Finding Truth over at Kwakersaur

My good friend David over at kwakersaur has the following quote at the bottom of his blog main page screen:

Perfection is a crime against nature and an affront to God. The call of God is a call to reaching out to one another. The demand for perfection is the call of the Enemy.

He says it far more simply and clearly than I ever have. I believe a corollary to this is that competition is antithetical to seeking God. Sure there is plenty of competition in the natural world, but competing over grades, money, possessions, and status is not part of the natural world. It seems so many people become focused on competition that they don't even enjoy the fruits of their labor or the challenge of bettering themselves. Along the way, they've alienated themselves from others, and I believe, from God and themselves.

My view is utilitarian -- if you feel like you're better than me because you've 'achieved' more than me, perhaps I am doing God's work by helping you feel better about yourself. It doesn't do me any harm.

What's A Homeschooler To Do?

I'm thinking of enrolling Suzanne in a co-op at the local megachurch, of which I am not a member.

I'm an unschooler at heart and its working well so far, but Suzanne really likes the structure of "class" and enjoys Sunday school. I think she'd enjoy being in the co-op and since she would be starting kindergarten this Fall if she were attending school, it would be something for her to be excited about starting.

The co-op meets once a week for a couple of hours and consists of gym time, story-time, craft time, and a (non-Bible) lesson. From what I've heard, it does not involve Bible verse memorization or anything overtly Christian. The co-op is for Christians and I don't think is open to non-Christians (though I am not sure that they even ask -- I have not been asked though I have a friend in the co-op, so maybe they've asked her about me). This bothers me, but I'm really interested in this program. While I don't agree with excluding non-Christians, should I decline to join the group because of this policy? Wouldn't I then be excluding them? How can one be 'inclusive', which I am, and then exclude someone?

Is it better to avoid people who think like this -- fearing and disliking them? Or is it better to get to know them -- to like them and appreciate them as people and try to understand why they think the way they do?

Happy Mother's Day

...and to all mothers and mothers-to-be (expecting or otherwise).

And now, a tale of my first Mother's Day... or was it?
[wavy text as we turn the back the clock]

Mother's Day 2000 was on May 14, the latest date possible for Mother's Day, which is the second Sunday of every May. I was very large with my first child and have the pictures to prove it. My due date was May 19 but I had been certain I'd go early -- I was exercising and walking and my OB had pushed my due date back by two weeks early in the pregnancy. Based on my calculations, I was due May 5, based on the initial ultrasound, I was due May 19. Bad luck.

Mother's Day morning, I noticed the absence of any card for me at the breakfast table. I questioned my husband, Tom, about this. "You're not a mother" was his response. For those of you out there unclear on this issue, any pregnant woman is a mother -- especially one that is about to pop. Breakfast was tense that morning. I can't recall whether my husband produced a card that the had bought just in case -- regardless, the damage was done -- I was not a mother in his eyes. I responded later that I must have been a mother because he certainly was a mother f**ker (it was a joke, I find coarse language to be strangely empowering. I'm not the only woman to feel this way. I'm not saying anyone should emulate me.)

We went to church, which was rare for us in those days. As we exited, one extremely kind woman tapped me and wished me a happy Mother's Day. I shot Tom a dirty look.

My husband and I joined my parents and my maternal grandmother for brunch. We discussed Tom's faux pas at breakfast. My father backed him up, asserting that I was not a mother. (For some reason, there are certain men that seem to get a lot of enjoyment out of annoying me. This is not unique to me, I've witnessed Anne's husband bait her. I guess they just like the danger of it all.) My mother, precious angel that she is, had a card for me. She mentioned it was hard for her to pick a card because she didn't know if she should get a mother-to-be card or a mother card, since it was possible I might have had the baby before Mother's Day.

No, really, it gets better. That evening, Tom and I took a long stroll around the neighborhood. We came home and I proceeded to put together a casserole for dinner. Right after I put it in the oven, about 6 pm, I turned around, ready to make some salads. At that point -- whoosh! My water broke unmistakably. I was so excited and scared and freaked. I thought it was mighty convenient that my water didn't break until after I got Tom's dinner made. My OB told me that I was to wait until the contractions came X minutes apart and then head for the hospital. If the contractions never came, we were to go to the hospital around midnight because of concern over infection and that we'd need to get the show on the road.

We went to the hospital and my daughter was born after 9 am on Monday, May 15, thereby insuring that her birthday never fall on Mother's Day, so I can never even say, 'well, if you were born in thus and such a year, it would have been on Mother's Day.'

To this day, my father loves to point out that Tom has celebrated more Father's Days that I have Mother's Days. Happy Mother's Day!

You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman

This post refers to a review of Unequal Childhoods. Not a book I'd ever read.

I enjoyed Elizabeth's review as I'm sure I'll never read the book -- but it sounds as if Lareau is arrogantly humming the tune "What Do the Simple Folk Do?" If I recall, the singers of that song ended up divorced with the wife nearly burned at the stake -- rescued by the dashing Lancelot but then cutting off her hair and vowing a life of chastity.

Wait, what was the topic?

I suppose the book discusses that the working class may not shuttle their kids around to activities because of the financial restrictions of their economic status. That could be the only reason why parents don't 'do everything possible to give their kid every advantage.' There are those of us who actually choose this way of life. We define 'advantage' differently. To me, the most important 'advantage' is copious time with my children and granting them the freedom to let their imaginations roam and look at the clouds instead of forcing them into an unceasing parade of activities in which they may have little interest. However, there is a big difference between taking a ballet or karate class and having every afternoon and weekend booked with lessons and tutoring and athletics.

I always wonder if the jam-packed schedules have more to do with the parents competing with one another than having to do with nurturing their child's talents. I think there may be a herd mentality, that 'everyone is doing it.' A recent Op-Ed in the Washington Post supports this -- she says twice that she sent her kids to camp for just that reason.

As to 'middle class' naturalists (unschoolers), there is a big divide in philosophy over whether to allow the kids unfettered access to TV, believing (and proving) that the kids moderate themselves eventually, and getting rid of the TV altogether.

Interesting book -- I don't see the need to lump people into groups. I'm uninterested in the demographics and am more likely to wonder what it is about people that makes them choose certain approaches.

My Fairy-Tale Existence

I have two daughters. Suzanne is nearly 5 and Gabrielle is 2 1/2. Gabrielle is going through an extreme "Mommy phase." She wants me to hold her and carry her much of the time. Her sleep, and mine, is disturbed several times a night as she cries for me. I don't know if she has nightmares, night terrors, or if she just wakes up between sleep cycles and wants me.

Last night, I went into her room to soothe her several times. She continued to cry for me, progressing to screaming for me. We recently moved her from her crib to a toddler bed and she now shares a room with her sister. Toddler beds are short (the crib mattress is used in the bed), low to the ground and have a weight restriction that would prohibit even Elasticgirl from climbing in and cuddling up with her child. Thus, I sat on the floor and leaned over to comfort Gabrielle. Each time I attempted to leave the room, she started to cry. I decided to sleep on the floor next to her and this soothed her enough so that we both eventually drifted to sleep.

Before I fell asleep, I was thinking about how I was curled up on the floor amongst my children sleeping in their beds, a modern day Kinderella.

Born Again

No, its not a religious conversion. If you've been following this blog you know that its been stalled for awhile. In an attempt to emulate the success of the Llamabutchers, I've started blogging with a good friend of mine. My friend Rob over at the butchers noted that he'd started a few blogs on his own but they had died out and it wasn't until he started blogging with his good friend that he was able to get on a roll.

So, come roll with me and my friend Anne over at Chocolate and Peanut Butter.

Weight and Feminist Ire

We love string cheese. Being thrifty (cheap), I buy whatever brand is cheapest based on sales and coupons. Recently, we've been eating Frigo Cheese Heads. The individual packages promote various characters from The Incredibles. Each cheese stick has a different character and interesting factoid about the character's particular talents or attributes -- like some male character who is so cool, he says "Freeze" to the bad guys before he freezes them.

Well, on my cheese stick package, I see a lovely picture of an animated young woman. The accompanying text says:

Elastigirl is 5'8" tall and weighs 125 pounds. Her power is
full-bodyelasticity.

Why do we get the height and weight of this character? I reviewed the contents of the entire package (and a big package it is) and there is no other height or weight measurement given for any other character, and there are a couple of different packages for each character. We don't need to know her dimensions in order to understand that her superpower is to stretch -- you could do that at any height and weight if you could do it at all.

Who is the target market of this product? Thirty-something moms? Yeah, I'm going to ask my kids if I can go see The Incredibles. I'm thinking its targeted to a younger demographic, one that is perhaps very weight sensitive? [Hello my anger. Breathing in, I smile at you, breathing out, I embrace you.....nope, not working]

I am outraged at this. First of all, I don't think 125 is a reasonable weight for most 5'8" women, its very skinny. I'm an inch shorter and was about that weight right before I got married because I couldn't stand my law school roommate and spent all my time in the gym and eating frozen vegetable stir-fries. While I enjoyed feeling skinny, I knew I looked peaked. One friend of mine figured I was thin because of stress, which I took to mean I didn't look healthy and good. Granted, I was 26 at the time, so its not too off the wall that a teenager might be this skinny. But what about the ones who aren't? I think this package might as well list the urls for the Ana (anorexia) and Mia (bulimia) websites.

Grrrrrr.......