Parenting
A Culture of Less
Welcome to the March Carnival of Natural Parenting: Vintage green! This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month we’re writing about being green — both how green we were when we were young and how green our kids are today. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants. Today is my birthday. Thirty-two years ago my mom started having contractions while she was grocery shopping. She went about her day, took care of my older siblings, visited with my grandmother. After my dad got home from work, grandma left and around supper time, I was born at home. Grandma called to say she’d thought of a name if the baby was a boy and dad informed her, “Too late; It’s a girl!” Grandma came back, made everyone dinner and they had leftover birthday cake from mom’s birthday on the 7th. And so it is that I grew up thinking that homebirth was special, not dangerous. And so it is that twenty-seven years later, I had my first homebirth. In some ways, I think that this is as vintage green as it gets. The oldest thing in the book: having babies the way our bodies were designed to, without a lot of wasted resources and unnecessary technology. There are plenty of instances where the resources and technology are useful, life-saving but increasingly, birth, like our culture as a whole, is characterized by excess and waste, with damaging consequences. Homebirth is only one of the green values I picked up from my parents without even realising until I was older that it was green. My parents moved a lot while I was growing up, from the Yukon to the Canadian prairies to BC, but I think at heart they always think of themselves as Northerners. The term encompasses everyone up north and a Yukoner probably has more in common with an Alaskan than they would with anyone in the rest of Canada. A northerner is a crazy mélange of hippie and redneck: 4x4s and guns mixed with folk music and a back to the land mentality. My dad subscribed to Mother Earth News and the Canadian counterpart, Harrowsmith. They had good friends who lived year round in a Tipi. It was there in the North that they decided to have me at home. At the time, in the 70s and 80s, it was just how we lived. A kind of quiet environmentalism that was born of Depression era great-grandparents, exalted by our Mennonite heritage (world-renowned cheapskates) and idealized by the Northerners and hippies. They were a product of their location but also of their generation. Now, I wouldn’t really classify my parents as environmentalists at all. But when I think back to the green actions of my parents, what comes to mind is this: Before recycling, there was reduce and re-use. My parents reduced and re-used like nobody’s business. We wore hand-me-downs. We never had new furniture; it was always used or antique. We didn’t buy fancy toys. My dad fixed things when they broke: from electronics to the car to the plumbing. My mom had a garden and she canned. My mouth waters when I think of her pickled beets and carrots, her canned pears and peaches. She sewed dresses for my sister and me for special occasions. We were a single car family and we drove used cars. My parents only bought one new vehicle ever: a 1974 International Scout. They still have it. We shared bedrooms. We lived within our means, never on credit. Even when my dad went back to University with three kids in tow. They did not over-consume. They did not throw things away. They reduced. They re-used. Tonight I look around my house and see the same lifestyle. Fifteen year old minivan, used or antique furniture, a house smaller than we might like, a garden. A willingness to build things, grow things, borrow things, make things or do without things rather...
Read MoreMaybe Montessori
This is Part VII of the series Kindergarten Considerations in which I have been discussing (and wrestling with) the considerations behind the seemingly innocuous decision of where to send my four year old son to school. The next three posts are dedicated to a discussion of our top three options. This post looks at Montessori. Amber from Strocel.com recently pointed out that it’s going to be impossible to find a perfect school and I know she is right. I am aware in some deep recess of my brain that I can’t be too picky. I have to be realistic. I think we all choose the best option for us, for our circumstances. The director of Rain’s preschool has also reminded me (rightly) that no matter what school we choose, it’s going to come down to the teacher whether or not it’s a good fit for him. With that said, let me warn you that in the next few posts I will be picking apart all of our options. Which isn’t to say that I won’t choose one of them in the end. I should add my little disclaimer here that my comments about particular schooling philosophies represent my impression based on preliminary research and reflect our own family educational goals. My comments are not intended to suggest that a particular philosophy may not be the right choice for your family. Montessori A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that we were attending an info session for the local publicly run Montessori program. I went to the evening with an open mind and felt excited about checking it out. I only knew the bare minimum about Montessori. I knew that it had been around for about 100 years, that it was started in Italy by Maria Montessori and that it’s generally regarded as a very good alternative schooling program. I also knew that the children are allowed to roam freely around the room and choose materials to work with as they like. So far so good. The first thing they did at the info session was show us this video to introduce us to the basics of Montessori education. The learning materials and environment are intriguing and beautiful. I was encouraged by some aspects of the philosophy: the emphasis on self-directed learning and the addition of non-academic units like practical life. The staff, teachers and our local society seem sincere, dedicated and earnest. But the reality of the program here didn’t mesh with the fairy tale in the above video. The school, a former middle school, was large and imposing. The room on the second floor, though filled with Montessori materials was utilitarian with only two windows at one end of the room, located above a 3 foot counter. I tried to imagine my son trying to see out the windows or walking to his classroom, through wide corridors and up long flights of stairs. It didn’t feel very accessible to a five year old. In and of themselves those issues could be dealt with. It would only take a few weeks for Rain to get used to the immensity of the place. I feel more bothered by the lack of accessible windows really. But I also think back to when I would pick up my niece from Kindergarten. Everything in that whole wing of her school was kid size: tiny toilets, tiny water fountains, coat hooks at knee level, bright windows. Taylour’s kindergarten reminded me of my own and I wonder how is it that school has changed so much in the last 10 years that we no longer try to approach the child on their level? Moving on though. My impression of the space quickly bled into my impression of the philosophy. Keep in mind that I was there in the evening so I wasn’t able to observe children in the classroom, but to me, the program felt cold. Though the video talks about how much fun the children have while they are learning, we also heard repeatedly that the children would not be playing with the materials;...
Read MoreOn Finding Time
The struggle for time and balance seems fairly typical for most moms, whether working at home or away from home. I’m sure I’m no exception. I’m not a great multi-tasker. I work best once I get into a flow, say after about 20 minutes. Once I’m in that place, it’s very hard for me to shut off until I reach a pre-determined stopping point which tends to be task oriented, not time oriented. I don’t do well with setting the timer and working for X number of minutes. I like to check something off my list. At work I was very good at time management and at completing tasks. Deadlines, projects, to do lists. Yes. I’ve also had an on-again/off-again romance with day planners since First Year uni. I am not completely Type A, but I do have some pretty strong tendencies in that direction. At home, I feel like I’m either scrambling, avoiding, dropping the ball or time wasting. It’s an uncomfortable place to be. Before motherhood it seems we are pulled in fewer competing directions and our commitments have clearly demarcated time slots. Work time is work time. Self time, couple time, friend time can all be fit in around life tasks like cleaning, cooking, sleeping and errands. As a mom, there are no clear time slots for anything. It seems like all of these responsibilities need to happen at once, while caring for tiny dictators. I very rarely get a chance to get into my post-twenty-minute-work groove. I very rarely feel that I am working in my optimal range. I feel like I’m juggling all the time. For a klutz like me that is an incredibly unnerving way to live. My heart rate is shooting up just typing this. Clutter, disorganization, noise. They stress me out. I hold my breath. I feel swept away in a swift moving river and I start to panic. I have coping mechanisms but I haven’t really found answers. I focus on keeping the toys picked up, keeping rooms tidy. I write lists. But I also avoid. I check email, facebook or twitter, rather than trying to write or catch up on bookkeeping because I only have five minutes instead of forty-five. If I were to add up all those five minute chunks in a day, which are generally wasted on social media surfing, I would find I have much more time than I think I do. The reason I do this is because I haven’t yet learned how to break out of my need for compartmentalization. For 8 months, we had a mother’s helper who watched Rain four mornings a week while I worked. This is the closest I’ve come to finding a balance between self, work and mother. The rest of the time, the reality of working at home with kids is very different. I have tried working while the kids napped but if they wake early I often become resentful. I have tried working while the kids play. The task takes longer with the interruptions and in the end I am frustrated and stressed by the mess the kids have created while I was in my supposed work zone. Because of my need to work in that zone, I can get a bit obsessed with my projects. The more I work on a project, the more I want to, the more it occupies my thoughts, the more it competes with my children (especially if I was pulled away before completing a task). I seem to shift continuously between denial of self and selfishness. This isn’t exactly the compartmentalization I’ve been looking for. For me to really feel that I am managing my time in a positive way, I need to be clear about what is work time and what is family time. I want to be more present with my children and more present in my work. This delicate balance isn’t going to be a static place where I can stand still. I expect it will take footwork. I expect I will have to say no to some...
Read MoreLet Them Play
This is Part VI of the series Kindergarten Considerations in which I have been discussing (and wrestling with) the considerations behind the seemingly innocuous decision of where to send my four year old son to school. I had promised to share my thoughts on our options in this post but I got totally distracted by the idea that maybe school isn’t necessary at all. Rain can’t recite the whole alphabet; it still gets a bit jumbled and he doesn’t yet recognize all of the letters. He can recite to 10 when he feels like it and when he tries he can reliably count objects in groups up to 4 or 5. He doesn’t write his name. He wrote the letter R on the back of his Valentines but often elaborated by adding wheels, arms or flowers. I am totally fine with that. Here’s the deal. I have complete confidence in my kids’ abilities. They both demonstrate to me every day that they are very bright. I don’t care what age they learn to write their name or say the alphabet or count or read. I know with 100% certainty that they will do it and at their own pace. There will be plenty of time in the coming years for them to focus on academics and I don’t believe that they will be at a disadvantage from learning to read at 7 instead of 4 for instance. In fact, a recent study from New Zealand has proven that very thing. By age 11, there was no difference between kids who learned to read at 7 and those who learned at 4. “One theory for the finding that an earlier beginning does not lead to a later advantage is that the most important early factors for later reading achievement, for most children, are language and learning experiences that are gained without formal reading instruction,” says Dr Suggate. “Because later starters at reading are still learning through play, language, and interactions with adults, their long-term learning is not disadvantaged. Instead, these activities prepare the soil well for later development of reading.” “This research then raises the question; if there aren’t advantages to learning to read from the age of five, could there be disadvantages to starting teaching children to read earlier (at age 5). In other words, we could be putting them off,” he says. The above passage makes several striking observations in only a few short sentences. First, that the most important factors for later literacy are “early language and learning, while de-emphasising the importance of early reading.” Second, that play is vital for early learning. Third, it raises the question of what harm we could be doing by teaching reading too early. I have heard elsewhere that teaching reading before 11 for instance, shapes our brains in a linear order and can hamper our abilities to think laterally. These three observations alone are reason enough for me to feel relaxed about Rain’s academic career. We’ve got time for Rain to be a kid. We can focus on formal reading instruction in a couple of years. There are so few years in life when we are truly free of pressures, truly free to play. I want him to play, partly because it’s fun and partly because he is learning even while he plays. He is learning about respect, gravity, problem solving, shapes, empathy, conservancy, conflict resolution, following instructions, developing hand-eye coordination and fine-motor skills, and more all day, just by playing and experimenting. Interestingly, educators are starting to chime in about the importance of play. Last year, the Alliance for Childhood published a report, Crisis in the Kindergarten, about the lack of play in Kindergarten in the US. This report explained that there was too much instruction, too much testing, too much homework and not enough child-directed play. A New York Times article on the Crisis in the Kindergarten report discussed the lack of play in classrooms and also touched on some thoughts on creativity that are similar to those of Sir Ken Robinson. Thinkers like Daniel Pink have proposed...
Read MoreTrick of the Light
The other day, when I dropped Rain at preschool, he unzipped his coat, found a hook, hung it up, placed his boots neatly underneath and marched confidently off to find something to do. The teacher got him set up showing a younger boy how to use a set of plastic gears. I was amazed at how big he was, how tall, how grown-up, how helpful, how knowing. That night, he had a bad dream. I heard him crying and went to his room. In the dark, I held him. His little body shook and his voice broke with sobs. How like a baby he still was! I smoothed the curls on his sweaty forehead and offered him “a pinch.” His still-dimpled hand found my forearm and methodically squeazed the muscle, just as he used to when he was nursing at 10 months old. How strange that in the dark, in the night, he was still my baby, still clinging desperately to me as I whispered that he was safe. I have this same experience every day with his younger sister Noa. As she giggles and runs after her older brother, how cute and big she seems. How stubborn and determined when they fight, when Rain takes her toy and she defiantly shouts “No!” How like a little girl she is in the day-to-day moments of life. Walking, talking, climbing. Sit down to breastfeed and it’s another story. I trace the curve of her nose, marvel at the downy hair on her cheek, the pout of her lower lip. She sucks contentedly and I try again to memorize her face, just as it is. Suddenly she seems to be my baby again. Her face innocent and newborn-like, despite that her wee head is at least four times bigger than it was the day I first craddled it in my palm. One moment so big; the next so small. Is it a trick of the light? How is it that one moment we’ve finally gotten used to the fact that they are growing up and the next we are once again brought to our knees by the utter tiny-ness and dependence of them? Something shifts and we see how tightly they are still tied to us and then just as quickly the veil is drawn aside and they are running from us, laughing. I am often astounded that children can seem to suddenly cross into a new developmental stage all at once. I’ve seen this in my own children and in my friends’ children. Overnight they seem to shift from floppy newborn to chubby baby, from squirming toddler to running, jumping full-fledged boy. It is breathtaking and always provokes a complex reaction in me: part pride, part shock. There is always the sad surprise that I’ve had to part with the last stage without being asked, without preparation. Suddenly, it’s gone and I’m loving the next stage. How grateful I am to discover that just as suddenly there are momentary lapses into the previous stage. Would it be too unbearable to watch the speed with which our kids grow up if it weren’t for these tiny reprieves? I savour these as best I can. I record them with my senses, in my muscle memory, the weight of their bodies in my arms, the smell of their hair, the whisper of their breath on my cheek. I pack them away, knowing that quickly, suddenly, the light will change and the baby will be gone again. Time gently grants us this fleeting grace as she marches forward. A minute here, a minute there, a ray of sunshine as our babies walk confidently out of our...
Read MoreFire Together, Wire Together: Early School Experience
This is Part V of the series Kindergarten Considerations. In this series I am discussing (and wrestling with) the considerations behind the seemingly innocuous decision of where to send my four year old son to school. I promise to share my thoughts on some of our specific options in Part VI. I can’t promise to tell you what we decide because I still have no idea. I’ve been struggling a lot with some of the ideas that came up in my last post for this series. There’s a part of me that wants not to take the idea of registering Rain for Kindergarten so seriously. There’s a part of me that acknowledges that while public school isn’t the ideal learning environment in my opinion, in most cases it isn’t malevolent either. Many (the majority of?) public school teachers are incredibly dedicated and genuinely interested in their students’ success. I did well in public school myself. It is hard not to sound terribly elitist when claiming that public school isn’t good enough for our family. I can imagine the unspoken retort: “It was good enough for all of us and we all turned out fine. Get over yourself.” But I have to balance all of this with the undeniable fact that we are indeed shaped by our experiences. There’s a saying in psychology that neurons that fire together, wire together. Keep in mind that this is a layman’s description (I’m no psychologist) but what this means is that when we do something like painting or math for instance, neurons in certain centres of our brain fire (release neurotransmitters into the synaptic space between neurons) and activate the neurons next to them to fire as well in a sort of chain reaction. Sometimes these are called pathways. Imagine that the more you practice painting or math, the more times you walk down the pathway, you wear in the trail. It gets easier and easier to walk that pathway: you can put down your machete, you’re no longer stumbling and losing your way. Eventually these neurons that fire together, wire together. They create a strong network that fires in unison. This process happens in everything we do, from practicing a skill to overindulging in emotions like anger, and it actually shapes our brains. Unused pathways whither away. Frequently travelled pathways become like super-highways. Melodie from Breastfeeding Moms Unite left a comment on a recent post in this series that really startled me into thinking about this topic in a new way. I had all of the info to make this leap myself but it wasn’t until I read her comment that it all clicked. I know that I am a direct product of my education. I am very concrete and literal, and have a need to get things Right. It’s not something I want to pass on to my kids. I’ve always thought that I did well in school because my brain happens to be organized in the way that the school system is organized. My linear, chronological brain is perfectly in line with a linear, chronological, orderly school system, right? My husband with his right-brain, lateral, spatial thinking is one of the ones who struggles in this set up, right? This is partly true. But wait a minute, according to “neurons that fire together, wire together,” according to Dr. Siegel’s TED talk on how over-emphasis on academics actually changes the architecture of the brain, I am actually a product of our school system. Yes, I probably had an advantage in the beginning because I do have a preference for linear thinking. But over the years, the school system wore that pathway deeper and deeper into my brain’s structure. I see myself in Melodie’s quote above. I think sheepishly of some of my rigidness, my perfectionism, my inability to go with the flow. I think back to the enrichment program in grade 4 when we did a unit of art appreciation on Marc Chagall and in the end painted our own autobiographical Chagall impression. I think of the other skills I have...
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