Talking about Family: Listening Practice

The Perfect Nanny

If you want this choice position
Have a cheery disposition
Rosy cheeks, no warts!
Play games, all sorts

You must be kind, you must be witty
Very sweet and fairly pretty
Take us on outings, give us treats
Sing songs bring sweets

Never be cross or cruel
Never give us castor oil or gruel
Love us as a son and daughter
And never smell of barley water

If you won’t scold and dominate us
We will never give you cause to hate us
We won’t hide your spectacles
So you can’t see
Put toads in your bed
Or pepper in your tea
Hurry, Nanny!
Many thanks

Sincerely,
Jane and Michael Banks

Todd: Now there’s a couple that are kind of, that are not as nice. They can be positive or negative like for example a helicopter parent.
Julia: A helicopter parent? What’s that?
Todd: So a helicopter parent is basically a parent that just hovers over their child all the time. They’re always worried about their child. They follow them everywhere. They want to know what they’re doing at all times and they just worry a lot. They’re so worried…
Julia: That sounds very stressful.
Todd: Yeah.
Julia: As a parent.
Todd: They’re always worried their child’s going to get hurt or something, you know, or they just are just over-protective, I guess yeah. So are you a helicopter parent?
Julia: No, I don’t think so, no. No, I’m very happy for my daughter to have independence.
Todd: That’s good. That’s good. So you don’t like, if she goes outside for a few minutes or if she’s, you know, you hear some clanging in the next room, you don’t go rushing over.
Julia: No. I wait for the tears before I go over.
Todd: Smart, smart. There’s, recently because of a very popular book we have, it’s called the Tiger Mom.
Julia: A Tiger Mum?
Todd: Yeah, Tiger Mom.
Julia: Sounds cool. Is it a positive term or is it a negative?
Todd: It is kind of. Actually it comes, the tiger I think comes from the Asian reference. It’s like for an Asian mother and it’s basically really strict, really driven, like really push your kids, make them study hard, demand good grades, demand that they do extracurricular activities, really push them to have high paying careers or successful careers, do well academically and stuff like that.
Julia: From very young, does this…?
Todd: Yeah, from very young. The woman who wrote the book, I think it’s actually called Tiger Mom and she was a Yale professor and I think she was of Chinese ancestry and she raised these very successful daughters and so she wrote a book and basically saying you need to be strict and push your kids and demand excellence. I think that’s what she wrote.
Julia: Is the tiger, is it reference to like the Chinese horoscope, maybe like the characteristics of the tiger for that year?
Todd: No. Actually I just think it has to do with being a tiger comes from Asia, I think that’s it.
Julia: OK, well a tiger does have a pretty kind of aggressive or driven sort of image.
Todd: Right.
Julia: When a tiger gets something in its sights, you know, like where it comes from.
Todd: Totally.
Julia: No, I’m not so much a tiger mum, no.
Todd: So you’re a soccer mom.
Julia: More of a soccer mum I think, yeah.
Todd: That’s good. Yeah, that’s what I would want, a soccer mom.
Julia: A soccer mum, yeah.