Rutabaga Dreams

Overheard this morning:

“Gregory, mind your manners and be happy all the rest of your days”

I’ve been thinking a fair amount recently about family size and such, mostly because it keeps coming to my attention. I’ve had quite a few people, including random strangers at grocery stores and such, ask me how many children I’m planning on having. I always find interrogations about family size to be in rather poor taste, but it is amazing how often people decide to ask about it. I read this recently, and I think it is definitely the best sort of answer to this question I’ve seen so far. I’ll have to see if Matt and I can come up with a good answer along these lines ourselves!

The other thing people say to me rather often is, “wow, a boy and a girl, you’re set now, aren’t you!” like I had hit the offspring jackpot and I had no reason to have any more. I hadn’t realized that this was my goal, and I can’t quite figure out why a boy and a girl is considered by many to be the optimal family composition. OK, so we have one of each - so what?

I’ve tried a variety of responses to the family size question and sometimes the results are a little amusing. One elderly man asked us in the grocery store if we planned to have more children, and I said “well, we’ll see what happens” and he responded with “you know, they have a pill that takes care of that nowadays, you know”. I had a woman at Costco tell me that my children were beautiful, and asked if I was going to have more. I said “we’ll see how it goes” and she responded by saying that I should definitely have more because these two are so beautiful. Yes, Matt and I must continue to reproduce so that there will never be a shortage of beautiful children! *grin*

The conversation I really find thought-provoking though is when someone asks me the question and I respond with my usual “oh, we’ll see” sort of answer and then they respond by telling me all about their thoughts on the subject for their family. I’ve had a number of women in my Mom’s Club tell me that they’d like to have more, but since they don’t think they can pay for college for more than one or two children they are limiting their family to that size. I find this fascinating - that the thought of not being able to pay for college for a child means that they decide not to have that child at all. I’ve been so tempted to ask them - “So, I’m curious. Would you rather be alive and not have a fully paid college tuition, or never have been given a chance at life at all?” I’m sure I’ll never ask it as I think it would get me ostracized from the Mom’s Club for good (I’m the resident misfit as it is, with my sling, no TV, homebirth, and plans to homeschool) but still, I wonder what the response would be.

I probably should clarify this a bit - I’m not saying that we should have as many children as possible, as we do still need to be able to provide physically (food, clothing, shelter, basic medical care) and emotionally (namely that you aren’t so overwhelmed that you can’t give the child attention, love and affection). We also need to take care of our own health and save something for our own retirement so as to not become (too much, at least!) of a burden on our children when we grow old. (As an aside, one of my favorite pieces of financial advice is that you can borrow for college costs but you can’t borrow for retirement.) But still… I don’t see why parents feel their children deserve a full ride in college, and feel so strongly about this that they see a need to drastically limit their family size to accommodate this. Perhaps there are other reasons at work here, and they are using this as a convenient excuse… but it comes up so often there must be something to it. I can understand not wanting your children to start out their adult lives saddled with huge amounts of college loan debts, but perhaps there could be more balance, perspective, and creativity in this. There’s more I’ve been thinking about this aspect, but I don’t think I’m quite ready to write it yet.

Tangentially related to this, here’s a post I wanted to link to that I thought was really quite good. There’s some interesting comments as well. Selkie: Ethics and Family Size

And notice, I still haven’t answered the question

We’re down in Southern California for the weekend, visiting Matt’s parents for his Dad’s 60th birthday. Today was the big party, and all went well. Matt’s Mom put together a whole bunch of great pictures and there were a number of people who came who they had known for decades. It was really amazing to look at the pictures — some taken around the age Matt and I are now (and earlier) and it really made me think about just how fast time flies by. I found myself thinking about looking at the pictures from this party 15 or 20 years from now, and wondering what I would think about them, and what would strike me the most. At one point Emily and I stood together with our babies in our slings and our picture was taken. I can just imagine looking at that picture with her in twenty years and exclaiming - “Look how young we look! Look how small our babies are!” *grin* We have so much ahead of us, and although it seems like some days go by so slowly I know that when we look back it will seem like the time flew past.

As the party finally dwindled to an end and people started to leave, Matt’s brothers began discussing their plans for the rest of the evening. Matt’s been getting a bit of an opportunity this weekend to get to know his brothers a bit better - he’s always seemed so different from them that he’s never been that close to them. But it seems that they are getting a chance now to get to know each other a bit better as adults and I think that they’re enjoying it.

By this point I had retreated to the bedroom to read to Emma and cuddle with Gregory. It was nice to have some time to reconnect with her since she played with her cousin and various other people all day. I felt like I barely saw her, and I think she felt the same about me. Matt came in and asked if I would mind if he went out with his brothers and their significant others. I was somewhat surprised that I quickly and freely told him to go ahead and have fun, without any regret at all on my part. I think a year or two ago I would have said yes, but somewhat begrudgingly, and three or four years ago I would have probably tried to guilt tripped him into not going or given him a really hard time about it because I would be jealous that I couldn’t go. But now, I could see how much he was enjoying the time he was spending with his brothers and be happy for him… and I wanted him to have the opportunity to get to know them a bit better even if I couldn’t be included. Also, I realized that I was exactly where I wanted to be - cuddling with my two children and marveling at them as I watched them both fall asleep.

Here’s all the states I’ve visited (that is, I’ve seen more than the inside of the airport terminal)

create your own personalized map of the USA

…or in other words, hi Mom!

I started this blog because I wanted to try and make myself write more than that just emails, and writing a blog seemed somewhat more satisfying and purposeful than just writing a long text file on my computer. At first I didn’t tell anyone about my blog (other than Matt) because I didn’t know if I would keep it up and I didn’t want to feel obligated to keep going because I knew I had people who were reading it. I also tend to be a person who keeps her cards close - I can be reasonably outgoing in a superficial way if the situation requires it, but I am not an open person. I think this makes it hard for me to make friends so I decided awhile ago I would try to be more forthcoming, and this seemed like a good place to practice this. However, and I know this seems rather contradictory, I still didn’t really tell anyone about my blog. Matt told a couple friends, I told a couple people about it when asked, and I commented on some people’s blogs with my URL so I started having a few readers. However, I never told our families about it. It wasn’t because I didn’t want them to read it so much as it just seemed rather awkward to do so (and awkward not to do so, too) I could just see the exchange in my head - Me: “I have a blog” Other person: “Oh, really? How long have you had it?” Me: “Erm, over a year…” Other person: “Oh… and any particular reason you didn’t want to share this before now?” Yeah, not the greatest situation, and I wasn’t sure what the best way out was. But, the awkwardness has now been solved and now at least part of my family know about it… and I don’t have keep myself from mentioning it in casual conversation. So… Hi Mom! Hi Aunt Suzy! I’m curious, any other family members reading this? Amanda? Kris? *grin*

I find blogs fascinating because they are both so obviously public, but yet seem at least somewhat private because the author don’t see the reader reading it. If a reader doesn’t comment in some fashion or another, the author has no idea anyone is reading the blog. I can look at my SiteMeter statistics and I see I have people visiting from all over the place but I only can identify a few of them. All I have to say at this point is - we live in an amazing world!

I wanted to say a bit more about this and that - just a few little things.

1) I took Gregory in for a 2 month appointment on Wednesday, and he weighed about 12 lbs and was 24 inches long! Emma was at least 5 months old by the time she weighed that, and she was only 26″ when she turned one. Such a difference!

2) We’ve been dealing with colds around here to varying degrees. Emma has been the stuffiest of all of us, although Gregory has been a little stuffy too. (Thankfully not so stuffy that we’ve had to use the snot extractor - I hate using that thing!) I asked Emma last night to go get a tissue for her drippy nose and she responded that she didn’t want to. I asked her what she would like to use to take care of her nose then, and she responded “My tongue”. Eww… Well, at least she was being honest… *grin*

3) We bought over five pounds of wheat berries on Saturday and we’ve used at least four of them already. We made bread and cinnamon rolls, and now we’re trying to get some sourdough starter going. The starter seems to be contaminated, so Matt’s doing the washing process and I think the sourdough yeasties are starting to win out over whatever else was growing in there. I hope we can get it going, I would really like to be able to make sourdough bread!

4) We have 75 lbs of wheat berries on order - 25 lbs soft white, 50 lbs hard red. I’m very excited. I’ve been making bread about every 5 days or so and we’re really going through the berries fast that way! Now that I’ve given myself permission to use the KitchenAid for mixing the dough, making bread products seems much less daunting and far more feasible. I used to think it was cheating, but if it makes it so that I actually make bread on a regular basis then I think it is worth it. It also seems to give a better result, so that’s nothing to sneer at either!

5) We’ve had a small but cold storm this weekend, and we actually had snow on our local hills! It couldn’t have been much, but it looked really neat. It made us feel like we lived at a much higher elevation than we do.

6) When your four year old asks you what God looks like, it is really tempting to show her a picture of the Sistine chapel ceiling, even if you know it is a bad idea.

7) Wow, number seven already. OK, this will be the last one, I promise. I leave you with Emma’s Jesus song:
(sung in her deepest voice with arms stretched up)
Jesus! Jeeeesus!
King of kings!
Jeeeeesus!
He does miragolds! [miracles]
He healed the leprosy!
He healed…. {she runs up to me and asks - what was wrong with the man lying on the mat? Me - I think he was crippled and couldn’t walk}
He healed the crippled man and told him to go home!
Jeeeesus! Jeeesus!!
He healed the blind man!
Jeeesus!
{Running up to me again: “I can’t think of any other miragolds” Me, while applauding and trying not to laugh, “that’s fine sweetie, that was a great song!}

Children are wonderful!

I started this as a comment over on Charlie’s blog in response to his post that was in response to my post, but it ended up getting so long that I thought I would make my own post over here.

This is in reference to what happened in his religious studies class. It reminds me of a discussion I had with someone in my bookgroup. We were talking about congregation size, and I mentioned that the Episcopal church I went to where we used to live usually would have about 40-50 people show up on a given Sunday, whereas the membership of the church was something like 90-100 families (so at least 200+ people). I think that’s a pretty common ratio for many of the mainline Christian churches as well as the Catholic church. However, she said that at the non-denominational megachurch she goes to, they have a membership of about 1000 people, but approximately 4000 people would show up on a given Sunday.

I used to wonder who those people were, because it seemed odd to me that someone would regularly go to a church where they weren’t a member. I think I have a guess now - perhaps many of these people are adult versions of the people in Charlie’s class, who don’t want the commitment to a church or creed (and perhaps think they are above all that), but are willing to show up to stick their kids in sunday school. Then they can watch an entertaining powerpoint presentation and listen to a “praise band” from stadium seating while they wait to pick up their children. This way they can feel like they’ve fulfilled their obligation without having to do anything more than show up.

Hmm… I sound really down on megachurches, don’t I! I think if a person actually participates in the church life by going to Bible studies, teaching sunday school or spends time in study outside of that short period of church services, then I think they can be useful for at least some growth… But at the church my friend attends, she said there are only about 150-200 people who participate in the church life to that degree, quite a small fraction of the total attendance number!

OK, enough. There was some other point I was going to make, but now I can’t remember what it was… and Matt’s walking a baby who is vigorously sucking on his fist so I think I best attend to the little hungry one.

is a very interesting and challenging experience. It is particularly interesting if you were not raised with any sort of religious education at all, and you are still doing a lot of learning yourself! This evening before bed Emma asked why people wanted to kill Jesus, and then we discussed the Resurrection and Jesus’ activities between the Resurrection and Pentecost. We’ve discussed these things before but I still find it very challenging to approach the topic at hand on the right level. I don’t want to give her the full adult version (of course!) because I know it will be too much for her and I want her to have some sort of understanding… but I also don’t want to talk down to her too much either and give her very shallow and superficial answers. And I really don’t want to not answer her or distract her (or promise to answer later) because I want to make sure she knows this is important and that I want to talk about this with her, even if I’m not perfect at it.

I really want to do the best I can with this, because I know from first-hand experience how damaging shallow, poor, distracted, or neglected answers are to a child’s faith development. My sister and I both had a horrid sunday school experience at the church my father and step-mother still attend. We would have to go during the summers after they started attending church, and after a couple painful sessions I was thankfully able to sit in on the sermons. Unfortunately, my poor sister was stuck in sunday school that whole summer and part of the next one as well. I think the experience started my sister on a path of being very bitter towards Christianity, and it didn’t do anything positive for me either. Other than attending church at my father’s for a couple summers, religion was not discussed at all at either home - even the one where they attended church most Sundays. There was a perfunctory prayer before dinner and that was it - God, Jesus, or any other aspect of Christianity was never discussed. Church seemed to be mainly a social avenue for them, not something that was really felt or believed. Perhaps this is wrong, but this was the impression we were left with. In both households questions were answered very poorly or not at all, and we all quickly got the idea that it just wasn’t something that was important enough to talk about. I can understand my mom’s discomfort more, as she was (and still is) deeply ambivalent towards Christianity… but for my father’s household, well, I think they took the worst possible path.

So, yes, enough of the trip down memory lane and back to Emma. I’m reading to her from a neat book of children’s Bible stories (Egermeier’s Bible Story Book) which I chose based on Amazon reviews. She really likes it and calls it my Jesus book, which I find rather amusing. I also try to answer her questions as well as I can, and I’m finding that I am (thankfully!!) getting better at it. I’m also trying to do as much learning and reading of my own, but I tend to flounder quite a bit… but that is perhaps a post for a different day. I will say that being Biblically illiterate is really quite frustrating. And then there is the added difficulty of wanting to learn at my level, and then trying to translate that to a level appropriate for a four year old…

Last week I ran into two different moms who made me think about the relationships parents have with their children. The first conversation was at the park after a mother admired Emma’s long hair. She asked me if Emma let me to brush her hair, and I just sort of looked at her blankly at first, before responding that of course she “lets” me, she doesn’t have a choice! The mother looked rather startled at that response, and I elaborated by saying that Emma knows that if she’s too fussy about it then she can’t have long hair. At this point her responsibility (in regards to her hair) is to sit patiently and let me brush it once or twice a day. I have some detangler spray (great stuff!) so it really isn’t that big of a deal. But still, I thought it was an odd question and I was a little startled to get a surprised response from this other mother.

In the other example, I ran into someone who used to be in my book group (well, actually a one year hiatus as she trains as a yoga instructor) and we started talking about our children. She asked me if Emma was in was in preschool, and when I replied that we were planning on homeschooling she responded by saying that they had planned on doing that. However, her daughter didn’t want to be homeschooled so they enrolled her in the local charter school instead. The younger daughter (about Emma’s age) is in preschool now and will go to the charter school as well when she’s old enough. I was really surprised by this - I really don’t consider a five year old to be old enough to make this sort of life altering decision. I think the child should have a say about homeschooling or not at some point, but five seems far too early to make this decision!

These two discussions have led me to think more about parental authority and how we exercise it. I think that many parents cede too much authority to their children, and I’m not sure why (because it is easier? because they think it will foster “self-esteem”?) or what the results might be of such an experiment.

I’ve been meaning to post on this, but my husband beat me to the punch.

I wanted to add that it does make me feel vindicated though - I remember people hinting or even outright saying that Emma’s frequent night waking and our difficulty in getting her down was because of our parenting style. But we’re doing things exactly the same with Gregory, and he’s very easy to get down and is already sleeping 6-8 hours at a stretch. So yes, I feel vindicated indeed.