Memory Dept 1: A Couple Crude Things I Might Teach My Children

I am not happy about this.   I don't want to be a crude Father and I am not the type of Father to let my children say bad words, use bad sign language (the middle finger), or bathroom humor in general.  My older daughter got a serious yelling at recently when she gave the middle finger to some older kids.  

That said, I have to admit that some crude and rude things will be learned and TAUGHT by myself and I wont be able to help it.  It will be.  After long thinking I have come to the conclusion that the following, when the time comes, will be taught to my kids even against my better judgment not to.

1. Raspberry

This first happened already several years ago.  My first daughter was only three years old and couldn't do much motor wise with her mouth or fingers.  So it was a big thrill to teach her how to blow a raspberry.  At the time vocal sentences had just begun, but she couldn't even say all the letters of the alphabet, like L and forget about saying things like "thing" and th words.  So to teach her a rather crude, but tongue twister was a victory.

It was a Pyrrhic victory as it turned out.  Something I shouldn't have taught her.  It turned against me.

She did the raspberry so much and to everyone, but when she did it to Grandma, "No I don't want that Grandma, pftthh" (or however you spell the sound of a raspberry)  I had to yell at her hard and tell her she DOES NOT give Grandma the raspberry, not to mention people in the stores or walking down the street in the town.  Well.... I had to teach her.  But I think she has forgotten it by now and I wont teach it again.


2. Arm Fart.
These are really for boys and I actually learned how to arm fart from my older brother who was much older and thus a seasoned veteran, a professional, at arm farts.

Boys love farts.  Well, lets face it, all little kids love farts.  It is a source of joy for all toddlers and young kids (kids is defined loosely here, say age 5 to 15, or 65).  Girls at some point become too polite to fart, maybe when they go off to college or start dating older boys.  Women do not know what a fart is and will send you to the doghouse if you suggest that you heard them fart. Its not possible.  But boys love a fart, kind of the way drunken teenagers love to burp on the street that stops traffic several blocks away.  Or a two am burp on a deserted street which shuts up all the barking dogs not to mention stops all the church clocks from chiming. 

The arm fart is so satisfying because you can sit there like a chicken without its head, running all over the place with your hand under your arm flapping your arm and producing joyful squeaks till the cows come home.  Seriously, once you start doing it, it is hard to stop.  My brother the professional would fart out whole nursery rhymes which I remember 40 years (and counting) later.

Though I haven't yet, I am sure the day is coming soon that i will teach my girls how to arm fart.  The youngest one couldn't get it yet, so she would probably cry if I tried to teach them today.  But one day soon.  Rome wasn't built in a day you know.  But I am actually still in debate in my head whether I should teach my polite girls the awful crudeness of arm farting.

3. Exploding small milk cartons.
(Wait a sec.  I am not referring to the really dumb prank which was big a couple years ago of smashing pretending to fall in a supermarket while carrying gallon jugs of milk and the jugs smash and milk goes all over.  I am totally against that, and those were incredibly stupid. )

I have to admit that the memory of exploding milk cartons (after the milk was all drunk, we couldnt waste the milk) in lunch time is one of my fondest memories of grade school.   I don't know if they still sell the small milk cartons in school these days.  I think they wised up and give the milk out in a glass.

We had those little half pint/ 100 ml  ptl milk cartons which when empty and smashed upon with your shoe had the capacity to sound like a hand grenade went off.  I remember the two lunch ladies gave you hell if they caught you.  Sometimes they even sent you to the principals office and a serious penalty was waiting for you.  For that reason you had to wait till both lunch monitor ladies were way over on the other side of the room with their backs turned on you or that you were behind a pillar when you did it.  Timing was of the essence.  You had to sit down quickly and kick the carton away and get your best poker face on before either of them turned in your direction.  Difficult when your ears were ringing from the explosion.   Ah but such good memories I have of personally exploding milk cartons not once, but several times in one rather mischievous year.

I really want to teach my girls how to explode a milk carton, no doubt about it, rude and crude or not.  It is a must.  That I have already decided.  I only wonder if they still make the cartons.  I haven't seen too many around these years.  I think the national union of lunch monitors petitioned against them and they have been fazed out.  Pity if so.

On the other hand, these days it could be dangerous as people might think it was a bomb going off and maybe there would be a school lock down, the police called, fire engines, basic turmoil, turbulence, cacophony and chaos.  I am not too sure I want to be called down to the head of the police and made to pay some huge fine for the national guard being called out.  I better think this one through with precision and risk vs reward.

My how times have changed.



 

I Neanderthal pt 2: The ego in Men

I will continue from part 1, the story I started.  Here is the link to part 1

I got on the street car a couple weeks ago with my youngest daughter.  I was taking her to her doctor for a control review after she had been home for over a week with the disease which every little pre schooler was getting at the time.  She had gotten on the tram on her own two legs, but all the same I was quite surprised when some youngster, a teenager in fact, got out of the seat he was sitting in and offered me and my daughter the seat.   There were no other seats available.  It was the proper thing to do, but 1)  I am an able father with a toddler who stands, not a baby, I would think people would say "they can stand I want to sit."  2) He was a frigging teenager.  Teenagers don't offer their seats to anyone.  Well, it made me quite happy and proud in fact to be offered a seat.  Boy did I feel proud.

But it made me think that some tipping point has taken place, at least in my city.  It made me think that there are so many Fathers at all times of the day being "Dad" taking their kids, toddlers, babies here and there in strollers, or in those strap on baby carrying pouches.  It is so commonplace, that people give up their seats to normally strong males who are with kids, just like they would give up their seats to a Mother with a baby, toddler or kid.  What is the difference between a Mother or Father travelling with their toddler who needs a seat to sit in?  In fact no difference.  At least that is my line of thinking.

This wasn't always true. Or perhaps, maybe I didn't always feel this way.

We used to live on a quiet street with no trees.   Quiet street does not always mean "nice" and or "quaint".  It can mean desolate with loads of isolation.  That is how I felt about that street.  Still do.

As I stated and left a photo in my last post linked above, I had to go under a viaduct with all the cars and trucks and buses streaming through.  I didn't like it.  I felt everyone was looking at me.  There was nothing I could do about it.  I had to take my daughter through there on the way to the park around 10 am  just when all self respecting "gainfully employed" fathers should be in work at their desk, not even on break.  If I went later, it would be after 12 noon and my daughter would fall asleep in her stroller coming back which meant I would have to put her to bed without lunch or wake her up for lunch and she would have trouble going back to sleep for her nap.

The problem was that I had a terrible inferiority complex and a big ego at the same time which made me too conscious of being the "stay at home father" taking care of his daughter while his wife was working.  When you are the only one WALKING under that viaduct with a little girl either in a stroller or on a little red motorcycle the perceived stares and thoughts of all the vehicle drivers passing you by can wreck total damage on your psyche.   Either it was the part of town, or the year, but there weren't that many Fathers passing my way with kids.   Also at 10.30 am, it was only Mothers or the local kindergarten kids with their teachers in the park. 

The street I walked down (pic courtesy Google maps)

Three years later with a new daughter and a new living location I would take my second daughter to a park just 7 minutes walk down the street.  I would walk along one street which had other people sauntering on it. True, it was mostly Mothers at that time, or males with some delivery errand.  I tried to go around 11 am so it would look like I was home for early lunch taking my daughter out.  She took her nap later, so I could go later.

It was a bigger park.  At that time and park there were usually two or three Dads there with their kids, even at 11am.  I think one Dad there really was home on his lunch break.  I talked with another.  He was a University teacher and didn't have classes every day, so he was home with his boy some days and took him to this park.   We talked a bit, didn't become friends, but it was a day in the park with a monkey who was similar to myself.   That was important.  In fact that was the point I think.  To have the support of the same species and sex type so you see that other people are just like you and in the same boat as you are.  There are some strong Dads out there who don't care what others think or do, sometimes I tell myself that I am one of the strong willed ones, but... who am I kidding?

These days another three years on, as I said at the beginning, at least in my district, in my part of the city, I see Fathers walking down the street with strollers at 9am.  I see Dads holding the hands of their two year olds maybe doing the grocery shopping or going to the park.  I wish I could tell them I am not staring at them because I think they are losers being "stay at home dads", but I would like to give them a thumbs up and say, "Hey, you are doing a wonderful job, keep it up.  Its great and important work."  When school lets out for the day and I bring my daughter (s) to the same park at 4pm,  the split is pretty often 50/50 Dads to Moms.

My how times have changed.   Maybe my ego and complex have changed too?  Mm, probably not.

Tram Tips

 Young and old, are very well versed in tram etiquette. It is courteous (and let’s just say expected) to offer up your seat to elderly people, pregnant women and children. Also, it’s looked on favorably to use your “inside voices” on the tram.