Our neighbor yells very loudly once per day for about 20 minutes. The building next door – to the left as you face our house – is mixed-use with a toys shop and women's boutique downstairs and Patmos Blue Chambers, a small hotel upstairs – probably three or four rooms at most. I'm not sure I have seen an actual guest enter or exit. The hotel has several bible citations on its name signs – from Revelations, of course. Once I saw a man sitting near the window of a front room who I suspect to be the yelling man and in my imagination, the owner.
Typically between 6:00 and 7:00 pm, if I'm sitting on the porch, I hear crazy, loud, enraged yelling – for long enough to take notice, but not long enough that it's an ongoing nuisance. I THINK it's in Greek, but I'm surprisingly unsure. It has an Ike Turner-level sound to it. Only, I never hear anything indicating someone being hurt. I've hypothesized many things: verbally abusing his spouse, schizophrenia or some other delusion, practicing for a play, angry phone calls, religious fervor, the man is actually a ghost, pain medication wearing off, the man's crazy wife is locked in the attic Jane Eyre style, the Smurfs escaping his clutches again.
No one in the neighborhood seems to react and I assume if there was some danger, Christos at Cafe Mostra would act – or the ladies who run the shops below the hotel. I don't imagine they want to feel unsafe. Or Alessandro down the street who could break most people like twigs. Either they aren't hearing the yelling because it's coming from a window closer to my house – or the neighborhood has deemed it not a threat. As a point of contrast, the owner of Kelari Pizza next door to Mostra once had an argument with his significant other (spouse or girlfriend, I don't know) and became livid and loud. Within a minute, Christos had the man out back, behind their establishments calming him down. The rage created immediate concern and the community reacted. Not so for whatever's going on in the little guest-less hotel.
A Dutch woman I know who works for my friend George managing luxury properties once told me upon finding out I had bought my house that the people next door to me are terrible people and not to engage them. It hasn't been hard since I don't even see them. I realize I could inquire of my neighborhood friends and probably get more information – but it seems like if there's no detectable violence and no one else is disturbed by it, leaving well enough alone is the right move in this community – where I'm an associate member.
Yesterday I read an article in The Wall Street Journal talking about a new trend in parenting – getting stricter with boundaries. Proponents call it "F- Around and Find Out" or FAFO parenting. I'm not fond of the name. The idea, however, is not as bad as it sounds. It's old fashioned boundaries with consequences. The article gave an example of a mom whose thirteen-year-old son squirted her in the face with his squirt gun multiple times despite her requests and warnings. They were camping by a lake, so the mom picked him up and threw him in. She acknowledged that approach isn't for every-kid – she knew hers would be fine with it and in fact, he laughed. The message also got through that she had a limit.
That's a more extreme example – but the idea that if a kid doesn't like dinner, their next chance to eat is breakfast or toys not put away end up in the trash – is the basis of the movement. Numerous warnings, negotiations, long conversations deleted. Simple actions and consequences.
There's nothing new about this approach and parenting with consequences like Love and Logic has been around for decades. My parents never threw me in a lake, but consequences were very much a part of my upbringing as was earning and spending my own money for things I wanted they thought might be frivolous – another version of creating responsibility with choices and outcomes. In other words, my parents had limits and felt those limits benefited us all – which they did.
When Sennen was in Mommy and Me with Emily, the teacher was certified in Positive Discipline and did periodic workshops – which we attended. One of Miss Bonnie's key points was that kids NEED discipline. Although they test their wills and want what they want, their biggest fear is a world in which they can have anything they want – because then they are unprotected. There is no one watching out for them, protecting them, helping to bring order to the world. It is endemic to the parent-child relationship that a parent must discipline and even when kids don't like it in the moment, they like and need the overall outcome.
As it sounds, Positive Discipline is a way to create the consequences and structure without sounding like the man in the hotel next door. Miss Bonnie framed it as kids need freedom within a structure. Empowering them and giving them autonomy is important – but within a structure that provides lessons and safety.
The question is how such a thing became rare? Why did a generation of parents begin to feel like setting limits turned them in to the crazy man (or ghost?) next door?
I'm sure there are excellent studies, essays, documentaries and books (both academic and pop-psychology) on this very topic with many compelling theories. Mine is more that sometimes the pendulum swings too far before it finds equilibrium. Beating your kids with a belt was bad. Leaving kids at home alone in he latch-key generation was also problematic. But tending to your children's needs and well being like they are potted plants in a garden may be going too far the other way. Yes, like everyone, kids need to feel seen and heard. Also like everyone, that doesn't mean they are always right or that every feeling is important.
Helicoptering and snowploughing are not better than latch-keying, it's just the other end of the spectrum. We'll leave corporal punishment in another category because the line between discipline and abuse can easily become blurred – and possibly even invites it. That said, it was seen within the cultural norms of its day and did not always have an emotionally scarring effect.
I think it's a credit to American society that physical and verbal abuse became unacceptable. In my grandparents' generation, you didn't pry into what went on in other people's homes and a parent's prerogative was nearly absolute. People might know someone was physically, verbally and/or emotionally absuing their kids, but there wasn't much to be done except maybe offering a kid an occasional refuge. Women who were the victims of abuse didn't fare much better.
When I was growing up, American sitcoms were addressing abuse, creating awareness and breaking the taboo around the conversation. The Facts of Life of all shows broke new ground with a 1982 episode "Spare the Rod" about a boy named Toby whose father beats him and what the main characters do with this information. A February 5, 1983 episode of Differ'nt Strokes "The Bicycle Man" was both groundbreaking and shocking for the time for addressing molestation specifically.
Over the course of the 80's and 90's we changed from a society that kept abuse swept under the rug to one where parents became more vigilant and teachers and other professionals became mandatory reporters.
Like everything, sometimes when we look too vigilantly, we see things that aren't there and false reporting became an issue – with stories of people losing custody of their kids who really had not committed abuse. Likewise, we went from latchkey kids who may have have felt unseen and unheard among latchkey kids to kids whose parents wouldn't take their attention off their kids – sculpting and molding them and/or honoring every aspect of their unique snowflakes.
The other day Sennen and Ailyn were telling me about their recent stay at Camp Alonim – a Jewish camp on the Brandeis-Bardin Institute's 3,000 acre tract of land in Simi Valley, California. Kids come from throughout the west coast. We happen to be lucky enough to live 25 minutes away. This year, Sennen found humor and challenge in a girl who is a "furry" – someone who is not just gender-fluid but identifies as an animal. In this girl's case, a horse. She wore a tail each day and periodically spent time neighing. This is a real movement – there are kids in liberal cities around the country – but particularly in places like Seattle, Portland and San Francisco where parents are honoring their children's "furry" nature and schools actually discuss accommodating furry kids who identify as cats with litter-boxes.
Sennen seemed to feel the horsey-girl was funny until one day when he referred to her as "her", she began singing a song about "gender assumptions" AT him, to shame-educate him. Sennen felt there was nothing wrong with not buying into the girl being a horse and that if she wanted a different pronoun, he didn't mind her asking – but that assuming a girl was a "she" or "her" wasn't a crime. "I don't want to have to ask everyone their pronouns and share mine!"
Understandable. And who wants to feel they are in social conflict for recognizing a human girl is not a horse?
If anything, a parent accommodating or supporting their kid's true nature and gender being a horse, cat or anything else where you scoop their poop is a form of psychological abuse.
Parenting is hard work. As the lady who threw her kid in a lake pointed out, that worked for her kid and might not be right for another, just as the Differn't Strokes theme song pointed out "What might be right for you, may not be right for some." There is no hard and fast formula, method or rule for raising a human being. There are some good principles to guide us. A lot of it seems to involve awareness – of yourself and your kid. Finding something that isn't too much or too little takes a lot of consideration which can be hard when our brains like to shortcut to what was modeled for us – which may or may not have been so great. Or maybe it was great for a sibling or not for us. Or it was great some categories or not in others. It's all complicated to sort through.
I think Miss Bonnie (Vandenburg so she gets adult credit) is probably right. The balance lies in finding a way to undertake the necessary discipline without making it mean or degrading. We can be thoughtful and loving while setting boundaries and holding lines. In fact, that takes the most consciousness because, as Miss Bonnie liked to point out, we can also set our kids up for failure. One small thing I took from her was avoiding saying "no". She pointed out that no one likes to be told "no" all the time. Phrases like, "hands off", "please put that down" are "no" in a less ambiguous way, reducing confusing for young kids because you're instructing them in the specific action they need to come into compliance. I still use it.
Not to say I'm a perfect parent. However, when the alternatives around me involve getting a camp or school to allow a litter-box for my kid or something found on a parental-guidance episode of Differn't Strokes, I feel like I'm operating within acceptable parenting parameters. I do wish I was more patient at times. Sometimes I wish I went to consequences sooner. Although other times I wonder if I jump to them too quickly. Sometimes I think I'm permissive in apology for the divorce. I wonder if I should push them more in certain areas. Other times, I feel I could get their perspectives better. There's no such thing as 20-20 contacts for parenting.
All of that to say there's a big gap between adoring your perfect snowflake and ending up the angry guy in the Patmos Blue Chambers. And an even bigger one to being Arnold and his friend Dudley. Some common sense, vigilance and self-awareness seem to be the best tools anyone has at their disposal.
