I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I have been released by the Borg Clogs and they are finished. I’m not sure if I assimilated them, or they assimilated me, but the point is that they are finished. Meet second, third and fourth of four.
The bad news is that my eldest daughter has said something horrible. So horrible in fact that I fear for her future. If you are standing up, please sit down. Take a deep breath. Yesterday, as I was trying desperately to occupy the children I pulled out the “kids knitting box”. The little two picked projects, and when I asked the eldest what she would like to knit she looked me in the eye and said….“Mom, I don’t want to knit. It’s boring”
Pardon me? I can scarcely believe this has happened. I really felt that simply by carrying my DNA she would knit. All my daughters knit. This must be some form of teenaged rebellion right? Boring? Knitting isn’t boring. Knitting is very interesting (I told her), knitting is good for your mind. Knitting restores order to a troubled psyche. She’s a teenager, that’s got to be helpful, right? Knitting is absolutely gripping, at its worst knitting is ….medatative, but not boring. Ok, well maybe sometimes the plain bits can wear on you. I admit that the second sock of a pair can take a little inner fortitude. I could also admit that on the really big stuff….like blankets, or sweaters for enormous men that it can seem a little monotonous. That’s not what’s happening here. We are talking about the entire experience of knitting, even the act of contemplating or casting on a project being called “boring”. All I can do is stare at her.
I fear for her future. If knitting is “boring” then what’s it going to take to hold her interest? Hitchhiking? Joining a militia? Dropping acid? (Do kids still drop acid? That’s something I should probably find out) It’s a slippery slope I tell you. First you are telling your mother that knitting is “boring” and next something horrible has happened….like …..drug addiction, not folding your laundry or …voting conservative.
Yarn Harlot
Ignore it. It will pass. After a few years of being a teenager, she will be unable to resist returning to knitting.
I thought that I would never garden after I become a teenager, but I was inexorably drawn to it as the inner gardener my parents created in me when I was a child came to the forefront when I hit my twenties. I’m positive it will be the same with knitting.
Teenagers are aliens, that’s all. I have watched my 13 year old son, the world’s most thoughtful, flexible-minded person, turn into someone who is *completely incapable* of considering another person’s viewpoint, even a bit, even for a second!
It’s scary, but I believe it will pass. It will pass. Just keep saying it.
Carla
My Mom tried getting me to knit as a child and I simply was. not. interested.
Now, at 27, I have been knitting obsessively for almost year. She’ll come around. 🙂
I used to think knitting was boring… look at me now. She may or may not ever become a knitter, but all is not lost yet.
And as to your drug question, I believe cocaine is coming back into fashion, along with the rest of the 80s.
I learned to knit when I was 4. When I turned about 13 I wouldn’t look at knitting needles much less pick the suckers up. Now, I knit every morning with my 5 or so cups of coffee, knit through the news, when talking to the old guy, you name it. It goes with pierced noses, and tie dyed hair. The Jesuits have a saying “give me the child till he’s 8, and the man is mine for life” (or something close to that) Knitting is the same.
I read something when my kids were small that gave me hope (which was justified thank God) If they are too stubborn to do what they’re told (like knit) then that stubborness can slop over to drugs….”you WANT me to do drugs,” they say to the tempter “so I WON’T do drugs.”
That’s an impressive swatch, but not big enough. And it should have pointy edge.
Re: wedding ring shawl. That’s what they were called in Shetland. They were made from cobweb lace weight yarn. (I saw one in the museum there) However, the people there are of Norse descent, they are like 6 feet tall and two axe handles through the shoulders. Stands to reason their hands are big too.
Barb
The 80’s are coming back? Oh, thank various divinities the “70’s Redux” will soon be over. I’ve had it up to here with the anorexic-Barbie-with-implants, exposed-stomachs, arse-crack out for all to see (you are *not* a plumber!) look.
Have hope! Maybe she really wants to learn to spin, but doesn’t know it yet…
Oh my, the 80’s. What do we have to look forward to there? I will certainly not miss the re-70’s.
Nooo! Not the eighties! (Flashing back on horrible gawky high school years combined with ugly clothes, bad hair, big glasses…)
I agree with the rest of the folks saying that your daughter’s just going through a phase. What better way to yank a mother’s chain than to knock her knitting? 🙂
Hey, kids, hate to be the naysayer, but some people just don’t knit or want to learn to knit.
Sure, knitting is branche now, but most of these chic “project” knitters are knitting feh scarves and wire jewelry and dopey felted bags.
They will go away soon, as always, and we knitters will be left with our beloved knitting, which is endlessly riveting, every frickin day.
Many sad people will close their scarf-knitting doors, and people who are left will go back to selling beautiful yarn in many beautiful colors, and we will be happy again.
Steph, maybe your daughter reads, or loves music, or something else?
Those are worthy activities, maybe.
Maybe everytime you say, “shut up, Joe”, you’re gonna have to say, “shut up, Eldest Daughter Who Seems To Be Like Joe” as well.
Boy, I feel for you looking ahead to a whole week of 24/7 togetherness! You sound like you’re holding up, though. If I remember right, 13-year-olds think almost everything their parents do is boring, and everything their younger siblings do is boring AND stupid. Maybe she’ll see something knitted that Jessica Simpson wears and change her mind? Or would that be even scarier . . . ?
I have found that let them approach things you love as they wish. I have a gentle, sweet, affectionate daughter who couldn’t care less about learning to knit. At least not now. She can find her own object of passion for herself and I can be happy with that. My son, on the other hand, is a rowdy, argumentative, smelly, unaffectionate BOY who …… wants to learn to knit! I love it. He loves it. And it is really the only time he allows me to be close to him because you know, Moms are not cool and I might embarress him. I treasure this interest in him and hope it continues. Look for something equally unexpected in your daughter, maybe she will surprise you. Hang on.
My daughters let me know years ago that knitting obsessively, as I have for years, is why I was *different* from any other adult they knew, and of course to a teenager being different is death. No WAY were they going to go near needles! The way to most embarrass them was to start KIPping when they were around. Which I was glad to do.
Imagine how stunned I was, then, when my oldest, her freshman year in college, while home for Christmas, not only started knitting but started knitting passionately. She’s been a pre-med these last four years, and decided she had to put it aside for now because it was all or nothing, and she had to concentrate on O-Chem and the like. I DID have something to do with the creation of that child after all!
As for her sister, who has decided it’s okay for me to knit, but don’t even *think* of asking her to, well, she’s starting college in the fall…
By the way, my feet are coveting those clogs, and your swatch has made me go back to a wedding-ring shawl project of my own that had been needing encouragement. Beautiful things are contagious. Thank you for the inspiration!
Give her a book to read? Morgen knits well, but she does anything she wants to do well. She knits at home, on the train, and (unfortunately) through her classes. She is also a rather well-adjusted 17.
I firmly believe that any waking hour not spent knitting, cooking or on the computer should be spent reading. Just the act of reading (even trash) exercises your mind enough to help you retain more and read faster.
Morgen was addicted to Harry Potter at 13. I was addicted to Robert Graves. Who knows what will catch your daughter’s fancy?
A friend of mine whose daughter married one of my brother-in-laws, raised 5 girls. They all played piano their whole lives. She said that each one of them would, at some point, get bored. When this happened, she’d take them out to a music store and let them poke around until they found some music that interested them. Something different than what they had done before, and it would always renew the spark.
I would suggest showing her some funky European magazine or going to the bookstore and looking at books with youthful, fashionable patterns in them, (Hip to Knit for example), and see if that doesn’t spark some interest. She may need to be a little older before the mere smelling and feeling of fiber gets her going. I might also suggest doing something crazy like buying the biggest, fattest needles you can find and knitting a rug or some loose curtains for her room. Just something different.
I myself am just teaching my 5 and 4 year old daughters to knit. My strategy so far has been to depart from my mother’s methods of subtle dissapproval until my decision conforms with her opinion on everything, and instead, being happy for her if in the whole yarn store, the stuff she wants to knit with is the rough, yucky baby pastel, acrylic yarn. Good luck.
Sad news is she may not ever knit (I’m only 21, but I’m still not…though your blog makes it tempting), however I do have good news. Someday when she’s hours away at college she’ll pop into a bookstore (because who doesn’t love books??) and she’ll bump into a knitting group over in the cafe (because knitters love books, too, of course) and she will instantly think of her mother and be filled with love and will go straight home and call you and tell you all about the knitters she saw at the book store. Okay, at least this is what happened to me when I popped into a B&N for some Starbucks and saw spinners and knitters in the corner. I actually started LOOKING for my mother in the group, because I was just SURE she had to be there. Moral of the story: she may not ever knit, but some day she will truly appreciate the fact that you do. (Just thought you might like another POV from a daughter of a knitter.)
Aww… so many people left really nice comments. I agree with all of them, it just might not be her thing right now. Give her time. Or maybe she’ll see you working on some particular project that catches her fancy and want to try again, who knows.
By the way, I went to Barnes and Noble last night and attacked the knitting section… found a copy of KnitLit Too – your story was very entertaining. Hey, even if your daughter doesn’t grow up to be a knitter, I’m sure she will have a great time telling her children all the entertaining Mom-knitting stories she’ll have stocked up. 🙂
steph! i couldn’t stop laughing. seriously. you made my night…yet again. and as a reward, if you hop on over to my blog you’ll see the sock, even more done than it was before. note the new link! 🙂
Be patient — she may surprise you yet.
My mom gave up on me doing any traditional chick activities (cooking, gardening, knitting, crochet, sewing, baking, canning) because I was so *not* doing that when I was a kid. I was a very boyish little girl.
I’ve grown up to be a unix systems administrator who, among other things, tans deer hides, splits her own firewood by hand with a wedge and a maul, and can drive a bulldozer, a snowplow, and a bucket loader. I also hang curtain rods, reinstall new concrete floors after the plumber people dig it all up, install and hook up new washing machines and fridges, hang and wire new dining room lighting fixtures, clean out the gutters, and other assorted fixer-upper chores when I visit my mom, who has trouble operating a screwdriver without chanting the ‘righty-tighty, lefty-loosey’ thing. (I got the technical skillz from my dad.)
But, to my mother’s amazement (and mine), I also picked up a nice assortment of traditional-chick skills along life’s highway. I garden extensively, both flowers and food. I can my produce, make my own preserves (peach, grape, and two-colors-of-raspberry), cook all sorts of things, make my own bread, and have (FINALLY!!) mastered flaky pie crust. And I taught myself to knit, about a month ago. I am thirty-three… so don’t give up on your daughter yet.