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December 17, 2002

****Gauging a friendship

This week a mystery from my past has finally been resolved. It’s not as if it’s been haunting me for years but it has been lurking far way in some recess and an exchange in the diary group’s forum brought it back up to the surface.

Two of my current best friends and I met in junior high. During those school years we did everything as a trio. Things changed when we got to college. We all started in sciences but B. and P. switched over to business. The budding differences extended to our social networks. We weren’t always attracted to the same types of people or groups. I was attracted to the sporty types and they preferred the artsy types. Because I liked B. & P. a lot and because it was 2 against 1, I would always end up following them. It’s not as if they’d have to twist my arm; there is an artsy side to me after all. It also helps that I was at an age where I was curious about how others lived and let me tell you many did not get to enjoy my Cottonelle childhood. On the flip side, I unconsciously resisted full inclusion because I always felt that to fit in I’d have to put on this depressed, morose life is so dark attitude. They probably sensed this and never really accepted me into the group like they did with my two friends.

One day while I was absent, one of the groupies told my friends B. that he was glad I was not there. He couldn’t stand me and my laughter. My friend eventually repeated this to me and I could not help but feel betrayed. I could not understand why she was telling me this and how she could not have defended me. I didn’t dwell on it too much and simply stored in a part of my brain labelled: mean streak. After all these years, I finally had a revelation. She probably didn’t feel that he was insulting me as much as stating his opinion and, deep down, probably wished I was a little more “cool”. On that note, that’s probably why she told me, simply hoping I’d make more of an effort. I’d like to believe that had he really insulted me, she would have come to my defence and I’ve known her for so long now that I am 100% sure she would have.

The moral of this story is that you can’t expect friends to agree with you and defend you at ALL times. You should only expect them to lend a helping hand when you really need it and gauging is the name of the game.

****Gauging my parenting style

What defines good parenting? How do you measure it? Do you measure its success on an individual basis or do you do it on a national level? How independent can parents really be and how much should be dictated by society i.e. the government? Who am I to say that the developed world is faring better than the tribes in Papua, New Guinea? On a GDP measure we’re, no doubt ahead by leaps and bounds, but on an emotional level it’s not that clear cut. All I know is that, to me, it feels cosy in this part of the world and I don’t want my kids to live like the ones in the tribes! Obviously parenting is all about choices.

I believe in diversity. To maintain it we need to adopt and accept a variety of parenting styles. Society needs all types of individuals with original ideas and different ways of doing things. Despite their differences, it is primordial that all of these styles converge on specific issues related to the maintenance of social order. In my mind, the implications of a ballooning population in the world are becoming ever more pressing. If we think the line between individual freedoms and the common good is very fine today just imagine the USA 50 years from now when twice today’s number of inhabitants will want to own a piece of land AND want to prohibit deforestation. I TRY not to judge but I am only human and when I feel that a parenting style does not include the principles backing social order I get very edgy. Some people tend to think that their parenting style is no one else’s business but I could not disagree more. I realize that we are free to parent in the way we feel is appropriate and must accept others’ ways of doing things but in the final analysis, my children will be impacted by their children’s actions and I feel that gives me every right to express my opinions.

I find some recent trends very disturbing. We live in a society that measures happiness by material success and I’ve noticed that the prevalent parenting style, in my circle anyway, promotes the “making a leader out of my child” approach. The unfortunate reality is that there are always more Indians than there are chiefs. What’s going to happen is that many children are going to be brought up to become chiefs but will end up being Indians. They will have been ill prepared for their lot in life and this is going to amount to cases of depression, crime, hatred, frustration, anxiety, broken marriages. I believe that the child’s outcome in life depends 50% on the upbringing and 50% on his natural inclinations i.e. his/her genetics. I’ve noticed that many parents seem to forget about the genetics side of the equation. The only way to break this pattern is to stop adorning the leaders and start appreciating all doers in every strut of life. Only when all types of careers paths will be appreciated will individuals feel good about following their true vocation and lead a more productive life.

If I had to define my style, I’d call it “the wheel principle". The wheel starts turning when you are born and stops when you die. As the wheel turns on the path of life, pressure will be put on different spokes. As the seasons change the wheel will need some maintenance. As mileage builds up, some spokes will need adjustments and some will be replaced. Happiness, the ultimate goal, will depend on the smoothness of the ride. The strength of the wheel depends on the set of spokes, each representing a different value: love, friendship, health, education, self esteem, money, family, career, etc. You don’t want too many spokes or else the wheel will be too heavy but you don’t want to have too little either or else your wheel won’t be very sturdy. One crooked spoke could cause your wheel to be off kilt but as long as you have enough maintained spokes it will never collapse.

Breastfeeding and vaccination, those are two parenting issues that provoke much controversy... On the breastfeeding issue, the pendulum has swung too far in my opinion of course! The putsch for breastfeeding nowadays is as intense as the denaturalization of childbirth in the 50s. Frankly, I find the self-righteousness annoying. I do believe that breast milk is the best… in a perfect world that is. I’m not convinced that a sleep deprived badly nourished mother’s milk is necessarily healthier than formula. My grandmother had 7 children and she stopped breast feeding after the 2nd. All my aunts and uncles are still healthy today. In the 1800 and 1900s, Quebec’s French Canadian couples were having up to 15 children. Do you really think they were all breast fed? Chances are my grandparents weren’t and they’re perfectly healthy in their late 80s. Eric’s mom was allergic to milk and fed diluted juice; she’s still healthy today. If it was so clear cut, there would not be so much controversy. I also believe that habits such as smoking, drinking and bad diets are much more determinant of a child’s future well being than whether he/she was breastfed or not.

I pumped for two months while Victor was in the NICU and I did not enjoy it in the least bit. The only reason I pursued the activity was because I wanted to give him all the help I could give. I had not given him the perfect genes, the least I could do was pass on some antibodies. By the time he came home, my nipples were so crusty that I could not bare the pain anymore and quit. What didn’t help was the fact that Victor needed to grow so even if I wanted to nurse, the fortified formula was THE staple. Many friends assured me that pumping was rougher than breastfeeding and that I should expect it to be a breeze with a real baby. Olivia was voracious from the start and it took more than three days for my milk to come in. On the first day, she nearly sucked my nipples right off. The nursing Nazis quickly came to my rescue but went into shock at the sight of my breasts. One of them finally admitted that blondes tend to have more sensitive nipples but that she’d never seen cracks like mine in her 20 year career. Surely Olivia was not latching on properly. They checked how she was doing it and she was doing everything just fine. Before her discharge, the paediatrician came to check up on her. As she put her finger in her mouth, I saw her eyes bulge out as she exclaimed with a British accent: “She’s got quite the suck!” I tried nursing for two weeks but every time she would latch on, the pain was so intense my legs would jerk up into the air. I decided to cut down on the feeds in order to leave my nipples time to heal but my milk production dried up. So out I went to rent a pump. It didn’t take long to develop a new set of cracks and sores. That’s when Eric forced me to choose. It had to be one or the other, not both. We were all sleep deprived and miserable, so for the sake of my family I opted for the formula.

Now the vaccination issue… I dread having my children vaccinated but I do it anyway for the greater good. I must admit that I have a problem with parents who deny their children of the vaccinations. They can opt out because the general population gets their children vaccinated. I can’t help but think that if no one got it done and infectious disease rates shot up, they’d be the first ones to jump on the opportunity of getting the vaccine. In January, I have to bring Olivia for her 18 month doctor's appointment and vaccinations. Uuugh!

****Gauging my childrens’ characters

so•cia•ble adj.

1. Fond of the company of others; gregarious.
2. Marked by or affording occasion for agreeable conversation and conviviality.
3. Pleasant, friendly, and affable.

That’s my Victor! When Victor was born, I didn’t know much about DS and wanted to get a better feeling for what it was all about so I went and got myself a couple of books. One of them was full of quotes from parents of children with DS. The common thread was that they might be intellectually handicapped but boy do they ever rank high on their social skills. I had a lot of trouble understanding the concept. Victor is growing up and I’m finally starting to grasp it. Here is a glimpse of their traits:

In the store, the Olivinator must absolutely, most positively, hold on to something. And even that is not enough, she also has to own everything in sight. At her age, Victor did not want to hold on to anything. He did not want anything to be in his reach and if it was, he’d throw it out of the basket. He would point to the stuff that interested him but had absolutely no desire in owning it. Olivia will flirt but it’s obviously egocentric. It’s flagrant that she is doing it for the attention. She doesn’t “reach out to people”. She expects it to fall right on her lap. Victor would do everything in his power to get other people’s attention and it was not for egocentric reasons. He just liked giving others a warm smile.

Victor is not very materialistic. One of our goals was to try and get him attached to a stuffed animal, a blanket, anything. Well that never worked. He needs toys and other stuff to do what he wants but does not get attached to them. At the other end of the spectrum, Olivia gets very attached to things and it’s much easier to get Olivia to do stuff since her desire to get something is so strong that she will fold to get it. Victor’s desire for stuff is so weak that it’s very tough to get him to do what we want him to and even when he does strongly desire something, he will not give in. It’s as if he does not have the desire to please. This also means that praise is a hard sell, it just does not work as well on Victor as it does on Olivia. Now that I have Victor, I realize how manipulative we humans really are but at the same time how society keeps us in line.

We’re all products of society but Victor marches to his own drummer. He’s what we call a true independent mind.