Maudlin Musings on Motherhood

[quidditchgrrl]

Don't say I didn't warn you.

My niece, her husband and their three-month-old have been doing a Midwestern tour de famille over the last few weeks.  They came up to visit our family, then spent a week with her husband's family in suburban Chicago, and are spending a few days with us before they head back home to North Carolina.

My niece had been playing with Kayden in the front yard of her in-laws house, swinging him up and down and making him laugh and entertaining the family.

A few minutes later a police cruiser shows up and tells my niece that someone had reported a baby being abused at the residence.  DCFS has been called, and a little after the officer arrives, the DCFS investigator comes to the house.

Turns out some nosy do-gooder saw her playing with her baby (safely, I might add; she holds his entire body in her arms when she swings him around, never letting him go or shaking him AT ALL) and called the police.

Family:  OMGWTSIT!

So, the investigator spends two hours interviewing the entire family, then orders my niece, her husband and the baby to the emergency room so Kayden can be thoroughly examined.  They separate the three, then begin the interrogation questioning:

Doc:  So, did you do it?
Niece:  YES, I DID IT!  I PLAYED WITH MY SON!  If I were abusing him, do you think I'd do it in the open where anyone could see me?!
Doc:  So, about your husband...does he beat you?
Niece:  WTH!  NO!  Do you SEE any bruises?!
Doc:  Are you afraid of him?
Niece:  OMG, you are a FREAK.

Doc2:  So, does your wife ever hit the baby?
Hubby:  WTF!  NO!
Doc2:  Does she hate the baby sometimes?
Hubby:  Dude, I don't know what you're getting at, but you'd better believe my wife would never hurt a child, no matter what.
Doc2:  Have you ever hit her or the baby?
Hubby:  You.all.are.such.freaks.

They are finally released from custody a few hours later, after repeated questioning.  DCFS returns to the house the next day to interview the family again.

Yes, this is why I should never, ever have children.  At least not without a lawyer on permanent retainer.  I can't state it clearly enough:  the manner in which people raise their children is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.  Unless you see a child being visibly harmed - the lawn was far enough from the street that this person got, at best, a glance at the scene - keep your mouth shut.  Do you think a person spanking their child would have any compunction about giving you a few shots to the grill?

I would personally beat the ever-loving snot out of anyone who questioned my parenting techniques.  My mother showed up at my brother's elementary school with a baseball bat after his teacher washed his mouth out with soap.  It wasn't that she felt my brother was wronged; it was the fact that the teacher sent home a note asking if he had been repeating language he'd heard at home.  (My brother, in addition to having his mouth washed out, also got whooped by my mother for cursing.)  The teacher assumed that poor people have poor parenting skills, that young people have poor parenting skills.  My mother was...23 I think, with a 5- and 3-year-old, and dirt poor.

This is the only issue which I tend to say this:  Fucking Liberals.

People today have this idea that they know best how to parent other peoples' children.  Phonics is the way to go (uh-huh says this whole language learner); you should NEVER hit your children (much of the evidence supporting that has been debunked, at least for young children); we won't even get into the children's rights movement and the crazy things parents are locked up for while truly abused children are overlooked each and every day.

They certainly aren't as cute as Kayden is, or my niece is, I bet.  They are dirty and smelly sometimes, they don't talk much, they and their scars are hidden or ignored by the world until it's too late.  Then we say, oh, how horrible!  Why didn't anyone notice before?!  What a shame! and forget about them until the next one shows up dead or near death.

Lest anyone get the wrong idea, no one blamed the DCFS worker - he was just doing his job.  It was the busybody schlepping by in their minivan/SUV that gets the heat for this one.  I am simply grateful that they and their baby made it out of the system - no matter how short the time period - intact.  *shudders*



Sometimes you come across a woman who takes to being a mother like a duck to water.  My niece is one of those women.  She is so good with her young'un; while she gets as cranky as he does sometimes, she knows just the right thing to do to calm her child down, when he's hungry/sleepy/cranky/needs changed/wants daddy/wants mommy (I know most moms know these things).  It's just...different.  She is wholly unfazed by being a mom (at 19 I would never have had a child, much less known what the heck to do with it) and knows what she's doing without being self-conscious about it.  Young moms get so much shit - people assume they're ruining their life and the baby's - and I dunno, I guess it's cool to see her so grown up and calm about having this little family unit.

It also makes me feel very old to see her son and watch him do the very same things his mother did when she was that little.  Nice too - brings back lots of memories.

Thus ends another maudlin post by yours truly. 

Comments

[blue-eye.livejournal.com]

Sheeesh....

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

I am very impressed that DCFS showed up so quickly. Here in Texas, it takes repeated calls and lately, the child is dead by the time a caseworker checks it out. But that whole "don't punish your child" thing is bullshit. Timeouts don't work on any child I've ever seen. And you cannot reason with a toddler. Certainly they shouldn't be beaten, but they should not be catered to. The sooner children learn that the world does not revolve around them, the happier everyone around them will be. My mother spanked me if I misbehaved, even in public. Did it embarrass me? Of course it did. That was the point. Hello.

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't see how anyone from Texas can vote for Shrub, seeing how he's fucked up our state. Interestingly, even though I pay taxes and contribute to society (I have a radio show) I'm not eligible for Medicaid. Why? Because I'm not pregnant or a moo. Only those with kids (no matter how many or how many various fathers they have) are eligible. And we wonder why welfare moos keep popping out sprogs. That'd be why. Plus, Shrub doesn't want sex ed being taught so we can't teach the moos how *not* to become a moo. It's fucked up.

[deirdre-riordan.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU. I have been saying the same thing since people started going to jail for spanking their kids. And yet there is still corporal punishment in almost half the nation's schools? Hello, double standards! My mother had to sign a waiver every single year I was in school to tell them not to spank me if I misbehaved. A friend of mine, who went to a different school, had the same waiver on file, but she was paddled anyway. Discipline is the parent(s)' problem, and their problem only. Yeah, okay, I could see it if your niece had been standing on her lawn beating her kid with a stick. But she wasn't.
And child discipline has completely gone down the toilet in the last few years. I've seen so many parents whose kids are running amok in public, and they stand there and try to reason with them as though they're adults. I'm not saying that some kids wouldn't be able to understand-- I think a lot would, but it's also been proven by generations of parents that kids find it easier to deal in absolutes. My mother would have pulled me out by my ear if I'd behaved the way I see some children behave in public. I had friends who had to pick out their own switches when they'd done something bad. But guess what? Despite my opinions on the subject, and despite the fact that I may bitch about it privately, I do not presume to tell anyone how they should raise their child.
And as a sidenote, I fell down the stairs and busted my head open when I was seven. I sat in the ER waiting room bleeding while these idiot people asked me if I'd ever fallen down the stairs before, and if I'd really fallen down the stairs. Honestly, could it not have waited until my damn head was stitched up?
Ack. Sorry to rant in your journal. But yes, I agree with you 300%, and I'm glad everything turned out okay for your niece.

[quidditchgrrl.livejournal.com]

*waves hand* I was one of the kids who was sent out to pick their own switch. I got whooped at least twice a week from the time I could be bad on my own until I was 14 or so.

I am 100% pro-corporal punishment, with parental approval. Thing is, I always knew that whatever trouble I got into at school, it was going to be 10 times as bad once I got home. Damn good motivation, I say. My parents always expected, and usually got, exemplary behavior out of us in public, 'cause we knew what would happen to us if we misbehaved.

It's called putting the fear of God in 'em, I believe. :)

One of the most telling things I experienced was during a forensics class. The instructor put up a photo of a child approximately four years old, deceased. There was a big purple bruise on the left side of his face and head, and strangely shaped marks all over his torso and smaller marks on his arms and cheeks. Instructor asks, what happened? Is this a case of abuse?

Of course, we all said yes. But no, the child had actually taken a fall in the bathtub (hence the large bruise on the face/head); the marks on his body were from the defibrillator and other lifesaving endeavors, the marks on his arms were from IV needles, and on his cheeks were pressure bruises from the oxygen mask. Showed how easily one can be biased in a situation like that.

I couldn't imagine being denied medical help while being questioned about a possible abuse situation. Seems like abuse in and of itself.

[pinkfinity.livejournal.com]

The only three teen moms I've known personally (ie offline) have all been fabulous at it. And one of my friends had her first at 16 - he's now a famous movie director and dates serena williams, so you can guess she did something right, theren.

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

Age has nothing to do with how good of a parent one is, I've found. I've seen teen parents that are fantastic, and 40-year-olds that are utter crap at parenting.

[roguebitch.livejournal.com]

Wow. Interesting about the DCFS story, and whoever reported your niece needs their head examined.

As a parent, I've been wrestling with the whole corporal punishment issue within myself. Right now, I have a policy that if my daughter bites or pinches me, she gets slapped. I don't know any other way to get her to realize that it's not a good thing to do, as reasoning with a 2-year-old is one of those things that can drive you round the bend if you try it. But I don't know if this will eventually turn her into a serial killer or what.

I think that you're right and that parenting standards are all over the map and there's no one right way, though, and as long as the child isn't evidencing signs of physical or emotional abuse, no one has any business telling you how to do it. I bet I wouldn't be under as much stress as I am if I didn't feel like my parenting was under so much scrutiny.

[quidditchgrrl.livejournal.com]

Yes, and it's a matter of what your child responds to as well. With very young ones (as you know), the only thing they can understand is physical retaliation. I may never have to raise a finger to my kids, but it all depends on how they react to discipline.

Do you feel a lot of pressure when you're in public or in how Hari's teachers/other moms react to your parenting methods? Does it make you resentful or inferior, or do you just accept it as a matter of course? *is curious* I think I would be resentful of others questioning, even in a roundabout way, my parenting skills.

Oh! And I love your Hari icon. Super cute!

[roguebitch.livejournal.com]

Do you feel a lot of pressure when you're in public or in how Hari's teachers/other moms react to your parenting methods? Does it make you resentful or inferior, or do you just accept it as a matter of course? *is curious* I think I would be resentful of others questioning, even in a roundabout way, my parenting skills.

I don't feel pressure, per se, but I am very aware that people are paying attention. Especially now that Hari's at a verbal age and she can shout "DON'T PUSH ME!" if I'm trying to arrange her in a shopping cart seat or something. Then I know that I'm being observed at my parenting.

Added to that is that I have two large graphic tattoos on my arms, a nose piercing, and mood hair (in color and style) and even here in liberal Madison, I'm very aware that people scrutinize me. It used to be that I didn't care what people thought, but now when what people think can bring official pressure to bear on me, I care more. It bugs me, but I know that there's certain ways I have to act with Hari in public that may run counter to what I feel is appropriate or necessary. It's like social fiction.

Funny story: my daughter has strawberry blonde hair and doesn't look exactly like me. But my sister has strawberry blonde hair and is much more conservative looking than I am. Whenever we take Hari out, people are always complimenting my sister on her. I guess they just don't notice the goofily maternal smile on my face whenever people say nice things about my baby.

Apparently pierced and tattooed ladies just don't love babies. ~w~