flea | ah, my mother; baby names

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ah, my mother; baby names

Email subject line: How many mothers and grandmothers

Content: Are discussing the article "Whose Bed is it Anyway?"
in today's NYT. Don't all those exhausted families
sound silly and wimpy? And don't their bedrooms seem
too fancy for them to deserve everything going right.
Too bad raising good kids, kids with boundaries, isn't
their top priority...Can you imagine sharing your bed
with 5 year old Dillopie?????And 8 year old Casper?
Oops you mean you intend to?
Actually, the part of the article I did like was the
statement by the mental health pro that setting
boundaries for children is important and the bedtime
is a part of that. KEep up the good work! (KEep
trying, that is.)
Do not be offended by this message. IT is meant to be
funny.
love, D

Note to mother (and everyone else watching): If you have to SAY "Do not be offended; this is meant to be funny," maybe you should just keep quiet.

I haven't even read the article yet. Ugh.

Born to Beth and Matt: Jonah Peter
Born to Connie and Truman: Truman, to be called, we think, Tucker, or something. Sisters are Wilder and Annabel.

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How charming your mother is! Can we push her off a cliff?

Don't worry. That's meant to be funny.

OH. MY. GOD.

Dude, my mom has issues through the roof but she would NEVER be so condescending to me.

It's actually an interesting article--but definitely one that Superior Parents can shake their fingers and tut-tut those "wimpy" parents that "don't know how to set boundaries."

My first rule of parenting is NEVER say NEVER. You don't know how desperate you're going to be some day.

This I know: never generally comes back to bite me in the ass.

For what it's worth, flea, I didn't think the article itself was bad.

I also feel a little bad for your mom. I think it must be hard to be the parent of an adult. You're still a parent, but you have no child. You have grown offspring, but they're the same people. When you see them struggling with something, it's got to be hard to refrain from nudging. I know why you don't find her note funny, but I can see she's trying to be funny, and what's keeping her from being funny is that she's also trying to be pointy.

I'm sorry!

I never think you're wimpy.

Wilder? They named their daughter Wilder? It's a cool name, in a way, but I feel like they're just asking for trouble...and somehow I feel like Annabel will either be jealous, or all "HAHA, I GOT THE NORMAL NAME!"

Double funny because Wilder (who is now 5) is very blonde and has ringletty curls and generally looks like a little angel-child from a catalog - not 'wild' at all! She behaves pretty normally, too. I think it must be a family last name; that's fairly common down here.

Oddly enough, Wilder is one of my family names--all the elders in my family say I look just like my dad's Granny Wilder. But I have to admit it's hard for me to wrap my head around sisters named Annabel and Wilder. I feel like that, having named my first child Annabel, I've committed to giving our hypothetical second child a name that matches it in being clearly gendered and classic yet not too common--Annabel could have a brother named Edmund, but not one named Jaden, or a sister named Eleanor or Teresa but not one named Bailey or even a common classic name like Elizbeth or Katherine.

Of course, it's entirely possible I overthink these things!

Okay, the funniest part of the whole thing is the "I am a parent that believes in BOUNDARIES! Except for the part where I butt in on my daughter's parenting skills."

Ah, mother. Ha ha ha ha ha!

I think the appropriate response is pointing out how shitty and neo-bourgeois the NYT coverage of women and parenting has become in the past two years. Critical thinking skills are a good thing!! (Especially if you can remind her that you're not neo-bourgeois.)

Your posts about your mother *always* make me laugh and breathe a little sigh of relief because, at least online, she comes across as so...willing to share her opinions.

I haven't read the article yet, but I can only imagine. Not only do I whole-heartedly agree with Cash's never say never, but the longer Ellie is around, the more and more I trust my own judgment to decide what is good for her and what is not. I don't want her in our bed when she's 5, but I might change mmy mind about that in the future.

Oh, she's like this in person, too. When she first met mr. flea, we'd been dating for less than 6 months, although we'd done a trip overseas together that felt like a honeymoon. IOW, we were pretty serious, but I don't know that my mother knew how serious. And she said to him within a couple of hours of meeting him, "What level of socieconomic status do you aspire to?"

It's a good thing he's a brave man.

Not to psychoanalyze excessively, but you should have seen her reacting to Brother's girlfriend, who as you know was not raised among Our Kind socioeconomically speaking. She was very friendly, but struggled with the condescenscion. Or, struggled to understand that her behavior was condescending, despite my telling her so several times.

There are certain ossified things one endures in one's kin; I think that if I were to bring home a Rockefeller I would instantly be transmogrified into the genius of the family.

I think that if I were to bring home a Rockefeller I would instantly be transmogrified into the genius of the family.

Heh. This is exactly how my baby brother redeemed himself in the eyes of our dad: sure, he's gayer than gay, but he married a tall, charming, handsome, aggressively Midwestern prep-school graduate with a bushel of easy social graces and an impressive-sounding Manhattan corporate career. Aside from his spouse being the same gender, my brother has given our dad exactly the child-in-law he's dreamed of all his life.

And, damn. That, on a first meeting? mr. flea is made of courage.

He is a brave man!

I meant to add that when I first read "Keep up the good work! (Keep trying, that is.)" I assumed she meant although you were failing you should keep trying to do good work. Now I'm reading it as "parenting is not good 'work' exactly but a constant series of 'trying'" although having read your other comments, I'm not sure.

Okay, the funniest part of the whole thing is the "I am a parent that believes in BOUNDARIES! Except for the part where I butt in on my daughter's parenting skills."

Exactamundo.

Oh my. (But thanks for sparing me the need to read the NYT article and grind my teeth at it.)

I read the article. It was easy to find because it was their Most Emailed today, so I suspect that it's the kind of thing that's shooting from Grandparents to their Daughters concerning their Grandchildren today.

I think there's a big generational divide on the issue. One interesting thing about the article was that it focused on reluctant co-sleepers.

But I do think that expediency drives this issue. I know that with Emmett we just about killed ourselves keeping him in his crib. It just took so much time to get him back down to sleep every night. Forty-five minutes to an hour, and that was so disruptive of your sleep pattern. And even if you did get him down, there was no guarantee that he wouldn't wake up ninety minutes later.

It's just so much easier to do whatever gets everybody to sleep quickest. And everybody's more rested and able to function.

Though my experience with Emmett was that it was easier to keep him in his bed after he turned 4. (Somewhere in there anyway.)

Yeah, my issue with my mother is that she doesn't think I should be co-sleeping once the kid is past 6 months (and she'd prefer 3). I think, under two years and nursing at night, why the hell not if it isn't killing you? And then ovet two years, siblings can sleep together.

Casper actually does sleep through like a charm now, with what I consider normal exceptions, whether anyone is in bed with her or not. The deal is, we have to lie down with her to get her to go to sleep. Which is not that big a deal, to me, though I wish she were tired earlier.

But I do think that expediency drives this issue. I know that with Emmett we just about killed ourselves keeping him in his crib. It just took so much time to get him back down to sleep every night. Forty-five minutes to an hour, and that was so disruptive of your sleep pattern. And even if you did get him down, there was no guarantee that he wouldn't wake up ninety minutes later.

Seriously. I want my bed back, but you know, I don't want to blow all my vacation days JUST trying to get my kid to sleep without me.

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ah, my mother; baby names

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