Introducing the PIC-flict

Further thoughts re: discussion about parenting, the introduction of the PICflict.

It is easy to think (in the early stages of parenting) that one can pick and choose which experiences he would like to shape his children’s upbringing, and thereby what values he wants to instill in them.  (I want my children to know how to work, I want my children to appreciate the value of money, I want my children to have idyllic carefree play time, etc.)  Unfortunately, there are limits to many of these good intentions.  Can one simply pick and choose values, experiences that may come from different eras, cultures, contexts, lump them together in a customized amalgamation and expect it all to work?

Society and culture has shifted, is always shifting.  From rural and agrarian to metropolitan, from industrial to professional, from religious to secular, from reliance on community and self-labor to mechanization, technology, education, etc.  The list goes on.

These shifts are not only in ideals, morals, world-views.  They are concurrently shifts in how time is spent, how easy or accessible certain activities are in the flow of our routines, how valued and supported certain things are.  How we acquire the necessities of life changes.

For example:  We don’t NEED to plant a garden.  To really garden, one needs to put in time.  A couple hours per week minimum just in maintenance?  Not to mention research time, planning time, planting time, troubleshooting time, processing of produce time.  One needs to have a means of working the soil.  Do we have access to a tiller?  A small tractor?  A trailer to haul one?  Neighbors or family who we feel comfortable borrowing from?  Are we gone many weekends of the summer?  We travel more nowadays.  We have soccer games to go to.  Skating lessons.  Family camps.  Vacations.  Six Saturdays spent at the soccer complex are six Saturdays that we’re not going to be able to spend in the garden.  So the ideal of (I want my child to have opportunity to play sports) is in competition with the ideal (I want my child to participate in the life cycle of a garden).   Just one example of a Parenting Ideal Conflict. (or PICflict)

I think a truth that I’m whittling toward with all this babble is that the transference of values to our children requires TIME.  Not only is that time so difficult to come by, but how we spend our time has changed a lot, even from the time we were kids to parents.  

Thoughts?

daily failure

after pushing M (age 5) through the ropes of the morning routine and just emerging in time to catch the bus, a few minutes to spare - with shoes, coat, backpack, snack and water bottle - I decide to forego the spelling list today, even though we haven't had the time for it for about a week.  she surprises me by handing the list to me - a silent gesture "lets do the list dad."  she makes attempt at the first word, at first replacing the "i" in "with" with "a", then getting the "th" after I isolate the sound.  when I ask her to do it again, all together, she absentmindely spells t - h - e.  I laugh out loud because I know she is distracted and I have a tendency to make things like this task to serious.  (she is a good speller)  and laughing out loud is a much better way of dealing with chaos than getting uptight.  I tell her that she's "not thinking" and that we'll do it another time.  The bus is now imminent.  She must be interpreting this as an insult because, wordless, she shuffles out the front door and does not blow me the customary kiss as usual.  she is stating her disapproval. 

I sigh as I watch her purple and pink colors walk over the brown late winter grass towards the bus, wondering at the incredible odds against positive parenting - the constant thwarts against good intentions, the million ways that children cause us to feel as though we are failing. 

there are way more things to do and be done in this job than it is possible for us to do, unless we can figure out a way to stay up around the clock consecutively for about 25 years.  and yet, we cannot help ourselves from trying to do it all.  but the harder we focus, the more likely it is that we will miss something important that is happening on its own.  somewhere between the ideals we hold ourselves to, the efforts we produce and the perceived failure that results - there must be a place for us to exist.  that is part of the daily routine of living.  working that algorithm again and again, trying to come out at the end of the day with some semblance of contentment - that we have given the day a good whirl, hung on tightly to the kite string and were not afraid to look up at the kite and laugh.

The older we get the more we fail, but the more we fail the more we feel a part of the dead straw of the universe - Robert Bly 



the morning lift

It’s that kind of morning. When the outline of a blog sears its brand upon my brain, smoking gray matter, no outside reasons other than necessity.

The smell of my wife’s perfume upstairs 10 minutes after she has left, wet hair, a true kiss at the door. E crawling about the feet, wanting to be up. N ramming Mommy goodbye, shaking things up.

Up at 5:50, someone has wet the bed. Surprisingly there is no shock to this news, almost no inconvenience. I have crossed some divide somewhere – I have finally immersed completely in parenting.

I have been up for 3 hours and have not yet eaten breakfast. There are too many variables in the schedule this week to keep track in my mind, but each one persistently circles overhead, tempting me to cage them in a neat linear row, but I know better.

Two nights ago sleep came wonderfully, maybe we are over the 6 week illness slump? Last night a harsh reminder of all of the Variables. E up more times than I can count, N up twice: once for potty, once for unknown reasons. M yelling intermittently with her dreams, unable to be stirred from them. Each time I go back to bed I glance at the clock; how much chance left for rest?

Watching the sunrise with L as we wait for the bus. A deep, resilient red as I hold her on my lap. The color lasts only a minute and is gone.

O hands me a little notebook of poems written by our 10 year-old. Have you seen these?

I haven’t and as I read them I cry.

The coffee lifts me, some music. Two kids at home in their jammies. Most of the leaves have fallen in our yard. Maybe we can rake them today. Make some piles that the kids can jump in before they grow up too much. As I grab yogurt for the E I notice that cider has leaked all over the bottom of the fridge. This outlines some of my work for the morning.

Inner Work

the garden in early spring which has since been nearly overtaken by weeds

 

 

It isn't rocket science, or even really statistics: that having and raising children should crowd out other aspects of one's life - and crowd others in.  And yet, the reality as it pulls on one's body day upon day, becomes striking in moments of clarity, as though the rest of the time dreams dance, mists hover about the ground you walk on, the sun comes up slowly but every day.

I started this blog when I was in charge of two children ages 5 and 0 with a steady average monthly posting output of 5.  Then . . . each year the rate steadily drops, as the age and quantity of children steadily increases. 

Children's ages vs. monthly blog output

5, 0                5
6, 1                3.1
7, 2, 0            1.7
8, 3, 1            .8
9, 4, 2            .5
10, 5, 3, 0      0

Again, this is not an innovative analysis of data that I am rushing to the nearest peer reviewed journal.  We know these types of realities intuitively, rationally, but in some ways not at all.  Reality comes to us in waves, particles, vibrations, in visions.  We describe in part what we know in part. 

I have experienced adulthood largely as a crisis of the ideal.  For our early years, we are largely thinking forward, of what will happen, what can happen, what is out there to find?  We are the little pigs who go out to seek their fortune.  At some point in the seeking, the adventuring, the delving and the dumpster diving, we crest some wave and hang in midair.  We are either exhausted or disillusioned, delusional, or bankrupt of clear hope.  The things for which we have grasped remain outside of reach, the things we do hold are much different than we imagined.  Thereupon is reflection, we allow ourselves to question our strategies and calibrations. 

At times it is easy to blame the crisis on the things or people who we have chosen to love and care for.  A part of us longs for autonomy, the freedom to build and create, unshackle the self-will. 

But something organic, something inevitable, something that works slowly but steadily like the weeds and growth that cannot be driven away; something of the necessities that enslave our daily toil waits for our quiet transformation - the hidden, inner work of a man.  As Kazantzakis would say - to turn matter into spirit. 

Well, we've gone and done it again.  Like true champions, we've managed to keep the rational voice corralled long enough so that the intuitive one can rule the day.  Child #4 arrived one week ago today!  He hasn't been here long enough to make any big, wide-swathed statements, but so far it feels both completely chaotic and completely right. 

Birth, like death, is a mighty equalizer.  At death there is universal grief; at birth there is universal joy.  The instinct is to smile, lean in and glimpse the essentials of being alive in a delicate face only days old.  After a birth, we scramble to decipher the visual code of the newborn - who does he look like?  what traits will he carry?  We dig out photos of the other children when they were born, of ourselves.  Relatives stop in to pay their respects, give their opinion and like wolves, bestow their blessing on the newest member of the pack. 

 My wife and I laugh out loud at the pictures of ourselves holding our first child almost 10 years ago. We appear inept, unaware of pending doom, naive and inexperienced. (and we were) It can be argued that we still carry these traits, but it is certain that now, 10 years and 4 births later, we have at least a bit more grasp of the situation. We know more about love, commitment, endurance, hard work, patience, long-suffering, laughter and hopefully, grace. Childbearing and child-rearing: important work, important play. We train each other along the way.