When you act like a teacher,
it's usually because you're afraid to be the student.

—Byron Katie

House Work

Despite the equality advances made in recent years, men continue to be (considered) the primary breadwinners, and women continue to be (considered) the primary childrearers. In the vast majority of unschooling families, the mom is home with the kids while the dad goes outside the home to work.

There are exceptions, of course, and in our house, we've pretty much turned that on its ear. It means wonderful things for our family—my kids have a wonderful relationship with their father (one of the best men I've ever known), and they get to see alternative gender roles in action and working well.

It also means sometimes confusing things for Frank and me. We were raised on those traditional gender roles, after all, and we occasionally bump up against them. And the alternative gender roles are sometimes not entirely comfortable. I have a strong desire to be the primary childrearer, for example, in addition to having an abiding passion for unschooling, so I continue to insist on have input into what goes on here during the day. I am gone all day, though, so Frank and the girls by necessity and desire take point on the unschooling.

But the primary place where we have conflict is over the house. I'm the woman and this is my house. That's in my head somewhere. And then I come home to whatever state the house is in after a day of busy learning.

Lots of unschoolers write messages and blog posts about the frustration dads can feel when they arrive home to a house that looks like a tornado hit, and Jon Gold gave a highly entertaining talk that touched on the subject at LIFE is Good 2008. It's the same for us, except that I'm female. I can relate. It can be really hard to come home to the remains of the day, and I find myself thinking nasty thoughts that don't really belong in the head of an unschooling parent. Or of any parent, for that matter.

Time for some house Work.

Nasty thought: Frank and the girls don't care about me enough to clean up.

Is it true? No.
Am I absolutely sure that it is true? Not even close.
How does it make me feel to believe that? In a word, crappy. Also, listless, overwhelmed, and lonely.
Who would I be without that thought? A better mom and wife. Less bitchy. Probably the resident, both in thought and reality, of a cleaner house.

Turn it around:

• I don't care about me enough to clean up. Eww. I hope that one's not true.
• I don't care about Frank and the girls enough to clean up. Double eww. It's a horribly negative slant on basic laziness, but there are shades of truth there.
• Frank and the girls do care about me enough to clean up. This is definitely true. But they usually don't clean up anyway, so there must be other reasons. Usually, it's 'cause they're still using the things that look like mess to me, or they think they might someday (in the dim and unknown future) want to use those things again. Or it's basic laziness, which I am hardly in a position to judge.
• Frank and the girls (and I) don't care about the mess enough to clean up. Bingo. Dammit.

Katie says that if you really want to do something, you'll do it, and if you're not doing it, then you must not really want to do it. While I tend to acknowledge the real obstacles of life more than she does, I've found it to be true for me a lot of the time. So many of the petty frustrations in my life—and, subsequently, so many all of my bouts with depression—have their roots in my constant tendency to choose the pleasures of the moment over the pleasures one derives from steady maintenance of home/job/cars/life.

I envy people who have a clean house to come to, who can invite guests over without needing at least a couple of days to prepare, who can give someone a lift without feeling the need to apologize for the state of the car, who never have to work all through the weekend to catch up on procrastinated tasks. And yet, when it comes down to those momentary choices, I continue to choose the fun/easy/pleasant/relaxing thing.

It's not all bad. As a direct result of this pattern, my life has been full-to-bursting with fun, easy, pleasant, and relaxing moments. But I'm ready for more maintenance.

Scott Noelle told me at Live and Learn that my kids take their housework cues from me. And he's right: for their whole lives, I have regarded chores as Tasks to Dread. Little wonder that they share that attitude.

The other thing he said is that if I can begin to enjoy living in a clean house even before I have one—much the way one enjoys a Christmas present even before it's been opened—it will put me in a more positive, powerful, energized place, and that, from there, making the choice to Do This One Thing Now will be easier.

Here's hoping.

Doing The Work

The thought:
Anger must be appeased.

Note: Now that I've done it a few times, I think putting the issue that is causing me stress into a concise sentence is the most important part. It took me a number of tries to get the above right.

The questions:
- Is it true? Indeed.
- Can you absolutely know that it's true? Mostly absolutely.
- How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought? In the face of anger? I get frantic.
- Who would you be without the thought? Calmer. More accepting of others' emotions.

The turnaround:
Anger does not have to be appeased. Hmm.
Anger must be allowed. Double hmm.
My thoughts must be appeased. No comment.

Food for thought.

The Work of Byron Katie

Thursday 13

Thirteen Wonderful Memories from LIFE is Good

This was a post in progress. With 20 minutes to spare, I got it done on Thursday.

1. First, foremost, always, the people. Our tribe. I. Love. These. Humans. They give me hope for the world. A few names are escaping me at the moment, but here are some snapshots:

- A beautiful mom dancing at the Barefoot Boogie while nursing her daughter. Her daughter is Solie and she is Renee! (Thanks, Mandaroo!)

- Solie wandering around at the wine tasting with a marker in her hand, and all the adults letting her mark their hands. Frank even let her write on his eyelid.

- Gillian. Too many happy moments to count. She was positive energy personified and made the whole weekend shine, even though I got to spend far too little time with her.

- The little girl who helped me sort the bills in the raffle cash box in exchange for a toy from the Instant Gratification Table. She learned what "sort" and "match" mean, and I got the joy of sharing my Monk moment with a little one. (Side note: She wasn't ready for matching numerals, so we matched presidents' faces, and we talked about the fact that they were presidents, and we talked about why the pictures on some bills were smaller. It was a lovely unschooling moment.)

- Robin working the IGT and buying tickets for the little kids who wandered up without money.

- Randi and Kauleen, soaking it all in. So glad you were there, guys!

- Chloe dancing with Gioia.

- The teenagers. They wandered, lounged, hugged, kissed, laughed, talked, disappeared, reappeared, played with little kids, conversed with adults, helped with everything, stayed up all night, slept in the lobby, organized outings, danced, drummed, and, above all, reminded us all of why we're doing this.

- Carolyn Winkler singing her talent-show song about bald men. She is so vibrant and sexy and fun. I want to be her when I grow up (even though she's probably younger than I am).

2. Our drum circle. I have almost an hour to write about this now, and I don't know where to start! I was nervous. Could you tell? I mean, who am I to lead a drum circle, with my week-old drum and a little Internet research? And then I talked to Caren on the phone.

I should back up a little, clear back to February when Craig and Gillian got me drunk visited. I confessed my nerves about the drum circle. Gillian put me in touch with Caren, an unschooling mom who is—get this—a drum-circle facilitator. That's just how the unschooling world is, folks. If you need it, it's there. Pretty magical.

Anyway, Caren and I hadn't managed to talk until a few days before the conference. And then we did and it made all the difference. She gave me several tips, but the most important of these was the assurance that even when it's a train wreck, it's fun. So I relaxed mostly.

Until the morning of the drum circle. I went down WAY early to set up the funshop room, tried to roust the girls out of bed WAY early, and dragged Frank to the room WAY early to show him what I'd done. And when we walked in, we found my carefully arranged circle, well, unarranged. Poor Mike Biskup! With his sidewalk-chalk funshop rained out, Mary had moved him inside to "my" room, so he rearranged it to suit an arts and crafts funshop. I started spluttering, and he hurried to explain and assure me that he'd put it all back. Keep in mind that he hadn't yet taught me how to reduce my stress! LOL.

So, to keep me sane, Frank and I wandered across the hall to Linda's talk about unschooling and late readers. (Side note: I hadn't intended to attend because (1) I was too uptight about the drum circle, and (2) I thought I knew everything I needed to know about unschooling and late readers. Wrong! I'm so glad Mike needed "my" room! My favorite bit was when Linda showed a quote from some professor emeritus who said written language must be explicitly taught, just after telling us about both her completely unschooled boys learning to read without teaching—explicit or otherwise.)

And then it was time. We had so many instruments! It was lovely. Our neighbors had loaned us their three drums, and we brought a few other noisemaking devices. Other people brought their own drums and whole selections of percussion instruments. The kids who came saw that fascinating little pile, dove right in, and started banging on stuff (while the adults mostly sat in their chairs and waited for a go-ahead signal).

I had a program prepared. I was going to make some introductory remarks and do a little drumming tutorial. But those kids were too into it. There was no way I was going to make them stop! So, I tossed out the program, sat down, and started drumming. Everybody else joined in, and it was a lovely, joyful, rather muddy mess. A train wreck even. Then Renee got up with Solie and spun her around, and we all whooped and hollered at them, and everybody relaxed, and the rhythm came together.

It Was So Cool!

Even the littlest kids were in rhythm. Or perhaps I should say, especially the littlest kids were in rhythm. And we had dancers! And a couple people started this tribal sort of humming that sounded really neat. And Jessie danced and banged the spoons and hummed. And Michael and another couple of people had enough experience to anchor our rhythm. And Frank kept adding these flourishes that, since he was sitting right next to me, would throw me off rhythm, and I'd just laugh.

When we got tired, we'd spontaneously go into this very loud, very fast rumble. And then we'd rest for a bit and shake out our arms. During the rests, I brought out some of the tidbits from the program. And then we'd start drumming again.

For the third round, I passed my drum to somebody else and sat on the floor with the kids to try out the noisemakers. And a few other people swapped instruments. And the beat went on.

In short, it was a rousing, roaring, rocking success that left me high for hours. Days. Writing this has made me high all over again. I'm giving some thought to starting a community drum circle near our house.

3. My birthday note from my new best friend Meah. She's two. She's beautiful. The note is beautiful.

4. The Barefoot Boogie on my birthday. I danced my feet off. MJ's playlist was phenomenally good. The Time Warp! Twice! Our Rockette line that stretched the length of the ballroom for Safety Dance, and the little guy who stood in front of us all, grinning and kicking, as if he just knew that was his place. And it was! Fifty people doing the Cha-Cha Slide. Crisscross!

5. The Teen Panel. I moderated and was so nervous, but the teens were perfectly poised. (First-timers MJ and Chloe participated reluctantly, with both of them insisting they weren't going to answer any questions, and with both of them ultimately fielding at least one.) Two highlights for me were (1) the variety of responses to the drugs-and-alcohol question, ranging from "there's no pressure" to "there's a lot of pressure," but with a theme of level-headedness running through all, and (2) when someone asked the teens what their plans were for the future, and one of my daughters announced that she intends to attend the University of Washington and major in Drama, and the other said she wants to improve her art skills and then get a tattoo apprenticeship.

6. The concert! The set by The Vibrations was very fun, especially their lead-off song, Another Brick in the Wall Part 2. But things really took off when Amy Steinberg took the stage. She puts on such a fun show in general, but when she invited 9yo Akiva to come back out and play drums for one of her songs, it turned spectactular. He instinctively followed the rhythms of her song, adding flourishes or quieting things down at just the right times. Inspired, she sent the boys' dad back out to the car for their equipment and ended up doing a couple of songs with all three of the older boys. It was really cool and an evening I'm sure they will all remember for a long, long time. I know I will!

7. This is probably going to sound bad, but... Barely seeing our kids all weekend. This is a good memory because it shows how fully immersed they were in their friendships and adventures. MJ spent Thursday night at (grown unschooler siblings) Ben and Rebecca's place in Portland, then hung out in various spaces the other nights. Chloe spent most nights roaming the halls with Qacei, Connor Lewis, Trevor aka Josh, and/or Logan 2 (as I've taken to calling Logan McBroom, since "Logan" is already taken by Logan Boswell). Both girls had *such* a good time and turned up often enough—especially at the Barefoot Boogie—for me to get my kid fixes. And they slept in their own bed for a least a little while most nights. :-)

8. Mary's face when she opened the cash box after the raffle concluded. Frank and I had been keeping the box in our room at night, so that was her first glimpse at the amazing generosity of the conference attendees. I had left all the one-dollar bills in the top part of the box, and Mary was fairly satisfied with that pile. Then she looked underneath. Her eyes popped! It was great! (Thanks to everyone who contributed! Especially those who bought 40-ticket "Broc spans.")

9. Many acts in the talent show. If I had to pick a favorite, it would be either the Waynforths' funky Japanese "dance," or Craig and Gillian and Effie singing "Anyone Else But You" to the dulcet tones of Martin's ukelele, or the pentatalia girls doing the Macarena. Oh, or the drummer, who also came to the drum circle and was one of our "anchors."

Forget it, I can't choose a favorite.

10. The talks. I think I went to all but one and I got something out of every single one of them. Pretty cool deal. Mike Biskup's talk about The Work is probably the one that gave me the most food for thought. Have a look!

11. Going wildly out of order here, but... Walking into the hotel when we arrived was pretty cool. It seemed like we knew everybody in the lobby, and it seemed like they were all thrilled to see us. Warm fuzzies galore. Even if they did put me right to work!

12. Sitting on the front steps drumming with Fergus and, later, Effie. Fergus wasn't sure he was interested in drumming until I used my head to bang the drum. Then he thought it was great fun!

13. Introducing LIFE is Good to Logan B. I think he had a really good time, reconnecting with friends from camp, meeting some new peeps, and getting perhaps a smidgen of sleep. I just wish he could have stayed with us longer! Next year we'll get the whole family to come!