From BJ, aka purpleaster, which I always read as “purple eater” as in “flying purple people eater” and then as “purple easter” but just now as I typed the handle here, I got it. I smacked my forehead and said, “Duh! As in a flower!”

Anyway, here are BJ’s questions, “But, a followup question is how many picture books did you have as a child? I’m a weird case, ’cause I was 6 when I came to the US, but I probably had about 10 picture books, compared to my daughter & son’s 100s.”

We had all of the available Dr. Seuss books, I remember that. And we had a bunch of Little Golden Books before they became corrupted by movie tie-ins. I’m pretty sure we didn’t have as many as Noah and Madison have now but I know we had enough that visiting friends would say, “Wow! Look at all your books!”

We also had bookshelves in our rooms sagging with chapter books. We got boxed sets every Chanukah (Little House books for me, Mary Poppins for my sister; Moomins for me, The Borrowers for my sister) and as a special treat, my dad would take us to the bookstore when he was home on weekends to pick out a new book. And I remember one rainy, dreary day when my mom surprised me by pulling Anne of Green Gables out of her closet and saying, “I’ve been saving this for you.” Bliss!

“But, are you able to replicate [freedom to roam] for Noah (and Madison)? How does homeschooling play into it? I’ve always thought that homeschooling brings the child into the limits of the family and parental desires. Do you find that not to be the case? Do you find that by homeschooling you can allow Noah his own separate existence?”

I can’t replicate this for Noah and Madison because of where we live and because there isn’t a housewife behind every door ready with band-aids and snacks should a child in need come knocking. Sometimes I get really sad about that. Edited to add: As I just wrote Lisa, our neighborhood is a tad unsavory, too.

It is a concern with homeschooling, that the kids have space to be away from their parents. And since they don’t have recess to learn random often incorrect facts about life and jump rope jingles, you really have to find ways to give them recess-ish times. Like where are they going to learn to sing “Never Laugh when a Hearse Goes By” if they don’t get to hang unsupervised with other children?

Fortunately my friends (including those whose kids are in school) also have this concern and so we manage to hook our children up for barely supervised play time. This also gives us time to gab. We send the children out in good weather or upstairs/downstairs in bad and tell them not to bother us unless there’s blood. (A line I got direct from my mom.) They surface occasionally to ask for food (we direct them to the cupboard) but generally we don’t see them for hours.

But BJ gives me a chance to talk about the other great thing with my mom, which is this: She wasn’t interfering. Now some folks say that good parenting means you’re down on your hands and knees playing on the carpet or rollicking in the backyard or finding stimulating ways to extend their play into educational directions. I think good parenting can be a lot less play-intensive. I mean, sure, if you like to play then playing is great but it goes back to that benign neglect standard, which I hold dear.

If you read the Ramona books, her mom wasn’t playing with her. If you read E. Nesbit’s books, the mom is nowhere around. Read Eleanor Estes’s books and the mom is available to dole out slices of bread and butter but she’s not scheduling large muscle play at the local gymnastics franchise. That’s why the kids have time to play brick factory and find sand fairies.

Writing this down makes me think that when we get nostalgic, we focus too much on the way our kids can’t go to the dime store to buy yo-yos and cream sodas with shiny nickels and we forget that it’s just as great to have mom leave you alone in the kitchen so you can make a big mess out of fixing your own homemade lemonade. I think it’s the unscheduled free play time that matters and that’s where my mom’s example inspires me.

Bookmark
SubscribeBloglinesDiggdel.icio.usFacebookStumbleUponTechnorati

Related posts