"I Can Do It!"

I was at a used books store on Saturday evening. My roommate, BB, and I love our bookstore. It is a huge, and I mean HUGE bookstore. It's roughly the size of a grocery store, putting the new books stores to shame, and it is simply stuffed with bookcases. There is no wasted display space, no big silly signs, no journals or wrapping paper, just books, DVDs, and CDs.
The first time we went there, it was night, and the being brightly lit with big picture windows, it shone in the darkness, beckoning us into its warmth and light with promises of knowledge and safety. It did not disappoint us.
I wasn't feeling all that great on this trip, so I sat on the bench available to footsore patrons while BB walked the store after I'd made a quick trip to horror and sci-fi. I got myself an old Robert Bloch and two McAffreys for my mother.
Most of the people were the usual adults milling around with their baskets and carts, but there was one family I watched with interest, a mother and her 3- or 4- year-old boy. The little boy wanted to carry the basket. It was as long as he was tall, and a bit heavy for him. But he wanted to carry it, to show he was a big boy. It was the cutest thing I'd seen in a long time.
Mom didn't want him to carry the basket. "Is it heavy, mommy?" the little one asked. I would have said, "not really," but this mother said, "yes, very!" The little boy still said "I can carry it, mommy! Let me do it!" She handed him the basket, not really looking at him.
I watched as he tried to carry the basket in front of him, bouncing it off his little tennis-ball knees. He determined the basket was too heavy, and so he squatted down, laid each book carefully on the floor around him, and started experimenting. He put some back in the basket and picked it up carefully, just an inch off the floor, weighing it in his hands. He tested the weight of two books against each other, of one stack against another, and on and on. I was fascinated. Here was a little boy learning all kinds of things: how to estimate weights, the correlation between size and weight, his own limits, and logical problem-solving.
This went on for about five minutes. At the end, he had a stack of books in the basket he could reasonably carry, and two books on the floor. He picked up the two books and handed them to his mother. She took them, not even noticing. She was busy. Undaunted by his mother's disinterest, he picked up the basket and declared "I can do it!" He was shushed by his mother.
When she turned away from the shelf, she realized she was holding a pair of books. She looked down at her proudly smiling son, who was holding the basket up as high as he could, big goofy grin on his face.
She gave an exasperated noise, snatched the basket from him, threw the two books into it, and said shortly, "I told you it was too heavy." The little boy took hold of the handle and said, "I can do it, mommy! I want to carry it!"
"No, it's too heavy. Let go." She batted his hand way. The little boy looked crushed, and when his mother turned her back to him to look at another shelf, he put his hand lightly on the basket, still trying to help.
I was crushed and even offended on the boy's behalf. He was just taught that his contributions are worthless, that he cannot help, that his mother doesn't think he can do anything. In ten years, if the mother continues on the path she's on now, that little boy will be a surly, ungrateful, lazy teenager.

Little children cannot do their "fair" share. They can't actually DO much of anything. But if parents take the time to train their children in how to do things, then by the time they are able to really help, they will be able to, and they will have a will towards it.
The true purpose in teaching a child to fold clothes, cook food, wash dishes, or empty garbage cans is not to create an indentured servant. The purpose is to teach the child diligence, faithfulness, teamwork, independence, and confidence. The child who is not taught to work does not spontaneously become a hard worker just because he got a job at McDonald's. We have all been through the line with a surly, incompetent drive-thru worker enough to know that.

Seeing that little boy, who apparently had a naturally strong desire to work, being shut down by a mother who couldn't see her own son, just broke my heart. In the end, did it matter if that basket got dragged on the floor? Or if the mom had to carry a book or two in her hands? Of course not. What mattered was the chance for a mom to let her child do something hard for him, and succeed. What mattered was the chance to tie strings, to show love. And it was a missed chance. Miss enough of them, and you're going to run out.

Logical Fallacy, Meet Suburban Soccer Moms

There is a "Martial Arts Studio" near my work, in the same shopping center I do most of my grocery procurement in, and in the window, in big bold letters, is a sign that says "Defeat the bully without fighting." Do-whaa-huh?! was my intelligent and well-reasoned response to that, followed closely by a sudden understanding and a patronizing chuckle. After seeing this sign a while back, I started looking for others. I realized that there were an awful lot of kid-oriented martial arts places, and they all have some variation on this theme plastered over their windows, vans, brochures, fliers, billboards, and custom t-shirts.
I think I understand where this insanity comes from, and it's not pretty. It comes from that whole "violence never solved anything" mantra that is so popular, especially these days. All evidence to the contrary, Suburbanite moms really want to believe they can talk their way out of conflicts, and that their children can, too! To them, there is nothing martial about "martial arts." It's just about exercise and discipline and white uniforms that have to be bleached every week.
Anyone who's been bullied knows that the best way to deal with said bully is to fight the hell back. Fight hard, and make it not worth the little snot's pain and energy to keep coming after you. Honestly, I just think most women don't really understand kids, certainly not boy children. Yes, yes I did just say that. Bring it.
When girls start to become teenagers, they stop physically fighting (most of the time, anyway), and start going psychological. And since psychological bullying is fought with words, they sort of assume that ALL bullying can be fought the same way.
Men are at least honest. They know they don't understand girls and don't pretend to, but women seem to think that the ability to successfully gestate and expel small, screaming balls of flesh imbues with special powers which allow them to understand and relate to all children. Sorry...no, it does not. You do not have special powers. You do not understand boys any better than men understand girls. Deal with it.
Anyway, back to the whole bully thing. Suburban mommies want their little boys to have a safe place to work off all that pesky energy, preferably near a nail or hair salon and a Starbucks. But they do not want their little boys to be all rough and violent the way little boys are. They certainly don't want to see their children learning how to fight. That's just...uncivilized. Then they wonder why their teenage boys are whiny little wimps.

To make a very long-winded post very short, I will end this by saying that I believe that over-protective soccer moms are the reason "Emo" exists. Emo is not the product of manly men, at least.

Getting Stood Up

Back to the things that piss me off.

Do you remember what it felt like when you had a date with someone, and you go to the spot where you're supposed to meet them, and you wait, and wait, and wait some more? You sit there for what feels like an eternity, waiting for someone who never comes. Do you recall how painful that is? How embarrassing? How frustrating?
Ok, now imagine that you took time off of work for your date, and now not only did you not get a date, but you lost money. That's what happens when people make appointments and don't show for them.

Sometimes it's unavoidable, and I understand that. But sometimes, OFTEN, people just decide not to come and then decide I don't rate a freakin' phone call. I will call these people, and leave messages. I will hear from them the next day, and they will say "Yeah, I know. We decided to do [fun activity] and we need to schedule a make up." These people get very indignant if you tell them that no, they can't schedule a make up because it's an unexcused absence. You wasted my time, and I'm going to charge you for it. This almost never sticks, because they threaten and badger and I'm not allowed to say things like "Ok, then DON'T bring your business back!" to customers because that's "bad customer service." Likewise, saying "I'm a reflection of what I must deal with: they're bad customers" wouldn't go over well, either. BB is very much stuck in the 'the customer is always right' mindset. I could tell you stories about how very wrong the customer has been, but let's just use a simple analogy:
Your child is rushed to the hospital after a heavy thing falls on it. The child has broken two ribs and a leg, and has a concussion. Would you look at the doctor and say "go ahead and give him the pain medicine and stitch him up, but he don't need a cast or anything," and expect the doctor to listen to you? I would hope the answer is a resounding NO because you're not the damn expert. The doctor is. The doctor understands this stuff because she went to school and did her internship and all that. She has experience and expertise.
SO DO I, DAMMIT! Don't tell me what your child doesn't need when you have no clue. You didn't even know that precious was still counting on her fingers in math! And precious is in 6th grade! I know what's going on with your kid because I was educated, and I do know what I'm talking about, and if you don't believe me, then fine. But don't tell me that you think that despite the testings that you CLAIM to agree with, you don't want to do X because it "sounds silly." So does a CAT scan if you don't know that CAT is an acronym.

There, it's more fun when I'm cranky, isn't it?

Consensual Living

It's probably not what you think. It's certainly not what I thought. What "Consensual Living" is, is a parenting "technique" that damn near guarantees that the children "raised" with it will turn out to be hellions. An excerpt:

In the consensual living model, father doesn't know best. Neither does mom. Instead, parents and children are equal partners in family life, according to the principles laid out at consensual-living.com.
...
Devotees study books such as Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn and Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication, and they consider parenting based on punishment and reward structures to be "coercive."

In contrast, "consensual" parenting is non-hierarchical.

The article, which I trust you can read without me continuing to blockquote it, goes on to discuss how the mommy and daddy of this little family negotiate with their toddlers, asking them for feedback on the rules with questions like "will that work for you?" and so on. I cannot even begin to describe all the ways this makes me angry.
But I'll try.

Let's start with the obvious: Consensual implies consent on the part of all people involved, and the way this reads to me, mommy and daddy are doing all of the bending. The children are certainly not mature enough to understand the need to compromise. They're still thoroughly planted in the "MINE MINE MINE!" phase of life and need to be taught how to act like good, selfless people. They do not need to be given the impression from birth that they can demand their way and that the people in authority over them actually aren't.

Let's also consider that our parents are our models for dealing with anyone else "bigger" than we are (older, more powerful, authority figures). Do we honestly believe that little Johnny's teacher or boss is going to give half a rat's ass about his feelings and "need to be validated?" (What does this mean, anyway? To me, "validation" is something they do with parking. But, I digress.)

Parents are responsible for giving their children the tools they need to survive in their world. Which means these children need to know that they are not the axis upon which the Earth spins. This is the absolute worst in lazy parenting, in psychobabble nonsense that makes parents feel that their job is to be the child's friend.

Another excerpt, this time from Consensual Living. This is from the section entitled "Principles of Consensual Living":

* Equality

The thoughts, feelings, wants, needs and/or solutions, of each individual involved, are equally valued, and equally considered. Everyone has thoughts, feelings, opinions, wants, needs, and/or solutions. We all must see those and the individual as equal regardless of our differences. It is more than just treating everyone as equal, each member of the family must be equal. If all family members do not truly feel equal, the process will be less than successful.

Doesn't that sound nice? Doesn't it sound like butterflies and rainbows and happiness? The problem here is that in point of fact, it never works this way. The parent demonstrates patience and spinelessness, whilst the child grows into an unholy terror. This is somewhat akin to the Tragedy of the Commons, the concept of a Miracle occurring and causing humans to not act like humans. Humans are selfish creatures. Young ones especially, for their instincts towards preservation of the species exist only inasmuch as they feel the need for survival.

The infant quickly learns that if it performs certain actions, others will respond in predictable ways. The parents of babies who pick baby up whenever it cries will create babies who cry when they want to be picked up. (Not to say that parents should not pick up their babies when they cry, but that parents should learn the difference between "I need something" cries and "I demand attention!" cries.)
The child who learns that saying things like "I feel hurt and rejected when you won't let me X" will get the parent to let him/her do X will fall back on those buzzwords. And what's worse, the child will not respect the parent, or itself. The child will loathe itself because deep down, it knows what it is doing is wrong. And that's the best case scenario. The worst case is one I've seen far too often: the sociopath.

This is just...UGH. I can't even begin to describe how angry I am about this. Parents are responsible for their children, but they are also responsible TO them, and as parents you have a real responsibility to make sure your child turns out as well-educated, well-socialized, and well-adjusted as possible. Some kids will go bad no matter what, but it's YOUR JOB to make sure that your child is given the best possible chance at becoming a decent human being. And this is NOT the way it's done.

Your Child, The Common Cold, and Your Friendly Neighborhood Tutor

We all know that children are susceptible to all manner of nasty little viruses (virii?) and bacteria. We all know that children, not fully aware of how icky it is to forget to wash their little hands after using the facilities, or to wipe their runny little noses on the backs of their cartoon-character-festooned shirt sleeves, or to cough in the faces of those they hold dear, are prone to catching lots of curable, but highly annoying diseases. If I had a child, I would probably be more tolerant of my child's inability to understand Universal Precautions. But I do not have a child. I have cats and they do not sneeze, cough, puke, bleed, piss, or crap on me. Your children do.
I have had nearly every bodily fluid sprayed on me during the course of my job, and it's disgusting. For the most part, these children do horrible things to me because their parents are not cognizant of my status as a human being. I am, according to these people, a machine which does not succumb to illness. Unfortunately for all of us, I am not a Stepford Tutor and I have a very weak immune system. All this means that if your little plague rat enters my facility with even the barest whisper of a cough, I get bronchitis. If your child has an upset tummy, I get the kind of intestinal infection that makes one pray for the sweet kiss of death.
My facility has a very liberal policy regarding illness. If the child is sick, keep it at home and we will happily schedule a make-up hour for it when it is no longer a possible Patient Zero for a tutoring facility epidemic. Since we do have such a nice, easy, liberal policy regarding sickness, I cannot imagine why a parent would send their ill child to be tutored. Do they think that precious will learn anything while hacking, coughing, sneezing, or barfing? Do they think anything will be retained? Or possibly, should we let little precious stay home, drink some ginger ale, and watch Spongebob reruns?
I bring all of this up because today I am running a fever and coughing my lungs out thanks to a plague rat child. It's not the child's fault, of course, because the child did not choose to be sick nor did the child choose to come to see me. I blame the parent. I blame the inconsiderate parent who didn't want to upset his/her routine. So now, the child is still sick, and still being sent to before-school care, school, after-school care, and then finally to me. Apparently the child is less important that mommy and daddy's day planner.

Lack of Planning On Your Part...

does not constitute an emergency on mine.

I wouldn't think this would be hard to understand, but apparently it is. We are not drop-off sites. Tutors get paid by the hour. Tutoring centers charge by the hour. This is not the gym, it's not the rec center, the Boys & Girls Club, or your mother's house. We have calendars and schedules that are more important to us than your child. Some of us even have friends and spouses, maybe we have children, too! We certainly have lives. So, if your precious little baby has not gotten something done in a timely manner, it is not our fault and it is not our responsibility. I cannot even begin to count the number of times someone has come into this facility, and asked--nay, demanded--that we work with their child immediately! They don't care if we don't actually have any tutors fluent in the K'thvalgean dialect of Klingon. (Yes, I just made that up.) The fact that we can't help their child is proof that we are racist/bigots/Trekkie-phobes/mean/baby-eaters/seal-clubbers. Riiiiiight, because we don't like making money. We'd rather turn you away for no good reason than squeeze a couple hundred bucks out of you.
Most of the people who do this to us are not clients. They walk in off the street, look around the facility, make snarky comments about our decor, prices, and/or policies, and then act as though they are being magnanimous for deigning to speak to us without holding a lace perfumed handkerchief over their noses and mouths. When we tell them that we are unable to accommodate their requests, they begin their tirade.
Just this past week I had a couple come barging into the lobby, snapping their fingers and trying to talk to me through the (closed) receptionists' window. I am not the receptionist. I was just in the receptionist's office. Nevertheless, I did my best to discuss the lay of the land with these parents. As I do have administrative duties, and as I have been working here almost since the doors opened, I do know a thing or two about the rates, policies, procedures, and programs. Like your average gym, we do not simply let people walk in off the street. We have paperwork. We have managers with whom one must meet prior to service. There are agreements to make, schedules to consider, and so forth.
When I explained to these parents that while I understood that their child had a test tomorrow, and that young Master Bates most certainly needed some assistance with the History of Cauliflower, there were no Vegetable History tutors scheduled that night and I didn't know of any who were available on this short notice. Mr. and Mrs. Bates were incensed and explained to me that this was unacceptable and if I weren't an incompetent nitwit, I would get on the deleted phone and call some censored people and make sure that someone got his or her redacted into our penny-ante unprintable facility immediately to help their precious baby boy.
Anyone who works in customer service knows how irritating "That's unacceptable!" is. In all honesty, this phrase is more likely to damn you in the eyes of the service people than a steady stream of profanity. These days, vulgar language is like litter: it's everywhere and no one really notices anymore. However, sayings gleaned from '90's management philosophy books are the same trite nonsense we've been hearing for many, many years and we're frankly damn well sick and tired of it. We've heard it enough from our bosses, many of us left the corporate world to get away from that silliness, and hearing it infect the everyday world is enough to send us all running for the hills. So, please believe me when I tell you that if you tell a customer service representative in any store, restaurant, or business "that's unacceptable!" or "failure is not an option!" or "mistakes are not tolerated!" or reference the moving of cheese in anyway, you will only succeed in making a highly negative impression on the person to whom you speak. We will remember you, your image and your whining, angry voice branded into our minds, and we will remember that you believe that you are above not only the rules of etiquette and common decency, but the laws of thermodynamics as well, specifically the one about creating something from nothing. So, please for the love of whatever you hold holy or sacred, just stop.
And, shockingly enough for those of you who fall into the above category, regardless of the feelings of the person in question, the truth does not care if it is acceptable, printable, convenient, or likeable. And none of us in the customer service enjoys telling a potential customer or client that we can't help them. It's lost revenue, and no one likes this. We lose bonuses, we lose scheduled hours, and we lose the chance to make a difference. We are genuinely unhappy when we have to turn someone away. We don't do it lightly. We don't do it when we can possibly avoid it. We are greedy capitalist pigs and we like money. We want to be Tutor of the Month, because we want that $100 bonus.
Anyway, Mr. and Mrs. Bates had nothing but rude things to say to me, as I stood there with the fake Customer-Service smile plastered on my face, one part of my brain thinking about what it would feel like to--just once!--fight back while another part repeated the Litany Against Rage (lesser-known than the Bene Gesserit's Litany Against Fear) while a third part said, bemused and slightly bewildered "I'm so glad I went to college for this." My reptilian brain just wanted a Twinky and my creative side considered if the National Endowment for the Arts would endorse a mural made of blood and brain matter. Eventually Mr. and Mrs. Bates stormed off, saying we shall never hold their custom! Never! They would go to the Swanky Overpriced Tutoring Center instead.
Oh, heavens no. Please don't go! We'll do anything! We didn't mean to drive you away! Look, we'll cancel all our other appointments and go kidnap an appropriate tutor and force them, at gunpoint if necessary, to tutor your precious baby if only you'll promise not to go! is what I did not shout as I watched them struggle to open the door that's always locked. (Why do we do this? Why is one door only for show?) They eventually figured out their error, cursed the door and suggested it do something utterly impossible with itself (as it lacks the motive power, flexibility, and requisite anatomy) before storming off in search of someone else who would be willing to endure hell for the sake of $100 or so.

God help the child these people have conceived. He never had a chance.

Helicopters and Hellions

I'm sure you've all heard the term "Helicopter Parent." Maybe you are one. I certainly hope not. But just in case someone out there has never become acquainted with this term, a Helicopter Parent is the kind of parent who buzzes over their child, like a toy helicopter with no safety guard around its blades. What this means for we tutors is, in the midst of hovering about their children, making sure nothing damages the little tyke's self-esteem, we often incur serious injury at their blades. Metaphorical, of course, but the fear of a real attack is sometimes lurking in our minds. Call it the reptilian brain assuming that any threat is a physical one. The Helicopter Parent's biggest flaw, in my so-very-humble opinion, is that she does not realize the damage she is doing to her child.
I have never seen a Helicopter Parent create a lovely or even likable child. Their children are, by definition, obnoxious, entitled, demanding, rude, selfish, evil little hellions. You've seen them in the supermarket, the theater, and the park. They're the ones screaming, screwing their faces up into gargoyle-esque pouts, crying crocodile tears, or decrying the unfairness of life because they can't have a treat, can't run through the aisles of the store, were forced to sit in a "baby chair," or couldn't climb the monkey bars because some "big mean kids" had taken it over.
The Helicopter Parent, when not the cause of the temper tantrum, buzzes in with automatic weapons firing devastating barrages of accusations. "What happened? Who hurt you, precious? Show mommy your boo-boo! Did that big mean kid do something?" Then the Helicopter Parent will turn on the "big mean kid" who is usually all of seven years old, and begin to berate the child for not sharing a toy (that belongs to the child being castigated, usually) or not being careful enough of her little baby, or some other ridiculous imagined crime.
I had one student in particular who is a Spawn of the Damned, and his mother is an Apache model Helicopter. She gets a particular look on her face whenever Spawn is unhappy, and I know I'm about to catch it. Her face always makes me think, first and foremost, of this:
Her son was just the most precious little thing ever, and he was important and special and needed to be treated that way. We needed to make sure that we took extra special care of Spawn, because he's very, very SPECIAL. He has ADHD (no, he doesn't, but that's another story). He has learning "differences" (we're not allowed to call it a disability). He has emotional issues (No shit!). He is in all ways very, very special. Did I metion he is special? Because he IS.
Yes, there are children out there with real problems and real issues, but this is not one of them. This is a spoiled-rotten little bastard whose mother is enabling his entitlement attitude, and turning him into a sociopathic misfit who will wind up euthanizing puppies or cleaning crematoriums for a living. If he doesn't go serial killer.
The reason I think this child is going to go bad is that I've seen it before. I had a similar child, the youngest of four and the only son, who was spoiled by his mother and three older sisters. He used to take off his belt and hit people with the buckle. When he was about twelve, he attacked someone with a hammer but no charges were filed. He started abusing his sisters at 14, his mother at 16. Spawn is way too much like that kid. Just way too much like him. He gets that dead-eyed look, and I just want to run screaming. I don't like working with this kid. And I wonder how many parents do this kind of thing. How many of them create sociopaths without realizing it? How many more of these little monsters, and I mean that quite seriously, will I have pass through my life before one of them takes a swing at me?