patience and parenting and princess bikes

I'm not really one to tell people how to parent. (Or how to do anything, really; I have serious reservations about making general statements of "truth".)

But.

I will say that one thing I've grown to appreciate in the three and a half years I've been parenting is the value of waiting.

When Rosie was a baby, I spent way too many hours reading books and making charts and wondering what I was doing wrong as I tried to get her to sleep through the night.

The more I talked to other moms, and read other blogs, the more I realized that there wasn't one right way to parent, and that the fact that Rosie wasn't sleeping through the night wasn't a sign that i was parenting wrong. For me, having patience as I taught my daughter that she was heard and safe and cared for was the right thing.

It was the same with potty training. I pushed Rosie to do it when I was ready and she wasn't, and it didn't work. Months later, when she was ready for it, potty training was a breeze. It took a day and a half.

So with the pacifier thing, I've been waiting. I ignored the doctor and dentist who suggested I get rid of it. Of course, I haven't been totally passive. We did restrict paci usage to bed or rest time only. And we have talked on plenty of occasions about what it means to become a big girl. But my intuition told me that I was not to be the one to force my daughter to give up her dearest comfort (the mere mention of getting rid of it elicited tears, every time) and "grow up". I kept thinking about the story Grams tells of Aunt Patty, stubbornly throwing her pacifier in the fire place and declaring she was done. I wanted to wait until Rosie was ready, like little Patty, to resolve for herself.

We had mentioned -in passing, maybe twice- that bikes were for big girls. And so on Saturday when Rosie saw the neighborhood girls riding bikes again, she came straight home and threw her pacifier in the trash. "I want a bike," she said. And she went to sleep that night, and the next, without even a single tear. On Sunday she picked this bike out, and today she has ridden up and down our street for about four hours.

Waiting until your kid is ready makes parenting so much easier.

The Princess and the Three Knights: a book review

I promised a full review of Karen Kingsbury's picture books, and (this time, at least), I'm keeping my word.

"I have nothing against princesses, when they are done right. But I do tend to get up in arms when the story told - especially by Christians - to my daughter features a beautiful, silent, passive, nameless teenage princess who needs only a man chosen for her to marry in order to have a happy ending.

Stories matter, and in this formative period in which my daughter can remember the words to a book after hearing it only once or twice, I'm careful about what she hears, especially if she's hearing about God. That's why I find The Princess and the Three Knights (Zonderkids 2009), by Christian romance novelist Karen Kingsbury, so troubling."

Hop over to the Christianity Today Women's Blog, Hermeneutics, to read the whole thing, and chime in with your own experiences or critiques there.

a princess problem, part one

This morning I was a scientist studying lions and a magic doctor healing giraffes. I was a three year old girl holding a baby jaguar; I was a "halt-man" (which is exactly what it sounds like); and I was a pony running through a candy forest. I was friends with a lion, a little girl, another pony, and finally, a princess.

She put on an ancient nightgown. "I think this twirls," she said, experimenting. "I must be a princess!"

Time to engage in some research. "What do princesses do?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said. "They organize things."

Then,

"Sometimes," she continued, "people think I'm a princess."

"Why do they think that?" I asked.

"Because they think I'm pretty," she said nonchalantly, and then with passion, "Chase me!" And we're back to tag, running in circles around the house, the all-time favorite activity.

I have nothing against twirly skirts, telling our daughters that they are beautiful, or fairy tales with happy endings. I like love stories, including my own, which, incidentally, began a long time ago in a faraway land and involves a strong man with kind eyes.

I have nothing against princesses, when they are done right. And I think even Disney does them right, sometimes.

But I get all up in arms when the role model suggested - by Christians - for my three year old daughter is a beautiful, silent, passive, nameless, objectified teenage princess who only needs a man chosen for her to marry in order to have a happy ending.

Oh, this book gets my heart rate up. I've tried to ignore it for a year now, but it keeps showing up. And I looked at reviews online and they're all positive! So I am compelled. I'll tell you more about this book (and its counterpoint for boys), and why I - not to mince words - hate it, in a few days, when I calm down. Or even if I don't.