God help me, I'm one of THEM

sozobe wrote:

Have you said before that gender roles were an issue for you when you were a kid? Made to wear dresses when you didn't want to, that kind of thing? (I don't remember.)

The roles weren't enforced daily. We didn't have a lot of money so we wore hand me downs, which were mostly boys clothes, but there was an overt valuing of males over females. The clothes were mostly boys clothes because they were the ones that got new clothes -- even though there were more girls in the family than boys. So no, I wasn't made to wear dresses all the time. It was sort of a sporadic thing. Like, it was ok to be a tomboy at home, but heaven help you if you tried to play football at the church picnic where everyone could see you. So we got a lot of mixed messages.

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What I was wondering is something like, whether you'd always looked forward to giving your daughter a more enlightened childhood than you had -- envisioning her being free to be as tough and aggressive and tomboyish as she wanted to be -- and then she turns around and spurns that very freedom.

(She hasn't, of course, the freedom's the thing and she sounds like she's plenty tough and aggressive on her own terms, but maybe that was some of the unconscious thought processes when she was standing there not playing at soccer. Something like, "Man, what I would've given to have my mom supporting me while I played soccer when I was four!!")

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sozobe wrote:

What I was wondering is something like, whether you'd always looked forward to giving your daughter a more enlightened childhood than you had -- envisioning her being free to be as tough and aggressive and tomboyish as she wanted to be -- and then she turns around and spurns that very freedom.

That's pretty much exactly it.

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(She hasn't, of course, the freedom's the thing and she sounds like she's plenty tough and aggressive on her own terms, but maybe that was some of the unconscious thought processes when she was standing there not playing at soccer. Something like, "Man, what I would've given to have my mom supporting me while I played soccer when I was four!!")

Close. I think I was just sure she would like it right away, because she loves it when we play (the family). But the way she reacted (worse the secong time) was by being clingy and whiny and folding her arms up and tilting her head like she wanted to disappear. Maybe I recognize that feeling in myself and was hoping she would be better than me in that respect.

So, I think there are two components to this. The first being that my own gender roles issues caused me to make her try soccer. Which may or may not be a bad thing. The second component is her stage fright, I guess, for lack of a better name for it. It was so unlike her, or at least, so unlike who I thought she was. And it was the fact that she wouldn't try. I interpreted that through my own coke bottle perspective as being related to her own gender identity. And maybe it was, but maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was just shyness.

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That makes a lot of sense.

Did she know anyone on the soccer team?

I can see that there would have been a feedback loop, there; initial resistance from her due to new situation, exasperation from you ("this is soccer, you love soccer!"), additional resistance from her, additional exasperation from you (with gender role stuff thrown in, even if that wasn't what was going on with her), and on in an intensifying spiral.

(sozlet wants attention, haven't completed my thought but will submit.)

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No she didn't know anyone. And that feedback loop is almost exactly how it went. Tend to sozlet. I have to feed the kiddies, but I'll check back later.

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This all kind of brings up something that has been lurking in the back of my mind for a while about this thread....

My sisters could dish out more humiliations per minute than my parents ever dreamed of.

My brother (the oldest) and my parents were perfectly happy to let me persue the tomboy life. My sisters, on the other hand, were girly-girls and they did not like their baby sister rejecting their "advice".

Once in the second grade they pinned me down and forced me into what I still consider to be the ultimate frivolous garment ever made that my mother bought me in some moment of insanity.

Since that day I have shunned any garment with any embellishment more flamboyant than a pocket.

I do love my sisters though. They really toughened me up.

But perhaps it is the comparison of my parents and my sisters that make my parents come off smelling like roses.

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FreeDuck wrote:

dlowan, yes, you read me absolutely correctly. Please come back. While I'm in a place where the course of action is pretty clear. I'm not sure I'm any closer to understanding what it was about her reaction that so stirred me up. I'm very interested in your take on it.

Farmerman, thanks, that was almost as helpful as say, a box of rocks.

Good, FD! I am glad I was reading you right.

I have read the conversation re the gender roles....and you are saying that is ALMOST it, but it seems there was a depth to your reaction that disturbs you.

I wonder two things:

Can you reflect back and find where you have felt that way before?

It seems the clinginess and the head tilt REALLY triggered something...can you stay with that moment and just see what bubbles up? Just what feelings......thoughts......associations...

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nimh wrote:

sozobe wrote:
Oh, of course it's tricky. Has anyone been saying anything else?

Uhm, this and this were my original posts - you can check back what exactly was responded to in them. There's also this post where "expressing sadness, disappointment" is pretty unconditionally defined as a prescribed discipline tool re: behaviors, at least, so I reacted to that too. Basically, the stuff that was reacted to, specifically, didnt include much about "tricky and sticky and carefully managed".

But we're now just regurgitating stuff, arent we? You obviously didnt read, in some of DD's, Boom's and/or FD's posts, what Chai, Flushd, Cypher and I read in them, or disagree that it was really in them. Diff in perspective, I guess. Water under the bridge now, anyway.

But in re: to your point about when/how to avoid/carefully manage it, did you read this answer to you? Its not very eloquent, granted, but then I'm just a dilettant in this anyway so I guess its all I can come up with.

Nimh, by no means am I trying to imply that disappointment is the only tool in my bag. But similarly, I wanted to point out that it is a valid tool.

Any tool can be misused, but a careful craftsperson can make use of all of them.

Regarding "I'm not angry; I'm disappointed," I think the key is to make sure that when one is angry that it gets expressed.

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dlowan wrote:

I have read the conversation re the gender roles....and you are saying that is ALMOST it, but it seems there was a depth to your reaction that disturbs you.

The reaction disturbs me because 1) it was irrational, 2) I knew it was irrational while I was feeling that way and 3) I couldn't snap out of it.

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Can you reflect back and find where you have felt that way before?

I'll have to give that some thought before I can give specifics. I know I have felt that way before, I'm just trying to remember the exact scenario.

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It seems the clinginess and the head tilt REALLY triggered something...can you stay with that moment and just see what bubbles up? Just what feelings......thoughts......associations...

I have a really hard time with clinginess and whininess in general. For instance, right now my son is making some bizarre sound because he can't find anything to do. And he's laying his head on my arm while I'm trying to type. And his bottom lip is down to the floor. That is REALLY annoying. And kind of manipulative -- I'm supposed to stop what I'm doing and find him some entertainment.

When I think of how my daughter was acting in the soccer game, the first words that come to mind regarding how she was acting are "helpless", "dependent", and "infantile". And also, I really wish she wasn't so aware of the fact that people are watching her. I guess you can add "self-conscious" to the word list.

Now I'm going to duck while the "mommy dearest" accusations come flying out of the gallery.

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Well, they won't be coming from me!

We all have triggers for feelings that are not adequately accounted for by the current context....and if we think we don't then we are either repressing them, or they are so habitual we think them perfectly reasonable. Consciousness of them, and reflection about them, is a far healthier reaction.

" "helpless", "dependent", and "infantile"

I am wondering why this neediness triggers you a lot...were you allowed to be those things when you needed to be? Was it frowned on? Has an someone been those things to you when you were too little to be responsible for them? Is there someone those words conjures up? What is the feeling that comes when you sit with those things?

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I'm afraid I don't really know. It does make me very sad, though, to sit here thinking about it. And that probably means that it's important.

Oh yuck. Those three words actually describe the way I see my mother. I'm not sure why those are the things I don't like about her.

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I'm pretty sure that this talk can be exasperating for folks watching, dlowan. If you want, we can do this via pm, unless others think it's useful.

For now, I'll just leave you with one question from the ducklet. "Do rabbits smoke?"

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Again! (Sozlet and my first conversation ever about cigarettes was sparked by that wabbit...)

(I'm reading along with interest, myself, but can also see that this would get sufficiently personal that privacy would be preferred.)

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I hope I wasn't someone in the gallery with the Mommie Dearest accusations! I didn't think you came across like that at all, that's why I joked about the ballerina thing, because that didn't sound like how you were handling things...I really just spoke up to explore the how-well-do-kids-handle-diappointing-their-parents thing; not to accuse you of Joan Crawfording all over the place.

Honestly, I know I'm not qualified to comment any further on this, so I won't, but I did want to jump in one last time just to be sure that I hadn't sounded as though I was doing that. Anybody taking this much time to question what she's doing is clearly being really careful with her kids' feelings.

And now I'll remove my nose from this thread! Very Happy

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If freeduck and dlowan talk by themselves or here in the thread or neither - all the thinking seems useful to me. Virtually all of us have, I conjecture, been mulling over own lives and how-to-deals. Rich thread.

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ossobuco wrote:

Disappointment in the child as a person is a virtually violent assault, in its way. Disappointment (irritation about? whatever word?) in a behavior at that place in time should be a clear matter, and not one for obliteration of self esteem. I know those two can get mixed up and that it is all tricky.

Well, that made sense to me when I typed it. Let's say I have trouble imagining any point in the age of a child where using disappointment in the child as a person - as distinguished from the behavior - is useful, but I'll stipulate there might be, perhaps with an older teen. Just not at two or four or six and so on. With a teen, I can only envision a scene with its attempted use as enraging to the teen (picturing me as the teen). But - as a wake up, perhaps from just the right person, I dunno. Hard... I can only see it as manipulative/slimy.

But, sometimes we as adults throw zingers at friends, usually on forums like a2k, eh. How are those zingers so different?

My flags re guilt inducement fly pretty high. I'll just say I don't know enough on this subject re reasons why disappointment re the PERSON can be helpful for the person. I tend to think it slimes both, but maybe that's because I don't want to ever hear one more word like that myself.

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My statement that disappointment in a behavior is different from being disappointed in them as a person was meant to illustrate that the former is OK, but the latter is not.

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I just wanted to say, Freeduck, that you can be sure you won't hear a peep from me beyond this point. I respect what you are doing, and I respect that this is personal. I appreciated dearly the 'protection' of sorts from outisde parties during my surgery thread. You deserve the same.

Though I do find this thread extremely useful and informative, I understand if it becomes a private discussion. Whatever you choose, I commend you for delving into it.

Best wishes.

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Got that, DD.

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I am happy either way, FD! I will PM you my email addy, if you like to do it that way......or you can choose not to do it at all....sometimes just acknowledging something is there means it will clarify itself in its own good time.

THIS Rabbit doesn't smoke!

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God help me, I'm one of THEM

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