I enjoy cooking. I didn't cook much in Spawn's first two years because life was busy to start with. Now that he's older and more settled, I'm starting to expand my recipe stack again. I've had some good luck with Indian food before so I'm in the middle of my first attempt at chicken korma. I'm not sure if it's going to work because I misread 11 ounces of chicken broth as 11 cups. I...did not add all 11 cups - but I did add around 7 cups before I found myself thinking "This looks more like a soup than a sauce". Instead of using a crock pot, I've got it bubbling away in a stock pot in hopes I can drive off 5 or 6 cups of water before dinner.
We all make mistakes in reading comprehension from time to time - and I'm certainly not immune. In a book filled with disturbingly bad advice, Marina Sears includes a terribly constructed definition of peer dependency in Chapter Three of "The Battle Of Peer Dependency":
Let's review some late elementary school rules about definitions, people!
One English word can have multiple meanings. Sometimes the meanings of a single word can be similar - but sometimes the meanings are mutually exclusive. For example, we use the noun "lead" to refer a toxic naturally occurring element and the verb "lead" to describe giving direction to a group of people.
Looking at Mrs. Sears mashup of the definitions of "peer" and "dependence", the problem becomes obvious pretty quickly. As a US citizen, we don't have an official noble class so the two definitions of "peer" are mutually exclusive; you can either be equal OR a member of a foreign noble class. "Dependence" has three definitions - to be reliant on for support (e.g., my grandmother is dependent on her SSI check for income), to place trust in (e.g., our banking system depends on consumers' trust in the system), and to be determined (e.g, Prior to Independence, Kenya was in dependence to Great Britain.) You can force the three definitions into a rather confusing sentence - but the three definitions have solid differences.
The weird, slapdash approach of Mrs. Sears means that her definition fits equally well for a teenager wanting to play volleyball with his friends as it does for discussing the role of the Corn Laws enforcement in the Irish Famines. IOW, her definition defines nothing.
The "correct-ish" answer would be that peer dependency is when equals place trust in each other. That definition at least fits the modern meaning of the words - but I concede that the phrase misses the frantic condemnation of having friends of the same age.
What really concerns me is that Mrs. Sears home-schooled her kids but can't recognize an issue that I remember discussing in 3rd or 4th grade.
Since the definition doesn't pack the emotional wallop desired, Mrs. Sears drives home the point by sharing a nondescript horror story:
This is CP/QF land so "drugs, alcohol and scrapes with the law" might mean that he's dually addicted to alcohol and narcotics and has been in prison twice....or it might mean that he's on an SSRI for depression, has a beer monthly during grilling season and got a speeding ticket at age 18. Hard telling without more info.
As a former teacher, I get very worried when a parent places the responsibility for their child's misbehavior squarely on the shoulders of another kid. Junior high kids are capable of making their own life choices - and "bad kids" don't spend a ton of time trying to drag kids who are focused on doing well enough at school and in extracurriculars in to trouble. Why would they? People tend to sort themselves based on similar interests so kids are getting into trouble young are going to be more comfortable with other kids who are diving into alcohol or sex young than kids who are not.
No, blaming 'bad influences' invalidates the control that a kid has over their own life choices - and is rather addicting to parents. After all, having a child get into serious trouble leads to parents wondering where they made a parenting mistake for their kid to have messed up like that. For most parents, they decide that their kid needs more guidance and support for a while to get back on track - or professional intervention if this is showing signs of continuing.
For CP/QF parents, though, the stakes are different. Remember they were sold an entire ball of wax: if you do everything by the rules, your kids will have perfect lives without heartbreak, rebellion or pain. When you write the rule out, it's obviously a load of horse-hockey - but it's seductive for people who had rough childhoods.
I wrote this post over a few days - and the chicken korma turned out fine! I used a bit of almond flour to thicken the sauce near the end and presto!
Continue praying for Anna Maxwell. She's seeking multiple options for treatments for her stage 2A cancer - and is apparently doing "natural" chemo at home right now. I really don't want her to be one of those men or women who have an early, treatable cancer, decline oncologist suggestions, go whole-hog on 'natural' treatments, and then find out their cancer has metastasized weeks, months or a few years later.
Michigan has closed all schools until April 6th at least. My job had a video about how the company is talking with the CDC and you should take time off if you get sick. I'm not much worried; my position keeps me 4-6 feet away from people thanks to desk placement.
If she'd said "equals you place trust in" most of her readers would have realized they actually want that for their kids and maybe teaching them how to choose people that are trustworthy and be trustworthy themselves is a better way to go. At least I hope so. I know CP/QF is weird about friends.
ReplyDeleteYup, that's what most people want for their friends. That's NOT what Marina Sears wants for her kids. She wants them to follow her wishes, wants, and desires unquestioningly and instantly. Friends get in the way of that - so bye, bye friends!
DeleteWhat my mother wanted for us kids was to be her ideological clones. Youth group and Sunday School were forbidden, friends were even more verboten unless she knew their parents well, and even other adults were to be suspected and mistrusted. Her goal was only that we follow her without any questions and to the letter.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I suspect that Marina Sears and your mom would share parenting tips freely with each other.
DeleteI remember being excited when my son first said "no" to me. That's a HUGE step in differentiation. And, yes, sometimes I get frustrated when he decides that he's going to die on a certain hill that feels like a molehill to me - but he's three, I'm an adult, and I want him to be able to express his feelings - even if I can't (or won't) always change our plans to suit his preferences.
That's an interesting "definition." And by definition, I mean word salad.
ReplyDeleteI get that not every culture values individuation, but it's really not the end of the world when a kid expresses opinions and preferences that differs from their parents'. I remember having a conversation with my mom years ago, when my daughter was a toddler, and I told her that we wouldn't be spanking. She said, "What about defiance?" My response was something along the lines of, "What about it?" I expect defiance from my kid. It's normal. Sometimes she won't want to do something, and other times she might be over-tired or hungry and not able to listen.
We definitely talk to our daughter about what she's told us about what her friends do and say and what she thinks about that--it helps her consider her own behaviour. E.g., she doesn't like it when her friends boss her around, so she works on standing up for herself but also needs to remember not to boss other people around.
LOL, word salad is right! I've only got one kid and he's pretty mellow. On the rare occasions he is defiant, we have consequences. Seems to work well enough for us.
DeleteYeah. When I read her word mash-up I literally said out loud "are you kidding me right now?" And the next thought I had was (like you): "omg...she homeschooled her kids".
ReplyDeleteNone of the things she's using as reasons peer dependency is dangerous actually sound in the slightest bit bad to me.