WHAT MY SISTER TAMARA SAYS ABOUT KIDS WRITING WHEN THEY ARE LITTLE
WHAT MY SISTER TAMARA SAYS ABOUT KIDS WRITING WHEN THEY ARE LITTLE
By Michael “The Madman Fighter” Molitch-Hou
I talked to my sister, Tamara Eleanor Molitch-Hou-Wolhwend-Hou-Molitch (who changed her name to be more palindromic), the other day.
I said, “Hey, big sis!” and I meant big, “Remember growing up?”
She said, “No.”
I said, “Sure you do. It was that time when we were being ‘raised’ by our parents and had not yet finished growing.”
She said, “Oh yeah.”
As a school psychologist, she knows all sorts of things about kids and education and how to insert information correctly into their fragile skulls. I’m paraphrasing what she said, of course. But, she says how great our parents were because they forced us to read and do creative things for them. Kids are smarter than they look, she says, even when they look real dumb. Because their brains have “yet to be tampered with by the megacorporations and religious organizations and cyberbots with cannons that should mana out of their chests…” they can make a lot of creative things. They are blank slates open for programming.
My sister says that it’s very important to start telling them early on that they can do whatever they want and that they can fly to the moon if the want. And in a recent study of facts, officials agree that kids are great! My mom, Dr. Susan Hou, is one of the officials. When we were kids she kept telling us, “Get off your lazy A-S-S-DOUBLE-HOCKEY-STICK and do something with your life!” She used to get mad at us because we were only kids and could barely make any money. So she encouraged us to read and write everyday because “it’s good for our brains.” So my sister, before she could even write, would dictate stories to my mom and my mom would transcribe them for her. That’s how great my family was! My godparents, who grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution, would even help us illustrate our stories which just proves that my dad’s favorite saying that “a good communist is a dead one” is wrong. One of these stories Tamara dictated was a story called “Mengloor and the Family of People” which is a story she wrote. Here it is:
By Tamara Eleanor Molitch-Hou
11/19/83
There was a nice and happy family. Except, one day when they went to school one of the kids said, “Mengloor.” So Mengloor came and tried to get them. So when he got them, he didn’t get them really. They ran home before he got them. And they said to their mother, “Mengloor was getting us.”
They ran away and they thought Mengloor wasn’t there but they were right in his castle where he lived. And then he sneaked up and got the mother and killed her. So her two kids went onto Mengloor’s team. Then her big kid got to be the mother. So there was a family of bad guys. So then the mother Mengloor got very old and the kind Mengloor died. But before the kid Mengloor died, they were together at last. But the mother Mengloor said “It’s good to have her not with me any more.” So the mother Mengloor danced lots and lots and lots and lots. And she still danced and danced and danced and danced lots and lots and lots. And danced even more and more and more because it was good to be alone. So she danced again and again and again and again and again and again. And when she danced she said “La la la, it’s very good to be lonely.” She said that. So when she as dancing she sang a very very nice song. She sang what I said when I was singing a song to tell you what to write. And she kept dancing and she kept singing a nice song that was what I was telling you to write. So she kept dancing and singing nice songs – lots of very nice songs. The four names of the songs were “Blue Kid” “The People On the Bus” “The Big Hairy Spider” and “The Itsy-weensy Spider.”
THE END
This story is as good as it is repetitive. The repetitiveness illustrates one of the major themes of the story, which is the theme of the solipsist nightmare in which we are endlessly alone and must perform the same, meaningless tasks everyday. These themes apply to all creatures, be you Mengloor or non-Mengloor (or, to use the more P.C. term, creatures of non-Mengloorness).
Our parents, crazy, made no attempt to censor us. Whether we used dark existentialist themes in our stories or bad grammar, they didn’t care! They just wanted us to learn. now were smart
Tamara, fueled by creativity and the positive reinforcement of her parents then turned against them in a commentary on neglectful child raising and over-consumption in industrial society with:
Ethan in the Bathtub with a Billion Toys
By Tamara Eleanor Molitch-Hou
Ethan was in the bathtub with so many toys. He had a fish in there and a block in there and tigger the tiger in there and some rings in there and a Donald duck in there and some sponges in there and two bals in there and a key ring with lots of rings on it. Oscar and preted food. And pretend soap. Half of a boat. One of the ABC letters. Half a bristle block + 2 action figures. Half of 2 marbles and half to a wand set. And a dolly and a sock and another Oscar. A bottle of beer. A squirter and some shape blocks. Helicopter and a stamp cap. A bottle cap. And a toy sticker. A pretend lolly pop from Japan Airlines and another half to a wand set.
Many critics said that it was the best. Others said it was just relatively great. And the rest didn’t know about it. Anyways, it showed the world the inspiration that could be instilled in a child and how she could capture the world around her with beautiful language. Also, it showed the world that my parents let my baby brother go in the bathtub with a bottle of beer. They never let me bring beer into the bath! “Finish it on the toilet,” they said.
Years later, when Tamara had learned to write, she abandoned conventional structure for a pointless list format and challenged societal norms of gender:
1. Wash my hair.
2. Fluff my hair.
3. Come my hair
4. French braid my haire
5. Where nice close.
6. A touch of make-up
Its startling wit took the critics aback and then took them right aback again. In 1985, when she wrote this poem, she won Chicago’s 50th annual “Little Miss Poet Pagant”, a hundred dollar gift certificate to Pier Imports, and a new hat. The hat was a big accomplishment. For years afterwards, she could not maintain her level of creative energy and began scribbling the same list over and over again. What began as a poem praised for its wry irony, became a tragic example of the irony of destructive success.
During a period of ten years, she could be found in the corner of her one bedroom studio apartment repeating,
1. Wash my hair.
2. Fluff my hair.
3. Come my hair
4. French braid my haire
5. Where nice close.
6. A touch of make-up
Until she finally found the courage to walk out of that hellhole, get her goddamn shit together, and look for a way to make some money like a NORMAL PERSON! And everything was all great until in 2008, when my big sister spun into a terrible insanity, trying to relive old moments of glory from her poetry days by getting married, having a kid, and holding a steady and somewhat enjoyable job as a school psychologist.
What was this about again? Oh yeah, and that’s how my sister learned her lesson about going on and on about how parents should read to their kids at an early age and have them write stories even when they’re not talented grown ups like she is. THE END, TAMARA!
