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Fri 1 Apr, 2005 07:28 pm
I'm not looking for validation, but for understanding.
Here's the deal:
Mo gets filthy. By the end of most days he is a total dirt bag. No joke.
Today at the park a little kid criticized us for this. Mo had been slip sliding in the mud holes and this kid says "I hope you learned your lesson".
Mo looks to me so I asked "What lesson is that?"
And the kid says, to Mo "Your clothes are filthy".
Mo looks to me so I say "Good thing we have a washing machine".
**************
I remember reading "Random Family" a year or so ago and the whole clean clothes thing being discussed as an important aspect of staving off accusations of poverty, and neglect, and many other "bad mom" type things.
And I think I can understand it in such a context.
And within this context I have learned that for all of our sake it is a good idea to present a spotless Mo to his spotless bio-parents when one of them comes calling.
But in my middle class neighborhood I can't really understand all these spotless children and their hand wringing moms.
In my book, if Mo washes his hands before he eats, returns all worms to the garden and takes a bath before he goes to bed -- I'm good.
Or am I not good?
Don't you hate it when people spoil your fun? You are good, Boomerang, but if you want the hoi polloi to think you're wonderful, you have to cater to their rules. This is necessary only when you're going to be around 'em.
boomerang- When I was growing up, the mothers who made sure that their little darlings were always neat and clean, were the neurotic ones. I remember a girlfriend of mine, whose mother dressed her in pastel, frilly clothes, and then screamed at her, when she got a smudge on it. Little kids need to explore in order to learn about the world, and exploration often is a dirty job.
IMO, you need to relax, and not worry about the pristine little darlings in your neighborhood. In twenty years, when Mo is enjoying his adulthood, the people who were squeaky clean as children, will be discussing their childhoods with their therapists.
You are NOT a bad mom. From what you have written over time, I can only conclude that you are an excellent mom. Mo needs to know that there ARE certain times that he needs to look prim and proper. The rest of the time, he just needs to be a kid!
I loved playing in the dirt and mud when I was a kid. I made mud pies in the morning, dug in the garden in the afternoon, tried to dig a hole to China in the evening. These days, I garden in the morning and I dig out the drainage ditches in the afternoon (we don't have storm sewers in the woods). I gave up on digging a hole to China years ago because I have a family to take care of now, but I never gave up my joy of playing in the dirt.
Who knows, maybe Mo will become a super gardener when he grows up. I say, go ahead and give him a shovel and let him dig.
Okay.... I think I recognize Piffka's sign off, Phoenix's green ink and I see J_B on my list - so I hope I got it right and I thank you all.
I do doubt my skills at mothering - it is not somewhere I ever thought I would be. So perhaps I do have a tendency to over question things - even things that feel "right" for us.
It just really seems weird when a pristine six year old admonishes you for being dirty.
We have most gardening tools in two sizes already! Last fall we went on a stress relieving dig-a-thon and it has resumed this spring. I am not a good gardener but I find it very relaxing and Mo seems to enjoy it too.
A super gardener would be a lovely thing to plant and raise.
"Mud" was my middle name; come to think of it, it still is! LOL
Hi c "mud" i!
We're back to ourselves now!
I was wondering if perhaps it has something to do with the value place on clothing itself....
I am so not into clothes. I HATE to shop and try to do it only twice a year.
I have clothes and "work clothes" that I replace only when needed.
Mo has clothes and "visitor clothes" that are replaced as he grows.
Mr. B shops only under peanlty of death.
Perhaps the fact that clothing itself is not important to us causes this "learn your lesson" division......
naaaaaaaa, I love clothes, and I adore shopping
dirt doesn't bug me
never has
i was a fairly grubby, dirt-moving-around kid
Well okay then. Not the clothes.
So what is it?
Outside the context of poverty and being judeged on one's cleanliness, what is it?
Is it still a judgement thing?
Is it some kind of weird clothing competition thing?
I have a sister who is one of those clean fanatics but it is really limited to her house. She welcomes often-times stinky little Mo there with open arms.
It would make sense if it's the competition thing we've talked about.
I do sympathize. Yesterday, I had a day off. My first in I dunno years? E.G. had responsibility for sozlet from when she awoke to when she went to bed. When I came home from my breakfast out + assorted outings (ah, bliss), she looked like a little feral child. Nothing had been done to her hair since she woke up (except, apparently, wiping her greasy hands in it) and it was a lank greasy messy mess. She wore an old t-shirt two sizes two small and a mismatched skirt. My immediate (unexpressed, it was my day off) reaction was ACK!
And I really love dirt. We've been doing the gardening thing, she was picking flowers and "planting" them by digging holes and putting the poor stems in. Got filthy. I was dealing with all kinds of composty leaves and I got filthy. It was great.
But there is still something primal I think about "must get kid clean." I mean, the archetypical mom action is licking a finger and wiping off that spot on your kid's cheek... Would make sense evolution-wise.
Cleanliness is next to . . . .
impossible.
At that age, anyway.
Soz! Good for you! How did you manage to get a whole day off?
I just read a book of essays that had a chapter called "I've never seen those people before in my life" about just exactly what you're talking about.
The same thing happens around here when I go into work on Saturday. I think Mr. B does it just to show me up since he overhears "No. The truck shirt is dirty today" and Mo's resulthing fit. He manages to get Mo into the strangest concoctions I've ever seen.
I'm not sure I get the evolution thing though - seems that spit would have way more germs than anything a kid could get on their face.
But I have surely seen that action and I've probably done it myself without noticing.
Roger, that was my thought exactly!
But judging by the clean little kids at the park I'm thinking plain orange pumpkins become golden carriages everyday.
I was thining that in terms of evolution (stone age vs. now) dirt prolly equalled disease in a lot of ways. Clean = healthy.
That's not as true now.
It took some doing! Long-planned. And didn't actually last a whole day. Sozlet had a meltdown about 4 hours before her bedtime and that was that, I had her for the rest of the day.
Still verrrrrrrrrrry nice.
Remember the teeming masses yearning to be free? One of the goals of the Settlement Workers was to explain germ theory and the value of cleanliness to the immigrant women packed into tenements in the big city slums.
Foreigners are dirty and Real Americans are clean. Stereotypes linger.
Question: Could there be a connections between Mo's bio-family expecting the oxymoron of a perfectly clean real boy and Mo's urge to strip down to the buff the day after they visit?
Could Mo's early mothering have been limited to Keep The Baby Clean?
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