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I wanted to rant about this myself but she does a much better job than could. Ann & I have grown tired of many of her co-workers thinking were are some sort of freaks. All because we dont have kids. Not everyone feels they need to have children to fulfill their lives!
Honk if You Adore My Child Too By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM
OF the many boastful parents Adrienne Zimmet has encountered, the one who really got her goat was a mother who bragged that her adolescent daughter was so smart her teacher said she had a "gift from God." Ms. Zimmet, 53, of West Lake Hills, Tex., said the woman would not stop. " 'Oh, gifted children. I've got 'em. What am I going to do with my gifted children?' She would literally say that." Extreme boasting is something Ms. Zimmet, who has an 18-year-old son, has noticed parents doing more and more in the last decade.
"You want them to just zip it," she said. "It's gauche."
A certain amount of bragging has long been considered a right of parenthood. It mixes delight in a child's success with a dash of pride that one cannot help but feel as a parent. But when bragging becomes competitive, making parents feel as if they are being drawn into a game of one-upmanship, it takes on a sinister air. The mother who bragged about her child's gift is but one example of what some parents call an annoying trend: parents who brag about their children's accomplishments with an aggression befitting a contestant on "The Apprentice."
Through word of mouth and blog entries, parents and nonparents alike complain that bragging about the children has never seemed so prevalent. Add to this the proliferation of ways of bragging to complete strangers: honor student bumper stickers, Yale Dad sweatshirts and, more recently, blogs. The Indianapolis Star reported last March on parents who were hanging banners over their garage doors and sticking signs in their front lawns announcing that their children had earned a spot on a school team, band or club.
Diminutive gold stars are passé, as are wallet-size photographs of children. Nowadays parents have images of their offspring silk-screened onto tote bags and pixilated into computer desktop wallpaper. There are now proud parent T-shirts to celebrate nearly any accomplishment, even one that reads, "Proud Parent of a Vegetarian." A commercial for an Internet service reflects the spirit of the times with two sets of grandparents pinging e-mail messages with photos of their grandchildren back and forth in a cuteness competition.
For a generation of successful upper-middle-class parents deeply involved in their children's development, filial pride can easily go overboard. Competitive bragging has become a new social sport, with a vast field of play that includes practically any public place, from the office coffee cart to the supermarket checkout line. The puffery is so inescapable, it has inspired a backlash: anti-brag bumper stickers, shirts and pins with slogans like "My kid sells term papers to your honor student."
Amaechi Uzoigwe, the father of two daughters, 5 and 7, is upset with the whole situation. "Let children be children," he said. "Let them enjoy whatever they're doing. Stop living through them. It's part of the competitive professional environment that has been transferred to their children."
Mr. Uzoigwe, 38, an owner and founder of World's Fair, a music management company and record label in Manhattan, said his 7-year-old daughter, who attends a private school, is already attuned to which of her peers went on a better vacation and whose father flies on a private plane.
"The only thing you can do is not engage with it," Mr. Uzoigwe said.
Competitive bragging may stem in part from parents projecting onto kids some of their own anxiety about living in a roller coaster economy, said Arlie Hochschild, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. "There are economic trends which have made the rich richer and the poor poorer," she said, creating an anxious middle class that ponders whether it will sink or rise. "I think there's an anxiety that maybe wasn't there in the 60's ," she said.
Ms. Zimmet grew up in the 1960's in what she described as a blue-collar town. There was an honor roll, but no one would brag about children being on it, let alone slap a bumper sticker on the family car, she said. In her current upscale neighborhood, she said, parents are so determined that their progeny be successful they do whatever it takes to help them thrive, including doing their homework for them.
The aggressive braggers are usually in the upper middle class, Dr. Hochschild said. Citing Annette Lareau's "Unequal Childhoods," an ethnographic study published in 2003, Dr. Hochschild said that the working-class parent's idea of a good childhood means giving children "the freedom to grow up naturally and form bonds with kin and friends." The upper middle class, on the other hand, believes in "intensive cultivation," with parents running children to soccer practices, play rehearsals and music lessons.
Parents are anxious about passing along to their children their own station in life, Dr. Hochschild said. "And they can't do it through land or money in a meritocracy," she said. "You do it through your kid's skills. And that may lend itself to bragging."
She also pointed out that there is a "culture of blame" involving working mothers that might lead them to brag. "The workplace doesn't adapt to the fact that women are juggling matters at work and home," she said. Mothers who spend long hours at the office may become anxious about how their children are doing. When the children do succeed, Dr. Hochschild said, "despite themselves they may brag because their child is an emblem that, against all odds, the kid is thriving."
Bonnie Conklin, 48, a nursing administrator in Boston and the mother of two sons, 20 and 23, agreed. "It's almost a way of saying, 'Hey look at how well they've done it,' " she said, adding that when it comes to bragging, "I think every parent is on autopilot."
For ages, the rule of thumb regarding bragging has been to refrain from it whenever possible, and if you cannot help yourself, do not go on too long or too often. Cindy Post Senning, a great-grandchild of the etiquette arbiter Emily Post, shared a bit of advice originally given to her father when he became a grandparent: "Don't talk about your grandchildren to others. Either they have their own, or they don't."
Many parents say they cannot help bragging. "It's really good for your kids to know you're proud of them," said Ms. Senning, a director of the Emily Post Institute in Burlington, Vt. What parents should avoid, she said, is one-upmanship. Bragging for status damages relationships among parents and may also set up children for failure.
Telling people that your child is the best performer in the whole dance class, for example, can be embarrassing. "Kids have these huge expectations to live up to," Ms. Senning said, especially "if the brag grows beyond the reality."
Additionally, parents who brag tend to raise children who brag, she said. The main rule of child rearing, she said, is "always behave the way you want your kids to behave."
Bragging can also skew parents' expectations. "The times that it's harmful are when parents don't really have a handle on what typical child development is," said Amy DeWerd, a kindergarten teacher and the mother of an 8-year-old girl in East Greenbush, N.Y. If a teacher has to explain to the parents that their children have actually fallen behind their peers, "they have a difficult time hearing it," she said.
But sometimes even the most well-intentioned tongue biters cannot help themselves. "I was never the type to want to hear it," said Gregg DeMammos, 32, of Manhattan, but he admits that he now boasts about his 7½-month-old son to family, friends and strangers. "I'm constantly thinking 'When is it too much?' " he said. He rationalizes that his bragging is the old-fashioned euphoric kind, a product of first-time fatherhood.
"I don't think people will want to hear about how your 7-year-old did in an exam or how good their penmanship is," he said. "You get more slack from having a baby."
In other non-ranty news in under 72 hours we will be in Las Vegas. YAY! Yes I am counting down. Really looking forward to some time off.
Honk if You Adore My Child Too By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM
OF the many boastful parents Adrienne Zimmet has encountered, the one who really got her goat was a mother who bragged that her adolescent daughter was so smart her teacher said she had a "gift from God." Ms. Zimmet, 53, of West Lake Hills, Tex., said the woman would not stop. " 'Oh, gifted children. I've got 'em. What am I going to do with my gifted children?' She would literally say that." Extreme boasting is something Ms. Zimmet, who has an 18-year-old son, has noticed parents doing more and more in the last decade.
"You want them to just zip it," she said. "It's gauche."
A certain amount of bragging has long been considered a right of parenthood. It mixes delight in a child's success with a dash of pride that one cannot help but feel as a parent. But when bragging becomes competitive, making parents feel as if they are being drawn into a game of one-upmanship, it takes on a sinister air. The mother who bragged about her child's gift is but one example of what some parents call an annoying trend: parents who brag about their children's accomplishments with an aggression befitting a contestant on "The Apprentice."
Through word of mouth and blog entries, parents and nonparents alike complain that bragging about the children has never seemed so prevalent. Add to this the proliferation of ways of bragging to complete strangers: honor student bumper stickers, Yale Dad sweatshirts and, more recently, blogs. The Indianapolis Star reported last March on parents who were hanging banners over their garage doors and sticking signs in their front lawns announcing that their children had earned a spot on a school team, band or club.
Diminutive gold stars are passé, as are wallet-size photographs of children. Nowadays parents have images of their offspring silk-screened onto tote bags and pixilated into computer desktop wallpaper. There are now proud parent T-shirts to celebrate nearly any accomplishment, even one that reads, "Proud Parent of a Vegetarian." A commercial for an Internet service reflects the spirit of the times with two sets of grandparents pinging e-mail messages with photos of their grandchildren back and forth in a cuteness competition.
For a generation of successful upper-middle-class parents deeply involved in their children's development, filial pride can easily go overboard. Competitive bragging has become a new social sport, with a vast field of play that includes practically any public place, from the office coffee cart to the supermarket checkout line. The puffery is so inescapable, it has inspired a backlash: anti-brag bumper stickers, shirts and pins with slogans like "My kid sells term papers to your honor student."
Amaechi Uzoigwe, the father of two daughters, 5 and 7, is upset with the whole situation. "Let children be children," he said. "Let them enjoy whatever they're doing. Stop living through them. It's part of the competitive professional environment that has been transferred to their children."
Mr. Uzoigwe, 38, an owner and founder of World's Fair, a music management company and record label in Manhattan, said his 7-year-old daughter, who attends a private school, is already attuned to which of her peers went on a better vacation and whose father flies on a private plane.
"The only thing you can do is not engage with it," Mr. Uzoigwe said.
Competitive bragging may stem in part from parents projecting onto kids some of their own anxiety about living in a roller coaster economy, said Arlie Hochschild, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. "There are economic trends which have made the rich richer and the poor poorer," she said, creating an anxious middle class that ponders whether it will sink or rise. "I think there's an anxiety that maybe wasn't there in the 60's ," she said.
Ms. Zimmet grew up in the 1960's in what she described as a blue-collar town. There was an honor roll, but no one would brag about children being on it, let alone slap a bumper sticker on the family car, she said. In her current upscale neighborhood, she said, parents are so determined that their progeny be successful they do whatever it takes to help them thrive, including doing their homework for them.
The aggressive braggers are usually in the upper middle class, Dr. Hochschild said. Citing Annette Lareau's "Unequal Childhoods," an ethnographic study published in 2003, Dr. Hochschild said that the working-class parent's idea of a good childhood means giving children "the freedom to grow up naturally and form bonds with kin and friends." The upper middle class, on the other hand, believes in "intensive cultivation," with parents running children to soccer practices, play rehearsals and music lessons.
Parents are anxious about passing along to their children their own station in life, Dr. Hochschild said. "And they can't do it through land or money in a meritocracy," she said. "You do it through your kid's skills. And that may lend itself to bragging."
She also pointed out that there is a "culture of blame" involving working mothers that might lead them to brag. "The workplace doesn't adapt to the fact that women are juggling matters at work and home," she said. Mothers who spend long hours at the office may become anxious about how their children are doing. When the children do succeed, Dr. Hochschild said, "despite themselves they may brag because their child is an emblem that, against all odds, the kid is thriving."
Bonnie Conklin, 48, a nursing administrator in Boston and the mother of two sons, 20 and 23, agreed. "It's almost a way of saying, 'Hey look at how well they've done it,' " she said, adding that when it comes to bragging, "I think every parent is on autopilot."
For ages, the rule of thumb regarding bragging has been to refrain from it whenever possible, and if you cannot help yourself, do not go on too long or too often. Cindy Post Senning, a great-grandchild of the etiquette arbiter Emily Post, shared a bit of advice originally given to her father when he became a grandparent: "Don't talk about your grandchildren to others. Either they have their own, or they don't."
Many parents say they cannot help bragging. "It's really good for your kids to know you're proud of them," said Ms. Senning, a director of the Emily Post Institute in Burlington, Vt. What parents should avoid, she said, is one-upmanship. Bragging for status damages relationships among parents and may also set up children for failure.
Telling people that your child is the best performer in the whole dance class, for example, can be embarrassing. "Kids have these huge expectations to live up to," Ms. Senning said, especially "if the brag grows beyond the reality."
Additionally, parents who brag tend to raise children who brag, she said. The main rule of child rearing, she said, is "always behave the way you want your kids to behave."
Bragging can also skew parents' expectations. "The times that it's harmful are when parents don't really have a handle on what typical child development is," said Amy DeWerd, a kindergarten teacher and the mother of an 8-year-old girl in East Greenbush, N.Y. If a teacher has to explain to the parents that their children have actually fallen behind their peers, "they have a difficult time hearing it," she said.
But sometimes even the most well-intentioned tongue biters cannot help themselves. "I was never the type to want to hear it," said Gregg DeMammos, 32, of Manhattan, but he admits that he now boasts about his 7½-month-old son to family, friends and strangers. "I'm constantly thinking 'When is it too much?' " he said. He rationalizes that his bragging is the old-fashioned euphoric kind, a product of first-time fatherhood.
"I don't think people will want to hear about how your 7-year-old did in an exam or how good their penmanship is," he said. "You get more slack from having a baby."
In other non-ranty news in under 72 hours we will be in Las Vegas. YAY! Yes I am counting down. Really looking forward to some time off.