4 is the new 40 in stockholm

My daughter is 4 now, has been for two months.  And, boy, do I feel old.

This was a magic line, turning 4.  All of a sudden, she is a kid, not a toddler.  She gives me lip, she says she loves me, she sighs, she sings long songs from memory, she draws two-page ocean scenes, and she remembers everything I say and calls me on it.

She just looks bigger, runs faster and gets bored in this floppy, whiny kid kind of way.

I had no idea 4 meant … this.  I suppose I thought it happened at 5, when I started kindergarten.

And suddenly I realize that I don’t have two very young children anymore, that I am two short years from not having small children at all.

And, as this blog proves quite clearly, I’ve built up quite the self-image around having small children.  That seems a natural conclusion of all this parental leave, all this time off, all this concrete commitment, which then just … ends.

I could care less that I am 37, that 40, while not all that close, is now visible in the medium distance on a clear day.

But I do care about the start of elementary school (which in Sweden means technically 7 but really 6 since kids then go to a kindergarten type place, I gather).

What am I going to do with myself?  I just learned all these damn lullabies by heart!

open preschool in Sweden is a daddy ghetto

I loved this recent comment on a post of mine from The Swede Life about her experience at open preschool :

It was all babies and toddlers 9 to 18 months, with their DADS. The classic second leg of parent leave people, men and older babies. Imagine, a child play center daytime in the middle of the week and not another woman in sight. It was just men in notably hip looking casual clothes, really nice shirts actually, and stylish eye glass frames playing with their babies, and loading them up in back carriers and big barnvagens to take them home.

This is so true.  I am actually surprised that I see so many women at our open preschool.  Because the whole open preschool concept is really tailored to 9 to 24 month-old kids.  Little babies don’t need to play, and every single Swedish kid goes to daycare after the age of 2.

Parents really need the open preschool with the restless young toddler.  And that has become the “classic” second leg of parental leave, as she puts it (I love that Sweden already has classic forms to men on paternity leave).

I keep meaning to ask the open preschool teachers about the changes, and I will, but when I go the men don’t act any different than the women, and I get self-conscious and imagine they will just give me (a Dad, after all) a blank look.

On the style note, the Swedish guys do really turn out for open preschool.  I don’t get it.  I want to show up in a flannel shirt and baseball cap but find myself getting presentable just before the baby smears oatmeal all over my shirt.

10 Little Indians scared in Sweden

There is often a hidden, or naive, prejudice in Sweden. For instance, when illustrating a song about Gypsies, the national newspaper, DN, used a graphic of a shabby trailer. Or when it needed to illustrate the American foreclosure crisis, it created a huge page about a typical mortgage defaulter named “Rodriguez,” with plenty of sketchy ethnic assumptions to match.

I get sensitive about all this, coming from America, where small messages and words matter, and whether you think that is too politically correct or not, it still matters.

So I was not happy when NK came home from daycare singing the song 10 Little Indians. Then we took her to an open preschool the next week, and they sang the song there too.

The American original is based on a minstrel show song that had 10 Little N*****s, later switched to Indians. The Indians disappear one by one, in the spirit of many children’s counting songs. Ouch.

This Swedish song is different. The Indians do not disappear one by one, but rather get scared by a bear in a group. And they turn out to be brave in the end.

I was going to write about it, but then I googled the song, and it got confusing and I did not.

Then I showed up at daycare last week, and there she was, with an Indian headband and feather in her hair, her face painted with “Indian” stripes. And then I started to hum the song to myself because, well, it is catchy.

And I realize that I do not like my American daughter singing this song. They would not sing Arab songs at her daycare and dress her up as an Arab princess. Or a Chinese one. Or a Greek one.

NK will almost surely live in the US again, and I do not want her to have this slightly disengaged, way up north, disconnect from the sensitivities of the world. She will almost surely know Indians, or Native Americans, if you prefer. I am not happy this stupid song is her first contact with that culture.

I feel like I should say something to the teachers, that they have an American in the class, so please do not sing that song. But this is her last week before summer vacation, so in the spirit of wimpy liberals through time … I am doing nothing.

But watch out in the fall. I will be fierce then.

TV inhibits not just the child’s development, but daddy’s too

Yet another reason to feel guilty about your child watching TV.  This is from an article in Time.

As most parents of small children will reluctantly admit, nothing can occupy a child quite like television. Unfortunately, the scientific evidence suggests that using the boob tube as a babysitter has its price: the more time babies spend sitting in front of the screen, the more their social, cognitive and language development may suffer. Recent studies show that TV-viewing tends to decrease babies’ likelihood of learning new words, talking, playing and otherwise interacting with others.

A new study published Monday in the Archive of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine adds to that evidence while introducing an intriguing new perspective. Many studies have suggested that television impedes learning by inhibiting youngsters’ ability to interact with others, and according to Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a University of Washington pediatrician, that effect may be compounded when parents get drawn into TV-watching too.

This explains a lot, actually.  Our toddler did not watch TV until she was 2, just like the guidelines say.  Now she watches about an hour a day, a little in the morning while we get dressed, and a little at night as we wind down.  In the Night Garden is an especially wonderful show.

Now that we have the baby, I catch him watching the TV already and have to manuever him around.  And then it hits me, I do not want to leave the room.  Because I want to watch the end of the cartoon.  And I do not want to talk to anyone while I am watching it.

These are crappy cartoons too, as I slowly lose my faith in the Swedish state children’s channel (at least there are no commercials).  But I get hooked, and I get quiet, and my daughter is quiet, and my son is hearing nothing from me or her while he strains to look over his shoulder at the crappy cartoon.

So lately I have just been leaving the room with him, and I start to talk, and my daughter is left alone with the TV, but this is life with two kids in a small apartment, and sacrifices must be made.

I must admit, though, that I often come back in for the wrap up dance of In the Night Garden.  The Swedish voice over is even better than the English, and Igglepiggle and Upsy Daisy and Makka Pakka really get down.