Deliberate Motherhood

I'll be the first to admit that I haven't always had a motherhood "plan."  Sure, I have had a notion that I would strongly prefer that the girls weren't serial killers or drug addicts or jerks, but things got sketchy after that.  I'm being a little facetious...We've tried to teach the girls to have nice manners, to do good in school, and to believe in Jesus.  We're good people with a belief system that we are trying to pass onto our kids, but I haven't had more than a very general agenda.

Since our return from the Philippines, I've been increasingly uncomfortable with how competitive motherhood has become.  I've been party to conversations (I'm struggling with how to describe them) that are basically "How My Child Became Excellent In Every Single Way Thanks To My Overbearing Parenting."  I have felt uncomfortable wondering if I'm an inferior mother because I don't agree that packing a child's schedule full of flashcards and lessons helps them become happy people and good citizens.  I don't agree that self-esteem is more important than honest feedback.  I don't agree that I should have to do homework for my child so they can "compete."  I don't agree that a child needs to be reading before kindergarten.  I don't agree with a lot of things that seem to be embedded in the psyche of motherhood right now.

Let me say, also, I think that this post is only about ME and MY KIDS.  I think that there isn't any way to be a perfect mother and there's lots of ways to be a good mother.  Probably for some kids, they love the activity, they need a little boost, they read on their own, they need help with homework.  I think every mother in the world has to dig deep and figure it out on their own and I'm not judging anyone for their choices, because we are all doing the best we can here and every kid and every mother is different.  What I'm talking about, though, is a conscientious choice to diverge from the popular path, because it didn't feel right for me, and it sure as hell didn't feel right for my girls. 

I've decided that this year is the year of "Deliberate Motherhood."  I'm identifying character traits that I want to develop in my two dear ones, and I'm making plans to help them develop those qualities.  Thanks to recommendations from teachers and friends, I've had read some great books over the last couple of months.


Here's My Reading List:

Idea Books:
How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character, by Paul Tough

Nurtureshock, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

Action Books:
Raising Lifelong Learners: A Parent's Guide, by Lucy Calkins

The Parenting Breakthrough: Real-Life Plan to Work, Save Money, and Be Truly Independent, by Merilee Boyack

Still on the nightstand but not for long:
Einstein Never Used Flashcards: How Our Children Really Learn--and Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less, by Golinkoff, Hirsh-Pasek, and Eyer

The Entitlement Trap: How to Rescue Your Child with a New Family System of Choosing, Earning, and Ownership, by Richard and Linda Eyre

The first two ("Idea Books") were great for helping me identify what principles I wanted to put to work and why they were important.  Honestly, they took the feelings I had in my heart already and gave me the science to back it up.  Here's a few of my favorite quotes so you can have a little taste:

From Nurture Shock:
"I had a mother say, 'You are destroying my child's self-esteem' because I'd given her son a C.  I told her, 'Your child is capable of better work.'  I'm not there to make them FEEL better.  I'm there to make them DO better.  While we might imagine that overpraised kids grow up to be unmotivated softies, the researchers are reporting the opposite consequence.  (Researchers) have found that frequently-praised children get more competitive and more interested in tearing others down.  Image-maintenance becomes their primary concern."

"...the type of parents who are actually most consistent in enforcing rules are the same parents who are most warm and have the most conversations with their kids...They've set a few rules over certain key spheres of influence, and they've explained why the rules are there.  They expect the child to obey them.  Over life's other sphere's, they supported the child's autonomy, allowing her freedom to make her own decisions."

"Sure, he's special.  But research suggests if you tell him that, you'll ruin him."

"If you picked 100 kindergartners as the 'gifted,' ie the smartest, by third grade only 27 of them would still deserve that categorization...Most schools don't realize how poorly the tests predict a child's academics."

From "How Children Succeed:"
"Parents and other caregivers who are able to form close, nurturing relationships with their children can foster resilience in them that protects them...The effect of good parenting is not just emotional or psychological, the neuroscientists say; it is biochemical."

"The students who persisted in college were not necessarily the ones who had excelled academically...Instead they seemed to be the one who possessed certain other gifts, skills like optimism and resilience and social agility.  They were the students who were ale to recover from bad grades and resolve to do better next time; who could bounce back from unhappy breakups or fights with their parents; who could persuade professors to give them extra help after class; who could resist the urge to go out to the movies and instead stay home and study."

"This push on tests is missing out on some serious parts of what it means to be a successful human."

"Character is at least as important as intellect."

"(He) identified a set of strengths that were, according to his research, especially likely to predict life satisfaction and high achievement...the final list included: Grit, Self Control, Zest, Social Intelligence, Gratitude, Optimism, and Curiosity."

"It is a central paradox of contemporary parenting, in fact: we have an acute, almost biological impulse to provide for our children, to give them everything they want and need, to protect them from dangers and discomforts both large and small.  And yet we know- on some level at least- that what kids need more than anything is a little hardship: some challenge, some deprivation they can overcome, even if just to prove to themselves that they can."

"The best way for a young person to build character is for him to attempt something where there is a real and serious possibility of failure."

I'm no drill sergeant. We just hang out sometimes and read because we love literature and go to the dino museum because it's fun and not for any other reason than that.  There are lots of hugs and kisses and encouragement in our home.  But I also recognize now that my reticence to baby the girls through homework or make things "easier" for them was based on my real desire to have children who were self-motivated and a little bit tough, for lack of a better word.  Now, I'm no idiot, and I realize that character traits aren't developed in a vacuum.  I love extra-curricular activities!  Kids need places like school, athletics, and music lessons to push themselves and form the qualities we wish them to have.  I just felt like for me personally, the balance is different than what it is for most, and the most important thing to me about their lessons are not whether or not they can do a back handspring or play a perfect scale, it's what they are learning about themselves as they try and fail and try and fail and try and finally succeed.  I'm grateful I took honors classes and piano lessons, but what has been most beneficial to me is not that I skipped a year of college or that I play a lot in church, it's that I learned that I'm no quitter.  The fact that I know how to persist through failure has given me more success in my life than any knowledge of music, math, or literature that I picked up along the way.   I want my two to know that they are more than a grade and more than a trophy.  I want them to know that their mind is a muscle and they can figure things out on their own.  I want them to know that sometimes success in life is simply a matter of not giving in.  I want them to be civil and kind and curious human beings. 

The next two books (Action Books) on the list are good for specific "SAY"s and "DO"s.  They give ideas on how to encourage children to become readin' writin' chore-doers.  Merilee Boyack's book gives a breakdown, by age, of what children are capable of doing and learning to do around the house.  Calkin's book is full of things to say and do to make kids readers, writers, and scientists.  I haven't implemented every single suggestion, but I have found tricks in both that I've put to use immediately with good success. 

The last two I just haven't had time for yet, but based on the two ladies who recommended them, I'm quite certain they will be right up my alley.  I just wanted to share in case they might be interesting to another.

A couple of final thoughts:  I'm good about sharing funny things the girls say or what we do, but I don't often brag them up because...well...it can be tiresome for others.   BUT!  We just had parent-teacher conference, and those two little darlings are Killing. It.  I couldn't be more proud- their teachers were so pleased with their academics and behaviors.  It makes me feel like I've been on the right track all along and gives me the motivation to become even more purposeful in how I mother them. 

Last...I'm saying it again...this isn't a "high horse" position.  I absolutely do not think that this is the only way to be a good mom and that everyone else is "doing it wrong."  I think every mom is equipped with the perfect knowledge to be the specific parent that her children need and there simply can't be one way to do it.  I really don't judge anyone and I don't think I'm that awesome of a mom.  I'm just a person who's making an effort to be more conscientious about what works for my family.  This is just a friendly note for those who maybe feel the same as me...Life is just fine when you've stepped a little off of the beaten track.

A Little Moment of Total Honesty

A blog is a tricky thing...especially a public one.   What should I reveal or conceal?  How personal should I be? How much information is too much?  I don't know, and I'm not pretending to know.  But, I'm about to get A) personal and B) religious.  If that's not for you, I guess you can choose to stop reading now.

I've had the pictures that accompany this post saved in a draft for two months.  It would have been a simple matter to title it "Blessing Day!" and post them all and leave it at that, but my heart has felt that I had something more to say about this particular day.  I've let those feelings stir around until I decided I was ready to say what I really wanted to say.  And the story starts ten whole years ago.

Even as I type it, I can't believe it's been ten years since my parents divorced.  But I'm certain I have it right because I wasn't even pregnant with Kate yet and she is 9 now.  I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I think I can safely say that time was indescribably painful to both my mom and dad and to my siblings.  I grieved past, present, and future- feeling bad that my parents had struggled in the marriage, feeling bad that we are all so sad right then, and feeling terrible that the future seemed so uncertain.  What would happen at the holidays?  What would happen when the babies were born (three of us were pregnant at the very time)?   It was an awful spring and I thank the Lord for sending us four babies that year because I think it was the beginning of healing our family.

When I was immersed in that loss, it seemed almost impossible to imagine that things would ever be right again.  In fact, I couldn't imagine what "right" could be. 

And then in a blink, a decade passed.  Children were born and blessed and baptized.  Christmases, Thanksgivings, and Halloweens were celebrated.  We did things with only my mom and only my dad, and eventually we celebrated certain things with all together.  My mom remarried and we had George's children and their spouses join our crazy crew.  Ever so gradually, I felt what had been torn apart start to knit together again...not like it was, but in a new and wonderful way anyway.

Which brings me to Evie's blessing day.  A amazing girl gave my bonus brother and sister-in-law the chance to be parents, and we were lucky to be with them the day they were sealed as a family and the day she was blessed.  On Evie's blessing day, Emilee bore a beautiful testimony about waiting to have her prayer to be a mother answered, which really got me thinking about my own prayers and wishes.  As I read the Bible last year, I decided that one of my favorite scriptures comes from Job, chapter 5:

18 For he maketh sore, and bindeth up: he ^awoundeth, and his hands make whole.

 

 

I absolutely believe it.  What I felt on that blessing day was the fulfillment of the promise in that scripture: that the pain that I had felt during my parents divorce had not been forgotten or unnoticed by my Heavenly Father.  He knew my wounds and sores, and although it took a long time for things to feel whole again, they do now.  And with hindsight, I can look back at the pain of that time and couple it with the happiness and gratitude for my family I have now and I can say with perfect honesty that I wouldn't have things any other way.

 

If I Had $100

I hope Maggie had as much fun writing this as I did reading it.

Snake Handling and Cake Handling. And Some Heavy Petting.

Our Maggie turned SIX last week.

Once, I thought newborn babies were the cutest.

Later, I thought two year olds were for sure the cutest.

THEN, I thought four year olds were the best things ever made!

Now, I think six (and nine) are my favorite ages ever.

 

Kiki's actual birthday was on a Wednesday, and it was pretty quiet because her "Big Event" was scheduled for Saturday.  We had presents in the morning, treats at school, dinner at Pizza Pie Cafe, then strawberry pie at home.

So, pretty much she was ignored and nothing happened.

 

On a different note, LaBouef insists he is a lap dog.
We still get sad thinking about Powder, but our cuddly little doberman is a helpful way to cope.

Last Saturday was the big day.  Kiki's Grandma Trea and I booked a reptile show named Scales and Tails to come to our house.  Kiki was so excited she could hardly even stand it.

 

We had to order a special cake that was equal to the epic nature of this event.



 

 

"Mama.  It needs to be purple and also it needs to have lizards on it."
I don't like to brag but I think I delivered.

Waiting for the show to start.

 The first thing Mags got to hold was a millipede. 

 

Then she got to hold a pancake tortoise.

 

This is a milk snake.  The kids (and adults) were so fascinated...

 

There were "Oohs!" and "Aahs!" every time he brought out something new.

She's an old hat at snake posing.

 I lost track of how many times she said she was having her best birthday ever.

 

The last snake was this 18 foot python.  All of the kids who wanted got to pet it.

 

Then the kids got to hold a smaller snake.

 

Then grown-ups had a turn.

 

I think she had a great day.

I thought last year (when we took her to Hong Kong Disneyland) would be the ultimate birthday of her life, but her afternoon with Scales and Tails eclipsed that birthday entirely.

 

Next year she gets Little Caesar's and a dollar movie.

 

On a second side note, I took LaBoeuf for a nice long run and he paid me back with THIS:

 

Amber, you know the tragedy that this is to me.
Especially when he did worse to its mate.