(no subject)

[lunabee34]

1. I realized that everything I had to say about the Vampire Physiology Panel is elegantly explained in irfikos's webpage on her presentation. So no panel recap there.

2. Starbara reading still forthcoming!

3. Ray Nagin's nephew is my student this intersession.

4. Every since Josh started working days, Emma has been so mean to him. All day long when he's at work she talks about missing him and wanting to play with him and as soon as he comes home, she's all, "I only love my Mommy!" and not wanting to have anything to do with him. He's just about the best dad ever and it hurts his feelings so bad and I'm so frustrated with her. I don't know how to make her stop.

5. I feel like I oughta have some response to all the wank going on in writercon, but I don't have anything new that hasn't been said to add to the convo. Fandom Wank post linked for my own future reference.

Comments

on working parents

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

It'll pass. My mom can assure you. My dad was the stay-at-home parent and as a young'un I was VERY miffed that my mom went away and left me and have heard stories of refusing to have anything to do with her when she came home at night. I can ask her for details, but I feel safe in saying that Emma will get over it, and that she really does love him. (She's acting out because she's hurt because she DOES love him.)

Re: on working parents

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I really would appreciate you asking your parents how they handled that. 'Cause I certainly don't want to reward or encourage that behavior. I can't decide if or how I should punish her; I mean, it *is* rude behavior, which is certainly punishable with timeout or something. Blergh. It's just so frustrating.

It helps to hear that it's a normal thing, though. Thanks.

Re: on working parents

[trekgirl55.livejournal.com]

Feel free to take this with a grain of salt, as I still don't have the grasp of the whole parent thing myself. I agree with hermionesviolin. Emma's behavior while frustrating is normal. My nephew, Marty, went through a phase like that. He was just about Emma's age too. My sister-in-law finally got through to him after repeatedly telling him how much his daddy loved him, how he was hurting daddy's feelings, etc. I am not saying you can reason with a child that age and Marty certainly didn't get better over night, but he did get better. I am not sure what to tell you about the punishment issue. True the behavior is rude, but you don't want to fuel her negativity either.

Re: on working parents

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I've told her that Daddy is my best friend and it hurts my feelings as well as his when she's ugly to him.

I also think I'm gonna use the TV against her. If you're not nice to your Dad, you can't watch TV. She watches too much TV anyway LOL

Re: on working parents

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

See, I was clearly raised by wolves 'cause I'm like, "Rude? What? This is something we're concerned about?" I'm used to thinking of my relationship with my parents as something where "rudeness" just doesn't have a meaning; there's nice and not nice but there are no propriety constraints which would cause "rude" to be an applicable term.

I e-mailed my mom for details. I'm not sure exactly how I would deal with it (especially 'cause I'm not sure how much reasoning actually works with very young children). Probably something like pointing out to her that all day she had been saying she missed Daddy and wanted to play with him and now he's here and she's being mean to him, also saying something like, "I know you're upset that he was gone all day, but now he's back, and he'd really love to play with you." I would want to acknowledge and validate her hurt and upsetness but not encourage the meanness, maybe mention that YOU missed Daddy and are glad he's home now? Maybe during the day when she says she misses him and wants to play with him you could mention a specific game she could play with him when he gets home, so when he gets home and she doesn't want anything to do with him you can point to something specific and say, "But remember we planned to play this with Daddy when he got home?" I do think she has every right to be upset, though, so I would probably have to rely some on just reading the situation in the moment to decide how much to push at any given moment.

Re: on working parents

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I think part of the rudeness issue with me is a Southern thing. We pride ourselves on courtesy and respect and the suchlike. Part of it is the influence of the way I was raised; I could never get away with being rude to my parents.

I think those are some really good suggestions, Elizabeth. Especially the making plans one.

Sometimes she goes beyond just being rude, though. Like sometimes she won't mind him or listen to him which is more problematic than her just being a shit.

Re: on working parents

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my immediate thought when I read "rude" was "Ah, Southerners."

My brother and I learned early on to be civil at grandma's house and in public, but home was always a safe space where we could just be us. [Which sounds more offensive to people who insist their kids not sass back than I actually intend it -- because "safe space" is such a loaded term -- but honesty is so huge for me, and the idea of my immediate family as a truly safe space is so huge for me, that I do honestly squirm a bit at the idea of having to hold in one's feelings -- and yes I know that it's important to learn to keep oneself in check in certain situations... which brings us back to the idea of family unit as unique situation, and yeah I'll stop talking now.] We were pretty well-behaved kids, and we were probably more likely to run to our rooms to stomp and scream than to scream at our parents, but I'm fairly certain we didn't get in trouble for yelling back at them.

I'm glad you think the suggestions are good, and I hope things improve some.

Outright misbehaving is definitely a problem -- though certainly understandable as an outgrowth of her upsetness.

Re: on working parents

[trekgirl55.livejournal.com]

The suggestions Elizabeth made are pretty much the kind of things that helped my nephew get over this sort of behavior. Thankfully she is more articulate than I. LOL

Re: on working parents

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

I was actually really surprised at how many ideas I came up with, because I am forever saying that I am not a child person. I don't really like them and don't really know how to deal with them. Once I started thinking, though, I just kept building on stuff and having more thoughts.

Re: on working parents

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

It's not so much the holding in of feelings. I wasn't allowed to express my feelings a lot of the time as a kid and I don't want to do that to Emma. It's more: hitting Daddy or refusing to mind him or saying that you don't love him and he's mean or throwing things are not viable options for expressing your feelings. Granted, she's three and much more physically oriented for emotional expression than otherwise, but still not cool. To me, anyways.

Re: on working parents

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Oh, hitting is definitely not okay.

I think saying mean things is a valid way of expressing your feelings -- not something that should be encouraged, but given the age I think there's only so much nuance she's capable of and I think learning to verbalize one's emotions is an incredibly important skill (so she should be guided towards articulating why she's upset rather than just throwing insults, but I would definitely encourage the verbalization in preference to physicality). Of course, my experience with this is limited to a younger brother and some baby-sitting so take with grains of salt.

Re: on working parents

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

I e-mailed my mom. Her reply:

Yeah, that kind of sucks. I think we just ignored it -- I remember coming home and you having a sour face on and you wouldn't talk to me. I tihnk I just greeted you and went on with the evening, letting you interact when you wanted to, but not forcing it. It made me sad, but I figured I couldn't force you to be cheerful to see me, so I let it go.

I don't know how long it went on, but I know there was another period when you wouldn't tell Daddy anything and then you'd tell me when I got home -- so we both got to have times of being ignored.

I would tell Emma's parents to just let it go -- if she's really being rude, they could tell her she has to say "hi" or something if she's spoken to, but basically, at 3, I'd just ignore it. "Hi Emma" [hug] and move on to pleasanter things, like "Hi my dearly beloved" and dinner :)

Sent the parents a hug from me. I understand it's pretty common, and at least with you, it passed.

Re: on working parents

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Thank your mom for me. That's really good advice. And she actually seemed to let up on it for this weekend, so yay!

Re: on working parents

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

My mom e-mailed me tonight.

finding my brain .....
I thought I might want to reply more b/c I was in Vermont when I replied the first time. I think what I would add is that I wouldn't punish Emma at all. She's not being bad, she's just upset. Of course, I was never all that big on punishment anyway so I might be a bad model. But I think playing it down and letting her be is the most helpful. And also putting her feelings into words for her -- "I know you're mad at Daddy for leaving you but he loves you very much and he feels bad when you won't play with him," or something like that. It helps her to know her feelings are acknowledged (and helps her to begin to learn how to verbalize her feelings), and helps her learn empathy about how others feel. At 3, I'm not sure she's capable of empathy, cuz she's the center of the universe, but I figure it never hurts to start b/c you don't know when they do start to learn. And again, it's normal, it's painful, it'll pass, and this is why parents need to be grown ups :) [and yes, being a grown up sucks, that's why you have partners!]

Re: on working parents

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Thank your mom again for her insight. :)

Emma has largely stopped doing this now, for no apparent reason other than I decided to whine about it on lj. I should whine more, I guess. *g*

Re: on working parents

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Reading my mom's e-mail I was struck by how similar it seemed to stuff I had said. I am in no way surprised, as I am forever talking about how much I have been inluenced by my parents :)

Glad to hear Emma's mostly stopped doing it.

Re: on working parents

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

You're gonna think I'm a crackhead, but every time I see that icon, I think it's of baby!Spock in ST:5. LOL

Re: on working parents

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen that movie, but I trust that that's valid.

[ana-grrl.livejournal.com]

re: #5 I just LOVE how the dude didn't respond to the comments made to his original post, just said he'd 'let it play out' or something like that in his own journal, and then wrote another whinging post later. Sheesh!

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I was really surprised to see the second post he made.

It's just weird to see people I don't know and have never heard of talking about this movie I made. executrix likened it to getting on a plane and noticing that another passenger is reading a book you wrote. Kind of an odd experience.

[imaginaryimages.livejournal.com]

What was the overall reception on your vid? Hard to go by what that person said...

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

The movie's been received really positively. Everyone that's seen it has given me really great feedback and since this dude's post, there's been a lot of interest in watching it by people who either weren't at the Con or who missed it when they were there.

[trekgirl55.livejournal.com]

Yeah, don't worry about Mr. Asshat. I still maintain that if he found the vid or the audience hostile or whatever offensive he could have easily gotten up and left.(Well maybe he thought the hostile audience would attack him. lol)

I can imagine the whole experience has been rather surreal. However, the overall reaction to the vid was positive. So concentrate on the rave reviews you received. You can't please everyone, luv. ;)

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I really don't get the hostile thing. I understand the him not liking the slash thing way more than I do the hostile viewing audience thing. For the most part the only sounds anyone made were laughter. There was largely silence during the video. I mean, I didn't notice people talking or making comments really.

[imaginaryimages.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you'll work out the issues with the kid-ling. Just as hermionesviolin said, they act out because they're hurt. She'll no doubt adapt, and since you're aware of the rude behavior and don't want to encourage it, I'm sure it will work out fine.

The odd shifts reminds me of a story my father tells us. He worked nights, and one day while my mom was at work, he must have fallen asleep. Apparently, I covered my sister from head to toe with baby powder. My dad awoke to see my sister staring at him, just two little toddler eyes peeking out of a cloud of white. I think it wasn't long after that my folks did their damndest to both get on the same shift. :) (I know, I know, Child Services or somebody would be after him in this day and age, sleeping while two toddlers roamed free!). A little humor help? :)

As for that Fandom wank link, phew. I know it was just for your own reference, but I took a peek, couldn't help myself. (Yes, if a link says don't click, I click!) Gah. It's like listening to the two sides of the Mr. Marsters' fandom - some just LOVE to hate. I swear they're anti-fans from another dimension and in no way can they tolerate opinions that differ from theirs. I swear many people do not know what "subjective" is. They cannot grasp that there is no right or wrong when it comes to opinions, all they know how to do is spew as much hate as possible at the others' opinion with no rational thought at all. So often, I can't help but think towards these folks, "You really really really don't like this fandom/person/whatever, so why are you here?" To disagree is great, to wish someone fiery death because they think something other than me? Not cool. I ran right back out of that thread, let me tell ya!

[imaginaryimages.livejournal.com]

Addendum to my comment: I did go back and there was a pretty good group that discussed his perhaps poor choice of metaphor in an intelligent way, I just had to dig through some rantings to get to it.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I think the bottom line for me is that the original poster in writercon wasn't trying to get a dialogue going and wasn't trying to start a conversation about issues that concerned him or whatever. He was aiming for inflammatory. I think he could have started a much less wanky conversation about, say, how to accomodate people at cons who really detest slash or something of that nature. But I think he wanted all the huge uproar, which is why he said really provocative things.

[imaginaryimages.livejournal.com]

I think you're right. If he was trying to provoke, he succeeded and that's sure what it looked like.

[justmalea.livejournal.com]

I think you're exactly right, which is why I've chosen not to respond to it. I guess I take the saying "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" to heart. I'm glad I'm not the only one with emotions and all that about it but have chosen (at least for the time being, I may change my mind at some point) to not respond.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I did make a comment to his original post, but it was more along the lines of "Sorry this didn't work for you, but that's not how I interpreted what's going on." But I just didn't have this big meta response post in me. LOL

[justmalea.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, see, I knew I didn't have anything to say that WASN'T meta-centered, so I declined to add to the kerfluffle. Hehhe.

[justmalea.livejournal.com]

This has absolutely nothing to do with your post.

I had a dream about you last night. It was cool. So, um, thanks for stopping by my sub-conscious. :)

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Heeeee.

I hope it was a *good* dream and not one where I'm zombie Lorraine trying to eat your brains or something. LOL

[justmalea.livejournal.com]

Definitely not teying to eat my, um, brains.

Although, I DO have to admit, you were a LITTLE zombie-like when I was through with you and trekgirl55 ;)

I'm a naughty evil woman, I know. :-D

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Hahahhahahahahahahahahahahha.

[justmalea.livejournal.com]

I'm glad my debauchery amuses someone other than myself. ;)

LOVE the icon, btw. Hot.

[suki-blue.livejournal.com]

Wow. I hadn't realised there had been a kerfuffle. And what a kerfuffle it is!! And partly over your vid! I'm not sure if you should be upset or pleased. LOL!

I don't understand this hostility thing at all. While you were setting up we were all pretty quiet and unassuming while we were waiting and then while the vid was playing we watched intently, marvelled at its utter brilliance and laughed at all the funny bits. If he was intimidated at all then it was a cue to just leave and say 'That wasn't for me; I was greatly outnumbered.' Not a cue to piss off a billion Slashers. What a mistaka to maka!!!

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I'm voting for pleased. As executrix said, it's not as if *I've* been wanked. I was just sorta part of the wanking lube. LOL

I also don't get the hostility thing. Never in a million years would I have thought that to be anyone's experience of the movie.