I've been wanting to craft a lot lately. Wanting to make posters, paint, and reorganize our apartment (we found an old-new couch on the street the other day, and now our living room finally makes sense!). I'm also mildly obsessed with the idea of having a family. Or more precisely, of being young while starting a family. I guess young doesn't mean the same thing it did a couple decades ago.. but I always keep thinking 'before thirty'. I'd like to have my life on track.
As I typed this post I received an email about yesterday's post (see comments) with the link to an NYMag article. As I began reading it I wondered about the situation of parents today. So many of us are used to getting things done fast and conveniently and went it comes to child rearing that leaves us with buying formula, pre-made purées, using disposable diapers, buying toys (or worse, tv shows) to entertain them at an extremely young age, sending them to daycare. Of course I'm being extreme here, but I think there is something to be said for the culture we're growing up in and how it affects our choices vis-a-vis building our family and raising our children.
What if we stopped and lowered our expectations? What if we let go of our egos and tried connecting with our partners and children? instead of plugging them (or ourselves) to the latest gadget? What if we spent time connecting with them quietly (not with the tv on in the background)? What if we spent time with the baking in the kitchen when they're older? What if we gave them more imagination time? What if we weren't afraid of letting them play alone?
Recently I've been interested in what they call elimination communication, which you could think of as an early potty-training where the parent cues into the babies needs to know when they need to pee or poo and can do so in a potty instead of a diaper. This leads to being potty trained earlier, using less diapers, less resources, etc. The main idea is to be so tuned into your baby that you can almost anticipate their needs. This is interesting too, because i'm not sure how much i've been taught (not having been around baby's that much, save my younger brother) to actually listen to the baby's needs and respond to them accordingly. I was raised on the 'let them cry it out' school of thought. But what if we tuned into the fact that parenting is incredibly hard, instead of thinking 'my kids won't be like that', and what if we realize keeping a family together can also be incredibly challenging?
I wonder if we aren't programmed with exceedingly high expectations about these two facets of life.. or if we're programmed to overestimate our abilities to deal with them?
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