Pardon my interruption of Mimi's ruminations on our trip to Japan, but something has been scratching my brain this week so I thought I'd stop by and spill it.
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I find it curious when I hear or read someone say "Well I had the successful law practice in Chicago but then I got married and had kids and I was raised in a ditch so I gave up the law practice and moved the family back to the ditch so my kids could have the childhood I had."
I promised myself that when I became a father, I wouldn't use my child as an excuse to relive my own childhood. Partly because I'm reliving my own childhood just fine on my own, but mostly because I want her to discover and create her own world and her own memories. I will do my best to guide her but if she rejects things I offer in favor of things she finds on her own, I want to support that and not fill her head with endless jeremiads about how things were better when I was younger and everything she likes is nonsense and "kids today" and all that.
I am grateful to my parents for letting me find my own way (though it may have been partly a function of birth order and parental exhaustion -- I'm seventh of eight and the second son), even if it wasn't always pretty. Sure, they worked to instill certain beliefs in me, but in large part, they stood back and let me figure stuff out.
Anyway, for Christmas this year we decided to get Yuki a dollhouse. She has shown a lot of interest in them whenever she is around them so we thought it might be fun to have one of her own (the "gender roles" blog post hasn't been written). We started looking around for one that was neither too big (since we have space issues in our house) nor too expensive (since she could be done with dollhouses by December 26).
Then, the other day, I was visiting my friend-who-is-totally-a-bad-influence, eBay. That's when my whole "I'm going to let my child have her own childhood" stance was exposed as the empty talk that it is. That's when I saw this:
And this:
And this:
When I was a kid, we had a closet full* of Fisher-Price "little people" toys. Planes and buses and carousels and castles (damn, that castle was fantastic) and schools and Sesame Street and this damn house. I could feel it and smell it when I saw this picture.
I pondered. I was overcome by nostalgia. I wanted it. I began justifying it. It is a dollhouse of sorts. Kiddo is still pretty little and will probably have an easy time playing with this. It's actually being sold for slightly less than new, modern dollhouses.
Then I looked some more and saw that this came with it:
What am I, a robot? How can I not get this? She'll love this! (Translation: I love this!) I showed it to Mimi and tried not to beg, but I think I was whining a little, and Mimi did agree that it was pretty cool so ... well, Merry Christmas, Kid. Your dad is full of crap.
____________________________________________________
I find it curious when I hear or read someone say "Well I had the successful law practice in Chicago but then I got married and had kids and I was raised in a ditch so I gave up the law practice and moved the family back to the ditch so my kids could have the childhood I had."
I promised myself that when I became a father, I wouldn't use my child as an excuse to relive my own childhood. Partly because I'm reliving my own childhood just fine on my own, but mostly because I want her to discover and create her own world and her own memories. I will do my best to guide her but if she rejects things I offer in favor of things she finds on her own, I want to support that and not fill her head with endless jeremiads about how things were better when I was younger and everything she likes is nonsense and "kids today" and all that.
I am grateful to my parents for letting me find my own way (though it may have been partly a function of birth order and parental exhaustion -- I'm seventh of eight and the second son), even if it wasn't always pretty. Sure, they worked to instill certain beliefs in me, but in large part, they stood back and let me figure stuff out.
Anyway, for Christmas this year we decided to get Yuki a dollhouse. She has shown a lot of interest in them whenever she is around them so we thought it might be fun to have one of her own (the "gender roles" blog post hasn't been written). We started looking around for one that was neither too big (since we have space issues in our house) nor too expensive (since she could be done with dollhouses by December 26).
Then, the other day, I was visiting my friend-who-is-totally-a-bad-influence, eBay. That's when my whole "I'm going to let my child have her own childhood" stance was exposed as the empty talk that it is. That's when I saw this:
And this:
And this:
When I was a kid, we had a closet full* of Fisher-Price "little people" toys. Planes and buses and carousels and castles (damn, that castle was fantastic) and schools and Sesame Street and this damn house. I could feel it and smell it when I saw this picture.
I pondered. I was overcome by nostalgia. I wanted it. I began justifying it. It is a dollhouse of sorts. Kiddo is still pretty little and will probably have an easy time playing with this. It's actually being sold for slightly less than new, modern dollhouses.
Then I looked some more and saw that this came with it:
What am I, a robot? How can I not get this? She'll love this! (Translation: I love this!) I showed it to Mimi and tried not to beg, but I think I was whining a little, and Mimi did agree that it was pretty cool so ... well, Merry Christmas, Kid. Your dad is full of crap.
*I use "closet full" very loosely. I'm not sure they were ever put away.
Comments
What a lucky kid!!
xoxo
gibs
(i'll be over to play!)
Judy
i am currently playing this on repeat: http://svoundtrack.ecrater.com/product.php?pid=2882685
Chanda