Show S Cl V '‘v if--j ! Section - 's' 1 : ' M'v V Monday July 15 2002 Pagel The Herald Journal 'v '''if: V- r go they want By Kelly Dmria here ii in argument in our neighborhood about cats rigttt now The Cat Controllers do not want the cats to exist — no — I guess they can exist but the Cat Controllers think that we can actually train a cat to stay in its own yard Excuse me while I laugh myself silly! I have a cat Murphy Murphy is pretty dare smart — he is smart enough to open some of die doors in our house he’s smart enough to stand by the bathtub and yowl when he wants fiesh water and he's smart enough to trick us into extra feedings by asking different people However as smart as Muiphy is no amount of reasoning with him has ever produced any awareness about where our tbDinxiO No matter how old we get family relationships stiil hold sway over us EDITOR'S NOTE — It can be strong or strained trying or true But no matter what the relationship is like experts say a child’s bond with his or her parents la among the moat Important This la the first In ah occasional series of stories exploring die complexities and Influence of that ends and anotherone begins Cats just don't get it or as I havealways suspected they have all nd By Martha Irvine AP National Writer o er and agreed to play dumb “Hey you guys if we act like we don’t understand boundaries we won’t have any Cool with you?” The Cat Controllers said we’d need td put collars On the cats This is a problem because those collars will surely get caught on all the fences die cats are under and stran gle the cats Maybe that is how the Cat Controllers plan to control the cat population? The Cat Controllers said another option could be implanting microchips in die cats Yow I am sure Muiphy would sign right up for that one I was trying not to get too involved in die cat debate but it seems unavoidable I decided to take the position of “responsible but reason-able cat ownership” This means that I make a dutiful effort to know which neighbor’s porch Muiphy is on I am sony but'I just do not envision cats walking around with their owners on leashes ' or sitting only on their own porches wfaenthere are so many lovely parches around Hey if I had all day to do nothing I might just go sit on a few porches too Come on cats arc quiet they eat mice what are they really hurting by sitting on someone's porch? It is not like they have littlegraffiti pens and blowtorches hidden in their tail I haveito say that I do see die other side of the argument Tkke last night My perfect angel children must have left a door open at some point before ’' - bed' ' ingbysawanopenworandwmt v inspecting Little did he know he’d V be trapped under a bed by fie EviH' I Murphy for five hours! Ifoor Bui- - ' V ' bous j r Sol guess I dori’t know what die answer is Cats are cats! Otherwise they would be dogs whoTinddental-- i ly do know yard boundaries triybecause they are not smart enough to gel together end dccidcto 'j day dumb Vai ‘V ’ ' ‘ Stokes-Prind- '' ’ - toe technical writer Mrig hSmlftflekL She to among ia hunger of Cache VaRey freelance writ-ere whoef ookmnft apperir In The Her- - v aid JoumaL She can be reached by' emal at kady19980yahdo£om a 'if $ Kelly DuBote Davie le deci-sio- - : AP photo 22 poses on the front porch of her Richmond Ind home on April 10 Although aha conConnetty Stokes-Prind- le siders herself "a grownup" who pays her own bflls and lives independently the bond she atm feels to her parents one of them deceased sometimes startles tier : Stokes-Prind- le - " In die middle of the night there was a loud cat fight in my houseYau ' know how loud cat fights ire when they’re outside? Try having me in your hallway I jumped out of bed and discovered a very indignant : : Muiphy and a second cat that I have never seen before It was a Siamese looking dung with bulbous eyes ft did not want to be there particularly widi Muiphy being so welcoming and all ft took Bulbous 30 minutes to let me close enoui to pick him up Murphy was not exactly facing matters with his stomping around and growing add glowering I do not drink Bulbous was there on purpo$eV Bulbous was probably just wander-- ICHMOND Ind (AP) — He is ame — torn from her life by cancer when she was IS years old Seven years later Connelly still finds herself longing for her father's advice Would he like her boyfriend? n What would he say about her to take a break from college? “I wonder every day what he’d drink of my life now” she says The strength of the bond even beyond death startles her a bit as does the approval she still seeks from her mother who lives 800 miles away But that tug — that craving for a parent’s approval even an absent one — is universal Child and family experts see it in their research Ifeacnos deal with its effects every day in their classrooms Therapists work through it with theirpatients often well into adulthood ft’s that lingering pull that gets At age 22 she is to and independent by her own estimation “a grown-up-” She has a steady income and has worked a few jobs — from substitute teacher to tepporary jobs coordinator — since leaving her religion studies A nearby Earlham College She drives her own aging but trusty Honda Civic She pays her hUls andshares die rent on a weathered clapboard house tucked away in k small college and filming town roughly midway between Indianapolis and Colom- bus (Brio : s- ’Andsdllwheriitcomesto her impossible to make a choke and not worry about whetha she’ll approve or not” As maddening futhatcan be experts say that even in adulthood the bond between a child and par-- - mother wft’s NEW YORK (A- P- If anything ' 'needs to be done his son’ste' mentary SdKxri Michael Sands is "the first in line to volunteet He i? arranged a visit by filter pitots on i’ CareaDay he has broughtin 'snacks for die kids — and teachen V i' fevorite coffees “If I get die wish fist todxy it’s : ent reaches to die core of who we are molds our sense of self and at its best gives us a place to belong Expats also point to countless studies that show quality child-rearing — developmental psychol' ogist Peter Scales calls it a combination of “warmth firmness is closely and democracy” related to everything from school readiness tQ better mental health “Parents who smoke tend to have kids who do too Parents who volunteer a lot tend to hive kids who become volunteers” says Scales who has compiled results from'seores of studies in his work as asenior fellow at the Saudi Institute a Minneapolis- based youth research center “No odwr sources of socializa- -' in the dim come dose a ' - face" f j J Sofahiseffprts seemtobe wok-- - V’ ' at keemiig y everyone happy sod Nicholas’ u ' school in Los Angles because he feds diat if fie teachos and diesku (deuts are happy then they will teach V friA learn more effective atatits diat he is a pushy parent but ke oily does it fMfiegoodoif i else MI treat my pushiness wifi humor” he uys “When I help him y Sands works a He' i‘ es le bushy-beard- ed warn tbatit should be monitmed V Dr Elisabeth Guthrie is fie moth-- a of three children and the co-- y author of “The ’Double Wifi Pofect” abo(rir aimed helping parents deal wifi die ways they push their kids m unhealthy ways Guthrieworks as fie clinical director of the Learqing Diagnostic Center at Blythedale Children’s i Hospital in Valhalla NY She first noticed that parents of disabled chil- r' dren didn’t push the kids in the same ways (fad parents of iotiia 'Children did Interetfinglyshe fourid thafie disabled chilfien often acoxii-plishthings that their parents neva expected all without prod- - j : - ’ 1 ed fa' ! Cifirie says fiatfie most perva- sive idea in pushy parenting is the 1 - “rfveryone-eise-is-doing-it’’iirii- id- set When patents see otha children meeting wifi special college appli- - : 'cation counselors and coadies they fed their kids'need to do if too ship : - ora caq get firougi all his spelling j‘ homework and seems comfortable arouqd adults He also isfasdnatrid are finding foemselves encouraging their children to succeed wifi marc fervor fian their pareuts did Although many parents may think that their enthusiasm for'the chil--' drea’s success is helpful experts Stokes-Prind- ’ wifi airplanes and wants to be t nilot r Wifi empetidveoess in schools beooming moro fidee many parents : Stokes-Prind- le a ‘ -- dpneinanhoa”hesmr' hard f ' ' aind nu(3genotpush : 4 ') : ing ' ' Sands a single parent says 6- - - -- -- !- with his hrimework I put Mi a rubber Abse and becoitiq Jingles the Qown so hecanlearu withasnrileonhis The Boston Globe newspa- pen among othapublications He arid negative1’ died in 1995 about a yea after bei ng diagnosed wifi esophageal Indeed many call the relation--' cancer Her motha Janice Prindle ' ship wifi a parent or parent figure — grandparents stepparents or also a writer — a quiet woman teaches high school and lives in any adult who steps in as the main Woodstock VL where the family caregiver — the most important life child’s in a was 7 moved when relationship “What seems to be important is ' The imprint each left on their eldest of two daughters is obvious having somrione that for you someone who is just for you' — It can be seen in the almond-shape-d brown eyes that are like 100 pacait” says James Garbari-n- o her mother's and the dry wit she a professor of human development at Cornell University shared wifi er father It’s also " those some-onFor plain diat she comes from a literwere the two people who ary family : stacks of books tell of the “addiction for the printed combined lives and last names to word” ha parents instilled in hex create hers “ft really does help pant a Geoffrey Stokes herfatha was man a gregarious See TIESonB2 who wrote for the Village Voice breadth and depth of their potential effects on drildren both positive ' ' explain- - ' v (' She also notes fie recent flush economy arid fie shea number of working parents -- - who are often unavailable after'School -t-- has fed to the shelling out of trig bucks for ':u homework fidp ‘‘Parents need to realize how much they are being marketed td” ! she says “There is a huge industry frv leaning aids and tutors fiat parqnts easily buy into Jusf because someone has fie money fqr thesb things doesn’t mean that parents should feel obligated to get than” ( ' - -- |