Having Children - Sarah
Shoocu-Schoocu posted an about not wanting to be a mommy at the expense of being a person. Her husband says things will just work out.
Strangely(?) I've never really felt the social/intellectual isolation that is supposed to come with motherhood. Part of that is because I have my own small business which forces out into the public realm, but I have to say that dealing with the public is highly overrated and that I find I miss my guys when I'm at work.
I think the bigger reasons I haven't felt that way are:
1) We home school. This means that everyday is a learning day. We never talked down to the kids or assumed that couldn't understand the broader intellectual/social world to at least some degree. When the kids ask about something they've heard or seen, we answer to the best of our ability and their capacity to understand.
2) We take each day to engage the broader world on our own terms. Some days we read news or blogs. Some days we read the newspaper or magazines. We read books all the time. We listen to PRI and NPR and the BBC. We talk with other adults of our choosing.
3) We cultivate a community of engage people around us. We sought out a group of home schoolers who are leftist and who are interesting. While Ethan is learning Kung Fu, we have adults to talk with. We set up play dates with families who have both interesting kids for ours to interact with and interesting grown-ups for us.
About the idea of things just working out, I think there really is something to be said for it. We never consciously planned to take the steps I just talked about. They were just natural outcomes of the way we live our lives. (And by we here, I mean us, and Chorus, and JM.) That's not to let Ali off the hook. Working out who will take the kids where on any given day is a give and take that can't be decided on the fly. We (Again meaning us, Chorus, and JM) have done some serious negotiating about we expect, desire, and need in terms of the how and why of childcare. It doesn't always work out the way I'd like it to, but at least I know that I've made opinions pretty clear.
Maybe all I can say about the whole having a child thing (I try not to say having a baby because babyhood is very brief and suddenly this baby has opinions and ideas all his/her own.) is that there is no right time, right way, or right set of circumstances. It's kind of like getting involved with someone all over again. You can dot your i's, cross your t's, and have the best plan you can create, and then the whole thing can get tossed out on a random Tuesday afternoon and you find that you like the new arrangement much better than the plan. The reverse can happen as well, but that's just the chance you take.
-Sarah
Strangely(?) I've never really felt the social/intellectual isolation that is supposed to come with motherhood. Part of that is because I have my own small business which forces out into the public realm, but I have to say that dealing with the public is highly overrated and that I find I miss my guys when I'm at work.
I think the bigger reasons I haven't felt that way are:
1) We home school. This means that everyday is a learning day. We never talked down to the kids or assumed that couldn't understand the broader intellectual/social world to at least some degree. When the kids ask about something they've heard or seen, we answer to the best of our ability and their capacity to understand.
2) We take each day to engage the broader world on our own terms. Some days we read news or blogs. Some days we read the newspaper or magazines. We read books all the time. We listen to PRI and NPR and the BBC. We talk with other adults of our choosing.
3) We cultivate a community of engage people around us. We sought out a group of home schoolers who are leftist and who are interesting. While Ethan is learning Kung Fu, we have adults to talk with. We set up play dates with families who have both interesting kids for ours to interact with and interesting grown-ups for us.
About the idea of things just working out, I think there really is something to be said for it. We never consciously planned to take the steps I just talked about. They were just natural outcomes of the way we live our lives. (And by we here, I mean us, and Chorus, and JM.) That's not to let Ali off the hook. Working out who will take the kids where on any given day is a give and take that can't be decided on the fly. We (Again meaning us, Chorus, and JM) have done some serious negotiating about we expect, desire, and need in terms of the how and why of childcare. It doesn't always work out the way I'd like it to, but at least I know that I've made opinions pretty clear.
Maybe all I can say about the whole having a child thing (I try not to say having a baby because babyhood is very brief and suddenly this baby has opinions and ideas all his/her own.) is that there is no right time, right way, or right set of circumstances. It's kind of like getting involved with someone all over again. You can dot your i's, cross your t's, and have the best plan you can create, and then the whole thing can get tossed out on a random Tuesday afternoon and you find that you like the new arrangement much better than the plan. The reverse can happen as well, but that's just the chance you take.
-Sarah