It's a regrettable and undeniable fact of childhood that other children often suck. They are mean, and intolerant, and critical, and stupid. Some adults seem surprised by this, and say things like: "But children are so innocent and small! I find this implausible." Other adults say things like: "Young people are less able to understand and process their emotions. They are probably insecure and confused." I propose, however, that some young people are heartless, bullying sadists not because they are unformed and inexperienced, but because they are, after all, little people, and big people are often heartless, bullying, and sadistic. And, because school should be as terrifying a place as possible, sometimes the big people bully the little people and nobody cares.A fourteen-year-old developmentally-disabled girl in Ohio told her parents that she was being bullied by her teacher and a school aide. Her father complained to the school, and the district superintendent determined the girl was lying and in an email explained that "it came to a point where I had to remind the man that his continued false accusations were bordering on harassment and slander."Her parents, who unaccountably insisted on believing their daughter, fitted her up with a recording device, and what that device recorded should make everyone entertain the possibility that schools might be as scary as sharks, plagues, and great heights.Aide Kelly Chaffins can be heard saying: "Are you that damn dumb? Are you that dumb? Oh, my God. You are such a liar...You told me you don't know. It's no wonder you don't have friends. No wonder nobody likes you. Because you lie, cheat...steal."Not to be outdone, teacher Christie Wilt chimes in with this observation about a test the girl had just completed: "You know what, just keep it. You failed it. I know it. I don't need your test to grade. You failed it."Chaffins, perhaps concerned that she will not emerge as the more abusive of the two, later asks the girl if she does chores, and when the girl says "no", comments: "Don't you find that a little ridiculous? How you gonna do a job? You should be embarrassed. I just am in awe. Makes you worthless." Oh, and when the girl "misbehaved" they made her go for pleasant walks on the classroom treadmill.When the tapes were made public, it emerged that this was not the appropriate manner in which to address a vulnerable young person. Chaffins tendered her resignation, and Wilt was forced to confront the unbridled wrath of the education system, in that her "intervention specialist" license was suspended for a year and will only be returned to her if she completes a grueling eight hours of bullying awareness and child-abuse reporting classes.Thankfully, the district superintendent seems to have learned a valuable lesson. He conceded that insulting and demeaning a developmentally-disable student "fell short of our mission" and pledged to "work very hard to never let that happen again." "We need to provide proper training and restate our expectations of how we treat children so that this never happens again", he indicated, suggesting that his pedagogical philosophy is based on the delightful premise that unless you tell teachers they're not allowed to call students dumb and lazy, they'll do just that. POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough. Also, I'm not very good at copy-editing, so if something looks wrong, it was put there by axident.
At some point in your life, someone who admires the Dresden Dolls and Angela Carter will probably tell you, with an air of revealing a shattering truth, that fairy-tales are not really for children, that the original fairy-tales, at least, are dark and bloody and perverse and disturbing and as unlike the charming yarns spun for children as Amanda Palmer and Angela Carter are from Hilary Duff and Gordon Korman.It's also possible that someone you know will decide to tell you that all the nursery rhymes you learned as a kid were about either a) syphilis or b) the Black Death.And of course, they're right. The stories and songs we use to entertain children are grounded in an awareness of nightmares and horrors. Magical fables and singable rhymes developed out of real-life catastrophes and plagues. How exciting it is to realize that our generation is also producing such rich fodder for future folklore!Just this week, I heard about something that sounds like an actual horrible fairy-tale come to life and/or inspiration for a horrible fairy-tale still to be written. Katya Adler of the BBC reports that in Spain, over a period of forty-fifty years (from Franco to the 1990s), an estimated 300,000 children were stolen from their parents by doctors and nurses and nuns and priests and then sold to new families. The birth parents were told their children had died. Initially, babies were taken from ideologically unacceptable homes (i.e. homes that housed people who didn't like Franco) and given to Franco loyalists; later, babies were taken from morally unacceptable homes and redistributed to morally upstanding would-be parents; later still, babies were taken from poor people mostly because money could be made by selling them to rich people. Many of the graves of infants said to have died have since been discovered to contain stones or adult corpses.The government, adhering to an amnesty law in place since the transition from Franco's regime, has refused to set up a formal inquiry into this clergy-backed child trafficking. It might not be reasonable to fear that malevolent fairy will snatch your child, but in pretty-near-contemporary Spain, it turns out it was completely reasonable to fear that a nun would steal your baby.
POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough. Also, I'm not very good at copy-editing, so if something looks wrong, it was put there by accident.
Unfortunately, circumstances have obliged me to revisit my conclusions of last week. I am often obliged to revisit my conclusions, as they are frequently wrong. Perhaps thinking about things more thoroughly or researching would help, but I avoid such activities on point of principle as they are hallmarks of Socialism.At any rate, last week I concluded that gender equality would eventually be achieved at least in part through offensive bibs. But recently, a news item reminded me that we still have a long way to go when it comes to degrading boys as much as girls.Most episodes of Toddlers and Tiaras are remarkable for their awfulness and for helping you realize that, whatever you might think, your parents were classy and your youthful fashion sense sophisticated (and - full disclosure, I occasionally watch Toddlers and Tiaras. And Hoarders: Buried Alive. There's probably a German word for how they make me feel and why I keep watching them.). The show, though, has now lowered the bar of good taste to unprecedentedly low levels. Wendy Dickey, pageant mom and self-professed Good Christian Woman, dressed her 3-year-old up as Julia Robert's Pretty Woman prostitute character, clearly in a misguided attempt to illustrate some of the more obscure teachings of Christ.
I immediately tried to figure out what the boy-child equivalent would be. A pint-sized Joe Buck would probably go unrecognized by a pageant audience; My Own Private Idaho is most likely too private for the public Idaho and a reference to it would also perplex. And I don't remember The Basketball Diaries being a heart-warming crowd-pleaser or involving snooty retail salespeople getting their comeuppance.
Really, a caring Christian mother looking for the male equivalent of Roberts' beloved movie prostitute would find herself at a loss. I guess she could always stick to the Pretty Woman theme instead, and dress her beloved Bentley or Ethan or Jayden up as a knee-high Richard Gere. My utopic vision of a future in which both and girls are equally objectified and in much the same way might never be realized, but I'm somewhat comforted by the prospect of toddler hookers and toddler johns.
Send the Catastrophizer your requests for advice and/or rationalizations using the form conveniently provided HERE. I will publish my responses on the THE CATASTROPHIZER page.POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough. Also, I'm not very good at copy-editing, so if something looks wrong, it was put there by accident.
Hurray for Jim DeMint! The courageously outspoken senator from South Carolina has enriched the national discourse yet again by reminding us of his courageous outspokenness of six years ago.
What kind of statement does not grow stale with age? Why, the one that expresses the sentiment that gays should not be allowed to be teachers, of course.A number of years ago, DeMint said just that, and he was viciously criticized by homemade-seitan-loving, Islamic-extremist-supporting Democrats (we all know that Republicans hate gays, Democrats love them, and libertarians don't mind them as long as they're not taking up room in their underground bunkers). Now he's revealed that while most people, cowed by the prospect of retaliation from vicious hippie types, remained silent after he was taken to task for his unabashed truth-telling, hordes of the secretly brave-minded came to him privately to let him know that he was not alone. As a result, his marvelous axioms are once again before the public eye.Only one thing interferes with my enjoyment of the first of DeMint's unassailable claims: it's become a bit...old. Passe. Familiar. What conservative radio host DOESN'T think that all homosexuals should be kept away from all children?Jim DeMint, though, is not one to rest on the homophobic laurels of other boosters of straight male Boy Scout leaders. No, he's far more daring. Free-thinking. He hunts moral conclusions to the murky swamps in which they tend to hide. He doesn't just think gays should be kept out of America's flourishing educational system; he believes children should also be protected from the damaging math and English lessons of "single", straight, pregnant women who are living with common-law spouses. Bravo, Mr. DeMint! The morality of the young is under attack not simply from teaching-obsessed homosexuals; it's also besieged by the free-loving lifestyles of teaching-fixated women who fail to use contraception.My only quibble with DeMint is that his argument doesn't go far enough. What about the men who've impregnated the pregnant women and insist on living with them without making them honest? What about the people who are ill-advisedly friends with either gay teachers or pregnant, unmarried teachers? The more I think about it, the more I think no one is sinless enough to teach our children. And this has a bright side: with no teachers and no schools, there'll be far less of a chance that kids will be forced to learn about evolution. Send the Catastrophizer your requests for advice and/or rationalizations using the form conveniently provided HERE. I will publish my responses on the THE CATASTROPHIZER page.
POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough. Also, I'm not very good at copy-editing, so if something looks wrong, it was put there by accident.
I got another write-in question. That's right. And this time it's from someone who is not in the least related to me. Not by blood, at least. It's a very sensible question about whether children should have friends.
The NYT helpfully informs me that "best friends" for children are, in fact, bad for them. Is this just more overprotection? I figured if anyone could see the downsides of having (or not having) a BFF, it's the Catastrophizer.
In "A Best Friend: You Must Be Kidding", Hilary Stout discusses opinions held by various professionals about whether children should develop close attachments to other children."I don't think it's particularly healthy for a child to rely on one friend," says Jay Jacobs, director of Timber Lake Camp in New York State. "If something goes awry, it can be devastating. It also limits a child's ability to explore other options in the world."However, as Stout notes: "The last people who should be considered credible when it comes to childhood psychology are camp directors." No, she didn't say that. She said: "Many psychologists believe that close childhood friendships not only increase a child's self-esteem and confidence, but also help children develop the skills for healthy adult relationships - everything from empathy, the ability to listen and console, to the process of arguing and making up". So what should one do, or think behind other people's backs while they do?1) If a child has a close friendship, it will undoubtedly end badly. Childhood friendships are grounded in things like a shared love of the colour orange or a shared hatred of the colour orange. When children grow older, and they will, they'll realize that friendship is more complicated. Based more on whether one likes or dislikes Wolf Blitzer, for example. Of course, the fact that the childhood friendship will inevitably end badly could be seen as a good thing: adult friendships are also inclined to end badly, or at least to become trapped in a defeated, passive-aggressive stalemate, so early experiences of interpersonal failure will prepare him or her for the interpersonal disappointments of later life. 2) If a child has multiple, less serious friendships with other children, he or she will probably never develop whatever skills are necessary for forming and maintaining healthy, grown-up relationships. He or she will always be lonely in a crowd, overly thick-skinned (or overly thin-skinned) and sociopathic.3) Don't get worked up. I can testify to the fact that this is not an either/or proposition: it is entirely possible to be a child and not form either one unhealthy, intense friendship or a number of superficial friendships. I'm sure it will bring you great comfort to know that it is likely that neither of these problems will ever be yours, nor those of any children of yours. Send the Catastrophizer your requests for advice and/or rationalizations using the form conveniently provided HERE. I will publish my responses on the THE CATASTROPHIZER page.
POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough.
I have received my second reader question! From someone who is not in the least related to me! Read on:
Let's say you're the parent of a very successful catastrophizer--should you feel pride, because so much of you lives on in a new generation? Or sadness and regret because your offspring has arguably been infected by your own congenital and over-arching pessimism?
- Anonynomous Individual Not
Responsible for Fathering the
Catastrophizer
Before going any further with this answer, I should make one thing very clear: you should always feel sadness and regret. Very occasionally, you may allow yourself to feel pride, or joy, or elation, but only because those sensations will add a certain piquancy to your subsequent feelings of sadness and regret. Don't be concerned about having to force the return of the sadness and regret; they will come back without much prodding because life is full of things that cause them.
Feeling pride that part of you lives on in the next generation can quite easily be made to result in profound depression (although all things, obviously, can be made to result in profound depression). First of all, that pride is necessarily bound up in the fact that you yourself will die, a fact which is likely to be interpreted as a downer. The individual in whom your qualities (fine ones, I will admit) will live on will also die, possibly without issue. Even if that individual were to produce offspring, those offspring would eventually die, and so on. Even if you belonged to a family that regularly produced progeny, all of whom inherited your qualities, remember that the world itself will most likely shrivel up and disappear at some point in the vast expanse of future time. Your pride will, one way or another, be short-lived.
You should absolutely believe that it is because of your style of parenting/doomed genetic bequest that your child has developed catastrophizing tendencies, because as you've indicated, that line of thought will undoubtedly produce more sadness and regret. However, if you were lucky/unfortunate enough to produce an even vaguely observant child, that child, one way or another, would have grown up catastrophically. The beige and brown Ford Fairmont had nothing to do with it.
Send the Catastrophizer your requests for advice and/or rationalizations using the form conveniently provided HERE. I will publish my responses on the THE CATASTROPHIZER page.
POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough.
Years ago, I read, in a book I can no longer remember the name of, that hundreds of years ago (or so) in Egypt, it was culturally verboten to compliment someone else's child. Instead of saying: "Oh, what a beautiful baby! How adorable! Not at all ugly or shriveled!" one would exclaim: "My GOD, what a dismally unattractive child! I sympathize with you for having to look at such a hideous boil for the rest of its life!"
Why, you probably aren't but I will pretend you are wondering, would friends and strangers subject a child who might well be ugly but still not deserving of such treatment to such treatment?
Because complimenting a child, according to my specialist-level understanding of olden days Egyptian culture, would draw the malevolent eyes of some malevolent gods upon him or her. Someone who is high will be brought low; someone who is already low can only go up (and then down again, inevitably).
This haunting, yet exhaustively informative tale should inform your future, catastrophytes. If you are feeling peppy, immediate cleanse the palate with some wrenching fear, because clearly that enthusiasm will only bring disaster upon you. You do not have to believe in malevolent gods, only the general malevolence of life.
But remember, though, that avoiding a sense of well-being will not help you, either. As life's malevolence is general and disinterested (so it's not really malevolence, per se, but I enjoy the meatiness of that word and so will use it despite its total inappropriateness), you can be struck by almost laughably unfortunate misfortune when you've already been punched in the neck by life.
So did their rhetorical cunning help the Egyptians, or more to the point, their babies? Probably not. Because as I've already said, life can smite you terribly at random times, and not just when you're lookin' good.
Send the Catastrophizer your requests for advice and/or rationalizations using the form conveniently provided HERE. I will publish my responses on the THE CATASTROPHIZER page.
POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough.
When should you introduce your child to catastrophizing? Is there a "right time"? Can a young brain effectively contend with the complexities of this dark art?
Dither no longer: It's never too early to learn how to catastrophize.
Children are like sponges. Selfish, vicious sponges. They are poised to soak up the fruits of your own knowledge of catastrophizing. My understanding is that sponges soak up fruit. Amazing creatures.
Their attitude and environment should already incline them toward catastrophizing. They can't have more treats. They can't not eat disgusting foods forced on them by their parents. They can't wake their parents up quickly enough during the night. Once they reach school age, they'll almost immediately either become a bully, in which case they'll be preoccupied with the flaws of others, or a bully's victim, in which case they'll be preoccupied with their own flaws.
All it takes to rear a catastrophizer, really, is a firm hand and a consistently negative attitude. "Is that a blemish? Oh, my mistake, I forgot you had a disfiguring birthmark there." "You did well on this multiplication test! There are so many professions you'll be able to choose from and be disappointed with!" "You failed your multiplication test! Not that it matters. You'll end up working in an office and feeling as though your talents are underutilized no matter what you score on some totally inconsequential quiz."
"Your teacher has THAT on her wall? What kind of educator finds inspiration in the hardships of an adorable cat? That cat is in TROUBLE, damn it! I think it would prefer a hand down to a totally useless piece of motivational advice!"
Whatever your concerns about catastrophic child-rearing, take heart: even if you somehow fail to instill in your child an affinity for catastrophizing, life will.
Send the Catastrophizer your requests for advice and/or rationalizations using the form conveniently provided HERE. I will publish my responses on the THE CATASTROPHIZER page.
POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough.
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