Some Thoughts Regarding Ben and Amy and Coco
29 Mar 2011 2 Comments
in Tiger Mother
As I’m raising an infant, I often wonder how Amy Chua raised her infants. Did she Chinese-parent them? And how do you do that? Isaac had his worst sleeping day EVER today (just the day part) and we had to have a showdown around 4 pm. He needed sleep. I needed him to sleep. He didn’t want to sleep. I proved to have the stronger will and he slept. We were all better for it which I’m sure he learned. I need sleep now just having to think about it.
I read the Coco the dog part just now and I had to laugh about how Amy Chua wanted her dog to be a violin virtuoso too (–well–you know what I mean). I remember Eliana once saying something about Cole finally being smarter than the dog because he could turn on a faucet–or something like that. I kind of feel that way about Isaac. He isn’t much smarter than the cat, and in fact, is dumber than the cat in many ways. But Ben thinks he’s trainable, like the cat (or Coco). He kind of is but he’s kind of not, too. He knows the routine for when I take a shower and get ready (he has to sit on the bathroom floor and listen to me sing “Little Bunny Foo-Foo” and “Old McDonald” a hundred times), he knows the routine for a diaper change (he lays in his room by his crib for an undefined period of time), he knows the routine for dishes (he sits in his high chair and gets splashed with water occasionally) but he doesn’t learn very quickly about things we don’t do over and over and over and over and over again. In fact he doesn’t really learn unless it’s repeated often or unless he’s highly motivated. Ben doesn’t understand this. Ben has been reading about it just like Amy Chua would. In fact, Ben’s parenting instinct/wisdom comes from books and the Internet. Mine comes from experience. It’s hard to argue with either of those and sometimes we just have to agree to disagree (which means that I win because I’m the care-giver!)
Well, these ideas sounded articulate in my mind. Maybe it’s the hour and the parenting day, I don’t know.
Important Things
15 Mar 2011 3 Comments
in Tiger Mother
Amy Chua seems intent on having children who excel at the piano and violin. She doesn’t just want them to play well, she wants them to win competitions and be the very best. They can’t play sports, be in school plays, spend hours in the window seat with a good book (I know both of you just went into panic mode with that last one), so I got wondering what I’m intent on making my kids do.
Some parents make their children excel at sports–Olympic athletes for instance. There is also an amazing point guard on BYU’s basketball team (yes, Kate, that Y) and from what I’ve heard about his childhood, everyone in his family was willing to sacrifice so that he could be a great basketball player–and he spent his piano/violin/reading hours in the gym running dribbling and shooting drills.
For me, I want my kids to be workers. I grew up with two philosophies–1) idle hands are the devil’s workshop and 2) you have to work for your whole life so you might as well learn how and how to appreciate work when you’re young.
My mom always made us be active in activities. I think this kept us out of her hair but also she knew that if we were at an activity or doing a job, we weren’t getting into trouble. And if we had constant activities and jobs, then we were too tired in our free time to get into trouble.
I’ve got plans for Isaac to start young–keeping his room clean, making his bed, putting his laundry away . . . followed by taking out the trash, emptying the dishwasher, taking care of the cat . . . followed by digging holes in the back yard and then filling them back in just to keep him busy–like a convict!
For Your Reading Pleasure
07 Mar 2011 4 Comments
I can’t post this on my regular blog but wanted to share . . .
It has NOTHING to do with Tiger Mother
This is an article that my tunnel-visioned, feminist professor had us read as we studied Frankenstein . . .
The author suggests that fiction is written for male pleasure because the plot structure resembles the male sexual experience (you know the little mountain drawing–rising action, climax, falling action). I’ll just share the 1st paragraph.
“I would like to begin with the proposition that female orgasm is unnecessary. I am not, of course, saying that it is unnecessary to any particular woman that she experience orgasm or, for that matter, to any particular man that his female partner do so; rather, I mean that women’s orgasm and, by extension, women’s pleasure can be extraneous to that culmination of heterosexual desire which is copulation. Women’s pleasure can take place outside, or independent of, the male sexual economy whose pulsations determine the dominant culture, its repressions, its taboos, and its narratives, as well as the ‘human sciences’ developed to explain them. Considering the last decade’s preoccupation with sexual difference and the pleasure of the text, it is surprising that theories concerned with the relation between narrative and pleasure have largely neglected to raise the issue of the difference between women’s and men’s reading pleasure.”
Something I Worry About
07 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment
in Tiger Mother
Eliana recently posted something related to this on her regular blog.
On page 21-22 Chua talks about the generational slide into worthlessness. ”Because of the hard work of their parents and grandparents, this generation will be born into the great comforts of the upper middle class. . . . They will have wealthy friends who get paid for B-pluses. . . . Finally and most problematically, they will feel that they have individual rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and therefore be much more likely to disobey their parents and ignore career advice. In short, all factors point to this generation being headed straight for decline.”
When I was young, I HAD to have a job or I didn’t get school clothes and mechanical pencils and make-up. I got the cheap-o jeans and cheap-o, wooden pencils. I worked my way through college because my parents couldn’t pay for it. I had to share with my brothers. I slept in the same bed with every single one of them because that’s all there was–at one point Kellen, Troy, and I shared a full bed because there were 5 kids, 2 parents, and 3 bedrooms. My first car was a 1989 -station wagon but since I was the only one of my friends with a car, I was cool. I got one-on-0ne time with my mom when I turned 25. And yes, I did walk to school uphill both ways in snow up to my waist. But all of these things made me tough and thankful and they gave me perspective.
Isaac will have more than I did. He already has more in his college fund than I had when I was 18. I’m worried that it will be too hard to make him do chores, have a job, go without because he’ll know that it’s artificially created suffering inflicted on him by his parents. Like right now he’s sitting on my lap, playing with my hands because it’s too boring to sit on the floor and play with his toys. The other day I thought, “I need to have six more kids RIGHT NOW so that I don’t ruin this one.” That way scarcity will be real and we’ll all just have to learn to deal with it–but hopefully we’ll all be happy and have great perspective in the end.
I Am Tiger Mother!
07 Mar 2011 1 Comment
in Tiger Mother
I’m not much of a tiger mother–just ask my spoiled rotten baby who just has to look at me with his pathetic little starving eyes and he gets fed. He just has to coo and he gets picked up. Roll over? Who needs to do that when your mother will do it for you.
BUT
The other day we had a moment that would have made Amy Chua and Eliana proud. I was cleaning the kitchen and he was sitting in his high chair testing out his vocal skills. Suddenly the tone of his screams changed to angry, shrill little bursts. He’d shriek then look at me. When I didn’t react or come play with him, he’d shriek again. About two of those rotten little noises and I’d had it. ”Oh no you don’t!” I said. Then I grabbed him out of his chair and curled him into the you-will-go-to-sleep-if-it-kills-one-of-us position. Then he got really really mad but I wasn’t going to be bested by a rotten child. Finally he whimpered and gave in to sleep. How else do you discipline a 4 1/2 month old? The next day he tried his rottenness again. I just gave him one look and he calmed down. It was awesome.
Being a Parent (not apparent)
03 Mar 2011 2 Comments
The little intro to Part I says, “The Tiger, the living symbol of strength and power, generally inspires fear and respect.”
When Ben and I first became parents I called Isaac Ben’s friend. Ben said, “I’m his father. There’s a big difference. He should fear me!” Of course Ben’s a great father and he’s very gentle and loving (they were so cute last night–just so cute). But it did remind me that, while you can be your children’s friend, you’re first the parent and the kids need to have some fear and respect.
This quote also made me think of the parents whose kids rack up a $1000 cell phone bill and the parents say dumb things like, “I don’t know what to do about it.” Are you kidding me? Who pays for the phone?
Nothing says fear and respect like . . .
This is going to be a fast read–if I have the time.
Free at last, God Almighty, we are free at last . . .
09 Nov 2009 1 Comment
in Speak Memory
I finally FINALLY finished this book. I’m not ashamed to say that I skimmed some of the end. The part about chess was mostly confusing to me. If I wanted to learn about chess, I could have slowed down but I didn’t.
As Eliana and I took our sweet time to finish this we have talked about it at the gym (or the Y–but not the bYu). We decided that his final chapters were not as interesting because we weren’t as interested in Nabokov as an adult. Too much Brideshead going on in all the class skipping and declarations of his own genius. The beautiful and nostalgic descriptions of his childhood seemed more forgivable and relatable.
I also did not like the last chapter about his wife and son. I could have used a chapter–perhaps something instead of the boring political/college/chess chapter–about his wife. I think knowing something about her before the last chapter could have connected me more and I would have appreciated the last bit. I did think of Teddy and his dad when I read the part about the train, though.
I really loved the chapter about his relationship with his father. Though very sad that his dad was killed very young, I wonder if the worshipful attitude Nabokov has toward his father isn’t a product of his father’s early death. He never had the chance to see him as an adult through adult eyes. His judgements and observations only ever came from a child. I also thought it very funny that Nabokov never wanted to be a part of the extracurriculars at school which he contrasts against his father being involved in everything: “I viewed his activities through a prism of my own, which split into many enchanting colors . . .”
I liked reading the part about the duel also. Count Bezhukov (sp?) from WAR AND PEACE is also a dueler. I think he is involved in some way in 3 duels during the book. He doesn’t seem to learn. In some ways it seems like a fair way to settle a situation–there is very little burden on society. In other ways, it seems ridiculous.
His introduction to the pedestrian world through his rambunctious cousin Yuri was interesting too. One thing I don’t like about Nabokov (or any other memoirist thus far, for that matter) is his condescending tone. I get that he’s probably a lot smarter than the rest of us but he’s supposedly writing to be read by us so maybe he shouldn’t remind us about how wonderful he is.
And my last comment–my last dog-eared page–he talks about how as an emigre the aborigines in Paris and Germany felt like shadows to his people–the exiled intellectuals of Russia–apparently the only Russians worth a rubel. I’m sure the transitory populations of intellectual Russians felt much like a band of shadows to the French and Germans. I had to wonder if we don’t have people in our midst who aren’t just fringy shadows in our lives–like the Marines here in Yuma. For the most part, we don’t really have anything to do with them. We know they’re there but they won’t really exist in our lives as more than a vague memory somewhere in the everydayness of our lives in Yuma.
Slow Poke
23 Oct 2009 1 Comment
in Speak Memory, Uncategorized
I’m about 1/2 way through with chapter 6. I’m moving right along. Slow and steady?
This is for you Eliana since I hear you have a penchant for hyperbole: “[Mademoiselle] is cold, she is frozen stiff, frozen ‘to the center of her brain’–for she soars with the wildest hyperbole when not tagging after the most pedestrian dictum” (page 99).
Interestingly, I don’t think Nabokov really liked Mademoiselle but he never speaks of her as if she was the evil, uptight school marm that she probably was. He gives her so much more depth and width (he he he) by discussing her motivations for crankiness and by allowing that he may have been naughtier with her than he should have been.
Chapter 5 really left me feeling an urgency to live and love the “now.” I felt very sad for Mademoiselle when she got pushed out by the other tutor who was mean to her. And I felt sad when Nabokov describes her old age in Switzerland with all the other past-prime nannies: “Huddled together in a constant seething of competitive reminiscences . . .” And then the metaphor in which he compares her to the aged swan that can’t get into the boat but he flaps and sputters around it anyway. It must be so terrible to become obsolete.
Syncopal and Eschewing
Syncopal = omission of letters or sounds from the middle of a word–bos’n for boatswain–I’m not sure I knew this was an English word. It is a very common technique in Spanish poetry. Often they use it to give double meanings to words.
Eschewing = avoid, shun
The nostalgia I have been cherishing all these years is a hypertrophied sense of lost childhood, not sorrow for lost banknotes.
14 Oct 2009 1 Comment
in Speak Memory
My used copy of the book has been violently underlined. So many times I don’t have any idea why the person chose to underline what he/she did. Since the book is already marked up, I’ve been writing in it so I can remember what I wanted to talk about here at Middlemarchers. I’ve noticed that I like the poetry.
Anyway . . . I always think that his memories of his childhood are so vivid, coherent, and meaningful. I suppose some of that comes with reflection and revisions and another part comes from his genius. Most of my childhood memories are fuzzy images of the carefree-ness of the good old days or of the bondage of having parents. Not very much of it carries meaning–unless I think about it really hard. Then the meaning comes out through my adult self and I’m sure it isn’t the same meaning it had for me when I was living it.
I just read his description of his slow, reluctant meander at bedtime–very perfect and poetic. My favorite line was on page 83: “With every new summer, the process of squeezing through [the posts in the banister] became more difficult; nowadays, even my ghost would get stuck.”
Purblind and Ghyll–if I’m going to be the only one to look up words . . .
Purblind–dimsighted
Ghyll–a woody glen
Word List
13 Oct 2009 2 Comments
in Speak Memory
Saundra went through the book and compiled a list of words she didn’t know–or maybe she knew them but not in the context. She also put the definitions with the words but then lost the document. We’re lucky to just have this list!
I thought that maybe we could go through it and each find the definitions of 2-3 words each time we make a post.
Syncopal; eschewing; synesthesia; aquarelle; cuirass; coeval; frass; teleological; montane; retiary; turgenevian; boles; dipterist; tabands; lepidopteron; anastomosis; nictitating; quiddity; plage; purblind; oriel; desmans; massacrous; cacologist; hiemal; hyperborean; lamels; debile; ghyll; gouache; cordate; volutes; apotheosized; laciniate; concolorous; escarpment; atlantes; porphyry; racemosa; karakul; miraged; oasal; Cynara; chamfrained; cant; gloriettes; inanition; forestalled; palindromic; intrados; mystagogues; incunabula; alacritous; vitiated; saxifrages; pleached; arbutus; scintillation; majolica; apotheosis; perspicacity; solecisms; oneiromancy; platitudinous; Zeitgeist.
