Category: Parenting

I’m always mystified by pundits who urge Americans to adopt a school system devised in a country with a very different culture from ours. They’ll look at a place like, say, Singapore and tell us, “Hey, their test scores are high. We should use their educational system.”

But you can’t just peel the educational system off a culture and transplant it. Singapore boasts high test scores, yes, but it is also a straight-laced police state where teenagers caught doing graffiti are punished with public floggings.

Yes, I’m sure plenty of Americans would say that perhaps we should have public floggings, too, but we all know it’s not going to happen. An educational system, just like every other aspect of our state, grows from our culture. Our institutions change as we change. That’s why our nineteenth century schools were likely to feature a teacher standing in front of rows of students reciting from memory, but our twenty-first century schools look nothing like that. We’ve changed; our schools have changed.

American culture is not homogeneous, but we have certain strong cultural trends that are clear in our schooling. One is that we value individual liberty. Although we get mini-trends when schools start to adopt dress codes and try to crack down on student activities, overall our students feel free to express who they are. Another is that we value freedom of speech. Although our courts continually try to tell us that our kids or their teachers shouldn’t be free to say what they want in school, for the most part we are free to disagree and stand up for what we believe in.

Other parts of American culture that have been very evident in our schooling have been our drive for creativity and innovation, our belief in the power of hard work to raise our prospects in life, and our denial of old traditions that endorsed class privilege and favoritism.

But here’s what I think when I hear people saying we should try to make our educational system more like Singapore’s: There’s a very wide gulf between what a politician says and the messages that come across much more clearly and forcefully from our popular culture. Our talking heads still spout American tradition: School is for creating a vital workforce, for creating opportunity no matter who your parents are, for creating citizens who can vote responsibly. But what does our popular culture say? Here are some messages that our kids are hearing every day:

Learning is uncool. Cool people don’t care about grades. They only go to school because they have to.

School is all about doing time. You do your time and the certificate you get is just your key to freedom.

Real life is what happens when you aren’t learning. Real life doesn’t depend on anything you learn in school.

Successful people get there simply by virtue of who they are. They are stars. They didn’t have to work for it.

You should only learn what you have to in order to achieve your immediate goals. Learning for its own sake doesn’t exist.

There’s no point in working hard when there’s nothing to work hard for. Give up on work and live to party.

Our culture isn’t homogeneous, and not all kids are being bombarded with these messages, but most of them certainly are. And when you have a country full of kids who are given these messages, is it any wonder that our school system “doesn’t work”? But of course, it does work—it works exactly as our popular culture sets it up to work. It works to contain our kids. To stress them out. To keep them from having fun.

How could our educational system possibly fight successfully against messages like this? Yes, of course, we have plenty of great teachers who inspire kids who have never been inspired before. We have lots of kids who are self-motivated and willing to swim against our cultural currents. But in a larger sense, our schools are what we are. We have houses full of TVs and video games. We have parents who talk more to their cell phones than to their kids. We have huge cults of celebrity but ignore real achievement that’s right in front of us.

Perhaps, before we go adopting another culture’s school system, our culture needs a little bit of public flogging. Until then, we’re getting exactly the sort of education we deserve.

I spent much of the morning sitting in a local bank, opening a new bank account for the new homeschooling cooperative — the Discovery Learning Center — that is now a corporation (and on its way to being a nonprofit).

Doing things in banks always takes longer than it should, doesn’t it? This is why we didn’t bring our children. There we were, four homeschooling moms, out to create something really great for our kids. I know that at least two of us have master’s degrees, and that we are all clearly over the age of consent. We’d brought all the paperwork. We had our act together. There was nothing about us to suggest anything but the obvious: four smart women starting a nonprofit.

When, then, did the young man helping us feel the need to refer to us—not just once, but repeatedly—as “girls”?

The first time he said it I only paused a second before pointing out, “I think we’re all women here.”

When he was off at the photocopier, we discussed this weird tick he had.

“I have to wonder,” said one of the moms. “Does he refer to male business owners as ‘boys’?”

I’d been wondering that myself.

“Most of us are old enough to be his mother,” said another mom. “I know I am!”

I certainly was.

“Perhaps,” I suggested, “he’s not from around here. Most kids these days speak in a much more gender-neutral way.”

When he returned, one of the moms asked him, without embarrassment, “Where are you from?”

“Santa Cruz, born and raised,” he said.

Well, there goes that theory.

Feminists talk about the difficulty of reaching the “post-feminist” generation. Young women these days think that all the wars have been won. They think there’s no point in making a ruckus like their moms and grandmas did. Or at least, that’s the way it seems.

But really, “girls”? When I told my husband, he said to me, “I do hope you started to respond to him with ‘young man’!”

Alas, my irony-generator was out of operation. I just thought it was so weird.

Think about it: a few men starting a nonprofit corporation go in to start an account. The young female banker looks at them suavely, her face in a carefully insinuating sneer.

“So, what can I do for you boys today?”

That’s something from movies, right? Could you ever imagine a woman treating men—even more, men twice her age—that way? Or even a young man treating a group of men that way?

Really, I’d like to think we were angry, but we were in fact quite amused. Who does that… boy… think he is? He’s a bank clerk, for god’s sake. We’re doing something real, starting something that will benefit our community, and he sits around all day taking two hours to set up business accounts for businesses that make so little money the IRS hardly wants to hear from them.

Half of me wishes I’d said to him what I was thinking, which was something like this: “You are showing yourself to be so small, so weak, so completely lacking in worldliness when you call us girls. Do yourself a favor and grow up.”

The other half of me wishes I’d taunted him: “Thanks, boy, for handling that. Typing that data must have been so exhausting. Perhaps you need to rest your pretty head now a while.”

But the polite whole me of me thanked him and walked out. We’d made our point. The first time he said “girls,” I’d made it clear to him that wasn’t acceptable.

So for the rest of the time, we were “ladies.”

Great. And here’s for the really mind-blowing suggestion: How about just considering us….

…people?

In case you missed it: Having considered the issue, reconsidered it, and considered it again, the American Academy of Pediatrics says no screentime for your babies under two years old. This should be old news, but even old news bears repeating and repeating again as our culture becomes more screen-oriented: Your baby learns nothing from a glowing rectangle, so turn it off!

I remember when I had my first baby, and our decision to turn off the TV and not look back. It happened one night when we were watching our usual Thursday TV: Seinfeld, Friends, and ER. My son was nursing, and he couldn’t stop himself from popping off and watching. That was all the convincing we needed.

I also remember what people said when I told them that we’d decided on no screen time for our baby:

“How do you take a shower?”

Well, I’m here to tell you that for millenia past, moms have been taking showers (or baths) with no problem. Here’s how it goes:

1) Set your child up in a safe location.
Moms in millenia past probably didn’t have play pens, but you do. Or put him on the floor of your bathroom. Snap the baby gate across the doorway to her room. Whatever you do, be sure that he is safe.

2) Make sure your child has something to do.
Long before we had screens, we had blocks. We had mirrors. We had linking rings and squeaky plush toys. The screen isn’t the only weapon in your arsenal.

3) Take the darn shower.
News to modern moms: A little screaming never hurt a kid.

I know, we all want to be the perfect parent these days. Studies tell us that kids need to feel loved. Parenting books tell us that when we neglect our children, all sorts of unspeakable things happen. But folks, this is a shower. This is something you need. You need to feel warm water coursing down your body, washing away the smell of spoiled breastmilk and the drool that your baby put on your neck right after eating creamed carrots.

Here are some ways that you can justify this:

1) If you don’t take care of your needs, you won’t be a good mom.
This is proven. Unfulfilled (and unshowered) moms turn out needy, out-of-control kids. Don’t believe me? I’m sure your grocery store checkout aisle is displaying a tabloid newspaper with all the details.

2) Your kids will learn, at some point, that they can’t have everything they want, and that point is now, during your shower.
Kids with moms who react to their every whimper turn out to be wimpy, whimpering kids. Yes, you should definitely react if your child is about to be eaten by a lion. But a bored child asking for your attention when you’re just getting a little peace in the shower? This is a child who needs to learn about Priorities.

3) Kids whose parents don’t entertain them constantly are more successful as adults.
You heard it here: Actual Scientific Evidence proves that boredom is good for children. Don’t believe me? The next time your older kid asks to play a video game, just say no. Don’t give a reason. Just say no. Then lock yourself away somewhere and say that you have something Very Important to take care of. Then spy on your kids. At first, they’ll gripe, throw things, scream, or draw on the walls. Whatever they do to get your attention. But soon, they’ll realize that you’re serious. This time, you’re really not giving in. Then you’ll see what they’re capable of. Perhaps they’ll start fooling with cellophane tape and end up with a Nobel Prize. You never know.

When my kids were little, I brought them into the bathroom with me. I had special toys that lived only in our bathroom, so it was a treat for them. Any other time, these toys were off-limits. But when I was in the shower, play away! One such toy was a bag of fascinating foam pieces that took forever to pick up and put away. But the kids adored this toy. They also got noisemaker toys (which I hated) when I was in the shower.

Yes, at first, they tried to get my attention by crying. This is their biological imperative: they must try to keep Mama’s attention. But it’s our biological imperative to find a way to take  a shower. And we must fulfill that imperative, take the shower, and feel ready, again, to face the world.

Eventually, your child will realize that this is Life. This is The Way Things Are. And your child will give in.

Now, you may have to wait a while. If you have a sixteen-year-old in there with you, pleading for his iPod, I give you permission to give in. Let him have the iPod, go to his room, put his feet up on the wall, and tune out.

If at that point you’ve had to give in, at least you get your shower, what you need, what you deserve, your Biological Imperative.

Enjoy it. You deserve that shower.

Next time:

• How to sleep through the night.
• How to eat your own meal without sharing it.
• How to have one full, complete, and satisfying conversation without interruptions.