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ailbheRaising children, she said with a shake of her head and a wry, long-suffering smile, is a terrible responsibility.
[Put the L. M. Montgomery down and back away slowly, Ailbhe. Enough is enough.]
One of the things that bothers me about the way - ways - I want to raise my children (also Rob's children, but he's very laissez faire and instinctive, whereas I think about this stuff a lot, so I can't begin to speak for him on this matter because much of this is stuff he not only hasn't articulated but feels it would be inappropriate of him to articulate, as far as I can tell, though I could be all wrong on that, I've only known him ten years and he's pretty mysterious) - one of the things that bothers me is that I really do want them to want the things I want them to want, and love the things I want them to love, and believe the things I want them to believe.
I want them to independently and freely of their own well-informed choice agree with me on all the major points of my moral compass.
Uhoh.
One of the things on my moral compass is that it's immoral to want one's children to be specific people; it's ok to encourage and show and guide and teach willing learners and so on, but basicall they are, inconveniently, people, towards whom parents and guardians have many and multifarious duties but no rights. Not even a weeny itsy bitsy right. Only responsibilities.
That founding principle is very important to me.
Now, while I don't have a right over my children I do have the right to, eg, a certain standard of behaviour in my own home because I have to live here, and I will refuse to participate in things like being walloped repeatedly on the head with small bits of trunking for electric cables, and I won't allow the people I live with to hurt the other people I live with or revolt them by being disgusting at the dinner table or so on. But there's a bit I'm missing which I see in other people, and I don't feel or think on any level that I have a right to expect them to think I am reasonable in my demands or agree with me.
I just want them to.
The main one I want them to agree with, and live by, is the one Mormor Greta said to us, when we first went to see her, when I was 20; "Be kind to each other." She and her Evald were very happy, though difficult things happened, and they weren't rich, and things weren't easy - they were always kind to each other. Admittedly Rob and I aren't as good at that as we'd like to be - I can be nasty and he can be thoughtless - but we do try. And I see the children being kind, too, most of the time.
Imperious, but kind. They do tidy up, more or less, and they definitely don't drop litter in the street or break things belonging to people outside the family. They are respectful, in general, of other children's things and spaces, as far as I know, and spontaneously offer help (or tell me to help) when people in public places seem to need it - like the man collapsed on the footpath who woke up when someone tried to move him to the recovery position, leading to me telling the 999 operator "No, cancel it, he's fine, he doesn't need an ambulance, listen, you can hear his GUITAR." When Emer hears a crying child she says "Him need mama melk," and when I am unhappy she says "Tea 'ill make you betta," or this morning when I staggered around groaning and wailing with the pain in my face she said "I know, you need a pain tiller."
It worked for my mother, this tactic of living by one's principles and being painfully honest about one's shortcomings; her children are all fairly eco-hippie and pacifist in outlook, even the most consumerist of us. So it might work for me. But I worry sometimes that immersion in ethical consumerism etc will lead to a little brood of polar-bear hunting seal-wearing SUV-revving leisure pilots.
Perhaps that's a little mad.
I think the essence of what I'm saying is that bit there,
[Put the L. M. Montgomery down and back away slowly, Ailbhe. Enough is enough.]
One of the things that bothers me about the way - ways - I want to raise my children (also Rob's children, but he's very laissez faire and instinctive, whereas I think about this stuff a lot, so I can't begin to speak for him on this matter because much of this is stuff he not only hasn't articulated but feels it would be inappropriate of him to articulate, as far as I can tell, though I could be all wrong on that, I've only known him ten years and he's pretty mysterious) - one of the things that bothers me is that I really do want them to want the things I want them to want, and love the things I want them to love, and believe the things I want them to believe.
I want them to independently and freely of their own well-informed choice agree with me on all the major points of my moral compass.
Uhoh.
One of the things on my moral compass is that it's immoral to want one's children to be specific people; it's ok to encourage and show and guide and teach willing learners and so on, but basicall they are, inconveniently, people, towards whom parents and guardians have many and multifarious duties but no rights. Not even a weeny itsy bitsy right. Only responsibilities.
That founding principle is very important to me.
Now, while I don't have a right over my children I do have the right to, eg, a certain standard of behaviour in my own home because I have to live here, and I will refuse to participate in things like being walloped repeatedly on the head with small bits of trunking for electric cables, and I won't allow the people I live with to hurt the other people I live with or revolt them by being disgusting at the dinner table or so on. But there's a bit I'm missing which I see in other people, and I don't feel or think on any level that I have a right to expect them to think I am reasonable in my demands or agree with me.
I just want them to.
The main one I want them to agree with, and live by, is the one Mormor Greta said to us, when we first went to see her, when I was 20; "Be kind to each other." She and her Evald were very happy, though difficult things happened, and they weren't rich, and things weren't easy - they were always kind to each other. Admittedly Rob and I aren't as good at that as we'd like to be - I can be nasty and he can be thoughtless - but we do try. And I see the children being kind, too, most of the time.
Imperious, but kind. They do tidy up, more or less, and they definitely don't drop litter in the street or break things belonging to people outside the family. They are respectful, in general, of other children's things and spaces, as far as I know, and spontaneously offer help (or tell me to help) when people in public places seem to need it - like the man collapsed on the footpath who woke up when someone tried to move him to the recovery position, leading to me telling the 999 operator "No, cancel it, he's fine, he doesn't need an ambulance, listen, you can hear his GUITAR." When Emer hears a crying child she says "Him need mama melk," and when I am unhappy she says "Tea 'ill make you betta," or this morning when I staggered around groaning and wailing with the pain in my face she said "I know, you need a pain tiller."
It worked for my mother, this tactic of living by one's principles and being painfully honest about one's shortcomings; her children are all fairly eco-hippie and pacifist in outlook, even the most consumerist of us. So it might work for me. But I worry sometimes that immersion in ethical consumerism etc will lead to a little brood of polar-bear hunting seal-wearing SUV-revving leisure pilots.
Perhaps that's a little mad.
I think the essence of what I'm saying is that bit there,
The main one I want them to agree with, and live by, is the one Mormor Greta said to us, when we first went to see her, when I was 20; "Be kind to each other."
It worked for my mother, this tactic of living by one's principles and being painfully honest about one's shortcomings; her children are all fairly eco-hippie and pacifist in outlook, even the most consumerist of us. So it might work for me.
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-01 07:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-05 03:22 am (UTC)I think one of the magic factors you already have well in hand - treating your children as human beings, independent from you, and that bit about wanting them to agree with you, but not having it as an expectation, will get you a lot of the way there.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-06 08:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-31 10:56 pm (UTC)Be excellent to each other and party on.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-01 04:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-04 12:17 pm (UTC)I think about this quite a bit too. And the conclusion I've arrived at is that I want my children to be ethics-driven, but their ethics don't have to be the same as mine even if I would really really like them to be. I would rather that my children have the opportunity to interrogate my ethics and then adopt them (if they choose to) from real conviction. Which means that now my eldest is twelve she's ditched the family op shopping habit (to a degree) and started buying sweatshop clothes to fit in with the "look" she's trying to achieve, and I'm biting my tongue and telling myself, "I've done all the groundwork I could do, and now is my time to find out if I did it well."
I guess I'll get to report back in a few years.