Brain, Child Magazine (The Magazine for Thinking Mothers) asked its readers this week, “What's the most interesting way your parenting differs from how you were raised?”
This required some serious thinking and spelling on my part, two categories in my upbringing that my parents invested copious (C-O-P-I-O-U-S, "copious." In Latin, "cōpiōsus," plentiful, rich)amounts of time preparing me for.
However, when I was a child I was never asked a single personal question. My parents had little interest in their children’s personal feelings or their views on the world, with the possible exception of world geography. Even then, it wasn’t because they were interested in my opinion about it, they just wanted to know if I could spell the names of the cities or countries that I was learning about in school.
Questions in my household weren’t even questions – they were clues. I provided the question to the clue that my Alex Trebek-style parents delivered across the dinner table, ala our home edition of “Jeopardy!” We were often given clickers at the table, all seven of my brothers and sisters and I… in case we finished dinner early and had time for some “fun.”
“This capital city is known as the Athens of South America,” my father would bait.
Click-click-click. “What is Bogotá??” I might be lucky enough to blurt out before the other seven clickers went off, each one vying for my father’s praise, while my mother looked on nervously because dessert was melting.
“But, can you spell it?” he might fire back, trying to make sure I had an actual brain in my head instead of gumballs and a lucky memory.
My parents shot out competitive spellers like piping hot rolls from a thin oven mitt. My older sisters traveled back and forth to Washington DC from California to compete with the best spellers in the country under the age of fourteen.
I never made it to DC, and I don’t think my parents ever fully recovered.
“That one went out on sheriff in the seventh grade – ‘One R, two F’s!’ we tried to tell her. ‘Two F's!’ Poor thing, look at her..,” they’d tell their academia friends, pointing and shaking their heads.
Because my opinion never mattered much to my parents but my spelling and my grades always did, I try to take the pressure off my own children when it comes to academics. And I ask questions. Lots of questions. Too many questions.
“Mama, I don’t want to talk about it!” my five-year old son tells me, cutting me off when I ask him how he feels about getting a “3” and not his regular “5” from his preschool teacher.
“Well, if you feel like talking about it, just let me know. Because, I am all ears… You know, when you’re ready… So... Are you ready yet?”
“La la la la,” plugging his own ears, hoping to drown me out.
My parenting style isn’t much of a “style” as it is a chance for me to get to know my children. This is something my parents didn’t have much time or energy for, trying to feed and bathe and educate eight kids most of their lives. But it is what I revel in… asking my kids about their lives, hearing their opinions on their little world and the other enormous one spinning around them. We sit down at our own dinner table now, looking over at the globe, while they ask questions about South America or Italy and their heritage, over black beans and pizza and even some good ‘ole American hotdogs.
And when it comes to questions about spelling, I often have to turn to my eight-year old daughter for help, especially on double consonant words. Because, I still can’t remember if there are two R’s or two F’s. More often than not, she’ll keep her patience with me and she tries not to point.
“That’s okay, Mom… it is a tricky word. Just remember: she then riff."
