Bedtime

What about Bedtime you ask. Surely you don't let your 2 year old decide for himself when he will sleep? Won't he just stay awake all night? And then sleep all morning?

Well. Yes to everything.

I'm not sure if K has EVER been a fan of bedtime though...or sleep really. I mean, he LIKES his sleep in the sense that he GOES to sleep, but he was never one of those babies that takes two and three naps a day and then go down for a 12 hour night sleep. In fact, I distinctly remember sleep as being a huge question mark as far as I was concerned on the parenting spectrum.

There's sooo much hype about the amount of sleep children need. It can get to a person. It had me convinced for a while that I was somehow failing in the mothering department because my kid (if compared with the research, parenting books, and advice I was receiving) LITERALLY never slept.

I distinctly remember it starting back when I was pregnant. As part of our Bradley birth class, N and I were asked to fill out a rough schedule of a day with a newborn. It was supposed to show us that a baby was ridiculously time consuming and to prepare us for what lay ahead. Frankly, it was terrifying. But, what I remember most is that the baby was supposedly doing nothing but nursing, pooping, and sleeping. NOTHING else.

And then we brought K home. *sigh* He didn't really seem to sleep that much. He was wide awake half the night, most of the day, and I remember walking around the block in the snow because there was nothing else to DO with a wide awake infant in the middle of winter.

It wasn't detrimental to N and I at all. I mean, it was unexpected given what we had been told, but I just wore K wherever we went so he slept when needed and watched the world around him when awake. To tell the truth, I didn't give it much thought except to wonder how other babies were sleeping all the time.

When K was around 6 months old, I began to get worried. He was crawling. He was in to EVERYTHING, and he didn't nap. AT ALL. (I'm really not kidding.) He woke between 10-11am, and stayed up wide eyed and bushy-tailed until N and I collapsed around 1am. I had started going to a few Mom groups, making friends, and doing a good deal of parenting research and suddenly it seemed as though K wasn't sleeping enough.

I read a few books on night sleep training.

I commiserated with a fellow Mom friend who's child honest to goodness never ever slept.

I thought that I needed to instigate a  Bedtime.

I started up a routine, warm bath, massage, bedtime stories, nursing, ect...the whole works. But nothing worked. K wouldn't sleep unless we ALL went to bed, and somehow N and I always seemed to stay up late irregardless of the Baby.

We moved to Puerto Rico when K was 12 months old, and suddenly he was taking a nap in the mid-afternoon and crashing for the night at 8pm. Just like that. I didn't change anything. He was walking and running and spending every day at the park, the beach, and out in the hot sun, and he was actually needing more sleep.

Imagine that.

Of course, we weren't unschoolers just yet. We were still struggling with our own hang-ups about parenting without authoritarianism. N and I were, essentially, still deschooling ourselves from what we thought represented a 'good' child.

So, I ignored what was probably THE most obvious indication that my child was perfectly capable of deciding his own sleep schedule and became a bit rigid about bedtime and naptime. I won't lie. It was WONDERFUL to KNOW that the baby would be down at 1pm, sleep for two hours, and then go down for the night at 9pm.

But at some point in those next few months, K stopped needing all that extra sleep. It started getting REALLY hard to get him down for a nap. And 'bedtime' became an unbearable battle of wills that left me stressed out and frustrated at the 'wasted' hour of nursing that resulted in nothing but a recharged toddler.

Even as recent as 3 or 4 months ago, I was struggling with my issues regarding K's sleep.

I was more lax. I 'let' him stay up until I saw signs that indicated he was tired and then I would scoop him up and settle down in bed for a long nursing down. Which, often didn't work.

But, for the past two months or so, we've been trying a less stressful approach. N stays up late. He's just a night owl. I stay up mediocre late...about midnight and then I really need to lay down, chill out for a bit, and go to sleep. K varies. Some nights he's asking for milk and stories in the bedroom at 8pm, some nights he stays up until 5am perfectly content. (TOTALLY not kidding!)

So, now, I go to bed when tired. That's just it. I have released whatever last resolve I had about bedtime for K, and I worry about myself. I respect that he's done NOTHING but show me he can choose for himself when he needs to sleep, and I have stepped back.

Nighttime is a LOT less stressful. I play with K without dreading the hour or two of nursing that may or may not get him to sleep or nagging him about whether or not he's tired. N and I have lost some bit of our 'alone' time, but we can still talk and cuddle. N and K get some quality time together that they both enjoy. We all seem a bit more chill.

And, yes. We all sleep late. It's rare that we're all up before 11am, but we are aware of that and make sure not to schedule anything for the morning.

It's not a bad deal.

It's funny how some of the hardest things I've had to do as a parent involve letting go of my own perceptions of what constitutes a childhood, a 'good' parent, and a 'good' child. Sometimes I wonder if K will have a much easier time of raising his children. Will life be more fun and games right from the beginning because he can't remember or imagine any other WAY to raise a child?

This post was part of Unschooling Monday sponsored by Owlet Designs.Make sure to check out the rest of the participating posts!

Legalize It

Today, I noticed a man wearing a black t-shirt with "Legalize It" written in bold white font. (We're talking about Marijuana here.)

To be clear, I personally think there's nothing wrong or dangerous about using pot. It's a weed. It has medical benefits. And, most importantly, I don't really care what others choose to do.

I have smoked it, and I have enjoyed every occasion.

I have known pot dealers, growers, and users. There was nothing extraordinary about any of these people that would have given an indication as to what they did in their free time.

With all that said, I can't get behind the whole "legalize it" movement. Not because I don't support one's right to use marijuana. In fact, it's just the opposite.

When does something even BECOME illegal? When the government declares it punishable by their law...which, in case you missed the memo, not EVERYONE signed up for.

To make something 'Legal' is to regulate something into accordance with the State. Legalizing pot would hardly mean free and ready access to everyone who desired it. Rather, it would mean, thousands of dollars paid annually to the State for the RIGHT to buy and sell. It would mean licensure in accordance with strict regulations. It would mean age limits, quantity limits, and quality specifications.

Right now, there's a threat of force against my person hovering over my head, but I CAN walk next door and buy some quality pot off the guy who's growing in his backyard...for one fee. No questions asked. No papers filed. No paper trail as to what I do with my time.

It's a tiny bit like freedom.

There's a really excellent essay by Emma Goldman that always comes to mind whenever I overhear people ardently in favor of legalizing or regulating something. Emma Goldman is not quite a hero of mine (I think she's a bit of socialist) but this particular essay always struck me as rather important.

Back in her day, women were pushing for the right to vote. They wanted equal rights as their fellow men, and that meant having the right to cast a vote. Emma couldn't quite see eye to eye with her fellow feminists...not that she was AGAINST them having the right to vote, rather, she couldn't understand why they wanted to join up with the people she saw as enslavers to the entire human race! An anarchist by all definitions, Emma thought that women might do better to withhold themselves from the State.

At first it boggles the mind.

It takes some thought.

When women joined to the State through the right to vote, they lost their right to exist outside of the State. We welcomed the State into our lives thinking it preferable to living as the chattel of Man. Instead of a husband or father telling us what we might and might not do, we welcomed a much more demanding master. Government is not something you can lightly shake off...or run away from, or dissuade.

 Nowdays when people talk excitedly about getting something legalized or regulated, it makes me cringe. Isn't something like that going on right now?...Obama's healthcare plan that 'regulates' insurance companies and makes it 'illegal' to go without a healthcare plan...under THREAT OF FORCE.

There are movements all over the country to make homeschooling a 'legal' option for parents. Where it is 'legal' there are massive amounts of paperwork and regulations that infringe upon the very freedom people think they have received.

The same is true of homebirthing. There are still states where it is illegal, and midwives operate under threat of fines and imprisonment. They hope for legalization and state regulation. This all means paying hard-earned money INTO the very State that has been punishing your actions for the RIGHT to NOW do those actions legally.

WITH more restrictions than when you were just going ahead and doing the damn thing illegally.

?????!!!!

This happens ALL the time.

I just can't support it.

It's sort of like nursing-ins. I admire the women who go do these shows of force about breastfeeding, but I will probably never join one. If I want to breastfeed my child, I will. I will not wait for the State to approve my action. It might make a larger statement if everyone just did what they wanted to do anyway...without aiming for any sort of 'approval' or state sanction.

*sigh* Do you know that at the most recent nursing in, the woman running the thing actually went down the city office to file for AND receive a PERMIT for her protest.

Getting a STATE PERMIT to protest AGAINST  the State????!!!!

That's another blog post ;-)

I have no idea what the law will be in whatever state we happen to be in when K reaches 'school age', but it just won't matter. He will be home with us no matter the law because it's absolutely within my right as a parent to require the best education possible for my child.

The next baby will be born at home. I don't care if it's illegal. It's my body, it's my child, it's not something anyone else can tell me is legal or illegal.

So, in conclusion, I DO wish that pot were legal...meaning, I wish there was no THREAT OF FORCE preventing me from buying some off of that guy down the street, but I can't get behind the "legalize it" movement...or any such moment really. I don't support the State...nor do I look to the State for support or permission to go about my life as I see fit.

Mainstream Media and School

Have you seen this video? Or, better yet, read this book?


Is it funny? Or just disturbing? how books and movies so effectively illustrate the spirit-crushing tendencies of structured schooling, without intention?

It's satisfying for me, as a mother who would prefer her child to never enter public or private school, to see  these examples so widespread in mainstream media, but it's sort of like the anarchism thing in that I just can't understand why people accept this as normal so...passively.

I mean, how is this video NOT disturbing? (outside of the fact that the little pup appears to have a happy home life!)

Unschooling the TV

Life is going along as usual. A bit of poker here and there, a bit of playing at the park, a bit of cooking, and more Dora the Explorer than seems sane. Not that I exactly dislike Dora...it's more that we've been overhearing the same episode long enough for K to now know all the words to the entire episode and repeat them along with Dora. What's worse, is that N and I aren't too far behind!

We started giving K unlimited access to shows back in Hawaii when he would have been around 18 months old. At first, it bothered me; He developed an infatuation with Caillou (an animated show about a little 4 year old boy and his family), to the point that he would refuse to leave the house in favor of watching Caillou. Once this show began interfering with his daily life and activities that I KNEW he enjoyed, I started to feel that there needed to be limits surrounding his show exposure.

It was right about this time that I stumbled upon 'radical unschooling', which basically suggests that children be given the same freedoms as adults and that our role as parents is to foster their autonomy as much as possible. As with all parenting movements, not everyone who calls themselves radical unschoolers  fits one mold. Some families will limit tv exposure but allow full freedom in all other areas of life...others will keep a few boundary rules and expect their children to respect them. But, what's pertinent to this blog post is that a majority of radical unschoolers feel that their is no need for limits to shows/tv.

It's a radical idea. Yes, lots of children zone in front of the tv to an unhealthy extent, but if you take a closer look, you'll find that most of these children attend structured schools. They spend 8+ hours a day in a structured environment that, at times, can be very stressful. When they come home, they look to the tv as a form of relaxation. Unless we go out of our way to avoid this interaction, we all are guilty of having done this at some point in our lives. We treat movies, videos, tv, as a visual form of relaxation...a de-stressor from our lives. And children who are growing and developing in rigid, authoritative environments have the same need for relaxation. It just so happens that they center around the tv.

To contrast, most unschooling families find that their children (even the very young) merely go through phases of interest in the tv or computer...wherever they are able to watch shows. Given the freedom to do whatever they would like (within doable reason!) whenever they like, these children often have no NEED for tv. Instead, they are attracted to it merely as a viable form of entertainment. They will fall in and out of love with shows and videos purely for their entertainment value. So, when K was obsessed with Caillou, he found it more interesting and entertaining than the park, than the beach, than shopping for groceries. It was wrong of me to assume that the park was still the more entertaining alternative!

Sure enough, once he had had his fill of Caillou, the computer became lonely in its corner as K found life around him to, once more, be more entertaining and fulfilling. We would occasionally introduce him to new shows we happened upon and thought he might like, and of course, he was welcome to request anything, but it wasn't until we found shows of Kipper the Dog that he really retained an interest in sitting for a show.

That phase lasted for a month or two, and then K (once again) abandoned his computer. It's actually been a while since he's gone through any similar phase. He prefers to play with his train track, or paint, or be read to than sit for a show. But, yesterday he watched one particular episode of Dora (which he requested rather out of the blue) over and over. He's still watching the same episode with the same amount of fervor, but he's already beginning to bounce around the house again, or bring toys into his tent to play with as he watches.

It's just fascinating to see such a clear example of how giving your child the maximum amount of freedom and autonomy over himself can lead him to make the very choices you, as a parent, might prefer. (after all, you are hoping your child makes the choices in life that will give him the maximum happiness and BEST quality of life, right?)

I like that K likes his shows. (Mostly, I like anything he likes, because I like to see him happy.) But, at the same time, I am older, I know that sitting all day in front of a screen does not present the best quality of life. I want K to gain enjoyment from the outdoors, from reading, from exploring physical manipulations, ect... and by allowing him free and unlimited access to the tv/computer, I DO get a child who does all those other thing I prefer. WithOUT the tears, or conflicts, or punishments, or boundaries, or rules, that might otherwise seem necessary.