Playing the cards of parenting
Tuesday, May 20, 2008 10:22 PM PDT
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E-mail this articleColumn by Cathy Zimmerman
The Daily News
More than once, I’ve told our sons, “I wish I’d known when you were little what I know now.” I always add, “Of course, I only know what I know now from living with you all these years.”
This tired bit gets dragged out whenever one of them shares a heartwarming memory of my parenting skills. As David once bitterly complained, “You’re not The Daily News Mother of the Year!”
Yes, I once removed all three of the boys from the Thanksgiving table at my parents’ house because they were laughing so hard they spit food across the table and could not stop. (They say I “threw” them into the back bedroom. Reviving history again.)
And yes, Jerry and I once stood behind our car so Dave could not drive away in it against our wishes. I classify this as a trust exercise; it proved he wouldn’t run us over.
Like so many things, parenting is something you learn on the job. But unlike carpentry or knitting, you can’t undo and start over. You can’t even break for lunch.
Day in and day out, loving your children and taking care of them realigns you. Until you never want to go back to your old shape.
I thought of this last week when a few parenting items landed among the wire stories and e-mails that flood my life.
One was a press release from KidStuff, a company in the stalwart sounding town of Black Earth, Wisc. It described a set of card games called Family Talk, Family Talk 2 and Grandparents Talk.
Each game starts “colorful conversations between parents, children and relatives.” The games have apparently “been reaping huge benefits among folks who may sit together but rarely, truly converse.”
This is odd, given the nature of our species. But it’s also the nature of our species to play “Grand Theft Auto.”
Anyway, you shuffle the cards and choose one: “What was your favorite stuffed animal?” or “What kind of pets did you have?”
I guess this is better than, “Dad, did you ever smoke pot?” But maybe not.
According to the press release, co-workers, churches and corporate teams are using the cards to “elicit extraordinary insight” into each other.
Even in the newsroom, full of communicators who can be dismal at communicating, there’s no way we’d use a game like this for anything other than gutter humor. We get our extraordinary insights from putting out a paper every day, hashing things out, sharing the sweet times and the awful times no card game can conjure.
Families are like us, but moreso.
The other parenting news was in an AP story about a breast-feeding consultant. This woman is so good they call her — you’ll never guess — the Breast Whisperer.
In the Washington D.C. area, “Shelly is in high demand,” the story says. “House calls, billed at $150 an hour, begin at 7 a.m. and end about 11 p.m. In between, she is booked solid, seeing about 80 women a week for classes and private consultations.”
No wonder she whispers. This is one tired woman.
I think her idea has legs, however. It could be a reality TV show, “SuperMammary” or “Boob Swap.” Maybe a Wii game would help the wee ones latch on.
I don’t want to rag on the many helpful services and products for parents. But it’s a bummer to know that the term Grandparents Talk is a trademark, and that women are paying consultants $150 an hour instead of calling their own moms or the always wise and always free La Leche League.
Fewer and fewer of us, it seems, will ever be a Daily News Mother of the Year.
For the record, the kind of pets I had were a dog named Pip and a parakeet that got away one summer night when our dad brought the cage outside. We had a big front porch, and we used to sit out there all the time, guzzling root beer and shooting the breeze. Or should I say, “truly conversing?”
Originally published May 20, 2008.
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