Cambiasca Fiera Ovicaprina, March 2011
At this country fair, we discovered two things about our dog. He hates goats and he loves sheep. And that makes our decision much, much easier...
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Monday, 28 March 2011
Book notes No. 46 : The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon
Nine degrees this morning as I drove the children through Cannobio at 8am. After the weekend's rain, the morning was steely grey, the lake was glowing like mercury, and the sun was washing down in a silver pool from behind a dark cloud. By lunchtime there were blue skies, and a warm breeze.
I know what you're thinking. The latest read sounds like another 'crimmie'. Sounds like another detective thriller. Sounds like another charismatic sleuth discovers the hidden secret.
And you'd be right.
And then again, you'd be wrong.
For this detective story is a detective story with a difference. For detective Christopher Boone, the first-person narrator of this detective story, is different. Detective Boone is 15. He has a photographic memory. He understands maths. He understands science. But what he can't understand are other human beings. Detective Christopher Boone has Asperger's.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was published to intense critical acclaim in 2003. I heard about it and sent a copy of it to my sister-in-law for Christmas. Why I didn't send a copy of it to myself for Christmas is beyond me. The other day found it in a second-hand store and it being the only thing of any interest amid the forest of mottled John Gallsworthies, I plucked it up.
I'm glad I did. It's an astonishing, heart-rending and life-affirming novel. Every 15-year-old should read it. No scratch that. Everyone who hasn't already contributed to Mr Haddon's pension fund should read it immediately.
And you'd be right.
And then again, you'd be wrong.
For this detective story is a detective story with a difference. For detective Christopher Boone, the first-person narrator of this detective story, is different. Detective Boone is 15. He has a photographic memory. He understands maths. He understands science. But what he can't understand are other human beings. Detective Christopher Boone has Asperger's.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was published to intense critical acclaim in 2003. I heard about it and sent a copy of it to my sister-in-law for Christmas. Why I didn't send a copy of it to myself for Christmas is beyond me. The other day found it in a second-hand store and it being the only thing of any interest amid the forest of mottled John Gallsworthies, I plucked it up.
I'm glad I did. It's an astonishing, heart-rending and life-affirming novel. Every 15-year-old should read it. No scratch that. Everyone who hasn't already contributed to Mr Haddon's pension fund should read it immediately.
Friday, 25 March 2011
Feast of the Annunciation
Today is the Feast of the Annunciation, celebrating old Gabriel's visit to Mary with her new job description.
Annunciation
Chiesa di San Gottardo, Carmine Superiore
Wouldn't life be so much more magical if instead of getting the news of impending motherhood from a little plastic stick covered in pee-pee, all mothers-to-be were visited by an angel conjuring flowers out of the air...?
PS Has anyone spotted Yulia Tymoshenko in this picture? Or is it just my imagination?
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Motherhood means ... No. 27
A bright day with a cold breeze.
Motherhood means...
...realising suddenly that the garden you dug out of the campo seven years ago - pregnant and feeling it - has ceased to be a burden, a blot on your conscience, a toddler deathtrap, and has become, miraculously, a living playground and unparalleled learning resource.
Motherhood means...
...realising suddenly that the garden you dug out of the campo seven years ago - pregnant and feeling it - has ceased to be a burden, a blot on your conscience, a toddler deathtrap, and has become, miraculously, a living playground and unparalleled learning resource.
Sunday, 20 March 2011
Friday, 18 March 2011
Carmine spring watch 2011 : mid-March update
Today is almost hot in the sun, with a hairdryer wind blowing straight from Africa. In fact, at 2pm it was 30° in the sun and out of the breeze. Mathilda remains unlit for the second day running. All the windows and doors are open, and I'm shooing out the stale rainy-day air.
With only three days to go until the official first day of spring, the changes are starting to gather pace. Jakob! Lord of Misrule is ecstatic to see that his summer quarry, the lizards, have awoken from their slumber, and has started ignoring the fact that I'm on the other end of his lead when he makes a futile dash for one.
In the trees, the bird species are growing in variety and number, and in the mornings they give the traffic noise from way down below plenty of competition. Over the chicken coop, the buzzards are a regular sight, and at the Castelli di Cannero in the middle of the lake, the herrings gulls are busily fighting for nesting space.
What's a-bloom? Camellias, of course. Daffs and narcissus. Elephants' ears, primulae and periwinkles. And there's blossom on the apricot trees - always the first to draw the bees fresh out of their hives - and on the forsythia and the magnolia.
This morning I sunbathed for two hours (don't tell anyone), lying on a rock like lizard, high up in the woods with an unparalleled view of the lake.
All alone. Just me, Jakob!, the deer and the sun.
With only three days to go until the official first day of spring, the changes are starting to gather pace. Jakob! Lord of Misrule is ecstatic to see that his summer quarry, the lizards, have awoken from their slumber, and has started ignoring the fact that I'm on the other end of his lead when he makes a futile dash for one.
In the trees, the bird species are growing in variety and number, and in the mornings they give the traffic noise from way down below plenty of competition. Over the chicken coop, the buzzards are a regular sight, and at the Castelli di Cannero in the middle of the lake, the herrings gulls are busily fighting for nesting space.
What's a-bloom? Camellias, of course. Daffs and narcissus. Elephants' ears, primulae and periwinkles. And there's blossom on the apricot trees - always the first to draw the bees fresh out of their hives - and on the forsythia and the magnolia.
This morning I sunbathed for two hours (don't tell anyone), lying on a rock like lizard, high up in the woods with an unparalleled view of the lake.
All alone. Just me, Jakob!, the deer and the sun.
Thursday, 17 March 2011
This year's clutch, in the bag
We're getting towards the end of a long wet week, and it's hard for everyone to stop their face looking like one.
To cheer myself up and take my mind off the multitude of wet underthings, overthings, footthings and headthings that are hanging, steaming from every hook, ledge and chairback, I decided to unilaterally declare spring by putting the eggs into the incubator. As if in clucking agreement the girls in the muddy coop produced no less than five eggs to round the clutch up to 30.
The fingers, toes and claws of two grownups, two dotties, one gun dog, seven cats, three cockerels, nine hens and the resident badger are all firmly crossed in an egg-stasy of hope...
To cheer myself up and take my mind off the multitude of wet underthings, overthings, footthings and headthings that are hanging, steaming from every hook, ledge and chairback, I decided to unilaterally declare spring by putting the eggs into the incubator. As if in clucking agreement the girls in the muddy coop produced no less than five eggs to round the clutch up to 30.
The fingers, toes and claws of two grownups, two dotties, one gun dog, seven cats, three cockerels, nine hens and the resident badger are all firmly crossed in an egg-stasy of hope...
Monday, 14 March 2011
Book notes No. 45 : Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Amy Chua
Nine degrees at 10am. Overcast and damp, following a complete day of rain yesterday.
I first caught on to this book a few weeks ago when I heard the first few chapters serialized on Radio 4's Woman's Hour. In those few minutes, as I laboured through another pile of ironing, I was hooked on Chua's story, and her promise of parenting secrets to impart.
The daughter of Chinese immigrants to the USA, Amy Chua is a full professor of Law at Yale Law School. Her Jewish-American husband is also professor of Law at Yale. They are both not only academics but also producers of a number of best-selling books and articles. They are, one might say, high achievers.
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (Chua was born in the year of the Tiger) is the story of how this mother refused to allow her two daughters to settle back into the privileged world of an American university town, to throw away everything she and her immigrant parents had striven for, to achieve nothing, as many third-generation children do.
Chua rejected the laissez-faire 'Western-style of parenting' which she characterizes as giving children choices, emphasizing creativity over hard work and enshrining the fervent belief that learning, punctuated by mandatory playdates and sleepovers, should be fun. Instead she looked to her own culture, the Chinese way of doing things which, she says, demands complete respect and obedience from children, sees parents making choices for their children, and has a child's life taken up entirely with study and home.
Under Chua's absolutist regime, her daughters grew up "polite, interesting and helpful". They were simply not permitted to fail. Their school grades were perfect and the elder child, Sophie, was two years ahead of her contemporaries in maths. Both developed exceptional musical abilities, one on the piano, and the other on the violin. They were both bilingual in Mandarin and English at an early age.
This story is partly about the immigrant experience - an audition at Juilliard, for instance, was packed with Asian families and their hopeful prodigies, but Chua was ostracized at a dinner party by her Western friends for calling her daughter 'trash' when she came second in a maths competition. It is also about culture clash - how does one raise a child to be exceptional through sheer force of will, when that child is daily inculcated with the values of a culture that despises parental control and considers borderline criminal any parental attempts to force children to do what they think is best for them.
This was all very interesting. I really didn't like the angry, screaming, driven Amy Chua that came through. But I have to say, she has my respect. The sheer number of hours she put in struggling to keep the girls at it, learning by rote, getting it right every time, practising over and over and over and over. The sheer force of her will, which dominated her family's life for almost two decades, which brought her into conflict with her husband, her daughters, both sides of her extended family and even the dog.
But to my disappointment, the promised parenting revelations never materialized. I would like to have read more about how she did it. I was hoping for nuts and bolts. Where did she find the time between her full-time job, writing books and articles, and keeping house, to drill the girls on their homework or their music? I suspect an unmentioned housekeeper. I suspect plenty of readies for music teachers, maths tutors and nannies. I suspect a dishwasher...
And how did the girls stay awake at school each day when their mother was drilling them past midnight on their music? And exactly what means did she use to cajole them into doing all this stuff when they would rather have been out with their friends? And how is it possible to push your child to do something against their will and still have them love you at the end? More generally, and as a mother of a daughter who will, God-willing, one day be a teenager, did this intensive parenting style help to deflect the pain of the teenage years, to divert her daughters from trashy dressing and the delights of boyz, to develop them into something more than the vapid, airhead babes that 70s feminism seems to have spawned?
It's a fast read, and for anyone with children, an eye-opener. I wonder whether any 'Western' mother, after reading this book, would adopt such a harsh regime, but I think some will be tempted to up the ante and perhaps be less prepared to tolerate sloppiness, laziness, failure and disrespect.
I'll wind this up with a rather telling story, and the one that certainly made me think twice:
The daughter of Chinese immigrants to the USA, Amy Chua is a full professor of Law at Yale Law School. Her Jewish-American husband is also professor of Law at Yale. They are both not only academics but also producers of a number of best-selling books and articles. They are, one might say, high achievers.
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (Chua was born in the year of the Tiger) is the story of how this mother refused to allow her two daughters to settle back into the privileged world of an American university town, to throw away everything she and her immigrant parents had striven for, to achieve nothing, as many third-generation children do.
Chua rejected the laissez-faire 'Western-style of parenting' which she characterizes as giving children choices, emphasizing creativity over hard work and enshrining the fervent belief that learning, punctuated by mandatory playdates and sleepovers, should be fun. Instead she looked to her own culture, the Chinese way of doing things which, she says, demands complete respect and obedience from children, sees parents making choices for their children, and has a child's life taken up entirely with study and home.
Under Chua's absolutist regime, her daughters grew up "polite, interesting and helpful". They were simply not permitted to fail. Their school grades were perfect and the elder child, Sophie, was two years ahead of her contemporaries in maths. Both developed exceptional musical abilities, one on the piano, and the other on the violin. They were both bilingual in Mandarin and English at an early age.
This story is partly about the immigrant experience - an audition at Juilliard, for instance, was packed with Asian families and their hopeful prodigies, but Chua was ostracized at a dinner party by her Western friends for calling her daughter 'trash' when she came second in a maths competition. It is also about culture clash - how does one raise a child to be exceptional through sheer force of will, when that child is daily inculcated with the values of a culture that despises parental control and considers borderline criminal any parental attempts to force children to do what they think is best for them.
This was all very interesting. I really didn't like the angry, screaming, driven Amy Chua that came through. But I have to say, she has my respect. The sheer number of hours she put in struggling to keep the girls at it, learning by rote, getting it right every time, practising over and over and over and over. The sheer force of her will, which dominated her family's life for almost two decades, which brought her into conflict with her husband, her daughters, both sides of her extended family and even the dog.
But to my disappointment, the promised parenting revelations never materialized. I would like to have read more about how she did it. I was hoping for nuts and bolts. Where did she find the time between her full-time job, writing books and articles, and keeping house, to drill the girls on their homework or their music? I suspect an unmentioned housekeeper. I suspect plenty of readies for music teachers, maths tutors and nannies. I suspect a dishwasher...
And how did the girls stay awake at school each day when their mother was drilling them past midnight on their music? And exactly what means did she use to cajole them into doing all this stuff when they would rather have been out with their friends? And how is it possible to push your child to do something against their will and still have them love you at the end? More generally, and as a mother of a daughter who will, God-willing, one day be a teenager, did this intensive parenting style help to deflect the pain of the teenage years, to divert her daughters from trashy dressing and the delights of boyz, to develop them into something more than the vapid, airhead babes that 70s feminism seems to have spawned?
It's a fast read, and for anyone with children, an eye-opener. I wonder whether any 'Western' mother, after reading this book, would adopt such a harsh regime, but I think some will be tempted to up the ante and perhaps be less prepared to tolerate sloppiness, laziness, failure and disrespect.
I'll wind this up with a rather telling story, and the one that certainly made me think twice:
"Coco [the family dog] was afraid of going into the water - she'd never swum before - but Jed gently pulled her in to the deep center, where he let go of her. I was afraid Coco would drown, but just as Jed said she would, Coco dog-paddled safely to shore while we clapped and cheered, toweling her off and giving her big hugs when she arrived. That's one difference between a dog and a daughter, I thought to myself later. A dog can do something every dog can do - dog paddle, for example - and we applaud with pride and joy. Imagine how much easier it would be if we could do the same with daughters! But we can't; that would be negligence..."
Friday, 11 March 2011
Thursday, 10 March 2011
We begin again
Another brilliantly sunny day, and with less wind than yesterday. We hope for warmed bones.
Today begins our fourth season as proud breeders of the lovely Bionda Piemontese (and our seventh keeping chickens). In the next few days I'll be depriving everyone of their breakfast eggs, their lunchtime omelettes and their suddenly-starving-snacks. Instead, the eggs will be set aside in a cat-free, dog-free, kid-free spot and I hope in ten days or less (the shelf-life of a fertilised egg) I'll have enough to make plugging in the incubator worthwhile.
And maybe, just maybe, 21 days, two candling sessions, 63 rotations and hundreds of checks of thermometer and hygrometer later, we might hear the ghostly chirping of chicks inside their eggs and the tiny tapping of beaks on shells.
Today begins our fourth season as proud breeders of the lovely Bionda Piemontese (and our seventh keeping chickens). In the next few days I'll be depriving everyone of their breakfast eggs, their lunchtime omelettes and their suddenly-starving-snacks. Instead, the eggs will be set aside in a cat-free, dog-free, kid-free spot and I hope in ten days or less (the shelf-life of a fertilised egg) I'll have enough to make plugging in the incubator worthwhile.
And maybe, just maybe, 21 days, two candling sessions, 63 rotations and hundreds of checks of thermometer and hygrometer later, we might hear the ghostly chirping of chicks inside their eggs and the tiny tapping of beaks on shells.
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
No...
A bright sunshiney day, but with a cold, cold wind.
Today in Carmine, something is missing.
No: "Mama, I'm not getting up!"
No: "Mama, I've lost my slippers!"
No: "Mama, the dog won't give me my teddy!"
No: "Ouch you're pulling my hair out!"
No: "AJ pushed me!"
No: "B-B bit me!"
No: "I don't want milk - toast - yogurt - apple - I'm not eating whatever it is you've hauled up the hill and worked for an hour to produce..."
No: "Not homework, again!"
No: "Mama, you're a piggy!"
No: "I want to watch Lazytown, but she wants Hector's House!"
No: "Mama, have you hidden the remote control?"
No: "I don't want to go to bed!"
No: "I've cleaned my teeth, honest!"
No morning chaos. No post-school tantrums. No lies, white or black. No amateur deceptions. No chocolate-biscuit thievery. No bribing them up the hill. No spats. No squabbles. No scraps.
No stories, no secrets, no cuddles, no kisses, no impossible tales, no little hands in mine, no improving our reading, no ABC, no sleepy warmth, no naughty laughs, no made-up songs, no non-rhyming rhymes, no sudden smiles. No "Mama, you're beautiful". No "Mama, you're the best". No "Mama, I love you".
I do miss them when they're away.
Today in Carmine, something is missing.
No: "Mama, I'm not getting up!"
No: "Mama, I've lost my slippers!"
No: "Mama, the dog won't give me my teddy!"
No: "Ouch you're pulling my hair out!"
No: "AJ pushed me!"
No: "B-B bit me!"
No: "I don't want milk - toast - yogurt - apple - I'm not eating whatever it is you've hauled up the hill and worked for an hour to produce..."
No: "Not homework, again!"
No: "Mama, you're a piggy!"
No: "I want to watch Lazytown, but she wants Hector's House!"
No: "Mama, have you hidden the remote control?"
No: "I don't want to go to bed!"
No: "I've cleaned my teeth, honest!"
No morning chaos. No post-school tantrums. No lies, white or black. No amateur deceptions. No chocolate-biscuit thievery. No bribing them up the hill. No spats. No squabbles. No scraps.
No stories, no secrets, no cuddles, no kisses, no impossible tales, no little hands in mine, no improving our reading, no ABC, no sleepy warmth, no naughty laughs, no made-up songs, no non-rhyming rhymes, no sudden smiles. No "Mama, you're beautiful". No "Mama, you're the best". No "Mama, I love you".
I do miss them when they're away.
Ash Wednesday
Low cloud creates a sky of ash and pearl.
The view from Carmine Superiore, winter 2011.
Monday, 7 March 2011
Saturday, 5 March 2011
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Weather report
Yesterday, it was warm enough to eat lunch outdoors and afterwards snooze in the sun in a strappy T-shirt. But the accompanying breeze has today brought a shiver of cold, a heavy white sky, and the feeling that it could very well snow...
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Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Piemonte beauty contest...
Cambiasca Fiera Ovicaprina, March 2011
At this country fair, we discovered two things about our dog. He hates goats and he loves sheep. And that makes our decision much, much easier...
Monday, 28 March 2011
Book notes No. 46 : The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon
Nine degrees this morning as I drove the children through Cannobio at 8am. After the weekend's rain, the morning was steely grey, the lake was glowing like mercury, and the sun was washing down in a silver pool from behind a dark cloud. By lunchtime there were blue skies, and a warm breeze.
I know what you're thinking. The latest read sounds like another 'crimmie'. Sounds like another detective thriller. Sounds like another charismatic sleuth discovers the hidden secret.
And you'd be right.
And then again, you'd be wrong.
For this detective story is a detective story with a difference. For detective Christopher Boone, the first-person narrator of this detective story, is different. Detective Boone is 15. He has a photographic memory. He understands maths. He understands science. But what he can't understand are other human beings. Detective Christopher Boone has Asperger's.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was published to intense critical acclaim in 2003. I heard about it and sent a copy of it to my sister-in-law for Christmas. Why I didn't send a copy of it to myself for Christmas is beyond me. The other day found it in a second-hand store and it being the only thing of any interest amid the forest of mottled John Gallsworthies, I plucked it up.
I'm glad I did. It's an astonishing, heart-rending and life-affirming novel. Every 15-year-old should read it. No scratch that. Everyone who hasn't already contributed to Mr Haddon's pension fund should read it immediately.
And you'd be right.
And then again, you'd be wrong.
For this detective story is a detective story with a difference. For detective Christopher Boone, the first-person narrator of this detective story, is different. Detective Boone is 15. He has a photographic memory. He understands maths. He understands science. But what he can't understand are other human beings. Detective Christopher Boone has Asperger's.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was published to intense critical acclaim in 2003. I heard about it and sent a copy of it to my sister-in-law for Christmas. Why I didn't send a copy of it to myself for Christmas is beyond me. The other day found it in a second-hand store and it being the only thing of any interest amid the forest of mottled John Gallsworthies, I plucked it up.
I'm glad I did. It's an astonishing, heart-rending and life-affirming novel. Every 15-year-old should read it. No scratch that. Everyone who hasn't already contributed to Mr Haddon's pension fund should read it immediately.
Friday, 25 March 2011
Feast of the Annunciation
Today is the Feast of the Annunciation, celebrating old Gabriel's visit to Mary with her new job description.
Annunciation
Chiesa di San Gottardo, Carmine Superiore
Wouldn't life be so much more magical if instead of getting the news of impending motherhood from a little plastic stick covered in pee-pee, all mothers-to-be were visited by an angel conjuring flowers out of the air...?
PS Has anyone spotted Yulia Tymoshenko in this picture? Or is it just my imagination?
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
Motherhood means ... No. 27
A bright day with a cold breeze.
Motherhood means...
...realising suddenly that the garden you dug out of the campo seven years ago - pregnant and feeling it - has ceased to be a burden, a blot on your conscience, a toddler deathtrap, and has become, miraculously, a living playground and unparalleled learning resource.
Motherhood means...
...realising suddenly that the garden you dug out of the campo seven years ago - pregnant and feeling it - has ceased to be a burden, a blot on your conscience, a toddler deathtrap, and has become, miraculously, a living playground and unparalleled learning resource.
Sunday, 20 March 2011
Friday, 18 March 2011
Carmine spring watch 2011 : mid-March update
Today is almost hot in the sun, with a hairdryer wind blowing straight from Africa. In fact, at 2pm it was 30° in the sun and out of the breeze. Mathilda remains unlit for the second day running. All the windows and doors are open, and I'm shooing out the stale rainy-day air.
With only three days to go until the official first day of spring, the changes are starting to gather pace. Jakob! Lord of Misrule is ecstatic to see that his summer quarry, the lizards, have awoken from their slumber, and has started ignoring the fact that I'm on the other end of his lead when he makes a futile dash for one.
In the trees, the bird species are growing in variety and number, and in the mornings they give the traffic noise from way down below plenty of competition. Over the chicken coop, the buzzards are a regular sight, and at the Castelli di Cannero in the middle of the lake, the herrings gulls are busily fighting for nesting space.
What's a-bloom? Camellias, of course. Daffs and narcissus. Elephants' ears, primulae and periwinkles. And there's blossom on the apricot trees - always the first to draw the bees fresh out of their hives - and on the forsythia and the magnolia.
This morning I sunbathed for two hours (don't tell anyone), lying on a rock like lizard, high up in the woods with an unparalleled view of the lake.
All alone. Just me, Jakob!, the deer and the sun.
With only three days to go until the official first day of spring, the changes are starting to gather pace. Jakob! Lord of Misrule is ecstatic to see that his summer quarry, the lizards, have awoken from their slumber, and has started ignoring the fact that I'm on the other end of his lead when he makes a futile dash for one.
In the trees, the bird species are growing in variety and number, and in the mornings they give the traffic noise from way down below plenty of competition. Over the chicken coop, the buzzards are a regular sight, and at the Castelli di Cannero in the middle of the lake, the herrings gulls are busily fighting for nesting space.
What's a-bloom? Camellias, of course. Daffs and narcissus. Elephants' ears, primulae and periwinkles. And there's blossom on the apricot trees - always the first to draw the bees fresh out of their hives - and on the forsythia and the magnolia.
This morning I sunbathed for two hours (don't tell anyone), lying on a rock like lizard, high up in the woods with an unparalleled view of the lake.
All alone. Just me, Jakob!, the deer and the sun.
Thursday, 17 March 2011
This year's clutch, in the bag
We're getting towards the end of a long wet week, and it's hard for everyone to stop their face looking like one.
To cheer myself up and take my mind off the multitude of wet underthings, overthings, footthings and headthings that are hanging, steaming from every hook, ledge and chairback, I decided to unilaterally declare spring by putting the eggs into the incubator. As if in clucking agreement the girls in the muddy coop produced no less than five eggs to round the clutch up to 30.
The fingers, toes and claws of two grownups, two dotties, one gun dog, seven cats, three cockerels, nine hens and the resident badger are all firmly crossed in an egg-stasy of hope...
To cheer myself up and take my mind off the multitude of wet underthings, overthings, footthings and headthings that are hanging, steaming from every hook, ledge and chairback, I decided to unilaterally declare spring by putting the eggs into the incubator. As if in clucking agreement the girls in the muddy coop produced no less than five eggs to round the clutch up to 30.
The fingers, toes and claws of two grownups, two dotties, one gun dog, seven cats, three cockerels, nine hens and the resident badger are all firmly crossed in an egg-stasy of hope...
Monday, 14 March 2011
Book notes No. 45 : Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Amy Chua
Nine degrees at 10am. Overcast and damp, following a complete day of rain yesterday.
I first caught on to this book a few weeks ago when I heard the first few chapters serialized on Radio 4's Woman's Hour. In those few minutes, as I laboured through another pile of ironing, I was hooked on Chua's story, and her promise of parenting secrets to impart.
The daughter of Chinese immigrants to the USA, Amy Chua is a full professor of Law at Yale Law School. Her Jewish-American husband is also professor of Law at Yale. They are both not only academics but also producers of a number of best-selling books and articles. They are, one might say, high achievers.
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (Chua was born in the year of the Tiger) is the story of how this mother refused to allow her two daughters to settle back into the privileged world of an American university town, to throw away everything she and her immigrant parents had striven for, to achieve nothing, as many third-generation children do.
Chua rejected the laissez-faire 'Western-style of parenting' which she characterizes as giving children choices, emphasizing creativity over hard work and enshrining the fervent belief that learning, punctuated by mandatory playdates and sleepovers, should be fun. Instead she looked to her own culture, the Chinese way of doing things which, she says, demands complete respect and obedience from children, sees parents making choices for their children, and has a child's life taken up entirely with study and home.
Under Chua's absolutist regime, her daughters grew up "polite, interesting and helpful". They were simply not permitted to fail. Their school grades were perfect and the elder child, Sophie, was two years ahead of her contemporaries in maths. Both developed exceptional musical abilities, one on the piano, and the other on the violin. They were both bilingual in Mandarin and English at an early age.
This story is partly about the immigrant experience - an audition at Juilliard, for instance, was packed with Asian families and their hopeful prodigies, but Chua was ostracized at a dinner party by her Western friends for calling her daughter 'trash' when she came second in a maths competition. It is also about culture clash - how does one raise a child to be exceptional through sheer force of will, when that child is daily inculcated with the values of a culture that despises parental control and considers borderline criminal any parental attempts to force children to do what they think is best for them.
This was all very interesting. I really didn't like the angry, screaming, driven Amy Chua that came through. But I have to say, she has my respect. The sheer number of hours she put in struggling to keep the girls at it, learning by rote, getting it right every time, practising over and over and over and over. The sheer force of her will, which dominated her family's life for almost two decades, which brought her into conflict with her husband, her daughters, both sides of her extended family and even the dog.
But to my disappointment, the promised parenting revelations never materialized. I would like to have read more about how she did it. I was hoping for nuts and bolts. Where did she find the time between her full-time job, writing books and articles, and keeping house, to drill the girls on their homework or their music? I suspect an unmentioned housekeeper. I suspect plenty of readies for music teachers, maths tutors and nannies. I suspect a dishwasher...
And how did the girls stay awake at school each day when their mother was drilling them past midnight on their music? And exactly what means did she use to cajole them into doing all this stuff when they would rather have been out with their friends? And how is it possible to push your child to do something against their will and still have them love you at the end? More generally, and as a mother of a daughter who will, God-willing, one day be a teenager, did this intensive parenting style help to deflect the pain of the teenage years, to divert her daughters from trashy dressing and the delights of boyz, to develop them into something more than the vapid, airhead babes that 70s feminism seems to have spawned?
It's a fast read, and for anyone with children, an eye-opener. I wonder whether any 'Western' mother, after reading this book, would adopt such a harsh regime, but I think some will be tempted to up the ante and perhaps be less prepared to tolerate sloppiness, laziness, failure and disrespect.
I'll wind this up with a rather telling story, and the one that certainly made me think twice:
The daughter of Chinese immigrants to the USA, Amy Chua is a full professor of Law at Yale Law School. Her Jewish-American husband is also professor of Law at Yale. They are both not only academics but also producers of a number of best-selling books and articles. They are, one might say, high achievers.
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (Chua was born in the year of the Tiger) is the story of how this mother refused to allow her two daughters to settle back into the privileged world of an American university town, to throw away everything she and her immigrant parents had striven for, to achieve nothing, as many third-generation children do.
Chua rejected the laissez-faire 'Western-style of parenting' which she characterizes as giving children choices, emphasizing creativity over hard work and enshrining the fervent belief that learning, punctuated by mandatory playdates and sleepovers, should be fun. Instead she looked to her own culture, the Chinese way of doing things which, she says, demands complete respect and obedience from children, sees parents making choices for their children, and has a child's life taken up entirely with study and home.
Under Chua's absolutist regime, her daughters grew up "polite, interesting and helpful". They were simply not permitted to fail. Their school grades were perfect and the elder child, Sophie, was two years ahead of her contemporaries in maths. Both developed exceptional musical abilities, one on the piano, and the other on the violin. They were both bilingual in Mandarin and English at an early age.
This story is partly about the immigrant experience - an audition at Juilliard, for instance, was packed with Asian families and their hopeful prodigies, but Chua was ostracized at a dinner party by her Western friends for calling her daughter 'trash' when she came second in a maths competition. It is also about culture clash - how does one raise a child to be exceptional through sheer force of will, when that child is daily inculcated with the values of a culture that despises parental control and considers borderline criminal any parental attempts to force children to do what they think is best for them.
This was all very interesting. I really didn't like the angry, screaming, driven Amy Chua that came through. But I have to say, she has my respect. The sheer number of hours she put in struggling to keep the girls at it, learning by rote, getting it right every time, practising over and over and over and over. The sheer force of her will, which dominated her family's life for almost two decades, which brought her into conflict with her husband, her daughters, both sides of her extended family and even the dog.
But to my disappointment, the promised parenting revelations never materialized. I would like to have read more about how she did it. I was hoping for nuts and bolts. Where did she find the time between her full-time job, writing books and articles, and keeping house, to drill the girls on their homework or their music? I suspect an unmentioned housekeeper. I suspect plenty of readies for music teachers, maths tutors and nannies. I suspect a dishwasher...
And how did the girls stay awake at school each day when their mother was drilling them past midnight on their music? And exactly what means did she use to cajole them into doing all this stuff when they would rather have been out with their friends? And how is it possible to push your child to do something against their will and still have them love you at the end? More generally, and as a mother of a daughter who will, God-willing, one day be a teenager, did this intensive parenting style help to deflect the pain of the teenage years, to divert her daughters from trashy dressing and the delights of boyz, to develop them into something more than the vapid, airhead babes that 70s feminism seems to have spawned?
It's a fast read, and for anyone with children, an eye-opener. I wonder whether any 'Western' mother, after reading this book, would adopt such a harsh regime, but I think some will be tempted to up the ante and perhaps be less prepared to tolerate sloppiness, laziness, failure and disrespect.
I'll wind this up with a rather telling story, and the one that certainly made me think twice:
"Coco [the family dog] was afraid of going into the water - she'd never swum before - but Jed gently pulled her in to the deep center, where he let go of her. I was afraid Coco would drown, but just as Jed said she would, Coco dog-paddled safely to shore while we clapped and cheered, toweling her off and giving her big hugs when she arrived. That's one difference between a dog and a daughter, I thought to myself later. A dog can do something every dog can do - dog paddle, for example - and we applaud with pride and joy. Imagine how much easier it would be if we could do the same with daughters! But we can't; that would be negligence..."
Friday, 11 March 2011
Thursday, 10 March 2011
We begin again
Another brilliantly sunny day, and with less wind than yesterday. We hope for warmed bones.
Today begins our fourth season as proud breeders of the lovely Bionda Piemontese (and our seventh keeping chickens). In the next few days I'll be depriving everyone of their breakfast eggs, their lunchtime omelettes and their suddenly-starving-snacks. Instead, the eggs will be set aside in a cat-free, dog-free, kid-free spot and I hope in ten days or less (the shelf-life of a fertilised egg) I'll have enough to make plugging in the incubator worthwhile.
And maybe, just maybe, 21 days, two candling sessions, 63 rotations and hundreds of checks of thermometer and hygrometer later, we might hear the ghostly chirping of chicks inside their eggs and the tiny tapping of beaks on shells.
Today begins our fourth season as proud breeders of the lovely Bionda Piemontese (and our seventh keeping chickens). In the next few days I'll be depriving everyone of their breakfast eggs, their lunchtime omelettes and their suddenly-starving-snacks. Instead, the eggs will be set aside in a cat-free, dog-free, kid-free spot and I hope in ten days or less (the shelf-life of a fertilised egg) I'll have enough to make plugging in the incubator worthwhile.
And maybe, just maybe, 21 days, two candling sessions, 63 rotations and hundreds of checks of thermometer and hygrometer later, we might hear the ghostly chirping of chicks inside their eggs and the tiny tapping of beaks on shells.
Wednesday, 9 March 2011
No...
A bright sunshiney day, but with a cold, cold wind.
Today in Carmine, something is missing.
No: "Mama, I'm not getting up!"
No: "Mama, I've lost my slippers!"
No: "Mama, the dog won't give me my teddy!"
No: "Ouch you're pulling my hair out!"
No: "AJ pushed me!"
No: "B-B bit me!"
No: "I don't want milk - toast - yogurt - apple - I'm not eating whatever it is you've hauled up the hill and worked for an hour to produce..."
No: "Not homework, again!"
No: "Mama, you're a piggy!"
No: "I want to watch Lazytown, but she wants Hector's House!"
No: "Mama, have you hidden the remote control?"
No: "I don't want to go to bed!"
No: "I've cleaned my teeth, honest!"
No morning chaos. No post-school tantrums. No lies, white or black. No amateur deceptions. No chocolate-biscuit thievery. No bribing them up the hill. No spats. No squabbles. No scraps.
No stories, no secrets, no cuddles, no kisses, no impossible tales, no little hands in mine, no improving our reading, no ABC, no sleepy warmth, no naughty laughs, no made-up songs, no non-rhyming rhymes, no sudden smiles. No "Mama, you're beautiful". No "Mama, you're the best". No "Mama, I love you".
I do miss them when they're away.
Today in Carmine, something is missing.
No: "Mama, I'm not getting up!"
No: "Mama, I've lost my slippers!"
No: "Mama, the dog won't give me my teddy!"
No: "Ouch you're pulling my hair out!"
No: "AJ pushed me!"
No: "B-B bit me!"
No: "I don't want milk - toast - yogurt - apple - I'm not eating whatever it is you've hauled up the hill and worked for an hour to produce..."
No: "Not homework, again!"
No: "Mama, you're a piggy!"
No: "I want to watch Lazytown, but she wants Hector's House!"
No: "Mama, have you hidden the remote control?"
No: "I don't want to go to bed!"
No: "I've cleaned my teeth, honest!"
No morning chaos. No post-school tantrums. No lies, white or black. No amateur deceptions. No chocolate-biscuit thievery. No bribing them up the hill. No spats. No squabbles. No scraps.
No stories, no secrets, no cuddles, no kisses, no impossible tales, no little hands in mine, no improving our reading, no ABC, no sleepy warmth, no naughty laughs, no made-up songs, no non-rhyming rhymes, no sudden smiles. No "Mama, you're beautiful". No "Mama, you're the best". No "Mama, I love you".
I do miss them when they're away.
Ash Wednesday
Low cloud creates a sky of ash and pearl.
The view from Carmine Superiore, winter 2011.
Monday, 7 March 2011
Saturday, 5 March 2011
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Weather report
Yesterday, it was warm enough to eat lunch outdoors and afterwards snooze in the sun in a strappy T-shirt. But the accompanying breeze has today brought a shiver of cold, a heavy white sky, and the feeling that it could very well snow...
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