A new era May 7, 2008

I’ve never been quite satisfied with our childcare arrangements and how that fits with homeschooling.

It’s not that our nannies haven’t been good — they have.

But we’re ready to make a change now. Mainly, the girls are getting older, and I don’t like to see them — especially Violet, now 9 — so dependent on someone else to direct her activities. I’m also seeing Victoria, turning 5 this month!, saving a lot of her resistance and tantrum-throwing for the nanny.

As Violet adds more and more interests to desired daily activities, the pressures of scheduling have gotten tougher. We have to rush to get stuff done before the sitter gets here, because when she does, the expectation is that the girls play and play until the sitter leaves. For a while I had Violet doing workbooks for part of the sitter time, but that was awkward, and I am not big into workbooks anyway. Our time feels chopped up into bits, and we have to fit things into those bits rather than let the activities guide our time.

So, as of mid-June, we’re going nanny-free. I’m sure we’ll be hiring sitters from time to time, but we’re taking it out of the weekly schedule. In some ways this will require more discipline from everyone, especially the parents, but in other ways we will have a much more relaxed schedule. If something takes longer than planned, oh well. An extra 30 minutes on math needn’t throw off the whole day. If friends want to get together, I don’t have to plan around babysitter days.

Most of all, though, I really see that the girls are needing more direct interaction with parents. Violet’s current phase reminds me of when she learned to walk. As the books predicted, her newly discovered walking skills gave her a temporarily increased sense of separation anxiety. She sensed her freedom — and sometimes it was a little scary! I see this with her now, at age 9. She feels herself separating further from her parents, which is exciting yet anxiety-producing — for everyone! So she wants me around. In fact this weekend we are having a “date night,” with a dinner out, a movie at home, and then sleeping bags in the living room. She really, really wanted this, and I can see from her behavior that she needs it.

Victoria, as I alluded to earlier, needs firmer limit setting. As the younger sister of a fairly demanding sibling, she gets a fair amount of benign neglect — but I am not sure it is entirely benign. I think her “No! No! No!’ fits are a demonstration of her need for more direct parental guidance. I don’t usually have that problem with her, but I am interested to see what happens when we spend more time together. On the plus side, Victoria is also at a wonderfully mother-loving age, when I can count on a “you’re the best mom ever,” or an “I love being with you, mom” pretty often. Why miss out? It won’t last!

Am I working less? Sadly, no. Well, not sadly. But it does make things complicated. I’m hopeful, however, that we’ll all learn to be at home doing our work together, whatever our age-appropriate work is. I’m also hopeful that I’ll learn to get up really early!

Checked Out May 4, 2008

I’m not anywhere fun, like Barcelona (!), I’m just sick. Bleah.

Just a cold, mom, don’t worry too much! But I need all the energy I have just to get through the day — none left for blogging.

What’s been happening Chez Nous?

— Planning meeting for a group of families that all have girls ages 9-10, in addition to siblings of all ages. We are trying to establish monthly get-togethers so that as the girls transition through puberty to adolescence they have a solid group of friends. I’ll say more about it another day. The other parents and kids are great — I am just a little unsure whether Violet will find it a good fit over the long term. No one else in her family is a great group person, but I hate to make assumptions about her.

– Continuing our history of English. We spent some time on the Plimoth Plantation site, which has audio of pilgrim speak. Violet also wrote a letter as if she were a pilgrim girl writing to a friend in England. She begins:

Pray pardon me if the parchment is burnt, I am writing by the hearth for the mouser has upturned a bowl of cold pottage upon my petticoat, and chilled me.

She also writes about watching the “Indians.”

– Gearing up for a month of performances. Victoria has a dance recital and a piano recital, while Violet has a play and two piano recitals. This involves many practices and dress rehearsals, which is somewhat exhausting for me. Reading Guiding the Gifted Child, I am assured that gifted kids often thrive on a full plate, and that apart from disruptions to the family so much activity is OK. Oh, and soccer starts in a couple of weeks, I think. Violet may have to give that one up, depending on how much it conflicts with her other committments, but Victoria will get to do hers, regardless.

– Lots of knitting. I’m going to be putting together Violet’s sweater coat as a long hippie vest, because I lost the sleeves. (It is just too painful to discuss further.) I might also complete the sleeves and add them later. I’m knitting some purple socks for myself in a nice chevron lace pattern — thanks Dawn and Ann Budd.

If I am not commenting on your blog, pray pardon me.

Fare thee well,
Shaun

No, no and no April 28, 2008

I know I’m supposed to be sensitive to the reality that teenagers are sexual beings and that attempts to deny their sexuality are about adults’ weird hangups.

Still, to this whole Miley Cyrus thing, I say no way. We had already stayed away from the Hannah Montana clothes, especially the leopard stretch pants that looked more like hooker-wear. Now I’m just turning my back on the whole “girl culture” machine.

Maybe someone with older kids can enlighten me. To me, a topless 15-year-old wrapped in a bedsheet looking sleepy into the camera with smeary lipstick is saying “Hello, pedophiles!” How this pic looks anything other than post-coital is beyond me, but I know some folks have said the sheet covers more than some high school girls’ regular attire — though what’s “covered” is not really the point.

More than that, I just despair for my girls. My daughter already thinks that sex means something about “girls trying to look sexy so that boys will want to kiss them.” [She vehemently resists learning more, so I don't push it.] I can’t take them to Stride Rite at the mall without walking past bigger-than-life pictures of girls removing their clothes. The worst was in Express, where in the front windows, huge pictures showed a boy standing behind a girl with his thumb hooked in her underwear. Put it in the back of the store, and I don’t care. But do my kids and I have to look at it on the way to Gymboree?

It’s true that I don’t like to think about sex and my kids at the same time, even in the context of healthy relationships. But I don’t think that’s the only factor in my discomfort with the mall photos and now the Miley Cyrus/Vanity Fair thing (and where the hell were her parents?). What really bugs me is how the process of commodifying girls (and boys, and everything) seems to be bottomless. (And I’m not referring to recent photos of Emma Watson flashing the cameras to celebrate her birthday. Major bummer.)

I really hate how feminism has been appropriated and repackaged for girls, at least since the Spice Girls, but no doubt earlier than that too. I’m thinking of all the Gene Roddenberry Amazonian women who were never more liberated than when they were wearing hot pants and salivating over Captain Kirk, though at least that was not created specifically for children. A movie like Charlie’s Angels — where hot young women are powerful because of their sexuality along with their cleverness — raises questions for me too, but I’m willing to play along because there seems to be some irony in there, and again, it’s not marketed to 10-year-olds. (For the record, we actually own the first Charlie’s Angels movie — we loved it.)

I really struggle to find a middle ground. Violet tends to find some efforts at a more intellectual form of “girl power” tediously earnest and transparently didactic, and though she is generally attracted to the manga version of teenage girls, she has no interest in looking that way herself and — again — she finds kissing gross and hates the idea of boys as anything but friends. (”Hates” as in “simultaneously intrigued and repelled,” I think.) But in the absence of our family’s efforts to offer some kind of positive girl images that will genuinely appeal to her sense of fun, her irreverence, and her awareness of aesthetics (for lack of a better word), all she’s got is the media and the mall.

A few favorites April 26, 2008

Eggmaster’s attempt to get us a sitter and out for a movie (Harold and Kumar . . . *blush*) didn’t work out, so instead I am lazing around on the internets while he reads to Violet who is up way too late. (We had an *incident* involving many tears and much consternation, so though it is late we need some calming parent time.)

I’m going to try to rise to the challenges set by Patience and list some Good 10s. I don’t think I can do a Top 10, as my memory is so poor, but I will try my best.

10 Good Songs

1. As, by Stevie Wonder. Just everything you ever wanted in a song and more. If my life had a soundtrack this song would roll during a wonderful celebration near the end — not my funeral, but some happy time when my family and friends are all together and I am still alive with my wits about me.

2. Heart with No Companion, by Leonard Cohen. I heard this first in the Ron Sexsmith version, so that’s the one I love. Oh, it just fits me so perfectly sometimes. Perfect for all people who have come through a traumatic depression. “And I greet you from the other side of sorrow and despair / with a love so vast and shattered it will reach you everywhere.”

3. Cherry Cherry, by Neil Diamond. A total pop gem, if that doesn’t sound too Rolling Stone. Love it. Love Neil.

4. I’ll Be Your Mirror, Velvet Underground with Nico. “When you think that night has seen your mind, that deep inside you’re twisted and unkind, let me stand to show that you are blind. Please put down your hands, cause I see you.” Love it. I have been both people in this song. I just want to quote the whole thing for you. Maybe I will:

Ill be your mirror
Reflect who you are, in case you dont know
I’ll be the wind, the rain and the sunset
The light on your door to show that youre home

When you think the night has seen your mind
That inside youre twisted and unkind
Let me stand to show that you are blind
Please put down your hands
cause I see you

I find it hard to believe you dont know
The beauty that you are
But if you dont let me be your eyes
A hand in your darkness, so you wont be afraid

When you think the night has seen your mind
That inside youre twisted and unkind
Let me stand to show that you are blind
Please put down your hands
cause I see you

Ill be your mirror

5. September, Earth Wind and Fire. This song has lots of special personal meaning to me, but mainly now it reminds me of my best friend who goes by the online name of Rex Parker, when he made awesome mix tapes for dancing at the “after party” for my wedding. Yes, we had a wedding, a reception, and then later a party.

6. Sexy M.F./My Name is Prince. I think these can count as one, right? Love me some Prince. Prince lives in my town, you know? He may be weird, but musically he is the sh**.

7. Hey Ladies, The Beastie Boys. This is from the Paul’s Boutique album, one of the best albums ever, and the last vinyl I purchased before going to CDs full time.

8. Suspicious Minds, Elvis Presley. I have a history with Elvis that is just . . . waaayyy too long for me to get into now. But one thing I like about this song is that it reminds me of my dad. Though not as much as . . .

9. Won’t Get Fooled Again, The Who. Almost put Pinball Wizard here, but who can resist the awesome Daltry scream in this song?

10. Oh, so hard to choose just one more, OK, here’s a weird one. Nightshift, by the Commodores. A tribute song to Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson. A very personal favorite. Rolling Stone sez:

There are few things in pop more sure-fire than extolling the virtues of the dead, and it would be foolish to deny the extent to which that helps “Nightshift,” this album’s standout cut. But there’s more to it than mere necrophilia, for as much as the song plays on the references to Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson, it’s the easy confidence of the near-ethereal groove that ultimately sells it. If ever there was an accurate aural depiction of eternal rest, this is it.

10 Good Singers

1. Stevie Wonder
2. Marvin Gaye
3. Paul Simon
4. Prince
5. Al Green
6. Elvis Presley
7. Elvis Costello
8. Chrissie Hynde
9. Ron Sexmith
10. Mick Jagger

10 Good Books (9 novels and one nonfiction)

1. Bel Canto, Ann Patchett
2. 100 Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
3. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
4. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke
5. Stiff, Mary Roach
6. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
7. Don Quixote, Cervantes
8. Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne
9. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
10. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

I tried to spread the love around a bit — my apologies to my many book-friends not on the list. Memory is a capricious thing.

and I’m spent April 25, 2008

Oh man, I just don’t have the strength to update here. Even when I read a recent article from a Va. newspaper —

But I believe it is time for someone to fight for the students who lose role models and friends to the “smart” classes and internalize their exclusion as confirmation of their own deficiencies.

[i.e., When gifted students get an appropriate education it hurts other students, both by hurting the other students feelings and by depriving those students of the opportunity to model the gifted students. That's what life is like as a highly gifted student right? -- all your classmates are lining up to use you as a role model?! ] –

I just don’t have the get up and go to go after it. Nor would it really be worth it to do so, but I am still surprised to see actual people saying this stuff in public.

What have we been doing?

Nothing school-y, that’s for sure. The girls’ grandparents came last week, which was an occasion for much frolicking, goofing around, and playing in the sun, which decided to make a rare appearance for much of the in-laws visit. Then it was time for Shakespeare’s birthday party, which was also Violet’s 9th birthday party. The kids acted out the Pyramus and Thisby performance at the end of Midsummer Night’s Dream. Violet was Pyramus/Bottom, and was quite enthusiastic in performance, though she kept turning away from the audience. (There were 2 audiences, however — the Athenians, and the parents — so in our small house it was not easy to face both.)

I made up scripts for each of the kids with parchment-like paper, and in the back there were a few word games, including Shakespeare or Not Shakespeare? As you may know, Shakespeare is one of the leading sources of idioms in the English language (along with the Bible and nautical terminology). Here’s a selection — care to try your luck in deciding which are Shakespeare and which are Not Shakespeare?

1. Dead as a Door-Nail

2. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush

3. Foul Play

4. Vanish into thin air

5. Bite the dust

6. In a pickle

7. The Fly in the ointment

8. In the red

9. In stitches

10. At his wit’s end

On an unrelated note, our art teacher at co-op mentioned that she has always noticed that homeschooled kids tend to look out for each other in a way that she doesn’t see in her school groups. (Luckily this came up in the context of my daughter being one of some children who stuck up for a friend.) Your milage may vary, of course. I’m just always pleased when people observe that homeschoolers get “socialized” just fine, thank you.

. . . And a Footnote to French Theory April 21, 2008

Stanley Fish tries again . . . and I think I take the view of this commentor.

I was interested to read Fish’s follow up, because something has been on my mind since the last time. Fish is going to end up with well over 1000 comments on his 2 essays, and not a small number of them will accuse Fish of being obfuscatory, using too much jargon, being self-indulgently complex. [The use of "jargon" as a perjorative term has really come to perplex me in post-graduate life. Why wouldn't specialists use a specialized discourse?]

It is true, at times I had to stop and think through what Fish was saying. This was nothing, however, to reading David Hume, where after several readings I still wasn’t totally sure what he was saying. It was not a big help to read that modern philosophers are not sure either. In both cases, however, I felt (and feel) sure that it was worth the effort.

I also sympathize with Hume, Fish, Derrida, and anyone who attempts to use language to write about how language — or language-based cognition — works. The impulse is to get outside of language in order to speak about it, but of course there is no way to get outside of it. It’s not surprising to me, then, that their use of the language would look strange and break some rules. I’m willing to meet them halfway as a reader, because of the difficulty of their project.

Contrast this with something I read in my newspaper lately. A young woman was promoted to a prestigious and highly paid position in a major advertising/PR firm. You know, a company that specializes in communication. Here is an excerpt her description of her new position:

In this new agency role, I will utilize my interactive and strategic leadership experience to infuse new-world thinking into the agency culture — strengthening the overall processes of developing great creative ideas that are driven not only by consumer insight but also by the application of new, nontraditional ways to connect and engage with the audience. I will work with key clients as well as in the agency’s new business endeavors.

OK, give me Hume any day. I’m not meeting this one halfway. The first part of this reads like a parody of proactive, incentivizing cubicle culture. In fact, I was going to argue that French theory is a favorite punching bag of former college students (not without reason — I read academic articles every single day, so I know quite well how bad they can be), while this ridiculously puffed-up business-speak gets a pass, but then I remembered Dilbert. And the Simpsons. (“We’re talking about a totally outrageous paradigm!”)

Still, if Fish is moving into his second thousand comments, how many comments do you think this one got?

Also, in the spirit of utilizing interactive experience, I dare you to write your own homeschooling-parent job description as if you were one of these grand poobahs of circumlocution. 50 points to the most convincing!

A Footnote on the Un/Homeschooling Discussion April 19, 2008

Again with the unschooling/homeschooling . . .

[I posted this a couple of days ago, then I took it down. I was trying to express that my privileged perspective on homeschooling might give me a more simplistic view of the whole "label issue" than others would have, but I started to think I just sounded condescending. (Maybe the whole Obama-bitter "controversy" has me hypersensitive! ) But this is a blog, not a book, so I don't have time to edit and prune and perfect to get the tone just right. Consequently, either you're going to have to give me the benefit of the doubt, or think I'm a boneheaded so-and-so -- or something in between those two -- and I'm just going to have to let it go!]

As I keep reading and thinking and enjoying, a nagging voice at the back of my head says “What a privileged girl you are!”

I was looking at Elsie’s question about the ideal school, the school that might tempt me away from homeschooling, and I realized that my ideal school would probably be impractical for many families — families whose work makes them adhere to fairly consistent 9-5 schedules, who cannot work at home. Depending on whom you ask, my ability to work from home for good pay comes from either the grace of God or my own hard work and the time I’ve spent acquiring and honing desirable skills. Either way, I have the good fortune to do a kind of work, for a level of pay, that many people could not wake up tomorrow and begin doing.

As I read Willa’s notes on the history of homeschooling, I know that it would not have been nearly as easy for me to pull my daughter out of school if other parents had not pioneered this path, making at least somewhat socially acceptable. Socially tolerable maybe?

I’m blessed with family members who have been accepting of our desire to homeschool. It might not have been their 1st choice, but it’s OK. On my husband’s side of the family, his sister was one of those pioneers — for her own family, at least — in making homeschooling seem acceptable to her family — including us! It didn’t hurt that I came to homeschooling with a PhD, teaching experience, a stint as president of a moms group, and a mind-bendingly challenging period as co-chair of our parish council during a time of contentious transition, not to mention with a demonstrably self-educating child. Wrong or right, I’m still the “smart girl” in a lot of my circles (save for those years in grad school when I was the “about average girl”), which means I’m cut a lot of slack. (More than I deserve!)

Dare I say, it is also somewhat my personality to dive in with what I want first and deal with objections later? I am not thick-skinned by any means, but I do have a serious stubborn and independent streak. And I have a hefty dose of (sometimes misplaced!) confidence in my ability to do whatever task I set myself — at least, I do before I start. (I do learn a lot this way . . . I just never learn to consider whether the knitting pattern is too hard before I buy the yarn and dig in, and I haven’t quite learned to accept the limitations of time and space when taking on a new project.)

I came to homechooling with such a sense of freedom about whether to do it and how to do it — not that it wouldn’t be challenging and we wouldn’t get a lot of crap for it, just that we *could* do it — that it’s hard for me to imagine otherwise. At the point we became homeschoolers, the only pressure we felt from others was the pressure to do less! (I think this was in part because of our identification with the gifted label, which tends to make people suspicious, like you’re tying your child to a chair and running flashcards and math drills all day. “No lunch til you’ve got this periodic table of elements down cold!!”)

This probably makes me less than sensitive to the reality that many people have come to homeschooling feeling unsure, under scrutinty, unsupported, underqualified. As Theresa says, there may be something in finding an appropriate lable that helps with those feelings by finding people who get it. Reflecting on the discussion of the last month or so, I don’t think I’d change anything I’ve said here or in com boxes. I just wish I could add a qualifying footnote that would convey an acknowledgement of that reality. I would not want to dispute the liberating potential of well-chosen words.

A bit more on betwixt and between April 16, 2008

I forgot to add that my thoughts on straddling different groups (should we call that having a wide stance? ) were also fostered by reading Elsie Deluxe’s post on homeschooling and professional teaching.

She has a helpful perspective on how the two are different, and why it’s unhelpful to mix them up.

I should also say — gee guys, thanks for all the super-nice posts on my little bit of sadness. It is very good indeed to know that others are in your boat, and even more that sometimes your ramblings are helpful to someone, somehow!

We’re having an informal day — Violet had another big asthma research appointment, in which were reminded that she is off-the-charts allergic to cats and has some other allergies besides, and is also highly sensitive to any tiny exposure in general. She’s been drawing like crazy and has been talking nonstop about animating some of her drawings today, in addition to seeing homeschool friends at the park, a faith formation group, and the arrival of — da da da DAH! — Grandparents!!

An interesting aside: when I suggested that maybe she could do a little reading of Midsummer Night’s Dream, she did a big dramatic, “Awww Mom!” A little later I asked her what that was about, since this was her choice of reading and birthday activity, and she said that she was “just joking around,” and that “all kids” act like they don’t like doing that kind of stuff. Hmm.

Indulging in a little melancholy April 15, 2008

As I drove around looking for a parking spot for my weekly hipster coffeeshop stop (while Violet is at play practice nearby) I wondered whether I would use some of my freetime to write about my current melancholy.

I walked into the coffeeshop, and what should be playing but Lou Reed singing “Pale Blue Eyes,” one of my ultimate melancholy songs. It wa a sign from the Velvet Underground, if not from God, that I should go right ahead.

Have you ever been in this situation? You have a couple of different groups of friends — let’s say you’re in high school or college — and the groups don’t really connect. In truth, the groups don’t like each other much, but you’ve always been a bit of a fence straddler, a little bit country, a little bit rock’n'roll. The hard part is when one group starts in some of that typical group behavior, cutting down something about the other group (they’re a bunch of squares, or a bunch of rich snobs, whatever), forgetting that you have an affiliation with that group (you’re president of National Honor Society, you’re not exactly poor, etc.). If you call that to their attention, they might say something like, “Oh, honey, of course we don’t mean you!”

So — this is how I feel as a liberal Catholic homeschooler. I feel a little weird at my secular homeschool group at times, like at a moms night out when after a few drinks people aren’t as careful to parse their words about “The Church” and “Christians” and the tone turns sarcastic and superior. (Obviously these are people I like and enjoy being with, or I wouldn’t even bother about it.) But I haven’t looked into Christian homeschool groups — I’m uncomfortable with the rhetoric. Online there have been some Catholic and Christian blogs that I have moved away from because of generalities about “liberals” and how they want to make the US one big socialist orgy and take everyone’s money away and give it to welfare queens driving Cadillacs.

In part, I feel driven away from this kind of talk because I just can’t deal with the fuzzy logic and the emotion masquerading as information. It’s not that I feel I have to agree or keep quiet; I can’t figure out how to participate on those terms.

But the other part is that sad “Where are my people?” feeling. I guess that’s why I have taken to blogging. It’s not that I have found a haven of liberal Catholic homeschoolers just like me (although I have found many many lovely Catholic homeschoolers whose politics and theological bent I really don’t know, which is fine), but I have a place to connect with others who seem to know what the straddling is all about.

I think I’d better turn to a Midsummer Night’s Dream now. Our Shakespeare’s birthday party is next week, and I need to hand out parts!

We’re Up at the Harlot’s Blog April 14, 2008

Do you need to know even more about the Yarn Harlot’s visit to St. Paul, Minnesota? Personally, I have been checking regularly for her update about this stop on her tour, and it is finally up!

You can see from her pictures that we Twin Cities knitters (and greater Minnesota and Iowa knitters) packed the place (I am in the very back of the main floor in the third picture. One of the hands back there may be mine.) You can also get a taste of the truly dreadful weather that night — bad even by our standards.

And lastly, you can see the campus of the institution that saw fit to give me a doctoral degree. (U Mich, not St. Thomas, I hasten to point out.) I hope my committee is not reading my blog . . .