To everyone who tuned in and sounded off on the Saturday Evening Post, I thank you! Considering how late we were up still talking about it, I am running a mite behind in getting together what I decided was the final outcome of our discussion.
Your regular noon post will be delayed two hours while I finish assembling the information I need. Thank you for your patience.
<<<——– Did you vote in this poll?
Meanwhile, visit and vote for some of the fantastic blogs in the Green Room. Vote up the ones you like! I hope you get a few giggles!
Have you posted a link to your blog there? Well, what are you waiting for exactly? That was your personal invitation!
Until then,
Red.
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(c) Ann Marie Dwyer 2011 Reblogging of this or any other post on Momma’s Money Matters is expressly forbidden. Copyright and Privacy Policy available in The Office.
Welcome to Parents Anonymous. Who would like to go first? Oh, right, thank you for reminding me of that. We have a newcomer today. Why don’t you step right up here? What is your story?
I have been viewing the world through some strangely shaped lenses this week. Truly, a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, I made a monumental, life-changing, terrifically joyous decision (You will have to wait until all affected parties are brought abreast before the press release.) and on the other, came to grips with some hard truths about humanity.
And now for something completely different…
or is it?
In all the Pearl Harbor Day reflection I did, I kept circling back to the nasty things we do to one another, personally, nationally, clique-ishly, socially. At the bottom of the vortex, I decided to reexamine a question posed to me long ago, which recurs through my inbox or in person periodically. It plumbs the depths of justice and injustice.
How did we get here?
Touched off by my own reminiscence, fueled by a conversation with my mother and then jet propelled by one of the most egregiously ignorant statements I have heard, possibly in my life, I am compelled to ask my esteemed audience for its opinions.
The Rules
Before I decided to bring this to you, I thought about how I felt years ago (when I first documented my opinion). Then I took into consideration the societal impact of some of the following:
Abject poverty
Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters
Unwanted pregnancy
Joblessness
The state of education
The War on Drugs
Aging and retirement
The American housing bubble burst
No, this post is not for the faint of heart.
The Boundaries
For everyone who inveighs about my obfuscation, I am going to divulge my source. Merriam Webster, my go-to guy for what not to say, provides the definitions which pertain to this discussion:
Violent: 1. marked by extreme force or sudden intense activity; 2. a: notably furious or vehement b: extreme, intense; 3. caused by force : not natural; 4. a: emotionally agitated to the point of loss of self-control b: prone to commit acts of violence
Crime: 1. an act or the commission of an act that is forbidden or the omission of a duty that is commanded by a public law and that makes the offender liable to punishment by that law; especially: a gross violation of law; 2. a grave offense especially against morality; 3. criminal activity; 4. something reprehensible, foolish, or disgraceful
For this brief instance, we will limit “crime” to the first definition, as it is the only one which applies to this query. And we will also acknowledge “non” to mean “opposite of”.
I want to know what your answer is. And I promise to reveal my answers through the comments and tomorrow’s noon post. But I suspect many of you have already guessed my answer. Can you imagine why?
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Should criminals convicted of non-violent crime face jail/prison time? Why or why not?
is what my children are not afraid of.” ~Wanda Dupuy
Every parent feels this at some point. For Mrs. Dupuy, it was seeing her two-year-old at the top of a 50-foot radio tower, holding on with one hand and one foot, waving the other two at her.
Balancing Act
Baby Dupuy’s balancing act has nothing on the one waged everyday by parents the world over. How do you balance the need for free exploration against safety? In a word: Don’t.
Don’t Bleed On My Floor!
As my nephew ran screaming into my kitchen, where I and his mother were enjoying a cup of coffee, he was bleeding on my tile from a large cut on his shin. His mother screamed and stood transfixed. I left the room and returned with a hand towel which I wrapped around his leg and applied pressure. I announced there would be no further screaming.
With a little coaxing, I discovered while out in the yard, he had disobeyed his mother and played in a ditch. As he jumped back and forth, he had slipped and fallen. I sent his mother out to the ditch to find what had cut him.
While she was outside, I asked a few more questions. The concentration on the answers had a calming effect. Just before he mother returned, I told him we would go to the hospital and get some stitches. Before the panic set in solidly, I told him how cool the scar would be to show his children when they wanted to play in a ditch. He smiled from ear to ear, as his mother returned with the bottom of a broken bottle, confused at his smile.
There are limits.
In the grand scheme of things, a few stitches may stretch the boundaries of free exploration, but bumps, scrapes and bruises do not. Pain is the body’s natural receptor for things we should not do again. Parents avoid pain for their children in many forms, but isolating them for all pain is far more detrimental.
Don’t touch the stove! It’s hot!
I did anyway. I learned I had no desire to repeat that behavior. This came not from the pain, rather from the total absence of panic which ensued. “I told you not to do that,” was only fair, as burn cream was applied to my hand. Curiosity took over.
Why is it hot? Why doesn’t it smoke? What does the cream do?”
By the time I got all of the answers, I understood Don’t touch the stove applied to a lot of other things, too.
School of Hard Knocks
Children need to learn some things the hard way. Parents wish they didn’t, but without some of these explorations, children will not learn to apply the lessons they learn to other areas of their lives. Complex problem solving is learned by the outcomes of simple problem solving.
If I touch the stove, I burn my hand. If I burn my hand, I have to have a bandage and cannot go into the pool. I better not touch the stove.”
Same holds true for some emotional lessons as well. Rumors and bullying, while not the scenario the parent wishes the child into, are experiences which build character. Try as every parent might, character must be learned and earned, as it cannot be taught.
You Choose
Choose your battles, parents. Avoid the broken glass, but a bike wreck which ends with a skinned knee can teach a child more about life than a lecture on safety.
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Were you a stove toucher? What is a lesson one of your children learned through free exploration?
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(c) Ann Marie Dwyer 2008-2011 Reblogging of this or any other post on Momma’s Money Matters is expressly forbidden. Copyright and Privacy policy available in The Office.
I was over to Ramblings & Rants for a visit and came across Grant’s post about how the rainbow in his life was going grey. He would later find more color in his rainbow, which made me examine mine. You would never know by the atrocious wall color in my house, but my life is vibrant with color.
I did anyway. I learned I had no desire to repeat that behavior. This came not from the pain, rather from the total absence of panic which ensued. “I told you not to do that,” was only fair, as burn cream was applied to my hand. Curiosity took over.