The Occasional Single Parent and other ruminations

I’m just going to have a bit of a mash up post. I have lots of things to say but can’t get the words out so ver­bal vomit it is.

Well I’m alone again this week.  Wal has gone off to Turkey for the week.  I know I’ve said it before but I don’t know how sin­gle par­ents do it.  Or maybe if I were a sin­gle par­ent I would have more of a set sched­ule and it would be eas­ier.  I think the most dif­fi­cult thing is that I have so many things for him to do when he goes get home.  We spend most of the time try­ing to fig­ure out how/when to get things done.  Some­time we get irri­tated with each other and then he’s off again.  No time to just hang out as a cou­ple– this is a bad thing. All cou­ples need time to just be with each other with­out expec­ta­tions.  Still, this too shall pass but it kind of sucks at the moment.

I sent Squidge off to school every morn­ing w/ a kiss and a mes­sage. Learn lots and be kind.  To which she rolls her eyes at me and tells me she knooooooows and she iii­i­i­i­i­i­i­i­i­i­iis.  Still I say it to her every day.  Be Kind.  What does that mean to you? I am a lit­tle con­flicted at the moment as I feel like being kind is trans­lat­ing into be rid­den rough shod and never get­ting your way.  Am I teach­ing my daugh­ter to be meek and to always give in?  When she has friends over I always tell her that they’re guests and that they should play what they want first.  Does this hap­pen when she’s the guest? Or does she run and cry because they don’t want to do what she wants to do.  A under­stand­able reac­tion as she’s the guest and accord­ing to what I’ve taught her they should play what she (the guest) wants first.  I’m not say­ing that the other kids are wrong. It’s just that what you teach your kids isn’t nec­es­sar­ily that oth­ers teach their own kids.  So how do you rec­on­cile this dif­fer­ence?  How do you teach them to be kind with­out it mean­ing that they’re going to be taken advan­tage of? How do you get your kids to act when they have com­pany? I try not to inter­fere w/ the play­ing but when there is con­flict or tears then I will inter­vene.  I try to lis­ten to both sides and will try to come to a fair result.  I do try to get Squidge to play what the guest wants though! Should I keep doing this?

Sex­u­al­iza­tion of chil­dren.  Squidge attends an after school dance club.  She learns bal­let and mod­ern dance.  I have had reser­va­tions about this club for a while.  My ini­tial issues with them was the snacks they give the kids– choco­late and choco­late cook­ies being a sta­ple!  Color me silly but I would think a dance orga­ni­za­tion would want to give them fruit and healthy food.  Still I brushed that aside because she only goes once a week.

My sec­ond and now more press­ing issue with the club is the sex­ual nature of a lot of the con­tent they’re teach­ing the kids.  Dur­ing the Christ­mas show the older kids were shak­ing their money maker as if they really were try­ing to make some money.  I didn’t feel com­fort­able with this but the kids were a lot older so I just let it slide.   This past Fri­day Squidge was in another show and I was a lit­tle shocked.  All the kids were gyrat­ing and rub­bing their hands up and down their bod­ies, turn­ing their bums to the audi­ence and hump­ing the air. Shak­ing their chests.  I think what I found most dis­turb­ing was the audi­ence mem­bers whoop­ing when the kids did those moves.  HELLO THEY’RE UNDER 8 AND YOU ARE NOT A STRIP CLUB!!  The songs some of the kids were danc­ing to was sooooo inap­pro­pri­ate! Guns, Ass, and I think I heard a bitch here and there.  Any­way I didn’t like it.  It’s not the mes­sage I want to send my daugh­ter.  I think it’s a shame because the peo­ple that run it are really nice.  It joins the school com­mu­nity together to the wider vil­lage com­mu­nity.  I just wish some­one would have a word w/ them.  As it is I’m not going to sign Squidge up for next year.  I’ll use the excuse that she will be start­ing Rain­bows so that she doesn’t get upset.  I don’t think she is going to miss it too much, she does bal­let and tap at a tra­di­tional dance school.  I think she has enough activ­i­ties– ballet/tap, swim­ming and Rain­bows.  She also takes ski­ing and ten­nis lessons, although she’s not tak­ing lessons at the moment. I will be sign­ing her up for music lessons soon.  A full plate I think.

So I need to know folks– thoughts? Opin­ions? Advice?