Numbers have always held a special fascination with me. I am not sure why I was blessed/cursed with this. Even before proper schooling the pattern and rhythm of numbers often came to the forefront of my thoughts; albeit, it was not always in the ways my father would have enjoyed. When I was a child, preschool if I remember, I took an orange crayon and wrote on virtually every conceivable surface of our house the numerical sequence, 7 x 7 = 77. Not mathematically correct, mind you, but it had a certain symmetry both in a physical sense and in a rhyming sense. It was shortly after this that my father started using addition/multiplication flash cards with me to help develop my skills. Maybe he saw a twinkling of an innate mathematical ability or maybe he was just worried that I would continue along the path of mathematical mayhem of using graphic symmetry to reach a scientific conclusion instead of using empirical data.
As a student, I was never at the top of my class, it just wasn’t one of those goals I strived for. I always did well enough, but certainly not up to the standards that I was always told I could achieve scholastically. When confronted with those pesky IQ tests, on the whole they didn’t make a lot of sense to me, but it was also an opportunity for those patterns and rhythms of numbers to help me out. Nestled in those questions of “what number follows in this sequence” or “which set does not belong”, I was always able to easily see what was next or out of place. Not that it helped me out a lot, it just gave those people who said I just needed to work harder to achieve the goals they set for me. Now, after a reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers”, I can now attribute my middling success at school to my birthdate. Being an October baby I was brought into the educational system almost a full year before my fellow students. To put it bluntly, my brain just wasn’t up to snuff when I started school.
The other day I started to think about the days of the year that bear significance to people. You might question first of all why in the world would I even think of writing an article about the number of important days in a life. Well, it does reflect back on my affinity for numbers, but more importantly it was the birth of our great niece on March 8. I started to think that perhaps a year ago to Alicia and Joey (the parents), March 8 was just another day in the year. One that would roll on by without a second thought. But now, just a year later it is one of the most important days in their lives. A day they will chronicle and remember until their last breath. I have always enjoyed bringing a little morbidity to joyous occasions.
As an infant, days really had no meaning to me, in fact the singularly most important day of my life, my birthday didn't even register until it was programmed into me. My world was happy just to be filled with a dry diaper and a wet breast. Days had no bearing unless there was an opportunity to wake somebody up when I wanted attention. This began to slowly change. Like most children, as I grew older there were only a few days in the year that meant anything to me at all. Those in particular were my birthday and Christmas, soon thereafter Hallowe’en was added to the mix. All the rest of days just sort of circulated around the Big Three, my own personal Holy Trinity. I eagerly anticipated each one with the next one quickly focused on no matter how far advanced it was.
But as I started to grow older, I started to collect days that became part of what formed me. Easter soon loomed, not for the religious aspect as most people would like to believe. No, it was for candy. Then as I got in school, Valentine’s Day and all the cinnamon hearts. So you see, gifts and candy really earmarked my important days. As I became less self-centred (the snickering you just heard was my wife), I began to celebrate other members of my family with their birthday. I was never that comfortable about giving at that point, but I did recognize their own days. By this point I now had 10 days dedicated out of 365. Then Labour Day became a touchstone for it signaled the end of summer and the slogging back to the books. New Years for the parties and the dawning of another year. Thanksgiving for family time and so on and so on, they keep piling on as years go by.
As we all progress through life, important dates are added to our calendar like charms on a bracelet or links on a ball and chain, it depends on your particular slant on life. Birth dates, weddings, funerals, holidays, anniversaries, death dates and monumental historical dates keep adding up. Sometimes they are significant, sometimes not as much so. In my own personal inventory, “International Talk Like A Pirate Day” (September 19) and the “Star Wars Day” (May 4; May the fourth be with you) hold almost an equal stature to that of the definitely in need of a new name, Civic Holiday. I did a quick calculation and came up with about 48 dates in the yearly calendar that hold some significance to me and I am not really that old yet. Well, old in the big scheme of things. The great irony is that as you get older and all these dates are collected and begin to seriously accumulate, in all likelihood your memory is fading and you start to forget them. This takes us back full circle to only one date that is important to you and that is a date you will never remember. The day you die. Isn’t that pleasant.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Parental Timeout? Nawwww.
It is not very often I lose control over my emotions. I have always tended to be a fairly level headed individual, not given to extremes in either way. But a little while ago I was driving along in my car, just listening to some talk radio on CBC-FM when an interview not only got my attention, it caused me to grip the wheel and start yelling at my radio and in the process spraying the interior of my car with both invectives and spittle. I am quite surprised that the people at Queen’s Park haven’t legislated against talk radio as a distraction to drivers. I mean, I have had a car phone (since the days they were referred to by that name) since the late 1980's and in all those conversations, both pleasant and angry, I haven’t been distracted to the point that I caused a car accident. However, I do have to admit that I have nearly rear-ended someone after committing a Linda Blair. More than once I have twisted my neck through an unnatural arc trying to catch the swaying motions of a woman who sauntered down the street in a dangerously short skirt. Personally, legislating against attractive people walking on the street would probably do more to keeping eyes on the road than banning cell phone conversations.
The interview I was listening to was with a woman who was advocating against yelling at your children. Kind of ironic that such a topic could make me scream, huh? She thought that yelling at your children would cause them untold levels psychological trauma. She acknowledged that parents can and do become angry at children for not doing what they are told. Her solution to avoid the inevitably escalating argument was for the parents to take a time out. Really. I ain’t lyin’, she said this. Thinking back to when my children were young, it seemed to me that they made it a sport to see which parent would explode first. Maybe in this woman’s world, the sun rises in the west, animals talk to her in the morning and birds help her dress, but in my gritty reality, raised voices were not just to make a point but it was a matter of survival of the loudest. It was a challenge to even be heard over the din of three young children. She suggested a situation that if you are running late and the kids just won’t get dressed for school that you say to the children... in a soft reassuring voice, “I am going to go into the next room for a time out and in that time, if you can think of a way to help me get you ready for school, I would really appreciate it.” Then, I suppose magically, after a parental time out, she would return and the children would all be lined up at the door, in declining order of height, hair combed and lunch bags firmly in hand with self-satisfied smiles plastered on their cute little faces; a Von Trapp moment. In my world the script would read more like, ”John, I know you are focused on the world of science and in your quest for the betterment of society on the whole. I am also proud that you are pursuing the goals and dreams of an inquisitive 5 year old mind, but I am going into the next room for a time out and in that time if you could possibly rethink the idea of encouraging your baby sister to put that dinner fork in the electrical outlet. Your mother, the entire staff at the Emergency Ward and I would greatly appreciate it.”
Not that yelling is inherently a good thing, but, in my opinion, it is far from being the traumatizing incident that some people may think. Marjorie Gunnoe, a psychologist at Calvin College in Michigan states that, “When afraid, children learn poorly. Fear is a very bad teacher.” Sorry Marj, I beg to differ. Fear is a very good teacher. Specifically, it is how we learn not to do dumb things... again. She says that time outs or a firm, ”No” are better than yelling. But isn’t a firm “No” on the border of yelling? I am sure that if you look closely enough in the Bible, the Lord or somebody else spake in a booming voice to the rabble that always seemed to gather around mountains and such.
France has introduced a law making it a criminal act to yell at your spouse, citing the psychological violence it inflicts. I will agree that in some cases, words can be a fearful weapon and can have an horrendous effect on someone. But there is a difference between yelling and verbal abuse. The idea that you can be convicted of a criminal act for yelling at your spouse for not putting the cap on the Crest is a bit much. France, that beacon of rational thought in the 18th century, a pillar of republican ideals and causes for hundreds of years has wholeheartedly embraced the political correct craziness of the 21st century. However, I do have the feeling, that this law must have been enacted by men. It has been my experience that a woman’s retort by far is much more rapier-like than a man’s standard response of, “Oh yeah?”
So what it really comes down to is this; in a perfect world, just like in a perfect economy, some people think that the way things should progress, is the way they will progress. The real world is far removed from that way of thinking. Yelling may not be the best tool we have to raise our kids or interact with our spouses, but raising your voice in frustration or in trying to make a point is as much a part of life as talking. In all my years of sports, from the gentlemen-like nature of cricket where we all wore white ducks, to the rough, tough and bloody scrum of rugby, yelling was part of the game. Even at the best jobs in the world, someone at some point is going to start yelling at you for whatever reason. Be it the coffee is too hot, or if you looked at someone the wrong way or if someone’s animals didn’t talk to them that morning, you can count on the fact someone will take it out on you. If you are not equipped to handle someone yelling at you and you never experienced such action when you were a child, how will you ever deal with it as an adult? Maybe as was suggested, you could propose to your coach or boss, that if they could take a time out in the other room before they raise their voices, things might work out for the better. But something tells me not to hold my breath over that one.
The interview I was listening to was with a woman who was advocating against yelling at your children. Kind of ironic that such a topic could make me scream, huh? She thought that yelling at your children would cause them untold levels psychological trauma. She acknowledged that parents can and do become angry at children for not doing what they are told. Her solution to avoid the inevitably escalating argument was for the parents to take a time out. Really. I ain’t lyin’, she said this. Thinking back to when my children were young, it seemed to me that they made it a sport to see which parent would explode first. Maybe in this woman’s world, the sun rises in the west, animals talk to her in the morning and birds help her dress, but in my gritty reality, raised voices were not just to make a point but it was a matter of survival of the loudest. It was a challenge to even be heard over the din of three young children. She suggested a situation that if you are running late and the kids just won’t get dressed for school that you say to the children... in a soft reassuring voice, “I am going to go into the next room for a time out and in that time, if you can think of a way to help me get you ready for school, I would really appreciate it.” Then, I suppose magically, after a parental time out, she would return and the children would all be lined up at the door, in declining order of height, hair combed and lunch bags firmly in hand with self-satisfied smiles plastered on their cute little faces; a Von Trapp moment. In my world the script would read more like, ”John, I know you are focused on the world of science and in your quest for the betterment of society on the whole. I am also proud that you are pursuing the goals and dreams of an inquisitive 5 year old mind, but I am going into the next room for a time out and in that time if you could possibly rethink the idea of encouraging your baby sister to put that dinner fork in the electrical outlet. Your mother, the entire staff at the Emergency Ward and I would greatly appreciate it.”
Not that yelling is inherently a good thing, but, in my opinion, it is far from being the traumatizing incident that some people may think. Marjorie Gunnoe, a psychologist at Calvin College in Michigan states that, “When afraid, children learn poorly. Fear is a very bad teacher.” Sorry Marj, I beg to differ. Fear is a very good teacher. Specifically, it is how we learn not to do dumb things... again. She says that time outs or a firm, ”No” are better than yelling. But isn’t a firm “No” on the border of yelling? I am sure that if you look closely enough in the Bible, the Lord or somebody else spake in a booming voice to the rabble that always seemed to gather around mountains and such.
France has introduced a law making it a criminal act to yell at your spouse, citing the psychological violence it inflicts. I will agree that in some cases, words can be a fearful weapon and can have an horrendous effect on someone. But there is a difference between yelling and verbal abuse. The idea that you can be convicted of a criminal act for yelling at your spouse for not putting the cap on the Crest is a bit much. France, that beacon of rational thought in the 18th century, a pillar of republican ideals and causes for hundreds of years has wholeheartedly embraced the political correct craziness of the 21st century. However, I do have the feeling, that this law must have been enacted by men. It has been my experience that a woman’s retort by far is much more rapier-like than a man’s standard response of, “Oh yeah?”
So what it really comes down to is this; in a perfect world, just like in a perfect economy, some people think that the way things should progress, is the way they will progress. The real world is far removed from that way of thinking. Yelling may not be the best tool we have to raise our kids or interact with our spouses, but raising your voice in frustration or in trying to make a point is as much a part of life as talking. In all my years of sports, from the gentlemen-like nature of cricket where we all wore white ducks, to the rough, tough and bloody scrum of rugby, yelling was part of the game. Even at the best jobs in the world, someone at some point is going to start yelling at you for whatever reason. Be it the coffee is too hot, or if you looked at someone the wrong way or if someone’s animals didn’t talk to them that morning, you can count on the fact someone will take it out on you. If you are not equipped to handle someone yelling at you and you never experienced such action when you were a child, how will you ever deal with it as an adult? Maybe as was suggested, you could propose to your coach or boss, that if they could take a time out in the other room before they raise their voices, things might work out for the better. But something tells me not to hold my breath over that one.
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