When my eldest son was born we chose to have a midwife assisted homebirth. Our doctor advised us against it and misdirected us by insisting we needed a consult with an obstetrician first. Luckily, I had some spotting and the receptionist who answered the phone was really rude. My partner and I searched the yellow pages and telephoned midwifery practises. Of the three practises in our area there was only one spot available. Had I waited another week or another day or another hour I would not have given birth at home with a midwife. Serendipity struck.
As my pregnancy progressed, I was shocked to learn about iogenic incidents in hospitals. All the horror stories I read or was told started with...”and then they decided to induce labour” or “and then they broke my waters” or involved medical intervention. I had looked at midwifery with much interest and intellectual curiosity.
I discovered that most of the world, particularly in Norway and throughout most of history midwives caught our babies. Our approach to childbirth was relatively new, though, statistically doctors may have surpassed midwives as primary caregivers in Canada it certainly took a long time to get women to agree to give birth in hospital. Only the poor gave birth in hospital for a long time. Mortality rates were higher with doctors. The respect just wasn't there for nature or for women or for their babies or for clean hands.
I suppose homebirth was an unconventional choice thirteen years ago. Each unconventional choice led to the next--as our confidence grew. Having given birth at home successfully it was easier to follow my instincts around co-sleeping, and nursing on demand.
My son had an undescended testicle, so we visited a doctor when he was two days old. The doctor told me my son was using me as a pacifier and made some vague statement about my milk not being in. He turned to address my husband, talking over me, when I contradicted this idea by explaining my milk would come in only if I continued to suckle the baby. He did convince my partner of the need to feed the baby sugar water with a baby bottle. He insisted that my milk would not come in until a could get an eight hours of interrupted sleep. This completely contradicted everything I read about demand and supply. This led to an argument.
I suppose homebirth was an unconventional choice thirteen years ago. Each unconventional choice led to the next--as our confidence grew. Having given birth at home successfully it was easier to follow my instincts around co-sleeping, and nursing on demand.
My son had an undescended testicle, so we visited a doctor when he was two days old. The doctor told me my son was using me as a pacifier and made some vague statement about my milk not being in. He turned to address my husband, talking over me, when I contradicted this idea by explaining my milk would come in only if I continued to suckle the baby. He did convince my partner of the need to feed the baby sugar water with a baby bottle. He insisted that my milk would not come in until a could get an eight hours of interrupted sleep. This completely contradicted everything I read about demand and supply. This led to an argument.
Luckily we did not have either a baby bottle or ordinary white sugar in our house. This had really perplexed the doctor, who kept repeating the instruction fearing we had misunderstood and thinking about buying formula. The only sweetners in our home were maple syrup, honey, and molasses. My partner felt bad about leaving me home alone and so by the time he found someone to come over my milk had come in. Once my milk came in our son decided to set a cluster feeding record.
Dutifully, my partner changed diapers, and brought me water, while waiting for a break so he could slip away to purchase the white sugar but none came. Here was the wonderful lesson that we were responsible for our son's wellbeing.
Dutifully, my partner changed diapers, and brought me water, while waiting for a break so he could slip away to purchase the white sugar but none came. Here was the wonderful lesson that we were responsible for our son's wellbeing.
Our lifelearning journey thus began we found our way to playgrounds and drop-ins. For me, when my then two year old refused to leave a park despite the rainclouds, having another mother tell me emphatically that he didn't respect me was a bit confusing. When I examined the behaviour of a two year old oblivious to approaching rain, I realized that he did in fact respect me. He respected as much as I respected him: he just did not obey me. I did not obey him, either. Although Rowan and I ended came home soaked to the skin we had a blast, once I understood that unlike Dorothy's witch we would not melt. This was the first in a long line of incidents that tested my commitment to be a respectful parent.
I could often persuade Rowan to go along with my plans: such as getting home before the rain if I forgot our rain gear. The harm I saw in getting drenched was following a parenting convention which I wasn't so sure about, but felt I should try to follow, in case anyone accused me of fraudulently impersonating a parent.
My son iput me in a position with his wonderful two year old eyes to ask all the questions I had stopped asking after I became an adult. Two year olds are the logical tireless users of the enquiry based learning model.
My son iput me in a position with his wonderful two year old eyes to ask all the questions I had stopped asking after I became an adult. Two year olds are the logical tireless users of the enquiry based learning model.
Eventually, I tried to deconstruct our relationship and came to two conclusions: he didn't obey me nor did I violate his bodily sovereignty to enforce obedience. It meant that everything was a discussion. We were practising consensus, in that either of us could resist and block the other. Generally my son and I got along amazingly well. I remember one day feeling embarrassed as a closet consensual parenter, when I picked my son up to put him in the stroller. All the parents were watching. He was a year and a half and told me firmly: stop, put me down.
I did, while blushingly stuttering my theories about respect and not raising a wife beater. I was quite embarrassed. One mother watching me surprised me by expressing interest in what I was doing. She noticed when I picked up my son he always asked me to stop. He never kicked me in the stomach and turned blue screaming. I blundered my way through an explanation.
My partner and I had gone to marriage counselling over my parenting style. Though I could not bring myself to follow the established rules, I always felt embarrassed. Occasionally I'd overhear someone saying, "there goes the wingnut" and that certainly didn't help my confidence.
I valued children's emotional and intellectual integrity as well as physical safety. I had no qualms about according my son the same respect as I would any adult. Though, I certainly tolerated more incursions on my physical and emotional boundaries from my three children, than I would from anyone else. I always considered what they said. But if there was ever danger and I grabbed the back of my son's coat and pulled him back to the kerbside.
People later labelled what I was doing unschooling, or lifelearning but at the time I though we were doing was experiential learning or simply being respectful of one another as collaborators. We were a mutual admiration society. I began talking to him as an equal from the day he was born and so thought of him as such. I wanted us to build a real relationship, rather than a textbook one. I was letting my son raise himself, with me as the resource. I reasoned that we weren't living in a lab or a textbook, so it didn't make sense for us to let someone in a lab or writing a textbook direct our relationship.
Years later on the parenting circuit with my other two younger boys I began visiting various drop-in parenting centres close to my house. I began to understand that my criteria for children's behaviour and adult behaviour were thoroughly different from those of the experts. I expected to model patience, understanding and compassionate communication for my children. It seemed in direct opposition to what I was seeing other parents doing and I felt pressure to conform.
Adults modelled violence, and spoke rudely to children. Or they made requests and then forced the children to realize they were dictum in polite language and physically violated their individual sovereignty to enforce their wishes. Adults coerced children into obeying, yet expected children themselves to aspire to the higher ideal of peaceful conduct.
It seemed so obvious to me that disregarding and manhandling children could not help but lead them to behave in that fashion with adults and with one another, yet when I pointed out the emperor wore no clothes eyes rolled.
I chose to respond respectfully when my youngest son bit me or screamed or use emphatic language. I refused to call it a meltdown, or buy into that dismissive language that labels children's powerlessness as "whining". Paradoxically, I began to label adults loosing their tempers as having meltdowns and tantrums, shifting the words to better understand what was happening, in an effort to deconstruct interactions amoung children or between children and adults. I suppose I saw violence in the manner adults “gently” took things from children or redirected their behaviour. They were picked up against their will, made to participate in story time, and constantly shushed so that important words of adults could impart knowledge. I expected more from adults: politeness, patience, and respect for physical boundaries.
To me the expectations seemed backwards. Adults with maturity and experience could compel others with physical, emotion or intellectual violence to meet their needs in a situation, whereas children were expected to be polite and keep their cool in the face of disempowerment and adult violence.
Knowledge as something waiting to be discovered or perhaps created was a novel idea. When I traded places with my children I understood that as an adult I would have a difficult time not responding with anger and frustration—that of course is with my experience and “understanding” pushed to its limit I could not find the resources to smile politely and obey without question time after time. I began to question how adults could possibly have such standards for children that they themselves could not meet, nor felt it necessary to meet nor were able to see the relationships between their coercive behaviour and negative outcomes in interactions with small children.
I thought of children first as apprentices, then later as individuals on their own path to gain the knowledge they needed. I realized that they were “in training” and required a wider berth than adults. As they lacked the power to hold adults to deals this made their positions always tenuous.
I am more willing to forgive a child who hits me in frustration than an adult, because I can accept that as a imperfect communication tool from a child. By not responding in kind, but by modelling a different way of dealing with frustration, fear or pain I can help that child see another path. A path in which mutual understanding and compassion help us trust one another--a satisfying path which benefits everyone in our lives.
I am more willing to forgive a child who hits me in frustration than an adult, because I can accept that as a imperfect communication tool from a child. By not responding in kind, but by modelling a different way of dealing with frustration, fear or pain I can help that child see another path. A path in which mutual understanding and compassion help us trust one another--a satisfying path which benefits everyone in our lives.
