Are your child’s toys his/her very own? Do you allow your child to think that her toys belong to her?

Or are you just letting your child play with them while maintaining ownership yourself?

I am what might euphemistically be called “middle-aged” now, but there are some things that still bother me, a LOT.

I was the oldest of four kids, and nothing ever really belonged to me, even when I bought it with my own money. I was forced to share it all, and it didn’t even matter if I was home. If a sibling wanted to play with it, or wear it, or eat it, the sibling got it.

Even as a child, I was very careful with “my” things. Santa brought me a doll every Christmas, and those dolls are, as I type, residing on the top shelf of my closet, as pristine as dolls that old could possibly be. Some of them, however, bear the marks of not-as-careful-as-I forced borrowings.

I still have my Tiny Thumbelina doll, but she stopped moving after less than a year because a visiting cousin, who threw a fit for her, was allowed by Mom to play with her. My cousin’s idea of playing was far different than mine, and it didn’t take her long to overwind the doll and therefore break her, forever. My opinion of that cousin is still colored by that example of her nature. I was a careful child, and I adored things with keys, such as music boxes. I was extremely careful with such things, and I dreaded having company who brought their kids, because my parents always made me bring out the very things that I loved best, and that were the most easily broken, and watch strange kids play with them roughly and usually break them. If I protested, or cried when it happened, Mom or Dad would give me the routine “Shame on you; don’t be selfish!” speech, which didn’t ring true even back then and still doesn’t. If you know someone, whatever their age might be, is going to break it, why would you MAKE the owner of it just hand it over?

Unless, of course, the child isn’t really the owner at all. That would only work if the PARENT actually owned the toy, wouldn’t it. Aha!

I know that Mom didn’t like it when our toys were mishandled by visiting kids, but her kind heart and generous nature wouldn’t let her be anything but sharing, even when it was OUR things that were being shared.

Some adults are horrified when a child doesn’t want to ‘share’ certain toys, but I’m not. Kids can usually sense when another kid is going to be careful or not, and frankly, it’s only common sense to NOT allow a careless, rowdy kid to play with anything that’s fragile or special, such as a beloved doll or other toy. Embarrassed parents who then FORCE a child to hand it over are not doing anybody any favors. Parents of careless kids who break everything they touch have no business expecting someone else’s child to willingly hand over a favorite toy only to have it torn to pieces before their very eyes. “Well, they sure don’t make ’em like they used to!” is NOT a good response when your kid breaks another kid’s toy. “Oh, that’s all right, don’t worry about it!” is likewise not a good response when some kid breaks your kid’s favorite toy.

It’s wonderful to have a sharing, giving, generous nature, but a person can still have that while using common sense. No child should EVER be required to share beloved toys with another kid. Bring out the box of blocks, or the tinkertoys, or something that’s usually shared anyway and that ISN’T precious and kept pristine and beloved. Unbreakables are good for sharing with an unknown quantity, or with a quantity you KNOW is going to be rough with it. I’m all for sharing, really, but I’m completely against REQUIRED sharing, and a child should get to choose which toys he/she wants to share and which ones are to be kept on the shelf when company comes.

I considered that my kids’ toys belonged to THEM. If we had company with kids, I shut and locked my kids’ bedroom doors, unless they were there, in person, to give or not give permission to enter. As long as the toys were put away, they did not belong to me. I had given them away to someone else – my children – and only the owners could say what happened to them. I had – and still have it – a huge box of sharing toys, and there is some pretty cool stuff in there. But my kids’ most precious toys? Nobody touched them without permission from that child. They belonged to that child. I bought or made them, and then I gave them away. Once you “give” something, it then belongs to the one who received it. Once you “give” something, your rights over its use have been passed to someone else.

Of course, if, after several days’ warning, those same toys were still on the floor, pieces scattered, they became mine again, and my kids didn’t like what I did with them. But that was their own fault.

Perhaps it’s because modern kids have so many toys, that the concept of a few precious toys has gone its merry way. But I’d bet money, if I had any, that even a modern kid has a toy or two that’s extra-special, and that he/she would really prefer NOT to have to share with just anybody.

Sometimes, when I’m looking in my closet, I’ll gaze at Tiny Thumbelina and remember the days when she still moved. And I know that if I hadn’t been forced to hand her over to that wild, destructive cousin, she would still be alive moving today.

Kids desperately need things of their very own, that are undebatably THEIRS, that can not be touched without permission, EVER. I used to find my only respite in my school supplies, which lived in my desk in my classroom. At school, if you helped yourself to someone else’s stuff, you were correctly labeled a thief. Now, of course, even at school there is no possibility to learn pride of possession, because in most classrooms the teacher makes everybody dump their school supplies in community buckets. This is catastrophically wrong. It would have finished me off for good, I think. A child with no absolute possessions can’t understand the concept of other people’s possessions, and this is the beginning of the end. I blogged about this once before and I haven’t changed my mind about it. I never will. I sent my children to school with their supplies and I expected those supplies to reside in my child’s desk. Anyone, including the teacher, who took my child’s possessions without permission and against their wishes, was a thief.

A parent or sister or brother who helps themselves to your possessions is a thief, too. But don’t call them that or you’ll get grounded. And the injustice of THAT still burns, too.

I’m not selfish, and neither are my children. Almost anything we have, we are happy to let you use, too. Just don’t ask to borrow those very, very few extra-precious things we have set apart from everything else, pristine, beloved, and our very own. And if you just waltz up and help yourself without permission, we’ll by golly slap the daylights out of your reaching hand.

Nobody is entitled to whatever they want, without first jumping through some hoops. One of the jumps might be to pay for something in a store. Another jump might be asking permission to touch or use the property of someone else. But a person who just assumes that everything exists for his/her use is asking for trouble, and one of these days, he or she is going to try to help himself to something that isn’t theirs and all hell will break loose, legally. If our children learn at a very early age that they are allowed free usage ONLY of their own things, and NEVER with someone else’s, without permission, perhaps we’ll populate the earth with adults who respect each other and each other’s belongings, and who don’t expect carte blanche to help themselves to anything and everything they want, without jumping through the proper hoop first.

To sum up: nice people of any age don’t grab other people’s things without permission. EVER.

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

Today was the first day of Final Exams – every student’s favorite day, naturally. My class today was up on the main campus, and the classes on the main campus have a far larger percentage of absenteeism than do the regional campuses. I have no idea why this is so, but it’s so.

In this morning’s class, three students didn’t even show up to take the final exam. I predict that they will come to class on Wednesday and be all astounded and sputtery that the summer session is over and they can’t take the final, when most of this kind of student didn’t even know when the final WAS, or what it was about. It happens every semester, and it’s scary. For the nation, I mean. SCARY. Sometimes, even at this level, a parent will call me at home to tell me why Junior was absent and to tell me that he’ll be at the college on such and such a day to take the final which I will please hand-deliver to him at his convenience. To which I reply that I am not permitted by law to even acknowledge that I’ve ever heard of Junior and there is no way I would ever tell someone over the phone who is and who isn’t in my classes. Then the parent will get all huffy and imperious and I’ll start to snicker silently on my end, because after 26 years of having administration force me to kowtow and give in to this kind of parent, I am finally allowed to be sensible and professional about it, and simply hang up on the jerks. College administration will back me. If the parent tries to go over my head, it won’t work. At least, it hasn’t yet. Helicopter parents are a pathetic joke at any level, but if this attitude extends into a kid’s college years, heaven help the universe!

Tomorrow, or, rather, later today (Holy cow, LOOK AT THE TIME!) I will give this same final exam to a group of students at a regional campus, and I’d bet money, if I had any, that every single student will be there, pencil sharpened, alert, and ready to take that test.

Most of the main campus students are just out of high school, and most of the regional students are older. Have work ethics changed much? Darn right they have. And not for the better, either. Sigh.

Dear Helicopter Parents of College Students: Your kid is raised. Stop raising him. If he’s still an immature weenie, let life hand him/her some consequences. It’s about time somebody did.
Love, Professor MeanJane P.S. Your kid is nineteen years old and still can’t remember to bring a pencil to school. And no, he can’t borrow mine. Suck it up. If he wants a grade on a test, he can go down to the bookstore and invest in a two-dollar collegiate-licensed pencil. Yes, they are too expensive and yes, it’s ridiculous. At Target he can get a whole package for a dollar, but then he’d have to remember to bring one to class. You are not allowing your kid to grow up, and he doesn’t have what it takes to do so himself. This is your fault. Back off. Let him struggle and fail, and then perhaps he will struggle and succeed. No, this is NOT being cruel. Cruelty is keeping your kid a kid too long, and doing all the work for him. Step back and don’t give in when he comes crying to you about how hard life is.

This is one of many reasons why I am a firm believer in mixed-age classes. At this level, I’ll have students from 17 to 80 in one room, and each has something invaluable to give to the other. The best thing of all? We don’t really have many discipline problems, and if we do, the student is escorted out of the building immediately. As such students should be at ALL levels, so our nice hardworking kids might be able to climb higher and see farther and accomplish much more, without being constantly albatrossed by discipline problems that are allowed to get worse each year by spineless administrators and parents who can’t see beyond their own child.

Remember Helen Keller, who had to be removed from her doting parents’ home in order to be educated properly, because her parents were so sorry for her that they gave in to her every whim and turned her into a smelly obnoxious beast who demanded her own way and got it in every situation. Poor little Helen, let her have it; she’s been denied so much! Annie Sullivan, however, knew better. Why can’t modern parents and administrators see it?

After this week, the summer session will be over and I’ll have two weeks of vacation before the VERY busy fall semester begins. I’ve peeked at the rosters and all of my classes, so far, are BIG! Of course, “big” at the college level means between 18 and 22, whereas “big” in the public school meant “over 40.” And yes, I had several 8th grade classes of over 40, where kids had to sit on the floor and lean against the wall because no more desks could be crammed into the room.

Now, if the class grows too big, they lock the door and say “Sorry, try again next year.” Much better!

I am a firm believer in playing my best with the hand I’m dealt, but that only works when there are 52 cards to be dealt. Add “just a few more,” and the rules are changed, and it becomes a different game.

My roses are blooming and the petunias are beautiful and my upside-down tomatoes are doing well. The gerbera daisies are putting out new blooms and the salvia is purple and pretty. Come on over and smoke smell them.

Five years ago my life did a complete turnaround, and I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to adjust to it. Now? I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life, and I know I am right where I am supposed to be. I know who my friends are, and who they aren’t, and even though the blow was undeserved and terribly unfair, I’m glad now because I know that God led me through it and guided me straight to where I am now.

I wonder if we have any orange juice. . . . I still miss that BlogHer orange juice. And pretty much everything else about BlogHer, for that matter.

Life is good. Dig it.

And when life isn’t good, dig it anyway. If you keep digging, you’ll strike gold eventually.

Oh, and bring a pencil to class on test day. Them nasty ol’ professors will show you no mercy; they can’t, because they have no hearts. Nope.

They have no heart, and they never fart. That’s why they’re so mean all the time.

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly

Coming home was both a downer and a relief. Does traveling affect anybody else like that? As I was changing the sheets and then mowing the lawn today, I was thinking things like “I love to make my home lovely and good-smelling, inside and out,” whilst simultaneously thinking things like “If I lived in that hotel, I’d NEVER have to mow the lawn, someone else would change AND wash the sheets, and I’d get to sleep with Monty every night!” Because, of course, in my fantasy world, BlogHer is still going on and will never stop.

As are many other things in my many fantasy worlds. . . .

But now it’s Quotation Saturday, and I do love me some wise and pithy quotations:

1. “It is not the shilling I give you that counts, but the warmth that it carries with it from my hand.” –Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo

2. “We have no more right to put our discordant states of mind into the lives of those around us and rob them of their sunshine and brightness than we have to enter their houses and steal their silverware.” –Julia Moss Seton

3. “Statistics are no substitute for judgment.” –Henry Clay

4. “The slander of some people is as great a recommendation as the praise of others.” –Henry Fielding

5. “A sense of shame is not a bad moral compass.” –Colin Powell

6. “In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” –M.L. King

7. “Soft soap is always a sign that there’s dirty water about.” –John Dickson Carr

8. “Obstinacy and heat of opinion are the surest proof of stupidity. Is there anything so assured, resolved, disdainful, contemplative, solemn, and serious as the ass?” –Montaigne

9. “The man who insists on seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides.” –Henri Fredric Amiel

10. “A day is a span of time no one is wealthy enough to waste.” –Anon.

11. “Without deviation, progress is not possible.” –Frank Zappa

12. “Dollars cannot buy yesterday.” –Admiral Harold R. Stark

13. “Never let go of the fiery sadness called desire.” –Patti Smith

14. “If people are made to do what they dislike, you must allow for a little ill-humour.” –Lord Melbourne

15. “I don’t want people who want to dance. I want people who HAVE to dance.” –George Balanchine

16. “Men get to be a mixture of the charming mannerisms of the women they have known.” –F.S. Fitzgerald

17. “A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.” –Demosthenes

18. “Being a politician is like being a football coach: you have to be small enough to understand the game, but dumb enough to think it’s important.” –Eugene McCarthy

19. “Truthfulness is a cornerstone in character, and if it be not firmly laid in youth, there will ever after be a weak spot in the foundation.” –Jefferson Davis

20. “Character is built out of circumstances. From exactly the same materials, one man builds palaces, while another builds hovels.” –George Henry Lewes

21. “There is something that is much more scarce, something finer far, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.” –Elbert Green Hubbard

22. “Faith in the ability of a leader is of slight service unless it be united with faith in his justice.” –George Washington Goethels

23. “Administration not only has to be good but has also to be felt to be good by the people affected.” –Nehru

24. “Art is running away without ever leaving home.” –Twyla Tharp

25. “I’m tough, ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay.” –Madonna

26. “Some men are like a clock on the roof; they are useful only to the neighbors.” –Austin O’Malley

27. “People are so brainwashed by the rules that they don’t know what really matters.” –Mick Jagger

28. “The brain that doesn’t feed itself, eats itself.” –Gore Vidal

29. “On ships they call them barnacles; in business they attach themselves to desks and are called vice presidents.” –Fred Allen

30. “Few people do business well who do nothing else.” –Lord Chesterfield

31. “The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it.” –George C. Scott

32. “No shirt is too young to be stuffed.” –Larry Zolf

33. “If ‘A’ is a success in life, then ‘A’ equals ‘X’ plus ‘Y’ plus ‘Z.’ Work is ‘X,’ ‘Y’ is play, and ‘Z’ is keeping your mouth shut.” –Einstein

34. “The less one thinks, the more one talks.” –Old French Proverb

35. “Let him that would move the world, first move himself.” –Socrates

36. “It is as expedient that a wicked man be punished as that a sick man be cured by a physicial; for all chastisement is a kind of medicine.” –Plato

37. “The canary bird in the coal mine theory of the arts: artists should be treasured as alarm systems.” –Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

38. “The artist brings something into the world that didn’t exist before, and. . . he does it without destroying something else.” –John Updike

39. “First to know, then to act, then to really know.” –Bishop Hafifi

40. “Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.” –Seneca

41. “When it is not necessary to make a decision, it is necessary not to make a decision.” –Lord Falkland

42. “The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.” –John Burroughs

43. “To spare oneself from grief at all cost can be achieved only at the price of total detachment, which excludes the ability to experience happiness.” –Erich Fromm

44. “If we only knew the real value of a day.” –Joseph Farrell

45. “If ever there was an aviary overstocked with jays it is that Yap-town-on-the-Hudson, called a bureaucracy.” –O. Henry

46. “The aging process has got you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to throw a snowball.” –Doug Larsen

47. “As a preventative to mental old age, a daily mile trot with your imagination cannot be equaled.” –Roy Giles

48. “The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee. And I pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.” –J.D. Rockefeller

49. “Mum reckoned that getting lost and finding your way were just different sides of the same coin. You couldn’t have one without the other.” Fynn, from Mister God, This Is Anna

50. “There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.” –Victor Hugo

We’re having a huge bonfire here tonight, and finally getting rid of the absolutely humongous pile of limbs and brush that’s been accumulating for YEARS. Come on over.

Seriously, stop by. We’re setting off Mentos Geysers, and it’s going to be, if you can stand one more quote. . . .

51. “Fierce!” — Christian Siriano

There will be food. And blueberry cobbler.

And probably rain. But we’ve had mighty and majestic bonfires in the rain before.

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly