Warty, warty mom-warts

Ronnie today

I am in an exceptionally bad mood for no good reason. This seems like an excellent time to post about my flaws.

Attention: You are now entering a shame-free zone. If you are feeling judgmental, go somewhere else. Thank you.

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My best buddy, Steph, said something to me in a recent email, in response to my comment that I was looking forward to our upcoming empty-nest trial period. She said, "In public you are the invincible 24-hour RU mom. I forget that you are susceptible to weary-of-momness."

Steph knows me very well. We've been friends since, oh, about 1985, and we have talked or corresponded most days since the day we met. If Steph can be surprised by my moments, it means I am not being forthcoming enough about those moments, and I am painting an unfair picture of what being an unschooling parent looks like.

So, here, for the record, I state unequivocally that sometimes I just simply SUCK.

I have bad moods. I snap and snark at family members. I get tired and overstimulated and sometimes decline to engage with a kid or spouse who is interested in talking with me.

I have helicopter-mom tendencies that occasionally eclipse my awareness that my kids don't need that kind of parenting. I say things I shouldn't say, offer reminders about things that are none of my business, and ask for "courteous" status updates at times when the real issue is my own fears.

I am sensitive to noise and too often ask people in my house to quiet down or take their movie-watching selves to the other TV. I am ridiculously irritated when other people fail to adhere to my systems and do really heinous things like attempting to recycle the lid of a bottle, or not putting the scissors where they go, or leaving a dish on the counter even though I for once have emptied the damned dishwasher.

I am currently going through a period of life-weariness that feels like swimming in molasses, so, yeah, I am looking forward to our upcoming empty-nest trial period. In the meantime, I am more than usually self-involved and reclusive and grouchy and prone to resentment.

So, what does all this mean to our unschooling?

Short answer: Not a damned thing.

Long answer: The members of an unschooling family really live together, and our particular unschooling family is fully together a lot since I work at home. There are not many secrets in our house, you know? Frank and my kids know my flaws and failings all too well; whatever smokescreen I manage online does not carry over to our in-person life. They have no choice but to be used to me.

This means that, while they do not necessarily take my lesser moments in stride, they certainly know that they are moments. I am not defined by my bad moments but by my whole self, and my whole self is
Ronnie Maier, dedicated unschooling mom, peaceful partner, and woman who never stops trying to do better.

Unschooling and the relationships between family members in an RU household don't flourish because we have found some magical way of avoiding bad moods, screwups, and sad times. No, they flourish because the philosophies we live by—my infamous RATS: Respect, Acceptance, Trust, and Support—are not just for good moods, successes, and happy times; they're for all times. And those philosophies don't flow only from parent to child but from child to parent and partner to partner.

We are not perfect, and I am certainly not. But we are in this together. We give each other the benefit of the doubt, a Get Out of the Doghouse Free card, or simple forgiveness as needed. And we never stop trying to do better.

Valued hopes

From Lynelle's comment on my previous post: "i kind of believe that as a parent, it's actually part of my job to try to instill certain values in my kids. i try to do that through example, suggestions, sharing experiences, asking my kids questions about their thoughts and feelings and reasons, and talks."

She goes on to detail some of the values she hopes her kids will share.

I've been thinking about this a lot these past few days. What are my values? Are there things that I am SO passionate about that seeing their opposites in my kids would really bother me? For half a minute, as I ran through the list of things people often freak out about, I thought Maybe I'm exempt. I mean, religion is the biggie, and I'm not religious, so...

But there are things I feel religious about. Oh, yeah. Unschooling. Peaceful parenting. Being kind. Making fun a priority. Living a wide-sky life. Certain political and social viewpoints that I hold.

Do I hope for my kids to share those values, and have I tried to instill those values in my kids? Yes, and yes. And do I, intentionally or otherwise, make clear to my kids when they are choosing something that is contrary to those values? Yep.

I try. I hope for. I communicate.

But that's where it stops.

Let's say MJ interacts with somebody else in a way that I characterize as unkind. I might talk to her about the other person's viewpoint, about things I think she could do to make amends, about strategies for interactions with this person in the future that might have a better outcome. All of this is parenting, and it can be peaceful and kind and free from shaming or punishment. (It can also be brief. A ten-second conversation is going to tell me if she is open to discussing this with me. And if she is, a two-minute conversation might be long enough to cover all of the above.)

But if MJ reviews her own actions and is fine with them, or if she does not want to discuss it... At that point, I am left with the relationship that I have with MJ, and the relationship that I have with the person I think she hurt. I can separate those from each other. My relationship with MJ from that point is just as it usually is: accepting, respectful, taken for what is now rather than what is past (and the problematic interaction is definitely past). My relationship with the other person is whatever s/he and I need it to be, and I can respond as a sympathetic friend or sympathetic stranger or whatever is appropriate.

Beyond that, I'm helpless. MJ's relationship with this other person is none of my business. MJ's assessment of her own actions is none of my business, even and perhaps especially when I disagree with her assessment.

One more example: Let's say Chloe becomes a mother and decides that Cry It Out is what works for her family. Phew. Oh boy. First, that is really hard to imagine. Chloe ignoring a needy baby? Not gonna happen. Second, that is really hard to imagine. My poor grandbaby!

Would Chloe hear from me? Oh, yeah. I'd send her the research on the harm that CIO does, and I'd encourage her to see things from the baby's point of view. I'd volunteer to stay at her house and take care of the baby during the night. I'd probably beg.

But if none of that worked... At that point, I'm left with my relationship with Chloe and, separately, my relationship with the baby. I'm still going to want a relationship with Chloe even if she is a sadly misguided mother. And I'm going to believe that the baby needs his grandma desperately, so I'm not going to do anything to jeopardize my contact with him. And of course I'm going to be the most loving, accepting, snuggle-him-up grandma I can be.

Beyond that, I am helpless. It's none of my business.

It is easy to be respectful of our kids when we approve of what they are doing. I think being respectful when we don't really approve is where the "radical" in "radical unschooling" comes in.

The last bastion

After reading my previous post, Jeff Sabo said, "Values are the last bastion of controlling parenting."

Whoa! What a revelation! I, once the quintessential control freak, have made it past the last bastion. When did this happen? And more importantly, did it happen soon enough? With one kid out the door and the other busy making plans, I am very much aware that the time available for getting there goes by very quickly. It can so easily run out while you're still saying "someday."

Do any of these sound familiar?

• "We're unschooling except for math."
• "We're unschooling academics only."
• "We're radical unschoolers except we limit _________."
• "We're radical unschoolers, but we would never let our
  kids __________."

If so, you're not there yet. Tick tock, tick tock. This is your only chance to try another way. What are you waiting for?

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.

Control

"Sooner or later we will come to the edge of all that we can
control and find life, waiting there for us."
— Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.


I have had this quote featured in the sidebar for a few days, and I think I'll leave it up a bit longer. It's from Dr. Remen's book My Grandfather's Blessings, which I discovered several years ago while on a personal odyssey (as it turned out) visiting a friend in New Mexico. It had quite an impact on me.

I come from a long line of detail-oriented women who (attempt to) leave very little to chance. When my kids were small, my need for control — and it approached obsessive-compulsive levels in those sleep-deprived days — caused a lot of pain in this house.

It's hard for me to look back at that time objectively. Frank and I have always encouraged exploration and individuality to some degree, and we did a lot that can be classified as attachment parenting (nursing on demand, letting the girls self-wean, holding them whenever they wanted, cosleeping in one big family bed). I look at photographs and home movies from the girls' childhood, and they were undoubtedly happy kids who knew they were loved and cared for.

But I remember times that don't show up in those images, times when I screamed and they cried, when I lost my temper and did regrettable things ranging from throwing things at walls to tearing up the girls' new coloring books to spanking them. And I remember 2-year-old Chloe hiding under the diningroom table one afternoon while MJ and I engaged in our latest battle of wills.

I knew that couldn't continue. And since I had gone so far to the punitive side, I knew more of the same or a harsher version of the same was not the answer. I discovered Positive Discipline by Jane Nelsen and began to relinquish control in small ways, letting the girls choose between the red shirt or the blue shirt, and letting them experience a few natural consequences instead of trying to prevent every negative thing. I began, for the first time, to put myself in my kids' shoes and see what the world looked like from down there.

My motives in this were still rooted in control to a certain extent. Punitive discipline wasn't producing the behavior I wanted, but maybe positive discipline would. I'm being a bit overly harsh with myself there, because of course it broke my heart and filled me with guilt when I hurt my kids, and I genuinely wanted better for all of us. But a zebra doesn't shed her stripes quite that quickly, and I know that when I offered the red shirt or the blue shirt, what I really wanted was a kid who was wearing a shirt.

But it was a start. I had gained awareness of my own intense need for control and begun to explore the reasons for it. And I discovered that letting go of some control didn't kill me or anyone else. In fact, life improved by leaps and bounds, and, gradually, when I offered the red shirt or the blue shirt, it was because I wanted my child to have choices.

I also discovered that my kids did not have unreasonable wishes and needs. When I stepped into their shoes, I found that the things they wanted were good, healthy, and easy to provide. Imagine that!

So I let go a little more. And every time I did, I was richly rewarded (positive reinforcement), and the process fed itself.

I think my current enthusiasm for acceptance is the latest step in this journey, so I'll close with a quote from Dr. Remen about that.

"The greatest blessing we offer others may be the belief we have in their struggle for freedom, the courage to support and accompany them as they determine for themselves the strength that will become their refuge and the foundation of their lives."