Read this: Three-year-old suspended from Arlington preschool for too many potty accidents (It got 300+ comments.)
Then this: Blowback: Potty training story hits a nerve
How complicated life becomes when a small child can't stay home with his mommy.
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January 31, 2011
Tempest in a potty
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How complicated life becomes when a small child can't stay home with his mommy.
ReplyDeleteAmen
Ditto Adrienne.
ReplyDeleteBut this awed me: "Rosso went through a potty-training class in the summer"
You can't even teach your own kid to pee on the pot? Seriously? Priorities.
pjT learned how to go at 20 mo a la the "naked and $75" method. In the year since, we've 2 or 3 accidents, max. Sounds like the kid is trying to get attention. From her parents.
I go back to work in two days, and I am not going to be labeled a bad mother because of it. Not every mother who works is bad. If your husband makes $15/hour and then you take out the costs for healthcare for a family you will have a hard time living on that. Yes, I agree that many woman could stay home if they cut back on things, but it isn't true for all women, and they shouldn't be lumped together. There are some families that just couldn't get by on one income. Not every family has a high income earner.
ReplyDeleteI'm talking more about a cultural trend here than about whether Family A or B could have arranged things so that mom could stay home. The problem is that many families just don't see the value in that. The new default option is work for mom and daycare or "school" for very young children. What's often left out of the equation is what's best for the child. Kids deserve better than random caregivers.
ReplyDeleteThe little girl in the story sounds like on of those kids who's too busy to stop what she's doing to get to the bathroom before it's too late. A parent would notice the signs that she needs to go, take her little hand, and get here there.
My daughter's first experience being away from me for a few hours a day arrived this past fall when she started kindergarten. There was no preschool or daycare because I couldn't afford it (even if I worked, I would barely make enough to cover the cost & probably STILL fall short) and also, because I couldn't see any sense in breaking my back to pay strangers for what I could do myself with my kids. If I were better educated and capable of getting a higher wage for my skill-set, perhaps I'd have considered preschool, because I got a LOT of pressure from folks telling me that my daughter would not be ready for kindergarten intellectually or socially without it. Those people were wrong. She's actually far ahead of her peers academically and has had no problem making friends or adjusting to the classroom. And some may call me a bad parent for this, but I did not force the issue of potty training. I let her do it in her own time and yes, she was in pull-ups far longer than most kids, but shortly before school started she realized it was time to be a big girl & don panties for good. There have been no accidents.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes think the pressures on little kids to grow up so fast may not be unrelated to them engaging in dangerous 'adult' type behavior a few years later when they are approaching their pre-teen years. What's wrong with letting your babies be babies for a little while longer than is currently considered acceptable?
Nothing at all.
ReplyDeletePreschool is vastly overrated. We didn't send any of ours and never regretted it for a second. (We couldn't afford it, either.)