Parenting Poll

[Quiz: which precious ballerina is ours?  Hint: I was never asked to try out for b-ball.]

So a recent Gulf News poll asked UAE parents how they thought best to discipline young children, a topic in which I am naturally very interested.  The results?

15% - "I don't have children" [that's one way to keep them quiet]

23% - "put them in time out"

12% - "ground them"

6% - "ignore them"

15% - "smack them"

9% - "smack them harder"  [hey, I just report it, people]

19% - "tell them off"

ahaha  tell them off.  I do this frequently but didn't realize that it was a recognized school of discipline.  Guess I don't have to feel guilty about it anymore!

[Note: I wonder if the reporters subdivided the smacking categories in an attempt to disguise the fact that "smack them" + "smack them harder" together total 24%, making some version of hitting your kid the preferred method of discipline in the UAE.  Nice!]

Let's see.  Aside from the latest scientific breakthroughs in parenting psychology, what else do I have to report.

Current events - First, the gay book I previously discussed was definitively *not* banned in the UAE (according to UAE mouthpieces), and Margaret Atwood did indeed appear at the literary festival, albeit only by videoconference.  Second, an actual Dubai version of "America's Next Top Model" held an open casting call here recently... only so that the producers could take some photographs of the would-be contestants and them swindle them out of 10,000 dirhams apiece (US $2700) before disappearing into thin air.  (Good thing I was able to convince Sushi at the last minute that we should hold off on her portfolio until she grows a few more inches.)  Third, some woman was stabbed to death a few days ago-- allegedly by her husband-- in the parking lot of our favorite local shopping mall, yikes!  It's causing a big stir because violent crime is supposedly very rare here...

What else.  Sushi performed like a champ at another school interview this morning.  Screamer has seemingly lost interest in climbing out of her crib.  (This is only half-good news: now I have to stupidly hope that the littlest one turns out to be a more committed escape artist, otherwise the shipped-overseas-but-yet-unopened crib tent was just money thrown into the wind... or blinding sandstorm, as the recent case may be.)  Baby now has 2 teeth and is hanging on the precipice of a crawling epiphany.  PopPop has retired his online social networking profile in favor of hanging out with some cool Kenyan fellas who work at our clubhouse restaurant.  Daddy leaves tonight for a 10-day business trip and would be well-advised to enjoy every delicious minute of those long, uninterrupted, EIGHT-HOUR stretches of sleep in fancy hotel beds while they last, since he will be knowingly returning to 2 days of rigorous guilt trip per every 1 night spent away from home, happily and faithfully administered by yours truly.  I consider it my maternal duty--heaven only *knows* how often he would travel for work if I didn't make every trip excruciatingly painful-- the kids might *never* see him!  Surely he, too, will thank me one day... I am confident that what seems like a mind-numbing bitchfest now will prove to be the human embodiment of loving devotion when viewed through the looking glass of time.  (Poetic!)

Ok, I wish I had more to tell you about but it's been pretty quiet. Which is bad for the blog, good for the Mommy.

More soon.  Promise.  xo.