saying, "No, I have two daughters."  "Oh, I couldn't tell because of the hat."

Three more people, including the doctor, called her a boy before we left that office prompting her to sigh, roll her eyes, and whisper to me, "what's up with people today, Mama?" I don't know. I was baffled and tired of politely saying, "she's a girl," repeatedly. I had watched my little girl start the day with glee and confidence then watch it get chipped away. I saw her shrink back inside herself a little more with every comment until even the compliments she got at the end of her time at the doctor's, as we were riding the elevator down to the lobby and multiple people raved about her hat and her outfit in general, didn't bring a smile. So what can I do? What can she do? We joked about people now being open minded enough to assume boys wear pink blazers with silver necklaces and then got on with our day.

My daughter has had short hair since preschool, so she has had to deal with people mistaking her for a boy for the last four years (half of her life at this point). In the past, at her old school in a different state, the children who were confused about her gender acted on it with violence - shoving her, jabbing her with a pencil, knocking her to the ground. At her new school, and in Maryland in general, people tend to simply ask her, "are you a girl or a boy?" then they move on with their lives. She complains a bit about it being annoying to constantly tell people she is a girl (she gets called a boy or has someone ask her what she is almost daily), but she says she prefers them asking to making assumptions. Most importantly, she feels safe now going to school. A couple (literally just two) kids give her a hard time, but that is manageable and the good far out number the cranky. She works hard to shift her focus away from the negative people and onto the positive ones. She works hard to shake off the "what are you?" comments and focus on the "I like your style" comments instead. She works hard at staying true to herself and drawing on her inner strength every single day as she goes out into a world full of people who seem unable to look past the length of her hair. As her mom, I work hard to not go into mama-bear mode and yell at people or completely cocoon my baby to protect her from weird stares and random strangers in restrooms glaring at her saying, "why is that boy using the girls' room? Ugh!" She works hard and it gets understandably tiring and draining.

I am not telling her story because I want people to feel sorry for her or view her as a victim. She is a strong, tough cookie. She doesn't view herself as a victim. Plus, honestly, life is so much better for her now. The day at the doctor's office was annoying, but she no longer worries about her physical safety every day. She was able to leave her bullies behind when she moved out of Illinois, and she tries now to keep them in the past. When people talk about people who are being bullied or tell stories of others who were attacked on a regular basis for not conforming, for not being a Stepford wife, they aren't asking for pity.

Here, girls. Be like this and everyone will be nice to you. *eyeroll*

The request is that, as civilized people living on a planet full of people from many different cultures, religions, traditions, etc., we treat each other politely. This is not a matter of political correctness gone to the extreme. It is about common decency. It is about being honest about how people treat each other. Bullying in schools now is NOT the same as it was in the 1950s or even the 1980s. Adults struggle with shaking off negativity yet expect children to "shake it off" constantly - 24/7 (the internet makes sure no one can escape their tormentor even after they retreat home to their bedrooms). People put the guilt on the targets of the bullies. I have been told over and over and over again, "well if she just acted/looked more normal, they wouldn't pick on her. What do you expect?" Seriously? I should tell my daughters to ignore their personal tastes and just be clones of the people harassing them? And when the tastes of the harassers change, my daughters must change, too? Does that sound healthy? "If someone bullied my kid, I'd tell my kid to just punch them. That's how you stop a bully!" Seriously? So my kid will then get expelled from school? Violence is the first and only answer? Why don't we try the, "hey, everyone, let's stop being jerks to each other." I think that would be better. "Forcing me to be so PC all the time is like bullying. I'm sick of being told to not hurt other people's feelings." Seriously? Um, no. Someone asking to not be beaten up or have people tell them they are worthless on a daily basis is not bullying. Someone asking to be treated like a fellow human being with feelings and value is fair. This is not about political correctness; it is about loving our neighbors as ourselves . . .  or at least not trying to make them think their lives are worth less than ours.

My point in writing this is to ask people to think about two things.

• First, let's think about how we are defining genders and how we pass those gender expectations on to our kids. The kids who were harassing my daughter had picked up on strict gender norms from their parents, the adults they interacted with, and the subtle messages they picked up from the world around them (like gender defining signs in toy stores). Are we accepting gender as a minor defining feature of ourselves and others or is it a limiting factor? Are we viewing gender as a spectrum or polar opposites with no flexibility? And what the heck does hair length have to do with any of it anyway? 
• Secondly, let's think about how we talk about other people, to their faces or behind their backs. Are we talking about physically hurting people just because they are different? Are we saying people who disagree with us are losers or idiots or stupid? And are we supporting or cheering for people who are mean, insulting, or use violence as a first option? Kids pick up on that and bring those attitudes to school. Between the 1980s and now, the level of snarkiness in schools spiked and the extremes people are now willing to go to in order to prove another person is less than them is astounding. Blaming the targets, calling them weak, is wrong. We need to nip our snark in the bud and raise children who choose kindness over insults. Let's raise children who know that their value does not depend on others being below them. Let's raise children who know that diversity strengthens a society.

 Let's raise children who can ask, "what's your gender?" then follow it up with, "wanna play?" That's my point.

“But, Mom, people really ARE annoying.”

OK, today I am not arguing this one. Today I am saying, yes, when people say this one particular thing to me, I get really irked. As I’ve said before (in a lovely blog here), I’m not naturally a super bubbly people person. I would rather be home alone with my books and skulls and bats and stuffed walruses. I do try to be more patient and understanding and outgoing, though. I do try to reach out to people and engage in the world around me. Most of the time, it works and I find that “fake it till you make it” works. Most but not all of the time.

 

How I feel some days. Just go away, people.

I know that for a lot of moms the real “I’m gonna punch you in the teeth” question is the “what do you do all day” question. Yeah, that one can be annoying, but I really don’t think the question itself is the problem. As a former working mom turned stay-at-home mom, I get it. I used to wonder what SAHMs did, too. I wasn’t being judgey. I was curious. And I think most of the people who ask me are curious, too. There are judgey people, but the question itself isn’t inherently judgey.

No, the thing that gets me riled up and has me grinding my teeth and doing mental back flips trying to come up with justifications for people saying crap like that is when people say to me, “well, you’re just lucky your kids were born so well behaved.” Um, no, they weren’t. Before I get into why this annoys me (acknowledging upfront that I might be overreacting, but whatever, I’m allowed to considering I don’t actually in real life flip out at people so how much am I really over reacting?), here are my rationales I run through in my head to stop me from saying mean things back to people:

• The people are just trying to say my kids are not being poop heads. That’s a good thing. Take the compliment and run. Really. Just run. Don’t open your mouth.
• Most parents are insecure about their parenting abilities and try to find ways of justifying what they see as failures on their parts. Saying someone else’s kid was born that way just takes a little of the burden off them and makes them feel better. Let them feel better and run. Don’t open your mouth.
• People get mixed up about nature vs nurture and think it is an either/or thing. Explaining the way brains are wired and how we are socialized and the way we are a balance of inherited traits and learned behaviors takes too long. Just run. Don’t open your mouth.
• Maybe they know I’m part Irish and eat way too much Lucky Charms? Who knows . . . now I’m grasping at straws. Just run. Don’t open your mouth. Unless it is to eat Lucky Charms.

Here is why that bugs me. I work really hard. Really. My kids, like all kids, were born as little screaming babies. Well, one was. The other wasn’t screaming because she couldn’t breath. But eventually she was a screaming baby. Point is they were not born preprogrammed to obey their teachers, raise their hands in class, do their homework every day, follow rules, respect authority figures, say please and thank you, not hit kids when they don’t get their way, etc. My husband and I make very deliberate decisions with our children (I talk about that more here) and work very hard to teach them how to behave. Can we control them? No. But we can try to instill morals and values and guide them. Are our girls perfect? Heck no! Do they have challenges? Oh, YES! Just because people don’t see the challenges doesn’t mean they aren’t there. We have had many epic battles with the girls at home. We have questioned our parenting and wondered if our kids will in fact grow up to be international criminal masterminds (even if they turn out evil, we expect them to do well). We have had sleepless nights worrying about our kids and wondering what to do. When we get to those bridges we can’t cross on our own, we get outside help which for our younger daughter has meant speech therapy and help with anxiety.

"She reads? You're so lucky." No, I had to fight and have
MANY conversations to find the right kind of books for her
to read and the right kind of motivation to get her to read.
It wasn't luck; it was determination.

Each girl has a different personality and different needs to be addressed. That is true for every child. Every parent takes the child they have and tries to parent the best they can to meet that child’s needs. For us, as we go along and learn we have had to adapt our parent strategies to fit the needs of our two very different children. This means swallowing our pride, researching parenting techniques, talking to specialists, meeting with teachers, spending countless hours listening to our daughters and trying to figure out strategies for success with them, explaining why punching annoying people in the face really isn’t a good solution (no matter how tempting it is). In short, we work HARD to have good kids. Our kids are physically healthy at this point, and that is partly luck (and partly careful parenting again), but that is where the luck stops.

I’m not saying we work harder than other parents, but I am saying we do work. Calling our kids’ good behavior “luck” ignores our hard work. It diminishes the effort and careful consideration we put into every day. I know sometimes parents say it because they are defensive about their own kids and parenting, but honestly most of the time I am more focused on my kids and wouldn’t have noticed their kids till they made that comment. Calling my parenting “luck” makes me think, “you think parenting is about luck not work? What are you doing with your kid? Sitting back hoping to get lucky and have him figure out on his own that he shouldn’t push my kid? No wonder he is acting that way.” And that is when I do get judgey. And I don’t like feeling judgey. And I don’t want other moms to feel judged. Being a mom is – or at least should be – hard enough.

 

Spending time with our girls, talking to them, trying to understand them
so we can guide them the best. No luck involved here. Just lots of time.

So if you come across some really well behaved kids who are eating a salad and not throwing knives at people, don’t be mean to the parents or snarky by calling them “lucky” or worse yet making a sarcastic comment mocking them. Either say nothing or just say, “what a nice kid.” Because chances are the parents had many battles at home before the kid would eat that salad in public.

"School's better . . . but not perfect."

Honestly, that’s fine. I’ll take it. If you’re not sure where this is coming from, read THIS first. All caught up? Here’s what happened next.

My daughter did go to school and did talk to her teacher. She was nervous, but she got through it. At first, she didn’t get exactly what she wanted. Of course, exactly what she wanted was for either everyone else to disappear or for her desk to be moved to the hall. Not really realistic. Instead, the teacher said she would address the problem of kids talking out of turn and being disrespectful to the whole class the next day and by the end of the week everyone would have new seats. Rearranging seats is not as simple as one might assume. Kids are people with complex little personalities and the teacher has a lot to take into consideration. Plus, this is still the beginning of the year. She is getting to know people and balancing things out. Additionally, entire classes cannot be uprooted just because my (adorable princess center of MY universe) daughter wants her to move everyone. Long story short, I was satisfied, but my daughter was not entirely convinced things were going to get better. To complicate things, she then got sick and was absent the next day. D’oh!

Fast forward a week. Her teacher, being a professional who has her eye on the bigger picture beyond just my one child, did address the whole class. She talked to my daughter a couple more times over the week to find out more information about what the problem was and did separate my daughter from the girl who was harassing her (yes, I think repeatedly questioning someone’s gender during class every single day is harassment).

From my daughter’s perspective, the situation is slightly improved because she is no longer directly next to that one girl, however she is still there. Now we are talking about what my daughter can do on her own to not let the annoying stuff get to her and ruin her day. Filtering techniques: focusing on the positive things that are there; instead of focusing on what other people are doing, focusing on what she is doing and her own purpose. The point is, she cannot control other people, but she can control herself.

From my perspective, this is a huge victory because the whole thing was dealt with without me getting involved at all. My daughter did all the talking to her teacher herself. She felt comfortable enough to speak up for herself. That’s a big deal. It is also a victory because her teacher didn’t brush her off. Her teacher either was already aware of the situation from seeing it or considerate enough to listen to and believe her student. Either way, good sign of a good teacher. Teachers have a lot of other goals without also worrying about social problems and classroom discipline, but the social problems and classroom discipline have a huge impact on learning. I am very hopeful for the rest of the year and glad that our message “teachers are partners” was proven true. Oh, and it helped that my daughter earned the Take a Fuzzy Friend to School card. That always makes school better.

Heading to school with a smile and a fuzzy Dronkey friend.

People are Annoying.

Me: How was school, Yasya?
Yasya: People are annoying and they are killing my brain. 

I know I should discourage the negativity, but, good grief it is so true. And so hard to deny. And probably my biggest challenge as a mom. Deep down inside, I am Wednesday Addams. As a kid, I identified with her more than anyone else. I didn't like socializing or people. I made sure there was at least some bit of black in my clothes everyday even if it was just Mickey Mouse’s ears. My inner monologue is still all in her voice. Or if you want to get more modern, you can put in April Ludgate. Either way, it is not a bubbly voice. And I have been accused of being too sarcastic. As an adult who moves around in society and used to work with teens, that wasn’t always so good. I mean, to a certain extent, it worked (teens and kids in general usually prefer honest people who are a little dark to overly bubbly people who are clearly trying too hard), but at some point it is good to stop and try to be cheerful. *sigh*

So I have tried to grow and adapt. Here comes the debate. Does trying to act nice and cheerful even though I am Wednesday Ludgate inside make me a phony? Or does it mean I am trying to evolve as a person and adapt to different situations as needed? When I was a retreat leader, this topic would come up periodically. Not that we were talking about me, but we would talk about how we acted in different situations. Do people act differently at school than at home or work, for example. If we think about all the environments we pass through in a week – home with kids, home with spouse, playdates, school, work, church, grocery shopping, library, etc – it is pretty clear that identical behavior in each of those environments would not be appropriate. If I talked to my husband the same way I talked to my daughters, he’d get pretty annoyed (I know this from experience). Similarly, if I acted the same now in my thirties as a mom as I did as a dark teen hating everyone, that would be . . . sad. Ideally, people grow as they age. And I don't mean fatter.

Also, as a parent, I need to think about the long term affect of my actions. How I talk to my children and how they see me interacting with others will to some extent shape how they interact with others. I want my children to be slightly less dark and gloomy, so I do try to focus on the positive with them. Normally, I avoid asking, “how was school?” It leaves the door open for negative answers. Normally I ask for best things of the day or who the girls played with or what was the most interesting thing they learned. At dinner, all of us have to say what the best thing of the day was. On my super grumpy days, that is really hard for me. Sometimes I have to bite my tongue to avoid saying, “I didn’t stab anyone today.” For my older daughter, the sunshiney stuff seems much more natural. For my younger daughter and myself, it is a skill we have to practice daily and really work on consciously. That's part of why I named my Etsy shop HAPPY Walrus instead of Morose Walrus. There is joy around me as long as I keep looking for it (and sometimes the joy comes in the shape of The Addams Family or Tim Burton movies or super dark humor shared with my younger daughter). On bad days, like the day my daughter said the annoying people were killing her brain, we did talk about all that negative stuff. I want to be clear about that. Focusing on the positive does NOT mean ignoring the negative or shoving it in a closet. She vented and ate Oreos, and we talked about actions to take in the future.

I am still true to myself and have my pretty little skulls and bats decorating our apartment, my sarcasm does show up sporadically (though not to the point of making people cry), and I still have a mostly black wardrobe including skeleton boots I wear all year, however it isn’t overwhelming. My hope is that by focusing on the positive, I can gradually shift my own inner monologue a bit, too. People are annoying, but I do have to live around them and interact with them. I can choose to be constantly annoyed by them, or I can – reluctantly – try to change my attitude. When I go out, I have some friends who are my Wednesday Ludgate friends, but my other friends are needed to balance that out and remind me that sometimes talking to people about things isn’t so bad. The world needs Leslie Knopes, too. Hopefully my kids will be able to grow into Leslie Ludgates. The annoying people won’t stop asking, “are you a boy? Are you sure?” or “Where did you get her from?” (referring to my daughter who I got from my uterus and what kind of normal person asks that question, seriously?) or refusing to use turn signals, but we can learn to smile despite – or in spite of -  them. Then paint our nails black and eat some waffles.

What can I say? We look good in black.