ISG 111225 Notes From a Dragon Mom (Kooper)

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Kooper
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註冊時間: 週三 4月 11, 2007 11:40 pm

ISG 111225 Notes From a Dragon Mom (Kooper)

文章 Kooper »

Notes From a Dragon Mom

MY son, Ronan, looks at me and raises one eyebrow. His eyes are bright and focused. Ronan means “little seal” in Irish and it suits him.

I want to stop here, before the dreadful hitch: my son is 18 months old and will likely die before his third birthday. Ronan was born with Tay-Sachs, a rare genetic disorder. He is slowly regressing into a vegetative state. He’ll become paralyzed, experience seizures, lose all of his senses before he dies. There is no treatment and no cure.

How do you parent without a net, without a future, knowing that you will lose your child, bit by torturous bit?

Depressing? Sure. But not without wisdom, not without a profound understanding of the human experience or without hard-won lessons, forged through grief and helplessness and deeply committed love about how to be not just a mother or a father but how to be human.

Parenting advice is, by its nature, future-directed. I know. I read all the parenting magazines. During my pregnancy, I devoured every parenting guide I could find. My husband and I thought about a lot of questions they raised: will breast-feeding enhance his brain function? Will music class improve his cognitive skills? Will the right preschool help him get into the right college? I made lists. I planned and plotted and hoped. Future, future, future.

We never thought about how we might parent a child for whom there is no future. The prenatal test I took for Tay-Sachs was negative; our genetic counselor didn’t think I needed the test, since I’m not Jewish and Tay-Sachs is thought to be a greater risk among Ashkenazi Jews. Being somewhat obsessive about such matters, I had it done anyway, twice. Both times the results were negative.

Our parenting plans, our lists, the advice I read before Ronan’s birth make little sense now. No matter what we do for Ronan — choose organic or non-organic food; cloth diapers or disposable; attachment parenting or sleep training — he will die. All the decisions that once mattered so much, don’t.

All parents want their children to prosper, to matter. We enroll our children in music class or take them to Mommy and Me swim class because we hope they will manifest some fabulous talent that will set them — and therefore us, the proud parents — apart. Traditional parenting naturally presumes a future where the child outlives the parent and ideally becomes successful, perhaps even achieves something spectacular. Amy Chua’s “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” is only the latest handbook for parents hoping to guide their children along this path. It’s animated by the idea that good, careful investments in your children will pay off in the form of happy endings, rich futures.

But I have abandoned the future, and with it any visions of Ronan’s scoring a perfect SAT or sprinting across a stage with a Harvard diploma in his hand. We’re not waiting for Ronan to make us proud. We don’t expect future returns on our investment. We’ve chucked the graphs of developmental milestones and we avoid parenting magazines at the pediatrician’s office. Ronan has given us a terrible freedom from expectations, a magical world where there are no goals, no prizes to win, no outcomes to monitor, discuss, compare.

But the day-to-day is often peaceful, even blissful. This was my day with my son: cuddling, feedings, naps. He can watch television if he wants to; he can have pudding and cheesecake for every meal. We are a very permissive household. We do our best for our kid, feed him fresh food, brush his teeth, make sure he’s clean and warm and well rested and ... healthy? Well, no. The only task here is to love, and we tell him we love him, not caring that he doesn’t understand the words. We encourage him to do what he can, though unlike us he is without ego or ambition....

To read the whole story: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/opini ... .html?_r=4

Questions for Discussion
1. How did you feel after reading the story? Does the story inspire you anything?
2. The story reminded me of the well-known "Tiger mom". How do you parent your children? Are you more like a Tiger mom or a Dragon mom?
3. Parenting has been, to most parents and parents-to-be, about looking ahead to the future - making the best choices for them down the road, choosing the right schools and activities, helping them become a happy, grown-up version of the little people they are now, etc. It's easy for parents to forget enjoying the moment. Have you ever had that kind of experiences?

Assignment: write an essay on this if you want.
Kooper
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文章: 2725
註冊時間: 週三 4月 11, 2007 11:40 pm

Re: ISG 111225 Notes From a Dragon Mom (Kooper)

文章 Kooper »

Please fill in words from the article that fit the sentences.

1. The noun is used to describe a slight problem or difficulty which causes a short delay.
Ex: The whole show went without a ________.

2. If you say that something has a particular characteristic __ ____ ________, you mean that things of that type always have that characteristic.
Ex: __ _____ __________, capitalism involves exploitation of the worker.
Ex: Capitalist society is __ _____ ___________ unstable.

3. A person who are ________ ________ is with an illness that they will die from.

4. If one thing is the opposite of another or conflicts with it, we say the first thing _______ _______ _________ the second thing.
Ex: Bob's decision not to take the job ________ _________ __________ his family's expectations.

5. If you say that one thing is _______ ___ a second, more serious thing, you are emphasizing how bad, unacceptable the first thing is by comparing it to the second (the 1st thing has the same effect or is almost as bad as the 2nd thing).
Ex: Her refusal to answer was ______ _______ an admission of guilt.

6. To describe that somebody is very angry, is talking or behaving in a very angry way, we say he is ______ _____.

7. We use a four-word phrase to refer to the opposite of what you have just mentioned. What's it?
Ex: Art reflects life, or is it ____ _____ _____ _____?
Ex: Students practice translating from French to English and _____ _____ _____ _____.
Ex: I always thought that rugby was a rougher game than football, but in fact it's _____ _____ _____ _____.

8. If you shows a particular quality, feeling or attitude clearly, you _____ it.
Ex: He _____ a pleasing personality on stage.
Ex: Jane _____ an unwillingness to sit and talk to Lydia.
Ex: The workers chose to _____ their dissatisfaction in a series of strikes.

9. When people or things _____ , they return to an earlier and less advanced (or worse) state, condition or way of behaving.
Ex: Tommy's speech seems to have _____ since he changed school.
Ex: She suffered brain damage from the car accident and _____ to the mental age of a five-year-old.

10. If a quality makes someone different from (or better than) other people, we say that quality _____ them _____.
Ex: What _____ her _____ from the other candidates for the job was that she had a lot of original ideas.
Ex: Man's ability to reason _____ him _____ from other animals.

11. A person or society that is _____ allows behavior which other people might disapprove of
Ex: parents who are too _____
Ex: It's a very _____ school where the children are allowed to do whatever they like.
Ex: He claims that society has been far too _____ towards drug taking.

12. _____ activities are ones that you do every day as a normal part of your life or job.
Ex: I am a vegetarian and use a lot of lentils in my _____ cooking.
Ex: The manager is responsible for the _____ running of the hotel.
Ex: _____ problems / responsibilities
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chiron
YOYO member
文章: 520
註冊時間: 週三 10月 03, 2007 4:23 pm

Re: ISG 111225 Notes From a Dragon Mom (Kooper)

文章 chiron »

Sorry, i caught a cold these days and slept overtime this morning, how many people attend this meeting?
Please call me Na'vi!
Kooper
YOYO member
文章: 2725
註冊時間: 週三 4月 11, 2007 11:40 pm

Re: ISG 111225 Notes From a Dragon Mom (Kooper)

文章 Kooper »

chiron 寫:Sorry, i caught a cold these days and slept overtime this morning, how many people attend this meeting?
Take care Navi. There were just two this time.
Kooper
YOYO member
文章: 2725
註冊時間: 週三 4月 11, 2007 11:40 pm

Re: ISG 111225 Notes From a Dragon Mom (Kooper)

文章 Kooper »

Kooper 寫:Please fill in words from the article that fit the sentences.

1. The noun is used to describe a slight problem or difficulty which causes a short delay.
Ex: The whole show went without a ________.

2. If you say that something has a particular characteristic __ ____ ________, you mean that things of that type always have that characteristic.
Ex: __ _____ __________, capitalism involves exploitation of the worker.
Ex: Capitalist society is __ _____ ___________ unstable.

3. A person who are ________ ________ is with an illness that they will die from.

4. If one thing is the opposite of another or conflicts with it, we say the first thing _______ _______ _________ the second thing.
Ex: Bob's decision not to take the job ________ _________ __________ his family's expectations.

5. If you say that one thing is _______ ___ a second, more serious thing, you are emphasizing how bad, unacceptable the first thing is by comparing it to the second (the 1st thing has the same effect or is almost as bad as the 2nd thing).
Ex: Her refusal to answer was ______ _______ an admission of guilt.

6. To describe that somebody is very angry, is talking or behaving in a very angry way, we say he is ______ _____.

7. We use a four-word phrase to refer to the opposite of what you have just mentioned. What's it?
Ex: Art reflects life, or is it ____ _____ _____ _____?
Ex: Students practice translating from French to English and _____ _____ _____ _____.
Ex: I always thought that rugby was a rougher game than football, but in fact it's _____ _____ _____ _____.

8. If you shows a particular quality, feeling or attitude clearly, you _____ it.
Ex: He _____ a pleasing personality on stage.
Ex: Jane _____ an unwillingness to sit and talk to Lydia.
Ex: The workers chose to _____ their dissatisfaction in a series of strikes.

9. When people or things _____ , they return to an earlier and less advanced (or worse) state, condition or way of behaving.
Ex: Tommy's speech seems to have _____ since he changed school.
Ex: She suffered brain damage from the car accident and _____ to the mental age of a five-year-old.

10. If a quality makes someone different from (or better than) other people, we say that quality _____ them _____.
Ex: What _____ her _____ from the other candidates for the job was that she had a lot of original ideas.
Ex: Man's ability to reason _____ him _____ from other animals.

11. A person or society that is _____ allows behavior which other people might disapprove of
Ex: parents who are too _____
Ex: It's a very _____ school where the children are allowed to do whatever they like.
Ex: He claims that society has been far too _____ towards drug taking.

12. _____ activities are ones that you do every day as a normal part of your life or job.
Ex: I am a vegetarian and use a lot of lentils in my _____ cooking.
Ex: The manager is responsible for the _____ running of the hotel.
Ex: _____ problems / responsibilities
1. hitch
2. by its nature
3. terminally ill
4. runs counter to
5. tantamount to
6. breathing fire
7. the other way around
8. manifest
9. regress
10. sets, apart
11. permissive
12. Day-to-day
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