The Vine: June 7, 2005
Sars —
This is for Nipple McMom.
I used to get naked on my naptime cot when I was about four years old.My mom is an early-childhood education expert, and even she had a hard time figuring out how to tell me to keep my clothes on.Her final solution was something like, “It’s wonderful that you love your body and you’re happy with it, and that’s the way you should be.But some people are embarrassed about bodies because they’re shy, so you should only talk about bodies with people you know aren’t shy, like your family or your very best friends.”It’s more or less the truth — it’s good that she’s comfortable, but some people aren’t, so she should be more careful.I understood that at four, and I kept my pants on for the next few years.
And now that I work with young kids, I find myself using variations on the same theme.I sometimes re-frame it depending on the kid — I might compare it to the indoor/outdoor voice dichotomy, or tie it into the good-touch/bad-touch lesson with a “the parts that our undies
cover are private, and we should only show them to people we know and trust” — but it’s all basically the same.
Really, if your kid has a basic understanding of politneness to work with, and if your approach does not involve the phrase “ew, vaginas!,” it should be fine.
Sincerely,
Hooray for Pants
Dear Hooray,
Possibly an even better nom de Vine than “Nipple McMom” itself.Hee.Thanks for the suggestions.
Dear Sars,
My best friend is driving me insane. I’ll call her S. S is a
great person and normally very intelligent and fun to hang out with, but
lately she’s been in a (self-inflicted) funk and she’s not a fun person
to be around. It all stems from her relationship with her ex, P.
Basically she and P dated a couple years ago, he broke up with her, they
stayed friends, she still loves him, he’s had a new girlfriend for over a
year, she STILL won’t let it go, and P and S are now living in the same
house with another roommate. The living together is killing S, because
his new girlfriend is around all the time and of course S hates her. Yes,
S is crazy for still holding out hope for she and P to be together, but
it doesn’t help that P strings her along, performing random “romantic”
gestures and making ambiguous comments that mess around with S’s head,
like telling her he feels like he’s “intellectually cheating” on his
girlfriend because he can’t talk to her like he does to S.
So P is an
asshole, and I’ve tried telling her this, and she admits he’s an asshole
sometimes, but she’s still obsessed with him and thinks they will be
together. And now to top things off, P’s girlfriend has been cheating on
him, but he forgave her, and S is depressed because he’d rather be with
someone who cheats on him than with S. I’ve tried to make it clear to her
that P is bad news and she needs to stop hanging out with him, but she
made a promise to him years ago that she would always be there for him,
so she feels obligated to hold his hand while he gets drunk and tells her
all the problems in his new relationship. She hates herself when she’s
been hanging around with him because he makes her insecure because he’s
an asshole like that, but he is still all she ever talks about.
I can’t
take it anymore. She doesn’t listen to my advice. She would rather be
miserable and talking to P than happy and cutting him out of her life. So
the way I see it, she’s choosing to be miserable and I really don’t feel
like counseling her through this AGAIN. So what do I do here? I want to
be supportive of my friend, but I can’t support her continually making
bad decisions like this. How can I get her to see the light without being
too much of a bitch and ruining our friendship?
Thanks in advance,
Is it bad that I’m avoiding my best friend?
Dear Probably, But I Don’t Blame You,
As I’ve said before, it’s hard to know when to just keep your trap shut when your friends get like this and when to put your foot down — because, on the one hand, sometimes people have to learn shit for themselves and nothing you can say will make a difference, and plus you want to be supportive…but on the other hand, you’re sick of hearing about it, and while you feel kind of weird making it about you, it’s not like the situation is beneficial to her, and everyone would be a lot happier if she’d just get a grip.
I do think at this point that, if you are in fact avoiding spending time with her because she’s such a suck about P, it’s time to gamble on speaking plainly to her — the friendship is in trouble anyway, because she’s tunnel-visioned onto this one thing and you can’t take it anymore.So, yes, she might get offended and choose to end the friendship, but you have to look at how much of a friendship it is at the moment.
Tell her what you just told me — that you love her, you want the best for her, and you want to support her, but you really can’t go through this again with her when it is obvious to everyone but her that P is a user who’s yanking her chain.Be blunt; be a little mean if you have to.The fact is, P would rather be with a girl who cheats on him than with S, and if she can’t get it through her head that that says something about him, and not about her, and that she’s not therefore obligated to keep trying to prove that she’s good enough for him because she’s already way too good…well, you kind of don’t want to hear about it anymore, because you sympathize with her pain, but she’s bringing it on herself.
I know it’s difficult to say something like that to a friend, because we’ve all had our boring, dreary periods where we moan and whinge to our friends about the same elusive boy for hours on end, and looking back, we kind of can’t believe they didn’t bury nail files in our ears…and we’re so grateful to them, and we want to be there for them in the same way.There is a grace period for the Boy Drama, and it’s long.But eventually, it ends, and you have to be aware at a certain point that, if you’re still bitching about the same problem and if there is in fact a solution to it — therapy, breaking up, whatever — your friends are going to get tired of it, because, you know, it’s boring.They want to help you, but if you won’t help yourself…
And S needs to hear that now, I think, not just because you’re over it, but because she’s in the weeds with this thing, and she needs to get out, for her own sake.I mean, it’s one thing if she’s happy and you’re shitting on it, but…yeah.Come-to-Jesus-meeting time.
Though normally a grammar maven, I don’t have the appropriate texts to look
this one up.Please help to solve the question of ten years:
I have two sisters who were born more recently than I.I like one, but
dislike the other.When I try to explain this to people, I run into
difficulties unless I use their names, ages, or the following statement (1):
(1) I like the younger of my two younger sisters.
Since I only have two sisters, saying any statement that includes a
superlative seems like it would be incorrect, as in (2).
?? (2) I only like my youngest sister.
But (3) sounds really awkward.
?? (3) I like my younger sister, but not my young ??????? sister.
I know that the idea of saying that I have two younger sisters comes from
the fact that there is an implict comparative “younger than I” attached to
the sentence.I have seen two authors use the simple adjective “young
sister” in describing relations; these authors have both been British and
writing juvenile fiction in the 1940s and 1950s.I have not seen it in
contemporary usage and never in this country, and it sounds awkward as hell
to me.(4) is ambiguous, because it does not specify that either of my
sisters are younger.
(4) I like the younger of my two sisters.
Is there any unambiguous way to state (1) without using a superlative?Is
using a superlative construction acceptable since there are three sisters
when I am included in their number? I know that this probably doesn’t matter
to anyone but myself, and isn’t even that I have a bet riding on it, so I
can’t use lack of funds as an excuse for asking.I want to know, and I want
to know so I can say this correctly.Maybe no one will ever ask again…
Thanks again.
Eldest of three
Dear Eldest,
I don’t think I see what the problem is with using the superlative.The youngest sister of the three of you is by definition also the youngest of the two younger sisters.Yes, the comparative is more exact, but I don’t think the superlative is incorrect, and if the purpose of correct usage is to contribute to clarity, the superlative is clearer.
If you really don’t want to use “youngest,” though, just say “the younger of the two,” or refer to them by name, as I also don’t think I see what difference it makes to most conversations what their relative ages are.I’ve only got the one sib, and we’re opposite sexes so it’s really pretty simple, but I believe my Uncle C, the oldest, calls my dad his middle brother.My dad is not in fact in the middle of himself and my Uncle J, but he’s in the middle of a same-sex trio, and most people get that from context.
Or you could just say you like one sister but not the other.
Regardless, unless the person you’re explaining it to is a reporter or a detective, you’re overthinking this.
Tags: friendships grammar kids
