Author: Sheila Quirke

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Super Nanny Where Are You? The Reverse Time-Out

Time-outs are not a common thing in our home, but they happen.  Mary Tyler Son just turned three years old and every once in a while that adorable angel, the fruit of our marital love, acts the fool. 

Yes.  It happens.

We follow a fairly standard time-out routine.  Having just turned three, Mary Tyler Son is now doled out three minutes in the time-out chair instead of two for his indescretions.  Most commonly, those involve hitting one of us, kicking us, or simply not responding to our directions without them being repeated a number of times.  I see red when my boy is impertinent.  There is no way in hell that I would have ever been allowed to sass my Irish Catholic father.  Mary Tyler Dad is more patient and forgiving on that count.  Not me. 

Believe me when I say that Super Nanny taught me everything I know about toddler discipline.  For reals.  That gal is smart.  Like Toddler Whisperer smart.  When her show was cancelled, my heart started beating fast, as I never fully paid attention to her discipline strategies for older kids, tweens, or teens.  Mary Tyler Son is %^&*$# after age five (UGH – I just made another promise to my Dad that I would not swear on MTM). 

But he is not five yet.  He is just three and that means I have two more years to worry about discipline post toddlerhood.  That will come later.

Right now, I am struggling with our current time-out protocol and with Super Nanny having left me high and dry, I need help.  Your help. 

Mary Tyler Son is smart.  And feisty.  Kind of like me.  He does not like his time-out accommodations and getting him to sit still in the designated chair (a super cool mid-century restaurant booster seat in bent wood and red vinyl, yo) turns a three minute time-out into a 40 minute ordeal. 

He knows his Dad is coming from a different discipline place and style and has conned him into having a time-out in his lap or on the top stair (so unsafe when you have 14 stairs).  He knows I am a glutton for punishment and will spend the time it takes to keep his toochus in that little piece of mid-century perfection.  I will do just as Super Nanny instructed and without words keep returning that boy to his seat. 

At some magincal point in this interaction, without fail, it becomes about THE PRINCIPLE for me.  If I tell my misbehaving boy to sit in a chair for three minutes, dagnabbit it, he will sit in that chair for three minutes.  This has made time-outs a bit of a contact sport in our home.  Mary Tyler Son strays and I retrieve.  The clock does not start ticking until his bum in on the seat.  He knows this and challenges it every last time.

This is tiring.  Exhausting for both of us.  Silly, really, but still necessary, as I do not want to raise a brat that has no respect for rules, boundaries, the needs of others.  No, siree!  I want to raise kids who are aware and respectful of others and their needs.  This is “non-negotiable,” a term I use frequently to alert my son when something is a deal breaker. 

Okay.  That said, I don’t always have 40 minutes to administer proper discipline technique, expecially as Mary Tyler Son is most likely to misbehave during transitions — time for bed, time for nap, time for leaving the house, time to eat.  And, yes, I always give fair warning that these transitions are happening.  Exasperatingly, he never hears these warnings and ignores the timer my mother-in-law cleverly suggested we use at the five minute mark.  Sigh.

So anyways.  Yesterday we were both home.  We were tired and cranky after a weekend away visiting grandparents and getting home late.  (Thank you, United Airlines, for allowing me to experience the joys of entertaining my boy at boring mid-sized airport for an extra couple of hours!)  Mary Tyler Son had a bit of a stomach bug, too.  Minor, though.  In retrospect, I think it was just the re-entry to our routine that was upsetting to him.  He missed his grandparents and the lovely time they showed him. 

He kicked me after my explaining for the umpteenth time that No, we were not going to the Shedd Aquarium to see fish.  This despite he himself having gleefully stated he did not want to go see fish as he needed a day at home to “rest.”  He kicked me.  No freaking way my boy is allowed to kick me.  And kicking and hitting are non-warning events — Mary Tyler Son knows that kicking and hitting lead to an instant time-out.  Do not pass GO, do not collect $200.

Well, as expected, his shenanigans started.  Honestly, folks, I did not have it in me to wrestle him for 40 minutes.  After returning him to the time-out seat the third time, turning my back and hearing his little feet follow me, I made an executive decision.  I headed straight to my bedroom, shut and locked the door, and steeled myself for three minutes while Mary Tyler Son wailed and carried on just outside.  Yes, I did.  I might have checked facebook during those three minutes.  Maybe. 

At the end of those moments of deep breathing on my part, I calmly opened the door, kneeled down to talk to my boy, and dropped my jaw when he said, “I’m sorry Mommy.  I’m sorry for kicking you.” He then reached his little arms around my neck to give me “cuddles and kisses,” just like Super Nanny taught us. 

What just happened?  Had I stumbled upon the greatest thing since pre-cut green beans?  Had the time-out gods smiled down at me, providing divine revelation about a different way?  Was I to be the next Super Nanny, elevating the ABC schedule to new heights of amazingness?

I don’t know.  It could be simple dumb luck.  It could never be duplicated again.  I will definitely report back.  With Super Nanny in retirement, we all need some guidance.  How could she have ever left me?  Sigh. 

 

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Nice.

Nice is my favorite four letter word.  I value nice.  My Mom taught all her children to be nice.  Whether we practice it is up for debate, but I try.  I wish there was more nice in the world.  Actually, there is a small, beautiful city named Nice in the south of France.  I’ve been there, but the hostel I was staying in wasn’t so nice (semen stains on the cot, yo), which is why they probably pronounce it neece.

I want to take a few of your moments today to talk about nice and its relevance/absence in our modern world.  My guess is that lots of your Moms were like my Mom, working hard to teach their kids the lessons and importance of treating others as we would like to be treated.  With respect. With dignity.  Nicely.

Too often, I feel the absence of nice in our world today.  Our kids grow up with a paucity of the stuff.  They witness politicians on both sides of the aisle acting like brute buffoons.  They see and hear “news” commentators with a constant flow of vitriol shouting through the airwaves.  The bullies of our play yards have now moved into our kids inbox, smart phones, and facebook walls.  There is little respite from the absence of nice.

A few weeks ago I wrote what became a very polarizing and controversial post about the idea of a bald Barbie doll.  Full disclosure, I wasn’t feeling too nice as I wrote it, which is no doubt apparent in the tone of my words and strength of my stance.  I try to be nice, but I don’t always succeed.  I’ll keep trying.

Somehow, the organizer of the bald Barbie “cause” found my post in under an hour.  We exchanged what I thought was respectful dialogue about her POV and my POV.  Only later did I learn that she had shared my post on the facebook wall of the “cause,” labeling it as “negative.”  Then the real fireworks began.  By the next evening, people were suggesting that anyone who did not want a bald Barbie should be shot.  Yikes.  Not nice.

Honestly, I’m sick of Barbie.

About a week later, I live facebooked the Golden Globes.  I’ve done this for a couple of years now, first on my own page, but starting last fall, on the MTM facebook page.  In September for the Emmys, I gained 400+ readers to the page over the course of the evening.  When I naively started the same thing with the Golden Globes, I got an earful from more than a few folks about how rude it was that I was blowing up their facebook feeds.

Totally my bad.  I didn’t realize it in the moment, but when I went to my own wall and saw the sheer volume of MTM celebrity snark, yeah, I could totally see their point.  I apologized the next day and most of the readers who left me came back.  I strategized about the Oscars so my readers’ feeds would not be all snark all the time.   When you make a mistake, own it, correct it, apologize, and move on.

Yesterday I shared a fellow blogger’s post about his dislike of Jenny McCarthy and her responsibility for the vaccination rate dropping.  I was coming at it from the POV of being a mom who had a daughter who was severely immunocompromised.  For me, in my experience, unvaccinated children were a very real danger to my already deadly vulnerable girl.

Well, color me stupid, but the gates of hell opened up on my facebook wall. The original post garnered something like ten comments while my share had 150 and counting.  I’ve read every single comment.  Some are heartbreaking.  Some are angry.  Some are mean and nasty.  On both sides of the argument.  The hate and anger expressed when someone has a different POV, a different opinion born of different experiences honestly scares me.

I didn’t like it and promised Mary Tyler Dad I would stop visiting the Barbie wall after shooting came into the equation.  And I don’t like it when the fine folks who keep me company every day on facebook express similar strongly worded comments towards others that don’t share their opinion.

One reader thought it was my responsibility to delete offensive posts to “retain credibility.”  I don’t really know what that means, but I also feel strongly that it’s not my responsbility.  Hate and anger and ugly is part of us, for better or worse.  Me erasing it isn’t going to make it go away.  Me erasing it simply makes me complicit in creating a polarized, damn-what-you-don’t-like kind of world.

I don’t want to live in that world.

I want to live in a world where it’s okay to have different opinions and share those freely without fear of being shot or punched or called four letter names not nearly as nice as nice.   And strong opinions are always welcome.  I am a passionate gal.  There is nothing like a good, heated debate to get my juices flowing.

One of my favorite facebook friends is a boy I went to grade school with.  I haven’t seen this guy since 1983 and truth be told, he was way more popular than I in the land mines of childhood.  When we friended one another a few years ago I was chagrined to see that our politics did not match.  And that we were both very vocal with our politics. But you know what?  We respect one another.  We challenge one another.  We, dare I say, learn from one another. Well, okay, maybe not that far, but we do tolerate and enjoy one another’s POVs.  We both keep it clean.  And while we haven’t swayed the other, I have learned from the guy.  I respect him.

Sometimes the ugliness on the MTM facebook wall gets me down. Something like bald Barbie or vaccines or circumcision comes along and I really step in it.  Some of the time, I know I am being provocative, like with Barbie.  Other times, I have no freaking idea that so many others think differently than myself and in a deeply passionate way.

So in the interest of nice, the respect and simplicity of a more genteel manner, Imma ask each of my facebook readers to keep it nice.  Respect one another.  Keep it clean.  Don’t keep it bland, or sanitized, or muted, but do keep it honorable.

The irony that we as parents are the ones responsible for teaching our kids values, morals, and manners is thick when all of us folks are letting it fly on facebook.  That’s just plain hypocritical.  We can do better.  So feel free to keep me company over on my facebook wall.  I will try to keep you entertained, and stimulated, and thinking, and feeling, and laughing.

You will not always agree with me.  I hope you don’t, cause then I just start feeling like an odd Mother Theresa type (oops — was that offensive?).  When you disagree with me, let me know.  Respectfully.  When I disagree with you, I will do the same,  Respectfully.  Nicely.  I promise that I will learn from you, and you from me.

Doesn’t that sound nice?

 

 

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Happy Birthday, Mary Tyler Mom!

MTM Birthday Cake

This month, Mary Tyler Mom celebrates her first birthday.  This makes me happy.

When I went back to work after a four year hiatus last winter, I took that return to normalcy as an opportunity to write about something other than grief and sadness.  A blog was born.  Mary Tyler Mom got her name from one of my childhood icons, Mary Tyler Moore.  She was a symbol of independence and sexiness and capability and pluck and pantsuits and spunk.  She could turn the world on with her smile.  She was gonna make it after all.  Just like me.  Mary Tyler Moore was my patron saint of hope.

After a few months hanging out with my three readers, writing weekly posts about working and mothering, I made the decision to move MTM to ChicagoNow.  I struggled with the decision at first, worrying about “creative control,” and other pretentious things like that.  In the end, the move was one of the best decisions I have ever made.  I met other bloggers, amazing writers, and mighty human beings who supported me and helped me make a home for Mary Tyler Mom.   I had the voice and now I had a platform.

In September, a fellow blogger (Thanks, Susie!  I didn’t forget!) nominated me for “My 7 Links,” a blogger’s challenge to identify particular posts in seven different categories.  Well, I was a little busy in September with Donna’s Cancer Story, but at this first birthday, it seems like a perfect opportunity to look back and throw my beret up in the air.

The Goal:  “To unite bloggers (from all sectors) in a joint endeavor to share lessons learned and create a bank of long but not forgotten blog posts that deserve to see the light of day again.”

My 7 Links:

Most Beautiful Post:  “Kraft och Omtanke” to You.  This was written in October, while I was still trying to come down after having written Donna’s Cancer Story.  The volume of love and support which was shown to me during those few days still moves me.  To be at the receiving end of all that can’t help but change you.  A reader from Sweden sent me the message during those days “Kraft och Omtanke,” which translated means, “strength and consideration.”  This post is my reflection of what those words truly mean and how much each and every one of us are deserving of them. 

Most Popular Post:  Gwyneth Paltrow Can Kiss my Sweet Chicago A$$.  I wrote this on my tenth wedding anniversary, a gift to working mothers everywhere.  If you’ve ever wondered about all the Gwynnie references in my posts or on my facebook page, this will explain them all.  Within this link is another link (bonus, yo) to my original Gwynnie post, written last winter.  Ugh, I could go on, but I won’t. 

Most Controversial Post:  Barbie v. Cancer.  Believe it or not, I am still in the middle of “Barbiegate” as one of my readers referred to it yesterday.  Here’s the deal people:  I am not a Barbie fan.  Never have been.  I make no apologies for that.  What I learned, though, is that Barbie is an American icon, and YOU DO NOT MESS WITH AN AMERICAN ICON.  Okay, okay, okay, I get it.  My point, in a nutshell, is that kids need research more than they need dolls.  I hate the idea of children with cancer being used for corporate profit, which is what would happen if Mattel were to make this doll.  It is what it is.  Also, this post taught me the lesson that an opinion is a powerful thing.  It doesn’t matter that when I wrote this I was sitting on my living room sofa, in my pajamas, my kid at my feet happily playing away.  I am mommy blogger, hear me roar. 

Most Helpful Post:  Thanksgiving:  Wherefore art thou?  It seems that my most powerful posts come from a place of agitation or indignation.  Huh.   The truth is that I can be a cranky son of a gun through the holidays.  I worry for Mary Tyler Son, I do.  Kids deserve better, though, so I work hard to keep my inner Grinch at bay and give the kid a proper season full of joy and wonder and all that holiday jazz.  The key word, though, in that admission is “work.”  Holidays do not come naturally to me.  The joy and wonder that finds its way into our home between October and January is hard freaking earned.  Methinks I am not alone in this, hence the popularity and helpfulness of this post. 

Post(s) Whose Success Surprised Me:  Donna’s Cancer Story.  In September 2010, before Mary Tyler Mom was even a thought in my head, I posted a photo of Donna every day on facebook and wrote a few paragraphs about what happened in each month of her 31 months of treatment.  This was a way of recognizing Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and rembering my girl.  At least it started like that.  It ended being something completely different.  Without consciously knowing it, reliving the trauma of Donna’s cancer helped me steel myself for the first anniversary of her death.  In August 2011, I pitched the idea of modifying it for Mary Tyler Mom, thinking I would reach a larger audience.  What I foolishly thought would be a cut and paste job turned into a momument to the love and hope and joy and terror that moving to Cancerville with Donna brought to my family.  The numbers are impressive:  over 500K hits, $25K in donations to Donna’s Good Things since it was published, over 100 Good Things performed by readers in Donna’s name and memory, and no less than two readers got tattos (acorns and “Choose hope”).  And 1 writer was born — with its publishing, writing, and producing it every day of the month, at some point in September, I finally came to call myself a writer.  Without smirking.

Post That Didn’t Get the Attention it Deserved:  Got Milk?  This was written in the midst of World Breastfeeding Week and it holds my own, personal experiences with breastfeeding, as well as my thoughts on the moms who don’t breastfeed.  Moms love to judge.  Sad, but true.  This is a call for tolerance and understanding, for whatever decision you make in regards to how to fatten up that baby of yours.  When it was published, Mary Tyler Mom had a significantly smaller reach, and my hope is that others might find it through this challenge and spread the word. 

Post I’m Most Proud of:  This is a tough one, because, quite honestly, I could close my eyes and point to any of the posts within Donna’s Cancer Story and be happy with its designation as “Post I’m Most Proud of.”  So know that.  I opted not to pick and choose between those, because, like Donna and Mary Tyler Son, they, too, are my babies.  There are things a mother just doesn’t do, and that is one of them.  So with that said, Jack Layton is my new hero is a post I am truly proud of.  It was written late at night and was one of those posts that just kind of appeared on my screen.  I felt passionate about what I was writing, passionate about what Jack Layton stood for and accomplished.  For me, passion = joy and ease in writing.  That is something I am proud of, indeed, and something to be celebrated. 

So there they are, My 7 Links!  This was fun, but now for more fun.  As part of the challenge, I now get to nominate other bloggers to take the challenge themselves.  Drum roll, please . . .

My 5 Blog Nominations:

Finding My Voice

I Want a Dumpster Baby

From the Bungalow

Daddy Knows Less

My Sports Complex

Real Mom Nutrition (YES, I added one extra)