ILX Parenting 6: "Put Some Goddamn Pants On Before You Go Outside!" is a thing I say now

i researched that but illinois state law says kids can't be home alone until they're 14. one of only three states with a law about that, and by far the oldest minimum age.

My oldest will be 9 next school year (along with her little sister) so this makes me kinda sad. I wish my job allowed for more working from home.

i have some flexibility to wfh but not as often as they would like

i researched that but illinois state law says kids can't be home alone until they're 14.

are you freaking kidding me, i thought that kind of thing was a myth perpetrated by right-wing "kids these days are too pampered" commentators

yeah that's nuts

It looks like the existing law was passed based on a couple who went on vacation to Mexico for 9 days and left their kids alone, and refers to leaving kids alone for "an unreasonable amount of time." A bill going through the IL Legislature now

http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?DocName=&SessionId=108&GA=101&DocTypeId=HB&DocNum=2334&GAID=15&LegID=118253&SpecSess=&Session=

clarifies the language, e.g.

Neglect does not include permitting a child, whose basic needs are met and who is of sufficient age and maturity to avoid harm or unreasonable risk of harm, to engage in independent activities, including:
(a) traveling to and from school, including by walking,
running, or bicycling; (b) traveling to and from nearby commercial or recreational activities; (c) engaging in outdoor play;
(d) remaining in a vehicle unattended, except as
otherwise provided by law;
(e) remaining at home unattended; or
(f) engaging in a similar independent activity.

But I don't think it was ever meant to say your 9-year-old couldn't be home after school for the afternoon!

Are parents actually getting cited for this??

my suspicion is that it's applied selectively (racistly)

but you're right, there's more leeway in the language than i realized

school sucks and it’s ridiculous that we send children there

It's the worst option except for every other option, speaking very generally. (Your kid may vary. They all do.)

School is a really cruddy simulation of the larger society, but it is at least a society of a sort. You have to deal with stuff you don't want to do (like life) and you have to interact with people who are not like you (like life). Lots of them suck (as they do in life). But if you don't learn some strategies for interacting with them (as you will have to in life), then you will suffer and/or be a terrible person.

Whenever the "school sucks, don't send kids there" attitude comes up - and I sympathize with that view to a large extent! - I think about some of the uses and misuses that might crop up, and I am suddenly not sure I want to go there 100% anymore.

Like "public school makes you go there and relate to people a different color from you" or "public school might put you close to retards and disableds and such". I think those are actually good things about school - it at least makes a feeble attempt at assimilating, which unschoolers and home-schoolers and private-schoolers may never get.

Also "school makes you do a stupid thing that a stupid person has asked you to do, and yet you still have to do it." That's like 87% of what most of us call "work." Where are you going to get a lesson in how to adapt to that? Right now the answer is "school, pretty much."

So yeah I didn't love school, and I yeah I don't love that my kids have to go there ("or else"). But it does supply some lessons that - if they don't get them from school - it's unclear where those particular lessons are going to come from.

Church is the other place that does, or did many of those things

YMP otm

school isn't about learning facts or math or whatever, it's about learning how to function in a society. and there is no escaping from society.

Yeah also I hesitate to play this card all the fuckin time but I do have an intellectually disabled child. If he weren't getting daytime care, intellectual stimulation, field trips, meals, education, speech therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, art, music, sports, exposure to other kids his own age, and exposure to other special-needs kids, etc. from school, what then?

My wife and I would be obliged to provide every. single. one. of those things ourselves, in our copious spare time. Alternatively, we would have to warehouse him somehow, and see him suffer for the lack of what he gets from school.

i don't agree with the sentiment but it's also not something i'm interested in debating so you guys have fun

xposts

Church is the other place that does, or did many of those things

For about one day a week, and also historically REALLY bad at getting you close to people not like you. Churches WAY more segregated than schools, for starters.

I think that really depends on the religious community, not comfortable with blanket statements like that.

Uh, by "depends on the religious community" do you mean that some churches are better than others at racial integration?

Great, goody for them, but that omits the nonreligious as well as those of different religions.

I doubt most Jewish people would agree that Christian churches are great models of cross-cultural contact, for example. Or that they would be excellent guardians of cultural melting-pot-ness in a post-school world.

think you're looking for Rolling CHALLENGING OPINIONS thread 2008

no I agree w/that YMP

and NA what you're describing sounds really hard to deal with. 7:30 is really early. it's longer than most adults are at work! even if the kids were hunky dory about it, you're getting to see them for what, two and a half hours a day tops? that piles so much pressure on those two hours - to say all the things you want to say, to do homework, to hear from them, to 'relax' etc. i'm sorry. i wish i had something wise to say but i don't.

yep it sucks. thanks for the empathy.

well that's what the weekends are for I guess

mine are only 5 & 2 but yeah you don't really get to do much of anything with them during the week. by the time I'm done feeding them (and myself) it's like 6:45, then I'm cleaning, helping the older one do his 'homework', then time to get ready for bed, let 'em watch a little TV, brush teeth, read books, etc. I guess I could keep them up later but then you get very little time to yourself at the end of the day which also sucks

if by "church" you meant "Christian, American churches" I wouldn't be too inclined to disagree, but I assumed a more expansive definition encompassing religious institutions of all kinds was implied, in which case I really do disagree.

fwiw my Jewish temple is p multi-culti, our membership includes latinos, asians, african americans, plus yr standard mix of ashkenazi and sephardic Jews

and other various religious traditions - Islam, jehovah's witnesses, etc. - have long traditions of being multi-ethnic.

and yet the temple's congregants are all or mostly Jewish, yes?

and at least a little religious?

not sure what you're getting at

as with school, congregants are alike in some ways (in being interested in practicing Judaism) and unlike in others (economic and ethnic backgrounds)

Well, the original sentiment was "school sucks and why do we make kids go there." Some reasons were put forth, including "it puts you in proximity with people not like you." If the response to that is "well, church can do that," then my response is "church puts you in proximity only with other congregants of that church."

One of the things churches/religious institutions generally don't do is put you in proximity with people who don't go to church. Or who go to a different church. Which is, I think, an uncontroversial point. Not to diss any particular temple or whatever, but it's not a substitute for what schools do in this one narrow way.

fair enough. I took Tracer's point to be broader, which was that historically churches/temples/whatever served as vehicles for socialization + binding communities together, a place where you learned how to function in and deal with groups of people (regardless of how ethnically or religiously homogenous they were). Within a modern context that's obviously less true, particularly in America.

Cool, sorry to be all Captain Strident there

Learned a tough parenting lesson from K (almost 8) on Sunday -- had both kids with me shopping at the farmers' market and they've both taken to liking a couple of the more gourmet items there so I sometimes buy them as a treat (E likes buffalo milk cheese, K and E both like a boutique salami maker from vermont). The way they were sampling the items like little adults was cute and drawing attention, and I guess I must have also felt self-conscious about it so I made a joke about my kids having "expensive taste." On the way home K got very upset with me and felt I was "making fun of her." Examining it, it occurred to me that I had, in fact, used humor at her expense in a situation where under the surface I felt embarrassed or uncomfortable -- maybe at seeming like some kind of spoiled yuppie who buys their kids expensive salami. As a person with a caustic and sometimes self-deprecating sense of humor, I sometimes have to check myself with my kids -- it's easy to forget that biting jokes actually are biting, that they can be hurtful, and that they can evidence deep insecurities that we aren't aware of.

It was completely wrong of me to make the joke at her expense, in other words. I was the one feeling bad about myself. It wasn't only a parenting lesson, but an uncomfortable light on some deeper self esteem issues I continue to have.

Yes and no? You are being very considerate and sensitive in noticing how she reacted and questioning whether you were in the wrong.

At the same time, it will probably stand them in good stead later on to gain an understanding of what things adults think are funny/ironic/poignant/mockable. Maybe? I mean, probably better that they get those messages when you're involved, rather than when you're not. You could protect them from all potentially negative impressions for the time you're with them, but then they might get to college and say something offhand like "no thanks, I prefer ethically sourced organic microbrews" and then be unpleasantly surprised at the reaction they get. A thought.

Meanwhile I spent 25 minutes looking for my son's backpack the other day. It has an expensive school iPad in it, and I was late for work and getting progressively more stressed. Finally I gave up and dropped him off at school.

He had been wearing it the whole time.

GodDAMN I appreciate you realizing and unpacking that whole idea, man alive. My boyfriend has occasionally literally done that to me AS AN ADULT because he's un-self-aware and not reflective. Like making a joke that rebounds on me when he's actually the uncomfortable one. Good for K and good for you.

i was gonna say, people still treat me that way from time to time and i appreciate that you realized it was coming from inside the house. good job man alive

hey I thought having expensive taste makes you a Classy Lady

I was sort of proud of it too, and it was super cute the way they, and especially E (who's 4.5) was asking for samples of washed rind cheeses and fancy cured meats and giving her reviews of them.

Anyway, I have a feeling this is the tip of an iceberg for me and I may start to become aware of other situations in which I do/have done this.

Kids really do teach you a lot, it's not just a platitude!

Anyone have advice about handling the imminent demise of a well-loved family dog?

Turns out our 11 year old dog wasn't pissing blood due to a UTI but due to a massive cancerous tumor in her bladder. She qualified for a university vet school study (which is amazing and will save us thousands of dollars) so we find out today what type it is - meaning she's got anywhere from a few weeks to maybe 9 months, tops.

Of course the 5 year old who was indifferent to her for the first four years of his life has bonded with her recently, and a close friend died of cancer last month so he has a sense of what's coming and seems to be handling it fairly well - better than his mother and I are.

At some point her quality of life is going to go to shit and we'll have to have her put to sleep, and I'm not sure how to handle that. We haven't looked into it yet but ideally we'll have someone come to our place to euthanize her rather than dragging her, terrified, to a clinic. Is it better for him to be a part of witnessing that, or for this to happen while he's at school? If we don't want him there for the end, should it be something he's aware of that morning before it happens, or should we tell him after the fact that she's gone? I have no idea what the best option is here as I've never dealt with this myself before and don't even know how I'll handle it.

I feel like I have put so many animals to sleep in the past few years. Jesus. In our case, I have taken the animals while the kids were at school. Putting an animal down is very sad and emotional. In all of our cases, we told the kids what was happening well ahead of time, but took care of things during the day while they were at school. There was one big group bawling session that we had over one of the pets when they found out it was time to go. In other cases, while it was still sad, not as much crying. I definitely shed tears every time at the vets though. Afterward, I brought the animals home and we all laid them to rest in the garden. Sorry you have to go through this.

See also: RFI: euthanizing a pet

my family had a dog euthanized when i was around that age. she had been hit by a car before i went to school in the morning. she had to be put down during the day and i did not see it. i don't see any benefit to a kid that age witnessing it. of course i knew about death but i remember blaming the vet for "killing" the dog, which i probably wouldn't have said if this was a planned event, but reflected my level of understanding. you should prepare him before it happens and let him say goodbye while the dog is alive. does he know the dog is sick? i know i was only 5-6 but i remember this vividly. i didn't know this process existed before it happened and that was what was most confusing.

We had to euthanize our dog last summer due to advanced lymphoma :( my kid was a few months shy of 5 and was a bit confused by it but understood that the dog was too sick and old to live much longer (we didn’t talk about him being in pain though, which is upsetting even to me thinking back on it.) We did take him to the vet with us for it, partly because the vet is in our neighbourhood and familiar and because we were prepared for it to happen and had talked with him about it already, it wasn’t a sudden decision (which I’ve also faced with a pet and that is sad and awful in a somewhat different way that I don’t think I’d want my kid present for tbh.) My kid still talks about missing our dog and wants to look at pictures but he only talked about that moment at the vet for about 3 days, and even then it was mostly questions that we answered by reiterating why our dog was dying. He asked a lot about why the dog had to die. I also never broached there topic of euthanasia or the vet “helping” him die or anything like that - too complicated for a 4 year old and he didn’t ask about that, so... I don’t know, for us being there together and being sad together in that moment was important, and our dog’s death wasn’t a mystery to our kid because of that.

Do it at home (for the dog)
Take the kid out of the room (for the kid)

Number 2 born last night. Everyone healthy and a much easier delivery than number 1. No visitors allowed at the hospital though. Weird times.

How’s everyone holding up? I’m basically assuming schools will not be open next week where I am (California).

Congratulations!

Congratulations! Weird times indeed.

our schools are open - my wife is convinced they will close next week (the week before spring break) but we'll see. SFUSD declared the schools a critical service the other day and frankly I agree with them, esp in a school like ours that provides food and shelter and a safe environment for like 12 hrs a day for the children of working families.