Value of LDS Primary--a supportive culture for parenting

I wrote up a debate piece for another site on Hillary's child/village thing, and it is a bit vague intentionally, but mainly I support both active parenting and a culture supportive of the parents' values that we try to accomplish in the church, etc.

Some prominent opinion-makers have quoted the wisdom "It takes a village to raise a child." Very likely this is true in many ways, but it certainly also helps if the child's parents live in that village! Optimally there will be many people interested in a child's development, but it works best when someone in the village takes the parent role, and takes it seriously.

There are ways that human babies come 'wired' to identify 'mother.' Before birth a child can recognize her mother by smell and sound. They diligently spend the first three months of life learning to recognize her facial features. Only for a few days can an infant be raised by detached nursing staffs. The care taking-in-shifts approach works with very young newborns, but after that they fail to thrive unless they are also forming primary bonds. In fact, according to widely accepted attachment theory, if a child is well attached to a primary caretaker figure, the child is much more secure and can use that relationship as a 'safe base' for exploration of the world, or at least the village.

During the babe-in-arms age, the child is still learning important things by mimicking the facial expressions of the parent they know enough to establish such recognition. For the child's health, there are numerous benefits from breast-feeding, which is nutrition tailor-made for the child by the mother according to her needs. There is hardly a better example of a way in which having your own mom is not just a cultural notion!

Early language and intellectual development is enhanced by the ability of a child to interact with a primary adult that knows them well and can build on that understanding. There is a way of talking to babies called 'motherese' where a caretaker interprets the child's babbling as speech, gives it meaning, gives full sentence form to individual words, and in general interact with the child as an interested and interesting partner in communication.

Later in the child's life, on the other hand, while it is still important to have that primary caretaker relationship, there are certain things a child learns that are more readily learned from someone other than the parent. By age seven, children start to actually prefer the company of same-aged playmates, while they appreciate adults that are interested in them and are keeping track of them. They almost develop a big of an anti-adult and anti-parent attitude in this pre-adolescent age. (Remember when kids sang 'Mine eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school?' They were probably pre-teens.) They develop a bit of a rebelliousness though they don't know what they are rebelling from quite yet, mainly they are just separating a bit from the need to be cared for.

Some types of knowledge a child deliberately rejects the version they might get from their parents. If anyone knows someone who is a child of immigrants, say from Eastern Europe or Asia, it is quite probable that they speak English without much of an accent. Language is one of the skills where children learn primarily from their community, or their village. My children at a young age, say nine, got a sense of words that I would use that weren't in' anymore, that I had dated myself and they were clearly learning the optimal version of language, and probably other things such as clothing and other trends, from the larger culture. Later when my kids go through puberty there will be more obvious ways that they will no longer seek me out for what they are interested about.

But most relevant to the way in which this quote is discussed, when it comes to instilling or enforcing any type of value system, it is almost essential for parents (in order to be successful in raising a child with a certain values or a religion) to have a wider group that shares those values with the parents. It is as if the child establishes the parents' value system as a possible theory but only validates that theory if it is also shared by at least some subset of the wider population. Values that tend to run contrary to those they interact with in their 'village' may have a high danger of being rejected. But that is why some, particularly conservative religions that depend on this happening, tend to cluster in ethnic groups, so that not only they themselves but also the child's peers are likely to believe in the same values and help the child develop them.

In sum, while this statement is often rejected in its extreme form in that it is not typically the best situation for children to grow up without any person or people that that child can refer to as parents' it is true that it is the ideal situation to have interested caregivers who are also networked within a community that is supportive of their efforts and shares their values.

Chase on steroids at 10

It's just Prednisone, actually, and everything sounds scary with the list of side effects you can have and that they have to report. But it is only for five days, to clear the runny nose he has had for the last few years. I finally went back to his doc and said listen, it is not ok for a kid to have a runny nose his whole life. The biggest concern to me was that he was starting to pronounce things like he had a cold and I wondered if it would stick, since this age is a critical period for that stuff.

It seems to be working like a dream, and that is great, because I was seriously feeling bad for him. No kid should have to be stuffy all the time. It is good that some problems can actually be solved. Wish some of mine could. In fact it has been my pessimism that caused me to not force things earlier.

Why so quiet?

Main poster's been a bit under the weather here. Nothing out of the ordinary, just the kind of thing that happens when there is any disruption. The dog's not being housetrained was a pretty big thing for me and as much as I love housecleaning after about three hours extra of it every day while the rest of the house looked like a wreck gradrually disrupted my ever-so-important sleep schedule. I have been alternating between sleeping for three days, not sleeping for four, etc... the usual.

Nothing that we aren't used to, just wanted to explain why everything seems a bit dark.

The downside when an English bulldog thinks he's a people person

Well so much for me posting about anything important, but again my life is rather consumed with this.

Slade noticed this morning that the dog, because he gets upset to be left alone, shows that he knows people are leaving him by doing a 'protest whiz.' The first morning the boys were leaving back to school this year he went on a pile of their books. Yesterday when we were getting ready for church it was in our room. I know his methods of communicating are limited, I just wish he knew we have gotten the message.

One thing that is hard is that he has to constantly be underfoot, which sometimes has the advantage that I have to be watching him anyway so he doesn't do any of the above, but it is hard when I am going down the stairs or cooking.

And the most amazing thing of all is how he shows that he knows Slade is the master. I remember Bo did this with my dad. My mom and us kids would fawn all over him all day but my dad would come home and he would plant himself by dad for the rest of the night. His favorite time of the week was jumping up to lick him when he slept in on Saturdays. Good times.

And Slade is the brutal disciplinarian with Harry, but he is the owner, so he gets all the Kudos. Slade bought this torture collar for walks and doesn't put up with anything (I was going to say he doesn't put up with something particularly crude, and that would be true, also). But Harry definitely prefers him.

Saturday was movie night and we watched (unfortunately) Karate Kid II. Afterward Sadie got up to show she had learned some moves and was doing karate chops on her dad. Harry was visibly upset and got in between Sadie and Slade and paced around. Great, he is protecting Slade from a six year old girl. Slade didn't appreciate when I joked that maybe he looks like he wouldn't win the fight.

I am pretty sure it has something to do with the history of the breed. No matter how vicious they were to bulls and bears in the pit they had to also be fiercely loyal to their owners especially because as they were lower class city dwellers (the big bull baiting pits were in London) they probably lived all in close quarters.

It is very endearing and why I chose him and wouldn't have a substitute, but I am starting to at least see the advantages some dogs and particularly cats that are willing to have their own lives.

The only really frustrating thing about this is that the woman I bought him from , Rhonda at luvabulldog, told me that he was potty trained. She of course denies this, she's not exactly what you would call an honest woman. But you never know what you are going to get when someone is selling animals over the internet.

She claims that she never said he was potty trained, but of course this is ridiculous, because I would have never bought him had she not said this. Everyone I know knows that the reason I missed out on a puppy that I wanted really bad was because my health wouldn't permit an unhousebroken animal, so I was very careful to look around until it seemed that I had found an adult dog who the owner claimed was housebroken. Obviously this woman said whatever she needed to say to get my money. She even told me that there was a health guarantee, and then when there were actual health problems because she had neglected him, she wouldn't pay even a small vet bill.

Terrible experience with this backyard bulldog breeder, and I hope no one else makes the mistake of buying one of her puppies or one from the Babb woman who for some reason got involved to at first tell me that Rhonda should pay my bill but then freaked out when Rhonda said that it was Babb's dog and so she went away pretty fast.
Shady bunch, these backyard bulldog breeders. To anyone read this, do your homework, and avoid Babb and Rhonda at luvabulldog - they don't.

Something about Kelly

Noticing the last few posts in my family blog were about the dog, and because nothing else has really happened around here, I thought I would storm a new topic in case anyone has actually remained faithful that there might be something worthwhile here. Not to suggest that talking about the Kellys is just filler. But I was motivated by something Kate said on her blog recently to also try to observe some good and positive things, rather than using the blog format just to rant. The positive stuff usually doesn't make for the best juicy entertainment, and with me it doesn't stimulate my reactionary hypergraphia, but she is right that it is probably good to at least make some room for it.

The whole Kellys clan have been closely involved with my kids over the years, and I have recently thought about how positive that has been for them. It is quite common for the adults in kids' lives related to them vertically to show this kind of interest (parents and grandparents—-with the whole Darwinian fitness argument being that the reason this is most common is that we are all strongly motivated by genetic self promotion). But it can be unusual and thus extremely influential when other adults or older kids decide to show special interest, really giving them that extra positive hope for how the world is going to treat them that most kids aren’t always lucky enough to have.

I will never forget the summer where we stayed with them in Provo. Sadie was aged one at the time, Drake the oldest was six, and one day when Jim could see I had had it, probably fairly obvious and frequent at the time. So he packed up all four of them, which I couldn’t even always manage very often, and took them all for an outing in Provo Canyon. Pretty amazing for an uncle to do this, and not that it always matters because some people are obviously able to overcome the all-importance of genetic tie, but he isn’t even the one related to them.

Very little time goes by without getting some card or gift in the mail from either Donna or Jim. Jim doesn’t go anywhere or do anything without sending us a postcard, and this winter he outfitted my kids for their next ski trip. He can be insightful about people and we usually benefit from it. One time when my mom was talking about how Slade is always able to say and do the right thing to make people feel good (something rather typical for her to say about him but nothing unusual, most people who know him well observe this), Jim said he thought this quality demonstrated Slade was a ‘healer.’ He wasn't even talking to me, so he wasn't just buttering either of us up, but I was amazed that anyone could teach me anything about my own husband, who I am usually the one to describe best.

Matt and Jake have shaped my boys’ attitude about how they should treat others themselves because they have been so sweetly caretaking of them over the years, leading to them in turn being particularly good with littler kids as they were treated by the older boys in their lives. I regularly get this observation from primary people and parents of their friends, etc. When we flew to Nauvoo together, Jake impressed us on the flight when the stewardess (flight attendant, whatever) asked his name. He extended his hand for a handshake while telling her. I have offered my boys a buck if they would ever try this charming manoeuvre (because in my opinion parents don't do enough to encourage kids' manners these days) but so far, no takers. I could tell anecdotes like this about all of them. Sadie keeps the wedding portrait books of Amy and Kate on her dresser and looks through them frequently, as they have been some of her most important role models.

The hours they have spent at various homes and trips over the years helping me with the kids when they were small and now, too, have been very important to all of us, at least to enable me to put off my nervous breakdown until after they were a bit bigger!

Puddles in Oregon

Oregon has a bad rap about all the puddles. Well it used to. The rain is actually not bad and OR has some of the mildest weather anywhere all things considered. I went out with no coat on today. There were a few raindrops but I didn't have to worry about loosing fingers or toes, slip to my death, or need to scrape anything off my car, or worse. This is coming from someone who would rather be living in Arizona and so nothing about winter will be perfect, I have all the snow I want within an hour's drive and the appropriately maximum twice a year in my yard.

But the puddles I am having a hard time with lately, even in January, are coming from inside my own house.

After having spent our last red cent on this dog and purposefully bypassing the adorable puppy stage so he wouldn't ruin our house, we may have to end up buying all new carpets anyway.

And the worst thing is, it is on purpose. He knows exactly what he is doing. he can control his functions perfectly. And it isn't that he doesn't prefer to go outside. He loves the weather, now that we got his foot condition fixed (bad kennel owners, evil bad puppy mill people...)

He just likes to go inside, too.

Apparently that is one of the disadvantages of getting a nearly adult male dog. They don't like to move into a house that they don't feel is fully their territory. My luck.

Right now he and I are having to be very lonely for each other because he is being punished in the downstairs bathroom, as usual. He developed the absolute necessity to keep a bag of new curtains peed on.

Other than this, he is a delight. Seriously, the amount of love and adorableness that he has brought to us and the absolute giddy happiness of our kids has been hard to overstate. Seeing Drake take absolute responsibility that has come with being one of the main people to take care of him has been precious. So if the puddles were really so bad that if I would have known I wouldn't have gotten him, I probably wouldn't have gotten myself any kids, either. Because they are much messier, much more work, and much more frustrating.

So I guess we will survive.

Making a text link

I have been trying to learn how I can link to another page just by making a word such as link clickable. I have tried to research it and it has something to do with that icon in compose mode that looks like a booger wearing swim goggles, but I can't get it to work. Anyone know how?