R-E-S-P-E-C-T

She asks THE question:

It brings up this question: In a day and age with no Little Yellow Birds and no Expectations of behavior, do I continue to try and instill these old-fashioned values in my kids, or do I throw in the towel and give them a fighting chance amongst peers who have no respect for others, much less, themselves?

And this brings me to a topic that is eating at me since some time now (since it happened, actually). Here is the story [rant on]:

I have the same problem. Here is our personal conundrum:

We have 5 sets of direct neighbors (as we are in the middle of a settling). One family has one kid, Mark, who is 4. The other family has two kids. Their smallest, Alice, 5, plays with Mark. Their older boy, Peter, 8, plays, well, not with many kids, it seems. (Btw, I changed the names. They’re not their real names).

I cannot say I initially disliked them. They are very different than we are, rather uptight and closed. But I remained friendly and did all the necessary neighbor stuff: Invited them to garden parties, wrote them Christmas cards, gave them an Easter basket and so on (although none of this was ever reciprocated, but these are things I do not measure, so I don’t care).

The kids are EXTREMELY well behaved. As far as mute counts as well behaved. You seldom hear them talk at all, and surely not in the presence of adults. But. I am continuously finding out they are… mean. Just evil. I mean it.

So one day they had guests, and kids were playing in the garden. Joshua stood right next to them at the hedge and asked if he could come play. He was ignored. So he asked again, and the girl said: “You? No, why would we let YOU play along?” In THAT tone.

OK, kids do that sometimes. But: In this case, the parents saw and heard it all and did nothing. When Mark, the little one of the other neighbors, who also was in their garden, called for Joshua to come, they even called him back and berated him.

So Joshua ended up crying, standing next to the fence and crying and they did nothing. Said nothing.

I did nothing, either, at least not in that moment, because if I had intervened, I had killed someone. Or everybody. Oh my God, I was so furious.

The next day, I heard Alice say to the other neighbor’s boy: “Why should we play with him? He does not even have a swingset, just a boring see-saw. He has nothing fancy!”

The thing is, little Mark LIKES to play with Joshua and comes over, or Joshua goes there, but only when Alice is NOT around. When she is around, he completely adapts her behavior.

Some time later, when we built up the trampolin (which we had bought beforehand, just to clarify, btw.), whoops – there they were, wanting to jump.

So what do I do?

I decide that I am not like them, and let the kids jump, and give them ice cream. I briefly talked to Alice, though, when she came and wanted to jump, and said: “Do you recall how you did not want Joshua to play? That was not very nice. But we want to be nice to each other, so you can come and jump.”

And I take time and effort to explain to Joshua why we let them, because he asks me: “Why do we let them play here, they only come because of the trampolin, they don’t like me at all.” Which is, of course, totally correct.

I tell them that some people make more of an effort to be nice than others, and that I would prefer to be one of those people, and that sharing and friendliness is important in our family and home, and that we will therefore share and be friendly, even if they don’t and are not.

He accepts this. He also continues to play with Mark, although he often drops comments like “Neiner, neiner, you don’t have anything fancy.” (I mean, the boy is four, he imitates Alice, who is older and, it seems, positively deceiving). Mark is not a bad kid. But he is totally under Alice’s influence.

So these incidents happen more and more often. Joshua is not allowed to play with Alice and Peter. At all. Even Mark is more and more hostile.

What the HELL do I do? It really hurts to see them treat him like that, and I cannot really continue to explain this to him in any sensitive way, it seems. I tried to bring it up with the neighbors, but all I get is very polite nothingness. OK, I was not totally blunt about it yet (“Why are your kids behaving in such a mean and nasty way?”), because I have a feeling this will lead to nothing at all.

Do I continue to tell my son that we want to be good people, and be friendly and forgiving? I feel that I want to be this way, at least towards the kids. They, too, just imitate their parents’ uptight, narrow-minded, nasty behavior. It’s not really their fault.

But can I extend that to my kid and expect the same from him? What will it gain him? He’s got a huge heart and is quite empathic, but what will this gain him? Being the one who is always bullied? Should I rather tell him to fight back? And if I do, how do you fight back perfidy? If already a five year old girl knows how to talk mean behind someone’s back?

I cannot begin to guess how nasty people can be.

I told Joshua, for now, that there always will be those people who will try to make a difference in their lives, people who want to make the world a better place,  and those people who don’t care, who only think about themselves, and who poison the world with that bit by bit.

He nodded sagely and said: “OK, and isn’t it great that there are so many more people who care and want to be good?”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I did not believe that anymore.

Today, for the first time, I could not decide which one I liked better. So you shall have both (Inside the posting).

The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis

A great children’s book. The one in the front is my own, the one used as background is my son’t version, with wonderful illustrations. I like the warm colours, and the play with perspective.

A Song of Ice and Fire, by George R. R. Martin

I am a huge fan of the fantasy author George R. R. Martin. Before there was Worth (yes, there was a time before Worth) I frequented a message board about his series “A Song of Ice and Fire”. Not only did we discuss the books, but we also wrote stories together and talked about pretty much everthing. Some people there became very close friends. Well, the Worthians among you will know what I mean, more or less.

One of us found that GRRM had put three chapters of the third book in the series, A Storm of Swords, into Ebay. Three preliminary chapters, and signed! We (as the board community) decided that we needed to have them. And instead of outbidding each other, we teamed. We chose one of us to win the auction. We opened a thread where everyone said how much he could give and calculated the end account. I think more than 30 people from all over the world participated.

Greg paid a really outrageous amount for these three manuscript chapters, but we were thirty. Of course there was a risk – we did not know each other personally, only over the site. He just PM’d everyone his bank account data (this was before PayPal) and had to trust us. And not one bailed out on him. Everyone paid his money. The funny thing was: Greg had said he would make copies for everyone for free. But each and every one decided to send a bit more money for the copying and his efforts and shipping, so in the end he had not only the amount, but copies, shipping AND some spare. We told him to get a good dinner from it, but he did not want to. So we donated the money for a foundation helping artists who could not pay for medical care.

I received my copy a bit later, with a singature for Greg and all of us from George R. R. Martin upon it.

Some months later, I met with George R. R. Martin on the German book fair. We had a good talk, and he told me he was coming to Cologne the following week, and would we like to go out for dinner? We had dinner with George and his German translator, which was quite an amazing evening. So at the bottom, he signed once more, a personal signature just for me.

These pages, I keep with the book. They really mean a lot for me, for they are not only manuscript pages from a great book, signed by a phantastic author, but also a reminiscence of a crazy stunt we pulled, and a great time we had. It was a team effort of mutual trust that I am proud I was a part of.

So.  Which of the two pictures do you like better (apart from the story, of course)?

Astrid Lindgren.

The woman who invented Pippi Longstocking and Emil, Lotta, Mardie, the Tomten and the children of the noisy village. She won the German Publishing Peace Prize for her creation and engagement, and even that was, imho, not enough honor.

She was an exceptional writer who chose to dedicate all her talent to children. She wrote about a little anarchical rebel girl at a time where children were still beaten at schools. She wrote a whole book about the long voyage after death – a book so revolutionary that the Swedish parliament discussed censoring it. She wrote for children, but she touched all of us to an extent that changed her time, her world, her century.

I read everything she wrote, every single line, and I still do. Her books accompanied me through my childhood, and she has influenced my life almost as much as my parents did. I still read and re-read what she wrote, and some of her books grow with time, and open to a depth of wisdom few people ever achieve.

I won’t recount you her life here, or list the books she wrote, this information can be found everywhere. I cannot find words enough to say how much I loved her, and still love her.

Thank you, thank you so much, Astrid Anna Emilia Lindgren.

Yes, it’s that topic again; it is touching my life from every possible angle right now, and I don’t really know how to cope, yet.

I talked to a kid some days ago. A teenage kid, an intelligent, talented, nice kid, who had to spill out his heart to someone, and that someone happened to be me. He told me that in a quarrel, his mother had told him she wished she had never had him.

It made me cry, and I couldn’t stop for a while. It’s probably because it reminds me of my father, who was like? this. Or because I’ve got a little boy myself, and I know how helpless and depending on their parents’ love they are. How CAN she fuckin’ DO this? Does she not know that these wounds will stay forever?

But, compared to others, this boy is still lucky.? In the course of the last two weeks (in which the incident with the junky family and the police fell, also, you can read about it below) I virtually stumbled over these stories, and mind me: These are ONLY stories of people I know. And only of people I know well enough to have been told. Think about the percentage. Think about the tip of the iceberg. Do not click away because you don’t wanna hear it, but read it, take it in and THINK, dammit.

- A man who is very close to me who was beaten and literally tortured by his alcoholic father throughout his whole childhood. He managed to get out of it and become a sane adult and even a loving father, but he still wears the scars and always will.

- A woman who had a sadistic mother. When she was nine, she threatened her daughter to have her raped if she did not behave.

- A man, now grown, who told me that his stepmother beat him and his brother regularly, daily, until, when he was ten, he finally had the strength to beat back at her to protect his brother.

- A little boy in one of my classes. I know his parents beat him, I really KNOW, but I cannot prove it. The kid is highly intelligent, but shows noticeable problems in his whole behaviour. His mother slapped him on class once, and I immediately interfered, but I don’t have any real proof to be able to do more.

- A woman who was sexually abused by her father for many years. She managed to save her soul, but she is under medication and always will be.

- A woman who was raped by a neighbor when she was 12. Her parents knew it and did nothing. She’s a grown woman now, and recently visited her family for a family dinner. When she told them she’s broken up with her boyfriend, her mother said “Well, small wonder you can’t have relationships. You screwed around with the neighbors when you were 12″.

These were, mark me, only things I ran into during the last week. I cannot control my empathy anymore – and this is bad. It took me a long time to control it and to keep it in, but now I feel raw and wounded, and often like crying. It is as if I heard their voices pleading within me, all the lost and abused kids. And I don’t wanna go there, it wouldn’t help them, nor me.

I was visiting a friend yesterday, and she told me some stuff about her neighbors. They are both alcoholics and junkies, and they’re got 2 kids: A boy aged 2, and a little baby, 6 months old.

They do not care about the kids at all. Every second or so night, the guy demolates the whole flat, kicks in doors and such, and they both beat up each other. They use the baby buggy for transporting beer bottles rather than their baby. And by the middle of the month, they’re totally out of money (which is social welfare money anyways).

My friend called the youth care dep. twice, but they didn’t do anything, obviously. And she won’t call again: The guy is threatening her. Being a single mom, she has to protect her kids, she sais.

So I went to the police. There’s a department here caring for special children issues, and I went there. Told them about it. They really listened attentively, and (hopefully) will take care of that. I left my name. The officer told me they will not give away my name, but I do not care. He may. If the guy feels like searching me out and confronting me, he may. C’mon, give me a reason.

I am sick and tired of people abusing, beating, torturing their kids. I can’t stand these stories anymore, and I won’t suffer it anywhere in my vicinity anymore. AT FUCKIN’ ALL.

That’s it.

What comes to mind when you read the title of this entry? Hardcore porn? Wrong! Read on, and you’ll learn about the depths of idiocy.

Here is the story: A little magazine, a freebie giveaway you can find at Baby’s supply stores, features a cover photo with a baby suckling on its mother’s breast. This is according to the title story, “why women don’t nurse longer”. Have a look at the picture:

Look at it real hard.

What you can see on the picture is a really cute little baby’s head. What you also can see on the picture is the curve of its mother’s breast, as the wee one is currently being fed. What you can NOT see is anything even remotely reminding us of porn. Why, there’s not even a nipple! At least none to be seen.

But what happened in the US of A, the land of the brave and free, when they saw the title of this little magazine? An uproar! Shocked and hurt phonecalls and emails!

“I was shocked to see a huge breast on the cover of a magazine”, a woman from Kansas writes, “I feel offended by it, and my husband felt very awkward when he saw the magazine in our livingroom”.

A woman from Nevada wrote: “I immediately turned the magazine around when I looked at the cover. It’s incredible. Seeing a baby hanging at its mother’s breast makes me feel sick. I had to rip off the cover so that my husband wouldn’t see”.

Dear woman from Nevada and Kansas, and dear other women who felt “offended” by a photo of a nursing baby, here is what I really like to tell you:

These two, soft protrusions in front of your torso are breasts. God gave them to you. He did this for one primary reason: So that you can feed a baby with it. Their god-given reason is just what you saw on this offending picture. I have a deep understanding that you might prefer your husband ejaculating on them, or other kinky stuff, but face it: THAT’S WHAT TITS ARE FOR!

And just to enlighten you: I live in a part of the world where pictures like that are not only on magazine covers on a regular basis, but also on book covers, and where women nurse their babies whereever the babies feel like being fed: In restaurants, in museums and in parcs. This strange and wonderful part of the world is called Europe, in case you never heard of it in Kansas or Nevada. Some call it “Old Europe” over there. Yes, I am proud of that term.

To be a little bit more serious: Breastfeeding is considered as the best way of nurturing a baby, and not by some perverts, but by a majority of renowned scientists. It is good for the health of the baby, it prevents allergies and adiposity (let me remind you that America is the land of the Fat!), it reduces the danger of breast-cancer for the nursing mother, and it is good for the baby’s psyche and soul. It is a disgrace that such common knowledge has not reached the US yet – but then, much common knowledge hasn’t. Have a look at this page, dear American women, and read and learn: http://www.lalecheleague.org/Law/summary.html

Thanks to “babytalk” for opening the debate by being the first (can you believe it, the FIRST!!!) American magazine to feature a nursing baby on its cover. Perhaps the discussion can be a next step for the US to cross the Rubicon … and leave the Middle Ages.

? P.S. Oh, I almost forgot: A footnote to both women from Kansas and Nevada. If your husbands feel awkward seeing such a photo, or if you even have to hide it from them: Think about your marriage. Real hard. Then take a lover. Or give your guys a real good blowjob. But DO something about it, for heaven’s sake!