I cannot figure out how to balance the children’s need to continually talk to me with my need to not have children continually talking to me. We are on Year 18 of this struggle, with no resolution in sight.
Older women tell me that the solution is to wait until the children are gone and then to wish fervently that I had not wished this precious time away. This does not seem like a satisfying solution. Furthermore, it indicates to me that there will be a mental transformation of some sort, a transformation that will render me unable to remember with any level of accuracy what this time of my life was like. That is discouraging. Already I have seen the early signs of it: I look with damp-eyed nostalgia at women shopping at Target with babies and toddlers, thinking fondly of how when I was in their shoes I would keep shoving goldfish crackers into little mouths to keep them from continually talking to me.
Well. Nothing brings this issue to light quite like summer vacation. Soon the children and I will gather to have our annual discussion about summer goals/plans, and I hope to find a way to say to them that every word from their lips is like precious gems to me, but could we stop the practice of dispersing those gems in every-90-seconds increments, a practice that makes it so that the only way I could survive the incessant interruptions with my mind intact would be to sit, motionless and receptive, doing nothing else but waiting for the next child to talk to me?
Furthermore, the other day I did an experiment that was even more disheartening. It was morning, and I’d had an idea for a post, so I was working on that while the children were getting ready for school. They were interrupting me SO INCESSANTLY that a literal LINE had formed. So I thought, like the sensible, patient, reasonable mother I long to be: “This is clearly not a good time to try to write. I can write later. I don’t need to SET UP a situation where I will be driven crazy.” I stopped writing, I went into the kitchen to be available to the children—and no one talked to me. I waited 10 minutes, doing various little tasks, and not one single child talked to me.
So I thought it was probably like the lines in Target, where first no one is in line and then suddenly a dozen customers all appear at once. I had just hit a little flood of children-wanting-to-talk-to-me, but now it was over. I returned to my computer, started writing, and I am not exaggerating even one tiny morsel when I say that within 30 seconds a child was talking to me. And then another child. And then a third child.
So I thought, okay, the LULL was the anomaly. I went to the living room, and I sat in a chair doing nothing. That is, I just Made Myself Available. AND NO ONE TALKED TO ME. I waited another full ten minutes. NO ONE TALKED TO ME.
I returned to my computer. The children appeared and started talking to me.
It was like a JOKE. It was like a SITCOM. It was like a FAMILY CIRCUS comic. It was as if there were a sensor in my computer chair that set off little activation switches in the children’s brains. It was one of the most depressing experiments I have ever performed.
Swistle. Oh my god. I am feeling a little panicky about this post. I am in the goldfish-stuffing ages. I thought when they got older (I was hoping 5-6???) you would be able to say to them “Sweetie heart [long hug] I need a few quiet moments to myself. I’ll come find you in 10 minutes.”
Why doesn’t this work? Isn’t this the whole point of the age of reason? Seriously, my heartrate is spiking.
I DO think that would work, particularly with units of “one child” and “ten minutes.” I find the trouble is that just by having so MANY children, their issues/thoughts/needs OVERLAP so much. I CAN get ten minutes if I really need it—but then the rest of the time it’s a customer service line. Unless I’m just sitting there, available to talk, in which case no one wants to talk to me.
And then at some point they can go to school, and that gives a nice break. Except in summer.
Pant, pant, pant. Ok. Ok. Ok.
No help, but I am right there with you with my five. Frankly, they come by it honestly. My family of origin just speaks over each other, all at the same time, all the time. It drives my husband insane. I am used to it, but I cannot abide it at my own house.
Oh wait! I do have an idea for you: quiet time. Every single day, between 1-3, my kids need to be up in their rooms reading or playing quietly. They can only one down if they are dying. That is when I get a bunch of my work done for my business and my blog, or exercise without being interrupted, which makes me feel insane. We homeschool, so this is seriously essential to my mental health. I don’t even think I’m exaggerating.
Yes! I do this as well and my children argue all the time that they don’t need a rest time. But I do! Ah. I would go insane without my 2 hours of quiet.
Thank you for this! I am not even at the goldfish stage, more the binky-stuffing one and people keep telling me to Enjoy Every Moment. Sorrywhatnow? Don’t they remember? Of course there’re many joyful moments which might indeed be enjoyed. Then there are the others. It seems we are programmed to flatten out our diverse memories into one soft-focus misty one. Maybe it’s an evolutionary necessity? In any case, thank you. You’re so good at putting your finger exactly on the point.
If my parents tell me “it’s all joyful noise!” again, particularly when I’m dealing with a threenager meltdown, I swear I can’t be held responsible for my actions.
My prison nickname will be “Joyful Noise Menendez.”
I’m laughing SO HARD right now.
Thank you. :)
I work from home and summer vacation makes that really hard. I take my laptop to my bedroom and lock the door, or there will be no silence whatsoever.
I really think there has to be some type of mental transformation. My mother-in-law has mentioned that herself a few times. I’ll mention something about what my kids are doing (generally a very common thing), and she really has no memory of her children doing anything similar, just being 100% delightful all the time. Luckily, she realizes that she has blinders and blocked some memories.
This!! Yes!! My mother actually said to me the other day that children are only frustrating when they’re teenagers! As if life with my brother and me was just pleasant and blissful until we turned 13! I was so floored that I had no comeback. But seriously, I was THERE and we were JERKAZOIDS.
I am feeling so stressed about summer for this reason. Shoving a tablet in their face works but then I feel guilt. I do not know what I’ll do.
The results of your experiment made me laugh, but not in an amused-chuckle sort of way; rather, in an on-the-verge-of-hysteria sort of way that kept bubbling up and refused to be tamped down.
We have reached the stage where the child has many wonderful, interesting, charming things to say, in ways that make me laugh with delight at how clever she is… punctuated by the DESIRE to say wonderful, interesting, charming things but managing only to say, over and over and over, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” until those two sounds are the only sounds in the universe.
I’ve found myself saying, more than once to my precious offspring, “Not every thought that enters your head has to come out of your mouth.”
Also said? “You know what I listen to when there’s no one home but me? Silence! Nothing is making noise. Not the TV, not the radio, not music. And you know why? Because I need time like that, particularly in the morning.”
And it seems that having a particular way of doing pretty much everything, and trying to impart my methods and reasons behind them (which I cannot help – it is my nature to be this way), has backfired in a serious way. It blows my mind that, at 8 and 10, my kids think the right response to any new situation, no matter how simple, is to ask me for help or to at least show them how. In the last 2 days alone this has included using a can opener and “getting all the corn on my fork”. They will almost NEVER just try to do something. It drives me CRAZY!
I often feel overwhelmed by the constant talking, too. I’ve wondered if my short patience with it is due to my introverted nature. Do extroverted parents get as overwhelmed? Or as quickly? I’m so curious about this.
I’m curious about this too.
I am a huge extrovert and I do seem to have more patience for it than my introverted husband does, but he is also with them more than I am so he is probably more worn down by them than I am.
Even though I’m an extrovert, I still have times where I feel like I am being bathed in a waterfall of words. My 8 year old has begun giving dissertation length recaps of Minecraft videos he has watched and woe unto me. He doesn’t even pause to breathe. I literally have no idea what he is talking about but he Just. Keeps. Talking.
The recaps of video games and YouTube videos (and YouTube videos of video games) are probably the things that MOST wear me down. They’re so INCOMPREHENSIBLE and so BORING and they go on FOREVER.
Laughter break! 😂
YES.
OH YES. If I wanted to know what the video said I would watch the video. I do not desire the replay. And yet, they go on and on and on.
My nine year old daughter likes to recap Monster High videos. I’m not sure which is worse, Minecraft or Monster High. I feel sorry for both you and myself.
My 9 year old son watches those videos too, and is currently into Terraria. I have absolutely no idea what this game is about, but he can constantly discuss it. It works without wifi, which means he can deliver a running commentary IN THE CAR. Today we had a half hour drive and he was talking about Terraria. I reminded him hat he could play (quietly) while I drove but he said, “No, Mommy, I would rather talk to you.” Aaaah! I will be sobbing and missing these summer days eventually, but for now I would pay actual cash to be able to listen to the radio and not to an incomprehensible video game monologue!
Am I the only one who, after the first couple of exchanges where I “mm hm” and see if the topic will move on naturally, says “I have no interest in [insert video game/TV show]. Please talk about something else and save this topic for your friends who are interested.”? I don’t let my kids start in on extended monologues about this sort of stuff. If they try to start in again and are unresponsive to me trying to change the topic, I tell them to stop and either change the topic or find something else to do (when they’re free to roam) / sit in quiet contemplation (when we’re in the car). I figure it’s part of my job to teach them how to carry on a conversation, including when it is and isn’t appropriate to talk about something.
I do this! But they want to do it anyway. My son, who is a sports nut (I’m convinced he has a favorite player and stats for every sport in the world including extreme ping-pong and jai alai) will say “Mommy, I know you’re not interested, but let me tell you JUST THIS ONE THING about Jumblehumpf Mumbalompf and his amazing catch for the Tigereyes” and then it will be twenty minutes of what as far as I’m concerned is gibberish.
Oh my god, have you seen that terrible thing that goes around Facebook, that says something like “Listen to your children when they tell you all their small things, and they’ll tell you all their big things—because to them, all of them were big things.” ARRRRGGGGGG. NO.
Same! There are times that I love talking to my kids when they want to discuss something they are much more interested in than I am; i.e. the current state of the Orioles bullpen. They are cute people who I love and I like to talk to them. But I set pretty firm limits regarding endless babble about absolute inanity. I have told my daughter many times that if I really cared about a minecraft YouTube something or other I would watch it and she needs to talk to me about something else.
I recently read Catastrophic Happiness by Catherine Newman and I really liked something she does with her kids, which is asking “what happens when you drive people crazy?” And they answer “you drive them crazy.” I tell my kids that I understand it can be fun to be annoying but it is not fun to be annoyed and they can’t just endlessly push my buttons/ interrupt me constantly without a negative response.
Hopefully I am teaching them how to be an enjoyable and likable person and not just teaching them that mom is no fun…
One day of summer vacation down, 72 to go!
“sit in quiet contemplation”… I love this! :D
“If this has to do with Pokemon, I don’t have time for it right now” is an actual thing I said to my 9 year old this morning. He knocked on my door while I was getting ready this morning, and I just couldn’t take another piece of information about his battle or the damage or health of a freaking evolving Pokemon. (I guess some of it has sunk in, despite my attempts to block it out.) He had a mosquito bite that needed attention, so I didn’t have to slam the door in his face. This time.
I can remember saying to my youngest chatterbox that I just needed some time without talking (her or me). I used to feel terribly guilty, but since working out that I’m a true introvert, I now forgive myself.
I say this all the time and feel horrible about it. But my preschooler and toddler just follow me, everywhere, all the time. Even when I try to hide, there they are! The other night, my husband and I were talking in our room, having escaped for six seconds, when all of a sudden we hear our 18 month old dragging himself up the stairs. My husband whispers, “it’s like a horror movie”, and we listened to the quiet thump-thump-thump. And then, outside the door, he bellows his only word: “MOM!!!”
But no seriously, it’s all day every day as a stay at home mom, and I love them more than life itself, but man I go insane. I realized it was an introvert thing, but it doesn’t make me feel better. A few weeks ago, my four year old was blathering on and on to me, about two inches from my face, and I was like, “sweetie! Why do you need to be next to me ALL THE TIME?!” He gets a surprised and injured look and says, “because I LIKE to be with you!” This is also the child that told me he wishes we were twins, so that we could be together all our lives. Argghhhh….how can I simultaneously adore this child and yet also want to run away screaming “I need QUIET!!” I actually used to listen to music and watch tv, but now it must be silent when I am alone!
I feel like the cultural talk about the dangers of isolation in child rearing is aimed more at the extroverted among us – I was never that bothered by being without adult company (or by being home with a newborn who slept most of the day) and assumed I would be well suited to a life working from home/stay-at-home momming. What’s talked about less is how children are people, too, and if you need long breaks from people like introverts do, being with children who want to be on you all day long is incredibly draining.
Yes. Today I called my in-laws for a break from my 2 year old who has decided naps are not necessary since moving to a big girl bed. I took a nap and relished the silence.
Oh Swistle. I’m so sorry to report that last section had me laughing. You are hilarious even in your despondancy :)
I have absolutely zero help here, as my fetus is blissfully unable to talk yet, although I do recall my mom somehow giving my sister and I a general understanding that her office was her Working Zone and you didn’t bother mom in the office unless you Seriously Needed Something. Unfortunately I don’t know HOW she made that happen.
My two oldest children had a prolonged fondness for pacifiers. Just the other day I was wondering why, WHY GOD WHY, did I actively discourage them from using them. They could still be sucking on those things and not having verbal thought diarrhea all.day.long.
On the plus side, I only have two kids, and they’re teens who like to hang out in their room, with headphones attached. I do make them come to the table and eat and they will chat then, and sometimes in the car, but there is plenty of quiet most of the time In my house, which my introverted nature appreciates (and bioth of my kids are fairly introverted as well).
Now for the not so positive side – their favorite time to talk? When I’m ready for bed. Aargh! I always feel too guilty to shut them down since they aren’t very chatty the rest of the time, but good Lord, I’m old and I need sleep!
And as far as introverted versus extroverted parents, whenever we visit my brother and his wife, who are both more extroverted than me, I notice how much louder it is in their house. But, um, they also have four kids, so that might be the reason? Sorry, Swistle.
AHHHHHH my teenagers do that toooooooo! I’m tired and getting ready for bed, and one of them plunks down and says, “So Mum. What do you think of [topic I would find hugely interesting if it were DAYTIME]?” or “I’ve been having trouble with [issue that really needs to be addressed, but could it not have been addressed in the EIGHT HOURS PREVIOUS TO THIS ONE??].”
Yes this! My oldest (8) is very quiet normally. He answers “how was your day?” With “fine” and says naught else. But some nights he asks me to lay next to him when I come to make him stop reading (one night the poor thing stumbled downstairs at 9 p.m. Wondering why we hadn’t come to tuck him in…whoops). Anyway, it’s when the lights are out that he will sometimes talk to me. About friends or ask interesting “why” questions. And it’s usually already so late and I’m exhausted by the evening and I hate having to stop the conversation but its late and he needs to get to bed. What’s the problem with the daytime? Why can he not talk then???
I was seriously crying laughing reading this though because that happens anytime my husband and I try to have an adult conversation. The children will get so loud and be saying nothing! Most of the time it is just noise!
YES. We have noticed they will even drift, seemingly purposelessly, until they are STANDING DIRECTLY BETWEEN US. As if there is a flow of “grown-ups trying to talk to each other” and they CANNOT RESIST IT. They must talk over it! interrupt it! have loud conversations right next to it! STAND IN THE MIDDLE OF IT!
SO THIS. ALL OF THIS. I can’t keep my eyes open and I’m leaning against the doorframe and yet I’m clutching onto the conversation because OMG SHE’S TALKING TO ME AND IT’S INTERESTING/IMPORTANT. plskillmenaow
Oh, mercy, I don’t even HAVE kids and reading this stressed me out. Fast track to insanity right there. Wishing you all the luck!
This is the problem every mom has during the summer. I think it’s harder for those of us who have large gaps in our children’s ages. By the time they are all grown and gone we won’t have enough brain cells to think anyway.
Just last weekend, after a day out of the house (nothing exciting, buying groceries, a library visit, lunch) I got home with my two girls (13 and 9) and said to my husband about the nine year old, “She never stopped talking. The entire time we were away, she talked.”
He nodded in understanding. She’s got ideas and thoughts and stories and she NEEDS to tell them to us. And she needs us to acknowledge that we’re listening. She’s a lovely child but OMG, the talking is driving me crazy.
I remember growing up the rule was “If you ask for something while I’m on the phone, the answer is automatically No, even if I otherwise would have said Yes”. I don’t think this helped with the toddlers, but it definitely reduced the demand on her during that time with us older children. At least, it did from my memory. Which is possibly quite faulty. Also this doesn’t fix chattiness in general….
Only one of my two can speak currently. And he never shuts up, so I can hardly imagine!
Introverted + work-at-home mom here. I’ve got just two, but I dread summer sometimes (and it’s less than a week off for us).
This post could not be more timely and relevant. Just last night we all got home from work and camp and had dinner. I tried to pry information out of their day from my kids at the dinner table. Not much conversation etc. We were there a good 1/2 hour. Dinner is over and I need 15-20 minutes of relative (not total, let’s not be ridiculous, but RELATIVE) quiet to pay bills. I begin by getting on the computer and attempting to download transactions from my bank into Quicken so I can balance the checkbook before paying the bills. I haven’t even managed to get into my online banking website before both kids are in the room with me chatting. Chat, chat, chat. Everything about the day that I wanted to hear about during dinner 10 MINUTES EARLIER, now coming out. So, I wait and listen and figure I’ll just do the banking in a few minutes while they’re done. While I listen, they seem to wind down and stop talking. I start downloading stuff and they are talking at me again!! BTW my husband is home the entire time and only one room away. They could be talking to him but no! It’s me!
Just the other day I ranted at my husband that throughout history men have been afforded the mental space to create art and music and science whereas women can’t have a complete thought because CHILDREN. No wonder men got to create all the things forever. BAH!
I have the same phenomenon at our house and find that it sometimes encourages me to clean the kitchen. Weird but nobody interrupts when I’m doing chores :) only when I’m on the computer/reading. So I’m pretty much guaranteed quiet while working on lame chores. Silver lining?
Yes! I have this experience. If I want 10 (or 30) minutes of being left alone to read something, or scroll my phone, or get a quick nap they are either on me like glue, or screeching at each other. If I’m doing laundry or dishes or cleaning (that they of course should be helping with because it’s mostly their mess), it’s all quiet, independent play and sisterly love, sometimes for a couple of hours. I HAVE a couple of hours of laundry to fold on any given day, but that doesn’t mean I want to do it just so I can have peace and silence.
My step-mother had sacred office hours. If the door was closed, there was no disturbing her unless something was on fire, or bones were broken. I recommend you do something similar. Maybe promise a 10 break every hour? Or something?
Oh Swistle, no…please no…you’re supposed to tell me it is easier as your children are older. My two are almost-4 and almost-2 and only a few weeks in, this summer is about to do me in. During the school year, they have 10 hours a week of preschool and this teaches me that those 10 hrs a week are key to my sanity. The whining! The nonstop crying! The fighting! I wake up ready to face the day with a good attitude and 5 minutes later I am completely and absolutely defeated. Please tell me this isn’t just me??!! And that maybe it isn’t quite so bad when they’re older?? Or at least lie to make me feel better!!!
I can say it REALLY IS easier now than when they were littler. For one thing, I seriously CAN say “I AM GOING INTO MY ROOM. NO ONE MAY BOTHER ME UNTIL THIS TIMER RINGS, EXCEPT FOR EMERGENCIES INVOLVING BLOOD/FIRE.” For another thing, I remember during the summer I used to sink into deep depressions/despair and/or wish I had never HAD children, and now I am merely irritable. Progress! Plus, last summer I remember I thought the summer had gone by Quite Fast, whereas even one summer before that one, I had counted up all the days of summer and had a daily record of how many days were left, like a prison sentence.
Just a note to anyone who finds themselves doing this (counting days passed, as if a prison sentence) — make it a fraction, with total number of days as the denominator. Because let’s say it’s 100 days (just to keep the math easy). Then after day 1 you say to yourself, “OK, I only have to do that 99 more times.” Which is a lot, and you feel sad. But then at the end of day 2, you say to yourself, “OK, I only have to do that 50 more times.” Which — look at that! In 1 single day, you’ve gone from 99 repetitions to 50. And it gets better from there. Well, up until you get past the “I only have to do this 1 more time” (50 days completed, in this example). After that it feels a bit less like dramatically wonderful progress. But! By then you’re already half-way done (or more) and can perhaps find other ways to make the remaining time feel somewhat endurable.
At least, this system works (relatively) well for me..
This makes me feel MUCH better. Why can’t I know you in “real life”? I told my husband just earlier today–I know at some point in time I will look back at these days fondly, but the idea of that right now is just beyond depressing. Please, preschool…start back soon!!!!
There is a running joke in my husband’s family that there was a wire attached to his grandmother’s chair at the table, a wire that ran through the house to the baby’s crib. Whenever she sat down, that was a signal to the baby to start to cry. This woman had FOURTEEN children…so she knew from interruptions… and she is still living (and about to turn 93) as I type this. Of course, women of her generation generally did not attempt to accomplish much beyond being a mother (and I don’t blame her) (no, I blame my husband’s grandfather!!), so the interruptions might not have been so irksome… but I think she earned her peace and quiet!
For me, the interruptions are most grating when I sit down to try to read a book. I can’t get through a single clause of a single sentence without an interruption (and I only have two children, 11 and 8.) It’s completely infuriating. If I’m doing almost anything else, I still get some chit-chat, but if I sit down with a book, it’s Grand Central Station, with all the mania that implies. My mantra is always, “I’M NOT DOING NOTHING.” It hasn’t worked, but it’s a satisfying thing to say.
OMGGGGGGGGG YES. I will read a sentence, and then there’s an interruption, and then I take a number of seconds to find my place, get back into it, and—ANOTHER INTERRUPTION. Again and again, so that I will literally not finish a single sentence in 15 minutes. AIIIIEIEEEEEEEEE
My wife and her sister often reminisce about how their mom would hold up one finger while she finished the page she was on, and that was their signal to be patient and wait to talk until she acknowledged them. I have even seen an old snapshot of my mother-in-law in this pose. I don’t know if it really worked, but it might be worth a shot if you can manage to do it consistently.
I had to laugh – I remember those days!! My problem these days is The Husband. My God that man makes me insane with his constant chatter. In fact the only reason I was able to read this post in peace was because his daughter (also a chatty Cathy) called. I love him to pieces but am not thrilled to realize that our empty nest is not going to be a quiet one.
I have four children, and when I visit with my siblings who have fewer/no children, they often remark with surprise at how often I have multiple children talking to me at once. It’s truly a phenomenon. I sometimes have no child talking to me. But I NEVER have one child talking to me. AS SOON AS one child starts talking to me, at least one other child starts talking. Usually it’s not at all related. And they take NO NOTICE of the fact that another child is already speaking to me. None. Like it’s merely a wind blowing. I thought that certainly, eventually they would mature enough and hear the “please do not interrupt” speech enough times to recognize the social cue to wait one’s turn. But, the oldest is almost 9 now and it seems like that day will never come. When I am speaking to a person that is not their sibling, all but the youngest will usually say “excuse me” before interrupting. But, when a sibling speaks it just doesn’t register.
Fascinating.
YES, at our house too!!! It’s as if they can’t hear each other’s voices as VOICES.
My mother and son do this to each other too (each speaking to me), though over time I have come to realize that my mother — who is, obviously, old enough to know better (arguably my son is too, but that has only become true within the past few years even as a plausible concept) — often literally doesn’t hear my son speaking because she is, in fact, hard of hearing.
Still, in the moment of experiencing it, it’s kind of maddening. And of course my son should know better. But doesn’t!
YES! So true. My kids are like the zombies in movies – they are attracted to any noise and will immediately make their way to where it’s coming from, only in my house the noise is the sound of one child talking to me. If one kid starts talking to me, the other must nearly instantly appear (if they are not already there) and start talking. Right over the other kid, no notice of the other’s conversation is made at all. Sigh.
Oh boyyyy I hear you. I was groaning in frustration the other night when I was trying to eat my dinner (kids had already eaten) and I seriously could not get through an entire mouthful without being asked a question or “come see this”.
I have had some small limited success (and I mean TRULY LIMITED, as in it might last for an hour or two then they lose interest / forget / whatever) with INTERRUPTION TICKETS.
I make them up on notebook paper and give them to my two girls (my son is older and not as inclined to do this). They get five each to use up until whatever time (dinner, until we leave for work/school, etc.). I tell them that they can save up two or three questions and ask me all in one interruption if they want. Just five. And that’s IT.
Does it work every time? Hell no. But now and then I actually see them considering if X problem is worth using a ticket on. Which is worthwhile! Even if it means I’m still paying enough attention to them to note that! SIGH.
I LIKE THIS TICKET CONCEPT
Hi Swistle,
I can relate to this as a teacher and a mom. I think there is a Pavlovian response to the adult in the room being unavailable that trips their need to interact with said adult.
Here are two ideas that may or may not work. I have used them in my 5th grade and they work well:
One is to have a notepad or paper next to your desk and have the child write down their question or comment. (You can also have them write it on a post-it note). When you have a chance, you check their note and determine if you need to deal with it right away or if it needs to be taken care of later. If it is a simple question like, “when is dinner?” That can be easily answered or ignored. Sometimes I find that some students realize their question isn’t worth writing down which usually means it was a question they could easily answer. I put the directions at the top of the notepad so they know what to do.
Another option is to have a notebook for each child called a “communication log” and this is used for the two of you to communicate with each other. As a teacher, I will sometimes ask my students to write me a letter letting me know how the year is good and I will respond to them. I also use it for them to share their thoughts and feelings with me (good, bad and ugly) and I will respond to that as well. If there is a discipline issue, I will ask them to write down what is going on and then I can respond. I started this because I had a shy student who didn’t feel comfortable speaking up in class so I started this. If the child writes in it and it is an emergency (I.e. Someone’s safety is at risk), they hand it to me. Otherwise, I have them place it near my computer so I can deal with it as soon as possible.
I LIKE THIS NOTEBOOK CONCEPT
Me too, not least because my son needs to practice his writing. And it’s summertime! Hmmm.
I haven’t read all the comments, but wanted to chime in! I grew up with 4 siblings, and lots of parental drama, and I do think that absolutely influenced my decision to have one child. Somehow, I managed to have the one child that meshed perfectly with my personality. She had the ability to play happily by herself, and I took that time to clean or read a book. She had lots of playdates, I loved having the kids come to our house-and I felt almost like I had the best of two worlds, multiple children over to play, lots of noise and fun.
Swistle, your situation of being busy and then being interrupted-reminds me of the what used to happen when we all just had landlines. As soon as you got on the phone, your child was tugging at your sleeve- “Mom, Mom, MOM!!”.
My daughter is almost 22, so I feel I am older than most of your commenters-but I do want to say-screw all those people who say stuff like “these are the best years, you will regret them when they are gone…”blah, blah, blah. What they seem to forget is you actually need to get through these years, you need your own time, and your own space. I grew up in the 60’s-where we were fully aware that our parent’s need s came first. We never questioned it, because it wasn’t the norm back then. I did have very young parents though, my mother was only 19 years older than I was, my dad 20, and I was the second child. So they were very young, and we did have lots of fun.
Love this post. I tell my son that when he is a teenager I will complain that he sleeps until noon and won’t speak to me, but that right now, I dream of those things.
The most dreaded words in my house right now, uttered most often when I am in the middle of “me time,” are “Mama, can we play?” I dislike hearing it and I dislike that I dislike it, because I always assumed I would love it. I do not. I mean, my children are a delight. But I feel like a biologist would after discovering that, oh, no, you don’t get to just stay in the cage and WATCH the sharks be beautiful and interesting. You have to get out and swim with them. Or they will start ramming the cage over and over and over until their heads bleed.
I love this. Also, I am the same about play: I don’t like doing it, and I don’t like that I don’t like it. I wish they would play in their shark cage and I could admire them.
This made me laugh so hard I snorted. Me too! I want them to have a cute tea party in their shark cage.
Jumping in just recommend this book, The Anthropology of Childhood: Cherubs, Chattel, Changelings by David Lancy: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1107420989/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687442&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0521887739&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=58HWTAJ1RX3ZJ064C7Y6
It’s academic, but very readable and fascinating to flip through. Lancy analyzed thousands of anthropological studies from the past century to assemble an overview of how a vast array of different cultures handle childrearing.
Your comments made me think of the book because one of the things he shows is that almost NO cultures expect adults to “play” with their kids. In the vast majority of them it would be considered completely bizarre, as children are expected to play with each other and interact with adults on a more adult level. Only wealthy industrialized ones (like the US, Japan, Nordic countries etc.) treat kids like “cherubs” and expect adult participation in imaginary child games, and even in our cultures it’s a pretty recent (post-1960s) development.
The book really blew my mind, and while I don’t have kids (yet) I’m around them a lot and I also nannied for years and taught in a preschool, and it made me feel better about the desire to alone time/no distraction time/boredom with participating in child-led imaginary play (and those monologue recaps!). I’ve always much more enjoyed shared activities with kids that involved some type of work (baking cookies together, raking leaves, gardening, folding laundry) and often found they seemed to prefer it too (when they were from families that expected them to help with chores).
Also, there’s this essay from 2012 that’s still thought-provoking, though very one sided: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/07/02/spoiled-rotten
I do not play with my kids. I mean sure, I’ll go for bike rides with my kids, or possibly pass through the sprinkler with them on a hot day, and we’ll do projects together, but I don’t sit down and “play”. I don’t like doing it, I don’t do it, and I don’t feel one whit of guilt about it. Even before I had kids, the daughter of my then-serious-boyfriend’s sister asked me to play and my answer was “oh honey, I’m just not that kind of aunt.”
I had never even heard of adults playing with kids (other than things like catch) until I was grown up, and started reading about it online.
I did not get around to it but I planned to have as my FB status: “I am looking forward to the day that my youngest figures out that he can breathe without also talking.”
Ha ha! O HASTEN THAT DAY
Haaaa. For my oldest it was QUITE A WHILE before he realized he could *think about things* without narrating his entire thought process. It was truly as if his brain did not work unless his mouth was going.
For awhile before he started school I considered homeschooling him. The decision was made when I realized *I* was not up for being the primary listener to all his talking for some open-ended period measured in years.
I used to set a timer for 10 minutes of no talking. Best 10 minutes of my day.
That kid is 18 now, and it’s clear that he is a shy extrovert, if that makes sense. He’s not outgoing and actually is quiet in many social situations BUT he loves being around other people and will always seek companionship over solitude. I do think that his continual conversational engagement with me helped to make him a highly verbal and very smart kid. Going to college on a full scholarship. So there’s that.
My husband and my older daughter are shy extroverts, so I know exactly what you mean. It’s so hard.
I have three children: a 14 yo, an 11 yo, and a 3 month old. Now — the oldest two are true introverts, a trait they get directly from me, so they are happy to spend many an hour deeply involved in whatever they’re doing. My husband, on the other hand… he’s an extrovert. Drives us all LOONY with his constant pleas for everyone to be in the same room and talking all at once, like his own family does.
The baby is too young to be one or the other, of course. But he *will* be playing happily alone with his activity gym until I need to do something that’s both important and cannot be done with a baby, at which point he’ll simply screech as if a Hellhound has nibbled on his baby toes.
All of this, and I’ll add that my four year old has learned two phrases to make sure I hear every single thing about Dark Vader and his missing light saber, cape, face, soul, whatever. “MOMMY PUT DOWN YOURS PHONE.” And “DON’T MMM-HMMM ME.” Like, even if I AM listening and I say mm-hmmm, I get a furious scolding and several minutes to return to the topic WHICH I WAS LISTENING TO. At that point, my 9 year old daughter has been trying to get my attention with several “Uuuuuummmmm, mommy”s
Swistle – Did having a part time job last summer change your level of annoyance with these types of things? (Just wondering because in my dream version of my future, it does. But I can also imagine that I feel stretched more thin than I do now…)
I have wondered this, and I am NOT SURE. My GUESS is that it was a draw: having to work made me better appreciate the times I did NOT have to work, and also gave me a break; but having to work also made the logistics more difficult, and I ended up paying most of my income to the teenagers who were babysitting the littler ones.
Uuuggghhhhhhh. Yes. May I suggest a garish hat? It worked in my childhood. The garish hat meant no speaking to the adult unless there was blood or fire. If you go this route you may need a few dire consequences the first time or two you wear it to drive the point home…
I only have one toddler, so I really have no idea what I’m talking about, but… outside time? Could you institute one hour of outside time (assuming you have a yard, perhaps playing sports or reading in the shade or whatever) for the kids? You can say it’s good for their health! :D
Oh, I’m wondering how my parents (mainly mom, when we were smaller) dealt with this when we were kids. There were 4 of us and we were definitely not the quiet kind, although all of us except my youngest brother could spend hours with a book too, starting age 7 or so (obviously time spent with book increased with age). I do remember that if we would get too loud or there were too many fights between us, we were told to put on our coats (all of us), rain or shine, and play outside until we were called to come back in (usually after 2 to 3 hours or for lunch/dinner). We’d usually sulk around the back of the house for the first 15 minutes pretending we were really upset that we got kicked out, but eventually we’d resign ourselves to the situation, find something to play – either alone or with each other/ other kids from the neighborhood – and she’d have a hard time getting us back in when it was time to go inside. I can imagine she did the same when were just too loud or interrupting her too often, but I’d have to ask to be sure.
I also remember the angry looks when tugging on her sleeve while she was on the phone. “Mama is on the PHONE!” When we knew how to write, we’d write our question on a post-it and shove it under her nose. Can’t imagine that was less disruptive for her (thought-process / conversation-wise) but she’d usually answer it by shaking her head yes or no and we’d be off, so at least it was quick (and having to write them may have prevented us from asking the most lame-ass questions we’d otherwise have just blurted out).
Just spent a few hours going through my blog feed – a week’s worth because this is the first time I’ve had to read all week. This is perfect. I stewed all afternoon because my husband was telling his millionth work story this week and suddenly stomped off telling me, “You’re not listening anyway!” Um, yeah, kinda hard to listen when our 8yo and 4yo are also talking to me at the same time. But that’s right, I should be able to ignore the kids I’m serving lunch to because he needed an audience. Third child.
BTW, it took 30 minutes to read this post for the interruptions.
OMG THIS IS MY LIFE. I totally laugh-cried through this post because YES. And the comments! Everyone who said that a) either they all talk at once, or no one at all, and b) they all have Big Important Questions right at bedtime (mine or theirs, or both), and c) me sitting at the computer is like a BEACON TO ALL that I am ready and looking forward to interruptions, is BANG ON.
Sorry for the excessive all caps but I think I might print this out and hand it around. YES.
So, a thousand years ago when I was a grade-schooler, we had summer neighbors. There were three kids and they had to spend from 9:00 – 11:00 not talking, not playing with neighbors, not bugging their siblings or parents. As a kid, I thought: CRAZY but reading this I’m thinking: GENIUS.
On the less gentle side of parenting, my mom: we were told to Go OUTSIDE and Do Not Come Back In unless bleeding or broken bones.
Middle Ground, perhaps: “If I’m sitting at the computer, then Cone of Silence.”
Or, use a spray bottle: like training cats. ;) kidding, not kidding.
And Day Drinking.
I cannot stop laughing. 😄
And I just finished reading the comments and I’m laughing even harder! (How can you tell I’ve never had children!?)
This is the funniest thing I’ve read in a while. I found you through Catherine Newman’s blog. Thanks for the honest to goodness out loud laughing :)
It gets better! It does! I promise! And I DO NOT MISS IT AT ALL, even one teeny bit (I was a count down the days of summer mom) — I have one kid (of 5) currently at home (just finished freshman year of college) and while that age can still be highly (scarily) annoying and stressful, it’s also awesome. I will admit I am kinda/sorta counting down weeks until she is back at school…but it’s not overwhelming….more of a “I can do this for another 6 weeks” sort of thing. Luckily she feels the exact same way.
I will see cute preschool-aged kids/babies while out and about and think “awwww…. I wish…” and then immediately SNAP OUT OF IT because, nope.