Once your child has started to grow out of babiehood, the fun really begins. There is no way around it. The child soon realises that his/her job is to gain and keep parents attention for a maximum period every day. They need to demonstrate they are more important/interesting/urgent/distressing/dangerous than any other possible activity you have planned. Whether it is preparing your tax return, reading the news, cleaning your car or answering your telephone they will interject to tell you in their own way that *they* are more important. This is only fair. They only get one childhood to learn everything from scratch.
From : How to prevent tantrums
Throwing a temper tantrum is a natural way for a young child to experiment with feelings and gain independence and control of little bodies. However, there are some things parents can do to prevent tantrums and help the young child learn to control emotions.
On top of that they need to build on what they have learnt before. Every missed moment for them pushes them behind the eightball and hinders their future. This is a really crucial point that will stay the same now and into the future. For children between one and four years of age, the problems and the delights, the tantrums and the entertainment - is about gaining attention. In fact, the quiet, well behaved and non-confrontational child faces a real danger of getting way behind, especially with parents that are either lazy or naive. As parents, especially fathers, now is the time to build on whatever relationship we had with the children, and further rationalise other activities, and only keep those that can sustain constant interruption and/or being put on hold for weeks at a time.
Back in the 1960's and 70's, the norm was to consider that it was right to make demands of the mother to do the icky baby stuff, and to keep the father's news hour, beer habits and football matches. Many a man would take a hard line, threaten to leave and in the past, the woman would generally back down. In the 1990's and 00's, any such hard line would be taken as grounds for separation and the father often leaves, and takes little interest while the children are babies. However, somewhere down the track when the child is a toddler or older, they cry foul, demand access rights, and the result is a messy, expensive, combative situation where everybody loses. Under the law, the child's rights are king - It is their right to a relationship with their father, grandparents etc. which is most important, not the parents/grandparent's rights etc. - more on that later.
The problem is that times have inextricably changed and any new father should not have the approach of their own father for best results. There is a very strong case now and into the future for keeping the family together and both parents, as a team, to train, teach, imprint and socialise with the toddler. However - even though the child's rights are king as I have said above, this creates a dillemma because the parents are the ones who have to take control! The child's best training outcomes are just one of the balls to juggle amongst all the others including finance, health, sanity and keeping up appearances. It is usually obvious to outsiders that a "ball has been dropped". What isn't obvious is how hard the tricks they are attempting, especially when they don't have professional coaches or mentors (Outsiders are usually barely better). This is why shows such as "Supernanny", "Honey, we're killing the kids" and "DIY Disaster" strike such a chord. When a ball is dropped, and the kids are running riot, or they and you have become overweight and unhealthy, or your DIY projects go belly-up, it isn't obvious how to pick up the ball and do better. Although you can't get "supernanny" to go to every house with a problem, some people have been able to self-train with the help of these shows.
The government has started to legislate more with respect to early childhood issues. Family payments can be suspended if immunisations are not up to scratch. Children get assessed if autism or ADHD is suspected from childcare & kindergarten. Child care centres have had more and more complex legislation attached to them, and they have become more and more dependent on government money both paid to parents and directly funding centres. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but this is just the tip of the iceberg for what is to come. Behavioural assessments will get more and more thorough and become like a net, catching behavioural issues when they are easiest to be adjusted. This will extend to dietary assessments, financial planning assessments, and home and car appropriateness and safety. It will stop just short of the government actually owning children, but Governments will exert a great deal of pressure in the interest of preventing parents from "dropping the ball"
Friday, October 12, 2007
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Babies
Quote: Babies don't need fathers, but mothers do. Someone who is taking care of a baby needs to be taken care of.
Amy Heckerling.
I always imagined that babies would never really inspire me in themselves. Rather the potential and the learning and interaction that comes later is what I imagined would inspire me. This, I found is way too simplistic. There is a continuum between what happens before, during and after birth and through babiehood. What you do and see at any point has consequences down the track for the relationship with the person that the baby becomes. The old stereotypes of the father as a provider and the mother as a nurturer still linger, but they are gradually being trampled on by the reality that the breakup of duties has got to be eternally flexible. Women are still from Venus and Men from Mars, but both sides need to be in touch with the grand scheme, and its a two person juggling act now and that makes for fancier tricks, but more balls to keep in the air. For instance, my wife so often spots ways in which a nursery (or any room in the house) would be more efficient, but I have the strength to actually move the furniture around. Tag team with feeding, changing, waking, sleeping schedule is so much better for overall morale than insisting "Hey that's your job!". When one partner comes home from work, it should be seen as a shift change. That first hour home is critical. Get the chores out of the way in a tag-team format, as a morale boost for the baby-keeper leaving time to relax together later, the three of you (or two, if baby manages to go to sleep). Home chores with baby is so often a thankless, tedious, frustrating job (one where resigning is not an option) that the fact that you are your own boss is a curse (much like most small businesses I know:)).
The old days where a father would keep their distance from babies, and then involve themselves more (when they are older) if they need disciplining, or help with homework or to teach them where the beer is in the fridge - are long gone. The social dynamics of families is now beginning to enter the public domain with shows like "Supernanny" and "Honey we're killing the kids". If you try to fight the developing social norms you will increasingly be called on it. Coming home with demands of dinner being ready, house being clean, to watch the news in its entirety etc. will become legal grounds for divorce. If you are a clown you can drop the ball sometimes and be forgiven. However, if you continue to drop the ball, and fail to juggle in a team, the circus will throw you out (or sometimes put you in the human cannon machine and ensure the safety net is faulty). Also demands for dinner without being involved in the cooking is just asking for extra ingredients of dubious merit (eg. saliva, itching powder, cyanide, cholesterol) at the very hint of your relationship souring.
Amy Heckerling.
I always imagined that babies would never really inspire me in themselves. Rather the potential and the learning and interaction that comes later is what I imagined would inspire me. This, I found is way too simplistic. There is a continuum between what happens before, during and after birth and through babiehood. What you do and see at any point has consequences down the track for the relationship with the person that the baby becomes. The old stereotypes of the father as a provider and the mother as a nurturer still linger, but they are gradually being trampled on by the reality that the breakup of duties has got to be eternally flexible. Women are still from Venus and Men from Mars, but both sides need to be in touch with the grand scheme, and its a two person juggling act now and that makes for fancier tricks, but more balls to keep in the air. For instance, my wife so often spots ways in which a nursery (or any room in the house) would be more efficient, but I have the strength to actually move the furniture around. Tag team with feeding, changing, waking, sleeping schedule is so much better for overall morale than insisting "Hey that's your job!". When one partner comes home from work, it should be seen as a shift change. That first hour home is critical. Get the chores out of the way in a tag-team format, as a morale boost for the baby-keeper leaving time to relax together later, the three of you (or two, if baby manages to go to sleep). Home chores with baby is so often a thankless, tedious, frustrating job (one where resigning is not an option) that the fact that you are your own boss is a curse (much like most small businesses I know:)).
The old days where a father would keep their distance from babies, and then involve themselves more (when they are older) if they need disciplining, or help with homework or to teach them where the beer is in the fridge - are long gone. The social dynamics of families is now beginning to enter the public domain with shows like "Supernanny" and "Honey we're killing the kids". If you try to fight the developing social norms you will increasingly be called on it. Coming home with demands of dinner being ready, house being clean, to watch the news in its entirety etc. will become legal grounds for divorce. If you are a clown you can drop the ball sometimes and be forgiven. However, if you continue to drop the ball, and fail to juggle in a team, the circus will throw you out (or sometimes put you in the human cannon machine and ensure the safety net is faulty). Also demands for dinner without being involved in the cooking is just asking for extra ingredients of dubious merit (eg. saliva, itching powder, cyanide, cholesterol) at the very hint of your relationship souring.
Monday, October 8, 2007
The long Nine-month goodbye
Goodbye to those hobbies that only existed because of a thing called "spare time".
From Two to Tango: ...it should be a shared experience, with the father offering plenty of support, says Anne Hollonds, of Relationships Australia. "There is a vast gap that emerges; the woman becomes very educated and the guy feels left out, so one of the most important ways to support your partner is to stay involved and to find ways of being connected with the pregnancy".
I recommend going to every pre-natal check-up, classes and ultrasounds particularly. I really feel sorry for those fathers that wouldn't or couldn't. The birth itself is of course even more important, but ultrasounds have improved from indecipherable black and white smudges to 3d(4d?) colour and sound recordable movies. Thus, there will not be an excuse even if you are posted overseas. Technology is not quite there, but it is tantalisingly close, and then every expectant father can have a "sympathy pregnancy".
I have found a very strong correlation between how involved a father is during pregancy/childbirth and how involved he is further down the track. I have not met a "dead-beat dad" yet that had shown up to pre-natal classes and/or ultrasound checkups. Those females that discourage such involvement are just as culpable if they cry foul down the track about the lack of support. I challenge any expectant father to listen to a few minutes of fetal heart-monitor sound and then decide that you don't really want involvement until the child can interact back.
Life is of course an interminable balancing act however, and at times during my "own" last four pregnancies/childbirths, I was torn between important values of work (providing for family), diet obsessions (right foods for baby etc.), expenditure & savings (what to spend on - how much to save), sports (won't have time, but how to keep fit?), home improvements and leisure. In the big picture, I don't think it matters if you miss an ante-natal visit if you were going to get the sack if you didn't show up to work, or if you bought junkfood because you didn't have time to cook or if you went to play volleyball while your wife was having contractions five minutes apart at full term. Sometimes you just have to make a call under tough circumstances, and it doesn't mean you don't love your partner.
There are a large range of "developing" technologies of variable merit that warrants our attention when we start to looking at the future of father's roles during pregnancy and childbirth. Most of the associated technologies are medical, and the continuing push is for doctors to know as much about the developing fetus as they would have for anybody under their care. Parents are increasingly taking the obstetricians to task over any and every intervention. If anything goes wrong, it is they who are questioned or accused, perhaps more than any other medical specialty. It is no surprise therefore, that obstetricians are either leaving or demanding extravagant fees (if only to pay for their extravagant insurance premiums) for their services. Any problems that happen in pregnancies in the future will be exacerbated by the crisis of accessibility of expert medical staff. However, the technology for keeping track of bub, like a security camera will mean that fathers can be there one way or another. Any diagnosed ailment can be researched via the internet, sidestepping reliance on doctors for advice, using them when they are avalable to fill in the gaps of knowledge or diagnosis. You heard it here first, there will exist devices like i-pods that constantly transmit sound and vision from the baby 24/7.
From Two to Tango: ...it should be a shared experience, with the father offering plenty of support, says Anne Hollonds, of Relationships Australia. "There is a vast gap that emerges; the woman becomes very educated and the guy feels left out, so one of the most important ways to support your partner is to stay involved and to find ways of being connected with the pregnancy".
I recommend going to every pre-natal check-up, classes and ultrasounds particularly. I really feel sorry for those fathers that wouldn't or couldn't. The birth itself is of course even more important, but ultrasounds have improved from indecipherable black and white smudges to 3d(4d?) colour and sound recordable movies. Thus, there will not be an excuse even if you are posted overseas. Technology is not quite there, but it is tantalisingly close, and then every expectant father can have a "sympathy pregnancy".
I have found a very strong correlation between how involved a father is during pregancy/childbirth and how involved he is further down the track. I have not met a "dead-beat dad" yet that had shown up to pre-natal classes and/or ultrasound checkups. Those females that discourage such involvement are just as culpable if they cry foul down the track about the lack of support. I challenge any expectant father to listen to a few minutes of fetal heart-monitor sound and then decide that you don't really want involvement until the child can interact back.
Life is of course an interminable balancing act however, and at times during my "own" last four pregnancies/childbirths, I was torn between important values of work (providing for family), diet obsessions (right foods for baby etc.), expenditure & savings (what to spend on - how much to save), sports (won't have time, but how to keep fit?), home improvements and leisure. In the big picture, I don't think it matters if you miss an ante-natal visit if you were going to get the sack if you didn't show up to work, or if you bought junkfood because you didn't have time to cook or if you went to play volleyball while your wife was having contractions five minutes apart at full term. Sometimes you just have to make a call under tough circumstances, and it doesn't mean you don't love your partner.
There are a large range of "developing" technologies of variable merit that warrants our attention when we start to looking at the future of father's roles during pregnancy and childbirth. Most of the associated technologies are medical, and the continuing push is for doctors to know as much about the developing fetus as they would have for anybody under their care. Parents are increasingly taking the obstetricians to task over any and every intervention. If anything goes wrong, it is they who are questioned or accused, perhaps more than any other medical specialty. It is no surprise therefore, that obstetricians are either leaving or demanding extravagant fees (if only to pay for their extravagant insurance premiums) for their services. Any problems that happen in pregnancies in the future will be exacerbated by the crisis of accessibility of expert medical staff. However, the technology for keeping track of bub, like a security camera will mean that fathers can be there one way or another. Any diagnosed ailment can be researched via the internet, sidestepping reliance on doctors for advice, using them when they are avalable to fill in the gaps of knowledge or diagnosis. You heard it here first, there will exist devices like i-pods that constantly transmit sound and vision from the baby 24/7.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Planning pre-conceptions
link: On the fatherhood front, this report certainly provides some encouraging news. Specifically, 97% of the survey respondents said that fathers are just as important as mothers for the proper development of children, and 89% said that, all things being equal, it is better for children to be raised in a household that has a married mother and father.
Throughout this literary excercise, I am defining fatherhood as a planned activity. As time goes on there is less and less chance that being the father comes as a surprise somewhere down the track. Whether it be adoption, in vitro or regular conception, naivety is becoming less and less a factor, both as an educational trend and as technological and societal norms evolve. However, time and time again the act of deciding to becoming a father, or realising that you are going to be one is metaphorically "jumping off a cliff".
In my case, the pre-conception is in two stages
1) Committing to a long-term relationship in which children are both an option and workable. I call this "marriage", but the details will vary markedly between couples.
2) Deciding how much chance, opportunity and timing to apply when you roll the conception dice. That can be anywhere between just easing back on meticulous contraception to full blown temperature measurement, timing, skipping work etc. to insure the maximum probability of fatherhood the soonest.
The most important thing that won't change now or in the future, is that working unprotected sex into your couplehood is a win-win-win when you are committed to eachother and to the possibility of children.
Both in-vitro fertilisation and the adoption of babies from developing countries has been increased and improved. In the future, both will become so that any potential couple that want or need to go in that direction will be able to. It may become so reliable that some males will freeze some sperm and get the snip on reaching adolescence and they will completely rely on those techniques. This is such that they never have to feel they are jumping off a cliff. I prefer the jumping off a cliff, which is why I recommend everyone in my family never to actually take me to a real cliff.
It's that moment when you see that test kit change colour that feels like jumping off a cliff, no matter how planned/unplanned. It's a turning point in your life and the start of a new chapter. (end of chapter)
Throughout this literary excercise, I am defining fatherhood as a planned activity. As time goes on there is less and less chance that being the father comes as a surprise somewhere down the track. Whether it be adoption, in vitro or regular conception, naivety is becoming less and less a factor, both as an educational trend and as technological and societal norms evolve. However, time and time again the act of deciding to becoming a father, or realising that you are going to be one is metaphorically "jumping off a cliff".
In my case, the pre-conception is in two stages
1) Committing to a long-term relationship in which children are both an option and workable. I call this "marriage", but the details will vary markedly between couples.
2) Deciding how much chance, opportunity and timing to apply when you roll the conception dice. That can be anywhere between just easing back on meticulous contraception to full blown temperature measurement, timing, skipping work etc. to insure the maximum probability of fatherhood the soonest.
The most important thing that won't change now or in the future, is that working unprotected sex into your couplehood is a win-win-win when you are committed to eachother and to the possibility of children.
Both in-vitro fertilisation and the adoption of babies from developing countries has been increased and improved. In the future, both will become so that any potential couple that want or need to go in that direction will be able to. It may become so reliable that some males will freeze some sperm and get the snip on reaching adolescence and they will completely rely on those techniques. This is such that they never have to feel they are jumping off a cliff. I prefer the jumping off a cliff, which is why I recommend everyone in my family never to actually take me to a real cliff.
It's that moment when you see that test kit change colour that feels like jumping off a cliff, no matter how planned/unplanned. It's a turning point in your life and the start of a new chapter. (end of chapter)
Saturday, October 6, 2007
The Future of Fatherhood
From Inside Pregnancy.org: Men's involvement in pregnancy and birth and their participation in the early years of their child/children's lives has changed dramatically over the past 25 years. In 1965, about 5% of fathers attended the birth of their child. In 1989, almost 95% of fathers were present at childbirth.
By the year 2020, not only will fathers be legally obliged to be present at the birth, but most will have "four dimensional" ultrasound recordings of their baby(ies) playing on their V-Pods through the pregnancy instead of music. They will also demand paternal leave from a time somewhere in the third trimester. The transformation of fatherhood has been huge over the last generation - but as I will explain in this book (blog?), you ain't seen nuthin' yet.
The amazing fatherhood trends over the last generation are going to be eclipsed by the upheaval of the next. New technology, Globalisation and the entrenchment of bad soap operas will have wide ranging consequences for those of us with a Y chromosome thinking we should pass something of value on to the next generation.
It all begins before we even make that crucial decision that we will have children - and it doesn't end even when we get reverse charge phone calls on fathers day in our fully automated robotic nursing homes of the future. You must be prepared and this book may or may not do that, but you will get an inkling of what you have gotten yourself in for.
I have isolated 7 stages of fatherhood.
1) Planning to Conception.
2) Pregnancy to childbirth.
3) Raising Babies.
4) Taming Toddlers.
5) Living with Tweenagers.
6) Adjusting to Adolescents.
7) When am I going to get rid of you AAARRGGHH.
Having had 4 children of my own over the space of a decade shuffled between the sexes, I have observed some telling, and sometimes disturbing trends, and I feel an obligation to pre-warn any father coming into any of the listed stages, to what you've got yourself in for. With some issues, I can only offer simpathy rather than advice, and the advice I do give may be impossible to implement. But at the very least, you will recognise more mistakes as you repeat them, and you will wonder at the predictive abilities of those that came before you.
By the year 2020, not only will fathers be legally obliged to be present at the birth, but most will have "four dimensional" ultrasound recordings of their baby(ies) playing on their V-Pods through the pregnancy instead of music. They will also demand paternal leave from a time somewhere in the third trimester. The transformation of fatherhood has been huge over the last generation - but as I will explain in this book (blog?), you ain't seen nuthin' yet.
The amazing fatherhood trends over the last generation are going to be eclipsed by the upheaval of the next. New technology, Globalisation and the entrenchment of bad soap operas will have wide ranging consequences for those of us with a Y chromosome thinking we should pass something of value on to the next generation.
It all begins before we even make that crucial decision that we will have children - and it doesn't end even when we get reverse charge phone calls on fathers day in our fully automated robotic nursing homes of the future. You must be prepared and this book may or may not do that, but you will get an inkling of what you have gotten yourself in for.
I have isolated 7 stages of fatherhood.
1) Planning to Conception.
2) Pregnancy to childbirth.
3) Raising Babies.
4) Taming Toddlers.
5) Living with Tweenagers.
6) Adjusting to Adolescents.
7) When am I going to get rid of you AAARRGGHH.
Having had 4 children of my own over the space of a decade shuffled between the sexes, I have observed some telling, and sometimes disturbing trends, and I feel an obligation to pre-warn any father coming into any of the listed stages, to what you've got yourself in for. With some issues, I can only offer simpathy rather than advice, and the advice I do give may be impossible to implement. But at the very least, you will recognise more mistakes as you repeat them, and you will wonder at the predictive abilities of those that came before you.
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