Hands Full of Rocks

Research that rocks: Two different kinds of parents = good

This research is biased toward 'male/female' traditional parenting, but supports other research I've read showing that having two parents who function somewhat differently is ideal for development. (Or at least 'two types of parenting' - single parents play both roles, and often have other caregivers doing both as well.)

Other research has found that the most emotional resilience comes from having parents that are:

a) both warm

b) have different degrees of 'in there' responses to stressful or challenging experiences

Having two parents who leap to help/comfort/encourage/rescue/etc. ends up creating emotionally fragile children - the 'attachment' orientation at that level should be tilted more strongly toward one parent. Kids need both to know they have someone who will back them up promptly, and someone who trusts them to figure it out and carry on. The 'oh-you-poor-thing/let-me-help!' and the 'shake-it-off/you-can-do-it' are both part of what we need.

Just like modern attachment research is showing that the strongest attachment function doesn't have to be the mom - or even female - (can be a sibling, dad, grandparent, other caregiver), I suspect that this 'dad/male=gives space to explore' thing will eventually be shown to not be dad/male dependent. Certainly ep and I trade back and forth on who is in there and who is 'buck-up' on any situation, and for the different kids.

For example, Miss R is a daddy's girl. She usually doesn't even want me to be the in-there parent, comforting and fixing boo-boos. She wants daddy to do that. Which daddy does. So, for her, I'm more the 'rah-rah/good job/try again/you can do it!' parent. But if daddy is not around, then I take both roles.

I wonder also how the Montessori process feeds into this, as it encourages warm and affectionate interactions, but leaves plenty of space for the kids to explore on their own in a way that feeds into both accepting challenges, and understanding the process of overstepping one's skills and reassessing/trying again (American Montessori allows kids to take out work out of sequence, so they discover the concept of assessing where their skill boundaries are, and pushing those appropriately rather than jumping too far ahead - the sequences are built very carefully to support that process). 

I like the balance in the theories. We don't just need one thing. We evolved with different kinds of relationships with different kinds of people caring for us.

Interestingly, in different cultures, the same concepts apply differently - both parents start out much more 'in there' in many Asian cultures, but with age they both step back a little more and then a little more - but also expect to function differently in adulthood, as well, so the pattern 'fits' with the larger relationship pattern over time as well. Where the resilience may be technically lower on the individual scale (by having had two very 'in there' parents), the long-term impact is not necessarily negative, because there is the expectation that of course you don't have to handle life's challenges on your own, that's what family is for! So while this research is valid for American culture, it is likely to not be applicable 'directly' across cultures. Extrapolation, yes, direct application, no.

Happy Monkey Day

Okay, so Monkey Day is actually December 15th.

But that was the title of one of the mixed tapes (made from free downloads off Amazon - did you know they have free sampler albums? Some decent international stuff on there). Anyway, we gave some of that to the kids in the family, titled 'Happy Monkey Day 2009'. Given how much the kids have been bouncing off the walls (furniture, stairs, each other), it suited.

We made it through Christmas, mostly (parts one, two, and three, and still part four to go). Though we did have another minor injury on Christmas, this time it was kids roughhousing and someone getting clocked in the chin - but at least it wasn't Miss R (who had the puking-plus-concussion Thanksgiving).

Things we're still working on:

Getting Miss R to wear underwear. Or clothing at all, some days. Yesterday she was wearing ep's Alaska teeshirt and nothing else. But we were at home, so that's okay. Ish. Because she and I were at home while everyone else went out and bought books with their gift cards. Because she would not wear proper clothing, she did not get to go out in public. That is not going to be fun next year, when she has to wear a uniform to school.

Work/life balance. My work, our life. At least I know that's what we're working on, now. Much grumping in between as we figured out that it wasn't X and it wasn't Y. It is really just that I have a job I love, and I've never had to develop skills for that before - never had to find a way to keep work from turning up in my home hours, or to stop thinking about it when I'm with family. Zero need to remember to leave work on time, or to watch the clock if I have to work from home so that I actually stop ON TIME instead of late. Previously, it was more the other way around. Woo, outta here!

So, some skills building there. And reassessing, and figuring out what it is I want out of this job. It probably won't be a forever job. But I like that it is a feed-my-psyche job. And while sometimes the people I work with turn into nits unexpectedly (or weenies), mainly, I really like the folks I work with.

And at the same time, trying to build skills for handling the kids at their new ages/stages, too.

• Miss R needs more direct one-on-one, and true to our experience, is making sure she gets it, by any means necessary. Which means mostly she's causing trouble that needs our intervention. Red light, green light, it's all light. Attention is attention. So, we're turning that one around a bit.

• Miss M needs more negotiating skills - Miss R spent the last six months developing those, and now she clobbers Miss M with them. So we're working on raising Miss M's skill set so she can keep up.

• Mr G is working on establishing and maintaining his boundaries, especially with Mr B. There has been a lot of poking and getting in too close or leaning on or otherwise being inside the space, pushing buttons. Roughhousing ensues, and then someone gets hurt and... ah, testosterone. But he will develop the skills, too.

• Mr B is working on developing some social finesse with his brother, instead of just escalating to screaming at him if he wants something he's not getting. Or escalating the poking/pushing-on/crowding, either.

So, add in: working on the right problems/issues/developments. I hate it when they grow out from under my parenting skills. But they do it again and again, so... I should expect it by now. I kind of do expect it by now, really. It's just depressing some days how long it sometimes takes me to realize that I'm parenting a child who hasn't existed for a couple of months. No wonder it isn't working, that solution is for a problem that isn't the problem. The symptoms of the problem (sibling squabble, power struggle, whatever) may look similar, but with new cognitive skills and new needs and new feelings all underneath the situation, the old solution is about as useful as... well, I can't think of anything absurd enough. Just not useful.

Most of what we need to work on is related to mindfulness. I need to find a way to meditate or do tai chi again. Dancing was helping while I was doing it more, but then my schedule changed again and it fell back down the list - I need to have the time in order to do it, if I get home late I can't.

Mindfulness will help with that, too, though. And with the work/life balance, and with paying attention to being quiet with the kids (more on that later). And probably with being married, and being a friend, and being a sibling, and everything else.

So, mindfulness is a big priority. New Years is often used for resolutions, but Monkey Day is just as good - especially as it is before the usual holiday craziness.

Just one more Christmas to go... and less than a year to Monkey Day, 2010.

Top 57 list

So, yesterday was T-day two, wherein Miss R got a mild concussion, chin contusion, and tongue laceration to go with the puking incident from T-day one.

Sucky T-day for her this year. Sucky for ep, too, as he got to be full circle - caught puke on the first go, and was the source of the concussion on the second go (okay, so she really shouldn't have been RIGHT behind him on the stairs, where his heel could clip her chin really hard as he went up the stairs...).

Poor ep. Poor Miss R.

But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln... Well, other than that, it was a fabulous thanksgiving. One of the best in years, from most of the opinions I gathered.

We had initially expected 25 people, but four ended up not coming. S'okay, we managed. It just gave us more room to put the food.

We'd put in all 20 leaves in the table (yes, that is 20 leaves, the table seats 26 comfortably, or more somewhat on the tight side). Set out the good silver from both sides of the family. Set out the Waterford for the adults, and the 'training crystal' for the kids (pressed glass, but good heavy stuff, and if they break it, nobody will be heartbroken). The kids decorated the table with garlands and 'scatter leaves' (silk leaves with no stems). The nice holiday china was out, and the damask gold and cream tablecloths under it all, with forest green napkins both to match and contrast.

Lovely lovely.

Lovely also getting up at 6:something AM to get over there after staying up to midnight the night before making pies. Getting to my mom's at 7:30, drinking coffee and starting the rice for rice stuffing and chatting with my sister and her wife. Having my SIL do a latte run for me, and then on to peeling garlic for garlic mashed potatoes (one head of garlic per serving!). Rice stuffing (wild rice, jasmine rice, onions, carrots, celery, mushrooms, fresh herbs) in the bird, and bird in the oven, and then a short break. Mmmm, coffee.

Then a little chatting and hanging out with my sister and SIL and mom, and some discussion about the charity decisions for the year - my mom's charitable fund covers three moderate donations (or does at this point), and so we had to pick out three things that covered the ground we wanted. Still have to talk to one sister, but otherwise, we're good to donate to our selected causes.

Kids arrived with ep, and set to work - Mr G settling in to polish the silver (including the set my aunt found somewhere, mostly plate but a couple of decent ones in there), Mr B heading off to prep table setting (anything not already done), the girls (M and R) who knows where. My brother showed up briefly to drop a few items and head back off. Ep discussed his projects for the day (not cooking), and headed back out as well, shortly after dropping the kids.

Then more cooking - finishing up the potatoes, starting to cycle the other dishes into the warming process. Whoa, suddenly it was 1 PM, and AHHH, my skirt still needs to be hemmed (I caught it with my heel the last time I wore it, pulled it right out), and I'm not dressed and have zero makeup on, and people will be arriving soon!

I got dressed, ep arrived, found my socks (ack, where are my socks!), my SIL threaded a needle for me (I ended up not even getting the hem put back up, but I don't know that anyone either noticed or cared but me), I managed to be sufficiently put-together that I got a yowza look from ep, and a whoa-nelly look from my friend N (wife of my friend A), in the 'hello, I have never seen you look like that before!' way. Good, I hope. I was showing much more skin than usual, and I was wearing the 'tall boots' (I'm 6' 2" in those boots, plus they're knee-high). So, uh, anyway, hopefully a good impression... just not my usual covered up somewhat conservative librarian-with-an-attitude look.

And more hectic dance through the kitchen while everything got assembled and put together and we waited on three arrivals (who turned out to not be coming but hadn't said, sigh, NOT like them)... but then, dinner started, and we carried on, passed the vegan and vegetarian and non-veg food, and despite the potential for grousing that shows up with food differences, there was ease and comfort and enough for every dietary restriction to have gracious plenty and good stuff.

The list, though, I bet you're wondering where that comes in...

Well, my friends A and N are Indian (I've mentioned them before). We got to talking about movies that would be good cultural reference points for new staff coming over from India to get a sense of context, and give them any chance of catching half the referential jokes that are so common to US business. What is a cowboy, and why do people in reference to boring meetings say 'Bueller... Bueller...' ?

So we started the list, aiming for a top 10. Wait, can't leave that one off, so, 12. No, 17. 25. 32. Dessert was done and coffee was dregs as we got up to nearly 40. Laughing, we teased A and N that there would be a quiz next Thanksgiving. We compared notes on this vs that movie, Breakfast Club or 16 Candles? Tried to trim out the 'just a good movie' ones, leaving 'understand our issues' ones instead. A and N finally headed out around 8:30 or 9 with a photocopy of the list, but then we had more conversation and the list extended again... I finally left with it at 57 movies. Even if they had time to do one a week, that's more than a year's worth.

I'm going to put up a page for the list, later, but for now, here's the raw tally (some titles may be inexact): (My and my sister's combined top-ten are in bold)

1. Dr. Strangelove
2. That's Entertainment
3. John Wayne movie (any, or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence)
4. Manchurian Candidate
5. Mr Smith Goes to Washington
6. It's a Wonderful Life
7. The General (Buster Keaton)
8. Forrest Gump
9. Tootsie
10. Citizen Kane
11. The Road to ... (any) (Bob Hope and Bing Crosby)
12. Some Like it Hot
13. Apocalypse Now
14. Viva Las Vegas
15. Oceans 11 (original, with Frank Sinatra)
16. The Godfather II
17. North by Northwest
18. Dirty Harry
19. The Pink Panther (not for the Americana, but because of the vast number of references that ended up in the culture)
20. Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles (both)
21. Robin Hood (Errol Flynn, not Kevin Costner)
22. Tarzan (Johnny Weismuller)
23. King Kong (the original b/w)
24. The Keystone Kops (any)
25. Sleeper
26. Take the Money and Run
27. The Blues Brothers
28. Terminator (just the first one)
29. Office Space
30. 12 Angry Men
31. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
32. All the Presidents Men (original)
33. Gran Torino
34. Driving Miss Daisy
35. The Wizard of Oz
36. Network
37. Casablanca
38. Star Wars (A New Hope, the first one)
39. Airplane!
40. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
41. The Breakfast Club
42. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
43. M.A.S.H.
44. Superman (Christopher Reeves, just the first one)
45. The Natural
46. O Brother Where Art Thou?
    
47. A League of Their Own
    
48. 1776
    
49. The Shining
    
50. Easy Rider
    
51. 7 Brides for 7 Brothers
52. The Music Man
    
53. Oh, God! (George Burns)
    
54. Groundhog Day
    
55. Guess Who's Coming for Dinner
    
56. Philadelphia
    
57. The Desperate Ones

PHEW! In return, A and N thought they might have four or five Bollywood flicks I needed to see... the rest, eh, not so much.

Feel free to dispute some of our picks, or add your own. The only rules are 'they are cultural touch-points (not just good movies)' and 'source of recognizable cultural references used in popular US culture'. No TV shows, no literature, only movies. And not the uber-challenging ones (we nixed things like The Color Purple on the grounds that that was more of an advanced course in US culture, rather than an introductory overview).

If you know some Bollywood (or 'Parallel' - the alternative indie type) movies I need to see, feel free to comment there, too.

Research: Depression risk higher without a net (duh)

More research to tell us what we already know... but actually some very interesting stuff here, both as a parent and as an American... and actually, as an interculturalist (since that's a big chunk of my job).

This study showed that despite having WAY more population prone to severe depression genetically (up to 80%!!), populations where there is a strong community process in the culture have lower actual rates of depression. They describe it as having 'a culture of we' being the difference.

Interesting question arises for me - did this mutually-supportive community-oriented culture develop because there was a high disposition to depression (therefore much of the population needed support, so they drove the culture that direction), or did the genes not weed themselves out so much because there was a high social value on supporting each other - that is, it never mattered that the gene was there because it wasn't being expressed, and so nobody even knew that someone was prone that way? A bot of both?

It also has some interesting implications for people moving into other cultures. If you are one of the majority with the genes for major depressive episodes, and you move from your culture of 'we' into a culture of 'me' (like the US), how much net do you have to re-weave in order to avoid triggering the depression risk? Or does the upbringing make a difference, so that you are more willing and likely to ask for help when you need it?

Moms in the US know this resistance, I find. Asking for help is something we are taught over and over NOT to do. We should do our own work. Do it ourselves. Asking for help means we don't get full credit. Full credit matters. It is the individual success that shines. We're better than 'that' (whatever 'that' might be). The individual gold is cooler than the team gold. We can handle it. We stress about letting go of control. We feel ashamed of letting others influence our choices too much.

And then we sink. Because this is hard work, being a parent. We need that net. We need the resources, the shoulders to lean (or cry) on. The other hands to hold the baby so we can do something that isn't so constant for a moment.

Now, I had a net. My mom realized that she had taught us to be individuals as kids, but has not taught us as well how to be IN community. So she started working on that as I was reaching adulthood (and the majority of the sibs were out in the world). Community matters. Network matters. Being able to call in the troops, raise a flag and get a response, be comfortable reaching out when in need, those matter. She put herself center in that web in a lot of ways, but part of that was just because she didn't know how else to teach it. Part was just she likes to be in the middle of stuff, of course, too. ;) But I did catch the drift, and started building some net. So when I had my first child, I had three good solid strands of web.

Three. Seems kind of iffy for leaning on.

Wove in some more as I went.

Learned that some strands aren't up for being part of a web. Whoops, where did that one go? No idea.

Learned that some can only reach so far - they'd be there but they're not close enough, and supporting long-distance is harder for some than others.

Learned that others that I never expected would weave themselves in without even asking, and become warp and weft both.

Some go slack at times and snug up unexpectedly under me at other times. Some are woven through everywhere, and others just in one span. And hey look, I'm woven into theirs, too.

It ends up being very nice, once you get the hang of it. It helps having any idea of how to go about it. I'm kind of pushy about it, actually. Er. Rather a lot, really. Kind of blunt force. But I do let people slip back out of the web if they don't want to be there.

Mostly.

The contrast with the culture-of-me makes it harder to do it smoothly. There is no sense of weaving into the extended web as a way to make oneself safe - In community-driven cultures, one's reputation for helping others who are in relationship with someone becomes part of the relationship with that person. So, if I help your uncle, I am now woven into your web, too, because your uncle is part of your web, and you are part of his, even if we have never met. Those threads touch, and can be pulled on in need. But here? Here, so what? So you helped him, when have you ever helped me? Me me me... sigh. So it has to be more direct, here. Which means helping closer in to more people in order to be part of the net. Who has that kind of time?

Or, helping really big when someone needs it. That's part of the loudness of my web-weaving, I learned to help big. I actually like helping big, coordinating an effort or making sure something happens that is needed. But it can be a bit overwhelming for the quieter ones, and I bet it is a little bizarre to those from community-based cultures. 

Still, we're working on it. My family does have the genes for depression, so having a web is that much more important. After all, if a population with mostly people who are prone to major depression can avoid depression more than the US population just by being community-oriented, my family may be able to do the same.

Worth a try, anyway.