Seven moves that will make you a better dad

Some sound advice here, with some of it relevant to both moms and dads.

Does being a mom make you smarter?

As much as I want to like this result, and as much as I think
it could possibly be valid once the newborn sleep deprivation has worn
off, I am not feeling it now. In addition to struggling with frequent
lightheadedness (which only seems to appear at work), I’m having a
heck of a time concentrating. I am managing some analytical things –
I’m doing OK in my statistics class and just passed a difficult exam
at work. But I have to work on these things in small chunks over many
days. What I actually accomplish in an eight or ten hour period feels
pretty minimal.

I also wonder how the effects differ for moms who dedicate themselves
full-time to parenthood and those who don’t. For me, I find that
being out of the loop, away from colleagues, away from daily adult
interactions and away from exposure to new tasks and concepts that
challenge me limits the range of topics I know about and definitely
makes me feel less smart. I know it’s not really a question of
intelligence, but of intelligence being exercised. Without exercise,
I lose it. At least temporarily.

Maybe in a few months I’ll feel smarter. That will be something to
look forward to.

What is worth worrying about

NPR lists parents top five fears for their children’s safety, and the top five real causes of injury and death. As Lenore Skenazy reminds us in Free Range Kids, we have to keep in mind the real risks.

Activity, creativity, downtime

I’m a fan of formulas, so I liked this one, by the author of Simplicity Parenting: “Payne's prescription for summer — and the rest of the year — is this: One-third of a child's life should be busy; one-third, creative time; and one-third, downtime.”

Since our little one is still in bed for about 14 hours per day, there are 3.3 hours left for each. At this point, we are in no pre-scheduled activities, though I try to attend as many free events, festivals and library programs as possible. I think we’ll be fine with the busy and the downtime in the near term. I could use some help with the creative though and find it tempting to send him to a lesson or activity to get exposure to creative things.

The Division of Labor

This is an interesting article, and Blue Milk summarizes it so well, I don’t have to.

Women still have a way to go in getting more leisure and less work. Though I found the finding that those with the most rigid divisions of labor have the least stress interesting. Sometimes I feel we are unusual with our hour by hour division of childcare duty and our regular negotiations over household chores. These divisions are instigated by me, because I don’t particularly see why I should spend more time than my husband on drudgery, or less time on leisure.

It doesn’t quite work, as he still seems to get more leisure time than me. Part of it is due to him prioritizing leisure (while I prioritize work), part of it is due to lower standards. But we do what we can. The fact that I have a toddler, a job, and can get regular sleep and time to myself is pretty successful in my book.
How does the division of work, childcare, leisure work in your household? Do you feel satisfied with the balance?

Parenting the anxious child

I found this an interesting and well-researched article. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/magazine/04anxiety-t.html

Some of the more interesting points:

-Temperament as a baby tends to remain constant through life, especially for those at the extreme

-The 15-20% of babies who react strongly to novel people or situations are more likely to grow up to be anxious.

-An important factor in controlling anxiety is having something to divert one’s attention – such as an interesting hobby or job

-Those who are anxious and smart might turn out to be better employees

-There doesn’t seem to be clear evidence on how to best parent an anxious child – whether to push greater independence or to accept and acknowledge their fears.

Dinner with an Icelandic Family

I was recently invited to dinner by a kind Icelandic family with three children, ages 13, 10 and 4. Over grilled fish, roasted sweet potatoes, and ratatouille, I was able to learn more about family life in this northern country.

I asked the mother, Gurri, about the numerous baby carriages. Were Icelanders having a lot of babies or were they just taking them outside more often? She thinks they are having more babies. “It’s become a bit of a trend, during the recession,” she said. “You see carriages and pregnant women everywhere you go.”

Icelandic law allows for three months maternity leave, three month paternity leave and another three months to be used by either parent. Children can get a spot in a daycare somewhere between ages one and two. Until then, they rely on parents, grandparents, relatives or “home-mommys,” which are in-home daycares where up to five young children can be cared for.

Gurri pays just over $200 per month for full-time daycare for her son, including a full menu of home-cooked meals. This is thanks to government subsidies. She had been working full-time when she became pregnant with her third. Finding it too difficult to balance three children with a full-time job, she quit and stayed home for a year and a half. Now she is back at work. She gets up at 6:30 to go to the gym before work, then works an eight hour day. Her son’s daycare is less than a block away from home and her daughters’ school is just around the corner, within walking distance. The entire family sits down for dinner together in the evening.

In the summertime, her two elder daughters are largely on their own. The eldest, who is very involved in gymnastics, spends much of her days training. The 10-year old hangs out at home alone, plays with friends and visits her grandparents, who live within walking distance.

Icelanders get at least 24 days of vacation per day. In addition, they get 2 sick days per month for themselves and two days per month to care for their children. “So when we call in sick, we have to specify whether we are sick or our children are sick,” Gurri said.

They spent several years living in the U.S. The short vacations and poor social support offered in the U.S. led them to return to Iceland. “It was a serious factor we considered when we were deciding whether or not to stay there,” she said. “We would go to Iceland to see family in the summer for 4-6 weeks at a time. That just wasn’t possible with the vacation available at a U.S. job. Also, the daycare is so expensive and it’s very hard with no family nearby. In the U.S., your friends become your family.”

All of the children seemed to be affected by the daylight which lasts until well past 11 p.m. The 10-year old had slept until noon and was wide awake. The 13-year old had been up until 4:30 in the morning and was exhausted. The four year old was up several hours past his bedtime. His mouth smeared with chocolate from dessert, he put on a Viking cap with horns and accompanied me to the bus stop at 10:30 p.m., looking out for monsters to fight along the way.

The family lives in a duplex in a suburban neighborhood. Their home is spacious and airy, but they have only three bedrooms and the four-year-old still shares a room with his parents. “I’d really like to stay in this neighborhood and find a house with one more bedroom,” said Gurri. “But they don’t come up very often and they are very expensive.” Another option might be to turn half of the heated garage into another room.

Even though everyone had been occupied during the day, the family managed to put together a nice meal and enjoy an evening together. The 13-year old made the dessert – skyr and marscapone cheese with maple syrup and berries. The father grilled the massive piece of halibut, which fed five with much to spare. And mom took care of the side dishes. They were relaxed and friendly with each other. They had recently returned from visiting family in Scandinavia. While they were gone, the 4-year-old had his birthday. But it’s important that grandparents and relatives are invited to the party, so they all assembled when they returned.

The quality of life appealed to me – the reasonably priced quality daycare, having everything so close to home, the close family relations, the reasonable work schedule with adequate leave and the ability to spend long, relaxing evenings together. It’s the type of balance I strive for.

Icelandic parenting

I’d read that Iceland is very welcoming of children and in my few days here, I can see that is true. At the local swimming pool, there are Bumbo seats and high chairs in the locker room, so women can shower comfortably. They have floaties, waterslides and toys for kids in the pool. Stores and restaurants have corners where children can play while their parents tend to their business. Babies are strolled down the streets in elaborate and expensive strollers. They are left in the strollers outside the shops while their parents shop.

Icelandic parents give their children a lot of independence. The attitude is that with a little bit of help, children will eventually grow up. That seems to be a lot like my own attitude. They are also taught to work hard, to value independence and quality and to see other people as equal and as entire human characters, regardless of social class. Those also resemble the values I was raised with and would like to pass on.

Boys and girls are raised the same and children are given a lot of independence. The family is the focal point of society and close relations are maintained. The downside of the high levels of independence, combined with both parents working longer hours than standard in Europe (but I imagine, less than in the U.S.) is that Iceland has had the highest rate of childhood injury needing medical attention within Europe.

We are living in the home of an Icelandic family while they are on vacation. The 17-year-old has the entire upper floor to himself, an oasis of privacy, while his parents share a bedroom with their five-year-old daughter. There are no closets in this 104 year old house and space is tight. All of the child’s toys and clothing fit into a small corner until the stairs. Yet she doesn’t lack for anything. She has only three pair of shoes, but all are stylish. Her dresses look like they could be worn by models. Her bed has a princess-like canopy. The parents also have a minimal number of items, but what they have is beautiful and well-maintained.

As we prepare to buy our first home, an older home that also doesn’t have much storage, I’m getting a good reminder in how much space is really needed (nothing near the average used in the U.S.), how to minimize and declutter, and how happiness is not correlated with quantity of belongings. Instead, the Icelanders believe, and I do too, a child benefits from close family ties, the opportunity to be independent and explore, quality and equality.

I'll have the same thing as baby

My mother-in-law recently sent me this article from the New York Times, saying that we are in the vanguard of parenting. If I’d known it was newsworthy to feed a baby the same food I eat, I would have written an article myself!

Like the author, we’ve been feeding River the same food that we eat (minus refined sugars or white carbohydrates) since he was six months old. I started with the slow introduction of cereals at four months, then vegetables per current guidelines. Then I met baby Mirena and her parents and saw she was already eating bananas with avocado. At around the same time, I read an article, which told of an Indian woman living in America who ignored most of the U.S. guidelines and had a 13-month old son with very sophisticated tastes who was happily munching on a raisin, walnut bread in a NYC café.

I began to think that small children in other countries eat very spicy food and they must get used to it from a young age. I thought how the extreme pickiness I hear of seems to be largely a U.S. phenomenon and wondered if the bland early diets encouraged a taste for bland foods later on. I realized that River wasn’t at particular risk for allergies. And should he have a reaction to any dish I’d serve him, we could narrow it down to 3-4 ingredients and figure it out from there. I no longer saw the need to introduce things one at a time.

We had used spices since the beginning of the non-cereal foods – carrots with ginger, green beans with basil, peas with mint. So I just ramped it up a notch and started to puree (in a food processor or blender) whatever I was making. Early on he had turkey and blackeyed pea soup with collard greens. He loved a chicken, kale, tomato and corn tortilla casserole. He goes bonkers over borscht. Spaghetti squash with a beef and pancetta tomato sauce – yum! When I was eating spicy palak paneer and didn’t have his food ready yet, he ate mine eagerly rather than wait. He eats collard greens with red pepper, is comfortable with garlic and onions and has even had a taste of jalapenos.

Just in the past week or two, he has begun to reject some items – sweet potatoes and squash that he liked before, pureed roasted vegetables that he ate happily whole. I began to worry. I would really, really like to avoid having a picky eater. My husband (who had a very limited diet over many years of childhood) won’t eat anything that’s been touched by vegetables and refuses most fruits, no beans, baked or mashed potatoes and is unexcited by wholegrains. He has plenty of wonderful qualities and I know a picky eater is not the worst thing that someone could be. But it does make it very hard for us to eat together, and very boring for me to have to eat the same pot of soup day after day after day. It’s been wonderful to be able to share things with River.

I finally realized that River’s rejection was not coming from the taste, but that he’s getting sick of purees. I was giving him whole foods as snacks or desserts, but I tried to incorporate them into the meals.

On Friday night I made a chicken with vegetable tangine for guests. For River’s next two meals, I mashed the vegetables from the tangine (spiced beets, parsnips, potatoes, olives, eggplant, garlic, raisins) only slightly with a fork, together with some cooked brown rice. He loved it. Today I was running errands with him over his lunchtime and didn’t have any baby food with me. We stopped at a restaurant and figured I’d share my meal with him. I ordered a cup of cream of spinach soup and alternated bites with him. He danced with excitement. Then I got some tilapia and filled him up on chunks of fish, eaten in bite-sized pieces. For dessert he had the lemon slice from my soda. It was a healthy meal for him, and easy for me – no advance preparation needed.

I’m crossing my fingers that River’s culinary openness continues, especially when he sees what daddy’s diet is. Since dad does recognize the importance of example-setting, I’m hoping he’ll also work on eating healthier when River is around. In the meantime, I’m thrilled to share my cooking with an appreciative audience and glad that River is able to gain a good amount of vitamins and minerals from his food.

For those of you who were more adventurous in what you fed your baby, did your child continue to be open to various foods as s/he grew older?

Photos: going after the couscous at 8 months and later the same day, lemon num-nums.

The Rise of Parenting

I just finished I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron, which is a pretty funny book, especially if you are over 30 and feel physically different than you did at 25. The chapter Parenting in Three Stages is also pretty funny, especially the first part, where she describes the rise of “parenting.”

Here, she mentions how simple parenting used to be: “You love your children, you hang out with them from time to time, you throw balls, you read stories, you make sure they know which utensil is the salad fork, you teach them to say please and thank you, you see that they have an occasional haircut, and you ask if you did their homework.”

She talks about babies being born with a personality that won’t change. “For a certain period, this child would live with you and your personality, and you would do your best to survive each other.”

Then she talks about the rise of “parenting,” which she describes as “Parenting was a participle, like going and doing and crusading and worrying; it was active, it was energetic, it was unrelenting. Parenting meant playing Mozart CDs while you were pregnant, doing without the epidural and breast-feeding our child until it was old enough to unbutton your blouse.”

This makes me wonder where I stand on the parenting spectrum – between the largely hands-off parenting of yesteryear compared with the involved helicopter parents of today. I’m not sure because I think I have some of both tendencies.

One thing that has always been on my mind since River was born is the Buryat belief that no matter what you do, kids will grow up and be who they are going to be. This is reinforced by my reading of Freakonomics, which basically said that almost nothing you do will be of any use, especially compared with the power of the child’s peer group. Among the factors that most-influenced success in children were not attendance at music classes or large amounts of quality time, but things like the mother being over 30 when the first child is born and having a lot of books in the house (the amount of time spent reading them doesn’t matter). These type of things are givens, not actions that take time and investment.

Yes, I suppose I can say I’ve been freaky about making sure he’s eating fresh and wholesome foods. I want him to have access to a potty (I don’t think a daycare that didn’t allow cloth diapers would be good for us). I’d like him to have as much individual attention as possible in his first year. I want him to feel safe and secure and to experience new things. But that’s about it. I worry very little about other things.

When I think ahead of what’s to come in his life, I want to be involved. People tend to argue that they become very involved in their children’s lives for the benefit of the child. But I recognize that I may not be getting involved for his benefit. He’s happy with anyone who is having a good time with him. The benefit is mine. Because it brings me joy to participate in his life.

The point at which my participation has a negative effect on him is where I need to draw the line and step back. I imagine that is hard to identify though.

One of the editors of Parenting magazine defended her helicopter-parenting in a recent issue, saying that she’s advocating for her children because she wants the best for them, because her parents weren’t able to do so, and because she can. She mentioned advocating for them in school. But from my brief period as a schoolteacher overseas, I saw especially active parents as doing a disservice to their children. The children learned that they didn’t really have to work hard, they didn’t have to achieve, because their parents would lobby the teacher or the administrators to their benefit.

The main benefit I see in very involved parenting is the child feeling the parent’s concern and love. I wonder if that will have the positive effect of strengthening families. As the parents want their children around for longer the usual 18 years, perhaps the children will also want to be around their parents. Perhaps more Americans will value proximity to their families over opportunities available far away. Maybe more children will repay their doting parents by taking active care of their parents as they age instead of relegating them to the care of strangers or institutions.