The Little Red Hen by Roslyn Ross

Once upon a time there was a Little Red Hen who invited her three best friends—a Dog, a Cat, and a Duck--to come and live with her.

The Little Red was very excited to live with her friends. She thought, “I don’t have to clean my house by myself anymore! How much more fun it will be to clean with my friends than alone! To take care of the garden together and sweep and do dishes together! And it will take so much less time for four of us to care for one house than for each of us to care for our own houses!”

The Little Red Hen did not discuss what she envisioned with her friends. They had no idea what her expectations were. And she had no idea what their expectations were. So after they moved in together, the Little Red Hen was unpleasantly surprised to find that the Dog napped all day, the Cat played with string all day, and the Duck swam in the pool all day. No one did any work but her!

The poor Little Red Hen found herself washing all the dishes—even dishes that she did not dirty. She found herself sweeping the floor all by herself—even when she was not the one who dirtied it. And she worked in the garden all by herself—even though everyone ate the food that grew there. The Little Red Hen felt very disappointed, sad, and frustrated.

So obviously:

She asked her friends for help.

She asserted her needs.

She explained her feelings.

She did all of these.

But her friends just made excuses,

and in a rather manipulative way,

claimed the Hen was being too sensitive,

and their behavior was okay!

The Little Red Hen didn’t know what to do, so nothing changed. She continued to do all the household chores by herself. One day while she was working in the garden she came across a grain of Einkorn wheat. She looooved sourdough bread, and so did her friends.

“Look guys!” She said. “Look what I found! Will you help me plant it?”

“Nooooo!” said the Dog who was about to take a nap.

“Nooooo!” said the Cat who was playing with some string.

“Nooooo!” said the Duck who was swimming in the pool.

“Guys!,” said the Little Red Hen, sighing heavily, “I would really like some help.”

She tried to get through to her friends.

She asserted her needs.

She said, “I’m feeling frustrated you guys!”

She did all of these.

But her friends just made jokes and laughed,

and in a rather dishonest way,

said they would be helping if they could,

but they just had no time today.

The Little Red Hen didn’t know what to do. She was starting to not really like her friends anymore. She planted the wheat all by herself. She watered it every day, cultivated the soil around it to prevent weed growth, and after not too long, a big, beautiful plant was ready to be harvested.

“Look guys!” She said. “The wheat is ready to be harvested! Who will help me so that we can have fresh bread soon?”

“Not me!” said the Dog who was about to take a nap.

“Not me!” said the Cat who was playing with some string.

“Not me!” said the Duck who was swimming in the pool.

The Little Red Hen was feeling so lonely and disappointed that she burst into tears.

She told her friends her feelings.

She asserted her needs.

She said, “This isn’t what I thought living with you guys would be like!”

She did all of these.

Her friends didn’t make eye contact with her;

they looked the other way,

They said that she was being too emotional,

And crying wasn’t okay!

Then they shrugged their shoulders,

and so very hard they tried

to convince the Hen to repress what she was feeling

and keep it all inside.

The Little Red Hen was very disturbed. She knew it was important for her health to cry when she needed to. She knew it was imperative that she express her feelings and needs. And she also knew she could not go on living with the Dog, the Cat, or the Duck. She thought about what she should do while she harvested the wheat and while she ground it into flour. Then she put some of the flour in a cup of water so that it would ferment and develop a rich sour flavor. Each day she added a little more flour and water to the bubbling mass. By the end of the week it was time to add the rest of the flour, make the dough, and bake it. And by the end of the week, the Little Red Hen had decided to try to communicate with her friends one last time.

“Heeeey guys!” She said, “Who wants to help me make bread?!”

“Not me!” said the Dog who was about to take a nap.

“Not me!” said the Cat who was playing with a ball of string.

“Not me!” said the Duck who was swimming in the pool.

The Little Red Hen got angry.

She had too many unmet needs.

She yelled, “You realize I can’t go on like this right?

I am not going to keep supporting you three.”

They got very defensive and said

Oh you have to

They explained they just couldn’t work like she could

They couldn’t do what she could do

The Little Red Hen angrily stormed into the kitchen to put the bread in the oven. She now knew that these animals were not her friends. They were entitled moochers. And she knew what she had to do.

Pretty soon the whole house smelled of freshly baked bread. Of course the dog woke up from his nap and strolled into the kitchen, and the cat stopped playing with her string and flounced into the kitchen, and the duck stopped swimming and waddled into the kitchen.

The Little Red Hen took the bread out of the oven and looked at them.

“Are you hoping to help me eat this bread?” She asked.

“Yes!” said the Dog.

“Yes!” said the Cat

“Oh yeah!” said the Duck.

“I don’t think so!” said the Little Red Hen. “You didn’t help me care for the wheat, or grind the flour, or ferment the dough. You didn’t help me make the bread. So you will not be helping me eat it. And moreover, you have not helped to maintain this house, so you shall not be living in it any longer.”

The Little Red Hen felt instantly relieved. For so long she had not stood up for herself. She cut herself a slice of bread and began to eat it. It was very tasty.

The Vaccine Decision Is a Trust Decision Not a Science Decision

I was asked recently what my position is on vaccines. This is what I know: I am not an expert! I don't have a lab where I can do my own experiments to verify data others are presenting me with. All the reading and documentary-watching in the world won't change that. I am going to have to trust someone else's advice here.

And that actually makes my decision pretty easy.

There is the pharmaceutical industry and the government on one team. And the other team is the Weston A Price Association and Dr. Mendelsohn.

I don't trust the government at all. Nor the pharmaceutical industry. And when it comes to these two, I am extremely wary of possible hidden agendas, especially financial ones.

Following the advice of the Weston A Price Association cured my husband's hair loss, my acne, my menstrual cramps, and gave me a beautiful, healthy baby who never had cradle cap, crusty eye, or spit up. And that's just in my immediate family. I could go on and on about the evidence I have seen with my own eyes about the benefits of following their diet for my family and friends. The Weston A Price Association does not profit from telling me to not vaccinate. (They do profit from telling me to take cod liver oil, but this post isn't about that.)

Following the advice of Dr. Mendelsohn, who wrote my favorite medical book, How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor, has saved me from a ton of parental worry, many pointless trips to the doctor, for not just my son but my husband and me too. Moreover, my grandfather was a doctor, and he gave this book to my mother in the 1980's. He said the medical industry was headed in a bad direction and no longer to be trusted. Dr. Mendelsohn and my grandfather have no hidden agenda that I can imagine either.

When it comes down to the only decision I get to make – which set of experts to trust – what decision I should make is clear.

It's terrifying – I want my son to be vaccinated against every horror life has to throw at him! And it's hard to reconcile my identity as a science-whorshipper with that of an unvaccinator. So I have to constantly remind myself of what Ayn Rand warned: Science isn't the science I love unless it's done on the free market. The meme that unvaccinators are anti-science is just advertising from two untrustworthy sources – big pharma and the government.

Personal anecdote: My vaccine free child is now six years old. He has had one fever in his entire life (when he was one and teething), he had diarrhea once that lasted a day when he was two, had a cough that was very slight and lasted a few weeks when he was three ... and that's it. He is gorgeously healthy. I don't worry when he plays with sick kids because I know he wont get sick, or if he does it will be nothing more than a runny nose. He also doesn't have any strange issues that doctors excuse as genetic, like eczema. I have two vaccinated nephews on my husband's side that have eczema (it runs in his family). My son's pediatrician - who suffers from eczema herself - says that she believes vaccines are a major trigger for eczema and that if you have eczema in your family, you should not be vaccinated.

Note: I studied nutrition pretty intensely for five years before I considered myself qualified to judge who to trust in that arena. Here is a link to a series of posts I wrote about my path to determining that Weston A Price diet is the one to follow:
http://roslynross.blogspot.com/2011/08/thinking-womans-pregnancy-before.html

The other thing that makes me lean on the "no vaccines" side of the fence is this study (link below) showing that 12% of children in Ulster County, NY have eczema, but only 1% of unvaccinated children from there have eczema. 8% of children have allergies, but only 2% of unvaccinated children... 

It's not this study itself that makes me question vaccines. It's that these studies aren't done all the time by interested scientists. If vaccines were about real science, the scientists would be passionate about finding out whether vaccines are actually ideal or not. They would be open to questioning. They would be open to being wrong.

Businessmen wanting to make money, on the other hand, are not interested in learning more about vaccines and their consequences for human health, they are only interested in convincing/coercing you to buy their product. My experience with vaccines has been all the latter. This makes me think that vaccines studies are done by $cientists, not scientists. 

https://www.icandecide.org/ican_press/ny-vaccinated-vs-unvaccinated-study-reveals-staggering-statistics-which-the-ny-doh-refuses-to-acknowledge/?fbclid=IwAR36kcEVzRL7wS8OlJIxVsEMvkuFOWeH2aVgbXwGtVzXfiAqi0kvJbm4TJM

Anders's Homeschool Curriculum age 3

Anders is 3 1/2 and knows all of his letter and letter-sounds. I simply ask him each day if he would like to work on his letters with me and he almost always says, "Yes!" We have been doing the Hooked on Phonics program for preschoolers (that I bought on Amazon.com) and it only took about six weeks for us to finish the first book (all the capital letters) and he has loved it. We are now about halfway through the second book (lower case letters).

He also has been going to Kumon for math since March. All we do thus far is count. Again, I just ask him if he would like to do some math and he almost always says, "Yes!" No pressure from me or fake enthusiasm. Likewise when it's time to go to the Kumon center. It is 100% his choice to go or not. He chooses to go almost every time. I think only once or twice in the last month he has said he was too tired to go, and it has always been fine with me.

All of Anders's work is kept next his bed, so I usually ask him if he wants to work right before we go to bed. This has been a wonderful experience as we cozy up and cuddle while working and then he goes to sleep.

Anders tried out 4 different gymnastics classes before finding one that he liked and wants to go to consistently. He tried out 2 different swimming classes and hated them and has decided to wait until he is older to learn to swim. Ditto with karate. He liked the first music class he tried so we have stuck with that and he continues to go though I notice the teacher is very authoritative, and I don't like the class very much, so after this next month I plan to ask him if he will try a new class. He loves going to My Gym which is just a indoor gymnastics-like gym for kids with free play. He also enjoys going on hikes with me, errands, and watching construction sites.

Most of his day is spent doing with me whatever I am doing or doing his own work--which involves various building projects in the back yard, sometimes "fighting fires," and generally a 40-minute sit down at my desk where he "answers emails," makes real phone calls, "writes letters," and "writes books." He also takes care of his "baby girl" or his "baby sister," cleans--he is actually quite good at mopping, and "organizes."

What I hear from strangers (and I agree) is that he is extremely well-spoken, independent, confident, happy, and outgoing. And cute. I get asked if he models at least once a day :) People are often terrified of the "freedom" I "give" him around cars, pools, in crowds, and when climbing but he has never shown me that he is not competent at making safe choices in any of these areas.

*Anders initially started with Kumon math and reading but the Hooked on Phonics program was far superior and seemed less commercially motivated. I will post soon about the Kumon reading program which I swear must accept money from the corn and sugar industries….

*When I read to Anders it is usually from whatever book I am reading or something like Little House on the Prarie. I continue to avoid almost all kids books.

*Anders has a very active imagination and will turn anything into what he wants it to be. He does not need toys to be realistic at all. For example, he brings his "baby sister" with us whenever we go anywhere in the car. He buckles her in before he gets into his carseat. She is a squirt gun.

*Anders has never been exposed to superheroes or magic. He has commented to me that he wishes he could fly like a bird and I have agreed that it would be awesome. If you ask him he will tell you he is going to work in construction when he is bigger or as a fireman. The imaginary games he plays almost always involve these two things--what he thinks he will be doing in the future. He also talks often about being a father himself one day (and is sad that he does not get to be pregnant) and shows an interest in caring for babies and dolls. 

The Next Step in Women's Liberation is Actually Children's Liberation: Empower Women By Empowering Children!

I am very grateful for all the things Betty Friedan (author of The Feminine Mystique) did so that I was raised in a less sexist world. That being said, her book is pretty bad for two main reasons. First, Friedan writes emotionally rather than rationally. She does not appeal to my rational brain but rather attempts to manipulate me emotionally by painting a very dramatic portrait that pins every problem ever on women staying home with the kids. Friedan has to resort to this style of emotional fluff (that I find very boring) because of her failure to research more thoroughly her subject which led to her failure to grasp the bigger picture. She needed to study the history of women's rights for two thousand years, not one hundred. She needed to study the history of family life for at least a thousand years to understand why women are home with the kids. Then she would have written a much more interesting book.

Social roles are fascinating. Playing the part of "woman" or "man" rather than being yourself, the human propensity for living an inauthentic life based around trying to be someone else's idea of good, is a common human problem, not a female one. But Friedan doesn't address the human problem of role playing, she just attacks one role played by one group of people in one short time period. And even in her time period men suffered from the exact same inauthentic, self-less existence that comes from playing a role--their role was "breadwinner". Their role demanded that they be "strong" and never cry. They couldn't like pink or cuddling. A role is a role. It's damaging to the human psyche because it is a role--what the role dictates doesn't matter that much. 

Friedan's failure to examine the big picture is perhaps why she ends up arguing (rather stupidly) that all satisfaction in life comes from working outside the home. For sure one's productive work is a huge part of one's life satisfaction, but there is a big difference between the work people do that they are intrinsically motivated to do and find deeply satisfying and the work they do for their survival. Most people will never find a way to combine the two. Moreover, most people in most places in most of human history had to spend the majority of their time focused on their survival, and not soul-satisfying passion-work. That is life. To have milk (up until 100 years ago) you had to milk a cow every day twice a day 365 days a year. You think that isn't drudgery?! Until very recently there weren't a million jobs from which to chose, most people were going to farm or hunt or gather. Learning how to deal with the basic drudgery of survival was a major life skill that everyone learned in childhood. And even in Friedan's time period I can't imagine that most men's work was super intellectually stimulating, that all men just hopped out of bed in the morning excited to go do their jobs.

But moving on to what I think is actually more interesting.

If Friedan had done more research she may have also realized that even if all women worked outside the home SOMEONE has to take care of the kids. Friedan thinks it should be the government. She advocates state sponsored daycare. On moral grounds I cannot agree with that as that means I have a "right" to have as many babies as I want, and you are forced to pay for their babysitting whether you want to or not. Moreover, state-sponsored daycare means the government is raising all the kids--no thank you!

There is also the problem of health. To maximize the health of our children, they should be spaced 4-5 years apart and breastfed for 3-5 years each. Pumping milk is largely a lie as it will cause decreased milk supply and lead to a failure to produce enough milk. What this means is that daycare and women in the workforce equals unhealthy kids. And unhealthy women as women are also less likely to get cancer if they breast feed for longer. Only for a tiny amount of time in the history of the human race have babies been breast fed for only a few months. (In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Juliet nursed until 3!) Which is to say: it is not the "feminine mystique" that convinced me I should stay home with my children, it is reality. Because health is my highest value, I cannot choose otherwise but to "stay home" because that is the only option our society gives me.

And THAT is the problem.

Someone has to raise the kids + kids should be spaced 4-5 years apart + kids should be breastfed for 3-5 years DOES NOT HAVE TO MEAN women need to stay home with the kids for 5 to 20 years depending on how many kids they have.

If Friedan had looked back far enough, she would have noticed that in many places and times women did not have to stay home with the kids because the kids did not have to stay home. It wasn't until the Victorians decided that children needed to be removed from the world (so that they would never learn about sex, drinking, and gambling) that women got stuck in the house (because someone had to stay home to police the kids who had to stay home). Being stuck in the house SUCKS. For women AND FOR CHILDREN. The woman's role that Friedan has such a big problem with was a poor solution to the real problem--the removal of children from the world.

I have a great lecture about this on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQuMWgH7Ibk

The solution isn't daycare and school and women in the workforce. The solution is a change in the way we live and especially in the way we think about children--a society and workforce designed for people of all ages. Fascinating to me that we make so many laws to make buildings accommodating for the handicapped but never children. In many Latin American malls it is simply assumed children will be there--breakables are kept on high shelves and every store has a box of toys. How strange to think of a world in which children are actually considered! And welcomed!

The next step in women's liberation is actually children's liberation. Because until children are liberated from their roles as pets and slaves who need to spend all day being policed in schools, someone will have to do that policing. And that someone will have to be women if the woman values health.

Other notes:
-Her research led her to conclude that in the post-war period women got stupider. My research has shown me that ALL Americans got stupider, men too. Nutrition and physical degeneration could be to blame. But also our methods of schooling and parenting and also the mass media. The point is: I don't think it was just women that got stupider.
-Parenting is exhausting when done alone with no time off, not just when sexism is present
-It's crazy to me that Friedan thinks all the bored housewives *must* go back to school for intellectual stimulation. I find school programs so restrictive compared to the freedom of being able to study whatever grabs me! I get to chose my own reading list! And read for as long as I want on no one's schedule but mine! I have read a book a week since my son was born. I puzzle over huge philosophical issues all day while I am home. My husband was cracking up the other day because I gave him a lecture on how the current science of consciousness applies to epistemology while I was cleaning the fridge. He is jealous of all the reading I have time for that he does not have time for.

Success Takes Generations: Why You May Want To Do the Same Job as Your Parents

We know it takes a certain number of hours (let's say 10,000) to develop excellence in any skill. But skills only account for part of what makes for a successful career. Ecosystem knowledge (who you know, how that social system works) is just as important.

That is the big shock that most twenty-two-year-olds are in for. All the skill in the world does you very little good without knowledge of the ecosystem and the people within it.

Most people know that in Hollywood "who you know" matters more than talent. But Hollywood is not some special industry where that is the case. That's the case every industry. The first ten rungs on the ladder are all merit based, yes. But after that, when two equal players are vying for the same part, success becomes more relationship based. Building relationships in any given industry takes time. Let's say ten years of time.

My point is that outlying success takes 10k hours of skill development and 10k hours of ecosystem development.

Simply by virtue of spending eighteen years sharing a house with you, your child will have a certain number of hours in the skills you have and a certain number of hours in your ecosystem. This is a huge leg up in whatever field it happens to be that you work in.

For example, I didn't try to acquire skills in my parents' lines of work. I never assumed that I would be following in their footsteps; I focused on school. Even so, I knew so much about wine (my mother's line of work) that I taught a class on it to my peers when I was in college. Later my husband, after reading countless books, but having no real world experience, decided he wanted to be a farmer. As a child I had hated my father's line of work (farming) so much that I specifically avoided learning about it. And yet, after my husband and I moved to a farm, it turned out that I knew quite a lot about farming.

I wish a school counselor had sat me down when I was eighteen and said:

"You have two paths ahead of you. In one, you choose to work in wine, a field where you already know more than 99.9% of the other people your age in the world. You will find a career in wine natural and easy because you have grown up in that ecosystem. You already know what part of that world you like the most, and you know the people in that world you need to know to get where you want to go. Should you choose a career in wine, you will find success naturally and quickly, depending on the hours you put in, of course.

"The other path open to you is one of exploration. You go to college, study different things until one catches your fancy, and then set out to acquire knowledge and skills in that field. Four to ten years and much debt later you will have the skills, but you won't know anyone or how that job works in the real world. So you will spend what is left of your twenties and all of your thirties acquiring the social network and ecosystem knowledge required to do your chosen line of work. If you work hard, and develop the right relationships, you will be successful, but much later and with much more strife than if you had chosen to work in wine.

"Do you like this other career SO much more than wine that you are willing to work until your fifties for career success rather than attain it in you thirties? Or to put another way, do you hate wine so much, that you would be happy to leave your family, your home town, your friends, your social network, your world, to pursue the life of a pioneer?

"If you are super passionate about something else, and it absolutely must be your line of work rather than your hobby, then by all means go do it, but if you could be happy working in wine, you will have a much easier life, you will find career success at a much younger age, and you will be much closer to your family.

"Lastly, by the time you are thirty there is a high statistical probability that you will want to start a family. Should you have attained career success in your twenties, you will have much more time and energy to focus on your children. And a lot more money. Are you so passionate about being a pioneer in a new field that you are willing to sacrifice having children or you are willing to have children, but not have a lot of time or money to put into them?"

I am not saying that kids should do what their parents do or that parents should push their kids to do so, just that if it works out that way, it would be very advantageous.

Many parents push their kids to do something different than what they did because "they want a better life" for their kids. But here's the thing (and I have told this story before):

I met a guy the other day named Matt. He never went to college. He was raised by a single mother, an immigrant. She worked a minimum wage job and could barely feed him when he was a kid. He quit school at sixteen. He is now forty years old and owns thirty-two convenience stores. He makes a fantastic living. How did he pull that off? Hint: He was not a pioneer.

His mother worked at a 7-11 for his entire childhood. She couldn't afford daycare, and they didn't know anyone, so he hung out at her 7-11 after school. He knew how to run the place by the time he was twelve, started working there himself when he was fourteen. He saved up and bought his first 7-11 when he was twenty-five. Killed it. Most people who run 7-11's don't understand how to run them, he told me. He does.

The lesson: If you are a struggling pioneer don't assume your child will struggle as hard as you. You paved the way. Your child has been paying attention. Invite your child to your life. He will do it better. Don't assume your career is a dead end or you life isn't a worthy one to invite your child to join. If you can just keep it together, despite the insane difficulty of your life, your children will do great.

Gladwell points out in Outliers that it is very rare for children who grew up in poverty to become very wealthy, but it is very common for them to make it to the middle class. Children who grow up in the middle class are the ones who are more likely to become very wealthy. Which is to say: A truly successful career may require three generations to make.

I have noticed this in Hollywood. Failed actors have children who are working actors and grandchildren who are stars. I'm not arguing that this is The One Rule; there will always be exceptions, but this idea that building something amazing takes more than one generation was common knowledge for farmers in the time of Laura Ingles Wilder.

The pioneers were going to have it rough, and they knew that going in. They knew that to break in virgin land takes a decade. Want a tree to shade your house? Another decade. But they also knew that if they did the work, their children and grandchildren would have it easier than they did. The farm would get better over time.

If they moved to a farm far away, in a climate they knew nothing about, it was even harder. Move far enough away and you don't even know what native foods to eat, dig up, preserve, and avoid, nor do you know the dangers of the area. For example, Scandinavians could more easily succeed in Wisconsin than Florida, the climate in Wisconsin at least being similar to what they knew.

Not saying they couldn't succeed anywhere. Just saying: How hard do you want it to be? Is it worth it?

Doing a career other than what your parents did is like being a pioneer.

It may be unfortunate that we idealize, as a culture, "getting out" of our hometowns and not following in Daddy's footsteps. When we are choosing our careers, we might want to think a lot more long-term than we are currently thinking.

When we see a family "outlier" we are not noticing the generations of focused people that came before him and are responsible, in part, for his success. It's the same with family failures. No one exists in a bubble. We are all bred and raised by specific people in specific circumstances, and we turn out the way we turn out for a reason. Failures, like successes, take generations to make.

UPDATE

Decided to look up the pattern of success in Donald Trump's family. Here it is:

The first generation came with Fred and Elizabeth, immigrants from Germany, no experience in real estate. Fred worked as a barber and an inn manager. He saved, bought land, and put an inn on it. Did that several times. Then switched to houses and apartments. By the time he died he owned the house his family lived in, five vacant lots in the Queens area, and had fourteen mortgages on other properties all totaling a net worth of about 500k in today's dollars.

His son, Fred, worked at the family's construction sites from a young age and took over his father's business. (The other son, John, went to college and did fine as an electrical engineer, though he had children there is nothing about them on Wikipedia, so he disappeared into obscurity.) So Fred, second generation, is still scrappy, but has a focus, unlike his dad. He marries a maid, builds up the family business, pulls some interesting/possibly immoral deals, and does well enough that his children attend private school. His children do fine for the most part, though all end up divorced. He was a super hard working second generation guy, though the focus was definitely business and not health or relationships.

One of his children is Donald who, third generation that he was, takes his family's business big. Donald has another brother that also works in the family business and does very well financially but no kids. They have a sister who becomes a judge and does fine. Her one child becomes psychologist. They are still a scrappy family, not intellectual, not what you'd call a "good" family. All of them, every single one, is divorced. And it's not like real estate is their sole focus. Donald (and his most successful child, Ivanka) does reality television and writes books in addition to real estate. Ivanka has clothing line in addition to real estate. So no idea where this family is headed but the point remains: I think outlying success takes more than one generation.

Lack of Motivation and Entitlement Among the Wealthy -- Would a Baby Fix It?

I find the general lack of motivation and attitudes of entitlement of the extremely wealthy fascinating. But I think about it very differently than most.

I was raised by poor people. I thought it rather sucked, and got a full scholarship to a private boarding school and then a full scholarship to a private university and then worked for insanely wealthy people in Los Angeles. At this point in my life I have actually spent as much time around extremely wealthy people as I have around extremely poor people.

Here is what I think about "lack of motivation":
-The healthier I get psychologically, the less motivated I am. I was always very driven as a child--but driven by necessity (I hated being poor) but also driven by insecurity (if only I achieved x, I would finally be good/happy/pretty/rich enough). I no longer suffer from either of these issues (that much) and consequently, my drive has nosedived.
-The better I get at coming into the present moment, at listening to my body, at being in touch with my real needs, at not judging myself, the more time I spend resting and relaxing.
-When I am in Nicaragua I note how lazy most animals are--cows, chickens, dogs, cats. They spend a little time eating, a little time playing, and a lot of time laying around. I notice this about my neighbors. Where we live in Nicaragua it is not that hard to build a little hut and get some food. There is a Ted Talk about this called Life is Easy. It is. If you don't mind third world poverty, you can spend most of your life just hanging out.
-So consequently, when I think about people with so much wealth that they don't actually have to work, when I talk to my friends and they tell me about the lack of motivation they are suffering from, my answer is: Do less. Lay around more.
-At lunch today I told my friend this and she said, "But then I will never be the best in the world at something." Which brings us to entitlement.

Here is what I know about "entitlement":
-The healthier I get psychologically, the less I care about success. I am going to die one day. And whatever "success" I find, I don't get to take it with me. However much money, however many awards, however much approval I get from friends or strangers--it doesn't matter very much. I am still going to die. I won't care how many people attend my funeral because I will be dead. I won't care if I left behind books or movies that people love for centuries because again, I will be dead. The more I come to terms with that reality, the less future success I need and the more interested I am in enjoying life right now.
-The irony is that when you stop caring about being successful, you get to fart around doing those stupid things you kind of enjoy. You have no motivation to work and achieve so you basically rest and play. Because playing is fun, you do it enough that, little by little, you become pretty damn good at whatever is "play" for you. And you find success. But strangely, you don't really care anymore, because that's not what you were after. And there are all these people who are whipping themselves into being the best in the world at x who can't even compete on your level--because they are working and you are playing.
-This is why life can seem so unfair. One person is killing himself working sooooo hard to achieve x and another is just farting around and achieving it. Even if the person killing himself does achieve x, it doesn't make him happy--and that makes him even more upset! He killed himself for this and he's still not good enough or rich enough or whatever. He climbed to the top of the mountain and can only see more mountains. And on top of that there are a million guys just like him yapping at his heels. He has been sucked into playing the game of thrones. After all that hard work, he doesn't even get to rest. He's got a full time job just keeping his spot at the top of the mountain, a spot that doesn't even make him happy like he thought it would. But definitely a spot to which he feels entitled. After all, he sacrificed everything to get it.
-Entitlement is not an attitude problem. It's the tragedy people suffer from when they "should on themselves," when they make themselves do what they didn't want to do and desperately need payment for their misery. Feeling entitled to a certain result means you are seeking the wrong result  for the wrong reasons.

Everything I have read thus far has led me to the following conclusions:
-We are all working too hard and need to rest more.
-Chasing success will never make us happy.
-Playing will.
-And if playing doesn't make us successful, at least it will have been fun.
-Because fun is the only success.
-We're all on the Titanic. There are no lifeboats. Whether you're the captain or just someone dancing to the music, you're going down.

That's me buying the story we are sold by today's priests, the "mental health" dealers. But part of me can't help but think that they are totally wrong. The purpose of status and wealth (evolutionarily) was procreation. What if the unmotivated wealthy are just ...  childless? That's what the money is for. That's why your parents subconsciously worked so hard to get it. That's what success is for--to attract the highest quality mate you possibly can and then breed as many babies as you possibly can. 

Humans can (and do) reject their biological purpose. But if you find yourself purposeless, instead of pursuing more empty joy, try biological fulfillment. 

Attachment Parenting Makes Moms Miserable: Why RIE Is Better

On Facebook I was recently asked: "I'm curious if you would mind sharing what you find problematic with attachment parenting?"

My answer is too long to put there, so I will put it here!

First: I think Attachment Parenting is better than Standard American Parenting. That being said, if you are going to switch from one person's How To Parent List to anther's, I think RIE is a lot better than AP. But AP is the popular one, and RIE is the one no one has ever heard of. That kills me.

Second: My first exposure to AP was the horrific Continuum Concept. This emotionally manipulative, factually inaccurate book was traumatizing to ME--and I have studied hunter gatherers and could scoff at the writer's constant claims that All Humans In History were parented (and meant to be parented) This One Way. Moreover I have studied nutrition and could scoff at the writer's claim that babies spit up out of the "stress of not being carried" rather than modern diet. My biggest issue was her claim that baby-wearing solves all problems.

First the facts: baby wearing was not practiced by all hunter gatherers. Far from it. It was practiced by tribes who lived in places where putting the baby down involved the baby getting bit by something and dying. Like the jungle, for example. And even in the tribes where babies had to be carried, the mother didn't single-handedly carry her baby all day. Carried babies spent an average of 4 hours a day in the arms of someone else. In some tribes it was 8 hours.

Now my issue: Tribal people who have perfect posture and beautiful bodies and straight teeth with no braces--their bodies can handle carrying babies all day every day. Likewise, their healthy babies can be carried for the first two years of their lives, and still go on to develop healthy bodies due to their fabulous nutritional status, and their exercise-plentiful and furniture free lifestyle.

I think baby-wearing is a tragedy when it comes to the physical development of babies from mothers who show signs of physical degeneration (crooked teeth, deviated septum, poor posture, cavities). Dr. Emmi Pikler's research about proper body development (see RIE.org a tiny book called Bulletin #14) is far more relevant and important for current American babies. A mother could follow RIE principles for her baby's physical development and baby wear, but only if the mother's body is capable of doing so without being damaged.

Today, especially in America, we have seen a lot of physical degeneration. Most women I see carrying their babies look like they are hurting their bodies. Only mothers who have straight teeth without ever having had braces and perfect posture, who eat a WAPF diet or something similar, and feel little to no physical discomfort while baby wearing, should even consider carrying their babies the way AP advocates.

For babies the first two years of their physical development are crucial, especially if they are Western babies suffering from physical degeneration due to Western eating habits. Dr. Emmi Pickler shows that babies should never be propped, never be put into a position they can get themselves into. No belly time ever. No sitting until they can get themselves into a seated position. No holding baby's hands and helping him to walk. No walkers or bouncers. Flat strollers and carseats. Back problems start in infancy because our parenting methods prevent our babies from developing their cores. Many physical development issues (irregular head shapes, one leg longer than the other, weak hips) are actually parenting-method issues. Her report is only 30 or 40 pages long and is one of the most important things any Western parent can read. Moreover, there are many books written about the proper carrying of babies so as to encourage healthy spine and core development. As far as I know, AP does not talk about this. They simply instruct: carry, carry, carry, without the warning that carrying, done incorrectly, is damaging for both mother and baby.

It saddens me that AP mothers believe they will hurt their babies if they do not wear them! So not true! Baby-wearing is irrelevant to developing secure attachment! There are so many ways to meet an infant's needs and to raise a securely attached infant! Children need a happy mom and connection with their mom far more than they need to be carried. Moreover, I have seen many miserable babies forced into being carried when they wanted to roam. I have seen babies struggle to get free and then resign themselves to their fate of captivity. This is very against my ideas about respectful parenting. Carrying should only happen by mutual consent.

Third: The main issue I have with AP is a focus on rules rather than authenticity. I have met too many miserable AP moms. AP moms, in my experience, tend to be very passionate Good Moms who are Doing It Right but who are miserable. This has led me to the conclusion that AP focuses too much on meeting the child's needs and not enough on finding ways for both the parent and child to get their needs met.

Fourth: The emphasis in AP is responding quickly to a crying baby. Not connecting with the child. Not being present with him when he is happy and sad. Nope, just make sure you drop everything every time he is sad. Again I will add here that Dear Parents: Caring for Infants with Respect does a way better job of describing respectful parent-infant interaction AND focuses on how both baby and mom can get their needs met, rather than just baby.

Fifth: AP demands that you breastfeed. I can get behind this one! Unless you don't want to. Because I can't get behind ever making yourself miserable to be someone else's idea of good. For sure it is healthier for your baby to breastfeed. And you--you will be less likely to get breast cancer. But otherwise, out with the rules. Ditto with their prescribed hours of bonding after the baby is born and co-sleeping. I love sleeping with my son. And a recent study showed that it is good for his heart. But it was also best for me as I could not sleep with him in the other room--I woke up all night to check on him. It worked much better for me to have him close. And like I said, I looooooove sleeping with him. It brings me so much joy! But if it didn't bring me joy, if it caused strife in my marriage, if he were a kicker or a snorer--I wouldn't hesitate to request that he move into the other room. And I wouldn't think for an instant that this would harm our relationship. We have a very secure relationship--not because I ever wore him and not because he is near me while I am sleeping, but because of how we interact when we are awake.

It is absolutely possible to create a secure attachment with a baby who is not carried, not breastfed, sleeps in his own room, and who spent his first hours of life alone and miserable. Therefore AP drives me crazy! Secure attachment is created by respect for one another's needs and sensitivity to one another's needs.

The point is to have an amazing life. Children need happy parents! They need people to model how to get their needs met. And by making sure you get your needs met, you model for your child how to assert his own needs.

Anyway, I am glad that AP moms are breastfeeding, co-sleeping, bonding, and responding to their babies when they cry. I just wish the focus were on authenticity and mutual respect rather than a new definition of Good Mom.

Health Note - Reader Cures Her Own Migraines

I was emailing recently with a reader who mentioned she had had migraines. I asked her about them and here is what she wrote:

I actually have my migraines completely under control, I'm happy to report.  I did have four during my pregnancy - all during the second trimester - but only one of them was really bad; the rest were all quite manageable.  I am completely gluten-free and can only tolerate minuscule amounts of grass-fed dairy, which I found out after adopting an anti-inflammatory diet (Paleo/primal/WAPF).  Diet combined with magnesium supplementation daily and regular chiropractic care keep me migraine-free and have for a few years (with the exception of pregnancy).

I am so excited to be finding such inspiring, proactive people through this blog!

BLM & The Dream of Harrison Bergeron Style Equality: Our Education Goals Have Not Changed Since Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development in 1958

I just finished Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development. The huge claim of this book is that morality is synonymous with justice and that justice is synonymous with equality. The purpose of this book is to argue that moral education (which for him is justice education) should be part of public education. Kohlberg insists that justice education is not value re-education of other people's children because what he is interested in is the growth of the concept of justice in the child (the complexity or level of abstraction of the child's thinking about justice) rather than any particular idea of justice. Fascinating idea!

But then--

This has to happen in school because Kohlberg does not think anyone will think deeply or clearly unless they are "stimulated into it." If I did agree that children need to be "stimulated" into thinking deeply, I would still find it annoying that Kohlberg assumes that school is better at achieving this than the child's parents or life in general. Moreover, I find it annoying that Kohlberg thinks school even can accomplish this since my experience in school was that it was unable to stimulate (force) those who were not interested in thinking deeply to do so, and it was a cumbersome waste of time for those of us who were going to think deeply anyway.

But this is neither here or there because Kohlberg's arguments, for anyone paying attention, are all subterfuge. Kohlberg absolutely wants value re-education of other people's children. He wants America to buy into his idea of equality (Harrison Bergeron style socialism). He wants to accomplish this through the education system.

This repetitive, contradictory, and boring mess of a book should have been a concise report on a very small (and disorganized) study that Kohlberg did on 50 similar boys and how their concept of justice developed over a decade or two and how that compares to 1 philosopher Kohlberg likes. Of course, it would have been dismissed instantly, since Kohlberg completely failed to control any variables, but at least it would have been clear. Instead this book tries to be Piaget's theory of development as applied to the concept of justice. And since Kohlberg draws on many fascinating ideas and even appears intelligent at times, the reader who is not paying attention may mistake Kohlberg's mess for actually proving something. Kohlberg does not have the research to back up the conclusions-for-all-of-mankind that he makes and I seriously hope, for his sake, that this book was a giant attempt at manipulation via distraction because otherwise he is a just a terd who should not be taken seriously who wrote a book called, "No one should be allowed to be prettier than anyone else!"

Kohlberg claims that he is not arguing for any one specific idea of justice, but since all the level 6 philosophers he includes agree on what is just... he is. (And note that by "all" the level 6 philosophers I do not mean the claims Kohlberg makes about Martin Luther King or Jesus, but rather the one or two who participated in his study which I have a sneaking suspicion were both Kohlberg.)

Kohlberg's theory of justice is equality. He says, "The rationale for government is the preservation of the rights of individuals, that is, of justice." Let me clarify this since Kohlberg struggles so much with clarity: You have a right to be as smart as your neighbor! You have a right to be as pretty as your neighbor! Your government is here to make sure equality prevails! To make sure no one has the freedom to be better at anything than anyone else! Your government will preserve your rights to have no freedoms whatsoever!

It entertained me when Kohlberg tackled Objectivists on page 156 (I believe this is what he was doing, he never stated it explicitly): "The metaethical questioning that appears typically as a transitional phase in the movement from Stage 4 to Stage 5 does not always lead directly to stage 5 thinking. Instead, it may generate a number of ideologies whose common feature is the exaltation of the self... Although our work suggests that such college student ideologies are usually short-lived... there is no doubt that under some social conditions such ideologies become stabilized orientations... At their best, they celebrate a moral conscience little distinguishable in its principles from the stage 3 or 4 moral sense but held as the sacred possession of an inner self whose moral integrity comes before both community welfare and rational discussion."

Lol. All rational people know that community welfare is best served by making everyone wear a mask so no one is prettier than anyone else!

According to Kohlberg, you cannot "move past stages 3 and 4" unless you:
1. buy into Rawl's veil of ignorance and
2.  agree that the highest value above all, is human life and that preservation of that life is the standard of morality in all situations. "We know that it is alright to be dishonest and steal to save a life because it is just, because one person's right to life comes before another person's right to property."

This drove me insane while reading this book. Over and over in this book we are told that property is subordinate to human life. Never is it mentioned that to create property requires the time of a human life and to take his property is take his time--which means, to enslave him. You cannot get to stages 5 and 6 unless you agree that enslaving in order to save a life is moral.

The other thing that drove me insane was the failure to question in any form the veil of ignorance theory. (ISN'T THAT WHAT ADVANCED COMPLEX THINKING IS ABOUT KOHLBERG?!!!!?????)

Kohlberg's sorry excuse for a study revolves around the Heinz dilemma: Your wife is dying. You cannot get enough money for the drug that will save her. Time is running out. Should you steal the drug to save her?

Kohlberg says: absolutely, and every highly evolved moral person agrees, that stealing the drug to save her is the right thing to do. Because the preservation of life comes before property and you must chose to live in a society without knowing what role you will play (i.e., in this scenario, you may be cast as the wife and in that case you would definitely want your husband to steal the cure).

So first, I hate this moral dilemma because in real life, there are always other solutions (like making a deal with the guy who has the drug to work off the cost).

Second, let's clarify this question. (Yay! This is what makes books like this fun for me!) The moral dilemma is:
-Would you enslave an enemy so that your wife may live? (Of course! Though I would not argue that it was just.)
-Would you agree to be a slave so that you may live? (Ummmm, for how long?)
-Would you enslave your husband for ten years so that you may live? (Is he okay with that?)
-Would you enslave your child for fifty years so that you may live? (Nope, I'd rather die.)
-Would you enslave the children of 100 strangers for fifty years so that you may live? (Hmmmm)
-Would you enslave 100 of your closest friends and family for fifty tears so that you may live? (Definitely not. I'd rather die.)

My point is this: The veil of ignorance combined with the preservation of life as the highest moral value is incorrect. Yes, we all want to live. But there is a limit. There are prices we are unwilling to pay. It's easy to enslave a stranger. It's hard to enslave those you love. But I would rather live in a world where the moral idea is that we do not, in fact, enslave each other. We can understand that desperate people  make desperate choices without claiming that it is moral or without condoning it legally.

Let's call this the Darth Vader Syndrome. In the Star Wars story Anakin Skywalker kills an untold number of people, because that is, he believes, the only way to save Padme from certain death. But when Padme finds out what he has done "for her" she doesn't appreciate his gift. Moreover, he has become a bad guy in order to save her life. Rawls theory has to be wrong. Anything that requires immoral action has to be wrong. It's not that I am an impractical moralist. It's the humans know deep down that the ends are never worth the means, no matter how practical those means seam.

My favorite chapter was "The Question of the Seventh Stage." These folks are post-morality. They contemplate the questions: Why be moral? The universe isn't. They renounce their demand for justice. They have to find a new reason to live and new way to face death. Which, I mean, if that's the 7th stage, doesn't it kinda kill Kohlberg's whole argument? Kohlberg claims that all level 7 folks find their answer is selfless servitude to people suffering.

In closing: What I take away from this book is that human beings are a obsessed with justice. They will do immoral things in the name of their desire for justice. If I want the freedom to be anything, to be myself, to strive, to work, to keep that for which I strove, those with whom I live must agree that it is fair, just, and right for me to be or do so, otherwise, they will rob, enslave, and punish me. Because humans are obsessed with justice.

But of course humans are obsessed with this abstract idea because they are repressing what they are really feeling and needing which is usually compassion, acceptance, and visibility. So instead of obsessing over justice, read NonViolent Communication!

My favorite quotes:

"Why is freedom to be one-self good--by what standard is it a good thing?" page 72

"Anyone who understands the values of life and property recognizes that life is morally more valuable than property." page 123

"The fundamental norm of relationship between people is justice: that is, reciprocity and equality." page 166 (note that Kohlberg relates to other human beings with control).

"Like it or not, teachers are moral educators (or miseducators) as creators of the "hidden curriculum" of the moral climate of the classroom. Insofar as educators do not critically examine the values that govern life and discipline in the classroom or simply opt out of enforcing existing conventions, they "cop out" from really dealing with the values issue, and they engage in subtle or blatant forms of indoctrination. Therefore, teachers must face Socrates' question "What is virtue." somewhere near the beginning.

Thanksgiving, an Ancient Harvest Festival Reappropriated

Thanksgiving Should Not Involve Any White Guilt

1. Thanksgiving should not involve any white guilt because it is an ancient holiday that Native Europeans have celebrated since before Christ.

Thanksgiving, until just 150 years ago, was a harvest festival that was traditionally held on the first full moon after the fall equinox, called the "harvest moon." This happened in early October. Americans celebrated Thanksgiving in early October until 1941. Canadians still celebrate their Thanksgiving in October. So do Swedes and peoples all over Europe -- except their Thanksgivings are still called harvest festivals. 

Native Europeans who came to America had Autumn harvest festivals just as they had had back home. It wasn’t until 1863 that this harvest festival became a national holiday called “Thanksgiving.” It wasn’t until after that, during the height of nationalism, that the American government came up with a story about Pilgrims and Indians to attach to the holiday in order to make it American rather than European.  

It was also around this time (1870) that the United States government turned the Summer Solstice Festivals, which Native Europeans had been celebrating for thousands of years, into another patriotic holiday—the Fourth of July.

If the Christians hadn’t already turned the Winter Solstice into Christmas and the Spring Equinox into Easter, the government would have reappropriated those holidays as well.

2. Thanksgiving should not involve any white guilt because white people are the people that stopped conquering and enslaving others. They are the most special and strange people in the world.

Human history is one long story about different bands of monkeys conquering each other. Contrary to what was believed about hunter-gatherers in the sixties, there were no peaceful bands of humans. Any band unwilling to fight and defend its territory was wiped out. Native Americans were extremely violent, fighting each other, enslaving one another, and partaking in human sacrifices. One of the most important reasons why Cortez was able to conquer the Aztecs was that he had a Spanish man who could speak to the natives. Why did that Spanish man know their language? Because, on a scouting expedition, they had caught and enslaved him. He was their slave for eight years before Cortez bought him. Likewise in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Slavery and conquering is and always has been rampant.

Christianity made the Europeans special. It made them allow people of other races to join their tribe. This never happened with any other peoples in the history of the human race. The Mongols didn’t have any qualms about eradicating entire peoples, neither did tribes in Africa. The Europeans had strange rules about what it meant to fight morally starting in the middle ages and for this reason they often were tricked and lost badly to the Arabs who did not play by the same “noble” warfare rules that they did (rules like you cannot attack and unardmed man, and you must fight people face to face).

Europeans were the most technologically advanced people in the world in the 1500’s. They had guns and no one else did. If it had been Africans or Asians or Middle Easterners with the guns, would they have pondered the morality of wiping entire races off the Earth so they could take their land? Judging from what I have read in history, only Europeans think there is something wrong with genocide—becacuse they are individualists and everyone else is tribal. Everyone else thinks that morally, what is good for their tribe, is good. Only Europeans think that what is good should be universal.

Europeans could have taken all the land in the whole world at that point. They could have obliterated all peolles. But they didn’t. Instead, they brought their culture—their ideas of individualism and democracy and allowed everyone to live as long as they joined. This is unheard of. It’s amazing. Likewise that they fought one another

How to Find the Best Nanny or Babysitter

A reader emailed me recently asking for any advice I might have regarding the hiring of nannies and babysitters. Here is what I said:

What I do is post an ad looking for someone willing to learn (i.e. read). Qualifications and current knowledge are often cumbersome--I have found that training a blank slate is usually easier than retraining someone who thinks they know what they are doing. My only qualification is that the person is interested in learning and growth.

The first thing I have my potentials do is watch the 4-DVD set on caring for infants at RIE.org. I find the attitude of respect in those DVD's helpful even though my child is no longer an infant. Then I have my prospective nanny watch my 2 lectures on YouTube. After that we can have a real discussion about whether or not she/he would enjoy relating to children in the way I describe.

If the potential nanny or babysitter likes what (I will use "she" but it could be either) she has learned thus far and talks about being inspired, I continue with her. If she comments on the ideas being weird, I let her go and find someone else.

Then I begin training which involves her just coming to hang out and watch how I interact with my son. Then I watch her interact with him and give feedback. At the end of the first day, I pull out a stack of 5-10 books (most likely the ones from my recommended reading list) and show them to her and ask her which one she would like to read first. I loan her that book and tell her that when my son is busy, she can read. This is a double bonus: she is being "paid" for the time she spends reading and she ends up not "helicoptering" over my son all the time. Many of the girls I have trained have taken the books home and continued to read them in their free time. Some say they hate reading and never get through the first book--what I have found is that those people won't last long. It's a sign that the proper care of children is not interesting to them--and none of us will last that long or do that well at a job we are not interested in.

Recommended Reading List Link: http://roslynross.blogspot.com/p/reading-recommendations.html

UPDATE: a reader wrote to me the following in regards to the above advice about how to hire a great nanny--

I wanted to thank you for your insight; we hired a nanny! I spoke with her on the phone and got the feeling that she was definitely open to finding out more about what I was talking about. Then when we met in person, SHE asked ME if I had any books or resources she could read. I gave her Baby Knows Best, as my MIL is currently borrowing my RIE DVD's. She's currently coming to shadow about once a week or so for the next month so she can see us interact with him, and she's very inquisitive.
I felt a lot more confident looking for someone who was willing to learn instead of scouring for someone who already knew what I was looking for. It's almost embarrassing that I hadn't considered the idea myself, haha. I saw that I prompted a blog post, so hopefully others find your ideas helpful as well.

Children Raised in Reality Are Not Afraid on Halloween or Afraid of the Dark

Halloween was always my least favorite holiday when I worked with small children. There was always some costumed person the child saw while trick-or-treating that scared him or her to death. For years I spent every Halloween comforting traumatized, crying children. One little boy had nightmares for over a week following the holiday. 

I have long wondered if Anders would find costumed people scary. He has no concept for the scary things people dress as on Halloween i.e. would seeing a person dressed as wicked witch scare you, if you had no concept in your mind of evil witches using magic to ruin your life? Would a person dressed as a witch be scary if you had no concept of magic? Some of the costumes in the windows around Los Angeles are pretty evil looking, but Anders has no real concept of evil, so I have been curious to know how he will think about these things. Will he find evil faces scary or will he just think they look weird?

I have told Anders about the holiday coming up, Halloween in which people wear costumes, and recently I took him to a costume store. He knows about the concept of wearing costumes from the Renaissance Fair (which he loves) so costumes are a pretty positive thing for him. He has shown no interest thus far in the role-play costumes that kids his age often get into. For example, he loves construction and pretends to do it every day, but when I offered to buy him a construction outfit on three different occasions he said, "No,"

At the costume store (Cinema Secrets if you know it) there were some pretty fantastic and gruesome costumes on display, one in particular, a witch, was pretty horrifying. Anders pointed to it and said, "What's that?" I said, "That's a costume for someone who wants to pretend to be a very ugly, old lady. Some people call ugly, old ladies 'witches,' and when they are pretending to be a witch they laugh like this, 'He he he he he!'" I said, "Do you think this costume is scary or or ugly or just weird?" He said, "Not scary." I said, "Do you think it's ugly?" He said, "No." I said, "Weird then?" But he had already walked off, which means his answer was, "Boring." We looked at other things. He was most interested in the makeup that made people look like they had huge wounds, but he did not think that was scary either.

Anders does not want to dress up on Halloween, though I imagine if his father or I were going to dress up he would possibly change his mind, but we have no plans to. The only costume Anders showed any interest in was a bear costume, but he didn't want to wear it and in the end just wanted a little bear figurine to play with. (He is very interested in bears right now thanks to the Disney Nature Bear documentary I bought for our plane rides over the summer.) 

A side note: Anders is not afraid of the dark. He is afraid of falling when there are no lights on, but perhaps since he has never heard of ghosts or monsters and we have spend a lot of time playing with shadows, he has always been comfortable with the dark, inside and out, and has never needed a nightlight or anything like that.

Anyway, just a development update for those of you who are interested in knowing what happens when you raise your kids without fantasy fiction! 

Translating for Children: "I don't like you" can mean "I'm Done Playing With You"

Anders, almost 3, is playing with Devonna, his new babysitter. I come out of my room and Anders sees me. He runs to me and says, "Mama, I don't like Devonna."

Devonna feels hurt and starts to remind Anders of all the fun they have had together this morning. I tell Devonna that what Anders meant to say is that he has suddenly realized that he misses his mom and he would rather play with his mom right now than Devonna. I confirm with Anders that this is true.

Many kids, when they are done playing with someone, will say something like, "You're stupid." Anders has never heard name-calling so he used an "I" statement instead. (This made me happy!) Either way, it all goes back to NVC, to listening to one another and respecting each other's feelings instead of trying to defend ourselves or convince someone he doesn't feel what he says he does.

Are You Afraid Homeschooling Will Make Your Kid Weird?

Answers to some questions I was recently emailed in regards to nonreligious homeschooling:

Home-schooling is great in theory, but aren't you afraid your child will end up weird?

The reason some home-schooled kids seem weird to other kids is that they spend more time socializing with adults than children i.e. they get along better with adults. Which means they will get along with their peers just fine--once their peers are adults. The adults I know who were homeschooled as children--who I thought were weird when I was a kid--do not seem weird to me now. And vice versa, my adult friends who seem a little weird to me now, were not homeschooled as kids.

Which is to say: homeschooled kids don't end up weird. And people who are going to end up weird, are not "fixed" by going to school.

Aren't you afraid your child will be weird (as a child)?

First, what is "weird" about homeschooled children? I knew quite a few homeschoolers when I was a kid and, like I said above, I did think they were weird. They were all extremely different from one another i.e. they were weird in their own ways, but thinking about it now, what made them weird to child-me was how authentic they were: they weren't afraid to like really random things, they were very honest, and very themselves. No one had taught them about not being themselves and playing a socially acceptable role and liking only socially acceptable things.

They also got along way too well with my parents. As a kid, that bugged me. As an adult all I can think is, "Children who get along great with adults sound great!"

Second, is it truly horrible to be considered "weird" as a kid by the other kids? It's probably more horrible to be "weird" and at school than to be "weird" and at home. I was a "weird" kid. But I wasn't home schooled. I went to pubic school but I was being raised by hippies out in the hills. I had no access to most "normal" foods, or radio, or television.

On Facebook the other day a friend of mine noted that she had to rent Frozen for her child so he could understand how to play with his friends. My parents would never have done that. I was the kid who never saw those movies, who never quite got the game, the joke, what people were talking about or why certain things were considered cool. I was always an outsider studying my peers. But as a kid, I never concluded that I was the one who was "weird." I thought the other kids were weird.

When I was a senior in college, Netflix and my laptop enabled me to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sex and the City, and Friends. It was a revelation. Everything that had never made sense to me about my peers in high school and college suddenly made sense--why my girlfriends talked about school and sex the way they did, why my friends thought friendship meant sitting around making fun of one another.

I am really glad that I watched these shows later and understood how they influenced my friends. Rather than shaping me, watching them (and any television I watch today) feels more like an anthropological study than anything else. I love that.

Which is to say: I am not afraid of my son being his authentic self instead of playing roles he learns in school and on television.

Aren't you afraid regular Americans will think your child is weird?

What is this desperate need for approval from this imagined judge who doesn't actually exist? Who is this "regular American" running around telling people if they are normal or weird?

How many friends do you need? How many people have to like you for you to love your life? Do other people's judgements of you matter at all if you like yourself? Would you do business with someone if you liked their product, but thought they were a little weird? Does being weird stop you from having an amazing life? If people meet my son and think he is weird--what will that do? What's the problem? What is it stopping him from achieving? What needs will it prevent him from meeting?

The three "weird" home schooled girls I knew as a kid grew up, found jobs, and are all married now. They married men who went to public school. Two of them have kids. They are functional members of society. The two I interviewed before writing this piece both plan to home school their own kids.

Assuming your child does end up weird, do you think he will resent being weird?

In order to resent being weird, my child has to look out at regular Americans and think they are super cool and wish he were more like them. I have a hard time imagining that happening. 

Or he has to think that being weird or different is bad in some way. Which is not how it went for me at all--if you don't watch television, you don't know that being weird is bad. You don't know that you are supposed to be deeply ashamed of being different or unpopular. You miss that memo. For example, when I was in 10th grade a girl made fun of me by saying that she was "Tommy Hilfiger", her other friend was "Calvin Klein" and I was "Kmart." What passed through my mind when she called me Kmart was not shame but confusion, "No. No. I shop at Walmart. They don't have a Kmart where I live," I said. She was confused for a minute and then she said, "No, I just mean your clothes are cheap," and I said, "What?! Walmart is so expensive!" Because I normally shopped at Goodwill. 

Like me, neither of the women I interviewed for this piece thought she was weird when she was a kid. Weird kids don't necessarily conclude that they are weird. They often conclude the opposite--that you are weird.

That being said: If my son was feeling unhappy about something, I would always try to help him solve the problem.

Don't you think your child would rather go to school?

LOL. Ummmmmm.... no.

That being said, from what I have read about homeschooling, I expect that at some point Anders will ask to go to school. I expect him to go and flee in horror in less than three months. This is what I have read is the norm among most home unschooling families.

Don't you think your child, once he is an adult who realizes he is weird, will wish he had gone to school?

No, because he won't be weird any more by the time he is an adult. And also--

I went to school. I graduated valedictorian from my elementary, junior, and senior high schools and did very well at Wesleyan University. I memorized everything I was supposed to. I jumped through every hoop. And I enjoyed the experience a little. But, looking back, I think they were a total waste of my time, damaging to my intrinsic motivation, and my authentic self. 

School, until I knew what I wanted to do, was fine. I didn't mind it that much. But when I was thirteen and fell in love with the stage and decided that is what I wanted to do with my life, being told to wait ten years was torture. At the time, I didn't mind all that much. So much life seemed to stretch before me I thought, "Sure, I can learn all these other things for ten years to make my parents happy." When I was 22 and finally free, it hit me that: I was ten years behind children who had had the support of their parents in pursing their dreams, I was $40,000 in student-loan debt and needed to get on the work-treadmill to pay that off, my fertility would drop 50% in 8 short years so if I wanted to have kids I would have to climb my career ladder impossibly fast or not have kids or accept the risks of having them later. My father told me the other day his only dream for his kids was that they went to college and didn't ask for money afterward. That was how he defined "successful parenting." No wonder he couldn't see me, the child in front of him, no wonder he couldn't help me meet my needs to create a life I wanted. He was just doing what it took to be a "Good Parent."

In The Case Against Adolescence and Escape from Childhood I learned that historically most people started their first business between the ages of 12 to 22. If you keep a child in school until they are 22, they are more likely to be an employee than an entrepreneur. I learned that we reach our peak of energy and brain performance between the ages of 13 and 16. I learned that most revolutionaries are 16-22. If you keep kids busy and distracted in school until they are 22, there will be a lower likelihood of political unrest.

I am not going to home-unschool my son and push him to have a career at the age of 13. I am going to listen to Anders and support him, to take him, and his dreams seriously.

If your child child did want to go to school, would you support him?

Would you support your child doing crack?

Like I said above, I expect my son to go to school and I expect him to not stay all that long. If he announced that he loved school and wanted to go forever I would ask what he loved about it and see if he could get those needs met in a way that would meet my needs as well. But I don't use force on my son and I don't plan to.

Moreover, I will always make every effort to see the person in front of me and listen.

What do you think are the disadvantages to being homeschooled?

Learning in a group can be easier and more fun than learning by yourself--but there are endless classes and camps for kids these days, especially in Los Angeles so I am not overly concerned about this.

I am a little concerned about the selection of kids that will be available for Anders to have as friends. However, I am insanely happy with the selection of adults Anders already considers his friends and since home schoolers tend to make friends with adults and get along better with their parents--I'm not overly concerned about this either.

My husband and I are very different from "regular Americans." It is frustrating at times to be so different from most of the rest of society. But in order to fit in, we would have to feed our bodies poison every day. We would have to think poisonous things and do poisonous things to others. We often joke that if we had it to over again we would take the blue pill but as time goes on we're finding our people and creating quite a life for ourselves. I am pretty excited about the path that we are on and I am unconvinced that mainstreamers are actually happier and less lonely than we are.

The main disadvantage I can see is for me, not my son. I am still trying to figure out how to "bring my son to life with me" rather than make my son my life. That is very hard to do in the time and place that I currently live. Ideas are welcome!

Book Review - Happiness by Darrin McMahon

To be clear, I loved this book. Couldn’t put it down. But it was really annoying to read because the author:
1. has obviously not read Joseph Campbell or Ayn Rand and any book analyizing happiness from Every Different Perspective Ever that hasn’t read those authors is just sloppy.
2. tried way too hard to see something that wasn’t really there. It is clear to me by reading his exerpts that most of the thinkers he quotes thought very clearly and thoroughly about happiness—there was much less "development over time" than he claims there is. His book contradicts itself in this way, claiming there was a new development in the concept of happiness when I could turn back 200 pages and see that, nope, actually that had been around for a long time, like happy endings to stories. No dude, they were not invented in the 1800’s, off the top of my head—Shakespeare?
3. His writing style killed me. He was full of random methaphors that pulled me out of his book like, “Strong black coffee to clear the head of an evenings wine, his work served as a sobering reminder of the ancient wisdom of the Christian Fall.” Why he feels the need to express such a simple idea in this way is beyond me! There are whole paragraphs dedicated to “setting the mood” that just destroyed this book: “There may have been an occasional cough as Lequinio took his place at the pulpit, the scratch of a workman’s boots, perhaps, side-long glances, the rustling of clothes…” WHAT??? Just friggin give me the quote!!! Even more annoying was when he spent twenty pages telling the life story of everyone he wanted to quote. If their life story was relevant that would have been great. But it wasn’t. This book could have been 150 pages and would have been so much more focused and clear! Author needs to read The Elements of Style.

Famous ideas about happiness (but keep in mind these thinkers were not nearly as one-sided as these summaries make it seem):
-Ancient Greece: Any happiness anyone experiences is a miracle since as all life is tragic, happiness is pure luck, we are victims of fate
-Aristotle: The goal is to be happy in this life, here and now.
-Plato: Happiness is the ideal that does not exist, Heaven
-Epicurus: Pleasure is the goal (though keep in mind pleasure is defined by him as minimizing pain by living a simple life in the country)
-Stoics: Just be happy, whatever your circumstances, just decide to be happy and be happy *note this is like today's Positive Psychology movement!
-Zeno: Learn to not desire anything and then you will be happy
-Dark Ages: Bear the pain of life now and be rewarded in Heaven—the only possible happiness is suffering now so that you can be happy in death, embrace suffering, suffering IS happiness!
-Aquinas: happiness is the process of fully realizing ourselves, happiness is the hope of Heaven, i.e. the hope of happiness
-Martin Luther: heaven and hell are actually psychological places, omg God wants us to be happy!
-Renaissance: Good people are happy. Bad people are unhappy. You’d better be happy or we know you’re bad
-Rousseau: intellectual people can’t be happy, only dumb people, the only happiness is trying to make other people happy i.e. self-sacrifice, people can be forced to be happy if we control their needs, let us create a new man and a new nature! Then we will be happy
-The Romantics: happiness is god, have you noticed how happy kids are? Let’s be like them! Be one with the world. No ego! Savages are happy too!
-Schopenhauer: Art is the only happiess i.e. the escape we feel when contemplating art i.e. not actually being alive is the only happiness
-Kant: Plato and Renaissance repeat—our duty in this life is to act in a way that renders us worthy of happiness, only good boys and girls get to be happy!
-Locke and the Libertarians: One must assume responsibility of being happy for onself
-Mill (and Rand if the author had read her): Happiness cannot be the goal, an emotion cannot be the goal, rather, happiness is what happens when you are pursuing your goals, you cannot “catch” an emotion, the minute you focus on them they are gone, liberty trumps happiness
-Industrialists: wealth is happiness
-Marx: work is happiness (similar to stoics, learning to love what you have to do anyway)
-Nietzsche: self-esteem is happiness. And power.
-Freud: unhappiness is life. The only goal is to eliminate gratuitous suffering (like Schopenhauer) And stop being delusional and preaching about happiness. You may find satisfaction in life from being loved.
-Modern Science: happiness is genetic, you have no control over it, so if you are not happy you should take drugs
-The Author's Conclusion: The idea that we can find happiness is a modern invention, as are the feelings of failure when we do not succeed. “On the whole the momentum of modern culture has been in the direction of earthly content, accompanied by a steady expanding sense of perogative, entitlement, means, and due… God was happiness, happiness has since become our god… And happiness, we might say, has proved a taskmaster as hard, at times, as the God it has sought to replace.”

Other Notes
-What the intellectuals write about and leave for posterity often does not reflect reality for the masses.
-Since Ancient Greece man has been writing an endless stream of self-help books. I mean endless.
-Aristotle believed that only those who were wealthy enough to have leisure, education, and indepence could be happy. Only those who have organized their lives so as to escape its ordinary conditions (of slaving away for survival) can be happy. I am inclined to agree!
-Many people throughout history have idealized simple country life as a happier life
-Commies seeking to level the playing field (how can anyone be happy if he is jealous of his neighbor?!) have been around forever too
-Great Schopenhaur quote: Accordingly optimism is not only a false but also a pernicious doctrine, for it presents life as a desirable state and man’s happiness as its aim and object. Starting from this, everyone belives he has the most legitimate claim to happiness and enjoyment. If, as usually happens, these do not fall to his lot, he belives that he suffers an injustice, in fact, that he misses the whole point of existence; whereas it is far more correct to regard work, privation, misery, and suffering crowned by death, as the aim and object of life.”

Being Authentic with Children

There is a ton of info out there on what to do with emotional children, but what about emotional parents?

Almost all the parenting literature out there, even the very best stuff, encourages parents to be fake with their kids. Kids get to cry and we accept their feelings, but kids cannot see their parents be upset. Teach kids to cry and rage, but if a mom wants to cry or rage she should do it into her pillow with her door closed so as not to upset her children.

How am I supposed to teach my son to accept and not repress his emotions, if I model repression of my own? And why would I want to pretend that life is something other than it is? My son doesn't need a fake perfect-mom. He needs reality. And the reality is that adults have tons of strong emotions, just like kids.

Science shows that kids generally ARE terrified when they see their parents upset--whether crying or yelling. I think the problem is created by parents who hide their emotions most of the time so when they do emote in front of their kids, it is scary in its difference-from-the-norm. The other part of the problem is that when parents do finally show emotions they do scary things. Mom is calm, calm, calm and then blows up and does something mean to the child. If Mom's strong emotions always equal something horrible happening to the child, of course he will react to emotional people (and his own emotions) with fear. So I strive to remedy these two things by--

1) Being authentic with my son. I share feelings I have throughout the day every day. Feelings of joy, peace, appreciation, gratitude, love, and also feelings of frustration, anger, hurt, sadness, and exhaustion. How we are feeling is something we talk about often--my son's feelings and mine. None of these are foreign concepts.

2) Our strong emotions are not scary because we don't behave in harmful ways when we are feeling them. My being sad or mad does not mean anything for Anders except that I am experiencing a strong feeling. I'm not suddenly mean to him--what I am feeling is about me.

Which means there is no contradiction in the messages Anders gets. When he has strong feelings, I stop what I am doing and connect with him and see if he wants me to hold him until his emotions have passed. When I have strong feelings, his father stops what he is doing and connects with me and holds me until my feelings have passed (and vice versa).

The result is that Anders does not exhibit signs of shame or fear when one of his parents is upset, rather he is comfortable in his skin and confident in his efficacy--well, here is what happened last night:

[It is the end of a very long day. Anders is in bed waiting for Mama. Mama is coming back from the bathroom and stubs her toe. That's the last straw for Mama, she starts crying.]

Anders: Mama sad?

Mama: Yeah, I stubbed my toe. I'm just really tired.

[Anders pats the bed.]

Anders: Come here, Mama. I cuddle you.

[Mama lies down in the bed and Anders puts his little arm around her neck.]

Mama: Thanks, Anders.

Anders: Tell me about it. Tell me what you feeling.

Mama: Well... I was sad because I was feeling so tired and then I stubbed my toe and it hurt. But now I am lying down resting and I feel very cared for so... now I feel happy.

Anders: Mama happy?! Oh yay! I like you, Mama.

[Anders gives Mama a kiss and rolls over. He is sleeping in less than thirty seconds.]

This is life as Anders knows it! This is how Anders will react to his upset girlfriend one day! This is how Anders will talk to his own kids! This is how Anders will talk to himself!