Hands Full of Rocks

Random Milling

This is the new nickname for our family.

Mr G came up with it last night, as the title of a tv show about us.

I laughed until I almost peed myself. Because he said it, with dry humor, in the midst of:

a) ep coming home late from work because his train was delayed (he had walked in the door, kids flung themselves at his knees for hugs - yeah, he's tall).

b) kids trying to get their ice cream for dessert (since we're all Montessori-at-home-ish, they each got out a utensil, requested the ice-cream bowls that have not yet made it down to their reach range, got out their own ice cream from the freezer, and were setting up step-stools at the counter/stove area for self-serving in tandem - and have I mentioned that we have one of those narrow shotgun kitchens designed by an architect who clearly had never set foot in a kitchen - even after we gutted it and rearranged it as best we could, it still sucks for more than one person at a time, and there were SIX people in there).

c) me trying to clear up dinner.

d) ep also trying to get to his dinner.

Yeah, Random Milling was about right. Plus the noise... wow.

Making it funny was the best possible thing, since I was about to drown under it all. I went and ate my ice cream on the sofa, by myself, though. Phew. Breathing room.

Funny, how the self-knowledge helps. And funny how the lack of it has hindered me. I had figured I was way more introverted than I used to be - actually, for years, ep has been half-apologizing to me for turning me into an introvert - but I hadn't really accepted it. Accepting it has made a series of lightbulbs go off for me.

This is why I hate being a stay-at-home mom. Kids on me nonstop, all day, no peace, and the only way to get them to stop is to go out - er. Whee?

This is why I go nuts when things get noisy.

This is why I am prone to the sudden outbursts of AAARRRGGGHHH! - okay, being a Thinker instead of a Feeler plays into that (my feelings come out of nowhere all extroverty). I also have sudden outbursts of LOOOOOOVVVVVVVE, too - out of nowhere I have to go hug someone. It probably makes no sense to them at all. Funny, one of the things I hear a lot in response to my affection is 'where did that come from?' (wince)

It has been much easier to be more affectionate openly now that I'm paying attention to how I show my affection, too. I just assumed it showed more, and that my mom's comment that I'm the least demonstrative of her kids (affection-wise) was an anomaly to do with our relationship.

Huh. Maybe not.

I know I am better at affection with my kids (and ep), say it more, touch more, etc., because they've taught me that they need that. But it still had hitches, hiccups, and tight spots. It's easier now that I can see with the perspective inward that I'd been missing. And it's nice, too. I can find ways to make it work better for me, and them, too. Effective starts coming in better on this one, now that I have a little insight into my own function.

Anyway, that's us. Random Milling.

Only, please, no reality shows about our life. :shudder: Even if the title is pretty darn hilarious.

Fall means charity

So, around here (that is, in our family), autumn is charity time.

I don't know how much it is a reflection of culture (harvest is in!), or logistics (ack! Have to get the charitable contributions in for taxes!), or other stuff, but fall seems to be our biggest chunk of attention to the charitable work.

Sunday I was part of the UU Fellowship service, talking about practicing our principles. The principles of being present, being in community, and taking action, in combination are a big part of what it means to be a UU. They're also a big part of our family process, on both sides (after all, those values are common to many other religions, such as the Quakers, being the other side of the family).

So Baba and I got up in church and talked about how we do this. How do we get the kids involved, how do we make it light them up?

How did we get kids to choose to do extra chores to pay for their public-radio membership?

How did we get kids out in the dirt, digging up history or planting trees?

How do we get them to send money to a girl's school in Afghanistan, or donate to Doctors Without Borders?

How do we get them to get excited about donating food to the food bank?

How do we get them involved in the research project for (hopefully) inoculating amphibians against the fungus that is killing them around the world?

We only had two minutes to talk, so I tried to make it short - but that meant we didn't really get to explain HOW in detail. More 'what' than 'how'.

A little on the how, though - like staying aware and open for the possibilities. Listen for the question that you can let them answer from their values. Like for public radio, explaining what a pledge drive is, but not asking them too much, or telling them, or lecturing, or bossing - just discussing, and asking what they think. Funny how they will come up with the idea that if they're listening, maybe they should support it, too. My kids are therefore the youngest contributors to the public radio classical music station they've ever had.

In coffee hour after the service, though, we got more questions. HOW do we do this? How do we get kids to want to help?

Following the kids is the core of it, for us. We don't make them do it, even if we set them up to do it. If I'm going to donate food to the food bank, I plan it to have the kids available to come along. But that's the cheap-ass version of the process. The deeper level is watching for what upsets them, and finding a way to answer that anger or hurt or fear or sorrow.

So, when my mom's house addition meant that some beloved trees were going to be taken down, my mom didn't just assuage their sorrow or tell them to deal or otherwise just answer that part of the problem, she promptly contacted the Nature Conservancy and asked if there were any tree-planting events going on that needed volunteers. So the kids in honor of the trees lost went and planted trees in a place where those trees had been lost long ago - and would now get to grow back in a protected and safe place.

It answered the pain with action.

And there's also the chance to follow someone else's passion that isn't mom-and-dad's. Like, my sister - aunts and uncles and friends are part of this. My sister has many passions, and is an expert on charities (it's part of her job). She found the amphibian research project that needed a push - they really needed to hire a grant writer, and she talked to them about funding that. And the kids donated specifically to that. She's also into the non-profit archaeology group that we dig with - she set that up, and got us psyched, got us started, and ... well, the kids got to light up on someone else's cool.

And then we celebrate that - the events are documented with more care than we give birthdays and holidays. Certificates of thanks are framed and put on their bedroom wall (at Baba's house, where there is more wall space, but where they see what they've done often). We talk about it with others, in front of them, show the pride we have in their willingness to help. We embed it in conversation with them, as well.

The opportunities are endless. We choose differently each year, but the point is to choose. Start, find something that lights them up. Whether it is a 'do-good' thing (Doctors Without Borders) or a 'fight for change in the world' thing (a girl's school in Afghanistan) or an arts thing (volunteering at the Art Museum) - it doesn't matter.

Starting matters. Practicing being aware of the community matters. Being open to the opportunity to create change matters. Doing it as a family matters. We do it all year long, but the peak is really in the fall, when we gather as a family-extended, and think about gratitude as part of Thanksgiving, and send our gratitude back out into the communities in which we see ourselves - local, regional, global. 

Christmas is so commercialized at this point, it is hard to fight back without undercutting the fun. 'Tis the season becomes too complicated, fraught, confusing.

For us, this is the season of giving.

Status report: All good

I think... we'll see when I get to the end of the list.

We just finished up school, and also did the annual exams on the kids (at least the three that still get annual exams... nobody told me that after 10, it's every two years!).

So, status report on the crew:

Mr G: Still himself. He's definitely growing into the preadolescent thing, getting comfortable with the body hair and body odor, and not minding that his body is shifting toward muscle mass and physical bulk. He's still a lean slim type, but he doesn't look skinny so much anymore. He also did a good job in school this year - he dropped some balls, but learned a lot of skills.

One of the key skills he learned this year was how to pull out of a school crisis. You may recall that we were voluntarily quarantined because of the whole Flu Incident. He lost a week of school, and picking that back up was somewhat challenging. Even though we did a lot of schoolwork while he was home, some stuff got dropped. Latin, for instance. And when I say dropped, I mean one of the assignments fell on the floor and was under his desk... Though the other incident was rather more interesting, from a parenting perspective.

Mr G had an in-school assignment where he and another student had to write a story employing Latin words. Not all in Latin, but pulling in things like avian, and pro forma, that sort of thing. The other student took charge and told Mr G that he'd write, and Mr G could just look up the terms. Mr G did not complain, just sucked it up and did as he was told. Only, the story wasn't working. They couldn't find the words they needed for the story the other kid wanted to write, and after three weeks, they had three sentences... (one class a week). Everyone else had three paragraphs. They were supposed to come in at recess to work on it, only the time that the other kid could, Mr G had Band. And then there was the whole week he was out (where no work was done by the other kid at all - and I do understand that it would throw off the sense of fair at this age to do it alone).

Now, to me, this would have set off the 'I need to solve a problem here' alarm, and I'd ask someone - say, the teacher - how to get past the roadblock. But no. Mr G dislikes confrontation, so he neither addressed it with the other student or the teacher. Instead, he ignored it. Until the teacher emailed us and pointed out that as things stood, with the missing assignment and the unfinished final project, his grade was 51%. Um, ouch? The final exam could pull that up substantially, and he was getting 100's on his tests and quizzes, so that would help. But he'd probably still get a C, without the other work.

So we proceeded to coach him on how to approach the problem - how to talk to the teacher, explain what the problem was, and ask for help resolving it. How to make it right with her (because a) she didn't want him to fail, and b) she might be a little sad that he wouldn't talk to her about the problem - or not, but humanizing her side of the problem is always a fine idea). We went through the Effective, Prudent, True process - how do you effectively get the grade in, without making it crazy for anyone, while holding to your values and ethics? Mr G learned a lot about how classes work - he had assumed that 'the assignment is the assignment, and the grade is the grade, and there's nothing you can do to work that system'. Which, as we all know, is wrong for many teachers. There's nothing wrong with going to the teacher, explaining the situation, and asking what you can do that would make it better. Sometimes the answer will be 'nothing'. But many times there's something extra you can do to get your grade to reflect your actual knowledge level.

He ended up writing the entire story on his own (the other student got credit for his own work, Mr G got credit for what he did). And we found the missing assignment (which he hadn't mentioned that he couldn't find and had therefore not turned in... ARGH), and got that in. And he aced his final. Ended up with a good grade.

He actually ended up with the grades we want for him - split between B and A, with A+ only in the 'easy' classes for him (Spanish, Music), A's in the classes in which he grooves (Science, ELA), and solid B's in the classes where he has to work for it. I'd rather see more B's in the grooving classes, too - I want him to be working for those, as well (otherwise he coasts), but this is okay. Enough bumps and lumps to learn from, enough rewards to make it seem worthwhile.

He also scored well-enough in the standardized tests in math, and distinguished in reading/language. That's more 'him being still exactly him'. He likes math fine, but doesn't have a passion for it. Reading and language, those he's owned since he was 18 months old. I could always get a few moment's peace by giving him a book, actually from much younger than that. So, yeah, he's still him.

Mr B, likewise. Mr B started the year very stressed about reading and talking. The whole 'mom failed as speech-language coach' thing had sunk him on that. He resisted, avoided, and generally was miserable around anything to do with language arts. BUT, we'd discussed this with the school, and they'd placed him with a reading specialist as his teacher. End of year? He scored outstanding on his reading. Years above grade level. YAY! The teacher had said she does not hand out O's easily. If you're doing really well, you'll get a P. Only the rockets get O's. Mr B's report card was nearly half O's. WOO! I'd pretty much forgotten (in all the stressing around language arts) that his first love (maybe second, after Art) is math. But he showed that he hasn't changed, there, either. He loves math and logic and figuring. He was the puzzle master, always - could put together puzzles that his four-years-older brother struggled with. It's a nice reminder that he is who he is, and even when I pay attention to just one aspect of him, he's paying attention to the whole thing (at least his teacher is!). This is why I like school.

And then there was the physical. He's returned to his curve, thankfully. Last year, he'd dropped to 10-12th percentile for height. Anything below 50th is Not Good (given our genetics), and he's been tracking at 25%ile since 3 1/2 or so (with periodic plunges below and the very rare creeping above). This is presumed to be related to the multiple carbohydrate intolerances (both lactose intolerance and fructose malabsorption). The combo in particular can stop upward growth. Short stature and higher weight is one of the signs of fructose overload (kids who just drink too much juice will end up the same). For him, it's pretty catastrophic. He was holding a 90th%ile curve until he was 15 months old, and fructose was introduced... sigh. But I'm glad he's at least back to the 25th%ile, now. 10th was troubling. 25th%ile is good enough, even though he'll be a lot shorter than the rest of the family, that way. (ep and I are both in the 97th%ile.) Still stocky, but not as much as before, which also means his diet is more effectively balanced - but not quite enough. More to work on, there.

Miss R's physical was also fine, and she's up around 90th%ile for height. She's got no trouble with the growing thing. And she also never stopped (she is also not apparently lactose intolerant - just fructose malabsorbing). Good, good.

Miss M also rebounded on her curve again. She's been weaving back and forth between 25th and 50th%ile. 50th is probably her normal curve, but when she stopped growing (same age as Mr B), that plunged her down the percentiles. She's all the way back up to 50th now, so while she's petite and notably smaller than her twin sister, she's also just fine for her.

I'm still waiting for the followup from the endometrial biopsy - they didn't expect results back until next week at the earliest, so I'm still hanging fire on that. Ah, well. Waiting is all I can do.

Ep has now got his license, and is a Registered Architect. WOO! :) :) :)

And my work is still crazy, but it's still working, too. There are some major shifts in how things are being done, but in good ways. And I'm still regarded as valuable. My 'report card' is coming back in the form of feedback surveys from the training sessions I'm doing the materials for - the materials are getting high marks, and there's a lot of positive commentary that direction. They'd asked for something really simple, I gave them more than they asked for, and they actually liked what they got (just 'simple' was not going to meet all the needs they had - they really needed complete and depth). And I'm still being asked to help out on my old project, both for the social/cultural stuff, and for the actual thinking and work. I like being asked to help 'because of my brains'. It's nice.

Today we're off to go help with an archeological dig (kids included). Should be a good day. (Last time, Mr G discovered a silver fork from 1897.)

I know the good stuff is often boring, but this is the payoff zone. We struggle with how to coach, how to allow them to be themselves without just letting them range entirely without structure, how to find our way to our own successes without sinking the rest of the family. The balance points tip back and forth all the time - crisis, or problem, or issue, and then problem-solving out of it. Finding ways to be effective, prudent, and true, over and over and over and over and over. It doesn't stop, but the effort gets to be comfortable - most of the time. And then we get the status points that work, get a chance to glimpse the system from a different perspective. They don't all look so pretty. This time, good. Next time could be another problem instead of a success.

But then we'll carry on and try some more, and hope that the time after that will look like this one. Good.

Negotiating in real time

Negotiating is one of the skills my mother taught us intentionally, and one that I teach my kids intentionally. It is also a skill I use in my marriage, and one I use at work.

With the kids, it is like a lot of skills and even character traits. More of a pain at their current age than a benefit. I'm taking the long view, but it is a major pain in the butt when they don't yet understand where the line really truly is, but know how to work the angles...

Saturday was one of the big street festivals in our town. Every agency, group, organization, restaurant, student group, and what appears to be half the home-based businesses in the entire town show up, set up booths, and prepare for the flood of families. A lot of regular folk turn out, and it is unusual to wander for any length of time without running into someone you know. (Strangely, this time the first person I encountered was someone from work...)

And it was negotiation central.

Mr G was all over those skills. Before we even reached Main Street (yes, we have a Main Street, which is actually still the main street), he had asked about what his options were if he found something he wanted that was outside his financial wherewithal for the moment. I said I'd spot him change if he was close. Otherwise, no.

And then he saw the first place he wanted to go. Instead of just at the booth, he wanted to go inside. And honestly, I didn't want to. I wanted to stay outside and hang out with the work friend I'd invited down with his wife. It is challenging sometimes to create a friendship outside of work, and more so when you're working across cultures. In general, I haven't pursued a new friendship for years - I just do not have time to make friends with all the people I think would be good to be friends with. Certainly I struggle to keep up with the friends I already have. But still... This guy is enough above the margin that I'm pursuing it intentionally. Plus I majorly need a work friend. I've been at this job since November, and he's the only likely candidate. He's a really good candidate (despite the culture difference), at that, but it's a lot of famine in the friend variety at this job. I'm going to take the one shot I've got.

So, when Mr G wanted to go inside (and wanted an adult with him), I really didn't want to go. I wanted to hang out, be present, be the good host, and...

Sigh. I was faced with a child who knew how to ask for what he wants, and negotiate when faced with a no. He asked for reduced time commitment on my part, stated his case on why he wanted an adult with him, persisted, and explained why the inside of the store was important to see. Okaaaaay, okay. Yes, I'll go with you.

He didn't buy anything, but Miss R did. That left ep on the sidewalk with our tentatively new friends (said work friend and his lovely wife). I think ep got a lot more face time than I did, all in all. Because the negotiation just did not stop. I've mentioned that at this age it can be annoying, yes?

Next it was where we were going next, and how far. Just those two more booths? We can go by ourselves and meet you back here. Can we just look there, please? We don't need to buy anything, we just want to see what is available. And then there was the place with the glass jewelry, and then could he have his own french fries instead of sharing them, and ... My brain hurts. He was good at it. Persistent, challenging my logic and my assumptions, working the system for his greatest benefit without tipping the scales too far.

He did max out eventually, and get to the begging for a loan stage - just a few more dollars to spend. Granted, he'd misunderstood something I'd said, and then he felt like I'd gone back on my statement (rather than having misunderstood or misinterpreted). And so when he'd spent his money (plus the change I said I'd spot him), he thought we were still going to go back to another stall and get something he'd seen there. Only, he was out of money. But I'd said. And yet he was out of money. And then it was like this...

Mr G: But you know, mom, I'm very good at earning money. I'm good at it, I'm fast, I will have the money in just a couple of days. Baba is paying me more and ...

Me: We don't want you getting in the habit of spending outside your means.

Mr G: But it's inside my means if I have it in two days.

Me: No, it's not.

Mr G: That's not how I see it.

Me: It's how I see it, though, and I'm not comfortable teaching you to buy on credit.

Mr G: It's not credit!

Me: It's a loan. The International Bank of Mom is closed.

Mr G: But you know I'm able to get the money, and you SAID.

Me: I said, yes, but I meant only if you hadn't already spent your budget - which also fits within what I said.

Mr G: But I really want BOTH, mom!

Me: I understand you want both. You really, really want both. You chose to buy the better item, more valuable and a more reasonable option, which will last longer and suits your style better.

Mr G: But I think the other is really cool.

Me: Hmm, I recall that at the time, you weren't sure if it was good enough, which says to me that it wasn't.

Mr G: But it was!

Me: Okay, even if it was, opportunity cost is something we all have to live with. You got the better item at the expense of getting the merely good item. That was a good choice. To me, that seems the best choice. It still is uncomfortable, because you'll still feel the wanting for the 'just good' thing that you also wanted. But you'll feel better about that sooner than you think. (realizing lecture mode started, cutting back)

Mr G: Are you sure?

Me:  Yes, I'm sure.

Mr G: Really, really sure?

Me: Very sure. You made a good choice, Mr G. It's just uncomfortable when you can't make every choice you want to make all at once. It is kind of ouchy.

Mr G: Yeah. (Collapsed his head against my chest for a hug.) I still really want it. I think you should...

Me: No. Bank is closed.

Mr G: You know I could earn it.

Me: Yes, I do. And I'm still not going to give you the money. It would be a bad habit to start.

Mr G: But I don't ever ask for extra money or loans!

Me: Actually, Mr G, you do. Nearly every time you find something you can't afford, you ask us to spot you the extra. I already did that today. I'm not doing it again.

Mr G: Oh. (Attitude shifted as he realized I was actually right, and this wasn't a case of 'you never, you always, it's not fair!'.) Okay. (pause) Can we at least walk past the stall?

Me: No.

Mr G: But you SAID.

Me: No, it will just eat at you. We're going to walk our guests home now. This direction.

Mr G: ARGH.

Me: I understand. But we're going this way. Now, please.

Mr G: Okaaaaaay.

That part wasn't the ideal negotiating methodology, but it was a good conversation anyway.

When we got home, he was still on the verge of tears from frustration. He sooooooo wanted to buy both things. But no, mom held her ground and didn't roll over. Dammit. But he also solved that emotional state problem by asking if he could get out his woodsman's blades and hack some cardboard up to put in the recycling bin. Yeah, sure! So he banged away, distracting himself with the exercise. He didn't do it angry, either - not aggressive  banging, just something that took some concentration and effort. By the time he came in, he was looking a lot more peaceful. Next morning, he was still wishing it could have been otherwise, but he's not depressed about it.

All good.

And that's just one layer of negotiating I did. There was also the uppies/carry-me negotiation (I overdid things earlier in the day and started bleeding from the endometrial biopsy, so I was trying to keep the physical effort down... only, I didn't manage that, because there was too much fun to be had carrying Miss M upside-down, and dancing with them on my hip, and doing dips... and uh, that was stupid. Stoooooopid. Can I say stupid again? STUPID. ARGH.).

Beyond that further, and much more important, is the slow, gradual re-negotiation of our roles (ep's and mine), the arrangement of who we are together and who we are apart, and how we shift those. I've been appreciating him a lot, and it has come out in ways that he appreciates NOT AT ALL. Oy. So, we're re-negotiating how to even express things effectively, and how best to attend to each other. Negotiating where one role starts and the other ends, and how to structure the re-connections, and all of that.

At least the doc did say that I need only wait three weeks to resume, er, activity. But still six for biopsy results, unless there's something more important sooner. I'd have rather not waited any weeks for the former. Or the latter, really. But the former is always good when renegotiating roles and boundaries and needs with one's partner.

Meanwhile, negotiating in a different way continues, too - negotiating the tricky boundaries of an intercultural friendship just ticking over the line into the real friends category. Still too new to lean on without breaking it, and far too many tricky areas to just let it grow in without some careful observation, and yet more negotiating.

There's a lot of that going around.

Right on schedule

And here comes the disregulation again.

They're getting stuck in their needs.

They're getting stuck in their feelings.

They're locking up, freaking out, stomping around, getting in snits, picking at or on each other, feeling fragile, feeling lonely, hurting more when they're hurt, staying loud longer when they're angry, forgetting how to talk to each other, forgetting how to be safe, forgetting what respectful sounds like, being wildly unpredictable about kindness, rolling their eyes when asked if what they're doing seems to be effective, stomping out of the room, refusing to get in the car, changing their minds like the weather (and it's April, so that's pretty turbulent weather), insisting, refusing, demanding, begging, pushing, and then being totally stunned when this doesn't solve all their problems.

Whee?

At least we knew it was coming.

My mom forgot. And she had them all day. She also had them last week, before any of them had really ticked over. It was blessed. Glorious. They worked together, they solved problems, they were considerate, they were functioning perfectly, every one of them. And then BAM, this week, three of the four ticked over (Mr G is in the age zone - that is, 10+/puberty - where he may not have quite the same pattern anymore, he's still working pretty well, but he does get set off by the others a bit when they're haywire, which is totally fair, since we do, too). And yesterday was merry heck. Only not so merry. My mom aged two years in one day, her hair was pointing every which-way, and she groused when I showed up to drop off Easter candy.

And then I reminded her. Oh, yeah. Right. Dang.

See, she had kids all around the calendar. So she always had SOMEONE who was in regulation phase of their development. Some were ticking along beautifully, others were falling apart. It gave her a cadence of handle-these, let-those-roll on an ongoing basis. But me? No, all mine are born at the same time, three literally the same date (month/day), and the other only about two weeks off from that. They all fall apart at once. and they all get together on track at once (approximately, their patterns are a little unique, but if one is even close and another tips over that edge, it magnifies the 'even close' behaviors in response).

Joy!

But, it is not a shock to me at this point. I've been bracing for it. Girding up the mental and emotional loins, so to speak. Reminding myself to work harder on the reflective listening, the non-violent communication that is useful when they're working great, and E-freakin-SSENTIAL when they're off-cycle.

My posting rate will probably go up, too, because I seem to post more when I'm problem-solving, because it is a way to work through what I'm thinking. And for the next six months or so, there will be a lot more solving to be done. Skills coming online, mental function coming online, new tender issues growing up for each of them (whee, three of them are coming into social processing at once - friends, more friends, more friends, and all the pain of learning how to make friends, discovering that you've lost a friend, wanting more friends, not being sure what to do about un-helpful/unkind friends, etc.).

I do actually enjoy teaching them this stuff, and working with them on it. Mostly because I can see it take root, and having seen it go by in one already, I'm more certain that skills will take hold, even if it takes a year or more to get them settled on the skill. Actually, it usually takes at least a year for a new skill to settle into a strength, so ... hey, it's okay, they're kids, it takes time. KNOWING that it takes time is the important part. That keeps me from losing my patience all the time. Not that I don't lose patience in the midst of it. I do, pretty regularly. But I remind myself that they're new to this, whatever it is, most of the time. Even what's not entirely new is new in scope or depth or variety, and that means it's more complicated for them to learn. It becomes learning finesse, which takes as much time or longer than it takes to learn the basics. Three years to mastry, for most skills, so... so we take on the next layer, and carry on.

Deep breath. Suppress the urge to duck and run. Remind myself that it is actually quite satisfying.

Which doesn't mean it won't be work. A lot of it. Much of it tedious work.

Yeah, right on schedule.

(Trying for a cheerful attitude about it) Here we go.

Er. (paste on a cheery face)

Here we go!

*cough* (trying again)

Whoopee, here we go!

Ah, nevermind.

It's more like the sensation of bracing for a bad landing. Deep breath, let it out, squint one eye in a half-wince, and TRY to relax into a protected position... at least I know it's gonna be bumpy, and that it isn't going to be an actual crash. Just a lot of uncomfortable and rough and uneven and out-of-balance and stressful.

That's all. Strangely, that's also okay. I think that's the Acceptant Loving Faithful coming into play. It is what it is, they are who they are, I love them enough to help them, and I have faith that we'll all grow through it and come out the other side into the next easy zone, and enjoy that, too.

Marriage, arranged marriage, and expectations

I generally don't blog about work, for a variety of reasons. However, the recent Ask Moxie discussion on how to communicate about sex with your partner got me thinking about some conversations I've had at work recently.

And no, not that kind of conversation. I think if I mentioned anything even vaguely related to sex the (Indian) guys I work with would just pretend they went temporarily deaf, the way they did when I suggested they could teach me Hindi by starting with the swear words. They didn't miss a beat, just kept their part of the conversation going like I hadn't said a thing. Cultural strategy, expertly applied.

It was strange, and weirdly funny - I temporarily became completely invisible and inaudible. I can imagine that it can be a really horrible thing (or horrifying), under certain circumstances, too, but at least we're dealing with a modern profile of members of the culture, who are generally married to educated (often highly educated) women, and who also are dealing with the intercultural expectations adaptively. Mostly, anyway.

I have had some conversations that weren't totally in their comfort zone, though, without losing them. In particular, I have talked about arranged marriage with the guy I work with most, and in reasonable detail. (I am almost certain that they have been encouraged to Not Talk About This with Americans because of the tendency for most of the guys to suddenly dodge if the subject comes up, even if they were the ones who brought it up.)

The thing that stood out for me in the discussion I did manage to get into was that the trajectory of expectations differs vastly. My coworker said that the assumption was that your parents know you well, and understand marriage with a longer view than you are likely to have, so you're starting out with someone looking at the long view of your life, not the immediate aspect. As for love, that's the goal, not the starting place. The expectation is that after years of working together, communicating and striving and putting effort into being a team, love will grow. The goal is to end up in love with your spouse, not to start out in love with your spouse.

Not that it always works, for myriad reasons. But the idea of love as the eventual goal sets a very different pattern of intentions and behaviors from the start.

Another baseline assumption is that marriage is not going to be smooth and easy (but at least having selected a good partner for you, hopefully it won't be excessively rough). Nobody in the modern version is expected to read minds (or not any more than one would expect with a friend - birthday surprises are great, but having a wife who is straightforward about what she wants is considered good, for example). Communication is required in order to reach the point where love can and will grow.

There's no worry that if there's a rough patch, the love will go away forever, poof. Hey, you started out not feeling the love anyway! Getting through the rough patches together, still as a team, is expected to be part of what MAKES love grow. Not the other way around.

It makes for an interesting perspective.

And it does seem to work for a portion of the population. While divorce is on the rise in India, and there are a lot (!!) of social pressures against divorce (meaning by interpretation that there are people who would divorce if there was less antagonism to the idea), there are also a lot of marriages that work, where there is real love at the end of it.

The rising middle class has modified the rules about arranged marriage, as well - and that's more what I'm talking about here (there are still forced arranged marriages, but nobody wants to talk about that). For example, in the 'modern' version, there's an assumption that each party has the right to no-vote any selection made (we know one woman who only said yes to the 10th man her parents found, meanwhile her parents learned a great deal about her interests, needs, style, etc. - and both parties in the eventual match were very happy with the arrangement).

Also, because of the relatively high marriage minimum age (legally, 18 for women, 21 for men, and many college students wait until after graduation and establishment of a career to even start the process of considering a spouse), there can be years to make adult friendships that your parents may watch for potentials. My coworker had been friends with his wife for years, as well as their families being friends, before the arrangement was made. Stories abound in the young educated circles of savvy couples working their parents' expectations as hard as the other way around, setting their parents up to choose the person they want their parents to choose, and both generations thinking they have the other one completely snowed. There's a degree of puzzlement openly expressed in India that arranged marriage hasn't vanished in the middle class, but they point to the fear that if they go all the way to love-match marriage, they'll end up with a high risk of divorce. American marriage statistics are a case-in-point example, for them, of how not to approach the idea of marriage. But they are willing to borrow the idea of right-of-refusal (both parties must be willing), and they are willing to borrow the idea of the individuals meeting and being friends first as an acceptable route to an arrangement.

I can attest to the value of marrying someone you're already friends with, personally. The friendship holds us together when the more romantic form of love isn't primary. The expectations we had were in some ways similar to those of my Indian work friends - this is a partnership, it will take effort, we need to work together, and working together will build long-term love. We thought about the long view, and recognized that it wasn't going to all be easy because we already loved each other, it was going to be effort despite the fact that we loved each other.

Discussing the merits of arranged marriage is probably making my ancestors roll over in their graves, though. Miss M's middle name is Freelove, which is after her many-times-great grandmother, whose own mother was (as far as we can tell) a Radical, (she was also a Quaker, on my side of the family). As rather a number of Quakers were, she was involved in the (GASP!) Free Love Movement, which certainly doesn't fit with the idea of traditional arranged marriage... (short form is: free unions of adults are legitimate relations which should be respected by all third parties whether they are emotional or sexual relations. In addition: both men and women have equal right to sexual pleasure; everyone has a right to equal treatment within and outside legal marriage regardless of gender; love is not to be bounded by either law or tradition.) It is somewhat strange to think of using some of the mindset that comes from arranged marriage when my own family tree was kicking over those traces, and setting the stage for the idea of romantic love being a valid basis of relationship, and effectively the ONLY valid basis.

You can still see the echoes of the Free Love movement in American marriage expectations. They were a radical fringe, but they really did transform our ideas - it just took a couple centuries for us to get there. And now we're here, the 1960's having done a lot of the finishing off on that. Only, culture being what it is, we still carry a lot of the women-as-lesser inequity into the marriage process as well. It's just the entry point that was changed. But that's another post entirely.

The long-term view of what marriage is for, and where the goals are, is entangled in the culture. Indian culture takes a very long-term view in general. It's what you get 'way down the road' that is of importance, not what it is like now. American culture has a very short time horizon. Immediate is good. A few years, the time span we think we can see clearly-enough, that's where we aim. Five years is the max most people can imagine and think is at all accurate (that is also culturally set). We picture now, roll that forward five years, and the rest is an increasingly vague fog. In cultures with a long time horizon, they picture 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now, and then fill in the major steps in between, sketched out but building toward that future point. It may be a high-altitude view, without much detail, but it allows for a very different approach to the structure of marriage. It also glosses over a lot of potential misery in hopes that the route will end up at that goal anyway. Plus, minus.

Another aspect of arranged marriages that we don't have either as a positive or a negative is the coordination of relatives. Granted, coordinating the in-laws also means they can gang up on you. But if you're starting from 'the in-laws have a relationship of their own' (that is, 'marriage joins two families, not just two people'), it's possible to find other ways than the American 'ignore-or-tolerate' to manage difficult in-law relationships. Forging a relationship between the in-laws before marriage makes it less likely that you'll have the whole 'I hate who you married' thing that pops up so often in conversations about marriage and in-laws in the US. Granted, I don't know anyone who would want to try that unless they think the in-laws will get along in the first place. Those who do expect their in-laws to get along don't expect any 'I hate who you married' attitude, either. Kind of excludes the option from the American side.

Just to be clear, I am not advocating for arranged marriages. The risks are ever-present, and the abuses are rampant where it is practiced. There are definitely good versions of it, as there are also versions of by-choice love match marriages, too.

I think the major concept I'd like to add to the usual American approach is the idea that love is something that you are striving to build, something you hope to create-and-end-up-with, through years of coordinated work and communication. I like that concept better than love being something that you have at the start with but that you have to protect jealously lest it fade, shatter, or fly away. Too many people seem to spend significant time and effort trying to preserve or guard their love, rather than spending that time and effort learning to live well together, and thereby creating love as a byproduct of that effort.

Ep and I maybe got lucky on that point - we are not automatically 'in tune with each other' - we're very different personalities, and we assumed from the outset that our friendship, affection, attraction, and love were not the same as 'a perfect fit'. We grind gears, and always have. The effort to not grind gears on each other was there from the start, and the assumption was that if we coasted we'd both suffer. To keep our essential differences from interfering with our friendship and interactions, we were very direct about rules, expectations, needs, and communication. Out of that, we discovered that the more we worked on making life together function well, the better the 'fit' seemed to be, and the deeper the love seemed to go. 

Is it a lot of effort? Yes. Sometimes boring effort (including both tedious and frustrating), sometimes painful effort, mostly just plain old daily effort. My mom once told me that being married is one of the hardest things you'll do (other than raising kids), it is a lot of effort, but it is worth the effort. I grew up knowing that, and knowing that even making the effort every day won't get you everything you want sometimes. But still worth the trying. No guarantees, only the suggestion that working on the grungy, boring, un-fun details leads us in the right direction, on the long time horizon.

And still just as well we weren't in an arranged-marriage culture... I doubt either of our parents would have chosen us as a match at the start. In the Indian system, I would have been the last pick on the list, for a variety of reasons (including the fact that I'd dated more, er, broadly, than ep had), and ep would never have even hit radar for my mom (she'd have picked an extrovert for me, and not an apparently quiet guy who also had an earring and wore a fair bit of leather). We'd have had to do the whole 'nope, nope, not that one either, try again' routine. I think I'd have driven my mom nuts on that.

I think I'll take my own expectations over the cultural ones, and hope we can pass those down to the kids. Love does not conquer all. Love is not proof that you don't need to put in daily effort, and happily ever after is not reality. Reality is messy, and work. (Again showing my age, and thanks to Terry for introducing me to her music:) Ferron's song about the process is valid, to my mind: Love don't travel down a straight line track, it come together and it come apart. On top of that, though, is the idea that as it starts to come apart, it can be worth the effort to put it back together with a long view to the distant horizon.

Teaching our kids about looking down the long time horizon is important. They need to know that it may be possible to bring the tracks together again when they start to come apart. That possibility makes the effort worth starting. That first step back after things come apart is often the hardest, and without a long view, it may be easier to give up than to work it through.

The enemy of the excellent ...

One of my mom's pithy aphorisms is 'the enemy of the excellent is the good'.

That is, spending resources on 'good stuff' and 'good enough' stuff is likely to prevent you from being able to get the excellent stuff. Certainly more of a block to excellence than spending resources on cheap junk. The junk just doesn't cost that much. The good stuff costs enough that you end up not being able to afford the really great stuff. Getting the good stuff sucks the resources dry faster.

There are many times when 'good enough' really IS good enough. Ikea furniture is good enough when it is appropriate - the Ikea dining room table is appropriate - big enough, solid enough, and I really don't care that much when someone marks it up with Sharpie by accident. Keeps my stress level down, solves the essential job, serves for this part of our lives. The 'excellent' version isn't appropriate until the kids are older. And that's the right choice. Effective, Prudent, True, there - fits all the filters.

But there are times where the Effective and Prudent filters are wide open - and all you've got left to go through is 'True' - true to self, true to need, true to that deeper esthetic sense, all the way down. Figuring out how to track that, and work it out, not ignore it or do the half-assed version or even take 'good enough' when what is wanted is that-which-I-truly-want, the thing that resonates in my soul, that's a bit tricky sometimes.

This is a discussion we're having with Mr G and Mr B right now. Both are fixated on COOL WEAPONS and OTHER COOL STUFF (swords, walking sticks, historically accurate costumes and such). All that is okay. We're kind of a sword-oriented family (the fencing, watching The Princess Bride, etc.), and the rest of it we're geeky enough to recognize as fine things.

But. They keep going 'ooh, that's the one I really want! Dang! It's $140! Hmm, I'll just get this here $14 junky one instead.' (Not that they're ordering anything without a lot of guidance, input, and management from us - just to be clear there, Mr G has a set of woodsman's blades for hacking through brush, and that's it - and most of their cool-weapon choices get nixed on 'deadly weapon' grounds - but they're okay with that, since they have, er, experience accidentally injuring their siblings, and really don't like that feeling.)

We're working them hard on figuring out what it is that they really, truly want, and then developing earning and saving strategies for those, rather than buying something just to have something, using what they already have saved.

Because seriously, they won't be happy with the 'good enough' option, in the end. It will be cool for a bit, but the deeper hum won't be answered. And the chance of the 'good enough' option breaking, or not having a good feel to it, much higher.

This is a beckon-vs.-hum thing, as well. I should bring that in as a construct, too.

For those who don't know that term set, a beckon is something that calls you in the moment, but has no deeper layer - it is the candy bar at the checkout stand. A hum is something that's already vibrating at a deep level in you, that gets you up to go seek it out. It didn't just get noticed as a 'ooh, pretty', you went looking for it. A beckon is the cheap thing that is calling out 'eat me!' or 'buy me!' A hum is worth waiting for, is something you'll come back for later if you walk away now.

And a hum is also something you'll still want, even if you buy a cheaper 'beckon' version first. If you really really want the Godiva chocolates, if deep down that would satisfy your soul, your sense of indulgence, your need to feel pampered, etc., buying the Hershey's Special Dark will put it off for a bit, but it will just come back again later. It is a hum.

Mr G and Mr B have hums for complex tools that are both physically and esthetically pleasing. Mr B wants a walking stick that has a hidden telescope in the handle. It's $140. When he heard that, he immediately said, 'I'll just look for something I can afford.'

Whoa, there boy.

My immediate response to that strategy was: At 7, Mr G saved up $140 from birthdays, Christmas, allowance (plus investing with us), and so can you. Don't go for just the cheap thing you can afford and that is 'good enough' - go for what would really satisfy your soul. Go for what you really, deep-down, want to own. Let's find a solution, not mis-identify the problem and hope the urge goes away.

Okay, so one part of the problem is 'I want to buy something NOW' - but that's not the real problem. The real problem is 'I want something more costly than I think I can afford'.

We've been saying the same thing over and over for a while. Mr G tends to get it eventually - the urgency once put off enough times settles into 'okay, okay, I really can wait long enough to get the thing I truly want.' The challenge is teaching him to hold himself back when the impulse to just get something, anything, if it can be had now hits.

But it's coming. For both of them.

Mr B, last night, looked up from his search for 'something/anything' when I suggested that it was indeed possible to save $140 at his age. He thought a moment, and then ran off from the table... and came back with one of his money collection jars - the one marked 'Saving'. He showed it around, pointed out that he'd even grabbed the Right One, and set it on the table. He then began frantically looking for the dollar he'd put down, somewhere, right over here, is it under Miss M's stack of art? Where? I need it! Must. Start. Saving. NOW. No wasting money on the 'good enough', nuh-uh!

Because, well, the walking stick with the spy-glass hidden in the handle is just really, really, EXCELLENT.

Well, that was quick... (sick kids plus bedtime)

Yesterday, we sent Mr B to school thinking he'd had a fructose overload (he'd had more bruising in the last three days, circles under his eyes, and, er, rather loose stools in the morning).

Funny, the symptoms are similar to a stomach bug.

And sometimes that means he does have a stomach bug.

So, he was picked up at noon from school, and later puked on returning from picking up the rest of the kids (fortunately where it was easily cleaned up). Puking is not part of the fructose malabsorption symptom set for him (nausea is for some, but not for him).

Some days a crystal ball would be nice. Granted, he seemed fine in general - no nausea, just a little lower stomach crampy (usual with the fructose overload for people with fructose malabsorption), and really not much of that (he had to think about it before he said that was a symptom). No fever, no nada.

It was a sigh and an, 'oh, well,' mistake for him - error on our part, remedied as quickly as possible. He's cool with it.

However, wince for the kids (and staff) at school who are now proud potential exposees to the bug du jour. Dang. That's not something I like to do. At least it wasn't on purpose, I suppose. Not even out of necessity (say, no sick leave and no backup care available - I know parents who have to send the kids in if they're anything short of dying because they just have no backup option and minimal sick time/paid-time-off). Just misfire on the symptoms because they match the non-sick syndrome symptoms.

Last night was still pretty mellow, all in all - Nobody was in a big eating mood, and even when Miss R finally decided she was hungry, all she ate was a few scrambled eggs. Sick food, anyone? Actual bedtime was still something of an uproar, as everyone maxed out on mellow and shifted over to 'I shall express my affection for my siblings by making them laugh and squeal, and I'll make them laugh by trying to poke them in their privates' (gah!) Miss M ended up in Time Out (she and Miss R both respond reasonably to the Time Out concept, though that means we use it maybe once a month), where she raged and screamed for a bit, then climbed into my lap (I sit near her), where I reflected her need to make her brother laugh, and her distress that making him laugh by trying to poke his butt was inappropriate. It is the biggest laugh, but I did explain that sometimes people laugh because they're uncomfortable with what is going on, not because they're enjoying it. She thinks I'm crazy, but she recognizes that poking privates is not Safe, Respectful, or Kind, and therefore is against the rules.

She needed an uppie hug (for some reason the ultimate in I truly love you and accept you and am open to you as you are is to hug and cuddle them while standing - why this is better than hugging while sitting, or rocking them, or dancing with them, or singing to them, I don't know). And then she was all better, and calm, and ready to get her teeth brushed and get into bed.

Still, behavior is definitely improving with age, and we're still definitely in the lull.

Even in the lull, bedtime is often a challenge, perhaps to do with with the four-kids-two-same-age thing. I suspect it is easier if you have an age split the whole way down. Mr G and Mr B are easy. Okay, mainly easy. They need the same reminders each time. (Mr G, did you brush your teeth? Mr G, please stop wrestling with your brother and actually get in bed. No, don't complain that they started it, if you were in your bed, they wouldn't be starting it - they can't reach that high. Please put the book down and try to go to sleep. I know the rest are still getting ready, but you were tired this morning so you need more sleep, try to get some... which all just means I'm telling too much and not asking enough. Not that he objects to any of this, he is just quite prone to liking to read and liking to play with his siblings. I can't argue with that preference, it's good stuff. Just not Prudent.)

Mr B is mainly just in need of some physical outlet at that hour. If he remembers (which is most of the time, now), he does some yoga on his own before toothbrushing. He's rather proud of the fact that he knows some yoga and the kids at school don't (they used it in preschool as a way to help develop balance, coordination, body awareness, and for calming before naps - he has never forgotten, though he does use his dad's 'yoga cards' as reminders and expansion). Some yoga, and he calms down physically. He really needs the body work to function well. If he was riding daily, he'd probably be fine, too. 'Running' sports (like soccer) help a little, but they don't work enough of the arm and torso. Fencing is good, though. Swimming would be, too. But, for now, it is riding once a week and yoga most days. His new riding instructor took the information from the collagen disorders clinic to heart (that is, he only has two joint systems that are really loose - hip joint and fingertip joint - and those need extra work rather than less work), and has worked him really hard on posting and maintaining grip on the reins. As a result, he's moved in a month from being on-lead (instructor holding the lead line) while he trots and posts to posting and steering on his own the whole lesson. His hip strength has gone way up, and now his posting is quite vertical instead of forward (leaning forward happens when you don't trust your balance or strength at the hip, among other reasons). He looks really good, and he comes out of his lessons sweaty and satisfied instead of just a bit bored. Um, anyway, riding, good.

Bedtime for Miss M and Miss R is still a matter of leaping on each other, giggling, and trying to dodge the concept of toothbrushing. It's coming, though - when we get them to settle a bit, there isn't the fight over toothbrushing there used to be. Miss M's mouth is still sensitive (part of the collagen 'difference'), but she's usually willing to sit still and let us brush her teeth (the dentist wants us helping at least once a day, because kids often won't brush firmly or completely, which is catastrophic for their soft teeth). It used to be five different approaches to get her to open her mouth. (escalating degrees of mandatory-ness, up to the dreaded 'the dentist said' - she doesn't like the dentist, personally, much. Tolerates, but no liking.) Now, much better. But there's still the first-one, then-other problem of the same-age set. I get one to settle a bit and start moving in the right direction, and the other creates a problem that requires my attention, which then allows the first to go haring off in a new direction, and as soon as I get the second lined up straight I have to go catch the first before they get totally out of control, and while I'm doing that the second has taken the chance to go explore something else that caught their eye, so then I'm tuning that back to the intended trajectory for bedtime, meanwhile the other - was that the first or the second? - is off again on something else. Tag team on mommy, though they don't coordinate it, it is just that if you let go of the direction for a 4-year-old, they'll take their own. Fortunately I know it is a matter of being 4, and that the same would be true if my attention was taken by a younger sibling, it just wouldn't be quite so back-and-forth. I also know they'll grow out of it, so while I'm frustrated by it, I am not worried that they'll never learn how to go to bed. I figure eventually I'll be reminding them that sleep involves putting the book down and turning off the lights. Just like Mr G, just like I was as a kid, just like ep was, too.

And eventually we grow up enough to appreciate sleep. By the time they're 40, they'll understand. Meanwhile, we herd the ferrets toward sleep, and they do eventually get there, and there's less grumping all around as they wear down the pathways that lead that direction. It isn't a problem, it just is what it is. Them meeting their loudest needs (movement and interaction) while we try to get them to recognize and manage the quiet needs they don't hear so easily (dental care and sleep).

And maybe tomorrow we'll be back to the lull properly, if nobody else gets sick.

Integrity rocks

So, we blew the homework support over the holiday. We checked very lightly to see if Mr G had any homework - did not double-check him when he said No. Didn't even check on either the percussion or keyboarding, which generally do have homework constantly. It's a holiday, everything went piff!

I don't know who remembered the log, but I did see it - three weeks of zero practice. Mr G had filled in 'No Time' (as in 'I didn't have time to practice') on nearly every line (though he'd figured out which days he'd been at grandparents houses and had entered those in specific - overnight at grandmother's house, no practice).

Er.

No time isn't accurate. We suck is accurate.

So, I asked him to correct the log to 'forgot' instead of 'no time' and wrote a nice long note to the teacher that started with saying 'we suck'. Okay, I did lead into that, but it was in the first sentence.

I also didn't beg for a better grade - this was a 30-point log, that's a big hit to the grade. But ... well, blew it is blew it, and the grade is not the end of the world. It's a learning experience (for, er, all of us). There's a hole in the data collection system, we checked his agenda and neither keyboarding nor percussion practice were listed. So, correct the system, and meanwhile, take the hit.

I wrote that all out in more specific words for the teacher, too. The note was a full page long.

And we got back a note applauding our integrity, and saying she gave him full credit for the homework assignment because we (including he) hadn't lied.

I love when the teacher gets what we're trying to do, and puts the reward on the right side of the line. It's the George Washington and the Cherry Tree story, essentially - having told the truth, the punishment is withdrawn. And since it turns out that this is the scenario that results in the most truth-telling (kids lie more after hearing 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf' and lie less after hearing the story of George and the Cherry Tree - even if they never heard either story before)... well, good. More reinforcement that acting with integrity earns rewards including the avoidance of negatives.

Now, he still has to get back to practicing - hard. And we're going to install the software on my mom's computer so he can't get away with skipping practice there. Still, since he cares about the grades, it's a good lesson all around. Do the work, but when you blow it, fess up immediately. It tends to develop an ease with fessing up when the expected outcomes are more on the positive side if you do, which should be obvious.

Ep gets nervous about bringing up his mistakes, but less so when he knows he can present a plan for how to prevent similar mistakes (see the series of posts on apology), and the same is true for me. But nervous is okay - terrified is not the goal.

It seems we're succeeding on the modeling, here. Mr G was pleased with the results, as well.

Now, to work on the strategy (making sure all items of homework are gathered in a single place - the agenda must be something we can all trust, or there's no point to using it).

Thinking about marriage

Not mine, my kids'.

I know it is a bad idea to have specific fantasies about what my kids will do when they grow up. I have gradually moved away from the fantasies and dreams that came spontaneously any time any infant of mine showed a particular talent - Mr G is musical, maybe he'll be in a band! What if Mr B becomes a famous artist, and certainly Miss M could be a rocket scientist, and oh, yeah, Miss R definitely might be an investigative journalist. The pictures that are possible when they are infants and toddlers are much easier to imagine than as they get older and more complex.

Not to mention that they make it impossible for me to picture my choice being their choice as we go. They make their own way, I don't make it for them. Any time I slip and think otherwise, they put me back on my side of the line. Firmly. I don't make their path, I can only help them tread it. And the more I try to make them take a certain line, the more they'll just choose a further different one to avoid slipping into my zone too far.

My mom has said that she was acutely aware that she was raising us to live in a world that she would be able to glimpse but would never inhabit. Her world was formed of her experiences, her history, the events and culture and history that marked her development into an adult. Ours would necessarily be different, and she was going to have to raise us aiming for a future she couldn't imagine, and certainly couldn't predict.

I'm probably less intentional about that, but I do definitely consider the future a foreign country, that will be my childrens' native land. I will live there, but there will eventually be things that I cannot quite master with the fluency of a native, just as my mom cannot quite accommodate the constant information barrage of email - she's certainly competent at it, but in that 'I've learned' way, and not in the 'well, yeah, of course' way of the native.

Which brings me around to marriage, in a strange kind of way. I was reading over at BlogHer, and this post (regarding marriage) struck me. I recognize the position of the mom - marriage is an artifact of the patriachy, it should not be necessary to form a legal bond in order to have one's rights regarding a personal relationship respected, it's questionable whether we should encourage marriage through financial and other rewards outside the social and spiritual process of union, etc. The pure feminist position, traditional style. Isn't it strange to think of that as traditional feminism? Feminism has been around long enough to be called 'traditional' ... yeah, that would be a foreign country to my mom.

And I recognize the position of the daughter, too - this is my choice, and I have the freedom to make it, and the right to ask you to respect and honor it (which the author does, even though it pains her a bit, it is clearly a loving choice to respect her daughter's path). There's a degree of relaxation in the feminism I inhabit, of embracing the rules and regulations, provided they are not rigidly applied. My brand is more about opportunity and choice, of unloading the weights against, of balancing the paths. Choose - stay at home mom, or work outside the home, as suits you, as meets your needs, as reflects your core. Choose - marry, or cohabitate, as meets your needs, as well.

Maybe it is also the UU in me, that looks at all faiths and finds some good in each, and allows for each to choose their own way, knowing that it meets a need in that person to follow that path. Yes, at times I'll address the underlying need as a question - is there another way to meet that need that has a less problematic set of side-issues? It's the Prudent part of the process. But if the choice of marry or not, this religion or that, fits that person's Effective, Prudent, True, I will not rail against it - provided it also meets Safe Respectful Kind (which kind of nixes some of the more extreme religious positions that require taking action against others or intruding on their path without regard for their choices or needs).

After reading that blog post, I thought about my kids and marriage. I know I find marriage useful and valuable, and that the service of the wedding had some power to make me feel different after than before. But that would be true without the legal aspect, if all we had was the social and spiritual. I thought about my kids marrying into other faiths, or not at all, of cohabiting, of finding their partner early, or late, or repeatedly. Some images were definitely more comfortable than others. My personal comfort zone is 'repeat what I did'. Not that this is bad - heck, better that I like my life enough to want it for my kids. But I also know it won't necessarily suit them. They'll pick their own way. I have some bets on some general details - that Mr G will find his life partner when he's college age or later, in an organic method (that is, she'll just kind of occur in his life and he'll eventually notice), say. Or that Miss R will see the partner she wants, and move toward that intentionally, whenever it happens. That Mr B will be okay whether he finds a mate or not (having just revised his future plans from 'single with dogs and horses' to MAYBE married with two kids, at all of seven ...). That Miss M will have a quiet surface to her passion for whomever it is she falls for, but that her dedication will be fierce once earned.

But that's it for the imagining, at this point. Certainly I could be wrong about those as well. I'm prepared to be surprised, because I'm still picturing what life is like in a place I've never visited, with people I don't yet know - they haven't finished forming, so I only know who they used to be, off in that distant future.

Whatever they choose, I'll have my hopes for their happiness. And I am not too fretful about the patriarchy, the legality (unless they choose a same-sex partner, in which case I'm hoping that by then the rest of the world will have moved toward the greater sum of human happiness by opening the legal options there universally), or the theology. I'm going to trust their character, listen to their logic, and see how their paths unfold. And like that other blogger, I may wince a little if their world is too much unfamiliar, but I'll step up to the never-ending challenge of being Acceptant, Loving, and Faithful.