(This was written by my mom, Ora Irby, in 1959. All incidents she described were true, and a few of them became family lore and have been told many times).
Before I became a mother I had very strong ideas on how to raise children. I noticed the mistakes of aunts and neighbors and determined to profit by them. My children, I thought, would not be misbehaved little brats but would be sweet and well-mannered. Now I catch myself thinking, "Little did I know," "The best-laid plans of mice and men...," and "Experience is the best teacher."
One of the many rules I had for rearing children was that I would use the positive approach instead of the negative. Instead of saying "don't" or "no" constantly, I would reason with my children. It didn't take long to find that my girls had to have a reason for my reason that was better than their reason. That led to arguing to see who had the better reason, and that led to my losing arguments. This led me to the middle-of-the-road approach, which means giving a reason and then laying down the law.
"Momma, can we go swimming?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because."
"Because why?"
"Because I can't afford it."
"Yes, you can. I looked in your purse. You have some money."
"That money is for food, not swimming."
"Why can't we go swimming? Other children get to go. You never let us do anything."
"Isn't that awful? You can't go swimming and that's final."
"Why? Just give me one good reason!"
"Because I said you can't, and if you ask once more I'm going to blister you."
If I had started out by saying "no" and not allowing any back-talk, we might have repressed, neurotic, cowering children, but just think of the peace and quiet.
Eight-year-old Peggy is what the experts call a gifted child. She was walking at seven months, could say three-word sentences at 12 months, and before she finished second grade had read Heidi, Black Beauty, and about 56 smaller library books. She doesn't say, "Mother, how do you spell 'probably'?" She says, "Mother, is 'probably' spelled p-r-o-b-a-b-l-y?" All I have to do is say yes. It saves me a lot of trouble in the long run, for otherwise I would have to keep the dictionary in my purse for easy reference.
In her class at school a red 100 means perfect; a blue 100 means there has been an erasure and a correction. The first time she got a blue 100 was a crushing blow. It threw her out of kilter so much that the next day she made 99 on something. She showed me the question she had missed, and to tell the truth I would have missed it, too. I didn't understand the question at all. Peggy said the whole class missed on that question, and I imagine the teacher would have, too, except for having the answer book to go by.
As a girl, I was just average in intelligence and had to struggle hard to get as high as a "B"; therefore it is a wonder where Peggy gets her smartness. (or my term: "smart-aleckness.") Because she wants to learn everything about everything, she asks unending questions that her father and I are hard-put to answer. I suppose this leads her to the notion that we are stupid, and that she knows more than we do.
I am almost afraid to talk to her because of the fact that some innocent remark may send her off into a long line of questions. Once I said, "You eat so much between meals, you must have a tapeworm."
"What's a tapeworm?"
"It's a long worm that lives in peoples' intestines and eats the food that people eat."
"How does it get inside you?"
"Usually by a person eating pork that is not well-cooked."
"How long does it get?"
"Oh, several feet."
"What does it look like?"
"Let's look in the Book of Knowledge. (I look up worms in the Book of Knowledge but there is no picture of the worm I am looking for).
"Do I really have a tapeworm?"
"No, silly, I just said that."
"Well, I might have one."
"No, you don't."
"How do you know?"
"We hardly ever eat pork, and when we do I cook it very well."
"Maybe I got it somewhere else."
"Oh, hush up. Drop the subject. I don't want to hear another word about tapeworms."
If Peggy is a learner and doer, Karen is a dreamer and don't-doer. They are as far apart as the poles. For a long time I thought, naively, that Peggy was normal in intelligence, so consequently Karen must be abnormal. Karen didn't care a whit whether she learned anything or not. I was full of misgivings when I took her to school and she didn't know the alphabet from a hole in the head. I fully expected to get a note from the principal telling us that Karen was not mentally ready for school and that she should wait another year. Imagine our surprise when, upon attending open house at the school, we found that Karen was doing as well as some children, and even better than others. It was then that it dawned upon me: Karen was the normal child. It was Peggy who was different.
When it comes to discipline, the girls are also different. Whereas Peggy becomes antagonistic and argumentative, Karen uses a very feminine approach. She just stands with a hurt expression on her face and lets the tears fall. Then she gets a hammer lock around my neck and says she is sorry. I have to forgive her or get strangled.
As a baby, Peggy had an unusual appetite for unusual food. One memorable day I found one-half of a June bug in a spot Peggy had recently vacated. I nearly went crazy the rest of day, saying to myself, "Do you suppose she did? No, she couldn't have. Oh, she wouldn't do a thing like that. And yet..." The next morning (via her diaper) I found that she had, after all. Then there was the time that she ate half a jar of cold cream and cried when I took the other half away from her. I need not mention the cigarette butts or dirt.
Why do children do things like that?
One of the girls (I can't always remember which did what) poured out a large box of Tide on the kitchen floor. I swept it up, dirt and well, and put it back in the box. My way of figuring was that if Tide can get clothes clean, it ought to be able to get itself clean.
One incident I shall never forgot: it is etched indelibly in my mind. Karen was only a baby in her crib, just barely able to stand in her bed while holding on. Peggy was about two-and-a-half. On this particular morning, everything was quiet as I went upstairs, and I was hoping that the girls were still sleeping. Peggy heard me coming and gleefully said, "Look, mommy, Kerne is a Indian." I looked and what I saw was not an Indian, but a completely bare baby covered from head to foot with cream rouge. By the time I finished with Peggy, her bottom was almost as red as Karen's. It took a large bottle of cold cream, a box of Kleenex, and three baths to get Karen to a blush pink. I can look back and laugh now, but it was no laughing matter then.
I wondered if the time would ever come when the girls would go to bed without the usual arguments with us and fights between themselves. Now that they are seven and eight (and have different rooms) there is a minimum of trouble. This may also have something to do with the television having been out of order for the last two months and our not having it repaired. Nevertheless, they now go to bed with hardly any arguments and only one trip apiece for water and to the bathroom. Now there is a new problem. Whereas before I wanted them to sleep late and they wanted to wake at the crack of dawn, now I want them to wake early and get ready for school, and they want to sleep till ten o'clock.
Speaking of getting ready for school -- there is another field in which the girls differ. After I drag them both out of bed, Peggy begins immediately getting dressed. When she tries, she can get completely dressed in five minutes. Karen, on the other hand, can take 20 minutes in putting on two socks. It seems she has a talent for losing one sock while putting on the other. Then she invariably asks where her shoes are. I have found them together, or separately, in the most unlikely places. The most likely places are in the back yard (where the dog has a jolly time with them), or in the dirty clothes hamper. Once, after having searched for 30 minutes, I was almost ready to send her to school barefooted, when I found them in a drawer of her vanity, the most unlikely place for her to put them.
Don't get the idea that I never have trouble with Peggy on school days. There are times when I have ironed "the wrong dress" for her to wear. In fact, any time it is not her nylon Easter dress, it's the wrong dress. She can't go to school with only one slip; she has to wear a slip, two red petticoats, and one pink petticoat. On the other hand, Karen would just as soon go to school without any slip at all, and does if I don't check on her.
Peggy has yet to forgive me for making her wear brown oxfords to school. It seems she was the laughing stock of the school every day, and "looked like a boy." "All" the other girls wear strapless, tieless, ballerina shoes. And, "When are you going to get me a REAL full nylon petticoat?" It seems that "everyone" (including the boys?) wears REAL full nylon petticoats.
Karen wears glasses, and instead of cleaning them when they are dirty (which is almost constantly) she takes them off and forgets where she has laid them. Once she put them in her lunch kit, then left her lunch kit in the school yard. I looked for both the next day and the lunch kit was neither in the play yard nor the lost-and-found. After a week we were about ready to plunk down $21.50 for a new pair of glasses, when the lunch kit mysteriously appeared in the play yard.
Karen's glasses were forever getting knocked to the ground, bending or getting the earpieces broken. For a long time she went around with one earpiece completely gone and the other tied on with adhesive tape. They sort of titled a little and she said she would rather keep them off than on. Bob got the bright idea or taking the earpieces off an old worn-out pair to put on her glasses. They work fine, so far.
Karen wants to take all her toys to show her teacher. One conversation went like this:
“No, you may not take your Magic Wood to show Mrs. Taylor.”
“Other children take their toys to show her.”
“I know you too well. You would be playing with this instead of listening to the teacher.”
“No, I wouldn’t. I promise.”
“You are not taking the wood and that’s final.”
“Aw-w-w-w.”
As you can plainly see, I am a cruel, heartless, sadistic mother.
During automobile trips when Karen was three and Peggy was four, Peggy was always noticing things first and pointing them out to Karen, who would most likely look in the wrong direction and never see what Peggy saw at all. I think Karen was getting an inferiority complex because she never saw things first. But one day she came into her own. She pointed and said, “See the bus, Peggy?” “Where? I didn’t see a bus,” said Peggy. Karen said, with great amazement, “All by myself, I saw a bus.”
Sometimes I hear the tail-end of a conversation between the girls, or between one of them and a playmate, that I just must be too thick to understand. Like the time I heard Karen say to someone in the next room, “Mother is wearing shorts. Mothers wear shorts. Jeffrey’s mother wears shorts.”
I am afraid that the girls’ interpretation of the Golden Rule is “Do unto your sister as she does unto you, and do it twice as hard.” Tattling got so bad, and accusations worse, that I resorted to telling them to settle their own troubles – I had troubles of my own. Otherwise I must spank both of them to be sure in getting the right culprit. Though there is still an occasional tattle, the reduction in number of times per days is considerable.
Hardly a day goes by that we don’t learn by picture or by oration just how much they love us. At these times everyone is lovey-dovey (practically gooey) and we remind the girls how much better it is to be loving than fussing. They agree wholeheartedly.
There have been a few times when Peggy, after being punished, has asserted fiercely, “You love Karen more than you do me!” (it’s funny, but Karen says we love Peggy more than we do her). Then there have been a few “I hate you’s” but I merely reply “You may hate me, but I still love you.” This may bring on a barrage of “No, you don’t, or you wouldn’t spank me.” I was beginning to worry a little about the latter until Peggy announced that her class had to make a little speech on whether parents should or should not spank their children, and that her speech went, “Parents should spank their children ‘cause if they didn’t it would mean that the parents didn’t love their children, and the children would grow up to be spoiled brats.”
How proud can a mother get? I am beginning to think my girls will be sweet-well-behaved girls after all.
“MOMMA. TELL KAREN TO GET OUT OF MY BEDROOM AND STAY OUT!”
Excuse me, please. I am referee again. Why do children…?
