erica

Cloudy With a Chance of Ligers

Mar 082012

At first it was the little things, like Kindle books you pick up for $2.99. For $2.99, you (and I) can overlook some typos and editing errors. But now terrible editing seeps into everything, even the news. Some things that I’ve seen…

“2% chance of rain” — we Texans value every drop, you know.

Another news station here reports “Ligering showers”. Do you know what a liger is? I do, thanks to my biologist sister. It’s a real thing.

If there are ligering showers, I think we should all be worried. Example:

Not quite as bad, but still worrisome, the prediction of a “Cod front”. I know how weather works. I imagine it would go something like this…

In other news, “Man dies in hand gliding accident.” — This was absolutely posted on a news website. I don’t know whether to feel worse about his death or this headline.

Leslie Cochran, a long time Austin icon, passed away today. One of the news sites says “he ran for for mayor three times”. For for mayor. Way to respectfully remember someone on a news site.

I even received a catalog in the mail that offers a special cheese wheel that “will blow your mind and your friends.” Just like that. Yes. The cheese is that good, people.

I could give you screen shots for these things, but I know you have seen similar items in your daily life. Trust me, each of these examples is real. Look, I’m just pleading with the writers, reporters, and news producers of the world to take a few minutes and read what you’ve written before it goes out to the public. Have our expectations of quality writing dropped that substantially? Am I the only one who notices?

Disclaimer: Any grammatical errors on my part in this blog are probably due to ligering shower distractions.

Fixing Kids

Erica No Responses »

Feb 092012

I have four children. My seven year old, in first grade, worries about ghosts. He worries about death. He worries about bed bugs (no, we don’t have any). He’s shy. Extremely smart, but good luck getting any of that out of him if he doesn’t feel like showing off. My second child, a daughter, has had multiple heart surgeries and has quirks from that. My third child, a son, refuses to talk. My eighteen month old daughter, like most kids her age, just tries repeatedly to get into as much trouble as possible. Normal kid stuff.

The thing is, everyone has a fix for every single quirk my kids have these days. At first I worried and thought there were genuinely things WRONG with my kids. I followed advice and drove them to all sorts of doctors and therapists. I don’t know why, looking back. I was trying to do the right thing, mom wise. Your kid sees ghosts? Get his eyes checked out! Your kid is smart but shy? It could be ADD, ADHD, Asperger Syndrome, Austism, etc. Maybe he needs a hearing test! Your kid can’t spit out her toothpaste properly? She needs an occupational therapist! Don’t let it go too long or they’ll all explode!

Eventually I realized that, though I think there are kids that DO have real problems that need help, our society has become one of constantly fixing our kids. Anything not down the middle of the road is a problem. I’ve slowly become desensitized to most of these suggestions, sort of similar to the way I let those little old ladies’ comments in the grocery store roll off my back. That child should be wearing socks!! I just smile and nod.

Maybe that makes me a bad parent. Maybe taking every little hiccup in the road seriously is the way to go. But I’m exhausted. And kids are just weird. They are. Like crazy little snowflakes. I think we should go back to letting kids be kids. Surely they will grow out of talking like a robot, even without therapy, right?

Here is a small taste of what makes parenting so difficult. I will use my son’s ghost anxiety as an example of how many options are available to fix children these days.

So good luck to all of my fellow moms out there. It’s a wonder any of us make it through the day sane. Keep doing what you do.