Raising Good People Part 2

I think I might be onto something with my fear about our (the collective gen-X, middle class America our) new obsession with food.  For those who didn't catch it, check out George Will's op-ed in yesterday's Post for some "food" for thought.  Even more disturbing, though, was this article in the New York Times.  God knows that I don't miss the "Molly McButter" and "Stew Starters" of my youth.  And I certainly enjoy eating as much fresh food as I can.  I love farmers' markets and seasonal fruits are a cause of much joy in my family.  But I do believe that we risk raising a generation of children with fears of food.  And food fears only lead to unhappiness.  I know this from personal experience.  As as person who lived through a year of not eating, it's no place I want my children to go through.  Why is it that we as a country, a class, or whatever, reject balanced lives?  Why does everything have to become the next big thing to the exclusion of sensible responses?  And how do we protect our children from this?  I guess we don't.  We just try and arm them with the best tools possible to make decisions for themselves.

Speaking of arming your kids with tools (and covering the topic of soul as well as body in this post), I've come to the decision that I probably should begin more formally exposing the girls to religion.  Both Ryan and I are Roman Catholics, although at this point in our lives it's more of an association rising out of family history rather than actual subscribing to the church's philosophy.  But I think kids do benefit from exposure to religion.  I think it's a great way to begin to understand communities, morals, and personal stability in an ever changing world.  Much like my approach to finding middle ground to govern self image (and food), I'd like to provide them with not only the religion but with the ability to recognize the faults and failings of organized institutions, like the catholic church.  I actually have more hope for this pursuit than I do with the food thing.  But I realized that the time was upon us when Izzy had the same reaction to Ash Wednesday that my Shia friend did in grad school.  She just couldn't understand why anyone would want to put dirt on their forehead.  

While I consider myself much more of a liberal than conservative, I think George Will is onto something.  It's a screwed up place when we replace "morality" with organic.  Guess it's time to go to church and buy some candy!  = ) 

Teaching this old dog some new tricks

One of the hardest parts of being a parent for me is to overcome my natural tendencies towards drama and the occasional bout of pessimism. For example, in the face of tired, yelling children this morning, I reminded them that the sun was shining and it was the beginning of a new, lovely week. Did I feel it would be a lovely week? Absolutely not. I am tired myself- tired of my fellowship, tired of winter, tired of not sleeping enough, and tired of crabby kids in the morning. But, fortunately, the sane part of my brain took over and what came out of my mouth was optimism.

This need to suppress my natural response is never so keen as when I am learning something new. I am a really SLOW learner. Ask Ryan who tried to help me ski. Ten years later I may finally be getting the hang of it. Or my knitting teacher who told me she never, before me, was unable to teach someone how to knit. (I do knit now for the record.) It's almost as if part of my brain goes into slow motion when I am learning something new and I absolutely cannot do it without tons of practice. This becomes a self reinforcing loop since taking a long time to learn a skill is a matter of great frustration for me, increasing my propensity towards drama and pessimism.

My new skill of the season is sewing. For some reason, perhaps all the craft blogs I read these days, I decided I wanted to learn to sew. Visions of sundresses and appliqued shirts for the girls danced before me. I even made it a New Year's resolution. So last week, after a slow start (and a special thanks to Elaine who did not laugh in my face when I showed up at her house for a sewing lesson sans fabric, pattern, or machine), I bought a sewing machine. It took me at least an hour to figure out all the movable parts and how to thread the thing, taking up most of my "play time" for that day but within a few days, I was able to thread, change the bobbins, and sew somewhat straight lines on a practice scrap. On I moved yesterday to something a bit bigger. I went to the local fabric shop to buy some more scraps and ended up coming home with some flannel to make blankets for the girls. (Not that they need blankets, but a blanket seemed to be the easiest project I could imagine.) Mistake #1- taking the girls with me to said fabric shop. Now they knew they stood to benefit from my experimentations. Mistake #2- telling Izzy I would work on it yesterday. Mistake #3- allowing Izzy to get up from her fake nap to "help" me with my project. Picture a scene with Isabel asking me every two minutes if her blanket is done yet, me completely unable to sew a straight line despite the fact that I pinned the seam, Izzy resorting to talking to herself none stop (she has a very active imaginary life in which she and her stuffed animals take on multiple roles) in between asking for a progress update, me actually sewing a line straight off the fabric and then breaking the needle, and finally, me totally freaking out and asking Izzy to go down in the basement and watch daddy stain crown molding.

I actually went grocery shopping to chill out and then came home and decided to make myself a smoothie as a treat. Smoothies are the latest craze in the Schroeder household since I discovered the joys of frozen fruit in Whole Foods. Alas, even yesterday's smoothie attempt went pathetically awry as our blender coughed and churned and began to ooze smoothie all over the counter from the base of the glass pitcher. Even smoothies were too much for my crafting ability yesterday! Fortunately, in honor of the Oscars, our dinner consisted of frozen canapes ala Trader Joes so there was no chance for me to burn the house down. Ryan, of course, was so supportive of my craft meltdown that he actually had to support himself with a wall he was laughing so hard.

In the end, I managed to not so delicately pull out the horrible seam from the flannel and sewed a less crooked, but crooked all the same, line the second time. And, despite the fact that I wanted to morph into Medea when Izzy asked again how her blanket was coming, I calmly said that I understood she was excited but that these things take time, especially when mom is learning.

Raising good people

Maybe it's just my age or the fact that I find myself with a little more time these days to think now that the girls are able to entertain themselves for at least a few minutes every day, but I've been pondering the notion of raising my kids. We're slowly moving beyond the point in our parenthood where we're simply responding to physical needs (although we still do a lot of that as well) and into the phase that requires some sort of moral framework, for lack of a better term. And of course this is where is gets tricky.

How do you raise a "good" person? And what is a good person anyway? I'd like to teach my girls something beyond learning right from wrong. I'd like to give them a foundation from which they are able to view themselves and the world around them in productive, interconnected ways. I'd like them to have a healthy sense of self- to accept their limitations but not to be limited by them, if that makes sense. I'd like them to be physically active and not have the same fear of food that I developed in my teens. I'd like them to see themselves as attractive but not be cocky or influenced by that. I'd like to see them connected to a community and willing to give back to that community (however defined) as much as they take. In short, I'd like them to be near perfect people. (Imagine emoticon here.) But how do you go about setting up a framework for kids without becoming preachy or demanding? I'm already finding with Isabel that if I don't step into this void quickly and firmly, other people will.

It's funny how quickly kids are influenced. Izzy, until this year, existed in a sort of self-involved bubble. She said please and thank you, shared with her friends most times, and was responsive to commands and questions. All in all, what you might call a generally polite child. But as far as I could tell, she didn't think about things much in any way recognizable as cognitive. That's changed. She now comes home concerned about our diets, telling us sugar is bad for our bodies. She needs to wash her hands incessantly, taking her teachers' remonstrations about germs far more seriously than they could have imagined. More troubling, though, she's come home and called people fat with the clear implication that there is something wrong with someone who weighs more than you do. I am not entirely sure she understands most of this, but it's clear that she listens to what she hears at school, whether from her teachers or friends, and takes much of it to heart.

This, of course, doesn't make Isabel a bad person, but it's not the person I'd like her to be. Making my own bias quite plain, I've come to believe that a lot of parenting these days is dictated by fads (baby Einsteins, cloth diapers, and carrots only for snacks) that takes a lot of the joy out of childhood and, quite frankly, out of parenting. My hope for myself and for my kids is that we can see beyond all the fluff and live lives that are balanced and ultimately happy. Because I simply cannot believe that a life that has no cupcakes at school to celebrate your birthday is happy. (A rule, by the way, being enforced in Montgomery County, MD.)

So where do we go from here? Well, beyond trying to reinforce the importance of a healthy diet (and yes, we eat lots of whole grains, fruits and veggies, drink organic milk all with caving in to our sweet teeth) AND the importance of exercise, this year we're planning to introduce the concept of volunteering. This will be lost on Lottie, but I am hoping it makes an impression on Izzy. First up in our projects is joining up with Project Linus to make blankets for chronically ill children. Second, we're going to volunteer in a river clean-up project on the Anacostia River for Earth Day. I'm hoping that these experiences will help the girls to imagine the world beyond themselves in ways that are safe but meaningful.

Wish me luck.

Lottie at Two

I've been slacking off a bit on my Pinkerbelle blog for which I apologize!  I've been a bit distracted with work these days, surprisingly enough.  But we celebrated a milestone in our family last week: Lottie turned two on Friday.  My baby is officially a toddler.  Her toddler-hood has been a long time in coming but I still feel a little sad all the same.  It's funny.  I didn't feel much nostalgia when Izzy turned two but that may have been because I was already pretty pregnant with Lottie at the time and we were looking forward alot more than we were looking back.  It's not to say that I don't enjoy Lottie at two.  She's definitely a character.  In the past month she's developed a fiercely independent streak.  She wants to put on her own clothing and coats- "I do it" has become a common refrain.  She's gotten pretty good at using the potty (at least for some of her potty issues).  She likes to cut with knives and apparently started using scissors at school.  She runs and kicks balls and is keenly interested in what the bigger kids are doing.  (She wanted to have her hair cut the other day when she saw me giving Izzy a trim.)  

Since Ryan and I are still not convinced one way or the other about having more children there's a good chance that Lottie will forever be the baby.  Which makes everything a bit more tender since there's something of our own youth wrapped up in her babyhood.  Perhaps their birth order will be a saving grace for our kids since Isabel prefers to be indulged and I prefer indulging Lottie.  Either that or they will both resent the hell out of me when they're older.  

As for Lottie herself, I think she prefers getting bigger, even if she remains one of the smallest kids in her class.  She really enjoyed her parties-- a very sheepish yet self important look came over her face every time someone sang happy birthday to her.  Like Izzy, Lottie benefited from the never ending birthday.  The celebrations started in VT when we shared cake with grandparents and cousins.  Next, the school festivities and dinner on Friday.  Finally, for the big finale, a party at the house with Ms Nancy, the local rock star music teacher at the girls' daycare center.  Somewhat shockingly, everything went off without a hitch.  The kids all behaved. Everyone seemed to enjoy the crafts, music, and food.  And, perhaps for the first time in my life, I got the thank you cards done within a few days.

And so, life goes on but I have to wonder-is it wrong to miss your kids already?