Enlarge image
Friendship books: "Let's just avoid the genre until the children can read and write without help" (symbol image)
Photo: Vasily Pindyurin / DEEPOL / plainpicture
"Fucking ass," exclaims my son very enthusiastically.
He is sitting at the kitchen table.
A friend's book from a classmate lies open in front of him, and the seven-year-old is determined to write down his newly learned playground vocabulary in the section “Your favorite swear word”.
'First a K, right, Mama?' 'Honey, stop!
Poop ass is a really ugly word, we talked about that.
How about maybe some Döspaddel,« I suggest hopefully.
"Ass shit is funny and you're not my boss," my son shouts indignantly.
Unfortunately, at this point our afternoon project »Filling out friends books« comes to an abrupt halt.
So wait until the anger has subsided and then: next attempt.
Uff.
Sit next to you again.
Spelling fries and spaghetti with tomato sauce ("What's your favorite food"), finding a folding rule somewhere ("How tall are you?"), comforting (dislocated i-dot), coaxing ("Honey, why do you want the rainbow, the you painted so beautifully, because now you suddenly cross them out again???«), admonish your partner ("Why don't YOU sit down with him?"), choose a photo and print it out from the machine in the drugstore (bye-bye lunch break ).
While my son is still sulking in the children's room, I try to hide the fact that three more friend books are waiting to be edited on the hall dresser in our two-child household.
As a precaution, I had put a pile of laundry on it in the past few weeks when we were far too busy.
Out of sight, out of mind.
A strategy that unfortunately only works until WhatsApp messages, mostly sent by the mothers of the little friend book owners, catch me cold: "Huhu, unfortunately I've lost track, but is Luca's album maybe still with you?"
Genre tired and rubric dead
If you are not yet rotating in the friendship book game and you already feel well utilized in everyday family life, I can only advise you: be on your guard.
Increased friends book activities can usually be observed from the last year of kindergarten.
Do yourself a favor and make sure that the madness in your bubble doesn't even start!
Because: If the first child hands a book around, there is usually no stopping them.
Keyword "Want too" - and you won't be able to get out of the number in the foreseeable future.
So my advice: Use forums with a wide reach for your concerns.
Speak up as soon as the day-care center or first elementary school parents' evening arrives at the agenda item "Miscellaneous".
Say something like this in a relaxed, but firm voice: "Hey folks, let's take a little break now, topic of friendship books, the following suggestion: Since we all have a lot on our minds, it's safe in all of our senses if we look at them anyway already hefty mental load mountains do not push each other even higher.
Let's just avoid the genre until the children can read and write unaided, find their way to the photo booth without parental support and keep track of whose album we are working on.«
Stand up to the possibly somewhat dumbfounded looks that are now thrown at you.
They are neither a brake on children's fun nor lazy, but pursue a noble goal: to reduce parental to-do lists.
more on the subject
Am I the nagging mother now?: Mental Load doesn't make colored laundry A comment by Katrin Wilkens
"A lot's built up": Why American mothers meet to scream A call in Boston from Nike Laurenz
Mental load in the family: How couples really share everyday tasks equally A podcast by Lenne Kaffka
If you become unsure, make eye contact with the educator or elementary school teacher – they are your allies.
Despite all their love for their job, most of them are also happy about every book that they don't have to fill out.
I heard from a retired teacher who was so traumatized by her friends book from her active time that she put off the entry in her own granddaughter's book for a long time.
Prepare yourself mentally against possible softening in the matter, make it clear to yourself: As much as you may be moved when your child pulls its first fill-in album out of the kindergarten backpack or the first-grader satchel ("How nice, Jonas has friends!"), think them in the medium and long term: your nerves get thinner with every book that you have to accompany in the process of filling it out.
Swear to grandparents, godparents and other well-meaning loved ones in your immediate vicinity that they will never give their little ones a book of friends.
Only relax this
policy
if you can be really, really sure that you won't be involved in the management of the filling out.
questionable memories
Of course, you must also discipline yourself.
Stay away from relevant offers in bookstores.
Don't be corrupted by button-eyed Janosch tigers and other cute covers and nicely illustrated pages.
Don't give in to the thought that it might be nice if your child can later remember their first friends.
It is really doubtful that today's friends book owners will be leafing through their old albums in ten or fifteen years and happily clapping their hands at the sight of the children's photos that are already half peeling off and the torn pages: "Oh, Ben, how nice.
I'm just trying to see if his mother's cell phone number, which is entered here, still works.
Surprisingly, she somehow survived all the stress of filling out the forms back then and can give me Ben's number today.
I would be really interested
whether fries are still his favorite food and whether he has stuck to his scrawled career aspiration ›Jay from Ninjago‹.
I'll just ring through there now."
Life hack for parents in the fill-in business
Oh, you say all well-intentioned advice comes too late for you?
Are you already in the middle of the filling-in business?
Then the following hack might make things a little easier for you: do it more sensibly than I did and ideally take ten to twenty portrait pictures of your child once a year so that you don't have to rush to the photo booth for every album that comes in.
Be sure to use the right format!
Put the stack at home so that you can find it immediately at any time.
One of the best friend books we ever landed on was a blank page book.
The friends of the little owner should simply paint something colorful in it.
No parental intervention required - perfect.
Now, if you'll excuse me, please: I have to sit down with my son again.
Please keep your fingers crossed that we can get through the sections without a fight this time.
And then when we sit together, I really have to ask him who actually has his own book of friends at the moment.