The other night we were driving home with a couple of friends and we had an interesting conversation about kids and our plans for instilling good values. This conversation keeps coming up in different contexts, so I thought it was probably worth thinking about. How do you instill good values in a child?
After pondering it for awhile, I came up with a few ideas. I think first you need a theory of how kids learn. For me, it has everything to do with exposure, consistency, and modelling. To be clear this is just a theory, and as we embark upon the reality of the kidventure, who knows how well any of it will hold up. By all means feel free to chime in with your own thoughts in the comments. Here we go:
| Exposure: Kids are gigantic sponges from everything I've seen. Besides leeching off your resources, they soak in the world and its endless variety constantly. They don't just learn in traditional ways. They copy things, they try them out, they test them, they blunder through them, they invent. They explore not just the stated functions of objects and environments but new ways to break them and create new functions (think forts). They're flexible. They're capable of fully immersing themselves in and appreciating new experiences. I'd imagine this is why parents always say they learn to see the world in a new way by having children. Kids are polymorphous in their intentions. They play. The only adults who think like this are artists, and they're weird.
When it comes to exposure, then, I think it's key to do as much as possible with kids, not only so that they get used to going to museums or whatever, but so they get used to going out and finding wonder in the world. I pride myself on being a lifetime learner, but I know I'm going to have to push myself to get out and see new things every day when junior comes along. Really, you could think of this as a way of leeching back form your kids. I'm always looking for new ways to do that. Sweet.
Consistency: By this I mean a couple of things. First, there's the obvious need to provide consistent rules across both parents. It's fine to have differing opinions to teach the value of perspectives, but when it comes to things like candy or video games, I think it's critical that the rules never change. I also mean consistency in terms of consequences. If some misbehaviour gets a time out one time, it's a time out every time. I think consistency's important to emphasize because, to quote the Dalai Lama, "You have to learn the rules so that you know how to break them properly." It's valuable to understand structure; it helps you challenge it in creative ways later on in life.
By the way, I fear the day my kid tests this one on me. I hope I remember to be proud and not just huffy.
Modelling: By this I obviously mean taking every opportunity to strike a pose. Blue steel, Magnum, the whole repertoire needs to come out. You never know when the cameras will start flashing. Beyond the obvious meaning of being hot and glamorous all the time, I also mean participating in the behaviours you'd like your kid to emulate. To do this, I'd imagine you have to think about what those behaviours are in advance and throughout the child-raising experience. It comes back to what I said about kids being sponges. They will soak up the good, the bad, and the ugly. If you're scared to question things, your kid will learn that. If you let laziness or fear of uncertainty prevent you from doing what you want, your kid will learn that. If you constantly try new things, your kids will learn to do that. Call that sponginess the hypocrite's undoing and the parent's ultimate attempt to establish a New Year's Resolution. | |
Another big one for me personally is giving the kid room to grow. I'm not really going to be of the camp that shouts with awe at every crappy drawing the kid makes. I think the biggest thing is to ask, "Do you like it?" without judgement or didactic intention. Giving them room to grow also means (for me) knowing when not to helicopter. I've just heard about this whole helicopter parenting phenomenon, where you hover over every activity your kid does, helping instantly should anything present even the slightest challenge. I'm sure it comes from a good place, but the fact is the world is not always easy, and it's important to learn how to face challenges with your own enthusiasm and self-confidence. I wonder about what need such a parenting style is fulfilling for the adult...
Phew! That was a long one. I may delve more thoroughly into helicopter parenting tomorrow, so stay tuned!
I was meditating today and a couple of old lines from William Wordsworth (1770-1850) came to my mind. I thought I'd explore them a bit and see what this old poet laureate of England had to say about the relationship between our younger and older selves:
My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die! The Child is father of the Man; I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety. 1802.Source: http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww194.htmlThe first couple of lines seem clear enough, though they express an interesting relationship between the perceiver and the perceived. When you see something beautiful, it is as if your senses leave your body to mingle with the object. It's a projection beyond yourself. It also reminds me just a little of the Matrix, where the internal perception becomes indistinguishable from the external world. He's suggesting that we're creating our reality in an almost unconscious way.
In the next two lines, starting with "So it was...", he again suggests a kind of projection, this one through time rather than space, and he goes on to extend it through the present into the future. The repetition of "So was it", "So is it", and "So be it" at the beginning of each line with subtle differences suggests that we stay the same and we change: But do we grow? Wither? Both? The rhyme between "began" and "man" seems to anticipate that life will go on forever in a beautiful pattern, but the end of the next line -- "old" -- suggests things must come to an end. When he says "Or let me die!" it seems to me he's looking at death not as an inevitability but as the point at which life ceases to be worth living. If enjoying a good rainbow is what really does it for him, then when he can't enjoy them anymore, he feels like he might as well be dead already.
It's kind of a brutal line: "Or let me die!" At the same time, it's the set up for the big quote that I remembered, really the central message of the whole poem:
The child is the father of the Man
You hear so much about man children these days, but I somehow doubt that's what old Bill was getting at. It isn't like one of those movies about a guy who refuses to grow up until he meets some manic dream girl who turns his world upside down. Or is it? I guess it depends on what childhood means to you. For the sake of argument, what if projection is projection, whether you're projecting your desires onto a rainbow to regain your youthful spark, or projecting them on a magical girl?
If that was the case, then maybe Wordsworth can teach us something about the present, even if only by accident. Basically, it's crucial to recognize the source of the projection. In truth, the child, the man, the rainbow, and the manic pixie girl don't actually exist except in the consciousness of the speaker. The speaker exists in a timeless place, casting his thoughts out into the past, present and future. The only place he can't imagine is what comes after life, which is why he's noticeably short on words after he hits "old." Ironically, I think he's already speaking from a position outside of life.
It's interesting to me that at the end he wishes "natural piety" could hold each of his days together. The fact that it's a wish suggests to me that he's not quite convinced about this picture of the world he's painted. In actuality, I see it more as the speaker's consciousness that holds it all together. Really, the world can be anything, and I think if you go searching for all your answers "out there", you'll run the risk of mistaking what you find for the truth. It's the classic man-child problem. Ouch. I really do think this is a beautiful poem. Maybe just a tad unfinished? It seems blasphemous to suggest it, but maybe that's just my projection onto the situation. To quote Keaanu Reeves as he finally realizes his mind's powers, "Whoa."
Anyway, do you realize that if you got this far, you just read a literary essay? How freakin' weird is that? If it makes you feel any better, I used to be a professor. It must be Friday. I hope you have a magical rainbow-filled weekend, or whatever else you wish could be.
 I grew up in a medium-sized, suburb-focused town called Kamloops, and I can see why my parents wanted to raise my brothers and me in that place. It was peaceful, safe, and abundant with natural settings (desert, but what did we care?) It's an interesting thought potentially raising our child in a much larger city, Vancouver. I don't know quite what to expect, but we made the choice for a couple of reasons.
First, it's a beautiful place with a lot of smart people. The city's clean. The architecture is great. The natural surroundings, while a little less accessible, are spectacular. And there are just a ton of people who seem to be actively interested in creating a cultured, eco-friendly, diverse city. In my experience, there are countless intangible benefits being around people who actively focus on these things. Ideas seem to seep up from nowhere. There are always interesting events going on. You're always on top of new trends and new patterns of thoughts. Hell, forget about the kids for a second, I'm really excited to have these these things for myself. I think choosing this environment is a way of keeping horizons open for our children.
More generally, I like the idea of cities as places of opportunity and increased chance for personal growth. One of the drawbacks about Kamloops was that it could be difficult to imagine how to innovate there. I never really saw anything cutting edge in that kind of environment. I have a decent imagination, but without any clear pattern for how to grow or expand or push myself, it was way more challenging than I believe it needed to be. I'm sure the bright people were there, but in a big, vital enough city, what I'm hoping is that there will be entire communities of innovators and free thinkers. They'll be much more apparent, and this will have big pluses should our child have inclinations in that direction.
Moving to the city, for us, is definitely not about trying to force our kid into some picture of what we think he or she should be. It's merely about providing as many alternatives as possible. If our kid decides that the life of a garbage truck driver is the only way to go, that's fine, but I certainly don't want to have raised the kid in an environment devoid of options. Let's face it, the world has limitless possibilities, and when you're young and creative, that's a very good thing. Better to have the exposure to as many of them as possible.
Having said all that, I have no idea what it would be like to be a kid in a large city day to day. If we have it our way, our neighborhoods are going to be fairly urban, so that likely means less space at home and a whole different kind of daily surroundings from the ones where I grew up. My friends and I used to ride bikes down to the beach or go hiking in the hills on a whim, and I'm guessing when our kids get old enough they'll also want to go exploring. I don't know precisely what that looks like in a city, maybe its parks, maybe its more indoors. Nonetheless, both my wife and I believe firmly in our choice, and I can't wait to get started on this great new experiment.
October 1 is the day she starts her new job, so there will be more to follow on this topic leading up to the big move!
Up until yesterday, my wife pretended that her expanding waistline was just a bit of bloatiness, but now there's no mistaking it: there's a baby in there! She must have crossed some sort of proportional threshold because the bump seemed to really become noticeable overnight. You can see it from a distance.
She doesn't seem quite sure what to make of it. I guess before you're pregnant if you gain weight it means something like you're either eating too much, or you've stopped hitting the gym, or you're going through one of those unpredictable hormonal things that happens as you age (I realize there are many other reasons in addition to these, but I guess I'm referring to the majority of cases). I keep telling her that it's a good sign to be gaining weight right now, but she doesn't seem entirely convinced. It's hard not to interpret it as chub, at least not until it takes a more specifically pregnancy-like form.
As a side note, I've considered having a sympathetic pregnancy by glutting myself on hamburgers for the next six months, but somehow, I feel that would be frowned upon. I haven't told her about this fantasy, though she's hearing it now. So goes the information age imperative to reveal all...
All in all, I have to say I would hate to see the space of pregnancy get infiltrated with all the usual media garbage about weight and body image. I realize that some women really overdo the whole "eating for two" thing, even when the baby's still a blastocyst, but at least that doesn't jeopardize the baby's health (at least not in all but the most extreme cases). I've already heard the term "pregorexia" floating around the web, and I can't express how incredibly embarassed it makes me feel to be alive in these times... not to overstate it or anything.
Anyway, wifey (and all you other moms), you're beautiful no matter what, coming beach-ball belly and all. And I'm not saying that in some patronizing, "take it from me, a man so my opinion matters" way, either. Dads are beautiful, too. In fact, maybe I should go for those hamburgers after all...
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