Parenting and Communes

On a good friend's recommendation, I recently picked up this book at the library:

One word: Amazing.

Okay, there are very few situations where I feel like one word is really sufficient, and besides, I like to talk. So I'm not going to leave it at one word.

The author (who I'll herein refer to as "Gord", because I think he's great and I feel like he's my friend) talks about how we have an issue in our day and age, not with discipline and a lack of respect in children, but in attachment. That most children are no longer attaching in a healthy way to their parents primarily, and then giving a second place to their peers, but attaching to their peers and looking to them for their morals, values, and cues about almost everything. Gord refers to this phenomenon as "peer orientation".

I was shocked to discover how much of our society sets up peer orientation. We are constantly pushing our children to be more independent (and then getting upset when they show signs of - guess what? - independence), and pushing them towards their friends instead of fostering attachment with us, their parents, and other adults in their lives. He talked about how even when we step through the doors of a religious institution, we're automatically separated by age - babies in the nursery, young kids in Sunday school, teens in youth group - instead of encouraged to be with our families in a multigenerational setting. That really hit me. What also hit me was when Gord was talking about how parents, when getting together with other parents, push the kids to "go play" while the adults sit and have their conversation. Guilty as charged!

It's interesting how we've really lost that "old school" way of doing things, and how it no longer takes a village to raise a child. In the past, the butcher and the mailman all knew your parents and your family, and children interacted with all generations in a village. Families spent time together - from infants to great-grandparents - and children knew they had many trustworthy adults around them whom they could go to. That seems to be no longer.

I'm really enjoying this book so far. I love it on a parenting level, to give us tips and insight on how to raise our children differently, but also because it shows how the way we've set up our North American lives just isn't working. Or at least, not working well. I've talked about this before, but all of this is just another reason why I believe we're meant to live in authentic community with each other.

Because it's true - it takes a village to raise a child. Never before has the weight of parenting rested on the shoulders of just two (and sometimes only one) adult. And I think we can see how well that is working out.

The Poop Incident

Sometime I would love to see what my some parts of my life look like in fast forward and put to circus music.

Like the other day. The poop incident.

Sam was sleeping. (This one was ALL the little guy. And even though his poop is a lot more "innocent" I guess, it's still stinky. And slimy. And shockingly similar to a condiment I put on hot dogs.) I was holding Jack in a sitting position against me, with my nursing pillow on my lap, watching "Teen Mom" with him. He likes that show. Then... I got a whiff. I thought it weird, seeing as the odour wasn't following up his usual session of grunting and carrying on. I picked him up to smell his bum (one of those things you might say you'll never do as a parent, but always end up doing) but didn't even need to get it near my face. There was poop. Every. Where.

On my hoodie. On my shirt underneath my hoodie. On my jeans. On the nursing pillow. Dripping down onto the couch under me. And ALL over poor little Jack.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and gathered my faculties. I carefully put the pillow on the floor, poop side up, and raced to the bathroom. I layed some cloths under his poopy back, and strapped him onto the change table (with straps that I had just installed days ago - it's almost like I knew it was coming). I promptly went to change my own clothes, so as not to transfer more poop onto Jack, and went back to deal with the mess.

(I just need to insert here how insanely difficult it is to clean up a poopy child withoutcontaminating any of the clean stuff. You have no idea how many times I have spread the feces onto the clean diaper, the clean clothes, the clean kid, the clean mom, the clean floor even. Yikes.)

The clean-up process was pretty uneventful. Then, I went to go lay Jack in the living room while I ran downstairs to get him new pants (his shirt had remained miraculously doody-free), and as I walked past our open front door, just about had a feces incident of my own when I saw a man standing there. Just my brother. We're okay.

He had stopped by to drop something off, and stayed at the doorway for a bit to visit. I got Jack, and he held him while we chatted. He said he had to go, and I explained that I had to tend to some poop clean-up. He paused, and said, "Yeah, I think he still has some on his foot." Sure enough, his little foot was yellow-tinged. I cleaned up his foot, and by this time, Sam had gotten up from his nap. I got Jack's pants on, and then went to tend to the poopy pillow cover.

After (I thought) it had all been cleaned up, I went back and sat on the couch with Sam to watch a movie for a few minutes before supper. I looked over at him, and WHAT?! He had Jack's poop ALL over the side of his foot. Oh dear. He must've rubbed up against the dirty pillow while I was getting Jack dressed. I got up to de-poop yet another of my offspring, and checked the couch for any poop that Sam might have spread. We were good. Except for the smear on the couch from before, that I hadn't cleaned up with all the distraction. Yup. Had poop all over my second pair of pants.

There are days like this when there is just TOO MUCH POOP, too many places.

It's a good thing those kids are darn cute.

Clothes and Baby Weight

One of the blogs that I recently started reading confirmed one of worst nightmares:

I wear "Mom" jeans.

Not necessarily the mom jeans of yore - waistband at breast level, pockets that sit nicely in the small of the back, tapered, about an inch too short, and of course, a total accentuation of the typical mom "cheese pouch" (what IS the proper term - or in the very least, a nicer term - for that bit of flabby fat below the belly button?!).

No. Apparently the new mom jean is the low-rise, straight leg. Sigh. I should have known.

I have been avoiding the skinny jean for quite some time. It's SO hard to latch onto a fashion craze that I can only remember as being totally dorky. I remember the poor schmucks at school who were still wearing tapered jeans looong after they'd run their course. (I also remember sometimes being that schmuck. Vividly remember, in fact.) Turns out, those schmucks would be cool now. I just can't wrap my head around it.

Now, I think skinny jeans look good. At least, usually. And on other people. Just not on me. But then, I have this whole mom jean issue. So maybe it's worth a shot?

My wardrobe is in a sad state of affairs. And it consists largely of (mom) jeans and (mostly ill-fitting) t-shirts. I have a lot of belly flab leftover from Mr. Jack... which makes most of my shirts too small and causes most of my jeans to give me a muffin top. But I don't really want to buy new clothes because then I feel like it's a reason to stay like this, in this shape. And that is NOT an option I want to discuss. Sigh. What's a girl to do?

I think I'm going to go eat a chocolate cookie.

The Poop Incident

Sometime I would love to see what my some parts of my life look like in fast forward and put to circus music.

Like the other day. The poop incident.

Sam was sleeping. (This one was ALL the little guy. And even though his poop is a lot more "innocent" I guess, it's still stinky. And slimy. And shockingly similar to a condiment I put on hot dogs.) I was holding Jack in a sitting position against me, with my nursing pillow on my lap, watching "Teen Mom" with him. He likes that show. Then... I got a whiff. I thought it weird, seeing as the odour wasn't following up his usual session of grunting and carrying on. I picked him up to smell his bum (one of those things you might say you'll never do as a parent, but always end up doing) but didn't even need to get it near my face. There was poop. Every. Where.

On my hoodie. On my shirt underneath my hoodie. On my jeans. On the nursing pillow. Dripping down onto the couch under me. And ALL over poor little Jack.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and gathered my faculties. I carefully put the pillow on the floor, poop side up, and raced to the bathroom. I layed some cloths under his poopy back, and strapped him onto the change table (with straps that I had just installed days ago - it's almost like I knew it was coming). I promptly went to change my own clothes, so as not to transfer more poop onto Jack, and went back to deal with the mess.

(I just need to insert here how insanely difficult it is to clean up a poopy child without contaminating any of the clean stuff. You have no idea how many times I have spread the feces onto the clean diaper, the clean clothes, the clean kid, the clean mom, the clean floor even. Yikes.)

The clean-up process was pretty uneventful. Then, I went to go lay Jack in the living room while I ran downstairs to get him new pants (his shirt had remained miraculously doody-free), and as I walked past our open front door, just about had a feces incident of my own when I saw a man standing there. Just my brother. We're okay.

He had stopped by to drop something off, and stayed at the doorway for a bit to visit. I got Jack, and he held him while we chatted. He said he had to go, and I explained that I had to tend to some poop clean-up. He paused, and said, "Yeah, I think he still has some on his foot." Sure enough, his little foot was yellow-tinged. I cleaned up his foot, and by this time, Sam had gotten up from his nap. I got Jack's pants on, and then went to tend to the poopy pillow cover.

After (I thought) it had all been cleaned up, I went back and sat on the couch with Sam to watch a movie for a few minutes before supper. I looked over at him, and WHAT?! He had Jack's poop ALL over the side of his foot. Oh dear. He must've rubbed up against the dirty pillow while I was getting Jack dressed. I got up to de-poop yet another of my offspring, and checked the couch for any poop that Sam might have spread. We were good. Except for the smear on the couch from before, that I hadn't cleaned up with all the distraction. Yup. Had poop all over my second pair of pants.

There are days like this when there is just TOO MUCH POOP, too many places.

It's a good thing those kids are darn cute.

Discipline

The last little while we have been entering into a new stage of parenting: DISCIPLINE. It's been on my mind a ton lately.

Kris and I hadn't talked too much about the direction we wanted to take in the area prior to having children, or even prior to Sam reaching the age where discipline was required. I think we sort of just assumed that we would just know what to do.

But, about a year ago, we entered this stage, and after some talks about our goals and visions for our family, we realized that we wanted to do anything BUT what we knew. We came to realize that what we knew about discipline is not the kind of parenting we want to do. That a lot of parenting "ideals" that are prominent in our society are not the kind of tactics we really want to use.

I'm really starting to see what unhealthy views we have when it comes to our children. We think that adults are more important than kids. (This may never be spoken, but our actions certainly communicate as such.) Adults should always be "in control". We need to "stop that behaviour" when our kids make mistakes and act in ways that we don't like. We believe that kids should "act their ages", which usually means that we want them to act older than they really are.

We have been trying to break some of these habits, and to try and form a new way of thinking in our family.

While poking around the library looking for a parenting book recommended by a good friend, whose parenting style we admire and respect a great deal, I stumbled across another great book. I have been totally blown away already, and I am only into it a few chapters.

The author says the first and biggest behaviour problem we have to deal with as parents is... (wait for it...):

OUR OWN.

Children react in the ways that they are modelled. If I deal with Sam with anger, stress, and frustration (which is my choice, and my responsibility to control - not Sam's), he will react to me with anger, stress and frustration. What you put in is what you get out. (Which is a shocking concept, when you think about how some discipline can involve yelling, angry words, and hitting/spanking - yikes.) But if I treat him with love, compassion, and understanding, then I will breed those very things in him. It doesn't mean that he doesn't have boundaries and rules, and consequences when he oversteps them, but that he is treated the way that I would want to be treated when I need correction. And hopefully those qualities eventually spill over into how he treats others as he gets older. The author also says that looking at the qualities in your child that you would like to change is a great indicator for the areas in which we ourselves need to change. Here's a great quote, that I love and hate all at the same time:

"Virtually every so-called 'strong-willed child' has at least one stubborn parent who insists on dominating the child and perpetuating power-struggles. Ask yourself, 'Am I this parent?'"

Oh crap. It's so hard to see areas in which we need to change. But that's my favourite thing about this book. It's focus is not to see "what's wrong" with your child, but to draw attention to our issues as parents that create discipline problems.

It may sound like a huge statement, but I really believe this stuff is life-changing for our entire family. And it's already making a difference.

The other night, Sam was having a tough time, and starting having a huge temper tantrum. We tried to give him a time out, which just perpetuated the issue (mostly because we were contributing more anger and frustration into the situation). So, we told Sam that it was okay to be angry, but that he needed to take some space in his room until he was calm again (thanks, Claire!). Only a few minutes later, he emerged his regular, happy little self. And we realized that perhaps "outbursts" like that don't need to be disciplined so much as directed. To teach Sam skills that he can use to deal with those feelings, instead of just focussing on "stopping it", because we need to show him that "he can't act like that!"

I don't say any of this to make it look like Kris and I have it all together, or that we've got it all figured out. We're normal parents who make lots of mistakes. But we're just trying to take a new direction, and to question some of the ideas that we've always just believed about how we should deal with our children. To figure out what's right and what works for our little family. We're on a huge journey with this parenting thing!

I'm so thankful there is grace in this process. And I'm thankful for the fact that if I love and worry about how my kids are treated, how much more does my Heavenly Father love and worry about me?