Independence Day 2012

We are celebrating a little extra freedom this fourth of July.. no more brace for Naomi!

                                        
 

Teaching

First, Time published the photo for their cover and every forum, blog, and talk show blew up with criticism of long term breastfeeding and the counter arguments.  Now that the actual article has been released attachment parenting is receiving the same treatment.  I read yesterday one man's gem Babies are Assholes, lovely no?

So I started thinking, removing the awful language, does this man have a point?  Am I raising namby pamby kids who will be welfare dependant adults because they just cant function?

This argument seems to center around what and when we teach our children.

Sleep.  When we are born we know how to sleep.  Its one of the first things we do.  I have never made any effort to teach my child to sleep and yet they all do.  And after babyhood they all do it in their own bed and all night.  So when people say "you have to teach that baby to sleep" OR "that baby will never sleep"  what they really mean is "if you don't take action soon to make that infant conform to your schedule it will be much more difficult later".  If you have to be up at 4am for work or if you have real sleep issues yourself, or if you simply honestly believe that letting a child go with their natural schedule is allowing them some powerful and manipulative position in your family structure, fine.  My family is not your family and I am not telling you what to do.  But please be more honest in your wording, no one needs to learn to sleep, and two years old is not synonymous with never.

Eat.  I didn't really have to teach my children to eat.  I simply offered them breast milk then when they showed signs of readiness food.  It may have taken lots of messes but they all know how to eat now.  I did not write down the the exact ounces and times they ate unless we had an allergy suspect.  It isn't really a skill we are born knowing, but its the kind of thing that takes practice not lessons.

There are jerks in the world.  Do I really need to teach my children that there are mean and awful people out there that will make fun of them, disappoint them, promise them something and then break that promise, not be around when you need them?  I believe my children will learn that sooner than I wish no matter how I try to protect them.  For now I will concentrate on teaching my children that I am not one of those people, they can count on me.

They wont get everything they want.  This one is a bit more complicated.  I do think I need to teach this one, when is what I disagree about. When my child reaches an age where what she wants is ten hours of Dora, french fries every time she sees a yellow M, her friends' and siblings' toys, and to stay up all night, then yes I will teach this lesson.  But while what she wants is food, drink, sleep, comfort, and occasionally pain relief then yeah she can have everything she wants.

They are the most important person to me.  Well they are the most important thing to me and no my TV show, my adult conversation, my ability to go out for cocktails are not more important.  They grow up so unbelievably quickly, I do not consider myself a martyr if I put some of me on hold while they are babies.  They believe they are intelligent enough to comprehend that they are most important to me but not most important in the world.  They must share their place in the family with their siblings, they will learn to share their place in the world with their peers.

What about actual skills?  If everyone is so worried about how productive they will be as adults why don't we worry about what we teach them a few years later?  Instead of worrying about where a six month old sleeps lets worry about who a sixteen year old sleeps with.  Are we teaching that there are consequences to their actions?  Do they know how to balance a checkbook?  Have you taught your seventeen year old the many many ways the credit system can ruin their next thirty years if they get a credit card now? Have you discussed with your twelve year old the difference between believing everything they see on TV/hear in a classroom vs analyzing what they are taught, researching and deciding for themselves?  Will your fifteen year old vote for the prettiest presidential candidate?  Do they have any idea how our political system even works?

Does anyone really believe how long you breastfed is what is causing someone to be lost in the adult world? Or do we just not want to talk about how we (society wide) are dropping them at the door of the school at age five and hoping they just figure it out from there.

Giving Up. (or asking for help)

Earlier this year Mike and I reached an impasse.  The boys were not doing well enough in school.  Being immersed in the homeschool community (and being in a bit of denial about my own failings) I was inclined to just keep going.  To trust that they would get it in their time.  Mike, being only passively involved with homeschool and still fully attached to the grades= success motto we all grew up with was starting to worry they would be working at McDonald's in 15 years.
We were both right.  I had let things go to far.  There were some basic skills that the boys, especially Yosef were missing out on.  I did not want to admit that I just wasn't getting through to him.  After all isn't the homeschool cheer that anyone can teach their kids.  They were not going to just "get it" without a major change.  And if I was not willing to swallow my pride and admit my own failings they would suffer.  It is also true that kids learn at their own pace, and an A doesn't really mean anything.  All the reasons I decided school in general and public school most specifically were not the right place for my children were all still valid.
We both agreed public school was out.  The district we just moved into is not even state accredited.  We looked at the cost of private and quickly realized that required an income all its own.  We were blessed and grateful to discover Charity Christian Academy through a facebook connection.  (see its not all a waste  of time)  It was a real answer to prayer.  The boys are in an online school now.  They have access to a "real" teacher, and tests, and grades.  Somehow things I tried to teach Yosef a million times suddenly make sense coming from someone else.  Michael has his quantifiable results and I have the boys home with me.  It is the perfect solution for us.
This whole experience made me realize a few things.  Asking for help or using a different means of school is not giving up or admitting failure. Its just changing things, and after all isn't that one of the big benefits of homeschool that we can change things whenever we need to, even in the middle of a school year, to best suit our family and our child.  I also realized that there is a lot of pressure in the homeschool community to do it all yourself and to produce geniuses.  There is so much from the outside criticizing and comparing to brick and mortar schools that  it is almost impossible to not feel you have to prove them wrong and show you are better.  Thus we compare our children, brag of their accomplishments and always feel they must be doing better than their public school counterparts.  Within homeschool community there is a lot of criticism of other forms of school (not that we would ever say it to your face) mostly probably born of the same desire to prove ourselves.  Therefore, no one wants to admit they are taking help from  the school system or that they are considering sending their child to school.
I also realized that for me the academics were not the reason I loved homeschooling.  Having the pressure off for the math and science and being able to concentrate on what I love, extra history lessons, incorporating the Biblical feasts into our daily life, field trips, just having my kids there with me to learn life skills has been a real blessing.
I know that this is not a one size fits all solution, in fact we are not using it for Eliana and may not ever because she inst having the struggles her brothers were with book work but I learned a lot about being flexible an accepting the answer to prayer even when it isn't the one we want.  He really does know best.

Deanna Rose Children’s Farmstead

http://www.opkansas.org/Things-to-See-And-Do/Deanna-Rose-Childrens-Farmstead
We went to this pretty cool place with Susie and Sarah on Monday

Haircuts

Six Months!

I can not believe it has already been six months but it has, actually it was Sunday but I waited until she had her apt today so I could include her stats. She is 26 in and 19lbs.  Which is 50th percentile for height, and 90th percentile for weight.  She is a fat baby!  But if she is like her siblings (especially Eliana) she will gain very little weight the second six months.  We started her on some avocado Sunday which she seemed to like.  She has just this week started scooting around backwards.  I was a little worried the brace was going to delay her movement but now that she is only wearing it at night she seems ready to go.  She can sit up 30-60sec at a time and I am pretty sure she will be able to do that on her own fairly soon.

Abortion

These are just my thoughts on the subject as they come up.  I am sure I will add to it as time goes on, just a way to record what I am thinking as I see this struggle advance.

-of course abortion is wrong, life is life is life is life,  when do you get to kill an adult because it is inconvenient   for you that they live?  who gets to decide which life is worth living?  is the child of rape worthless, the one with downs syndrome, the one with a congenital birth defect?  what if society decides your child is worthless? what if they decide you are worthless?

-I keep hearing pro-choice people say that pro-life people should be obligated to adopt all the unwanted babies because they don't want them aborted.  This is a ridiculous argument.  First, lets make an analogy.  Homelessness is a problem in America.  Everyone knows it, no one wants the homeless in their "back yard" and as far as I know no one has a brilliant solution to end homelessness, I certainly don't.  Let's shoot them.  Certainly they are unwanted.  Surely they would be better off if we put them out of their misery.  No one would WANT to live like that right?  And.. if you disagree with me, then I put it to you that you must come up with a solution to homelessness right now, and you must be willing to personally take any homeless you see into your home.  Ridiculous?  You do not have to know the solution to a problem to know killing people is the wrong answer.  Conversely, I keep wondering if this is actually meant to absolve the arguer of all social responsibility. Poor people, abused children, etc, not my problem.  I told you to abort them so its your problem to solve not mine.

-how is pro-life a war on women? I am a woman and I don't see how my rights are violated by saying I have to be responsible for the outcome of my own actions.  It is anti-woman to take the amazing miracle that G-d has made our bodies capable of and turn it into a burdensome medical condition.  Even if you believe that abortion is not morally reprehensible.. how is it a right??? I know that some ppl consider birth control to be a sin and I don't.  I think it is a reasonable and responsible way to in most cases control the outcome of my actions.  However, its not a right.  Its not a right to have my life be more convenient, its a privilege.  Yes I said convenient, being able to engage in sexual activity and at the same time control the timing and number of my children is a convenient  privilege.  It is not a human right.

-How in on earth is access to birth control pills a right but LIFE is not????

-I made sure to find a non-pro-life source for this one.  The NY times:
About 90 percent of pregnant women who are given a Down syndrome diagnosis have chosen to have an abortion.  
This makes me so incredibly sad that I have no commentary.  How could anyone ever defend this?

-in relation to this article: http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2012-04-03/teen-pregnancy-birth-control-schools/53979070/1
First, this article speaks of birth rates because it is ok that teens get pg as long as they dont have to face the consequences
Second, I agree that abstinence education is generally ineffective. Having a teacher say don't have sex when every other societal force is telling you to is not going to work. But this speaks to our poor educational system that even our teachers don't know that this is flawed logic. The fact that solution A does not work is not support of solution B.
Third, I have a lot of trouble believing that in 2012 these teens are unaware of their BC options, (or even that the poorest students cant afford a condom) just like the teens where its not available they know what they can do, they just have the typical adolescent attitude of "it wont happen to me" They most likely have the same pg rate but "take care of it" before anyone knows.