This month seems to have flown by already. Not sure what I've gotten accomplished, just been keeping very busy with work and trying to keep a social life happening, keeping things interesting and light.
But have had some dark moments...maybe it's just the boredom, or the self-induced isolation.
Hoping for a pick-me-up soon.
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Blaaachhh
Huuaahhhh
Sniiighh
And repeat, several times daily.
I feel so ick, who knows what freakin virus this is, if it's a Norwalk-like, the H1N1, regular old influenza, the 9 month flu, whatever. I don't care what it is, but my stomach feels like it's slowly turning inside out. The nausea centre in my brain is having a whoop whoop. And it's perfectly timed with a water main break.
Shit.
Huuaahhhh
Sniiighh
And repeat, several times daily.
I feel so ick, who knows what freakin virus this is, if it's a Norwalk-like, the H1N1, regular old influenza, the 9 month flu, whatever. I don't care what it is, but my stomach feels like it's slowly turning inside out. The nausea centre in my brain is having a whoop whoop. And it's perfectly timed with a water main break.
Shit.
Kayah is talking now.
Boobs = beesh
Please = peesh
cracker = cock! cock!
Puppy = puppy
grandma = baba
food = momomomom
Mommy = momommmy
bye = bye
diaper change = bum!
hand = han
toes = toesh
owie = owie
book = boo
pie = pie
bootsy = boosh
night night = nienie
Boobs = beesh
Please = peesh
cracker = cock! cock!
Puppy = puppy
grandma = baba
food = momomomom
Mommy = momommmy
bye = bye
diaper change = bum!
hand = han
toes = toesh
owie = owie
book = boo
pie = pie
bootsy = boosh
night night = nienie
Feeling yuck today. I was feeling kind of lack luster yesterday - just a little under the weather. Nothing to blow smoke at though, and I figured it was just because I got up two hours earlier than I had been all weekend.
So I'm thinking that today should probably be about turkey soup and fluids?
Kayah is sleeping in for me right now.
I gotta save my energy for Blue Man Group tomorrow!!! Hooray.
So I'm thinking that today should probably be about turkey soup and fluids?
Kayah is sleeping in for me right now.
I gotta save my energy for Blue Man Group tomorrow!!! Hooray.
With the illegalization of spanking of children, I think our society is taking a positive step in the right direction. I'm not talking about putting people in jail for smacking their child's hand out of the cookie jar, but people who are perpetually dealing with their own anger issues by forcibly being violent towards others.
Think about in these terms - your adult co-worker spills the staples from the staple box. Do they get spanked and told they are bad? Your wife forgets to do the laundry - does she get slapped across the face? Some guy at the bus stop pushes you - do you punch him in the ear?
Why is it acceptable to hit your children but not other adults?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDKWhDfgqls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egO-TCv6vwM&feature=related
I like Gordon Neufeld's approach very much - not only because of the use of attachment parenting as a basis for parenting, but for the reason that he examines why we've made the choice to use physical violence as an alternative for parenting. I think he agrees with consequence - by influencing children to make better choices so that they don't continue using negative behaviors.
Some simple examples - your child is being uncivilized at the table and throwing food onto the floor. It's acceptable to say no with a stern voice, but it would be more productive to explain to your child that the behavior is wasting food. Instead of getting angry at the behavior, why not remove the food from the table and model good behavior yourself?
There is the extreme though (which I see among my friends) to use an entirely overly gentle approach and padding the entire house, or to let the child continue to do self destructive behaviors over and over. That is not effective parenting either, as children need to know that what they are doing is wrong and that there is a consequence. It's not good to completely ignore the behavior either, but sometimes negative attention does the same as encouraging the behavior (as it's attention, which our kids clearly don't get when their parents are constantly ignoring them before hand).
The old ball n chain said that there should have been certain things discussed before having children - which I agree with, learning about each other is a vital part of marriage and there are certain questions that should be answered before children. But I beg to differ in that the conversations before about a parenting style of preference may or may not deal with things as they come. If one parent agrees on spanking and the other doesn't so they decide to not have children, that really doesn't deal with the issue at hand. People are going to have different parenting choices before children than they will once the kids come into play. You never know what kind of child you're going to have - whether it be a high-needs spirited little red head or a gentle angel blonde haired cutie pie. Every child is going to need discipline once in a while - kids are inherently curious and testing boundaries. I think parents just leave spanking as an easy alternative to parenting.
These are just my thoughts - I have used marshal punishment for both of my children and realize that it was my problem with anger and my own upbringing that brought that consequence on. I didn't know how to handle their behavior and let my frustration get the better with me. I will still parent with a stern voice when my child presents me with a problem, and I will still be frustrated and angry within the spectrum of emotions. Nobody is telling us to be flat in our emotions - just to chose the appropriate emotion for the action. If we all screamed FUCK as loud as we could when we stubbed our toe, not only would our swear jars be full but we'd all be foul-mouthed and violent people.
So that's my little weigh in about that... I honestly believe that if we're going to make changes in our society, we need to have consequences for our behaviors. But I also agree that mental health help needs to be more readily available for those who have anger problems. Anger management programs are only accessible to those who are criminals already or who are willing to pay for them. Why are we not teaching our kids in school how to effectively manage anger as adults?
Maybe this will be a positive step in that direction as well... until then, I'm not going to be spanking my kids left\ right and center to deal with my own lack of parenting.
Think about in these terms - your adult co-worker spills the staples from the staple box. Do they get spanked and told they are bad? Your wife forgets to do the laundry - does she get slapped across the face? Some guy at the bus stop pushes you - do you punch him in the ear?
Why is it acceptable to hit your children but not other adults?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDKWhDfgqls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egO-TCv6vwM&feature=related
I like Gordon Neufeld's approach very much - not only because of the use of attachment parenting as a basis for parenting, but for the reason that he examines why we've made the choice to use physical violence as an alternative for parenting. I think he agrees with consequence - by influencing children to make better choices so that they don't continue using negative behaviors.
Some simple examples - your child is being uncivilized at the table and throwing food onto the floor. It's acceptable to say no with a stern voice, but it would be more productive to explain to your child that the behavior is wasting food. Instead of getting angry at the behavior, why not remove the food from the table and model good behavior yourself?
There is the extreme though (which I see among my friends) to use an entirely overly gentle approach and padding the entire house, or to let the child continue to do self destructive behaviors over and over. That is not effective parenting either, as children need to know that what they are doing is wrong and that there is a consequence. It's not good to completely ignore the behavior either, but sometimes negative attention does the same as encouraging the behavior (as it's attention, which our kids clearly don't get when their parents are constantly ignoring them before hand).
The old ball n chain said that there should have been certain things discussed before having children - which I agree with, learning about each other is a vital part of marriage and there are certain questions that should be answered before children. But I beg to differ in that the conversations before about a parenting style of preference may or may not deal with things as they come. If one parent agrees on spanking and the other doesn't so they decide to not have children, that really doesn't deal with the issue at hand. People are going to have different parenting choices before children than they will once the kids come into play. You never know what kind of child you're going to have - whether it be a high-needs spirited little red head or a gentle angel blonde haired cutie pie. Every child is going to need discipline once in a while - kids are inherently curious and testing boundaries. I think parents just leave spanking as an easy alternative to parenting.
These are just my thoughts - I have used marshal punishment for both of my children and realize that it was my problem with anger and my own upbringing that brought that consequence on. I didn't know how to handle their behavior and let my frustration get the better with me. I will still parent with a stern voice when my child presents me with a problem, and I will still be frustrated and angry within the spectrum of emotions. Nobody is telling us to be flat in our emotions - just to chose the appropriate emotion for the action. If we all screamed FUCK as loud as we could when we stubbed our toe, not only would our swear jars be full but we'd all be foul-mouthed and violent people.
So that's my little weigh in about that... I honestly believe that if we're going to make changes in our society, we need to have consequences for our behaviors. But I also agree that mental health help needs to be more readily available for those who have anger problems. Anger management programs are only accessible to those who are criminals already or who are willing to pay for them. Why are we not teaching our kids in school how to effectively manage anger as adults?
Maybe this will be a positive step in that direction as well... until then, I'm not going to be spanking my kids left\ right and center to deal with my own lack of parenting.
No Mom Guilt Allowed
Ah. There she lays, in my bed, all curled up with tousled hair. The red-headed she-monster that is my baby. Love her to pieces – but at the same time she's this little prodigal chicken bone in my throat.
Don't get me wrong, I love both of my girls with every ounce of will and energy I have. Survival seems to suck every ounce of life out of me, and I think sometimes that robs from my ability to love and nurture my kids and myself. Then there is the husband, I mean “that guy” who sleeps in my bed and shares the couch with me the odd evening here and there. Sometimes we confess our love to each other, between squawking-raging toddler moments and the pre-teen angst that is our marriage. It's either professing love or arguing over money or who's had more me-time in a week.
My parenting journey hasn't been the easiest, so I sometimes can pin point the exact moments in my own upbringing that I learned my current behaviors. There was that one time I shared a father-daughter moment, the time when I was scared shitless of my mother, and the other time I actually wanted them both to die a firey death. Coincidentally, they all happened within the same five-day span (well, maybe at least). But in all honesty, I wouldn't consider them parenting experts or even model individuals at certain times. The basic message here is that we all have our moments to be ashamed of ourselves, but we seem to remember those over those beams of light when we really kicked some ass and shit our own rainbows over the world.
I don't mean that we should all shit rainbows out all of the time either. That would be a freaking disaster if it was the “me” show about all of us at the same time. I get the vibe that parents these days are having all of society's pressures shoved upon them every moment of the day – between internet, billboards, and our peer groups. Well, at least among MY peer mommy group – I can either feel like a goddess with wings like Always, or I can feel like the rusty gnome in the garden that the dogs piss on. It seems to go a little bit both ways... but lately I'm in the garden more than I'm floating in the pleasant world brought to us by Tampax.
My parenting “pearls”....
Maybe it was the survival-mode I went into being a single mom for several years. The oldest came to be somewhere between a new 19 year old relationship and the biggest emotional disaster of my entire life. I let go of my precious sexual control for a few months and out came this wretched vomit and a positive pregnancy test. That followed with three years of abuse, making up, more abuse, my parents divorcing, flunking out of university (times 2), and finally moving into a single-parent housing project.
I remember that apartment and all of the parenting joy I had there. I vividly recall bathing with my daughter in the mornings, cooking her an egg, and then watching cartoons on the CBC. Nothing better than not having to live with my dad and my brother...ahh, the wonders of having room to kick out on the couch. We enjoyed those days, as much as we could between pressing charges against the father and decorating the apartment with Christmas lights (you know you WANTED to do that sooo bad in high school!).
When I sat at breakfast with number two today, making her the same egg breakfast and watching the same cartoon, I thought about the worm hole back to that parenting universe. It seems like an entire personality or five or six ago that I was there in that zone. Is it possible to reinvent your parenting style over an eight year point spread? Or am I really the same parent I was back then.
To compare notes, it's not much different. My circle of friends is just as small, the pressure to parent a certain way with certain luxuries is just as huge. I bucked the trend then and I still am now by bed sharing and breastfeeding beyond the first six months. But then I also buck the trends within the trends as well, or perhaps I just fuck the trends for the sake of fucking them entirely. I don't feel as though I need to sell myself out as a person and buy into a whole entirely new personality just to impress the yuppy group, nor do I want to grow my children up in a Nestle factory. I also don't want to be the rebel who's always rebel yelling against rebels being rebels. That makes no sense at all, but the point is I am who I am and it seems as though that has isolated me into this little shitty corner of the world where other moms either run away or stick around until they smell my pits. Or whatevs.
So here are these two kids, who have both turned out to be relatively strange children in a pretty crazy ass world. I wouldn't think they are strange at all – but I'm sure others gawk in absolute horror when they see me wearing my baby and walking down the street with a smoke in between my fingers. I'm sure the old women and yuppies all roll over in their Red River when I drink and then breastfeed within the same 24 hour period. Of course people are going to think what they want, and I'm going to continue to stick up my virtual middle finger behind my back... then go and eat a box of Oreo's and wonder why the creator of this earth chose me to parent and chose them to judge.
My kids are great little monsters though. They are fiercely independent and would be able to figure things out if I was ever to fall unconscious down the stairs while carrying laundry baskets or something. I'm pretty sure the one year old could change her own diaper (the potty is probably an impossible feat, though). The nine year old can most definitely survive in a world that crumbled as long as there were smelly pencils and Miley Cyrus albums. Even the dogs in our house figure it out – they are pretty flexible with their choices for bathrooms. We seem to make it, day to day, without all turning on each other. Even though there are six of us living in this house who in any other circumstance might just dawn rocket launchers like Pitt and Jolie did in that hired-goon movie. I mean, our house pretty much looks like theirs did at the end. That's on a good day.
What has survival meant to me this time around? Well, mostly that I need to leave my mom guilt at the door pretty much all of the time. If I let it bother me, I usually turn into this neurotic chocolate-eating mess. We don't have chocolate in our cupboards at the moment, so you know that the mom guilt has gotten me a few times. There are those instances, though, when I've put my neck out to help a mom-friend learn to leave her own guilt alone and I find myself just absorbing her energy and getting whiney and bitchy. Ask my husband – between the hormones and being involved in several parenting-related forums I pretty much complain as much as I shit rainbows.
It does eat me, but it eats me in a different way. I make my choices to do certain things that aren't categorized as whatever, and my type-A mom friendz probably sit around and poke fun at me. But for the most part, I think I'm just the kind of parent that goes with the moment-to moment flow of things and doesn't take a dump on my own philosophies to impress the others around me. It doesn't mean I don't leech small concessions here and there – don't get me wrong... the kid-gadgets are pretty impressive these days! It's nice to see what creative minds think of when they are moms trying to make a bit of extra money on the side to stay home. My best finds are probably the baby carrying device of choice and the boob-shaped bottle for milk-transfer. I won't say bottle feeding, because this device was solely created in my world for transferring breastmilk from my breast and into the baby, without me actually being there. Let's face it though – the cow has GOT to leave the pasture once in a while. I'm not talking extreme amounts of time, but seriously the COW needs to find some diversity in her diet and exercise, otherwise she'll remain a cow.
Maybe what fits this one best is the adage – if momma ain't happy... but momma, in my case, once in a while needs to be a singleton and not this latched-to-children mom-ster. I was an individual before the children, and I'll continue to be one long after them. I'm sure that some day I'll be alone and regretting that time I took a dump by myself and then that other time I went to a wedding reception and smoked (gasp!) and had a stiff drink. To think that parents all over the world in all kinds of cultures might actually spend a few seconds in their own element at some time in the first twelve years of their children's lives... and in our culture we're either taking it too far one way or too far the other. I like this whole being-in-the-middle thing. Once in a while, I'll leave the brood and have a cold one and then I'll return and all is well again.
Ah. There she lays, in my bed, all curled up with tousled hair. The red-headed she-monster that is my baby. Love her to pieces – but at the same time she's this little prodigal chicken bone in my throat.
Don't get me wrong, I love both of my girls with every ounce of will and energy I have. Survival seems to suck every ounce of life out of me, and I think sometimes that robs from my ability to love and nurture my kids and myself. Then there is the husband, I mean “that guy” who sleeps in my bed and shares the couch with me the odd evening here and there. Sometimes we confess our love to each other, between squawking-raging toddler moments and the pre-teen angst that is our marriage. It's either professing love or arguing over money or who's had more me-time in a week.
My parenting journey hasn't been the easiest, so I sometimes can pin point the exact moments in my own upbringing that I learned my current behaviors. There was that one time I shared a father-daughter moment, the time when I was scared shitless of my mother, and the other time I actually wanted them both to die a firey death. Coincidentally, they all happened within the same five-day span (well, maybe at least). But in all honesty, I wouldn't consider them parenting experts or even model individuals at certain times. The basic message here is that we all have our moments to be ashamed of ourselves, but we seem to remember those over those beams of light when we really kicked some ass and shit our own rainbows over the world.
I don't mean that we should all shit rainbows out all of the time either. That would be a freaking disaster if it was the “me” show about all of us at the same time. I get the vibe that parents these days are having all of society's pressures shoved upon them every moment of the day – between internet, billboards, and our peer groups. Well, at least among MY peer mommy group – I can either feel like a goddess with wings like Always, or I can feel like the rusty gnome in the garden that the dogs piss on. It seems to go a little bit both ways... but lately I'm in the garden more than I'm floating in the pleasant world brought to us by Tampax.
My parenting “pearls”....
Maybe it was the survival-mode I went into being a single mom for several years. The oldest came to be somewhere between a new 19 year old relationship and the biggest emotional disaster of my entire life. I let go of my precious sexual control for a few months and out came this wretched vomit and a positive pregnancy test. That followed with three years of abuse, making up, more abuse, my parents divorcing, flunking out of university (times 2), and finally moving into a single-parent housing project.
I remember that apartment and all of the parenting joy I had there. I vividly recall bathing with my daughter in the mornings, cooking her an egg, and then watching cartoons on the CBC. Nothing better than not having to live with my dad and my brother...ahh, the wonders of having room to kick out on the couch. We enjoyed those days, as much as we could between pressing charges against the father and decorating the apartment with Christmas lights (you know you WANTED to do that sooo bad in high school!).
When I sat at breakfast with number two today, making her the same egg breakfast and watching the same cartoon, I thought about the worm hole back to that parenting universe. It seems like an entire personality or five or six ago that I was there in that zone. Is it possible to reinvent your parenting style over an eight year point spread? Or am I really the same parent I was back then.
To compare notes, it's not much different. My circle of friends is just as small, the pressure to parent a certain way with certain luxuries is just as huge. I bucked the trend then and I still am now by bed sharing and breastfeeding beyond the first six months. But then I also buck the trends within the trends as well, or perhaps I just fuck the trends for the sake of fucking them entirely. I don't feel as though I need to sell myself out as a person and buy into a whole entirely new personality just to impress the yuppy group, nor do I want to grow my children up in a Nestle factory. I also don't want to be the rebel who's always rebel yelling against rebels being rebels. That makes no sense at all, but the point is I am who I am and it seems as though that has isolated me into this little shitty corner of the world where other moms either run away or stick around until they smell my pits. Or whatevs.
So here are these two kids, who have both turned out to be relatively strange children in a pretty crazy ass world. I wouldn't think they are strange at all – but I'm sure others gawk in absolute horror when they see me wearing my baby and walking down the street with a smoke in between my fingers. I'm sure the old women and yuppies all roll over in their Red River when I drink and then breastfeed within the same 24 hour period. Of course people are going to think what they want, and I'm going to continue to stick up my virtual middle finger behind my back... then go and eat a box of Oreo's and wonder why the creator of this earth chose me to parent and chose them to judge.
My kids are great little monsters though. They are fiercely independent and would be able to figure things out if I was ever to fall unconscious down the stairs while carrying laundry baskets or something. I'm pretty sure the one year old could change her own diaper (the potty is probably an impossible feat, though). The nine year old can most definitely survive in a world that crumbled as long as there were smelly pencils and Miley Cyrus albums. Even the dogs in our house figure it out – they are pretty flexible with their choices for bathrooms. We seem to make it, day to day, without all turning on each other. Even though there are six of us living in this house who in any other circumstance might just dawn rocket launchers like Pitt and Jolie did in that hired-goon movie. I mean, our house pretty much looks like theirs did at the end. That's on a good day.
What has survival meant to me this time around? Well, mostly that I need to leave my mom guilt at the door pretty much all of the time. If I let it bother me, I usually turn into this neurotic chocolate-eating mess. We don't have chocolate in our cupboards at the moment, so you know that the mom guilt has gotten me a few times. There are those instances, though, when I've put my neck out to help a mom-friend learn to leave her own guilt alone and I find myself just absorbing her energy and getting whiney and bitchy. Ask my husband – between the hormones and being involved in several parenting-related forums I pretty much complain as much as I shit rainbows.
It does eat me, but it eats me in a different way. I make my choices to do certain things that aren't categorized as whatever, and my type-A mom friendz probably sit around and poke fun at me. But for the most part, I think I'm just the kind of parent that goes with the moment-to moment flow of things and doesn't take a dump on my own philosophies to impress the others around me. It doesn't mean I don't leech small concessions here and there – don't get me wrong... the kid-gadgets are pretty impressive these days! It's nice to see what creative minds think of when they are moms trying to make a bit of extra money on the side to stay home. My best finds are probably the baby carrying device of choice and the boob-shaped bottle for milk-transfer. I won't say bottle feeding, because this device was solely created in my world for transferring breastmilk from my breast and into the baby, without me actually being there. Let's face it though – the cow has GOT to leave the pasture once in a while. I'm not talking extreme amounts of time, but seriously the COW needs to find some diversity in her diet and exercise, otherwise she'll remain a cow.
Maybe what fits this one best is the adage – if momma ain't happy... but momma, in my case, once in a while needs to be a singleton and not this latched-to-children mom-ster. I was an individual before the children, and I'll continue to be one long after them. I'm sure that some day I'll be alone and regretting that time I took a dump by myself and then that other time I went to a wedding reception and smoked (gasp!) and had a stiff drink. To think that parents all over the world in all kinds of cultures might actually spend a few seconds in their own element at some time in the first twelve years of their children's lives... and in our culture we're either taking it too far one way or too far the other. I like this whole being-in-the-middle thing. Once in a while, I'll leave the brood and have a cold one and then I'll return and all is well again.
I'm going to take a little parenting-related shot here. Just me blowing off some steam.
Each generation has it's uber mom. It's that mom who has all of the latest outfits, the latest gadgets, and resources (somewhere) to pump into them. It's the mom who reads incessantly, researches their childs first day of preschool before conception. The type-A mom who has every moment planned out, and rarely allows for any change of course from that path. I suppose she might look different generation to generation, but the general mom-population either finds her to be awesome or annoying. In my case, it's a bit of both.
I really do admire the strength and fortitude that these mothers have to make it. It takes a lot of dedication, and those children benefit. The poor mommas fall to pieces and work themselves to the bone. Sometimes I feel like I've BTDT to uphold this whole attachment parenting style. But I also haven't lost myself in my child a year later.
We do what we can, when we can. We're still cloth diapering as much as possible without beating ourselves into the poorhouse or doing a thousand loads of laundry a week. We eat well, make organic choices where we can afford to. But we have our junk food moments, and I think we've had McDonalds once or twice in the past six months. We make it work for us without sacrificing our self worth.
Moderation is the key... and lowering the expectations on each other. My new mantra lately is to dispell the guilt from my life for the choices I've made. If I dwell on it, I start to feel like a bag of shit and nobody here benefits from that.
What bothers me, really bothers me, is this need to have it all as a parent and the expectation that what is dangerous for my child is okay for others. I can't in good conscience throw out all of my plastic items out of fear for BPA or turn around and give them to someone else. I see the trend amongst my crunchy crew to have safe toys and utensils, organic/fair trade items in every corner of the home. It's a great thing for the earth and good for the economy to purchase these things - that I don't argue with. But it's what happens to the items you're replacing. If I've already got a perfectly functioning item that is relatively safe and not going to cause instantaneous death, then I don't see a reason to give it away for the green option. I would rather buy the next item I need in the bucket as greenly as possible and just make do with what I have.
Does that sound thrifty or cheap? I'm just not into shock-parenting practices. I don't think that's bucking the trend to be emo or whatever, it's just conscious parenting. We don't create waste (other than diapers and plastic sippy cups that get left at the mall) and we're not stressing ourselves over every little piece of plastic toy or utensil that goes into Kayah's mouth. Yet at the same time we're giving her the best start we can with what we have and promoting a healthy relationship with our child.
My next adventure will be learning to discipline with love. Wish me luck! I am hoping not to be the militant spanker but I need some tools to deal with my spirited toddler.
Each generation has it's uber mom. It's that mom who has all of the latest outfits, the latest gadgets, and resources (somewhere) to pump into them. It's the mom who reads incessantly, researches their childs first day of preschool before conception. The type-A mom who has every moment planned out, and rarely allows for any change of course from that path. I suppose she might look different generation to generation, but the general mom-population either finds her to be awesome or annoying. In my case, it's a bit of both.
I really do admire the strength and fortitude that these mothers have to make it. It takes a lot of dedication, and those children benefit. The poor mommas fall to pieces and work themselves to the bone. Sometimes I feel like I've BTDT to uphold this whole attachment parenting style. But I also haven't lost myself in my child a year later.
We do what we can, when we can. We're still cloth diapering as much as possible without beating ourselves into the poorhouse or doing a thousand loads of laundry a week. We eat well, make organic choices where we can afford to. But we have our junk food moments, and I think we've had McDonalds once or twice in the past six months. We make it work for us without sacrificing our self worth.
Moderation is the key... and lowering the expectations on each other. My new mantra lately is to dispell the guilt from my life for the choices I've made. If I dwell on it, I start to feel like a bag of shit and nobody here benefits from that.
What bothers me, really bothers me, is this need to have it all as a parent and the expectation that what is dangerous for my child is okay for others. I can't in good conscience throw out all of my plastic items out of fear for BPA or turn around and give them to someone else. I see the trend amongst my crunchy crew to have safe toys and utensils, organic/fair trade items in every corner of the home. It's a great thing for the earth and good for the economy to purchase these things - that I don't argue with. But it's what happens to the items you're replacing. If I've already got a perfectly functioning item that is relatively safe and not going to cause instantaneous death, then I don't see a reason to give it away for the green option. I would rather buy the next item I need in the bucket as greenly as possible and just make do with what I have.
Does that sound thrifty or cheap? I'm just not into shock-parenting practices. I don't think that's bucking the trend to be emo or whatever, it's just conscious parenting. We don't create waste (other than diapers and plastic sippy cups that get left at the mall) and we're not stressing ourselves over every little piece of plastic toy or utensil that goes into Kayah's mouth. Yet at the same time we're giving her the best start we can with what we have and promoting a healthy relationship with our child.
My next adventure will be learning to discipline with love. Wish me luck! I am hoping not to be the militant spanker but I need some tools to deal with my spirited toddler.
