parenting journeys

my friend, cheryl, wrote a really nice post on her blog...it felt really familiar. i commented on it and realized that my comment might make a good post since i've not been doing much at the posting helm lately. here is my comment to her post:

"isn't it amazing how quickly things can change...from peaceful to chaos in just seconds? BUT, it's also amazing how much of an impression our general attitude and demeanor have on our children in those situations. they pick up on our peaceful energy as well as the chaotic and follow suit.

and it IS super different to know something, to believe in a way of being and the actual practice part. i've been unschooling for years & years, but only in the last couple have i been able to even begin to let go of my need to control everything and really implement my beliefs in a way that my heart has been trying to make sense of and knows is the right path for us.

i have also been in that position of speaking with an onlooker who thinks we are just so wonderful as a family...and i have to let them know we actually ARE human and that not all moments are so wonderful. but that mostly, if i let them be, yes...they really are or could be. and that always goes back to me and my attitude, my false expectations or ideals vs. my faith in their inherent goodness and wonder.

it's something awesome to navigate these waters of our lives as parents. wonderful and treacherous at the same time. to learn more everyday and be our best selves. i don't know who i would be without the gift of having had children and how it has changed me in ways i never would have thought possible."

we spent the weekend with some fellow unschoolers in columbia for the 3rd time in so many months and as usual, it was a learning experience for me. i always come away with some new insight. it is why i make such an effort now to surround myself as often as possible with other unschoolers. i think that no matter how long i am on this journey i will always feel that i am just beginning. not in a "going in circles" sort of way, but in a "wow, i can do better" way. i've been going to sandra dodd's food chats the last 2 weeks and they have been really helpful. i feel that i get it, always have. but the practice part is an internal struggle that i am getting better and better at dealing with and keeping from being external (i.e. dumping my worries and hesitations and control all over my kids and husband...it's MY thing, not THEIRS!!). in yesterday's chat when i asked for some mantra to keep me from my knee-jerk reactions, sandra shared the insights of diana jenner and it went something like this: if your child died tomorrow, would any of this matter? slammed me up against a wall. and cleared up my vision real well...new glasses-like!! thank you both for that!!

i will never know what is up ahead for me and my family, all i know is that the journey part has been amazing and i can't imagine my life any other way!Share

authentic choice

choice, that's something i think about an awful lot. especially authentic choice. this post has been in my head for so long i may have forgotten most of what i intended to say. but i thought i'd do it anyway. forgive me if i ramble =)

i put up a clothes line this summer. the first time i've had one since 2002, because that was the last time we were in a house. i've used it all summer and have loved it! but about a month ago, it was just yucky for days and so i decided to use the dryer again. this got me thinking about authentic choice. i was actively choosing in that moment to use the dryer. when we had a line before, we did not have a dryer. there was never a choice. well, there was the original choice of not having a dryer, but each time i used the line it was not a choice in that moment. it was just something i did without really thinking about whether or not i had to. this thinking got me remembering the days when we did not have a television. we were never in each moment choosing to not watch tv. we had no authentic choice. other than the original choice (by scotty and i and not the kids) to not have a tv in the house. another example is having a dishwasher. we've always had one except when we lived in the camper. and we always used it on and off. mostly off. but there was always the choice to use it or not. i recently 'discovered' that my dishwasher actually makes a better dish drainer than dishwasher. i don't know why i never saw that before. i often would want to use the dishwasher when there were tons of dishes to do. mostly because i have a tiny dish drainer and having to stack and use a towel drove me nuts. but loading the dishwasher also drove me nuts. it seemed like all the rinsing and getting the dishes just so was more trouble than it was worth. but then the glorified dish drainer idea came to me. i no longer have the desire to use my dishwasher as a dishwasher ever again. i enjoy doing dishes more now than ever. all because i have tons of space to stack clean, wet dishes. it's about the weirdest thing. but my point here is that i still have a choice. if i wanted to, i could use the dishwasher as a dishwasher. any time i want. i can use the dryer. any time i want. we can watch tv. any time we want. that is authentic choice. without having options, it doesn't seem like the choosing to not use these things is authentic. yes, i still believe that there is authentic choice in the original choosing to not even have these things in the first place. but i also feel very strongly that without the choices, each time i put clothes on the line, wash dishes by hand, or read instead of watching tv, is not authentic choosing in that moment.

hey, there IS an off button! this took us a long time to choose after not having a tv for a long time (we got our first tv in 2001 and even then it was just a small 'video player' that had a blue screen unless there was a video playing because it didn't have cable or an antennae...LOL)

my glorified dish drainer!! so conveniently right under my tiny dish drainer.

the lovely bouquet of my clothes line!

i've also been thinking about the idea of 'have to' versus 'choose to' in regards to other things as well. like cleaning the bathroom, making my bed, dusting, sweeping, etc. yep, all related to cleaning!!! LOL! i think about it in regards to artwork as well though. i have been rethinking my 'have tos' a lot. if i feel like i have to do something, i no longer have a choice and i'm less likely to want to do it. if i feel like i can choose to not do something, i feel freer to actually choose to do it. and want to do it.

so this leads me to the big thing i've been working on now for almost a year. the authentic choice of food. you might remember when i first started struggling with this one, here. i have come a long long way since then and i know i have years of letting go to do still. i had a momentary set back this summer when my mom had to have major bi-pass surgery. i started feeling all that work unravel. wanted to go back to the old days of controlling all the food. i felt totally neurotic. i wanted to cry and scream. i didn't know what to do. then several really awesome people reminded me...your kids are not your mom. they are not even scotty. that helped so much. i took the time to breathe and think more clearly. i feel like i am more confident in my relationship with food now. and my body. this letting go was not just for my kids. it was for my own healing. i have started to really cook again (after that year or so of being mostly raw, i had stopped cooking a lot of our favorite things). i made chili yesterday for the first time in forever, it was so good. it was especially good because we got to share it with our friends heather, rowan, and dairbhre, who came over after the homeschooling get together. we ate out on the porch at the picnic table. it was really really good, for the taste buds as well as the soul. right now, in the house, we have cereal and soy milk, something i quit buying years ago. we have crackers. we have some granola bars. and twix and kit kat bars in the freezer. we have sour cream and cheese. yogurt. pasta. bread. beans. yeah, that all sounds pretty normal right?? well, it didn't use to be. so when people think that my letting go of all my food control means just buying more junk food. it doesn't. it goes way beyond just that. it means going back to buying completely normal foods again as well. that just goes to show you how neurotic i had become about what was 'healthy.'

in the last 3-5 years we've been moving closer and closer to authentic living as a family. completing this amazing puzzle as we learned more things and pushed those pieces of knowledge and practice into place. so now we have all sorts of authentic choice in our lives. it feels good to finish the puzzle, to push in that one last piece. is it really the last piece though?? i'm not sure, but it feels complete, feels like the picture looks more done than it ever has. but as i've said before, there is always more to learn, more to figure out. and i'm game!Share

food freedom

i talked with my lovely friend tracy yesterday. she called to find out if we might be able to make it down to charleston for her winter solstice party. sadly, we can't. BUT, we ended up having a really good conversation about one of the big things i've been struggling with for years. and that is letting go of my food control issues. she encouraged me to write about it. so here goes.

as a radical unschooler, i trust that my children will learn what they need, when they need. i also trust them to decide how much tv they watch, how much video games they play, who they choose to play with, and many other things that i would trust myself to do. i have worked towards learning to give them the freedoms i enjoy as "the adult." but there has always been one thing i struggle to trust them with, one thing i can't seem to let go of. and that is freedom to choose what food they want to eat. sure, i ask them what they want to eat, but their choices have always been limited to what i choose to buy. but there are lots of times when i buy junk food as well. i thought i had gotten to a good place where i was exercising moderation. i wasn't being too strict about food. at least that's what i thought.

before we moved, sadie had been playing at her friend's house. they came over and both had the obvious "kool-aid 'stache." i asked if they'd been having kool-aid, and they both very quickly denied it and said it was lipstick. i knew it wasn't but i didn't worry about it. after we moved, sadie told me that they really had been drinking some sort of red drink. she cried and cried because she had lied to me. she said she didn't know why she lied and she was so very upset. i told her she never needed to lie to me, i wasn't mad about it. and that was that.

since moving here i've had to come face to face with all my food control issues. i'm living with my parents and even though my mom is a raw vegan now, there are still a lot of foods in the house that i wouldn't normally buy. and since i have always given my kids a choice of what's available they have been able to choose these things. i did not always say yes though. i found that more and more i was becoming frustrated about food. the weekends that my niece stays over are the worst because my mom buys food she knows she will eat. which is wonderful and considerate. but i have noticed that those weekends are when i go over the edge emotionally and fall apart.

in the last few weeks i have been trying to let go completely, but i hadn't done a very good job. i was still falling into the habit of saying "no, that's not a healthy breakfast" or "no, you need to eat something good for you." i was completely frustrated. so were my kids. so i started reading more about how other unschoolers have handled this. sandra dodd's website helped immensely. especially the section on food issues. it opened my eyes wide. the idea of letting go has been gut-wrenching. i am not being dramatic, i am not exaggerating. the feeling inside was so strong, i almost felt like i couldn't breathe. if i let go, they might become unhealthy, or overweight. i felt like i was going to puke. but as i read, i found things that rang so true i could not ignore them. i found there are other women with the same emotional food issues that i have. and i realized that i could say YES and my kids were going to be okay. they would not end up with all the issues i have about food. but was it too late for them?? were they already caught up in my issues. they refer to foods as "good" and "bad." would i be able to undo that?

after reading several things about food control that i printed from sandra's website, i talked with sadie again about what had happened before. again, she cried. she was still hurting about this. sadie has lived with a lot more of my extreme control times than the boys and she is the one who resists me the most and is the most frustrated about food. interestingly, as a side note, samuel lived about half his life with no television in the house and he is the one who needs to gorge on tv the most. so we talked about her feelings about my food control. she says she mostly wishes we could have more yummy drinks, something besides water. because she knows that we have other sweet treats occasionally but drinks are even more rare, she wants that the most and doesn't seem frustrated about other treats. drinks are her holy grail. she was still very upset about having lied to me. i knew that what we discussed before was not helpful at all for her. my saying it was okay and that i wasn't mad did nothing to start the healing process for her. this time, i talked about the situation that i alone had created that caused her to feel the way she did and to feel like she couldn't trust ME, not the other way around. she had felt like her lying would cause me to not trust HER. that was why she was so upset. plus the fact that she was still feeling deprived and didn't know what to do with those feelings. didn't know how to NOT want those drink treats. she just wanted them. after talking this time, she seemed happy, completely relieved, peaceful.

yesterday was my first big day of saying yes. i cannot describe the way i felt all day. i felt lighter. i felt free. i realized in this one particular moment that by saying yes to them, i could also say yes to myself. i no longer had to deny myself. i could begin to heal too. i did not feel the need to eat all day like i usually do. it was very weird. i tend to eat out of boredom an awful lot. yesterday i just kept feeling okay. just calm and okay. i wanted to go to the store just so i could say yes when the inevitable asking for candy in the check out aisle came. and when i thought about that i was even lighter. i realized that i CAN say yes ALL THE TIME. there is no reason whatsoever to say no all the time. it's not like they are asking for a $40 video game, or a $20 doll. it's a 50 cent piece of candy. or sometimes it's a $2 box of mac n cheese. or a $3 bag of doritoes. why can't i say yes to that?? my reasoning before was that if i said yes once that they would always ask, would always expect a yes. that i would set a precedent. why didn't i see that even when i said no all the time, they were still asking?

my kids were all breastfed on demand. i trusted my tiny little babies to know what they needed, when they needed it. and i gave it to them willingly, joyfully, freely! of course, that was easy because what is healthier than breastmilk, it's easy to say yes to "good" food. but thinking about this has helped me make more sense of this letting go process. i'm reminded of reading about how people mistakenly weaned their kids by saying no more and setting limits on when nursing could take place. the saying no only made the kids ask more. they were increasing their odds of getting a yes. little kids doing probability and statistics, imagine that. they are so smart.

and now i'm going to share something i have never talked about to anyone. not even scotty. it is something i have always felt frustration about towards myself. i have always had a feeling of scarcity about food. especially when it comes to things i crave. like potato chips. when we have them, i want them all. i hate seeing them disappear. i feel like there will not be enough of them to satisfy my wanting them. it is the reason i ALWAYS use a bowl. if i don't, if i sit down with the whole bag, i will eat them all!!! i have always thought that this was because i was greedy and selfish. i feel so embarrassed about it. it causes a lot of anxiety for me because i am so intent on "eating healthy" yet i want all these "bad" foods. when i read the other moms' stories about this very same thing on sandra's site, a well of emotion opened up inside of me and i wanted to just cry and cry. i was not alone. i don't remember a lot of details about my childhood. what i do remember though is that my mom was always struggling with her weight, she was always on some diet or other. nothing seemed to really work for her and it made her unhappy. i think i worry about food because of this. i have a lot of fears about gaining weight although i've never been overweight. i think i transfer those fears to my kids. i want to protect them from all the difficulty that comes from being overweight and unhealthy. scotty started gaining weight when he was about 9 and has never been thin. i see how he struggles with his body image and it just reinforces my need to protect my kids from that. i remember talking to ren about this craving i always have for chips. we weren't even talking about food restrictions, it was just a regular conversation and something or other about what foods people crave came up. and she said to me "i wonder how many bags of chips you'll have to just eat and eat before you feel like you've had enough and feel satisfied and no longer deprived." at the time, i understood what she meant because we had also been talking about how kids need to gorge on tv or video games when they've been controlled/limited. i never really thought she was seriously suggesting i do that. i thought she was making a joke and referencing the other discussion about limitations. i think now that she was serious. i hadn't considered that letting go of food control would help with my own need to gorge. or my kids' for that matter. i hadn't gone there yet.

another thing i'm doing is letting go of my judgements about what my kids choose. letting go of my labels of "good" and "bad" or "healthy" and "not healthy." so i'm on the path to letting go. to healing us all. scotty has been talking about after the holidays getting on a strict diet. i think what i'd like for him to do instead is stop feeling guilty about his food issues and to just let himself have what he wants until he no longer feels deprived. and just see what happens. i don't know if all days will be as easy as yesterday was. i think i will probably have moments of still wanting to control. but i know i'm on the right path.Share