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Tag: family
Over the years in my life there have been a number of men who have served as examples of fatherhood for me – unfortunately despite whatever desires I have had my own father has never been among those men within the range of my memory. As Father’s Day approached this year I thought about how disappointing that was for me to realize that Father’s Day is a completely lopsided holiday for me – it is an excuse for my wife and kids to tell me I’m great (or not – young kids aren’t always reliable about acting as the label on the calendar might indicate) but I have no inclination to try digging out my Dad’s phone number to call him up and say “Thanks for . . . something; I just can’t think what exactly it was.”
Today started out bittersweet. Bitter for the reasons cited above, and sweet to hear my kids in the other room as I woke up singing Happy Birthday to their sister who has her birthday today as well. That indicated to me that we’re doing pretty good as a family. As I think on that and the fact that all my brothers seem to be doing pretty good as fathers in their own families I have hope for the future that my grandchildren and their generation of cousins etc. might be unaware that the chain of honorable fatherhood was ever broken in their ancestry.
We went to have an ultrasound today to find out whether our next child was going to be a boy or a girl. We got some really good images of a very healthy and active baby. They were easily the most detailed ultrasound images we had ever seen except for the one time we got to have a 3-D ultrasound with Isaac (because the clinic wanted to test their new machine).
Aside from very clear images we got a good look at a very active little boy, turning his head, moving his hands and feet – he was almost constantly in motion. Hopefully that means that Enoch will be a very well-matched playmate for Isaac (once he is more than half Isaac’s size that is).
I have written before about our national propensity to use government when it is not the proper tool for the job. Scott summed my point up very succinctly in a recent post:
There is a proper tool for every job. Use of the wrong tool often produces substandard results. Sometimes it is necessary to make do with what you have. That’s called innovation. But regularly using the wrong tool when the right tool is available is just plain stupid.
One of the basic tenets of classical liberalism is to regard government as a tool to be used only where it is most appropriate; the chief role of government being to safeguard and expand liberty. Many people (from all over the political spectrum) view government as a big stick to be employed in forcing others to conform to their particular view of good.
Government is not the only tool that we often use inappropriately, and sometimes the wrong tool is employed not because it is the tool of choice, but because we refuse to use the proper tool. Such is the often the case with regard to schools disciplining children.
A large number of schools use potentially dangerous methods to discipline children, particularly those with disabilities in special education classes, a report from Congress’ investigative arm finds.
In some cases, the Government Accountability Office report notes, children have died or been injured when they have been tied, taped, handcuffed or pinned down by adults or locked in secluded rooms, often to be left for hours at a time.
Some people would be quick to blame the authoritarian, impersonal schools for their outrageous methods of discipline and while I am far from a believer in the infallibility of schools I think that such blame is misplaced in the vast majority of cases.
The real blame lies in the fact that many parents fail to enforce discipline in their homes and even among those who do enforce discipline in their homes all too many make themselves unavailable to take on that responsibility when their children require more discipline than can reasonably be applied by a teacher in charge of more than a dozen students. What’s worse, is that we cannot even safely place the blame fully on the shoulders of the individual parents. Too many of them are forced into situations where they cannot devote themselves to parenting full-time. (Sometimes they just feel forced into those situations.)
As a society we have set too low a value on the role of parenting – placing it completely secondary to economic productivity. We have set expectations too high for our material and economic standard of living – where the luxuries of yesterday must necessarily be necessities today. Consider cell phones for every family member over the age of 10, cars for everyone over 16, cable TV, computers, game consoles, television sets in every room, dance-lessons, sports, and hobbies for each day of the week.
None of these things is intrinsically bad, but together they form unreasonable and unsustainable expectations and they destroy the possibility for most stable families to keep at least one parent available to take care of their children when needs arise.
Not only that, but we expect the schools to provide many of those hobbies through requiring gym, art, and music classes as well as extracurricular sports. The result is that even where there are parents at home and available the children often spend too many hours under the care of their teachers and not enough under the influence of their parents. This serves to lessen the parental influence and offers incentive for parents who would otherwise be available to commit themselves to other activities lest they feel they are wasting their time.
The problems are complex and interwoven so that any hope of identifying the solutions is dependent on our recognition of how and when any given tool can be used and insisting on using each tool in its proper place rather than finding favorite tools and trying to make this reduced tool set suitable for all our needs.
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It Takes a Village
Most people have heard the proverb “it takes a village to raise a child,” especially since it was made more famous by the book “authored” by Hillary Clinton when she as the First Lady. (Personally I doubt that she “actually wrote the book” as she claims. She probably commissioned it, helped edit it for content, approved it, and wrote the acknowledgment section.) Of course, Mrs. Clinton meant that society was very important in raising a child – which is true on the surface – but the real value in the proverb is not what it means about child-rearing as what it means about society. What I take it to mean for society is that we must build societies that are large enough to provide the support necessary to raise a child to adulthood and intimate enough that each child is more than a statistic in the process. That’s the main problem with the government approach – government solutions must reduce everyone to no more than a statistic. A village, in other words, consists of those outside the immediate family who are familiar and trusted by each other (both children and adults) and who have an interest in the successful raising of the children in the village.
A perfect example of the village approach occurred last night. We went to see a performance of Annie being put on by Bountiful High. Soon after we arrived we ran into my cousins, JP and Marie Feinauer. The kids were well behaved for the first song, but then their ages began to catch up with them. Isaac started running up and down the aisle. He wasn’t very noisy, but with the light coming from the open doors at the back he cast a long (and distracting) shadow. Mariah was pretty good, except that she had to keep switching laps. Alyssa could not seem to stop herself from changing seats, bouncing, and talking (without her whisper voice). Savannah was perfectly behaved. Considering how late it was (late for young children) we decided that we needed to leave at intermission, but that was really not fair to Savannah who was enjoying the show and acting appropriately. This is where JP and Marie, members of our village, come into our story. At intermission I asked if the Feinauer’s would be willing to drive Savannah home at the end of the show. They agreed.
Because they were there, and were trusted by both us and Savannah, we were able to take the three home who were not acting appropriate to the setting while allowing Savannah to stay. Not only was this fair for all of the children, but being able to make that distinction showed in a very tangible way what behavior was appropriate at a public performance. I honestly expect that at the next public performance we attend Alyssa will act appropriately (and possibly even Mariah) because of the lesson from last night – made possible because of some help from our village.
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Not Pregnant Anymore
To finish a story that Laura started earlier today – when we bought Angel last night (Savannah’s new pet mouse) we knew we were in for an adventure since she was pregnant. The woman at the store guessed that Angel would have her babies in about a week. I figured that was enough time for Angel to get adjusted before we would have to stop handling her while the babies were in their infancy. (We were told that handling the mother after the babies were born might make the mother become aggressive toward the babies.)
Angel had her babies today (probably very close to the time Laura published her post). They are two cute pink squirmy things right now, but we expect to enjoy watching them grow until we have do decide whether to keep them or to sell them.
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New Christmas Tradition
Living in a wonderfully snowy and hilly location, Laura and I volunteered our house as Laura’s family began planning a sledding excursion for the day after Christmas. While we were still in the planning stages I suggested to Laura that this might be something we could do every year.
Everyone decided to take us up on the offer and so our house was overflowing for most of the day. We had a great time hosting a relatively large event for the first time since we moved. Based on the reactions of everyone who came it was an enjoyable experience for all. Our house was close enough to the sledding hills for the group to have the flexibility necessary for our children of various ages and the hills were perfectly suited to the different needs of our varied age groups. We had a great meal before hand and plenty of time to socialize and drink hot chocolate after the sledding. It was perfect. Laura and I have decided that we are definitely going to do this every year. Now that we have had the experience once we will probably expand our invitation in future years to include more family and friends to share in the fun.
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Primary Songs by Mariah
Mariah sat down at the piano today and started playing and singing for Issac and me. The primary children’s songbook was opened to I Am a Child of God. Here is what Mariah sang to us:
I am a child of God and He has sent me toooo . . . go get the brass plates.
Isaac asked for her to sing the temple song so she turned to a page in the songbook with a picture of Jesus and started singing Isacc’s favorite “temple song.” Here were her lyrics:
I love to see the temple, I’m going there someday, to get the brass plates.
I wonder if anyone can guess what story has recently made an impression on Mariah.
Categories
Life Without Children
In a word – boring!
I have had so much fun today watching the kids play in every possible combination. Issac playing with his cars, various combinations of kids playing a game where some or all of them are kittens. I could sit in a chair “reading” with hardly a second passing between watching one child or another run past in that exuberant way that only children can.
I’ve lost count of the number of times today that I have turned to Laura and said that I could not tolerate a life that did not include children. It would just be empty.
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Universal Holiday Spirit
If you do a little searching here my position on Halloween could hardly be described as positive. This year as we partook of the festivities of the day I underwent a marked change in perspective. We spent a couple of hours walking around our new neighborhood with the kids. The older two would run from house to house gathering more goodies than is good for them and the younger two would generally try to keep up, but they would stay back with Laura and I as we enjoyed conversations with many of our neighbors. We would then hurry three or four houses forward to catch up with the older girls (who would have gathered candy from the intervening houses not only for themselves, but for the younger two as well) and talk to another neighbor.
After this year, I sitll don’t care about Halloween as a “dress up and gather/distribute candy” activity, but I sure enjoyed it as a “get out and talk to friends and neighbors” activity. Unlike the last couple of years we were also blessed with perfect weather this year – this is the kind of Halloween that I can enjoy, and I hope to bring this attitude into future years.