MrsBrown's philosophy of life and stuff

I had a lovely play on the piano with Rose this evening.

It was late and we were both avoiding her bedtime.  We sat together at the piano and I played the songs she's up to in the book we've got out for her.  She showed me the pieces she already knows and then I watched the lightbulb go off when she worked out she could read the finger numbers to work out what notes to play.  She played the new song a few times, practising her newly discovered technique.

Then she asked me what the 2/4 numbers meant, and I played her new songs again, while counting out loud for each bar.

I'm really enjoying watching her learn to play.  She doesn't have a teacher or formal lessons, she just has 4 adults who'll variously play the piano themselves and will pay her a bit of attention when she's interested.  She'll also sit at the piano and play for herself - this afternoon she modified one of the pieces she's learned because it "sounds lovely" when she changes the last phrase.

I was keen for my other children to learn music.  I spent money and made them practise.  It was crap and they learned little until they decided to take it on for themselves.

Now the three children at home are having a lovely time playing around with music and teaching themselves.  They're even inspiring me to sit down occasionally.

So that's where he went last night!

Yesterday, Mordwen posted an extract from qamar's blog about the development of gender stereotypes, particularly in children.

I started to post a response, but it's more about me than I think is reasonable in someone else's blog, so here's a story about me and my experiences of gender.

qamar quoted a study I had spent some time talking with my mother about when I was a teenager.  I guess it was part of me working out my own gender identity.  It's the study where babies are dressed in "boys" or "girls" clothes and then the behavior of strangers towards the babies was observed to be dependent on the clothes the babies were wearing.

My first gender related story is of a memory I have of being about 4.  I remember standing in front of a mirror, I was wearing blue shorts and a striped t-shirt.  It was summer and I was looking at myself and wishing, wishing really hard, that I was a boy.  I spent most of the time until I hit puberty trying to be mistaken for a boy. It still makes me grin when people mistake me for a man, or call me "mate".

After MrPeacock was born I remember not buying a pink skivvie for him.  I noted at the time what I was doing, but decided to go with it.  I didn't have that problem for Sneetch - he wore his sister's handmedowns, even the skirts until he was about 3.5.  I was always amused to take him to childcare in a skirt and pick him up wearing pants.  He stopped wearing skirts when he decided he didn't want to.

When MsNotaGoth was about 4 I gave her a haircut.  As I did it I realised that I was making it look worse and worse, so I cut it all off, leaving it about 2cm long all over.  After that she spent more time playing with boys because they were more likely to include her in their games.  She also played with girls happily and I concluded that it was worth this piece of subterfuge to broaden her play options.  Maybe it's time to cut Rose's hair?  

I was interested to see how small boys defined gender.  Until MsNotaGoth went to school she was quite happy to wear dresses, they were her favourite clothes.  Then, after a week at school, she refused to wear dresses anymore.  The boys had been teasing her as if she were a boy wearing a dress.  She didn't wear a dress again until she was about 14, and still won't wear dresses without a dressing up reason.  Then again, I'm pretty similar.

Another time, maybe just before she started school, we went camping for the weekend with a group of extended family.  She was found with her pants around her ankles proving to a group of boys that she really was a girl.

In terms of my boys questioning stereotypes, I guess I've made a bit of a fuss about MrPeacock and his attitude to clothes.  Would he be called MsPeacock if he were a girl?  I love how he dresses and I love it when he's stood in front of the mirror discussing the exact cut of a piece o clothing, but I also feel a little bit uncomfortable and guilty in relation to my pleasure.

I think I've encouraged his interest in clothes - I've always praised him when he chooses clothes that match well, I've gone shopping with him and I loved it when I was choosing his clothes and could put him in interesting colour combinations and make him look great.

My children have always had a different view of gender to your average child.  We always delighted in telling them about their father's dress and makeup collection and I didn't own any makeup until my wedding 6 years ago (tomorrow!).  I work in a non traditional area and frequently do stuff (I can't think of anything right now) that other women don't do.  And then I muck it all up by having 4 children and enjoying cooking and sewing.  I guess their Dad mucks it up too by calling himself a feminist and then behaving/speaking aggressively towards women advocating feminism in a way that excludes him.

Anyway, with Rose life is more interesting again.  Her father has a much more traditional view of gender than the other kids dad did, and I'm more relaxed about just enjoying what ever person she becomes.  I have much less interest in playing games with society than I did when my other children were small.  I just want her to have a good time, and not feel that she has to fight with stuff all the time.  OTOH, we still seem to have trained her not to cry when she falls over, and to enjoy playing with blocks, trains, cars and computers.  I'm also pretty sure I would have estimated her crawling abilities accurately.

Sneetch has appropriated my laptop for the evening and is playing a game, despite my ruling the other day that others could only use it to do homework on.

He's so charming, and it's nice to have him interacting with his sister where I can see. He's often here for only one night a week and he spends his evening playing a computer game in his room, with the door closed. Tonight he's sat on the couch and been available for interruptions.

But I want my computer baaa..ackk

Maybe the 3minutes and 57 secs are over now and he'll give it to me.

It's one of those nights.

I wouldn't stay up to help a child with their homework, but when they've waited until 11pm!!!!!!!! to start packing for a 5 day hike, you sort of have to be around to make sure they don't die of hypothermia because they couldn't find the sleeping bag they used last time they went hiking.

He even had the day off school with a curriculum day, but he's only packing now.

grrrr

There's nothing like worrying about your children to put a kybosh on your ability to work effectively.

Z is not at school again today. He wasn't there last Mon, Tues or Wed either. I got him to the student welfare coordinator on Wednesday and we arranged for him to attend some of his classes on Thursday and Friday, which he did.

He was supposed to meet the SWC again today to sort out this week, but he decided it was more important to stay in bed. After a couple of phone calls I got on to him and persuaded him to ring the SWC himself. Then we spoke again, unfortunately she just told him to get out of bed and get to school. It's useless trying to parent over the phone, particularly when he's at his Dad's house. I was trying to persuade him to go to some of his classes today, like last week, but he's a recalcitrant bastard and doesn't see that he's got us all jumping through hoops trying to get him to school.

I'm also stuck because he's mostly at his Dad's during the week and I can't make sure that I get into his room to make sure he gets up, jolly him to get into uniform and then have a tanty until I finally drive him to school, arriving about 2 hours late at work, but able to work because I'm not worried about him. I can't see MTB doing that, or the preparation the night before to make sure that Z's homework is attempted and he goes to bed at a reasonable hour.

When T went through a phase of avoiding school, I fought for a while and then just banned her from watching tv for four weeks. MTB failed to back me up on that one, and she spent more time at his place, but at least it had an effect after the third set of 4 weeks without tv, and really took the emotion out of arguing with her about getting up for school. Z's a much more determined and less tv addicted person than T, he's also sneaky and likely to just continue refusing to go to school with the punishment/consequences mounting up until it becomes ridiculous to enforce.

I could remove his access to his computer and computer games, ideally with MTB's cooperation. Or maybe give him access in direct ratio to his school attendance and homework attempt.

At heart MTB and I are both really bad parents. We don't do routine at all well, and mostly we'd rather have a nice time chatting, or going out, or watching cool movies with our kids than getting them to do their homework or anything else that requires persistance and boredom to get a great outcome.

Z asked me where he should put his wishlist this year. This is it.

Red vs Blue DVD's
Family guy DVD's

I know he's also looking for a TV tuner card, money towards an Ipod video (in his dreams!) and a higher spec graphics card than he has ( he has a Radeon 9200)