Code Of Conduct

At the junior high where I worked, the cafeteria is left littered with mounds of garbage, despite the presence of numerous trash cans. Kids still losing baby teeth publicly sass adults to their faces. And forget about walking in a straight line if you’re an adult, even a very pregnant one. I learned this lesson the first time I assumed that the traffic pattern would yield to the approach of an elder (the way I was taught it should), and almost ended up on my duff from an aggressive shoulder-check. You might say there are always a few bad eggs in every generation, but this is something different. This is pervasive in a way we would have found dumb-founding at their age. An epidemic of rudeness. It mystifies me all the time. I grew up in a house where codes of social conduct were specifically laid out and strictly enforced. Children are seen but not heard when adults are gathered. Every adult is addressed by “Mr.,” “Mrs.,” or “Miss” preceding their last name, or, in rare cases, their first name. Youth gives seating, the spotlight, respect, and the right of way to age. No exceptions. If my father saw me behaving the way these kids do now, even at forty-three years old, I would be on the unfortunate end of an attitude adjustment. And I would deserve it. In the Berenstain Bears Forget Their Manners, the bear family learns to clean up their act. I wonder if they give workshops.

http://www.amazon.com/Berenstain-Bears-Forget-Their-Manners/dp/0394873335

http://www.berenstainbears.com/sjbio.html

Boob Tube

When my brothers and I were growing up, there were only three television channels which constituted the sum total of viewing opportunities. And that was only when the antennae was in exactly the right spot after an hour of shouting adjustments to your dad on the roof. Given these factors, I never developed much of a relationship with TV and sometimes even felt a bit wary of it--cartoons were violent, soap operas mind-numbing and crime shows too scary for kids. But I am often not the only decision-maker in my house, so television has been more of a presence at some times than others. Until I get fed up again and throw it out again. I spent one evening almost twelve years ago flipping through the channels during “family viewing” time and could not find a single thing that did not offend me. So, I got rid of it all. No cable, VCR, antennae. Nothing. And that lasted quite a few years until I loved somebody with a TV habit again. Since then, the television has come creeping (sometimes bulldozing) back into our daily lives. Sadly, even reaching the toddler. The other day, Scarlett woke up and the first thing she said was, “I need to watch Dora.” Like TV was her coffee…or heroin. That was the last straw and the TV is objecta non grata again. In the Berenstain Bears’ Too Much TV, Mama puts her paw down and turns off the tube. Oh, that’s what quiet sounds like…

http://www.amazon.com/Berenstain-Bears-Much-First-Books/dp/0394865707

http://www.kidsreads.com/authors/au-berenstain-jan-stan.asp

The Clean Machine

I once watched transfixed as a woman from church talked to my mother while wagging her newborn twelfth child tummy-down on one hand. Every time she punctuated a thought or made a point, her baby-filled hand would wave around with abandon while its cargo went peacefully along for the ride. Mom was confident, baby was content and I decided right then and there that when I had small people some day, I wanted to be more like a twelfth-time mom than a first-time mom. There’s a lot to be learned from folks who have gone around the parent track a few times. Like the mother of ten whose problem-solving technique for squabbling siblings was to have the combatants stand with foreheads touching until they had worked out their differences. Weird, but effective. Perhaps the best trick I learned from a veteran parent was motivated room cleaning. Every parent knows how impossible it is to get kids to tidy up the room--stalling, whining, complaining. So, one experienced mom of a large brood solved the dilemma by having the kids clean each other’s rooms, trash bags in hand. The temptation, of course, is to throw everything away and be done in five seconds, but you know your sibling is in your room thinking the same thing, so you try to be careful. Clean rooms and some empathy training? Everybody wins. In The Messy Room, Stan and Jan Berenstain show how getting it together works. It’s not easy, but it is worth it.

http://www.amazon.com/Berenstain-Bears-Messy-Room/dp/0394856392

http://www.berenstainbears.com/