iCamp

My family has part ownership of a rustic wood cabin built by a group of my great grandfather’s friends back in 1906.  It sits on a secluded pond surrounded by over 200 acres of woodland.  When I get out of my car there I breathe deeply, taking in the smell of the deep pine woods.  Just being there moves me, and passion for this place runs deeply through my family.  I watch my children and the children of my brother and my cousins frolic in the pond in just the way we did as children.  I see my parents enjoying time with their grandchildren in just the way I imagine my grandparents and great grandparents did before them.  Sometimes I well up just reflecting on the simple beauty of that - the indelible connection to family past, present, and future.

There has never been a land line at “Camp” (as we call it).  There was a time when if you needed to use a phone, you had to go to a neighboring house up the road.  There has never been a television.  It is simple and timeless, except...

These days when we go to camp, with me and my extended family come cell phones, iPhones, iPads, DVD players, laptops...I think on this last trip handheld devices may have outnumbered people two to one.  

Don't get me wrong, I am so grateful for wireless technology.  My small business has hit the ground running. Honestly, I would not have felt comfortable going away at all this summer had I not been accessible to potential clients and to contractors working on the school.  

For us grown-ups, I have accepted that having iPhones or cell phones at the ready is a necessary evil, even at Camp.  However (call me a hypocrite if you must), I still cannot get to that place of feeling they are a necessity for the children, particularly when we are in such a historically “unplugged” location.  

My family is amazing.  My siblings, cousins and I get along really well, despite often differing parenting styles.  If we can't agree we can usually laugh about it, sometimes pretty hardily.  As my family members read this, some will roll their eyes, while others will be giving me a virtual high five.  A good natured ribbing in each direction will likely ensue. 

There is no doubt that each of us loves the camp and (obviously) the children.  We all want the children to experience the joys of nature, and there is no doubt they do.   The kids run and swim and fish and row until they drop...and then they want their iPads...and maybe that’s just fine.  

Maybe I am just too nostalgic, but to me Camp should be about time spent enjoying simple pleasures. I love the idea of my children engaging in the same quintessentially “Camp” activities that were enjoyed in turn by my grandfather, my father and me...even if that includes occasional boredom. 

My grandfather probably couldn’t have imagined the kind of technology now available in this cabin in the middle of the woods, yet somehow I imagine him arguing that being at Camp without these amenities builds character.  Though, I can also imagine he would quickly be in favor of a way for the adults to enjoy a quiet drink on the porch in the evening without interruption.

Do you allow your children to bring video games, iPads and the like with you on vacation? If so, do you place limits on their use?  Do you feel that they have an impact on the overall experience, or are they a non-issue?

The Elephant in the Yard

I have noticed with my daughters (ages 3 and 6), that often when I am sitting down, watching them play (or hoping to), there is suddenly a fog of boredom that wafts through the room.  Conflicts seem to more readily arise between them.  Conversely, when I am physically busy with chores or hobbies, the children either want to help, or they respect the tasks at hand and become industrious in their own parallel way.  Perhaps the feeling is that if I am “just” sitting there, I am available to resolve all conflicts (therefore why not create more, since we have a built in referee?) and I should also, obviously, entertain them.  Yet  when left to their own devices, they can resolve conflicts and create more imaginative games than I ever could.  I think it is so important to give them these opportunities to play and to navigate how to treat one another without my constant input. 

Sometimes the chores of the day capture the children’s interest, and they ask to help.  Laundry, dishes and cleaning tasks can all be rewarding work for them, but what thrills them the most is the real work that happens outside - digging, weeding, watering, planting, mulching, harvesting.  Gardens are magical, even to me as an adult.  I still find myself a bit surprised when a seed I have tended emerges as a food producing plant!  

One day recently, my husband decided to make a koi pond in our backyard.  He spent hours digging a big hole for the pond.  The girls were initially fascinated, and though the excitement waned a bit while the afternoon stretched on, they matched his industriousness with their own digging in the sandbox, as well as helping me to weed and water the garden beds.  Beau set up a table with a notepad and pen, and like a mini archeologist, she rinsed, examined and documented the random items being uncovered in the excavation site...marbles, pottery, whiffle ball, hair clip, coal, elephant?  We passed an entire afternoon busily and contentedly in our little backyard.  (I have a really cute picture of Ruby to add here, but she is one of those new-age, garden-in-your-underwear types).

Sometimes we adults don’t feel like being industrious, and I am not insinuating that we  shouldn’t sit down and relax now and then. Children need to have down time too, and its good for them to see us taking care of ourselves.  I am simply reflecting on how our own work, whether it is done with the assistance of our children or merely in their vicinity,  is an important factor in the children developing their own sense of confidence and self worth.  Whether they are learning how entertain themselves, how to get along with their siblings or how to fold laundry, they feel empowered by these experiences.  Their will is strengthened by being treated like a welcomed and competent helper, as well as by not always needing to be helped. 

Food for thought:  Sometimes the tasks at hand can take a little longer (okay, a lot longer) when we are assisted by our young children.  But look at it this way - if we do not honor their pleas to participate in our family work now when the desire to be included is so heartfelt, do we still have the right to complain when they get older and no longer have any desire or inclination to contribute?

Toytervention

Hello, my name is Bethany, and I am a toy snob.  At least, that is what I was told this week by a close friend who is a recovering toy snob.  

I don’t like plastic toys.  I don’t like their typically short lifespan, the sheer volume of them in the world; the impact that their production and disposal have on the environment. Not to mention the issues I have with some of the actual toys themselves, particularly toys marketed to young girls...the impossible body image of Barbie and her friends; encouraging little girls to spend hours on end deciding which (typically inappropriate) outfit looks best.  

The worse offense, and it is certainly not relegated to plastic toys, is the blatant commercialism targeted at our most impressionable little friends.  “Do you like My Little Pony?  Great! Now you must buy everything from hairbrushes to shoes to potty chairs featuring My Little Pony!”  I think it sets children up to fall into a dangerous pattern of mindless consumerism, not to mention gullibility.  Do we really want to feed into the notion that soup with Tinkerbell on the can actually tastes better?

In Waldorf early childhood programs, toys are chosen very consciously.  They are almost always made of natural materials such as wool, silk, cotton or wood. They can be human powered but never battery powered.  They are non-commercial. The reason? Natural toys offer the appropriate sensorial experience to the impressionable young child.  Children’s imaginations thrive when they are given simple, open ended toys.  This makes a world of sense to me, and I have embraced this thinking fully when considering what toys to buy for my own children.  

Its not that my children live in a bubble, and I certainly don’t prohibit them from playing with non-Waldorf toys when we are out and about.  I don’t make a big deal about my feelings about toys in front of them.  I don’t want them to feel that certain toys are bad.  I try to be diplomatic.  For example, I have dodged taking home a couple of huge bins of Polly Pockets from my lovely aunts’ house by sighting our cat, who has a penchant for eating small bits and bobs, of which “Polly” has oodles (if you are familiar with Polly Pockets you know what I mean - Good God, the shoes alone!).  The girls have accepted this reasoning (because it is kinda true).  So, they have a Polly Pockets extravaganza whenever we visit my aunts.  We are all okay with that.

So this friend, this toy snob in recovery, is so very generous and she loves to give away toys that her children have outgrown.  She has given us many lovely toys, truly...and more recently, with a wink and a knowing grin, she has begun to send us home with contraband.  

It started with a plastic cash register.  I removed the batteries, and I was cool with it.  Then it was teeny, tiny Playmobile animals and Magnatiles (again, fine), but now we have started down the path of My Little Pony, Princesses and Polly Pockets.  It has been the proverbial “slippery slope”.  As we were walking toward our car from this particular friend’s house the other day, my three year old, who was clutching several new treasures, inadvertently dropped a small doll in the grass.  I noticed, but kept my stride, hoping to leave it behind.  My friend called out, “You dropped one!” and then “I saw you watch that drop, Mama!” (Did I mention she’s a stinker?).  I was not pleased.  Really, really not pleased.  It was then that I realized I needed to do some soul searching...about toys.  Really? Did I just say that?  Maybe, just maybe, I was taking this a little too seriously.  I am proud of sheltering my children for as long as I have.  But eventually, the world gets in.  If I make these toys taboo, isn’t that going to eventually backfire?  If my children have a strong foundation of imaginative play, will they use even these commercialized, plastic toys creatively?  My sense is, yes, they will.  

I still swear I will not buy highly commercial, plastic toys (a statement snickered at by friends who are parents of children older than mine).  If the toys are given to us second hand, in moderation, I think we will all survive...and, at the very least, we are saving them from the landfill. 

Saturday morning, my family and I were about to head out the door to the local farmer’s market.  “Can I bring my dolly?”, my little one asked.  I looked down, and in her little hand she was holding a plastic, miniature Cinderella, who was rescued the week before from a Rubbermaid graveyard in our friend’s garage.  For a brief moment I considered that I may be called out as a fraud when someone sees me, the owner of a Waldorf-inspired school, sharing my Saturday with mini-Cinders.  

“Sure, why not?”, I said.  If she is going to play with the contraband, I need to own it.  I need to keep it real.  After all, as long as Cinderella is willing to earn her keep around the farm, I guess I’m okay with her hanging around for a bit.

(Yup, that’s her...milking the cow...in a tiara.)

Postscript:

At my daycare and preschool, a Waldorf and nature inspired program, the classrooms  are free of plastic toys and commercialized toys and images.  Though it may be virtually impossible to avoid these things in the wider world, I do believe in the great value of providing a haven from all of these influences at BLOOM.  We work to create a mindful, natural environment wherein imaginative play and organic learning can flourish.

New beginnings...

Becoming a parent changes you. There are the subtle changes - the change in sleep patterns, the change in amount of "me" time, the change in what defines a typical Saturday night.  But the real change is much deeper.  It is powerful.

You are Reinvented.

You are Redefined.

You are MOM.

You are DAD.

The way you experience life is completely different.

You are forever changed.

I had my first child almost six years ago.  I now have two beautiful, miraculous daughters, and here I sit - CHANGED.

I am Reinvented.

I am Redefined.

I am forever changed.

Before I became a mother, I was the Director of a very successful and well-respected childcare center and preschool called Little Friends. I was compassionate, and I had warm relationships with the parents. I really thought I could relate to how they felt when they left their children with us for the day.  I thought I understood, but there's no way I possibly could.  One can have all of the empathy in the world, but it is simply NOT the same as SYMPATHY.  It is not the same as being able to relate, personally relate, to that raw, visceral experience of leaving your child in the care of a virtual stranger for the very first time.  It is not the same as knowing, in your heart, how it feels to be separated from your child - to trust SOMEONE ELSE to care for her needs, give her hugs, kiss her boo boos, help her settle down for a nap.

Now I know.

I KNOW.

I AM CHANGED.

I AM MOM.

I loved Little Friends.  All told I spent ten of my first thirty three years there.  My time there deeply influenced the way my husband and I have chosen to raise our children.  The wonderful philosophy of the school changed the way I look at many things: health and nutrition, media exposure, the types of toys we choose for our children, the importance of time outdoors, the desire to hold back the fast paced nature of the world we live in for just a while longer.  There is NO DOUBT in my mind that I am a better parent today because of the time I spent at Little Friends.

The universe works in mysterious ways.  It had become clear that there was a need for me to rejoin the world of the working - outside of the home.  I was thinking part time. I was unsure what I wanted to do.  I reached out, made that first step...put it out there...and then it happened.  Suddenly I found myself faced with an amazing opportunity.  A school - the school - was waiting for me:

Reinvented,

Redefined,

Forever changed,

(MOM) me.

The interesting thing about life, is that it leads you where you need to go.  This may be different from where you thought you needed to go, and sometimes it seems to make no sense.  But every once in a while, you have a moment.  It is a moment of recognition.  Life begins to lead you down a path that is new, yet feels familiar, comfortable even...and you suddenly grin at the realization that everything that has come before has been leading you here - to THIS.  For me, this is that path.  This is that moment.  It all makes sense.  My experience at Little Friends prepared me to be a better mother, and in turn my experience as a mother has prepared me for a different sort of birth.  Introducing...