Musings from BabyLand
Heh. I remember promising a long time ago cute baby stories. I don't know so much if that's what's going to come out of this, but I want to write about work.
I've been there a month. The turnover is so high that I am now the lead teacher in my room. I "supervise" another employee. Huh. OK.(that added responsiblity, by the way, does not come with a raise.) The co-workers are not (generally speaking) people I would be friends with; very traditional women, women who think that raising babies will be (or has been) their whole lives. Most are avid church goers. I feel a little subversive working there, like, "HA! You think you can peg me because I earn my keep playing with babies! Shows what YOU know! I'm going to get off of work and go listen to slam poetry, or be on call for a rape crisis team, or work at CU's GLBT resource center!" I've had a lot of challeneges for myself around not being. . .ashamed, for lack of a better word for taking a job that's thought of as "women's work". I take heart at the fact Andrea Gibson has a whole piece about how she works at a day care and she's an amazing feminist/activist/ally. I've also had a lot of challenges around walking the talk, cuddling everyone the same amount, building block towers with everyone, reading books with everyone. It's been amazing to me how ingrained those gender roles we grow up being force fed are. It's also been a good "walk the talk" challenge, because I have a mom that's struggling with some (I suspect) culture shock, and everyone else there seems to be perfectly willing to write this woman off as a bad mother, which she isn't, or lazy, which she isn't, or too proud, which she isn't. No one is willing to take into account what this family's been through or that they're judging her on a white, western standard, which A)isn't their place and B)isn't an accurate measuring stick for everyone. I like being able to be the voice that says to a kid, "You don't want to give me a hug? OK. You don't have to," hopefully teaching and modeling for kids that they have a right to say who hugs them and who doesn't and when and where. Even though that's not necessarily true in the big world, "Come on little Timmy! Give Grandma a kiss!" when Little Timmy's met Grandma once in his two year life, and now he's expected to kiss this terrifying woman? No. Not OK. And also? I find that I get more hugs than do the "teachers" who force kids to hug them.
I'm also finding myself confronting a lot of childhood stuff. It's no secret that my father wasn't always the most gentle man. And it's hard for me to admit that now, because as complicated as our relationship is, I adore my father(I imagine it would be a hell of a lot less complicated if I didn't love him). But I grew up learning that intimidation is the only way to get things done, and if verbal intimidation won't do it, you use physical. And you never appologize, and you never discuss, it's just the "I'm big you're small" defense. And I haven't had that come up a lot for me, but there have been a few times when my knee jerk reaction was to sit a kid down too hard, or use a scary voice to scare a kid. I've never done any of those things, and I've shocked myself with how patient I've been able to be, sitting down with kids, even this young, and saying things like, "It makes me sad when you hit your friends, because you are such a nice boy." And even this young, that response seems to be so much more effective than anything I remember my father doing to me when I was small. But I get very angry with myself when that is my default reaction. And I'm trying to be patient and gentle with myself, too, remembering that I'm trying to unlearn some pretty unconscious, engrained stuff, but. . .I am proud of myself for not being one of those people who jerks kids around by the arm, or unthinkingly picks kids up to move them.
(On the other hand, I am using positives from my childhood. We sang "In the Good Old Summer Time" today, and I make up stories for them, like my dad used to do for me. . )
And there's a lot of drudgery. My classroom is separated into two sections, a smaller section where we eat snack and lunch and stuff, and a larger playroom/nap room. One day, when a sub was in the room with me (as opposed to my usual co-teacher) I was in the eating room, cleaning up (because boy howdy to 12-24 month olds require a lot of cleaning up after) when nine little faces were pressed up against the baby gate, chanting "Eeema, Eeema, Eeema?" Which is the only thing I tend to respond to, from 8 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday. Sometimes, I find myself getting a little overwhelemed, because they always need something, be it a book read to them, their diaper changed, food, whatever, and you can't be like, "Look, kid, give me 10 seconds to pull my hair into a ponytail." You do take that 10 seconds to pull your hair back or whatever, but you have to do it in a way that isn't dismissive. So often, I think people forget that kids are little people who are trying to figure the world out; and Erikson would say that kids the age of the ones I'm working with are dealing with resolving the conflict between autonomy versus doubt. While I think Erikson's stages are problematic in a lot of ways, I can see it in a lot of ways, too. My kiddos are at an age where they're out there, exploring the world, and if there's an adult hovering over them all the time, doing for them what they could do for themselves, yeah, later in life, they may doubt their ability to do things for themselves. So I try not to hover, I encourage them to do things for themselves whenever they can, and when they can't I try to make it a learning experience. But yeah, a lot of drudgery, a lot of shit (literally, nine kids, eight hours a day, that's a loooooooot of diapers). I come home sticky and disgusting. My roommate knows that when I get home using the words "I need" are a sure turn-off for me. I take half an hour where no one is allowed to need anything from me after work.
But with all the drudgery, I do get baby hugs. Lots of them. Though I have to echo someone I know who works with babies as a nanny, who voted parents shouldn't teach their kids to give kisses until they get that whole closed mouth concept down. I get baby slobbered on an awful lot. And my ankle was bitten the other day. One of my little guys is a biter. Some days he's fine, and sweet and good. But others, we spend a lot of the day putting him in time-out and saying "No biting, Little Guy. No biting. We do not bite our friends." When he has a particularly bad day as far as biting goes, when his mother comes to pick him up, he runs to her and hugs her and she picks him up, and he looks her in the eye and says "No biting, Momma. No biting." And his mom looks at us and is like, "bad day, huh?" He's a cool kid. He's very masculine, in that he's build very solidly. This little guy is the textbook definition of "big boned". Not fat or overweight, but solid. You can tell he's going to be a big man. His favorite toy is a ball, he runs and jumps and gets bonked and scraped, but he also is the first kid to give another kid a hug and a kiss if they start crying. He's also the kid that wants to be cuddled at the end of the day. He's a really sensitive little guy, and despite his punkass behavior sometimes, he's maybe my favorite kid for being able to be so masculine and so feminine at the same time. It makes me sad to think that'll probably be socialized out of him.
Another problem with the job is that I become a moron. I call one kid MirandaBean. Why? Nobody knows. As a collective, I call them kittens, bugaboos, or my baby monkeys. I can feel my brain leaking out of my ears each time this happens, but I can't help it. At work, whenever possible, we say "no thanks" to the kids. So, Little Guy is trying to take a toy from another kid? We say, "No thanks, Little Guy. We do not take toys from our friends." And the other day, I told my roommate's cat, "Mona! No thanks!" when she was clawing the furniture. And after work? Part of the reason I have my "nobody gets to need anything from me" half an hour is so that I can stop talking like an idiot. "Yes that IS a COW. What does the COW SAY? Moo! That's RIGHT! The COW says MOO!" Yes, folks. Eight hours a day!
But then we have nap time, which I love. Not because the kids are asleep, but because I get to spend a little while with each kid, helping her or him fall asleep, rubbing their backs, or just lying with them. I look into wide eyes that fight sleep so hard. My Little Guy's eyelids will fall shut several times and he'll jerk them back open, his eyes will roll back into his head before he'll finally let himself sleep. But when they are sleeping, their breath is so slow and deep and uninhibited. I think of that BareNaked Ladies song, "When You Dream", which basically asks the question of babies, when you dream, what do you dream about? I wonder what their little minds are doing when they sleep.
So, at 24, two weeks and two days, I spend my days sweeping up cheerios and finger painting. And I hate it and I love it. It's good. For now.
I've been there a month. The turnover is so high that I am now the lead teacher in my room. I "supervise" another employee. Huh. OK.(that added responsiblity, by the way, does not come with a raise.) The co-workers are not (generally speaking) people I would be friends with; very traditional women, women who think that raising babies will be (or has been) their whole lives. Most are avid church goers. I feel a little subversive working there, like, "HA! You think you can peg me because I earn my keep playing with babies! Shows what YOU know! I'm going to get off of work and go listen to slam poetry, or be on call for a rape crisis team, or work at CU's GLBT resource center!" I've had a lot of challeneges for myself around not being. . .ashamed, for lack of a better word for taking a job that's thought of as "women's work". I take heart at the fact Andrea Gibson has a whole piece about how she works at a day care and she's an amazing feminist/activist/ally. I've also had a lot of challenges around walking the talk, cuddling everyone the same amount, building block towers with everyone, reading books with everyone. It's been amazing to me how ingrained those gender roles we grow up being force fed are. It's also been a good "walk the talk" challenge, because I have a mom that's struggling with some (I suspect) culture shock, and everyone else there seems to be perfectly willing to write this woman off as a bad mother, which she isn't, or lazy, which she isn't, or too proud, which she isn't. No one is willing to take into account what this family's been through or that they're judging her on a white, western standard, which A)isn't their place and B)isn't an accurate measuring stick for everyone. I like being able to be the voice that says to a kid, "You don't want to give me a hug? OK. You don't have to," hopefully teaching and modeling for kids that they have a right to say who hugs them and who doesn't and when and where. Even though that's not necessarily true in the big world, "Come on little Timmy! Give Grandma a kiss!" when Little Timmy's met Grandma once in his two year life, and now he's expected to kiss this terrifying woman? No. Not OK. And also? I find that I get more hugs than do the "teachers" who force kids to hug them.
I'm also finding myself confronting a lot of childhood stuff. It's no secret that my father wasn't always the most gentle man. And it's hard for me to admit that now, because as complicated as our relationship is, I adore my father(I imagine it would be a hell of a lot less complicated if I didn't love him). But I grew up learning that intimidation is the only way to get things done, and if verbal intimidation won't do it, you use physical. And you never appologize, and you never discuss, it's just the "I'm big you're small" defense. And I haven't had that come up a lot for me, but there have been a few times when my knee jerk reaction was to sit a kid down too hard, or use a scary voice to scare a kid. I've never done any of those things, and I've shocked myself with how patient I've been able to be, sitting down with kids, even this young, and saying things like, "It makes me sad when you hit your friends, because you are such a nice boy." And even this young, that response seems to be so much more effective than anything I remember my father doing to me when I was small. But I get very angry with myself when that is my default reaction. And I'm trying to be patient and gentle with myself, too, remembering that I'm trying to unlearn some pretty unconscious, engrained stuff, but. . .I am proud of myself for not being one of those people who jerks kids around by the arm, or unthinkingly picks kids up to move them.
(On the other hand, I am using positives from my childhood. We sang "In the Good Old Summer Time" today, and I make up stories for them, like my dad used to do for me. . )
And there's a lot of drudgery. My classroom is separated into two sections, a smaller section where we eat snack and lunch and stuff, and a larger playroom/nap room. One day, when a sub was in the room with me (as opposed to my usual co-teacher) I was in the eating room, cleaning up (because boy howdy to 12-24 month olds require a lot of cleaning up after) when nine little faces were pressed up against the baby gate, chanting "Eeema, Eeema, Eeema?" Which is the only thing I tend to respond to, from 8 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday. Sometimes, I find myself getting a little overwhelemed, because they always need something, be it a book read to them, their diaper changed, food, whatever, and you can't be like, "Look, kid, give me 10 seconds to pull my hair into a ponytail." You do take that 10 seconds to pull your hair back or whatever, but you have to do it in a way that isn't dismissive. So often, I think people forget that kids are little people who are trying to figure the world out; and Erikson would say that kids the age of the ones I'm working with are dealing with resolving the conflict between autonomy versus doubt. While I think Erikson's stages are problematic in a lot of ways, I can see it in a lot of ways, too. My kiddos are at an age where they're out there, exploring the world, and if there's an adult hovering over them all the time, doing for them what they could do for themselves, yeah, later in life, they may doubt their ability to do things for themselves. So I try not to hover, I encourage them to do things for themselves whenever they can, and when they can't I try to make it a learning experience. But yeah, a lot of drudgery, a lot of shit (literally, nine kids, eight hours a day, that's a loooooooot of diapers). I come home sticky and disgusting. My roommate knows that when I get home using the words "I need" are a sure turn-off for me. I take half an hour where no one is allowed to need anything from me after work.
But with all the drudgery, I do get baby hugs. Lots of them. Though I have to echo someone I know who works with babies as a nanny, who voted parents shouldn't teach their kids to give kisses until they get that whole closed mouth concept down. I get baby slobbered on an awful lot. And my ankle was bitten the other day. One of my little guys is a biter. Some days he's fine, and sweet and good. But others, we spend a lot of the day putting him in time-out and saying "No biting, Little Guy. No biting. We do not bite our friends." When he has a particularly bad day as far as biting goes, when his mother comes to pick him up, he runs to her and hugs her and she picks him up, and he looks her in the eye and says "No biting, Momma. No biting." And his mom looks at us and is like, "bad day, huh?" He's a cool kid. He's very masculine, in that he's build very solidly. This little guy is the textbook definition of "big boned". Not fat or overweight, but solid. You can tell he's going to be a big man. His favorite toy is a ball, he runs and jumps and gets bonked and scraped, but he also is the first kid to give another kid a hug and a kiss if they start crying. He's also the kid that wants to be cuddled at the end of the day. He's a really sensitive little guy, and despite his punkass behavior sometimes, he's maybe my favorite kid for being able to be so masculine and so feminine at the same time. It makes me sad to think that'll probably be socialized out of him.
Another problem with the job is that I become a moron. I call one kid MirandaBean. Why? Nobody knows. As a collective, I call them kittens, bugaboos, or my baby monkeys. I can feel my brain leaking out of my ears each time this happens, but I can't help it. At work, whenever possible, we say "no thanks" to the kids. So, Little Guy is trying to take a toy from another kid? We say, "No thanks, Little Guy. We do not take toys from our friends." And the other day, I told my roommate's cat, "Mona! No thanks!" when she was clawing the furniture. And after work? Part of the reason I have my "nobody gets to need anything from me" half an hour is so that I can stop talking like an idiot. "Yes that IS a COW. What does the COW SAY? Moo! That's RIGHT! The COW says MOO!" Yes, folks. Eight hours a day!
But then we have nap time, which I love. Not because the kids are asleep, but because I get to spend a little while with each kid, helping her or him fall asleep, rubbing their backs, or just lying with them. I look into wide eyes that fight sleep so hard. My Little Guy's eyelids will fall shut several times and he'll jerk them back open, his eyes will roll back into his head before he'll finally let himself sleep. But when they are sleeping, their breath is so slow and deep and uninhibited. I think of that BareNaked Ladies song, "When You Dream", which basically asks the question of babies, when you dream, what do you dream about? I wonder what their little minds are doing when they sleep.
So, at 24, two weeks and two days, I spend my days sweeping up cheerios and finger painting. And I hate it and I love it. It's good. For now.