“Truthiness” in marketing November 11, 2009

Something these past few weeks made me wonder about the ethics of the book industry, and truthiness in marketing: Can an author (Annabel Lyon) make the claim that her book (The Golden Mean) is the only one nominated for the three major book prizes this fall (the Governor General’s, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and the Scotiabank Giller Prize), if another author (Alice Munro) had specifically instructed her publisher to pull her book (Too Much Happiness) out of the running for one of those prizes?

 

Munro’s TMH was indeed nominated for the first two prizes, but she felt that she would pull out of the Giller race (which she has already one for in past years), in order to let younger, less-established authors get a kick at the can. So if one of the best has decided that she would bow out gracefully from a race, can someone else really claim to be the “only” and the best? You have to wonder, if Lyon’s publisher made these claims in newspaper ads in the run-up to awards season, did she know the half-truth behind their words? And did she stop them?

 

Just a writer wondering out loud.

When a restaurant disappoints September 13, 2009

Discovered a new restaurant in downtown Montreal last week. I tried to post the following on Chowhound, where we had originally found some favourable reviews, but my posts about this restaurant were deleted even after multiple attempts to post. A little too harsh for them, I guess. For the record, this is what I thought of it:

First off, I need to say that my husband and I have been very fortunate in not having experienced too many disappointing Vietnamese restaurants. Either just lucky, or just knew where to look. Granted, sometimes we base our decision on whether or not to enter a resto on the Asian/White ratio (i.e., if a lot of Asians are sitting in there, it can’t be all that bad, right?). I like to think that I have a pretty good idea of what is good and what is not good. So, it was surprising to me to find that the most disappointing Viet restaurant we’ve ever been to was right here in Montreal, home of a fairly substantial Viet population, who should know what they’re doing. I’ve tried Viet in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, and in a lot of out-of-the-way places in small towns, and this place was even worse than the dumpy single Viet resto that we once found in a very small Ontario town (which must have been happy to have even that one place to represent Viet food). So, what is my choice for most diappointing Viet resto ever? Drum roll, please . . .

Pho Saigon VIP, 1850 Ste. Catherine W.—south side, just east of St. Marc. We had tried this place on the weekend only based on what some posters had written on this board, but our experience was so unbelievably disappointing to all of us at the table (4 adults, 5 kids) that it made us question the authenticity of the posters who gave it glowing reviews of “better than Pho Nguyen.” At one point, we said to ourselves, “Do you think those were friends/family of the owners?”

Okay, I’ll give them some good points first:

1- Yes, the décor is nicer than a lot of small Viet restos (which our server was very proud to point out to us, unprompted—“See how smooth our tables are? Our clients like very much our décor.”)

2- The flavour of the banh xeo (Viet pancakes) was as it should be, but then again, you can’t really mess up a batter of of rice flour/coconut milk, with bean sprouts, pork and shrimp. Or can you? (See point #1 below.)

3- The che ba mau was lovely and flavourful (but see point #4 below).

4- Service was on time.

Now, on to the bad points:

1- The Pho Satay. Okay, what can I say? So many different levels of disappointment here that I hardly know where to begin. There was someone on this board who had wondered about a place in Montreal to get a good pho satay, and I have to say that this ain’t it. Our server bragged so much about this dish, emphasizing to us that this is an authentic Viet dish that only this restaurant was brave enough to put on a menu, and said that we wouldn’t be disappointed, so in the end, we couldn’t *not* order it. In fact, *two* of us ordered it (d’oh! move). But it failed on several levels:

a. First off, we were confused by the menu description in English, compared to the Viet description of a pho: “Stir-fry beef in satay sauce”, it said in English, with a photo of a very liquidy, definitely non-stir-fry-looking bowl. Now, I always give any ethnic resto a certain amount of leeway in their translation into English/French, so we ask for clarification when necessary, which we did in this case. How come it’s called a stir-fry, when it looks like a soup? Is it a soup, or is it dry? Oh, definitely, definitely not a soup, the server assured us. It’s a dry dish. That’s what we wanted, something dry. But when the bowl came, lo and behold, it was a soup, just like in the photo. The server either was not being honest with us, or didn’t understand us. Okay, but at least it tasted good, right?

b. If indeed this was supposed to have been a pho satay, it wasn’t in the least bit spicy, and it tasted like something entirely different: a bun rieu. Bun rieu is a Viet snail soup that is not that easy to find in Montreal Viet restos. My husband and I love a good bun rieu when we can find it in Toronto, and so he clearly recognizes the taste. That’s what the taste and texture were like: a passable bun rieu.

c. Oh yeah—it was bland and lacking any kind of interesting flavours.

2- The Banh Xeo was slightly burnt, and as a result, the slices of pork were dry and hard and chewy. At a pricey $12.95 for one banh (compared to about $7 or $8 at most Viet restos), I expected much, much better.

3- The Curry Chicken served with rice/vermicelli (but with no option of the traditional French bread) was spicy, yes, but completely lacking in any kind of flavour. No hint of the usual yummy coconut-milkiness of Viet curry, no saltiness, just very bland. It was just blah with spice hitting the back of your throat. That’s what they should rename this dish: “Spicy Blah Chicken Curry.”

4- The Pho with Rare Beef was utterly lacking in flavour. It wasn’t even slightly on the sweet side, as mentioned by one poster on this board. It just had no flavour. And the pieces of beef were overdone, not deliciously red and ready to be dunked in the broth to the taster’s satisfaction. Again, a suggested name change: “Blah Pho, with Beef.”

5- The Guoi Cuon sauce. The guoi cuon themselves were fine: large rolls of thin rice paper with the requisite filler ingredients of pork, shrimp, bean sprouts, coriander, and even a fancy little sprig of green onion at the end, for show. Nothing that you could really mess up here. But oh, the sauce. What an utter disappointment like I’ve never known before with guoi cuon sauce. Guoi cuon should traditionally be served with a hoisin sauce, usually spicy. (A good guoi cuon sauce involves hoisin, chili paste or Sriracha, a little bit of salt, a pickled-carrots mixture, and just a tiny bit of water to thin it out, then crushed peanuts on top). VIP’s sauce was so completely watered down, that the first word that came to mind for us was “cheap”. Of course, this made the sauce, again, bland. (Are you seeing a pattern here?) And not a single crushed peanut in sight.

6- Speaking of cheap . . . The Che Ba Mau was good enough that three of our kids went up to the bar at the end of the meal to request three more glasses for dessert. But what that employee (a teenagerish-looking young man) did was noticeably awful that even our 11-year-old and 8-year-old felt it was important enough to report to us, and to suggest that we only pay half-price: the employee cheapened out on the green jellies because he was trying to squeeze as much as he could into their three glasses and someone else’s take-out glass. As the kids reported, the container of green jelly was running low, and he put so little into each glass that they could just tell that his mind was working franctically trying to figure out how to best get money for four glasses of che ba mau, without putting in the required amount. I’d rather that he simply told us, “I only have enough for two glasses,” or “It’ll take me 30 minutes to make more jelly.” But to cheap out like that? Not cool. Of course, he filled the rest of the glass with the cloudy coconut milk/syrup mixture, so you really couldn’t tell how much jelly was, or should have been, in there. Luckily for us, we had the fortune of having already ordered a glass at the beginning of the meal, so we knew what to compare the subsequent three glasses to. Don’t try to fool kids. They know.

7- The Boasting. There were so many things that our server told us in a boastful tone that either were not true, or just struck us as unnecessary and laughable strutting. We wondered if he were just an overly confident part-owner/family member/friend (he kind of hedged on his answer when we asked him), or if he was just delusional (and I hate to use that word, but it just seems fitting). Here were some examples:

“The décor is wonderful and the tables are smooth.”

“The food here is super high quality, but at fast-food prices.” (No, not really. Prices were either on par with most other Viet places, or see my comment about the banh xeo above. And no, the quality was not super high.)

“Nobody else here in Montreal puts pho satay on the menu. Nobody makes it like we do. Okay, maybe one place in Côte-des-Neiges, but that’s because our owner used to own that place, and she sold it, and they learned it from her.”

“Our bun bo Hue used to be a special on the weekend only, but so many French people come in here asking for it because they love it so much, that we had to change and put it on the everyday Special Menu.” (Really? Excuse my skepticism, but in the 4½ months that you’ve been open, you’ve developed such a large, vocal fan base and they ask for an item so much, that you’ve already had to reprint a new menu? Okay.)

“Our owner has worked hard for over 20 years. Can you believe that? She’s a 52-year-old woman, and she works so hard!” (I’m sorry, I must interject here with a non-food comment: Don’t boast about a 52-year-old having worked hard for 20 years. Many 52-year-olds work hard over the course of 20 years. Fifty-two is not the new 92. You’re still young. You can work hard without it seeming like a heroic effort.)

8- And finally, as another poster here mentioned, yes, the hallway leading to the washroom smells uncomfortably strong of incense. Some people won’t be able to stand that while they’re using the facilities.

So, to sum up: flavourless, boastful, cheap in quantity, but not cheap in pricing. This resto is all style, and no substance. You can’t get worse than that for a Viet resto. At the very best, I can put it down as a busy Friday off-night for them. At the very worst, I can sum up Pho Saigon VIP in two words: Never again.

Ciao, Chowhound September 13, 2009

Coming back from Montreal last week, I made two discoveries that were disappointing and just plain annoying. One was a relatively new restaurant downtown, called Pho Saigon VIP, my review of which you can read here. The other was the discussion forums at the food site Chowhound.

Now, while I’d heard mention of CH before, I had never ventured on to the site, mainly because I had tired of the atmosphere of discussion forums quite a while ago. I only registered and posted on the CH site last week mainly because I was so disappointed and incredulous by some of the positive customer reviews of the aforementioned restaurant (the reviews being the only reason that compelled us to try that restaurant), that I felt I had to burst that bubble. But after I and one of my dining companions posted negative reviews of the restaurant, our motives were called into question by another user (his/her point of contention being that we were first-time posters, and everything we said should be taken with a grain of salt). And lo and behold, before you could say “Ciao”, the entire thread was deleted.

After that thread was deleted, I decided to Google the words “Chowhound” and “post deleted”, and found results aplenty of web sites and blogs mentioning how much people hate CH. Phrases pop up detailing “the Nazi-like censorship practices at Chowhound” and how “Chowhound is just another symptom of a very dumbed-down and mediocre America”, or to put it simply, “Chowhound sucks”, people said over and over again. I’ve now discovered a whole community of users who were also deleted by CH, and have since moved on from it, as I did, after only two days of registration.

But don’t take my word for it. Read for yourself at the following links, and discover what CH is all about.

http://www.chow.com/media/1736
http://www.cyberbilly.com/meathenge/archives/001128.html

Spectacular kid August 18, 2009

From the constantly churning mind of a three-year-old:

3-y-o: Mama, what is speck–spentacular?

Me (trying to figure out a way to explain it so that a 3-y-o can understand, and won’t be tripped up by even more difficult words): Spectacular? It means great, wonderful, really fabulous.

(Slight pause)

3-y-o: Am I spentacular?

I was attentive to this little exchange for a couple of reasons.

One, it goes to show that kids can be self-conscious and aware/concerned, at any age, of how others perceive them. My son, more than his sister at that age, seems particularly more concerned about how we—and in especially, I—perceive him. I’ve been noticing for the past half-year or so that whenever I reprimand him, he bursts into tears and cries, “But do you love me?” His sister, who can be very sensitive much of the time, has always taken discipline more stoically. Or perhaps that’s because she’s always gotten in less trouble than he, and hasn’t been disciplined as much.

The second reason why I remember that conversation was that it made me realise how much his vocabulary has been growing recently. Much like his sister, he enjoys word play, puns, jokes involving such, and asking about the meaning of words, then using them correctly. He’s even more fortunate in that he has his sister—i.e., someone closer to his age than his parents—talking to him constantly and explaining things like a little teacher. So along with “spectacular”, this month, he’s been saying things like, “I’m anxious to do that tomorrow”, and “I regret that I didn’t choose the red one.” It reminds me of how amazed I was when I first heard my daughter correctly use terms like “in fact” and “actually”, at his age.

In short, the little minds of kids are quite spectacular.

Goodbye, my friend August 11, 2009

There’s no better time than an anniversary to say goodbye, and start anew. I’d been putting if off for a long time, trying to deny what was going on, and putting off the inevitable. There was something wrong, had been for a long time, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. But this year, it was time to face the truth.

This year, Sony celebrated the 30th anniversary of the introduction of the Walkman. This little device was significant because it not only allowed us to make music portable, but perhaps just as importantly, forever changed how we communicate (or more accurately, don’t communicate) with each other in public spaces. Now, it was suddenly acceptable to willfully ignore people, and not get slack for it.

Over the years, I accumulated so many great memories of listening to my Sony Walkman cassette-player: On my hour-long walk to work in the summer; on the long train ride heading home from university; or just going for aimless walks downtown on warm summer nights, with nowhere specific to go, with nothing—and yet everything—to think about. As my love affair with the Walkman progressed, I went through three models, improving on features with each one (although I never did splurge for the famous yellow Sports Walkman, never being sporty enough to find the justification for it). My last one was one of the most sophisticated models that Walkman had ever made among portable cassette-players: besides the usual bells and whistles, it also featured things that were rare at the time, such as AVLS; a hold button; a proprietary rechargeable battery (or the option of using just one regular AA battery, a single battery being quite a rarity); a digital tuner; and finally, headphones with a remote control, so that you wouldn’t even have to reach into your pocket to access the main unit (I know, how cool is that?!). Alas, all good things must come to an end, and so it was, with the cassette-player.

I had put it away for about five years, listening mainly to CDs and having no use for a cassette-player. But when news articles of Sony’s 30th anniversary hit the media, I suddenly remembered my old friend, and found two of my most recent Walkmans (Walkmen?) in a dusty cardboard box. I gave one to my daughter, who is thrilled that she can now listen to the radio while walking about, but decided to hold on to the more sophisticated one. But after years of enjoyment, I now found that there was a slight malfunction in it. Or maybe it was protesting my neglect of it all these years? In any case, the cassette-player all of a sudden would not play, and the battery connection was loose. Locating a repair-person for a cassette-player from about 10 years ago would be difficult, and likely, not worth the money. In short, there was no hope for it. My Sony Walkman cassette-player was dead. It was time to move on.

For years, I always said to myself that I would never join the MP3 crowd. I hate following the crowd, especially when it comes to having the latest and greatest of anything, and especially when it comes to technological gidgets and gadgets. I, who resisted the lure of the cell phone for years, until my husband insisted on me having one (for security and business reasons, he said). I, who never owned a PDA, when it was all the rage (I don’t own a Blackberry, and don’t intend to). I, who when I won an iPod as a door prize three years ago, immediately gave it to my husband without a moment’s hesitation. So why would I finally give in to the MP3 lure? Because there is no other option. Whereas I can always use a payphone or a pen and paper, I can’t listen to music on cassette, or even CD, as they’re both becoming quickly obsolete as portable music options. I’m left with no choice.

All is not lost, however, with the relationship that I have with the Sony Walkman. When I sat down for one day of research into the many types of MP3 players, I quickly unearthed a mountain of reviews on MP3 players, quite a lot of which included the words, “the Walkman beats an i-anything out there”, and “their marketing machine is strong, but my i-*** broke down within a year”. On the other hand, the Walkman walked away with stellar reviews, from its entry-level machine, to its $500 top-of-the-line performers. For now, I’m content with my entry level Walkman MP3, and it’ll be years before I fill up my 8 GB and have to upgrade. So although I’ll always have fond memories of my first-generation Sony Walkman cassette-players, I’m happy to start a brand-new love affair with its sibling.

Protected: Talking just for the sake of making conversation July 17, 2009

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“The importance of raising children properly . . .” July 3, 2009

In my opinion, Iris Evans only did two things wrong:

1) She expressed her view publicly under her role as Finance Minister, rather than as a private citizen.

2) She instilled a sense of “should” and “ought” in her comments, when it would have been better if she had merely made “suggestions”.

On the first note, if Ms. Evans had made her comments as a private citizen, they never would have made it into the public eye, and there wouldn’t have been such a brouhaha. The truth is, these types of comments are made every single day—privately in households, among acquaintances on the playground, or argued personally among friends. But everybody knows that parents hate being told what they should and should not be doing, especially by a politician. Hence, Ms. Evans was vilified.

On the second point, Ms. Evans was right, and at the same time, she was wrong. She was right because deep down, I believe that most people would not dispute the veracity of her words that “you don’t leave them [your children] for somebody else to raise.” Whether this “somebody else” is a daycare provider or a live-in nanny (or even the child’s own grandparent), a substitute caregiver should not have the same role as a parent, where a parent is capable of doing such work. But capability and desire are two very different things.

While I don’t argue that there are households in which two incomes are absolutely required in order to make ends meet, I also submit that there are many households where both parents don’t need to be out of the house, but simply want to be. Perhaps some parents want the best and latest material goods, or want to have a house in the right neighbourhood, so they work at an extra job in order to acquire such things. Perhaps some can’t deal with staying at home with their child(ren) all day long, because of boredom, fatigue, incapacity or just plain lack of desire. Perhaps some just value “me time” as adults, and view their socialisation time with their peers to be just as important as (or perhaps more than) time spent babbling all day long with toddlers.

Ms. Evans was wrong because to make statements such as she did, puts pressure on parents to stay at home with the kid(s), when some just plain do not want to. And anyone can see that this can only create more harm than good. What makes happier children and parents—having a caretaker who truly wants to be with them, or having a caretaker who involuntarily stays with them because of a societal expectation, and is thus brimming with resentment and negativity?

Staying at home to raise one’s own children is the best solution for some parents, and not for others. But whether or not the results are obvious, or however true Ms. Evans’ comments might have seem to her or to anyone else who agrees with her, she ought not to have expressed them out loud at all.

The scam that is “dance school” June 29, 2009

I never thought that I’d do it. It was something that other, pushy, competive stage parents do. Enroll my daughter in dance class, that is. But her strong innate desire to move her body to music, and especially to do it with other kids, and especially in front of an audience, was just too great. And with the popularity of So You Think You Can Dance, it was inevitable. For years, we hesitated for several reasons (which you will see below). But this year, we took the plunge. No ballet, was our only strict rule (too hard on the body, and we just could never bring ourselves to encourage our daughter to prance around in a fluffy tutu). She wanted hip hop, so we thought, that’s at least not too bad. It’s fast, funky, and the costumes would involve no tulle. Of course, dance school turned out to be everything that we thought it would be.

Choosing a dance school was done not without research, I might add. For years, I’d heard from other parents (mostly moms, really, because dads seldom burden themselves with thoughts of classes, costumes, fees and the like) about the whole industry of dance schools and dance classes for kids. Be forewarned, they said; besides the damage that can be done to a girl’s body after years of dance (I have one friend, who, at the age of 30, said that her legs, hips, and back were never the same after five years of ballet, and she now requires chiropractic care almost every day), there are other pitfalls. Namely:

1) Girls are often dolled up in too much make-up and gawdy, skimpy costumes that would make many grandmas cringe.

2) Speaking of costumes, they’re expensive, and like ugly bridesmaid dresses, will never see the outside of the closet after their initial donning.

3) Speaking of expensive, one-use costumes, parents are not allowed to make their own. Even if you went to the Fashion Institute of Milan and can copy any costume they put in front of you, with one hand tied behind your sewing machine, you are still not allowed to sew it yourself. Period. You must pay a costume fee and purchase the costume prescribed by the school, from their dictated source. (You’ll see why below.)

4) Some dance schools may make you pay the whole fee up front, or a deposit, either of which may be non-refundable. This means that if your child decides after just one class that she doesn’t like the course, you lose your money. This is what happened to another friend of mine, who had signed her daughter up for ballet, but then changed her mind over the $700+ fee before classes had even started, and lost her non-refundable $400.

5) Finally, watch out for the other, hidden fees. Even if they’re not hidden, they’re onerous.

This last point is the one that is still particularly sore with me, even weeks after the fact, and the worst added fee of all was the dance recital ticket prices. I had heard that most dance schools, even after charging you fees for classes and costumes, will still charge you an admission fee to see the dance recital. That’s right. You’ve paid for your child to take dance classes, and if you’d like to see what she’s been doing all year, you’d best pay up again. There are very, very few dance classes that do not charge you to watch your children dance. Included among these were my 3-year-old son’s hip hop class, run through the presumably non-profit municipal recreational department, and performed in the same small gym where he practiced his kiddie moves every week; and a small, private dance class run by a teacher who did not own her own school, but rented a studio space to teach the art of dance, purely because she loved dance, and not for huge profit. (The latter dance class was so popular, and space so limited, that the mom who told me about it coyly declined to give me any contact information, despite some prodding, for fear that space in that class would be so limited that her own daughter might not get in again.)

But to get back to the point of recital tickets: I had asked friends and called around to see which dance school had the least gouging prices. Around our place, among the higher fees quoted were $17 per person (yes, even the little brother sitting on daddy’s lap pays) to the recital, plus a “stage rental fee”, plus a $100 costume fee. This place that we finally settled on quoted no stage rental cost, only a $50 costume fee, and what they said would be a reasonable ticket price to cover the cost of renting the school auditorium. The ticket price, as it turned out was still $12 per person. Not as much as other dance school ticket prices, but just enough to make our friends hesitate to pay $36 just to see our daughter dance for four minutes, and see some other people’s 3-year-olds freeze in introductory highland dance.

The only good news was that my daughter’s costume, being for a hip hop dance, is wearable again in everyday life. I do have to admit, though, that for our $50, we merely got a white tank top ($6), track shorts ($6), shrug cardigan ($12), white baseball cap ($5), and clip-on faux-hair extensions (dollar store). Yup, the school didn’t even bother to take off the price tags. I can only surmise that the difference between what we paid, and the actual cost, went towards “alterations”, or, as another mom told me, to subsidize the costumes and lessons of the competitive dance students—the real money-makers for dance schools.

So, we did it once in my life, to see what it was about, but won’t be doing it again. Our daughter still expresses a desire to dance, but I will be trying my darndest next year to find that elusive dance teacher who doesn’t charge the costume and recital ticket fees. Until then, our daughter seems pretty content to just watch videos on YouTube, choreograph herself, and dance for an audience of four.

The Plastics Industry is really just concerned about our health. Honest. May 26, 2009

Shame on the Canadian Plastics Industry Association. I’ve had a real beef with it for the past year or so, ever since it and its spokesperson, Cathy Cirko, have been on the offense whenever it appeared that they, plastic water bottles, and plastic shopping bags were in danger of extinction. They’ve issued press releases and statements claiming that plastic water bottles are necessary and hygienic and convenient, as are plastic shopping bags.

But wait. While we may think that they’ve been at war with environmentalists and concerned citizens in an effort to keep alive their profits, it appears now that they’re just really nice people who are genuinely worried about our health. A news story late last week stated that the CPIA had sponsored its own study and analysis of “25 randomly selected” reuseable shopping bags, and had found that there was a high level of bacteria and mould found in 30% to 40% of these bags. They want to warn the public about the use of these bags, and in an interview with CBC radio in Toronto, Ms. Cirko wanted us to know that plastic shopping bags, on the other hand, would not harbour these bacteria because plastic bags are used mainly as “kitchen catchers”, and are not reuseable or multi-purpose. Of interest was the fact that she stubbornly refused to use the words “disposable” and “garbage bags that end up in landfills”, and she hemmed and hawed when a CBC-radio interviewer asked her how she would react if told that there is evidence that people try to get as much use out of them as possible, i.e., as lunch bags and gym bags. Even more annoying were Ms. Cirko’s refusal to answer how scientific (the interviewer asked about the small study sample, and Ms. Cirko skirted the question) and unbiased her study could be, as well as her determined run-around on the question, “Wouldn’t washing the reuseable bags in hot water solve the problem?” Oh, er, ah, that might help, she admitted almost unwillingly, but it wouldn’t completely solve the problem, and besides, the point of the study, she quickly went on, was that the CPIA just wanted to be a good Samaritan and raise public awareness of a potential health issue. [Note: I washed cloth diapers over a period of almost five years, and trust me, there are worse things in diapers than in reuseable shopping bags, so you'll pardon me if I seem a bit leery of Ms. Cirko when she states that a little hot water and soap won't completely solve the problem.]

So thank you, CPIA, for all your work and concern. I take back what I said earlier in this post about having a beef with you, when all it is that you’re concerned about is our welfare. But fear-mongering and revealing only half-truths for the sake of your own preservation? No! Not you.

When parents compete May 7, 2009

As a parent, I sometimes see odd, nay, even irksome, behaviour from other parents. But one of my biggest pet peeves in the parenting realm is when parents get competitive. If you’re a parent, you’re possibly already familiar with the verbal dance that takes place when parents meet and discuss their offspring’s behaviour and achievements. One parent starts off with some seemingly innocuous comment relating to his/her own child, and the other parent’s response, instead of a “That’s nice”, or “Um-hmm”, is an immediate, “Oh, well you should see what my little one can do . . . ” It’s these people who keep industries such as baby beauty pageants and bumper stickers humming, steadily churning out oversized trophies and banners proclaiming “My kid is an honour-roll student.”

I once had a friend—no, let’s downgrade that—acquaintance do that exact thing on the few occasions when I saw her and we’d discuss what was new with our life and our children. It seemed that she took every comment about my daughter to be a challenge to hers. Every remark on my part became an opportunity for her to let me know that her child could do all that, and possibly even more. And it’s not even that I’m a braggart and start my side of conversations with, “Check out how wonderful my kids are!”. If she asked me, “What’s new with you all? What are the kids up to these days?” I would invariably give a quick summary of some of my kids’ recent activities or interests. Not in a gushing “Well, you should see what little Johnny and Sue are doing, because they’re so good at it!” way, but more of a “Johnny and Sue are doing that activity, or have been reading this book, and really enjoying it.” But whenever she hears, “So-and-so is doing this, and really enjoying that”, she’d respond immediately with, “Oh, my child A has done that, and is great at it”, or “Child B would enjoy that. He’s just so good at that sort of thing.” This is the type of conversation that really annoys me, because in actuality, it’s not an exchange of information at all, but an impatient lie-in-wait for the next opportunity to boast of one’s own child. It’s easy to see then, that I tired rather quickly of “conversing” with this particular mom, and whereas I had previously enquired how her kids were doing, now I avoided the topic as much as possible.

That type of behaviour paled in comparison, however, to what took place a few days ago, when my 3-year-old son and I had an interesting little encounter with a stranger and her daughter at the public library. The little girl, whom I estimated to be about 4 or 5 years old, was sitting by herself, tapping away at what looked like a game on the computer, while her mom was browsing the bookshelves a few steps away. My dear son was seated across from the little girl, happily and rather randomly hitting the keys on one of those cute little kiddie keyboards that libraries sometimes have, to encourage computer literacy among the tot set. Within a few minutes, the girl’s mom had come over to see what her daughter was doing, and it was almost at that exact moment that ds chose to call out letters as he spelled out his name on the keyboard. He hunted and pecked out six perfect little letters, and then looked up at me with a big grin, awaiting approval and congratulations.

You know how you can tell out of the corner of your eye when someone is staring at you? This was the case, with the other mom. In a split second, a light bulb went on in her head, and something terribly funny began to happen. She turned to her daughter and asked her in a loud voice, “Honey, how do you spell your name? Remember? What are the letters?”

The next minute was an agonizing exchange between eager-to-show-off mom (ETSOM) and reluctant daughter (RD), trying to concentrate on her game.
ETSOM: “C’mon, honey. You know how to do this.”
RD: “But mom, I don’t want to do this.”
ETSOM: “What’t the next letter? C’mon . . . ‘d’. Good.”
RD: “Mo-ooom. Why do I have to do this now?”
ETSOM: “Honey! Why can’t you do this? Here, let me help you: ‘i’. C’mon.” And so on.

While this was going on between the two, ETSOM was glancing repeatedly in our direction, as if to say, “Are you catching all this?”(I was catching this interaction all out of the corner of my eye. Why give ETSOM the attention that she so badly craved, with a full-on stare and open-jawed wonder?) And then something even funnier occured: When I noticed that my son was employing both hands to activate the mouse (he who was so used to a one-finger touchpad), I took a moment to show him how to do it properly. ETSOM must have taken this as the next challenge, and her interest in us was increased. Surely, this little boy wasn’t going to get ahead of her own dear child in that area too, and learn some sort of new skill? She revved up her interaction with her daughter with this pièce de résistance:

ETSOM: “Mmmm-wah!”
RD: “Mom! Why’d you do that?”
ETSOM: “What? I just want to give my daughter a kiss! I love you! Is that so wrong?”
RD (sigh): “Can I just play my game?”
I fully expected to see ETSOM drag the poor girl off the chair at any moment, ready to launch her into some sort of tapdancing routine. That would have completely made my day.

All of this, I found highly amusing, even if a bit sad. People like ETSOM are just one step away from being the overenthusiastic and prodding backstage mom, or the loudmouthed, belligerent hockey dad. I’m sure that for the competitive parent, the only thing they really want is a foil, someone who responds appropriately, so that they can rev up the competition level. I hadn’t provided that, and I’m sure that that must have frustrated her to a certain degree. I had merely sat there, not responding, watching my child contentedly chat and type, while picturing the gears grinding in her head and fumes exiting her ears.

Some say that a little competition is healthy. I say that it can be quite harmful. I grew up around competitive parents, and their kids who felt the effect, forced to constantly out-do each other in order to give their parents something more to brag about. Hell, I’ll admit it, my parents were very competitive too. But I decided a long time ago that I wasn’t going to repeat this behaviour (like many other things that my parents did that I swore I would never do). But not all adults have come to this decision. It appears that the competitive and comparative behaviour has trickled down to some parents of my generation.

And this, my friends, is just another one of the many reasons why we homeschool.