When it comes to parenting, I take the long way around; let's call it the scenic route. I just don't understand the rush to push kids out of the nest and into the world.
Wean by one. Potty train by two. Literacy by five. Sleeping through the night as quickly as humanly possible, of course. Independence is the doctrine of our culture, and it is taught to us as dogmatically as any preacher spouting fire and damnation from the pulpit. I have been questioned for every decision I have ever made that gives my children room and time to be little and new: soothing hurt feelings or helping navigate social situations instead of insisting they do it themselves, keeping them out of school so they can spend their days playing, not having chore lists or allowances, breastfeeding my toddlers, rocking my babies to sleep, on and on and on. I am regularly scolded by strangers for carrying my two year old. "Let him down so he can walk, he needs to learn some independence!" Setting aside the reality that my two year old cannot walk, I always think to myself in these moments, "What is the rush? Why are we in such a rush?" Do we genuinely believe that if a child does not start doing things for himself as soon as absolutely possible that he will never learn? Could it be that the vulnerable and needy simply make us intensely uncomfortable and while we feel fine expressing that discomfort openly when it is directed at the homeless and the poor, we have to find passive aggressive ways of directing it at children? Perhaps, we want to rush children through childhood because a child needing her parents for survival is offensive to our sensibilities of working hard for what you have and being a contributing member of society? Or is it just that as selfish, egocentric people, the idea of someone needing us to be self-sacrificing is confusing and off putting because we have been taught our entire lives to put ourselves first? Is it just that we have bought that our happiness is most important and that the kids are going to be alright as long as mommy and daddy are happy... so go out there and find your bliss and manifest your destiny and sacrifice as little of yourself as humanly possible because losing yourself is the absolute worst thing that could ever happen to you? Whatever the reason, I find it absolutely absurd. I find the entire salvation message of Independence absurd. It is harmful to people. It is harmful to society. And... it is entirely false. People need people. We need each other. I wake up every single day and rely on a million different people, people I do not know and will never meet, to function. I rely on a grocery store employee making minimum wage to show up at work so I can buy bananas for my baby's breakfast and I rely on a farm laborer halfway around the world to grow the bananas and pick them and package them so that I can buy them for my baby's breakfast. I rely on a scientist somewhere on the planet to work long hours and miss her daughter's dance recital to make the medicine that keeps my seven year old from curling up in a ball in the corner of his bedroom asking me what is wrong with his broken brain. I rely on you to not walk into the grocery store that I am shopping at or the pharmacy I am waiting in or the church I am praying in and decide to pull out a gun and start shooting at me and my children. I rely on the truck driver who ended up divorced because his wife could not handle the long weeks apart, to pull into the gas station and fill it with gas so I can drive my car to my son's doctors appointments or karate lessons. I rely on politicians and law makers and bus drivers and therapists and friends and family and my husband and my children and I do not spend one single second of any given day independently. Independence is a myth. Rather than teach my children "independence," I choose to spend my time teaching my children to be good humans to other humans...and to animals and to the earth. My children who were breastfed past one and potty trained whenever and aren't quite reading yet and never learned to self-sooth are learning how to be good humans. Even a three and a half year old who is still breastfeeding will snatch his shoes from your hand and tell you defiantly that he can do it himself. One day, he will also stop breastfeeding, and stop waking up in the middle the night, and learn to do his own laundry, and get a job, and move away from home, because the desire to take care of yourself is human nature. It does not require teaching, it requires patience. Selflessness and an awareness of our interdependence are the learned behaviors that require my attention and efforts....and also my patience. Because even still, there is no rush. When they make mistakes as they always have and always will, we talk about why it was a mistake and we work on what we could do better and we will do that over and over and over again until it sticks. I have the rest of my life to teach these boys to be good humans and I have the rest of my life to learn to be one. Besides, without all the time limits and stress and rushing about, the scenic route is a lot more fun.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
WHO AM I?
I am Michelle: a wannabe hippie in love with a bonafide geek. We also spawned. I spend my days with our four wild, beautiful boy children and I overshare about our life online because I am a Millennial and that is what we do.
|