Maebius Musing

We had some wonderful friends of ours stop up to visit recently, and have scheduled out some camping trips, and a Starwood Vacation this summer. He’s an engineer, she is an awesome “The Body Shop” saleswoman. (I love their Satsuma line). They have a 2yr old son, and watching their style of parenting gave me a good pondering for my own…

(The below is not meant to challenge or downplay the discussed strategies in parenting, merely highlight some differences to my own method, and ponder in an intelligent manner. I welcome debate. Please leave egos at the door, ye sibling/friend reading this!)

It’s interesting to see how different folks bring up their children, and if looked at in an unbiased manner, allows me to change our own thoughts and techniques. Parenting is an evolving art, and no amount of books can prepare you for the squiggly details of day-to-day parenting. It’s fun, it’s frustrating, but it’s entirely awesome to go through.

One big thing we do with our son is allow him to sleep in our room, and even our bed, whenever he wants. Granted, I’ve often lost sleep from from blunt-foot trauma to my nether-regions, fought the sleepy cover-theft-tango, and such, but we enjoy nestling in at night with a story and seeing a little face yawn and close his eyes right by the crook of his arm. We also are pretty well entrenched in the “mom or dad goes to bed with him” routine. If we are watching a movie, or playing outside, weekend bedtimes tend to stretch a bit later than “officially recommended”, but we sleep in the next day.

We’ve maintained that when he gets older, and school starts up full-time, there will be a period of weaning from this system, as he will need to get up before our current schedules allow for. I fully expect a week of hell when bedtime shifts closer to 7pm and it’s “Still light outside!”. I’m prepared to sleep in his room on the floor. However, even now, there are days when our little one actually requests to go in his bed. (This usually lasts until the midnight pee-time, whereupoin he’s back in our bed, but that’s easy enough to redirect when we bring him up to lay down again).

I see the Pro of the [perceived] mainstream method of “kid in own room, at own bedtime, good night now, shut door.” It gives the kid a set routine, which is important. It allows parental quiet-time in the evenings to work, chat, or whatever. In some part of my brain, I’d rather like that, but our current schedule with the wife waking at 5:30 is one factor our basic “mom and kid go sleep in bed now”. Yours truly then gets to stay up a bit later and play on the computer, or dry dishes, in peace.

It’s an interesting balancing act, between structure and coddling. There are many other things we do which seem odd and even “wrong” to some folks I know. We play video games for an hour if he’s been good at school. Some say games are just setting him up to be a TV/gamer junkie when he’s older. Yet we do limit the time. What weekend visitors do not see is the mid-week fuss when he wants to play and we enforce the ‘No’. I’m a huge proponent of outside time, whether we work in the garden (which bores him to tears), or run around with a bat playing the current favorite-of-the-week “pretend”.

Yesterday, we walked the entire fence line, just my son and I, at his lead, pretending we were “adventuring dragons”. My legs were not up for it, and there was plenty to do back home, but it was “Daddy hour” so I hiked through tall grasses and dodged ubiquitous thorn clusters. We found such geographic realms as (A)Reed Forest (near the pond), (B)Buttercup Field, (C)Spyro Flower Hill (so named because of unidentified purple flowers), (D)Thorn Path, and (E)Cow Skull Treehouse, and finally (F)Tree Slide Hill. This was a ton of fun, and something we encourage, though a family member expressed concern with encouraging him to wander so far away from the house.

There are many other examples I could toss out, such as snacking throughout the day, eating something different for dinner (Not that we allow just anything for dinner if he doesn’t like what we have, he just gets bigger servings of sides), and such. Yet it all comes down to one point.

Structure vs Freedom.

There are many points along the bell curve, and I’m finding we fall distinctly on one foothill slope. Are we too far down one side? Perhaps. But I’ll hold my tongue and accept that there are many, many other points along the curve. Life is nothing if not diverse. I like how we live, and will support our son, even if he grows to become the complete opposite of us.
…and if you are at all interested in “The Dragon Adventure”, I’ve created a map using Google Earth. Labels are described above.

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It’s not often I find myself navel-gazing too closely when doing meditations. (see mirror-phobia)

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((Random update: I think the previous post-quiz has some problems, since when I re-took the test fudging my answers to get different results, and even leaving all answers Blank, or “all=agree” I got exactly the same results. Might be a factor with my work’s firewall preventing the script from running properly?! So all statistics below are in all likelyhood completely inaccurate!!…I will update it with results from my home computer once I get an evening free to go online instead of working until sunset outdoors!))

Cross-posted from an email I pondered on the AODA mailing list:
I’ve been wondering about all the talk of porch gardens, permaculture, and such, especially in light of the current trends with food shortages. The thought struck me a few days ago, that with everyone focusing on GM crops, corn/wheat prices, and the like, one option I have not seen is wildcrafting edible ‘weeds’.

The first caveat to this of course is that learning what wild-craftable edible plants and encouraging others to go pick them is NOT entirely sustainable, and just shifting our focus. Edible/medicinal weeds are niche plants that may be growing all around us, but encouraging their cultivation and mass consumption causes the same long-term worries that mass monoculture does with our fields today.

However, on a small-scale personal level, I wonder what some of us druidic-types think about the benefits or problems with expanding our pantries with less ‘mainstream’ food sources. Lambs-quarters (Chenopodium album) are just starting to sprout in the flower gardens, and our family has started using the tender leaves in salads with [soon] larger greens as side-dishes. (lightly steam/boil with a dash of garlic and vinegar = YUM! nutritious as spinach!)

Since these plants, to use them as an example, grow on their own in about every patch of disturbed dirt around the garden or even purchased hanging baskets from commercial greenhouses, they are abundant, hassle-free, and a VERY cheap alternative until the other ‘traditional’ leafy-greens are available locally.

Yet, why don’t I see more mention of local weeds among the ‘green gardener’ sites? It takes only a small effort to toss certain plants into one basket as opposed to the compost pile, and increases the productivity of the garden immensely. It’s a rhetorical question, on my part, but one I wanted to offer up for discussion with this group, and hope generates some thoughtful replies.

Under the edible albums,
-Nate

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Inspired, somewhat loosely and somberly by this post, this thought kept bouncing around in my head today for some reason. (note: any sarcasm below is not intended to be directed towards Nettle or anyone else reading this…..consider this post privately cathartic and thought-provoking, not ranting)

Perhaps one underlying cause of a mis-balanced economic, ecologic, and commerce-centric infrastructure is due to overspecialization. In life, very few people want to be sailors; they want to be captains. Why be a soldier when you could aspire to be a general? Why be a slave when you could be a slave owner? Everyone wants to be great, and there simply aren’t enough peasants to go around, so people get frustrated and let their lives fall asleep. I am guilty of having a “great character” complex, so yes, I’m part of the problem.

I won’t pretend to ignore the problems with rising fuel/food prices, shortages, and the spiraling problems that affect not only our country, but the worldwide system. As Nettle mentioned, I too feel a certain fear and sadness that I probably can not do much to help those kids in Haiti who are starving and eating mud. But then I wondered, should I?
Should I rally against the world, selflessly burning my own resources to create some Great Charity which will help re-stabilize the socio-industrial machine? Should I cast off my own greediness and eat only minimal rice and beans so that the 3rd worlders don’t have to export their own meager supplies of grain to my bountiful abode? (a rhetorical question, of course).

Nettle describes her own efforts and lifestyle which certainly aligns with the current trendy ‘green’ lifestyle pushed by the eco-media lately, but I know she does them out of respect and her personal sacred paradigm. These simple efforts may not stop the suffering overseas, even if the entire east coast starts living to the same standards. It might be a start, but I doubt such efforts will resolve those issues within the next few decades, and by that time, Hubbert’s Peak will be a historical news-item, and our own culture will have moved on or pushed away.

But that does not mean the little things like buying local are useless.

It is the overspecialization of industry that makes the little local lifestyles like Nettles stand out and appear somewhat “puny”. Why grow a few tomato plants, a few corn stalks, a row of beans, and the like, when for far less personal investment, and with far greater efficiency, we can dedicate one large farm to beans, many fields to corn, and the like.

Problems like disease and natural disasters aside, monoculture makes real Economic sense in the short term! Even on a local level, my in-laws have a big garden which raises foodstuffs that are not found in my own personal garden. We share the bounty and are both enriched by it. It’s easy to extrapolate this outward to today’s mega-farms.

Yet, there crosses a point where the ‘mega’, becomes a mega headache. Even so, we humans still build and build, and build up each thing until it becomes top-heavy. I’m just as guilty of it.

Business, almost by definition, finds a niche and needs to grow until the niche is the standard. You either grow and expand, or you fail. Yet why should it be failure? Does everyoneneed to be the biggest best and baddest in the neighborhood? Human nature seems to say yes.
In the medical industry, this effect is being felt.

The AODA’s archdruid reported on this very topic, and it finally clicked with me. And his words are stated far better than my own ranting ones. Go read it if you want. I’ll wait….

But I wonder, what’s wrong with being a peasant? What’s wrong with a bit of humbleness? If we work in some little things every so often, our lives become simpler, and do not really require the existence of overspecialized industry. Walmarts would vanish (Doubt that will ever happen though).

This may sound like a plea for humanity to regress to a pre-industrial world, and in a sense it is…but I would hope it to be an intelligent regress. Having your own garden is a bit of work, true, and it is much easier to go shopping than it is to go weeding. I won’t deny that fact.

Yet, at least on out own tiny scale, the little changes add up. Being humble helps that person, personally. It may not feed the starving kids in Africa ( or elsewhere, since the shortages are felt in the US now), but making similar changes in my life might feed Me.

When it comes down to it, affecting ME is really the only thing I can do with assured success. I can help myself, and hope my own efforts offset the global gestalt so that one other kid gets to eat tomorrow. Maybe being humble, helps.

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Firstly, this is more rhetorical, but comments are greatly appreciated, as there are big shreds of truth behind the example. It’s been too busy to have a proper New Moon Musing, so pretend this is one, if you’d like….
Edit: pesky uploading-at-work filling the second part of this with ASCII garbage. I’ll re-upload when I get time this weekend…if I get free time online.

There comes a time as a parent, when one’s thoughts turn to the proper upbringing, and relationship of friend-but-THE-authority that evolves as a child ages. At first, during the stages of pregnancy, we planned all sorts of rules and regulations, the types of games we’d play, and the values we want to teach to our offspring.

In terms of socialization, it was discussed in great length the types of talks we would have as our only child went to school and inevitably encountered those “other kids” who might not have the same type of personality. You probably know what I mean here. The bullies who help give us opportunity to discuss social-anger redirection. The selfish kids who help teach that sharing is preferrable to hoarding the school’s toys. The teachers who help re-enforce an authority-figure status among adults. The list goes on.

And yet, in addition to the more immediate life-lessons presented in preschool, there is the fowarded parental gaze, which thinks of things to come. Girls, homework, college, girls (or guys, no pressure there), and the teenage angst-filled years to prepare for. Without dwelling on such topics, it is still something all parental types probably think about from time to time. (I hope that ALL parents do, but sadly, I know this is not a perfect world).

My musing this week, however is related to those types of questions when they involve someone other than one’s immediate offspring. Specifically in relation to the angst-filled teenage years. For example, the elder-child of a friend who stays over at our house. This other parent may have mentioned that they appreciate having us available as a safe place to visit, and enjoy our lifestyle and ethical acceptance of many less ‘mainstream’ ideals and philosophies. I do not judge easily, those who are welcomed into our home. Yet this means I become ultimately responsible for the care and teaching example-setting that happens around such guests.

Those who know me well probably know that I am not one to push my own values on others. I live as I live, and figure if folks appreciate my way of doing things, they are more than welcome to try them out too. Not all my friends would be as accepting of raising beef only to eat our ‘pets’ later. But I don’t hide the fact that the burgers for dinner were once named Norman if folks ask.

But what happens when I am asked specifically to impart some specific parental authority and wisdom towards those who may be a guest in our house? What if, one of our visitors displays some behavior that may not sit as safely within my comfortable acceptance zone? As an adult, and responsible party at our household, it is my moral obligation to address this topic. Yet as a chosen friend of the guest, my own nature does not wish to make waves and force a confrontation that could result in less happy feelings towards visiting us. Nothing actually happened during our visits, but our guest has told stories about events which cast a doubt in my mind about this person’s choice of friends. It’s the proxy-parent syndrome at it’s finest.

Mentioning, without going into details, this topic to the parental authority of our guest tends to result in an over-protective reaction, where my hesitant and minor complaints are overblown into “well, he better straighten up if he knows what’s good for him” style replies. This is also against my better judgement and not the nature of how I would deal with the topic at hand.

This whole situation involves nothing overly serious or illegal at the surface. It’s more a choice similar to “inviting the less popular kid to play Capture the Flag in the woods, and leaving them there to go do something else” rather than “vandalize the less popular kid’s locker or stink-bomb their house”.

Thus far, I have not addressed the situation with the younger guest myself, but feel some vague concern that I really should. On one hand, I think back to my own past and teenage years. At 16, I did a few things I wouldn’t encourage others to do, and yet I still think I turned out alright. One of my ‘favorite’ memories from Boy Scouts was replacing the drink mix with orange-flavoured laxative and watching the poor low-ranking kids play leapfrog with the outhouses all morning. Us teens could be downright mean, and I’d NEVER encourage this prank with my own son…yet I know something like it will happen.

We all live and learn lessons in life as we get out in the wilder world. I also had the luck of a decent set of parents, and stable home environment, which is a good bit different from the guest at our house. I have no personal reference point to make exact comparisons with.

So, to avoid rambling on for about eight more pages of hyperbole and vague comments (due to refusing to name specifics here), I’ll wrap things up for now.

To summarize my musings lately, what role does a surrogate parental figure have in relation to another teen who enjoys visiting us? Do I err on the side of authority and have a serious sit-down-talk, which I KNOW from experience (with other topics and another friend of ours regarding this person) will result in casting me out of the “safe place to hang out” and into “overbearing Parental figure” territory? Or do I err on the side of “being the cool safe place to hang out” and merely remind the real parent of my thoughts regarding the issues?

I don’t need answers from you, kind readers, for that is not why I muse here. Comments are welcome, but I plan to look back on this posting and see how things turn out in a few month, and wanted to put down in words what my brain’s been pondering this week.

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