My Mom's Summer Do Everything With Us Touristy Visit

My mom got in town last night. Usually when she comes to visit, my grandma comes too. She's 89, so that limits our activities pretty severely. We love her and her visits, but we decided to plan this visit with just my mom so that we could do all kinds of active and exciting things. So far, it is awesome!!

We got up this morning and went to the Tellus Science Museum in Cartersville. It was great. We had been once before with our friend Rational Jenn and her kids and parents, and afterwards, we checked out a library book on rocks, minerals, and fossils. Knowing more about what we were seeing really made this visit better. Livy was excited to see all the things we had read about and excited to show Grandma around the museum (since Grandma was a newbie and Livy a seasoned vet). She really enjoyed digging for fossils (we took home a shark's tooth, a fish vertebra, and a stingray's tooth) and panning for semiprecious stones (we took home a huge variety of tiny gems). We looked at fossils galore. My mom is taking an archaeology class right now, so she was particularly interested in the exhibits of fossils and how scientists find them and date them. We looked at many minerals from the lovely (precious stones and metals) to the weird (gypsum, Muscovite, and petrified wood). We saw examples of the first cars and a replica of Sputnik. Livy did some experimenting with magnetism and light in the children's area, and my mom learned about bell jars and sound waves. It was a great trip, and I freaking love that museum.

Then, we stopped at Arby's for lunch.

Later this afternoon, we went to Whitewater to play on the waterslides. We spent 3 1/2 hours going on waterslide after waterslide, playing in the wave pool, and floating around on the Little Hooch River. We found out that Livy hates enclosed tube waterslides, but will ride literally anything else. She is way braver than she is tall, and she was disappointed a few times not to be able to ride insane slides that I would never get on in a million years. My mom doesn't like tunnel slides either, and she doesn't like going backward down steep slopes in a raft (she found out from experience). I like twisty slides with tunnels. It was an awesome afternoon, but we are completely wiped out.

We picked Aaron up after he finished work, and we all went out to eat barbeque for dinner. Yum. Livy, Mama, and I nearly fell asleep even at the restaurant. The only thing keeping me awake now is the prospect of watching an episode or two of Heroes (my new obsession).

Tomorrow, our plan is taking the train down into Atlanta and going to the High Museum and the Botanical Gardens.

Chapter Books!

I am excited that Livy and I finished our first chapter book together this morning. We read Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder, a story about the boyhood of her husband Almanzo Wilder on a prosperous farm in upstate New York in 1866. I chose it for our first long book because we started it in late winter by the fire and that seemed appropriate and because it tells so many interesting details about farm life which Livy, Aaron, and I can all enjoy. Immediately after finishing it, she asked to start a new long book, and we chose Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone together. I think we'll finish it much quicker because, since Aaron has already read it, we won't have to save it for when he is home. We're also trying to think of another book to read with him (we love reading aloud as a family). Suggestions? Maybe we'll do another Laura Ingalls Wilder book, or we might finish Charlotte's Web. Aaron started reading that to Livy and me a while back to make her want to take a much needed bath, and we never got back to it. Just as a side note, having a book read to you while you are in a bath is a great pleasure everyone should enjoy!

Parenting Without Altruism

An old friend who is interested in Objectivism asked me how I reconciled parenting with Objectivism. She said that Ayn Rand never wrote about children and that maybe it was too altruistic or have too much conflict between egos. I thought I would answer her here on my blog so that you could all see it too.

First, it's important to think of altruism and of sacrifice in the right way. Sacrifice is when you give up a higher value in favor of a lower one. If I spent lots of money on buying new clothes instead of saving it like Aaron and I planned so that I can stay home with Livy, that would be a sacrifice. My time at home with her is so much more important to me than clothes, and by choosing the clothes, I have injured my higher value for a lower one. Altruism is the moral system that says it is good to sacrifice. I should put the happiness of others (a lower value) above the happiness of me and mine (a higher value). Sacrifice is not putting off immediate pleasure in order to gain a value down the road. Some people have asked me if I make a lot of sacrifices as a parent. I don't. When I stay home from a party to take care of Livy cause she is sick, I am not sacrificing. No party is as important to me as her health and her attachment to me long term. Did I like it? No, I wanted to go to that party real bad. It is not always fun to choose a long term higher value over a short term lesser one, but it isn't a sacrifice.

With that said, I want to talk a bit about how parenting is a selfish activity for me. I want to have Livy. I want to enjoy my relationship with her now, and I look forward to knowing her as she grows into an adult. I enjoy watching the process of her unfolding rationality and her personality. But raising a child is no bed of roses. I am always a bit suspicious of parents who are too glowing in their talk about parenting. Sometimes it sucks. I don't like to clean up poop. Sometimes my child is a little snot. Sometimes she hurts my feelings. Sometimes I don't get to do the things my childless friends get to do. And in the end, she may not grow up to be like I want her to be. Free will and all that. But, just because something isn't always fun doesn't mean it isn't a rational, selfish value. I accept that getting the enormous, almost unspeakable joy of having a child comes with some downsides. That is life, not sacrifice. Most values worth having (a meaningful job, parenting, friendship, romantic love, health) come with some downsides. Delaying gratification in order to get a value I really want is a great act of selfishness.

Sometimes my parenting starts to feel like I am doing an altruistic task. I resent the things I am doing for Livy. I take every misbehavior personally. I think a lot about how Martin gets to go hiking and how when Michael and Jessica stay up late they also get to sleep in. I start to get angry faster and not enjoy our daily lives together. I think learning at home together especially puts a lot of pressure on us because there are fewer breaks from each other. I find that when I start to feel put upon and sacrificial, it is usually because I have already slipped into being sacrificial. I have probably not had enough time to myself, enough alone time with Aaron, enough exercise on my own, enough time to read grown up books. When I make sure that I get what I need, just like I make sure that she gets what she needs, our relationship is much more relaxed. When I am selfish about my values (like reading, exercise, time with adults), we are both happier.

Most of the time, I think that the things that I need align pretty well with the things that she needs. The times when this alignment doesn't happen are the times when I have to remember especially to be selfish and not sacrificial. Our biggest example was cosleeping. Livy loves to sleep in the family bed at her dad's house. She wishes she could do it with me. I truly think it would be better for her if we slept together. But, I don't enjoy it. I don't enjoy it a lot. So even though it is better for her, it isn't better for me. It would be a sacrifice if I forced myself to sleep with her against my own wishes. It is very hard for her to accept, and we talk about it often, but I can't sacrifice my need for hers. Now, I don't think this is a catch-all that parents can use anytime they don't want to do anything. Some things that children need must be given to them, and if you don't want to, you shouldn't have them. I have thought long and hard about whether I can sleep with her and what harm it might do her not to get to sleep with me. Quality sleep really is a very high value for me, not just a more minor issue.

I also wanted to let my friend know that Ayn Rand did write about children and a mom who considered her children her career in Galt's Gulch (in Atlas Shrugged). Ayn Rand herself didn't want kids, so they weren't a strong interest of hers. And honestly, I'm glad her main characters didn't have kids. She chose to write characters who were highly career focused to the near exclusion of other values. While I think that kind of person is very admirable for his focused productivity, I think kids need at least one parent who is less career focused, and if not a full time parent, at least a parent with plenty of time for the kids.

Her other concern was that conflicting egos were a problem in parenting and Objectivism. I don't want to sound flippant, but they are a problem. It's a difficult thing to balance out the needs and wants and personalities of any two people living together, but it is even harder if there are more of you and some of you are dependent and not rational all the time. This exact problem is why good parenting is seriously hard work. I would recommend my other parenting posts, the excellent parenting posts over at RationalJenn, and positive discipline. Helping children (and parents) learn to live selfishly, but kindly and considerately, is what positive discipline does best.

Those are my rambling thoughts on selfishness and parenting. I hope this will be helpful to my friend and interesting to you guys.

Papaw the Paratrooper

When I was a little girl, maybe 8 years old, my grandfather (Papaw) decided that he wanted to grow more muscadine vines in the yard. He already had quite a few, and I remember lying under them in the summer, enjoying the cool shade and eating muscadines that grew on the underside of the vines. The expansion project was to be on a huge hill on the side of the yard, so we had to terrace the hill. It was very steep, probably about a 45 degree angle, and Papaw terraced it by hand. He was in his early 70s, I think. He used a shovel to cut flat terraces out of the hill, about 4 of them, 20 feet long. We were working there on the hill one day, digging, and he fell. I watched him roll down the hill and straight up onto his knees. I ran down the hill, terrified, shouting, "Papaw, are you okay?" He stood up, brushed off his pants, gave me a scathing look, and said, "I parachuted into the Pacific. I can roll down a hill." Then, properly chastened and never daring to think of him as feeble again, I followed him back up the hill and started work again.

I'm So Excited, and I Just Can't Hide It

I am so excited about my new job that I had to blog it. I will be teaching the gymnastics methods class to future P.E. teachers at a local college. I will get to redesign the course myself! This will be amazing experience for me, since I want to teach at a community college in the future (though in a totally different field). You guys who know me, know that I am really passionate about changing some of the ways that gymnastics is taught to make it more accessible to all kinds of kids, not just the wildly talented ones. This is my chance to spread my way of teaching. I am so pumped!

A Book For Objectivist Parents Who Are Sick of Explaining Why the Things that Happen in All the Books Are Wrong

We just read How Chipmunk Got His Stripes by Joseph and James Bruchac. It is a Native-American tale about bragging and teasing.

I find that so many books for children have morals that I disagree with. Every other book (at least it seems that way) we get from the library is about putting others first or being obedient. All the others show kids using rude, sometimes cruel, behavior with siblings, friends, or parents, as a matter of course, not as a plot device. When I find a book that tells a fun, engaging tale with excellent values, I feel like I should shout it from the rooftops.

In How Chipmunk Got His Stripes, we see some bad behavior as a plot device. Bear is a braggart, and Chipmunk is a teaser. But, both of them come off looking pretty ridiculous in the book, and let me just say, it was about time some justice was doled out in a children's book. The moral can be basically summed up in this line, attributed to Chipmunk's grandmother: "It is good to be right about something. But when someone else is wrong, it is not a good idea to tease him" (Bruchac, 15). We also see Bear, who thinks he can do literally everything (including stopping the sun from rising), looking very foolish in the end.

Livy liked the story a lot, too. The text and the illustrations were funny, and the story was easy to follow. I wondered if she would be confused about whether chipmunks really were created this way, but the story was fantastical enough that she understood immediately that it was fiction. The story sparked a discussion about mythology and how people tried to explain things with stories before we had science. (I did not mention that many people still do this. Blech!)

So, I declare the story a good read, enjoyed by mom and six year old, and not requiring lengthy explanations of how wrong all the morals are. Two thumbs up.

Pretty Much the Best Day Ever with Livy: Subtitled Life-Learning and Why We Love It

Today, we had the most wonderful day. The kind of day that makes me think, only for a minute or two, that this parenting gig could be my only job. (Aside: I am much happier when I am half full-time mom and half coach and student -- a weird set-up made possible by a very amicable divorce. Go figure.) Anyway, today, I thought that I could do this every day.

We got up reasonably early for us (about 9:30 a.m.). Aaron went to work (thanks for bankrolling our day, by the way); Livy watched a movie and got some food; and I worked on my Spanish most of the morning. About 11:00, we packed a bag full of water and snacks and put the stroller in the car. Then, we went to the zoo.

Livy walked some and strollered more (Six year old legs are still very chancy.). We saw every animal in our small zoo, pausing in front of the ones we found most interesting for a long time. The nice thing was that it really was us enjoying the zoo, and not just Livy. I strive not to have a child centered life, where every activity is for her, educational, and a chore for me. Instead, I hope to have a reality centered life, where we both interact with reality in our own ways, and hopefully, we do it together often. Today was one of those together times.

She like the reptiles, so we read every word about every snake, making sure to note if they were poisonous cause poisonous snakes are cool. I really like the primates, so we made sure to catch the gorilla and the orangutan feedings. We watched them, especially the babies, and marveled at how human they act. Neither of us is crazy about birds, so we paid them no mind. I didn't try to educate her at every turn, and she didn't assume the trip was all about her interests. We just hung out together. It was wonderful.

We looked at animals, rode the train, played on the playground, and talked about plants (oh how I love them). We did educational stuff, for sure. We did science all day (animals, plants, evolution). She practiced reading a map. We discussed money (how much things cost, making decisions about what you want to buy with the amount we have to spend, the financial cost of me being home with her and at the zoo instead of having a job). We practiced social skills (especially on the playground where she had to be VERY assertive with some badly behaved kids in a big group who were rough and didn't take turns). I read things out loud all day, while she looked on at the signs. But none of these activities was intended to be educational. It's just that life in the world, our fascinating, complicated, interesting world, requires reading and math and science and map skills and human interaction. She is living in the world now and learning as she goes along, and I am living and learning with her.