The Truth

Having a three year old means that you have to be answering questions all the time. Lucas is a very curious kid, as as most kids his age he'll start asking question after question. I find this interesting because I can see how he is starting to grasp most of the concepts that we take for granted as adults but it is also exhausting. This morning he was sort of in turbo mode. Since we got in the car at home until we parked a the daycare he asked questions non-stop from "What Pokemon is bigger Charmeleon or Charizard?" to "Why is my hand shaped like a rectangle?" I have also made it more difficult to myself because of two choices I made.

The first one is that I want to answer every one of his questions as accurately as possible. We have taught Lucas to not accept an easy answer. If he asks you a question and your answer is "Just because" his immediate reply is "That is not a valid answer". I'm sometimes half paying attention at what he is asking and a "just because" will slip and he will always catch me. This is how I have sometimes found myself talking about the states of matter, atoms and the properties of light to explain why the sky is blue or talking about the nervous system to explain why his finger hurts. It is very rewarding when I'm in the middle of one of these explanations and he will ask a follow up question related to what I am actually saying. I know that he is not grasping absolutely everything I say but sometimes he will surprise me. His teacher the other day congratulated me because he knew what gravity was. What amazes me is that I explained gravity to him in Spanish, how he translated it and explained it to his teacher in English just baffles me.

The second difficulty is that I am not a very religious person so I lose the what I think would be a very useful cop out "Because God made it that way!". But I have also learned that he understands that sometimes I don't know all the answers, so he will sometimes accept an "I don't know". When this happens I make it a point to actually make my research so I can find an explanation for him. So his questions actually help me learn about stuff too.

Friday Movie
It is that time of the week again and here are the choices for the poll. Please vote on the top right corner under Jerry Seinfeld's head:

• A Touch of Zen: This has been called the best Kung-Fu movie ever, not just because of the visuals but also because of the artistic quality and story.
• The Paradine Case: I have seen every Alfred Hitchcock movie from 1938 until 1976 except for this one.
• Chimes at Midnight: Falstaff is a Shakespeare character in three different plays. In this movie Orson Welles creates a sort of biopic of the character across those three plays.
• Shall We Dance: A Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie. It would be the fourth most popular pairing of the two after the three I have already seen: Top Hat, Swing Time and Gay Divorcee
• The Revenge of Frankenstein: The second installment of the Hammer Frankenstein series starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.

What did I See?

Birdman of Alcatraz: You can see how some more recent prison movies like Shawshank Redemption and the Green Mile were inspired by this movie's tone. From what I read of the real Robert Stroud the movie was very kind to him by omitting most of his worst traits.

The Pony Remark

Honestly I wasn't sure I actually wanted to see Equus, I was rooting that the poll results would favor Fort Apache. But the people spoke and I listened, so soon after the polls closed at noon I started watching the movie. It wasn't what I described at all in "The Contest" post. This is not about a serial horse killer. It's funny that I think some of you even understood that it was about horse serial killers (which might have been hilarious, terrifying or both). It was actually about a very disturbed kid that because of many psychological complexes ends up blinding some horses in a stable he works at. The story is told in flashbacks through a conversation with a psychologist. It was pretty good, not a masterpiece or a movie I would watch again but I think it raised some interesting points.

Today it rained the whole day and it made my day very uneventful. Nothing interesting really happened. The highlight of my day was when Matias actually pooped. He had been in an unusual mood all day and as soon as he pooped he was the normal smiley Matias again. As a friend recently remarked, it is very interesting how someone else's bowel movements somehow become important when you are a parent.

So anyway, I wanted to get back to the movie because one of the characters, the kid's mom, actually clicked with me on how I feel about parenting and I think it might be relevant for this blog. She is a very unlikable character, very religious and strict, and I think the movie tries to persuade you that all of this situation might have been her fault. But she defends herself with a very interesting monologue where she says the following:

"... You come to us and say, who forbids television?  Who does what behind whose back? – as if we’re criminals.  /  Let me tell you something.  We’re not criminals.  We’ve done nothing wrong.  We loved Alan.  We gave him the best love we could.  /  All right, we quarrel sometimes – all parents quarrel – we always make it up.  /  My husband is a good man.  He’s an upright man, religion or no religion.  He cares for his home, for the world, and for his boy.  Alan had love and care and treats, and as much fun as any boy in the world.  /  I know about loveless homes:  I was a teacher.  Our home wasn’t loveless.  I know about privacy too – not invading a child’s privacy.  /  All right, Frank may be at fault there – he digs into him too much – but nothing in excess.  He’s not a bully. . . /  No, doctor.  Whatever’s happened has happened because of Alan.  Alan is himself.  Every soul is itself.  If you added up everything we ever did to him, from his first day on earth to this, you wouldn’t find why he did this terrible thing – because that’s him; not just all of our things added up.  /  Do you understand what I’m saying?  I want you to understand, because I lie awake and awake thinking it out, and I want you to know that I deny it absolutely what he’s doing now, staring at me, attacking me for what he’s done, for what he is! ...  "

As much as my parenting methods differ greatly from that woman I completely empathize with her. I think most of what we provide our children is in our genes and those genes determine most of what they are going to be like. I think we live in a culture that just places too much emphasis on parenting. There are thousands of books claiming to have the best method and just pressuring parents into doing things that might not come naturally to them and make them feel like failures. You see helicopter parents trying so hard it is painful, because they might fail through no fault of their own. They try to be the perfect parent that books or the internet or their friends or parents tell them to be. And if they fail they will blame themselves, society will blame them too. I think we shouldn't. Every person is their own person and the best you can do as a parent is just try to be the best person you can be and hope it rubs off on your kids. Lead by example. If someone turns out to be a criminal, a drug addict or a loser they should completely assume their own responsibility and stop blaming parents. They most certainly tried their best.

So that rant ends week number 1. I expect to publish my next post on Monday. But during the weekend Alegna will be a guest writer on the blog and give you her perspective on how I'm really doing.

See you next week!