Linda's Blog

Risky Business

2012-01-29T22:42:00.001-08:00

Children’s needs are really very simple –as are all humans’. Children need what we all need (thank you, William Glasser!):

security
love and a sense of belonging (attention)
power
freedom
fun

What I’ve noticed is that from a child’s point of view, it doesn’t matter very much what it is, because all of them can be fixed by returning to the top.

It seems almost as if a child’s making deals with the universe, as their behaviour deteriorates: Fine. If I can’t have security, I’ll take a sense of belonging. Which flows down the list almost naturally: Fine, if I can’t have love, I’ll take power… if I can’t have power, I’ll have freedom… if I can’t have freedom, I’ll take fun.

Fun is the end where kids light their houses on fire, or find themselves being featured on Web Soup because their friends are having ‘fun’ too…

Video Games - E3 2012

'… wish I’d overheard the conversation that led up to this …

These kids are seriously missing something, and while ‘brain cells’ is the obvious answer, I’ll offer the ‘not so obvious’ answer instead:

Attention

They need it, and they will get it, even if it means the kind of negative attention idiotic stunts like this garner. They might appear to be suicidal, but to the ~~twit~~ child involved, it’s essential to life that they get what they need, so risking a little life and limb in the process is totally fine.

For a while, this is going to look a lot like ‘blame the parents’ except it’s a more textured point than that. For now, let me say: a child who is acting out on this scale is screaming a desperate need for attention that child is not getting.

Starving children cry in hunger. Exhausted children stumble around and whimper at the least thing. Thirsty children beg for water. No one would say ‘oh, the child is clearly hungry, exhausted and thirsty, give her a Barbie.’

But somehow, when it’s attention, almost anything else will be thrown at the child instead. It’s like attention is the most valuable and scarce commodity on the planet, so there is simply no way of ever meeting a child’s frivolous and insatiable demand for it.

Parents will say ‘I was right there with them, the whole time!’ Yes? Doing what? Quietly watching them without personal distractions, activities or ‘important work’ to complete?

Nattering non-stop at a child is not ‘attention’. Talking about children isn’t attention, either. Neither is shopping them around to any expert you can find in the neighbourhood who might be able to ‘fix’ or ‘prescribe’ or, with any luck at all, ‘take away’ the problem/child. Worrying about the child while lying in bed awake half the night isn’t either. Ordering a child around isn’t. Neither is looking up for 4 seconds while distracted by the paper, tv, computer, game, magazine, cooking, cleaning, phone conversation, only to drift slowly back to whatever it is while vaguely saying ‘uh-hunh…’

We often mistake 'doing things with' or worse, 'doing things alongside' or worst of all 'always doing whatever he wants' as the same as 'attention.' Nothing could be further from reality. It is possible to pay attention to someone else in the room while they are occupied in a solitary endeavour, while you get on with your own stuff. It takes practice, and awareness of what it really is about --but attention is actually a lot less draining than 'agreeing,' 'loyalty,' and 'unceasing participation in identical activities' --the substitutes that often stand in for genuine attention…

What Works is Simple

That's because it is nothing more than standing (or sitting, or lying down) in a space of willingness to see the child, whole, here and now... to listen with patience and attention to what the child needs to say, completely, here and now... to feel the child's emotional expression as it is, in its entirety, here and now. If that means 'yes, I can see that frustrating you enormously, and I was thinking about you while I was watching... I wonder what you want to do about that...' or 'I hear you telling me about all the differences between the 376,541 pokemon cards available and how they fascinate you completely,' then that's what is needed now. If that means sensing the increasing need to be seen and meeting it with placid eye contact, while the child looks from you to what he's doing and back to you and back to what he's doing 10 times in 3 minutes in silence --do you have any experience of having someone who loves you just seeing you, whatever you're doing, and making eye contact whenever you happen to look up?

Just here and now, as it really is right here and right now. In a moment or three, you'll be free to get back to whatever you were doing, with a rejuvenated child feeling filled up again..."

Photo used with permission: Creative Commons Comm/Attrib Raphael Goetter 'Monde'

Thinking about Literacy… and learning

2011-12-16T19:59:00.001-08:00

I’m just reading through a research project about adult literacy (Muth, B., Integrating Social-Humanist and Cognitive Approaches to Adult Literacy, Adult Basic Education and Literacy Journal Spring 20011, Vol.5, Issue1, p26-37, in case you care) in which the author discusses what he calls ‘social humanist’ styles of teaching. What most people would call ‘whole-language’ or ‘real’ learning. He says this:

Boudin's project focused on the experiences of female prisoners and their use of literacy to confront fear. It shifted the focus of instruction from a "collection of skills outside of any meaningful context" to a "meaning-driven, whole-language orientation" to learning (Boudin, 1993, pp. 214 - 215). There are many examples of social-humanist oriented adult literacy programs in the literature (e.g., Auerbach, 1990; Duguid & Hoekema, 1986; Fingeret & Drennon, 1997; Friere, 1972; Lyde, 2001). Stirring as these accounts are, one might wonder how they register with educators who are charged to teach standardized sets of skills and knowledge, such as those required to pass the GED or to advance from developmental education to college credit-bearing courses.

And I think to myself… hmmmm. [Shall we mention the additional ‘to’ in the second sentence? In a periodical dedicated to the study of literacy? Again…. hmmmmm.]

Outside of the GED, in what context (real life, educational, professional, or, I dunno… medical?) is any person going to find themselves, wherein they need to know a specific word and can’t look it up, figure it out, use a different one. Or rather, wherefrom comes the strange notion that Literacy=Complete Vocabulary.

The process of context-based learning may very well give the learners a ‘different’ vocabulary than the one that is curriculum-based. So?

Playing baseball gives people a different vocabulary than playing pool. Does it mean only baseball players learn ‘the right’ English, while pool player are left on the sidelines with a ‘poor education’?

That’s the implication in tests such as the GED, that focus on knowing a very, very specific tiny fraction of the English language, while happily ignoring the other, much greater (and generally more complicated, gleefully contradictory) part of it.

Example (sample GED question):

Sentence 2: My work experience and education combined with your need for an experienced landscape supervisor have resulted in a relationship that would profit both parties.
Which correction should be made to sentence 2?
1. insert a comma after education
2. change combined to combine
3. change have resulted to would result
4. replace profit with prophet
5. replace parties with party's

Now, I happen to be exceedingly literate –to the point that I make up my own words fairly often (humbility is a favourite). So I actually know the answer…and expect most people reading this to know the answer… but suppose in the run of the time the test victim has read English –perhaps many years– they haven’t come across the written homonyms profit and prophet…. or the written plural of party… So?

Does getting this question wrong, because a tiny, tiny amount of written English’s bazillion rules are cherry-picked and determined, by virtue of being on the test, the be ‘most vital’ when compared to the rest, have anything at all to do with genuine language skills of the testee? Does getting it right mean anything at all?

What About Research Skills?

While the Google Machine is near-ubiquitous, we remain stuck in an inane vortex of ‘knowledge’ tests.

Do you know how long it takes on the average, generic search engine to find out whether profit or prophet is the right choice? According to Google… if you can figure it out from the hits on the first page, 0.18 seconds, not including the time it takes to type it or scan the results. Call it half a minute.

Not fast enough to suggest the testee has any aptitude at all?

I read with either a dictionary or a laptop beside me. Whenever I find a word or phrase I don’t understand, I look it up. If I happen to be near the computer, I’ll even look up unfamiliar punctuation usage. Did I mention that I’m extremely literate? Someone attempting to prove their literacy in a standardized test is not allowed to use the resource materials that literate people use every day?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to hand out the page of Shrunk and White, and the relevant page of the Oxford Concise English… and then ask questions that suggest that any literate test victim was either capable of comprehending and applying sufficiently to answer correctly… or not.

Why is there so much testing that has to do with ‘learning this arbitrary piece of information long enough to barf it onto a test’ rather than ‘use this to show you can do this’?

Anyhow… the research paper made me think: are the educators really so lacking in creativity that they can’t think of any way of examining knowledge or ability while incorporating authentic contexts?

Without authentic contexts, how meaningful can the tests pretend to be?

They Don’t Listen to Anything I Say

2011-12-03T21:38:00.001-08:00

Obviously.

Did you?

When you were 14, did you hang on every word your parents said? When what they said was critical? When it was demanding? When it was complaining about whatever you’d done or not done or should want to do?

Sure. I know I did.

At a speaking club meeting (POWERtalk International, you should check it out!) I was introducing my dad, more or less saying that I learned a lot about speaking from him, as I knew him to be a skilled orator. He got up to respond and started with ‘I never knew she was listening…’ and was unable to continue, in the face of the laughter.

The thing is, when a parent says ‘they don’t listen to anything I say,’ I have a pretty good idea what’s going on. The parent isn’t saying ‘can I make your favourite breakfast?’ or ‘what would you like to do this evening?’ or ‘I’m thinking of getting you a car, what kind do you want?’

Primarily, what the parents are saying is perfectly audible to the child. It’s merely that the message is either a re-run, or unwelcome, or created and delivered for the sole purpose of controlling the thoughts, words or actions of the victim…

Change the tune, maybe?

Chores and Underlings: What Works

2011-06-23T22:35:00.000-07:00

Surrender works so well in so many areas of parenting (and life) –it is when we stop struggling with reality that we find ease and peace.

One note for clarification: surrender is not sacrifice. Sacrifice is for martyrs, not people who seek happiness, effectiveness, joy, peace, connection or love. Martyrs may get admiration . . . maybe. But what they will get is resentment, avoidance, criticism (which is ironic, because they seek to avoid it) and derision.

Regarding chores, there are several aspects of surrender necessary to create a peaceful and healthy home:

Surrender to the reality of time constraints

You can do it all, just not all at once. Priorities need to be evaluated so you’re not wasting your life –or trying to waste anyone else’s—on things you don’t genuinely value

Surrender to the necessity of the task

Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water
After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water

There will be no time in your life when feeding and cleaning does not need to be done, however much modern conveniences ease the work. Accept that it must be done, without end.

Surrender to the real equality

All people need feeding and cleaning: of all the base, common and menial drudgery, none can be less exalted than ‘voiding bladder and bowel.’ We all get to do that with part of our days – 5 cent/hour garbage pickers in Brazil and $30,000/minute superstar athletes, and everyone in between. You can value this real aspect of life or revile it, but no one else is far enough beneath you to have to do it for you.

It is deeply disrespectful of humans to hold the opinion that the work is beneath you but not them.

Surrender to the power of mindless repetition –and hard work

All the effort spent (and technology invented) just to avoid the peace and ease of simple, repetitive work…

The dedication modern folk give to avoiding some of the easiest and most instantly-gratifying work available is amazing. A cleaned plate is clean: visibly, obviously and it is ‘finished.’ So much work is never done, has no clear product or is so complex and involves so many people that our part in it is (or feels) both invisible and impersonal. A clean plate is clean. A planted garden is planted. A cooked meal is completed.

Surrender to the fleeting nature of life

Yes, the meal will be eaten and the plate will once again need cleaning, but such is the nature of life. What is it that, once done, need never be redone or will never be undone? A singer walks off the stage and the song has ended. It can be re-sung, of course, but that performance is over. Even a recording of the thing is not the thing –it was live with a live audience and now it is a recording of both. Why is that less distressing than the laundry that needs re-washing?

Find the joys in doing, not in only having done. Life is a process, not a product.

Surrender to the chaos

Unless you seek to live alone forever, chaos will always be your roommate. Other people are ‘other’ –they see things differently, they react because they have a different perspective. The desire to live in peaceful harmony forever precludes living with other humans at any age.

Even if you did not understand the deal you were signing up for, the decision to have children comes with the built-in guarantee of a life filled with chaos. Will you fight it like it’s an unwanted intruder, or accept it as the inevitability it is, like static or dust?

Surrender, finally, to your own personal preferences

Do what you will, as you will.

It is only within this freedom and self-respect that you can find worth in your work –and free others to see the worth in the work you do, and perhaps even find value in doing it themselves.

The secret of children happily cooperating in their own homes is an atmosphere of joy, worthiness and respect which cannot be found in an atmosphere of dictatorial superiority.

A parent who finds himself sneering at the idea of washing a floor cannot be surprised by a child’s distaste for the task. Equally, a man happily engaged in nurturing his family through meal preparations may well find cooperative bodies eager to share the room and help.

Joy, enthusiasm and a sense of an important job well done are all attractive, and contagious. When you feel resistance from your kids, check to see how you really feel about the work. . . and if you believe it is necessary to do at all.

The Debate: Kids and Chores–Part 3

2011-06-22T22:11:00.000-07:00

A whole family

Be it resolved that the truth of kids doing chores is: ‘we all need to work as a family.’

How do you know that’s true?
--it’s self-evident: it’s our home and we need to work together for it to be peaceful and healthy

A bit of a circle of logic, there, but how ‘healthy’ is it to put kids in a position of opposition to the people they need to live? How peaceful is it to order people around? How peaceful do you find resistance and rebellion?
--we’re all equal in our home

Y’are not. Who selects which chores are really on the list? Who has veto?
--well, someone has to lead!

Doubtless. Does it always get to be the same person?

‘Leadership’ engages voluntary cooperation. Dictatorship engages ‘doesn’t matter how you feel about it’ obedience (and resistance and rebellion.) What do you do when they choose not to participate?

Perhaps more importantly, what are they allowed to do when you choose not to participate?

The Debate: Kids and Chores–Part 2

2011-06-21T22:05:00.000-07:00

I need a break…

Be it resolved that the truth of kids doing chores is ‘mom/dad needs a break.’

How do you know that’s true?
--I/we work hard

Good. Hard work is good for people, especially their mental health.

What’s mom/dad ‘needing a break’ got to do with kids?
--they can help, so they should

Sorry, that’s a syllogism: you can, too, so you should do it.
--there aren’t enough hours in the day, they have to pitch in

There are 24 hours in every day which you can spend any way you choose. Your time should be spent on your priorities: if it’s important to you, do it. If it is less important to you… why should anyone else do it?
--my skills and talents are far superior to the work, someone whose time is less valuable should do menial work

Therefore, let’s not be coy: a child’s time is less valuable to you than yours is, so they can do the less valuable tasks to free you up to do the more meaningful and valuable and rewarding tasks with your much more worthwhile life, yes?

Could you demonstrate how your time is more valuable to your children than their time is to them? Or perhaps argue simply that your life is more valuable than theirs, and with it you are entitled to leisure time that they are not?
--well, I pay them for chores, so I clearly value them

Do you pay them what their time is worth to them or what your time is worth to you? Or a couple of bucks? Or a quarter?

The Debate: Kids and Chores --Part 1

2011-06-20T21:55:00.000-07:00

They need to learn it…

Be it resolved that the truth of kids doing chores is ‘they need to learn how.’

How do you know that’s true?
-- because all adults need to know

Okay, without referring to all the adults who hire out that work to pros, let’s pretend that’s true: how long would it take an adult to learn to sweep a floor or wash a toilet? Ten minutes? Fifteen if they had to add a lecture on cleaning supplies and tools?

How long do you think the training is for a professional maid to be completely qualified? A week? Three days? Half a day? How is this an argument for eight-year-olds doing the same task even once a month?

Chores & Underlings: Attitude

2011-06-19T21:00:00.001-07:00

Question 1.	How can I improve my kids’ attitudes toward helping out at home?
Answer 1.	Check your attitude. The odds are excellent that your kids are mirroring, venting or just showing you yours.
Question 1.a.	My attitude is excellent: I know it needs to be done, I know it’s ‘work now, play later.’ I know it’s important to get things done.
Answer 1.a.	I’m not hearing ‘I enjoy and value this work while I’m doing it –I plan it and look forward to it.’
Question 1.b.	What kind of nutcase feels that way about cleaning toilets?
Answer 1.b.	You’d be amazed –but it’s the attitude you want someone to tell you how to install in your kids. If you can’t find it within reality, how on earth can they?

Chores & Underlings: Drudgery

2011-06-19T21:00:00.000-07:00

Question 1.	I really need kids to pitch in (write in reason of choice: single parent, busy schedule, ailing parents, demanding job, kids waste time, they have to, it’s their turn…)
Answer 1.	Uh-hunh. How much of what you do in a day is optional? TV, computer time, re-organizing organized things, cleaning clean things, pampering, socializing…
Question 1.a.	I deserve a break.
Answer 1.a.	From what?
Question 1.b.	From all the drudgery and hard, menial work I do for them –laundry, cleaning, tidying, picking up after them, shopping, cooking…
Answer 1.b.	So, because you’re you and the work you do is beneath you, you’re entitled to free labour from ‘not really people’ because that’s what you had kids for: slaves?
Question 1.c.	No, no, no! Not at all!! They need to learn to do it and I need a break.
Answer 1.c.	Popular answers, but failing to address the issue: the work is beneath you, not them?

Chores & Underlings: Obedience

2011-06-16T11:28:00.000-07:00

Question 1.	How can I make my child listen?
Answer 1.	You mean 'obey.'
Question 1.a.	No, no, no, not at all.
Answer 1.a.	Oh, yes, you do. You just shy from the word 'obey.' You still mean 'how can I make my kid do what I want my kid to do?
Question 1.b.	Well, okay... maybe. But how?
Answer 1.b.	Go back to the beginning and order a child with the Voice Command Software pre-installed. Sorry, it is not available aftermarket. There is no app for that.
Question 2.	Why do my kids do what the teacher (scout leader, neighbours, etc.) tell them to do and it never works for me?
Answer 2.	Because your kid trusts you. You can destroy that, if obedience is more important...
Question 2.a.	No, no, I don't want obedience, I just want them to _______________[fill in blank]
Answer 2.a.	Yes: you want them to obey orders.

Wiped

2011-03-11T20:10:00.000-08:00

I have no personal experience with the cost of wipes --I never bought any. They were around, but like the cloth diapers I washed instead of buying new ones all the time, I used cloth --those little baby face cloths, specifically. Water and a cloth: as high tech as possible, obviously. That's me.

There are a number of reasons I can think of to avoid buying disposable wipes, but the one that leaps to mind in this era of the Environmentalist, is Reduce~Reuse~Recycle. Buying a dozen cloths once is quite different from buying cases and cases of disposable wipes, all neatly packaged in disposable containers. Apart from the garbage they create, there is the inability to re-use them, and the fact that they are neither biodegradable nor recyclable.

The cost difference from name-brand wipes to cloth wipes is incredible. In hours-of-work necessary, after taxes the cost a month's supply can be a whole day's work --or more. Somewhere around $40-50 a case in bulk (and a lot more one package at a time) after taxes at minimum wage, is about 10 hours. If mom and dad both work, and pay for daycare, the number of hours necessary to work just to buy wipes rises dramatically.

But here's a fantastically inexpensive disposable alternative: my sister emailed me the instructions...

Boil four cups of water and let it cool (perfect for a busy Mom cause I forget about it anyways)

Mix in 1 tablespoon body wash (I use the kids' Melaleuca) and three or four drops of tea tree oil (you can add lavender as well if you like but I don’t have any of that at home today)

Take the cardboard out of one roll of paper towels and put them in a plastic container with a lid that will fit them.

Pour some of the water over the paper towels

Flip them over

Pour some more water over

Flip them over again and pour the rest on

Available to use

....I am breaking a sweat now....

I replied: You. Are. A. Super. Hero. I'm wiped.

_____________________

Photo (Butt Wipes, by basykes) used with permission (Creative Commons, attrib)

My Child

2011-03-09T12:49:00.000-08:00

Had a little rant, talking to a friend yesterday. What is it about the embarrassingly-poorly-written Secret Life of an American Teenager that brings this out in me?

The storyline involves a 'bad girl' who gets pregnant who, in the ever-so-delicate language the US networks use to avoid alienating a single sponsor (or inflaming a single protester), 'isn't going to keep it.' Her father, a bit of a rowdy himself, suddenly turns all conservative and is determined not to 'let her.' Because she is, as he says, 'my child.'

Dad's argument is solely, 'you are MY child...' with additional invective and raised voice.

Oooh, that makes me cringe. Not the least because the whole time this cryptic conversation is ongoing, they could have been talking about a broken toy or an old chair.

It reminds me a little of an ancient Sesame Street piece, where a little animated girl walks around her house picking things up saying 'this is my...'

While our children are certainly our responsibility, they are absolutely not our possessions.

There is some confusion there, the difference between our responsibilities and our possessions. Partly, probably, because historically --legally-- our children were, once, our possessions, chattel, just like wives. We were at liberty to sell them, and even to kill them. Those days, at least in the Western world, are gone.

My friend pointed out the distressing knowledge that while we can't control our kids, until they are of legal age, we are financially responsible for whatever they do. Strangely, this has not been the case in Canada until last month, when a precedent-setting case made its way through BC Supreme Court. I am not alone in being flabbergasted by the fact that this has not always been the case. But, that also does not confer ownership --a great reason to learn somewhere between zero and 14 years of age to influence them in an effective and positive manner... but not to exert control.

But back to the cringe-worthy part of that tv show: our children are individual human beings, quite separate from ourselves --they are not 'ours' the way our houseplants, pets or feet are. They are their own selves.... that is, they belong to themselves, not us. In fact, just to clarify, no one belongs to anyone except himself. Or herself. We don't even have proper language to convey this self-ownership. And, sadly, we don't have another pronoun that indicates 'my association to' distinct from 'my ownership of'... which also muddles the issue.

Children come as their own people, and remain their own people. I suspect it might be helpful in living a respect-filled family life to remember that we are not controlling or owning them, but stewarding their individual, whole human selves, unto their adulthood.

We do not possess, we chaperone.

__________________

Photo by Missy & the Universe (Zanzibar, Memory of Slaves) used with permission (Creative Commons, attrib.)

Hover Parent

2011-02-19T15:04:00.000-08:00

Helicopter Parenting Vs. Free Range Parenting is a false dichotomy...

I have thought about this, quite a lot over the years --not the least because I have fielded criticisms from both ends of the spectrum: that I am overprotective and neglectful. It's really, really funny when they're both from the same person...

The phrase I've always used is benign neglect... but I think I need to work on that a bit. I have felt it wasn't quite right for a long time, but haven't really sorted it out in my own head yet.

I believe very strongly that a great many of the problems we see with kids, young adults and society is a massive lack of appropriate supervision. Not someone guiding the kids' activities or telling them what to do or how to do it (of which there is an overabundance, and all of it lacks respect), but someone actually watching them --their development, their discoveries, their forays into the social landscape.

99% of what goes wrong in any child-on-child interaction could be prevented by anyone with half a brain watching it escalating, long before it gets out of control. What we usually have is someone studiously ignoring them until they're too annoying, or too violent, to un-ignorable and then meting out punishment which appears to be mainly about having interrupted the grownups.

What I'm suggesting is not the same as helicoptering over what's going on all the time, leading kids to this activity or that, or interfering with their play and discovery, telling them what they're learning or quizzing them endlessly... and it is certainly not stopping them from overreaching themselves, trying hard things, becoming frustrated or otherwise engaging in the wide and messy world.

It is over-managing so their fragile little selves won't have a bump or a bruise ever that I've always been extremely sarcastic about. I don't need my kids not to have a sad. I don't need my kids to feel they're entertained 100% of their day, and whether they are or not is frankly none of my business. In fact, I think the worst of helicopter parenting is that 'your feelings are my fault' aspect that is, in my view, intrusive into a child's private life in some cases to the point of abuse.

My kids were not out 'on their own' when they were 8, 10, 12 or 14... I was with them. Not necessarily doing what they were doing --but there. And almost always the only adult there. I was writing a book, or reading, or writing stories or chatting with whoever was there including other people's children just like they're people, but I was there.

We had a lot of parents hovering around the gym/dance studio/sports field until the kids were 8 or 10, then I was alone -- unless there were younger kids in the program.

My kids didn't have a curfew, ever. They were expected to be home (or picked up) when they were done what they were doing. They were expected to have a reason to be out, including a destination and an activity. 'Hanging out' and 'being home later' was not on the menu. They were dropped off and picked up, very often with their friends in the car...

It's tempting to say, now that they're 19 and 21, that they're 'this way' because of how I handled them... but I suspect they came as themselves and are still themselves. If anything, I'll take credit for their total lack of nervous habits, but otherwise it's all them. However: here we are... they're adults and I do not worry about them. I trust them, know them very well, and believe they can handle absolutely anything that comes their way.

I believe this is because I stood back and watched things develop, instead of driving their lives (or padding the world with bubble wrap) --there to help if they needed it, there to stop things that were getting out of hand, and there to watch them handle things well, very often.

_______________________________

Photo Used with Permission (Creative Commons, Attribution) Seven News Helicopter over Perth's Swan River by Michael _Spencer

Family Attachments --Why Dr. Phil is Wrong

2011-02-14T11:52:00.000-08:00

Children need to break away, emotionally, from their parents in order to mature.

That is Dr. Phil's belief about the world. And I'll tell you why he's wrong.

Human Cooperation = Survival

In our cooperative culture, the one where every person alive relies on the strengths, talents, gifts and cooperation of everyone else... where people who don't cooperate for the common good are considered to be the most heinous of criminals, the most irredeemable of the sinners, the most selfish and narcissistic of the insane...

Yes, we do have a cooperative culture. We need other people, not just to thrive, but to survive. We need others working on our behalf far away from us, and emotionally we need people working on our behalf right in front of us. We need to know that others value our contribution, we need to make a contribution and we need to value others' contributions. Our basic expectation of life is so cooperative, we can actually ignore the vast majority of our experience in any given day and say 'it's a competitive world' based on the few, rare and still largely cooperative aspects of life that we compete in.

For just a simple illustration: Millions of people on millions of miles of road every day totally take it for granted that all the cars travelling in the other direction will stay in their lane... unless they're drunk, drugged, unconscious or crazy.

The Insanity of Breaking-Away

Where is the benefit, to individuals or humanity, to intentionally break a loving connection with anyone? How is it better to destroy a connected, loving relationship with anyone, if maintaining mutual respect and cooperation is a choice?

How is that good for anyone?

How is it good for parents, to connect with their children and hold their success as a success of their own, to support them, to give to them and to cherish them, and then stop? Why stop?

Who benefits when family relationships are destroyed?

That is a John Taylor Gatto theme: the intentional destruction of family relationships is to create a society where individuals identify with the state (or the platoon) --to accept propaganda as truth, to take orders without thinking about them, to sacrifice the self for the good of this flag's team, to help control the behaviour of others who also need to rely on the attention and love of this group for their acceptance in society.

It is also a Gordon Neufeld theme: the intentional destruction of family relationships in order to control groups of school children --to get the kids themselves to mold the behaviour of their classmates to avoid group punishment, and to adhere to each other in a deep neediness so they become attached to external things (grades, approval of emotionally-distant professionals, class rankings, school colours, pep rallies) and more readily-controlled through fear of losing that approval or connection.

An illustration of the effect on children: a small human was visiting our home, and struggling to get her own way in some minor conflict over what to do or how to do it. For her, the next act was Defcon 2: she said, "I'm not your friend anymore." For my children, for whom friendship was a lovely, unnecessary, extra in their family-attached lives, it was a cause for empathy. One of them leaned over and very gently said, 'do you need to call your mom and go home now?' My kids had never experienced the withdrawal of affection as a control tool, and felt no risk in having this one child dislike them. How different would grade 9 be for most children, if they had that kind of stability?

Children grow into adult afraid of rejection when they have already experienced the destruction of attachments. Adults afraid of rejection make better soldiers for governments, better factory workers for corporations, more obedient citizens and more desperate consumers... it's good for the government and the economy to have only a very small proportion of the populace capable of asking astute questions, thinking about the implications (or the foundations) of the propaganda, or resisting the Buy More, Buy Now imprecations of the corporate machine.

Whenever it sounds like it might be good for society, or people, to be incapable of thinking critically about the actions and propaganda of the government... or the environmental organization... or the military junta... or the commercials during the Oscars ... ask 'who benefits?'

Dr. Phil is wrong: to be a mature, stable adult in the real world today, the very last thing that is necessary is intentionally destroying mutually-respectful, human attachments.

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Photo used with permission (Creative Commons, attribution) Spirit of Cooperation by NovriWahyuPerdana

Creative vs. Simplistic Parenting

2011-02-11T12:11:00.000-08:00

Here's the question of the day, thanks to a reader of my last post:

Why is it that parents keep looking for the simple answer? Is there no room in their lives for a bit of creativity when dealing with a child?

What a great question!

And, it coincides with the posting, by a friend on Facebook, of a story of real parenting creativity:

Scott Noelle, author of The Daily Groove --a parenting newsletter available by email-- wrote a piece about sending notes to your future self (love notes, encouragement, etc.) and tucking them here and there where you'd stumble on them later. A reader commented, including a long story about his experience after finding one, while his 3 year old was having a wobbler, that said 'have fun.'

This commentator brought creativity of the moment to a situation that many parents would have simply responded to with 'order the child around, if they fail to obey, pick them up and make them do what you want them to do...' A solution that feels simple, obvious and efficient... Does anyone have a tale about what happens when you 'just pick the child up'? or 'just order the child around'?

The problem, of course, with simple, obvious and efficient answers to complex problems (like 'how can I help this overwrought 3yo thrive while I want to accomplish anything else today?)' is that if the problems were simple, obvious and efficient there wouldn't be a problem.

Even 3 year olds are not simple, obvious or efficient. They're people, and like the rest of the people they bring complexity to the world. Of course, we want pat answers --our lives would be smoother, less challenging, less draining and who doesn't want that when we deal with everything else, all day every day?

I understand the allure of the simple answer. I love the simple answers. I want the simple answer to work --who wouldn't? What's not to love?

Well, quite simply, as Barbara Sher puts it:

If we really wanted bliss in our lives we'd get a 6-pack and a full cable package.

We don't want bliss --ease, simplicity... we might think we do, especially when we're stressed out, but we don't. We thrive on challenges, we strive for mastery, understanding, effectiveness. It's nice if it happens to coincide with efficient, simple and obvious --but we are not energized by those experiences.

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Photo used with permission (Creative Commons, attribution license) Father Swinging Son

PinkStock Photos! by D Sharon Pruitt

2.1 Choices --Thinking About Parenting Styles

2011-02-08T18:56:00.000-08:00

It is with glee that I notice, once again, that I'm way over the edge over here on the coast... I wouldn't do (or recommend) doing any of the three choices given by beagreatparent.ca, as quoted in an article from St. Catharine's The Standard... click on that link if you want to read the full article, but this is the segment I'm commenting on today:

Your toddler and her friend are fighting over a doll.

When the friend pulls it away from her, your daughter punches the girl and grabs it back.

Do you:

Take the doll away and explain to the girls that they can have it back when they can share and play nicely together?

Do nothing. After all, it is your daughter's doll. Her friend can find something else to play with; kids need to sort out their own problems.

Take the doll away and tell your daughter that you're selling it in a garage sale. She can start saving her allowance if she wants it back.*

The first is 'strict' parenting, the second is 'permissive' and the third is labeled (mis-labeled, in my opinion) 'balanced.' What the third option really is, though, is just as controlling and authoritarian as the first. Different, but the same end of the spectrum. 2.1 options, not three.

When a child is struggling for ownership over her object --with anyone-- it just can't be a parent's job to take possession of the object. Unless what the parent really means is 'none of your stuff is actually yours.' It doesn't matter if the object is removed forever or if it can be purchased back from the thief:

It is either the child's possession or it is not.

Think about this in the context of the society we actually live in: you and your neighbour have a dispute over half of a driveway that is owned by one party. Does the court step in, take it away and rent out the space to just anyone until the actual owner buys it back, with a threat to sell it if they don't pony up fast enough?

Why are we teaching children that anyone who considers themselves an authority gets to 'own' their objects until they're satisfied that atonement has been made sufficient to the infraction?

Three things:

Children do not learn to share in an environment where they own or control nothing. All the energy they might have to share something with genuine generosity is spent in fighting for, confirming and protecting their ownership.
We do not live in a 'sharing' culture --it's a fun idea, but no one is allowed to come to your house and use whatever they want for however they want whenever they are there. Here is an example: I'm sending a friend over later to get your car... you can have it back when she's done with it, in whatever condition she happens to leave it. This is, of course, fine because you were taught to share, right? Is it different because it's a 5 year old, or is it only because their stuff is not valuable to anyone but them?
There is a sliding scale of extremely strict to a more balanced style of authoritarian parenting. The key is whether or not someone other than the child is seeking to control what the child does, what the child thinks or what is important to the child... the question to ask is 'what if the child still doesn't do what the parent wants?' The answer to that clears up any doubt that this is about command and control, carrot and stick parenting, whether it uses the rapport-building manipulative communication styles or straight-up ordering kids around.

There is no real 'third option' in this article... just one point on the permissive end and two points on the strict/authoritarian end and one at the other end.

Which is unfortunate, because there is a third option.

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*Toddler, seriously? We're going to make a toddler 'save their allowance and buy it back'? A toddler?!

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Photo used with permission (Creative Commons license, attributed) Sharing by PlatinumBlondeLIfe

Why Not 'Let' A Child 'Try' School ... if the child wants to?

2011-01-21T17:25:00.000-08:00

Because, in my opinion, school is not benign. School are actively damaging, particularly (but not solely) to self-esteem and natural confidence in the intrinsic rewards of learning.

If I could accompany my kids to school the whole time they were 'trying' it, I think it might be possible at all to have them experience that in a way that was neutral or even educational. But left alone in that overwhelmingly persistent and pervasively indoctrinated system... particularly at a time when they're going through major brain development and having a hard time even driving their usual lives with balance and ease.

Going into that system alone might make it so that some of what happens there is handled beautifully --a direct conflict, say. But then there is All Of The Rest. Most of which is never handled, never addressed and is very rapidly seen as 'normal.' Or perhaps 'inevitable.'

The seat-to-seat nastiness that the teacher sees but doesn't address (because, really, who has time, and they're sitting quietly). Or all of what the teacher doesn't see. There is the teacher-down bullying that is directed at the kids the teacher doesn't like (which is no biggie for the kids who are likeable...unless they're sensitive to the struggles of others) There is the casual and ongoing violence in the halls and grounds. The tremendous energy of resistance to the system itself that is sometimes just 'forgetting' and inertia, but is often outright rebellion --where does that observation go? The basic lack of civility which (it has been my observation) homeschoolers are used to and expect --how to handle that, how to see it without it affecting the collective of 'this is how I behave in the world' a child's already gained. What to do about the errors in the textbook the teacher is marking based on the incorrect answer key? How to approach the subject that's being taught by the teacher who doesn't understand it or visibly dislikes it?

What about the clowning, distractions and utter disrespect for the teacher --notably more pronounced when teachers are insecure or incompetent? Do we sit quietly while the struggling teacher is being tormented? Do we laugh? Do we try to moderate it? Model more respectful approaches?

Do you stand up to the teacher about the bullying seen but not addressed? Every single instance of it or is there some scale of 'that's not bad enough to comment on'? What about the sexual assault? What about the child who is utterly ignored? What about the one getting a disproportion of the school's or teacher's attention? What do we do about the kids who are left to flail about, or sit dully until their aid comes back tomorrow? Nothing? Anything?

What about the lack of respect for the humanity, body wisdom and personal pace of everyone except the strongest willed and most confident?

It was not lost on me in the system that affected me deeply, and for years, that I alone was allowed to wander the halls during class time, get up and leave a lecture while the teacher was speaking (without a murmur of reproach) or completely fail to hand in any portion of an assignment without it negatively affecting my grade. Somehow, I managed to import a sense that 'Linda's doing something else that's important' into teacher's heads --or I was far more trouble to deal with than I was worth-- or both, so I was respected (or at least not stomped on) when I felt the need to move around, or believed I knew enough about this subject already, or whatever provoked me to routinely leave the classroom and, say, go have a smoke. I was marked present for classes I spent at the orthodontist.

All of this, without even talking about the quality or composition of the curriuculm, its relevance in today's world, the subjectiveness of grading, the pervasive and contrived competition, the propaganda, the age-segregation and sexism inherent in the system.

Why not let a child try school, if the child wants to? Because school is not benign environment, and few adults understand the ramifications of even a short indoctrination into that system.

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photo Classroom Panorama by grampymoose, used with permission (Creative Commons, attrib/share alike)

Homeschooling as a form of child abuse

2011-01-20T17:37:00.000-08:00

A provocative post by this same title, by a woman who describes the purpose of her blog:

"Are you doing this on purpose?" a friend writes to me. "Are you trying to provoke people's anger with your posts?"

The answer is that, of course, I am. See, I have this theory that getting people to think is akin to pushing a car down a hill. You need a significant initial effort to get people's brains to start moving.

Oh my. Respectful? I don't think so... do you?

My Sister Reminded Me

2011-01-19T12:42:00.000-08:00

What with her sweet new baby (right), and all, we've been talking a lot about attachment... and by natural extension, attachment disorders, and how easily you can find examples in the wild.

She asks, rhetorically, 'why is it that the parents who spent the kid's whole childhood pushing the child away, arranging daycare and babysitters and ordering the child outdoors, or at least into distant rooms, are also the parents who complain endlessly that their adult children don't have time for them and never call or write?'

Cue the smirk.

Obviously.

Is that not the apparent goal of every parent who celebrates the first day of school, and the first day back to school after any break or long weekend, or laments the cost of boarding school, or threatens that social services or the police will come and take the kids away and give mum a 'break,' to keep the children as far away from their parents as possible, for as long as possible?

Does it strike anyone but me that it's a tragedy that so many 'normal' parents, doing what all the rest of the 'normal' parents seem to be doing (and what all the 'normal' parenting experts are extolling the virtue of and demanding all parents adhere to, lest they fall prey to permissiveness, arrested development or, horror of all horrors, 'losing themselves'), are working diligently toward goals they do not wish to achieve? And daily, moment by moment, walking further from the goals they do wish to achieve.

Even way back in the dark ages (1974), when Sandy Chapin wrote the poem, which became the lyrics to Harry Chapin's Cats Cradle, at least one person recognized the path taken when the son's need for his father is dismissed for decades only to be supplanted by the father's need for the son.

Richard Carlson, author of Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, had a brilliant insight as a father, regarding the insidious idea of 'me-time': why would I actively avoid spending time with the people I love most in the world?

How is spending time with the people we love anything but me-time? And, because I'm in a noticing kind of frame of mind, I just noticed that this whole 'me-time' necessity has been created entirely by the current generation of parents and parenting experts who are bleating on about how this generation of youngsters have the most outrageous sense of entitlement ever... hmmm...

Spend a week pushing a child away because you have more important things to do, and you'll have some work to catch up on when you're free --to re-connect and reassure and just be together to establish a relationship with this child who has now had 168 hours of development without your presence. Spend a month 'too busy' and you find yourself facing a changed child who is no longer someone you can predict accurately, and whose cues and communication have changed from the last time you met. Spend a year away from a child and you will encounter a different person. Spend a child's lifetime away and you will be facing a stranger, who you might remember used to like a particular colour or didn't used to want to eat a specific food, but who you don't know at all.

From the child's point of view, the week is a serious problem, the month is traumatic, a year is everything he can remember and his whole childhood: even if he feels a bit guilty about his natural resistance to approaching his parents, his natural resistance is based entirely in a lifetime of rejection.

Barbara Coloroso so neatly explains: spend time with your children while they're still young and want to.

In my experience, doing so results in adult children who still want to.

Oh, Man... there's more: Chinese Vs. Western, part 3

2011-01-17T15:15:00.000-08:00

Oh deary me. In an effort to explain, she says, that the book is her own coming of age story --a memoir of how she learned to become a better parent and to let her daughter give up the violin-- and how people don't seem to be getting the joke, she's interviewed on Friday, January 14, 2010.

During an interview with CBC, Amy Chua digs her hole just a little bit deeper:

... even a generation or two ago here, there was a lot more of a sense of like you owe your parents a sense of decency, a sense of respect, a sense of gratitude and I really don't like a lot of what I see today, which is a lot of these kids that are very pampered and very entitled and want more more more, buy me more equipment, buy me more iPhones, buy me more this ...

I find it mildly ironic that I was just looking over Alfie Kohn's review of permissive parenting research (there is none) and increasingly narcissistic children from generation to generation (there is none of that, either) or any evidence that helicopter parenting is damaging (nor any of that), and here is Amy having a bit of a rant about what is 'wrong' with all these children raised the 'wrong' way.

Excuse me while I quote someone else on the subject for a moment:

I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly disrespectful and impatient of restraint.*

It is, as Kohn points out, an item of faith that children are more narcissistic than ever before, that helicopter parenting is problematic and that permissive parenting is fruitless and creates unsuccessful children. Except the research simply does not exist. In fact, the research that does exist:

... published in Pediatrics, discovered that there is indeed a parental practice associated with children who later become demanding and easily frustrated. But it’s not groovy, indulgent parenting. It’s spanking.

But I want to give Amy a shovel, so she can really dig in. The hypocrisy between what she states as her values and her own attitude: oh my! From fairly late in the interview, as she really gets to chatting (referring to the child's making of a birthday card):

I think that you can do better and I think that you owe me a little bit more, and I think that people balk at that, too: 'oh my god, she wants more'

Sorry, could I just highlight that? Maybe bold and italics: I think you owe ME a little bit more. This, in the midst of a thought-free rant about the sense of entitlement in children. I wonder 'are you looking in a mirror, here?'

From earlier in the interview, regarding the same anecdote:

Nope, this is not good enough. You know, when it's your birthday, I spend my whole salary hiring a magician and baking you a cake and having big parties and buying all these party favours and getting waterslides and I deserve better than this...

Okay. First, this is a four-year-old she is talking to. The 4yo is the reason she spends buckets of money on lavish parties? Who is running this household? Seriously.

And, to be pedantic about her point, let me once more pick out the phrase that I believe --were it said by someone, 4, 14 or even 24, would be gilded and plastered onto a Youth Entitlement Wall of Shame somewhere: I deserve better than this.

Do I have to say anything at all here?

_____________
*from Hesiod, 8th century BC

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photo used with permission Creative Commons attrib/non-deriv; PinkSugarPhotography

Further to Chinese Vs. Western Mothering...

2011-01-16T19:23:00.000-08:00

An astute friend on an email list reminded me:

Ever tried reframing a parenting decision by imagining whether it would be okay to do to your spouse or another adult? Imagine an alternate version of Chua's book giving relationship advice: "[insert group/racial descriptor] Marriages are Superior", containing descriptions of the dominant spouse treating their powerless spouse in the way that Chua treats her children.... and imagine
that throughout they are touting themselves as the ideal that other's should strive to achieve. I doubt very much that any publisher would dare publish a book like that.

I do like to think of parenting decisions in that way, which is more or less just the Golden Rule. Would you like to be treated that way?

Would you keep a job after your boss called you 'garbage' or refused to allow you to use the washroom or eat until you'd performed a task the way s/he wanted you to?

Isn't this more or less why people are not allowed to own people?

Again, I am reminded of Alfie Kohn, and his ever-so-insightful ideas, from Unconditional Parenting: why should an adult's preference win? Sheerly on the basis that it is an adult's preference?

This is where I stopped short, when my children were really, really little: if it's only my idea of what's the right thing for them to do right now, not some real need or real emergency, why is it supposed to matter to my kids --to the tune of four hours or even just three minutes of torment and power struggle?

To me, it's obvious that dinner time is arbitrary. Sure, whole swaths of the population will agree that dinner time is 5pm or 6pm or 7:30pm or 8pm. What's that got to do with anyone's hunger? What's it got to do with any child? As I have said ever since Ford came up with it as a slogan: a million people can absolutely be wrong, why not? What possible force in the world can stop a million independent people from making the same erroneous choice, even if it's buying a Ford, driving drunk, or arguing in favour of head shots in hockey.

So what if, ostensibly, a billion Chinese agree that the 'right' way to raise children is to decide for them what is their art, which school subjects matter the most, and what they are allowed to do, what is valuable for them to do, with their free time --if they are even deemed to own any. Even if a billion Chinese people do agree (and I would expect that at least four probably don't) with Amy Chua, that doesn't make her (or them) right. It just means they agree. Perhaps they've been swayed by similar arguments. Perhaps they have been told, one way or another, for their whole lives that they must. Perhaps they haven't really thought about it and have never felt any pressing reason to think about it.

Or perhaps it doesn't matter, really, to any child growing up anywhere, who agrees with Amy Chua...

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photo 'We're Just Little Children' by Matsuo Amon, used with permission: Creative Commons, attribute/non-deriv

Chinese Versus Western... Really?

2011-01-12T22:25:00.000-08:00

Since it's the current storm across the internet is Why Chinese Mothers are Superior, including thousands of comments right on the Wall St. Journal site itself, I thought I'd join in.

When I first finished reading the entire article, my first thought was:

I wonder what is the difference in suicide rates between children raised this way and the Western way?

Better journalists than I have already found this, from CNN: Push to achieve tied to suicide in Asian-American women. The tremendously sarcastic part of me says 'well, at least they got As instead of A-minuses...' But, more seriously, this is not a hearty endorsement of Ms. Chua's assertion that "Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids." I don't think disproportionately high suicide rates equal 'success.'

I do bristle at this:

What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences.

Wow... is that ever not my experience. I've watched babies who can't stand for more than a second or two giggling in joy at the fun of falling over, wobbling, trying again and again and again. I've watched 8 year-olds slog through pages and pages of words they couldn't read, trying to break the code, so they could play the computer game that requires their reading skills to be far beyond their 'grade level.' I've watched 12 year-olds play the same battle on some video game, over and over and over again, talking together and trying different strategies until they win. I've watched a 14 year-old sew and pick out the same seam ten, twelve, fifteen times in order to create the look she wanted, convinced it was possible and that she could do it.

Ms. Chua has clearly not spent any time reading the biographies of the preternaturally talented: Wayne Gretzky on the ice until after dark day after day; David Beckham's endless corner kick practice; Stephen King's 1000s of words of writing every day since he was a teenager... examples abound throughout every single field of human endeavour. That is, specifically, intentional ongoing boring and reward-free practice and entirely voluntary work on a chosen activity.

And, while we're there: how 'fun' is anything once it's mastered? Does anyone giggle the whole time they're walking, for the sheer joy of it, more than 3 months after they've really figured it out?

The fun in life is in becoming good at things, in the discovery that we can do more than we thought, certainly not in simply performing things we already know we're great at. Sure, it's fun from time to time to impress others, but that's a thin joy. It's extending ourselves to ever-new heights, overcoming new challenges, surpassing our last achievements, or trying completely new things-- even failing totally at them.

There is so much more...

What is so magical about piano and violin? Why not guitar and sax? Why not drums and harp?
Why musical performance and not acting or sports? No... really --what is better about classical music compared to classical theatre? How is music better than physical activity? Why not one instrument and one sport? Is it only because there is no way to get an A as a hockey player?
Have we determined that 'success' in life doesn't include being happy?
Did the research about 'good grades don't make life success' disappear?

I found the description of the protracted piano practice disturbing, but the justification using the child's behaviour later than night is a real problem for me. The story reminded me a little of the creepy stories of children who have been terrified by something, whose parents think they're 'fine' because the child is sitting still, not crying or making a fuss. Those children are experiencing the natural response to tremendous stress: fear paralysis. Children aren't strong enough to fight and running away triggers a curious predator to pounce, so their best chance of survival is to hide, stay still and silent and hope to be mistaken for a tree. Their silence is not an indication that they're 'fine', it is an indication that they've been traumatized.

When a child who has been unable to connect with her mother's approval and affection for hours and hours and hours, because of some inability to meet some demand or expectation, is finally able to please her, the relief she feels will take over her whole body. She'll giggle, snuggle, and cling to mother in the hopes of never, ever again experiencing the deep sense of discord between needing her mother's affection and love, and what she has to perform to get it. Repeat this too often, and the attachment will cease to be elastic enough to withstand the tension. The child will disconnect... from something. Mom. Life. Herself.

Who cares? As long as she gets an A.

Thinking SAHM

2010-09-19T14:34:00.000-07:00

Forwarded to an email list for homeschoolers, I find myself mulling over this article, a reprint from Home Education Magazine. The short version, in case you don't feel like poking the link and reading the whole thing: Amy Hollingsworth ruminates on what is 'missing' from a stay-at-home-mom's life, mainly work that will not be undone tomorrow... laundry that's just going to get dirty, meals that are eaten, children who will need a bath again, and her perspective of how to find a tangibly rewarding aspect to motherhood and housewifehood.

This is a perspective that has long bothered me. She says, at one point:

Not like the tangible sense of accomplishment you might get after finishing a report or closing a deal or saying something really smart in a board meeting.

Uh... saying something really smart in a board meeting is tangible?

I worked for years before having children, and I have to say that closing a deal might be momentarily satisfying, but in a moment there are other open deals that need to be closed, and others still that are unopened... that never ends, anywhere. There are few jobs where people finish the work and never have to repeat it, or something quite a lot like it, tomorrow. The report might be all crisp and bound, but it's not the last report. It will be revised, there will be editorial changes, it will need to be added to or there will be a different one to do. No one, in any job, walks home at the end of Friday and says 'there, that's done once and for all' with nothing to do on Monday. Even one big win doesn't stop the workflow, getting a huge project completely finished is satisfying, but it only completely clears the desk of someone whose job ends simultaneously.

The tangible rewards of motherhood and housewifehood are akin to the kind in the work world: I can enjoy the fresh air scent of the line-dried sheets when I replace them on my bed, and when I stick my nose into the linen closet, and I know I've accomplished something that is as lasting as the employee review, or serving the last table of the night. If I don't believe the clean linens have value, or I don't value my effort (however much was done by technology aside), the accomplishment will not feel like one. But the same can be said of an employee review that is ticked boxes and requires the use of phrases written by others, or not being the one who made the food served.

I believe that the key to healthy sanity is in valuing what we do, personally. If I feel that tidying up the Lego is drudgery or not worth my time, or what servants should be doing for me, or it should stay tidied up because I tidied it up ever... I'm going to have no difficulty slipping into the misery of unfairness, of being asked too much, of not being wealthy enough to own slaves or not being appreciated enough by others who see Lego tidying as more valuable than I do.

This is the core of the problem with grades and praise and employee reviews and rewards and awards: they take the onus for appreciation off the person doing the work and put it 'out there' --where the tangibility of the smart thing said in the board room first has to be acknowledged as such by others. If it has nothing at all to do with being seen by others, then I can feel exactly the same kind of tangible sense of accomplishment by saying something brilliant to a child, or even to myself in the kitchen... because it's either smart or it isn't, who hears it cannot be related.

I suspect that what many mothers feel the lack of is the pats on the back. When one is required to seek to find ones own sense of accomplishment, it challenges something we've come to believe is necessary for the functioning of the galaxy: an external witness. Yet, a huge part of self-esteem is being able to see, and value, ourselves accurately without relying on external praise or rewards to prop us up.

After my first was born, I went through an interesting change of heart. While I used to believe that what I did at work was valuable and a good use of my time, and worth what I got paid for it, I came to discover that it wasn't. In fact, it went from feeling important to feeling irrelevant. Anyone could move that paper around, answer that phone effectively, transfer those calls, write those reports, organize that workflow --only I could mother my daughter. I felt for the first time that what I was doing actually mattered, both in terms of what it was I was doing, and that it was me doing it.

From that initial discovery, my self-esteem came to be linked very closely with what I thought was valuable, not what other people might see, or think, or believe. So, my house is messy --and my children are loved and healthy and nurtured. The laundry really piles up, and I nurture my family with food made with care and love, skill and knowledge. The dandelions on the lawn are thriving, and I have nothing better to do with my energy than sit up until 3:35 a.m. talking with my 21 year old daughter about her day, her friends, her thoughts and her discoveries.

One of my tangible accomplishments has always been that the week ended with people who experienced many great moments, laid down some excellent memories, have fun stories to tell and deep connections between them. How can a job, a paycheque or a employee award, or the applause of the board compete with that?

I Am That Mom

2010-07-28T15:17:00.000-07:00

Inspired by a post about ice cream breakfast-in-bed here, it's an impromptu blog carnival... Join in!

I am that mom... the one who fosters rolling eyes, strange looks from strangers and laughter mixed with confusion for the things I say.

I'm that mom, who when faced with a whiny kid who wants to know why she can't have the contents of the chocolate impulse-buying rack, says 'because you picked the mean mom this time.'

I'm that mom, who when a teenage friend of one child got into the car and said 'oh my god,' turned around with feigned amazement and said, 'you have your own god? That's so cool!'

I'm that mom, who while following a child standing while being pushed in a grocery cart, quips off-handedly to whichever child is with me, 'did I tell you that 75% of all head injuries in children under 5 are from falls from grocery carts?'

I'm that mom, who when accosted by a nearly-teenage child who snaps, 'nobody understands me!' just stares for a moment and then laughs, while trying to say 'I can't believe you just said that!!'

I'm that mom, who after saying the same line (following the same set-up) over and over again for nearly 20 years, has a child who says 'say something different, your lines are so tired.'

I'm that mom, who when told 'I want a pony/puppy/hamster/rat/hedgehog/chinchilla,' would respond, 'when you grow up and move out of the house, you can have as many as you want.'

I'm that mom, who upon hearing any greed-borne sentence starting with 'I want' responds with, 'there sure are a lot of things to want, hey?'

I'm that mom, who when any child says 'that's not fair' replies with 'did you buy a ticket? Then this probably isn't a fair.'

I'm that mom, who upon being requested to put this child's gloves, hat, shoes, coat, shirt, sweater or mittens on, actually tries to put them on --me.

I'm that mom, whose children learned before they were five to say, when bringing the cheese, mayonnaise, mustard, bread and a knife, 'I want all this on a sandwich, but not the knife.'

photo Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread by Little Blue Hen used with permission (Creative Commons, Attributed-Derivative)

No, Actually, I Do Not Want Your Kid to be Quieter in the Restaurant --you do

2010-07-27T13:28:00.000-07:00

I find restaurant dining one simple joy in life, offering opportunities for everyone at the table to follow their own whims about what to eat without imposing themselves on anyone else. I like the vibrant noise of restaurants, the mix if smells, the comings and goings and different timings. Knowing about the frenzy behind the scenes and the fact that I don't have to do the dishes just adds a layer of enjoyment to the outing. I like food, and I like variety, and I like trying new things.

What I do not like is parents with their children.

Let me be clear: children, I can deal with. Even the random and chaotic noises children make, I have no problem with. I haven't eaten in a hushed restaurant in probably 25 years, so child noises fit in with the noise of forks, breaking glasses, moving plates, the music that many eateries feel is a necessary part of the ambiance, and people talking and laughing over the noise.

I find it mildly annoying to listen to parents trying to hush the natural and inevitable noise children make in an environment that they're barely making a contribution to. I lose my tolerance when parents lie to the child.

Stop Lying to Your Child, and Stop Blaming Me

If you want your kids to be quieter, just tell them to be quieter. If you need to get other people's opinions involved in the request to be quieter, own it yourself. Do not tell them that I want them to be quieter unless I have already confirmed that story, because I probably don't. In fact, out of all of you at your table, I want you to be quieter --I don't want to listen to you using me to pressure your kid to behave the way you (not I) want your kid to behave. I certainly do not want to listen to you make noises that sound like an air compressor. Of all the noises in the world that are louder than the ambient sound in any large, people-filled space, shushing is only slightly less attention-getting than gunshots.

photo Pay No Attention to the Blues by goldsardine used with permission (Creative Commons, Attributed, Non-Derivative)

The Insanity Box

2010-04-12T16:56:00.000-07:00

During a conversation with a client a few months ago, the topic of 'all those voices in my head' came up. You know the ones, you're mildly wandering through a mall with a child who, upon reflection, probably isn't wearing the cleanest clothes, and their left shoe is untied and you aren't up for the struggle of getting it tied today, and you just realized you don't even know where a brush is... and you catch sight of one of those faces in the crowd. Someone looks at your child, makes a face like it's encountered a bad smell, and glares at you.

Is there anyone who doesn't immediately roll out the litany of all the things that face is thinking?

why isn't that child in clean clothes?
who is that incompetent mother?
doesn't anyone love the child enough to tie its shoes?
let us hope that scraggly woman is the babysitter, although whose poor judgement hired her?
is hair brushing out of style?
parents should have to pass competency tests...

While it would be fun to list all the other potential things that face was thinking 'my kid was such a brat at that age... that mom sure has it good, she didn't have to listen to my mother criticizing everything about her... I hate being reminded of my deceased child in malls... I wonder if my daughter will ever let me see my grandchild... I hated being a child, I was never allowed to be so free...

Yeah, that's fun... but the problems parents face aren't just that they're no good at telepathy, and worse at predicting what anyone around them is likely to be thinking at any given moment --however good they are at accurately guessing the mood. The problem is that the voices that give such snarky and vile tones to the words in those thoughts are supplied within the parent's head, not from outside.

At some point in our lives, we have heard, half-heard and half-understood a great deal of emotionally-loaded criticism. That we don't remember when we first heard them, or what the context was or even who it was who said it, or who repeated it, or who we didn't notice contradicting it at the time is... interesting, but not really worth spending a lot of time exploring, in my opinion. The issue is right now, today, and the hit our self-esteem gets from our own minds when the litany is replayed, and replayed and replayed...

Terry Pratchett, in Monstrous Regiment, describes a deceased god, who is now nothing more than reflections and echoes of prayers and requests, 'nothing but a poisonous echo of all your ignorance and pettiness and maliciousness and stupidity.' A quote which was rolling around in my head when my client described her personal litany of 'I'm a bad mom' that she expects to be going on in other's heads when they look at her.

"Those voices are just your Insanity Box," I quipped, completely out of the air.

"What's an Insanity Box?"

Echoes and reflections, interfering with each other, amplifying each other and recalling each other, voices of half-remembered, half-understood comments from almost anyone, often directed at someone else at the time... and a name gives a person power over it.

Once there is a name for the Insanity Box, the owner becomes aware of the ownership, and the power of the Witness is developed. The Witness is the part of everyone that is the 'me' who says 'that sounds good to me', the 'I' who says 'I feel...' Once the Witness is aware of the Insanity Box it can perceive the voices as 'over there' or, even more powerfully, 'not me.'

From that point on, there is a new way to deal with the litany of criticisms whether expected or imagined: 'oh, that's just my Insanity Box getting heated up again...' Eventually, it even becomes possible to see that a lot of people's critical words and harsh tones are nothing but their Insanity Box speaking through their mouths, not what they really think and feel at all. Peace at last...

image used with permission (accredited, non-derivative) Creative Commons 'So Many Faces' by Prodigal Untitled13

When They Can, They Will: Potty Woes

2010-03-30T09:57:00.000-07:00

If there is a subject that gets more airtime than potty training, I'd like to know what it is...

There are three simple and easy ways to potty train a child:

wait until they're physically and psychologically ready, can understand and want to
let them watch the parents and older siblings do bathroom activities for a couple of years and,
do nothing

Inappropriate potty training (too early, involving any kind of coercion or humiliation, too intrusive) causes some seriously weird behaviour, not only in kids but in adults, too. Those odd diaper fetishes, shy bladder and impacted bowel come to mind, but they are hardly the only ones.

Allowing kids to sort it out for themselves when they are capable and care might add to the laundry pile for a few extra months... and the only thing I can think of to say about that is 'so?'

Are there really parents, or parenting experts, who think that the whole goal is to minimize laundry? Personally, being of an extremely lazy bent, I would do an extra load of laundry every week if it means avoiding having to clean poop off a carpet even once. The number of parents who pick 'all the bedclothes' over diapers almost every night amaze me.

When it was time to think about 'training' my kids, all I could think of was 'why?' They'd learned to walk and talk without any lessons or training led by me or anyone else, how could this be any harder? When they could, I had no doubt they would figure it out. Strangely, they did. And you know what: you can't tell anymore which one of them started or finished learning younger. In fact, you can't even tell today if they learned this when they were 14 months old, or 14 years old.

If parents hate handing thousands of dollars to diaper manufacturers, maybe considering switching to cloth for the rest of the time for the same reason we don't buy single-use disposable shirts?

No?

Frugal = Possible

2010-03-23T08:59:00.000-07:00

As a long-time stay-at-home mom, one of the discussions I love having is about how 'it's not possible to own real estate on one income' and how 'it's no longer possible for one parent to stay home with kids in today's economic reality.'

Uh-hunh.

Funny, how people told me the same thing the year (1989) my oldest was born...

I've read in various places those ridiculous estimates of How Much It Costs to Raise a Child to 18 ($180,000 was one I saw one), and after I shake my head in amazement, I'm curious about the fundamentals that have been used to determined that.

Is it based on a certain number of brand new pairs of pants per child per year? I'm pretty sure that for us, the total number of brand new pants per child up to the age of about 15 was 15. Maybe 20. It's amazing the thriving business second-hand and thrift stores do, in spite of everyone apparently having to buy brand new clothes all the time. Would you rather buy lightly worn $6 Gap pants for a 12yo who is in the process of outgrowing them or unworn ones she'll grow out of just as fast, for $60? That factor of ten adds up fast... faster than a 50% off sale can fix it.

Is it based on convenience, precooked, packaged foods as a large part of the grocery budget? One of the things that people who have never stayed home for 2 decades raising kids don't know is that when you're home most of the day, it's possible to

bake bread (for about 61 cents a loaf, even with 12 grains, whole wheat and fancy sea salt)
cook beans from dry ($2.90/kg dry or $1.69 for a half pound can, you control the added salt?)
make muffins (that don't have the texture or sugar-load of cupcakes, for less than $1 a batch, instead of a dollar or more each), every day if you want to 'cause it takes 20 minutes
make stew from scratch using the cheapest vegetables there are: onions, potatoes, carrots, etc.
roast whole chickens right in your own kitchen without needing to speed home from the store to avoid killing everyone with cooling rotisserie birds, still controlling the amount of salt added
make chicken stock from scratch without the salt (oh, man, the salt!), fat, sugar (not kidding), or whatever 'hydrolyzed vegetable protein' is --made for free from bones and scraps that would just be tossed
can and freeze anything that appears in abundance, free or low-cost, like a 4' box of 'picked too many' apples from a friend that became applesauce with no additional ingredients, the free blackberries that are weeds all over town, a box of nectarines that accidentally got frozen at the store and sold for $2 for 22 pounds and a bumper crop of cherries once: $10 for 25 pounds
grow a vegetable garden for the cost of seeds and watering, giving a parent something to do outside while supervising the kids who want to be out there anyhow

So, choose between 2 hardboiled eggs in a cute little egg-carton shaped bubble package for $2.10 or eggs that you can use for anything, including hardboiling, at home in under an hour for $2.40/dozen. An angelfood cake only takes an hour, with the addition of about nine cents of other ingredients.

With Craigslist, Used[CityName] and Freecycle, there is almost nothing but food that anyone must buy new, and even then I see listings for 'come and get it' freezer emptying, orchard-picking, over-abundant garden leftovers and even 'made a whole bunch and no one will eat it' canning, as well as 'unused' 'totally new' 'in original packaging' and 'unopened' advertising all kinds of things.

While I'm home I can do all kinds of other things I'd have to hire someone else to do instead: from lawn care to laundry, home improvements and repair to mending and removing stains from clothes instead of replacing them.

I figure our kids were more like $2-3000/year for the first one and probably 50-85% of that for the second (because, among other things, there is no reason to buy more kid-sized plastic dishes once the set is in the house), over and above what we would have had to buy to live, just the two of us. I do know that, 2 years later, we certainly aren't floating in an extra ten grand a year, since our eldest move out.

So, what's the other $7-8000/year paying for? A car each every year? Six years of full-time post-secondary education (hey! You can't count that in the first 18 years, they don't go until 18, and what if they never go?)

I suspect that bureaucrats sit down with catalogues and layette lists and itemize absolutely everything that a baby could possible 'need' in the first 19 years of life supposing it never received a single gift or hand-me-down and every second-hand store in the world went up in flames. This list includes new furniture however often it outgrows the old stuff, a bedroom of its very own, a new car that seats enough people every time a new one arrives, and multiplies of things like 'vacations' and 'holiday shopping' based on the hilarious idea that having a third or fourth or sixth kid creates another $10k in income to fling around every year.

Normal people in the real world, on the other hand, have another baby and get to make the same amount of money spread among more people, trimming or eliminating some of the casual, unnecessary spending to do so. Which is why people with 16 kids don't usually make $160,000 a year over and above their 'real' budget... and some of them still own houses, even on a single income.

photo used with permission Handley Edwards And Ellis Family by DavidCFoster

Creative Commons, attributed/non-derivative

Silent Mother

2010-03-22T12:59:00.000-07:00

Trust Is Hard to Restore

Tragically, perhaps, once a question has escaped a parent's mouth and landed on the floor in front of the child, there is no way to make it not have been asked.

Restoring trust is harder than it looks. Apologies only make reparations on the damage done in the moment. The break in trust lives on long past the event. Truly, trust can only be restored by constantly and consistently refraining from repeating the offence. I am reasonably quick on the uptake, and managed to discover this (mostly by falling on my face, but I have found over the years that personal humiliation is an astonishingly effective learning tool!) quite a long time ago, but with enough repetition to be absolutely certain what I was really doing...

Someone asked me a while ago if I'd asked one of my kids something about The Future with some particular boy. It reminded me that I've learned that there are some questions my sister can ask my kids, their friends can ask them, their grandparents can ask them, even total strangers can ask them... but I can't ask.

In my kids' heads, by virtue of me being The Mom, I can't ask some questions. Because they're loaded. Because they imply a preference or an opinion that should have nothing to do with how they live their lives. Because even if I'm dying of curiosity, it's none of my business until they decide to share. The weight of my status as 'mom' imparts extra meaning in the question --even if it's nothing but idle curiosity, it just will not be heard that way by those ears.

5 Questions A Mom Can't Ask

1. Do you think you have a future with him?
This implies that I want (or don't want) her to be involved with him for a long time. That implication on its own colours the child's view of what she's supposed to think or want.

2. Can you afford that?
This implies two things: a. I have any reason to be in on your finances, and; b. I don't think you should be buying whatever it is you're talking about. A and B: none of my business.

3. Is your apartment clean?
Wow, yeah, none of my business.

4. Have you kissed him?
My sister can (and has) asked questions like this... I can't. I just can't. I can't imply that I think she should have, and I can't imply that I think her judgement is poor. I just can't ask.

5. Do you think that's safe?
Same thing, really --the only reason to ask this kind of question is because I clearly don't think it is. Either I don't trust you to have any rational sense of danger, or I think you're too stupid to know what a sense of danger means.

photo used with permission Children's Museum 2 by TheShutterBabe

attributed/non-derivative Creative Commons

Misoproliny --My new word

2010-02-10T19:57:00.000-08:00

I love English. It's so cool the way you can make up whole new words by using other language pieces.

Misogyny is a combined word, from the Greek, using miso- meaning 'hater' and -gyny meaning 'woman', neatly making the commonplace 'womanhater.'

Misanthrophy is the same prefix with the suffix which means both all people and men --neatly confusing the issue whenever it's 'manhating' rather than 'hating people' that is at issue.

The suffix proli- means child. A misoproliny is, therefore, a childhatrer. Strange, considering the decades of vile and hateful texts circulating as parenting advice and pedagogy, that this word has never before been coined. On the other hand, I'll take credit for making it up...

photo by Matsuo Amon, 'We're Just Little Children' [used with permission: Creative Commons non-deriv/attrib]

Peaceful Parenting

2010-01-18T15:34:00.000-08:00

Long ago, I attended a La Leche League Canada Area Conference. It was a cooperative experience, with all attendees asked to help run the show. I was involved in the registration --it was my assigment-- so I know that there were far more than 200 people in attendance, from 8:30 to 5:30 the first day, 8:30 am to 9pm the second day and from 8:30 to 4 the final day.

Beyond being a great deal of fun, there was something... odd about the experience. It took me nearly two days to figure out what it was.

Of course, it was a La Leche League conference on the West Coast, which lent it an odd air of super-granola in virtually every aspect, but I was used to the Islanders and their homemade soap lifestyles. The oddness was something else.

No one (seriously: no one!) was yelling at their kids

Virtually everyone there had kids with them, with few exceptions of national-level representatives, and one of the Founding Mothers who by that point had a handful of grandchildren and I'm sure wouldn't have thought of towing them to a conference.

Some of the kids were yelling. Some were melting down completely. But no adult in the whole building for the whole weekend yelled at any child anywhere I could see.

To say I was astonished is an understatement. I don't think the possibility of not yelling in life had ever occured to me. While I certainly didn't make it to my kids' late teens without ever yelling at them, or about them, or near them... the conference opened up the possibility in my head that yelling was optional, not natural or necessary.

I'm sure lots of those parents who attended yelled at their kids at some point or other. Why not there?

I think there were two things: a basic premise that yelling wasn't going to help anything anyhow, coupled with a tremendously child-friendly, family-supportive atmosphere. There weren't spaces where kids were expected or encouraged to behave like mini adults (or like they don't exist at all). And that, to me, seems like the core of peaceful parenting.

There is something inherently violent in the premise that children should, or can, be 'little adults.' The very idea insults the core of who they really are: children. If they were adults, they'd have fully-formed adult bodies and fully-formed adult brains, they'd understand things the way adults do and would do things the way adults do. But they don't. They can't. Because they aren't. And they aren't going to just because we have a whole society convinced it's how it should be.

Believing that it is somehow abhorrent to create an environment that acknowledges --even welcomes-- childhood's different needs, different pace, different lifestyle; that's just normal here these days. Encouraging violence, whether verbal or physical, is commonplace in the realm of 'how to raise children' advice and theory --even in clinical psychology.

How do we argue that it is possible to raise peaceful children through violence?

Photo "Family Time" by coffeemonster from Creative Commons, attributed/non-derivative

The Demand for Attention

2009-11-02T20:22:00.000-08:00

A great deal is written and worried about when it comes to attention-seeking behaviour in children. A lot of the concerns are a result of the very-disturbing adults we all know at least a handful of, who are examples of why attention-seeking behaviour run amok is so unattractive.

When parents (and onlookers) attribute that adult behaviour to children who successfully attained as much attention as they needed... there is a problem.

One thing that La Leche League taught me long ago was:

a need met dissipates while a need unmet remains

Children need attention. They don't want it or demand it or prefer it or brat it up because they're devious, selfish little hellions in need of a smack. They need it.

Like how they need food and shelter and protection from predators and fresh, clean water and shoes.

Well, maybe not the shoes. But attention, they need. In the absence of appropriate attention, children are unsafe both physically and psychologically. They instinctively know that they need attention, so when they are not getting it, they devise creative and astonishing methods of acquiring it. Often extremely effective creative and astonishing methods...

In the lovely, funny and pointed book about childrearing, Purrfect Parenting, Barbara Guhl points out that children prefer lovely fresh breakfast cereal that's crisp and flavourful, with fresh, chilled milk. When they are starving, they will eat stale old breakfast cereal that's dusty and served with warm, soured milk. What they want is the good kind, but they'll take any over none.

When they get none, they do the most remarkable things. Things I have known attention-starved children to do include (but is not a comprehensive list):

throw an armchair through a (rental house) living room window
stand on the train tracks to see if the train would kill him (he was 4)
cut a flower girl dress to shreds with paper scissors the day before the wedding
gag herself in order to barf in a restaurant (she was 3)
stand on a kitten (he was 4)
pick a stranger's baby up by the ears (he was 6)
sit and then stand on a baby's head (4 years old)
light a basement curtain on fire

Now, the thing about these amazing feats is that the children weren't angry --they were all acting with a deep concentration and hypervigilance about where the parent's eyes were. Every one of them smiled when they got caught --sending their freaked out parents right over the edge. But that smile was from the very heart of them: there, it worked. Whew... relief --attention at last.

When these kids grow up, they'll have the most remarkable set of coping skills imaginable: like a train wreck their lives become the thing of legend --seriously unattractive, but so hard to look away. So hard not to talk about.

If, though, these attention-seeking adults had made eye contact with someone who took them seriously, and reflected their experience back to them and interpreted the extremely contradictory and confusing huge world for them with kindness, generosity and love, they wouldn't be the attention-seeking adults they have become. They would be able to co-exist with other equals from a position of being fulfilled --not empty and starving and willing to do anything, sell anything, permit any kind of humiliation just to get looked at for one more moment. Just one more bowl of tooth-breaking cereal swamped with curdled milk in what amounts to a steady diet of it...

Photo used with permission: Creative Commons Attributed-Non-Derivative photo: Milk and Cereal by Steven Wilke

The Misery Contract

2009-10-27T14:45:00.000-07:00

...recently been thinking about happiness --talking about it, reading a great book (What Happy People Know by the guy who runs one of the programs at Canyon Ranch) about it...

It seems to me that many people have unilaterally signed a contract with the universe that is not only unnecessary, but that is quite insane. I call it the

Misery Contract

I will be happy when all--not some, but all of my conditions are met.
who was it that wanted you to be happy and has pissed you off?

I have to get all this stuff done before I can afford to be happy.
just what do you think happiness is?

As long as that person is in my life, I will prove they've screwed up my life by being miserable.
ooh, excellent plan, that will really get through to. . . . no one

Things that happened before now will preclude my happiness until they have not happened.
good luck with that

I can't be as [free, rich, pretty, thin, helpful, generous, intelligent, popular, wise, funny, powerful, famous, capable, talented, lucky, sexy, fit, healthy, immortal] as I want to be, so I can't be happy.
1. who says you can't be, and; 2. what's that got to do with anything?

My life is not my own, I have responsibilities and obligations I have to live up to before I can be happy.
you're crazy --that's ridiculous... be happy AND fulfill your obligations and responsibilities

They need to compensate me for what they've done --then I can be happy.
cool idea, but 'to compensate' means 'to give OTHER than what is needed' --how will that help?

I am deeply flawed and have sinned, when I'm pure I can be happy.
yeah, so, never then, eh?

I am not worthy, I haven't earned happiness and don't deserve it.
oh. my. god.

There is too much evil in the world, too many people killed and maimed and starving and suffering for it to be okay for me to be happy.
how does it help them to have you suffering too?

I am in pain. I'll be happy when I don't hurt.
the case is closed: pain lost --happiness alleviates a lot of pain and makes whatever pain is left much easier to endure

I am afraid to be happy. Too much good stuff happening attracts bad luck.
ha. ha. ha. ha. no it doesn't

Photo used with permission, Creative Commons Attributed-Non-Derivative photo: Children By 1000Paperclips

The Gentle Removal of Blankies, Pacifiers, Cuddle Toys and Special Bears

2009-10-20T18:22:00.000-07:00

On a mother's Q&A forum recently I wrote:

I am confused at the people who give children a comfort object to avoid needing a person to comfort the child, only to take the object away when the parent decides it's inappropriate.

If you know you're going to take it away, why give it in the first place? Just wonderin'...

While I comfort myself with the thought that I can influence the whole world so much that I can stop parents from ever compelling a child to attach to an object--any object--instead of a person, I do live in the real world. Lots of people have already got kids attached to things. Avoid it if it is still possible, but if you are already here, recriminations are pointless and now parents only have the power to fix it, not undo it. As Terry Prachett quips: what has happened tends to stay happened.

I have a friend who is still angry, confused and bitter about a stuffed bear her dad discarded. This may seem frivolous --why would a grown woman hold onto such a trivial issue? Well, I think the primary reason is what the object meant.

The bear (pillow, blanket, stuffy, cuddle toy, pacifier) was this woman's mother-substitute. The bear was there when mother wasn't, reliable and consistent, available and held together from the long-ago magic of childhood and desperate need.

Dad, to the still-three-year-old part of this woman's existence, threw out her mother.

I say this in the hopes that parents will understand what they're asking their children to give up and perhaps pause before acting out of impatience, a sense of incompetence, or the unfairness of the child getting to keep the mother-substitute for longer than they were allowed as children.

If the object is truly a problem for the parent, the solution is not to eliminate the object but the child's need for the object. The simplest way to do this, of course, is to put a person in its place. Yes, yes, I know -- I did say 'simple', not 'easy.'

Photo used with permission, Creative Commons, attributed, non-derivative, photo: A Mother's Kiss by Edwin Dalorzo

Spent All Day at the Baby Fair

2009-09-26T23:24:00.000-07:00

There are so many new moms in the world these days... what happened last year? (Oh, yeah... financial crisis!)

The Victoria Baby Fair is once again populated by a massive crowd of babies, kids, moms, moms-to-be, bewildered dads-to-be, very cool dads-to-be, grandmas and even the odd grandpa... sorting through the vibrant selection of things to see...

As a La Leche League Leader, I get to watch all kinds of beautiful babies and shiny-eyed kids with keen and unsure moms, tentative dads escorting the heavily pregnant and slightly tense female partners, unsure of their acceptance in this mainstream realm...

...and I get to go back tomorrow. Yay!
Photo ©StarChild by Space Ritual, creative commons on Flickr.com, used with permission (non-derivative, attributed)

Starting School

2009-09-12T16:44:00.000-07:00

My baby had her first day of school last week... it was so exciting: buying all the supplies (faint!) planning the lunch menus, packing what she needed the first day, getting up on time, catching the bus all by herself. It makes a mommy proud.

The really cool part is that she's 17, and her first day of school is collage.

Can't Get In Without...

On the homeschool email lists, the semi-annual arguments about what is necessary to be successful in life has just passed. This year, the focus was on the economy (universally terrible, in spite of the thousands of new jobs and low EI enrolment numbers) and the unwavering but unreasonable requirements of employers. It is 'necessary' in one mom's view, to make sure her kids not only have diplomas from high school, but also at least a bachelor's degree --because that is the only way to be employed, today. She knows because she's been out there looking for a job by handing out 25 resumes a week, and she doesn't have a degree, which is why she's unemployed. She's applied for university and since she doesn't have a high school diploma, she can't get in. She also can't get any funding, because she's been turned down 'by everyone.'

I'm only amazed that she has a roof over her head, the impediments to success are so thick on the ground around her...

The Gatekeepers...

It is a prevalent view that it is not possible to get into university or college without a high school diploma. Often, university admissions offices will tell applicants this 'fact' directly. Call one up and ask, I assure you the usual answer is 'high school diploma necessary.' After that 'fact' is shared, ask what the entrance requirements are for 'mature student'... and if you're bored and want to talk longer, ask what the pre-requisites are for 'taking a single course.'

The admissions office has a particular job to do, regarding the casual questions of the general public (read: unwashed masses): maintain the sanctity of the gates. It is the gatekeeper's job to keep the incompetent, incapable and unlikely from getting anywhere near the lecture halls, because they are already well over-quota. Their job is not to tell anyone the 'other' ways into the system.

Other Ways In...

Then, of course, there are the myriad other ways into the college/university system that vary from person to person, and facility to facility.

It helps to remember that a university's primary task is to stay full. They have seating requirements to meet their budgets, and without enough tuition being paid they haven't the budget necessary to keep the quality of professors which attracts the quality students (does this start sounding like a circle to anyone else but me?)

Once it is understood that universities do not have boatloads of money holding up the pillars of their ivory towers, but they do have escalating costs, it becomes easier to see that if a candidate smells even slightly like they might end up looking good on behalf of the school (to attract donations, other students and good professors), it's a lot easier to get in than having good grades on a freshly printed high school transcript.

A few hints:

1. Winter session has fewer applicants, overall, than fall session, but has budget requirements every bit as high.
2. Heads of Departments are allowed to invite students in without anyone's permission.
3. Reading and responding to current research published in journals is an attention-getting method for future applicants looking to catch the eye of Department Heads.
4. Exhausting community resources in the field is an excellent way to find mentors, referees for entrance and bursary applications and to coincidentally run across Heads of Departments who are active in the field.
5. Attending public lectures, auditing courses and attending open-houses all enable applicants to suss out the movers and shakers local in the field.
6. Accredited private colleges offer more-focused coursework for specialized fields, often resulting in higher degrees of employability plus all the pre-requisites necessary to enroll next term in university in the same field.
7. Community colleges and accredited online universities have much lower intake standards (one that I know of requires applicants to be 16, except in special circumstances) but offer fully-transferrable credits --often not only easier to get into, but smaller first- and second-year class sizes plus a lot cheaper per credit.

Both my daughters selected private colleges, so they could concentrate on the subjects they wanted to learn without the mandatory (and expensive) requirements for out-of-field studies. Both of them decided in mid-summer which program they wanted, and getting in required a phone call to see if there was still room, a printed application form filled out and an application fee. One asked for confirmation from the registering school that they were homeschooled, the other wanted a short essay regarding what she hoped to gain from the program. Both said on their websites that applicants had to be 19 or high school grads, but on the application form of both there was a space for 'parent or guardian signature if applicant is under 19' and nowhere to fill in prior education information.

There is still room in my daughter's program, if you know anyone who wants to get into college this year...

Photo by Soul Pusher 'Acres of Books after closing'

What You Think of Me

2009-07-31T23:23:00.000-07:00

Ah, Byron Katie...

First a quote:

"If I had a prayer it would be: please save me from ever believing that I need
anyone else's love, approval or appreciation."

Another quote, this time apparently from Marcel Proust (I have no proof at all):

"What you think of me is none of my business."

So much of what parents do seems to be about what it might look like to someone else. What someone else might think about it... or them... or their kids.

The reality of the situation is, though, that everyone in the world is spending an enormous amount of run-time worrying about what everyone else is thinking. For the average person this means something so important, I'm going to put it in bold, and then refrain from adding anything else, because it says it all. What this means is that all those people, who are thinking about what other people are thinking about them...

are not thinking about you

or what you're doing

or your kids

(unless it's related somehow to themselves)

...so, chill out...

photo credit: Family_2008-37 By Bgraun, Creative Commons, attributed, non-derivative

Sundaes Made of Meatballs

2009-04-14T10:40:00.000-07:00

A talented marketing writer, possibly named Seth...something --Rogen is probably not right... oh, it's Godin-- wrote a book called Meatball Sundaes, a work about marketing in the new reality of social networks, the 'long tail', and the loss of the ability of major corporations mass-marketing not-very-well-made 'necessities' to the bulge in the middle of the market. Essentially this was done, in 1951, by dressing up meatballs to make them look 'special' -- make a sundae with them, because chocolate sauce and whipped cream and a pretty little cherry will make them look better and then they'll not be boring old meatballs anymore...

What has this got to do with anything?

Further to the last idea (schools can --or even should-- hold back the tide of technological advancement), school systems and their conventional supporters (everyone from governments happy about the idea of installing propaganda into the majority of minors' heads, to parents happy to have someone else responsible for the poor output at 18) are locked to into the same crisis-creating past-attached disasterous thinking that got GM, Chrysler, Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Ford where they are today:

the world is changing but we are right-- our past tactics succeeded because we
are right and the changes that have happened in the world are anomalies that we
are confident won't last, don't matter and can't affect us because we are too
big, too right and successful because of divine right and the correct way of the
world. This is a temporary set-back caused by a minor misalignment of unrelated
and ultimately irrelevant stars.

Haha ha.

So... my point is that school systems operate on the cusp of 'we do things the right, natural, necessary and modern way,' arguing that they serve the real needs of the future adults they teach while dismissing technological and economical advances AS IF they don't matter at all --not to them, not to the system, not to the children, not to the adults those children will become and not to society.

Because embracing emerging technology is expensive and the schools already own all the obsolete technology, they feel secure and the simple position: we need not adapt. Now that 'knowing' is irrelevant in the face of 'finding out' and fact-gathering is the job of webcrawlers, not people, it becomes more and more ridiculous to 'teach' facts and insist on kids--or anyone--not using the readily-available tools to answer the questions.

The 'regurgitate what I told you' form of education was poor and flawed half a century ago. Today it is not just poor & flawed, it's irrelevant.

When a system is faced with a massive advance in cheap, portable technology, readily available to the average 10 year old, it has two choices: adapt to the technology or go to war with reality. It's sad to watch a whole system engage in a fruitless war when Sun Tzu, a thousand years ago, knew that the dumbest war to engage in is the one that cannot be won. No system in the history of the world has won the fight against reality. As my mum quips: mother nature rolls last. If the school system was a tyrant, it could have foreseen the troubles it would have with cell phones & stopped them becoming widely available. As much as the system and the people in it would like to be The Tyrant, that is not the way of the world --even if it seems, from here, that once it was.

It isn't. Now: adapt or suffer.

Does it seem ironic to anyone other than me that it is the most educated, the most expert on learning, who cannot conceive of a successful way to use the advances of cellphones to enhance the education, to incorporate them the way books have been, the way inexpensive paper has been, the way large numbers of same-age students have been, the way video, public address systems & even computers have been. It amazes me that no one in the system sees the technology as a wonder, a marvel--a boon to the potential of engaging students. Nope-- it's all meatball sundaes: we did it right in 1951 and that right way will remain right for all time because we have this big system already in place, that's why.

Photo entitled Swedish Meatball, copyright Dalyswe, used with permission, Flickr commons

Jammin' Cells

2009-04-14T10:37:00.000-07:00

Am I the only dinosaur who remembers calculators being confiscated in classrooms? The recent controversy over a cell phone jammer at a Vancouver Island school reminds me once again about how fantastically-long it takes the school system to adapt to reality.

An utterly-convinced teacher told me 'you won't always have access to a calculator, which, in the age of solar cells and microchips, sounds like he'd never made it out of the era of slide rules. I've seen a slide rule-- at an auction. My mom had to learn how to use one. My kids can't guess what field the term applies to-- maybe playground design?

And so we move on...

With nano-technology coming -- soon-- it seems to me the schools (and the people in them) can use the upcoming year to see if they can catch up to Y2K, so maybe by the time the internet is accessible by blinking or something at least they can deal with a cell phone the size of a deck of cards.

One day in the not-to-distant-past, it will become possible for students to access more-information in 5 minutes than the school library can hold, on a piece of hardware that can be readily concealed in a bikini. The idea that the people in a school should live as-if this is not the every day reality at life is.. naive. Do I mean 'naive'? Maybe I mean 'ludicrous'? Or 'massively delusional'?

The idea that the school system can hold back the tide is... pervasive.

Spirit of Inquiry

2009-03-23T11:17:00.000-07:00

I've been reading Byron Katie lately... I read her personal story of coming to her method probably nearly 20 years ago, but never thought to see if she'd written anything at the time....

Nevertheless: I'm currently reading I Need Your Love... is that true? and I just finished Who Would You Be Without Your Story? both of which I found fascinating and hard to put down. They reinforce things I've known for a long time, but don't really live and often forget entirely. Hilariously, I had just finished a book recommended by my coach (The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Ben Zander), which reinforces exactly the same things. Then, about two days after I finished the last of them, I found an article in an Oprah magazine about why goal setting often doesn't work... which repeats the theme.

I love synchronicity!

What I Know

people are wrapped up in their thinking far more than they are engaged in what is really happening at any given moment
everything I believe about the world is a result of two things: my perception and my beliefs (thoughts) about my perceptions

there is no way to find out if another person experiences their world in the same way I do -- no way to find out if when I say 'that's yellow' and they agree if they see the same colour I do... everyone's brains construct 'reality' alone, and while we can agree on the labels there is no way to know if our brains share the perceptions

people's motives are always for the best -- no one gets up in the morning intending to mess up anyone's life, including their own, even if that is what happens throughout the day

Baby Antagonizes Parents in Dastardly Plot to Annoy

2009-03-20T15:28:00.001-07:00

I found myself once again in the midst of a surreal conversation...

"There is a difference between needs and wants, and she just wants to nurse, she doesn't need to," says a mom of a 5 month old baby.

"She's 5 months old," says I.

"It's just a habit."

Now, I didn't say, "I find eating a bit of a habit, too. I've gotten quite used to it over the years..." but I wanted to.

There are two things wrong with 'it's just a habit' and 'she just wants to nurse.' The first thing wrong with the statements is that they are predicated on a philosophy of humanity that I just can't agree with: people are, at their foundations, devious, bratty, bad and undeserving of kindness, love and generosity. This is the really big one that hurts my heart when I think of how stingy some people feel compelled to be toward their loved ones. This compulsion to hold all the goodness of life away from others seems to be in order to avoid the future: so they won't get 'spoiled' or come to think that they're worthy of love or generosity or anything else completely unreasonable like that. That dark view of humanity is quite painful to watch, and I just never know what to say to someone holding that opinion, I don't know how to bridge the gap -- but I want to.

The second thing wrong with those two statements is that they rely on an adult-level understanding of devious behaviour, maliciously aimed at 'getting something' undeserved or unwarranted. Now, I will skip over the fact that I don't think adults get up in the morning thinking 'now, how can I screw them out of happiness, love, and good things so they'll be miserable?' While I'm not an optimist, exactly, I am a pragmatist and I know that no one gets up in the morning thinking of anyone more than they are thinking of themselves. They may be thinking about what they get can 'from them' but it is 'for me' not to do damage to anyone else.

A friend has the best-ever response to the implication that an infant is capable of such advanced thinking:

Honey, I know that you're little one is exceptionally brilliant and superior to all other human babies born to date and advanced well beyond her age, but at 5 months, there is simply no way a child who can't walk or talk yet can successfully plot to overthrow her parents.

Babies certainly learn quickly, and every generation is significantly smarter than the last... but, seriously -- the child can't even get a drawer open yet! Let the baby be a baby without polluting their motives with anything other than the instincts they have for survival, one of which is the need to keep the big people who are fully capable of throwing them off a 21st floor balcony from doing so.

Babies are fragile, incapable of keeping themselves safe, unable to care for their most basic needs, from cleanliness to nurishment -- what would be 'in it' for a baby to antagonize the people who keep him alive? This is such an important question, I think I'll put it in bold...

What would be 'in it' for a baby to antagonize the people who keep him alive?

If the baby gets to nurse in the middle of the night -- for any reason -- what is going to be bad about that? Breastmilk is the best possible thing any baby can eat, and direct from mom it comes in a warm and loving embrace, a sense of being cherished, affirmation of the child being worthy of nurturing, and both physical and psychological comfort.

Trust

2009-02-15T16:54:00.001-08:00

Trust... it's a big word, and a big idea. It's something I found along the way, kind of by accident...

When my kids were really little and still thriving on breastmilk alone, it struck me that there were a few things they knew that I had no way of knowing. They knew if they were hungry or full. They knew how much they'd had to eat and how much room they had left. Whatever I might be the worldwide expert about, when it came to knowing my children better than anyone else, anywhere, it was perfectly obvious that there were some things they knew more about than me.

They knew how they thought and felt. I had access to what they expressed.

They know how they feel -- I can only take their word for it. Even if I think they're confused, if they're convinced they're angry, not sad, they are experiencing it -- I'm only seeing the effects on their faces, any amount of which may be nothing more than muscular habits, or unrelated relaxation.

They know if they're hungry, uncomfortable, weirded out by someone, traumatized by an image or idea or experience, or not. I don't. In fact, contrary to our whole culture's determination about children (and random other people), I can't know.

I can't determine for them what they're thinking or feeling or experiencing. I can't even tell if they see the colour red the same way I do. As close to them as I have been, as well as I have known them -- arguably better than anyone else in the world ever has or ever will -- I can't experience their experience, and I certainly can't tell them what it is. They know themselves better than I can ever know them... and they always have.

From this growing awareness, I grew trust. I could either take their word for it or I could determine that they were wrong, not me. Something about that idea just would not go down. I couldn't look at their faces and tell them that what they were experiencing was not happening. Not with credibility. Because it wasn't happening to me.

To this day, the pervasiveness of 'someone else knows better' astonishes me. This week, one of my bright, young adult daughters told me something like 'that's not what you see.' From somewhere other than my intentional influence, they have both absorbed the culturally 'normal' reaction: you see what I see or you are wrong.

Try And Stop Them

2008-12-31T08:14:00.000-08:00

There is a fair pressure in our culture to shove children ever faster through the phases and stages of growing up. As a society, we think we know where we want them to be in 20 years, but we don't have faith that they'll get there without force. We do not believe they will automatically and naturally grow and mature. We are wrong.

It takes continual effort to impair a child's natural drive to mature, just as it takes willful effort to stop them from responding to their bodies' needs. When children are trapped for years on end in a closet or cellar (or sensory disability) without any contact with adult activities like walking and talking, yes, children will fail to progress appropriately. For some reason, though, this realisitic concern has bled over onto everyday parenting. Ironically, the result of trying to force children to mature is actually to stunt their growth.

Benjamin Hoff, in The Te of Piglet, describes a time in Chinese history when people felt it was essential for children to learn the art of conversation as early as possible. While the activities that directed this early learning were absolutely effective, the unintended side effect of all that focus on early talking was to push later and later and later the onset of walking.

Today, much the same thing can be seen in the early reading programs: yes, it is possible to teach a child's brain to decode written language earlier than it would on its own. So? At what cost is this 'earlier is better' promotion of reading? I don't know, but it is not possible to divert the energy of the brain's development from its natural path and not derail some other development.

Do early readers wind up as better readers? Absolutely not. I have personally known children who read before their third birthday because their brains were clearly attuned to that task. Today they are indistinguishable from their peers... in fact, they are indistinguishable from the many children I have known who didn't catch on to reading until they were 12. This is also the case with potty training, walking, dancing and playing the violin: by the age of 18 it is impossible to tell who started at 2 and who didn't start until 12.

Beyond this, where is the evidence that all this coercion to do things as early as possible isn't solely responsibile for the arrested development seen in the 20-somethings who still wear what look like toddler's clothes and carry stuffed animals (or wear costume ears or tails everywhere) and respond to challenging tasks exactly like 2-year-olds: by refusing to do anything at all, with or without a temper tantrum?

Where is the evidence that it is safe or healthy to manipulate the growth and development pattern of a child?

There is a lot of fear that a child will be (to quote the frightful US government program) 'left behind' if she doesn't get pushed ahead as fast as possible. Well, there is a lot of fear in parenting and children's education, period. But what benefit does this fear of the future have for kids? Children become aware that they are 'behind' or that others are 'ahead' and because of our deranged and contradictory values, quickly learn to believe that this is the same as failing--and worse: being worth less. Their self-esteem becomes predicated on things outside their control (viz: the growth pattern of their brains), which is a simple recipe for a lifetime of misery.

Children, given space and time and access to a variety of people in a variety of settings, will learn everything they need to know, develop all parts of their brains, and become (eventually -- not immediately) well-rounded, fully-grown adults. Just as it is not possible to make an infant into a physically-mature, full-grown adult in 6 years, it is not possible to make an infant into an emotionally-mature, fully-educated adult any faster than it will happen on its own. It is possible to stunt growth, but it is not possible (or desirable) to accellerate it.

Children are driven internally, physically, mentally and emotionally, toward the things that aid their maturation, at exactly the speed that is right for them. Normal, healthy kids in reasonably normal, healthy settings, the children will grow and develop into adults in about 20 years. Try and stop them.

Anti-Resourceful

2008-11-23T10:01:00.000-08:00

Excellent use of the materials at hand.

That's what I think of when I hear 'resourceful.' Then there is the opposite of resourceful. I can't decide if it's impatience, selfishness, expediency or some kind of sense of being indestructible, or even that it just doesn't matter, really-- I mean that the consequences, whatever they may be, are deemed not important enough (or is it likely enough) to sway the decision.

Unbelievable decisions has become something of a theme around here these days. The recent tragedy that started me thinking about this was a 32-year-old who fell off the 15th floor of my daughter's building and died from the impact with a balcony rail and a concrete planter and the ground. Her distraught co-workers and friends insist that it wasn't 'stupid' it was just 'poor judgement' -- which is a synonym, I thought, but whatever...

Now I think: if there is anything I want my kids to take with them into adulthood, it is a sense that there is more than one way to accomplish anything, and it's usually a good idea to think of more than one before acting on a plan. The aforementioned woman had locked her keys in her apartment and instead of any of these choices:

get the other set from her new husband, at work
call a locksmith and pay $50 to be let into her home
call the manager and have him use the passkey (no cost)
wait until her husband arrives home from work
try breaking in herself
find some strong guy to break the door down
get the keys from her husband, get another set cut and return his keys to him, with plans to give the new keys to someone nearby in case it happens again

she decided to climb down to her 14th floor apartment from the apartment directly above, without a safety line. I've done a small, informal survey -- no one I've talked to about this feels it was a smart idea.

My daughter lives on the 17th floor, and I wouldn't lean over that railing to catch any falling object (I'd make a stab for one of my kids, but not even a cat otherwise). I'm not wigged out by the height, I think it's fun to look over the edge and see all the little stuff below, but I wouldn't throw my weight against the railing for anything.

The apartments in question have 10' ceilings, and there is no 13th floor (or, rather, the 14th is the 13th floor) so when she landed on the ground level with the 2nd floor, she fell more than 120 feet. A very brief review of the plan: instead of hesitating or being talked out of this idiotic plan by the wise, elderly woman who tried, this not-young woman decided that it was so important that she make her apartment perfect for her new husband, she would not be swayed from what appears to be the first solution that occurred to her, full of confidence that she would absolutely succeed because, as she told the woman, 'I climb mountains.'

One of the unfortunate realities of life is that sometimes the single dumbest thing we ever decide to do was also the single last thing we ever did. If you can't be a good example, at least you can be a horrible warning... This story, the tragedy of the girl who killed herself after being bullied on MySpace, the many children who commit suicide from live and cyber bullying, the folks who one way or another make it into the Darwin Award nomination list, all point to a sense of 'I had no choice' or even just 'I couldn't (or didn't) think of anything else to do in the situation.' This lack of creativity just astounds me.

So, kids, resourcefulness may some day save your life, even without you ever really noticing.

Overwhelmed Already? Tis the Season (in a few weeks)

2008-11-19T10:32:00.000-08:00

Oh, man... I feel it. The neighbours across the street had their Christmas lights up (and lit) before Halloween. The stuff in the stores started appearing in August. The ads started in the papers, on bus stops, in stores and on tv by Canadian Thanksgiving (October 13th this year).

While I appreciate that stores are hoping to make 50% of their annual earnings between October 15 and December 31, and that everyone seems to be on the bandwagon earlier and earlier... People, could we have some restraint. Have you lived with a 4 year old through 10 weeks of immersion in Christmas? By the 13th of December, they're overwhelmed and the excitement of Christmas Eve often makes them barf. There is simply no way that kind of hype can lead to anything but disappointment. Yippee, Merry Christmas :(

What is a sensitive, thoughtful parent to do? How can we protect children from the onslaught of all-things-Merry-and-Bright while sustaining the magic of the season, and not go broke or crazy ourselves in the process?

make two budgets -- one for time/activities and one for money
slow down in general -- if it's a special season, all the regular stuff need not be done in addition to all the seasonal stuff
find out what you do love about the holiday season and do that
find out what you find a burden about the holidays and do not do that

There are many books and websites about bringing the meaning back to the season, filled with great tips for making the holidays personal again, and taking out the obligatory unpleasantness (including helping relatives near and far understand why you're opting out and what you're doing instead.) The key is to stay focussed on the things you love and elude the pressures to do everything.

Here are two suggestions for avoiding the wall-to-wall advertising aimed at your kids so you don't have to deal with the non-stop 'want', with the added benefit that both are free (or close to it):

instead of going to the mall, go to a park and feed the ducks or examine the seasonal changes in favourite places, or visit friends or relatives or local nursing homes
instead of watching tv and listening to radio (advertisements), watch videos or DVDs and listen to tapes or CDs -- check your friends and the library for free supplies of selections you don't own

In all your delightful free time, you'll find it an attractive idea to engage in a seasonal craft or baking project, and you'll probably save money because in the absence of all the 'great ideas' suggested by advertisers, kids will probably come up with shorter, simpler lists for Santa.

Hate Phone Calls, Too

2008-11-05T09:07:00.000-08:00

Now, I seriously wish I hadn't answered my business line last Sunday afternoon... Srsly. No, honestly. As much as I love getting hate mail and, wow, hate phone calls, I'd have paid big money to have that woman ranting on my answering machine. I'd have saved it, and cherished it and shared it with all my friends. I wish I'd had some way of recording the call. Man... what a riot.

I mean, seriously! Who says 'shame, shame, shame, shame, shame'? Who says that?!? Out loud! Where someone else can hear them... I would have written it off as hopeless dialogue if I'd seen it in a movie that was set in the Victorian era. Live, in 2008?!? Wow. Yeah, just 'wow.'

Why do I think hate mail, etc., is hilarious? Well... there's a couple of reasons. The first is that it is the real, unvarnished version of what someone else is thinking. I have found little more fascinating in the world than insight into what other people think. And what better way to display biases, judgment, self-loathing, internal critical voices and a strong belief in the ability to change someone else's mind through verbal attack than by calling up a total stranger and lambasting her?

I am fascinated by the prospects of what she hoped to achieve. Initially, I was convinced she called for an argument (which I failed to supply, sadly -- really, when you hope to push someone's buttons, it at least helps to have enough intuition to figure out what one of them might be!)

If it wasn't for an argument, did she seriously think that phoning me would be satisfying? That she'd receive a response like 'oh, deary me, you're right, please let me print a retraction'?

Then, I realized it was Sunday -- and she was calling my business line. Which is when I thought 'I bet she called to leave a scathing message on my voicemail.' As I said: gee, I wish that had happened. Who is going to believe me when I quote her from memory?

The real fun was when she called back immediately afterwards, which I answered, brightly 'Hi, again!' Did she need to know whether or not I have call display? Now that I have her phone number, I wonder how happy she is about her decision to call in the first place? Can you actually hear me grinning my head off?

Another reason I like hate mail/calls is their spontaneity. Suddenly, in the midst of a quiet life, someone bursts forth with the overwhelming need to vomit a rant all over someone else. It's like being overcome by nausea, really: uncontrollable, creating quite a smelly mess that (generally) everyone involved wishes had not occurred and no one wants to clean up. I'm all for leaving the cleanup to others, but I quite like showing off the pictures 'round, usually with a title 'Can You Believe Someone Actually Said This?'

Because it's almost impossible to get me to take anything personally, even with a hammer, my automatic response to anyone ranting is 'wow, what's up with them?' I always assume that their internal turmoil is creating their behaviour, not me, which I know makes me uber-weird. I am, not surprisingly, okay with that.

Beyond all that, though, what I really like about hate mail is the unvarnished part. Getting people to openly disagree even when they really disagree is, as John Cleese laments, quite difficult. Hate mail, et al, is a wonderful opportunity to meet the opposition to all my pet theories and strange ideas, to see if they can withstand the heat of real scrutiny. It is for this same reason that I like debate -- real debate, not the ranting hopping up and down and interrupting that is so common in government -- the need to hone a point, to really defend it, creates a variety of thinking that I find delightful to experience.

Even when I turn out to be wrong.

The 'Except Me' Clause

2008-10-08T18:50:00.000-07:00

I have a hilarious friend who used to work at a busy downtown parkade. This parkade exits onto a busy downtown street. For this reason, there are 'No Left Turn' signs all around the exit, because turning left there takes a long time, backs up traffic in the parkade for people trying to leave, and creates dangerous situations for other cars, bicycles and pedestrians because of visibility problems. In the summer, when people's windows were rolled down, she'd yell 'Except you, honey,' at all the cars (many, every single day) who turned left anyhow.

For a long time, I wondered about people persistently turning left against the signs, including the ones painted on the roads. I used to wonder, 'are there this many people who don't know which way is left?' and 'are there this many people who passed the test and forgot that a double yellow centre line means you are never allowed to cross it?' Then, I heard my friend one day... ah-ha! I get it now...

It's the 'except me' clause. Yes, yes, we all know we're not allowed to turn left, here, but I live there and work over there, so I have to turn left there ... or I'd have to approach my house from a different way, think about my route more than once in my lifetime, go around the block or go past and turn around and come back, which, obviously, I'm certainly never, ever going to do. Although, everyone else in every single situation exactly like this that makes me have to stop or wait or slows traffic or breaks laws should get a ticket and have their licence revoked. Obviously. Except me. Obviously.

This sounds a little bit like a massive ego and a major sense of entitlement interfering with thinking clearly, but it's actually much worse than that. It is sheer, unadulterated, disengagement from reality.

This pops up everywhere. Years ago, when the Canuks (Vancouver, BC-based NHL hockey team for all the non-sport folk) won or possibly lost a big game, riots occured all over Vancouver. On the news footage, on nearly every corner there were people standing still, ignoring police instructions to get off the streets. A couple of women stand out in my memory of this as they stood chatting and smoking on the corner as the riot passed by them, with police very intensely ordering them to move away to safety, and they just stood there all afronted that someone was actually under the impression that they had any authority to even ask them to take a step backwards. It was hilarious, watching the tear gas roll over them, and they started choking and gasping and screaming and crying... I really wanted to be close enough to them to ask, 'did you think they were kidding?' Nope... the police just didn't mean them. Everyone else should be somewhere else, but I'm okay, 'cause I'm just standing here not doing anything, so they all have to do what they're told and I'll just stand here, 'cause they don't mean me... I always wondered if they sued for pain and suffering.

Of course who they'd sue is an interesting question. I mean, where does it stop, if no one in your whole life up to now has disabused you of the delusion that there is an 'except me' clause in every contract? Do you sue your parents for not enlightening you? Your school? Every employer? Your own lawyer?

Passing vs. Understanding

2008-09-13T19:04:00.000-07:00

I love this joke:

What do you call a doctor who had the 2nd to lowest mark in his final exam?

Doctor.

I've encountered a lot of people and a lot of professionals over the years, and as enamoured as people might be with the hilarious idea that someone who has passed the test is as qualified to do the work as everyone else who's passed the test, I happen to disagree...

I've passed a lot of tests over the years. A lot. Some of them, I even understood some of the material. One of the things that 'everyone knows' is that there are techniques to taking tests that have to do with understanding testing rather then the material being tested. But beyond that, there is the fact that the process of mastering 'test' in any given field of study is remarkably different than the ability to master the material being tested.

Everyone knows someone who is 'book smart' but incapable of applying the information out in the real world. They can often teach it very well, but actually using the knowledge is a very different thing...

Here's an example from real life: my daughter's boyfriend passed out, late one night, in our kitchen. He made a lot of noise going down, he's tall and a full-grown man. First on the scene was our first-aid-certified younger daughter. She heard him go down and when she saw him lying on the floor and she did what she always does in any kind of crisis: curled up in a ball (on the floor) and screamed and cried.

She is certified. She took all the coursework, studied the book, passed the test. See the problem? Add this to the problem: her dad is also certified and he was on the scene almost immediately after me. What did he do? Hover in the next room asking unrelated questions, obviously, just as he is trained to do? He is actually certified at a much higher level, being in the military where everyone gets to take this stuff all the time.

This left me (totally untrained) and our older daughter (certified with 'industry' first aid, to know when to call 911) to deal. We got cold cloths, examined the head injury, checked for broken bones, pulled him out of the cupboard and watched to see what he'd do as he woke. We gave him juice and water, washed off his wounds, sat with him while he re-oriented himself and determined that he was fine, but bruised. Did we do the right thing? Who knows. The people who've passed the test never told us...

The thing is, there are personality issues related to applying material just as there are personality issues in test-taking. Some people just freak out with the pressure of taking tests, and fail even though they know the material. Those people are unfortunate victims of our test-friendly society, because they're stopped doing what they can by failing a process that has no bearing on it. But it gets worse:

There are people walking around convinced that they are 'very good' at things they aced tests on, without any awareness that the skills necessary to ace a test are very, very different than the skills necessary to perform in the real world. Sometimes that's kind of irritating but irrelevant, like when the hairstylist who isn't any good thinks they know everything they need to messes up your hair. Sometimes it's scare-dangerous, like when it's the anaesthesiologist keeping you alive...

It's Okay, He's Just a Kid

2008-08-13T11:05:00.001-07:00

Way back in the olden days, I took a series of tests. In fact, I was taken out of class regularly to do a lot of tests. For months. The tests were to find out if I should skip a grade. Isn't that the coolest, aren't I amazing? I was in 4th grade. The lowest placement on the tests was grade 8 math, because I didn't have any idea what algebra was. The average placement was university, second year. Clearly, skipping a grade was going to be pointless, to say the least.

Spin forward a lot of years... until quite recently, actually. When a person is thoroughly indoctrinated into some idea by true cultural cohesiveness surrounding it, it takes a really long time to see through it. Or, rather -- gee, it took me a long time to twig to this...

This means that I effectively graduated high school and finished first year university when I was 9, except I dipped the math.

Now, here's the funny part. Or, rather the part that I've only recently stopped gritting my teeth about: since it was pointless to move up a year, and it's completely acceptable to waste any child's time, so I got to do the next 8 years anyhow.

Nope, I haven't stopped gritting my teeth about that. It still makes me really, really mad.

Now, check your response to that: a 9-year-old challenged and passed the exams to complete first year university, what should that child do tomorrow? Oh, just finish the rest of grade 4, you say? Or, perhaps upon consideration, that's a bit silly. But, what, then? Too young to go to university, obviously (is that really that obvious? Or is it just a really, really ordinary way of thinking about something we simply do not think about much?) Certainly can't just 'hang out' -- imagine the dangers to society, having unemployed children out wandering around after they've finished learning everything the schools hope to teach... yeah. Imagine. Can't work (there's laws about interfering with a child's... education.... um.)

The fact of the matter is that it is acceptable in our society to waste a child's life any way any authority happens to see fit, and this is the perfect example: see, 9 years old, already done everything (except math) that will be required for the next 8 or 9 years, and, well... who cares? It's not as if a child has anything valuable to do with her time.

This is the most pervasive form of de-humanizing discrimination in our society today. Virtually no one will stand up to speak up against boring teachers, coursework, poor textbooks, unnecessarily repetitive tasks, waiting around for 6 years while the rest of the class fails to catch up, or spending 13 years floundering over their heads with material they will probably never understand... Because even if it is a total waste of time, so what? Children don't have anything important to do anyhow.

Imagine making a doctor, who'd passed every test and licence exam, being required to continue taking the classes that were designed to help her pass the exams, for an additional 9 years, because she wasn't 34 yet. What does 34 have to do with it?

Exactly. What does 18 have to do with it. More to the point, what on earth does being 9 have to do with it?

A Human Breast

2008-07-13T13:47:00.000-07:00

Confronted daily with ancient, ignorant and silly suppositions about the function and purpose of human breasts, I'd like to take a few moments to offer some basic facts.

Breasts are glands.

That means that they are not, say, fence posts or buckets, nor even bladders. Do many people know what glands do? Here's a simple overview: through interaction with the blood system, glands absorb blood components and create enzymes and hormones and a variety of complex fluids and then excrete what is created. We have salivary glands, men have seminal glands, we all have adrenal glands. They excrete things: saliva, semen, adrenaline... or, in the case of mammary glands: milk.

When you think of eating, do you say to yourself 'better wait for my salivary glands to fill up, so I'll be able to chew and swallow....' Hardly. Glands don't 'fill up' they 'produce.' So, just for real, blatant clarity: breasts produce milk, they don't store it.

Since they don't 'fill up' it is also not possible for them to 'empty.' If one more healthcare professional says 'empty the breast' within 100 yards of me, I am going to scream. What century, do you think it was, when it was 'discovered' that breasts were glands? Who, out of a random sample of professions that includes lawyers, research librarians, potters and physicians, do you think should know that?

Like pineal glands and pituitary glands and sweat glands, mammary glands don't have an expiry date. That means that whenever those glands are triggered to start doing what it is that they do, they don't magically stop being able to do so at some arbitrary point in time. So, cue the screaming: the next time I hear a healthcare professional tell anyone that after X years or months mothers can no longer make 'good' milk, I'm just going to go completely banshee.

The changes that occur in breasts during pregnancy alter the function of the breast forever. From being a cute way to fill out a bra they become functioning glands. They do not revert to non-functioning glands, although their production without the necessary stimulation will reduce to virtually nil. So, whether or not this mommy is currently making any milk for anyone doesn't stop the gland from being fully capable of functioning at any time. It may take a while for the necessary stimulation to create a significant supply again, but demand (or the lack of it) is the only reason for the supply to diminish. Women who are decades post-menopause can continue to lactate.

Which brings me to the next one: 'lost my milk'. Grrr. Shall I just scream now and save myself the suspense in waiting?

It is not possible to 'lose' milk. Well, after you've expressed it into something, you can certainly lose track of it... but 'I couldn't make any milk' is so incredibly rare a physical condition to be statistically-irrelevant for this diatribe. No matter what makes anyone feel less guilty about their choices, sorry to say.

[At this juncture I will just interrupt myself to point out that I happen to know there are a great many vile and unhealthy choices that rival even artificial breastmilk formulae in terms of damage to baby's health and potential for loss of life that a great many children have survived being fed in infancy. I know that for many women breastfeeding is a tremendous struggle and for many more it is just about the most gross and disgusting thing they can think of doing with their bodies (which makes me wonder how they felt about the process of getting pregnant.... but, hey! whatever!). But, honestly, it would be so much less obnoxious if they just said 'I just didn't want to,' instead of repeating all the physically-impossible fantasies about how they 'couldn't.' If they can't deal with how guilty they feel about not wanting to (or about caving into the pressure not to, or by being ignorant enough of the facts to be convinced by someone that it was impossible, or didn't matter much anyhow), I am certainly not going to go to any trouble to cover up the accurate information -- first because it won't help them and, second because lying to another woman certainly won't make anyone's else's guilt go away, either. Get therapy, and leave the breastfeeding advocates out of it, k?]

So... 'losing' milk. Losing what is necessary to maintain a milk supply is closer to the truth. Just as no one measures the amount of saliva output when they're not eating (and then fret about how little saliva they make, oh my!) the measure of 'enough' breastmilk is based solely on the baby having unlimited access to the breast and being well-positioned to be able to do the job. Yes, I did say 'unlimited'. Breasts need babies around to stimulate an appropriate milk supply (oh, what a surprise), and babies need breasts around to grow naturally and normally. Isn't it fortunate how breasts and babies tend to come all of a piece... When mom decides that baby can be 'over there' (in another room or in another city), she is gambling on her body's ability to respond to stimulus that is not present. Lots of women have those kind of breasts: make buckets of milk at the drop of a pin, pretty much no matter what is going on around them. Other women are less fortunate (and have drier clothes): they need the baby right there, hormones and all, for their bodies to respond to the stimuli necessary. Including [everyone ready to shudder and shriek?] licking, bumping against and mouthing without sucking 'purposefully'.

Yes, that means that a baby with unlimited access to the breast is not going to be nursing 'down to business' 100% of the time. Restricted from the rest of the natural behaviours that increase milk supply, this mom is going to have a great deal of difficulty making her body do what would otherwise be natural. Pump or no pump. Period. No matter how uncomfortable it makes anyone.

Breastfeeding, lactation and the function of the human breast are biological processes. Pretending that the social 'norms' or cultural discomforts are important to that is naive to say the least. To be the most accurate, cultural and social lies actively impede healthy breastfeeding.

Cast in Stone

2008-07-07T17:38:00.000-07:00

An author with an unfortunate name (Carol Dweck) wrote a fascinating book, MindSet, The new psychology of success, which described in detail a reality I was vaguely aware of for a very long time. I love it when smart people describe clearly things I've been convinced of, but without the words...

And it explained why I'm frustarted every single time someone tells me I'm 'lucky' (usually for being able to do something that I've spent considerable time learning how to do) or that they can't ever do... whatever... because they don't already know how.

I swear, somedays, that the single biggest obstacle facing most people and their chance at success is the solid, unsupportable, immutable belief that they can't do.

As Dr. Dweck explains, there are two different views of the world: fixed (those frustrating people) and mine. Well, she doesn't know me, but it is mine: the growth mindset. I assume that if people have learned how to do something, figured out how to do something or done something, I could also do so. The only impediment I see is that I have not yet done it and that I haven't yet learned or figured out how to do it. I may never take the time or go to the trouble of learning how... but I can, I'm sure of it.

Those frustrating people have a completely other view of the world: they can't. If they haven't done it before, they can't. If they don't identify personally with someone who has, they can't. If someone hasn't invited them to, they can't. They can't.

The tragedy is that this mindset is learned. The glory is that both of them are learned.

No one is born with any belief. Beliefs are learned, assembled, adopted, conditioned and acquired. However cast in stone they feel, they are learned. That means that they can be re-learned. The only thing anyone needs to know is that it is possible.

One thing I know about self-confidence is that it is based on the things a person believes he can do well... and the collection of things he thinks he can probably learn to do. While there isn't much anyone can do to increase the number of things they've accomplished in the past, there is a great deal that can be done about what he thinks he can do. Believing it is possible

It is possible to increase self-confidence by intentionally adopting a growth mindset. It, like all changes to ingrained thinking, takes practice, intention and self-awareness. It is possible to take the things we thought were cast in stone and mold them into other things.

What a Treat!

2008-06-26T13:24:00.000-07:00

While the general level of understanding about food choices and their importance is certainly increasing, there is a hold-over from the carrot-and-stick Clean Your Plate Society that I believe just needs to die. Die, die DIE!!!

Everytime I hear someone tell me all about how they're improving their diet this, making healthy choices that, moving more, being conscious this and than but they like a 'treat' now and then... my teeth meet and grind a little. Grrr.

How... how? How has the lowest-grade, nurition-free simple salt-fat-sugar flavour with artificial colours, flavours, emulsifiers and extenders and preservatives crap managed to get such a sweet, cute word? 'Treat'... wheee. It sounds light, delightful... Why is it attributed to such nasty grub?

A fresh, local, juicy and perfectly-ripe strawberry. That, I could see is a 'treat'. A package of six different kinds of sugar, artificial colours made to look like drawings of surreal strawberries, and artificial flavours made to smell or taste like something else entirely, with bha and tri-sodium phosphate? That is supposed to be a treat? How?

A couple of years ago, I got over pop. And candy. However much you might be attached to the wonderfulness of candy, I submit that if you stop eating it for 3 weeks and then go back to your absolute favourite, what you'll taste when you try it again is chemicals. Candy is not sweet and delicious... it's just sweet.

A friend pointed out to me quite a long time ago that people are no longer satisified with naturally sweet foods, but prefer sweetened foods. I thought it was an important insight. If your palate doesn't experience fresh, ripe raspberries as 'sweet' without sugar (or those erzatz chemical engineering feats called 'sweeteners'), there is something wrong with the palate not the raspberry, and the palate needs to be re-trained.

So, once and for all... if it's not made out of nutritious food that nurtures and sustains a human body, could we just stop calling it a 'treat' and call it what it really is: junk.

I Give It a B-

2008-06-24T07:32:00.000-07:00

Ah, grades... Remember the lovely, tight horror of seeing an entire year's effort nailed to a piece of paper in one or two digits? Now, when it's been announced, when you suddenly realize there is nothing at all you can do about it, you realize too late there was more you needed to do...

Had a conversation not too long about about the 'reality' of the fact that people will be grading you 'in the real world' for 'the rest of your life.' Well, someone else had that conversation at me. Wow, does it ever not match my personal experience. And, while my husband, who works in a very large organization that thinks it is forced to rate and classify, much the same way the school system does, even he doesn't get 'graded by everyone throughout his life.'

From this conversation, I remembered one that I'd had years ago with a principal who actually said out loud 'grades are objective standards.' We were in a group setting, and my only response (because sometimes even I can be restrained) was a snort of derision.

First, a couple of facts about grades:

largely arbitrary, definitely judged by individuals, each according to their own scale or their own interpretation of the 'objective' scale
like the winner of the Stanley Cup, no more a statement about this whole person and their whole knowledge of a subject than any single game is a determination of the 'best' team in the league -- even when it's compiled from more than a single exam
determined from the grader's understanding of the material, which certainly by high school may be based on dated information or the teacher may simply be less knowledgeable than the person being graded (this becomes a critical problem by post-secondary, when an instructor may be the person in the room with the least experience and knowledge, a situation I've been in more than once)
related far more, it has been very clearly demonstrated with some very creative and devious research, to the grader's opinion of the victim than the victims' actual knowledge (everything from 'the better looking the student the better the grade' to the instructor's prior knowledge of the student bias -- ask any third child in the same family going to the same school what they think of this)
related to the grader's preferred learning style -- expressions that match that style are marked more highly than expressions that conflict with it, even when they're both correct
sexism is alive and well in education, and grades reflect that bias, too
based on the unsupportable idea that what is known in 'this' context (whether that be 'right now during this test' or 'expressed in this assignment' or 'how extraverted the student is and whether or not said student participates enough in class'), which generally means that students with more stable lives have better grades overall, being the least likely to have something tremendously distracting sink even one assignment or exam
based on the hiliariously impossible theory that in a random, small group of individuals it is not possible for all of them to be extremely capable

That last one really annoys me. I've been in groups of more than 30 people who were all, judging by their conversation and behaviour, true idiots. But if they were all in a classroom together, some of them would receive Bs on their work anyhow. Potentially, some might even win an A. Conversely, I've been in a classroom with 17 geniuses who all understood the material at a very high level, and some of them actually got Cs. This is the 'statistically it is unlikely' idiocy that makes people who don't understand statistics attempt to force 'averages' onto very small populations. The fact is, if there are 10 people in a group, the chances of them scoring on a bell curve in any metric is ludicrously unlikely. Much more likely that there will be clumps of identical scores. Teachers, who often know more than is good for them but understand less than they need to, are uncomfortable with this, and will not give out 5 As in a small class, even if there are no differences between those 5 students' knowledge. This, of course, reflects the idiocy of the system that would certainly flag that many As in one class as 'probable cheating.'

Now, having been in the 'smart class' throughout school, it became a subject of some controversy -- because the grades on the transcripts are the same. Why would a smart person (it was argued) take a 'smart' class and risk getting a B or even a C, by doing much more rigourous work, when the same student could take a 'regular' class and be virtually guaranteed all As? If it's all GPA, seriously, taking the 'dumb' class is the way to a university scholarship.

Don't you just love it when the carrot and stick methods reward completely the wrong things?

And therein lies my biggest problem with grades: the carrot and stick. First, because it simply does not work (often enough to be justified). Second, because it is abuse. Third, because it rewards the wrong things (grades rather than knowledge). Fourth, because it is irrelevant to 'real life' and self-referential to a remarkable degree, yet considered by everyone in and everyone supporting the system as 'valuable', even when no one can articulate exactly how it is valuable.

The troublesome logic is thus:

I know that grades are meaningless, really, but there has to be some way to rate and judge people we don't really know because there are too many of them to know. And we have to communicate those ratings and judgements to the people we don't know who need to know how everyone 'scored' so they can use those ratings and judgements to ... further rate and judge these people instead of getting to know them.

Or, such:

Obviously grades are a poor way of rating someone's knowledge, being so easy to cheat, fake, hire or otherwise bluster to a higher-than-justifiable mark, so we certainly don't know what any individual's most-accurate grade really is, because we don't know how many are cheating and how many are having others do the work for them and we don't know how many (up or down) are based on instructor bias... but we need some way to convey what we know about this student to others, even if we all know it's inaccurate, even if they know it's inaccurate, even if everyone knows it's inaccurate. We need a metric, so we use this deeply flawed one.

Well, now, that makes sense...

Real Food

2008-06-20T09:34:00.000-07:00

I frequently field questions like:

when do I start feeding my baby real food?
she isn't eating very much real food, what should I do?
how much real food should my baby be getting?

My policy has long been to answer every question with a question... What I'd like to ask is:

What on earth have you been feeding them so far? Spackle?

I am familiar with the popular cultural idea that babies aren't really people, so I suppose it makes some deranged sense that the food made specifically for them (by a human body or made to mimic that made by a human body) probably can't be real either. I mean, truly, babyhood is just a transition period from non-existent to potential humanness (which happens on a sliding scale, generally just a bit older than the child currently is), so obviously anything that happens in that period is, by definition, not really happening. At least not to a real person. They won't remember it anyhow, which is somehow justification for behaving as if their feelings or experieces aren't real. Hmm... back to that real thing, already.

Breastmilk (and all the commercial products made to look or ...um, no, just look... like it) probably, by natural extension of the thought-process involved, would automatically not really be real or worth anything either.

But, people: what is milk, if it isn't food? What is the baby growing on, thriving on... surviving on, if it's not food? What possible other category could it go into? Here is a selection of options:

transportation methods
building materials
ideas
furniture
pets
genre fiction
sport

Life is filled with all kinds of spectacular mental gymnastics. The maneouver that puts breastmilk (or its artificial substitutes) into a category with wishful thinking and the tooth fairy is very odd to see in action.

So, to clarify: breastmilk is the ideal human food. In a healthy mother, there are no nutritional deficits (no nutrient required by a human body that is not supplied by milk) and the only reason we move on to a wider variety of food is... okay, there're 2 reasons:

eventually mom would have to eat more than her bodyweight in food to satisfy the children's caloric needs, and;
it would become a closed system with energy used up and not supplied from anywhere else, which until people can do photosynthesis can't succeed.

It's food. It's real. Clear?

Co-Sleeping 'Dangers'

2008-06-15T13:57:00.000-07:00

A recently-released article has been circulating around the Canadian media, lambasting the perpetrators of the horror known as co-sleeping.

Now, there is a lot wrong with this media release, and the spin within... not surprisingly. The author of the piece, Dr. Lauwers, who is also chairman of the Paediatric Death Review Committee and Deaths Under Five Committee, has taken a number of things for granted, frankly with no justification at all. The very first being the idea that it is intrinsically safe to sleep in a crib. Just for fun, I googled 'crib recall' just to see how 'safe' these baby cages are...

Over 1 million Simplicity cribs recalled after the deaths of 2 babies... oops, no, three deaths...
About 20,000 Simmons Kids Crib mattresses recalled for failing to meet the tight fit requirement...
Munire recalls 24,000 cribs because the mattress cannot be moved to the lowest position, enabling children to climb over the railing and fall out...

With many duplications of the same news stories about these three, that was just the first 10 hits.

Over at Health Canada a quick search for crib recalls pops up a list of more than a dozen on the first page, dating way back to January 2002. Which, of course, means that all the hand-me-down and second-hand cribs that have already been recalled because of their lethal danger to babies are not on the front page of that search.

Of course that brings up the question: how to compare the statistics for 'co-sleeping' attributed deaths with those associated with cribs? Well, here's the quote from Canada's Consumer Product Safety folks:

In recent years, CPSC has received reports of about 30 deaths of infants and toddlers each year from crib-related incidents.* While these deaths have declined considerably from the yearly toll of 150 to 200 in the early 1970s, the number of deaths associated with cribs remains higher than with any other nursery product.

The * refers to this footnote:

Products marketed as portable crib/play yard combinations were included only if
the product was used primarily as a crib. Deaths involving Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) were excluded.

Well... that's nice. This survey of crib-related deaths actually removes SIDS statistics... meaning a great many more deaths are on the list to compare to the co-sleeping ones, because those were not separated out for SIDS.

While it is obviously unsafe for someone who is obese to fall asleep in a drunken stupor on a couch with a baby on his chest (one of the deaths noted in a study of the 'risks' of co-sleeping)... it is difficult to see how this is even considered co-sleeping. Not the least because the adult in question isn't sleeping, he's unconscious. Another of the deaths, upon searching the original facts in the case, was found to be a baby, alone on a bed, who was trapped between the mattress and the headboard.

So, let's clarify the spin a bit: 30 babies die each year in Canada in cribs not including SIDS. Between 2006 and 2007 (that's 2 years) 41 babies died in Canada outide of cribs, including SIDS (and for some reason in this 'study' one child died on the floor, which just makes this whole thing confusing) in what are presumed to be 'co-sleeping' situations. Those 'co-sleeping' situations include babies who die in any kind of non-crib sleeping arrangement, whether erzatz or how that family actually chooses to sleep. That means that babies who die entrapped in couches and alone in a parent's or sibling's bed are (because they aren't in cribs) 'co-sleeping'.

Which is, not to put too fine a point on the subject, ridiculous.

Too Many Subjects

2008-06-12T11:18:00.000-07:00

Recently, I've been having a number of, shall I say 'typical' conversations... typical of our society's lack of common sense, typical of our GroupThink reaction-rather-than-respond approach to unfamiliar subjects, typical of some professionals' needs to appear 'all knowing' rather than be accurate (or humble...) I'll make a short list, to see if I can identify them all:

co-sleeping 'dangers'
'real' food to supplement/complement breastmilk
the value (or even objective reality) of grades
the use of the word 'treat' as it refers to low-grade, poor flavour and nutrition-free comestibles
the mindset that casts people's abilities (and brain structure) in concrete, based on speculation that's more than 50 years out of date
unceasing misunderstanding of the basic function of the lactating breast
age discrimination that frees adults (and other children) to ignore a child's basic human rights
the idea that passing a test is the same as competent to complete a task (other than taking the test)
the idea that it is best to follow the rules and apply them evenly with the proviso that any individual at their own discretion can add the 'except me' clause
children will not grow up unless they are forced, coerced, pushed or made to

Oh, and probably the capper to the whole week's worth: it is possible to 'make' anyone do anything they choose not to do.

Maybe, I'll do one of each of these for a few days and see if I can let these conversations go...

Unknown Knowledge

2008-04-20T19:31:00.000-07:00

There is a pervasive undercurrent in Western society -- at least the bits of it I get to see. I think the Sylvan Learning Centre ad put it the most succinctly:

A little girl, probably ten, going flaming red at the front of the classroom as she stutters over reading the word 'island.' Oh, the shame. Then she goes to Sylvan and can read quickly and easily out loud in class.

Oh, my yes... the Sylvan way: learning things and then doing them; instead of the more common Western way, which is: know everything because you're smart, without ever having to learn it at all...

The implication is that smart people know things without having to learn them. That actually creates the prodigy problem. Prodigy problem, you say?

Shirley Temple was an amazing dancer. For a three-year-old. She was a remarkable dancer for an eight-year-old. She was quite an ordinary dancer for a thirteen-year-old. As an adult, she was bright enough to do something other than trying to dance. Because you see, being naturally talented at something is a bit of a problem... it stops people from knowing that they need to learn how to get better at things, if that's what they want to do.

When I was spending a lot of time at the dance studio, when my children were first taking classes, the prodigy problem was visible. The children who were good dancers before they were 10 (some of them had been great dancers at 4 and 6) were appalled by how fast my kids learned to dance as well as they could. When they noticed, and it was impossible not to, they either got angry and left dance entirely or got extremely competitive at my kids.

The thing is, having up to that point relied on 'I don't have any idea how I learn this stuff' when they get to the age when everyone else who's got 12 or 13 years of 'I have figured out how to learn things' they are surpassed and they have no resources for how to deal with that. If they've thought of themselves as 'naturally talented' (which they probably are), they have no idea how to bring 'intentional learning' to those skills.

And herein lies a problem that was dealt with in some detail by Carol Dweck in Mindset: the new psychology of success: the fixed mindset. If someone (or the entire culture they find themselves in) feels that 'this is it' in terms of talent or ability, they will approach any problem or opportunity facing them with a simple response: I can or cannot do this, and there is nothing I can do about that.

The alternative is the 'learning mindset' -- the one that says 'everything people do, they learn to do first, so I can (if I want to, and apply myself, and do what it takes) learn anything people can do.'

Guess which one makes for a happier, more effective, high-self-esteem life?

Sleep, the cultural contradiction

2008-04-18T14:20:00.001-07:00

My strange, noticing brain noticed something again. Parents spend a great deal of time and effort researching and experimenting and seeking advice about how to stop their babies from waking up in the night. Or, more accurately, how to stop babies from waking parents in the night.

Fast-forward 13 or 14 years. Now parents spend a great deal of time and effort researching, experimenting and seeking advice on how to stop their children sleeping so much.

First we teach children how to do things (follow orders, make choices, sleep on command, etc.) and then, in just a few years when the children really get a handle on that, we ask that they stop. Don't take orders, think for yourself. Don't make choices, do what I say. Stop sleeping all the time and get something done.

More cynical parts of my brain make comments that are uncharitable, like: parents really don't seem to like children very much, and; this seems to be about what is expedient for the parent in this moment, not what is best for the child or society. I don't know that I'd go a long way to contradict either of those sentences, but I will create a little more compassion than that:

I understand:

there are a squillion pressures, messages and 'experts' about childrearing, most of whom have no more idea what they're doing than the parents who are listening

parents never (not once) ever get up in the morning thinking 'how can I screw up my kid today?' (and children never go to bed at night thinking 'how can I piss mom off tonight?')

like most other egrigious mistakes, this is about a lack of knowledge and understanding, not foul motives or vile feelings ... even when the mistakes look like they have selfish motives, or the feelings that arise are vile

There seems to be a war going on: parents sleep on one side, children's needs in the night on the other. Parents want to meet the child's needs 'now and forever' for the whole night before the child goes to bed. Which is a little like trying to eat 'once and for all'.

A child can't be made 'full for the night' or even 'sleepy for the night' by any means before bedtime. They cannot be made to feel secure for the night, the right temperature for the night, comfortable for the night, or adequately unlonely (what is the opposite of lonely?) for the night.

Those needs can only be met as they arise. If the child is lonely in the night, there is nothing for it except to assure them, with a parent's presence, that she is not alone. If the child is hungry in the night, nothing will stop the hunger until he is fed. If the child is uncomfortably warm, cold, wet or sticky, leaving it until after the sun comes up will only let the child know which is more important: his needs or the location of the sun.

And, in 13 years, there is nothing except sufficient sleep that will make a rapidly-growing adolescent be well-rested. And, what outside 'expert' is going to know for this child, based on how fast she's growing, how much exercise she got and what kinds of stresses there were today, how much sleep that takes?

Is it possible to just meet the needs as they present themselves?

Drug Education for Kids

2008-04-09T10:11:00.000-07:00

There is a lot around these days... anti-smoking propaganda, 'Just Say No' campaigns, websites that may be excellent resources or condescending tripe aimed at kids, their parents or, let's be honest, other people who already agree with the position of those writing them. Check out the Ontario-government funded The Truth (http://www.thetruth.com/) website... it's terrible. Hundreds of 'facts' without anything helpful like references or sources. Or, because I can't avoid this horrible pun, The Truth.

Recently, we received a web survey asking what the teenager in the house thought of some written materials aimed at teens. Oh, man. Where to start.

The overall tone of the material was, not surprisingly, "You are stupid, we know more than you and you will never understand this well enough to make sensible choices. Just do what we tell you to do, then you too can be 'cool.'"

Do you remember being a teenager and being faced with one of those adults? You know, the desperate ones who want to be seen to be cool by the teens? Arg! I swear, this material was written by them. You can smell the desperation, the need to be looked up to, right alongside the utter certainty that the adult is right and the teen is a zombie.

My kids, without any difficulty at all, have found out everything they want to know about drugs -- to the point that they can tell me all kinds of interesting things about words I'd never heard of, like ketamine. They found web sources and books and experts they believed in without having to resort to watching a 20 second commercial telling them what to think.

Have you seen the anti-smoking garbage as of late? My goodness, there are so many people dying of the effects of cigarette smoke -- people who haven't been in regular contact with it, or been smokers themselves, sometimes for decades are somehow crammed into the statistics of 'deaths from smoking' and 'deaths from second hand smoke' -- it's almost the #1 worldwide killer, probably above the most basic 'all people will die of something' cause. Sometimes the deranged side of my mind suspects that everyone who isn't shot or run over by a car, who is old enough to have ever been in a restaurant when smoking was allowed, dies of 'smoking-related illness.' It's a simple leap for a propaganda writer, after all... It goes kind of like this:

Tobacco, when burned, released 4000 chemicals (we'll talk about that piece of b.s. in a moment)

Several (between 6 and 200, depending on who you're listening to) are carcinogenic

THEREFORE anyone who has contracted cancer who was ever anywhere near tobacco burning has suffered from the effects of tobacco smoke AND

Heart disease and lung disease are both known to be correlated to smoking and second hand smoke

THEREFORE anyone with lung or heart disease who has ever been around burning tobacco is suffering from the effects of tobacco smoke

ERGO, anyone who dies after having contracted any of those (cancer, heart or lung diseases) can justifiably be said to have 'died from' the effects of tobacco smoke.

Ha ha ha ha. Oh sure.

Back to that '4000 chemicals' bit. I like this part, it's the funny part. Just for comparsion's sake: anyone have any idea how many chemicals are released into the air when spicy battered fries are fried? Just for comparison, I mean...

No?

Hmm... perhaps 4000 chemicals released is a lot. Perhaps it is not. Who would know, with nothing at all to compare that isolated fact to? But 'chemicals' is a term that comprises... well, everything. Any compound (like gold-silver alloy) is a chemical. So are all vitamins, all minerals that aren't in their pure elemental form. Oh, and all elements. Some folks have managed to pollute the term and really mean 'dangerous compounds' but, since the 'list' of 'chemicals' released when tobacco burns includes both carbon and oxygen, the whole thing turns silly.

And that, unfortunately, is where almost all anti-drug stuff goes. In an atmosphere of fear, and lacking any trust in the people receiving the information, the anti-drug folks (including the anti-tobacco crowd) are provoked to propaganda.

What is the difference between propaganda and, say, marketing? Well, for one thing, anti-drug campaigns don't have to meet any standards for 'truth in advertising.' They can tell people that marijuana is a 'gateway' drug without having to restict that statement to any part of reality or define the term. And the research is clear: the vast majority of people who use marijuana (like tobacco and alcohol) do not ever progress into 'heavier' drugs, not even for experimentation. Gateway to nowhere, perhaps? Why is that term used? To invoke fear and to maintain ignorance.

Propaganda also has a level of invective that borders on the evangelical. It's not unhealthy to try pot -- it's immoral. It's not illegal for minors to use alcohol, it's an indication of someone's lack of character. Strong, upstanding people don't do these things, weak and amoral people do. And today, with the No Stank You and The Truth ads, people who smoke are ugly, stupid, socially-unacceptable and smell worse than decomposing flesh, apparently.

Propaganda is most obvious, though, when the lack of trust in the truth really shines through. The message is 'don't just tell them the truth -- amplify and adorn the truth with hyperbole and speculation, dire warnings of doom and death.' And lots of exclamation points!! Drugs kill. !!Tobacco kills everyone who ever uses it, and most of the people who are ever near it. !!!!

When parents are attempting to influence their children's choices, particularly into their 20s, when they are truly 'free' of the supervision we rely on for the first 2 decades, what can they do that will actually work?

The truth. In fact, the truth is quite bad enough. Meth is highly addictive (true) and causes unsightly skin problems (true), is illegal (true), may be tampered with to make it even more addictive (also true) and distracts users from things that are important to them, like loved ones and feeling like a capable, responsible adult (all true). Does everyone who ever tries meth get hooked on it? No. Does everyone who gets hooked on it die or contract infectious diseases? Also no. Is it possible to have a clean source that is easy to get and won't risk the more revolting side effects? Well, yes, maybe, for a while if no one gets caught and the people involved don't have any difficulty getting the ingredients, and have no nefarious agenda in addition to supplying someone with drugs... That's an awful lot of conditions required to make a happy life hooked to something. Not impossible, but who has time or energy to spend that much time making sure tomorrow's lunch is that safe, much less something illicit that makes 'finding out' even harder?

Another 'fact' about drug use that the anti-campaigners like to gloss over as if there was nothing anyone can do about it is the self-esteem connection.

People who have high self-esteem may, certainly, try out drugs that are readily available to them (caffeine, alcohol and tobacco being way at the top of the list), but the people who are 'hooked instantly' specifically like the drugs for their ability to stop them from feeling the way they always do (or give them access to feelings they walled off long ago in a desperate attempt to stop feeling all the pain). Now, just for reference, self-esteem is not about being high on oneself, narcissitic or boastful. High self-esteem is based on feeling capable of accomplishing many of the things necessary in life, and on feeling lovable and loved.

Parents can help with all of those things: directing children toward doing things with their strengths and making sure they know that their weaknesses don't need to be 'fixed' and are no sign of being 'broken,' just an indication of where they're always (probably) going to need other people's assistance -- as is appropriate in a cooperative society.

Making sure children know they are loved... that will go a long way to ensuring they do not turn to drugs (or anti-drug propaganda) to find a way to live with themselves (when they don't care much if they die.)

Hate Mail Keeps Me Young

2008-03-27T09:55:00.000-07:00

Hate Mail Keeps Me Young

Every now and then, I receive vitriolic replies to something I've said or written, and wow... it really makes a mark! I peruse it carefully, read it over and over and re-read my original comments as context, often several times.

This stuff is just fascinating! The topics that people whip off these epistles over is hugely varied, and it's amazing the variety of sources. Email lists, online chats, my columns and articles... It makes me want to write some more, just so I can get more of them. I don't think there is a faster way to find out what someone's afraid of than to see what provokes them to write hate mail.

The lastest one (well, one and a half -- same original comments, 2 different writers, one of whom was annoyed and called me a know-it-all, as if I don't already know that! The other who was just livid and called me 'crazy' -- as if that's an insult to me!) was over some feedback I gave on a mom's networking website about sleep.

Man, do people get het up about sleeping issues!

I suggested that it is odd, no? that our culture has this obsession with getting kids to sleep, making them stay asleep and a huge resistance to dealing with them in any way when they are supposed to be asleep.

The original question came from the mother of a 16mo girl who was, probably as a result of some recent travel and routine changes, having a hard time falling asleep alone. She had previously had no difficulty getting to sleep, ever since she was 2 months old. I suggested that it was ordinary, not any evidence of a brat or bad parenting, and that if the worst-case scenario was that mom would need to lie down with the child for 45 minutes a night 18 days, where's the bad part?

I mean, really -- what exactly is supposed to be wrong with meeting a child's changing needs? Even if they happen to change after 3 months or 14 years of stability? Even if the needs happen after 11pm? What has this tiny, innocent child's current fears got to do with how well she slept as a 2 month old? Who cares? That's like saying, 'he never used to be that hungry at dinner, so he can't eat that much now.' What a completely bizarre criteria upon which to judge tonight's sleep needs.

'Being weak' and 'giving in' are major themes in both responses, and I think 'where is the strength in talking a child out of expressing -- from whatever source -- her fears?' Where is the 'win' in intentionally not meeting a child's current needs, because of how it was last week? How is giving a child what she needs 'giving in'? What possible benefit to anyone can there be to holding out? Apart from the stress it causes parents and what it teaches children (that their feelings don't matter unless they match mom's), and how it damages the trust in the relationship overall...

I am often at a loss for words at the pervasive child-hate I see in the world. There seems to be a very strong resistance against generosity toward children, against seeing children as innocent (or possibly of being able to comprehend what 'innocent' means in terms of a child's motives) and against taking children's emotional reality seriously, for some reason particularly if that reality shifts or changes over time. While insisting on being a free individual, unique and special in every way, so many adults look at children as if they are only allowed to be one thing, fit into one box, express themselves one way for all time. It is presumed that nothing a child experiences is different from the way an adult experiences it, therefore, let it be true that:

Children cannot be hungry in the night, because I'm not.

Children cannot be genuinely frightened of anything, because I can't guess what that might be.

Children cannot be lonely or insecure or in pain in the dark night, because I am completely numb at night.

Children are constantly trying to get their own way, as are all people, I know that because I am.

What a pile of guano.

Parents & Life

2008-03-26T16:03:00.000-07:00

Parents and Life
Hmm... sounds like a fine thing to ramble about.

Parenting v., childrearing, see also mothering; fathering.

Funny, is it, how fathering means the same thing as breeding, pretty much, whereas mothering means the same as rearing. We’ve left dads out for too long, particularly in the West. Dads are important parents.

I have a soft spot in my heart for dads, here in our society. It’s akin to the soft spot I have for men, growing up where (for some reason) the way you stand declares your sexuality, and being ‘sissy’ is the worst possible insult a boy can receive. There’s a lot wrong with that... but it’s about dads, today.

I like my dad, as a person and as his ‘role’ in my life. I admire a great deal of his character, and he is one of the most generous people I have ever known. There was that weird period when he was going from Exalted Human to A Person in my head, when in my mind he became a whole person, from infancy to old age, within and outside the realm of our small family. My head expanded that day, and I saw a wholeness in him that had previously been something of a stereotype – something easy to take for granted, and difficult to think about objectively.

I like dads, and I think they have a hard row to hoe these days. There is a lot expected of them, and they expect a lot of themselves. They hide from some of these expectations (usually behind others as powerful), and I understand their avoidance. It isn’t fun to feel incompetent at something important. It is hard to acknowledge our ignorance, and when we can’t do that even to ourselves, it’s impossible to seek the answers to the questions.

There are a lot of professionals and people who will excuse dads from their role, or adapting to the reality of the role – particularly when the child is damaged or ill – because they take it personally, a strike against their power and prowess. I don’t excuse dads from their role, however easy it might be for them to escape under the ‘the mom knows better than me’ or ‘I am busy supporting the family, I can’t do both’ clauses. I don’t excuse dads from their role because of how much it damages them to be excused. The damage is caused by excusing themselves, and me excusing them, too, just makes it worse. It is almost a peer pressure for them to keep excusing themselves when they know better and wish to be stronger.

I am fairly sure that no intelligent man grown up in the last, ooh, 55 years, can pretend that he doesn’t know what’s involved in being a Good Dad. I don’t think there are very many men who think of themselves, prior to fathering children, as ‘Bad Dad’ material. Then, when there is trouble or strife in childrearing, the mom gets protective and capable, and the dad feels incompetent and impotent (one of any man’s favourite experiences ;-\) and the pressure to just escape is enormous. Escaping into work is virtuous, important, probably vital, in fact. Escaping into childhood (go play with the boys at the bar, out fishing, paintball... whatever) is popular, although difficult for adults to justify, even to themselves... which pushes them to escape their lives even further... and on and on the cycle goes, feeling unbreakable.

Sadly, what any of these escapes does for men is destroy their sense of themselves as competent and courageous – both at once. For many men, feeling competent is 9/10s of who they think they are, and I haven’t met a man yet who doesn’t want to be courageous, even if he’s never managed it. Being ‘yellow’ is up there with being ‘sissy.’ And escaping from dealing with reality is both.
Funny, now in this situation, it’s the mom who gets to be courageous and strong by default (with a few exceptions), when being called feminine is the worst insult to a man.

I don’t know what the magic words or thoughts or beliefs are, for dads who find the courage and strength to hang in, be there, and deal with the reality of the situation. I’d sure like to know what those men think they are. I suspect they might be something like ‘I just had to’ or ‘I had no choice.’ I’d like to know how to install it in the rest of them, so they can feel better about their fathering and themselves.

Sharing

2008-03-26T15:47:00.000-07:00

I recently wrote a column about sharing, explaining why I’m a social pariah and have never made my kids (or anyone else’s) share anything. After writing it, my mom told me that she was amazed by this position at the time (when they were young and this came up a lot)... and she remembered that they always had ‘special’ things. Sometimes, the entire playroom was ‘special’ and the visitors had to play with my stuff, or outside games, or complete make-believe, because no toys were available.
I have received such a fun collection of responses for this position! It is amazing to me, how thoroughly socialized in this ‘children must share’ idea many people are, as if it strikes at the core of what is right and true in the world.

On one email list, a woman has the mother-in-law beast from Hades – who has a key to her daughter-in-law’s home, and welcomes herself and her negative diatribes against both her daughter-in-law and her grandchildren just as often as her little heart desires. The daughter-in-law is ‘powerless’ to do anything about this, because it would be rude to, say, change the locks or bar mother-in-law from entering or ranting.

After I pick my jaw up off the ground, I realize just how different life can be in different families. Not only would my mother-in-law never risk such behaviour, knowing perfectly well she’d be lucky to escape with her life the first time, and would never get away with it twice, even my own parents do not have keys to my home. Although they are welcome anytime, being polite and respectful people, it just never crossed my mind that they had any ‘ownership’ in my house... even though they loaned us money for buying it, and it took many years to pay them back. The bank also has a huge ‘stake’ in my home, and they aren’t welcome to walk in anytime they feel like it and mouth off to their hearts’ content.

I am not required to share my home under any circumstances – because it’s mine. No one around me, happily, expects me to – because they acknowledge that it’s mine. I don’t expect to encounter any indication that I am required to share my home... and don’t. But for the e-list woman, her experience is very, very different. It is clear to me that the ‘ownership’ of her home is not absolute, and it’s up to other people when, how and for how long she’s required to ‘share’ her time and possessions.

It is exactly this muddling of ownership that I sought to avoid, in allowing my children to share (or not) as they chose. When they know for certain that the object in question belongs to one or the other of them, neither needs to struggle to stake their claim... and lending the object doesn’t confer ownership in their own minds, so they have no diffiuculty ‘taking it back’ when they are finished lending it, or in letting the loan stand for years.

Because I’m inclined to go take any issue to the furthest possible extent, in my home this meant (and still means) that the owner can:

refuse to lend it ever refuse to lend it now, no matter how many times it’s been
loaned before

repossess the loaned item at any time with any or no explanation

give or refuse to give any explanation for lending or not lending, including
‘because it’s mine’ (This has made some people extremely uncomfortable,
particularly other mothers who have really bought the ‘children must learn to
share’ edict. The fun side of this for me is that I agree – children must learn
to share. But, that is also the caveat: they must learn to share. That is, they
need not be forced to share, but must come at it organically and through genuine
generosity. )

A lot of people don’t trust that this will ‘just happen’ so they force the issue, in my opinion actually eradicating the natural generosity that children have. Trusting that this will, eventually, when they child is capable of understanding ownership, sharing and generosity, be learned is hard. It is especially difficult for people who only share because they think they are obliged to, and grudgingly at that, because they know how distasteful sharing is. Other people get the power, they can keep it as long as they like, treat it any way they want to, and decide whether to ever give it back.

This absence of trust that children will ‘just’ grow up, mature, become generous, share, learn... etc., etc. is the heart of a lot of unnecessary struggles for parents. They know, intellectually, that children will grow up because of the internal need and desire to do so, but they don’t trust it – they don’t trust the knowledge or the child – so they do things ‘just in case’. Unfortunately, ‘just in case’ is made out of fear, not love, and fear destroys things. Fear doesn’t create or fascilitate things, it impedes them. It creates force, which creates resistance and resistance damages the inate need and desire to grow.

See? Forced sharing destroys innate generosity, and the removes the conditions that make it possible to learn to share.

Alfie Kohn's Brilliance

2008-03-26T15:40:00.000-07:00

Alfie Kohn's Brilliance

I’ve been thinking and talking about Alfie Kohn’s latest book Unconditional Parenting recently. The subject keeps coming up on email lists and in conversations. Mr. Kohn’s premise is essentially that children are born ‘good’ and it is in supporting them and loving them unconditionally that they can remain that way.

This is, for many, a deeply challenging idea. Many people ascribe to the popular thought that children are born evil (or they become evil very rapidly once here), and it is a parent’s right and proper aim to control them in order to eliminate or ameliorate the evil within.

Mr. Kohn points out that a parent’s whims are no more valid than the child’s whims, therefore it is not reasonable or mature to expect or want children to be obedient.

This whole premise reminds me of Taoist thought – that right-thinking leaders will always lead from behind, avoid being noticed and let people be the goodness that they rightly are, naturally allowing the peaceful population to state ‘we are naturally this way.’ Challenged, provoked, led, controlled and manipulated, people become challenging, provocative, manipulative followers who resist control and rebel, quite naturally. It is human to resist control. Control naturally causes resistance, and resistance is the basis of all disobedience, disconnection and defiance.

Children who are not taught how to participate in power struggles do not learn to struggle for power, but are naturally aware of their own power– they are not easily led, even when very young. Children who are not manipulated never learn to manipulate others, nor the value of doing so – and are difficult to manipulate. Children who are not controlled never learn to fight that control, they never resist it and never rebel against it – and they live easily within their ethics and morals.

Does this mean that children who are not punished never cause problems or misbehave? Of course not... however, the inverted argument is seriously flawed: children who are controlled, punished, threatened, held hostage to the withholding of love from their parents, manipulated, expected to obey and follow uncomplainingly are damaged by this – even if in the short term their behaviour appears to be better. There is something larger at stake than just whether the child is going to behave in an exemplary fashion today at the mall.

That larger thing is what educators, parenting ‘experts’ and the general public call ‘success as an adult.’

If the benefit to the child (and society) is very short-term obedience to the whims of the local authority figure, then the costs of doing this are required as part of the equation. What does it cost a child, to learn that the only way he can be loved is by ‘performing’ the right way at the right time?
What does it cost those little children to be placed on stage, to strut and dance, so they can win meaningless trophies as the Cutest or Most Talented in a pool of 12 or 15 other kids their age... wearing wigs, false teeth, makeup, false eyelashes.... The same it costs kids who are compelled to pretend who they are, what they want and how they behave in the world to be considered loveable, acceptable – sometimes to even be considered human.

Hesitation... ‘but children, unpunished and uncontrolled, will be monsters,’ is the popular and pervastive thought...

But, no. The mosters are those who learned control, power, manipulation and rebellion early, early on. It is not the Buddhists who are staging violent protests in the name of some long-dead human who said something very much like ‘don’t take my picture seriously.’ It isn’t the Shintoists who are burning embassies or bombing cars to ‘prove’ that their way is the one right way. These are but two of the philosophies of the world that teach that the inate nature of things is good, and that children need love, support and guidance, not violence, control and forced obedience.
In my manuscript for The Way and The Power of Mothering – a translation of the Tao Te Ching through the lens of motherhood, I wrote:

Power

In mothering lies great power. It is easy for her to think the child and
his destiny are hers to control; that the child is to be moulded to her ideal;
that the flaws are hers to correct.

Right mothering recognizes the false belief in this. A wise mother knows only her own imperfections are hers to correct –her child comes whole and needs to mould himself to meet his destiny. The power of motherhood is in the strength of supporting, loving and being present, which are hard enough.

The hardest thing parents can do is let go of the need to control, especially within a society that says ‘it is a parent’s most important task to control.’ Alfie Kohn’s brilliantly argued thesis is that in spite of the popularity of the idea, there is no empirical evidence (and many people have set out to prove it, and failed) that control is even moderately effective, even in the short term.

Control simply does not work, and there is no qualification to that statement.

Controlling children simply does not create obedience, even when it creates the appearance of obedience in the short term.

Besides, what is the benefit to humanity to have a population of obedient people? Who will they obey? What atrocities will they participate in because they are told to?

In the House Alone

2008-03-26T15:28:00.000-07:00

In the House Alone

For the second day in a row, I’ve got the house all to myself for several hours. I wander around, thinking ‘ooh, I could do this...’ and ‘oh, or I could do that...’ for about 10 minutes. Finally, I decided I was hungry enough for lunch, which I can make all for myself, with no one else’s tastes involved... This does not happen very often. A taste of things to come...

A while back, an email conversation centred around the empty nest. How will mom cope? What will she do? How will she feel? One mom wrote a long, emotional post about how she’ll miss them (she knows, because some have already flown and she misses them) and how she’ll pine away for the good ol’ days, when they were clustered around her like little chicks, annoying and loud, but there, needy, present, safe... My only response was ‘wow, are you kidding?’ I asked, ‘Am I seriously the only person who’s been looking forward to my kids growing up all along? I loved having my babies, and loved watching them grow, and I will love watching them fly, too.’ A couple of other mothers felt the same way, but the consensus was definitely that the ‘end of the era’ created a strong urge to start all over again, and have new babies, or start fostering, or adopt... or just counting the days to grandbabies... and what, hope the kids move back into the house with them?

Arg. No. Gee, but thanks.

I get to play with new babies fairly often, volunteering as a La Leche League Leader, and I always offer to hold the babe while mom does up, or gets a drink, or stretches for a moment or puts on her jacket, or whatever. I’m thrilled to watch them grow up between meetings, returning sometimes for years. I love seeing the little kids I knew as babies, and seeing their moms’ confidence and competence grow... I love the way they smell and their hilarious view of the world, the funny things they say and do. And I love when they go home with their moms, and I go home without them.
I don’t miss the diapers, the sleep deprivation, the mess, the chaos, the clutter, the overwhelming physical and emotional exhaustion, the phases that change faster than the moon, feeling stable and capable one moment and frighteningly out of my depth the next. I don’t miss being uncomfortably stretched between a toddler’s needs and a baby’s needs. I don’t miss how slowly everything got done, or how many dangers were lurking in the world for small, unpredictable children. I do not miss their inability to express their needs clearly.

I love the teen years – my kids (and other kids I know) are maturing and growing into adults right in front of my eyes, and that is as amazing as how small human toes can be. They waver between childhood and adulthood, depending on how tired they are, how balanced they feel, how overwhelmed they are by the prospects of the future. They stumble, try again, hide out for a while, and then suddenly blossom in ways that shocks and surprises them as well as me.

My mom still loves me – she still loves to see me, has no apparent upper limit to the amount of time she likes to spend with me, and supports me in everything I do. I feel a strong and flexible thread weaving through my life, from her, through me, to my girls. This isn’t going to end when they grow up – they’re just going to be very cool people some more. Farther away, but bringing new parts of the world back to me, too. Someday, we’ll change over from me being the person who brings them the world to them being the people who bring me the world. And to me, that feels right and proper –the natural order of things.

I don’t want to go back. Not to my teens, although those years were fine. These years are better. I don’t want to go back to my children’s infancy – nor to being the mom of infant children. Those years were wonderful. These years are better.

Principle-Centred Parenting

2008-03-26T15:05:00.000-07:00

Principle-Centred Parenting

Conversations lately have centred around effectively dealing with stressful people and situations. I can’t explain the frequency of this, because just last month, I seemed to have twenty opportunities a week to talk about taking personal responsibility and growing up as a parenting tool. These things seem to have seasons.

Over the past week, I’ve spoken to 2 coaching clients, 2 friends and a new online contact about a wide variety of parenting and personal problems that centre around the ‘toolbox’ method of living life. I’ve said these words, or something very similar, at least 4 times:

Think of it like this: when you have a hammer as your ‘tool’ you tend to
function as if the world were full of nails. Handy when you’re assembling a
shed, not so helpful when you’re trying to wash dishes.

I like tips, tools and techniques. They’re frequently useful to know and have handy. There is a serious flaw in trying to stockpile them, though. There are zillions of possible problems any parent might encounter in the course of raising a child from newborn to fledgling adult, and, obviously, a wide variety of approaches (tools) that can effectively handle any one of them. So, the average parent, over the 20 years or so, will need, what... 200,000 different tools? That’s not practical. What if you spend an enormous amount of time and energy searching out tools and tips and techniques while your children are busy growing up without your noticing? (p.s. I have noticed that it is not possible to spend the same amount of energy twice – once it’s gone, it’s gone. Plan your time accordingly.)

What if you don’t find the right tool for the job until 3 years after you need it? What if you stock 100 you’re lugging around and remembering that you never, ever find a use for?

‘Ack! No! Don’t leave me with nothing!!’ parents are inclined to implore me, when I suggest that the toolbox approach might not, um... work... very... often.... if ever.

I’d never leave someone with nothing... although ‘nothing’ is a suggestion I often make when people don’t know what to do. Here’s the suggestion I make instead:

decide what your personal values are

decide what your parenting goals are

work from there

As Anna Christensen, of Wilderness Alert

, in British Columbia says, ‘set your goals in stone, your steps in sand.’ You need to know where you’re going, or you’ll never get there. You can’t change your goal every 15 steps, or you’ll be going around in circles – or plain going nuts. You can’t pre-determine all your steps to get there, because up close obstacles are often invisible from far away. You need a guiding principle (or several) to know, in the moment, what you will and will not do in any given situation.

For example, if your primary goal is to have, say, self-disciplined and responsible adults in about 20 years, you can’t wash all your kid’s clothes, cut the crusts off his sandwiches and help him brush his teeth when he’s 16, even if he begs, bribes or cajoles you. Actually, you can, but you’ll be moving farther and farther away from your goal with every step. If your goal is to have a highly dependant 20 year old man-boy, that’s a good bunch of steps to take. Kind of like trying to get to New York from Winnipeg by going north... you can go north with due diligence, energy and serious determination, but you’ll never get anywhere near New York. Whatever your goal, it predetermines a large number of your steps – or at least the general direction – right from the beginning.

Once you know what your main goal is (there are so many too many to choose from for me to list them in this post, I’ll let you use your imagination... or wait a while – I may make a list sometime later) you have to decide what kinds of steps you will take, and what kind of steps you will not take. This is defining your personal values... your guiding principles, your ethics.... essentially, this is the framework you make all your decisions within.

Will you swear a blue streak at the child who just broke the lamp? That depends on whether or not ‘treat children with dignity’ is one of your values. Will you have a long roster of babysitters and adult-only activities? Maybe... but probably not if one of your values is ‘children need and deserve their parents’ presence.’ Will you train your child to sleep, use the toilet, to sit up and beg on command? Well, that would require you to believe children are sub-humans who need training... and the absence of the core belief that children will naturally and automatically grow into self-disciplined and responsible adults as long as they are supported and loved by people who are mostly self-disciplined and responsible.

Your values have everything to do with the choices you make as you move toward (or away from) your goal. For a comprehensive guide to determining your own values, and a fairly broad introduction to choosing or identifying a primary purpose, the book The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz is invaluable. A quick overview is:

Your core values make you feel energized, eager and alive. Other people’s core values that you’ve adopted because you should or have to make you feel soggy, tired and annoyed. Move toward what energizes you – it’s just a good formula for success.

Possible core values are the ‘character’ characteristics people are talking about when they’re talking about ‘building character.’ Empathy. Respect. Self-discipline. Honesty. Trust. Wisdom. Creativity. Ambition. Kindness. Courage. Et cetera.

They aren’t ‘shoulds’ like: Nice. Fair. Looks-like. Blame.

Core values and a primary purpose anchor you in the seas of variable currents – mother-in-law thinks this, that neighbour thinks that, a co-worker contradicts both in a very convincing way, the parenting expert says, the doctors declares... there really is no end to the myriad voices, convictions and advisors.

As the Loehr and Schwartz say, knowing your core values and purpose is literally like having a rudder and anchor. Without them, you can’t steer and you can’t stop from being blown, well, wherever.

They are also inspirational. They will inspire you to live up to your highest standards. Nothing else ever will. I don’t know that anything else ever can.

Speaking Outside My Expertise

2008-03-26T14:50:00.000-07:00

Speaking Outside My Expertise

Talking to my sister this morning, I ran into one of those irritants that rubs me the wrong way from time to time... We were talking about someone my sister knows, a woman was told by her doctor that it was necessary to supplement through the night. Apparently ‘because’. Of, whatever.
Apart from the possibly actionable inaccuracy in the statement, that any licenced professional is willing to use their Professional Opinion for something so far outside their field is simply astonishing.

Now, I am willing to repeat some fairly ignorant and silly things... to quote a writer on an email list: ‘I wish my words were made of peanut butter chocolate ice cream because they’d taste good when I had to eat them.’ But, of all the times I’m going to be careful to avoid expounding on something I don’t know anything at all about, it would be when I’m wearing my Professional Hat, or asked for my expertise by a client. Obviously, I make mistakes – pass on some wives tales rather than some well-researched facts. But I concentrate on avoiding that as much as possible.

Hands up: which physicians in North America have studied, in medical school or anywhere else for more than 12 hours, normal human lactation? Oh, would that be three or five? Maybe 15? It can’t be more than 25...

Most doctors practicing today have had NO instruction or training or education of any kind regarding normal human lactation. If a doctor gets any education about breasts at all, it is strictly anatomy and pathology, not the normal, healthy function. (That is true about the majority of medical science, by the way – pathology is very well studied, health is not.)

I am possibly alone in not expecting medical practicianers to ‘know everything.’ I don’t expect a general practice physician to know a great deal about dermatology, or car mechanics. I don’t expect any physician to know a great deal about human psychological development or roofing. I didn’t think of asking my doctor anything about nutrition the first time I was pregnant, way back at 22, but she was respectable and sane and said ‘ask a nutritionist or a dietician, it’s not my field.’
Why don’t more doctors say that?

Perhaps a better question for this location:

why do patients keep asking doctors for information outside their professional expertise?
and, when they’re finished asking that (because my doctor has children who are older than mine, and I respect his philosophy, so I might have a good reason for asking his private opinion):

why don’t parents put the uneducated responses from doctors in the same place they put the uneducated responses of people who aren’t parents, people who parent in different ways, in-laws and other family members who did or do things differently?

Maybe some day doctors will get really careful about expressing their personal opinions separate from their Professional Expertise... I wonder what would provoke that?

Camping With Kids

2008-03-26T14:18:00.000-07:00

Camping With Kids

Not that I’ve done a lot of camping lately... but this question came up on a parenting email list recently, and it turns out that my decades of experience ‘family camping’ is broad and opinionated. So, I thought I’d share some...

The best advice I can think of for camping with the under-five set is to multiply the number of kids by 2 and bring that many adults along. Older teens, like babysitters, make handy adults-stand-in, but 2 times the kids in adults is a sane ratio. Trying to make dinner, tend a fire, stop one child from climbing a tree 5 times my height and keeping the other from eating the forest are simultaneous tasks. Obviously anyone who went to the woods for ‘fun’ would like some help with this.

First of all, why would any rational person who has doors, windows, indoor temperature control and a microwave think going camping with little kids would be a good idea? Well as an answer, there is the conversation I had with my parents... One year, our family went camping just as my parents were heading off on a cruise, coincidentally we were all coming back the same day. I pointed out that however luxurious their cruise would certainly be, we would be coming home to luxury, relief and rest – running water, sheets, toilets closer than 1/4 of a mile from the bed. They would be coming home wondering where the steward with the pillow chocolate got off to.

As it has been said, a change is as good as a rest. In fact, resting, as a holiday tactic, doesn’t work very well. After the sleep has been caught up, and the sights have been looked at, a ‘restful’ holiday wears a little thin. A working holiday, though, particularly one that allows you to contrast your real life in a positive light, is definitely a welcome change. Typically, apparently, the ‘honeymoon’ for how relaxed anyone is after a holiday is about 36 hours (see more about this in my article Parents & Stress Relief, also called Nano-Vacations). Because camping is kind of an anti-vacation, in terms of the less-stress, more relaxing idea, the length of time it takes to forget how lovely the modern conveniences of home are is far longer.

In fact, once home, it typically takes months before people stop saying things like ‘oh, dear, that’s barf on the bedding... it’s a good thing we’re not out camping, that would be a nightmare...’
There are tips and techniques for backpacking with kids, camper camping with kids, general vacation tips for taking children along, and just about every kind of ‘how to do it’ imaginable about food, equipment and lifestyle. Lots of people have lots more experience than I do.

What I have is a set of parameters that have made camping relatively easy...

We live a mostly whole-food diet here, much to the ongoing annoyance to my children. I’m sure they’d rather have storebought pancake mix, made with that lovely soft white flour. I don’t care. I make my own pancake mix (it’s a no-brainer, and in Canada the price difference is worth it), and take only enough for the meals I’m going to have pancakes at – if that’s 2, there are 2 pre-measured baggies of pancake mix, made so the only addition put in at camp is water and egg, not milk. Milk lasts about a day and a half in a cooler, unless you freeze it, then it is frozen for the first few days and goes bad in a day and a half after that... Fresh eggs, on the other hand, can be individually wrapped tightly in saran and will keep at air temperature for 7 to 10 days. Keeping them in a cooler will keep them from getting broken and extend their shelf-life to 10 - 12 days. Wrapping them matters, as shells are air-permeable and eggs take on cooler odours in a really unpleasant way, and are also not improved for being concentrated in the shell...

I plan out every meal for every day, and take only what is necessary to make those meals. When we’re there, I may not actually do what’s on the plan in the order it’s there (a hot lunch may be pulled ahead for a rainy day, while a cold one might be taken to the beach unexpectedly), but it is all the food I take. For a trip longer than 7 days, we always take a day ‘in town’ when we can wash the accumulated laundry, buy the planned groceries for the remainder of the camp, and eat lunch somewhere with cutlery, just for fun.

Most of the meals are taken in components – if we need mayonnaise, I take the amount called for in the recipe, or individual packets (which are available to buy at most warehouse/big box grocers) as a condiment. Cooler space is always at a premium, and I’d rather not have half a litre of mayo going skunky after the 4th day, all things considered. We start the camp with perishable, fresh foods and move further and further toward preserved foods, including dried grains and beans, generally carnivors early and vegetarians late. The grocery shop in the middle is almost always to replenish the meat and fresh veggie supply.

I cook on the fire as much as possible, because I find it far more economical (faster, uses far less fuel) than a comparable meal on a camp stove. I sometimes cook ‘in’ the fire, but mostly make fires that are far too hot for that, so I keep my cooking on the grate above. I’ve baked everything from biscuits to upside down cakes on the fire with no more than the biggest pot that comes in the camp set. There are all kinds of things people believe ‘need’ an oven (and I know some campers who make camp ovens)... but almost all cooking began in a vessel over a fire, so most of it can be done that way today.

Overall, the more planning and preparation that goes into the meals at camp, the easier it will be to live at camp, particularly with small children. The less you have to do while watching out for the little, chaotic ones, the more fun camping is. It is important to know, in this planning and preparation, that campers (even the little ones) will need 25 - 50% more food in a day than they would eat at home. Walking around, being outdoors and sleeping in uneven air temperatures all takes up a lot more energy than normal life, and should be considered if you want to ensure you’re not camping with the famished grouch family.

It’s a good idea to have some structure in mind for the day – outings after meals (or for meals – picnics anywhere in the area, including at the playground, at the beach, in the woods, near the nature house, along the riverside, are all pleasant diversions from feeling nailed to a campsite), quiet time before bed, activities to do while meals are being prepared or cleaned up...
I’ve never yet met a child who didn’t think painting on things was fun – and painting at camp can be much broader than normal life: firewood, rocks, shells, trees, stumps, leaves, picnic benches, concrete pads, campers – tempra paint won’t hurt any of them, and will wash off particularly easily if thinned with a bit of dish soap.

Weaving is fun and even little fingers can manage to mangle together dreamcatchers, gods’ eyes, shambles or other dangling hangy things from yarn, twigs, leaves, found shells, feathers and rocks. A couple of bright colours and the run of the nearby woods will occupy young children for half an hour with ease.

A bucket and spade can be used at the site as well as the beach, digging trenches for the rain, playing in mud puddles, splashing in water near the woods, ‘painting’ things with water and a brush – or a brush made from twigs and leaves and string... as a doll pool or bath, a lego pond or whatever attracts their imaginations. There is nothing quite like water to fascinate a young child.

The fire pit poses the single largest, ongoing danger to small children. Fire pits stay hot a lot longer than people think after a fire is doused, and tripping suddenly into a fire is hard to explain with a straight face in the emergency room, so creating a no-go zone for little children around the whole of the fire area is diligent and smart. Walking between people seated at the fire and the fire is a seriously stupid thing to do, and small children must be directed to go around back every single time. Diligence is necessary for safe handling of fire, just as it is for safety around water.

Having a water feature a very short stumble away from camp is not a good idea with small children – it is a constant source of fascination and they are too fast to be trusted even for a moment. Pitch the tent an easy 5 minute walk from the water, and much less diligence is necessary to stave off predictable tragedies.

So, with all this effort and diligence and planning, what is the real reason people are crazy enough to take small children camping? It’s addictive, honestly...

The wonder of watching small children’s eyes open to the wonder of the wilderness around them, for hours and hours, day after day is different from visiting a local park, even every day. Taking them back, year after year, even to different parts of the country, gives them a real, personal appreciation of nature and their part in it. There is nothing else quite like that...