thedivinegoat_archive

Owen's really into Tractors at the moment - part of this obsession involves me reading and re-reading his Fergus the Tractor books. Oh God how I hate these books. They're hideous to read, having no flow as the writer seem more interested in accuracy and realism rather than readability and storyline. Give Janet and Allan Allberg or the Gruffalo any day. Now those are fun books to read aloud. (They have rhythm! and flow!)

But Fergus the Tractor - ack! What children's book has the farmer going out to see a sick cow, and has her called "Number 74"? It should be Daisy, or Buttercup, or Esmerelda. Not "Number 74". Yes, in the real world they are numbered, but then in the real world there's BSE and Foot & Mouth, and they haven't included those. In fact if the books were factually accurate they would have Farmer Tom taking his shotgun to his top field, and blowing his brains out because the bank foreclosed on his mortgage after he was screwed by the government.

There you go - I've written their next book for them.

Damn stupid husbands who leave boxes of plaster where toddler can get hold of them.

And spread the powder across the kitchen floor.

Grrr!

I swear I will scream if one more person says this to me. I mean it - I will scream and I can scream very, very loud.

Person, after person says this to me - and surprise surprise, most of those are mothers of girls. The rate has increased tenfold (I do like that word, it has a nice feel to it) in the last week.

You see last week I took my son to the health visitor, as at 18 months he's not saying any words yet. Hearing seems fine, majorly sociable, comprehends things we've said and can babble for England. But he just doesn't have any words yet. Now I know we've got a little time before we should really start worrying, but as there's a really, really strong history of dyslexia (amongst other things) on both sides of the family, (both I and my husband are dyslexic), so it's something I want to catch early. (Especially as there's a six to nine month waiting list for a speech therapist!) So off we. went to the health visitor and he's now being referred to the speech therapist.

But nearly every person I told about this has, without fail, said, "oh but boys are more lazy than girls aren't they." [I promise you, I will scream the next time someone says this to me.

Now I would just like people to ponder a few things

1) We're talking about babies and toddlers here. They start out with few thoughts - food, sleep, warmth, comfort/love. They then progress onto things like - sweet food, shiny button, Mummy's attention, cat, shiny toy that that other child has got, big puddle. But still they're not thinking complex thoughts yet. They're still pretty simple creatures.

2) To be lazy you have to think about the effort involved. You have to think, (even if it's subcounciously) 'I can't be bothered to turn over the telly, because the remote's to far away.'

3) Babies and toddlers learn to do things because it is instinct to do so. (BTW, who else saw Professor Winston's Human Instinct on BBC tonight? Excellent program) They learn to walk, talk and sit up, because it is part of our human instinct.

4) Babies and toddlers don't decide to put off learning to do something because there's too much effort involved. They might have no desire curently to walk across the room, they might have been momentarily been put of by a failure, (such as falling down and hurting themselves), or their brains might still be doing the necessary re-wiring to enable them to learn to new skill.

5) Because they can't learn to do somethings until they have the necessary leg muscles, co-ordination, brain development.

6) And enviromental factors way in too - how much a child gets talked, played with etc.

7) And ignoring everything above it's just a big generalisation - which just pees me off anyway

So if boys learn to crawl, walk, talk later than girls, (which I dispute anyway) it's not laziness, and anyone who thinks so is a lazy thinker.