Three Chairs

Of Ice Crystals and Chickens

"The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't."

~ Henry Ward Beecher

I think it can be hard, as parents, to stow away our baggage and trust that our kids might experience life's ups and downs differently than we did.  Social dynamics can be a sticky mess for our little people, and a lot of what my kids experience at school throws me right back to the 1st grade.  There I am with my shag haircut, apron dress, and unibrow.

This was the conversation between me and my two sons in the car yesterday.  

D = 7-years-old; A = 9-years-old.

D: Sometimes Cooper is really mean on the bus.  He took Scott's hat and made him cry and I had to tell the busdriver. Today he leaned over my seat and told me that I'm not allowed to have any clubs, and that he was coming to my house to babysit tonight.

Me: Honey, there is no way that I would let a fourth grader babysit you.  He's not babysitting.  And it doesn't matter if he tells you that you can't have clubs.  He has no... jurisdiction over you.  No control.  It would be like telling you that you're not allowed to eat dinner. 

D: But he told me I can't have any clubs!

Me: Do you know what you should do?

D: What?

A: Punch him in the nose!

Me: Do not punch him.  Ignore him.

D, incredulous: I mean, doesn't he know that I'm the Head Boss of the Godzilla Club?

A: You have a Godzilla Club?

D: Yup.

A: Who's in it?

D: No one. I haven't asked anyone yet.  But I will.  I'll sign them up at school and we'll have meetings in my bedroom at home.

Me: I was talking to your teacher today, and she said you have another club, something about ice crystals?

D: Yeah, the Ice Crystal Digger Club.  I'm the Head Boss.  We dig for ice crystals.

A: Is anyone in that one?

D: Yeah, a lot of kids. Except they all left my club today to go be in the Chicken Club, where all you do is bang on sticks.

Me: What?  They left?  What's a Chicken Club?

D: I don't know, it's stupid, you just pretend sticks are chickens.

Me: Why did they all leave the club?

D: I don't know!  They just all left!

Me, feeling sad: Does it make you really...  sad that everyone left your club?

D: No.  It makes me furrous.

Me: Furious?

D: Yeah.

Me: Do you you want to join the Chicken Club?

D: I would never join that club!  NEV-AH!

A: You don't know, it might be fun.

D: NEV-AH!

My seven-year-old stands resilent against the mass exodus of his club.  I'm pretty sure I'd be scheduled to see the school social worker by now.  He's proud to be the Head Boss of not one, but two clubs*, and it doesn't seem to bother him that no one else is in the clubs.  Is this confidence, stubborness, or some combination of the two?

The fine line, of course, is teaching him some flexibility so that he might eventually wander over to the Chicken Club and enjoy himself, or ask his friends why they left the Ice Crystal Diggers Club in the first place.  I have a feeling he's not the easiest 1st grader to work for.

I'm just going to have to pack up my own 1st grade baggage and keep it well out of the way of the Head Boss.  He'll navigate his own way, I have no doubt, through the inevitable conflicts between ice crystals and chickens.

*actually, he has a Fake Mustache Club, too, which I had forgotten about until he reminded me.

 

Girl Books that Boys Should Read

"When other little girls wanted to be ballet dancers I kind of wanted to be a vampire."

~ Angelina Jolie

In the first 19 weeks of my first pregnancy, I was absolutely convinced I was having a girl.  This was based on nothing.  I didn't hold a ring on a hair above my belly, or look at Chinese calendars, or do anything with Drano.  The reason I was convinced that I was having a girl was that I had to have a girl.  It was mandatory.  I looked back on my own life as a very insecure, conflicted, anxious girl, and at the path I had taken to become a confident, happy, independent woman, and I knew that the best thing I could do with those experiences was to pass the Cliff Notes on to my own girl.

Then in week 20 I found out I was having a boy.  What the hell was I going to do with all that girl-growing-into-a-strong-woman knowledge?  It took a few days, but when the answer came, it was crystal clear: I had an obligation to pass all of my hear-me-roar information on to my boy.  Perhaps it was just as important to pass it on to a boy as a girl, because boys are so intertwined in all the reasons that girls in our society are perceived the way they are, and why they perceive themselves the way they do.

So, here we are, nine+ years later, and I have two boys.  And yesterday, my nine-year-old boy, a voracious reader, said to me, completely out of the blue, "How come in all the books I read the girls are always worried, and the boys are always adventurous?" and I was reminded of my obligation.

In all fairness, he asked me why books portray things this way - he didn't do or say something that indicates that this is how he views the world.  But still, it gave me pause.  So I've decided to stack the decks a little bit, and I've asked my friends (and the internet) to suggest books that portray girls in an independent, strong, positive way.  This is the list that I've come up with so far.  If you leave your suggestions here, I'll edit them into the list.

• Airborn by Kenneth Oppel (grades 6 and up)
• Alanna (The Song of the Lionness series) by Tamora Pierce (grades 5 and up)
• Anne of Green Gables (series) by L.M. Montgomery (grades 4 and up)
• Brave Irene by William Steig (grades 1-4)
• Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu (grades 3 and up)
• Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (grades 4 and up)
• The City of Ember (Books of Ember series) by Jeanne DuPrau (grades 3 and up)
• Discworld series by Terry Pratchett (grades 7 and up)
• Eliza's Cherry Trees: Japan's Gift to America by Andrea Zimmerman (grades K and up)
• The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede (grades 4 and up)
• The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly (grades 4 and up)
• From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg (grades 6 and up)
• The Great Wall of Lucy Wu by Wendy Wan-Long Shang (grades 3 and up)
• Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh (grades 5 and up)
• Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell (grades 5 and up)
• Island's End by Padma Venkatraman (grades 5 and up)
• Mahalia Mouse by John Lithgow (grades 3 and up) - added  to this list 12/9/11
• The Mysterious Benedict Society (series) by Trenton Lee Stewart (grades 3 and up)
• Odetta: The Queen of Folk by Stephan Alcorn (grades 1 and up)
• The Penderwicks Series by Jeanne Birdsall (grades 3 and up)
• Savvy by Ingrid Law (grades 3 and up)
• The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (grades 1 and up)
• A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket (grades 5 and up)
• Sister Bear: A Norse Tale by Jane Yolen (grades K and up)
• The Sisters Grimm (series) by Michael Buckley (grades 3 and up)
• The Taxing Case of the Cows: A True Story About Suffrage by Peqi Deitz Shea (grades 1 and up)
• Theodosia (series) by Yoko Tanaka (grades 3 and up)
• Tillie the Terrible Swede by Sue Stauffacher (grades K and up)
• Queen of the Falls by Chris Van Allsburg (grades 1 and up)
• Viola Desmund Won't Be Budged by Jody Nyasha Warner (grades K and up)
• Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin (grades 3 and up)
• Zita the Space Girl by Ben Hatke (grades 3 and up)

Other interesting stuff:

The Amelia Bloomer Project: Recommended Feminist Literature for Birth through 18

Flashlight Worthy: Books for Strong Girls in Middle School (and other great book lists and recs)

Good Reads: Popular Strong Girl Character Books (book reviews and lists)

www.arbookfind.com: Search for book titles based on authors, topics, or titles of books

Why Strong Female Characters are Bad for Women, an entertaining article by Shana Miawski