Mostly I am writing this entry down because I don't want to forget it. Feel free to read along, but don't feel compelled.
Parenting has been a struggle for me, for sure. Sometimes the struggle is to be patient, and sometimes it is to let love dominate when I could be angry. But this weekend it was to not struggle quite so much.
I know, in principal, that growth springs from the organism itself, and that eventually our children will be on their own, responsible to their own consciences and reliant on their own will. However, for the seven years that I have had children ex-utero, I've had the idea that I must kneed and form them into a civilized shape -- I must be the mold that they push up against.
In short, I struggle with them.
Somehow, that habit, or conviction, or practice, or whatever it is, has been gradually eroded. Until this weekend I put two and two together, under circumstances that I don't remember, that:
Once you can really see that in your own kids, and you can see it in yourself, I think it removes a big struggle. We're both working toward the same destination. The thing is, though, that children don't always have the same route in mind as I do for their journey. But that's okay; we've got some time, and if they can see that I am working together with them, they'll be happy to go along.
It's worked pretty well so far, helping to diffuse fights, for example, between Maya's and Georgia's warring routes toward virtue (as I like to describe them), and to help Georgia rise above Maya's needling during a van ride. It's important to recognize when they're just too tired to do it on their own, though. I need to figure out how much help to give -- how many shoes to help put on when I think that someone could actually do it by herself.
I also realize that many parents never even struggle with this, because it is part of their basic assumptions, because somewhere their ancestors already figured it out and incorporated it into the family culture. I think there's still a chance that Maya and Georgia can be in that category. Or maybe they already are, thanks to Bahiyyih.
I just noticed that nucular is in the vernacular, since Webster's accepts now it as a secondary pronunciation. Does that mean that there should be a vernaclear with nuclear in it?
vernaclear [v&(r)-'na-klE-&r]: (adj) the way a word that is commonly mispronounced or misspelled should be pronounced or spelled, especially if the mistaken form has muscled its way into becoming an accepted form.
And if we use this new word enough, it will find its way into the lexicon as well. But would that be paradoxical, or self-fulfilling?
Yesterday I felt moved to lay off of reading news online, which I mainly get from Slashdot, Reddit, Technocrat, and a slew of technical sites, for a month. I'm just spending too much of my time reading, and absorbing, and not enough time producing and making stuff.
I did it (stopped surfing news sites) for a day a few times, and it made for a very different day each time. In some cases I actually got a lot done. And I've tried limiting the time I spend on the sites to, say, an hour or less, using a little kitchen timer to mark out half-hour blocks, but once I get started, it's hard to stop. Basically, I'm having trouble finding a point of moderation, where I read a little and work a lot.
So a whole month, to try to clean out my system and be able to start over, with the goal of moderation. So far I'm on my second day. When I have the urge to do something other than my top priorities at work (which can be pretty tedious stuff), I either find something less tedious that may not be as urgent, or say, blog a little.
I remember an American pilgrim's account of 'Abdu'l-Baha's daily life, in particular that He was constantly busy taking care of everyone's needs, from ministering to the poor in Akka, to handling correspondence from Baha'is all over the world, and that He would find relief simply in variety, because he never seemed to rest or have any idle time.
[Originally posted on Bahiyyih's webble, but later moved here.]
Chain of events:
Bahiyyih has a story all ready:
Well, you see, this is the spot Georgia has to stand in every morning to catch her school bus. They'd decompose and ... yeah
Edit, for anyone who thought that Bahiyyih might be doing something illicit:
I don't think our neighbors will complain that she is raking away their leaves for free. Quite the opposite; our next-door neighbor, for example, wanted to pay us $20 to clear the leaves from her yard by mowing them down, although we declined because we were planning to rake most of them anyway, to compost.
A few years ago, Bahiyyih and I were at Dan and Zivar's house, and we were taking turns reading the Sunday comics. We laughed in particular about the comics that were impenetrable to us, like Judge Parker, M.D. (or something like that -- I mean the comics that were in the paper the entire time I was growing up, but I never managed to read; I don't think they were even trying to pass the funny test). Zivar said "Dan likes to read them to the kids." She listed a bunch of comics. "Peanuts, Zits, even Prince Valiant."
"Prince Valiant?" I asked her.
"Yeah, but he likes to change the words."
So Dan demonstrated. Out of left field, he intoned, "And look, this guy just invented rope." Sure enough, it looked just like an iron-age technology demonstration. To this day, that's my favorite reading of a comic strip.
Anyway, my point is that making up new words to irrelevant or objectionable traditional materials is part of parenting. You might be drawn into the practice by changing the uncooperative trains' dialog in The Little Engine that Could from things like:
"Pull the likes of you? I would never dream of stooping so low as to pull toys; I have more important things to do," said the Big, Shiny, New Locomotive.
to:
"I can see that you need help, but simply must get this load of perishable medicines to a hospital supply depot in Mexico. If you're still here when I get back, I'll give you a lift for sure."
You might move on to sanitizing fairy tales, and then re-wording nursery rhymes, all in the interest of freeing your offspring of the mental handicaps of their parents' age.
In that spirit, I give you our latest version of Little Bunny Foo Foo, despite the risk that it will wimpify anyone who hears it, by artificially shielding them from the harsh realities of our world:
Little Rabbit Foo Foo (Teresa prefers "Rabbit" over "Bunny")
Hoppin' through the woods-woods (I was bored with the word "forest")
Pickin' up the chipmunks
And washing behind their ears. (Rub behind Teresa's ears)Down came the fairy, and this is what she said:
Little Rabbit Foo Foo,
I'm happy to see you,
Pickin' up the chippey-munks
And washing behind their ears.
[spoken]And you can also kiss their little toes!Little Rabbit Foo Foo
Hoppin' through the woods-woods,
Scoopin' up the chipmunks
And washing behind their ears. (Rub behind Teresa's ears)
And kissing their little toes. (Kiss or tickle Teresa's toes)Down came the fairy, and this is what she said:
Little Rabbit Foo Foo,
I'm happy to see you,
Pickin' up the chippity-munks
And washing behind their ears. (Rub behind Teresa's ears)
And kissing their little toes. (Kiss or tickle Teresa's toes)
[spoken]And you can also tickle their widdle tummies. (Tickle Teresa's tummy)Etc.
Or perhaps, as is my hope, it will help to create a new reality, one with more tickling of toes and less bopping of heads.
