Because I said so

An article from Psychology Today went around (and around) on Facebook the other day. The article discusses Robert Epstein's book, The Case Against Adolescence: Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen. But what really caught my eye was this quote (thanks, Idzie), which I have bullet-ized for clarity and impact:

In recent surveys I've found that American teens are subjected to:

• more than 10 times as many restrictions as mainstream adults,
• twice as many restrictions as active-duty U.S. Marines, and...
• twice as many [restrictions] as incarcerated felons.

And that, my friends, is why teenage rebellion is such a cliche in our culture. What choice do they have? If adolescence is real, it's main purpose is separation, and instead what our kids get is parents who clamp down, provide so-called tough love, and are ever ready to come up with new rules.

There is an alternative. We're living it. We have no rules. Our kids make their own choices. Our lives are peaceful and happy and fun. Our kids are interesting and adventurous and safe enough by their standards.

Shall I back up? Yes, I shall. "Safe enough by their standards," I said. Is that the same as "safe enough by Ronnie's standards"? Not always. Is that easy for me? Umm, let me think. NO.

Here's what it looks like:

The other night—the night before the dawn run to the train station and NBTSC—MJ headed out the door at approximately where-the-hell-do-you-think-you-are-going. When asked, she informed me that she'd be getting home at approximately and-just-how-do-you-expect-to-get-enough-sleep.

Do all you teens and former teens and parents of teens and parents of former teens recognize those hours? They are deeply ingrained in our minds, I think.

So, let's be clear here. What I wanted to say was, "No way. You're staying home. Why? Because I said so."

Instead, anticipating my concerns, she volunteered that she'd be alert on her walk home, with keys ready for jabbing. "And your cell phone pre-dialed to 9-1-1?" I asked. "Yes," she replied, with just the tiniest smirk. And then I indicated that I really wanted her to stay home, and she indicated that her desire to go was very strong.

And then I kissed her good-bye and went to bed. And I slept. I didn't worry. (I might have worried if I'd stayed awake, but I was able to sleep.) And when I woke up the next morning, she was home. In fact, she was already (still?) up, tired but on schedule.

So, what this way looks like is, they make their own choices. Period. While Mom sleeps. (Just kidding! Couldn't resist.) While Mom wrestles with the occasional bout of discomfort—and that's all it is, and all the attention it deserves. And then we all live with the consequences of their decisions, just like they live with the consequences of mine.

We cooperate to minimize or just handle consequences instead of having fights about whether something will lead to consequences. And when there are consequences, they stand on their own, without arbitrary punishments heaped on top of them in some misguided effort to drive the lesson home. (Where is the logic in that, by the way? If the consequences aren't bad enough on their own, why the hell are punishments necessary?)

Anyway, the result is no rebellion, having genuine closeness with our kids, and life in a house that is a place of happiness and trust and love.

Give it a try! Just because I said so.

Passage notes

Good morning! Sorry for the delay in posting; Internet access here at the Naples City Dock is a pain, and I suppose I’ve been on strike, preferring resting and doing nothing to taking care of business. Nevertheless, I have put together some notes and stories about our passage from Gulfport to Naples. In fact, I spent quite a bit of time during the passage mentally composing my blog entries about the experience. (During the first day, I decided the title would be This Had Better Be Worth It. Things improved after that, and I’ve had a couple of days of recovery in Naples, so that doesn’t seem quite necessary any more.) Given 5 very long days to think about it -- and given my intense need for distraction during that time -- I composed quite a lot! The notes that follow are the highlights of those mental ramblings and should paint you a picture of life as a deep-water sailor. Enjoy!

First, last, and always foremost
Frank is my hero. With his entire crew incapacitated much of the time, he bore a heavy burden indeed. His watches were longer, his rest periods were busier, and his responsibility for getting us all back to shore safely was huge. He never faltered and he never complained. I was already pretty fond of him before this trip ;-), but my admiration for him now knows no bounds.

The days have character
A lot of things about the trip are already blurring together, but less so than I might have thought. I think this is because the 5 days we spent at sea were surprisingly distinct, as these next few sections will show.

Thursday – Day 1 – Rainy, chilly seasickness hell
The big weather system that we had hoped we would be tucking in behind was still very much in residence in the Gulf. We rocked and rolled and took in most of our sails and still did better than 5 knots in the right direction. The girls and I were so sick, from the outset, and even iron-stomach Frank succumbed eventually. We were somewhat underprepared for the cold, so we were terribly uncomfortable outside. Plus, everything below decks that we hadn’t stowed properly and a good bit that we thought we had ended up tossed every which way. The ensuing mess meant the inside wasn’t terribly comfortable either. We got through this day not so much with grit and determination as by the simple fact that we had no choice but to do so. In the Captain’s Log, Frank described this day as “Survival conditions,” and I’m afraid it was no exaggeration.

Friday – Day 2 – A little less rainy, a little less chilly seasickness hell
Signs that the weather system was moving away were the only thing that kept us going. Land was no longer in sight when dawn broke, and the water was a deep, pure blue. We were literally surrounded by storm clouds, but our regular drenchings fell into the category of showers rather than squalls. I got out the silver emergency blankets and we used those to line our rain gear. It helped the warmth situation immensely and left me kicking myself for not thinking of them sooner. The entire cockpit and good portions of our bodies were soon tinted silver, since that silver stuff rubs off of cheap space blankets, but it was well worth it. Our seasickness continued unabated. Not wanting to be too graphic, I will just say that I did all right while I was driving, but once relieved of that duty, I would “make a stop” on the way to the companionway, go below to strip out of my rain gear and make a stop in the galley, walk the ten feet forward to the head to make a stop there, and then collapse into my bunk. Most unpleasant.

Saturday – Day 3 – Twilight at the end of the tunnel
Oh, the relief as the seas calmed down! People tell me that the third day is always when things start to get better, but we’ll never know, because the conditions were so markedly improved by our third day. We all managed to eat a very little bit and – most importantly – to start taking in fluids. The skies were thick and gray, so that we couldn’t tell 11 a.m. from 4 p.m. Twilight all day. That suited Chloe just fine, since she stayed below all day. She’d found a spot – lying crosswise on one of the dinette benches – where she didn’t feel sick. She read and slept all day and began caring for our poor, neglected, storm-tossed rats. (Their water bottle went flying on the first day, and I was worried about them but beyond helping them. They owe their little lives to Chloe.) Marjie, meanwhile, stayed in the cockpit most of the time and was still one miserable kid. I had to bully her into taking small sips of water. By the end of the day, when she ate half a slice of bread with jelly, she and we began to know she would be all right. So, things improved. But there was still a fair amount of tedium, and I’m sure you can imagine our dismay when we realized we’d need a fifth day to get there.

Sunday – Day 4 – This isn’t so bad
With the weather turning ever more pleasant – warm but with enough overcast to keep us from broiling – we got a glimpse of what the passage would have been like if not for the bad weather. The sea was actually CALM, and we had Singular Experiences (see below). Chloe came abovedecks and Marjie actually sat up. We’d gone 24 hours without “feeding the fish.” As night fell, we could see the glow from Tampa, and it was comforting to know that we could end our passage at any time simply by heading due east.

Monday – Day 5 – Nature’s last laugh
It was a beautiful day. The sun was out, the seas were calm, and we were almost there. Unfortunately, our Conservative Navigation (see below) and a shift in the wind meant that we had to take a power-boaters-don’t-have-this-problem jog back out to sea to get around the headland at Fort Myers. How depressing to spend hours going in the wrong direction!! Okay, okay, we were still headed south, but – with the way the Florida coast curves to the southeast – we were heading AWAY from land. Ugh. We did that until I simply couldn’t stand it any more, then took aim at Naples. We were running downwind now, with a stiff breeze and waves pushing us east, so our speed was about 8 knots. Cruising, indeed! But the wave action wasn’t pleasant and driving the boat as it surfed took a lot of energy and attention from our sleep-starved selves. I managed to broach the boat once, fortunately with no harm done except to re-trash the interior that Frank had recently tidied. By nightfall, the clouds rolled in again, and we had to dig out the raingear. (Our raingear being rather icky with sweat and saltwater by now, this wasn’t thrilling.) I felt totally disoriented. My tired brain was not quite able to simultaneously reconcile that (1) though the land and lights were on our left with a big empty nothing in front of us, we were going the right way, and (2) though the coastline was in sight and curved around to be directly in front of us, we were in no danger of hitting it. I spent a few hours alternating nonsensical worries that we were off heading out to sea with even more nonsensical worries that land was about to jump out and bite us. To cap things off, the wind shifted again to come straight at our noses. There was NO WAY we were going to do the purist sailor thing and do a bunch of tacking and jibing to come into Naples under sail. We fired up the diesel and motored the last 3 hours, anchoring about midnight off the Naples beach, in the rain, just outside the channel that leads to the Naples boat basin.

Singular experiences: Dolphins!
On the fourth day, there were dolphins. Oh, my, how there were dolphins! We were cruising along, feeling mostly human again by now if a bit bored, when there was a sudden commotion alongside the boat. A pod of dolphins arrived with much speed and fanfare and began frolicking around us. There were at least 30 of them, in a wondrous variety of sizes and colors. The girls ran forward to see them better, while I enjoyed all the slicing fins and splashing breaths from the wheel until our cries of excitement woke Frank. Then he and I took turns driving and going forward to watch their show at the bow. That was definitely the best viewpoint: seeing those sleek forms zip and dive and dash as they played with our boat was amazing and glorious. There were several babies in the pod, with one little guy no more than a foot and half long joining his elders at the bow. Fabulous sight. We cruised along together for probably half an hour, til even the teenager dolphins had enough hot-rodding and the pod moved off.

Singular experiences: Merry and Pippin
During a rainstorm in the fourth day, a significantly bedraggled little brown bird arrived on our boat. Shellshocked and shy, she at first huddled on the bow pulpit looking distinctly pitiful. We left her alone to rest – we were at least 100 miles from shore!! – and by morning, she was hopping around deck like she owned the place. Alone with her for the moment, I started calling her Pippin. As the sky lightened and my family began to stir belowdecks, she got increasingly brave, til the moment came when she perched on the companionway, eyeballed the interior with visible curiosity, and then flew right on in. Marjie and Chloe were thrilled.

Not long after this, Merry arrived. He plopped down out of nowhere to perch on a coiled line hanging next to the companionway. I called out to the girls to let them know we now had two birds, and Chloe cautiously stuck her head out to have a look. He was too tired to be perturbed, so she slowly reached out a hand toward him. He let her pet him! A few minutes later, she had him perched on her hand, and a few minutes after that, he was sitting on my shoulder while I drove the boat, listening with great curiosity to my whistling.

Interactions with these little friends dominated the rest of the trip. Pippin nibbled on some spilled rat food and whatever tasty tidbits she was finding on deck during her constant patrols. Merry wouldn’t eat anything, but he grew increasingly comfortable with us, and even seemed to seek out our company. At one point, he discovered a conveniently concave little spot in Frank’s discarded rain jacket and burrowed and nestled in there with evident great pleasure.

As we neared the end of our trip, you will recall that things got a little hectic. I did my daring 360 in the sailboat, we had yet another rain squall, we took down the sails and started motoring, etc. Somewhere in there, Merry took his leave. We were only about 10 miles from shore, so we have every hope that he is now happily munching food from some backyard feeder, but we *really* wish he had stayed with us all the way to Naples so we could be sure.

Pippin did just that, though. After we dropped anchor and made our way below to collapse utterly, I found her sitting in the open window in the head. I wished her a good night and went to bed. When we awoke the next morning, she was gone.

Points of reference
When you’re out in deep water, you don’t have land masses, radio towers, buoys, and the like to use as points of reference while steering the boat. Staring at the compass or wind indicators for hours is not exciting and, for me, not conducive to good steering or a calm stomach. Here are some things I used to help me stay on course:

• Sail shape and sounds (sails make unpleasant noises when you’re not steering right)


• Wind direction


• Wave direction


• Oil rigs (first night only)


• Stars (when we could see them)


• The new moon (when we could see it)


• Cloud shapes (unless they were moving)


• City glow (last two nights only)

Here are some things that did *not* help me stay on course:

• Other boats that I’d mistaken for stationary objects


• Gut instinct

Conservative navigation
One principle of upwind sailing is that you should sail “tight to the wind,” meaning you point the nose of the boat as much into the face of the wind as possible. This is because no boat can sail directly upwind and some boats are, in fact, really bad at sailing anywhere close to that. If you get as close to it as possible, you will be free later to “fall off the wind” – sail so the wind is coming comfortably over the side of the boat – and point directly at your destination.

Well, for two days of survival-conditions sailing and without consulting each other about it, Frank and I both endeavored to sail a bit tighter to the wind – in this case, more east than south – than our course required. We had these huge southerly swells that we just *knew* had to be pushing us south, and one just never knows what the wind is going to do later on in the trip. Thus confident that we weren’t going to miss Florida entirely and with other more pressing priorities on our minds (surviving), we didn’t check our relative position on the chart until the third day. We realized then how far east we’d come and how much south we needed to go. That’s about when the wind changed and “falling off” was no longer possible. Instead, we had to sail downwind, and we couldn’t point as southerly as we wanted to without a bunch of maneuvering that we didn’t have the energy for.

The result of all this was that we “came out” near Tampa instead of near Naples. Not the end of the world, but it probably added twelve hours to our passage.

Sleeping at sea
Reading between the lines, you may have figured out that Frank and I didn’t require Marjie and Chloe to stand watches. They were both too sick initially, and then Frank and I were in a groove and just happy to have them pretty much taking care of themselves. So all steering on the passage was done by the adults. Since the longest either of us took the wheel was about four hours, you can see that Frank and I got our sleep for those five days in small doses. I discovered a variety of ways a tired, seasick KreweQueen can sleep under those conditions.

While on watch:

• Slumped over the wheel


• Sitting upright at the wheel


• Standing at the wheel


• In any position, with eyes wide open

Note: These are not as dangerous as they sound. The sails make those aforementioned unpleasant noises and wake you up if you start to drift off course.

While not on watch:

• Curled up on the stern seat next to the captain


• Curled up on the low-side cockpit seat


• Curled up on the floor of the cockpit


• Stretched out on the floor of the main cabin


• Curled up crosswise on the slightly damp sheets of the very noisy forward cabin


• Stretched out on the side deck


• In the rain


• In the sun


• With blankets


• Without blankets

The 110-degree diet
We had a small lunch as we left Gulfport. That was about it for food for nearly three days. Then we had some very small, bland meals here and there as we finished out the passage. There's no scale onboard, of course, so I can only guess at how much weight I lost. Let's just say that, while I wouldn't wish the 110-degree diet on an enemy, I am quite pleased with the results!

Technical notes
Days 1 and 2 – As we left Gulfport, the wind and waves increased. We gradually took in sail until we were running with only the jib sail, and even that was furled to about 50 or 60 percent. We held a rough heading of about 110 in a close reach and did about 5 knots steady.

Day 3 – The wind had eased up considerably, but we were all SO tired that we didn’t add any sail back on, being quite sure that would be Mother Nature’s signal to kick us in the head. Besides, we were still making about 4 knots. By end of day, the wind shifted so we were running downwind.

Day 4 – Returned to full sail. *Tried* to hold a heading of 125 or so, but it meant a careful balancing act to keep the sails full of wind.

Day 5 – Full sail mostly, with occasional variations in the amount of jib we had out. Standing rigging on this boat keeps us from pushing the boom out enough to run downwind smoothly, so the price for our excellent speeds (8 knots or better) was a whole lot of muscling the wheel around. We jibed out to sea at a heading of ~135 for several hours, then back in to Naples at about 120.

And in conclusion
Naples. City of the rich, evidently. We motored up the channel to the Naples City Dock, flanked by gigantic mansions that inspired thoughts of hurricane vulnerability. But it’s definitely Florida!! Palm trees, lovely beaches, mangrove swamp, and dozens of million-dollar power boats.

I totally impressed myself by piloting the boat into the gas dock like a pro. To my desperation-tinged inquiry about guest facilities, the clerk replied, “Of course!” We filled up, found our slip, and began the recovery process. SHOWERS!!!!

It’s all been rather surreal, but no moment more so than our first shore dinner Tuesday night. Remember all we’d been through, then imagine my near-hysterical, laughter-and-tears reaction when the waiter at the marina restaurant presented us with a basket of bread and said, “And that’s mango butter with honey.” Of course it was. What else could we possibly have on our bread at such a time?!

We’ve spent the last few days doing as little as possible. We have managed to clean the boat, stock up on provisions, and have a little engine adventure involving a bad batch of diesel (the dockmaster apologetically took care of having the bad pumped out and we’ll fill up with a complimentary tankful today). We also had a few meals that we didn’t have to prepare and walked around Naples a good bit. A fine little vacation!

What’s next
We leave Naples today for the Dry Tortugas, a small collection of islands at the western end of the Keys. They comprise a National Park, complete with a ranger-staffed fort to explore and lots of good snorkeling (finally!!!). About a dozen tour boats come out there daily from Key West, but before and after tour-boat times, we should have the place to ourselves.

An unschooler in school

When Chloe told us she wanted to go back to school, my reaction was mostly fear. I worried that she would be devastated by social crap and brainwashed by the school mentality, and that our unschooling lifestyle would be sacrificed on the Temple of Doom. (That's a bit of an exaggeration but not much.) I did my best to squash the worry in lieu of squashing her, but there can be no doubt that she was aware that Mom Did Not Approve.

I'm sitting here wishing I could go back in time and tell myself to shut the hell up. The experience so far has been entirely positive (except for waking up at 6:30!) and so much a continuation of our beloved unschooling lifestyle that I can hardly believe it. We have all learned SO much!

There was the day that Chloe expressed irritation because she was being required to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. She didn't mind the "stand" part of that as much as the "required" part, so we did some e-research, found state law on the subject (which says only that students who do not participate in the pledge should be quiet), and discussed ways of making it clear to the requiring teacher. I gave her a copy of the relevant RCW section, and Steph sent us a truly beautiful excerpt from the Barnette decision, which includes this gem:

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.

Chloe decided she wanted to talk to her teacher herself and we left it in her capable hands. She went in the next day and simply remained seated during the pledge. The teacher did not complain, and Chloe was able to mentally amend the teacher's spoken "everybody stand" to the "everybody who chooses to, please stand" that it should have been.

Her English teacher has been doing a long (3 weeks plus!) unit on the Holocaust, purportedly to provide context for their eventual reading of The Diary of Anne Frank. We've had discussions about why an English teacher might decide to teach history instead. They have been at least as interesting as Chloe's Holocaust research and have led to discussions about religion, propaganda, the appropriateness of compassion for oppressed people, and more.

We've had conversations about the pressures that schooled kids are under; the ways that unschoolers are free from or share the pressures; the openness of unschoolers as opposed to the social caution of schooled kids; the reasons it might take longer to form friendships at school versus your average unschooler gathering; and the possibilities that kids both schooled and unschooled see, how those possibilities are often nay-sayed by adults, and what might happen if those possibilities were instead greeted by simple acceptance as possibilities.

She's discovered that most of what we've been telling her about school for the past six years is true: she's well-suited to do well academically, she hasn't been falling behind, kids who are in school because they choose to be have a lot more fun and get a lot more out of it. And she's learned that Mom's fears about school were (way) excessive but based in reality.

And finally, she's learning a lot about herself. These discoveries are her business, so I won't go into detail, but they are all very positive, and her self-esteem seems stronger than ever.

In short, my advice about handling unschooler requests to go to school is to stay calm. Certainly explore other ways of resolving any needs underlying the request (more social time? more structure? more variety?), but don't fear school. It is just another path for your child to lead you down, just another interest to follow, just another resource to explore. And it's a damn fine strewing machine.

Some people go all hardcore and say that a kid in school is no longer an unschooler. Our experience says otherwise.

(For additional posts about Chloe's experiences in school, click the "school" label below.)

Getting started!

As I write this, it's Friday evening, our third night in the trailer and the end of our second full day in this new life. We have settled right into a trailer routine--we're experts, as it turns out, and the change of trailer has had little impact on what needs doing and when. There are some differences in the overall experience, though.

I miss the open-air feeling of the tent trailer. I miss being able to talk to Frank through the "walls," when one of us is out and one is in. (Walls aside, the trailer has insulation and modern windows and is very quiet inside. This is 99% a good thing.) I very much dislike waking up to condensation on the windows, which was an issue maybe once in our year in the tent trailer and is a daily occurrence here (at least until we get to the desert).

I like the big back window as much as I expected to, with it's view of the woods. Visibility through that is better than through the tent trailer screening, and it's right next to our seats at the table.

I love not having to unzip nine windows every morning and close them again every night. Here, we have six windows to open and close just by giving them a shove.

I LOVE the dual-battery setup and the LED overhead lights. The lights are very bright, so our lighting is better than at home! And we could run every light in the trailer if we wanted without causing a blip in our power supply. We are continuing our twice daily running of the generator, but I'm not sure the trailer needs it. It's good for getting our various devices charged up, though, and the overall feeling is one of abundant 12v power. Nice!

So far we have used the bathroom only for storage and middle-of-the-night calls of nature, but it's nice having it, especially in the aforementioned middle of the night. And I'm sure the shower will be lovely for hair washing when I need better than my daily sponge baths (which are as effective as I was surprised to find them on our first trip). 

I can't comment yet on what it is like to find an RV dump and dump black water because we haven't had to do that yet. Saturday the 22nd will be that big adventure.

And then there's Miss Rigby. The first night I think she convinced herself we were parked in the back yard: she was totally relaxed and pestered us most of the night, like, "Okay, let's go inside now." Aggravated by the constant interruptions, I finally opened the window shade at the head of the bed and didn't hear a peep from her until morning, when I found her wedged, sausage-like, into the small cubby of the head board. That's where she spends most of her time since except when I haul her out to walk or eat or stop being ridiculous. I decided to go with it and put her favorite sweater in there to sleep on. Daytime is terrifying for her, but at night when we close all the shades she's more sociable. And, hell, at least she's handling it. I remain hopeful that she'll soon take campground vagaries in stride.

We took her for her first hike today, along the trail out of the Ida Creek campground. We chose that trail deliberately because it's usually empty and she was quite enthusiastic about it in 2015. It was a successful outing. She minced her way across the rivulets instead of leaping over them, and she showed a bit more tendency to try to go off-trail (ignoring my tugs on the leash), but she was quite intrepid and seemed to enjoy herself. When we got back to the trailer, she was strutting about, feeling safe and sheltered. In retrospect, we should have sat quietly and let her have that confident time, but we were hungry and started banging pots around, and she went back to her hidey-hole.

This afternoon, I wanted a nap, so I dragged her out of the hole and curled around her on the bed, then pulled a blanket up over both of us. Your dad joined us, and the three of us slept that way for a couple hours. Sweet!

Saturday update: Perhaps resigned to her fate, Rigby has come out! She has a new favorite spot atop the fridge where it's warm and sheltered but with a view of us and the windows. We're in town for groceries and to wish MJ a happy birthday. Then back to the woods!

Good Vibrations 2009

The bright side of a little mid-conference insomnia: I have a chance to get down some of my thoughts and memories from Good Vibrations so far.

Spoiler alert! My notes below about specific talks reference bits that will be ever so much better if you listen to the whole talk, available for download a while after the conference. You can give them a listen and then come back and read the fragments I chose to highlight.

Update: I just discovered that Jeff posted his talk here. Yay!

Unschooling and Math by Pam Sorooshian. Lots of good stuff in this talk, but there were a couple of things that especially grabbed my brain. One was the reminder of how disconnected from reality is the math they teach in class. Pam led us through a little exercise that illustrated this pretty clearly: Make a little list of situations in your real life where you use math. (We came up with tipping, figuring gas mileage, figuring value at the grocery store, doubling or halving recipes, and budgeting.) Ask yourself (1) what method you use to do those calculations (paper and pencil, calculator/computer, or in your head), and (2) how important precision is in the result of each calculation. Compare your answers to what school requires.

Pam also told a very cool little story in which her daughter Rosie was working (playing) her way through an activity book one day while they were driving in the car. Rosie became frustrated with a page that asked how many kids were in each classroom if a school with ten classrooms had 80 students. Rosie complained that it didn't provide enough information. When Pam explained she should just divide 80 by 10, Rosie said (and I love this), "It's not a division problem!" Having never been in a math classroom, Rosie could see all the variables (ages or grade levels of the students, content of the classes being taught, and so on) that formal math instruction requires kids to simply ignore, thereby ensuring that kids know that math (or rather, the math that they are being taught) has little to do with reality.

In Pursuit of a Passionate Life by Jeff Sabo. Lots of good stuff in this one, too, but the highlight for me—the moment that had me teary-eyed—was when Jeff talked about showing inner-city kids three numbers and encouraging them to guess what the numbers represented. The numbers were (I think) 1.7, 75, and 8. He said the kids never got all three. They are, respectively, a specific person's high school GPA, the number of jobs the individual has had, and the number of times this person was suspended from school. Got a picture of this person? Lovely. Throw it out the window. The individual is Jeff. He has a masters degree and a successful career in the corporate world, he is an amazing dad married to an amazing woman who clearly likes him a whole lot, and he is a talented and inspiring writer and speaker. He's also one hell of a bass player!

So, just imagine those kids discovering how little their own numbers could predict what their future held in store.

My own numbers were "better" (unless you count each contract as a job—then I might have Jeff beat), but they carried just as many expectations for my future. It was a heavy burden, and one I might have set down for the first time yesterday.

Strangers in a Strange Land chat. Shonna and I hosted this circle chat yesterday. We went in hoping to encourage and benefit from some brainstorming about how to help other people's kids when we see them being victimized by harsh parenting. I think it went pretty well. Here are the tools we discussed. Which of these is the best to pull out in any given situation will depend on the situation and your resources at the moment.

• Empathize with the parent. We've all been there in that overwhelmed moment, and we all know snapshot moments do not necessarily reflect the whole of the parent-child relationship. Also, those of us (yours truly) who started out as traditional parents can (should be able to) empathize more than most.
• Validate the child's experience. A small verbal expression of your understanding of the child's perspective can provide a lot of comfort to the child, and it just might help the parent make a shift, too. For example, suppose you see a child in a store crying because he's been denied candy or a toy. You can say, "It's hard to see all these cool things and not be able to take them home, isn't it?"
• Say "I've been there. Here are some resources that have helped me a lot," and then hand over a card that lists a few of your favorite parenting Web sites. This one lets you immediately withdraw from the situation; the parent doesn't have/get to respond.
• Say (even if it's not true), "You know, the exact same thing happened with us. Here's what worked for us..." and then describe the parenting that you wish you were seeing.
• Interject with a little comment that might jolt the parent into taking a breath. My example was Count to a million, Mom.

I might be missing a couple, but I'm getting sleepy finally. Thanks to all the women and men who helped with that list! More later.

Pride in Seattle

MJ and I have just returned home from the Pride Parade and Festival in downtown Seattle. It was a pretty fun morning. Neither of us had been before, so we got to see what it's all about. In a nutshell, that's community, equality, fun, and a good dose of fabulous. :-)

We got downtown about 10:30 and parked near good ol' (now defunct) Book Publishing Company, where Frank and I met lo these many years ago. MJ and I walked through Denny Park, Seattle's first park, where Frank and I announced our engagement to our coworkers of the time. Nice memories! It was raining lightly as we strolled down Westlake to the parade route, but that soon stopped, and the weather cooperated for the rest of our visit.

We met some nice folks along the parade route, a woman and her partner who were eventually joined by a man and his partner. Those two turned out to be the only men in our immediate vicinity. This meant that we heard more whooping and hollering for the attractive women in the parade than we did for the guys, but I think MJ and I found the guys the most entertaining. The more flamboyant, the better! One of our favorites was a man who wasn't even in the parade; he merely ran out to throw a donation into the big rainbow flag that was carried by at one point. But what a run he had! We cheered wildly for him, much to his amusement.

Another favorite was the guy who was wearing a gigantic hoop skirt decorated with balloons. His outfit was enhanced (and possibly endangered) by the fact that he was on ten-foot stilts! And then there was the gorgeous guy, riding shirtless on the backseat of his partner's motorcycle. And, of course, there was "Mom" Finley, doing the announcing in drag just half a block from us. He even managed a costume change at one point, but we were too far away to see how that was accomplished.

After the parade, we joined the crowd hiking down to Seattle Center for the festival (greatly scaled back after a significant financial snafu last year). We made one frantic (on my part) stop at a little bakery on 4th. I said, "Do you have a bathroom if I buy something?" Fortunately, the answer was in the affirmative! Relieved, and with croissant in hand, we rejoined the crowd. And a colorful crowd it was, too. Rainbows were everywhere, and lots of Mardi Gras beads, and people and dogs in feather boas. We saw one itty-bitty dog in a furry pink sweater terrorizing a dog three times her size.

The only "off" note in the whole day: the so-called Christian group with their signs and bullhorns telling all the gays they're going to Hell. I didn't find it very Christ-like behavior, and it was definitely in stark contrast to the six or seven mainstream church groups who marched in the parade promoting their "open and affirming" congregations. But a couple of women were doing their best to silence the hate messages by standing beneath the protest leader's soapbox, screaming at the tops of their lungs. They were doing a pretty good job of it; I'm sure they'll be quite hoarse tonight.

Anyway, it was a fun and educational day. It didn't rock me the way the Komen Walk did, but I had a good time. It's always nice to be back in Seattle. We miss living there!

Rating the blog

I tried the little blog-rating tool Mary featured on her blog. It gave me a PG rating for repeated use of the word "zombie" and one use of the word "torture."

Somehow it missed the post where I featured "fuck" and several posts where I used "shit" and a whole bunch of posts where I used "hell."

It'll be interesting to see what it thinks of my blog now. :-)

Update one minute later: Yep, that did the trick. I'm rated "R" now.

Passing political comment

Our new building has TVs in every coffee-break area, and ours is usually tuned to CNBC or MSNBC. A coworker and I walked by when an MSNBC talking head was discussing the possibility of having a Democrat in the White House and Democratic control of Congress. My coworker said something about the world going to Hell in a handbasket, and I demurred with a smiling "No, it's already there." He disagreed and said, "If we start taking money from productive members of society and give it to non-productive members, we're in trouble."

I avoid political discussions at work, so I let it go. But it's Really Bugging Me.

Obama's tax plan offers a tax credit to individuals making less than $200,000 and couples making less than $250,000 per year. This might come as a shock to a few Microsoft millionaires, but that's a lot of people. The independent Tax Policy Center says the plan will cut taxes for 81.3 percent of all households in 2009.

Only in some Republican fantasy world are people who make less than $200,000 per year non-productive members of society. We're talking about teachers, police officers, sales clerks, gas jockeys, small business owners, tech writers, and even many lawyers, doctors, politicians, and plumbers.

Sheesh.

Unschoolers respond

The original Good Morning America piece
The follow-up interview with the Bieglers this morning

Unschooler responses to the GMA content and to the subsequent huge wave of negative comments about unschooling:

Good Morning America: Don't You Love Your Children?
Jeff addressing the "they're lazy" theme.

Unschooling on GMA
Child's Play point-by-point rundown on the original piece.

Unschooling Stephanopoulos: Good Morning America Fail
Heather explaining what unschooling is rather than what it isn't.

Unschooling: How Good Morning America Got It All Wrong
Filmmaker Lee Stranahan cuts through the hyperbole.

Inspired by the Good Morning America piece
Ren talks about her priorities.

Unschooling Gets Publicity...In a BIG Way
Idzie on what all this publicity might mean.

23 Facts About Unschooling
Brianna lays it all out.

Good Morning America - Featuring Unedited Unschoolers
Humans Being commentary on how the second piece today may have been too little too late, plus general commentary on the short attention span of your average American TV viewer.

Quote from unschooling mom and advocate Dayna Martin:
"[I have] been flooded with emails and phone calls since the GMA Unschooling episodes have aired! My YouTube Channel has been mega-blasted with subscribers and comments... My book is sold out at Borders and my publisher received a huge order from Amazon... I have had several requests for interviews and appearances also today...... Phew! What a trip! We're loud! - we're proud! - We're Radical Unschoolers!"

UPDATE WITH MORE LINKS 4/21
The Uproar Over Unschooling
Tara theorizes about why people are freaking the hell out.

My Thoughts on the Recent Unschooling Hub Bub
Amy writes about why quickie descriptions of unschooling don't cut it, and more.

Tori's response to the comments on the GMA feature
Grown unschooler Tori shares her opinions.

And my personal favorite ;-) ...
A Modest Proposal (a la Swift but not as draconian)
Frank suggests better use of the word "unparenting."

NEW LINKS 4/22
Bad Press
Holly talks about why unschoolers should speak out.

Wild Week
Sandra shares some quotes from the continuing flow of ooze and joy the GMA piece has spawned.

So Today I Hear I'm a Neglectful Parent
Kelly advises gentle discourse and keeping things in perspective.

Unschooling and Unjournalism
Media analyst and homeschooling dad Peter J. Orvetti critiques the original GMA piece

Evolving plans

I have been doing a lot of reading. Too much probably, but what the hell. In and around my forays into Regency England, Albania, Italy, and Egypt, I have been Scheduling Our Life. This is a remarkably time-consuming activity recently.

Take today for example.

• Chloe is due at the theater at 11.
• MJ and Chelsea need to be picked up from the beach to accompany us to the performance.
• Aaron is arriving at our house at 1 to accompany us to the performance.
• The performance is at 2 and will last about 2 hours.
• Frank needs to be at the airport by 4:30-ish.
• MJ and Chelsea need to be back to the beach by 5 or so to give the dog his evening medications.
• Aaron needs to be gotten home at a reasonable hour.
• Chloe has a cast party at 7.

The solution to this involves two trips to Seattle, one express bus, and assistance from two other sets of parents. It also involves one last session for me, passing some time in Seattle while I wait for Chloe to finish having fun.

Quite a day. And our calendar for the next few weeks resembles it.

Recent news:

• Frank is still going to New Orleans but the sailing had to be postponed due to government paperwork delays. He'll go down again later in the summer (deeper in hurricane season).
• My start date had to be postponed due to company paperwork delays and is now July 7th.
• Harper is coming for the 4th of July!
• So are the Golds!
• So is Kitty!

It should be quite a party.

Climate Changed

An interesting thing has happened over the last few months: our ecological charities have stopped arguing in their periodicals that climate change is happening and instead are beginning to explore what humans will need to do in order to live with it.

I received a link from Cherie to a blog that offers some explanation for this shift.

Cherie says:
This is my friend David Thoreson's blog. I first met David in 1992 when we sailed across the Antarctic Circle together aboard Cloud Nine. One night as we shared our night watch in freezing winds with icy waves crashing over us, he referred to me as "the date from hell", which I still don't let him forget. He has taken both his sailing and his photography to new heights, and used them not as an end in themselves, but as a means to a much greater purpose, which you'll see in his blog. Let's hope the world listens.

David's blog

The Doings Report

Let's see, where were we?

Oh, yes, I started off the week sick. This was not a great start to the week, since it put me behind on work hours AGAIN. I hate that. In some ways, my manager's flexibility regarding my hours is a drag, since I then feel compelled to make up every hour I miss. This means a sick day or, heaven forbid, two can turn into a week or three of pressuring myself to CATCH UP.

On Monday, Frank drove MJ down to Corvallis to visit with the Zen ones and Patrick G. She spent three days there and had a really good time. They talked, laughed, bowled, ate pastries, slept very little, and bonded with Karma.

Frank then caught my cold and MJ was opposed to riding the bus, so I drove down to pick her up Thursday night after work. (This is called putting your money and time where your big fat unschooling mouth is.) The drive down was lovely, uncrowded, and efficient.

And then I tried to check into the Motel 6.

It was just after midnight. The office was deserted. There was a little bell on the counter that said, "Ring Bell for Service," so I did, politely. Tink tink tink. No response. Then I noticed that the word "Loudly" had been penned in at the bottom of the sign, so I rang the bell again with more force. Ding ding ding. Still no response. Ding ding ding dammit ding. Nada.

Brainstorm! I looked up the phone number for the motel and used my cell phone to call. Phones rang everywhere but nobody came to answer them. I pounded on the office door. I called out. I yelled. I whaled on that stupid f***ing bell. I stuck my fingers in my mouth and released my best "Kids, it's time to come home" whistle. And, finally, I went into the hallway and pounded on the door marked "Private."

Why? Why did I work so hard? I have no idea. Looking back, this is my main regret.

Anyway, the hallway knocking seemed to do the trick. I heard noises from the back, called out again, and was answered with a terse, "Yeah." Seconds later, a very sleepy looking man appeared. He didn't respond to my cranky "Hi," didn't look at me, and didn't apologize. Instead, he began shuffling papers on the desk. He shuffled for quite some time. I'm thinking, "Is he sleepwalking? Is he trying to figure out what rooms are available? What?" But after several minutes, it dawns on me that I am being jerked around. This is my punishment for waking him.

Deciding to test this theory out, I said, "Do you have rooms available?" Without turning from his very busy paper-shuffling work, he said, "Yes." Pause. "Can you help me get into one?" I asked. He smirked a little, said "Yes," and turned toward me. Oh, hell, no. I asked, "Did any of that paper shuffling get you closer to helping me?" His smirk widened, and he said, "No."

So, I turned on my heel and left. Unsurprisingly, he made no effort to stop me.

Ten minutes later, I was tucked into a comfortable room at the Best Western next door, out an extra $25 bucks and STEAMING MAD. I haven't felt rage like that in a long, long time. It took me hours to cool off enough to sleep, which pretty much filleted my carefully planned schedule for not missing any more work hours due to this foray into central Oregon.

Friday morning, I called Motel 6 HQ and had my (sizable) say. They are sending us a voucher for a free night's stay, and I have been assured that the regional manager will be contacted regarding this clerk's behavior. These efforts at restitution have calmed my ire somewhat, but not so much that I refrained from telling this story here. A weekend's free stay and assurances that his ass is fired might have taken me farther.

Anyway, it was a nice morning after that. Mary, Conor, Qacei, Patrick, MJ, and I headed to Sunnyside Up for breakfast sandwiches (yum!) and a much needed machiatto. (Is that how you spell machiatto? I just drink them.) I also bought a SSU t-shirt so I could go to work in a clean shirt. (Yeah, that was the reason...not 'cause I've wanted one for months.)

And then MJ and I drove to Redmond. This drive was less fun, since we hit traffic jams in Portland, Tacoma, and Renton. It was 3:00 by the time we got to Microsoft, and I was wrung out. But I put in a decent four hours anyway, while MJ cruised the 'net. So, with the extra hours I put in mid-week, I am still "only" 8 hours behind.

On Saturday, the four of us drove over to Yakima for cousin Alicen's wedding. It was a lovely ceremony and a fun gathering, even if all you Maiers did leave the girls and me hanging to do the Time Warp alone. What would Dr. Frank-N-Furter say?!

And Sunday we drove home. MJ drove the climb up to the pass, so she got some more roadtrip experience under her belt, and then I took over and got some more completely unnecessary I-405 experience. (sigh)

I've just realized I've completely left Chloe out of this report. She was here all week! She has spent the week filling up on time to do just whatever she wants. After our very social first three months of 2008, she has been feeling pretty desperate for some of that. "Just whatever she wants" has included reading, writing, anime viewing, and quite a bit of conversation with Mom and Dad.

Happy Monday, everybody!

Diving In

I guess I'm part of the In Crowd. Who knew?

I could go on in some detail about how this has never been true for me before, how I've spent my whole life feeling like an outsider, and so on. But I think it's more useful to talk about how I came to be part of a group so cool and so much fun that people think we MUST be the In Crowd.

The simple explanation is one that should be familiar to unschoolers: connections. Unschoolers often speak about the organic nature of learning, and how each person's web of knowledge is made by making connections between separately attained bits of information. Well, our web of friendships has been made the exact same way: one friendship at a time.

And there's a big difference from the In Crowd you knew in high school: this In Crowd gets bigger every year. It is always open to new members, and all you need to do to belong is get started being a friend. Make a beginning.

I've written up a few examples to show how it has worked for us.

Dana Ellis. I met Dana in 2006 when a group of unschooling moms and kids (most of whom had never met before) got together at the Burlington Mall just to chat. I don't think I saw Dana again for three years. Then at LIFE is Good 2009, I played peek-a-boo with her baby and she helped me learn how to hoola hoop. Now we get together with some regularity, and she's a fun, crazy, sexy addition to my list of friends.

The moral: You just never know when the seeds of a friendship will take root.

Mary Gold. I knew Mary online, although I can't swear she knew me. She was one of the moms whose voices had convinced me to try unschooling and supported me through my deschooling. But we had never met in person until LIFE is Good 2007, our first unschooling conference. Even there, since she was very busy in her Conference Diva role, and since I felt pretty shy about meeting one of my mentors, we spent about five minutes together, total. By LIFE is Good 2008, Mary had become (and remains) one of my best friends.

The moral: There is no such thing as celebrity in the unschooling community.

Michelle Boswell and Robin Bentley. Michelle was one of the other moms at that first meeting with Dana. Robin was at LIFE is Good 2007, but we met only in passing. Later in 2007, I started STUN, our little teen group, and Michelle and her three kids and Robin and her daughter became core members. My friendship with these STUNing moms was nurtured in weekly group meetings and expanded via e-mail, individual get-togethers, and shared conference experiences. (And Robin is one hell of a backup chick!)

The moral: Sometimes you have to get things started.

Kelli Traaseth. I met Kelli in November 2007 at Mary Gold's non-con. We talked some, and our kids hit it off, so when we had a chance to get together with the Traaseths in Disneyland in 2008, we jumped on it. It was there that I discovered Kelli and I are twins separated at birth. Well, we're still separated, since she lives way over on the other side of the country, but we maintain our friendship online, and she scores big points by her willingness to host my kids whenever they get the urge to fly east. (I keep offering to return the favor, but so far, her kids haven't taken me up on it.)

The moral: Distance doesn't have to be a factor.

And here's where it gets interesting

At LIFE is Good one year, I made friends with Ginger Sabo. Ginger encouraged Beth Joling, a high-school buddy of hers, to come to LIFE is Good 2009. I met Beth there, and Beth also met Dana. Beth and Dana live in the same town north of here, so when I go up there, I usually get to see them both. Robin Bentley and Michelle Boswell sometimes go up with me, and some other friends, Shonna Morgan (another fabulous backup chick!) and Jacinta Galway, sometimes come down to join us.

Jacinta's husband, Russ Anguish, is one of the Greybeards, so he came down to San Diego last month for the show at Good Vibrations, the conference that Ginger helped to organize. Ginger's husband, Jeff, is our bass player. Jeff is good friends (some might even call them father and daughter ;->) with Kelly Lovejoy, the once-and-future diva of the Live and Learn Conferences. It was Kelly who invited me to speak at L&L 2008, where I got a chance to see the Traaseths again and where I met Ren Allen in person finally. Ren is another of my mentors, and it was she who found herself hosting a little party at LIFE is Good 2009 where I had time to speak to my new acquaintance, Russ Anguish. At that party, I also got the chance to visit with Mercedes Fulwiler, who was one of those moms who got together at the Burlington Mall all those years ago, and I got to see Diana Jenner, who is the one who first introduced me to Gillian and Craig Mayer back in 2007.

I got better acquainted with Gillian and Craig at the non-con hosted by Mary Gold in fall of 2007, and then they held a little gathering in summer of 2008 where I met the Stonebrakers, whom I got to see again at L&L 2008. The Stonebrakers are hosting MJ & Chloe next week when they all travel together to a little South Carolina gathering organized by Ben and Kelly Lovejoy. There, the girls will get to meet Faith Taintor and Elissa Cleaveland, two unschooling moms who are my friends on Facebook but whom I don't think I've met in person.

And speaking of Facebook...

Never mind. Don't get me started on that. :-)

I hope I'm making my point here. You can look at us now, happily surrounded by friends, ridiculously overbooked socially, and make assumptions about how we got here and what we feel about the people we don't know yet. But your assumptions would be wrong. When we arrived, friendless, in the unschooling community, all it took to join the In Crowd was recognizing one thing:

Everybody is welcome in the In Crowd.

Except me

For the past couple of years on this blog, I've been writing about accepting people as they are. During that same timeframe, I've been doing some work on accepting myself as I am. I have a ways to go there. You see, acceptance applies to everyone but me. I must be perfect.
I have no idea what the hell "perfect" is except that I know when I'm not being that. Which is often.

Recently I've been putting in very long days at work. They start at 6:30 a.m. and, counting commute and the occasional hour of so-called downtime (when my brain remains dominated by work thoughts), they end at about 11 p.m. I'm doing the work of two people, and I'm doing it damned well.

But I'm short on sleep, and I'm tired, and most nights I go to bed feeling like an utter failure because there is always so much that didn't get done that day. The work is never done, and my personal commitments are suffering. I have nothing left for my family except snarky comments about the housework that didn't get done while I was working. The only one who gets any quality time is Rigby, and that's because she attacks me or cuddles with me until I pay attention to her. (That's the solution, Frank and MJ and Chloe and Emma: pounce on my feet or get in my face if you want some time from me.)

I suck, and I refuse to accept that this is Who I Am.

Let's try that again. I don't suck. But I'm ridiculously human. And accepting me for Who I Am is a process rather than a switch I can flip.

That's true with the kids too, of course. They are also human, with foibles and preferences and habits and their own varying capacity for daily accomplishment. Living with them involves some daily adjustment of my expectations and my attitude. But I don't look at, for instance, Chloe's foibles and preferences and habits and accomplishments and think, "She sucks." I don't think, "There she goes again, being imperfect." And I don't qualify "human" with "ridiculously" when I talk about her humanness. Only my humanness is ridiculous in degree.

I'm special that way.

For the last couple months, I've been doing this thing where I take those "special" thoughts in my head and amplify them by saying them out loud. I am trying to hear myself better, trying to hear how hard I am on myself. What's been the most illuminating about this practice is how very distressing my family members find it when they hear me say these things. They find them vicious and frightening and cause for immediate remediation, not of anything I've done or failed to do but of the underlying belief that I'm expressing.

They are horrible beliefs.

What gets really tricky is that accepting myself as I am includes accepting that I have them.

I expect perfection in/of myself. And that's okay.
I am really hard on myself. And that's okay.
I can practice loving-kindness with everyone but me. And that's okay.
I have less time for my personal life when work is busy. And that's okay.

Except none of those is really okay. They are all things I'd like to improve. And that's okay too.

This acceptance business ain't for sissies.

On being Facebook-less

I am a few weeks into yet another break from Facebook. In my circle, we call this "going Sabo," a hugely affectionate nod to the guy who shows us how to keep ourselves healthy by stepping back from the whirlwind when we need to. I really needed to. The great strength of social media is that it can amplify social issues. The great danger of social media is that a lot of us are doing that amplification into an echo chamber, serving no real purpose but to make us all feel like we're *doing* something (even when really most of our audience already thinks like we do).

Its lesser danger is that it can wear out us sensitive types by repeatedly bombarding us with the same handful of crises. The world can seem really bleak when I look at it primarily through a social media lens. Don't get me wrong: it looks pretty fucking bleak from out here too. But I can focus my energy on real action, hopefully not aimed into an echo chamber, and then look at pretty flowers and happy activities and adorable photos on Instagram (the social media I'm keeping) and really give my psyche a rest.

And then there's the time factor. For me, Facebook is an irresistible bog, tempting me in with its little endorphin faeries and then refusing to let me go once I'm sunk in the delightful muck. There is no wading in a bog: you're either all the way in or all the way out. I choose out.

In the couple three weeks since I quit, I have stayed in touch with friends, stayed reasonably well informed about world insanity, and gotten a whole shitload of stuff done, including some reading, some civic action, some self-improvement, some exercise, and some healthier eating. I'm happier and more productive and more organized and less distracted and less panicky about the survival of the country and our species (because what the hell good does it do to panic!). And, with great love to my friends who are struggling, I must say it's a relief to have fewer sad personal stories passing before my eyes. I was carrying a lot of empathy weight to no real purpose, so many of my friends being 100s if not 1000s of miles away from my ability to really help them.

Anyway, I recommend this. I have my brain back.

Gut check

Frank found this article today, written by Charles P. Pierce (great name!) and featured in Esquire magazine. I thought it was worth featuring here. It's something to think about (emphasis on the word think).

Greetings from Idiot America

Excerpts:
"They have come from Indiana, one woman says... because they have been home-schooling their children and they have given them this adventure as a kind of field trip... [T]hey are greeted by the long neck of a huge, herbivorous dinosaur. The kids run past that and around a corner, where stands another, smaller dinosaur.
"Which is wearing a saddle.
"It is an English saddle, hornless and battered. Apparently, this was a dinosaur used for dressage competitions and stakes races. Any working dinosaur accustomed to the rigors of ranch work and herding other dinosaurs along the dusty trail almost certainly would wear a sturdy western saddle.
"This is very much a show dinosaur."

"The rise of Idiot America is essentially a war on expertise."

"In the place of expertise, we have elevated the Gut, and the Gut is a moron, as anyone who has ever tossed a golf club, punched a wall, or kicked an errant lawn mower knows."

"The Gut is the basis for the Great Premises of Idiot America. We hold these truths to be self-evident: 1) Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units. 2) Anything can be true if somebody says it on television. 3) Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it."

"'You can just as easily have a faith-based, or ideologically driven, policy,' [David Phillips of the State Department] says today. 'You start with the presumption that you already know the conclusion prior to asking the question. When information surfaces that contradicts your firmly entrenched views, you dismantle the institution that brought you the information.'"

"'We went in blindfolded, and we believed our own propaganda,' Phillips says. 'We were going to get out in ninety days, spend $1.9 billion in the short term, and Iraqi oil would pay for the rest. Now we're deep in the hole, and people are asking questions about how we got there.'"

"On the same day [8/19/2005], across town, a top aide to former secretary of state Colin Powell told CNN that Powell's pivotal presentation to the United Nations in which he described Iraq's vast array of deadly weapons was a farrago of stovepiped intelligence, wishful thinking, and utter bullshit.
'It was the lowest point in my life,' the aide said."

"And the president went on television and said that nobody could have anticipated the collapse of the unfortunate city's levees. In God's sweet name, engineers anticipated it. Politicians anticipated it. The poor bastards in the Ninth Ward certainly anticipated it. Hell, four generations of folksingers anticipated it."

"For Idiot America is a place where people choose to live. It is a place that is built consciously and deliberately, one choice at a time, made or (most often) unmade."

Sunday system check

• What I'm reading: Sandra Dodd's Big Book of Unschooling
• What I'm listening to: AC/DC "Hell's Bells," "Back in Black," and "You Shook Me All Night Long"
• What I'm watching: Sunday Night Football, Cards vs. Giants
• What's for dinner: pork chops, mashed potatoes, veggies

The joy of being uncomfortable

It is natural to want to avoid discomfort. We shy away (literally or figuratively), change the subject, change the situation, change the channel, change something and make it quick! Most of us have very little experience with simply experiencing discomfort.

And then we become parents, and we discover that, what do you know, parenting is not terribly comfortable. True to form, we get very busy trying to make it comfortable. Change this, change that, change the child, control, control, control, busy, busy, busy.

And maybe it works for a while. Maybe. But what so many people seem never to notice is that any brief victory that we achieve over parental discomfort is fleeting (and probably artificial). By the next day—hell, by the next minute—a new uncomfortable situation has arisen.

When I look back on my control days, I see a long and painful series of attempts to avoid discomfort:

Kid with messy hair = discomfort. Kid with messy hair who resists having her hair brushed and who is going OUT IN PUBLIC = mega discomfort. Battle ensues, "willful" child is subdued and rats are vanquished, discomfort is avoided (unless you count that whole long ordeal with getting the hair brushed) and Mom is victorious. Yay! Cue the triumphant trumpets.

And then that same child wants juice for lunch. Yes, just juice. Battle ensues, etc.

And then that same child wants to stay up past her bedtime. Way past her bedtime. Battle ensues, etc.

It was neverending. And folks, those were the EASY issues. Fast forward a few years, and now my parental discomfort is about late nights out, and driving solo, and sexuality, and alcohol, and Decisions About the Future, and oh my freaking god, MOVING OUT...

What I wouldn't give for some ratty hair to contend with!

But at some point, fortunately well before we got to the teen years, I learned something really, really important to peaceful parenting:

I can survive being uncomfortable.

My discomfort is not something that I have to do anything about. I do not have to react to it. It can just be there, in the background, held at least somewhat separate from my interactions with my kids. (I provided one example of what this looks like here.)

And do you know what? Being uncomfortable is really not that bad. It is not the Big Scary Monster that it seems, that our instincts and habits and culture make it seem. It's just an emotion, and it can be coped with.

What's more, it can be embraced. When I feel parental discomfort, it is a signal that my child is making her own choices just like I want her to do. My child is experiencing freedom and adventure and independence just like I want her to do.

So, I breathe, and I breathe some more. And then I settle into the joy and privilege of observing the life that my child is creating for herself.

Stuff and money and space

Most of us have an innate desire for stuff that starts at the exact moment we become aware of stuff. My babies, as many babies do, started reaching for stuff at four months. We saw this early desire for stuff as natural and healthy, and we happily put stuff where the baby could reach it and took great delight in each fumbling grab. Most parents are the same.

It is only as our kids get a little older, as the stuff that they desire extends beyond the teething rings and cloth books that we joyfully provided, that their desire for stuff becomes problematic. Then, their desire is suddenly attached to money and space. As experienced acquirers of stuff, we parents see very clearly the money-and-space pitfalls of the bottomless pit that our kids' desires seem to encompass.

We know something they don't know.

That is such a tricky spot to be in! Indeed, it is the crux of most conflicts between parent and child. They want X, and we know that X will lead to undesirable consequences 1, 2, and 3. We know, for crying out loud! We know! Are we supposed to just stand by and let them blunder their way into those consequences?! Are we supposed to just stand by and allow them to drag us into those consequences with them?!

Yep.

We can certainly offer our perspective. We can share our experience. We can warn. But as unschoolers, as thinking parents, as people who believe that kids are people, we simply don't get to pull out the "I'm the parent and I know best" card.

I know what you're thinking: Why didn't I take the blue pill? Heh. Too late now, sorry!

When it comes to the acquisition of stuff, standing by while your kids choose means two things:

One: Your kids will make purchases that you do not agree with.

Two: You will have to live with that.

Both of these are easier to navigate with a stuff-and-money-and-space system in place. The system needs to reflect your lifestyle and income, and it needs to evolve as the kids get older and as other cirumstances change.

Here's our system:

Stuff - The kids choose. Period.

When they were young, I used to do a lot of coaching about choices. "If you buy that, you won't be able to buy this." This coaching may or may not have been helpful for a while, but they both quickly reached the point where it was bugging the hell out of them. "You take all the fun out of it!" they told me. Oops.

Money - We give our kids a weekly no-strings allowance.

The amount has varied over the years, and there have been lean stretches where we were all going without spending money. Right now, they're getting $15 per week.

When they were little, this allowance was a lifesaver. It completely removed me from the "Can I have this? Can I have that?" mom-as-bad-guy cycle.

Now that they're teenagers... Guess what? $15 per week is not really enough money. They have things they want to buy and experiences they want to have that will take more. Frank and I will help as much as we can, but my kids know that they will have to work to earn the more. They are making plans accordingly.

I want to be crystal clear on this: I have said "Yes" to my kids for years. I have "indulged" them in virtually everything. I have simply handed over as much money as we could afford every week for longer than we've been unschooling. I have made it clear to them that we will continue to support them beyond age 18 if they want us to. And even so, my kids are developing financial independence even as we speak. There's been a really interesting shift in the way they manage money over the last year or two that is worth its own blog post.

For now, I'll just say that people who think kids won't learn the value of money unless there are chores-strings on their allowances are just wrong.

Benefits of the no-strings allowance:
* Practice
* Built-in math
* Independence
* Experience

It's gold. And it doesn't have to cost you any more than you already spend.

Space - Where do we put everything?

There are a couple of myths about space. It helps if you reject these.

• Myth #1: More space or better organization would make everything easier. We have a three-bedroom, two-and-a-half story house with a lot of storage space. We've acquired a lot of storage containers over the years. Frank has built several bookcases. Stuff can still be an issue. No matter how much room you have, it tends to fill up, and you will periodically need to make adjustments. Over the years, we've rearranged rooms, swapped rooms, and tried a bunch of different stuff-management schemes. It's ongoing.
• Myth #2: Kids' stuff should fit into their bedrooms. This belief is a relic of traditional parenting. Toss it out! If each member of the family gets equal space in the house, who is really taking up more than his or her share? It's usually not the kids.
• Myth #3: If you had less stuff, the house would be tidier. We're unschoolers. We live here. We're home a lot. You can tell.
• Myth #4: Your kids will share your values about stuff and money. MJ spends a good portion of her money on clothes. Chloe has a sizable savings account. I cannot say either of those things about myself. Our values—and the stuff we value—are different. Simplicity and frugality may not ever describe your child. That's okay. Love the kid you have. Accept the kid you have.
• Myth #5: It's going to be like this forever. Once upon a time, we probably had 250 cubic feet of Barbie stuff in our house. I kid you not. Now? Barbie occupies less than one cubic foot. Every single Barbie item that has left our house has done so not only with my daughters' permission but with their blessing. We have made several other little girls very happy over the last several years.
  
  I am so glad to be able to say those things, so glad that we embraced (or at least tolerated) and made room for the Barbie collection until they were done with it.
  
  And there's a pang, too. Did I appreciate my little Barbie-playing girls enough while they were here? I don't think I did. I don't think I really knew how fleeting those moments were going to be.
  
  Whatever stuff your child is acquiring now, she will eventually be done with it. Probably. But even if she's never done with it, storing it will eventually be her problem. :-)

I like our system, but it is just one approach. As with everything else in the entire freaking world, the What To Do is less important than the How To Do. Handle your child's stuff or money or space choices as you would handle his choices about TV or reading or racing the wind: with joy, with "Yes," and with an underlying belief that his choices are valid and valuable.

Off the leash

When MJ was a toddler, Frank and I would take her walking in the mall. She would gleefully run ahead of us two or three store-widths, seem to reach the end of an invisible leash, come scampering back, and then do it again. And again. And again.

It was one of her favorite games.

What she was playing with was separation. She was getting her first small taste of life without parents, and we were getting our first small taste of the joy and discomfort that come with watching a child move into independence. We were also discovering a pattern of separation-and-return that has been repeated time and again over the course of our kids' lives.

That first invisible leash was MJ's own. She set the length, and it was well within my comfort zone. She had more stranger fear than I did, so I enjoyed (if I had but known it) a lovely little stretch of time where she never challenged my own standard of safety. Bliss!

And then she got older.

Yeah. That happens. Suddenly, she was tugging on my invisible leash, wanting to go farther in the mall, wanting to go around the block without me, wanting to walk to Safeway—three whole blocks!—alone, wanting to stay home alone, and on and on. And then I blinked, and she was 13, and her leash-tugging was about parties at boys' houses, and sleepover parties in hotels in downtown Seattle, and unaccompanied bus and train and plane trips to gatherings in other states.

Simultaneously with these more physical moves toward independence, she began asserting her dominion over her own mind. She wanted to think and dream and worry without talking to me about it. She wanted to hear my opinions only when she asked for them, thank you very much, and she didn't care to be burdened with all my endless worries, especially that dorky one about the disintegration of the parent-teen relationship.

The more I clung, the more I tried to shorten that invisible leash, the worse our relationship got. I panicked. I got emotional. We fought. She complained about me to other people. I was in despair, all my worst nightmares about teenagers coming true.

Interestingly, it was some advice I got about demanding respect and setting limits that snapped me out of it. That is what everybody says. That is what everybody does. Does it work? HELL NO.

Instead, I backed off. I said yes even when my discomfort made me want to say no. I started waiting for her to come to me. I started being really aware and somewhat cautious of when I touched or hugged her. I let her do the initiating (or not). When she talked, I tried to listen and enjoy without offering opinions. That last might have been key, actually. She wanted to try things her way for a while, without my two cents' worth. It was a reasonable thing to want!

As soon as I removed my energy (not my love) from the equation, it got a lot less dramatic. Things settled down almost immediately and improved by leaps over the next couple months. Slowly, she began talking to me again. She gave me credit for trying.

Eventually, she even talked to me about that time, about the pressure she had been putting on herself to grow up fast-faster-fastest, and how much she had been figuring out about herself and the world and interpersonal relationships. Turns out it was HUGE period of growth in her life. Oh, how I regret that I wasn't a calm shelter during that time instead of something else she had to wrestle with!

But she made it through even so. She is very strong, resourceful and smart. And nowadays, whether I like it or not, she's off the leash. The separation-and-return cycle has given way to a level of independence that lacks only material practicalities to make it complete. I am still here for her. I still provide whatever support I can (and always will), and when she chooses something that makes me uncomfortable, she sometimes still hears about it (and probably always will). There's no doubt which of those she appreciates more. ;-)

And we're friends-but-not-friends. I don't know that I will ever be one of her friends, one of those people you rely on for playtime and somebody to hang with and somebody to lend an ear when you need to complain about your mother. But I'm her mother with whom she is friendly, and that's a lovely thing indeed.

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For more of my writings about teens and unschooling, see my web site.