Mindful tricks

...I noticed that if I put the word "meditation" after any activity,
it suddenly seemed much more high-minded and spiritual:
when waiting for the bus, I'd tell myself I was doing
"bus-waiting meditation"; in the slow line at the drugstore,
I was doing "waiting-in-line meditation."
~ Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

I tried this twice yesterday. It really works! The first time, I had just gotten into my car to head to work, and I was feeling extremely stressed and anxious, suffering the torn-in-two conflict with which I am often afflicted when I must work instead of spending time with the family (and often vice versa). I thought to myself, "commute meditation," and instantly the tension eased, and I knew I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing.

It worked last night, too. I've always been sensitive to caffeine, but since I began eating so much healthier last August, I really feel it. I now get the same buzz from a cup of half-caff that I used to get from a cup of regular. But some days I just want my coffee, and yesterday was one such day. Come bedtime, I was still wide awake. Frank and I chatted for a while (he is long accustomed to talking me down), and then I settled into my favorite sleeping position and lay there, eyes wide. "Insomnia meditation," I murmured, and Frank chuckled, and I relaxed and began to enjoy the time to think, and before long I was asleep.

A quick review of the book mentioned above: I am enjoying it very much. It's not so much that it contains anything startlingly new as that it pulls the research and advice into one place, all made accessible through glimpses into Gretchen's family and professional life. And the book provides focus and guidelines for reshaping one's life with happiness as a core goal. It's just what I need right now.

Green smoothie heaven

I have discovered a few more tips for making green smoothie fixing fun and efficient and delicious.

1. Buy bags of organic greens at Trader Joe's. Currently, I have a bag each of their Southern Blend "greens for cooking" (mustard greens, turnip greens, collard greens, spinach), baby lettuces, and arugula. It makes getting a variety of greens SO easy, no washing is required, and they keep well.

2. Unless you like spicy smoothies, go easy on the mustard greens.

3. Add cilantro (if you like cilantro). I put in three or four stems, chopped, and it's perfect: just a hint of flavor.

4. You know those non-green vegetables that you know you should be getting but don't especially want to eat? Put them in your smoothie. I don't feel like eating whole reds and oranges right now - not even on salads - but dropping some chopped orange bell pepper in my smoothie is painless.

Pulling up my socks

When I get into a funk, I always throw everything I can think of at it, which makes it hard to tell if one of those things in particular is what helped, or a combination of things, or a hormone shift, or just pure coincidence. That means I can't get on here and share with you Ronnie's Sure-fire Cure for the Blues.

I can share my most recent collection of things I've tried. Something in here has helped!

Morning Pages which often include...
The Work

Green smoothies for breakfast and...
Huge reduction in gluten and refined sugar consumption as part of...
A new diet that is about 50% raw

Daily #gratitudelist post on Twitter

Going to the pool with Emma once or twice per week

A limited surrender to what I cannot change
An attitude of acceptance toward what I need and what I don't have energy for right now

10 essentials

Idea stolen from GQ via mnmlist.com. I think I've done something similar before, but it never hurts to reexamine one's priorities.

1. My glasses
2. My inhaler
3. My laptop
4. Notebook
5. Pen
6. A place to live, preferably with electricity, heat, and running water
7. The well-being of my tribe
8. My own well-being
9. Time to write
10. Hope

Unschooling in 140 characters or less

Another great unschooling conversation, tracked in tweets:

Tweet #1
Convo in the other room: ROUSs, urination, internal organs, prophylaxis, body scans, modern surgical methods, weather patterns.

10 minutes later
The convo continues: kidney donation, stones; hydration; fuel for bodies; waste filtering; blood circulation, types, donation.

6 minutes later
More convo: shock, amputation, wilderness survival, outswimming sharks and outrunning bears, decoys, plans for the day.

Gratitude in 140 characters or less

My friend Laureen inspired me to start tweeting a daily gratitude list. I like it a lot, and I don't want to lose the little hints into our daily lives, so I am gathering them here on my blog. Probably. Maybe. If I continue to care about preserving them.

9/17
Employment in a recession. Patient people. Having many outlets for what I need or want to say. Love of family. Books on CD. #gratitudelist

9/19
Simple pleasures: Morning Pages, green smoothies made greener with Green Goddess, HDS, football Sunday, new beginnings. #gratitudelist

9/20
Friends who share their babies, daughters who come home for visits, e-banking, conversations with Frank, self-compassion. #gratitudelist

9/21
Simplifying, saying enuf, dh who picks up slack, too-short traffic jams thx to wonderfully melodramatic books on CD, MJ home. #gratitudelist

9/22 a.m.
Snuggles w/my *adult* dd, optical illusions w/Emma, sunshine & a full moon on the autumnal equinox, having options, C. Kane. #gratitudelist

9/22 p.m.
Kind text messages from daughters, a job that accommodates my #procrastination (mixed bag), my cozy home, JK Rowling, love. #gratitudelist

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.

----------
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.

Morning conversations

When people first learn about unschooling, and usually react negatively thereto, there is much that they don't understand about what it looks like and how it works. A prime example is the starring role that conversation plays in our daily routines.

Now that school is back in session, niece Emma is spending her days with us again. She arrives about 7:30, well before Frank and Chloe wake up, so she and I spend the mornings chatting, just we two. These conversations are sometimes, oh, mundane I suppose: what we did last night, what we're thinking about doing today.

Other days—many days—these conversations are simply brilliant unschooling gems. Last Friday was one of those days. In the space of about an hour, Emma and I talked about green smoothies (I was making one), multiplying 9s and all the cool patterns you end up with, the formation of the Traveling Wilburys (I started singing "Handle Me With Care" after spilling something), how the Beatles and the Stones fit into rock culture, Dr. Hook and "Cover of the Rolling Stone," and then—because of this cool story from Wikipedia:

In the United Kingdom, the BBC Radio network refused to play "The Cover of the Rolling Stone," as it was considered advertising a trademark name, which was against the BBC's policy. The song was re-released with a host of BBC DJs shouting 'On the cover of the Radio Times!' over the band's vocals in the choruses. The song was released as "Cover of the Radio Times" for the UK market. The BBC found no problem in playing the record, since they published the Radio Times, weekly. The single found real cult status after that.

—trademarks and copyrights.

This free range conversation—especially when combined with ready interaction with Google—is a core element of unschooling, since it is in exactly that type of conversation that we weave the web of learning, making connections between apparently disparate subjects (even Dr. Hook to trademark law!) and providing the foundation for future learning. Sometimes the connections are conscious—"Oh! That reminds me of..."—and sometimes they're not—I can't remember how the 9s multiplication tables fit in there—but they are always effortless and uniquely our own and fun. And that makes all the difference.

Size to fit

Our family recently bumped up against what I'll call institutional response. It's the way institutions respond to situations, which is to say, rigidly and without creativity. Institutions usually have reasons for their rigidity, and these usually run along the lines of "the alternative is logistically and/or financially too hard to handle" and "if we make an exception for you, we'd have to make an exception for everyone."

I have managed an institution (a traditional family is one), so I understand both the temptation and the seeming good sense of those reasons.

What unschooling has shown me, though, is that those reasons are cop-outs. There are myriad ways to run an institution (as this article shows), and rigidity is the very least of them. As unschooling parents, as human beings, we prefer to focus on the individual: the individual situation, the individual (and often extenuating) circumstances, and, above all, the individual person standing in front of us.

There is a lot of theory wrapped up in unschooling and a lot of ideals. Both of these leave a lot of room for institutional response. For instance, if one abhors school, one might be tempted (and this "one" was) to refuse to allow one's child to set foot in a school, or to decline to spend any money on formal schooling, including college. But to take either of those positions is exactly contrary to what unschooling is all about. Unschooling parents help their children attend school if the kids want to, often suffering tremendous angst and a fair amount of compromise and outright inconvenience to do so. (Imagine the dilemma faced by a friend of mine who has a nightowl household and a family that travels a lot, and who now has one daughter asking to try school.)

Other examples: Suppose an unschooling parent holds a firm belief that toy guns contribute to the violence in the world, or that plastic toys are an abomination, or that meat is murder, or that TV rots your brain. Suppose he or she believes that Christ died for our sins or that the Law of Attraction works. The institutional response to these beliefs is rules and close-mindedness: "You can't" or "You must." In her mind, the parent who employs an institutional response might have excellent reasons for the rules she sets. She might not call them rules, and she might approach the rules with gentleness and respect. She might believe she is implementing the rules without punishment. And she might perceive cooperation and understanding from her kids and think everything is hunky-dory.

But here's the deal: Any time you let your belief system or your convenience come between your child and your child's wants, goals, or desires, that is institutional response. It's rigid and it's inherently disrespectful of the individual. Also, it is punishment because when you keep your child from having what he wants, you are punishing your child, and I don't really care how you pretty it up.

The alternative to this rigidity and disrespect is adaptability and acceptance. Adapt to your child. Accept your child for Who He Is, both in this moment and in the larger sense. And always, always respond as an individual and to an individual.

----------------------------

That should be the end of this post, but as I was writing it, I could just hear the comments coming in. So, let me add a couple of footnotes to head some of those off:

Convenience and compromise - Having the wants and interests of one child conflict with the wants and interests of another child is probably the hardest situation an unschooling parent faces and you have my sympathy. The complexities of such a situation are not covered by this blog post.

Your excellent reasons - I do not care what they are. Your child has excellent reasons for his or her choices, too. They count, too, and often they count more. You have had your whole life to build your belief system. Share it with your child, live it in front of your child, and then get out of his way and let him build his own belief system. He will almost certainly make some choices that you don't like. You will survive this, I promise.

New connections

We were looking at one of the girls' old picture books today, "Animalia" by Graeme Base. It is a unique and beautiful alphabet book with dozens of starts-with-the-letter pictures to discover on each page. Today, about ten years after we first read this book, we made a new discovery. On the D page is a drawing of a Dalek. Chloe gasped and then whooped when she saw it.

It's but a small example of how our perspective and knowledge base change as we tuck more years under our belts.

Unconscious mutterings #397

Want to play? Go here.

1. Gangs :: Listen
2. Contact :: Space
3. Surprisingly :: Delicious
4. Penciled :: In
5. Ignore :: Snooze
6. Let’s go! :: Come on, Barbie, let's go party.
7. Cornerstone :: Life
8. Influential :: People
9. Holistic :: Medicine
10. Lovesick :: Swain

Starting week 3

I am still loving the changes I've made to my diet, and I seem to be settling onto a plateau in terms of how far I'm going to take this for now. Here's my food routine most days:

Breakfast: Approx. 20 ounces of green smoothie with varietal fruits and greens plus some flaxseed oil.

Lunch: At work, a salad. At home, it varies. One day I had salad left over from the previous night. Another, I had leftover spaghetti and stirred some raw romaine into it. YUM! Today, I ate some California rolls, probably one of the most processed foods I've had in two weeks. But many days, I don't really eat lunch—those smoothies are filling!—and will instead snack on a handful of raw almonds until dinner time.

Dinner: Whatever Frank fixes. He's playing along a bit, so our dinners include more whole, organic, and/or free range foods than they used to. We're buying better meat (and eating less of it), which makes dinner taste SO good.

Snacks: Raw almonds, dried apricots, snap peas and other veggies, ginger snaps from Trader Joe's, and the Trader Joe's peanut butter cups that Ginger just HAD to leave behind to tempt me.

Drinks: Water, about 3 cups of coffee per week, and a very occasional glass of juice. I'm not drinking very much actually—I'll get myself a glass of water and it'll just sit there—so I think I'm getting a lot of hydration from the fruits and veggies.

As I've said previously, I'm not in this to lose weight, but I think I have, 4 or 5 pounds. We'll see if they stay off. If they do, I'm quite sure it's from the reduction in complex carbohydrates.

And I'm feeling good. I've been a little moody this week, but that's not unheard of around here. :-)

Quote of the day

Conventional parenting, which gets accepted as good parenting, is destination oriented. It's getting kids into college. It's stopping the tantrums. It's making sure kids stay away from drugs. It's about getting kids from point A to point B. It's about molding kids into what we think will help them the most.

If there is one thought that will help you understand unschooling and respectful parenting it is this: The primary goal is joyful living. All other goals are secondary.

All decent parents, of course, want their children to be happy. But they assume that sometimes happiness needs to be sacrificed to get something better.

But for unschooling, peaceful parents meeting any goal must also meet the goal of living life more joyfully.

~Joyce Fetteroll
(emphasis mine - and how!)

Why we unschool

A friend on FB asked her friends to tell her why they've made the educational choices they've made. The responses from the unschoolers are fascinating and run on a theme: honoring their children's choices and building stronger family relationships. Very cool.

Here's my answer:
Chloe was unhappy. That started it. We always planned to homeschool for middle school (aka, the place where we send our 'tweens to be tortured), but Chloe was done by the middle of 3rd grade. MJ initially planned to stay in, but after a couple of weeks at home, she decided she liked it, too. The reason we were willing to try it early was that we were just kind of unimpressed. School wasn't horrible (with Chloe's 1st grade year as a big exception), but it was so... blah. We knew we couldn't be any less inspiring. :-)

I go into more detail here.

What led you to start unschooling?

My basic green smoothie recipe

1 banana, quartered
2 or 3 handfuls of fruit (anything goes)
some leaves of romaine, ripped up to make about 2 handfuls
a small handful of "little sprout thingies" - I'll try to remember to add their real name later - MICRO GREENS - that's it, thanks, Ginger!
varietal dark greens
about a cup of water
about a tablespoon of organic, filtered, cold-pressed flaxseed oil

Variations:
a few raw almonds (soaked) - makes it a crunchy smoothie
other veggies

Tips:
- Put the fruit on the bottom of the blender. If I start with the greens, I have to get a spoon and shove things around.
- Most blenders will work. Mine leaves more texture in the smoothie than Ginger's, but it does the job.

Blend to desired consistency.

Makes about 20 ounces of smoothie, which I drink in its entirety for breakfast. It is surprisingly filling and satisfying. Yesterday, I lost track of time and didn't go down to the cafeteria before it closed. I was fine all day, drank a pint of milk and ate some raw almonds about 5, got home about 9 and had dinner. No problem with low blood sugar (and I usually have a problem with low blood sugar).

Morning musings

I've been doing morning pages again after a couple months without. I really love it. The idea is to write three pages longhand. Today, I went on to a fourth page, and WOW! Some really good insights.

Remember that little meme I did a couple days ago, where I looked up an old blog post and it supposedly revealed my true nature? Well, it hit me this morning that it worked! My true nature is to report. And that is why I love blogging, Facebook, Twitter, morning pages, journaling, writing, writing, writing. Oh, yeah, and talking. And speaking to an audience.

I also realized one of my own deepest fears, but I just tried to report on that, and no, it's private at this point.

Anyway, morning pages are great!

As I continue musing and reporting, I'm sipping my breakfast green smoothie. Lots of strawberries in this one (because they're starting to turn), and it is really yummy. So, the Increasing Raw Diet continues. Hmm. Diet in the sense of "what I eat." I'm not dieting in the sense of "trying to lose weight." Although of course I won't complain if that happens. :-)

The most surprising thing about the changes I'm making is that it's totally easy. I don't crave anything, I never have to go hungry, and I'm not missing the things I've stopped eating because if I want them, I eat them. What's remarkable is how little I want them. Carbs, for instance. I've gone from carb-junkie to carb-take-them-or-leave-them in a week, with no suffering whatsoever. And junk food? It doesn't taste very good to me anymore. I have a bite or two and I'm done.

In other words, eating healthier feeds itself. My body likes it. The stuff that's good for me has begun to give me the same high as (or better than) the other stuff.

I finished up my contract with the HealthVault team yesterday. I'm a bit sad; it was an interesting product to work on. But today I return to the Retail team, my old stomping grounds, and will have lots of friends and familiarity to enjoy.

Frank's efforts on the housepainting continue now that the rain has stopped/paused. We have our fingers crossed for a sunny September.

When unschoolers screw up

or "Why I don't ever need to impose consequences or punish"

When people hear about our say-yes, rule-free lifestyle, one of the things they have trouble wrapping their brains around is how our kids will learn to cope with obstacles, disappointments, consequences.

Yeah. At the moment, I really wish my answer were, "They won't!" But the sad truth is that they have no choice but to learn.

Recently, each of my girls has had to deal with an extreme disappointment. (It would help the narrative here if I could describe these to you, but such painful things are private.) Chloe's happened a while back, but she is still dealing with the emotional fallout. MJ's was more recent, and the scope of the emotional fallout is not yet clear. In both cases, I think it's safe to say that they feel they screwed up. I might not characterize things that way, but I know they do.

So, how do unschoolers deal with disappointments and screwups? With an astonishing degree of dignity. With some tears. With conversation and wishes and resolutions for the future. With help from family and friends. With apologies where appropriate.

Over the last few years, they have had some practice in handling disappointment, of course. They have had many small situations where things didn't go their way. They have had to struggle over, under, past, or around obstacles. They have made mistakes and dealt with consequences. I didn't have to create any of it; life just happens. But I hesitate to credit this practice with the coping ability they exhibit now. I think that might be more a factor of their environment. They have respect. They have the benefit of the doubt. They have rich friendships and healthy family relationships. And they have resources when things go wrong, people they can turn to who will help and nurture and support them, even when (especially when!) they screw up, and who will be more concerned with them than with beating them over the head with a lesson.

More alternatives to traditional parenting

101 Things To Do Instead of Yelling or Spanking

Goes with this.

Unconscious mutterings #396

Want to play? Go here.

1. Bangs :: Shaggy
2. Diaper :: Soggy
3. Coffee table :: Tired
4. Cops :: Robbers
5. Matches :: Sticks
6. 250 :: 300
7. Hurricane :: Katrina
8. Bad :: Dog
9. Confirmation :: Request
10. Fiber :: Myalgia
    (I know, I know, it's Fibro, but this is what came to mind!)

Tool of the Oracle: Your True Nature

I don't know about my true nature, but this meme from Sarah has certainly revealed the true nature of post-Katrina New Orleans, which is appropriate since today is the 5th anniversary of the storm.

Instructions:

1. Delve into your blog archive.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

My 23rd post is pretty cool, but neither it nor my 24th post had five sentences, so here are 22 and 25.

22nd post: "The storm surge exceeded 10 feet there, so just about every building is trashed."

25th post: "Our little landmarks were hit hard: Captain Humble’s (the little po’ boy place I raved about); West Marine; the Winn Dixie where we bought our provisions; the ancient, creaky swing bridge at Bayou Liberty; and even the Shell station where we’d been buying our gas."

Discovering green

So, I don't know from dark green leafy vegetables. I have been doing some research, but at this point I can't keep my kales straight from my collard greens in terms of flavors, nutrients, etc. The only thing that has really stuck with me at this point is "Variety!"

So, when Frank and I went grocery shopping the other day, I knew only enough to recognize the dark green leafy vegetable section in the produce department (and be baffled as to why the lettuces and spinach aren't in it). Pretty much at random I chose a bunch of mustard greens to go with my staple romaine (from the lettuce section). I got the mustard greens home, discovered the mustardy tang, and put just a few in my salad that night. Edible, not my favorite.

By today, a few days and several green smoothies later, the fruits and greens are getting low. The berries are gone, baby, gone, because YUM! Do Ginger and I love berries!

Driven by curiosity about what a truly green (as opposed to berry purple) smoothie would taste like (but not quite brave enough yet to go all green), today's smoothie consisted of romaine, mustard leaves (judiciously), a banana, and some aging grapes I wouldn't eat enthusiastically if I were popping them whole into my mouth.

Oh my gawd, YUM! The mustard tang is probably there, but it is blended (heh) with the fruit flavors, and the result it just light, fresh, green goodness.

Which leads me to the conclusion that I can't really go wrong with green smoothies. Which might be why they are so terribly popular with the raw crowd.

So, here I am on day 6 of my Increased But Not Strictly Raw Diet. (Catchy name, huh? Do you think I should trademark it?) I am having a ton of fun with it, and I'm feeling great. With the novelty and fun factor, with our super awesome houseguests this weekend keeping me high, and with it being a good time of the month, I am reluctant to attribute too much of my euphoria to the changes in my diet. But I do have one distinct physical change to report on.

I lose a lot of hair each day. I mean, a lot. My hair is thick and, um, energetic, so this loss isn't terribly noticeable to the people around me (unless they're the ones picking strands off my clothes). But I notice, and it bugs me, and I fear going bald even though bald is beautiful and even though there is No Sign that my hair loss is anything more than breakage and normal attrition. So I am very happy to report then that my hair loss has apparently stopped. I don't leave a handful of hair behind in the shower like I usually do. I'm not picking strands off my shoulders all day like I usually do. And all the stuff that's staying on my head seems softer and a bit tamer.

After six days of having ONE green meal per day. It's pretty remarkable. YMMV.

A must read

The Guy on the Plane by Jeff Sabo

The point is that so many parents never "really think about" the parenting choices they make. They don't always pause to think about what success means, what is necessary and what is arbitrary. They think of restrictions and obstacles, instead of alternatives and possibilities. They focus on the way things were or the way things should be, not on the way things are or the way they could be.

Jeff's post touches on (nails!) one of the things that initially attracted me to unschooling, and that is the "what ifs" that unschooling embraces. What if there is a different way to live and build our lives? What if all those things we've been told are so important are really the least important things in our lives? And what if we gave our kids the opportunity to do things differently?

Vegetables and me

My friend Kimberly and her family recently did a 30-day raw food challenge. Her daughter has Type 1 diabetes, and they were able to very quickly cut her insulin intake by half, and then it continued to decline! Needless to say, their story caught my attention.

And then Alyse, another friend, posted this link along with a matter-of-fact comment about how much her health has improved since she started her raw diet: "I love that I have not only healed my body from some pretty debilitating stuff, but that it goes beyond great health to great happiness - and it was the happiness that came first."

My attitude toward nutrition information is extremely skeptical. Nutritionists and the often-corporate-funded FDA have given exactly the wrong advice too many times over the years. But this was first-hand experiential information from a couple of women who are, well, no flakier than the rest of us unschoolers. (In case you can't tell, this is a compliment, K&A! lol)

But the idea of going completely raw... Well, it intimidated me. So I asked them for some advice on ways to ease into it. Kim suggested trying some ready-to-eat salads with raw nuts and picking up some Odwalla juices. Alyse suggested, among other things, the raw foodists' staple, green smoothies. I got started on Monday.

Day one: Had a Wendy's salad for dinner instead of a burger. It had chicken and cheese on it.

Day two: I took advantage of the loaded salad bar at work and had a BIG salad for lunch. Completely raw, which was actually tricky because so many of the things in the salad bar are cooked. They even blanch the broccoli! Snacked on roasted but unflavored almonds.

Day three: Our anniversary. I ate whatever I wanted. Interestingly, what I wanted most during our fancy steak-and-lobster dinner was the side vegetables. I ate so many of them that I couldn't finish my steak.

Day four: Another big salad at work, mostly romaine and spinach.

Day five (today): I had a bowl of cereal at about 11, munched on some of the aforementioned almonds at about 3, and am just finishing up a HOMEMADE salad of romaine, mustard greens, and gloriously un-blanched broccoli.

So, here's the thing. It is too soon for me to notice substantial effects from such a limited increase in raw foods. On the other hand, it has been a substantial increase in green vegetables. And what I'm noticing is:

• Carbs are less attractive (until they're attractive, and then I want them NOW).
• My appetite is reduced.
• I am craving even more greens.

And suddenly the idea of going completely raw is not so intimidating.

Texts from last night

...and the rest of yesterday, which was our 20th anniversary.

7:43 a.m. Dropped off the camper and now questing for pancakes with her hubby of TWENTY years
MJ got to NBTSC with her Oregon roomie, Sean, but Chloe still had to do the dawn train run. Then Frank and I went for breakfast at IHOP, using our Seahawks ticket stubs to get free short stacks.

10:54 a.m. Jamming at the EMP
Despite being locals who have a lot of out-of-town visitors, Frank and I had never been to the Experience Music Project. It was very cool, especially the guitar gallery, which is worth the price of admission all by itself. They have a lab where you can play instruments and sing; we spent a fair amount of time in there.

12:39 p.m. Seriously tempted by Firefly action figures and an Alien lunchbox at the Sci-Fi Museum store.
Admission to EMP also gets you into the adjacent Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. It was so fun! It was also entertaining to see how much of their collection is on loan from Paul Allen. The dude knows how to spend his money! No Firefly, Galactica, or Back to the Future materials on display, which struck us as odd. But they did have Firefly gear at the store. I resisted. Barely.

1:22 p.m. Checked into our hotel room! View of Sound, islands, ferries, Pike Place Market. Awesome sauce!
Part 1 of Frank's surprise. I used hotel points to get us a room at the Red Lion downtown. We were on the top (20th) floor with a spectacular view of a spectacular day on Puget Sound. Sailboats, parasailers, shipping traffic, and ferries on the water. Planes and helicopters of all shapes and sizes in the air. Busy tourists down on the street. Loved it!

1:51 p.m. Hey, Frank brought the wine!
Frank surprised me with a nice bottle of Merlot (my favorite). We ordered up a room-service snack and spent a blissful couple of hours eating, sipping wine, and watching the world go by.

7:28 p.m. Napped to recover from an early wakeup and a bottle of red. Now at Ruth's Chris for free dinner.
Part 2 of Frank's surprise: I used credit-card points to get gift certificates to Ruth's Chris Steak House, far and away the best place to get a really good steak but with prices that are usually out of our reach. Not last night! Although we did go over and a bit, so it wasn't purely free: we had to supplement the tip with $3 cash...

We had crab cocktail in remoulade sauce, steak, lobster, beautifully prepared asparagus and broccoli, and bread pudding dessert. Everything was SO yummy.

We realized after dinner that we were sipping our complementary anniversary champagne at about the exact moment of our anniversary. Nice!

9:49 p.m. Watching the lights and the nightlife (yes, Seattle has some). This day has been everything I hoped for.
After a lovely post-prandial stroll through the bustling city streets, we settled back in front of the window. It was a wonderful day, and a wonderful way to commemorate twenty years with my wonderful man.

Here's to the next 20!

Keeping it simple

The only experts that truly exist on Unschooling
are our children. They do it perfectly.
~ Heather Burditt

I love this. I wish I'd taken it to heart early in our unschooling, not to disregard all the great advice I received from other unschooling parents but to help quiet the doubts that came up.

Back to school... NOT

The "school year" is starting all across the country. I have grown to resent that term a bit: why should schools get to decide what constitutes a year?! But we are not immune. Washington requires homeschoolers to file a Declaration of Intent to Homeschool at the start of each school year. And I needed to know the first day of school so I would know when Emma would be rejoining us. And of course we enjoy some of the back-to-school sales (10-cent notebooks!!!). But that's about as much attention as we pay to it.

Instead of picking up schedules, finding lockers, and settling into somebody else's agenda, my kids will be off having an experience something like this. That's Peggy Pirro's description of the East Tennessee Unschooled Summer Camp, which took place last month. Not Back to School Camp (NBTSC), the camp MJ and Chloe are headed to on Tuesday, is very similar. These camps really are the happiest place on earth.

My favorite excerpt from Peggy's post:
I will say with complete confidence that not one of the parents at that camp wishes our kids were on another planet. Not one. Is it because our teens are exceptional? Well, sure they're exceptional. They're unschooled. Which means all of the schooly stuff that comes between kids and their parents, between kids and their passions, all that stuff that gets in the way of kids figuring out how to relate honestly with one another, how to respect themselves and others, and how to respond to the needs of their bodies and their minds and their imaginations, all of that stuff that gets mediated by school and by the institutionalized thinking that supports the schooling paradigm, is absent. It isn't even a part of the atmosphere.

My love affair with unschooling is well known to my regular readers, but there is something about the start of the school year that brings it all to the forefront. I am SO HAPPY that my kids aren't caught up in the school machine. I am SO HAPPY that, as much or little as they are aware of the school year, they start it off by going to a place that gives them so much joy, that inspires them, and that provides them with an environment where they can make real connections with people who put their passions first and who treat MJ's and Chloe's dreams as achievable goals.

iUnschooling tools

Not that kind of tool

Chloe hasn't really cared about having a cell phone. For the last couple of years, this was fine with me. MJ has a cell phone, and Chloe has been reachable because she is so often with MJ. But that has changed: MJ and her cell phone are down in Oregon. So, I laid down the law: Chloe, says I, I am getting you a cell phone. She resisted at first (really), but the idea began to grow on her, and off we went to shop for a phone.

After looking at the available options, the plan requirements, and so forth, she decided to chip in some of her own money and get an iPhone. She has played with friends' iPhones in the past and really enjoys them. So, that's what we've done. She's paying the extra phone cost and the $15/month data plan. I'm paying for the extra line and the family unlimited-texting plan.

So, Chloe has a new iPhone. She's been exploring available apps, building her contact list, playing games, and just generally having a blast with it. And I've been thinking about all this in an unschooling context.

First off, why didn't she want a cell phone sooner? Unschooling was a factor. Chloe and her friends have Internet access all day long. They don't need phones to communicate. And if they do, they have 24-hour access to their parents' phones.

So, why does she need one now? Well, because I said so, but also because of unschooling. She's free, so she travels. She's independent, so she travels alone. And she's building her own life, even at 16, so the time has come for her to have this tool that so many of us who have our own lives consider essential.

In the months ahead, Chloe will use this phone to let us know she has arrived in Oregon for NBTSC, made the train to come home from NBTSC, and, later, arrived in Texas* where she's starting a new job as a nanny. Then she will use it to find her way around Dallas, to discover places to go with her young charges and shop for the things she needs while she's away. She will call us with all the news, text us all the funny little comments she usually gets to share in person, and find and play games a couple of little ones enjoy.

And she will continue her unschooling. Someone asked on Facebook the other day about essential purchases for unschooling. I replied, "A wireless Internet connection." Perhaps I should have said, "A portable wireless Internet connection." It certainly seems to be an essential purchase for us now.

-------------------
* The family Chloe visited in Victoria has their primary residence in Dallas

The best sort of report card

This morning, I received the following note from the mom of the family Chloe is visiting (and possibly becoming au pair for).

Hi, Ronnie;

Before Chloe came, I tried very hard to hold back my desire to communicate directly with you. I thought you were the adult and she was the kid. But she proved me wrong. She handled everything really well, better than most adults, IMO.

We were very impressed by her. She shows maturity unusual for her age, yet her sweetness, happiness and "purity" (if you know what I mean) are so delightful and contagious.

O. [4yo son] loves her and already invites her to [stay]. He couldn't get enough of her. It is so interesting to watch him to wait patiently and impatiently outside Chloe's room while she was resting.

M. [1yo daughter] loves her and sneaked to her bed. It is so cute to watch her to be in the same bed with Chloe!

We love her. She communicates very well. She is very patient and sweet with kids. She pays attention to details and she is very proactive. When we talked "business", she is professional!

I have never met a teenager as mature, original, happy, thoughtful, confident and sweet as her. You have raised a wonderful person. I am sure we can learn a lot from her as well.

We are very happy to have her.

The Doings Report

Ah, Sunday. We are basking (suffering) in a bit of a heat wave. It hit 90 today and is forecast to be "much warmer" tomorrow. How will we ever survive????

Perhaps by imagining what it would be like tomorrow if we were in the south or southwest. :-)

Chloe is visiting friends in Victoria, BC, for a few days. They have two kids, a girl not quite 2 and a boy not quite 5. Her visit is sort of a job interview, or maybe a mutual interview. If all parties are amenable, she will be their au pair for an undetermined while. Chloe wrote her own (very business-like) emails, made her own arrangements, rode the ferry and went through customs alone, et cetera. (Does anybody know where Chloe learned to write with a formal tone? Sometimes—oftentimes—unschooling amazes even me.)

If all parties are amenable, Frank and I will have an empty nest for a while. Jeezum Pete.

My sister is in town. We had a family gathering today, and I got to visit a bit with her and her family. Loved it!

We are also enjoying a visit from MJ, who came up for the aforementioned gathering and for an orthodontic appointment. She likes it here well enough, but she is glowingly happy in her new digs/life and will return there in the next couple of days.

Frank continues prepping two sides of our house for exterior paint. We settled on two sides as an achievable/adequate goal for this summer. We'll do the other two sides next summer. He has scraped and pressure washed and is now sanding. Then primer, then paint. Colors are either decided (if everyone goes along with my green-with-blue-trim preference) or under negotiation. You be the judge.

I continue working. It seems I will finish one contract on Aug. 31 and start the next on Sept. 1. Continuity is a good thing, but I am lately engaged in detailed fantasies of extended roadtrips. Perhaps something can be arranged, since I work from home mostly anyway. It's the "mostly" that's a stumbling block: "mostly" is not the same as "always."

The girls head to camp next week Tuesday with a hundred or so of their closest friends. Camp has been restructured from two one-week sessions to one two-week session, so they won't be home (Chloe to here and MJ to Salem) until after Labor Day. Judging by chatter here and on Facebook, they and the aforementioned friends are all extremely excited. Extremely. Excited. NBTSC is evidently heaven on earth, more fun than anything else (except perhaps a good year at LIFE is Good), but we parents can only imagine since we are not invited. *sigh*

After that, Chloe comes home or heads to Victoria, depending, and MJ heads to Chautauqua.

It's really a shame how isolated and overprotected unschoolers are. Poor, deprived children.

Also next Tuesday (a week from Tuesday) marks the 20th anniversary of my wedding to Frank. Yes, 20 years. Wowza. I have Big Plans for the day, but Frank has not been apprised of these, so I'm not telling. Yet.

Frank and I attended our first Seahawks game yesterday, a preseason battle with the Tennessee Titans. The game was fine, fun, blah blah blah, but the game viewing experience was, in a word, HOT. Our seats are on the sunny side of the stadium, which is a good thing come November but which makes for a bakefest on a summer evening. We sweated it out with about 25,000 fellow fans, watched the Hawks win, and left disgruntled because the Hawks took a knee instead of going for an easy field goal that would have netted each of us a short stack of pancakes at IHOP. Very bad coaching decision that, but I bet IHOP didn't suffer much since by game's end we were all craving pancakes.

Our next game is next Saturday evening. Frank and I are thinking of staying away until about 7:30, when the shade hits our seats.

For the sake of frugality/greed for other things, I'm going to put all of our regular season tickets up for sale. Whichever games don't sell, we'll attend. If any of you have a game you'd particularly like to go to, let me know; friends and family get good prices and first dibs.

I'm off now for a sunset walk. It is *beautiful* out there now, rosy and warm and a reminder of why we put up with the gray skies all winter. Summer in the northwest is how summer was meant to be.

What I have to work on

Evidently the universe thinks I need more patience. Or evidently I do. Backing up my own feeling that I didn't exercise enough patience in recent comment discussions on my blog, I got two messages today:

This blog post: I've Walked Many Miles in Your Shoes

and this quote:

The job of the spiritual friend is to insult you. . . . If you really want liberation and you really want freedom, you need people around who are going to be provoking you to show you where it is that you still have work to do.
~ Pema Chödrön
My thanks to Jeff for the post and to Laura for bringing the quote to my attention. Oh, and thanks to the spiritual friends who brought me the message, even if it wasn't quite the message they intended for me to receive.

Chloe's school solution

"I have an idea of what learning could be like because I like to learn. I know how much fun it can be. An educational discussion is my idea of a good time. So, the fact that I don't enjoy school is an indicator of something."

Not compulsory
Smaller class sizes
More respect! "Teachers treat kids like there's something wrong with them."
Conversation-based learning
Lots and lots of resources
Teachers as resources - experts in their field rather than professional teachers
Classes would provide a starting point to explore a particular subject
No required courses - "If you say a class is required, you are dismissing somebody else's opinion about what's important or interesting... You're saying that one field is more valid than another one."
Kids sign up for classes they are interested in
Suited to every learning style - accommodate students

Background: Chloe was in school K through half of 3rd, spent a term at Summerhill (a democratic/free school in England), and attended high school last year for one 6-week grading period. All the rest of the time, she's been unschooled.

Pondering paths

When I was 19, I applied for two jobs: one in childcare and one in publishing. I got the publishing job, and that set me on the path not only to my current career as a tech writer but also to Frank, MJ, Chloe, unschooling, and everything else. So, no regrets whatsoever.

But I do sometimes wonder about that other path...

Do you think if I had spent the last 20 years with little kids I would now be craving time with words?

Probably...

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?

Values

I started to write this post as if it's definitively about unschooling, but "unschooling" means different things to different people. Even "radical unschooling"—which refers to the freedom-of-choice parenting that goes along with unschooling for many of us—means different things to different people. I've gotten into trouble (conflicts) in the past when I insisted on a rigid definition of either term. While I continue to be puzzled about why someone would insist on claiming a label that does not really apply to them, I can occasionally, momentarily, acknowledge that some people are simply operating under different definitions than I am.

So let's leave labels out of it and talk instead about values.

We all have 'em. Some values we hold passionately and can defend at great length. Others we inherited from our society or from our parents and live by without giving them much thought. Some of my personal values are represented by some of the labels I accept for myself (liberal, atheist, omnivore, wife, mom, employee—just to name a few), and some of them, as noted above, resist accurate labeling.

One of the biggies in that last category is this:

I value my children's freedom to determine their own values.

I have been called on the carpet over the conspicuous consumption illustrated by my I'm that mom post. In the comments on my follow-up to that post, I responded some to the specifics of that example. I could respond more (and maybe I'm about to) about the factors that led us to decide that trip was okay—that it was MJ's big move-out trip and she was very excited, that the second trip to Oregon wasn't set in stone, that the additional consumption I might really have added to our life was Chloe's return trip home on a train that would have made the trip anyway—and I could talk about what solutions I think might really have a chance of stopping our species' headlong race to self-destruction.

But the thing is, even if I believed we should all reduce our consumption (and I do, even as I doubt it will do much good), and even if the trip decision were exactly as cut-and-dried as I implied in my "I'm that mom" post, I would have made the same decision.

MJ and Chloe know the environmental concerns. They know the time-and-money concerns. And they still enthusiastically chose as they did. And knowing all that, if I had said, "No, we're not doing this because it's not the most environmentally conscious choice," I would be IMPOSING my values on them. If I am the ultimate arbiter of what is an acceptable level of consumption, then in my opinion it's not unschooling and it is a complete violation of one of my most deeply held values.

Living by this value means that I, an omnivore, have had a vegetarian daughter. It means that I, an unschooler, have had a daughter in school—twice! It means that I, an atheist, have a Wiccan daughter. It means that my daughters make purchases that I wish they wouldn't, get piercings (and eventually tattoos) that I wish they wouldn't, spend their time engaged in a few activities that I wish they wouldn't, go off for weeks or months at a time when I wish they'd stay home, move out earlier than I wish they would, and just generally make life choices that I would not necessarily be making for them if I were in charge.

This is something that ALL parents face. Do you really think my mom expected to raise a tattooed atheist unschooler?! Hardly! (Although I think she's mostly okay with it.)

The difference is that I have simply and deliberately chosen to allow my values and my kids' values to diverge before they are adults. Part of my value system is a belief that one doesn't have to be 18 or older to recognize one's own values. And part of what went into my value system is the knowledge that kids who have values imposed on them often end up going in the exact opposite direction. By valuing the things I value and letting them make their own value judgments, even as children and especially as teens, I believe I have provided them with the information that I used to come around to my values without creating an adversarial or guilt-laden environment that might have driven them away from them. For me, that trumps everything else.

a bit more

I really am *that* mom (who pisses people off)

A friend of a friend had this to say about my "I am that mom" post.

I find it slightly offensive to suggest that those of us who do not have the time or money to do such things are somehow worse parents than those who do.

Also, I think that children should get everything they *need*, but wants and needs are not the same thing. I think my kids wants are important, to an extent....but nobody gets *everything* they want. I work pretty hard to make sure they have everything they need....I'm not going to kill myself to give them everything they want. What I want is important, too.

To which my friend replied:

mmmm...read more of the blogs. there's waaaaay more to it. I dont personally think ronnie's post is insulting in the way you suggest. Its point is to TRY to do the most possible...
I also disagree the wants and needs aren't necessarily the same thing. I believe it's a matter of priorities: every want is a need to some degree. But I think you know that about me already. ;)

To which her friend replied:

I don't think it's necessary to try to do the MOST possible. I think society needs to learn to be content with ENOUGH. Our kids have never been without food or shelter or access to medicine, and neither have I. We're already more privileged... than much of the world's population. Why do Westerners need sooo much in order to be happy? And even though we have sooo much, so many of us are unhappy, anyway.

The blog post in question....obviously the woman who wrote it does not mind dropping everything to drive an unnecessary 500 miles. I would mind. I like simplicity and I like consolidating errands and trips as much as possible. If the same exact trip was coming up in two weeks, no way would I make the trip twice just to instantly gratify my kids. It's not because I don't care about what they want, but I care about what I want, too. If they get to take a trip, and I get to drive only once, then we all get what we want. The woman who wrote the blog was happy and able to indulge her kids, so she also got what she wanted.

I personally feel that we do our kids a disservice if we teach them that their wants are the only ones that matter. I remember you posting a couple of weeks ago about how strongly you feel about hypocrisy. I feel the same sort of disdain for self-serving behavior.

To which I replied:

‎"does not mind dropping everything to drive an unnecessary 500 miles"

Actually, it's that I see it completely differently. :-) What I'm doing is *picking up* everything important--my connection to my kids, the extremely fun times we have hanging out with our friends, an attitude that life is full of possibilities and solutions and YES. That makes the 500 miles not only necessary but cheap at twice the price!

"I personally feel that we do our kids a disservice if we teach them that their wants are the only ones that matter."

This is a common criticism of unschooling. All I can tell you is that, in our life and in our family, my wants count for a LOT. I am spoiled rotten. I know it's hard to imagine, but all four of us (mom, dad, two teenaged girls) get MOST of what we want (and I say that after coming off almost a year of unemployment - it's about an attitude of abundance rather than an unlimited supply of money). This makes for a happy family that I could not have imagined in our pre-unschooling days.

But of course our kids suffer disappointments. Life serves up plenty of those without my ever having to do the dishing.

Do you have a reply?

Updated 7/29: I had to add the amazing art Linda found for me. Thanks, Linda! Also, the conversation continues in the comments.

Keep your eye on the swimmers

When the girls were really little (4 and 3, probably), we spent an evening at a motel out in the desert of California. The girls wanted to swim and I didn't, so I went with them down to the pool and walked around the edges of the pool, chatting with them as they paddled about. They were both swimming by then, thanks to our stint in Florida, so I was completely comfortable with this level of supervision, even when they headed into the deep end. The hotel manager was not. She came blasting out of the office, shouting at me.

It's not a pleasant memory. But what bothers me most is that, because of her shouting, I took my eyes and attention off the girls. It was only for a handful of seconds, but I remember the sinking feeling I got in my stomach as I realized what I'd done, and I remember my relief upon seeing that both girls had, while I wasn't looking, paddled themselves over to the wall. They were hanging on, watching wide-eyed as I dealt with this confrontation. I engaged in a couple of (useless) attempts to point out that the girls could swim, that I was barely two feet away from them, that I would OF COURSE jump in fully clothed if either had the slightest difficulty. She wouldn't listen, having already decided I was untrustworthy, so the girls moved back to the shallow end for a few minutes before we decided we were really done with that pool (and that hotel) anyway.

The lesson I took away from that day is one that still serves me well now. The only time my parenting is insufficient is when I take my attention off the swimmers, my daughters. It is their needs and wants and abilities that matter, not the ignorant observations, however well intentioned, of the people around us.

Formative years

There is a lot of chatter in the parenting world about kids' formative years. This term can mean anything from infancy to adolescence, but the implication is always the same: that there is a time period during which kids are formed into the people they will be (presumably forever).

I certainly don't dispute the importance of treating children well and raising them in a loving environment. But I really want to challenge this idea that people are ever finished "forming." Looking back over my life so far, I see a lot of formative years, and there are a few in my adult life that were at least as formative as the highest impact years of my youth. (2009 was a case in point! Whew! What a year!)

The accompanying ideas—that kids are merely "forming into" adults, and that they are especially "formable" during certain years—are equally bad. They are booby traps for the unwary, and they can lead us to some thoughts about our kids that are really pretty nasty.

How about this one: "Oh, he'll grow out of it." This usually refers, interestingly enough, to a child's deepest emotional needs or his strongest signals that something needs to change. It's something we say or think (or maybe just hope) when our child's wants or behaviors are inconvenient to us. When accompanied by loving patience and responsiveness to our child's needs, this thought is not the end of the world. But even at its least dismissive, it still carries with it an expectation of—even an insistence on—change. I think it's really hard to hide our expectations from our kids. They always know.

And what happens if he doesn't grow out of it, whatever it is? What do our thwarted expectations lead to? "He's a hopeless case" perhaps, or similar sentiments? Ouch! These are cultural weapons we use to beat up the square pegs among us, the angry ones, the sad ones, the bloody but unbowed ones. They are not like us, therefore they're a lost cause.

I don't believe in half-formed children, and I don't believe in lost causes. There's no such thing. There are only people—learning, thinking, evolving people—for whom every year is a formative year.


We are game-playing, fun-having creatures, we are the otters of the universe.
~ Richard Bach

I'm that mom

Inspired by Flo's delicious post here. It's an impromptu blog carnival! Join in!

I'm that mom who drives 500 miles because her kids want to see their friends, because her kids don't feel like riding the train again, because her kids want to go now instead of in a couple of weeks when the trip could be combined with another trip. I'm that mom who knows it's a frivolous, indulgent, even "stupid" thing to do but does it anyway.

Why not? We can. We have the time, the money, the free lodging when we get there (thanks, friends), and, whether we are aware of it or not, the energy. We as a family end up with more trips together, more good times on the road rocking or talking, more fun. Frank and I end up with more much needed time with our friends, too, and the good feeling that comes from doing the kind thing. And the girls end up with more driving practice, more familiarity with a long stretch of freeway that is likely to be part of their lives forever, and (most important of all) more awareness that they are supported in their lives, even when what they want is frivolous, indulgent, or even "stupid."

It's a good trade.

Update 7/29: Be sure to check out the links in the comments. The response to this has been amazing! My original thought was that we would each pick one little example of how we are that mom or dad, but some people really ran with it and ended up outlining the core tenets of unschooling. And as things wound down, Flo chimed in again with this amazing piece that put the cherry on top of her breakfast ice cream.

Get your art! Mary made us stinkin' badges. Link to this post or one of Flo's.
Moms
Dads

Tiny tidbits: Learn Nothing Day, Part Trois

Tara commented on my previous post that she doesn't participate in Learn Nothing Day because she doesn't like failure. It made me chuckle, and then it got me wondering: Why do I participate? Why do I, in fact, look forward to this day with moderately gleeful anticipation?

Part of the answer probably stems from its being a rare opportunity for my psyche to experience failure without trauma. But more than that, I enjoy the way it attunes my brain to the learning I do just via my regular activities: tiny tidbits of learning that happen so naturally and so without fanfare, most days I am oblivious to them. I think (and the point of Learn Nothing Day is) that these tidbits are unavoidable. They happen to everyone no matter where they are or what they are doing—even kids in school!

What cannot be predicted is what those tidbits will be. Oh, schools try to control this, with their curricula and textbooks and lectures, but they can't really. Even the learners can't control learning. In many respects, our brains are the sponges they are so often compared to, and like real sponges, they will soak up pretty much anything.

In chemistry class, I learned how to disguise my papers so that I could write notes to Linda instead of taking notes on Mr. Smith's lectures. I also learned that this one nerdy kid was a pretty good friend, that I enjoyed balancing chemical equations, that clocks move more slowly in 6th period, and that the chemical name for lead can be remembered by thinking of Pencil boxes.

In the last couple of days, I learned that "stop" is not a (Merriam Webster) dictionary sense of "enough" (perhaps because MW says interjections are "usually lacking grammatical connection"). I learned that some people believe "exaggerate" is an antonym for "control." NOT. I learned that there are two ferries from Anacortes to Sydney, BC, each weekday and that a 16-year-old can walk across for $13. I learned that the yurts at Kayak Point are extremely popular and run $50 per night. I learned that the Centennial Trail runs from Arlington to Snohomish, and that they are planning to extend it farther north. I learned that Microsoft HealthVault is really pretty cool, that you can upload data from your health-related devices (pedometers, blood-pressure and glucose meters, etc.) to the site, and that some pretty prestigious medical facilities are using sites like these for remote patient monitoring.

Today, I learned that Sandra put up a temporary banner on her unschooling page for Learn Nothing Day, that there is a web site where one can set up a custom marquee banner, that I still love Pachelbel's Canon, and that at least one of my friends, Alex, visits Sandra's site often enough to have discovered the new banner. I learned that Tara doesn't like to fail. I learned that Antonio Meucci got robbed.

I also learned that I didn't gain any willpower while I was sleeping, and that I still find cruising Facebook and writing blog posts WAY more fun than working. Shocker. And I learned that Learn Nothing Day provides a fun and unique opportunity for looking at learning.

The quirks of unschooling

WARNING: Do NOT read this or any other blog post if you are participating in Learn Nothing Day. Learning may ensue.

Everything is connected, and everything counts. If I needed proof of these two maxims of unschooling, I found it this morning in this little pile of books that has accumulated on our overflowing bookshelves:

The Book of General Ignorance: Everything You Think You Know Is Wrong by John Lloyd & John Mitchinson - A fascinating little book devoted to correcting some common misconceptions. For example, who invented the telephone? Alexander Bell probably stole Antonio Meucci's models from the lab at Western Union.

Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman - An exploration of the evolution of the text of the Bible. For example, it appears that mentions of Jesus getting angry have been softened up or eliminated, such as the evidence that indicates that Mark 1:41 originally said that when the leper approached Jesus to be healed, Jesus became angry.

The Greek Myths: I by Robert Graves

The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks - A must-have for every home.

Travellers China by George McDonald

Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things by Cy Tymony - Instructions for making clever devices from things like sugar cubes, aluminum foil, and toilet paper rolls.

How are the books in this quirky collection connected? I'm not really sure except that they all found their way into our house, and, judging by their being piled together on the edge of a shelf, they have all been used in the recent past. That's unschooling for you.

Dragonfly's question of the day

When we first started unschooling, I got on unschooling.com just about every day and asked a question. My screen name was dragonfly, so these became "Dragonfly's Questions of the Day." Those questions were about unschooling as I tried to make sense of it. Nowadays, unschooling makes perfect sense and what I'm trying to make sense of is school.

Why don't middle schools have playgrounds?

I walked with my 11yo niece to a neighborhood park the other day. She joined a group of 'tweens in a rousing game of tag. Most of those kids are headed to North Middle next year, yet chose to spent a summer afternoon "doing recess," their favorite part of elementary school.

North Middle does not have a playground.

Why not?

True friends write your blog posts for you

Mary has posted photos of my tattooing and my tattoo here, and I've added a comment to the post about why I chose this tattoo.

Thanks to my amazing coaching team: Chloe, Qacei, Annie, and Mary.

The tattoo artist was Anji at High Priestess.

Transition times

MJ is moving out at 17.

Moving out at 17. That phrase causes a moment's pause, doesn't it? Usually it signifies strife, and either a desperate escape or a cruel rejection or both. In our case, it is simply a step. Here's how we came to take it.

As I said before, MJ's really been ready to live independently for some time. There's a little garage apartment across the alley from our place that I have long had my eye on for my girls... Ah, well, it was a nice idea.

Instead, MJ and Sean started talking about getting an apartment together. There were various obstacles in the way of this idea—primarily employment in a recession economy—that would have meant many months of delay. So, I got to thinking about it. If the role of an unschooling parent is to facilitate her child's interests, does that role suddenly change when her child's interest is moving out? Despite my reluctance to lose her, I ultimately concluded that it does not.

So, after we all talked it over, MJ let Sean know he would be welcome to move in here. And then Sean's parents, Lynelle and David, said MJ would be welcome to move in there. And then MJ and Sean looked at various practical considerations and decided that she would move to Sean's place in July.

And that's been the plan for a couple of months. MJ has spent that time meeting some prior commitments, enjoying some fun times with family and friends, attending LIFE is Good, and traveling to Oregon for visits. We've researched some of our own practical considerations and readied ourselves for our baby to move out. And I've been calm, as I said.

This morning, I experienced what is probably only my first wave of grief. As we got ready to deliver Chloe to the train for her own visit to Oregon, it hit me that my daughters had just spent what might be their last night living in the same place. Ouch! But it's interesting and—though I didn't anticipate it—unsurprising really that what hits me hard is their separation from each other.

Taking my chances

"Everything you do in your life is a chance to practice. It is all Dharma. When you do your chores try to be mindful. If you are emptying a spittoon or cleaning a toilet don't feel you are doing it as a favor for anyone else. There is Dharma in emptying spittoons. Don't feel you are practicing only when sitting still cross-legged.

"Some of you have complained that there is not enough time to meditate. Is there enough time to breathe? This is your meditation: mindfulness, naturalness in whatever you do."

~ Ajahn Chah

Moving Miss MJ

Evidently the doings of my life are not as obvious to everyone else as they are to me. Evidently I have been a bit obscure. Sorry, everyone! Here's the scoop:

MJ, our oldest, who will be 18 in September, is soon leaving on a big adventure: living elsewhere. She is packing up to move down to Salem, Oregon, where she will be living with her boyfriend, Sean, and his family. In true unschooler fashion, their plans are loose but include, among other things, the possibility of moving back into our house later.

So, Moving Day #1 will take place within a week or two.

Frank and Chloe and I are still figuring out what this means for us for the time she is gone. We will have a dedicated guestroom for a while, that's for sure, so let us know if you want to come visit. :-)

My emotions are mixed, as I'm sure you can imagine. I can tell you that this feels nothing like I imagined it would when she was little. I expected to be terribly sad and lonely, and maybe I'll get there, but mostly I'm really calm about it. I like that she's starting out by living with a family and especially with people I like. I like that she'll be so close to families in Corvallis whom we count among our dearest friends. And I know she's ready. She's been ready for some time; if we'd had the financial resources, she and Chloe would have had their own apartment more than a year ago. So, this feels like a pretty natural transition, and I have the comfort of the possibility that she'll be back.

In the meantime, legally she remains our dependent, of course, and financially, she is. But she's taking the reins. She'll do her own budgeting and make her own plans and let us know what she needs.

And I'll try to keep you (better) posted on what this transition looks like.

Jesus would be proud, too

I LOVE THIS STORY!

"I think Jesus would have hugged him too. It’s exactly what I read throughout scripture: Jesus hanging out with people that religious people would flee from. Correlation between then and now? I think so."

I Hugged a Man in His Underwear. And I Am Proud.

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.

The destructive effects of coercion

Last night I dreamt the government was testing a new energy force on soldiers. They issued an order to the soldiers and turned on this force. If the soldiers went along with the order, they were fine. But if they resisted the order, even if only in their minds, the energy force would react with that resistance and the soldiers would spontaneously combust. The only way for the soldiers to survive was unquestioning obedience.

The second set of tests was done on toddlers, and I woke up from a struggle to save the kids' lives and the sanctity of their minds.

Hmmm...

Quotables

Some quotes from unschoolers, gathered from the Interwebs over the past few days. I love the atmosphere of love and respect and simple compassion that these quotes reveal about the unschooling community.

Heather Burditt: "Phoenix is going to be 2 next month. We have never had any expectations surrounding his sleep... He knows what it means to be tired and when his body has had enough. That is more than most adults can say, even myself sometimes. Forcing him to bed before he is ready, is not worth the lasting negative effects." (from this post)

TJ Phillips: "...there is nothing cuter in the world then when Phoenix walks up to you sleepily, holds up his hands for you to pick him up and says in his little voice 'ni-nite.'" (from a comment on Heather's post above, made profound by the knowledge that *every single time* Phoenix asks to be held, he is)

Ren Allen: "I'm so grateful [my children] can sleep until their bodies are done sleeping, and go to sleep when they choose. I remember the torture of trying to get through a school morning and not being able to fall asleep at night. They've never known that…" (from a comment on Heather's post above)

Trisha Laszlo: "I want my kids to know they can wake me any time they are scared, and I won't be angry." (from a comment on Facebook about Heather's post above)

Jenna Robertson: "Parenting with integrity and respect requires us to involve our children in the conversation. We must be honest and we must not be arbitrary. If we say 'no' then we need a real, fact based reason why. If we can get to the teen years with our parental integrity intact, with our children knowing that we are willing to help them explore the options and answers, that we are not trying to control or manipulate their behavior to make our life easier, and we are truly supportive of the person they are, the better our relationship will be." (from this post)

Jeff Sabo: "And where personal freedom is subjugated, learning is inhibited. In fact, it doesn't become learning at all; it becomes indoctrination. The students have no choice in what they learn, when they learn it, how they are taught it, or by whom. That, my friends, is indoctrination." (from this post)

Jeff Sabo: "Parents who want to be better usually care enough - and have courage enough - to evaluate whether or not they're doing well. Perfection is not the goal; growth in an environment of joy and peace is. And letting go of our need to control is the first step." (from this post)

Shannon Burton: "Oddly, though, this remembering doesn't make me angry, anymore. Instead, it tends to defuse situations where I might react angrily to my own children, because my emerging memories are complete with how i felt at the treatment, and I don't want my children to feel the way I did then...." (from a comment on Facebook)

Frank Maier: "I support you. I love that you are pursuing your dreams, whether that dream is a solo circumnavigation or a desire to be a manga artist. Keep going after whatever it is that you want. Ignore the annoying cawing of the doom-crows. Listen to your own inner voice. It's your life. Live it." (from this post)

Nurture not control

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