What Heebie said. Is there anything useful to say about this kind of thing? I mean, yay that they're telling the story, there are still people out there who need to hear it.
Heebie and I posted under each other's handles for all of 2016.
Heebie was noticeably lower-calibrer.
Do you think that stories like these will still be commonplace in the US in 20 years? 50? I hear stories from my grandma that sound like a different world from today, but things are still so broken.
I only followed the links when ogged was the poster.
4 is a really interesting question and I'm leaning toward some wishy-washy "yes and no." I hope so! But I'm definitely raising my daughters to be prepared for the "no," I think.
Or maybe it should be the other way because I don't trust a girl to summarize the story? Or maybe I should because girls have better verbal skills? It's so hard to do sexism right these days, it makes life so hard for men.
What Heebie said. Is there anything useful to say about this kind of thing?
Yes, I think so. It is, obviously, a subject which has been discussed and reported any number of times, but I think there's value in repetition. If only because it's the sort of thing for which men are likely to think, internally, "I recognize that this exists in the world; I don't think that I do it myself, and I don't think that it has that _large_ an effect."
In a different article this weekend, I saw the comment
I've argued that privilege has a way of blinding the privileged, and that that is a big reason why people fail to notice the role of luck in their own life and, more importantly, the role of misfortune in the lives of others.
I think that's correct that it's really easy for even well-meaning men to resist thinking about sexism because doing so makes them defensive. I think repetition, without accusation, is the easiest way to get through that defensiveness.
And, of course, all of the above is also familiar territory . . .
Do you think that stories like these will still be commonplace in the US in 20 years? 50?
I have no idea. How long has it been that women have been the majority of college graduates? I would have expected more change by now.
As all y'all have probably noticed, I post under this net name, delagar, which is non-gendered.
Most places I comment at, people tend to assume I'm male, unless I indicate otherwise. (I have a couple of posts up at the blog about a very hilarious event indeed that occurred because of this recently.)
One thing I've noticed: when commenters think I'm male, everything I'm saying gets taken much more seriously.
Also: once people who thought I was male realize I'm female, they almost at once begin discounting or questioning every single thing I say. This is even on sites where I was taken seriously and considered a top commenter previously.
A friend is currently FB-posting in real time about her experiences on a recruitment site for English-speaking jobs in Japan. A well-qualified Western woman in her 40s, she uploaded her resume under her real name (say, "Christine Takimoto"), and immediately received a request to model plus-size bras and several to apply for entry-level translation checking positions. Scandalized, she uploaded an identical resume as "Christopher Takimoto", and within a couple of days has been invited to apply for a managerial post paying over $80,000 a year. "Christine" hasn't heard a peep about that position, or indeed any jobs paying even half that amount.
10: The funny thing about you is that I (a) for a very long time mixed you up with dalriata, just because you're both lowercase, about the same length, and start with a 'd' and (b) thought he was a woman because of the final 'a'. No idea how this has affected how I think of either of you.
delagar, which is non-gendered.
In addition to being sexist, we're probably reading too much into "delagar" being an anagram for "rage lad." (Okay, not really.)
12: I'm honored to be mixed up with delagar, and apologize for occupying similar typographical space. (If it's a concern, I'm happy to change.) Using something with final "a" was intentional light trolling and you're not the first to mention it; at no point have I felt handicapped by it, but that might be mostly due to my obliviousness.
The question remains of course whether you have a real life connection to Antrim, the Western Isles or Argyll.
How do you cope with sexist BS? On a day to day basis, can you ignore it? It would seem difficult to be continually conscious of systemic oppression against oneself without becoming depressed.
Drinking and bitching. Yes. Yes.
It would seem difficult to be continually conscious of systemic oppression against oneself without becoming depressed.
Yeah, a certain amount of denial makes it easier to get through the day. (My current job, and by current I mean the last eight years, has been pretty good on this front. Most of my bitching goes back to my law firm days.)
14: I've been to two and have an ancestral connection to the third. So, not really at all.
When I'm upset that no one takes my comments seriously, I console myself with the thought that people may not realize that I am male.
How do you cope with sexist BS? On a day to day basis, can you ignore it?
I am very selective about which situations I bother to speak up in. Then I (usually) feel comfortable being dominant and bossy in those selected situations.
16: At work, having a boss who is A+ not a dick about it helps a ton. It means you get shielded a bit from the worst of it. And yeah, it's enraging and depressing and exhausting.
These days I'm speaking out more, which makes me feel so uncomfortable. I hate it. I feel like I have no sense of humour and that I'm getting a reputation of being 'one of those people'. I've had some tiny victories* but I know that it'll be a constant battle for as long as I want to smash my head against the issue.
*And possibly one major - one person recently interviewed here for a job and hadn't thought about issues around diversity in a university department. They didn't get the job. I'm not sure my comments made a difference but I did bring it up as justification for my feelings about their hiring (and I asked the question in the first place).
The one that gets me is when adult women are referred to as girls. A lot of the time it's other women saying it. I don't usually say anything - except to one young woman.
Boy, ain't 10.3 and .4 ever the truth. For a while here, I wasn't particularly clear in disclosing whether I was male or female. I enjoyed the assumption on the part of some that I was male; my pseud was certainly adopted in part for that reason.
That said, some (many?) women do show verbal patterns, both in writing and in person, which reflect a certain hesitancy, a hedging. Less likely to make flatly declarative sentences, more likely to use phrases like "I dunno, it seems to me ..." or "I think that ..." rather than simply saying what it is they think. We've discussed this before around these parts.
24: I thought that was ok for women to do.
25: Yes, I think I comment like a woman. Maybe.
27: But you break just like a little girl.
Co-sign 24. I have yet to understand why any women think that referring to themselves as girls is ... good. I include here that Lena Dunham show called "Girls." Why?
I'd love it if someone could explain to me what's going on there. If discussion of first-, second-, third-, post-wave feminism, is necessary, so be it.
That said, some (many?) women do show verbal patterns ... which reflect a certain hesitancy, a hedging. ... more likely to use phrases like "I dunno, it seems to me ..." or "I think that ..."
25: Yes, I think I comment like a woman. Maybe.
A feature of my writing as well.
"....sexist BS? On a day to day basis, can you ignore it? It would seem difficult to be continually conscious of systemic oppression against oneself without becoming depressed."
Like Heebie, I'm selective about when I speak up. If I called out every single incidence of sexist BS, I'd (a) spend my time doing nothing else and (2) soon be pigeonholed as one of those feminazi nags.
It helps that our chair is now a feminist, who will go to battle for us.
But depressed? Oh yeah. And rage lad, also.
Rum helps some.
25: I can't be alone in assuming you were a Caribbean Zoroastrian.
I also don't like women referring to other women as girls.
Unless the woman in question is under 12, yeah, no.
I can't pretend to understand 32.
Anyway, I always read "delagar" as "regaled" spelled backward, even though that would be a misspelling. Sorry, you're stuck with it!
27: Upon further thought, that I dare to comment at all despite my utter ignorance of everything, exemplifies male privilege.
34: You were probably going for something like "parsimonious person", right? I was parsing your name as "parsi" + "mon".
I hedge and sometimes call young women "girls" for variety or rhetorical effect, but I try to stay out of situations where I'll be expected to defer to pushy men because I'm not so good at that and it's their fault for being awful idiots anyway.
36: It was 'parsimonious' in my (commenting) words, originally, reserving the right to speak plainly. Along with the fact that the pseudonym shortens a longer, common-ish word, making it harder to google. Eventually, it became clear that people were reading it as "parsi" "mon" as though with a Jamaican accent. Which became, to my chagrin, "parsi". Sort of like calling Ogged "oggie" or something. But I've accepted it by now; I'm being overly sensitive.
To bring it back 'round to the theme of the thread: shortening a person's name to something cute-sounding is a problem for me (perhaps just because my own real life name doesn't lend itself to that, even though I struggled with that fact as a youngster, and wanted a cutie nickname like all the other girls had).
I'm afraid I have lost track of my point in 38.
40: Oh, good. I thought I was the only one.
12: I also confused the commenters d, but because (IIRC) I met dal soon after I noticed him commenting, I always knew he was a he, and then extended that to del. A number of times she's written a comment making her gender clear and I've done a double-take. Also when she's made clear that she doesn't live in Pittsburgh.
On the linked thing in the OP, I found it useful because the precise dynamic was a different angle to what I mentally imagine as work-related sexism. That is, dynamics like a woman offering an idea that gets ignored until a man says it, or the poisonous way gender interacts with authority: I get those as well as a man (who doesn't even work in an office with others) can. But endless and exhausting efforts just to convince people who've hired you that you know what you're doing? Good lord.
I actually discussed it with AB, who said she only very rarely encounters disrespect of her expertise, despite working in a construction-adjacent profession. She's been self-employed for 7+ years now and could only remember a couple specific incidents along those lines. When she was a public servant she got that stuff much more often, but that's largely because the public is the worst.
40- It didn't make you giggle?
I assume "girl" is deprecating which is why I used it as part of the caricature in 7.
38: FWIW I've been going with Jamaican linguist. But I figured I was wrong.
Male doctor's who say "check out with the girls out frobt@ when one is a 65 year old woman. Nobody calls the doctor's girls.
My PhD program produced only 3 women graduates in my subfield in 20 years. Not that they didn't regularly admit women into the subfield. But in my 6 years there I saw 3 different women switch subfields away from that assholic one because of the men. The two women there right now who are working in that subfield just got told *by their own advisor* that there are very few women working in X because the math in X is too hard (where X is an area they might have considered choosing). Those of us who know about this are apoplectic but can't do anything because bringing down the women's advisor would also hurt the women. Sexism is particularly horrible in academia because it's such a small world that you can't avoid the bad people. If they have tenure, you'll see them at conferences for the next 20 years.
I must say that my own experience with sexism in academia worked out pretty well for me, but I still feel guilty about not raising hell.
This is somewhat relevant: http://www.cracked.com/blog/what-helped-convince-me-to-stop-being-hardcore-republican/
|| If analogies were allowed, Dave Chappelle could be a baboon.
https://twitter.com/jersey_jinx/status/843834218123853824 |>
I thought that story about the baboon couldn't be true, but it is!
I raised hell in my final year about a serial sexual harasser. No formal action taken because none of the victims wanted to speak up. University had anti-retaliation policy, but was pretty useless for protecting me from job market. Harasser and allies could easily spread bad word about me at conferences and it'd be impossible to prove that i didn't get a job because of malicious gossip.
Casual sexism expected for today: I have a service engineer coming out to repair an instrument. Past experience with others suggests it's likely that he'll (a) assume I'm an entry level technician, (b) compliment my ability to use a tool, likely a screwdriver and (c) not explain to me the intricate details of what he's doing to effect repair unless I stand looking over his shoulder asking questions the entire time.
Casual sexism for last week: we have a piece of equipment on site for which I'm the only authorized operator. An electrician needed access to the room where it's installed (no access when it's operating), so he called my male coworker to see whether it was safe to enter. (Male coworker got it wrong.)
Tiring.
47: A Title IX investigation, initiated by a friendly Women's Studies prof with tenure, was probably what your department needed. With actionable recommendations. As a first step.
From the link in 49: You'll make a reasonable, genuine plea on social media for tolerance and understanding on some issue. Some rando will insult you and call you a beta snowflake. Nobody else will respond. One of your followers will read it, have a misconception challenged, feel uncomfortable, forget about it, remember it a week later, hear a friend tell a personal story that dovetails with your point, and admit internally they've been wrong.
This is why I comment on stupid sites full of douchebros like Reddit. It's nearly impossible to change the mind of the person you are responding to, but there are thousands of readers who will potentially be influenced in the direction you like. It's also kind of fun to get into the occasional flamewar, but that's a whole 'nother thing for the most part.
I think sexism in academia is pernicious for so many reasons. Setting aside the actual straight up sexist assholes, there are so many ways that gender is implicitly tied to knowledge, expertise, and authority, it's just really not an equal playing field for women aside from malicious sexist intent.
I'm in a discipline that on the whole skews female in terms of # of PhDs produced, but in a pretty masculine department (which probably uncoincidentally is famous for being the most rigorous dept in the discipline). I have a Very Famous male committee member who I feel like is equally supportive and respectful of his male and female students & colleagues, but he has a cult of male bros (mainly his former students and his students' students) who worship him, and who have a built up a decidedly bro-y culture around him and his work. It's not impossible as a woman to be taken seriously in this bro culture, but it definitely is a "work twice as hard to be taken half as seriously" sort of situation.
He actually has a reputation for being sexist by people who don't actually work with him, which I'm pretty sure is due entirely to his bro cult.
Teaching for me is a perennial conundrum, because I get a lot of wonderful female students in terms of their scholarship and their general personalities and who also seem to like me, but they see me more as an older sister figure than an actual authority figure. I get lots of "positive" evaluations which among other things describe me as "sweet," which I'm almost 100% sure are written by women. I've had female students ask me *during class time* about my ethnic background/name/physical appearance, and I've had students come up afterwards to ask about my clothes. This is super hard to deal with, because it's well meaning and in no way malicious, but it still all works to undermine my authority in a kind of irritating way.
My 6'3" male friends who dress like lumberjacks never get this sort of treatment by students.
57 and 58 paint an interesting picture of linguists. Now I'm picturing a department full of lumberjack bros.
58: So many of my evaluations from my women students (and even some of the men who like me) stress how "nice" I am, and how "friendly," and how I'm "always cheerful."
Given that I am a rage lad, y'all know what bullshit this is.
Students who don't like me -- mostly men, but some Evangelical women -- write comments about my "unprofessional" behavior, and how "unapproachable" I am. The "unprofessional" behavior may have to do with my tendency to say fuck in the classroom, or it might be my entire lack of make-up and the fact that I teach in jeans and Converse high tops. Who knows. Who cares, also.
But my point! And I do have one: women professors are supposed be nice, we're supposed to be friendly, we're supposed to be always smiling -- so that's what the students who like me say about me.
As for the unprofessional dress, I have a colleague who wears skirts and heels every single day. Students who don't like HER gig her for dressing like a slut, in those heels and short skirts. (They aren't short, of course.)
As I've said, luckily I have a chair who is a feminist who knows how to read through these evaluations. It's still annoying.
59
Ha. It's actually in my primary discipline, which is not linguistics, and definitely has a bro-y side (think Indiana Jones). I'd say most linguists are just full on nerds. But "lumberjack bros" isn't a bad way to describe it. Maybe lumberjack nerdbros?
60
Grrr. Those are super irritating. Are you also in a more male discipline? My super armchair theory is women who teach in more masculine fields get dinged even more, since students are more likely to be comfortable with or expect a female English professor than a female math or physics professor. (Probably philosophy is the worst.)
But I put in a lot of mental energy to find the right balance of dressing in a way that reads mature/professional but also kind of effortless, casual, and a bit androgynous, like I don't worry too much about dressing up for my students. I usually default to jeans, oxfords, and a blazer.
I also thought dalriata was a woman, and in general have thought a lot of female commenters with neutral pseuds were men until it came up otherwise, which is probably a clear example of my own unconscious gender bias.
47: "My PhD program produced only 3 women graduates in my subfield in 20 years." High Energy Magic?
||
Any advice for how to deal with a kid who is relentlessly nasty and hostile every time I pick them up from school? It's gone on for years. It's part of a larger prickly personality trait, but this particular manifestation drives me the most nuts. Often there's things we must do - eat snacks, change for an after school activity, pick up a sibling - so we have to interact and I can't just turn on music and separate.
Usually I just roll with it and absorb it. It does sometimes seem like when the child provokes me enough to snap at them, that it's cathartic in some way and they ease out of the bad mood.
My hypothesis is that it's jarring to abruptly be picked up from the after school program. I can get that but I don't really feel like jumping through extra hoops to cater to her dislike of abrupt transitions. It's not an abnormal transition as far as kid lives go.
Anyway, advice is welcome.
|>
62: "Are you also in a more male discipline?"
Nah, English professor, teaching fiction writing as my main gig. But I'm in the reddest part of a Red State, NW Arkansas, the River Valley/border of Oklahoma & Arkansas. A very sexist place, IOW.
Routinely, for instance, I have women students inform me that while they believe women and men should be equal, that nevertheless men should be in leadership positions, because that's how God wants it.
They're entirely serious when they make this sort of statement, as far as I can tell.
66: It takes discipline and willingness to take abuse in the long run, but I would simply stop taking it (little things here and there as part of a healthy emotional separation from parent, sure, but a consistent pattern of disrespect wouldn't be something I would handle well). First, identify the behavior in question for the child, and inform them that they will begin to treat you with a reasonable amount of respect or there will be consequences, escalating in severity as offence or time warrants. Grounding, removal of privileges (screen time, reading time, time with friends, whatever hurts the individual kid the most), etc. And stick with it, all the while identifying the behavior that led to the consequence. And when the offense doesn't occur, comment that you noticed it wasn't going on and that you're glad that things are getting better. If it recurs, reinstate the consequence, all while connecting the dots from behavior to result.
It'll take time, and it won't be fun, but it's better than rolling with it for the most part and occasionally snapping.
(Disclaimer: my $.02, every kid is different, my older daughter ran to her room crying the other day when I proved to her that I was right about French grammar and she was wrong and made her change her homework.)
64: Hmm. I don't have answers, but some thoughts. How do you deal with their mood swings in general? My daughter has gone through difficult patterns like this -- extreme moodiness at breakfast, also when being picked up, most consistently and endlessly at bathtime, which I finally downgraded to every other day because it was too costly -- and I think habituation is a big part of it. The kid expects a conflict in situation X (because they're always starting one!) and so they tense up and go through the motions. I was amazed at how rote it became. No appeals to reason worked, and definitely no attempt to give her what she wanted. So I reacted to it like a bad habit: nothing personal, nothing very conscious, just a matter of consistent stimulus provoking consistent response. I don't know if there's any way for you to change the stimulus in this case.
Also, what do you mean by "nasty and hostile"? Not just sullenly sulking, but (say) jumping into the car and saying "You look ugly today, as always!" I would engage directly in the latter situation for sure, but my kid is fundamentally pretty kind. (In fact my impulse would be to say, "You're always in such a terrible mood when I pick you up from school. Always! Why do you think this is? It's okay to feel unhappy, but [does the reason have to be a secret, or] can we talk about it...?" And with my own daughter I could get away with saying something like "The things you say to me are so over-the-top mean that they're kind of funny," and then try to beat her at her own game by saying outrageous things about the terrible, miserable deaths we wish upon each other. I suspect that doesn't work with everyone.)
Uh, Chopper's suggestion is way better than mine. Do that.
64: Would it be possible to always have even a small, mutually silent transition? Like, just a few minutes of mutual silence, at the end of which compliance is required?
I've never had a regular car pickup with kids (from context, that sounds like the situation), but I have had pickups, and often there's been a few minutes where I let the kid guide the interaction: silent, chatty, hyper, super-mellow. But because I've always needed to get back to work, that transition is pretty brief, hence the suggestion above.
Maybe a beloved song that marks the silent time? And then, when it's over, PP introduces the next necessary activity?
I'm spitballing here. Prickly kids are the fucking worst, but I haven't had to deal with any in this exact circumstance.
65.3: Maybe you're not rage-y enough?
Seriously, I can't imagine how I'd react to that.
And yeah, Chopper is right in the big picture. I'm just not convinced that this transition will be a fruitful time to address it. That is, work on the prickliness in general, and then, once you've made inroads, bring it up in the post-school context. But in the short term, try to manage that time separately, simply so that you can get past the shittiest period first, before you cure your child of all flaws.
Or just put them out of the car and drive away. Three or four times, they'll get the message.
Spouse consistently punishes the hostility. Offspring mouths off about punishment, punishment doubles/triples/quadruples until offspring has lost dessert or TV for the next month, and then that is gone as a consequence for the remainder of the month.
I've had pretty long stretches of much smaller consequences - five minutes off TV, or 1 burpee - so that over the course of a car ride we're still within an accumulated punishment that won't stretch out forever temporally.
I do often discuss the behavior directly. Offspring always pleads (faux) innocence and works themself into believing that they're the victim, being wronged.
I haven't done as much discussing several hours later, when we're getting along, as I should, because life gets away and I don't have a game plan.
Prez, since it's been going on for years I'm going to say the child is aware and old enough to have input on the problem and solutions, so I strongly vote collaborative problem solving (pdf FAQ) and worksheets here. But with the caveat that I should go upstairs and do some of that myself but I don't want to because I'm still angry about the dumbass misbehavior. But happy I say more concrete things!
Is it assholish to give when not a parent? Probably. That sounds super unpleasant. Could kid get headphones and a podcast or something to keep interactions to a minimum for 20 minutes or so, longer if possible? Might kid be hungry or thirsty but not so aware of it (maybe try a different snack at the after school program or at pickup)? Or maybe just worn out from being polite and on best behavior all day that it's hard to keep it together for much longer and you're a safe place to let loose?
My general advice is to do all you can to avoid giving punishments that punish you at least as much (hard to avoid) and to never ever get into a test of wills because then you have to win. And that the volatile threatening parent can keep being a dramatic ass post-breakup, so even that doesn't solve everything.
But I'd try to get away from punishment if that's not working. The distractions like ydnew's might make it tolerable for you, which should be a part of the goal. Some sort of reward for the kid doing it right, ignoring rather than punishing the bad version can sometimes help extinguish bad behavior. But if you can find out what the child thinks about what's going on, that might help.
Tons of sympathy, too. Prickliness, both warranted and not so much, is common here for all of us to varying degrees and not a lot of fun from the inside or outside.
Offspring always pleads (faux) innocence and works themself into believing that they're the victim, being wronged.
Yeah, welcome to my world with my younger daughter. Does it less with me than she does with my wife and older daughter but holy shit do I want to punch her in the throat sometimes. At this point (four months shy of turning 18) I now basically regard her as a sometimes crazy person and just tell her to shut up and get out of my sight when she starts down one of those tangents because godamn do they take some mental gymnastics to follow.
79 is just about my least favorite thing in the universe, I guess behind spitting and poop stuff but just barely. It's still developmentally appropriate sometimes for kids as old as mine are, but if I wanted someone who'd never ever made a mistake or been wrong about anything in my life I could still be with Lee and aaaauuuuuuugh don't grow up to be her! This isn't a helpful comment either, but sheesh is that a thin.
Assuming everyone in the family typically treats each other decently, try broaching the subject not in the heat of the moment but at some other well fed, rested time, by calmly drawing prickly kid out and reaching consensus on how the family usually treats each other. Once you've established the norm be clear that you don't feel like the pick up situation lives up to the norm, you want to understand why and are willing to consider reasonable changes to routine that would alleviate angst, but that at any rate you expect to not be treated in a way you wouldn't treat prickly child or other family members. Age appropriate variations of this have worked for us. Child will now back off just to avoid looming earnest discussion ;-).
When I got home with Offspring this evening, I went to get the mail while offspring went inside. By the time I got inside, Spouse was lobbing punishments at Offspring. Over the course of the next minute, it escalated to no cartoons tonight, then no dessert this week also, and finally "get in bed and don't come out for the rest of the evening."
The funny thing is that Offspring had been in a good mood in the car with me, seconds earlier. I picked Offspring up from school today in a foul mood, posted in this thread while Offspring was at an after-school activity, and then drove home with Offspring chatting happily. But yeah, prickly kid.
by calmly drawing prickly kid out and reaching consensus on how the family usually treats each other.
I don't think comparisons are the way to go. First because I don't think Offspring is capable of seeing that others' behavior is noticeably easier than their own (although it is the case), and second because I don't think it's a good idea to compare your kid to anyone else.
But aside from that, a calm discussion apart from everyone else is probably in order.
I find it incredibly hard to describe the behavior in a way that stands up to kid-style-legal-scrutiny and doesn't deteriorate into "well, I know it when I see it".
Ie, usually I don't engage in the kid-legal-tactics and fairly quickly switch to "I know it when I see it" if I think I've given a fair description. But it makes it impossible to feel like you've reached a consensus in the discussion.
84.1: This is super cheesy but in my recent trauma class I learned to use "This is a safe family. I wouldn't let anyone else [behavior] you, so I can't let you [behavior] anyone else because this is a safe family." The annoying part is that at least with the older girls it gets immediate results. Selah snorts "Safe family!' but is more reliable anyway about genuine apologies once her snit is over so she doesn't really need it as much.
I'm saying all this as if I'm some successful calm parent, which is not what I want to convey. I also had a negative sticker chart for "why you gotta be so rude?" for one child who needed to see just how constant that was and I still sing it to her at times when it's warranted. I just don't think no-dessert-for-a-month stuff has ever helped anyone, kid or parent, succeed.
"I just don't think no-dessert-for-a-month stuff has ever helped anyone, kid or parent, succeed."
I want to second this. Dr. Skull (my fella) was the draconian "go to your room for a month" type of parent when we first got the kid; I'd been raised by wolves and had NO idea how to do discipline, so I learned it all from books / therapists, who taught me that tiny, tiny, tiny was the way to go.
IOW, if you're going to discipline at all, the discipline should be tiny: go to your room for five minutes, or don't talk to me until we get home. That kind of thing.
But maybe try to avoid punishment at all. Punishment in general sets up an escalation -- the kid who is punished feels like a victim, the parent feels both angry and justified, and now we're adversaries. And no one's listening to anyone.
I found what Thorn said -- the tactic of "We don't do that in this family. Do I do that to you? Then you don't do that to me" -- and variations thereof, that was very effective, though yeah, you have to be willing to let the kids mock you sometimes.
And yes, also, Thorn's point about not always being successful and calm -- kids try you. It's what they do. It's what they're SUPPOSED to do.
86: This works well even without the phrase "safe family." Our charming nieces and nephews seem to get it fairly well when I say their behavior (a) isn't fair (they mostly have a slightly over-developed sense of fairness) because I/their parents/whoever would never do that or (b) isn't pleasant, and that whatever we're doing is more fun when everyone is doing their best to be pleasant. (My father was big on this - is child who's being shitty making things better for everyone around? Then maybe the behavior needs some re-thinking.)
We've definitely been known to give, like, fifteen chances to avoid a stated punishment, which is then avoided on the fifteenth try. But I have no rule at all, except that if I raise my voice I need to apologize (it's bullshit to yell and she hates/fears it), and that all that "playful parenting" stuff works amazingly well when you have the energy for it, which I do maybe 70% of the time.
I realized early on that my daughter was prepared to escalate things to the point of insanity and suffering to get her way, and it was much more important for me to stop her from escalating conflict than for me to "win" the conflict. Cortisol is a much harsher instructor than dopamine, to put it glibly.
With an only child, though, I think you take (get) fewer shortcuts, which is both good and bad.
"...it was much more important for me to stop her from escalating conflict than for me to "win" the conflict. Cortisol is a much harsher instructor than dopamine, to put it glibly."
"With an only child, though, I think you take (get) fewer shortcuts, which is both good and bad."
Both of these. 110%.
I'm in the reddest part of a Red State, NW Arkansas, the River Valley/border of Oklahoma & Arkansas. A very sexist place, IOW.
I know I've mentioned this before, but when I drove across the country after finishing grad school (NJ to NM to AK) during the summer when Katy Perry's "Friday Night" was in constant rotation on the Top 40 stations, delagarville was the only place I went through where the local station censored the phrase "menage a trois."
92: This made me literally LOL.
And I am not at all surprised. God, this place.
My kid calls it Fuckville when she talks to her friends (who live in places like Boston, and Australia, and Portland), or sometimes "this fucking place."
I don't think I've ever told this story, but *frequently* when I am reading books (books from the adult section, not kids' books) checked out from the local library, I will find that someone has gone through and inked out the "swears" in them with dark blue or black indelible ink.
That's the kind of town I live in.
94 Write them back in! And add a couple of your own while you're at it.
I applied for a job there after I'd finished my MLS. Glad I didn't get it.
Now that's a solution that had not occurred to me. And I like it.
Writing SF, I have become very creative with cussing.
Sexism -> childcare -> menage a trois
97 is the weirdest riff on Niemöller I've seen yet.
94 is hilarious. Fuckville is several orders of magnitude more conservative than Heebieville or even Sadtown.
I have a weird obsession with the Duggars, who I think also live in that corner of Arkansas? It really does seem like the American Taliban. Keep up the good fight.
The brother of a friend of [acronym redacted] recently married into the Duggar family. The friend is very worried about him and not very enthusiastic about the in-laws.
101: Yes, the Duggars live just north of Fayetteville, which is about 50 miles north of Fort Smith.
Recently, Fayetteville -- the one blue patch in this Red State -- tried to pass an ordinance giving civil protection to LGBT people in its city. Even though the Duggars don't live in Fayetteville, they still led (and funded) the fight against the ordinance, which was defeated, largely due to the lying commercials the Duggars saturated the local television and radios with.
The ordinance was then rewritten, and passed on the second try. Duggars then funded a lawsuit against it.
Their chief lie was that LGBT people molest children. You'll remember, I'm sure, what Josh Duggar is most famous for.
I'd be worried about anyone marrying into that bunch too.