The "M" Word

It seems to me that people get uncomfortable when I talk about things as being 'moral' i.e.: a moral responsibility, or a moral commitment. However it is one of my deeply held beliefs (yeah, it seems I have a lot of those) that when something you are engaged in has the power to elevate you, and help you access your relationship to the Universal, it is a moral activity.

So, marriage is clearly a moral activity. So is sex, and so is parenting. Actually, so is taking good care of your physical self. If we abandon any of these things, we walk away from our true being. Being your true self is clearly a moral activity.

So to me, in order to engage in parenting to the fullest extent of the obligation, I have to be able to answer some basic questions about the moral aspect of the job. Questions like:

1) what are the moral lessons being taught in my house

2) what is the language being used to discuss moral issues

3) how am I engaging my children in their moral development

The answers are not always easy to come up with, but grappling with the questions is an obligation I owe my kids.

The 'Self' of our child

Here is another personal opinion of mine on parenting:

To my mind, it is inalterable that parents will infringe on the sense of self of their children.

Many of the tasks assigned to parents require this. For example, there are times when I must substitute my judgement for their own, or when I must make them do things they may judge to be counter to their own true desires (my child wants to stay home and work on an art 'project' about which she is excited, but I make her go to school).

Furthermore, just by being in the role of 'Mom' things I say go to the core of the child - things that should not, but do. So for example I might say, "Please stop humming! I can't take it right now!" My child may absorb that she is annoying, and her humming is an irritation. Were she just a friend and not my child, she might in that moment instead think, "Wow, she is overstimulated!" or "What a bitch! I'll hum if I want!" But as my child, my interpretation of her goes into the central arena of her identity.

So, to ignore this, that we tread on the sense of self of our children, is to put blinders on. My continuing (imperfect) practice is to be in awareness of this. I see that I take up space in their central narrative.

I'll let you know when my kids are teenagers and explain to me everything I did wrong, if my awareness of this had any positive impact!

Family Size

I am delighted that we are expecting baby #4 in the spring. Being pregnant with my fourth has been an interesting study in the thoughts and feelings people have about family size.

Many people have said things like, "Oh my gosh, you guys are crazy!," or, "Wow, you're really pushing your luck!" or, "You are going to be swamped with housework when the new baby comes!" or, "You guys sure like to make things complicated!"

It is so different from the response you hear when you become pregnant with your first, second, or even third, baby. It seems as though, for many people, three kids makes a 'reasonable' family size, while four is somehow too big, or too risky.

I am very interested to hear how other people decided they were 'done' (so to speak), and why 4 is the magic 'too big' number.

Personally, when I got married I said I wanted 5 kids, and I have 4 sisters and 2 brothers, so having 4 kids does not feel like giant family (though I am sure there are times when it will! Even ONE felt like a lot sometimes!).

Oh, and one more note about the reaction people have: when I was visiting my sister in LA every one of her friends reacted positively saying things like, "Oh my gosh you are so lucky!" - maybe the 4-is-too-many thing is regional?