Letting Go and Watching Growth

Spring has finally come this week,

Without any help from me.

Flowers are blooming

pushing through dead leaves and untilled soil

Even more surprising,

all sorts of breakthroughs are happening

in my adult kid’s lives

simply because I let go of control

prayed, trusted in God and

allowed natural growth and development to progress

without my meddling

…too much! Let’s say I facilitated, then stepped back.

Celebrating Individuality Not Conformity

Grace was a unique child with amazing concentration. While four-year-old little boys were struggling to print or draw, my second youngest daughter would cover sheets of paper with tiny intricate drawings at 18 months old. Once she drew at least fifty tiny “eyes” while she stood on a chair and leaned over a piece of paper, for half an hour. We bought her a chalkboard for Christmas, just before she turned two. Grace was so oblivious to everything but her art that she kept drawing her little designs off the chalkboard in a line on the wall and kept going around the corner. We laughed so hard at that example of her quiet passion.

How did this toddler fall asleep?

Why by cutting tiny triangles out of magazines until she passed out, child proof plastic scissors still in her hand. I’d gently remove the scissors and cover her with a baby quilt. Once a week I’d sweep up a whole overflowing dustpan of tiny triangles! When I called Grace to help around the house when she was a little older, she’d be so absorbed in a craft or art work that she would not even hear me.

When Grace was a newborn, her hair was thick, black and stood straight up on end. Her eyes were huge and very dark brown. Actually, Grace was comical looking because her eyes literally popped out in a constant look of surprise. Those eyes seemed to study everyone and everything. Her hair became brown with gorgeous blond highlights that looked like she had streaked her hair but she still has those big, brown eyes that study everything. One day at a store, she caught a glimpse of a girl and thought,

“Wow, does she ever have huge eyes!”

A second later, Gracie realized that she was looking at her own reflection.

My daughter really marched to her own tune as a child. I am grateful that our lack of extra cash gave her the freedom and opportunity to discover and develop her talents on her own. We did not force her to join team sports or go to brownies; we let her enjoy what she loved to do, read and draw. As a result , she is a philosophy/religious studies major and a gifted artist who still wears a tiny smile of contentment as she draws and paints.

Baby Talk

Now, I could usually tell what my babies need by their bodily movements, facial expressions and by theintensityy, sharpness, or lower tones of their cries. However, even though I had nine kids and I consider myself to be a baby whisperer, I just learned from my daughters  there are four different cries a new-born makes. A cry starting with

• Neh  means I’m hungry.

• Owh says I’m sleepy

• Heh  expresses I’m experiencing discomfort

• Eairh  or in other words,  I have lower gas

• Eh  in English translates as- I need to be burped

All I can say is wow, little people are intelligent.

Society must teach all mothers how to become Baby Whisperers. Sometimes I think that horse whisperers learn more skills than new mothers. Don’t you think that Maternity Wards should at least hand out pamphlets with some of these survival tips on them?

Hanging By My Fingernails

When my family was still young and I had only seven children from twelve-years old down to a newborn, I earnestly strove to raise the best children I could. Yet all my effort was actually hindering their development because my anxiety and control acted like a barrier, a prison around my them. I was in fact preventing my children’s inner, natural development into well-balanced, creative people.

I did not take subtle hints, so a powerful inner image rose up from my subconscious which symbolized what I was actually doing by refusing to let go of control.

First I saw an ocean and a tiny black dot in the water. Slowly the image grew larger till I was face to face with a huge octopus.
The scene switched and now 7 tentacles wrapped around each of my children with my husband in the eighth. All of them were grey, limp almost lifeless.

I suddenly realized that I was in fact the octopus; I was in fact squeezing the life out of my family.

In this inner vision, a sword appeared in a blaze of light and severed each tentacle one by one. The severed tentacle shrivelled and fell off each child. As soon as each one was set free, they began dancing and laughing in the sunshine. Soon all seven were joyfully playing.

The eigth tentacle was wrapped tightly around my husband. The kids stopped playing and kneeled on the ground, weeping, desperately pulling and tugging the tentacle but to no avail. Suddenly,in a flash of light, the sword of truth cut through the tentacle, my husband was released and came back to life.

Yet even after this appalling self revelation, I still could not let go of control.

It was as if I stood on the hub of a wagon wheel with my large family balanced on the rim. I crouched on the hub, frantically turning this way and that, grabbing all the broken spokes, desperate to hold the crumbling structure together.

I realized that I had to let go of this futile sense of responsibility and control but I was afraid to stop, afraid that one moment of inattention would cause my entire family to tumble down into the abyss.

I was trapped.

Yet, I realized that once again, my tension, my control acted like a wall, shutting out all life. My sincere concern and earnest self-sacrifice actually magnified everyone’s brokenness by freezing everyone and everything.It took years but I finally surrendered control. Much to my chagrin,the broken spokes of our family were instantly repaired. The kids and my husband started smiling because a huge burden of tension dissipated as if it had never been there in the first place.

Sometimes we just need to “let go” of the things that we worry about (i.e. our children, loved-ones, or family members). When we are able to do that, we (and the people we care about) can then truly experience the freedom of living! Years ago someone told me that,

“The worst sin against another human being besides hate and murder is trying to control and manipulate them because you are stealing their real identity, molding them into a false image.”

Ingenuity And Creativity Are Birthed In Boredom

Relax, bored kids never stay bored for long

Children thrive when they are given ample unscheduled play time. Free time to explore, use their imaginations to amuse

themselves and even time to be bored because boredom is the birth place of creativity and ingenuity.

Surrounded by babies and toddlers, I was not always free to run outside to solve every obstacle my kids faced as they played. At first, I scrambled to help my kids with every problem with a newborn in my arms and perhaps a toddler wrapped around one of my legs. Finally,  I realized that the best way to mother my kids was to stay peaceful, rather than frantically running around attempting to meet everyone's needs at the same time. That meant older kids had to wait for me or try to figure out snags by themselves. Loud shrieks for mum gradually grew less frequent because while waiting for help, my kids often solved their own problems. Impatience is a wonderful motivator.

Six year old Daniel is a prime example. His grade 1 teacher recounted this story to me. It seems that she asked her grade one class this question,
"How would you open the garage door if there were no grown-ups around?"

Everybody just stared blankly at her, except for my six-year-old son. He waved his hand in the air and then excitedly blurted out,
"You just stand on a milk crate, push on the upper left-hand corner of the garage door with a hockey stick and push hard. The door comes up a bit, you jump off the crate and crawl in!!"

Then, Daniel beamed proudly.

You don't have to solve every logistic problem for your kids or give them all the best equipment and toys. Alison was about ten and at our extended family's cottage with a cousin. Every game my daughter suggested, her cousin would point out that they lacked some piece of equipment. After a moment to think, Alison would brightly say,

"Well, we could always use this instead!"

Her aunt and uncle laughed and remarked,

"I wonder whose daughter she is?"

 

Ingenuity and creativity do not spring into motion if parents give everything to their kids even before they know to ask. We could not buy expensive toys for our kids but we did make sure we always had paper, crayons, glue, paint and other craft supplies in the house. I loved watching card board boxes magically transform into cars or doll houses, especially when little people asked older siblings for help them. Then everyone became excited and involved in the project.

Today my adult children are self-starters, self-motivated and they are all creative at work, school and at home. Boredom has its place.

Raising Children is Not a Default Chore

 Raising children is not a default chore for women who were unsuccessful in the world of power and wealth

I am about to tell you something which goes against what your education has taught you to think and do. Since preschool, adults have pushed you to excel, to rise above your peers. My generation has groomed you for success, to get into the best universities and snatch the most prized careers. Well, it is nice to have confidence, to fulfil your dreams and have a sense of satisfaction in your chosen field of work but that will not make you happy.

Just take a look at the generation that has gone before you. The midlife crisis is a testament to the failure of a life focused on career advancement to the exclusion of family. Men and women bemoan the fact that they did not have time for nurturing and loving their spouse or children. All too often family life crumbles to ashes, sacrificed on the altar of success.As for childcare, society relegates it to women who are often treated as second class citizens.

I want to yell out as loudly as I can, “raising children is definitely not a default chore for women who were not successful in the world of business, power and wealth.” Who raises our children is important because exactly how you, the next generation, raise your children will directly influence the kind of society they in turn create.

Do you want to live in a world focused only on the ruthless accumulation of wealth? Will you consciously create a race of humans who are shallow, cold and cynical about relationships, family and love?  Do you want children who are more comfortable texting, you, their parents, than speaking with you face to face in a warm, loving way?

Family is crucial; it is the foundation of society. Now I see my own adult children beginning their young families and it touches my heart to know how much they value family as well.  Just after his daughter’s birth, my son turned to his dad and said,

”Dad, this is the best thing that I have ever done in my life.”

And, a year later, as his little daughter lay sleeping on his chest, my son said, ”Now I know why you and Dad had so many kids.”

The Great Disconnect

Children — especially babies — are  little and vulnerable, vulnerable to the large, often clueless adults who care for them. Put yourself in a baby’s situation. Preverbal for years, it must be frustrating to be tired or in pain, only to have a bottle thrust into your mouth or have a tense, upset mother try to nurse you when your stomach is bloated with burps.

Jie-Wei Zhou

This disconnect does not end once children can communicate. Nope, our adult reasoning simply does not always compute in little brains. Why, I have been told that human beings do not get their adult brain till they are 25 years old! Apparently, the frontal lobe that makes sane, rational decisions is not fully developed till the mid-twenties.

That means for almost a quarter of a century, humans need a special kind of love and nurturing that will not only meet them and connect with them right where they are, but guide them gently without controlling them and stunting their own growth intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.

The best mothers are willing to learn from their offspring, from books, from experience and from others. Good mothers need a wonderful sense of humour to laugh at their own blunders, to laugh at their kid’s blunders. Openness to trying new tactics helps, as does creativity, but most of all they need to be intuitive, listening to their little ones’ body language and tone of voice and their own gut feelings and instincts.

Our society really does not spend time preparing hapless adults to parent.

Babies are Tyrants

Gabrielle Zevin has written a hilarious description of babies in her delightful novel, The Storied Life of A.J.

Fikery. A.J. An unrepentant curmudgeon, is literally saved after he adopts a toddler left abandoned in his bookstore.

His first description of babies is unusual but comically apt. Baby Maya is a “terrorist” who makes insane demands and she is completely self-centered making her a terrible conversationalist. She is worse than an untrained puppy. Even more objectionable, she has terrible taste in literature, insisting that he read the same board book over and over. Although he complains loudly, A.J. is hooked by Maya’s first smile and declaration of love. His description seems outrageous but every parent will smile and secretly admit that every word is true.

Babies are loveable tyrants.

We used to joke and tell our infants, ” It is good that you are cute!” because they usurped every other activity, demanding and needing immediate attention. They  do save us from our own narcissism, though, forcing us to grow up and mature.

From the moment a baby locks eyes with a parent and grips their finger, they forge a bond of steel that unleashes a tidal wave of protective love that surprises a new parent. These preverbal little people express their needs with heart-rending screeches of pain, hunger and frustration that can unnerve the most independent adult, forcing us to dig deep to discover hidden resources of strength and patience that we did not even know existed. When those resources have depleted, they nudge us to reach out to others and to God for help. I know my babies saved me from myself, just like Maya saved A.J. Fikery.

Mutual RespectL Listen to the Children:

“Mum, mum! Come see what I made!”

“Can you read me a book?”

“I tried and tried but it just won’t stay together.”

“Mum, can we talk?”

“Would you help me edit this essay? It’s due tomorrow.”

“Let’s do something together.”

No matter what our occupation, we tend to think that our work, our agenda is important. It is almost in our nature to let ambition and drive push other people to the fringes of our awareness while we toil in an isolated bubble of self-importance. There are many methods that can shake us out of this selfish obsession but for me as a mother, it was my children.

Of course sometimes children need to learn patience, learn to wait but I discovered that usually their needs were immediate. Even if a problem seemed minor to me, it was monumental to one of my little people. A block tower which took 30 minutes to build and 30 seconds for a toddler to destroy was equal to an adult’s business deal that took 3 weeks to set up and a day to fall apart.

Brushing off their concerns was often a temptation.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Don’t over react.”

“Not now. I am busy.”

“Can’t you see that what I am doing is more important?”

To respond to my kids or in the case of any adult, to respond to interruptions to work, requires surrendering to the duty of the moment. To respond to an interruption often means we must put our agenda to the side for a moment and embrace the agenda of another person, especially if it is a mere child.

The biggest stumbling block to truly listening, especially to children, is our self-important business. Henri Nouwen SJ, a Jesuit author and university professor, complained to God about all the undergraduate students who knocked on his office door, interrupting his important writing. God’s answer?

“I just gave you that book to write to keep you busy in between appointments;

your real work is all these interruptions.”

Polka-Dots Tops with Checked Pants?

Until I grew more confidant, I was often embarrassed by polka-dotted tops and checked pants as my kids ran for the school bus and was tempted to phone the kindergarten teacher , declaring that my children’s independence was more important to me than dressing a fashion plate. Basically I wanted to yell, ” I did not pick out her clothes today!”

Tiny, adorable, clever and independent Claire was  strong-willed, high maintenance and high-strung. My fifth child was a beautiful little package of contradictions who gave me strife and hilarious joy, sometimes at the very same time. Most arguments were about clothes. Although her fashion sense has developed into a wonderful gift now that she is in her mid twenties, at three and four-years old this “gift” was a p

ain.

Claire changed her clothes often throughout the day, from the age of two. Watching one of the few videos of our family, one of my older daughters pointed at the screen and laughed,

“Look at Claire. That is the third time she has changed clothes during this video!”

Sure enough, the pip squeak had another outfit on.

Claire was always aware of what she was wearing as well as those around her, which often led to disagreements about what she could and could not wear.

Although she was a mature, articulate, fashion conscious three-year old, I was still concerned that Claire was too young to start four-year old kindergarten. When she stomped into the house after the first morning, ranting about a little girl who had worn a “jean skirt with a matching jean jacket”, I realized that it was the school which was not quite ready for Claire!

10 Tips For Survial For Parents

My Philosophy : Advice from a relatively sane, joyful mother of nine children.

1.Focus on the joy of parenting, not on the activities you are giving up to raise a family.

2.Treat little children like people, albeit little people, with respect for their feelings, likes, dislikes and personalities.Listen to your children, even as babies. Read their expressions and body language. In fact become a baby whisper by learning from your baby because they are not idiots, cute dolls or appendages of you but brilliant, although as yet nonverbal individuals.

3. Accidents and mishaps are simply part of every day life when you live with kids, so plan on all your plans falling apart.

4. Praise works; berating usually backfires. Give good behavior lots of attention and simply ignore most ‘bad behavior’.

5. No need to run around like crazy people, putting our children in every single program. Free time, even boring, down time allows imagination and creativity to surface .Give them cardboard boxes, crayons, paint and paper, not expensive toys. Most of all, read to them. Read to babies, toddlers, kids and even read to your teens. You will be giving them a gift that will last the rest of their lives.

6. Cultivate flexibility and acrobatic skills by learning to operate in two gears. Slow and simple for anything to do with kids. Let your little ones set the pace. Stop and look at bugs and pretty weeds when you go for a walk. Never rush a kid; fast and furious only works when you are alone.

7. Root your children in your unconditional love and in the love of God. Enjoy their unique personalities and help them discover their innate gifts and talents.

8..Let children learn to do things on their own, like dressing or feeding themselves even if they look a little odd with a polka top and checked pants.Their pride will shine brighter than your need to look like a perfect parent with well dressed children.

9. Put your kids needs first and never let then get hungry and never let them get over tired.When I ignored my children’s limit of endurance, I created either a clingy shadow or a screaming monster.

10. Laugh. Laugh at yourself. Laugh at your kids. Laugh at the mess and mistakes and enjoy this short and  precious time.

What Makes a “Good” Parent?

What makes a good parent? In one word? Humility. In two words? A sense of humour and humility.

Lately, I have spent more time with my five grandchildren, all age 2 and under. I am struck with the fact that most adults are not natural baby whisperers and that our society really does not spend time preparing hapless adults to parent.

Children, especially babies are well…little , little and vulnerable, vulnerable to the large, often clueless adults, who care for them. Put yourself in a baby’s situation. Preverbal for years it must be frustrating to be tired or in pain, only to have a bottle thrust into your mouth or have a tense, upset mother try to nurse you when your stomach is bloated with burps.

This disconnect does not end once children can communicate. Nope, our adult reasoning simply does not always compute in little brains. Why, I have been told that human beings do not get their adult brain till they are 25 years old! Apparently, the frontal lobe that makes sane, rational decisions is not fully developed till the mid-twenties.

That means for almost a quarter of a century, humans need a special kind of love and nurturing that will not only meet them and connect with them right where they are but guide them gently without controlling them and stunting their own growth intellectually, emotionally and spiritually,

That means that the best parents are willing to learn, from their offspring, from books, from experience and from others. Good parents need a wonderful sense of humour to laugh at their own blunders, to laugh at their kid’s blunders. Openness to try new tactics helps as does creativity but most of all ( well, after humility) they need to be intuitive, listening to their little ones’ body language and tone of voice and their own gut feelings and instincts. If you are spiritual, listen to the voice of God within because those kids are His and He knew them before they were born. He knows how they tick better than you or I.

Tender Tidings Spring 2014 AVAILABLE! Free!

I wrote an article on gardening with kids in this issue. It is posted on CAPC

At last, the spring issue of our FREE parenting magazine, Tender Tidings, is available for viewing!  Our special topic is Education Options.

This is honestly the best issue yet.  You’ll find tons of ideas for living a joyful, radiant life with your family.  Definitely check out Marcia’s article on doing the Stations of the Cross with kids!

A few changes in this issue:

• The special topic is limited to just one section.
• New columns:  Kim will write a regular column on one of the Building Blocks; Marcia has a new column on ways to bring the faith to our children in fun, hands-on ways.

Click on the Flipbook to view on Catholic Attachment Parenting Corner

PDF is also available from Flipbook mode.

The Joy Of Gardening With Little People…And A Goat

It is cold outside,-21C with more snow on the way but this story on gardening was due for Catholic Attachment Parenting Corner and I NEEDED to post a feel good gardening story!

Ah, Spring time. For me springtime means gardening, gardening with little people.

The joy of gardening with children can be experienced in pots on a balcony, in a garden the size of a sandbox, in a community patch in the inner city or in a country garden. Often farmers will rent space to city dwellers to garden. No matter how large or small, children will be just as delighted with the joy of raising their own food and tasting delicious fresh vegetables. Gardening is pretty basic. Stick the seed in the dirt, keep the seed moist till it is rooted ,regularly water the growing plant in the sunshine, weed it and sit back to watch nature take over.

Daisy our Goat helps weed

Since we have lived for 34 years in the country, our vegetable rows  were 75 feet long. The sheer volume of produce we grew was our insurance that the raccoons, groundhogs, rabbits, deer, mice and bears would not eat it all. We also grew enough vegetables to barter with neighbouring farmers, sold some on the road side or simply gave our surplus to our generous family and friends.

 The garden was always the children’s domain as well as mine because I wanted them in the garden, connecting with the earth.Although our gardens were lush and colourful, they were hardly gorgeous show pieces. The toughest  perennial flowers were the only ones that survived at our house, ones that could withstand being yanked, stood on and sat on.I am an avid gardener but as I had more and more children, I soon realized that if I wanted the kids to enjoy gardening, I had to relax and let the kids help without stealing all their joy away by controlling every little step of the process. That meant crooked rows, unevenly spaced plants, seeds that were planted too deep or too shallow.Children love to dig in the warm earth, especially toddlers who will dig holes everywhere with a small plastic shovel. One year the dog even joined in, shoving us aside with his front digging wildly and dirt spraying everywhere he actually did save us work.Sometimes Daisy, our goat, was allowed to help weed, much to her delight.

When children take part in planting seeds, watering growing plants and picking fruit and vegetables, they became attuned to the rhythms of nature. They will marvel at the power packed in a tiny seed because after planting one bean seed, they soon ate handfuls of green beans  they picked themselves. Let your kids pick and eat beans, snow peas, raspberries, strawberries and carrots straight from the garden as snacks. Actually eating what you have grown is fun. Now, after a lifetime of eating garden ripe tomatoes, corn picked as the water in a pot comes to a boil and huge plates of fresh green beans with butter and salt and pepper, store-bought garden produce tastes bland to our university kids when they live in dorms.

Let your kids make games out of their jobs, stage competitions when they pick potato bugs, let them have water play after they help water the garden and help make rhubarb jam or freeze strawberries, currants and raspberries. Gardening won’t just be a hobby; it can be a large part of their childhood.

For example, I usually recruited the older children to pull vegetables for dinner every afternoon.

Of course the toddlers and preschoolers always jumped at the opportunity to tag along. It was an adventure to walk through our jungle of a vegetable garden because a tiny person could lose themselves among the tall plants and weeds . This transformed the daily ritual of picking vegetables into an exciting adventure.

One particular day, rain had poured down for days, soaking our heavy clay soil; when everyone trooped out into the garden wearing rain or barn boots , they were soon coated with sticky clumps of clay. As one of my boys struggled to pull out a huge carrot, his boots sank so deeply into the mud that he couldn’t lift his feet.

Everyone began giggling as Matthew struggled to extricate his younger brother. David was finally set free but left a boot behind.

Of course, as he stood on one foot, attempting to free his boot, he fell, landing in the mud. Matt was laughing too hard to help again.

Of course, the next rescuer slipped and landed on their bottom with their feet straight out and their bodies coated in sticky clumps of clay.

It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out what happened next. The result was a bunch of laughing kids, covered from head to toe with mud.

They startled me when they came to the door and even I had to laugh while I shook my head and tried to figure out what to do with all of them. Since it was hot enough, we started the clean-up outside. I peeled off ruined outer clothing, washed feet and legs in a buckets of warm water and then the older kids ran inside, one by one, to shower and  I carried a toddler and two pre-schoolers into the tub to bathe. It took three tubs of bubbly, warm water to cut through all that clay.

I laughed yes but I did add,

” Remember, only one mud bath per year!”

It actually  become a yearly tradition.

Advocating For Large Families

A prompt on a health website asked,

“Are you an advocate for any cause?”

I sputtered to my self,

 “I am not an advocate for anything or anybody!”

Immediately after that statement, a new idea popped into my mind,

“Hey, wait a minute. I stand up for large families in modern society!”

In my experience as a mother of nine children, I have met more condemnation than acceptance and more questions that understanding. Perhaps it is because I do not look like the mother of a large family. I am tiny, look younger than my age and all my life people have labelled me as cute. So people’s first reaction to me is shock. Confusion follows because I am happy. Now a joyful, cute, tiny mother of nine simply baffles people. I shatter all their preconceived notions. The typical image of a multi-para woman would be a large, matronly, robust, grim, battle-axe of a mother, efficiently marshaling her young charges with little time to coddle or love the poor deprived dears.

Parents with two children cannot fathom how a mother of a large family manages to cope with all the work necessary to keep up a home as well as have enough time to love each child. However, more children are easier than less. In a large family, a seven-year old will repeatedly read the same book to a toddler who loves one particular book. A ten-year old feels important when he can help his six-year old brother who struggles with reading. A young teenager delights in rocking a tiny, dependant infant to sleep.

For me, family started with three because then community started. A community works and plays together and for little children work is as fun as play. I included everyone in ordinary household chores and made chores fun. A trained Montessorian once declared that I ran my home like a Montessori school. What a wonderful confirmation that was for me. My kids were not deprived because I usually could not sit and play with them in the traditional sense. Instead they received an expensive, educational experience simply because I integrated them into the running of our home.

It was never too soon to give one of my toddlers a job such as picking up the toys his younger sibling drops from the high chair.The secret was to delegate, each according to his or her talents, but never to order them around like they were in the army. They chopped wood, helped fix the car, weeded the garden and took care of the animals. If teenagers are still treated like kids or overindulged, they don’t have a purpose and become really angry. When parents appreciate their kids contributions, their confidence blossoms and matures.

Employers love my kids because they know how to work and do not take anything for granted. Many have said,

“I will give anybody with the last name Juneau a job.”

Large families strengthen the basic foundations of our society. They live lives of greater interconnectedness. If you don’t have a lot of money, you’re not an island unto yourself. You learn how to share and barter both skills and things with others. My children who go to college or university, adapt well to communal life in a dorm or a shared house. Just imagine, they already know how to share a bathroom with a lot of other people. They know how to get along with opposite personalities, how to give and take. For starters, they know how to cook and clean up after themselves.

Healthy, large families benefit society. So open your mind and heart the next time you see or hear of one. The condemnation is really hard to handle and totally unjust in a society that loves to call itself open-minded and tolerant.