Peer Pressure.
We all succumb to it.
Some people get it constantly. How to dress the baby, how to discipline the toddler, what to feed them, what toys to give them.
Until recently, I have been surprisingly blessed in this department. I don’t get much pressure from my friends, or my mother, or even my in-laws.
But now it has started, and it comes from…
My daycare.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I think Owl’s daycare is fantastic.
He loves it there, and his Daycare Lady really considers him a member of his family. She kisses him goodbye every day and tells him she loves him. She guards his health and welfare zealously. She feeds him ridiculous amounts of healthy, organic food.
She’s Persian. So is her helper, an older lady whose adoration of Owl is almost overwhelming. I’m happy to have Owl exposed to their language and culture, and he has already picked up some Farsi, which has got to be good for his brain.
But it does seem to result in the occasional parenting culture clash.
My knowledge of Persian culture is practically nil, and consists almost entirely of what I picked up from reading Persepolis.
(I do wonder if they, like the Greeks, have a particular adoration of children, because ALL the home daycares I looked at in my area were run by Persian women. This struck me as somewhat disproportionate, because most of the Persians hang out on the North Shore, and I don’t live on the North Shore.)
But there is one thing I am starting to pick up about Persian culture:
They seem to have a pathological loathing of the cold.
Perfect Husband discovered this at his work, where the Persian employees insisted on space heaters at their desks… in AUGUST. (The fact that two of them felt that ideal place for a heater was the TOP OF THE COMPUTER we will blame on individual stupidity, and not cultural factors)
I guess when you come from the land of Eden, even summertime in Canada can feel chilly.
I should have paid closer attention.
I should have noticed the way Daycare Lady would fussily pull Owl’s hood up over his head, only to have him pull it off again, when I arrived in the mornings.
Once, when I picked him up he was wearing pink cotton girl socks instead of the socks I sent him in, because apparently Helper Lady felt that his own socks came off too easily. She insisted on these pink substitutes instead because otherwise his feet would be bare.
You know, indoors. Where it is warm and fully carpeted. I chose not to tell them that he usually toddles around barefoot at home.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, Owl caught a cold again, and that’s when Daycare Lady cracked.
After giving kind assurances that she knew I was a good, loving mother, but perhaps… a trifle inexperienced, she begged me to “please, please put him in warmer clothing, even just going to from the car to the house”.
She was convinced that his newest cold might have been prevented if only we had put a hat on him.
I do admit to being a little cavalier about Owl’s warmth when going to and from the car, because he doesn’t really seem to give a damn. His thick Canadian blood must keep him warm, because he never fusses in the cold or the wet.
And it’s not like I bring him to daycare in his skivvies. I dress him about the same as I dress myself.
Is this not warm enough?
But it turns out Daycare Lady has been quaking in horror when he arrived in his little blue jacket every day, cheerfully bareheaded in the light November drizzle.
What do you do in this sort of scenario? Continue dressing your child lightly on principle?
Of course not. Besides, it IS getting colder, and I was going to have to switch coats eventually.
So I started putting him in a bulky woollen coat with a think, fuzzy lining and tie on his woolly owl hat for the 30 second transfer from car to house.
Not because I thought it had anything to do with his catching a cold.
Not because I thought he needed it.
But just because I don’t want to look like a terrible mother.
On days when it is sunny and 10 degrees outside, I felt distinctly silly.
Daycare Lady was suitably grateful, but older Helper Lady was still unconvinced.
I think her cryophobia goes even deeper than that of Daycare Lady, because I have arrived to pick up Owl when she was on duty and found him wearing his hat inside.
Owl, don't take that off, or you'll DIE OF PNEUMONIA. INDOORS.
Then, one day, I picked up my be-hatted baby from Helper Lady and she, in broken English, decided to make her own request for the sake of her beloved, poor, neglected Owl.
Could I please, PLEASE get him some slippers to wear inside? They make lovely little leather ones. Not for outside. For inside. To keep his socks on and his poor feet warm. The other baby has them. Couldn’t I get some too?
PLEASE?
"If only my mother loved me..."
This nettled me because I’ve actually been looking for a new pair of Tender Toes or Robeez for several months now.
For those of you who haven’t tried these, they are magic for keeping baby socks on. Quite indispensable, and nice and soft and safe for his developing feet.
Everywhere I looked seemed to be out of the 12-18 month size.
And now here I had this sweet old Persian woman BEGGING me to please go out and pick up a pair.
The OTHER baby has them, you know. They’re leather, and for indoors. They can’t cost much. Couldn’t I please, please make this simple purchase? THE OTHER BABY HAS THEM. DON’T I LOVE MY BABY?? LOOK AT HOW CUTE HE IS SO WHERE ARE THE SLIPPERS?
I could see that Helper Lady had probably been working up the courage to make this request for a while, as day after day Owl pulled off his socks and she had visions of his feet turning blue, and then black, and then falling off from frostbite BECAUSE HIS MOTHER DIDN’T LOVE HIM ENOUGH TO BUY HIM ROBEEZ.
"Guess what? I'm going to have a peg leg!"
So I spent most of the next Monday trawling store after store, driving from mall to mall, until I FINALLY FOUND SOME DAMN ROBEEZ.
Now the Persians are happy, convinced that they have saved Owl from becoming a human ice sculpture in the balmy atmosphere of the living room.
And, hopefully, they are less concerned about my parenting.
If By Yes 
I don’t particularly care for socks and rarely wear them indoors. This somewhat horrifies my husband, especially after we replaced the carpeting with hard floors. I forsee some amusingly epic sock battles regarding etc in our near future.
One thing is I find that sock feet are more slippery. I often let Owl run in bare feet because they have added traction!
Ah, the bizarre requests people make about babies.
We were buying a car a couple winters ago when the Bug was only 6 months old. We were inside. It was not that cold. But this lady at the dealership would NOT stop pressing me to make sure the Bug’s socks were on. He kept pulling them off, and after a while I stopped putting them back on, but she would NOT have it. WOULD NOT.
You can tell people all you want about how babies are with temperature, that they are best off sleeping in a cool room, etc. It doesn’t seem to do much.
To this day, the Bug has very little concern about cold weather. Sometimes I worry people will harass me for having him in a sweatshirt or fleece instead of a heavy coat, but so far so good.
At least this is the worst of it, right?? And at least Robeez are adorbs.
People seem to think that no socks = unloved baby. I seem to remember @Dooce mentioning this, saying that she would never let her baby go out without socks because it looked so trashy :-p
My parents do this with my nephew. Now, Mom is genuinely usually freezing, but Dad has no excuse. Regardless of culture, there seems to be something about aging that drives a compulsion to swaddle things. When it seems to be threatening to overwhelm Mom’s defenses again, we just remind her again of the Toaster-Oven-Cozy Incident. It must be delightful to have us as children.
I am curious about this incident.
I had to make a similar cultural adjustment when I came to Houston from the Northwest (Spokane, to be exact. Where it gets COLD). THe culture at the school where I taught was that one should avoid the cold at all costs. One day I came to school – I think it was about 45 degrees F – and all the kiddos were lined up in the hallway, instead of their usual outside lines. The kids were all wearing down jackets. I was probably just wearing a sweater or something. I asked the aide why everyone was clogging the hallway. “It’s too cold,” she said. “They’ll get sick.” When it got really cold — the two or three days when it might get freezing — parents would actually pick their kiddos up early from school! The entire time I taught there, I continually explained to anyone who would listen that it is GERMS that make one sick (another teacher once said to me, “Really? It’s not the cold?”). No one ever believed me.
^^This.
Hee hee! So funny. GERMS, people. GERMS.
Saw a baby in a stroller recently, who had his feet out and no socks or shoes. Thought it was quite strange, because it wasn’t a particularly warm day – in fact, I thought it was on the chilly side – and the rest of the toddler was wrapped up warm. Kept thinking “gosh, his feet must get cold!” but didn’t say anything. Not my place to do so.
Vancouver must be a lot colder than Persia, realistically, but they sound a bit carried away. At home, I’d normally trot along without socks too, but we have ceramic tiles in the kitchen now (direct on concrete) and they get FREEZING in the winter, so need to wear something!
And wow, Owl is growing up fast. Looking more like a toddler than a baby now. Cute! 🙂
He is definitely turning into a toddler, albeit a small one. My friend’s mammoth 6 month old is now bigger than Owl.
Poor RuRu is going to get a complex
That’s ok, he’ll find comfort in the fact that he will be able to squish Owl with his massive man-thumb 😛 Also, he’s in good company. Check out The Domesticated Nerd Girl’s recent post: http://domesticatednerdgirl.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/the-one-in-which-i-link-to-every-other-post-that-i-have-ever-made/
RuRu is TOTALLY going to be 22lbs at 9 months. At his 6 month shots, he weighed in at 20lbs 2oz.
His hands are massive, BTW. They dwarf those of most babies his age.
I love it when strangers make googly eyes at the Boy, then ask me how old he is, and I tell them and their eyes go wide and say, “WOW! Big!” Never. Gets. Old.
🙂
*sigh*
Up until the hat indoors, I was sympathetic to both you and Daycare Lady. I don’t overdress my kiddos – never have. And I used to get the stinkeye and well-meaning assvice from all kinds of people. I didn’t let it bother me.
However – and I am not saying this is the case with you – as Daycare Lady I am constantly in the position of being frustrated with how the children in my care are dressed. They are either not wearing clothing at all appropriate to outdoor play on cold or wet days, or they are dressed for the arctic tundra and I have to remove layers as soon as their parents leave lest the poor things suffer from heat prostration.
Example – we had a big ol’ Halifax snowstorm yesterday and the kids wanted to play in it. You know what is totally useless for playing in the snow? Adorable little knitted or fleece mittens. In about five minutes they are soaked through. I had to tell those parents to please buy some nylon mittens for outdoor play.
Also things I’ve needed to tell parents (more than once!): the kids need snowpants even when there is no snow, because if it’s 1 degree above they will get too cold in about ten minutes outside. Rubber boots on rainy days should be obvious, but aren’t. Hats in summer to prevent heatstroke. And so on.
You just can’t win, I guess.
I can see it being especially important in your case because you take the kids out and about. Vancouver winters are not really agreeable for outdoor play – cold, wet drizzle – so Owl is 100% indoors every day.
Note taken about the vinyl mittens though, in case it’s snowy and we go home for Christmas.
RuRu has a little head-to-toe rain suit for going outside in the rain (which we do every day, since BoBo needs her walkies). When he grows out of it maybe Owl can borrow it 😛
I have been trying and trying to find such a thing in his size!
Why make him wear sock when they don’t make him wear mittens?
Watch them demand mittens indoors next.
I used to work with a guy from Kuwait who LOVED Canadian winters because he said that he felt that living in a hot country for most of his life made his body hot from the inside out, and the cold equalized his internal temperature.
If a baby is cold, they will let you know. The Girl spent most of her babyhood in onesies. Pants were only for going outside. The Boy, however, will yell at me if I dare put him on a cool floor without pants. Socks are another matter. He’s not a fan, they slow him down.
Owl seems to have no sense of temperature at all, although when he was a baby he DID get cold easily. But now he’s like “TEMPERATURE = WHATEVER”
I found that with the Girl. It’s only been this year that she’s finally discovered what “hot” and “cold” means, and is starting to understand what “dressing accordingly” means.
Also, WE ALL HATE SOCKS.
This post made me laugh myself silly. I live in a very French-Canadian community and little old French ladies have NO compunctions about coming up to young mothers and lecturing themselves blue about how those babies need, like, a sweater and toque in the middle of the summer or their poor wee heads will catch The Chill.
Yes, I can totally imagine that.
Heeheehee! He’s too cute in his owl hat. And obviously he needs a hat indoors — he has so little hair! 😉
I’m guilty of probably over-dressing my kids when e go outside. I guess I figure I can always remove layers if needed, but can’t add them if we don’t have them with us. I’ve always been a big fan of Robeez in the house.
That being said, if they strip off their socks (or everything but underwear, in Liam’s case sometimes), I’m totally fine with it. That’s up to them. They know when they’re cold.
The Robeez are definitely amazing. I’m glad to have finally found some.
my kids and I are sock less at the moment, as usual. The kids get their socks put on with their shoes/boots and jacket…. Violette thinks that when her boost come off she’s supposed to take her socks off too:) every day i pick her up from daycare i get handed her pair of socks from the day. Her and Greyson were able to take even too tight Robeez off… they just hate things on their feet, and so do i! And we’re in the icy north! you’re practically in mexico compared to us:)
good luck trying to keep up with the persians! they are some kind of super human creatures; they know all, and are most always right:)
How can the wisdom of one of the most ancient civilizations be wrong, right?
exactly.
but between you and me, kids running around the house in only a diaper is totes cute times a million!
“If only my mother loved me…”
You have me in stitches!
Yay!
This post made me laugh so much! Hilarious. Welcome to my upbringing…
Obviously we don’t get colds from having uncovered heads or feet or being out in the cold, but please, try and tell my mum that. Or my aunt. Or my grandmother, especially, who always has her head covered (even in summer) and in the winter wears a touque and knit gloves INSIDE the house. Just a few weeks ago she was caught with 4 layers of socks on (well, 2 pairs of socks, and 2 pairs of booties/wool slippers. Even my aunt thought that was a bit excessive. I think I have a bit of these women inside of me because I constantly catch myself chastising people for not wearing a hat outdoors in the winter.
A new student from India moved in with my mum this fall, and he asked us “so, do people here shower in the winter?” He apparently couldn’t imagine how he was going to be able to touch water and not freeze to death. Because, you know, in the winter only ice cubes come out of the shower head and faucets.
Ha ha! Your grandmother sounds like Helper Lady.
Our Daycare Lady makes comments about covering our baby girl’s head – or she’ll get sick you silly silly parents! We hear this often so I finally went and bought a light fleece jacket with a hood and she said no more. Folks, it’s not even officially winter in Texas. It’s cool but hardly cold. Peanut was fine between the car and the house. Sheesh. Like someone said, it’s germs she should fear, not the temperature outside.
I bet Canadians would wear T-shirts in Texas winters :-p
The only thing that’s been said that could have SOMETHING to do with colds giving you colds is that cold temperatures could possibly impact how resistant we are to infections, if I remember it correctly. That being subjected to colder temperatures could impact your immune system, but that would not mean that cold temperatures causes a cold, just that it makes us slightly less prone to fight off the germs.
Not to mention the whole “people being huddled together more in colder months”, e.g. taking the bus with other people as opposed to cycling or walking, but then again that’s about spreading germs, not the temperature in itself.
yes, I think that’s the real factor in winter.
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