Committed to finding ways out of the coercion/self-sacrifice mire of conventional parenting. We are variously critical rationalists, libertarians, home educators, attachment-parents, but we take our ideas where we find them.
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There's a lot of parenting knowledge embodied in "parenting common sense" which is actually total crap.
Well, that's what I think, but those who believe in Parenting-By-Being-As-Much-Like-Everyone-Else-As-Possible are reading the wrong blog. Go away, you are boring.
If something makes no sense when you look at it, throw it out, I say. What's the worst thing that can happen really? You change from being a sheep into someone with a mind of your own, say?
Do parents want kids who can use their minds, or do they want kids who will grow up as processed little triangles of cheese, ready to fit into a pre-prepared box which.... ooops! Just evolved out of existence! Sorry, kids, you're redundant.
So, a new regular RP column starting today called Common Misconceptions. Sometimes they will be justified, other times not, especially when me/we are too tired to bother arguing with anymore idiots. Ooops, today is one of those days! So here it is:
Common Parenting Misconception #1
Children under ten don't like watching "Sex and the City".
Get the computer-animated video "Ice Age", and watch it with someone of about two or three or four, and pay attention to the bit where the animals and the baby spend about five minutes sliding down various fun-park-type ice chutes at top speed with exciting background music. "Very very funny!"
Of course they don't get hurt, there is plenty of soft snow in Ice Ages. But don't try this at home, it is never advisable to attempt time-travel without the proper safety-equipment, unless you have a good imagination and some cushions and soft furniture.
Have a large plant container in the garden full of earth, with a few pebbles, rocks and so on. It makes an excellent place for small people to make little universes with tiny lego people and vehicles, playmobil people, and so on. A converted sandpit or flowerbed will also do this job very well, but I think something slightly raised, with a little chair or stool next to it, seems very comfortable.
Order loads of free catalogues of anything kids might want to buy, for consumer-studying at times of pre-birthday or gift-money, and for cutting up to make pictures when out of date (adults can enjoy this too; however poor you are, it's always good to know what you might want if you did suddenly have £20 to spare).
(And I don't mean the film by Derek Jarman, although he was a genius.)
Everyone knows that kids love gardens. Bringing up a child in a garden-free apartment is generally regarded as the next worst thing to buying a dog then tying it to a post for the rest of its life. Of course, in big cities there are big parks, and people who live in cities are often to be seen on a Sunday afternoon pushing buggies around communal greenspots and queueing for hours at the only extortionate ice-cream stall for miles. But a proper garden with a family house attached is the ideal of the would-be nuclear family (nuclear familying is expensive these days: houses cost double now that women work too, and children require Nike trainers from the age of zero).
Gardens can be very enjoyable. It's nice to dig, weed, potter around fairly aimlessly, make a pretty spot for sitting in, and generally enjoy being outside in the summer air. Also there are hosepipes, sandpits, paddling pools and other things that are messier and more inconvenient indoors. Plus insects, plants, space for doing running-around games and maybe big outdoor things like climbing frames and trampolines and so on.
However, the ideal of the nuclear-family garden is not entirely desirable. There are bad reasons for this ambition. There are the family as an advertisement of wealth and keeping up with the Joneses, for a start. Over-tidy carefully-clipped spaces full of delicate flowers are rarely compatible with adventurous fun-loving children. And then there is the ideal of children playing outside all day... so they don't get in the way of the adults. And the freedom the garden represents... because life indoors is so confined and unsatisfactory.
Gardens are nice things to have, especially in sunny spring weather, but if your children prefer sitting indoors doing things all day when they have a choice: be happy! They enjoy being inside their own homes, they have fun things to do, they aren't just being chucked outside out of the way, and they're not desperate to escape an unstimulating home. And if they come outside for a bit to do their digging and playing while you weed the flower-beds and then you look up to see they've wandered back inside, that's probably a sign that all is well.
I am now offering counselling/advising/coaching, to people interested in establishing consentual, coercion and compromise-free relationships with children or partners. To find out more, contact me at alicebachiniATyahooDOTcom.
