Tiger Mom Actually Soft and Fuzzy Kitty Cat

kitties-in-teacup1

Or not. Or who cares? Ms. Chua did an interview that seemed to attempt to soften her image in advance of the publication of her book. And maybe she is a fine person–in fact I’m fairly certain she is–but I’m more interested in drawing your attention to the little tidbit of false equivalency at the end of the article, which comes in the form of a reader’s survey.

“Which style of parenting,” it asks, “is best for children?” The two options: “Permissive Western Parenting” and “Demanding Eastern Parenting.”

The choice when there is no choice is not to choose.

Bad Dads We love: Labyrinth Celebration Edition

Despite co-founding a parenting blog that is ever-so-slightly better than its peer blogs, I’ve never considered myself an expert on raising kids. Far from it, in fact, and I readily concede that there are reams of kiddie-related things of which I remain blissfully unaware.

For example, I’ve never watched “Yo Gabba Gabba!” (JP is a “Blues Clues” man). I let my kid eat peanut butter. I have kept JP, and intend to keep Ellie, current on their vaccinations. I have no policy whatsoever on self-esteem or imaginary guns. I have changed many diapers but have no strong opinions as to which brand one should use (which is probably why DadWagon has failed so miserably in the selling-out realm). I’m just me—a schmuck with two kids living the current version of the American Dream, which today seems to include financial deterioration, shaky employment in a dying field, the inability to do more than ten pull-ups, and a shitty apartment that is both dirtier than I approve of, smaller than I require, and more expensive than I care to admit.

All that is a suitably long-winded way of saying what the fuck is the Labyrinth Celebration? I first learned of it in a nice short essay (by which I mean it is nice and happens to be short, not that I feel that essays to be nice must be short) on the GQ Magazine website. It’s a passing reference in an amusing story about a bum writer’s kid who gets thrown out of the Kindergarten:

My son’s hippy charter school did not do Christmas. Instead, the administrators created an artificial, substitute holiday called the Labyrinth Celebration, and they took it very seriously. So seriously that the teachers didn’t think twice about marching dozens of children—and me—outside in howling winds and numbing cold for an hour to practice a stupid song about a shiny lantern.

The rest of the story is well worth reading, but I got stuck on this Labyrinth thingee. Is it real? Does anyone know? I tried a bit of Googling to determine its origins, and the closest I got to it was this: “A Secret Labyrinth: A Celebration of Music from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.”

Same thing? I don’t know. I’m not so fussy about my offspring’s gift-receiving-oriented festivals to really care if it’s real or not. Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Festivus, whatever makes you as a parent feel okay with showering your little one with worthless consumerist shit. I would, however, as a putative parenting expert, like to be kept informed any new developments in this category.

Let the experts come forth to enlighten me.

F-ing the Effing F Train

f-trainIn retrospect, it was obviously all my fault. As I sat on the bench in the East Broadway station, with Sasha at my side munching on her Chinese bakery sweet bun, I thought I might be able to quickly check my e-mail on my iPhone.

I was wrong.

As soon as Sasha saw the phone, she wanted it. But, since she already had two sticky hands full of bun, I said no, whereupon she threw her bun on the ground, and so began 30 minutes of tears, squirming, and general misery—on the F train, in the butcher shop, on the snowy-icy sidewalk leading home. Every step was a struggle, every word out of my mouth another No: No more bun, no lollipop, no telephone, no carrying, no running. No No No.

I’ve written about the stress of the trip home before. Many times, I believe. But I keep coming back to it again and again because it just doesn’t get any easier. It remains the single most difficult bit of parenting I have to do every day. In fact, once I get Sasha home and her outerwear off, everything is easy: playtime, bathtime, bedtime. She’s cheerful and compliant, and I have a hard time staying angry about her earlier naughty behavior.

Yesterday, though, felt different somehow. Not because of Sasha’s behavior but because of mine: I think I was more stoic than usual. I let her cry and scream, and I just stood there in the corner of the subway car holding her. Yes, people looked, and many were probably hating me for bringing this awful creature into their space. Others maybe pitied me, or wanted to correct my parenting. But I just stood there while my daughter howled. What did they think was wrong? Did they assume the kid was just awful to her core? Or that I’d done been harsh with her? Or that I didn’t know how to comfort my own child?

I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. I went into a virtual trance, zoning out (and trying not to want to strangle her, or leave her in the train) until at last it was time to get off the F and out into the world, where a sudden light snowstorm momentarily distracted Sasha from her thrashing.

The thing about the stoicism is, I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to be the uncaring, Just Say No, asshole dad. It didn’t feel right. And yet it was the only possible choice, and I’m sure I’ll be that jerk several more times, at least until the weather warms up and I can pick the kid up on my bike. I hate winter.