Where the Kids and Their Buddies All Roam

The Spouse and I took the kids to a big event in our small town last week. (In some ways it reminded me of something you might have seen occurring in the Gilmore Girls’ Stars Hollow where everybody in town knows about the event and where you inevitably see tons of people you know.)

Although we’ve attended this event for several consecutive years, this time, it felt different. Very different. Why? Because The Spouse and I allowed the Picket Fence Post kids to go off with their friends, to enjoy rides, to spend their allowance money on ridiculous things like pens that zap your hand when you press the button on the side (something that thrilled The Youngest Boy who kept zapping himself) and slide down inflatable slides with their friends. No parents with them.

It was a strange feeling to be sitting on the blanket next to The Spouse without any offspring next to us. It was just us, the two of us, like in our pre-kid days. Sure, the kids, their friends in tow, periodically checked in, showed us their purchases and scarfed down some of the sweets and beverages we’d brought along (you know your kids will be checking in with you when you have food), but then they zoomed back out amongst the crowd again with promises to return when the fireworks started.

As we watched other parents with younger children -- clueless toddlers and willful preschoolers -- chase them about, it was an odd thing to realize that this is where we are in our lives, with our parenting: We’re giving our kids some latitude, some freedom to test out, like a bicycle with training wheels. They have time alone with their friends but know that Mom and Dad (and a cooler of food and drink) are close by. We’re no longer having to hold their hands, watching over them every second. They’re standing up on their little colt legs and watching over themselves, with their parents providing a safety net if they need it. (It feels similar to when one of the two older kids babysit someone else’s children and either The Spouse or I are available, a phone call away, if they need us.)

By the time the main event – fireworks – started, all three of them had returned. And even though two of her friends had decided to sit with us, The Girl wasn't shy about leaning against me and allowing me to give her a hug. The Youngest Boy, who had blown off my admonition to bring a sweatshirt with him, also leaned against me but I think it was more about getting warm than it was about affection. Even with their freedom, they still came back. I hope that’s a good sign.

Watching 'The Mentalist' with The Eldest Boy: What Shows Do You Watch with Your Kids?

Image credit: CBS

I’m not exactly sure how it started, but some time this winter, The Eldest Boy and I started watching CBS’ The Mentalist together and, before I knew it, it had become our “thing.”

One night I was sitting on the sofa in the family room just aimlessly surfing the TV channels while the The Eldest Boy was sacked out next to me. We happened upon a repeat of The Mentalist and The Eldest Boy asked me what it was about. I was only able to give him an abbreviated explanation because I'd never seen the show before, plus I loathed its title, really, I loathed it passionately. I couldn’t give him much more than: There’s this guy who helps the police solve crimes because he’s really smart and observes things that others don’t.

This appealed to the bookish Eldest Boy who likes to figure things out and is drawn to characters that are intelligent. So we watched it. When the episode wrapped, The Eldest Boy set the DVR to record all the new installments of the show, as well as all the repeats so we could catch up. And now it’s become something I look forward to, 40 some odd minutes of just him and me, watching an entertaining TV show and trying to figure out the weekly mystery together. (We hardly ever get it right.) I'm thinking that maybe this summer we’ll Netflix the first couple of seasons to watch it from the beginning.

Seeing that I already "share" a TV show with The Girl -- as we've loved watching the Gilmore Girls together on DVD and repeats on ABC Family -- and The Spouse and I have been reading the Harry Potter books to The Youngest Boy, The Eldest Boy is now getting his due.

I’m going to milk this Mommy & Me Mentalist-watching for as long as I can because I know that before long, he won’t want to hang with me and guess who dunnit. And if that means that, in the near future I’ll have to bribe him with popcorn and/or movie candy to tempt him to spend time with his old mom, I’m certainly not above that.

Are there any TV shows that you watch with your tweens and/or teens that you consider your “special” show together?

Image credit: CBS.

Three for Thursday: Controversy Over 'Chinese Mothering,' Teens on TV & 'The Middle's' Little Brick

Image credit: Wall Street Journal

Item #1: Controversy Over ‘Chinese Mothering’

Amy Chua wrote a book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. It’s about how she started off her life as a mother of two girls as a very strict, “traditional Chinese” mother, like her parents before her. By the end of the book – in which Chua says she gets her “comeuppance” – Chua says she realized she wanted to “retreat . . . from the strict immigrant model” of raising her daughters, according to an interview she gave to the Wall Street Journal.

However the Wall Street Journal ran an excerpt of the first part of Chua’s book, when Chua was describing being fully bought into the strict, no messin’ around style of parenting that believes that children are strong and need to be pushed, not coddled or allowed to choose the direction of their lives. Outside of the context of the whole book -- and without knowing that Chua says she’s “not exactly the same person at the end of the book” -- Chua seems extremely domineering. Combine that excerpt with the headline (which Chua didn’t chose) “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior,” and you'll see why folks went nuts on the internet, calling Chua every variation on "Mommy Dearest" which they could come up with. Here are some excerpts which’ll give you a sense of why people were outraged by what ran in the Journal:

“Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

• attend a sleepover
• have a playdate
• be in a school play
• complain about not being in a school play
• watch TV or play computer games
• choose their own extracurricular activities
• get any grade less than an A
• not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• play any instrument other than the piano or violin
• not play the piano or violin.”

Then there was the anecdote about Chua's then-7-year-old who was having trouble with a piano piece and, after the girl and her mom worked on it “nonstop for a week” and the daughter wanted to give up, Chua ordered her back to the piano:

“Back at the piano, Lulu made me pay. She punched, thrashed and kicked. She grabbed the music score and tore it to shreds. I taped the score back together and encased it in a plastic shield so that it could never be destroyed again. Then I hauled Lulu’s dollhouse to the car and told her I’d donate it to the Salvation Army piece by piece if she didn’t have ‘The Little White Donkey’ perfect by the next day. When Lulu said, ‘I thought you were going to the Salvation Army, why are you still here?’ I threatened her with no lunch, no dinner, no Christmas or Hanukkah presents, no birthday parties for two, three, four years. When she kept playing it wrong, I told her she was purposely working herself into a frenzy because she was secretly afraid she couldn’t do it. I told her to stop being lazy, cowardly, self-indulgent and pathetic.”

Three for Thursday: Thanksgiving TV from 'Gilmore Girls' & 'Mad About You' to 'Mad Men,' Helicopter Parenting on 'Parenthood' and Pining For Thanksgivings of Yore

Thanksgiving TV Episodes from Gilmore Girls and Mad About You to Mad Men

Who can forget the wretched awkwardness at the Francis family Thanksgiving table when Betty Draper Francis literally forced her daughter Sally to eat sweet potatoes – shoving a forkful into Sally's mouth which led to the girl gagging them out onto her plate – in order to please her new mother-in-law on Mad Men? Or the Gilmore Girls episode where Lorelai and Rory wound up attending four Thanksgiving dinners because they couldn’t say, “No” to their friends and family? Or even the time when Mad About You's Paul and Jamie Buchman hosted their first Thanksgiving in their apartment and had to grapple with some serious passive aggression from their family members and friends when they didn’t like the fact that Paul and Jamie wanted to have dinner “buffet style” and had messed with everyone’s idiosyncratic ideas of what a “traditional” Thanksgiving dinner is “supposed” to be?

I highlighted some of my favorite Thanksgiving episodes over on my Notes from the Asylum blog, including the one of the famous Cheers Thanksgiving food fight.

Helicopter Parenting on Parenthood

This week’s episode of NBC’s solid, incisive and sharply observed drama Parenthood provided a mixed bag of parenting portrayals.

On the one hand, you had Sarah Braverman, who gave her daughter Amber a much-needed push to get her to overcome her fears and meet with an influential alum from a university she wants to attend. And on the other hand, you had an over-the-top helicopter parent in the form of Kristina Braverman insisting that her son was entitled to an invitation to a classmate’s birthday party even after the mother of the birthday girl said he wasn't invited and that her daughter specifically didn’t want Kristina’s son there. While there’s a whole powerful, poignant and painful Asperberger’s backstory there, and some real bonding eventually occurred between the two moms with children who have challenges, a big chunk of the Kristina story bugged me this week. Read more about why in my review of the episode.

Pining for Thanksgiving Days of Yore

In my Pop Culture column this week, I pine away for Thanksgivings and Christmases of my youth, when I used to actually enjoy this time of year tremendously and didn’t see them the way that I do now: As one, long, life-sucking list of things to do, all at the same time, and all while under a heap o’pressure with no time to just sit back and soak in this time in your life. But when I think of how I used to love this time of year, to quote Liz Lemon, I want to go back to there. But how?