This Girl Stuff Is Going to Kill Me

This week, The Girl went off to sleep away camp for the first time. I chose a Girl Scouts camp for her, while her big brother went to YMCA camp. I did this for several reasons, but the most important of these were (1) because it was shorter and less expensive than the YMCA camp, and (2) because the camp came highly recommended among Girl Scout leaders in our area.

That it was a Girl Scout camp is of no small importance. As a child, I loved visiting Juliette Gordon Low's Savannah home. In theory, Juliette Gordon Low was one of the first feminist role models for girls, basing her version of scouting on the idea that girls are not inherently neater, cleaner, prissier, or more careful than boys, however much society would like to make it so. I always got the impression that JGL thought that girls can and should enjoy similar pursuits as those of boys. As a girl, this appealed to me. As a woman, as a feminist, and most importantly, as the mother of a girl, this is of critical importance. 

My hope is that GS will help reinforce what I try to teach my daughter (and my sons): that a girl's self-worth should have less to do with what she looks like, what she wears, and the grades she earns in school and more to do with who she is as a person. 

I will readily confess that as The Girl spent 5.5 days at camp, I enjoyed a wee vacation from my middle child. It's a break I really needed as The Girl is super smart, fiercely analytical, somewhat attention-seeking, extremely perceptive, and often overwhelmed by her own emotions. 

It is exhausting. 

I recognize that it's part of my job as a mother to listen to her and help her to navigate those emotions. But it may surprise everyone (or no one, depending on your view of blogging) to learn that I struggle to maintain my voice and authentic self. This adds another layer of work--and another source of fatigue--to the process of mothering a girl. 

Because, really, our society sends such mixed messages to girls and women. We are bombarded with often conflicting information about how to act, how to dress, what and who to like, what to say and how to say it, and what defines femininity, beauty, popularity, and intelligence. 

And the messaging starts early. In the 18 months since I last wrote about this, my girl has spent the intervening time struggling--and failing--to come to terms with the idea that she is "not popular." As her mother, I see both the positive and negative sides of her behavior and interactions with her peers. She feels excluded and she reacts by pouting. But as her mother, I wonder how an 8-year-old comes to feel regularly excluded by her peers?

As a friend pointed out recently, how are such concepts introduced to 7- and 8-year-olds? And how is popularity determined at this age? Is it self-selection or self-declaration? 

I hate summer

It's time for my annual rant about how I hate summer. 

I hate summer.

Why? 

First, it's hot. I am pale-skinned, pale-eyed, pale-haired. I can feel my skin burning in the sun and the heat. I don't feel endorphin-induced euphoria from running around in the sun or relaxing on the beach. I can "lay out" for a grand total of 10 minutes before I flee for the shade. When I was a kid, my mother never sent me to the park district's day camp. I always thought it was because (a) she never remembered the registration date or (b) she didn't work and didn't need the day care element of day camp, but now I wonder if it's because she knew I would come home complaining of a day spent in the sun.

Second, and more importantly, like those economically disadvantaged children discussed in study after study, article after article, I experience brain drain. I feel myself getting stupider by the day as my brain melts out my mouth with the heat and humidity of an archetypical July day in Chicago. 

This is, of course, hyperbole. The very fact that I am writing this post, reading articles like these, and plowing through my stack of both non-fiction books and novels suggests that I remain engaged in the process of learning even through the dog days of summer. 

But it seems a lot harder to do anything in summer. My countdown to the first day of school (30 days, by the way) usually begins on the first week of summer vacation, as my tendency toward free-range parenting kicks me in the ass when I realize that my summer plans for my children of playdates and pool have been dashed by that over which I have no control: day camp, vacations, and the weather.

It's July 26th and I am out of ideas. I cannot seem to muster the kind of "isn't this great?!" cheerleading that seems to accompany most child-centered activities. A few months ago, I read a book on organizational psychology called Drive, by Daniel Pink. Pink's theory is that individuals are most motivated by doing things that are intrinsically satisfying rather than "incentivizing" individuals to perform certain tasks. Modern parenting, it seems to me, is one giant game of carrot-and-stick. One that I am not particularly interested in playing today. 

Craft Mobile

The Girl stayed home from camp this morning and spent the day with The Boy, The Tot and me. We started the day by attending the Disney II kindergarten playdate; Caroline D. moved it this week to Kolmar Playlot so that we could take advantage of the park district's Craftmobile. From my perspective, this was a disastrous move; most of the kindergarten was at camp, Magic Mushroom, or other summer programs, and The Boy was not happy about playing with the 3 girls from his class who were at the park. He eventually calmed down enough to paint a beautiful dolphin as the craft. The Tot and The Girl painted dolphins as well.

We made a quick dash to K-Mart afterwards, where we ran into our neighbors D. and H. and their nanny. We met them a bit later at Athletic Field Park to run through the sprinklers together. I somehow ended up pulling 4 kids in our wagon on the way home. Oooof.

Musing on Motherhood

This morning, after dropping The Girl off at Kilbourn Park camp, I took The Tot and The Boy to our usual Monday morning playdate at the Disney II playground. The Boy played with his friends, and Grandma Texas and I talked with the moms. The organizer came in late, telling us that she's fed up with her children's seemingly endless bickering and ingratitude for all that she does for them. She pointed out that we do so much more to entertain our children than our mothers did when we were young.

And she's right. But how did we get from there to here? Although I don't think of myself as a constant entertainer for my children, I realized that in my own way -- taking them to the zoo, museums, farmer's markets, etc. -- I am guilty of entertaining my children, possibly of entertaining them too much. Are my friends and I raising another generation of spoiled brats? Will my children have the sense of entitlement that appears to have permeated the latter half of the Millennials?

It's an interesting question to ponder, although even pondering it feels like yet another indulgence in the parenting-as-movement culture. Between celebrity babies and contemplative articles every week in The New York Times's culture section, The Atlantic Monthly, and other such cerebral pubs, not to mention the seemingly endless number of mom-blogs, it seems that the parenting culture is steeped in itself. Were our parents so deliberate in their parenting? Did they even have a "parenting philosophy?" And if they did (which I doubt), how did they overcome the isolation of parenting in the absence of e-mail, the Internet, mobile phones, and in the presence of a still-intact standard of socialization? Barriers may have been coming down in 1970, but no one was watching Jon and Kate Gosselin's marriage unravel on national television.

In the circles I run in, it seems that modern mothers have benefitted from time, education, and wealth (which gives us time) to examine and re-examine our parenting. Are we overthinking things? Much has been made of parenting-by-instinct, but even in the days of Laura Ingalls Wilder (we have been reading The Little House in the Big Woods before bed) and her Pa, a societal order was imposed on everyday interactions. And has "conventional parenting wisdom" embedded itself so deep in our collective parenting psyche that we're unable to discern instinct from CW? And even if we were, could we withstand the mommy drive-bys that would inevitably occur? My instinct is that it's OK if I leave The Tot and The Girl in my gated backyard to play while I am working just inside, but CW (and perhaps DCFS) would disagree with me. And thus, I have became an entertainer for my children.

Walk, Walk, Walk

Camp days have become unofficial stay-at-home/neighborhood days for us. With the timing and location of both The Boy's and The Girl's camps and The Tot's naps (plus gas at $4+/gallon), it just makes sense to hang out around the neighborhood. The Girl did not have camp today, but The Boy did.

After camp, I invited Allison and her kids over to play, and O., who will attend Disney II with The Boy and Enver in the fall, came over as well. There were a few squabbles as Enver and The Boy tried to exclude O. on the basis of her gender or age (she's not quite 5 yet), but for the most part, they did really well. We played in the pool, ate a bunch of snacks, and just hung out.

After everyone left around 3, I put a movie on for The Boy and The Girl and put The Tot down for a nap. By the time I was finished, both The Boy and The Girl had passed out in front of the movie. They all slept until nearly 6. We had dinner, and since The Dad worked late and I needed to tire them out a bit, we walked up to Baskin-Robbins for ice cream.

It was a good day.