Rooms

Long ago (and still in many places) most families lived in one room and gathered around a fireplace or stove to socialize, often while doing handwork like sewing, carving or repairing small things.

In Victorian times those who could afford better houses usually had a parlor, or front room, where guests were entertained, but families usually spent their 'together time' in the kitchens.

Then living rooms came along. Families would gather there every evening and listen to programs on the radio and, later, watch television together.

But then even newer, modern houses with both a living room and a family room were built. In some homes today the living room is seldom used except when company is present, so perhaps we should call living rooms parlors.

Interestingly, the word 'parlor' is derived from one meaning 'to speak.' I guess you could say parlors were chat rooms but they weren't anything like what we call chat rooms today.

Unfortunately in some modern households family members are more likely to be using computers, smart phones, i-pods, or whatever technical devices they have than to be gathered together in one room communicating with each other.

Does your family have one room where they tend to gather and socialize?

Stinking

Long ago I knew a nice, middle-aged gentleman who was sad never to have married, but women never seemed to be interested in him. Like everyone else who knew him, I was too embarrassed to tell him his breath always smelled terrible. If only I had, he would probably have been grateful, but telling people they stink isn't considered polite in our society.

A more common problem is the horrible smell on people who smoke. Since I have asthma I avoid anyone I see smoking, but can't always predict who will have the tobacco odor in their clothes and hair until I get close enough to be effected.

People who smoke have no idea they always smell like dirty ashtrays because their noses are used to the odor. Usually their homes stink, too since the odor is absorbed into the curtains, upholstery, and even walls. Some of that happens even if they smoke outdoors because it's carried in on their clothes. And it's not polite to admit that I must refuse an invitation to visit someone because their home stinks, so instead I make up excuses.

Interestingly, some of those people have Asthma, Emphysema, lung cancer or COPD themselves, but they keep lighting up. That concerns me because one of my family members died of emphysema after years of smoking and it wasn't a pleasant experience.

According to the CDC, over 20% of adults in the USA are smokers and people I know who are in recovery from other addictions say tobacco is by far the hardest addiction to recover from. Maybe if the rest of us told everyone who smokes that they stink at least fewer people would be tempted to start the habit.

Discipline

According to my dictionary, discipline is self control or a method that teaches self control. Here are some things I learned in my Early Childhood Education classes about discipline.

First, it's essential to be sure the child is capable of the desired behavior. Then the rules, reasons, and consequences of disobeying them must be explained clearly in advance. And parents should set a good example. For instance, if children hear parents swearing they can hardly be blamed for doing the same thing.

Positive reinforcement got a bad reputation when kids were given rewards for everything they did correctly, and some children became spoiled as a result, but it's important to acknowledge approval when they do what is right even if only with a few words.

Of course parents should not give in to children's demands or they loose their authority in the children's eyes. However it's important to consider the cause of misbehavior because sometimes the child may not be able to help doing something wrong, or their actions might be a reaction to stress.

There are varying opinions about spanking kids. Some people call spanking child abuse while others think it's essential. When I was a child I was spanked, but only for doing something extremely dangerous. One of my ECE teachers said in cultures where children who disobey may be eaten by a wild animal, step on a land mine, or get shot, spanking is the norm, but in peaceful societies with little danger corporal punishment is less likely to be used.

When young children do something seriously wrong, punishment should be immediate and consistent. Consistency is important for all ages, but delayed punishment, like not being allowed to do something fun later, works for older kids. In some cases with all kids simply explaining why they shouldn't have done something is all that's needed.

Bad Words, Etc.

Since my last post, which is about swearing, I've been thinking about what makes certain words unacceptable while others that are literally synonyms, are considered okay. Nobody is likely to be offended by the mention of excrement, and eternal punishment is often mentioned in religious discussions but using other words for those things would be rude.

Once when I heard one man yell at another using words that literally meant "Your mother is a female dog and I want to to mate with you," I couldn't help laughing out loud.

Sometimes perhaps the "bad" words are of Anglo-Saxon origin and the "good" ones are Latin or French based because of the class differences in England during the Middle Ages, but that isn't usually the case. There isn't really much reason for the distinction between good and bad words, it's just a matter of what people agree about.

Come to think of it, that's true of other things, too.

Why should gold be highly valued in so many cultures? Yes, it's rare and pretty, but we can't use it for food, shelter or other things necessary for survival. It made better sense for the Romans to use salt to pay soldiers their salaries.

And money is only valuable because it represents gold but people all over the world now accept it as having worth.

Since humans disagree about so many things I guess its just as well that we do agree about some things, even if only which words are bad.

Swearing

I wonder if the frequency of swearing is one reason why we have so much violence in our culture. When people get angry they tend to express it by stepping outside the bounds of their usual behavior. When polite people only used certain words when they were angry, saying them helped release some of the anger.

But now many people use those words frequently in their everyday conversations, so when they need to express anger by stepping outside the bounds of what's normally acceptable, swearing doesn't provide release. Instead, they release their anger with physical violence.

Of course some people have always done that, just as some people have always used impolite language, but as swearing has become more prevalent in our society, so has physical violence.

Too bad we can't do much to change that.

But we can teach children not to swear. If parents today were to wash their children's mouths out with soap for using dirty words they'd probably be accused of child abuse, but there are certainly other ways of teaching kids to avoid using that kind of language.

Commercials

I recently found some notes from an Early Childhood Education college class I took years ago. They're about a study that showed the results of allowing preschoolers to watch commercials. I didn't find a reference to the study so I can't quote it exactly, but the things I did write down are important.

Preschoolers who often watch commercials usually believe them. They also tend to believe social stereotypes and try to persuade adults to give them the things advertised. The study also said those kids may get desensitized to violence, become less verbal and have less social communication, but I think those things may be a result of watching TV, movies, etc. in general and not just from the commercials.

Either way, it's probably a good idea not to let young children get a lot of media exposure.

Mickles and Muckles

When I was a kid my grandfather often told me about his Scottish grandmother who had taught him the importance of being thrifty. One of her favorite sayings was, "Waste not, want not." (In the past to want meant to need.)

Another of her sayings was, "Many muckles make a mickle," which Gramp told me meant "Many littles make a big."

I thought those words ought to have been switched because muckle sounded to me like it should be bigger than mickle.

Recently I found the words in the dictionary and discovered they both mean the same thing, much or a lot.

But that doesn't make sense to me. How could my great, great grandmother have been mistaken about a saying from her own homeland? Could the meaning of one of the words have changed since the early 1800s? But dictionaries (and I checked several, both online and in hard copy) agree that the words are archaic so that change is unlikely.

I wish I knew the answer to those questions, but I do know her advice still holds true. In this economy we should all be thrifty, avoid wasting money, and remember that many small things amount to a lot.