Or “grandfather” or whomever was/is the moral authority of "back in my day, we never…! " in your life. You know who I mean.
Despite my location field, my daughter is being raised totally free of religion, religious thought, teachings, whatever. I think that this would shock even my mother - the idea that her granddaughter would ask, at the age of four, “Who is that?” when seeing a picture of Jesus, likely has her spinning in her grave. And to do it in Target, nonetheless! :eek:
Neither her mother or I have any desire to raise her in a belief system that we don’t necessarily adhere to (other than some of the ten commandments and the Golden Rule, the rest of the Bible is just… filler). So I don’t. And so Sophie hasn’t the slightest concept of “God” or “Christ” or “Moses” or “Bible” or “Torah” or whatever. It’s just a complete a non-factor in her life.
Grandparents are always thought as as such moral authorities. Thus, when I heard that it is commonplace for a two unmarried seniors to shack-up, after the partner of one has died, I thought (mockingly) “OMG! They are living in sin! What will their parents say!”
I don’t have my own children, but when I interact with others’ kids I hug them, tickle them, play dress-up and get down on the floor with them. Things my grandmother wouldn’t do. And I would tell my own kids personal details about things, things my Grandma would consider too personal (e.g., she was embarrassed that I asked my mom how my pop proposed ).
If I could speak for my own mother, the thing she doesn’t do is force food on children. In other words, serve them lots of food regardless of preferences and insist that they eat it all.
My mom raised us with the “take what you want, eat what you take” philosophy, which my grandma still can’t quite grasp; my mom and grandma butt heads over this issue at every holiday dinner because my grandma spends the whole time capriciously forcing food on my 10 year old cousin (for example, giving him a huge helping of spinach even though he asked for green beans) while my mom tries to intervene and his father (my uncle) ignores the entire situation.
I think maybe just the amount we spend and attention we devote to our child might come as a shock, although not to say it would be a completely negative one. The number of toys, closet full of clothes, lessons for guitar, ballet, tap, gymnastics, all of this would probably come as a shock to those of a generation where kids often were expected to be seen but not heard, were heavily encumbered with chores, etc.
Things that have shocked my M-I-L: (closest I have to grandmother)
allowing my son to play in dirt and not creating a sterile enviroment
allowing (!) my husband to make a judgement as to how layered up our son has to be before our son can go outside (as opposed to setting myself up as sole decision-maker, given that I am the one carrying 2 X chromosomes)
our restrictions on what kinds of toys we will let her give him
Raising the kid religion free is one - he went to a Baptist daycare, but now I tell him I’m pretty sure God and Jesus is just a story and, btw, Miss Jeannie from WeeCare had some crazy ideas like that God, if there was such a thing, gives a rats ass whether two men or two ladies get married.
I also allow my kid to swear at home. In fact, when my husband goes out to jam, the first thing we do is use the f-word. The horror people have of swear words is a pet peeve of mine.
One thing I remember when visiting my grandmother (who lived in London) was her telling me to dry my hair thoroughly after I had washed it before going outside. Otherwise I “would catch my death”. I always nodded politely and ignored her. I do not remember catching my death once.
I spend a lot of time with Sophie - the idea of taking off work for the afternoon so I could surprise my three year-old with a trip to the mall would’ve thrown her into a fit. I can hear her now: “Well, when times go bad they’ll know who to lay off first.” The fact that I’m self-employed wouldn’t phase her.
My FIL was astonished to find out that I insisted on changing diapers - when I took charge of feeding her at dinner one night, he commented no less than three times. “I don’t think I ever fed you while your mother was around, and I know I never changed a diaper unless there was nobody else to do so.”
We’re also pretty liberal when it comes to allowable content she can see on TV/movies - not surprisingly, Mom has a list of “safe” Buffy episodes that can be watched with Sophie (including the musical), but even more surprising was her insistence on taking Sophie to the last Star Wars movie regardless of the PG-13 rating - she literally said “My kid is going to see a first-run Star Wars movie on the big screen and to the best of my knowledge, this will be the last chance she’ll get to do that.” So they went. (Admittedly, given the complete lameness of the film, it is readily apparent that SW3 was a PG13 movie only because Lucas probably bribed the ratings board to give his live-action cartoon some sort of “edgy” appeal.)
I don’t do Santa Clause with my kid. Whcih my Mother is SURE is some mild form of child abuse. :rolleyes:
I thinik I do more things that shock “today’s” parents like:
Let my kids play with toy guns.
Let my kids watch whatever the hell they want. Even if it has gasp nudity in it. (Definately no porn though)
Kind of a funny story about the gun part though.
Last Thanksgiving holiday me and my son were at my parents house. My son was playing with some other kids so he starts to pretend to shoot his fellow playmates. (he didn’t even have a toy gun. he just had his hand in the pointing position with the thumb up) One of his elder Aunts wittnesses this and firmly tells him:
“Hey little man, we don’t shoot guns in this house. This is a house where everybody loves each other” (me: :rolleyes: )
My sons reaction?
He pauses for a moment. Then he slowly takes his deadly gun finger, points it at his Aunt and “BAM BAM BAM!!”
I nearly pissed my pants from laughing so hard.
(My son’s moderately autistic, so he gets a wee bit of a pass for being defiant towards his elders. At least in this case anyway.)
The entire Religion is a waste of time would probably make their dentures fall out, if they weren’t dead already.
But I wouldn’t shock them like that, the really decent people they were.
I have to say that every time I drink a Starbucks coffee, I think of my grandfather and wonder just how shocked he would be at the cost for one cup of BladderBuster sizing. " Back in my day, we worked all week for that wage…now it is the cost of coffee that isn’t very good."
I once shocked my bubbe by telling her an anecdote that occurred during a religious service. She was horrified: “You were davening?” she asked. Other kids get in trouble for not attending religious services, but my family are a pack of communist atheists, so I got busted by Bubbe for going to shul.
My other grandmother, who’s a devout Roman Catholic, probably would be shocked that in the recent “Catholic School Memories” thread, I asked what the Stations of the Cross (in the liturgical sense, I mean) were. She never seemed to care that my parents raised me to be a heathen when I was young, but she has Alzheimer’s now and is dead convinced that we’re all Catholic. (I’ve been to mass three times in my life.)
Knowing what both Grandmas know about me, I doubt that there is anything that I *could * do right now that would shock either of them (even if one of them weren’t dead).
).