Tag Archive - peaceful parenting

Radical Honesty : Hip Mama : Owning Your Own Words : “Privacy” : Group-Think : And So Much More

August 10, 2009 in Life, Parental, Pittsburghian, Radical Unschooling, Religiosophy with 15 Comments

I woke up today to find this in my in-box (I made the one segment bold):

:: Radical Honesty ::

Hiding the truth (from yourself and/or others) is a
constant energy drain. To free yourself from the
burden of secrets and lies, you must cultivate the
skill of radical honesty: willingness to reveal any
truth, no matter how “unacceptable” it is.

Withholding truth is such an integral part of our
culture that you probably don’t notice when you’re
doing it. So, for today, pay close attention to your
thoughts and expressions, and continually ask
yourself, “Am I being as honest as I could be
about that? Is there a deeper truth?”

Examples of “acceptable” dishonesty include saying
you’re “fine” when you’re not, and *not* saying how
you feel about the way your friend treats her child.

When you spot a white lie or withheld truth, notice
how it feels in your body — the energy and effort
required to distort or ignore your true feelings.

Then imagine being radically honest — telling it
exactly like it is. If you could be that honest *and*
keep your heart open, would you?

http://dailygroove.net/radical-honesty

Feel free to forward this message to your friends!
(Please include this paragraph and everything above.)
Copyright (c) 2009 by Scott Noelle

WOW what a powerful message for me this morning after I spent about an hour discussing some recent oppression and unfairness in my life with William last night. If you will recall, I posted this back in May. It was part defense and part personal reflection on how I communicate or am perceived to communicate with others about me, my life, radical unschooling and peaceful parenting.

Up until a few days ago, I was a member of The Pittsburgh Hip Mama Meetup Group and because the majority of the group members probably would not describe themselves as people aligned with HipMama.com or Hip Mama Magazine (yet that’s where the name for the group was taken from) I was not well liked or tolerated by a majority of the group…because my personal pendulum swings far more Left (or Right, depending on how you draw up the Political Compass) and I tend to employ “radical honesty” and not agree with the majority’s need to play the “nice game” with them instead of saying how I really feel. After saying many things that apparently made people cry (yet having others send me emails saying, “finally, someone with a voice of reason”), I was pretty much left with three options, 1) abstain from speaking at all, 2) playing the nice-I-tolerate-understand-everyone-game or 3) be myself, piss people off and be removed from the “club” (like we’re in high school or something).

Because the “current administration” didn’t want to appear so subjective, censoring nor intolerant of divergent thought, they very cleverly pounced on an idea to remove me (that sounded so conspiratorial, but wasn’t meant to), which seemed very objective and played on the idea of member privacy. The following is the email I woke up to a few days ago:

You have been removed from The Pittsburgh Hip Mama Meetup Group.

The person who removed you, Marissa, said:
----------------------------------------------------------------
I regret to inform you that you have been removed from
Pittsburgh Hip Mama. The organizers are unsettled by your re-
posting other people's statements from the Hip Mama message
board onto a public website, as we feel that you have violated
our members' privacy.
----------------------------------------------------------------

To which I sent a hasty email back (probably shouldn’t have responded at all or not until I thought it all out and had completed this blog post). For some reason, Meetup.com didn’t send me a copy of that email when I have received a copy of EVERY other email I have sent through Meetup.com (so, you can’t view my initial rebuttal). I basically applauded their efforts to evict me in a seemingly objective way and pointed out in basic language how I was in NO way violating member privacy, but that since now I wasn’t a member I could name names left and right if I so chose to. I wasn’t mean and didn’t use profanity — how the fuck was that an email from me — I was playing nice.

The “re-posting other people’s statements from the Hip Mama message board onto a public website” was in reference to the post I linked to above…I am only assuming this, because I can not think of another incident where I quoted a Hip Mama member. First, no where on the HipMama site does it implicitly, explicitly or otherwise state that I can NOT re-post or quote discussions from the message board onto another message board, public website or any other media source. That is unless they have recently added that to the numerous rules in the Hip Mama Road Map since my removal. I can’t be sure, because I have no access to that now. As you will notice when reading the post in question, I went over and beyond all means necessary to protect the privacy of the person I quoted. In fact, I did everything possible to NOT identify the person whom the words belonged to, because I wanted to protect their privacy. I didn’t reveal their name (not even initials), didn’t reveal their group/organization name nor did I reveal their gender. By Google searching for a phrase from the quoted text, you won’t find any identifying marks and all roads point back to my original post. Furthermore, only those members who had already read those words on the discussion board or who might have stumbled upon them while searching the archives of the message board would have known that they were from a member of Hip Mama Meetup. However, now you know that the quoted words belong to a Hip Mama member and were more than likely said by a woman.

Legally, unless otherwise prohibited by oral or written contract (like that of patient/client/parishioner confidentiality), I have the right to quote anything from anyone that is said to *me* or in a public forum. Furthermore, the words I quoted were about me and “spoken” to me, but in a manner and in a forum in which other people could read and even comment as they saw fit…it wasn’t like I quoted a private email or something…and even that would have been “okay”. The only thing I might be violating is copyright law, if the person I quoted does not want to remain anonymous and would like to publicly OWN THEIR WORDS. I didn’t take credit for the words, change the words or give credit to another person for the words.

Meetup.com privacy is limited at best. In it’s terms of service agreement (under “Your Information”), it’s stated,

“”Publicly accessible” areas of our website are those areas that are available either to some or all of our members (i.e., not restricted to your viewing only) or to the general public.

You should understand that your Public Information may be accessible by and made public through syndication programs (including data feed tools) and by search engines, metasearch tools, crawlers, metacrawlers and other similar programs.”

I would have to assume that “Your Information” refers to the information that you give Meetup.com, organizers AND members of Meetup.com. Information would include things you have typed out on a message board. There is no general privacy policy regarding message boards that I could find and such privacy measures are usually left up to an organizer or moderator to develop and employ. At the time of my supposed infraction there was NO such policy developed, employed or otherwise expressed by the organizers of Hip Mama. Just because the group you belong to is a “private” group and members have to be “cleared” to join, does not mean that your information is private. Besides, words you speak or type in a forum (yes, even a private forum) are NOT protected from the public unless there is some kind of contractual agreement between members stating that message board posts can not be re-posted or quoted to other media. Maybe the current organizers of Hip Mama Pittsburgh should adopt such a policy now to make their claims seem more legitimate.

Besides, haven’t we all learned by now that NOTHING you post on the Internet is private, unless it is encrypted and only YOU can see it — even then it’s still iffy as to whether or not it is truly private. You should assume that you can and will be quoted at any time and by anyone (with or without your express permission). I don’t send out into the world that which I don’t want the world to know or that which I don’t want coming back to me.

I am deeply bothered by a group that would allow its organizers to remove a person with no warning or chance to refute accusations brought against them. I am also deeply bothered that a group would act in such a way that indicates it owns the words spoken in its online message board by its members. Hip Mama Meetup does NOT own the words or information on its message board nor does Meetup.com own the words or information on message boards that it hosts. Each individual member owns his or her own words or at least they had better, otherwise they shouldn’t be speaking them.

Back to “Radical Honesty”. I would much rather have received an email that simply stated: “You have been removed from Hip Mama Pittsburgh, because the organizers do not like you, your philosophies, your level of decorum and tact on message boards nor do we agree with the messages that you are sharing with ‘our’ members. We find you contrary to ‘our’ purpose for existence as a Meetup group.”

To which I would have had no reason for writing an email reply or for that matter a long blog post. I could have simply muttered under my breath, “well, fuck you too” and then gone on about my Life as though nothing had happened. It’s not the fact that I was removed, which irritates me, but in the manner and the reason for which I was removed that irritates me. Why can’t people just be honest and NOT invent (though clever as it might have been) reasons to banish someone?

I asked William if I was being petty by deciding to blog about this or to even consider doing anything more than deleting the you-have-been-removed-message since I was thinking about leaving the group anyways. He reassured me that I am indeed NOT being petty and by publicly stating my concerns, grievances and thoughts as soon as possible, I can make others aware of what “really went down”, the typical “group-think” practices of Hip Mama Pittsburgh organizers and publicly defend myself against accusations that are not true. Apparently, he thinks that’s my job as a blogger…

“This is yet another example indicative of the decline of human logic” ~ William Parham (though, I might have misquoted him, in which case, he’ll correct me in the comments)

 

Just Say Yes!

June 30, 2009 in Parental, Radical Unschooling, Religiosophy with 1 Comment

One of the first pieces of advice parents get from other peaceful/mindful parents or unschooling parents when they are trying to release their need for control is, “just say yes”. The idea is to find a way to say yes to everything that you possibly can…barring those things which could cause serious harm. And when harm is a possibility, find ways to say yes to part of a request or offer a slight tweak in the idea/plan to avoid possible harm. It is always possible on some level to say yes I am finding (reminding myself).

Yes feels right. Fluid. Flexible. Adaptable. Yes feels loving. Light. Comforting. No feels wrong. Rigid. Unmoving. No feels defeated. Cumbersome. Finite.

I am usually a ‘yes-mum’, but lately, for unknown reasons, I’ve been saying some nos. I realized it today while looking back over the last few weeks. The days when I felt crappy and negative were the days with nos. The days that weren’t joyful were days with nos. The days I had old tapes playing in my mind, were days with nos. So, I thought that I’d bring some good advice for ‘newbies’ and myself. Just say yes!

Letting go of control

Just Say “YES!!!!!”

Finding the Yes

The most Hands On way of being Hands Off

Sandra Dodd on “Saying Yes”

“We can be our kids partner in helping them get what they want in life or we can be the barrier that opens or closes according to our whim.” Beautiful quote from this piece.

Saying “YES” to Children

Yes!

How are you saying “yes”? Can you commit to one day of yeses and then two and before you know it, possibly an entire week? Where could you go from there?

 

Parents Need to Work on Themselves

June 15, 2009 in Parental, Radical Unschooling, Religiosophy with 0 Comments

Unschooling/parenting quotation that sums up the entire ‘package’ almost:

“If parents want to be unschoolers, they need to figure out how to be better parents, because it’s the relationship between the parents and children that ultimately makes unschooling work.” — Sandra Dodd

I’d add that parents need to figure out how to become better people in general and Peaceful people/parents. Once you take the leap of questioning compulsory schooling, it leads you down a snowball’s path of questioning EVERYTHING — which is good if you are really wanting to make drastic changes for the better in yourself, your family and in the relationships you have with all people.

Many people come and sit close to unschooling, because they think it simply means their children don’t have to go to school and their children can focus on what is important to them. A lot of parents find themselves a couple months into unschooling and realize that there is way more to it than just taking their kids out of school and letting them pick something they want to do. Slowly, parents find out that they need to change, change their outlook on life, what they consider to be important and how they view their relationship with their children.

Parents (who really believe that learning is innate and in everything) will start to question the amount of control they are using in their relationships with their children. They will slowly find out that the more Freedom their children have (and they have) and the more Trust and Respect they have for their children (and themselves), the better their relationships become.

There is no magical formula (I don’t think) that exists, which will make the transformation into becoming an unschooling family easy or overnight. As parents, we need extra time to heal and accept any emotional hurt that we carry over from our own childhoods…without doing so, we make our unschooling journey extra bumpy and stressful. As parents, we are the ones who have to question what our culture tells us is acceptable/expected behavior for parents and their children and most of all we have to question the messages about parent-child relationships we received from our own family. When we are hurting and our judgment is clouded by cultural noise, it is almost impossible for us to be Peaceful, Respectful and Trusting people/parents.

Breathe. Live. Laugh. Love. Learn. Eat Cookies. Make it to a conference.

Mindful Parenting

Introduction to Unschooling

 

UUCNH Playgroup & a Caveat

June 4, 2009 in Entertainment, Parental, Photographs, Radical Unschooling with 4 Comments

Elijah and I ventured to the North Hills for a playgroup on Tuesday. It turns out that almost everyone there is a homeschooler and a few are unschoolers. The group is also secular, which as most home/unschoolers know can mean the difference between fun and formalities (nothing personal against Christian homeschoolers, just the overall feeling I get at most of their gatherings). The playgroup is hosted by the UU Church of the North Hills, but not really tied to the church. The group has the run of the grounds and buildings all year round.

We had a fairly good time for two anti-group people thrusting ourselves head first into a group where neither of us knew anyone. I know, I have no idea what *I* was thinking. However, I think we’ll make the trip up there next week and see how round two goes.

While we were there, we got the pleasure of seeing a Robin Hood play put on by the majority of the kids in the group. Here are a couple photos**.

watching

watching

Robin Hood

Robin Hood

sheriff & knights/guards

sheriff & knights/guards

the dual

the dual

cast of the play

cast of the play

**if any of the parents who were there are reading this and you would like copies of these pictures or to see the dozen or so more that I have, please send me an email or leave a comment below.

While I enjoyed visiting a bit with several of the other mums, Elijah had a hard time of it. There are several parts to this. First, we were outside almost the entire time — in my post about going unshod, I said,

“I never thought that I’d produce such a child that is timid about going barefoot. However, I think being barefoot outside is only part of the larger aspect of being outside, which is very chaotic, unpredictable & ever changing; it’s often too much for both of us and our sensory integration hangups.”

Being outside is tiring for us both. We enjoy the air, the warmth and such, but it is often overstimulating. Being outside is Chaotic. And when you combine natural chaos with being a newbie to a group, you have a recipe for disaster — rather emotional disaster.

Second, there is a large group of ‘established’ children. And with this group, not so much unlike school children and nothing like a group of only unschoolers, this established group might not have too much room for another child. While from what I could tell, except for a couple of little girls, the children were all friendly with Elijah, but Elijah is the dreaded ‘new kid’.  And his mum looks nothing like all the other mums, but more like someone these children might see walking out of a tattoo parlor or escorting women across the picket line in front of Planned Parenthood.

Thirdly, Elijah had his feelings hurt very early on (15 mins into being there), because there was a group of children running off to play something and he was trying to keep up with them. From his point of view, he was trying to be part of the group and the group was running off/away from him. For those of you who know my son, you know that he is extremely sensitive. For him to perceive that a large group of children is running away from him is not going to set the stage for joy. We should have left then, but for some crazy-ass reason I coddled him and we pushed on.

Thirdly, there was a semi-organized game of street hockey going on out front (2.5 hours later). I wasn’t out there. I was inside talking with other mums. I was NOT doing my job. I was NOT being the mum I know I need to be. I allowed US to fail. The next thing I know, I am being summoned outside by two mums and I hear the words “hockey-stick” and “hitting”. I still don’t quite know the while story. I believe Elijah wanted to play, didn’t know how and was offended that the other children weren’t mind-readers and weren’t explaining the game. I believe that Elijah was “high-sticking” this way and that way, yet being careful (I heard those words out of a parent’s mouth), but apparently whacked a mum on the arm who asked him not to hit another child with the stick. I still don’t actually know if he hit another child or not. I know he was upset and felt like everyone there was against him and not beside him…as did I.

Again. I should have taken us out of there. I have no idea what the fuck was wrong with me. I think I was trying to play that social-game of being “nice”, when I should have just fled the scene. I calmed the boy down and figured out he was frustrated because no one told him how to play hockey. Simple enough. I went over to the group of kids and explained that Elijah would like to play hockey, but doesn’t know how and asked if they could explain things. They all were more than happy to oblige. The game went on without much issue…Elijah was accidentally hit with a stick, but recovered alright.

All the mums seemed understanding and seemed to care about Elijah’s well-being, as well as the safety of all, but then I got The Phone Call today. The lady from the church called me. About hitting, kicking and stuff. Kicking? Really? I love how these things get blown WAY out of proportion. She understood that there were some issues with hitting (kicking, etc.) and so on at the playgroup. At this point, I felt like my son was in school and his teacher/principle was calling me to inform me that my son was getting in bloody fights or pulling girls’ hair or some other terrible thing. *I* got *in trouble*. I’m almost 28 yrs old and I was reprimanded for having a sensitive child who did what a lot of children his age and in his position would have done. However, it could have all been avoid if we had just left like 15 mins into being there. Apparently, some of the mums thought more to tattle on E & I than to talk it out with us, inquire as to what the issue was or try and help us out. Thanks. A simple hand up, not a hand out is all I’m asking for here folks.

What have I learned (yet, already knew). Just leave. Don’t say goodbye. Don’t walk, run to the door. Get the hell out of there. So, next week (oh, yes, we ARE going back next week) we will just keep the car running if necessary.

 

Hair Cut

January 12, 2009 in Life, Parental, Radical Unschooling, Religiosophy, Unschlog with 8 Comments

“Mommmma, do you still want to cut some of my hairs?”

“I’d like to give you a trim, but I know you are attached to your hair.”

“What will happen to my hair? Will it be gone forever or can we keep it?”

“Yes. We can keep your hair in a baggie for you to look at and touch…is that what has been bothering you about me wanting to trim your hair?”

“Yep. So, it won’t be gone forever…then cut away; you can cut it all off if you want to!”

“I think we’ll start off small and see where we end up.”

Before shot

The aftermath: I was strictly instructed to leave the two dreadlocks in front alone and could not cut them under any circumstance!


While I’d been asking to trim the back of his hair for some time, he was adamant that it was NOT going to happen. I had no plans to cut his hair against his will or to make the issue about me controlling him. It just took him a long time to come to the hair cutting on his own; first he had to share his fear and know that everything would be alright. I find how funny it was that once his fears were heard and his needs were met, a) cutting the hair was a non-issue b) he enjoyed the process and c) I was given carte-blanch freedom to do as I pleased with his hair!

How many parents have struggled with their children and their children’s hair to only end up in huge battles, tantrums and never ending crying? It’s hair for crying out loud and it’s hair that belongs to the person it is growing out of! It’s possible that I might not have been given the chance to cut his hair any time soon or ever and that would have been perfectly fine with me. However, I presume some parents value their idea of what is acceptable to themselves for hair styles over how their children feel about their hair and ensuring that they feel empowered by their choice to cut or not to cut (or brush or wash on a certain schedule or etc.).Hair is NOT an area where I want to waste energy or throw around arbitrary authority (not that I ever want to throw around arbitrary authority).

 

“I need time away from my child…”

December 29, 2008 in Parental, Radical Unschooling, Religiosophy with 14 Comments

Well, I don’t, but that’s what you hear so many parents (especially mums) saying these days.

“I need *me* time.”
“When will I ever get time to myself?”
“I don’t know how you can be around your child all day; I’d kill myself.”
“I give you credit, because I sure couldn’t do it.”
“I have my own life outside of Motherhood/Parenthood.”
“I can’t imagine being around them all day.”
“I was so thankful once they could start school/daycare/preschool and I could have some time to myself.”
“Don’t you want time for yourself?”
“The time I do spend with them is enough chaos for me already.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids, but…”

And so on and so on…things we’ve all heard and probably some things many of us have said at one time or another. The crazy thing is that in almost any circle of parents that you say one of these lines in, you’ll be affirmed with nods of agreement or smiles of understand or the occasional outburst of “oh, I know” or “I hear ya”. Is it wrong for parents to enjoy their children and enjoy being around them, sharing life together? Did I miss the memo about it being ‘uncool’ to be a mum?

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy taking showers by myself and going to the bathroom by myself, as well as a whole host of other little things throughout the day in my life that I do or would rather do by myself. I have hobbies that are not connected to or centered around the fact that I am a mother with a 5 year old and I magically find time to do them both with and without company. Furthermore, I actually like being around my son all day…not that we’re together all day, because Elijah rarely (actually, I can’t remember the last time) sleeps with us and he spends at least a couple hours alone in his room on most days, as well as other bits here & there in the day where he’s not involved with what I am doing.

I enjoy my son’s company. He’s a really neat person and has interesting and often profound ideas about things. I love to see and hear about what he’s been creating and doing all day. Lately, I’ve been extremely fulfilled by sitting for more than an hour or two building with Legos with him…can you imagine how great it is to forget about everything around you for a couple hours (until your stomach starts gnawing on your backbone from ignored hunger) by just clicking together little plastic bricks?! We have fun together every day with very little pressure if any at all about what time it is or when we have to start or be done with certain activities. It is a life full, free and spontaneous. Oh and it is ‘Real Life’, maybe not the ‘Real Life’ that you’ve chosen, but the ‘Real Life’ that we’ve chosen.

While it might seem hard to contrast the life of a stay-at-home-unschooling-mum to that of a say, part-time-working-with-kids-in-school-mum, I have some ideas as to why the latter mum says one or all of the above statements about needing time away from her children. First, let’s consider the most obvious: child is away from parents all day at school/daycare and parents are away at work or at home doing whatever they do without child all day. Then, once school ends there is a (almost seemingly) never ending routine of hurry, rush, cry, beg, bribe, sports/music practice, fast food, homework, bath fight, tv fight, pyjama fight, bed fight and then collapse. I am going to do my best to address each of the things that I mentioned, as well as some of the deeper issues behind some of them.

Bed Fight: You can not force someone to sleep…let me rephrase this: You can not force someone to sleep without wearing them completely down mentally, physically or by drugging them and even that is not a guarantee. A baby/toddler crying in the next room incessantly, finally gives up on you and after complete exhaustion from physical & emotional exertion falls asleep…they start to give up on you quicker and quicker and resort to sleep as an escape from reality — I’ve studied enough psychology (both on and off the record) to know how sleep works as an escape for so many, including young children. When children (starting from birth) can regulate their own sleep cycles, they find a groove that suits them and it becomes much easier for them to adapt that cycle for things such as appointments and even school later on — especially if those appointments and school are their choice.

Pyjama Fight: Do I really have to stress how unimportant it is to wear certain clothing (or any for that matter) to go to sleep? Sure, if you know that your child sleeps better not wearing her jeans, then reminding her of this and helping her find something softer and less binding/bunching might be nice, but it’s not worth fighting over…ever.

TV Fight: There are so many ways this one can go, but if the fight is simply because the TV watching is holding up the next hurried section of the daily routine, then maybe the routine should be changed or reevaluated and not the TV time. If you are against TV, then don’t own one — it’s hypocritical for you to limit a child’s TV time and not follow the same limits yourself…you aren’t setting a good example. But, “all he does is watch TV all day [really, all day?]“…I am sure that he does watch TV every moment that you allow him to, because it’s being rationed out and limited. If you removed TV limits, he’d gorge on it until he realized that he really could watch it whenever he wanted to and he’ll then move on to other things…especially if there are other interesting things in his life (of his choosing) to move on to. Either get over the TV/computer or don’t have one…you freely chose to buy them and bring them into your home, right?

Bath Fight: Attention, this is a blog written by a ‘dirty hippie’, so keep that in mind. Unless a child is literally covered in mud and her school wouldn’t allow her to attend in such a state, then either finding a non-coercive way to bathe her (unless you are ‘okay’ bathing someone against their will when it isn’t a life or death issue) or calling her in absent are your options. You control your body and when it is bathed; you either like to bath once or twice a day or go for several days without doing so — guess what, children are the same way, except that they don’t buy into social standards of beauty & such and you will find that most (unless they are absolutely filthy) will not bath daily or even weekly. Unless a child has a natural love of water, bathing is usually something that they will NOT choose to do regularly until some time around puberty. Being squeaky clean daily in body and environment (your house) is something that most of us are conditioned to be/do, not something that we freely choose to be/do.

Homework: Well, it goes without saying that if your children are not in school or not subjected to school-at-home(schooling), then there will be no homework! Imagine a life free from doing the same worksheets, chapter reviews & ‘creative’ projects that even as a child you hated and didn’t understand (didn’t understand both how or why). There is far too much homework and it is placing much unneeded extra stress on families who are already finding it hard enough to connect and be civil to one another, without schools dictating what goes on at home after the last bell rings. School is pernicious and finds it’s way into & controls every fiber of your life as a family…it’s like AOL (America Online), you can never really erase it from your computer entirely!

Fast Food: It doesn’t take a genius to realize that eating ‘food’ from the ‘Golden Arches’ every day is not a healthy way to live, but at least these children are being fed something and I credit at least that much, because sadly some parents (even without economic hardships) aren’t even doing that much. I also realize that many people out there who are parents don’t know how to cook or rather loath cooking, but I know that almost everyone likes to eat. As parents, we have an obligation to provide the best food that we can for our children and I challenge anyone who is raising their children on ‘food’ from the ‘Golden Arches’ to ask themselves if that is the best that they can do or if that is the best that they want to do. Real food that is cooked at home costs less and much of it can be made ahead of time to end up being as fast if not faster than ‘fast food’ and cooking & eating it won’t kill you. Once again, you choose to have children, so you choose to provide them with food and they are kind of at your mercy on that one.

Sports/Music (et al) Practice: In general, we all are over scheduled and trying to cram yet another extracurricular obligation into our lives to add to our list of ‘look what we are doing’. Children don’t need scheduled stuff. They can have an interest in something and freely choose to take classes/practices/lectures/camps centered around their interests, but they don’t need their parents trying to impress grandma, neighbors, colleagues and possible future colleges with a laundry list of forced sports, dancing, instruments, clubs, scouts and community service time. Yes, we all want our children to be successful, but our definition of success and their definition might be worlds apart.

Parents & Children Separated Most of the Day: Unless a child is lucky enough to be with his parents constantly for his first 4 to 6 years before being sent off to daycare/school (and even if he was lucky), he longs for his parents, for love and for a home that is free from the oppression, rules and limits of school. Of course a younger child might be almost intolerably clingy in the evenings and on weekends. Parents are simultaneously full of relief that they are free of their children and guilty that their children are away…not realizing that it’s this constant separation that makes being with one another total hell. We miss out on so much when we aren’t with our children and this can play havoc on our conscience, not mention that we just don’t ‘know’ our children well enough to try and help them meet their needs when we miss out on the parts of their day that they are away plus when they are asleep. We are equipped poorly to deal with stressed out strangers. And let’s face it, it’s just not fun to be around people who are stressed out and boy are schooled children stressed out to the max! They leave school only to return to a traditional parenting home full of more oppression, limits, rules, punishment and so on.

Hurry, Rush, Cry, Beg, Bribe: Whether most people are willing to admit it or not, they equate a ‘good child’ with one who is not loud, always clean, uses social niceties, does exactly what you ask & when you ask and never behaves in a manner that you or society find ‘unacceptable’. This causes otherwise seemingly intelligent people to engage in odd & futile parental rituals of rewards, punishments & conditional love with their children — all in an attempt to produce to the world a ‘good child’ or rather a quiet, clean and blindly obedient shell of a child. If this is really how you think children should be, then please do your possible future children a favor…don’t have them, instead have a beta fish on your desk or some ivy in the bathroom. It is completely unnatural to view children like this and completely unreasonable to expect them to adhere to this misty-eyed made up picture of what a child should be.

Children are naturally messy, loud and oblivious of their impact on their environment* (furniture, wall & etc.) and naturally self absorbed to a degree.

 *an adult can stare off into space and unconsciously pick at the edge of a Formica counter top and when they wake up from their daydream, they tisk-tisk at themselves for picking at the counter and then find some glue or tape. When a (traditionally parented) child does it, they try to lie about it or hid it, because they will be punished for having no respect for their home and their parents’ hard work/time/money and when they are asked why they did it, they won’t have an answer, because they don’t know why they did it…they were oblivious to the fact that they were doing it.

Children are also oblivious of their impact (or not concerned with it) on other people when they are constantly punished for doing something ‘unkind’ or ‘unacceptable’ — the focus is on them and not the other person they effected. Their behavior then manifests into ‘how can I not get caught or punished?’ instead of ‘how will this effect others?’. I know first hand, as I was raised in a home that used all kinds of rules, limits, forced bedtimes, spanking, grounding and the like. My father always asked me, “do you just not think about anyone but yourself?” and it wasn’t until I became an adult that I realized that yes, I didn’t think about anyone but myself, because that’s who I was taught to focus on by finding ways around punishment and how it effected me. I was solely focused on what I wanted and not what others wanted or needed. I wasn’t taught empathy or respect for others, I was taught to be self centered, to seek out praise and to avoid punishment and I am still painfully unlearning it. Children have no reason to lie & sneak unless we lie to them or they are trying to deflect the effect of pain from punishment. Because many mainstream parents are self centered (often through no real fault of their own), they focus on how their children’s lives effect themselves and not how they are effecting their children’s lives…they expect their children adapt to them and do what they want, without them ever having to work with their children to find consensual ways to live together and because of this, they make both their children and themselves miserable and continue the cycle of self-centered humanity.

It is no wonder most mainstream parents find themselves chanting “I need time away from my child…”. I wouldn’t much want to be around a child or adult who is obliviously self centered; constantly stressed from the oppression of being forced into school or work they didn’t freely choose; stressed, oppressed and depressed from being controlled by others with rules, limits and punishments; having their natural curiosity and inclinations thwarted at every turn and being repeatedly told how dirty, loud, rude, messy and bad they are.

I find more and more that being a mindful/authentic/peaceful/radical unschooling parent is the best ‘couch therapy’ around. The commitment forces the parent to look deeply into themselves, to remember and assess their own childhood, to question their personal & social obligations & standards, to learn to fully take on the perspective of another human being and see that person’s life through his eyes, to embrace the empowerment of deschooling his own life and mind of what he’s been force fed and to trust that his children will learn what they need and when they need it. By committing oneself to this way of thinking and living, one finds that her world is huge, rich and crammed with options that she can freely choose, whereas before or instead she would be oppressed and limited by self imposed power struggles, undue stress, judgments and forever trying to live up to a perfection perspective that is both unnatural and unreasonable.

If more than anything, most parents need more time with their children (the children definately need the time with their parents) and time that is free of rules, judgments and punishments. Go take some time or make it by canceling that soccer practice that your daughter hates anyways or do something even more radical and let whether or not to go away to school be your children’s free choice and then figure out what you can do to make it work for your family’s situation. When there is nothing but freedom and unconditional love, there is always a way.

 
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