The first time I birthed a child, I very badly wanted someone else to birth her for me. I had a 3-person birth team and a partner waiting around for me to do my thing. I was terrified. In the end, after 36 hours of labor, someone else did do it for me. Someone whose name I don't recall pulled and tugged her out of my sliced open and exposed uterus, under a very bright light. I remember glimpsing my daughter yelling lustily, covered in green meconium, before she was summarily suctioned, rinsed, wrapped up, and shown to me by her father, before I promptly became nauseous and passed out.
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When you give away your responsibilities, you also give away your power. I didn't really know that before my daughter was born. Learning to parent my daughter, I learned how to parent myself.
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Two years (and one week) later, when I woke up one morning and promptly went into labor with my son, I knew nobody would do it for me. I just buckled down and worked through whatever resistance I had. It took 5 hours of dancing and swaying, completely alone, and 1 hour of pushing and birthing (with support).
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Homeschooling has been a remarkably similar experience. I've lost less blood, but it has been to date a long, difficult labor, as I have struggled to find my strength.
In the course of the last five years, I've listened to lots of Outside Voices from one place and another, telling me I was Doing Everything Wrong. Don't let your child stay up past dark! Don't force your child to go to bed before he's ready! Don't give your child refined sugar! Let your child choose her own foods! Don't teach your child to read until they lose their teeth! Don't teach your child to read at all! Let the child copy you! Don't answer questions about The Difficult World! Challenge your child to think critically! I have often been miserable.
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At one point, I signed my Daughter up for Suzuki Violin-- a terrible match for her particular nature-- and she lost all her joy for music. "It took all the fun out of music for me!" she said to me, at 6. The same thing happened with reading, with writing, with spelling. Her joy was stolen, her self-esteem was headed straight down, and this time it was her voice that told me I was Doing Everything Wrong.
Unlike all the other, Outside Voices to which I had reacted, one pendulum swing after another, I didn't react to my daughter's voice. I responded.
We stopped what we were doing, entirely. I am focused on responding to my children, and trying my best to figure the rest out.
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When you give away your responsibilities, you also give away your power. I didn't really know that before my daughter was born. Learning to parent my daughter, I learned how to parent myself.
****
Two years (and one week) later, when I woke up one morning and promptly went into labor with my son, I knew nobody would do it for me. I just buckled down and worked through whatever resistance I had. It took 5 hours of dancing and swaying, completely alone, and 1 hour of pushing and birthing (with support).
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| Center Square of My Birthing Quilt |
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Homeschooling has been a remarkably similar experience. I've lost less blood, but it has been to date a long, difficult labor, as I have struggled to find my strength.
In the course of the last five years, I've listened to lots of Outside Voices from one place and another, telling me I was Doing Everything Wrong. Don't let your child stay up past dark! Don't force your child to go to bed before he's ready! Don't give your child refined sugar! Let your child choose her own foods! Don't teach your child to read until they lose their teeth! Don't teach your child to read at all! Let the child copy you! Don't answer questions about The Difficult World! Challenge your child to think critically! I have often been miserable.
****
At one point, I signed my Daughter up for Suzuki Violin-- a terrible match for her particular nature-- and she lost all her joy for music. "It took all the fun out of music for me!" she said to me, at 6. The same thing happened with reading, with writing, with spelling. Her joy was stolen, her self-esteem was headed straight down, and this time it was her voice that told me I was Doing Everything Wrong.
Unlike all the other, Outside Voices to which I had reacted, one pendulum swing after another, I didn't react to my daughter's voice. I responded.
We stopped what we were doing, entirely. I am focused on responding to my children, and trying my best to figure the rest out.
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