There was one particular conference conversation that devolved into defensiveness on both sides and I’ve been thinking about that for days now. For the sake of brevity, let’s just say that it boiled down to one person saying, “I’d like my child to take his dirty oatmeal bowl to the kitchen instead of leaving it in the living room,” and the other side saying, “But that’s your need, not his so if it’s important to you, you take it to the kitchen.” What does that have to do with unschooling, you ask? Don’t ask. Just go with it. Don’t worry about it unless you are an unschooler. And if you are, join a yahoo group and ask them. It will be fun, I promise. Anyway…

One thing led to another and there was shouting. It wasn’t pretty. I can’t speak for the other people, but I know that my defensiveness can be attributed to my own baggage. Those two sentences up there are rife with subtext, depending on the baggage each listener carries. When some people hear, “That’s your need, you can take care of it,” they interpret that as, “The precious baby children never, ever, ever have to help clean up anything. Ever! And you’re a big fat meanie for telling them to.” As a recovering doormat, I have all kinds of that baggage for sure. When I hear that, I imagine scenarios in which I am called upon to do everything all the time with no option for anyone else in the family to pitch in. I look even more haggard than usual in those imaginary scenes. You guys, I can’t afford to look more haggard. For real.

On the flip side, when somebody in the audience at an unschooling conference says, “I think my child can clean up after himself,” some people interpret that as, “I think it’s okay if I scream at my child in order to get him to clean up his stupid crap that’s spread from one end of the house to the other.” I have maybe a carry-on size piece of that baggage, too. I imagine all sorts of scenarios with a shrew-like parent barking orders and belittling the kid. In those scenarios, I’m the wide-eyed little kid and I was a super cute little kid so those imaginary scenes are especially heartbreaking.

I know for sure that my sizable baggage collection and my knee-jerk defensiveness really don’t allow me to see the middle ground that might be there in both of those instances.

Maya (6) gave me a perfect example to show me where our middle ground is. She wanted some hot chocolate and she wanted to drink it in the living room. I said, “Sure, just bring your mug to the kitchen when you’re done.” A half hour later Maya was off doing something else in the kitchen and I walked through the living room on my way to the kitchen and I saw the half-empty hot chocolate mug on the coffee table. Here is where the middle ground came in. I had a choice. I could call Maya back out to the living room and say, “Young lady, I thought I told you to take care of this mug,” or I could just take it with me on my way out to the kitchen and not say anything. I did the latter and when she saw me bringing her mug to the kitchen she said, “Oops! I forgot!” and I said, “No big whoop, I was coming out here anyway,” with a smile and we both moved on because it’s not a big deal if my kid forgets to take her mug to the kitchen when she’s done with it. If I had been in the living room with her when she got up to go to the kitchen, I might have breezily said, “Grab your mug, Sweetie,” and she would have done it without a second thought. No big deal.

The situation playing out in just that way is what I strive for. Cleaning up is not a big deal. I didn’t take it as a personal attack that she didn’t pick up her mug. It had nothing to do with me. I didn’t need to shame her for forgetting and it’s not just because of her age. I don’t want to emotionally manipulate any of the members of my family in order to get them to do something for me. I don’t want to withhold affection until they do whatever I ask them to do. I also don’t want to just never ask them to do something like take care of their mug because it’s no big deal. It’s a big picture thing, not a nit-picking, point by point, make sure the scales are always balanced kind of thing.

I asked her to take it to the kitchen, knowing she would likely forget just like I sometimes forget my own mug because I get distracted by something. No big deal. Why did I say something, knowing she would likely forget about it? The same reason I say, “That’s a flower,” to a baby who can’t say “flower.” It’s part of the language of our family and it’s a skill that will be picked up and used and then put away and not used from time to time. Because cleaning up is no big deal and forgetting to clean up is also no big deal. This is not setting her up for failure, because I don’t consider forgetting to take care of a mug a  failure. We don’t treat it that way, so it’s not.

And now a fun thing from Maya. “The jaguar is stalking the hot dog.”

She likes to cut out pictures and make them do stuff together. This is what it looks like when she’s done:

And later I say, “Pick up the pictures that you want to save because I’m putting the scraps in the recyclables,” and she sorts them out and I scoop up the scraps and then she plays with the pictures again and it’s no big deal.

1.What is something mom always says to you?
Maya-Shut the door

Liberty-I love you

Lena-I love you

(Poor Maya)

2. What makes mom happy?
Maya-Playing Mario Kart with me.

Liberty-Cuddling with her kids, like me.

Lena-When I make stuff for her.

3. What makes mom sad?
Maya-Boo boos

Liberty-When her kids are sleeping over at a friends house for a while and she doesn’t get to hug them or something. (Projecting, much?)

Lena-When I don’t want to do stuff with her.

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
Maya-Tickling my foot and my armpit.

Liberty-When she sings bad.

Lena-When she’s playing video games and says weird stuff like, “I beat you, Liberty!”

5. What was your mom like as a child?
Maya-Laughing

Liberty-Friendly

Lena-Funny

6. How old is your mom?
Maya-14

Liberty-33

Lena-I think you’re 33

7. How tall is your mom?
Maya-Kind of tall

Liberty-Taller than me

Lena-Hmm…I don’t know.

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
Maya-Play on her laptop

Liberty-Drink coffee

Lena-Um, hmm…go out to a restaurant with her friends?

9. What does your mom do when you’re not around?
Maya-Put presents under the Christmas tree and put Easter stuff in the Easter basket and you put Easter eggs in spots.

Liberty-Plays on her laptop and drinks coffee.

Lena-Go grocery shopping

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
Maya-Dancing

Liberty-Being a really good Wii tennis player

Lena-Loving her kids so much

11. What is your mom really good at?
Maya-Playing Mario Kart and Wii tennis and regular tennis.

Liberty-Playing tennis on the Wii.

Lena-Wii tennis

12. What is your mom not very good at?
Maya-Super Smash Brothers Melee. For Wii and for GameCube.

Liberty-Playing bowling on the Wii.

Lena-Not loving her kids.

13. What does your mom do for a job?
Maya-Feeds us.

Liberty-Feeds us.

Lena-Stays home with us.

14.What is your mom’s favorite food?
Maya-Green beans.

Liberty-Cheesecake.

Lena-Taco soup.

15. What makes you proud of your mom?
Maya-Playing tennis.

Liberty-Lots of stuff. Being such a good mommy and cuddling us so well and kissing us a lot and giving us toys that we really like.

Lena-She became a pro on Wii tennis.

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
Maya-Princess Peach for Wii.

Liberty-Kakashi from Naruto.

Lena-I don’t know.

17. What do you and your mom do together?
Maya-Play bowling and we go get some treats.

Liberty-Go to the library and watch movies together and play the Wii and read.

Lena-Go to the thrift store sometimes.

18. How are you and your mom the same?
Maya-Same blood.

Liberty-Our eyes are the same.

Lena-We both like nachos.

19. How are you and your mom different?
Maya-We have different noses because mine’s small and yours is big.

Liberty-She doesn’t like spaghetti, but I do.

Lena-She’s a Wii tennis pro and I’m not. That’s all I can think of.

20. How do you know your mom loves you?
Maya-Because I was in your uterus. (That answer triggered my fake adoption issues, so insert long conversation about adopted children being loved by their parents even though they didn’t grow in their uterus.) Take 2:
Because I’m your child, because you play the Wii with me.

Liberty-Because she gives me lots of kisses and cuddles and she plays the Wii with me and she wants to love me forever.

Lena-She always says it.

21. What does your mom like most about your dad?
Maya-He tickles you.

Liberty-Um, that he’s a good daddy and he’s handsome and he likes her food.

Lena-That he’s funny.

22. Where is your mom’s favorite place to go?
Maya-The mall. (I hate the mall, and I couldn’t bear for you people to think I love to go to the mall, so I said, “I never go to the mall unless Lena and Liberty make me so they can spend their money at FYE. Where do I like to go just by myself?” Then she got excited and shouted, “Go to a coffee place!”)

Liberty-Chipotle. No, Starbucks!

Lena-Coffee shop

You might know that the cinnamon is in a rectangular container as opposed to the cylindrical containers housing most of the other spices, so you might think that if you grab any old rectangular container out of the spice cupboard, you’re safe. This would be a mistake. You might not remember that you also have a rectangular container of sesame seeds in your spice cupboard. And when you grab that container, you might say, “Huh, I wonder why the cinnamon is making a sound when I shake it. Weird.” At that point, you would think it would register that you might have grabbed the wrong container, but no. It won’t. You might even glance at the writing on the box, see an “S” and say to yourself, “Yes, that’s right. ‘S’ is for cinnamon,” not realizing that the only time you’ve ever seen cinnamon start with “S” is maybe when it was up in lights at a strip club. It won’t be until you actually pour the sesame seeds into your coffee that you will understand that you’re an idiot who needs to stay in bed until such time as the coffee is consumed.

We’re very excited around here to be having some more awesome company for the next 3 days (Mechelle, her kids, and one of my nieces–yay!) We’ll be wandering around doing the fun things that we can do in Columbus, so I won’t be around here checking my blog stats obssessively. Much. I don’t know how the 8 of you who check my blog regularly will get through the week, but I’m sure you could read a book or maybe interact with other humans to pass the time. I know those things don’t sound like viable alternatives, but I read on the internet that that’s how some people choose to spend their days. For real. Ok, bye.

To be fair, I didn’t know Oprah was going to be Queen of the Universe back when I hung up on her and I really think she should take that into consideration. It was the ’80s and I’m not even sure her ratings were better than Donahue’s at that time. She was having a show about bad neighbors and I had a really bad neighbor. When I was 8, he shot my first pet, Pooty the cat, and then pointed a gun at my mom when my parents confronted him. (No, we didn’t live in a trailer park. Why do you ask?) Anyway, this was back in the call-in days. I figured I had a story to tell, so I called and called and called. Every time somebody told their bad neighbor story, I was all, “My story is worse than that you big baby!” while I frantically dialed through my tears. I finally got through during the last commercial break. I don’t remember how the person answered the phone, but I know I said, “My neighbor is so bad, he shot my cat because she walked on his car and then when my dad and mom went over there, he pointed the gun at my mom! And we don’t even live in a trailer park!” The person on the phone said, “Ok,” and then I heard a click. I thought that meant I should hang up. I was little. They came back from commercial and I was bouncing up and down on the couch waiting for Oprah to say something like, “We just had the most precious little girl call in and tell us the worst story we’ve heard yet today. This story puts all of our panel guests’ stories to shame. Oh, the tragedy this little child has faced. I don’t know how she finds the strength to go on.” But she didn’t say anything like that. She said, “Ok, we have a caller. Go ahead, Caller. Caller? Caller, are you there? Jesus H. Christ, Caller? WTF?” And then she turned to her producer and said, “Don’t tell me that little bitch hung up on me.” At least, that’s the way I remember it. And can I tell you how a little piece of me died that day? I watched Oprah get all tense because I hung up on her. I felt an odd mix of elation and dread. I could’ve been on OPRAH! Oh no, I hung up on OPRAH! And then my parents got divorced. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

So, I want to say I’m sorry to Oprah. I also want to say I’m sorry to my homeschool mom friends. I shouldn’t have kept this part of my past from you. I don’t want you to be hurt by any more of Oprah’s cosmic retaliation powers. I mean, I’m not sorry enough that I’m going to skip the coffee shop just so you guys can have a nice walk there, but still. At least now you know the truth.

*sigh* I have to go wash the lettuce now.