Sometimes a little gem of parenting advice comes from the oddest places. I’ve been a parent now for over 7 years, and I still hold tight to a pearl I was offered when my oldest was only 11 months old.
In October of 2000, my husband and I took our daughter on a driving vacation. We started off camping in the North Carolina mountains, then hopped over to Charleston, South Carolina, and finished up in Savannah, Georgia. On the drive to Charleston, our daughter became ill with fever. This was the first time she had been sick, so we were at a loss for how best to handle it. Of course our first stop was a drug store to purchase fever-reducer.
We spent the next eight hours holed up in our hotel room with a baby who was vomiting every hour on the hour. By the next morning we were ragged and exhausted, but managed to drag ourselves down to the hot breakfast buffet. It was the tail end of it, and the staff had already started cleaning up. The dining room was empty, but we sat down anyway and tried to grab a quick bite before the food was all cleared.
A little old black woman came striding out of the back room, obviously quite annoyed that we were late for breakfast and holding up her schedule. Her tone spoke volumes about her feelings that morning, but it all changed when she realized our baby had been sick all night long. She came over and looked at our daughter, then turned to face me. She had a thick accent but I understood when she said, “You listen to me, child. I birthed a ton of babies and I gonna tell you how to handle that sick baby. When you baby got de fever, you gotta strip off de clothes from you both. You get dat baby up close to your skin. You keep her dere all night long. That’ll suck de fever right off dat child. Skin-to-skin. Dat’s what you do.” She turned and finished cleaning up the breakfast buffet.
Ever since that day, I’ve followed her advice. Feverish babies call for skin-to-skin contact. My body sucks off all the heat and helps them break the fever. It has worked for seven years and two children, and I think of that little old black woman each time my girls get “de fever”.
And now, here is my advice to you. You never know when or where the best advice will come from. Keep yourself open to the information that surrounds you. Take what is offered and digest it. Figure out if the information works for you, or if maybe only a bit of it works for you. Use what you can, and be thankful that it was given.
What is the best advice you’ve been given? Where was the strangest place good advice came from? Share your story, please.
I have a few questions, and a rant.
Why would a 7 year old child need a cell phone?
Do people routinely let their 7 year old children out of their sight? Do 7 year old children get to walk down the street to the library or ride their bike to the mall? Do they hang out with their friends for hours and hours with no parental supervision? These are the only good reason I can come up with of why a 7 year old would need a cell phone. So then the question becomes… WHY are parents letting a young child (and 7 is still quite young) out and about without supervision?
OK, before anyone tells me that life is different in some remote little rural village where there is no crime and only three cars use the one stop light in town each day… I know that. But the majority of places in America aren’t little one-light towns where everyone knows everyone else. Real towns have traffic and strangers, and 7 years old children still need supervision and protection. 7 year old children don’t need the privacy a cell phone ensures them. Parents should still be the major factor in their lives, and should know when they are on the phone and to whom they are speaking. Yes, I’m over-protective. But I’m also determined that my child will know how to handle the situations she encounters out in the real world. And to teach her, I have to be a major factor in her life. That is my job.
Why would a parent take their 11 year old daughter to get her nose pierced? Yes, a little girl from our bus stop just got her nose pierced. I guess her mom figured that by 6th grade her daughter needs to grow up and start getting parts of her body pierced. Her mother drove her to the piercing place. Parents… it is OK to say no! There will be more than enough time for her to put holes in her body, you don’t need to encourage the practice. Sixth grade…. 11 years old… she is still just a young girl. Let her be a child, encourage her to be a child.
And finally…
Why is the 9 year old at the bus stop wearing eye liner? And why did her mother put it on her? And why does the child run around at all hours of the evening by herself? And why does she knock on my door and want to come play, even though her mother has never met me? Does anyone else have a problem with this? Am I over-protective? How can you not know what you children are doing? How can you protect them if you don’t even know where they are or who’s house they enter.
If you can’t tell, I’ve had an interesting two weeks of running into parents that I consider irresponsible. I suddenly don’t wonder why so many of our youth are arrogant, lazy, and rude. I now know why there is a general disregard for authority in our teens. It is because their parents haven’t done their jobs. These children haven’t had any real authority in their lives, they’ve only had general disregard. “Go play somewhere else, I’m busy.”
Children don’t need cell phones, nose rings, or eye-liner - they need guidance and supervision. Keep them protected and naive to situations that are inappropriate. It’s OK for them to take their time growing up. Let them just enjoy the sunshine and the swing set for a little bit longer.
I haven’t been keeping up with my blog as well as I hoped to, but I will do better.
Today, I want to share an extraordinary message with you. I came across this video while surfing, and so many of his messages really hit home. It is about 10 minutes, but it will be worth it.
I hope you enjoy Dr. Pausch’s message. Drop a comment and let me know how it left you feeling.
I am convinced that all telemarketing companies hire the same girl. You know the one… super nasally voice and an odd way of NOT inflecting her speech. I can’t understand a word she says. I mean… really… can we try adding some inflection to the words? A few ups and downs in tone and a breath now and then. I know she is reading from a script, but that doesn’t mean she needs to be lifeless.
So, as bad as she is… does she actually sell stuff? I’m assuming she must, or the company would push her out the door. And how did she actually get hired in the first place? She had to audition for the job… right? Perhaps the hiring manager was afflicted with the same lack of verbal ability and thought she sounded great. Maybe the manager attributed her garbled speech to an overload of wax in his ears, rather then marbles in her mouth.
And really, it isn’t just all telemarketers. Lots of retail stores hire BAD choices. Ones who roll their eyes at the customer, or never smile, or completely ignore customers.
And don’t even get me started on those guys from India providing tech support. If I can’t understand what you are saying, then there is no way you can help me fix my computer. It just isn’t going to happen.
I thought, briefly, that perhaps there weren’t many applicants to choose from for the job. Then I realized that we are in a down-economy right now. People are BEGGING for jobs. Good people too! You know.. all those people you would love to hire but already have great jobs. Yeah.. them. They are lined up looking for nearly anything that will put food on their table.
Now is the time for all the hiring managers to expel the chaff from their ranks and re-fill those positions with people who can speak clearly and intelligently and can do their job properly the first time.
UGH! (can you tell I’ve been deluged with telemarketing calls lately?) OK.. enough rant.
Now on to a legitimate question… when the telemarketers call you, how do you answer? Do you just hang up, or do you get creative? Are you rude or polite? Do you listen to what they have to say or get off the phone quick when you realize they are selling?
Me? Ok, I’m actually quite polite but I never listen to what they are selling. As soon as I realize that they are telemarketers, I just say “Thank you but I’m not interested”, and hang up. I’m polite, not cursing at them, but also not letting them eat into my busy day.
How about you? Your best tactic? Your funniest prank on a telemarketer? Please share.
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