I Neanderathal part 1

OK
I have to start this post now.  I keep saying I will, but don't.  Keep saying I have to do research, but don't.  So, go.  Lets start it.  Just jump right in and say it.

Men can not be good Fathers because they have such big egos!!  That is what I have to say.    

Destroy your ego.  Stomp on it.  Shut it down.  At least ignore it. 

In so doing, you will become a stronger Father and a happier one and one who will enjoy his kids more.  Because let me tell you what you have to do to earn Father of the year award, or even come close.

It is not good enough to just push your little one on the swing in the park.  You have to climb up with them and go down the slide.  You have to fit in those tube slides that scare the bejubbas out of me that I may not fit in them and get caught inside like Homer Simpson did on the tube water slide.  Not to mention that I am claustrophobic and it reminds me of being in a coffin.  I have to do it.  I did it.

 This slide is way bigger than the coffin tube slide
I was in.  This one I did, was great fun.  If  I hadn`t been the only adult going down it with 20 other kids waiting for me to go down. 





You have to ride on the other side of the see saw and bounce your kid going up and down.  In the process they will laugh so hard and tell you to keep going and keep doing it.  And you have to.   I did that one too, many times. 

You have to ride on those little bikes that go in a circle and look funny because you are way over sized for the thing, and pedal.  Your feet will hit the ground and your knees are uncomfortable, and inside your mind you are saying, "Oh jeez I must look like a maniac.  I feel like a fool," but you have to.    I did that one.... mm, once or twice, maybe three times when another adult was on with me.   

You have to get down in the sand box and dig big holes and put the sand in different forms of fish, frogs and trains and pack down the sand and say, "chary Mary hup" and dump the form out and say "Yeah" that it came out correct.  And you have to take a spoon and pretend to eat the sand when your child hands you the "cake" they just made and say, "MM, deeelicious cake".  And you have to sit on the edge of the sandbox or even in the sandbox and get along side your youngster and be there getting your hands and pants dirty.

But if you have a big ego, you just wont do that.  And.... you just wont qualify for Father of the year award.  And... you just wont even enjoy being a Father.

And it is all because you have a big ego and or an inferiority complex.   You are afraid of what people will think that you are doing these "weird" things, like... like playing around with your kids, digging around in the dirt and being a caring Father.

After my second girl was born, things were tough.  Its one thing to take one child to the park, but two? And one can`t barely walk and is still in the pram?  Then you are really looking like "A Mommy" in the put down pejorative sense.  You might as well admit that you don't have a money making job and your wife is the breadwinner of the family and swallow every bit of your big hard to chew down pride.  

Then, I had to leave the park and take them home.  Home was pretty close by, 10 minutes normal walk.  We didn't have a car, we didn't need one, living in the city.   But that meant that I had to walk the family home.  When I had to walk under this viaduct (pictured below) along this busy street with cars and buses streaming by while I pushed a big carriage with one baby in it and my other little girl rode on her little red motorcycle and everybody took a glimpse of me when they drove by and I felt like, yes, inferior product, then I knew that I had a problem.  I either had to hide out during the work hours and look like I was on my job break when I was being a "public" Father, or I had to at least ignore this ego I had, or better yet stomp on it and rip it up.

This is the viaduct we had to go through. Usually more cars.  

Guess which one I did?  
(to be continued)
    

Dept: practice what you preach. part 1

I was quite sad as I was walking away.  I had brought my older daughter to school.  She hadn't given me a goodbye kiss because I had yelled at her.  Fair enough.  I wouldn`t give me a kiss either if I had yelled at me. 

As happens to many son in laws, they have a run in, even a couple, even more than many, with their mother in laws.  Well of course.  I m not so good.  Her little girl could have done a lot better as far as a husband goes.  (I wonder if I will feel the same when that time comes for my girl to join hands with some one else.  Probably).  Anyway. And I am dirty.  I once lay down on the bed with my jeans on after I had been outside.  Crime!  And just recently she yelled at me for putting my shoes on while I sat on the floor.  On the dirty floor.  I didn't think it was so dirty.  Why didn't I sit on the chair there?  I really don't know.  I sat on the floor.  It was disgusting for her.  Was it really so disgusting?  I didn`t really see it that way.

The reason I had yelled at my daughter was because she had sneezed and then had blown her nose on her sleeve.  eayu.  "That's disgusting,"  I said.  "Not only is it disgusting, but its unhygienic.  It will stay on your sleeve.  Not healthy".  She ran off to her class without kissing me.

Then I was walking my other daughter to her pre school and suddenly stopped... oh boy, I am a silly goat.  I guess you saw it coming before I did, but of course I was being contradictory.  I thought it was disgusting when my daughter sneezed and wiped her nose with her sweater sleeve, but thought my mother in law was a bit batty that she thought I was disgusting sitting on the floor to put on my shoes.   Ohhhhhhhhhhhh, I get it. 

The problem is, I still won`t let my daughter blow her nose into her sleeve.  Isn't that disgusting of her to do that?  But I don't see anything wrong with sitting on the floor.  So I'm in a conundrum of contradictions.  You can help me out of this.  I cant solve it.

Some other exact cases where we yell at our children but then later in the day we do the same thing.

1.  Not allowed to eat food outside the kitchen.  I yell at my youngest daughter mercilessly for doing this.  "Look," I say,  "Who has to clean up your crumbs and they get all over."  Well she really is too small to clean with the brush yet.  But then in the evening after they have gone to bed, mm, I have occasionally eaten a bread with honey in my bed.  Well, you know.  I won`t let the crumbs get all over.  I will eat over the plate.  I will be responsible in the droppage of the crumb factor.  Besides I will have to clean it up myself.   

2.  "Don't lick the ketchup bottle around the lid."  You leave your germs there and again its unhygienic and may get other people sick if you have germs.  Yeah, well in the evening after they are asleep if I pour the ketchup I will lick off the leftover stuff around the lid.  Admittedly, I don't know why I do this.  I really don't.

3.  Drinking milk from the bottle.  I have to yell at both the girls for doing this.  You will leave your germs in the bottle and they will get into other peoples drink.  Later in the evening... you guessed it.  I take one or two gulps direct from the milk or juice bottle.  Yes, but, its such a waste to get out another glass and pour it and then have to wash the glass. I just want two gulps of milk and I will put it back.  I don't see why I have to go through all the trouble of, eh finding a glass, pouring, ugh and then wasting water cleaning the glass after just for two sips of milk.  Besides I never do it when I am sick.  I never see my germs in the milk.  I wouldn't do such a thing as leave my germs there, if I  even had any.   I know I don't.      

Still, I should really practice what I preach.  I guess I should try to be better.  Be a better parent.  Yes, I will!   From now on I will make a concerted effort to not be hypocritical.  Well at least with numbers 1-3.  There is no way I am going to give in to my mother-in-law and sit on the stool to put on my shoes.  No way.

Pictures coming some time.  

Easter Sweets

A week before Easter, Friday evening, I munched on a cookie that was sitting on the kitchen counter.  My wife had bought it from the Hare Krishna's and it was a good, healthy, bio cookie.  A bit hard, but quite good.  Any sweet stuff left out in the kitchen after dinner time automatically is claimed by Daddy.  Rule of the house.  Well, unless someone tells me "Daddy this is mine.  Don't eat it!"  Then I leave it alone.  My wife watched me eat it and said nothing after the first bites, so I polished it off.  My cookie.

The next day was Saturday and we had a big outing with my older girls class to a technical museum which had a big science exhibition for kids.  Maybe that belongs to another post sometime because it was wonderful.  But all I will say now is that I spent the whole Saturday with them, including two bus rides there and back.  Over an hour long trip to another city.  The point being that I was with my kids all day continuously.  And we had a great day.

So, why did my older daughter choose our walk back home to our apartment from the bus to suddenly ask me, "Daddy, did you eat my cookie?"  "And well, I uh, well, you know, well, that was your cookie?  It was sitting there.  Mommy watched me eating it.  She didn't say anything.  I didn't know but..."  That was that.  For the rest of the walk home she was crying hard that I had eaten her cookie and I had to get her another cookie.  Right now?!  But it is Saturday, the Hare Krishna's are sleeping, I couldn't get a cookie then.  More crying.

What,, wut?  Well, it HAD been a nice day.  Why in the name of the God of cookies did she wait all day after a lovely day to start crying over me eating her cookie?  Was she thinking about that cookie all day long and waited until she couldn't take it any more to ask me about it? Or maybe she was waiting for the end of all the fun and the sad walk home to pin me down?  I ll ask her in a year after she won`t cry about me eating her cookie. I won`t do THAT again.  I promise.   

Foward one week. Twas the night before Easter and my wife's Mother had given the kids two bags of chocolate eggs.  You know those cheap, junky chocolates which are more sugar than chocolate. Very unhealthy and something to die for any time of year.  Stuffed with caramel or white chocolate.  Then those stupid chocolate hollow bunnies which for some reason are very fun to eat, but don't taste as good.  But hey, chocolate.

My youngest daughter stood in front of me before bedtime and said quite solemnly, "Daddy those Easter chocolates,  don't eat them!"   I looked at her.  I stared at her.  I peered through her eyes to her very soul.  Here was my youngest daughter asking me quite seriously, but politely not to eat the chocolates.  I would venture close to death to save either of my daughters, they mean that much to me.

But...

Promise broken. 

Before Easter came the next morning, the chocolate was gone.

Ain't nothing going to stand between me and Easter egg and bunny chocolate.  Not even my daughters who I would die for.  

Well, there were other things to eat as you can see from the following pictures.

Post Easter still life 

Traditional Easter fish

Have you thanked your Mom (or Dad) for changing your nappies recently? Kim Cattrall says you havent

I had to take time out from my busy Easter vacation schedule to write a little comment about this article I found on my face book site or somewheres like that.  Ms. Kim Cattrall, former star of HBO series "Sex in the City" sounded off about menopause, not having kids, among other things.  A short little interview was typed up. Here below written out on purpose is the link to the article. 

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/news/kim-cattrall-sex-starts-in-brain-31102777.html

I hope Im not breaking any copy right laws by having this link up, but scream if I am.  Probably.

My post is more a little rant than a story, so if you don't like that sort of thing, skip it.  

Look, Ms. Cattrall, I really have no problem with you not having kids.  I'm on your side.  We really don't need more unwanted population.  We don't need adults becoming parents if they don't want to.  That may have been true in the past, but I think the survival of the species is "safe" now.  In fact I think the more we populate, the more chance we have of NOT surviving, along with everything else around us not survinving. So give the extra money to charities, no backlash from me on that one.  More power to you.    

However, I just wish you and so many others would give me and so many other Fathers the same respect when we want to stay home with our kids as caregivers, as Fathers, even to the point of foregoing income to do so.  I don't think that same respect is happening.   It puzzles me, "that the young people" Ms. Cattrall knows, can relate to her because she has lived a different life from their parents, but these same young people can`t relate to the fathers who are staying home to love their children more than other generations and.. more than their parents did.  Why should "young people" relate to one form of empowerment and not another?  Even though in fact Fathers who stay at home to take care of the kids while the wife goes to work is empowering BOTH men and women. By pushing the statistic of women as breadwinners up, it helps all.  And by proving that men can do what is thought of as a (traditional) woman`s job, it empowers men. Its progress for all.

And why is it that when a woman "breaks the glass ceiling" and does a traditional man`s job everyone cheers.  But when a man does a traditional "woman`s job" everyone sort of moves away from him and whispers in the corners about him and there is quiet.  I guess he is breaking the glass floor?  What are people going to think when Hillary Clinton wins the presidency and Bill Clinton becomes the "first first man".  Oh boy, lets brace ourselves for the (bad) jokes.  "How are you going to decorate the White House Bill?"  Just a question running through my head. 

Then it is stated, "The star (Cattrall) believes women without kids are no less maternal than mothers."

I respectfully, but strongly disagree with you there Ms. Cattrall.  That just is not true.  I probably won`t be able to back it up with any scientific proof, but I don't think Ms. Cattrall can either.  Sorry, but no matter how many nephews and nieces you have held or baby sat for, no matter how many kindergartens or kids activities you have visited or participated in, its not the same. When you have flesh and blood that came out of your very own DNA, that you helped put together in front of you... It can drive the man in jail to become straight and responsible.  It can drive the drug addicted to clean up and do everything possible to make sure this child, THEIR child gets a much better upbringing than they had.  I wouldn't be surprised if it drove many of the men out there currently staying home to care for their children to do just that in the first place.  Because they were moved to do so.  Paternal instinct. And you don`t have that until that little ball of pinky flesh and blood which is yours, is being cradled in your arms.  So says Max!

I would give Ms. Cattrall the right of reply to understand better how she can say this, but I have a feeling after her reply I would still say, nope, not the same. 

Lastly, I object to her statement: “But listen: I don’t know a kid who thanks their parents for the nappies they changed." Well, sometimes you have to wait for it.  True, teenagers don't usually thank their parents for anything.  Even Twenty year olds are caught up in themselves and their careers and don't think about how they got there, unless it is to complain about it.  But you know when in fact it does come Ms. Cattrall?  When we become parents ourselves.  Then all the pains and the gains that your parents went through on your account come into focus.  Then the memories come back and we think about how our parents did it and its an epiphany.  Then you start to understand and you see the love and the gratitude and sacrifice.   True we see the bad things too.  New parents will just as likely say, "I don't want to do what my parents did" and we want to be better parents.  That's not bad, that is normal.  I fully expect my children to do that too, though I am a pretty good Dad. But  If your father was never around, off in another country supporting the family with a better paying job there, maybe you will say, I will NOT do that.  But we as adult children of parents see much clearer.  We understand why.  And then... we call up Mom and Dad and quite often we say, "thank you".

But its true, we probably don't thank them for changing our diapers, she has a fine point there still.  But what she fails to follow through on is that if they didn't change our diapers they would have become so full that it would have not been hygienic and we would have died and a) our parents  would have gone to jail and that would have been counter productive and b) we wouldn't be around today to thank them.  GOTCHA Ms. Cattrall.  They actually had to change our diapers in order to save themselves Ms. Cattrall.   

All the same, I think I will thank my Mom for changing my diapers next time she calls.  Although I am prepared for her to call me idiot for saying so, because what was she going to do? 

(Published, but pictures will be forth coming still)

Dept: I ll vouch for them, its true. How did that get on the ceiling?

I'm thinking of this scenario and trying to make it into a math equation.

If you have a plastic 5 ounce container of chocolate yogurt on the edge of the table which is less than three feet high, or less than a meter high from the floor, and you hit the container, no brush the container with your hand as you pass by so the container flips up in the air spilling out its contents, how high can the contents of yogurt go?

Answer 10 feet or about three meters.

Yes, believe it.  No your kids did not throw the yogurt container up in the air, or shake it up and down while it was open.  Yes, it is very possible that the contents got on your ceiling by someone accidentally hitting the container off the table. 

Folks, I too would be a nonbeliever, and I would have yelled at my daughter for throwing the yogurt on the ceiling if I hadn't in fact been the culprit. Albeit an accidental culprit (as opposed to an accidental hero)

There was the container of chocolate yogurt sitting on the edge of the table like this. But opened.

  My daughter was snacking on it. I innocently walked by it and must have brushed it with my hand or elbow as I passed.  I really didn't see it go up in the air.  The next thing I felt was wetness on my cheek, and I looked and saw that I had yogurt on my shirt, neck and pants.  And it was on the floor.   Well (sh)  it happens, said my wife and got a cloth to clean the floor before I could.

Then something caught my eye and, "How on earth did it get up there?"  There was a big chocolate yogurt blotch on the recently painted white ceiling, said ten foot high ceiling.  We all looked at it, but nobody had any idea and therefore said nothing.  I didn't even see the container get flipped up.  I didn't see any of it.  But how did THAT up there get up there?  

Here is the blotch on the ceiling.  Proof of the pudding.

So next time you got a splotch of something in a very hard place to be splotched, and your kid says "I didn't do it, it got knocked off the table and got there" please don't yell at them.  Do some simple arithmetic and make an estimation, that yes, it could have gotten there by the way he/she says.  And give them the benefit of the doubt and don't yell.

Anyway, I still yelled at my daughter for putting the container of yogurt right on the very edge of the table so that anyone walking by could hit it by mistake and knock it all over the floor or as the case may be, on the ceiling.  That was stupidity, I told her, and sent her to her room without supper. 

Intermission: Dream, embarrassed at the Post Office

I m going to get a bit intimate in this blog, because I am going to relate a dream I just had the Saturday morning before I wrote this.  Nope, sorry, no sex in it, just a lot of Freud and Jung imagery probably, and hidden messages which I haven't found  yet.  This post isn't about parenting, or patience, or kids in general.  It might be indirectly related to parenting by "delving" into my psyche to see if I am developing fears and phobias which hinder my work.   Is it a persecution complex or the Frye complex of dreaming of being in public in your underwear?  Then again, it s good filler until I get up this magna opus intro on the next problem for Dads as major caregivers.  Read it now, I ll probably get embarrassed that I posted it after a week and take it down. 

From the minute I started reading Kafka, I understood from where he was coming.  Many of his stories were (just) dreams.  The country doctor is the one that always pops to my head as the perfect example. I know this without reading any amount of Kafka analysis because I have the same dreams.  Well, the same structure.  I think everyone does, but most people cant remember their dreams.  Kafka did apparently.  Me too.

Here we go.

I had to go to the post office to do something or other.  Either pick up some mail or pay some bills by sending money through the post.  We can do that here.  I got to the big post office down the street from where I live.  I went in the door and realized I had no shoes on.  I thought to myself, now how could I have gone out the door AND ridden the street car and not known I didn't have my shoes on?  I had some sort of slipper or home soft boot with me, but only one.  So I put it on one foot and stood with that foot over my other non booted, sock foot.  Meanwhile I got a ticket number at the post from the machine and waited for my number to be called on.  The ticket machine wasn't working so well and I got number 55 even though this number didn't seem to be close to any of the numbers coming up, by far.  But I sat down and waited.

It was then that I noticed two more things as I sat in a chair at a desk.  First, the back room of the post office was closed and dark.  They normally do money transactions in one of the rooms.  Maybe it was some holiday, or half holiday and those rooms were closed for the vacation.  The post office did seem a bit sparse on people.

The second thing I noticed to my horror was that I was in my pajamas.  There I was sitting in my Homer Simpson pajama bottoms with my "surf rats" t shirt top.  This was infinitely worse than just forgetting to put on my shoes. I suddenly felt exponentially more embarrassed, scared and self conscious.  I wondered how long it would take my number to be called.  Should I stay or should I go?  Should I get out of here RIGHT NOW and sneak home in my pajamas, taking all the back alleyways of course?  I looked at my ticket number and the numbers that were being called.  I wondered if I could wait on sending this money or if I should do it now while I was here.  How would I feel standing in front of the post woman doing my transactions, paying, IN MY PAJAMAS.  And my Simpsons pajamas to boot.  I thought about it and got more nervous and self conscious sitting there in my night clothes.

Then I looked around again and it seemed that all of the patrons and post people were in some sort of costume also. I racked my brain trying to remember if it was some costume day?  Festival time had just finished, but maybe it was left overs.  About two weeks ago, or maybe a little more, I had watched the carnival parade march down our street.  My littlest girl and I had walked with it for several blocks.  Everyone had been in costume or riding big bikes or walking on stilts.  Maybe they all worked at the post office.  All the people here were in costumes.  There was some lady in a black cape and a big pointed black hat.  Obviously a witch.  I felt like I could blend in a bit better in my Simpson pajamas. "Hey, how do you like my costume?  Pretty fancy eh?"  I made up my mind and decided to scram the post office and forget about paying my bills.

I was getting up from my desk and I was back in my clothes... but with no coat on.  Jeans and a blue old button up shirt.  Cant remember if I had my shoes on or not.  I didn't look.  I wanted to leave this place.   It was haunted. 

I got through the first set of automatic opening sliding doors.  Like many places it had two sets of sliding opening doors, with a tiny interim vestibule between the doors with no purpose whatsoever except maybe to keep the cold or heat out.  I don't know.

 I had gotten through the first set of doors when a big fat guy caught my leg between his two legs in a very tight vice grip and he would not let me go through the second opening doors. I was caught by him in between these two sets of doors.  I started to yell at him to let me go, but he wouldn't.  And the grip he had me in was real tight.  I swung at him with my fist, but he was too far away.  I felt that if I could only hit him with a swing he would be knocked out.  I don't know why I thought that, he was very big and paunchy and had enough fat and also strength and protection to not be knocked out after many punches.  Besides that, none of my swings even came close to his face.  But I kept trying.  Let go of me.  He was so fat, how was it that he was so strong too?  He had my leg in such a tight hold that I couldn't get away.

Finally from inside of the post, inside the other doors, a lady said, give him his plastic back and let him go.  That was the other thing.  The bully had taken a little plastic little... I don't know what it was.  It was something plastic from kitchen ware and he wouldn't give it back to me.  I had to give it to my daughter.  It was hers.  She had gotten it from a supermarket as one of those little kids freebies they give out as promotion.  You spend so much money at the store and get a little ticket and when you have ten tickets, you get the little action figure.  But this little plastic thing... I don't know what it was. It looked like a plastic three ring hole puncher.  The fat bully had taken it from me and wouldn't give it back.

"Give it back" the lady from inside yelled.  But instead of giving that back to me, he gave back my post waiting number 55 ticket which was a stone with the number 55 painted on it set on a stone wrist band.  That was actually very nice art, but it was not what I wanted. I didn't care about my post

number anymore, I wanted the plastic hole punch to give to my daughter.  Give THAT to me, you big fatty and let me go.   The grip on my leg tightened. 

Somehow I got free of him, or maybe he let me go.  I don't think I had my hole puncher with me though.  Either he had not given it back or the situation changed and it was not there anymore and I didn't need to give it to my daughter.  I went outside in a huff and a big black cloud hanging over my head.  It was indeed cold outside and even though I was now in my clothes, I still had no jacket.  I was indignant and crossed the street to wait for the street car to take me back home.

I woke up much more tired than if I had gotten up at 5am and stayed up instead of going back to sleep, when I woke up at 5am.   

To be (there) or not to be (there) helicoptering

I was having a discussion with a relative of mine who has been a university professor for the past 22 plus years and she brought up the subject of a new type of college student and their "hovering" parent(s) that has become more prevalent, say in the past five years.  In fact it coincided with the rise of the cell phone and especially the smart phone (since 2007).  The parents are called helicopter parents.  Professors can always tell the students who are children of helicopter parents.

The term actually was coined  way back in 1969.  It does pertain more so to teenager or college age children, but it also can be used for parents of toddlers and small kids.  Here is a definition article on the term.  http://www.parents.com/parenting/better-parenting/what-is-helicopter-parenting/  

I was quite surprised by the term and had never heard of it before.  I started to think about my own "Dadding" style.  The one sentence that got me concerned was the "always playing with and directing his/her behavior, allowing him zero alone time,...".  I recalled with our first child when it was my days at home with her, I never wanted her to be alone.  This was pre pre school, so she was less than 3 years old.  Sometimes I escaped to the kitchen from playing and piddled around in the kitchen making tea or cleaning up.  But then I would start to feel guilty that I was just trying to get away and I was leaving her alone, and get back to her.  I did not want her to be by herself unless she was napping.


Could I have been a helicopter parent?

In retrospect I think I might have been a bit of a helicopter with my first daughter.  But I think that came about because of other circumstance.  Namely that she wanted me or her Mother to be there.  She always loved playing with us.  I have to pat myself on the back and say I made up some pretty good play scenarios, like trip to the moon in a toy box and riding the horsey etc etc.

The second reason is that in my opinion it might occur naturally in her DNA to be a lower self esteem person.  In other words, perhaps it runs in the family and it is not because of any helicopters.  The ol nurture vs nature argument.  Its in her nature.  Now we have to try to NURTURE self confidence in her if this is true.  

And as the article states, making a 3 year old`s bed is not the same as making a 13 year old`s bed.  I will not be making her bed when she is 13.  Uh.... well, I will say that now anyway.

In the meantime she has matured and likes to do some things by herself AND still likes to play games with her parents.  I breathe a sigh of relief that I am not helicoptering, or even being a drone. 

There was less chance of being a hovering parent with her littler sister.  She always did what she wanted to do.  She has been doing jigsaw puzzles by herself since she was two.  At first she needs my help.  Afterwards she does it by herself.  She has six of them so far.  When I was sick in the last two

months (from this writing) and she was at home, I took a nice nap in the morning while she did all six puzzles.  (Well in fact I could have used a bit more rest, she still did them too quickly.)  If she wanted her parents to be there with her, she would ask us and direct us what to do exactly or play (same as her sister would do).  If she didn't, she would do her own thing.  I found that in the summer.  I was watching her older sister swimming and making sure she didn't go out too far and I realized her younger sister was gone and I started to panic.  But she was just up stairs playing in the sandbox because she didn't like swimming as much.

On the other hand she is a bit scared around new people and hangs around our legs and doesn't want us to leave.  She wants us to be there.  I try to oblige. I play it by ear.  I let my children direct me too.  I figure most of the time they know better whether they want me to be there or not to be there. I even say sometimes now, "No, you try it by yourself first."  

In the end, I say to myself, "Look", there are so many conditions and phobias and hang ups a child can acquire as they are growing up.  Unfortunately every child has to spend some of their adult life getting rid of the "demons" they got when they were a kid.  I don't think it can be avoided.  Lets just hope the time your child will have to spend to expunge the demons is minimal.  As a parent, all you can do is try to be aware of the pitfalls and do everything in moderation. As long as you are NOT  an alcoholic or drug addict or abuser.  If you stay away from those then the worst pratfalls are gone.  Avoiding all the other wrong doors we can open while bringing up children will be more like Indiana Jones avoiding all the death traps when he is stealing the treasure from the Temple of Doom, Right?  Except as mere mortals I think most of us are not going to make it through the Temple to retrieve the Golden Crown.  (Personally, I just hope I don't fall into the basement which has all the snakes in it.  "I hate snakes")     

I ll have to go back and study the other type of parents I should be aware of and not be.  I DON'T have to even consider the "bulldozer parent".  I wont even read the definition on that one.  It ain't me.