Do Your Children Really Understand that Dogs Can't Talk? More on Why I Don't Expose My Child to Fantasy

What if you talk about it with your kids and you swear that they understand the difference between fantasy and reality?

Maybe they do! Kids mature at different rates. That being said, most kids won't fail the "Now, Mary, tell me the difference between real trains and pretend trains" question the day they were exposed to the pretend trains, they will fail the question a week later, sometimes a month later.

It's the way our brains work. It has to do with information storage. (And this is about all fiction, not just fantasy fiction). I remember reading about an experiment done on adults in which a "psychologist" suggests a memory to the subject (that never happened, in this particular experiment it was "remember that time your mom lost you at the mall when you were little? She found you by the fountain.") A year later, when the subjects were asked if their moms had ever lost them as kids, almost all of them told the story they had been fed about being lost at a mall and found at a fountain.

Most people don't need a science experiment to tell them that their memories can be faulty. Most of us have had the experience of swearing something happened to us only to realize a while later that the memory actually came from a movie or book.

But back to children and fantasy.

Children becoming confused about reality is the biggest reason to question the idea of exposing a child to fantasy, but there are other reasons too.

One reason is time. A friend of mine, Andrew, pointed this out to me. He said he loved seeing what my two-year-old chooses to do with his time, like mastering how to make scrambled eggs, practicing jumping or trying to read. Every minute of his day is spent acquiring those skills he has judged as important for life. This is very different from the Standard American Two-Year-Old who thinks it is extremely important to learn the names of all the super heroes and then practices how they fight bad guys. The way I state this same idea in my Main Idea 2 essay is: the reason why children in the past were so much more mature/competent than ours is the same reason why hunter-gatherer children today are capable of so much more than ours--math. Time. They have simply spent more time learning real life skills than our children have. Eight years spent practicing being a princess or a superhero is a lot of time spent not acquiring other skills.

But perhaps real life skills aren't that important to you! Perhaps you find it adorable when Jonny pretends to be Batman and you would't trade that for the world. As a parent, you get to decide what makes parenting the most fun for you. (This is assuming the child does understand the difference between reality and fantasy though.)

Another reason, the main reason I personally don't expose my son to fantasy, is our relationship. I find my son very easy to relate to. I love hanging out with him! I love what he has to say about things. When we talk, I feel very connected to him. When I work with fictionalized kids who announce to me that their name is "Ariel" or tell me their friend Fluffy the Elf will be hanging out with them today... I don't know what to say. I lose connection with them. I can smile and call someone Ariel and I can offer someone's elf tea too, but... I am not connecting with a person. I am playing with / entertaining an adorable (stupid) pet.

For more information on this subject, see my Main Idea 2 essay. Also, John Holt writes about this well in his book Escape from Childhood. Maria Montessori writes about how children prefer to be taken seriously as well in her book The Child in the Family. Alison Gopnik writes about how children remember things (and the experiment on adults I mentioned above) in her books The Scientist in the Crib and The Philosophical Baby. 

US Education Has Been Hijacked By Socialists: Choose Montessori! - Book Review: The Leipzig Connection

The number one thing I got out of this book: send your kids to Montessori schools folks!

What a fun, easy, clear read. It is what it is. It doesn't have solutions. Its remark on Montessori is but a paragraph. But it was the most important paragraph to me because if the super evil dude who wrote Dare the Schools Build a New Social Order used the Rockefeller fortune to suppress Montessori... well, I just assume that's the school I want :)

I took off one star for how it ends: our schools are giant brainwashing machines but that only sucks because they are in the wrong hands, if only they were in the right hands..... Oh Paolo. I really hope that was a bad joke.

Best paraphrases:

Although today Dewey's views are in practice in the great majority of American schools, before the turn of the century they were revolutionary. The Wundtian redefinition of "education" to mean feeding experimental data to a young brain and nervous system, rather than teaching of mental skills, led to the abdication of the traditional role of the teacher as educator, Its place was taken by the concept of the teacher as a guide in the socialization of the child, leading each youngster to adapt the specific behavior required of him in order for him to get along in his group. Dewey called for a leveling of individual differences into a common pool of students who are the object of learning technicians devising the social order of the future.

This is the view of Dewey and other Wundtians--that man is a social animal who must learn to adapt to his environment , instead of learning how to ethically adapt the environment to suit his needs and those of society. Individualism and the developing of individual abilities give way to social conformity and adaptation; the product of education becomes "well-adjusted" (conditioned) children.... which creates a society that operates more on the basis of gratification than on the basis of reason and responsibility.

Rugg: through the schools of the world we shall disseminate a new conception of government--one that will embrace all of the collective activities of men; one that will postulate the need for scientific control and operation of economic activities

Gates through General Education Board: In our dream we have limitless resources and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands

Book Review - The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America: A Chronological Paper Trail

This book can be summarized well with a loose quote from the preface: if a child can read, write and compute at a reasonably proficient level, he will be able to do just about anything he wishes with his life, able to control his destiny. Because providing such basic proficiencies is not and should not be an expensive or complicated proposition, it becomes obvious that it is only a radical social agenda to brainwash our children that is the costly proposition--and complicated to hide what's really going on.

I couldn't put this book down. But I don't think it is for everyone. It's extremely important and wow, what an immense amount of work and knowledge the author provides! But it's not easy reading. It's a paper trail of extremely annoying political writing and over-complicated attempts by person after person to first appeal to someone's emotional rather than rational brain and then slip in some tricky language so that everyone agrees with whatever he says. So... totally obnoxious annoying shit. But sometimes fun if you enjoy the puzzle. And just mostly horrifying. I have never wanted to leave this country more.

Crazy how the government documents would have me convinced for fifty pages that the idea came from a good place and would do some good for the kiddies (like getting rid of grades and apprenticeships) but then how it turns out to be totally evil.

When the government pushes for "no grades" what they are really pushing for is a different kid of grade, grading on things the government values. So instead of grades that measure work, the "grade-free" report cards are all about a student's timeliness, attitude, effort, cooperation, responsiveness to authority, etc. This is NOT what I think of when I think of "no grades." So here are the characteristics that a totalitarian government wants in its citizens. These are the traits that will get you ahead, get you into the good schools, the good jobs--not brain power, but obedience. The more obedient will be rewarded with jobs that give them power. It's brilliant. 

In the 90's teachers were required in almost all public schools to make behavior part of the kids' grades--whether the teacher wanted to or not. It's all about baby steps.

When government pushes for "apprenticeships," it sounds so good! I totally support apprenticeships! That's what I want for my son! But reeeeally, when you make apprenticeships part of the school program, you put the government in control of jobs. Kids and parents aren't out there looking for an apprenticeship that their child wants, the government decides what the kid gets based on his grades in school (and remember his most important grade is obedience). A few more baby steps and now you can only get a license to work as a baker if you have done an apprenticeship and you can't get an apprenticeship with the government... the government controls the jobs, and we are a communist country.

I used to think that the schools had been taken over by the Democrats and that's why most people couldn't graduate from college without becoming a liberal, now I know that I was really on to something--the schools were taken over by socialists (on the payroll of Carnegie and Rockefeller) with a brainwashing agenda to make the US fascist/socialist a long long time ago.

The fact that it took so long to shows the weaknesses of behaviorism and the strength of our old values. But baby steps, money, patience, "research" and 100 years and our country is pretty much socialist (but we call it freedom here!) Politics will follow ideologically. Don't worry about today's men. Just take over the schools, brainwash the kids and everything will fall into place!

I am super curious about brainwashing now. Fascinating that what is taught does not matter as much as how it is taught. It is the methods that make people automatons who cannot think for themselves, not the subject matter.

That's the problem with brainwashing and socialism and government--as long as you agree with what they are doing to everyone else, it's great! "Make them dumb religious folk turn to science! This country would be a much better place if we all supported abortion, gay marriage and evolution!" I can just hear people I know cheering. But then when those in power decide to "Make them horrible rebels send their kids to public brainwash school, make them horrible hippies vaccinate their babies, make them dissenters take mood-altering drugs, make people eat what we tell them to eat..." WHY DON'T PEOPLE SEE THIS? It's all the same! It doesn't matter what you are MAKING people do, it doesn't matter how good you think it will be for them or the world, the problem IS the MAKING.

Dear Would-Be Socialist Dictators, please read Non Violent Communication and Choice Theory. And John Locke. There IS another way. We don't actually all have to agree on ANYTHING except to respect each other.

My biggest complaint about this book is that I wish Charlotte wrote more. I want to know more of her thoughts about education and solutions. And, I don't need such a long paper trails. One or two documents per category would have been fine. And I gotta say, I wouldn't have minded if she held my hand a little more. This book is like Iserbyt got out here file of evidence and published it. I would like her to write a new book with short chapters based around each regulation or educational platform rather than chronology. It could accompany this book so that when she refers to "Protect INSTRUCT" I can flip open this book and read a one page summary about project Instruct, who started it, who is pushing for it, what its real agenda is, etc.

And for parents like me who want to know what I concluded from this book without having to read it:
-absolutely no public school for your kids
-if you want to do private school, make sure the teachers are experts in their fields and do NOT have teaching credentials
-if you chose to homeschool, do not do it through the public system and be very careful about whatever system you choose. Probably best for you to be the teacher. Remember the quote at the top--with basic math, reading and writing skills your child will be able to do almost anything he wishes with his life. This is not a costly or complicated thing to teach your child.
-flee, flee the country. South America or Alaska.

I Don't Try to Get My Friends to Parent Like Me

*You will get a lot more out of this blog post if you have read my 'Main Idea 1'.

'How should I go about talking to my friends about parenting?' and 'What is the best way for me to approach someone I see at the grocery store who is being mean to her kids?' are questions I get fairly often. They fascinate me.

Neither of these questions are about "talking" to someone else. What I want when I ask these questions, is not to "have a conversation" with someone. My goal is not to connect or empathize or philosophize. When these questions pop into my head, what I want is to help these people. They are bad parents! They need my help! Or maybe they are just average parents who need my help, but either way--they are not coming to me asking for help. It is my desire here. I want to help them because I don't like what they are doing.

The question I am really asking is: "What is the best way for me to get them to do what I want them to do?" These "conversations" that I want to have with the Bad and Average Parents mentioned above are "goal-oriented conversations" or "jobs." And the psychology of accomplishing a job is all about me. When I have a job to accomplish and that job is helping or changing or fixing another person, I am not present, I am not connecting, I am not relating to another human being--I am at war. And the other person is the enemy I wish to conquer.

I have a lot of empathy for people who find themselves pondering any form of the above questions. I find myself doing it all the time. I hate the way so many people treat their kids! I feel disgusted when I see how they talk to them! I feel desperate for people to change! AND I have an incredible expertise in this area! I would feel so happy if more people parented like I do! And they would be happier too! In fact, the whole world would be a better place if more people parented like I do. And if they ate like I do. And if they dressed like I do. And if they read as much as I do. If only I were the Supreme Dictator of the Whole World, everyone would be happier... right?

A lot of the time, when we want to "help" other people, we are not paying attention to what is really going on inside of us, we are not clear about what we really want and need. For me, when I desperately want to help/change/fix/dominate other people, what I actually want so desperately can be summarized as: I want people to be more like me.

Which means that I am suffering from feelings of:

-loneliness. If only there were more people like me out there.

-fear. If they raise their kids like that, their kids will be monsters when they grow up!

-anger. How can people treat children that way? Why is life so unfair and ugly?!

-sadness. That expression on that child's face makes me want to cry.

-hurt. I have so much to offer! Why don't these people ask for my help?!

Which means I am actually needing:

-validation. If my ideas are actually right, they will see that and agree with me.
-contribution. If I fix these people, I will have helped to make the world a better place.
-compassion. I wish life were more fair. Maybe someone could hug me while I cry about that.

These lists could go on and on. But I want to keep them short, because the lists are not point. The point is that it is easy to understand why I feel so desperate, why I don't want to think about what I am feeling, why I want to focus on the other person, not myself, why I want to go to war with an enemy rather than invite my intense feelings over for tea.

This explains something I have wondered for so long: people who want to "help" others are often quite miserable, angry people. If they are feeling all those things I just mentioned above... I understand why they are so miserable.

For me, the questions 'How should I talk to my friends about parenting' and 'What should I say to bad parents at the grocery store' are actually: What can I do when I am having strong feelings about what someone else is doing? How can I talk to that person about my feelings? Is it possible to connect with them so that I can feel heard? Especially if the person is my friend. What can I say? I feel so afraid of losing my friend but at the same time, when I see how she treats her children I feel like smacking her. What can I do to feel better? Can I connect with strangers and have empathy for them, even as I am disapproving of them?

This blog isn't about reinventing the wheel or summarizing or restating what has already been said so well elsewhere, so I'm afraid the answer is: read Non-Violent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall Rosenberg. I cannot recommend enough. We don't get to control other people, but we do get to express our feelings and needs! If you have something very difficult you want to say to your friends or strangers, this book will teach you how to say it. 

That being said, this blog is about why? And about what I might know that the above book does not say. I had an interesting conversation the other day with my friend, a psychologist. She became a psychologist because she wanted to help people. "What would be my job in the world that you envision?" she asked.

The simple answer is that psychologists have a lot to offer people who want help.

The more complex answer is that the best thing anyone can do to help other people is to follow their joy. Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Joseph Campbell and many others say it well but in this context I want to mention a book called, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives. This book explains the science that shows that the best way for you to get your friends to eat healthier is to eat healthier yourself. And to enjoy it. When your friends see you feeling good and looking good and loving life, they will chose to be more like you. You will never have to say anything.

Maybe physical health isn't what would make you happy--fine. It doesn't matter what it is that brings you joy, the only important thing is that you follow your joy! What people need to see more than anything is others living happy lives. Happiness is contagious, as shown in the book Connected. If you are happy, if you sparkle with joy, you will be a blessing to all those around you. Your happiness will rub off on your friends. That is the greatest gift you could give to anyone. The greatest gift you can give to the world! Want to help people? Go be happy. Most people don't know how to live happy lives. Many even doubt that it is possible. Show them how. Most people have no idea how to relate to children. You can show them!

When I talk to my friends about parenting--and I do all the time--it is never as as a hidden attempt to get them to parent differently. It is because I just learned something that excites me! I finish a book every week and I am always dying to talk it! This stuff is fascinating! And the results of how I am raising my son are fascinating! And how parenting is connected to history and society and education are sooooo interesting!

In these conversations, I want help processing something I have learned or I want to share information that I feel excited about--either way, I am talking to a person and what I am seeking is connection and relationship.

I don't want to be inaccurate or pretend that I am perfect all the time though so, in case it case I wasn't clear enough above: I engage in plenty of unhealthy thinking and catch myself fairly often attempting to relate in ways that I don't support.

*Follow this post up with my post Does NVC Always Work? Is War Always Bad?

Book Review - The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life

This book is essentially about a fear the authors have about the future that they are terrified of expressing. They know (and rightly) that if they share their fear, most people wont be able to hear them or even consider what they are trying to say. Most people will just fly off the handle and attack.

Which is why this book in written in such a way that it is very hard to read. I felt like half the time the authors were trying very hard to not say anything. It seemed like the points they were trying to make were almost hidden and almost all were apologized for.

Because I believe above all in freedom and respect, and because I only think in terms of individuals, not groups, what the authors have to say is irrelevant to me. Interesting at times, but irrelevant.

But here it is, what Herrnstein and Murray worked so hard to not say over the course of their book:

1. IQ exists! Some people are actually smarter than other people! *The higher your IQ, the greater your capacity to handle complex mental work. [I often find that handling complex mental work depends a lot on one's interest in the work so I would be curious to know how IQ tests account for that.]

2. How smart people are affects every area of their lives!

3. Smarter people are better at everything!

Now here is something worth saying! Why I find this assertion interesting is that it is the opposite of the "10,000 hour rule" that everyone takes for granted as truth. Herrnstein and Murray claim that some people could put 10,000 hours into something and still not be a genius at it and possibly, if their IQ is low enough, would never reach the genius level. Other people, people with high IQs, could reach the genius level of a given field in far fewer than 10,000 hours. I am going to check this general idea off as "true in my own experience." This reminds me of how many people can be farmers, but how few think to farm like Joel Salatin.

4. Intelligence is not all nurture. In fact it's part nature (no less than 40% no more than 80%) yet all of our government policies are written as if intelligence were all nurture.

5. Smarter people have better lives.

It entertains me a little that H & M worked so hard to (over) prove everything they wanted to say and yet didn't really pay attention to this point, assuming that everyone would agree that more money, slightly less divorce and more degrees equals a better life. I know way more happy people who are not very bright than I know very bright people who are very happy. And, I will quote myself here: the top 1% of Americans have better college degrees and make a lot more money, but they are still overweight and unhealthy—lots of colds and even more medical problems, they are even more likely to be on prescription drugs and especially mood altering ones. They will spend just as much time watching TV and be slightly less likely to get divorced (as the bottom 99%). I don't care about money and degrees. Fat people on Prozac don't have "better lives". *I got my stats from some government website. I think the CDC.

6. The lowest of the low generally have IQs bordering on mental retardation, but there are plenty of people with just as low IQs who do fine in life. 

7. School does an excellent job of funneling the best and brightest into top colleges.

I really think H & M should read The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America or The Underground History of American Education or anything that would help them to understand the true purpose of public education so let's just be clear here: school does an excellent job of funneling the brightest "soldiers" from the rest of the pack. Bright children with high enough self-esteem to not want to teacher-please for 30 years are not funneled. 

8. High IQ folk are the best workers. [Again, I would be curious to know what roles motivation, interest and passion play in  the "best worker" contest.]

9. Our country has a high IQ elite running the place, who, because they are so comfortable with complexity, make the legal system overly complex for the rest of us.

Woo hoo! Let's simplify! Does anyone else think these guys would have gotten more supporters for their argument if they had said our legal system was one big ball of bad feng shui instead of that the average American is just too dumb to function within it?

AND NOW, THEIR SCANDALOUS POINTS

10. Low IQ people have more children than high IQ people. H & M think we need to figure out a way to get smart women to have more babies.

11. But more importantly, they want us to stop messing with evolution. Because right now, we subsidize the babies of the low IQ folk, causing them to have more babies, and causing the survival of those who are not actually fit for survival.

For 100 years, we as a culture have been at war with death. Death is not a part of life. It's not okay. It's bad. It's failure and we can't accept it. We can't allow people to die. Even if they want to die. Even if they have serious health problems. Even if our best and brightest have to devote their entire lives to the cause--no one can be allowed to die!

12. Black people have a lower IQ average than white people but there are plenty of black people with very high IQs and plenty of white people with very low ones. 

If you believe in freedom and respect like I do, you judge individuals not groups and an individual's intelligence is irrelevant to the fact that everyone gets equal opportunity to pursue happiness to the best of his or her ability.

MY TAKE

First, this book is tragic. Great atrocities in history have been committed by people just trying to force other people to do what they believe is right. And, at its core, this book is no different: how can we make them nasty poor folk be more like those lovely middle class folk?

Herrnstein and Murray say it well at the beginning--they can't tell you anything about John Doe by knowing his IQ. There is too much variation and nurture is too important. All they can tell you about is groups. And the only reason anyone wants to know about groups is to control them. This book is only useful information to those "in power" who wish to force those not in power to be something other than what they are.

Second, I have empathy for H & M and all those who think they have to "save" the world. It must be so scary to think that our nation's average IQ is declining and that we have to get dumb people to behave differently. What a daunting task. I imagine they are quite angry at American policies that enable dumb people to have more children than smart people. And I imagine they are even angrier that they are forced to spend their money on things they consider to be morally wrong.

Third, this book reminds me of what I have read about Hunter-Gatherer--that they have very low IQs. This fascinates me. We all know that average American probably couldn't last a day in their shoes and also that researchers continually assert that Hunter-Gatherers are very happy so.... who is better of? I value genetic diversity and cultural diversity; I am so glad there are people who can survive in the wild in addition to people who can study philosophy. 

World governments are always claiming that Hunter-Gathers need to be saved from being themselves. We see this on television constantly--pleas for donations because the "rural poor" of some place needs schools. Hunter-Gathers just need education and then they would have "better" lives! Most people don't know this is all cover-up for the real agenda of every government in the world that can't stop terrorizing its native inhabitants (and if you think the US has stopped terrorizing our natives, think again. Canada is even worse.)

Hunter-Gathers and the rural poor are not banging down the doors of government buildings and wealthy people's houses asking how they can be more like them. Hunter-Gatheres and the rural poor usually *but not always* exhibit a level of physical health not known to Westerners. Imagine 500 people all with perfectly straight, white teeth, never having had braces and never having had cavities despite their failure to even own a toothbrush. Not to mention all the other Western health problems they don't suffer from. These people DO NOT need to be more like us. In fact, we have a few things to learn from them. We may have lower infant mortality, but they don't have homelessness or heart disease!

The reason our governments are always trying to "educate" these people is that Hunter-Gatherers and the rural poor don't need us. They are not part of the system. And our governments want them to be part of the system. What governments really want is for these people to not exist. Our governments are the Borg, seeking to assimilate everyone. They sell it as education, but our type of education destroys more lives of Hunter-Gatherers than it ever helps. Why do we think we have the right to force people to do what we think is best for them? Until people are ASKING for help, no one should be "helping" them. 

Reader Asks How to Get Her Toddler to Walk More on Her Own

A friend of mine texted me today: "I need advice on how to get my daughter to walk on her own. I simply can't and won't carry her everywhere. She cries and appears to be a spoiled brat about it. I'm starting to get mad at her. Her dad carries her everywhere."

There are many issues going on here:

1) Mom wants to know how to get toddler to walk more on her own

2) Mom doesn't want to carry baby anymore

3) Baby wants to be carried and is protesting

3) Mom thinks baby is a spoiled brat

My response:

It is authentic for mom to refuse to carry her toddler--she doesn't want to. We never have to do what we don't want to do and shouldn't--sacrificing in our relationships causes resentment.

It is also authentic for the toddler to protest. She wants to be carried and she should not be made to feel ashamed of her desire to be carried nor should she be made to feel ashamed of the sadness and anger she feels when her mom refuses to carry her. Her feelings of anger and sadness are absolutely valid. It sucks when we want something from someone and they won't give it to us! 

When mom labels her toddler a "spoiled brat" she is using "battle" language--judgements that allow people to treat other people without empathy. This is the kind of "enemy" thinking that enables us to do things to people we wouldn't do otherwise. Relationships are a challenge but they are not a battle and the minute we turn them into a battle we have lost.

Our toddlers are not trying to trick us or manipulate us with their crying. They are crying because they feel sad. When I want my husband to take me out like he said he would and he announces that he is too tired, I feel super hurt and I cry. I am not crying to get him to change his mind or to get my way or to make him feel guilty. I am crying to release my sadness and it is imperative for my health that I do so. If the fact that I feel sad makes my husband feel guilty, then he might call me names like "cry baby" or accuse me of being manipulative but what he really needs to do is to allow himself to feel sad that he cannot give me what I want, it is also likely that he needs to acknowledge a certain level of shame for feeling tired, shame for not fulfilling an imagined duty of making me happy. But these are HIS things, they are not my things.

Sadness isn't bad. Anger isn't bad. We are not bad moms when our babies feel sad. In our culture it is quite common for people to feel ashamed when they do not feel happy and especially if they feel sadness or anger. We have been given the message that we should not feel these things so when we do feel these things we hide it from ourselves and blame the other person, calling them names and punishing them. When we find ourselves name calling or reverting to battle thinking, we are usually tired, nor asserting our needs or feeling ashamed.

Lastly, it's important for us to question why we cannot meet our child's needs. If we don't want to carry our children because our back hurts that is legitimate. If we don't want to carry our children because of a "should" idea (Two-year-olds should not be carried anymore! They should walk!) we need to reframe our thinking. There is a great saying in AA "Don't should on yourself." That applies here--don't should on your kids! There are no shoulds. There are only feelings and needs (or values). 

Is Fantasy-Fiction Bad For Kids? Don't You Have to Understand Reality in Order to Be Creative With It?

Wanted to share this great article!

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201209/children-s-freedom-has-declined-so-has-their-creativity?utm_source=swissmiss&utm_campaign=cd24a79f4c-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2660ad4d17-cd24a79f4c-393316561

Peter Gray is right on about control, external motivators and depression, but I want to know more about the role that adult-created-fantasy-for-children plays because I believe it is significant. Take a kid, let him have all the free choice he wants, but spend hours reading stories to him about people with magic and watching movies about dogs that fly and rather than using his own brain and working out his creativity muscles, he will spend the rest of the day (or week) digesting what you just read to him, trying to figure it out, the way a traumatized child would.

A child who experiences something traumatic, like seeing a car accident, will reenact this scene over and over trying to make sense of it and understand it. Processing. The child previously thought that cars don't hit each other or fly through the air but now he saw that happen and he needs to understand. So he "plays" the car accident over and over.

A child who is read a fictional story that doesn't agree with his current understand of reality reacts similarly. Children who previously thought that dogs don't fly but now saw a dog flying also need to play over and over this scene of dogs flying. Or witches casting spells. Or people with magic powers killing bad guys. The child "plays" these scenes over and over until he "understands".

Maria Montessori wrote about the detrimental effects of fiction on children in The Child in the Family. Ayn Rand echos these concerns in her essay "The Comprachicos". Many huge businesses would lose a lot of money if they are right so I can understand why the initial research on this topic was never repeated. I would love to know the role that understanding reality plays in creativity. Don't you have to understand reality in order to recreate it? If you are genuinely confused about reality... how "creative" can you be?

There is something that really doesn't make sense about a billion kids all acting the exact same way and re-enacting the exact same stories... that just can't be how creativity starts.

Health Note: Cayenne Pepper Stops Bleeding

Yesterday I chopped off the very tip of my finger--the chunk of skin that I found on the counter was about 1/4" diameter. The bleeding was impressive for such a small cut and it wouldn't stop. I wrapped my wound in a paper towel and twenty minutes after it happened I was shocked to see blood still rolling out of my finger. I googled it to see if I should go to the ER and get stitches. What I found was a site that recommended sprinkling cayenne pepper on the wound to stop the bleeding. I didn't like the sound of that but after fifteen more minutes decided to give it a try.

I sprinkled barely any cayenne pepper, sure that it would sting and not work and I would be sorry. But what happened was AWESOME. My wound was still producing a large droop of blood every half second. I sprinkled almost no cayenne on the wound. It stung; I swore. And then I watched as a scab formed. In about five seconds I was no longer bleeding and my finger was covered in a shiny scab. It was insane to watch since it happen so fast.

Anyway, cheers to the internet and free, natural cures!

When My Toddler Won't Get In His Car Seat

When my toddler, Anders, doesn't want to get in or out of the car, I don't make him.

The other day my husband, our friend Ryan, my son Anders and I went out to eat. When we parked at the restaurant, Anders wanted to hang out in the car. I explained the situation to Ryan thus: "If Anders were another adult friend who turned to us and said, 'Hey guys, I need a few minutes to collect myself before we go into the restaurant. Would you mind waiting?' We would say, 'Sure, no problem.' And we would all wait. I see no reason we should not wait for Anders." Anders hung out in car for about five minutes and then told us he was "all done" and the four of us went happily into the restaurant.

At the peak of Anders's desire to spend time in the car (17-19 months approximately) about half an hour before I wanted to leave to go somewhere, I would invite him to get into the car. When he was done researching all the nooks and crannies in the front seat, he would climb into the back, get into his car seat and call me. Then we would leave. I loved this as I got a lot done in that time!

Often we when we did errands, he would want to get into the driver seat and do some exploring before heading home as well. At first this annoyed me, and then I thought, "What am I rushing home for? So that Anders and I can be together... at home? So that we could go to the park? There is nothing more important that I need to be doing than being with Anders."

It was an easy switch: before we went home, Anders would sit in the front seat pressing buttons, happy as could be and I would sit in the back seat, getting my email on my phone and reading, happy as could be.

Because Anders gets to go at his own pace so often, he is very respectful of the times when I want to rush. Whenever I tell him we are in a hurry, he gets right into his car seat or right out with no issues.

To be clear, I did forced Anders into his car seat about twice in his life. Both times I felt horrible and both times involved me choosing to use force against my toddler rather than to "disappoint" someone by "being late." Though I am rarely late for things, if given the choice today I would choose my relationship with my son over the imagined offense of tardiness.

How to NOT treat children comedy sketch on youtube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xUH8SO1iqA&feature=youtu.be

Health Note - My First Cold in Nine Years & Primal Experiment Update

My last cold was in 2004. I got sick in 2004 because I had just finished taking a course on nutrition at Wesleyan University. That USDA approved-course convinced me that processed meats, non-fat dairy, diet sodas, sugar and white flour were not bad for me. They weren't good, but they weren't bad either. So for the first time in my life, I started eating them. The six months following my nutrition class I gained fifteen pounds and finally understood cold-medicine commercials. Those commercials had never made sense to me before--sneezing, runny nose, not resting, coughing, pounding head, stuck in bed--OMG this is what it feels like to be sick!?! I was in bed for three days and it was a revelation. I went back to eating the way I had grown up eating--if mother nature made it, I ate it; if man made it, I didn't.

From 2004 until last year I worked with children. They were sick all the time. Their parents would catch their colds, the other household employees would catch their colds, but I never did. I was reckless and cocky around their germs too because--why should I care about germs if they never made me ill? I had no real appreciation of how fabulous it is to be healthy because, over time, I forgot how much it sucks to be sick.

When I met my husband, Tom, he got sick all the time--usually something I brought home. Our first Winter Solstice together I was working for Reese Witherspoon. Both her kids, her ex-husband, the other nanny and her mother who was visiting came down with a terrible 24-hour-stomach bug. I didn't get it, but Tom did. It was comical.

When Tom moved in with me and started eating the way I eat he stopped getting sick and neither of us ever really thought about it again until this January when Tom went to Nicaragua for ten days. He lived off of pizza and burgers and then he sat next to a sneezing, nose-blowing person on his plane flight home. Five days later, he had the whole Sick Experience: sore throat, sneezing, itchy eyes, nose blowing, aching body, dead-head, super tired. This lasted about five days. I didn't worry very much because we both knew why he got sick and we both knew that I wouldn't get sick.

But I did. I didn't get as sick as my husband, but I got tired and sneezy. I even had to blow my nose. Did you know that if you blow your nose too many times in one day it gets raw and uncomfortable? I had faint memories of a similar realization back in 2004.

So why did I get sick? Well, during the month of January I had done a "Primal" experiment, altering my diet to see if I would feel even better than I already do most of the time by not eating grains, legumes or tubers. From my research I had concluded that the Weston A. Price Foundation diet recommendations that I follow regularly are superior to the Primal diet, but I am a sucker for science experiments and every body is different and so many people were swearing by the Primal diet... I figured I had nothing to lose. Well, I did have something to lose. The good health I take for granted! I guess there is something in those soaked/sprouted/fermented grains, legumes and tubers that I normally eat that keeps my body healthy because OMFG being sick sucks!!! How does the average American deal with this four times a year? I am totally pissed off.

You know who else got sick? My toddler. His very first cold. And granted it's amazing that my child did not get sick for the first time until he was fifteen-months-old, I'm pissed about that too.

I concluded my post about my Primal experiment by saying that the Primal diet was a good way for people to kick the Standard American Diet. Now I think: the Primal diet sucks. 

Ugh, okay, in FreedomSpeak: My Primal diet experiment did not meet my need for good health nor did it meet my expectation that I would find something to share with people I like. I feel disappointed. And annoyed.

Interesting Notes on Potty-Training in History

When I began searching for potty training methods that worked with my healthy relationship parenting model, I was immediately drawn to the something called "elimination communication." From the name alone I suspected that a style of "communication" rather than a style of "training" would be more likely to use healthy relationship psychology. For the most part, I was right.

A Quick Background on Potty Training Practices

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, "before children are twelve months of age, they have no control over bladder or bowel movements. While many children start to show signs of being ready between eighteen and twenty-four months of age, some children may not be ready until thirty months or older. This is normal." (http://www2.aap.org/publiced/BR_ToiletTrain.htm)

Most people in the rest of the world and most Americans prior to 1980 would not agree with any part of that statement.

In non-western societies, babies begin learning to control their bowel movements from birth. Mothers in traditional societies never put their babies in diapers. Because the mothers are in close physical contact with their babies all night and for a good portion of the day, they learn quickly when their babies need to go. Whether their babies squirm, make a noise or freeze, by the time their babies are three-months-old, most "native" mothers can tell when their babies need to go and put their babies in a desired location or position for them to do so. By the time these babies are six-months-old, they are capable of going on command (when their mothers tell them to).

This style of potty training is called "elimination communication" because rather than training a child where to poop and pee, the mother is communicating with her child about poop and pee--there is nothing punitive or coercive about it. It's very matter-of-fact. "You're peeing. I'm going to hold you over this bowl." Whereas the mother initially learns her infant's "cue", the child soon learns that the mother likes to have him in a certain position when he is going to pee or poop and starts to communicate with her when he has to go.

In western societies, diapers have been around for quite some time. I have not found clear evidence of when they became common but things mentioned in Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life lead me to believe that the switch to major diaper use happened after the middle ages (poop and pee were not that private of a matter until that time--I assume that if it was socially acceptable for adults to poop and pee in public, it was definitely acceptable for babies). However, it was pretty cold in the northern climates so I wonder if diapers weren't part of a dressing scheme that simply had to happen there.

Regardless of when or why diapers became common, wearing them for years was not common until recently. In 1914 American babies sat on the potty starting at three months. In 1921 a paphlet entitled Infant Care said, "Almost any child can be trained so there are no more soiled diapers to wash after he is six to eight months old." In the 1970's the average age of completion of potty training was eighteen months. Even in 1996, children over thirty-five pounds (around three-years-old) needed a prescription for disposable diapers--diapers for children that old were considered to be medical supplies and the child was thought of as disabled.

So why do we keep our children in diapers for three to four years today when it is totally unnecessary? Because our potty training methods were not based around communication or anything matter-of-fact. Our potty training methods, since the 1700's, were harsh, rigid and punitive. Potty-training was a very destructive part of the parent-child relationship.

In the 1960's Dr. T. Berry Brazelton drew people's attention to the damaging psychological effects of how children were being potty trained. Unfortunately, he concluded that this was due to the age at which children were being trained, not the potty training methods being used. By 1997, Brazelton's error was corrected: Dr. Charles Schaefer wrote, "We know now that the age at which a child is trained is not the cause of later emotional and psychological problems; rather, it is the parental attitude that is used during the training period that will determine the long-term effects of toilet training" but the AAP has yet to update their recommendations and their statements regarding the readiness of children are simply inaccurate.

Moreover, the disposable diaper industry has an enourmous interest in keeping the "delayed training is better" message prominently reinforced. All current potty training recommendations handed out by doctors are provided by the disposable diaper industry and, according to Dr. Lekovic, author of Diaper Free Before 3: The Healthier Way to Toilet Train and Help Your Child Out of Diapers Sooner, based on well-publicized opinions not medical research.

Potty training after the age of three is new in human history. The little research that has been done about the physical effects of such late potty training, according to Dr. Lekovic, shows that the delayed training has led to increased rates of voiding disorders, lasting wetting problems and an increase in children suffering from UTI's.

*It is interesting to me that the Standard American Parent knows that coercive, reward-punish potty training methods are psychologically damaging but they have made the leap that all forms of coercive, reward-punish relationships are damaging including school and government.

Do We Have a Healthy Relationship with Poop?

Because it was healthier for my child to potty train earlier rather than later and would save me thousands of dollars in diapers, I did a lot of research on elimination communication and found it to be a major turn off for me because I could not conceive of letting my baby poop and pee on me for a few months until I learned his "cue" nor could I conceive of "wearing" my baby naked against my body as the E.C. books recommended.

This led me to reexamine my (culturally inherited) ideas about the human body and its functions, ideas like: poop is gross and dirty, I would throw up if my baby poops on me, letting my baby watch me go to the bathroom is just going too far--there have to be boundaries, poop and pee anywhere but in a toilet is disgusting, poop and pee should be flushed immediately and not thought about afterward, I should put a fan on and spray something pleasant to hide the smell of my poop, I should not talk about my poop or my experience pooping in polite company, etc.

How weird that we have taken such a normal part of life and made it so negative!

According to Joseph Campbell, some religions accept the reality of life as it is and create a mythology that supports it and helps us deal with it--the reality of life being that all life eats other life to survive, that life isn't fair, that life is often brutal and ugly. "Justice and beauty are human values," Campbell said, "the Universe doesn't care about those things."

Other religions deny reality. They don't accept life as it is. They create a mythology in which there was a perfect world or justice, beauty, harmony, etc and somehow that perfect world got messed up. These religions judge reality as bad, unjust and ugly--life as it is can never be truly enjoyed by good people. Good people live for the afterlife which takes place in a "perfect" world where everything is right.

Accepting reality is much more conducive to leading a happy life. Three hundred years ago we discussed poop a lot more than we do today. Talking about our common human experience of pooping didn't go out of style until the Victorians. The hippies were right: it's natural.

I have largely accepted the reality of poop on a philosophical level, but I doubt I will start telling my girlfriends about my more dramatic bowel movements or farting as loud-and-satisfyingly in company as I do when I am alone. Those cultural changes are not my goal. My goal is having a healthy relationship with my son and perhaps enabling him to have a healthy relationship with his body and its functions.

So I don't wrinkle my nose and tell him how gross his poop is. I don't feel like vomiting when I get some on my hand. I don't mind when he peers curiously into the toilet as I go. And though I opted out of elimination communication when he was a tiny baby, now that he is walking, I am perfectly happy to let him walk around naked and learn all about his bowel movements. My comfort level has increased so rapidly and effortlessly that by the time baby number two comes, I just may try e.c. from the get go!

Further Reading on This Subject:

Infant Potty Basics and Diaper Free both focus on elimination communication with infants. The Diaper Free Baby: The Natural Toilet Training Alternative by Christine Gross-Loh has great information for "late starters" which was exactly what I was looking for. Reading this book was a wonderful affirmation that whatever the parenting challenge, there is always a healthy way to do it. There is no need to start a power struggle, no need to manipulate, coerce or reward and punish--any experience can deepen your relationship with your baby, even talking about poop :)

It should be noted that elimination communication isn't necessarily part of my healthy relationship parenting model--even e.c. can be done in an unhealthy way with praise and rewards.

Book Review & Experiment - The Primal Blueprint

I recently read The Primal Blueprint 21 Day Total Body Transformation to be familiar with the Primal diet as it is so popular right now. It was exactly what I had heard--a sexy (be a primal BEAST!) repackaging of the Atkins diet but (thank goodness) without the processed food.

Things I liked about this book:

Mark brings raw dairy, natural light and ancient ways of "exercising" to people's attention. He has gotten the message out there about not eating fake food, which is very important.

Things I did not like about this book:

Mark Sisson is not a scientist, doctor or nutritionist; he is not someone who does studies or researches in the field of food. He is not someone who studies our hunter-gatherer ancestors. He is an "elite athlete" who took biology in college and became an armchair nutritionist. Now, I don't support certification b.s.--I do believe someone can be an expert in something without the educational credentials to prove it, but Mark isn't it. To his credit, he has become more of an expert after putting out his book and being told where he went wrong by the real experts... but I am not reviewing his blog today, I am reviewing his book which has lots of great things to say mixed in with some wrong, unproven and questionable things.

Mark's main message is the Atkins message: all grains are bad. One reason is because they have anti-nutrients in them. As do legumes. But Mark misses nuts. So the correct information is:
1) Nuts are in the same boat as grains, full of anti-nutients and not belonging in the human body unless they have been soaked/sprouted/fermented--which, no surprise, is the only way traditional peoples consumed nuts.
2) Nuts are in the same boat as grains. To support nuts and then to not support the properly prepared (soaked/sprouted/fermented) grains that our ancestors ate is to obsess over carbs rather than human health i.e. macronutrients instead of micronutrients.

The macronutrients / micronutrients issue: this is where most diets lose me--native peoples have lived off of every possible balance of protein/carbs/fat. Weston A Prince, in his research, noted that the healthiest native peoples ate all three i.e. those tribes that ate all-protein-no-grains and those that were vegetarian did not enjoy the same level of health that those tribes who ate both meat and grains enjoyed. Price and the foundation that has continued his research today focuses on "nutritionally dense foods," the foods that pack the most punch nutritionally i.e. vitamins and minerals. When you focus on this, you end up with a diet that IS low-carb compared to the Standard American Diet, but not anti-carb or anti-grain or as low-carb as Sisson advocates.

The other reason Mark hates carbs (because then we will burn glucose as our fuel instead of fat) makes no sense to me. Our bodies can burn glucose OR fat for a reason--both are helpful at certain times. If it wasn't advantageous for our bodies to be able to be "glucose-burners" sometimes, we would not have evolved with the ability to be "glucose burners". Perhaps we burned fat during the winter and spring when food was scarce but when food was plentiful we burned glucose... who knows! What I know is that my body can burn both, and I assume that it evolved that way for a reason. Now, don't get me wrong,  I don't support sugar or high-carb diets but, properly prepared grains are full of nutrients and that is what I care about.

The worst part about this book was when Mark advocated eating CAFO meat (i.e. the stuff that is really really bad for you) over eating any grains whatsoever or eating "too much" fruit. Factory farm meat is poison, literally. No one in their right mind should believe that bacon from Costco is healthier than eating too many organic apples. Like I said above, this is a repackaged Atkins diet. It's not about health, it's about weight loss. (Unless you are diabetic, if you are diabetic this is the diet for you!).

The other part about Mark's diet that I didn't like was the blatant contradiction: "don't eat fake food EXCEPT buy my protein powder!!! Eat like a cave man--make shakes out of chemically altered substances that were food once!" Some of the ingredients in his "primal fuel": Whey Protein Isolate, Inulin, Guar Gum, Sucrose, Natural Flavors, Maltodexrin, Sodium Caseinate.... I have read books on how these things are made and they are NOT natural. They are NOT food. Grok would not have eaten them.

One of the other major things Mark misses is that traditional peoples ate a lot of bacteria i.e. fermented foods. These are not mentioned at all in this book.

My 21 Day Primal Experiment:

I love doing science experiments so I decided to follow Mark's diet for the first 21 days of January to see if it transformed my body like he promises. Following his diet has changed the lives of many of my friends, but I had a sneaking suspicion that that was because they went from eating a Standard American Diet to eating a Primal Diet i.e. it was not that Primal was so amazing but rather that the SAD is so bad. I would be switching from eating a WAPF diet. For those of you unfamiliar with the WAPF diet, know that it is similar to Primal in that I already don't eat sugar, wheat or anything processed.

What I had to change to eat Primal instead of WAPF :
-no soaked/sprouted/fermented oats, wild rice and beans that are a normal part of my WAPF diet
-limit my fruit and vegetable intake so that I did not exceed his recommended 100-150 grams of carbs per day
-no sweet potatoes (he only lets athletes have tubers)
-no kombucha or lacto-fermented rootbeer (both are a normal part of my diet)
-I had to "moderate" my dairy intake
-I was allowed to have nuts that had not be soaked or sprouted but I chose not to do this and continued to eat WAPF style nuts throughout my experiment
-I was allowed to have coffee, dark chocolate and red wine (as treats). WAPF doesn't support any of these things--a WAPF treat would be an apricot compote sweetened with maple syrup and served with lots of raw whipped cream).

My results:
-Getting an hour of sunlight a day helped my sleep immensely. It is also possible that it was the diet that gave me better sleep though so I need to experiment more with this.
-I neither gained nor lost a single pound. (I was at a healthy weight to begin with)
-I noticed no "glucose burner to fat burner" change. I wonder if, since the WAPF diet is a rather high fat, high protein diet, I was already a fat burner
-When I reintroduced certain foods after 21 days I learned that I have a sensitivity (I have a reaction in my sinuses) to raisins and corn. I need to experiment more on this to see if properly prepared corn gives me a reaction as well (I was at a restaurant so I don't know if the corn flour I ate had been soaked in lyme or not).
-I also had a reaction to some standard american whole wheat bread I had at a restaurant. I will definitely be curious to see if I react to properly prepared wheat.
-I had no reaction when I consumed fermented oats or any other sprouted grain. I did not feel bloated, tired, sick or any of the other things I was told I might feel.
-I did not notice any change in energy or mood and it would have been impossible for me to notice an improvement in health since I already haven't had a cold in a decade.
-So I didn't feel any better BUT I also, didn't feel any worse! Except for an intense increase in my desire to eat "forbidden" foods i.e. all the self-control required to eat this way kind of wore me out. The WAPF way of eating does wear out my will-power, in fact, the WAPF diet makes me feel quite spoiled.

Random Note:

When I started eating the WAPF way, with a focus on nutritionally dense foods like organ meats and anything fermented, I noticed a sharp decline in my cravings for sugar and alcohol. All my adult life I had loved chocolate and enjoyed having a glass of red wine with dinner. When I started drinking lots of bacteria-beverages and eating lots of bacteria-foods, I found I had no desire for chocolate and the thought of having wine was almost gross. A year later, I hardly ever drink or indulge in chocolate anymore, not because I have all kinds of will-power, but because I just don't want those things that much. The WAP Federation explains this phenomenon: our cravings for sugar and alcohol are actually cravings for bacteria. This seems to have been totally accurate in my case.

My conclusion:

The Primal diet is a great way for people to kick the Standard American Diet. It has easy-to-follow rules and instructions and is sold very well. The Weston A Price Foundation--though it has more accurate and more complete information does NOT sell itself well. "Be a Primal BEAST!" is so much sexier than  "Eat a traditional diet full of nutritionally dense foods."

Because the Weston A. Price Foundation is extremely research oriented, they also weigh down some of their followers with Too Much Information. Therefore, the Primal Diet is great for people who just want a better way to eat, but don't want to get into it too much.

That being said, after a while on the Primal Diet or if you find yourself wanting to cheat, EAT FERMENTED FOODS! I think Sisson approves of some of them.

If you just want to dig a little deeper into the subject of nutrition and ancient ways of eating, check out:
westonaprice.org
Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A Price

Ancient Child Spacing Wisdom

Here is what I know about child spacing:

Hunter-Gatherers had their children 3-6 years apart and usually had 4-5 children. 

What this information means to me is that my body evolved to function best having babies every 3-6 years and to have 4-5 children, but that doesn't mean, should I want to have twelve babies in twelve years, that my body could not do it.

However, in the 1920's Weston A. Price spent over a decade traveling the globe looking for the healthiest people in the world (a control group to which he could compare Americans). He recorded the dietary and lifestyle habits of the thirteen or so native groups he considered to be the healthiest people in the world and noted that they followed this ancient pattern of spacing children no closer than three years. He learned that the native people believed that a baby born closer than three years after a sibling was considered to be unhealthy. He looked into this and found evidence enough to convince him of the validity of this concern. In the photographs he includes in his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, one can see the perfectly straight, white teeth of siblings spaced 3 or more years apart and the crooked teeth of the sibling born too soon. Crooked teeth were just one signifier of in-womb nutrition deficiencies though--narrow faces, narrow hips leading to more difficult births, club feet and almost all other birth defects were more common in children born closer than three years.

Price's theory was that pregnancy exhausts a woman's nutrient stores. Nursing a baby further depletes those stores (or slows down the replenishment process). It takes a woman's body several years to replenish and be ready to give everything to a new baby. A baby born only a year or two after a sibling will most likely not be able to receive enough nutrients in the womb to develop properly.

There are many other things that can deplete a woman's biological fitness and make it not wise to have a baby. Children born soon after a woman suffers from a major illness or during a time of famine also showed signs of not getting properly nourished in the womb. This did not mean these babies couldn't survive, it just meant their gene expression was not optimized. 

To put this theory into a real life example: very few Americans today, even the healthiest, will have children with naturally straight teeth. But if any of their children have straight teeth, it the most likely be the couple's first born. This could also be why the first born will have the highest IQ, be the most attractive and the least likely to have a hormonal imbalance. (If a woman's nutrient stores are properly replenished before she gets pregnant again, it is possible for all her children to be attractive with straight teeth and high IQs. Again, this does not mean that babies whose gene expression was not optimized will be stupid and unattractive, it just means that had they been properly nourished in the womb, they would have been even more intelligent and attractive than they are.) I cannot find any examples from people in my life in which this is not the case. Whenever I run into people who look like they have nice, wide mouths and perfectly straight teeth I ask about their mothers' diets before they were born. 100% of the time thus far, the person with the straight-teeth-no-braces had a mom who ate a traditional diet or some strange traditional foods that most people don't eat today or, in one case, fished and ate fish for at least one meal a day every day.

For these reasons, I would never consider having children spaced closer than three years. 

Why did we lose our ancient knowledge and start having more children spaced closer together? The change took place after the middle ages due to religions pressure to not nurse and have large families. Nursing is a natural contraceptive. Native societies nursed their young for 3-6 years. When the church convinced women that nursing was sinful and dirty and babies started being weened either at birth or after a month, infant mortality skyrocketed (thus women had to have more children in order to have one or two survive to adulthood) and women were able to get pregnant again right away. The ancient knowledge, that this would lead to unhealthy offspring, was lost... and crooked teeth, narrow faces, and difficult child-bearing hips became normal.

If you would like to read more about this subject, check out:

Nutrition and Physical Degeneration

Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life

Is Your Child Defiant?

People keep asking me if my son is "acting defiant yet". He is fifteen months old. Standard American Parents have been told that at this age their children will start displaying "defiant behaviors," hence why people keep asking me this.

I haven't been able to answer this question because the idea of defiance makes no sense to me. I don't think about my son's behavior in this way. In order to "be defiant" one must live in a world of control, power and authority. I don't live there.

Here is where I live:

My son has a point of view. His point of view is valid. His desire to keep playing rather than change his diaper is valid. He is not "defiant" when he lets me know that he doesn't want to change his diaper right now. Or, to say it another way, he is not "defiant" when he does not want to do what I want him to do. I am not an authority figure that he must obey. He is not "good" when he obeys me and "bad" when he defies me as the "is he defiant yet?" question implies.

People ask me, "Do you just let your son do whatever he wants then?!"

Again, "let him do" is another phrase from the control paradigm. I don't live there. My son and I have a relationship. I respect him and I don't allow him to disrespect me. All relationships have boundaries and... so does ours. Most of the time our relationship boundaries are effortlessly respected (toddlers who have been treated with respect are actually quite respectful little people). About once a week or so we will run into a situation where one of us is doing something that bothers the other--perhaps he wants to throw beans on the floor and I don't want him to or I want to leave the park and he doesn't want to--at which point I think some version of: "This is what I want. This is what he wants. We don't want the same thing. What can we do to get both of our needs met in this situation?" No one is "defying" anyone. We are just two people trying to get our needs met.

Every now and then I force my son to do something he does not want to do--perhaps change a diaper, perhaps get in the car and go somewhere. When this happens I don't lie about it or hide the reality of the situation from him: when I pick him up and put him in his car seat, he was forced to do something against his will by the bigger, stronger person. We both know it. If he struggles and cries while I strap him in, he is not being defiant. He is rightfully expressing his indignation and frustration with being forced. It is me who needs to apologize, not him.

The rare occasions where I have chosen to use force against my toddler have always been due to a failure in planning on my part. Given proper time to make the decision, adjust to a change in activity and connect with me, I don't think I would have ever used force against my son (and by using force I mean forcing him into his car seat or forcing him to change a poopy diaper, that is the extent that he has ever been forced to do something against his will).

For great reading on this subject, check out:
1,2,3... The Toddler Years: A practical Guide for Parents & Caregivers
Tears and Tantrums: What to do When Babies and Children Cry

Book Review: The Continuum Concept

*If you are interested in this subject (how hunter-gatherers parent) I recommend Hunter-Gather Childhoods: Evolutionary, Developmental and Cultural Perspectives. http://www.amazon.com/Hunter-Gatherer-Childhoods-Evolutionary-Developmental-Perspectives/dp/0202307492/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1356892287&sr=1-1&keywords=hunters+and+gatherers+childhood

Book Review: The Continuum Concept: In Search of Happiness Lost by Jean Liedloff

This book is mostly lame. It is an uneducated woman ranting about what she thinks a tribe of Native Americans think about raising babies. Then she rants about her assumptions that all native peoples were parented exactly like this tribe and this tribe is full of happy babies and all babies would be happier if they were parented this way and there would be world peace, etc. It's a pretty ridiculous book mostly full of emotionally charged and guilt-ridden lectures about things she thinks that have a lot more to do with her own issues than the reality of hunter-gatherer childhoods and lives.

That being said, I found her anecdotes about the Yequana fascinating. Here are almost all of them since most of her book was not actually about the natives:

"One Yequana boy I knew came to me clinging to his mother and screaming at the top of his lungs from a toothache. He was about ten years old and so unfailingly self-reliant and helpful that I had supposed him to be highly disciplined. To my civilized view, he seemed a master of keeping his feelings to himself, and I therefore expected that in the present situation he would be making a terrific effort not to cry or to let his companions see him in such a state. But it was clear that he was making no attempt to suppress his reaction to the pain or his need for the primordial comfort of his mother's arms. No one fussed but everyone understood. A few of his playmates stood by to watch me extract the tooth. They did not have any difficulty in accepting his sudden departure from their gallant ranks into infantile dependence upon his mother; there was no hint of mockery from them, none of shame from him. His mother was there, quietly available, while he submitted to the extraction. He flinched and shrieked even louder several times when I touched the tooth, but he never pulled away or looked angry at me for causing the pain. When at last I worked the tooth free of the gum and stopped the hole with gauze, he was white in the face and went to his hammock exhausted. In less than an hour he reappeared alone, the color back in his cheeks and his equanimity restored. He said nothing, but smiled and poked about nearby for a few minutes to show me he was well, then wandered off to join the other boys."

"Another time it was a man of about twenty: I was doing my best to excise the beginnings of gangrene from his toe by flashlight. The pain must have been excruciating. While offering no resistance to my scraping the wound with his hunting knife, he wept without any sign of restraint on his wife's lap. She, like the little boy's mother, was completely relaxed, not putting herself in her husband's place at all, but serenely accessible, as he buried his face in her body when the pain was greatest or rolled his head from side to side om her lap as he sobbed. The eventual presence of about half the village at the scene did not appear to affect his reaction either toward self-control or dramatization."

"I was present at the first moments of one little girl's working life. She was about two years old. I had seen her with the women and girls, playing as they grated manioc in a trough. Now she was taking a piece of manioc from the pile and rubbing it against the grater of a girl near her. The chunk was too big; she dropped it several times trying to draw it across the rough board. An affectionate smile and a smaller piece of manioc came form her neighbor, and her mother, ready for the inevitable impulse to show itself, handed her a tiny grating board of her own. The little girl had seen the women grating as long as she could remember and immediately rubbed the nubbin up and down her board like the others. She lost interest in less than a minute and ran off, leaving her little grater in the trough and no noticeable inroads on the manioc. No one made her feel her gesture was funny or a "surprise"; the women did, indeed, expect it sooner or later, as they are all familiar with the fact that children do join in the culture, though their approach and pace are dictated by individual forces within themselves. That the end result will be social, cooperative and entirely voluntary is not in question."

"Caretaking, like assistance, is by request only. Feeding to nourish the body and cuddling to nourish the soul are neither proffered nor withheld, but are always available, simply and gracefully, as a matter of course.... Ideally, giving the child an example, or lead, to follow is not done expressly to influence him, but means doing what one has to do normally: not giving special attention to the child but creating the atmosphere of minding one's own business by way of priority, only noticing the child when he requires it and then no more than is useful."

"A Yequana tot would not dream of straying from his mother on a forest trail, for she does not look behind to see whether he is following, she does not suggest there is a choice to be made, or that it is her job to keep them together; she only slows her pace to one he can maintain. Knowing this, the babe will cry out if he cannot keep up for one reason or another."

"It is clear that they [young children] are imitative, cooperative and inclined to preserve the individual and the species, but they also include the specifics as knowing how to care for infants and having the ability to do so. To give the profound maternal urge in little girls no quarter, to channel it off to dolls when there are real infants about, is among other things a serious disservice to the children of the little girl when she grows up. Even before she can understand the instructions from her own mother, a little girl behaves instinctively toward infants int he precise manner required by infants since time immemorial. When she is old enough to consider alternative methods, she is already a long-standing expert in baby care and does not feel there is any advantage in thinking about it. She foes on throughout her childhood taking care of babies whenever she can, in her own family or among her neighbors, and by the time she marries. not only has nothing to discuss with the Doctor Spocks, but also has two strong arms and a repertoire of positions and movements with which babies can be held...."

"The notion of ownership of other persons is absent among the Yequana. The idea that this is "my child" does not exist. Deciding what another person should do, no matter what his age, is outside the Yequana vocabulary of behaviors. There is great interest in what everyone does, but no impulse to influence--let alone coerce--anyone. A child's will is his motive force. There is no slavery--for how else can one describe imposing one's will on another and coercion by threat or punishment?"

[An outsider child was adjusting to the village.] "Sometimes after he started walking, he hit other children. Interestingly, the other children regarded him without emotion; the idea of aggressiveness was so foreign to them that they took it as though they had been struck by a tree branch or from some other natural cause; they never dreamed of striking back, and went on about their games without even excluding Wididi."