by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
Here we are, sitting around a table, listing our highs and lows of the day.
And the oldest, 7 years old, he doesn’t want to tell us the low, because it’s something that, even now, makes his eyes water, but we coax it out with gentle words and open hearts.
He tells us how he lost the battle with his anger today, how he threw a pencil clear across the room (no one was hit), how he had to sit out 10 minutes of recess for his failure.
He hangs his head, like he’s ashamed of this mistake he made hours ago, and then he says, Sometimes I forget how to handle my anger.
I don’t like to see that hanging head and those watery eyes and this failure he can’t seem to shake, so I remind him we all make mistakes and we all try to be good and we all forget sometimes.
He just shakes his head, like he’s the only one who ever made a mistake as bad as this one.
So I tell him about his uncle, who was sent to the principal’s office in first grade because he refused to sit on the reading rug like his teacher said; and I tell him about his aunt, who was sent to the principal as a kindergartener because she cut her best friend’s hair when she was supposed to be cutting paper; and I tell him about me, the time I left school as a high school senior without signing out because I had a bum knee and athletics was the last class of the day and my coach never took attendance—except for that day I left early.
I tell him about how the principal called my mom and how she was waiting for me when I got home and how I had to make a formal apology for breaking the rules and how I had to spend three days in ISS, In School Suspension.
I tell him I know what it’s like to not do the right thing.
Sometimes, in the heat of those discipline moments, when we’re trying to teach them that no one can ever be perfectly good and that we’re all just learning how to be the best versions of ourselves and that we know what it’s like because we’ve been there, too, we forget that they don’t know our stories like we do.
And if we don’t share those stories, our words are just words.
They get in these situations that seem so trivial to us, but they can feel like the end of the world to them, because he threw a pencil and failed, once more, to get a handle on his anger before acting. We know it’s not the end of the world, not even close, because we’ve been there before. We’ve thrown that pencil in a million different ways.
But they don’t know we’ve been there before and that we made it out alive.
So maybe instead of just focusing on those moments of teaching a better way and reviewing those Laws of Anger and Alternatives to Anger, we give them an opportunity to know and understand and truly believe they’re not alone in their failures.
Because there was that time you called a boy an ugly name, because you were embarrassed and angry and vengeful, and you had to write a note of apology to him and your teacher. And there was that time their uncle yelled something out the window of a bus on the way to a football game, and the band director made him sit out of marching two whole games because of it. And there was that time their great-aunt lined up those onion pieces she’d saved from lunch, all of them shaped like boots, and walked them back and forth across her desk to her own theme song while the teacher was talking, and she was marched down to the principal’s office to make that call home.
Sometimes knowing they came from a long line of people who made mistakes and lived through them helps them better understand that they can live through their own failures, too, that life is not about being perfect but is about still standing tall on the other side of those mistakes.
My boy is quiet for a long time after all this story-telling, and then he smiles and says, Well, at least I didn’t get In School Suspension, and his daddy and I laugh.
Sometimes stories can help us find that brighter side, too.
Rachel is a writer, poet, editor and musician who is raising five (going on six) boys to love books and poetry and music and art and the wild outdoors—all the best bits of life. She shares her fiction and nonfiction writings over at her blog, and, when she’s not buried in a writing journal or a new song or a kid crisis at home, she enjoys reading Cormac McCarthy, Toni Morrison, William Faulkner and the poetry of Rilke. Follow her on Twitter @racheltoalson.
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
I just have to say it: I’m not a big fan of unsolicited parenting advice.
I believe in seeking wisdom for our parenting journey (because who of us really knows what we’re doing?), by reading parenting books or parenting articles or talking with friends who have walked in our shoes, and I do all of that.
But it seems like being pregnant or becoming a brand new mom or rising through the ranks of a toddler parent or adolescent parent or teenager parent suddenly gives people permission (because they’re already raised their kids or they’re in a stage above yours or they think they know all there is to know about parenting) to tell you how to raise your children.
Maybe it’s because most of the unsolicited advice I’ve gotten has been contrary to the way I know is right for my children, or maybe it’s because most of the people who have doled out that advice have done it just to say I’m doing it all wrong, but I don’t often heed what people say when I’ve never asked for their advice in the first place.
Just to be clear, I’m not talking about the friend you talk to most every day or the ones you swap parenting battle stories with or the ones who hold multiple degrees in child development or work as child therapists or are experts in parenting with respect and teaching children emotional intelligence (I’ll take unsolicited advice from you any day!).
I’m talking about the lady who watches your son melt down at the playground because it’s time to go and he’s not ready to go, the one who cuts her eyes at you and says, “What that boy really needs is some discipline,” and what she really means is a good old spanking.
I’m talking about the one who thinks that just because “cry it out” worked for her three children, who are grown with no psychological problems, it works for yours, too, because people who soothe instead of let babies “cry it out” are really just spoiling their children, and later on those children will be ill-equipped to face this unfair world and you’ll regret you ever picked them up to soothe them, because that was the time they could have learned all about life not being fair.
I’m talking about all the others who believe they raised their children right and so have something to say about you raising yours right, even though their children were never your children.
So, since we seem to live in this age where people believe it “takes a village to raise a child” means they can weigh in (without being asked) on how you raise yours, I wanted to highlight the unsolicited (and solicited) parenting advice I find the most helpful and give us all permission to toss the rest.
1. It makes me a better parent. It equips me with practical tools that help me understand my children in their various developmental stages and encourages me to mold their personalities and temperaments and tendencies not in a way that is easiest for me but in a way that is the best representation of who they were made to be.
2. It honors and embraces who children are. One of the most important pieces of parenting advice that I’ve gotten in all my soliciting (never the unsolicited, unfortunately) is to accept who my children are already. It’s not easy, when one is strong-willed and it would be easier if he weren’t; and one is highly sensitive and cries about the least little thing, and it would be easier if he weren’t; and one is active and daring and full of courage, and it would be easier if he weren’t; and one wants to do everything for himself, even though he’s only 2, and it would be easier if he didn’t; and one is afraid of the dark and wants to sleep in the doorway instead of his bed, and it would be easier if he didn’t. The most helpful advice encourages me to honor who my children are instead of telling me how I should be changing them into more acceptable people.
3. It fills me with a sense of empowerment, not inefficiency. So much of the unsolicited advice is given in a way that makes parents feel like we’re failing as parents, just because we’re not doing it this one particular way that works for all children of all ages at all times. The best parenting advice acknowledges that every child is different and that I, as a parent, know my child best and already possess the ability to raise them right.
4. It doesn’t throw out terms like “entitled” or “helicopter” or “spoiled” or “they have to learn life isn’t fair.” These are old-fashioned terms that really have no applicable value whatsoever, since they’ve been used since before the turn of the 20th century. (Surprised? See our book review on The Myth of the Spoiled Child, by Alfie Kohn for more information.)
5. It doesn’t make assumptions about who parents are. So much of parenting advice, especially the unsolicited kind, comes from people who don’t really know our family or our children, who only see them every other month or on birthdays or at the store that one time they had their meltdown because it was 1 p.m. and they hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since 8 a.m.
The other day I was checking out at the store with one boy loudly crying that he wanted to spend more time than I allowed looking at the toys and two other boys physically fighting over who got to fly like Superman on the bottom rack of the cart.
The woman checking me out handed me my receipt and caught my eye and smiled.
“Three boys is such a blessing,” she said.
I didn’t tell her that there were two more at home driving their daddy crazy or that, look, my boys are fighting or that they don’t always act like a blessing.
I just smiled back and said, “Yes. They are,” and then walked out the door with my blessings crying and fighting.
Sometimes the best unsolicited advice is just a reminder that these little people really are amazing.
The rest of it, well, we can just let it slide in one ear and right back out the other, smiling our brightest thank-you smile.
They don’t have to know we weren’t listening.
Rachel is a writer, poet, editor and musician who is raising five boys to love books and poetry and music and art and the wild outdoors—all the best bits of life. She shares her fiction and nonfiction writings over at her blog, and, when she’s not buried in a writing journal or a new song or a kid crisis at home, she enjoys reading Cormac McCarthy, Toni Morrison, William Faulkner and the poetry of Rilke. Follow her on Twitter @racheltoalson.
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
When I started my parenting journey, I did not realize I would have five children. Three was the “reasonable” number we’d decided on when we had that first conversation about our married futures and what our family might look like someday.
I don’t really know what happened. We changed our minds. We were surprised (at least by the extra twin). We were…a little crazy, maybe?
I didn’t expect so many children to call me Mama.
But what I really didn’t expect was for all of them to be boys.
When the sonogram proved the first one was a boy, I remember thinking, “I don’t even know what to do with boys. I won’t be able to fix their hair or play with dolls or read girly stories like Anne of Green Gables or The Little Princess or Little House on the Prairie.” I, once the official French braider for my high school volleyball team, was good at that stuff.
I remember thinking, “I don’t know if I’ll be any good at boys.”
Now, seven years later, with five of them destroying my house on a minute-by-minute basis, I have no idea what I would even do with a girl.
But even still, there are some elusive mysteries about this so-different gender that confound me to this day.
I thought I might celebrate my boys by sharing some. (Note: Some of them might be cross-gender, but I just wouldn’t know.)
Stripping off clothes as soon as they walk through the door. They’re not allowed outside without clothes or only in their underwear, but that’s OK. They’ll just play inside in their underwear, or with nothing on at all, even though it’s a perfect afternoon for riding scooters or swinging or running laps around the cul-de-sac. They just want to be where they can wear the fewest clothes.
Leaving stripped clothes on the floor, no matter how many times I remind them where the laundry hamper is. Even though the shoes have an easy, designated place. Even though they know perfectly well how to hang shirts and fold shorts. Even though the hamper is two inches from where they dropped their discarded clothes.
Shoes worn out three weeks after I bought them. They run too fast or kick poles with friends at recess or use their toes as a scooter brake, even though there’s a perfectly efficient one attached to the back of their scooter.
Hysterical laughter anytime someone farts or pretends to. It never, ever, ever gets old. To them.
Pride in owning up to the fart, especially if it’s smelly. Even the 2-year-old twins are now saying “I tooted” and grinning about it. Apparently this is something to be immensely proud of.
Everything is a competition. Running down the stairs. Setting the table. Talking.
So.much.noise. We had to buy a megaphone just to be heard over the constant noise, because we were damaging our vocal chords just trying to yell instructions over the five competing voices that are somehow 20 times louder than ours.
Death-defying acts. Like jumping from the ninth stair onto the bottom floor of our house. Like swinging as high as they can possibly swing and then jumping from the height to see if they’ll land on their feet. Like hanging upside down from monkey bars I can’t even reach from the ground, while I stand “spotting” them, unsure of what I’ll do if their legs slip and they come bowling toward me.
Story times that don’t look like your average story times, because boys are standing on their heads and sitting on a tower of pillows, trying not to fall, and jumping from one couch to another. But they’re listening, somehow. I know. I’ve tested them just to be sure.
Total obsession with their boy-parts. “Stop playing with your penis.” I say this several times a day.
Butter knives snuck from the drawer for a quick sword-fighting match while I take a five-minute break in the bathroom upstairs.
Everything becomes a weapon. An empty paper towel roll, dug out of the recycling basket = a sword. A PVC pipe that’s supposed to be holding up the soccer net out back = a bazooka (they don’t even know what that is. They just shoot.) A scooter = a machine for smashing slower brothers’ toes.
Wet dog smell when they come back in from outside, even if it’s 40 degrees out there.
Bath time where soap misses the front of the hair and face, even though I’m right there to remind them. “I don’t care if I smell,” they say. Well, okay then.
No underwear in their drawers just three days after I’ve done laundry because they spent the last three days playing Captain Underpants and actually, for once, put all the underpants worn on their head in the laundry basket.
Nakedness. All the time. Everywhere. Company’s over? No matter. They’ll come of the bathroom naked anyway. Immediately after bath time, it takes at least five reminders for each of them to even locate their pajamas (in the same drawer they’re always in) and five more for them to actually put them on. I’m pretty sure this is just a 20-minute stalling technique meticulously planned to get them more naked time.
This is not an exhaustive list of all their wild and crazy, by any means.
But with all the nose-wrinkling smells and the heart-stopping tricks and the mess that follows them like Charlie Brown’s “Pig Pen,” there sure is a lot of love for their mama.
They love like little hurricanes, pulling up the roots of scars I’ve carried my whole life, smashing windows and walls so I’m brave enough to bare the very heart of me, tearing off a roof and twisting me toward a height I could never imagine.
I did not expect this, either.
What these years with boys have shown me is that I am a woman beloved times five.
And I wouldn’t trade that for an impeccably tidy house that smells nice all the time or a heart that beats calm or children who sit perfectly still and quiet at just a word or look from me.
I wouldn’t trade it for all the riches in the world, because I already have those riches, climbing across tables and hanging from ceiling fans and flipping off the used-to-look-nice couches in my home.
Riches beyond compare.
Rachel is a writer, poet, editor and musician who is raising five boys to love books and poetry and music and art and the wild outdoors—all the best bits of life. She shares her fiction and nonfiction writings over at her blog, and, when she’s not buried in a writing journal or a new song or a kid crisis at home, she enjoys reading Cormac McCarthy, Toni Morrison, William Faulkner and the poetry of Rilke. Follow her on Twitter @racheltoalson.
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
“Oh. You must be a stay-at-home mom.”
There we sat, in a doctor’s office for an annual exam, the nurse tapping in all my background information. We’d just established the five kids piece when she said it.
“No,” I said. “Actually, I work full time.”
It came out almost like an apology, like I was ashamed to say I, a mother of five boys, work full time, and I followed it up with a disclaimer about how I have a flexible job that allows me to work afternoons and late at night so I can spend mornings and evenings with my children and work when they’re being cared for by their daddy or asleep.
“Oh. Oh, wow,” she said. “OK.” She turned to put this latest bit of information into the computer with nothing more said.
It’s not the first time I have encountered this assumption or felt the need to apologize for correcting it. It’s usually women who make those comments, “So, obviously, you stay home with them all,” “Wow, you must be way too busy to work a job,” “Isn’t it wonderful to stay home with them while they’re little?” and it baffles me a little, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my seven years of parenting, it’s that we are all different.
Which means that what we think we might do if we had five children doesn’t mean that’s what she chooses to do.
There are moms of one child who choose to stay home with that child, and there are moms of five children who choose to work.
I go into an office and I write stories and take pictures in the field and I produce a newspaper from them, and I enjoy what I do. Having children did not change that.
Even if I didn’t have a full-time job, I would still choose to work.
Because I am a better mother for my separate pursuit, for my writing, for the ways I can process through mistakes and solutions outside of the constant demands of my children, but that is just me.
I have friends who are stay-at-home moms, and I love them dearly. I have friends who are working moms, and I love them dearly, too.
There is no one right way. There is only our right way.
We get really good at debating what’s best for the children, but sometimes what’s best for the children is what’s best for us. Some of us can be better versions of ourselves with a career to pursue. Some of us are better versions of ourselves away from the stress of an out-of-home job.
We can argue about who has it hardest, too, but it’s all the hardest job in the world, because we are all mothers, and even when we’re in an office, miles away from our children, we are still thinking of them and worrying about them and missing them. We are still loving them, just like that stay-at-home mom.
And when we’re at home with them, meeting all those needs in real time, trying to hold fast to our sanity because all the whining is pulling it out of reach, locking ourselves in the bathroom for just a moment to breathe, we are still thinking of them and worrying about them and loving them, just like that working mom.
Just because a mom chooses to have five kids doesn’t mean she chooses to stay at home full time or she has to give up on a career or she cannot pursue a dream for herself. It just means it may look different for her, like working odd hours to get those 38 hours in, like trading off with their daddy to avoid childcare costs, like traveling to an office twice a week and working from a home office the other three days.
I don’t work to get promotions or make a lot of money or even to show my boys a strong example of a working woman, a managing editor who is a mother of five young children. I work because it’s enjoyable to me, because without writing and creating and chasing a dream, I am not the best version of myself.
I know that nurse didn’t say those words to try to make me feel bad or guilty or wrong for my choice, and I don’t.
But I do believe that maybe the world could do without all our assumptions, that the next time we see a mama with a whole tribe of kids, we don’t just assume she is one who has chosen kids over a career and that must be why she has so many.
Maybe we just admire those children, pat them on the head with an encouraging smile and leave those assumptions where they lie.
