You gotta love those tiger mothers. Slaving night and day to make sure their children debut at Carnegie Hall before their twelfth birthday. Admirable, obviously, but they do make life hard for themselves.
Lemur mothers, on the other hand, lead quiet peaceful lives, uninterrupted by tantrums about violin practice, exam revision, or panic that a child who does not go to Oxford or Cambridge will somehow enter an inferior circle of society.
Infant lemurs are stashed in a hidden location while the mother lemur gets on with lounging, reading books and drinking gin and tonic. If inappropriate television, Facebook or Topshop vouchers are required to pacify the infant lemur, this is not rejected as a strategy.
Lemur mothers do occasionally scream uncontrollably about the state of their offspring’s bedroom or the fact that nobody around here ever does the laundry but me, but this is not a common event. And even the mighty lemur mother is, after all, only human.
Lemur mothers frequently make use of their long, powerful back legs, catapulting themselves into the air and landing in an upright posture on a nearby tree. Meanwhile, if the lemur child wants to learn the violin, it can damn well practice on its own.
Lemur. Tiger.
You choose.
Love it! Your kid is very lucky. I can’t decide whether I’m a tiger mother in lemur stripes or a lemur mother in tiger stripes. Either way I’m schizophrenic. One day it’s Play that violin or else! Another day it’s Time is so short, be free…
What’s so nice about reversing the tiger mum concept is that you make it seem fab for the mum (I’m thinking G&T esp!). But not having a tiger mother is also fab for the child. When I wrote about tiger mums on my blog the hits went from a normal 30 *cringe* to more than 90. This is the only reason I keep on reading about Tiger Mum! I wonder what will happen to your blog stats?
I see myself more as an otter mom. Not so much bouncing. No television (for the very young), but lots of fish and games. Basically same principle as you though. Esp on the gin and tonic front.
[...] of the Tiger Mom debate had taken root, such as author Meg Rosoff’s immensely attractive idea of Lemur Mom. While Tiger Mom is relentlessly driven Lemur Mom has a more subtle [...]