First Day of School

Today was Bess' first day of Primary 1, which is the first step of Kindergarten at Wellspring Community School. To hear her tell it, today was not, in fact, the first day of school because they only spent an hour there. But during that hour they selected their symbols (which are used to identify the students to pre-readers - Bess selected a ladybug in honor of her friend Claire who is not attending Wellspring this year) and examined the new and improved layout of the classroom. Not only that, but they identified things that were the same as last year with an S and things that were different, which was almost everything, with a D. So they worked on some phonics and letter recognition in addition to reacclimating themselves to the environment.

It is not a short trip to overstimulated for Bess, but today she was just out of control excited. She LOVES school, and could not wait to see her teacher Anne and her friends, and to meet some new friends too. We constantly have the discussion in our home whether private school is worth the money when we live in such a "good, high-achieving" school district. That was, in fact, one of the reasons we chose to move to this particular town when we moved almost six years ago. Since then, though, my thinking about school and its goals (actual and ideal) has changed quite a bit. For me, right now, yes - it is worth every penny. It is worth it for my daughter to learn in a close-knit community where they learn about cooperation and responsibility to a group in addition to the academics, for her to be excited to go to school and excited to learn new things, to be excited to show her friends a beautiful spider web on the fence complete with a meal-in-waiting for the architect of the web.

Would she gain these things in public school. Maybe. But then I would have lot less control over who she spends so much of her time with, and her experience would be much more variable from year to year. In some ways that could be good, I guess, but for a child who does not deal with transition and direction that well I think it would probably do more harm than good. For now, I'm so, so happy to be where we are.

I am a scholar-turned-mother/activist who is interested in sustainable living and social justice. I have published a number of articles and given presentations internationally on the topics of voluntary simplicity and humane parenting. Learn more at my website www.beautifulfriendships.net.

Kids in the Oven

No...not a "bun" in the oven!

I am reading Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg, and here is a quote that I just love:

When you bake a cake, you have ingredients: sugar, flour, butter, baking soda, eggs, milk. You put them in a bowl and mix them up, but that does not make a cake. This makes goop. You have to put them in the oven and add heat or energy to transform it into a cake, and the cake looks nothing like its original ingredients. It's a lot like parent unable to claim their hippie kids as their own in the sixties. Milk and eggs look at their pound cake and say, "Not ours." Not egg, not milk, but Ph.D. daughter of refugee parents - a foreigner in her own home.

How often, as parents, do we feel like this with our kids? How often do we look at them and marvel at who they are becoming, but at the same time recognize that they in fact bear little resemblance to us, or who we thought they would be, or who we tried to make them?

I think this issue is especially difficult for humane parents. We are so committed to our values, and we so strongly want our children to grow up to share them, to fight for social justice and sustainability. Many of us struggle with the impact that simply having a child will have on the planet and our shared resources, and commit to raising our children to have as little impact as possible.

But the truth is, of course, that just as many of us rejected our parents' values and chose our own, so too can our children easily grow up and choose to become, say, the CEO of BP or a researcher for Monsanto. How do we reconcile ourselves with the fact that, in the end, we have no control over who our children will become as they grow?

I am a scholar-turned-mother/activist who is interested in sustainable living and social justice. I have published a number of articles and given presentations internationally on the topics of voluntary simplicity and humane parenting. Learn more at my website www.beautifulfriendships.net.

Dor-meow-tory Living

Months ago I had written about my dog, Sarah, who had developed bone cancer. We lost her in December, and I am just now getting it together enough to write about her. She had been a part of our lives for almost thirteen years, my trusted companion, muse and teacher, and I miss her very much.

As it turns out, our dog Chryssi missed her even more than I did. Chryssi has some orthopedic problems that require us to keep her very lean, but she was getting depressed and lethargic and putting on weight. The house seemed empty - even John agreed. Just as we started contemplating the possibility of another dog, we saw an article in the newspaper about a dog at up for adoption at the local shelter. As soon as I saw his photo I put on my coat and headed over to see him.

At the shelter they told me he was a five-year-old lab who had been found wandering around, wearing an electric collar, in northeastern New Jersey. He was healthy, had recently had his teeth cleaned, and has had knee replacement surgery. They kept him as long as they could, assuming that his people would show up, but they never did and the first shelter ran out of space so they transferred him to a shelter near my home. By that point he had developed pneumonia and was not tolerating shelter life well - not that any animal does, but it is especially hard on senior dogs (turns out he's actually closer to ten years old than five). It was love at first sight, and as soon as he recovered we brought him home.

They called him Hunter, but we changed his name to Touch of Grey (Grey for short). He is a dream dog, mostly. He came to us a ready-made family member. He was trained, gets along great with Chryssi, is awesome with the kids, he's mellow and doesn't bark, and is just a super-sweet dog.

BUT. There's always a but, isn't there?

Grey is not a cat person. He chases and basically terrorizes them. It's horrible and they have been pretty unhappy about the new state of affairs. I thought they would work it out, but he's been here for five months and things haven't improved much. The cats each have retired to separate bedrooms - they used to spend a lot of time together, but now they just want their own spaces. The Little Man prefers the master bedroom, where he can escape out of reach under the king-sized bed, can sit in the window when the coast is clear, and has access to a litter box. At first he was terrified, but now he's starting to adjust and comes out at night when the old dog is asleep.

And then there's Althea. Poor Ally Cat, she fought the good fight at first but then just got tired of dealing with it and retired to the kids' room. They have bunk beds with a trundle underneath where we store (make that stored) Bess' stuffed animals, and that is where Ally decided to live. When it became apparent that she has no intention of leaving the room at any time for any reason whatsoever including litter box use, we decided to set up an apartment for her in the trundle complete with, as Bess refers to it, "room service". We set her up with her food and water, a litter box, and her bed, and now she's much happier. She's even been coming out to say hi every now and then. We're working on reaching a detente, but for now, everyone seems to be safe and happy.

See that kitty in the shadows? That's Ally, enjoying her new digs.

And lest Chryssi feel neglected, I'm including a photo of her too.

I am a scholar-turned-mother/activist who is interested in issues of personal balance and social justice. I have published a number of articles and given presentations internationally on the topics of voluntary simplicity and humane parenting. Learn more at my website www.beautifulfriendships.net.

How Can A Weekend at the Beach Be Depressing?

Mostly, it wasn't. On the contrary, it was actually quite relaxing and enjoyable. The weather was incredibly beautiful,

the kids were mostly well-behaved and in good humor and had some quality time with the grandparents,

and I even got to do some shell-hunting by myself for the first time in, oh, five years or so.

However, the shell-hunting was also a bit depressing. When I'm at the beach with my kids, I'm too busy supervising them, coaxing my toddler out onto the sand, making sure my daughter is using good judgement in the water - and not really paying much attention to the beach itself. But spending a half-hour or so with my eyes trained on the sand revealed more than shells. There was so much plastic! Water bottle caps, Silly Bandz, food wrappers, chunks of Styrofoam, it was everywhere! I didn't photograph it because it was just too yuk for me, I preferred to document the more pleasant views, but I do have to admit that it did put a damper on my alone time.

Reducing our plastic waste has been a struggle of mine for about a year now, since we participated in the Northwest Earth Institute's Ecochallenge last fall. I read Fake Plastic Fish religiously and am awed by the reduction that Beth has been able to make in her plastic use - and in her commitment to saving and sharing pictures of it each month! But it seems so ubiquitous, and I feel overwhelmed and discouraged by the idea of spending so much time thinking about it. And the truth is, I feel a little embarrassed by the prospect of calling up Internet vendors and asking them to use paper tape and padding for me.

Other things are tough, too. Take sippy cups for example. I know that in addition to the plasticness of plastic ones, it is also a health issue and that we should be using stainless steel drinking vessels. Not to mention how impossible the plastic ones are to keep clean, but I digress... I also know my family, and I know that we all (myself included) have a nasty habit of losing our water bottles. So, I am always balancing the desire to make the safe and green choice with the reality of replacing a $15 + stainless steel water bottle versus an under-$2 plastic one. My current compromise with that is to use the stainless steel ones when we're around - at home, in the car, visiting family or friends - so that loss is less of an issue, and having one or two plastic ones for the park, the library, or other places where I know there is a high probability of loss.

It's tough to know your limits, and not to beat yourself up about them. I'm working on it.

I am a scholar-turned-mother/activist who is interested in issues of personal balance and social justice. I have published a number of articles and offer presentations internationally on the topics of voluntary simplicity and humane parenting. Learn more at my website www.beautifulfriendships.net

Minivan Mama

Today, I joined the ranks of Moms Who Drive Minivans.

I never thought I'd find my way here. Not because minivans are uncool (which, apparently, they are) but because they're so inefficient. I always thought that when my old Explorer needed to retire, I'd get a Prius or something like that.

But something overcame me - this irresistible urge for a minivan. Why should this be? I'm green, right?

So I've given it a lot of thought, and here's my theory:

When I was growing up, my mom was a single parent and worked a lot. When she wasn't working, she didn't want to be driving me and my friends around, and I never was able to have friends over the house. My friends' moms all seemed to be so accepting of us, welcoming their kids' friends into their homes for dinner or sleepovers. I vowed that when I was a mom, I would be the cool mom, the warm and inviting kind of mom.

So here I am, with my five-year-old daughter starting to develop a circle of friends and a social life. She's going off to Primary (Wellspring's version of kindergarten) in September, and living more and more of her life away from me. That's a good, healthy thing, but I am also feeling like it is more important that I have a good relationship with her and her friends. I want to be a mom who brings kids to the park after school, brings them home after school for a quick playdate, or brings a few of them home from a field trip. I want her friends to feel comfortable with me, and for her to feel comfortable with her friends being around me. For that, I need a minivan.

So, this time, emotions won out over environmental responsibility. Even though I know I probably shouldn't want a minivan, I do. I want the life, the relationship with my kids, and the experience of motherhood that the minivan represents to me. So I took the plunge. I hope it's all I dreamed it would be.

Kelly is a scholar-turned-mother/activist who is interested in issues of personal balance and social justice. She has published a number of articles and offers presentations internationally on the topics of voluntary simplicity and humane parenting. Learn more at her website www.beautifulfriendships.net.

Standing Up

Last week I took Harry (now two years old) to the county library to pick up a book I had ordered through inter-library loan but accidentally had sent to the wrong place. We visited the children's room, which is huge and beautiful, and went to the back so that we could sit, read, and do some puzzles.

A group of young adults with developmental disabilities was visiting the library at the same time, and a number of them were lying on beanbag chairs in the children's room. One appeared to be sleeping, but as Harry walked near him he jumped up and screamed, "Can't you see I'm sleeping? Get away from me!!!"

Needless to say, poor Harry was terrified and became hysterical. It took me almost ten minutes to calm him down. The librarian came from her desk to see what was the matter and make sure he wasn't injured. When I described the situation to her, she got very angry. Some people in that group don't know how to treat children, she said, as she stormed off to talk to their chaperon.

Personally, I was not that upset about it. Everyone is different, and it's not like the young man was mean-spirited. I hope that Harry isn't permanently scarred by the interaction (though he might be, he's that kind of kid), but it gave me the chance to talk to him a bit about how some people are different and act differently in certain situations, but that the man meant him no harm. I'm sure he didn't understand what I was saying but I don't think it's ever to early to start to talk about these things.

But then I started to wonder: Should I have been angry? Am I am bad mom because I didn't stand up for my son, because I didn't reprimand the young man for scaring him, that I didn't seek out the supervising adult and voice my displeasure at Harry's treatment? Will my children end up feeling that I cared more about other people's feelings than theirs, and I was unwilling to defend them in difficult situations? Should I have gotten all Mama Bear on this guy's ass?

I think that comforting Harry was enough. I think that setting an example of understanding, compassion and forgiveness was the way to go. I didn't tell Harry to buck up and shake it off, and I acknowledged his feelings of fear and surprise, but I didn't make it into more than it was - just a young man with a developmental disability that causes him to be socially awkward acting out in an inappropriate way. And, let's be honest here - who isn't socially inappropriate now and then anyway? In the end, I guess we have to accept that we can never know how our children will interpret our behavior, how they will feel about the way they were treated and youngsters. All we can do is the best we can do - and if I had it to do over again I think I'd do the same thing.

Great Expectations

Today I had a lot of work related errands to do, followed by a yearly checkup for Bess. I dragged the kids out of the house early this morning, brought them to the rink, expected them to sit in the office while I met with our copier guy, then stuck them in the car, drove them around for awhile, brought them to the law office of the organization's President and expected them to behave while I spent over an hour meeting with a banker, then stuck them in the car again, brought them to Whole Foods, asked them to select and eat their food in ten minutes so we could get back in the car and run to the doctor where we then proceeded to wait an hour and fifteen minutes for our appointment to begin.

They did not behave well. By which I mean they were loud, unable to sit still, hungry, and distracting. In other words, they acted like, you know - kids.

Needless to say, I was irritated by their behavior. I was tired, embarrassed and unable to concentrate. I ended up nursing Harry in the glass-walled conference room at the law office, which was met with looks of shock, dismay and I think I even detected a little disgust. I have been trying to really focus on what is important, and on making my kids my top priority no matter what other people think or say, but this was one of those times where that was impossible. For me, anyway. I needed to have these meetings, I needed to have them with me, and I wanted them to act like adults.

I started to think about all the things that my kids do, and that people do in general, that upset me and wonder what that is about for me. I think a lot of times it's really simply about a mismatch between expectations and reality. In the case of children, it is often a mismatch between reasonable expectations and reality. That was certainly the case today. If I set my kids up for failure, is it really fair to then get upset when they fail? They are who they are, and is it their fault when who they are does not match who I want them to be either in general or in a particular circumstance. No, I don't think it is.

I'm going to work on that.

Rescue Me

Yesterday marked two months since our dog Sarah went to heaven. Bess still asks on a nearly-daily basis when Sarah is coming home, so I suspect that she isn't ready for another dog yet. If you ask her, she'll tell you she wants a puppy, but what kid doesn't? I don't think that really has anything to do with an actual desire for another dog. As for me, part of me wants another dog to fill some of the empty space, and part of me knows that no other dog will ever fill the space left by Sarah and it would be unfair to me, and to the dog, to even try right now.

Our dog Chryssi is another story. She has been horribly depressed since Sarah left. She doesn't know what to do with herself. In or out? Sleep in bed, in the crate, on the couch, on the chair, on the floor? Where do I eat? She still hangs out in Sarah's crate at least 50% of the time. Partly I think she specifically misses Sarah: Sarah was pure alpha dog and Chryssi is happiest at the bottom of the pecking order, so they were a match made in heaven. But partly I think she is one of those dogs who really likes having canine companionship. She doesn't really spend a lot of time alone, and we have the cats to keep her company when the humans are out, but I think she is really longing for another dog.

So I have begun pondering the possibility of adding another dog to our family. Sarah, as wonderful as she was, was a lot of work. I mean, a lot. She had to be crated when we left (even to go to the mailbox) because if she wasn't she'd eat herself nearly to death. In fact, all things edible had to be locked up like Fort Knox, and let me assure you that if there was ever a breach in security we were made to pay very dearly for it. She was hyper, even until just a few months before her death, and she barked all the time. She was high-maintenance. I love her, but I do not have room in our family for such a labor-intensive dog right now. I want a mellow, easy-going dog, the kind of dog who only eats food you put in her bowl. One who is good with kids, cats and other dogs, and who doesn't require a lot of coat maintenance. And speaking of coats, I don't think I could handle a dog that requires outerwear. It's enough work getting the kids dressed to go out in the winter, I don't want to have to dress anyone else, especially a dog who may potentially go out twenty or so times a day. I want a dog who is sturdy and can go on hikes, but doesn't require an outrageous amount of exercise. A puppy is utterly out of the question on both practical and philosophical grounds. I don't want to deal with the nipping, chewing and house training, and I would rather give a home to an adult dog who needs one rather than adopting a cute lovable puppy who will be snatched up in an instant. And as for buying a puppy - let me just say, over my dead body.

I've often thought that I'd love a greyhound, but I think they require outerwear, and I'm not sure they would pass in the sturdy department. I like German Shepherds but they have a lot of coat - and probably too much in the brains department too. I don't really like little dogs, though the idea of a beagle has crossed my mind. But the truth is that we're probably lab people for life. The key is getting one of those big lazy ones instead of the wiry ones who bounce off the walls. I know that when the time is right a dog will find us who is right for our family. In the meantime, maybe I won't take Sarah's crate down just yet.

A Little Perspective

My car has required extensive (not to mention expensive!) repairs twice in the last week. First, the battery and alternator went, and then four days after getting it back from the mechanic the brakes went.

Since John and his car are out of town, I needed to rent a car. So what this looked like went something like this: I dropped my car off at the mechanic at the crack of dawn in the snow, and had the rental car guy meet me there. I had to switch all my stuff, and two car seats, into the minivan they gave me - did I mention the snow? Then we had to all go to the rental car place to fill out the paperwork, and then we were off to an Attachment Parenting Support Group meeting. Of course, by the time we went back home, the driveway was a sheet of ice and I couldn't get the minivan up so I had to walk up carrying Harry (who hates the snow) and hoping Bess didn't face plant and require stitches. Then this morning, back down the frozen driveway into the minivan for school. Unfortunately, due to all the snow and freezing temperatures, the sliding doors were frozen shut, so we all had to climb into the backseat through the front to get into car seats. You'd think I would have enough foresight to go in through the passenger side, but I didn't - so I had to sit in snow for the entire ride. And the best part was that even though I didn't manage to open the doors enough to get in, I did manage to open them enough to make the car beep at me the entire ride to school to notify me that the door was ajar. Then back home, walk back up the driveway, then back down the driveway, back to the rental car place, back to the mechanic, car seats and stuff back into my car, and now all is well. This is all within a thirty-six hour window.

I am sure I don't need to tell you how irritating, not to mention exhausting, I found this whole extravaganza. I was especially irritated this morning when we were fifteen minutes late for (the first day of) school (in the past week because of snow and the holiday). On the way home, I started to think about how my thinking was making me think this whole thing was so annoying. The truth is, some people actually live in houses made of ice and hunt with spears to feed their families. Some people have to walk miles to get water, and then have to carry it home on their heads. Some kids never go to school, never learn to read and write. Some people can't afford a safe car, or any car at all. And I'm tired and aggravated because I had to move some car seats and walk up my driveway?

Isn't it funny how we can get so wrapped up in our own little thing that we totally lose sight of the big picture?

Humane Parenting, Lesson One

Now that I am done (DONE!) with my thesis, I am enjoying the opportunity to read for pleasure - though, strangely, my "pleasure" reading looks an awful lot like my "school" reading. Anyway, right now I am working through Education and the Significance of Life by J. Krishnamurti (nice, light reading, kind of like a Harlequin romance novel - NOT!), and I am loving it. It's short and surprisingly easy to read, and chock full of profound nuggets of wisdom.

One of the ideas that really caught my eye is this: "Fear perverts intelligence and is one of the causes of self-centered action." When I read this, I began thinking about Lawrence Kohlberg and the stages of moral development, and the idea that we cannot meet our higher needs for connection and development if our most basic needs, such as those for food, water, shelter and safety, are not met.

I began thinking about some of the more self-centered people I know. (Forgive the judgemental-sounding term, maybe ego-attached people would be better. Or maybe not.) I often find that these people are not "bad" or unkind people, it's just that their first reaction to situations is often to consider the impact on themselves. I began to consider the fact that this could be a reaction to some deep-seated fear: namely, the fear that if they don't look out for themselves, if they don't ensure that their needs are met, then no one else will. They don't trust the world to provide for them.

And I began thinking that, for all the consideration I've been giving to finding ways to teach children about diversity, and responsibility, and creativity, and all those things, maybe the first thing we should consider as humane parents is what I included last in my thesis: Respectful Parenting. Perhaps none of the teaching and lecturing and modelling will do any good if our children do not feel safe enough in the world to be able to turn their attention to the needs of others. Perhaps we need to, first and foremost, ensure that our children have confidence that they are loved and cared for in this world, no matter what, and know that compassion will grow from there.

Boys and Girls

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a Reggio Emilia roundtable at my daughter's school. This is a monthly event put on by the New Jersey Educators Exploring the Practice of Reggio Emilia and is held at a different location each month. They also organize trips to Italy to visit the schools where it all began - I'll add that to my To-Do list.

Anyway, yesterday's discussion was about how to manage long-term projects in the classroom, and one of the issues that came up was that of how boys and girls tend to segregate themselves at the younger ages, and how they tend to do things differently from each other. This is something that has become increasingly interesting to me as my kids have become older and I am seeing the differences between my son and daughter emerge. I'm sure many of the differences between them are particular to them as individuals, but there are also some highly stereotypical gender differences that are appearing and becoming stronger. My daughter is all about pink and sparkles and drama, and my son is obsessed with trucks and sports. Now, I am in no way a pink sparkles person, and while my husband is definitely a sports guy, cars and machines are of no interest to him whatsoever, so whatever proclivities my kids are showing in these areas are their own.

One of Bess' teachers used the opportunity to express her concern over the boys' attraction to guns, and her uncertainty about how to handle it. In striving for a child-led learning environment, she wondered, what do you do if the children want to do a project that the teacher does not want to do? Again, as a humane educator, this is something that is very interesting to me and something that I am asked about often - at nearly every talk I give, I am asked "Humane Parenting, blah blah blah - what do I do about my son's need to turn sticks, blocks, and slices of bread into a lethal weapon?" The ubiquity of the question, both in my reading and in my personal experience, leads me to this conclusion: boys' attraction to gun play is archetypal, and it is gender-specific. It is a way of dealing with questions of gender identity, of power and weakness, and of persuasion.

I know this may sound strange coming from a militant feminist such as myself, but I am going to say it anyway. Boys and girls are different from each other. That's not to say that some boys don't do things that we typically consider feminine, and certainly not to say that girls can't do or be anything they want to. However, it is the height of hubris to think that millennia of natural selection, which designed female humans to serve different functions than male humans in terms of the survival of the species, no longer apply to humans. We may consider ourselves to be the most evolved of all animals, but we're still animals.

Female humans are designed to nurture new and growing life. Male humans are designed, from a physical, psychological, and social perspective, to do something different. They are better equipped to hunt game (a woman with a sometimes noisy and often cumbersome infant tied to her breast or a tantruming toddler hanging on her leg is not likely to have much success sneaking up on a gazelle) and to do other physical tasks. While some modern societies are increasingly expecting men to do some of the nurturing, and many of the physical tasks that used to be required for our species' survival are becoming obsolete, that does not necessarily change the way we are wired.

War is not inevitable, and I am in no way advocating violence as an acceptable conflict resolution strategy. I am a hard-core pacifist all the way. However, I do believe that it is inevitable - healthy, even - that young boys will be driven to explore their physicality and to express some of their aggressive feelings in a more physical way than many girls do, for whatever reason (biological, social, whatever - I don't pretend to know the answer to that one). I believe that by teaching our sons about the realities of violence, and giving them safe and constructive outlets for their curiosity about violence, we will raise them to be more kind, compassionate, and nurturing men.

Two Months? Really?!?!?!

Has it really been that long since I've been here? Shame on me!

Well, it's not like I've been sitting around eating bon-bons on the couch. Mostly, I've had my head down, plowing towards the finish line that is my Master of Education degree. I am proud and relieved to say that my Independent Learning Project is complete, all 100 pages and 30,000 words of it, and now I - Kelly Coyle DiNorcia, M.Ed. - am ready to re-commit myself to everything else that I've been neglecting.

The beginning of a new year is just the time to be doing that, right? New Year's Resolutions and all that jazz? At our house, we've taken a different path towards self-improvement. John got the family a Vision Board that we've hung in the dining room, with pen and paper nearby for whenever the inspiration strikes us. When something comes up that requires some work, personal development, or commitment, we manifest it in the physical Universe by writing our intention on a slip of paper and putting it in the board. I think I'm the only one who has used it so far, but that's okay. So far, I have set my intention to be more patient with my children (which I'm hoping will be a bit easier now that I don't have this huge deadline looming over my head), to commit myself to a regular spiritual practice, and to develop my ILP into a book. I also plan to recommit myself to blogging, because I love the opportunity to explore my thoughts, send them out into the Universe, and get feedback. I hope you'll join me!

Cultivating Compassion

I have been a little spotty on the blogging lately. I am focused on my thesis, which is about how parents can help their young children to be humane. I just sent my introduction to my advisor, who gave me some phenomenal feedback as to a major element missing from my project.

Namely, this: why bother? Why do we want to teach our children to be humane? What's in it for them?

Good question. I've been giving it a lot of thought, and quite honestly I'm coming up seriously short on answers. It feels good to be compassionate, in my opinion, but why? Is it some complicated "Selfish Gene" calculus that tells us if I'm nice to someone today, they'll be nice to me when I need them tomorrow? Is it a social construct, related to religion or a secular Golden Rule? Why does being nice make us happy?

I'm open to suggestions, but in the meantime I turned up something worthwhile in my research:

A Guide to Cultivating Compassion in Your Life

Check it out. I especially like #3, the Commonalities Practice. "Just like me, this person is seeking happiness in his/her life," etc. Good stuff.

Hate Doesn't Heal Anything

Yesterday I went to the Natural Living Conference put on by the Holistic Moms Network. It's a wonderful, inspiring event every year and this one was no different. Naomi Aldort spoke in the morning, and though I think she can be a little hard-core on the Attachment Parenting thing sometimes (especially her view on schooling) I got a lot of great ideas from what she had to say. There were lots of great vendors and it was nice to connect with some friends during lunch that I don't get to see very often.

The first afternoon session was a breakout session, and I attended a talk by Pamela Rich about the Heal Your Life work of Louise Hay. I was so impressed by the speaker - she was genuine, real and funny. She said a lot of thought-provoking and profound things, but one thing really stuck out in my mind. She asked us to think of a limiting thought we have, and one woman volunteered that she often thinks about how polluted our world is.

As background....the Heal Your Life work (as I understand it, anyway) is based on the idea that our thoughts are creative, and that we can transform our experience of reality by changing the way we think about it. I believe this to be true; however, the participant had a valid question. The world just is polluted, no matter what we think about it. In fact, perhaps by choosing to ignore the pollution around ourselves, we may even contribute to the problem. How can we transform this thought in our lives into something positive?

I thought Pam's answer was fantastic, and something that we all can incorporate into our lives. We cannot change other people's behavior, but what we can do is hold people in compassion and understand that they are doing the best they can with the knowledge and information they have in the moment. Nothing, she said, has ever been healed by hate. The only way we can heal anything is through love.

Wow. How true.

What an amazing lesson this is for parents and for activists. We may not like what someone is doing - hitting her brother, eating meat, dumping toxic chemicals in a local river - but the only way we can ever make a positive difference is by choosing love. Getting angry at our child for hitting someone else only escalates the anger - instead, we can choose to feel compassion for a child who is so angry or frustrated that her only way of expressing herself is through violence. We can judge someone for eating something we wouldn't, but that only closes off our hearts (and theirs as well, probably) - instead, we can choose to be thankful to the animal who sacrificed his life to become another person's food. Waging a war of words with a corporation over their polluting practices will most often result in a stalemate, where we judge them as irresponsible and they judge us as fanatical - instead, we can choose to find common ground and start to build a friendship from there.

As Pam said, forgiveness does not imply in any way that the other person's behavior is at all okay with us. It simply means that we let go of our anger about it, and accept the situation for what it is, and move on. I love that - it goes along with the whole Buddhist idea that suffering comes from our failure to live in the moment. The past and the future are not real, but when we remain attached to what happened in the past, or what might happen in the future, we suffer. If we can let go of that and simply live in the present, our anger disappears. What a beautiful, peaceful, sustainable world we would live in if everyone did this!

First Snow

Yesterday we had our first snow of the season. It wasn't much - a couple of very wet inches, barely enough to make a snowball or a snow angel, but definitely enough to make everything white and sparkly. I know a lot of people don't really like the cold wetness of winter in these parts, but I love it and I think it is pure magic.

Somehow, the house suddenly feels smaller when it begins to snow, but in a good way. When the weather is nice the windows are open, the door is usually open to allow the comings and goings of dogs and kids, and it feels like the outside is an extension of our house. But when the winter comes, suddenly the outside becomes less like an extra room and more like a photograph that we look at through the windows. I love the cozy feeling of being hunkered down inside, together, making our traditional first-snow meal of chili in the crock pot and drying mittens and boots in the laundry room. Especially when we don't have anywhere to go and anything we have to do, and we can just sit on the couch cuddling under blankets and reading a book, and time becomes long and lazy, the passing of hours almost too slow to notice until it's suddenly night and time to have dinner, take a nice warm bath and slip into some toasty PJs.

This morning, Bess and I were up early hanging out in the living room, and she called to me excitedly to look out the window. There were three of our neighbor deer grazing in the snow in front of our house, and they all picked their heads up to look back at us. There were still a few flakes falling and it reminded me of a holiday card, so beautiful, serene, sublime.

Nurturing Creativity

I have always been interested in children's art, and in watching the way that they create and progress from scribbles (or, even earlier than that, eating crayons) to creating recognizable drawings. I often feel stress about Bess' art skills because they seem to lag behind those of her peers - she is still in the scribbling stage while others can write their names and draw things. However, I also feel that she will master those skills when she is ready, and that it is more important for her to explore her creative urges than to perform art in a certain way.

I signed her up for a local art class, more because I like the idea of her being around creative people than because I hope she'll learn some sort of "skills" from it. (I'm still not sufficiently evolved to allow Bess to paint with reckless abandon in my house, but I'm working on it!) So far, I haven't been disappointed - the teachers are wonderful and the projects are sufficiently open-ended that she is free to create whatever she wants. Here are her creations from last week:



and you can read some interesting articles about children's art here and here.

Art is Sacred

This morning we had nursery orientation at Bess' school. I have mixed emotions about her starting - mostly I'm excited, but I'm also a little sad that she's growing up and away. I'll enjoy the quiet time in the mornings, but I'll miss her too.

One of the new teachers at the school, Darcy, worked at an early childhood center and talked about their approach to art. "Art is sacred" she said, meaning that adults should never interfere in the creative process of a child.

I believe that is true, and I wish I had heard it sooner than I first did which was about a year ago. Prior to that time, I would try to entice Bess to color or draw by sitting down and doing it alongside her, but I found that all she wanted to do is watch me color and draw. I think that she became frustrated when her creations didn't look as "good", or polished, as mine, so she decided not to even bother trying. It has been a year since I learned of my mistake, and it has taken that long for her to overcome her art aversion. She is just starting to enjoy coloring and drawing, and especially enjoys making collages with paint, beads, glitter, and whatever else is around.

I look forward to a year of creativity and support at her new school!

No Opportunity Wasted

John's hockey team won their morning game today, so we had some time to pass until they played in the finals at 2 pm. We went back to the hotel to swim (Bess) and nap (Harry), but I wanted to make sure the kids were good and tired before we packed them in the car for a long and potentially traffic-filled trip home.

We went to a nearby playground so they could blow off some steam. The place was great - they had a big play structure for the big kids and a small one for the little kids (perfect for Harry's size), and a skate park, basketball courts, and walking/biking/skating/scootering trails. I unleashed the kids, and then noticed something that I had observed a few times before. They didn't really care for the play structures and seemed kind of bored. Harry wanted to play with a basketball he found, rolling it down the stairs and watching it bounce, and all Bess wanted to do was make new friends. Compare this with the time they spent at the Botanical Society yesterday or Walden Pond the day before, where they were entertained for hours making fairy houses, watching the fish swim and wandering through the woods.

I began to think about this as a metaphor for modern parenting in general. We structure so much of our children's time and give them ready-made playthings, when all they really want to do is check out their world and use their imaginations. We want their playtime to be efficient, and give them slides, swings, and monkey bars to play on so they can get their exercise in a limited amount of time and space. (As a side note, the play structure also had the alphabet, the numbers through twenty, and several geometric shapes with their names carved onto the side, I guess in case the structure itself were not enough intellectual stimulation for the pre-verbal children using it.) In the city, I can see why this is desirable as places for safe play are in short supply. But Marlborough, Massachusetts? You can't throw a stone without hitting a beautiful outdoor setting where children can run, play and explore.

All in all it ended up fine. Some of the sisters from the team played Aliens with the kids while I watched the game, and we made it home in record time and with minimal screaming from the backseat. But consider the lesson learned.

Close Quarters Parenting

We just arrived in Boston, where we will be finishing the summer with a long weekend. The weather should be great, and we have some fun outings planned, including swimming in Walden Pond (Simplify, simplify) and playing in Weezie's Garden for Children.

However, the process of getting here was, as always, anything but simple and carefree. The kids spent the first hour of the trip screaming in the back seat, practically making my ears bleed and distracting John in heavy traffic. Then Bess kept taking off her seat belt and went into Repetitive Mode, where she just asked the same question 100 times without ever actually listening to the answer as far as I could tell. Harry screamed for awhile, then slept for a bit, and then screamed for the last 40 minutes of the ride after Bess woke him up for no apparent reason whatsoever.

Needless to say, these past several hours do not represent my finest parenting. I get a bit claustrophobic in the car, and a little car sick too, and I'm easily overstimulated by the noise. I still cannot figure out a way to get the kids to behave safely and have fun on long car trips. I try all manner of tactics, some qualifying as "positive parenting" and others decidedly not, but in the end I always expend a lot more energy than I'd like and don't really get very good results.

I am going to devote some time over the next few days to strategizing for the ride home. Perhaps while I'm soaking up some rays on the shores of the Pond, watching the kids splashing happily, some inspiration will hit. And, of course, I'm always open to suggestions....

Slugger

So, I think I have an idea for a children's book.

Bess has a new friend in our yard that she named Slugger. He's a slug, in case you couldn't tell from his name. (Or her name, I'm not really sure how to tell the difference, or if such a difference even exists in slugdom.)

Anyway, she likes to watch him climb the wall and to inspect his slime trail. (It's kind of like watching grass grow, only slower.) I've finally convinced her not to touch him because it scares him (I think) and makes her hand gooey. Yesterday she left some corn husks out after helping me shuck our dinner, and when we got up in the morning he was dining away on them, so she moved him to a shady spot, left him some tasty leaves and checked on him periodically during the day.










So I was thinking - what a cute children's book it would be to have a little girl who loves slimy, slithery, and creepy-crawly things, and who teaches her parents all about how important they are!

Do I hear an illustrator out there???