Good Evening Everyone!
My baby is in bed and my husband took the other 3 to a water-park! Oh, I feel like I can breathe!!! I just have to clean up the kitchen before they get home but, I will take that any day to trying to entertain tired and fussy children at night.
So, today was school conference day at 2 of my children's schools and as always, just terrific news. hahahahahaha. Just once, I would like to go to a school conference and not hear about how my children don't listen, they don't sit still and they don't follow the rules. Hey, I get it OK?! My children aren't rule followers, I don't really like it but, at the same time, I don't feel like they should be expected to sit all day long in a chair and just look up and listen. I don't want that child! I like that my children have fire in their belly's. Oh granted, it would be nice if my children listened ONCE IN A WHILE and if they didn't choose to use mommy's bad words in class, and well, I guess it would be nice if I didn't have the child that throws stuff at the teacher when they get a problem wrong...OK! So my children aren't the greatest in the classroom, lol.
But, I don't think they are absolutely horrible either. OK, well my son is pretty horrible sometimes and he is difficult...OH fine....my children SUCK in school. lol.
Oh, where was I going with this? OHHHHH!
So, my children aren't the easiest and I don't really know what would help them sometimes but, I do believe a lot of what our schools and school systems are trying to do is force our children into becoming robots. We want and expect them to sit and be quiet, to not talk in the lunch room and if they throw food, they can't eat in the lunchroom anymore! What ever happened to food fights? I LOVED those! Or what happened to sitting with your friends and yes, many times I sat alone but, oh those times I got to sit with a big group of people, that was awesome! I remember school being fun. I remember spending tons of time out on the playground and in the parking lot with NO playground ladies telling us we couldn't run. We had 3 recesses a day at my elementary school. One in the morning when we first got to school. See, our buses didn't drop us off right before the bell rang, we got dropped off about 20 minutes before school started and played up until they told us to line up. Oh, and we all ran as fast as we could to get our backpacks in line first when we got dropped off.
Things were pretty fair, if you ran slow, you were always last...I liked that, I believe it made me the fast runner I am today. We played games in the parking lot, did penny drops over the TAR parking lot, we stuck our tongues to cold metal poles and lived. It was crazy scary! Oh and get this, I even had to WALK to school across busy roads and a freeway! What?! Oh yes, I walked to school every year 6 blocks and nothing happened to me, no crazy person stole me or my friends, we played games all the way to and from school. I was home alone starting in 2nd grade and made myself breakfast and dinner. I woke up to the timer on the stove and never was late to school.
I don't remember having to sit inside on snowy or rainy days for recess either...we went outside rain or shine, I think that was the teachers break time! Every girl knew how to do a cartwheel, back-bend, and how to hang upside down on the bars by 1st grade and everyone jumped rope for hours. You were considered weird if you couldn't do a cartwheel by 1st grade. We flipped, jumped, scampered, flipped some more, and hung upside down for what seemed to be hours every day.
We didn't have to 'train' for our Presidential Physical Fitness awards because we did most of those things daily anyway. I remember in gym class we played Red Rover Red Rover and tried our hardest to break through that line no matter how much we hurt the other person, it was GREAT! Then there was dodge-ball, bombardment (how do you spell or say that?!), ships across the ocean, OH and we picked teams! Yeah, that's right, 2 people were picked and we picked teams based on skill and yes, the weakest person was always picked last, get over it, none of us cared, it was life and we knew it.
We listened to our teachers, we followed the rules and wow, when an adult spoke, we listened! We knew they were big and scary and weren't to be messed with. Our parents and their friends and ALL adults were NOT our friends and we were OK with that, in fact, we preferred it that way.
Our playgrounds were simple and metal....not plastic which, isn't plastic bad for the environment? Yes, our playgrounds were 'Earth friendly' before we even knew what that was. They were metal, not painted, not pretty, they were a bland gray but, they worked. We had monkey bars, hanging bars, lines and lines of swings on super long chains that could help us to reach the sky! We had merry go rounds, domes to climb, and super tall metal slides that burned your butt in the summer and made you go about 50 miles an hour in the winter in your snow pants. I remember always packing snow onto the slides so you would go faster. Everything was about speed, danger, and I never remember feeling afraid. I wasn't, didn't know you could get hurt and if you did get hurt, oh well, you got a band-aid and got right back up to do it all over again.
I wasn't a dare devil by any means. I was actually considered a scaredy cat by those older standards. I didn't dare do a penny drop until 5th grade for goodness sake!
I remember by 6th grade I was playing basketball for the entire recess and get this...WITH my 6th grade teacher the whole time! Yea, that is right, my teacher would eat lunch with us and then go out and play some b-ball with us on the playground! How many of your children's teachers do that now a days?!! I remember in junior high being teased profusely about my nasty red hair and gaingly legs. I was often compared to a flamingo on the soccer field and hey oh well. Yes, I have horrible memories of junior high but, really looking back, I had a lot of fun then too. I was ugly back then! Heck it was the 80's there weren't too many good looking people back there and by the way...for all of you trying to bring back 80's fashion...dig out the old jr high photos, you will put that flashdance sweatshirt and leggings with a super mini lace skirt back right away!
People often tell me I probably looked like Molly Ringwald with my short red hair, I laugh hardily and let them know that I looked like the OTHER red head from Sixteen Candles...yes, that is right, Anthony Michael Hall...yep, proud of being so stinking ugly! Man, my scanner isn't hooked up...I need to find a photo to post for you all, it truly is a sight to see. Ok, I am back couldn't find the truly horrible ones but, found one that will show you just a piece of the heinous puzzle of junior high
Yes, that is me on the right! Oh and the person to my left that is actually a girl too..see, the 80's horrible!!!!
OK back to my rants and raves. Point is, I am going to include an email my girlfriend sent to me to put this all into perspective...relax!!!! We all survived so we might have broken a few arms (I never did) or a leg or two (again, not me) and so what if we have scars, that is what happens when you LIVE life!! Let your children LIVE life, don't just let them be molded into something that is 'easy' or 'manageable'. Don't teach your children to just exist..life is way to short for that.
Encourage your children to think for themselves, to problem solve and to think outside of the box.
Here is the email.....
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can and didn't get tested for diabetes.
Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-base paints. (again...sorry, no belly's please!)
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps not helmets on our heads.
As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes. (I don't condone this one as I was ALWAYS in a car seat)
Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. (Everyday in the summer!, still do!)
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And, we weren't overweight. WHY?
Because we were always outside playing...that's why!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day. And, we were O.K.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride them down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times,we learned to solve the problem.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms.
WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.
(I TOTALLY did the eating worms thing! In fact, we made worm cookies for a badge in Girl Scouts!!!)
We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.
Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever.
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas..
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.
If YOU are one of them? CONGRATULATIONS!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.
While you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave and lucky their parents were.
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it ? (YES!)
So everyone! Go out and make a mud pie, cook up some worm cookies, eat some grass, run through the sprinklers and for goodness sake, hang upside down once in a while!!!!
Blessings to you all!
-Liza
Oh By The Way, I too wash my children's mouths out with soap occassionally if bad things come out of that mouth. We have a bar of Ivory soap sitting in the hall closet for just that occassion. Trust me, after even one time, they see that bar coming and they quickly change their potty mouth tune. So, throw me in jail or throw the book at me in court but, I am trying my hardest to raise children that will respect adults and some day be hard-working, upstanding, well educated, adults that will contribute something to society other than a pain in the neck.
What am I talking about? Here is the link :
http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local-beat/Mom-Arrested-for-Washing-Kids-Mouth-With-Soap--64112132.html
