Die, die, DIE!

I have enough disgruntlement (it's a word!) over clueless twinkies on baby boards who write things like: "we had a peak at the baby in their", and "my hip's feel so lose", but I get particularly exasperated when I spot Grammar Idiocy in print. I mean, isn't that why people pay a person called The Editor? Helloooo!

So, I'm reading one of my comic books (Ultimate Fantastic Four currently written by Mike Carey) and Reed Richards (arguably the cleverest bloke in the Marvel Universe - which makes it 10 times worse) refers to a cube-shaped object as ... wait for it ... "A Dice."

Kill me now*.

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In related news - but more pleasant - I had a teary-eyed moment of intense motherly pride the other day.

I was kidding my oldest (aged five-years-in-less-than-two-weeks), Boy, about being so skinny. I was jokingly comparing him to his sister the Human Crash Test Dummy who, despite her appetite, remains downright scrawny. He laughed and said:

"I'm not scrawny! None of us is scrawny!"

None of us IS scrawny.

I know grown people, folks who have graduated from university, who cannot get subject-verb agreement down pat. But my five-year-old can do it. Really, I almost wept with pride.

Of course it's not because he's a genius or anything (although the boy is pretty bloody clever. He can read and write easily and knows a startling amount about dinosaurs), it's that he has two parents who strive to speak impeccable English (not counting his mother's random *koff* epithet).

I don't think people grasp sometimes how much they influence their children by example.

Folks carefully read a book a night to their toddlers, for instance, thinking that this is all one needs to produce readers. It's not enough. Children have to see a love of books. They have to see Mum and Dad reading books, the house needs to be filled with books.

So many people think that school will teach their children to speak and write properly - again - it's not enough. Language development begins in babyhood. Along with most other things.

You can't wait. You can't think: "Well, I'll begin teaching proper grammar/ table manners/ politeness / how to share/ how to write thank-you notes/ fill-in-the-blank when she gets older."

The same idea holds for discipline, IMHO. You can't think: "He's way too young to discipline now" or "Aww, let him stand up in the shopping trolley, he's too small to fall out" or "Well, she's two. Two year olds often throw themselves on the ground in the parking lot and scream and thrash about because they don't want to be buckled in their carseats."

I suppose you've heard about the overzealous Ms. Sally the-government-knows-what's-best-for-your-children-better-than-you-do Lieber and her anti-spanking legislation proposal? John Rosemond (whom I generally adore) wrote a good piece on it.

Aside from the obviously unacceptable notion that the government should be allowed to intrude any further into my life, and the hysterical/ liberal view that popping a child on the hand or the bum is child abuse, there's a practical problem:

The whole thing is bass-ackwards in my opinion. You consistently discipline from the get-go (including reasonable spanking if that's your thing) , by the time a child reaches age four - an age where you can explain things and reason with a child - then you shouldn't have to spank very often afterward.

The whole don't-touch-until-age-four thing seems like an accident waiting to happen. Wouldn't an out of control child who has had nothing but gentle rebukes; brief time-outs; and deep, meaningful talkings-to be more likely to be abused by an exasperated parent exploding and really beating him?

Of course, the real point of all of this is that yet another person is attempting to tell us mothers that we cannot be trusted to use our own judgement. If it isn't other mothers doing mommy drive-bys or Republicans telling us we have no rights to make decisions about our own bodies, it's the Democrats defining spanking for us because, bless out little hearts, we are too stupid to do this tough job of motherhood without guidance.

Leave us the heck alone! Trust us and we will be more apt to trust ourselves and do a good job of raising future generations. Perhaps that's why some folks let things like education and discipline slide - they have been berated by others (all the stupid childcare books by the 'experts' spring to mind) into thinking that they are not doing a good enough job.

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PS: Just a note to everyone awaiting goodies. I'm getting to it! I made an error and waited until after the first so they cut my cheque (which removes all the mad money from my store account) so I have to wait until I accumulate more. Sorry for the delay!

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*Yeah, I know. You're all saying: "well, it's just a comic book!" NO! No excuse. My children will be reading these one day. Those guys are writers and should be held to the same exacting standards as any writer! Now if we could just get newspapers on board. Worst. Grammar. Evar!

Edited to add: in all fairness I had to come back and point out that I was mistaken about who said 'dice'. It was johnny Storm, not Reed. Not that this excuses it.