To Cheer or Not to Cheer?

It’s that time of year again when signs start poking out of the grass all over my part of town. Yes, it’s time for cheerleading and football sign-ups. Girls get to cheer and boys get to play football and moms and dads watch eagerly from the sidelines as their daughters and sons set out on a path that should, God willing, secure them a better place in the social hierarchy of their school careers as one of the elite or at the very least, not one of the hopelessly uncool kids they might become otherwise.

Naturally, because all her friends have been cheering for the past few years, TQ has expressed, again, an interest in joining in the fun. And I, being the overprotective freakshow that I am, have conveniently “forgotten” about cheerleading sign ups the past two years because, quite frankly, I’m just not sure about it.

I mean, of course, there is a part of me that’s like “YES! Be a cheerleader and you’ll never be picked last for teams in middle school gym class or not be invited to the cool parties or be picked on by bullies” and believe me, I fully realize how utterly pathetic that is but you know, as a parent, you always want your kids to grow up as unscathed as possible.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple because the other part of me is saying:

“NO WAY! I refuse to let my daughter get sucked into this elitist glorification of completely outdated gender roles where a girl is valued not for her brains or talents but rather her ability to jump up and down in a coordinated fashion like a trained monkey while looking cute in a short skirt. She should be PLAYING a sport, not cheering while a bunch of dumb jocks play the sport!”

I know that’s a narrow view of cheering and I’m sure it will piss off a few of you but I offer no excuses. That’s my perception of it. And yes, I know it’s hard work. Of course it is. But this isn’t exactly competition level cheerleading. It is, literally, jumping up and down in a coordinated fashion while looking cute in a short skirt.

Equally vexing to me is the time commitment — two hours, two evenings a week for practice (6-8pm) and every Saturday morning they have a game. They’re barely second graders yet!

But then again, do I want to be responsible for what will eventually be a chasm between her and her oldest friends? Would it be better to just go with the flow and be like every other mom and let her do it? Even though it feels wrong to lead her into something so limiting to her potential, in spite of it’s obvious social advantages?

It must seem silly of me to devote so much time to thinking about this but every year it gets a little harder to justify my reluctance about cheering, especially when I see how left out she feels.

I know this is probably the time in which I need to stand firm because this is just the beginning of these types of dilemmas where my values and her happiness are diametrically opposed but I have to say, I can now see why parents sometimes make decisions that, to the rest of us, seem so utterly stupid.

We just want our kids to be happy.

A-Camping We Will Go

Tomorrow I’m going camping overnight with my daughter and her Brownie troop. You may or may not know this but I’m definitely NOT the camping type. I can’t say I hate it because I’ve never actually been camping before but the idea of being stuck somewhere in the heat with bugs and dirt and poison ivy is just…bad.

Now let’s up the ante and throw in a raging sinus infection, the accompanying antibiotics that make me dizzy and nauseated and? My effing period.

God definitely hates me.

I can’t stand this anymore

I don’t know what’s wrong with me today. Before I took a 14 hour siesta yesterday morning (I have terrible cold) I felt fine but today I’m so down. All of a sudden I’ve come to realize that my son’s life at almost 3 is vastly different than my daughter’s was. With her, we were out and about doing something fun almost every day, going to playgroups and activities and we had a close group of friends with daughters the same age.

With P, we don’t have that at all and every time I think about it, it makes me feel like crying. It seems like all my old friends have gone back to work, are busy homeschooling during the day, have their older toddlers in preschool or have some other regular personal commitment to which they must attend.

I’ve tried in earnest to make new friends who have kids P’s age but it’s just not come together so except for the two days he goes to Mothers Morning Out for three hours, he spends all his time with me. I take him to the park, the library etc. and to run errands with me but he’s becoming really social now and it’s just not enough. I feel like I’m totally failing him. And myself. I never used to feel like this.

Where are all the SAHM’s? Where are all the two and three year olds? Why are people so cold and standoffish around here? Why do they look at someone who is friendly like they’re weird? Why do people schedule every free second of time their kids have? Even my daughter’s friends are nearly impossible to pin down for a playdate these days. When did trying to have fun get so bloody complicated?

Summer will be here soon and then it gets even harder. My daughter will go to day camp everyday for six weeks where my husband works and she loves every minute of it but for my son and I, the rest of the world is on vacation or their kids are signed up for a frillion different activities or some other impediment. Whatever happened to kids just playing? Why does everything have to be something you have to pay for?

You see, in addition to his job, my husband had a contract with a nearby university but because of this shitty economy, they were not able to renew his contract so we’re down $10,000 this year. Suddenly, we can’t afford lessons, classes and memberships to Busch Gardens, the Aquarium and all the museums. That extra $800 a month made a huge difference in our standard of living.

The guilt and the boredom are eating me alive. I can’t stand it anymore.

(And please don’t, for the love of all that is good and decent, suggest I join a MOMS Club chapter. Been there. Done that. Was actually president of a chapter once upon a time. I could never be my real self with any of those women.)

Edited to add: God. I sound like such a crybaby.

Have We Learned Nothing from Britney?

Um yeah, it’s me…weighing in on the already somewhat yawnworthy topic of Miley Cyrus’ photos in Vanity Fair because the world really NEEDS one more opinion on the matter.

Simply put, I think the photos were inappropriate for a fifteen year old girl.

Really, the one with her dad kind of made my skin crawl. They really looked more like lovers than father and daughter. It’s just…ewww. Yick.

And I know somebody is going to say that it’s because my mind is in the gutter that I feel that way and that shot is beautiful and to that I will say, “Shut up and go sit over there with Rosie O’ Donnell (who frankly scares me a bit when she gets on her web cam all close-up and stuff).

As for the other photo — please. Someone could sit here all day long coming up with reasons why it’s not an objectionable photo and I will shrug my shoulders and say “Okay, if you think sexualizing young girls is alright…”

See, it’s not a question of whether she’s fifteen and got raging hormones or because all teenage girls like to try their hand at being sexy and grown up blah blah. That’s probably all true and I don’t begrudge Cyrus the right to grow up. Miley herself is not the problem. The problem is that she appeared in a magazine geared toward adults in a bedheaded, come-hither Brigitte Bardot pose and she’s a child. Sexualizing her like that, no matter how much she might think it’s cool and edgy, is messed up. Period.

And I don’t give a flying fig (my dorky new substitute for the F word) about Annie Leibovitz or how awesometastical her work is. If asking a child to pose like that is the pinnacle of her creativity, then she’s all washed up and should consider retiring and if she couldn’t see this sh!tstorm coming from a mile away then she’s stupid, too.

The real coup would have been to portray Miley in an interesting and different way from her teen idol persona without resorting to that tired old standby of a half-dressed female. Christalmighty, I’ve seen innumerable half naked women and a lot of weird eroticized pregnant bellies and all sorts of other wack bullshit on the cover of Vanity Fair and it’s actually just so trite. And edgy? Please. Is it really edgy when everyone is doing it?

The fact that the primary responsible adults in Miley’s life left the shoot before it was over and didn’t bother, so it seems, to get something in the contract stating that said they must approve the photos before publication says to me that they are all very naive (they’re not) or that they really don’t care about Miley as long as she continues her run as the golden goose of the Cyrus family.

Sorry. It’s hard not to be cynical because seriously, this “innocent ingenue blossoming into a sexy ‘not a girl not yet a woman’ ” routine? It seems, I don’t know..a little…familiar? Perhaps it’s time to stop making kids into megastars and let them be kids so we won’t be so horrified when they try to grow up.

And to all the parents out there crying about how your child’s role model has disappointed you and how shocked you are etc. please, take this ticket and GET ON THE CLUE TRAIN because seriously — what did you expect? Have we learned nothing from Britney?

I saw this one mom on TV going on and on about how much her five year old loves Hannah Montana and how this is so distressing for her. Your FIVE year old? Why is your FIVE year old watching a TV show about a teenager who’s a secret rock star ANYWAY? Little kids should be watching shows made for little kids. They already grow up way too fast. Why speed the plow?

And Disney*? Seriously, WHY is the target demographic for Hannah Montana 6-14 year olds? Like 14 yr olds are going to be entertained by TV fare appropriate for a 6 year old? No. Of course not. But a 6 yr old is more than happy to watch something better suited to a tween or teen and therein lies the problem.

If you allow kids the opportunity to start idolizing a teen celebrity you will always be disappointed because guess what? Like little puppies and kittens, they always grow up and suddenly they’re not so cute anymore. They’re flashing their crotch every other night (Britney) and getting knocked up at 16 (Jamie Lynn) and making headlines for their sex tape (Paris) and nude photos on the internet (Vanessa). And your innocent child, most likely a little girl, is right there taking it all in while you fumble for the right words to explain why the object of her adoration decided to do whatever stupid thing she did.

At one point, my daughter really wanted to watch Hannah Montana (and yes I have seen it). But we don’t let her. She’s allowed to listen to her songs and that’s it. We’ve avoided the whole Hannah Montana marketing juggernaut, the ridiculous ticket prices for shows that sell out in five minutes and an assload of cheap Hannah Montana-branded crap littering our house. Instead of obsessing over a fake/real/??? rock star, my daughter spends time reading, playing outside and doing a lot of imaginative and creative things. I’m not saying she doesn’t watch TV, because she does, but she watches things that are better suited to a child her age. Why? Because I don’t want her fixating on a teenage celebrity who will eventually do something that is well beyond the understanding of a thankfully unsophisticated seven year old. Oh wait…that’s already happened. Heh.

I apologize in advance for the judgmental tone but really, I’m rather relieved to not have to explain a single thing about Miley Cyrus to my child and I’m really glad I’m not afraid to say “no” to either of my children. The world wants to consumerize, demographize, commoditize, homogenize and, sadly, sexualize our kids as soon as they’re able to and I intend to fight it for as long as I can.

Opposing viewpoints are welcome but be nice.

(While I’ve got you here, check out this Disney billboard in China WTF????????)

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From around the webernets:

Did VF “groom” Miley Cyrus?
Goddess versus sex goddess: It’s all in the vision

Have you written a post on this topic? Let me know and I’ll link you here.

O hai u wants mah babay wizdumbs?

In the very beginning it will be weird.

Your firstborn will probably suddenly seem huge to you, like they grew three inches while you were giving birth.

It’s possible that you will feel like you’ve betrayed your first child and suffer pangs of guilt while asking yourself over and over “What have I done?”

But it all gets better. You find your family rhythms and you realize your firstborn will survive this and the guilt goes away.

Caring for your second child will feel familiar and you’ll probably be a lot less nervous than you were with your first. You may even feel empowered by your ability to handle two children at once, although you’re a lot happier when your spouse or some other person who doesn’t get on your last nerve are there to help.

Before you know it, you have to get back into the swing of things because your firstborn cannot be contained any longer and that’s when you learn the art of navigating the outside world alone with two kids, one teeny one and one biggerish one.

And it’s a challenge at times but you learn to accept that sometimes you won’t be 100% in control of the situation because, well, it’s hard with two, but you’ll all be okay. And each time, it gets easier.

As your baby begins to grow and finds his or her comfy little niche in your family dynamic, the amazingness of it all might make you tear up a little. And when your firstborn shows any sign of love or caring to the baby, well, your heart will hurt…in a good way.

At some point you realize you’re now a party of four and it feels right and even with all the challenges you’ve faced and all the ones to come, this little family you’ve helped create is so beautiful and so perfect… You can’t even begin to imagine your second-born not being in your life.

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Okay, maybe this wasn’t quite the assvice they were asking for but more a retrospective on my experiences when my second child came into the world. But I hope that some of what I learned will be of benefit to three lovely ladies who are about to bring their second babies into the world.

This was part of a Virtual Baby Shower thrown by Kristen, Liz, Katie and Julie for Her Bad Mother, Mrs. Chicky and Mrs. Chicken over at Better than a Playdate.

If you’d like to join in the fun, go there for the details. You can win stuff! Seeing as I’m all done breeding, I have my eye on basket #3.

Much love, easy deliveries and healthy babies to all of you :)