Free Reign In the Summ'a

Barbara: There was a fun article in the Life section of the paper the other day (damned if I can find it to link), looking at the days of yore (ie the seventies and back) and the days of new, and comparing the differences in how children play. I know it’s a well-addressed theme—we got to play wherever and however we wanted and today’s kids are cloistered and over-protected—but still, I thought it would be fun to ask about your experiences and share our childhood memories … since it is summ'a, after all!!

Yeah, yeah, I am old enough to be from the generation of Free Play. When I think back to my childhood, I have vivid memories of hours and hours spent exploring the woods that abutted our suburban house. It was a large tract of land clearly slated for future development, but which languished in my time in wild, thorny, and verdant splendour. Hard dirt paths carved through the woods, ample clue that they were popular with more than just this curious 9-year-old child. But I don’t remember ever seeing anyone. I could take an entire artillery of flotsam with me—Barbie dolls, sand pails, plastic animals—and create new and amazing worlds in those woods. I could invent stories rife with travesty and betrayal and magic and deep abiding love. I could lie amid thigh-high grasses and just inhale the dry, hot, wildflower fragrance. I never worried about “strangers”; I cherished the bright rays of the sun; I didn’t imagine the possibility of fierce animals or broken bones or helplessness. I know I must have played in these woods with my friends, but strangely, that’s not what I remember. The memories that linger of this carefree time are the ones of me alone, responsible to no one, utterly unrestrained.

And then times changed and I grew up and so did the world and our fears and our woes. And I had my own children and had to make a choice (or choiceS: choice after choice after choice) on how we would raise them. Sadly, I couldn’t risk allowing them to utter abandon. On the one hand, I don’t agree with the mother in the article who laments, “The world is a different place!” It is in many ways, but not, I don’t think, in the pure mathematical logic of more psychopaths—because that’s who we fear when we fear the “stranger”. I imagine that the odds are about the same (with the exception, maybe, of a slightly higher population affecting the pure amount of them). On the other hand, I completely relate to the father who says something like, “But I can’t risk my child being the one child.” So I never walked the street without holding a hand and I never let them out of my sight (and so never lost them). That said, I was always aware of a kind of childhood injustice when it came to their freedom—the freedom necessary, in my opinion, to develop their imaginations and curiosity and problem-solving skills.

I asked the girls about how it was to grow up the way they did … and their answers surprised me. They have their own sweet memories of childhood abandon. For them, it was sweet summer days spent in the backyard creating worlds in their sandbox or in our garden. It was cold winter hours in the “mess” of a basement where we allowed their toys to have their own sort of wild free reign. They say they have no dearth of experience when it comes to freedom and independence. Even if I only remember hovering at the kitchen window making sure they were safe outside or tracking their basement safety from upstairs. Maybe a kid’s always gonna do what a kid’s gotta do!

What is your experience of childhood play—is it carefree abandon or cloistered restriction?

Deb: Mine was a combination of both, I would say. My parents certainly wanted to know where I was, but we were allowed to run free in the fields, and up at the cottage we spent endless hours by the creek, in the forest, and in the farmer’s field. We had a huge tree on the other side of the creek that we would climb every day as part of our ongoing game of Robin Hood. We would sneak into the abandoned (haunted, to our young imaginations) cottage that we were told not to enter but did anyway. Walks to “Big Rock” for the big climb and picking wild raspberries were all part of the daily fun. Our parents were secure in the knowledge that we would come home for meals, which we always did.

I will have to ask the boy if he had any such adventures that I did not know about. Sadly I was not as cool a parent when I became a Mom. I was, I am ashamed to admit, too worried about his safety to let go too too much. But I think the boy would tell tales of tobogganing on the big hill, building snow forts, and climbing the next-door neighbour’s tree. The toughest and best thing I ever did was letting go enough for him to have camp experiences. After one session, I settled into letting go and trusting that he was going to be okay. Also, having a pool has adventure built in and I think he remembers it that way. I hope the fact that I walked him to school till he was shaving does not colour his memories of childhood abandon! :-)

Phil sent me this and I had to include it. Credits, anyone???

Are You Mom Enough To Not Just Be A Mom?

Deb: The cover of Time Magazine this week sports a mother nursing her four-year-old son. At this point I am sure many of you have seen it and discussed it. For those who haven’t, the Mom is owning the moment and making a point. She stands, hand on hip, son at breast, both staring at the camera. She is a mother who practices “extended breastfeeding,” a concept that is part of a larger movement developed by Dr. William Sears called “attachment parenting”. He and his wife Martha, also a physician, believe that in order to be attending to our child’s emotional and biological needs, mothers must practice breastfeeding on demand, sling-wearing, co-sleeping and natural childbirth.

I have two different thoughts on this. First of all, I am not shocked by this image for its boldness, nor its concept. But what struck me at my very core was this little boy. I understand that sometimes we must go to extreme lengths to get our point out there. What bothered me is that this little boy did not get a say in this photo. This photo is on the cover of Time Magazine, for goodness sake. I wonder if, while considering her child’s “emotional” needs, the mother stopped to think what this photo might bring to him in the future, near and far in the way of teasing and cruelty by other children. Maybe she did. I would have no way of knowing that. If she did think of how this would make his life play out, she obviously made her peace with it. My boy is almost 22 and like Barb with her girls, I do not say word one about him on this blog or publicly in any way without his permission. This little boy is too young to understand what any of this means. He stands on a stool, looking awkwardly out to camera, probably wondering why his safe nurturing act is being exposed this way. Why is this person taking a picture of me with my Mom?  He may not know the exact nature of what is happening, but I wonder if it feels odd to him, feels wrong to him. I hope not, for the little guy’s sake. I guess I just wonder why a mother who spends her life breastfeeding on demand, slinging her child, and never letting him sleep alone, would in this moment leave him out there, so alone. Because in the possible backlash of this, he will be alone.

My second thought about this theory or childrearing (a theory that is not new, by the way) is the all-encompassing of it from the mother’s point of view. I have no issue with any of these practices in concept. I think it is each parent’s right to choose what she or he does regards their childrearing and good luck to each of us. The one thing I have learned from bringing up my own child is that I made many great choices and many mistakes. We all do. So I am not judging anyone’s way of weaning or feeding or sleep practices. I certainly have my own preferences, but they are mine and that of my husband. Our child, our business. I do take issue however when woman are made to feel incomplete by not being able to tick off every box of the how-to’s of parenthood.

What I also find alarming and shocking is this concept of giving yourself completely to your child, constantly ‘round the clock, every second of your day, negating your needs in the process.  For us, our bed was a place of fun and visits and scary dreams and bedtime romps and that’s all. I not only felt that I was giving the gift of self comforting and self love to the boy by having him sleep alone, but I was giving me and my relationship due weight. I would have hated to lose that in our rearing of the boy. And believe me, I have seen it happen. I decided to talk to the boy about this before I wrote down what I perceived to be his take on things. What I got from him was that he grew up with not only a healthy sense of who he is, but a healthy sense of who I am, as a person, a woman and a wife. He drew on my separate life as he was growing up. Whenever he asked to sleep with me or us for any reason, he was welcome and it was wonderful. But he understood that my time was valuable. He knew that I had not sacrificed every single thing for him. He knew that I was both Mom and Deb, at least as much as a little boy can grasp that. He has grown up respecting me for that. And in the end, I think he grew up knowing that a woman can achieve her goals, be it career or motherhood, or in my case both. He understood the give and take of a woman’s life—giving birth and taking a little of yourself back. 

Why do people feel that the woman who gives up herself completely for her child is giving the greater gift?

Barbara: A fascinating question, Deb. Timely too, in that I am answering it on Mother’s Day. Of course, being a mom with children who are now grown isn’t the same as being in the thick of it when they are young and impressionable and they feel like such utterly vulnerable beings to your every mistake or misstep. It’s way way easier for me to comfortably address motherhood from this side of the process than it might have been when I too was young, impressionable and vulnerable.

I saw this article too (or rather, my national paper’s reiteration of it). Like you, I wasn’t shocked or horrified that a mother had chosen to do this. But I was mesmerized by that photo (as I’m sure Time hoped I would be), transfixed by the boldness of it. Frankly, I never even thought of the repercussions to the boy. But since you bring it up, I can’t help but wonder the same thing. Will he be “punished” for this choice somehow at some later date? I’m not so comfortable with using children to make a point in the media, no matter how important it seems. I also don’t have anything against the mother committing to this level of nurturing, although it wouldn’t have been my choice. I happily breastfed, just not past the age they could drink from cups. I felt then, and still do, that—as you so eloquently said, Deb—my time and my life and my relationship needed some nurturing too. And that I could do both with some success.

Happy (belated) Mother’s Day to all the amazing variety of mothers and nurturing souls out there!