The 7 year old Sloth

According to my daughter’s encyclopedia, the sloth, which moves at the rate of just 15–30 cm every minute, has earned the title of being the slowest of all mammals.

I’m afraid I’d have to disagree with that. There is in fact another mammal with an average speed that covers only half of that distance in at least twice the time – and I actually have one living under my very own roof. What on earth can this sluggish creature be I hear you cry? A 7 year old child of course.

Why children slow down so much by the time they reach this age remains a mystery to many. It’s almost as if they start to slowly wind down as they creep closer to puberty, a biological necessity perhaps, to prepare them for the many years of hibernation that lay ahead under a festering duvet.

By the time they are 7, their ears have all but sealed over and their sense of speed has as good as vanished. Their every action is carried out in slow motion and even the simplest of tasks can be simply too painful to behold. They move at a speed that makes a snail look positively hoon-like and they make watching paint dry seem like an extreme sport.

Of course it wasn’t always this way. As toddlers they took both hands, a set of reins and a series of complicated adult proof baby gates to keep them from running at breakneck speed into, over and under everything in sight. You spent your every waking minute telling them to slow down, get down and lie down.  Then the years passed and they stretched and grew. All of a sudden the only part of them that ever really picks up any momentum is their jaw, as they fight to always try and get the last word in.

Take my daughter for example. When told to go to bed it can take her a good 10 minutes to cross a totally unobstructed room, with that time being broken down roughly as follows:

At least a minute to hear and register what I have said. Another to find her feet under the cushions. A couple more spent stroking the dog on her way off the chair. A pit stop at the window to study and comment on a ball that she has suddenly spotted in the garden. A few more spent tidying up her pencil pot on the table. Another minute to clean up the contents of her pencil sharpener, which were ‘accidentally’ spilled on the floor, and then the last few minutes spent popping her head back around the corner of the door like a meerkat cat, while she desperately thinks of something to say that might delay the inevitable for a little longer.

In fact any activities involving my daughter (who has less urgency about her than a squirrel in winter) seem to take at least 5 times longer than they should. Brushing her teeth for example. 35 minutes it took one day. Why so long to flick a toothbrush over her gum’s, spread toothpaste around the entire basin and drip water all the way back across the floor? Well that would be because she had decided to clean and polish the soap dish and bath with her towel.

Yet to give credit where credit is due, quite bizarrely on other days she takes it upon herself to get up and dressed, feed herself breakfast and bring in the washing off the line (she said she saw a dark cloud moving our way), and all before my alarm clock has even drawn it’s first breath.

If only she could harness the energy she reserves for the playground and use it for everyday chores, maybe then we wouldn’t have to race down the road every morning with toast crumbs flying, or reach the end of another day with a monumental battle of wills and the sound of small feet stomping away from the dinner table in silent protest.

Undoubtedly the worst part about having your child turn into a sloth is that it automatically turns you, the parent into a parrot. You find yourself repeating everything you say at least half a dozen times, nagging becomes an art form and by the time you get to the end of the day even you are sick of hearing yourself saying ‘Come on’, ‘Hurry up‘ and ‘How long can it take to put on a pair of shoes?‘

Every night when I look at her sleeping in her bed, peaceful, angelic and for the first time that day, quiet, it makes me stop and think. I tell myself that the next day I will try to remain patient and relaxed, I will refrain from repeating myself and stop myself from expecting the impossible to happen.

Then the morning comes and 10 minutes after getting her out of bed I find her still sat on her bedroom floor in her pj’s, carefully rearranging her Polly Pocket collection while her cereal sits untouched in the other room, fast losing all of its snap, crackle and pop.  As the school siren goes my calm dissolves, my eyebrows raise and my inner parrot is once again firmly back in control.

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Battle of the baby sexes

Recently I was asked one of those questions that few people dare ask and even fewer wish to answer. A mother (of boys) asked me if it is true that parents of girls look down their noses at noisy little boys and believe them all to be badly behaved and completely undisciplined.

Why ask me? Having learnt that I had one of each, she obviously felt that I would be able to give an unbiased answer. Whether or not she expected an honest one I don’t know, but seeing as she was quite happy to ask a question that put me well and truly on the spot,  I thought she in turn turn deserved the truth.

And the truth is yes, for the most part they probably do.

This unspoken snobbery amongst parents of girls, whilst rarely admitted out loud has always been there. An assumption that their head to toe clad pink princess simply has to be cleaner, smarter, better behaved and without a shadow of a doubt a far nicer child than that unkempt little testosterone fueled terror on the other side of the playground. The one wearing his breakfast and trying to bury his head in the sand.

Deny it if you want all you mothers of Eve, but this is true. I know because up until the arrival of my own son, I also believed that many boys were the root of all undisciplined evil. I admit I could never understand why their parents didn’t just rein them in, shut them up and get them under some sort of control.

And then I had Sam. He learnt to walk, discovered his independence and only looked back when he was laughing at me. Finally it all became clear why girls and boys are so different, and surprisingly it had nothing to do with one being born with a halo and the other with a forked tail.

Little boys are like the Duracell Bunny, they are known for their unlimited energy and their love of running. Always in the opposite direction to an exhausted parent and often at breakneck speed towards a busy road. They tend to get dirtier faster and are often capable of ruining a complete outfit in 15 seconds flat, with nothing more than a piece of toast and a wet wipe in reaching distance.

They find sticking their hand into the toilet bowl and feeding the loo roll to the dog unbelievably funny. They have a strangely magnetic pull to the contents of every cupboard and drawer, particularly those containing knives, lighters and all deadly and poisonous cleaning fluids. They can take apart and lose the back of any TV remote in less time than it takes to cross the room and can scale any furniture like a seasoned mountaineer. They can increase their body weight to that of a baby elephant when they don’t want to be picked up and contort their limbs into a rigid banana when they don’t want to be pinned into their pram.

Girls on the other hand are often considered to be the quieter of the 2 sexes. Known to sit quietly on your hip and happily play with their toys. Known to help pick out their own clothes and even make an effort to keep them clean and tidy. Known to hold your hand when going out for a walk and if entrusted with a hand held whisk, regard it as a tool for mixing food with Mummy, not as a weapon with which to chase the cat and give it a perm.

Yes indeed, girls are known to be easier to deal with, easier on the ear drums, the energy levels and the nerves. But are they really all things sweetness and light? Does a pound of bacon really fly? Of course they aren’t.

Whether dealing with babies, toddlers or a child old enough to know better, girls and boys can be as bad as each other. Both can screech and scream just for the sake of making noise. Both can single handily depreciate the value of your home in 30 seconds and ruin the upholstery of your car inside of 5 minutes. Both can have such horrific tantrums in the middle of a crowded mall that you could quite easily stuff them head first in the nearest rubbish bin and walk away.

A child regardless of their sex is a complex individual, sometimes believed to be put there purely to test a parent’s sanity and to stretch all boundaries of socially acceptable behaviour. Some are sweet, loving and caring, some are bolshy, stubborn and incredibly sulky. All are a blank canvass, ready to be shaped into the person they will become and to be defined by what they are taught, what they observe and what they experience in the environment in which they grow.

So if all little babies are created and born equal, why are boys so quickly labelled as the nightmare sex and why is society so very quick to to re-enforce these misguided preconceptions?

You only have to look at any range of baby clothes to see that these stereotypes are ingrained into the minds of parents, and no doubt the child as well, from the moment they wear their first outfit.

Buying clothes for little girls is easy. There are always plenty to choose from and they’re always pretty, pink and covered in fairies, flowers and butterflies. Every top, t-shirt or babygro is labelled ‘Princess’, ‘Angel’, ‘Cutie Pie’ or ‘Fairy’.

Now move over to the boys section. Keep going, right to the back of the store, that’s it, those last few rails over there in the corner. The clothes here range from the ever so attractive sludge green to the ever so practical dirty brown. All tops, t-shirt or babygros here are covered in tyre tracks and muddy footprints and are inevitably labelled ‘Rascal’, ‘Trouble’, ‘Little Monkey’ or ‘Monster’.

Now aside from the obvious fact that most little girls I know could easily be described as Rascal, Trouble, Monkey or Monster, does it not seem slightly unfair to encourage and enforce this type of gender pigeon holing at such a young age?

Granted my son is generally always a little bit grubby, usually looking for mischief and always a tad on the destructive side, but it might be nice to occasionally be able to put him in a top that read ‘Well mannered and loves a good book’ or ‘Enjoys vegetables and always kind to animals’.

Babies are babies and children are children and they can all be a royal pain in the backside at some time or other (generally in my experience between 4-6pm). This labelling system seems to me to be an unrealistic and unfair generalisation, After all, very few little girls remain angels by the time their hormones kick in and most little boys have decided to cut worms from their diet and stop rolling in mud by the time they buy their first razor.

If babies are to be branded, then perhaps it’s time that the clothing companies came up with some more more realistic future personality and character traits.

I’ve come up with a few to get the ball rolling…

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