Tuesday, January 10, 2006

I Want to Be the Girl With the Most Cake

Say what you will about that train wreck of a woman, but Live Through This rocks hard.

This is for Badger.

And speaking of Badger, let’s talk about make-up: I rarely wear it. And NOT because I have some sort of feminist objection to it (though I did indeed dig The Beauty Myth), but because I like wearing it for special occasions, so people will say, “You look great!” Conversely, if you wear make-up all the time and then are seen without it, people will think (if not say), “You look like hell!” This way I just look like what I look like, whether I’ve just woken up, or just got out of the pool, or just left for work. Does that make sense?

Your thoughts on this? I do keep make-up in my bag in case I find myself needing to get gussied up on the fly: I have brown eye-liner, black mascara, an Origins powder that covers beautifully, and a Burt’s Bees lip shimmer that is unfortunately named Rhubarb. Putting those things on my face takes about three minutes, and makes a vast improvement. Am I foolish to not do it all the time? Do you think my life would improve if I never left the house without first applying those four things? What about the looking-like-hell potential?

Let’s talk about books, which never make me look like hell. I read Terry Pratchett’s Thud over the weekend, and I really, really liked it. It’s a fairly simple story that I’m pretty sure has to do with others of Pratchett’s books/characters (but I don’t really know because this is the first of his Discworld novels I’ve read). The book was funny and surprisingly sweet and gentle, and I thought more than once of Jasper Fforde, which surprised me. I think Pratchett must be a very smart man, and someone I’d like to know.

I’m also reading Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder and Photoshop CS 2 for Dummies. Last Child in the Woods is okay, I guess. So far the author is bemoaning the fact that kids rarely get to wander around alone, just exploring woods and creeks and what-not. This is true, but . . . I don’t know. I can’t see myself letting Teddy just take off after breakfast and disappear until dinner. Wouldn’t Child Services take him away? (That’s assuming he weren’t kidnapped or worse, of course.)

Happily, Ted spends hours a day during the summer playing in a creek at his day camp. He and his friends build dams, catch fish and frogs, collect all manner of things, and generally do whatever it takes that makes them smell like crap. There are adults around, but the kids are playing on their own. He and I walk through the wonderful trails at our fantastic city park all the time, and I often take him and a friend or two to the park and let them wander and play—as long as they don’t get too far away.

So he gets a nature fix fairly often. But I think much of what Louv worries about is that kids are never playing/wandering around in the woods alone. As in without supervision. He worries that kids aren’t learning to rely on themselves, that they’re being cheated out of something they need to become happy adults.

I worry about this too. Am I doing Teddy a disservice by not letting him go into the woods alone? Am I crazy because I’d be terrified that he’d run into a pedophile? What do you guys think? What do you do with your kids? I know not all of you live in a city, and I suppose that makes a difference, but I’d still like to know what other parents are doing.

Oh, and one last thing: Teddy’s working on an independent math project having to do with tessellations. I didn’t even know that was a word! I thought Madeleine L’Engle just made up tesseracts from scratch. She is a brilliant woman. I, however, am not as smart as my third grader.

15 comments:

Sarah Louise said...

Yeah, I don't think you're a bad mom to keep your eye on Teddy. You've read Bridge to Terabithia, right? As to the make-up thing, no one ever believes me at first when I tell them that for three years I was a Mary Kay consultant. "But you don't wear makeup!" I did. And I can go either way. I like your philosophy. Luckily, I look decent without, so why sweat it? And Gina, I supremely doubt that your third grader is smarter than you. You're smarter than you let on. So there!

BabelBabe said...

What happened in BtT is not a stellar example of why we should not let our chilodren play alone in the woods. Just in my humble opinion. The beauty of that book was just reduced to a public service announcement.

Anyhoo - when my boys are older (9-10), I will let them ride their bikes around the neighborhood and I will happily go with them to the park and the zoo and let them go nuts. But I will be with them as you are with Ted. Because there are too many crazy people in the world today, and too many too-fast drivers, and whatnot. If we lived int he coutnry, I might be mor einclined to open the door and kick them outside with little supervision. Alas, we do not.

Let's face it, no matter what we do, we are doing it wrong. Isn't that what parenting is all about - doing your best and then having some idiot tell you you are doing it all wrong?

BabelBabe said...

sorry for all the typos - I get excited. but seriously, folks, in this world, we are supposed to shove our kids outside and let them play alone in the woods? Gina's right - CYS would be on our backs in minutes.

Gina said...

I think it's the "alone" part I'm worried about, moreso than the "nature" part. I mean, he's no woodsman, by any means, but he's been camping, hiking, fishing and rafting. He's slept in a tent. He's happy to be gross and dirty.

But am I somehow stunting his emotional growth by, as SL says, keeping my eye on the kid? Does he need to AWAY from my eye, as it were, to grow?

blackbird said...

My children have not been allowed to be alone out in the world until they are in 6th grade - that's when they have to walk to school. And I am reluctant to tell you, but they have each gotten a cell phone and then have permission to walk, ride, play where they like. I need a phone call to tell me where they are going and what is planned.

As for the make-up, I'm no expert but I know I feel better when I have some powder and lipstick on and try hard to wear it all the time...

Sarah Louise said...

okay, it was a cheap shot at a beautiful book. (And actually I wasn't trying to make a PSA but a flip remark...alas) But I can't imagine, Gina, that you absolutely have your eye on him every moment--I mean, he goes to school, he goes to his room? He'll get to go walking places on his own, but I think 8 is still an okay age to be in your eyesight.

Caro said...

I wouldn't even let my daughter leave my side in the store, let alone outside alone, until she was twelve.

I am terrified of all the bad people out there, perhaps too much so. Still, it only takes a second.

Joke said...

You are not a bad mom, so let it the @#$% go.

HTH,

-J.

Joke said...

BTW, Poppy can attest that TFBIM NEVER goes anywhere (other than the pool or the gym) without make up. N-E-V-E-R. In fact, Miami in general is a makeup intensive town.

Odd, that.

-J.

Gina said...

Really? NEVER? That's dedication. Dedication that I don't think I'm capable of. Hmm. Now I have to think about whether I should be.

Joke said...

Never. Like Never-Ever, not even once. It may be dedication, sure, but it's also guaranteed that until the day I become a widower I'll never be able to just be anywhere in 20 minutes.

-J.

P.S. Please don't have this level of dedication.

Gina said...

That's one advantage to having my four items in my bag at all (most) times. I can pretty much get spiffy on the way to wherever I need to be in 20 minutes. :-)

Badger said...

Okay, (a) I would never force you to wear makeup if you don't want to; (b) I'm going to have to say NO to black mascara worn with brown eyeliner, sorry and (c) no way in hell would I let my kids roam around in the woods by themselves, even though I did it daily at their age(s).

I don't think our kids are stunted by us keeping a watchful eye on them; I think they're stunted by us trying to direct their activites all the time. I know a few moms like this, who have to micromanage EVERY SINGLE THING their kids do, and it squicks me out something awful.

Unless they are at school and/or with another responsible, trusted adult my kids are ALWAYS within sight/hearing of me. However, their free time is just that -- free. If they get loud or start breaking things, I step in, but otherwise I sort of leave them alone. And, you know, they haven't actually managed to kill anyone yet, so I figure I'm doing okay.

Jess said...

I think I had my best imagination/alone time in our backyard as a kid. Just tune the world out, create a tree fort, let loose. I think if kids have opportunities like that, they'll be okay. I'm sure my mom kept an eye on me from the window, but I FELT alone, which maybe counts more.

Gina said...

That's interesting, Jess--you FELT alone. I bet that's the case with Ted and his friends and Badger's kids too.

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