Keeping the Peace

My goal is to keep peace
        in my home, in my body, in my mind, and in my relationships with my children.

Such are MY jobs.

It is NOT my job to train my children to shut cabinet doors after opening them, or to cap the toothpaste after use, or to wash their hands after using the toilet.

Such are THEIR jobs.

Can I trust that the child has the capacity to understand, embrace and learn these things on her own? Yes, within a safe, secure and healthily modeled attachment bond.

I have (at least) two paths of action when I walk into the kitchen to see cabinet doors flung open, poised like monarchs glued fluttering to a South American tree. I can yell or even logically approach my children and insist they shut the doors. Or I can calmly and quietly shut the doors as I prefer and know that as the children grow, they may value the appearance of a clean, organized kitchen for their own reasons. And they will be happy, not shamed, in how they approach a kitchen cabinet.

I remember early on, attempting to get a two year old ready for an outing. Two year olds can be excrutiatingly slow compared to the former full-time professional woman. My getting out the door and the toddler's getting out the door are based in completely different motivations! And early on I realized that I could prompt and pester, encourage and raise my voice, and even make bribes, rewards and threats... OR I could take that time to treasure the life I had co-created. Get down on her level and gaze at her peachy face while she contemplated shoes and discovered the joy of distraction by tiny, colorful items.

Either way, the end result may appear to be that of a child ready for an outing. But one has caused a rift in the attachment, the other has surrendered and grown into the force of love and attachment. One method alienates live. The other serves it.

My children are not toddlers anymore. And if I thought a three year old gun-totin' boy could lay a swath of destruction in his path, I was no where prepared for what an eight and eleven year old could do to affect the appearance of our home. The toddler is merely exploring. These older children are CREATING and the aftermath of creation lies in wake, sloshing against the couch, the table, and the stairwell like flotsam on the battle torn sea.

After preparing lunch, an eleven year old can leave the kitchen in a whirlwind. And yet the point is that she made lunch. For her whole family.

After an eight year old completes his tent city ala lego-land and bedsheets, I am tripping over knots and gouging my feet with surprizingly sharp plastic bricks. Yet the point is that he mapped out an entire culture. So we can read books together underneath.

And so, in the ideal world, all bits of creative sediment settle around the house like aggresive dustmotes are whisked away leaving a showcase home: evidence that my homeshooled children will be productively conformed to society's expectations. But the cost of making that happen by force or coersion is too high when I consider the loss of our relationship.

When considering my goal of having kids who clean up after themselves, I must think back again to their infancies. My own mother pecked at me with her concerns that the children would never walk. Or worse yet walk without crawling first which would require them great amounts of psychotherapy later in life. I did not understand children- or even myself- well at that point in life. I did not understand that all my efforts to incarcerate my children wouldnt keep them from walking when it was time! At each developmental level, a child MUST grow and learn. There is no stopping him, often not even severe abuse.

And so can I trust and apply this knowing to the children at their current age? Each year, they astound me with their growth and leaps into curiousity and competence. If it is a common standard to close doors after opening them, can I trust that my children will grow into this as well?

My job is to model and maintain healthy attachment. And so if a cabinet door is left open, and I value its being shut, then I must calmly shut the door and remember that I love my children. Very, very much. And a cabinet door's angle of bearing has little to do with love, but with expectations and control. That is not to say that I am wrong to value the appearance and utility of a clean kitchen. Just that it isnt worth losing my kids over.

Does it seem extreme to say that I could lose my child's attachment over a cabinet door? I can only look to my own experiences at this point. Recalling the constant yells of SHUT THE GODDAMN DOOR! from my father. All my life. Even when I was grown and had my own children. At times the door had not even opened yet, but the cry was released! There was even a sign on the door of my childhood home that indicated, to the curiosity and wonder of my peers, to CLOSE THE DOOR.

Is it any wonder that I feel nervous around doors as an adult? Laugh, because it is funny. A fear of doors. And yet, a voice inside me- not my father's, but my own condemning voice- tells me every time I see a door that I am a bad person, unworthy of having loving parents because I cannot conform to their values.

Crazy. I know. But that is what coersion does. It makes people crazy. We begin to lose contact with our intuitive voice, our knowing and our trust that our bodies and minds WILL keep us propelled forward in growth. Coersion is like speed bumps- or sometimes thick brick walls- on our path. Oh, they make us jump and take notice! But rarely do they help us get further along our path with confidence. There is nothing like speeding along knowing you could come up against a wall at any moment.

So, as I blog, a string city is being erected in the living room. As Big Sister informed me with a glowing smile of pride, I paused. Dont think about the mess to be cleaned! Dont do it! Instead I offered her the camera and asked if she wanted to take pictures of her accomplishment. She did not, but instead wanted me to see how special it is. So I came to see the special. And it is special. I smiled and said, "Cool!" and then, "You know, it reminds me of the fun times I had with my sisters when I was your age! It feels so good to creates something like this!" And she literally skipped off to get a snack to eat in her string city. Eleven years old, five feet tall, and skipping around in delight of her creation.

We can definately worry about the mess later.