Email to:Hothouse The Cocky Not The Kids!: KJ
*I note, with mounting concern, the increasing reports of ‘up themselves’ parents hothousing children.
Hothousing, of course, refers to children having schedules more appropriate for US presidential candidates. It is now common for a typical day to start with juvenile Esperanto lessons, followed by highly competitive spelling bees conducted in Welsh, and then along to talent spotting trials for the London Olympics pole vaulting squad….and all this, well before school.
Despite constant warnings from concerned psychologists, parents (particularly working ones struggling on the newly determined poverty line of 150,000 dollars per annum) show NO signs of letting up.
Like so many childless-by-spot on-choice women, I do sometimes have to talk to children. So, I oblige. The conservations go like this:
Piss Off! credit: S Baker
So, what did you do at school today?
Don’t speak down to me, old lady. That’s just sooooo cliched. Didn’t you realise that I’m horribly gifted?
Or……..
What do you want to be when you grow up?
Well, wrinkle face, I don’t dream about doing anything! I WILL do a combined Law -International Relations-Sustainability degree and then immediately have a stellar career in the Diplomatic Corps. I will then become Australia’s first ever Green Prime Minister……..now, push off Wrinkle Face….
I tell myself: this is repugnant behaviour but then, memories of my own hothousing kick in. I remind myself that I did not turn out obnoxious: quite the opposite. I have spent the best part of my life trying to justify my existence.
At our place in Leeton, the tools for hothousing cost nought. To be exact: 1 cocky, gratis. 1 cocky cage, neighbourly gift.
So, Hec (Dad) well knew he had five girls to hothouse with very few resources. He used the cocky in the cage technique on all of them, to stunning effect. Hec believed that language skills were at the basis of all academic success and his cocky in the cage methodology was a clever mix of commonsense and ‘interactive’ learning, well before that word was even thought of in educational circles.
So, how did it work….this cocky in the cage hothousing technique?
Well, Cocky lived in his moderately sized cage on an old anodised table right near our back door. As the young Ross girls went outside, Cocky R would hit us with his ‘latest’ language skills. It could be piss off, it could be go to buggery, it could be shit for brains…….
The breadth was amazing and we – with our malleable, fast-developing brains – quickly assimilated, then repeated, then retained what Cocky R said.
Best of all, we were having fun while being hothoused. So much fun, we were unaware of it. In reality, we were so language-gifted, we all had the vocabulary of a 46-year-old wharfie by age three.
As I’ve said, it was Hec who perfected the cocky in a cage hothousing technique. Sadly, he is no longer around to pass on his cocky training regimen.
But, as a gifted 18-month-old observing Hec undertake his daily 26-minute language training session with Cocky R, this I gleaned:
** Hec believed that the small cerebral capacities of cockies meant that a quick turnover of language to hothouse his children could only be achieved if he was ruthlesly ambitious. He was well-aware that cockies can only retain ONE word or phase at a time.
** Hec knew that he had to not only repeat the new, ‘replacement’ word or phrase at least 123,897 times for Cocky R to ‘take them on’, he also had to eyeball him in training sessions. And Hec knew that if Cocky R looked away first, he would not retain the new words. Much hard work would be lost.
** And perhaps most crucially, Hec kept away from all words ending or beginning with ‘T’. Hec was well aware that Cocky R’s lack of definition in the neck region lead to an evolutionary inability to contract his ‘vocal’ muscles on hard ‘T’ sounds.
Hec would be proud that I’ve waded into the hothousing debate with practical solutions.
His Cocky Hothouse Training Methodology could solve a lot of contemporary problems.
For starters, NO time-consuming trips to a myriad of sports events and workshops, no costs except very minimal ’startups’ AND…..you get lots of Me- And- Cocky -Time away from the kids.
On the other hand, you’ll squeal with delight as you see their language skills go through the roof as they joyously run outside early to see what Cocky’s got to teach them today!
Currently, there’re lots of hysterial purchases being made of backyard water tanks.
Will you not (for the sake of the children in the longterm) consider getting a cocky and a cage, instead?
Prawn Cutlet Award
September 15th, 2008 at 10:16 am
Dear KJ,
Let me applaud you for this commonsense approach incorporating linguistic theory and pets as therapy. Hec was a visionary and had he had his time again he would’ve no doubt been able to obtain a grant to develop this technique to common application.
I can now clearly see I won’t need the second job to raise the funds to teach my son Classical Greek and Latin. I’ll play tapes to a feathered assistant to do the job and ensure we’ll be the envy at the next mother’s group outing.
September 15th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
What about a slightly undersized German Shepherd and his bean bag? At the age of 3, he has no actual words – certainly not of the wharfie variety anyway – but he is certainly adept at communicating. is particularly good at scrutiny of the type I would love to encourage in this soon to be met child of mine. I think a hothousing session displaying the canine, keen eyed and eared enthusiasm for cataloging the follies of the human race would be educational to any child, and certainly more so than, say, a jazz ballet session with someone call Jaz.
September 15th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Ah yes, as a woman who forgot to get married or have children, I agree with Kerrie Jean’s observations about the little darlings. And that could well explain why I live in Surry Hills where the cafes set out bowls of water for the dogs and growl at the kids.
September 15th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Dear Kerrie Jean,
I love the idea of the cockie! With the shocking pressure to do the French lessons at the crack of dawn … drama classes and the rest, this is just the solution. Why can’t we just employ a flock of cockies instead of teachers and be done with it?
September 16th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
We’ve come up with a novel solution to saving the money on hothousing. We don’t pay for art lessons or pay the fines when our kids get caught tagging the streets. Instead we let them tag and graffiti their own home.
Our garden is a pitiful excuse for that word, lots of drying bark chips and a few dead or dying natives – we thought we’d go environmentally friendly and it’s turned out to be more scorched earth. Anyway we had this awful, chemical sodden fence that it only took us 7 years of trying to grow a creeper on before we realised no plants will suck those chemicals into their roots.
So we said to the proto delinquent kids – do your pieces and throw-ups (lingo for graffiti) on the fence and cover the chemicals with slightly less toxic spray paint chemicals.
So they’re hard at it each weekend and so far it’s improved the look of the garden no end and saved heaps on art lessons.
September 17th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Good morning Kerrie Jean
congrats on your blog, sure to be a hit for those of us relishing a new take, particularly one with such a profound rural influence.
As a long term fan of Hec’s child raising techniques I can certainly endorse this hothousing approach and can proudly report that my own 4 children also attained the linguistic abilities of a wharfie by an early age.
Unfortunately we were not able to engage the services of a cocky but the children’s father nevertheless did his best to impart an impressive range of vocal skills which continue to stand them in good stead to this day.
Love your work!
September 21st, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Left my small country school for 12 mths to oversee a much larger school. Wouldn’t you know it on my return I see a bloody Smartboard installed. Yes, I’m one of the ‘old wrinklies’. Luckily, the recent NAPLAN (National Assessments Literacy and Numeracy) tested old fashioned responses to basic skills questions. Not one finger was seen dragging projected images of punctuation in all its glorious forms! Bet by 2009, this is one teacher who will have to hothouse herself in order to “teach”. (By the way the class did extremely well nationally: state and region compared.) Is Cocky R still alive? I have a job for him!
September 27th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
I personally love teaching those G&T (gifted and talented) kids.
Now KJ, who was the most brilliant of Hec and Gwennie’s 5 girls? Who was the best looker? Who had the best legs? Who was the best swimmer? Must have been hell come time to take the family portrait. I bet that cocky worked overtime in “self belief” (40 years before that mumbo-jumbo was even thought of).