Crazy people

Thank God for my mom. I can realize now, as an adult, that my mom is actually pretty cool. Throughout my childhood I felt I was truly hard done by. I thought my mom was mean and nasty for not allowing me to do WTHIW (Whatever the Hell I Wanted). As I grew into adolescence, I matured substantially and realised that not only was my mom mean and nasty, she was a righteous beeatch. After all, it was my Undeniable Godgiven Right to do WTHIW. Looking back on it, I of course recognize that it was I who was the righteous beeatch and absolutely deserving of every single one of those "creative punishments" my mother devised for me when I misbehaved. (I once had to write the ten commandments 100 times each, with special focus on "Thou shalt honor thy father and mother.")

Now that I'm teaching, I see kids in my class who are of widely varying backgrounds, age, temperament, attention span, etc., and I find myself wondering what their home lives must be like to cause them to behave as they do in class.

For instance, one of my students, let's call him *George, constantly thinks the whole world (an most especially the other students) is against him, and it's mostly if not entirely imagined. Yesterday *George was sitting next to *Fred, who was reading a book on the carpet. *Fred had his legs spread out in front of him. When George jumped up to run across the room for something, he accidentally tripped over Fred's outspread legs. George then began crying and said that Fred had tripped him intentionally. Shan saw the whole thing go down, so I know it went down like that. It's a constant slew of similar situations with George, all day long. And he often gets soooooooo angry that EVERYBODY gives him trouble EVERY day. Because he has limited English, it's difficult to find the right words to reason with him at times.

Another of my students, *Amy, is concerned with the spread of germs among the students. Amy is five years old. Have you ever known a five-year-old to call out the teacher for giving a student a drink from her glass? I can totally understand where Amy gets it from, though. Amy's dad is certifiably INSANE. He doesn't let her eat the school snacks or lunches, or drink the school's bottled water. He brings a pillow and coverlet to put over her mat for nap time so that she doesn't touch the sleep mats. He brings her a clean handtowel every day and goes into the girls restroom to hang it on the hook for her. She's not allowed to drink out of her own cup with her own name as provided by the school, even though he could take it home and wash it every day. She must only drink her bottled water out of the bottle and then throw the bottle away. Wanna take bets on whether this girl grows up to be obsessive compulsive?

Then, last night I was watching a TV show called House Swap. The mothers of two different families switched houses for two weeks. In the first week, the mothers had to follow the new household's current rules. In the second week, the mothers got to change the rules. One mother had children who were constantly required to be learning something, even at the dinner table they were being quizzed. They had to earn money for all their chores and then use that money to pay for music lessons, etc. The three kids actually had to contribute $100 each toward their family ski trip. They had supervised toothbrushing to cut down on dental bills. The mother would stand there and direct her 10 year old son and 12 year old daughter while they brushed their teeth. Hello, I'm CRAZY, nice to meet ya!

On the other hand, the other mother had one 12-year-old son, who had a cell phone, slept in his mother's bed with her, ate dinner in his mother's bed with her (while dad ate alone in the kitchen), and each week got a "happy present", well, just because. This mother was equally crazy, but obviously to the other extreme.

I hope that when I one day have children, I can figure out how not to be crazy. Kinda like my mom.