Babies Don’t Keep
by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

Mother, O Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing, make up the bed,
Sew on a button and butter the bread.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I’ve grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue,
Lullabye, rockabye, lullabye loo.
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo

The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
And out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo
Look! Aren’t his eyes the most wonderful hue?
Lullabye, rockaby lullabye loo.

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
But children grow up as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.

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Technorati Tags: attachment parenting, babies don't keep, baby poem, mothering, ruth hamilton

Sometimes I wonder if I’m providing every experience a kid needs. I have friends who take their kids to far off places and always seem to have more money than I for movies every week and trips to Paris or Dublin or even Florida once a year. But I also know that they miss out on everyday experiences because they’re so busy working to pay for the new gadgets, the movies and the trips.

I may not always be happy that I can’t take my kids to go, go, go…but I am happy with my life and the choices I’ve made to be there for my kids all of the time. I wish everyone could feel so lucky!

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Technorati Tags: fun, homeschooling, life choices, summer, unschooling

After the tragic death of her oldest son Henry, it is so nice to see this family get a blessing or two! Please send them your good wishes and visit her blog.

-Mish

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Technorati Tags: henry granju, katie allison granju, mamapundit

Add another mark to the “Mean Mommy” post, because I have thrown our TV into the garage! Yes, my friends – now my children must suffer without cable TV AND a microwave oven! Oh dear Lord someone call social services – how will we survive?`1

I have had a love/hate relationship with the television for quite some time now. When I was a child, it was a love/love relationship. I would have watched all day everyday. I will say, I was addicted to television. I’ve done a lot of research on TV. And I appreciate its benefits, really I do. I believe that there are some very interesting programs out there. As a dedicated unschooler, for the past year and a half I followed the “go ahead and watch what you want when you want philosophy (obviously, with some guidelines for younger viewers). And do you know what I discovered? Not that my children were turning it off and going to play with their Legos or do other things (although often they did), but that usually, they would just watch it. Once, I turned it off and they still sat there and watched it. Waiting.

We turned off the cable TV. We hadn’t had cable TV in many years due to our rural location in Vermont and only watched DVDs and videos there. That was better by far. I still found, though, that even with ample library books, playground equipment – heck, they have a climbing wall in the play room – they still preferred to watch movies ALL OF THE TIME. I would even watch with them sometimes, so used to having the TV on was I. Kiara couldn’t get through a morning without at least 2 episodes of Dora and a Ni Hao Kai Lan. Jack was starting to watch everything Cartoon Network had to offer. Once the cable was gone they found every movie we owned and watched marathons. Unbelievable. This has to end, I thought. While I appreciate that TV can have its place, I also appreciate that it can be a severe addiction.

I watched my children as they watched TV, so mesmerized were they by whatever was on. My daughter would just lay there, on the floor (she used to play while watching) and gaze. The huge TV in our living room was so imposing, so overwhelming to the whole room that it was impossible not to look at it when it. It seemed wholly different than the food issue because when I allow them to choose whatever they want to eat, they generally only have healthy options to choose from. Content did not seem to be the issue. When one Dora the Explorer was watched, that didn’t satiate. Another was needed. And another. The satiation (is that a word?) point was never reached.

I experimented with allowing them to watch whatever (mostly) and discovered that, particularly in my 5 year old, his brain would mold to whatever he was watching. If he watched a mildly violent cartoon, then he played violently. This to me is not using one’s imagination, it’s simply reenacting. The idea, to me, of unschooling, is use one’s own creativity and motivation – not someone else’s.

I understand the “Forbidden Fruit” argument, really I do. I don’t believe in imposing rules, but guiding children through their journey. The journey without TV is a big one for all of us. Having a TV in the living room just made for more rules and conditions. Because there are so many of us, there always had to be time limits and “you can watch that when this is done.” The darn thing was on all day long! Even with just movies, it was always, I want this when so and so is done with that. The whole freaking world seemed to revolve around who was on the TV when. Frankly, I don’t want to battle over it anymore. I think the programming is largely bad; the commercials are worse; and the technology itself is addicting.

Point of fact: The night we ditched the TV, a certain child stopped wetting the bed. Coincidence? I would have thought so except said child remained dry the following four nights without it. Both younger children who could never fall asleep without watching TV, fell asleep, on their own after playing a lot. They weren’t lulled into staying up later and later by the images on the screen. They were tired from playing and they fell asleep when their bodies told them too. So did I! I went to bed at 9pm. Loved it!

I’m also in love with the frugality! I hated paying the cable bill each month. What an awful waste of money.

Last night, we played Scrabble. We also stay up late talking. We have fun and we don’t watch TV. It’s almost as shocking to me as to anyone else. And I’m not that terrible…last night I bought Oreos for everyone!

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Technorati Tags: cable TV, commercials, no TV, TV free

We go to the library. We get real books and documentaries and then we talk about the things in them. We talk about who these people are and how their actions in their day affect the current events we are facing now. I subscribe wholeheartedly to the Sandra Dodd notion of strewing. For example, I subscribe to the newspaper and while it’s not the greenest thing I could do (we do use the newspaper for numerous other projects however), it is a good way for the kids to see national and local events and read about what they are interested in.

One of my sons is 14 and wants to go to college in a few years. I would never force a person to take Algebra, but since he would like to go to school, he accepts that part of his day, every day, needs to be devoted to that practice. We also select – at the high school level – academic subjects that he would like to know more about. He then finds the books and materials on his own to read and work with and we discuss them. Sometimes he’ll write something about it and I’ll help him by editing. Other times he’ll just log the books he read on the subject. Often, the other children get very interested in the subject and we have discussions on the topics or the kids get to see or help with experiments or projects.

There is absolutely no reason why a child needs to sit at a desk all day and be lectured to in order to learn. It just doesn’t need to happen.

I often feel like parents and educators think that “well, it’s what we had to do, so they have to too.” That’s so silly! I was never asked if I’d rather stay home and read all day, practice my piano and ride my bike. Given the choice, I would have. What good does it do to make a child get up everyday at a certain time and sit in a box for hours? Prepare them for a whole life of getting up everyday at a certain time, sitting in a box for hours and then waiting for the weekend when they can get as drunk as possible to forget the rest of the week? I don’t want that kind of life for me or my kids.

I want them to be happy where they are and with what they are doing. I want them to find their passions and hopefully make a living from them.

For the record, my older children including the 12 and 14 year old, have no set bedtime or wake up time and each has various activities they are dedicated to doing. The 18 year old, before he set off on his tour of the country, had a job at McDonald’s. Every morning at 3:30 am he woke up and went to work, despite the fact that he had never had an enforced bed or wake up time.

My 14 year old babysits for some local parents and gets up and is ready to go every morning that he works. I don’t yell at him to get up. I don’t tell him to put on clean clothes and brush his teeth. I don’t tell him to eat breakfast. He does these things because he knows that’s what you do. He sees his father go to work everyday. He has seen me head out to jobs when I used to work outside the house. You don’t need to send a child to school everyday, 6 hours a day for 13 years to make that point. Which is essentially, if you want to get paid, look like a person, show up on time and do your job well.

I think that’s my biggest problem with public school – the laborious tedium. The idea that we are all really stupid and without being told 5,000 times that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, I wouldn’t get it. And really, I appreciate the effort, but knowing that fact hasn’t gotten me very far in life.

And the only thing my anxiety attacks over my Algebra homework ever got me was less sleep as a teenager and the notion that if my kids want to learn Algebra, we’ll have to find them a person who likes it. Fortunately, my oldest son figured it out by himself and has been able to help everyone else!

I don’t know – watch the ABC segment for yourself:

I didn’t find it that offensive. I just found it sad that we have to always put a negative spin on things that are different. I wish Juju Chang had commented on how happy and healthy and smart the Martin children appear to be and how it would be nice if so many parents cared for their children and their well-being as much as Dayna obviously does. But of course, we had to say something negative in the end about how they may never know who Shakespeare is. I don’t know…unless you live in a bubble it’s hard not to know who most people are. If you’ve ever seen the Jay Leno segments where he asks people on the street (who went to public school, I’m sure) basic questions they can’t answer, I’m sure you too will agree that even those conforming box-dwellers can get along just fine without remembering what year Columbus sailed the ocean or what the “New Deal” is!

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Technorati Tags: abc news, attachment parenting, dayna martin, martin family, radical unschooling, unschooling

Click here to find out how to help. Thanks and may you all hug someone you love a little more often from now on, I know I will!

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Technorati Tags: granju family, henry granju, katie allison granju

I buy a lot – and I mean a lot – of fresh fruit, cheese, all-natural granola bars, applesauce, frozen fruit for smoothies, milk, juice, some types of crackers, carrots, and cereal.

And then I do this crazy thing – I let the kids eat it. Pretty much whenever they want and in whatever order. I’ve had kids who have requested peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast, cereal for dinner and all kinds of stuff in between.

Why do I do it? Because I still can’t take more than two cookies out of the cookie jar without feeling like I’m doing something bad. Because I still need to “clean my plate” even at the detriment of my own weight (and I’ve had some issues there) every night at dinner.

I never want my kids to feel like they need to have a “relationship” with food. I want them to be as active as they are, eat good things and then move along with their lives and not obsess about it the way I have throughout my life.

I used to feel like I had to have dessert after dinner, because if I didn’t – I wouldn’t get the opportunity again until the following day. I’ve witnessed my children eat a brownie at 10 am (something I would never have been allowed to do) and then forget about junk food all day long.

When they ask me why I won’t buy those little gummy fruit snacks, I tell them why. “Because they aren’t fruit.” I explain that there are some things I am willing to spend our money on and some things I’m not. I spend our money on real fruit and that’s that. I try not to make a big deal out of it, just explain and move along. It’s our food money and I wish to spend it on real food.

Now, there are some unschoolers who say, buy chips and soda and candy and let them have as much as they want. That’s a very valid point that I am in favor of in some ways – except – that I don’t want to buy it. I refuse to spend our food money on that stuff except for our Rock and Roll Fridays. I just don’t want to encourage the kids to eat it and I don’t want to eat it myself. But, I’ve explained that to the kids and they are good with that. We also don’t go to McDonald’s all of the time. The kids and I might want to stop and get a burger while we’re out, but I do have to, as the “grown-up” in the house, accept the fact that A.) I can’t afford it and B.) It’s gross and I don’t want to.

I appreciate the unschooler philosophy in some of these things, but I also appreciate my budget! So, I don’t control how much they eat of what I bring into the house. Do they have input? Absolutely! They always get to ask for things and we look at them and decide if it’s something we can bring into the house. Watching movies together like Food, Inc. has also helped cultivate our decision-making on food as a family.

I’ve been reading lately about families with lots of kids who put locks on their refrigerator and pantry. For real, I mean John and I might joke about it, but we don’t actually do it! What better way to tell a child that their feelings of thirst or hunger don’t matter? What better way to tell a child that the only time they can eat or drink is when “I” – the universal parent – say so? It’s like putting a newborn on a schedule to eat (oh, wait, I guess some people do that too).

As a society, we are learning more and more to eat when we’re hungry. And then to stop. This is very effective in defeating obesity. By continuing to encourage food schedules in children, we are dooming them to a lifetime of unhealthy eating habits.

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Technorati Tags: food, food budgets, frugal living, homeschool, inc. controlling food, large families, large family budgets, unschool, unschooling

How do I do it? How do I raise, clean up after and homeschool so many kids and still find time during the day to write a bit? Well, some days it’s not easy. Some days, the days when I feel like I need to be in control of every little thing, I do get overwhelmed. But most days, we just live and do our stuff and it all works out.

I would describe ourselves as very unschooling, especially for the younger set. However, unlike a lot of unschooling families I do require that everyone help out a bit. Now, really, I do not have my kids working overtime doing chores. But one is responsible for the kitchen counters after dinner, one does the dishes, one helps clean up toys and other “stuff” that’s been gotten out throughout the day (art supplies, science experiments, baseball gloves), and on the weekends I try and get a little deep cleaning done. Very little. I have found that usually if I’m engaged in something whether it’s dishes or gardening, someone will always come along to help. Even the teenagers. My oldest daughter who is 16 and the only one of the kids who attends a “regular” school, picked up a flat and helped me plant seeds outside one beautiful spring day. When I’m hand digging a new row, one of the boys usually brings the wagon around and puts the sod in it and takes it to the compost pile (Liam usually does this with the lawn tractor!).

I don’t have a set system of rules and a schedule for everyone because I want them to do the things they want to do. “Oh my goodness,” some people will say. “How will they ever learn to get up and go to work on time, if you let them sleep or stay up late?” Well, when a person is motivated on their own to accomplish something, they will get up for it. My oldest recently had a job at McDonald’s. He didn’t like it very much, but he liked the money and it helped him toward his goal of traveling (which he is doing now). He was unschooled through most of high school and the “worst” when it came to sleeping in and staying up late (we used to call him a vampire). But every morning, when his alarm went off at 3:30, he got up, got dressed and rode his bike to work. I didn’t have to teach him how to do that. I didn’t have to train him by making him get up every morning and trudging off to school. He did it because he knew that if he wanted to keep the job, that’s what you did.

My other older sons are 12 and 14 and each has his own thing. Liam, 12, likes to help people by mowing lawns and the like. He has only been to school for two years of his life. He is never late for anything. He didn’t have to learn that by getting up everyday. He learned it because he knows that if you’re late to something it’s rude to the people waiting for you. That’s common sense.

My 14 year old loves Tae Kwon Do. We are never late for that!

It’s crazy to think that you have to train someone everyday for 12 years of their lives to get up every morning.

But what about friends? I hear people say. Don’t they have any friends? First off, we are very fortunate to live in an area full of homeschool groups, so my children have plenty of other kids with which to play. Also, I’ve discovered two things about “socialization.” The first one is: when my kids don’t go to school they’re nicer people. Why? Well, I think the Lord of the Flies mentality at a lot of schools has a lot to do with it. When my kids are on their own they’re not ashamed to ask questions, learn things, try things or be who they are – or want to be.

The second thing is: when you put 30 or 40 or 200 kids together who are all the same age together in one room and tell them to be friends all you get is a pack mentality – not friendship. My kids join different activities – soccer, Tae Kwon Do, game groups, art classes, plays – and lots of other things. They meet people in these groups – of all ages – who are also into these things. People generally find friends in the places where they like to hang out. Friends often have like interests, they’re not friends just because they’re the same age!

So, back to the original question. How do I unschool a large family? Well, we read a lot; garden a lot; bake a lot; talk a lot; go on field trips; go to the store; build stuff; fix stuff; watch movies; play games (both video and board); talk more; ask questions; look things up. We watch stuff about science and history on TV. We play. A lot. We play all kinds of stuff. The older kids play with the younger kids. They play spies and police officers and star ships and they wrap each other up like a mummy. They ride bikes and we go to the playground.

We don’t have a set schedule, but we do have a routine. We wake up about the same time each day and we eat and I work a bit and the kids do math or play. We’ll read and go outside. We’ll eat lunch and go for a walk or to the park. We come home and work on a project. We make dinner.

Or not. Sometimes, our day doesn’t go like that at all. That’s the great thing about living and having choices, you can mix it up. I can work at night and play all day. Sometimes I wake up extra early to get my paying work done so my mom work isn’t interrupted all day.

And it doesn’t matter because everyday is our day.

Oh – and just for those who will ask, because I know they will, my well-read, unschooled kids who like taking tests (I have a couple) do EXTREMELY well on them. They are excellent readers and have liked taking math classes in addition to their musical and artistic talents. And the best thing is – they’ve never felt forced to do it!

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Technorati Tags: big families, homeschooling, how to unschool a large family, large families, large family homeschool, unschool, unschooling

My first birth was pretty normal by today’s “hideous hospital birth” standards. I was 19. I was married and eagerly looking forward to becoming a mother for the first time. My “care” providers were a group of 9 OB/GYNs who I rotated through for each appointment – rarely seeing each one more than once or twice. I had all of the tests and was very healthy and normal – easy when your 19. Of course, the day I went into labor, the one physician I really didn’t like was the one I got. Even though I had attended childbirth classes and had gotten a tour of the new-fangled birthing facilities at the hospital (where they were supposedly so into natural childbirth), I had no idea what to expect. After walking around for a few hours, I was told to lay down and be put on a monitor. I graciously complied. I was flat on my back and starting to get really uncomfortable. I had been pretty committed to a natural birth until this point, but pretty much thought that if it was going to get worse than I was feeling right now (I was starting to writhe around and whine quite a bit) then I would, quite simply, die.

I asked for the drugs. Oops! Too late – I was 10 cm. My writhing around was transition, but no one told me that of course, they were all too busy rushing in and out of the room.

I begged the nurses to let me sit up – my back was in excruciating pain. No, better to lay down they said. No, I’m pretty sure, I said, that I would feel better if I was sitting up. Nope. Lay down. Wanting to be the perfect patient – I complacently agreed, writhed around some more, and then learned how to push an 8lb. baby out complete with awful episiotomy and the woman doctor from hell poking her finger – well places I’d really rather not have people poke their finger.

After his birth I was left in the stirrups – no blanket, no nothing…bleeding and gross – joyous about my screaming baby and shaking and shivering uncontrollably. Not that anyone cared. They couldn’t find the right needle to sew me up. So after not warning me about the whole pushing me in the belly thing. Ick!

Fortunately, I was so in love with my new baby boy (Matthew) that I was able to endure the next two weeks of excruciating pain – having to sit on pillows, hardly able to walk and trying to figure out breastfeeding on my own…because the lactation consultant charged $70 an hour!

Not the best experience…but I knew better now and the birth of #2 was so different that I almost cried from the peacefulness of it all.

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Why wouldn’t you want to hold your baby? Babies smell good. They’re cute and funny. And when I have one, all I want to do is hold it – and when I can’t, I bundle her into a sling and carry her around. And when I can’t do that (like when taking a shower), I make sure that someone else who loves her is holding her. My God, they are only this little once – and it goes by so fast. Once it’s gone , it’s gone – so don’t waste it strapping them into car seats (unless they are actually in the car) or swings! Hold your baby! When they’re teenagers, they won’t let you near them ( and really, they’re not as cuddly as teens, I have two teens and a “tween” and I can verify this fact)!

1. Baby wearing is convenient. I’m wearing and breastfeeding my baby right now – even as I write this! Really? Yes. Really. I can do almost anything I need to do while wearing my 3.5 month old baby…except the dishes, but I find other reasons not to do them too!

2.Babies who are worn in slings or carried cry less. There is a lot of anthropological and scientific evidence of this fact, but I’ve had six babies, so far, and of the six the only colicky, constantly crying baby I had was the one I was encouraged to put down all of the time! That was my first baby. Since then, I have either held or worn all of my babies. Kiara – the latest – gets complimented all the time on being such a good baby. I think they mean quiet. And she is. During basketball games or other outings, she just sits in my lap and looks around. She rarely fusses. In fact, when she does scream, it’s usually because I’ve put her in the car seat for a trip.

3. Babies who are worn, learn more. Yes, another scientific fact! Babies who are worn spend more of their time in quiet alertness. Because your baby’s needs are being met, she doesn’t need to spend so much time looking for attention and therefore can sort out the puzzle around her – learning to adapt to the environment, seeking things to look at, etc. Researchers have also reported that carried babies show enhanced visual and auditory alertness.

4. Worn babies are smarter. OK, this might just sound like I’m bragging, but this has been proven true outside my own household! Because the mother or father of a worn baby acts like a filter, the baby is guarded from unwanted stimuli that can bombard their wee nervous systems. They also develop their ability to listen very early and therefore their language and development abilities are cultivated earlier. For example, if there is a loud clanging in the house (the toddler knocks the pots off the dish rack), a baby alone in a swing or seat will likely respond by startling and then crying. A baby in a sling, next to her mother, will still startle, but because mother is nearby, will see it’s just a noise and that she is still fine – quickly soothed by mom. The startle then becomes a learning experience that the baby is not so afraid of the next time….rather than being “rattled” every time a loud noise occurs.

5. Worn babies sleep more! Especially in the beginning. I’ve rarely felt sleep deprived, even as a new mother…and when I have it’s usually because I spend the night excitedly gazing at my new love. Wearing a baby keeps them close – think of yourself like a Kangaroo. There is a great saying – nine months in and nine months out. Thinking of the gestational period of the baby as being 18 months makes it easier to reconcile.

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Technorati Tags: attachment parenting, baby, babywearing, breastfeeding, family, mothering