You could spend all your savings and half your life reading them. Most of my parenting friends shelved the books once the kids reached toddlerhood and turned instead to intuition and common sense.

I don’t rely much on books either, but they do have a place.

Here are five I’d recommend:

1. Momma Zen. By far the most useful, restorative book on mothering I have read. The author is a Zen priest - and she finds mothering a challenge at times. A welcome shift in perspective on those not-so-great parenting days.

2. The Explosive Child. We bought this during a particularly rough patch when Thomas was, well, explosive. He doesn’t fit the category as defined in this book. No child fits any category. But the book is still useful for its advice on talking to your children: not coercing or nagging but flexibility and cooperation. An ideal worth striving for, even if we often fall short.

3. Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child. Along the same lines as The Explosive Child: teaching children to recognize, explore and cope with emotions. Such as when Alex, who is two, jams his trike into the stairs, can’t work out how to reverse and screams: “I’m frustrating!”

4. Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems. The classic, written by Richard Ferber. As in Ferberize. As in let-your-baby-scream-herself-to-sleep. The book as a bad reputation; even the title has an authoritarian tone. But of the books I’ve read on sleep (and we’ve had lots of “sleep problems“) this was the most useful for understanding kids and sleep, and, contrary to its reputation, devising our own method for encouraging more snoozing and less screaming.

5. The Art of Possibility. I have to thank my husband for reading this as a parenting book. It’s not written as one, but the advice, especially “Giving an A” can instantly transform destructive patterns into creative ones.

And here’s a book I haven’t read but would like to:

1. The Stay-At-Home-Survival-Guide. Read an interview with the author in Mom Writer’s Literary Magazine.

The boy cupped his tiny brown hands and tilted his head just slightly. His ragged T-shirt fell from bony shoulders into thin air, and his trousers faded into threads below his knees. He looked seven or eight years old but likely weighed little more than Thomas, my three-year-old. His feet were scuffed and bare. I didn’t understand a word he said.

The boy was probably speaking Afrikaans. But I’m English-speaking Canadian and had lived in South Africa less than a week. I mumbled my incomprehension, and the boy repeated his request. His plea and his gestures were well-practiced but genuine. Their meaning, I realized, was perfectly clear. He was asking for food.

I scanned the parking lot for his parents or siblings, but he seemed alone. Once again, he asked for food, moving his hands from cupped to praying. How could I refuse? I was packing groceries from an upscale market into our new Honda. I grabbed a loaf of bread and handed it to him, smiling. He took it, looked me in the eye, and was gone.

It was a minute gift - but I hadn’t considered Thomas. He was perched in the shopping cart, watching the exchange. As the boy fled, Thomas went wild, as if his most cherished toy had been squandered. His legs flailed as I tried to untangle him from the cart. It was five or ten minutes before he found words.

“My bread! I want my bread! No! No!”

I hadn’t imagined that giving away the bread would upset Thomas any more than handing money to the grocery checker or pushing letters across the counter at the post office. Yet Thomas had identified with the boy as – simply – a boy. Not poor, not hungry, just another child who wanted something that was his. The boy hadn’t said please or thank you (that we know of) and he didn’t share. He just took our food and ran. And that, to Thomas, was wrong.

I felt compelled to explain a greater, more complicated injustice. “We have lots of bread. That boy doesn’t have any. He needs the bread more than we do. We can get more bread at home.”

Eventually, Thomas is quiet, and we are driving away from the shop. I hope he understands.

“Are we not going to give our bread away?” he peeps from the back seat.

He doesn’t understand. How could he?

Liberals are generally more open – to diversity, novelty and experience. They are willing, Haidt says, to accept a certain amount of chaos in exchange for making the world a better place for everyone. A liberal morality emphasizes fairness and care.

Conservatives, on the other hand, are generally less open. They like familiarity, institutions and tradition. They value order, even at the expense those people “at the bottom” as Haidt puts it. While conservatives, like liberals, are concerned with fairness and care, they also include loyalty, respect for authority, and purity (of spirit, body etc.) as part of their moral code.

This was a twenty minute talk on a very complex topic so many questions went unanswered. Nevertheless, Haidt claims to back up his findings with surveys of over 30,000 people across the world. At the very least, it’s an interesting way to think about political differences.

Coincidently, I’m now reading The Maternal is Political. It’s a collection of personal essays by women who became politically active, or deepened their political commitments, after having children. The book is very US-centered and “political” for the most part means Democrat. (I haven’t finished the book, however; perhaps some new mothers became Republican.)

Reading this book, I’m persuaded that motherhood is essentially liberal: it foments a compulsion to make the world better for everyone, and therefore better for your kids. It creates an openness, in Haidt’s terms, to change, diversity, necessary chaos, and a certain amount of risk-taking in the name of a better future.

But I can imagine how motherhood might push toward the other end of the political spectrum if it meant that your kids are better off - toward loyalty (to family), toward order and familiarity, toward deference to authority figures (such as doctors).

So here’s my question as elections loom in both the US and Canada (and South Africa):

Has motherhood made you more liberal or more conservative – or more of something else?

I begin the meeting: “Team, we have a busy week ahead. Major milestones to tackle and a report to finish. I’ve scheduled an extra team meeting for Wednesday morning.”

Immediate revolt: “Not Wednesday. Wednesday makes me sick!”

“C’mon guys. We’ve had meetings on Wednesdays before and you liked it.”

“No! No! No! No!”

My three trusted colleagues are running away. Alex bolts for the stairwell. Thomas flails onto his desk, face down on the keyboard. I find Jon just down the hallway standing bashfully in a puddle of pee.

We clean up and I set some short-term tasks for the team while I make myself a coffee. Suddenly, Jon is at my side.

“I want to stir. I want to stir!” He yanks the spoon from my hand and vigorously stirs coffee onto the latest draft of our report.

I clean up - again - and check on the other team members.

Thomas has forgotten his short-term task. He’s standing precariously in his office chair, fist and chin in the air. “It’s Superman!” he says, beaming. Then the chair swivels and Superman goes down. It’s twenty minutes before he’s seated at his desk again.

During those twenty minutes, I hear war being waged in the adjoining cubicle. Alex and Jon are arguing over who gets to re-write the budget. I leave Thomas (sorry, “Superman”) and step next door.

“It’s mine!”

“It’s MINE!”

Each has a lethal grip on the budget. Alex is baring his teeth, ready to clamp down on Jon’s arm, but clearly doesn’t want to lose hold of the disputed document.

“Alex! Jon! You haven’t worked on the budget in months. Let go! We must learn to share these assignments.”

Alex lets go and sends Jon flying backwards. He hits his head on the power bar under his desk. Taking advantage of his wounded colleague, Alex heads in for the bite.

I really, really, have to get this report finished so I persuade Alex back to his cubicle and settle Jon in his. I leave them to watch a video tutorial on our new stats software, hoping it will be both educational and sufficiently compelling.

In less than a minute, Alex is at my desk.

“I’m hungry. I want a snack.”

“Alex….”

“Please, may I have a snack? Please?”

Thomas and Jon are just behind him. They want snacks too.

I suggest we continue to work over lunch, and we’re soon back in the meeting room with sandwiches, cookies and juice boxes.

But no one is hungry anymore. Thomas sends a geyser of juice up through the straw of his juice box. Jon pulverizes his cookie into his report. Alex has fallen asleep in his seat.

I clean up - again - and gently wake Alex. He’s alert but won’t let me put him back in his chair. In fact, he has curled into a ball on my lap. Jon, seeing an opportunity, climbs onto the back of my chair and wraps his hands around my neck, cutting off most oxygen flow to my brain. Thomas is picking Jon’s cookie crumbs from the floor directly under my feet.

“Can’t…” I gasp, “write report with you on my neck….”

Eventually, everyone is back in their chairs. Juice is dripping from the ceiling but we must get to work on our report. I pick up a red pen and start to highlight areas that need revising.

“Not red! I don’t like red. I want blue!”

“No I want blue! Blue! Blue! Blue!”

“I like green!”

They’re shoving pens in my direction, hoping I’ll choose the color closest to my face. Jon is now crawling slowly across the table. With singular focus, he aims his green pen up my nose.

I’m going to lose it.

Ten minutes later, I’m alone at my desk feeling like an utter failure. I want to quit this job. I should be fired from this job. I have time to wallow in self-doubt because it’s quiet. Uh, it’s quiet….

I find Thomas making a hundred full-color copies of his Superman t-shirt (which he’s still wearing) and passing the copies directly to Jon – who is feeding them into the shredder. Alex is tossing the resulting shreds into the air like confetti at a wedding. I haven’t the energy to intervene and retreat to my desk.

My colleagues join me several minutes later of their own accord.

“We’re sorry…. We’re ready to work on the report now.”

A reprimand rises in my throat but I can’t actually mouth the words. I’m too distracted. Although terribly unprofessional, I can’t stop thinking how damn cute they all are. Then, like brilliant fireworks exploding, they tear away from my desk – at full speed and in three different directions (none of which is their desk).

How could I quit this job? I love this job more than life itself. It is life itself. We’ve made absolutely no progress on the report, but the team is happy. That’s good enough for me.

“Stop right now or you’ll go to your room!”

“Share with your brothers or no more treats!”

“You be a good boy, or we’ll just stay home next time!”

It’s horrible to speak this way to a child and I try - try - not to do it. But parental calm stretches only so far, especially with two toddlers and a preschooler, and inevitably, idle threats tear through the room. Most parents do this, I like to think, in the name of teaching their children not to repeat bad behavior.

But what if these blunt tactics are completely useless? What if kids never learn from our negative quips? We’d have to start following our perfect parenting manuals, speaking soberly through tantrums and going out of our way to praise “good” behavior.

This parenting style is, apparently, supported by neuroscience. This week, Science Daily reports on research showing that 8-year-olds learn best through positive reinforcement; that negative feedback barely fires a neuron. In contrast, 12-year-olds and adults learn through the more complex strategy of incorporating negative response, figuring out what went wrong, and changing behavior accordingly.

It’s great to have science support the exchange of scolds for kisses. Still, it makes you wonder what to do when you’re hit in the back (like I was today) by a angrily thrown sippy cup.

My twins have now outgrown all-night breast-bottle feedings, infant bouts of inexplicable crying and multiple poops a day. The toddler years are not exactly peaceful, but that sickening sleep deprivation and round-the-clock care of the first year is over. Reading Twin Set brought back both the difficulties of those first few months as well as the sheer amazement of giving birth to, and caring for two tiny twins.

Twin Set is a practical guide to pregnancy, birth and the first years of parenting twins. The book doesn’t aim to be a comprehensive guide to parenting in general. If you want details on prenatal care, breastfeeding or toilet training, you’ll have to supplement with other books. But Twin Set does a good job of highlighting differences between parenting twins and parenting singletons. And as mothers of twins know, almost everything is different: pregnancy, birth, post-natal care (both for you and the babies), feeding, bathing, getting out of the house, discipline, starting school – and everything in between.

The best part of this book is that the advice is not simply the authors’ opinion but was gathered through a survey. According to the introduction, the authors surveyed 300 mothers of twins “from around the country” (presumably the US). The scientist in me wanted to know much more about this survey: how it was conducted; what questions were asked; how the mothers were chosen etc. Still, there is wisdom among 300 mothers, and that shows in the book.

Twin Set would be most useful for parents about to give birth to twins. No one is reading just after the birth, and within a year or so you will have figured it all out anyway. But for the parents-to-be there are many useful insights: just how difficult bathing two slippery, crying infants can be; the importance of recording all feeding and pooping in the first few months because you’ll forget who did what and when; that grocery shopping will never be as quick and easy, partly because most shopping carts have only one kid’s seat.

I do have a couple of gripes with the book.

The information is very (although implicitly) US-centered. Some things, like a “Snap ‘N Go” or leaving your kids in the car while you run back to the house, may not make sense outside America.

I also got tired of the book’s cutesy language and general dumbing-down. Consultant pediatricians, for instance, are called “Mommy Doc” and “Daddy Doc”. Really, we can handle a real name and title! And I’ve yet to meet a mother who would spend precious alone-time getting a manicure or doing word-puzzles.

My biggest gripe was with the book’s slant on the environment. Buying bottled water by the case-load (or at all) is simply irresponsible. Trying filtering. And, sorry, teaching your kids to play with empty toilet rolls does not negate thousands of disposable diapers in the land fill. Yes, there is debate on cloth versus disposable diapers (see The Great Disposable Diaper Debate) but telling parents to just “stop worrying” rather than make a conscious and informed decision seems, again, irresponsible (as is failing to disclose Twin Sets partnership with Pampers!).

Gripes aside, this is a useful and realistic book for parents embarking on the head-spinning adventure of raising multiples.

(Thanks to Random House for the review copy.)

Please check out my recent posts on the MotherVerse magazine blog.

I’ll soon have a post at Travel Savvy Mom describing the game lodge where we took our first family vacation (and it actually felt like a vacation).

And watch for the November issue of Mom Writer’s Literary Magazine. I’ll have an essay published there as well.

More to come on twinutero by next week…. really.

I’ve tried several ways of discouraging this behavior. Explaining that he does indeed have enough toys to outfit a small daycare doesn’t make a dent. I’ve also tried keeping a list: when he wants something new, we write it down so when it’s time to shop, he can choose from all he desires. I’ve had some success with this, although we’ve never actually used the list to buy anything. He has always forgotten about it – which is the point.

The most effective and creative strategy, however is to make whatever it is he “needs”. He decided a few months ago that Lego Percy was necessary. (Percy is a train from the Thomas the Tank Engine collection; Lego makes a replica.) So we hauled out the Lego from the closet, built a green train and painted a number six, Percy’s number, on the side. He was happy.

More recently, Thomas decided that he wanted Sally, the female star of the movie Cars. He said “I want Sally,” just once. Then he said, “I want to make Sally.” I asked him what we needed to make Sally and he organized: an old Lightening McQueen car with only three wheels; a small Lego wheel to replace the missing one; some blue paint for the body; and some white paint for the face. (Cars cars have faces, like Thomas trains.) Not only was he perfectly happy with this rebuilt car, he initiated the rebuilding.

It’s not a complete victory against consumerism. He is, after all, still asking for highly-marketed, massed produced toys. But it’s a good start for a three-year-old.

It has to appeal to kids (in our case toddlers and preschoolers) as well as to us, the parents who read the same book over and over. My informal survey and three-plus years of experience suggest three key ingredients make a picture book delicious:

1. Idealized illustration. Complete realism – illustration that looks like a photo – doesn’t seem to interest young children, but neither do pictures so wacky they’re incomprehensible or scary. Illustration with both sense and wonder works best. Jim Arnosky (Turtle in the Sea; Raccoon on His Own), John Schoenherr (Owl Moon) and Ian Falconer (Olivia) are favorites in our house. (And the original Olivia does it in just grays and red.)

2. Groovin’ rhythm. Kids seem to naturally grasp rhythm so a good one make a story memorable and fun. The best-loved example in our library is Rattletrap Car: “Flippita fluppita/ fizzelly sizzelly/ wappity bappity….” Pumpkin Soup and The Bear Snores On are close seconds.

3. Quirky imagination. Not logic, not even plot. The most elusive element to capture: what goes on the head of a three-year-old. Oliver Jeffers (How to Catch a Star; The Way Back Home; Lost and Found) does it brilliantly.

The classics - Goodnight Moon, Where the Wild Things Are, Dr. Seuss - have all of the above.

For more on children’s books see:

Horn Book Magazine, newsletter and blog…

Harold Underdown’s site…

Or send me your favorites in a comment.

]]> http://twinutero.org/2008/06/what-makes-a-picture-book-great/feed/ http://twinutero.org/2008/06/re-thinking-blogging-and-exploitation/ http://twinutero.org/2008/06/re-thinking-blogging-and-exploitation/#comments Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:44:14 +0000 twinutero http://twinutero.org/?p=91 Since I first wrote on this topic, my thoughts - and public discussion - have evolved. I still feel strongly about children’s privacy and their right to be aware, at least, of what is written about them. Mine aren’t old enough to read or understand the concept of publishing, but I will continue to write as if they were. I will not post photos, use their real names, or write anything I’m not prepared discuss with them now or later.

I have, however, been swayed by some of the growing argument. Dooce wrote a persuasive, somewhat defensive, response to accusations that she is exploitative. She argues that her blog is a “love letter” to her daughter. I don’t buy that. Love letters can be kept in a drawer. I don’t think they’re more loving for being read worldwide.

She also argues that sharing stories of motherhood openly and honestly is essential for building community, camaraderie and confidence among mothers, and that blogged children just might, eventually, be proud of their mothers for creating a movement. That, I’ll buy. Mommy-blogging isn’t all self-indulgence and pride. We learn from each other and the web is a powerful and expedient way share.

Still, I think it can – and should – be done with sensitivity and without photos. Imagine all of these children growing up to write new blogs about their aging parents, complete with candid photos of us in our jammies, playing solitaire at the retirement home. I mean, there is a community of adults who look after their parents, and they have much to learn from each other too. We would expect sensitivity and discretion when writing about the elderly, and we should expect the same when writing about kids.

Rachel Paskan wrote a beautiful essay on Babble about exploiting her daughter for art. Paskan acknowledges that her daughter influences the characters she creates, even indirectly, and seems sobered by her daughter’s recent awareness.

I’m sure my thoughts - and the larger discussion - will continue to evolve. No doubt there are Phd dissertations being tapped out right now. In the meantime, I’ll keep blogging here and now on the MotherVerse blog as well.

(Thanks to Andrea at Remains of the Day for the link to Dooce - I don’t generally read it!)