Kids these days

Another thing that I do online is review books (you may have noticed some of these reviews on the sidebar, in the LibraryThing box). I've just finished reviewing this month's selection, and as I did so, I realized that I really had more to say, not necessarily about the book, but about parenting books in general, and a blog being the perfect place to air your unsolicited opinions, I thought that I'd post it here instead.

The book in question was called Working Parents, Thriving Families. As a working parent, I picked it up, expecting a few time management tips, maybe. As it turned out, it was more of a dissertation on How You Should Parent. I found the author's style of parenting to be a little intense in places, though I'm not sure whether the fault lies with him or me. For example, in a section on how "to monitor our children well", he mentions an'unhealthy' thing that a friend's boys (aged 11 and 12) had wanted to do. What was this unhealthy action? Was it sneaking off to an R-rated movie? Was it forgoing supper in favor of cake and soda? Nope. It was jumping on a trampoline with no protective fencing around it. Egad! How will the boy survive to turn 13? I found myself thinking, "Seriously? In my day, no one had ever heard of protective fencing, and yet, somehow, we survived."

The thing I find unpalatable about parenting books is that eventually, so many of them come down to this 'us vs. them' mentality, where kids exist merely to 'push the boundaries' and parents exist merely to draw the lines. Shouldn't you see your child as a person? Don't you remember what it was like to be 11? Would it kill that 12 year old to see the PG-13 film? You know that your child is going to grow up and realize that the entire world has unfortunately not been created by Pixar, right? Do you always make healthy choices? Why is it somehow perfectly ok, in our culture, to insist on allowing your children only to eat fruit leather for a snack, cut their juice with water because, "you know, juice is so sugary"...and then chow down on Oreos yourself after they go to bed?

Don't you think that the key to good parenting ought to be communication? Don't you think that we should be less focused on creating an environment where our child can never come to harm, even if we are not paying attention, and more focused on teaching our child about the world around them, on being a part of our child's life so that they feel they can talk to us in a collaborative way - so that they are neither totally sheltered nor without guidance? To protect too much is to create a Sleeping Beauty situation. If Sleeping Beauty's parents had told her about the spinning wheel, she would have known how not to prick her finger. In the same way, if you never jump without a net, how do you know to avoid falling?

If you treat parenting like a general going to war you'll have very well-behaved, clean, appropriate kids. But if so many things are forbidden, either the lure of the forbidden becomes so much stronger, or their natural curiosity is quenched. I'm not sure which is worse. What seems the biggest shame, if you view parenting as a tactical, practical task, is that you miss out, to a certain extent, on knowing your children as people.

That's not to say that you shouldn't have rules. Many rules are important - 10 hours of sleep per night, don't hit your brother, etc. But I suppose I am afraid if I do as Mr. Palmiter suggests and "assess visits to another child's home", for instance, discouraging interactions with kids whose parents are late to pick them up or 'seem disorganized', or who fail to call while your child is visiting them...well, who would that leave, exactly, in the good camp? If all parents evaluated by that standard, I know I wouldn't ever have visited anybody as a child. On time was not my parents' strong suit. Nevertheless, they were very good parents.

What do you think, o blog reader? Am I being too hippified here, for lack of a better word? Of course I realize that there's a distinction between the parent and the child, and I do have the last word. At the same time, while I want my child to grow up to be safe, I find it distasteful that 'safe' appears to be the number one American virtue at the moment. Sure, I want my daughter to be safe. But I want her to be able to think for herself, stand up for herself and for others, if they need it. I want her to question, and to explore. I want her not to be afraid to be friends with the late kid, or the kid whose mom packed the Twinkies, or even the kid who has terrible parents - because terrible parents are not terrible children, and nobody deserves to be written off for the sins of others. I want her not to take things at face value. Someday I'm not going to be there. But she will still be around. I don't want her to lose her way then, because I did all her thinking for her. What do you think?

Weekend at the Movies

I saw The Woman in Black yesterday at the theatre. It was a very fun movie. It also has Harry Potter in it (Daniel Radcliffe). Though if you go to see movies because Harry Potter is in them and will admit it, you are likely younger than I. This one, based on a Susan Hill novel that became a play (in fact, the second longest-running play in the history of West End theatre - you can still see it today), is edge-of-your seat scary. It's an Edwardian ghost story with all the trappings. Harry, sorry, I mean Daniel, plays a handsome young British lawyer who is sent to a remote country estate to 'put some papers in order' - a task that has been shorthand for 'be tormented by supernatural baddies and suspicious townspeople', since Bram Stoker's day.

This movie just happens to also be a Hammer Film, so be prepared to jump. They didn't miss a trick - scary old house with things lurking in the shadows around every corner, faces that disappear, the scariest dolls I've maybe ever seen, and dead children in abundance. Ok, you probably aren't thinking "Yes! Dead kids!" And if you are, please send me your full name, description and address, and I promise I won't forward it immediately to the police station nearest your house. But all of the best scary movies have dead kids in them. The Shining. The Ring. The Others. Probably a plethora of other movies starting with "The". But this plays on very primal fears - our inability to protect the defenseless. The idea that kids (and maybe animals) see things that adults cannot, so really we are the defenseless ones. The idea that despite our best efforts to protect them, some people (even our children!) maybe won't ultimately want to be saved (just look at Whitney Houston for a recent example of this). And of course, no matter how cute they were before, if they've just come out of the graveyard and are blue, dripping wet, and rattling your doorknob, you really won't want to let them in. (But what to do about the wet footprints that you see already inside, once the door has been secured?)

There is nary a moment of downtime, so drinks at the theatre are not recommended. If you go to the bathroom during the movie, you will miss a crucial plot point or a big scare. And this is probably schlock horror, to be sure, so the scares are sometimes cheap, but isn't that why we go to a film like this? If that's your cup of tea, it's well worth the price of admission.

A friendly debate

What do you think, dear readers, about debate? Should you debate your friends? Can you debate your friends, and still remain friendly, or does it lead to hard feelings?

Personally, I've always liked a good, spirited debate, and I never expect others to agree with me since I am in fact, the polar opposite of the person who can sell ice to an Eskimo, no pun intended. If I went in for an umbrella because it was raining, the rest of the world would take their raincoats off. So, I don't mind a good debate. I enjoy talking, and I enjoy hearing what others have to say. But I'm always afraid that someday I will go too far.

It seems like in our present culture - or maybe in any culture, at any time - but it seems like we are especially polarized these days, with the 99% and the 1%, or the right wing and the left wing, people petitioning for gay marriage and people petitioning against it, pro-lifers and pro-choicers, etc. - it seems like now more than ever, you are the sum total of your opinions, and it is not ok to sympathize with a position you yourself do not hold, or to play devil's advocate. So I am always afraid, when I find myself jumping in feet first to a spirited debate (as I did on Facebook earlier today) both because I like to argue and because I hate it when it seems that one side or another is underrepresented, that I will take it too far, that my friends will come to see me as voicing my inflexible opinion, not as another side of the question we haven't considered, but as a vote against them. Or that my next argument will be taken less seriously because as we often hear on the internet, people like to surround themselves with an 'echo chamber' when they are online, to a certain extent. Of course, I have very intelligent, reasonable friends - maybe even more reasonable than me, most of the time, and I'm sure that I'm overthinking this. But what do you think? Is debate fun? Can it go too far?

Sugar free candy that packs a big punch

I'm just here with the family watching the Super Bowl (go Giants!) and helping Bella get rid of some extra candy - parenting is hard work, right? And I was reflecting just how awesome this candy is - you can't even tell it's sugar free! Usually that saccharine taste kind of overwhelms a sugar free candy, but despite being calorie and carb free, Ice Breaker Sours are still full of flavor. And I swear they didn't even pay me to say it. But I think it's a good thing, when your child has diabetes, to seek out things that will allow them to eat relatively healthy while still feeling like a normal kid. And this fills the bill.

Let Them Eat Cake

My dad's birthday was this past week, and I have to say that I think the cake I made for the occasion turned out pretty well! It's very rich, with a chocolate ganache-type frosting. I think this photo does a good job of illustrating its chocolaty excellence, even if it also highlights my less than stellar decorating abilities. While I aim for decorating perfection, the ultimate goal is to have it disappear so fast you don't have time to look, right?

Chocolate Truffle Torte

For cake:
6 oz semisweet chocolate chips (1 cup)
1/2 cup margarine or butter
1/2 cup flour
4 eggs, separated
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/2 oz. hazelnuts, finely chopped and toasted (if you live in Pennsylvania, some people call these filberts)
chocolate chips

For frosting:
12 oz semisweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup margarine
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Preheat oven to 325F. Grease bottoms and sides of 2 round cake pans (if you use disposable cake pans, the cakes come out very easily, which is nice).

Melt chocolate chips and margarine in heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly. Cool 5 minutes. Stir in flour until smooth. Stir in egg yolks until well blended.

Beat egg whites in large bowl with mixer on high speed til foamy. Beat in sugar gradually until soft peaks form. Fold chocolate mixture into egg whites. Fold in toasted hazelnuts. Spread in pans.

Bake 25 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the middle of cake comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes. Run knife around edge of pan to loosen, then take out of pans. Cool completely.

Prepare frosting by heating chocolate chips and margarine in heavy saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, until chocolate is melted; remove from heat. Stir in cream. Refrigerate 30 to 40 minutes until it achieves the texture of frosting. If you haven't made frosting before, try picking up a bit of it on your knife. If it drips off, it's still not ready. If it is too thick, and you think you couldn't spread it on anything to save your life, without ending up with more cake on your knife than icing on the top of the cake, then throw it in the microwave for 10 seconds or so (not in the metal pan!) until it is spreadable.

Ice the bottom layer. Top with other layer and frost top and sides of cake with remaining filling. Drizzle with any leftover filling and garnish with chocolate chips.