Child Protective Services
I was telling a good friend of mine a story about my 2yr 3mos old daughter that I thought was funny involving her jumping on the loveseat and disappearing over the arm. My wife and I were cracking up. To preface, my daughter did not get hurt and only whimpered because it scared her until, of course, she got back up and continued her antics.
Here is the issue...what I find as a humorous story could be construed completely different depending upon delivery and audience perspective. First, we tell company that she is not allowed to jump on the furniture when she actually does it all the time. She has proven to be very agile for her age and has earned some wiggle room on the rules, but outsiders don't know this and we pretend that it is not the case. Further, as I told the story, it definitely could have been seen as a form of parental neglect...we sat there and watched our daughter carry out an activity that could easily result in some type of injury. So...when I tell my "humorous" stories about my kids, are the listeners cringing and preparing to call authorities?
Realistically, this is not outsides the bounds of parneting and common childhood experiences and I know that we are the best parents in the world. My friend supported my question though in a story about playing with his nephews and the perspective of those watching the rough housing. For me, it comes down to the fact that I truly see my daughters as an extension of myself, and I feel very capable and transpose this to them. We will see how this approach plays out.
You can't prove anything!
Here is the issue...what I find as a humorous story could be construed completely different depending upon delivery and audience perspective. First, we tell company that she is not allowed to jump on the furniture when she actually does it all the time. She has proven to be very agile for her age and has earned some wiggle room on the rules, but outsiders don't know this and we pretend that it is not the case. Further, as I told the story, it definitely could have been seen as a form of parental neglect...we sat there and watched our daughter carry out an activity that could easily result in some type of injury. So...when I tell my "humorous" stories about my kids, are the listeners cringing and preparing to call authorities?
Realistically, this is not outsides the bounds of parneting and common childhood experiences and I know that we are the best parents in the world. My friend supported my question though in a story about playing with his nephews and the perspective of those watching the rough housing. For me, it comes down to the fact that I truly see my daughters as an extension of myself, and I feel very capable and transpose this to them. We will see how this approach plays out.
You can't prove anything!
posted by ajparrillo at 12:44 PM
6 Comments:
I was pushing an empty stroller around Macy's this weekend, looking for my wife & kid. I was pretty sure they were 1 floor down, so I took the stroller down the escalator. As people passed on the way up, I heard a few of them gasp and then say "Oh, it's empty! I thought there was a baby in there!"
Truth be told, I have taken Henry on the escalator in his stroller before, both up & down (guess that makes me a bad dad). Nobody ever said anything then, but now I know what they were thinking.
I don't do it anymore, FWIW.
I used to always catch my nephew when he ran straight towards the edge of a high piece of playground equipment. My brother told me to finally let him run off the edge so he’d learn his lesson that heights do hurt just a little. It ended up being a good strategy. Now he’ll play on anything, but actually hold on and show some sort of sense. Sometimes you have to let kids be kids.
None of us grew up wearing helmets, right?
I have a real issue with bike helmets...is there a real benefit? I read somewhere that child seats in cars really provide no more actual safetly, statistically, and only serve as a phychological assurance. I think it was an exerpt in Freakonomics.
I remember being a little kid in the back seat of the car (no car seat for us) with a lap belt on. My mom turned the corner, the door flew open and I hung out the door, saved from certain death only by the lap belt. Rather than being mortified, my mom laughed. Can you imaging witnessing something like that today?
Testing...is my avatar back?
...or perhaps this is more dramatic.
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