Holey underwear and Mottainai Grandma
May 6, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , trackback
There was a bit of panic in my household last night. Over the weekend, my 3-year old girl managed to bruise her arm while climbing up a play structure in our friends’ house and scratch her chin when falling on a rock with a sharp edge.
Kids learn physical skills through activities which may cause injuries now and then. As long as we as parents take proper precautions to prevent serious hurt, normal bruises and scratches are a inevitable part of growing up. At least that is my humble opinion.
When my husband picked up the girls yesterday afternoon, he was grilled by one of the teachers at school on how these bruises happened. Now my 3 year old has definitely gone to school with your typical scratches and bruises quite a few times. We’ve never gotten interrogated before. What caused the sudden alarm?
A pair of underwear with a dime-sized hole.
Relieved that my husband’s account of the incidents corroborated with my daughter’s retelling, the teacher proceeded to inform my husband that she HAD to throw away my daughter’s underwear because it was inappropriate to wear underwear with holes. It was not as if she pranced around in her underwear all day. She had long pants on. Nonetheless, “They are inexpensive. Please buy her new ones,” she sternly lectured on.
Did the holey underwear, on top of the bruises, triggered the abuse red flag? While I adore the teachers and am sincerely glad that the school watches child-abuse vigilantly, I can’t help but wonder how her un-mended underwear could possibly become a part of the equation. My motherly failure at noticing and mending the hold aside, when did wearing slightly torn clothes become a symbol for lack of caring?
I took out all my kids’ underwear and examined potential abuse-triggering holes. If I stitch up the holes, will they be more acceptable? Will mended underwear still put me in a danger zone? I remember Green Bean wrote about her son’s teacher not appreciating his repaired lunch box (sorry, GB, can’t find that post).
(picture source: New Statesman)
As I put my pathetically unprofessional stitches through the tiny holes, I recalled a story I heard a while ago. A Japanese mother wrote a book - Mottainai Grandma because her 4-year-old son didn’t comprehend the meaning of “waste”. Loosely translated as “Don’t Waste Grandma“, the book has sold more than 400,000 copies. What does Mottainai Grandma do?
“Mottainai!” she says to her grandson, who is brushing his teeth. “One cup of water is enough!”
“Mottainai Grandma also has a compulsive need to wring every bit of usefulness from an object. Crumpled paper? Make a dinosaur. Leftover pencil stubs? Draw a rainbow!”
I can’t read Japanese; I wish there was a translated version, though the humor would undoubtedly be lost in translation.
I decided to volunteer for a parent-taught session at my daughter’s class – on waste. Watch out teacher X, here comes Mottainai Grandma. You asked for it 
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Comments»
I remember someone else posting about their child’s underwear having a hole or something and the preschool being all upset. It’s really I guess the word would be disturbing that bruises become abuse when coupled with old underwear. A pair of pants with a tear are now trash. They used to be a killer opportunity for a cute little patch with a unicorn on it. A broken lunch box is also garbage (I deleted the post when someone who is good friends with that teacher started reading my blog) instead of an ingenious invention to fix a broken zipper. Hopefully, with the downturn in the economy, people will get back into the mindset of stitching instead of ditching. Nice post.
Let’s just say that it is a VERY good thing I don’t have anyone monitoring my underwear… I’d probably get put in a psych ward for masochistic tendencies or something!
THis is a chilling story! I’m glad teachers are watching out for students, but grilling a parent over a couple of normal kid bruises and a hole in underwear is taking it waaaay too far.
My kids wouldn’t have survived long in this school. By the time the third boy was in the hand-me-downs from his brothers, he looked like he probably lived in a car some place.
I know teachers have to keep an eye out, but there so many other psycological symptoms of abuse that are not going to be the case for your child, I can hardly believe they could make this leap!
You go girl! Show them teachers who is Boss! Cat fight! Cat Fight!
Wow. Things have changed since I was little. I was always the one with holey undies. When people did see my holey underwear I told them that they shouldn’t be looking there.
And I had to hide them from my parents because they were a bit vigilant about their precious first born not appearing like a bum (thankfully they never did get rid of my hobo tendencies).
Looking forward to reading how your waste presentation turns out.
Hmmm…I read the npr article and I am not so sure about the wasting food lesson. I was constantly lectured about the starving children in Somalia who didn’t have all the rice that I did in front of me. Why I just couldn’t serve myself was beyond me. Thankfully no one tried to lick food particles off my face. Yuck!
GB, Donna, Joyce: I am really curious to see what “abuse/neglect” signs teachers are taught to look for. Today, I wanted so much to ask the teacher but did not know how to break into it. I did however ask for a parent-volunteer session
Arduous: I will start look for L.A. Times reporting - insane woman put into Silver Creek rehab center to seek holely underwear addition.
Beany: My bilingual (Japanese/English) friends told me that a lot of stuff in Japanese (or any other language for that matter), especially comics, often got lost in translation. When I read about the face licking grandma, I let out a “Yuck’ as well. I think it is probably a culturally unique expression.
Rob: Thanks
The whole hole-in-the-underwear thing has me baffled. Maybe I’d get it if I had kids, but as an adult currently wearing underwear with holes, I don’t.
On a practical note, I haven’t figured out a good way to mend these holes either. The fabric is separating from the elastic at the top. If I catch it early, will stitches hold?
Wow. I think it’s more inappropriate for a teacher to throw out a child’s underwear than it is for a kid to be wearing a pair with a hole or two. That is so strange!
Inappropriate to wear underwear with holes? That is so odd. I don’t have kids, but given how fast they grow and how often their clothes get dirty, it wouldn’t be that unusual for a kid to have some underclothes with holes in them, would it? Strange.