Generosity, Selflessness (Deep Topic #1)
Sandra Dodd
For weeks I've been thinking of how and whether there could be a forum for the very serious discussion of deeper ideas. I suppose this would be the place, but every day I see people asking to join Always Learning. Joyce handles that, but some of the people write that they're lightly curious about unschooling.
This is too much for someone lightly curious, or new. Skip it on by.
On the facebook page (NOT the best place for a deep discussion for sure), these two posts seemed too good not to set out for others to think about.
Meredith and then me, in response to an original question about not being schoolish with a child, asking those teacherly "Class... if you have three of this and five of that, then..." kinds of questions.
Anyway, down the conversation a way:
•
Meredith (quoting someone)
"Don't say anything to your children that you wouldn't say to your [spouse]."
Now and then I've seen people flip that around and use it as a kind of rule - if I'd say it to my spouse, then it's fine to say to my kids - and use that to defend criticism and nagging. It's not a rule, and it's not permission to be snotty, it's an idea that some people find helpful in shifting perspectives. It could also be helpful to consider what you might say to a friend, someone whose opinion you valued and whose feelings you wanted to consider. Or it can be helpful to ask "how would it feel if my husband or close friends said that to me?" But the goal of any of those thought experiments is to open up communication with your kids by striving to understand their point of view.
____________________________
Sandra Dodd:
Thanks, Meredith. I honestly forget about people who justify shocking rudeness to a spouse. (I try to forget them. )
In the distant past on this discussion, someone wrote once: "I've felt blood boiling pissed at my hubby (more than) several times in our marriage, many of those times I had a really good reason to be. None of those times did I ever consider divorce. There is absolutely nothing wrong with feeling whatever you feel…."
I just happen to have come across it this afternoon and thought I should really save it somewhere.
One problem is that if my partner, or friend, or child, had written something like that about me (divorce translated to 'leaving' or breaking off from) what it ignores is that *I* might be full-on done with extreme blood boiling pissed-offedness and it might not matter to me anymore whether the other adults would like to stay in my presence justifying that kind of anger for life. I might be ready to leave myself.
And so on a much smaller scale (I hope) with teaching and schoolishness and speaking to a child in a poodle voice. Just because the parent is planning to maybe change those things gradually and eventually doesn't mean the child isn't deciding on her own that she's not going to answer any more weird requests for her to perform some sort of baseless tricks.
I think both of those involve failure to put the other person first, even on a case-by-case basis. http://sandradodd.com/balance (Some people hear "put your child first" and go all emotional like we've said "sacrifice every wish you ever might have had," or "Be generous with your spouse" to mean "become a slave without desires of your own." VERY OFTEN, put others first.)
_____________________________
There's something Schuyler wrote some years back that I recently quoted in Just Add Light, but this is the longer passage (with a link to where it is framed by some things Joyce wrote about parental assumption that selfishness in the parent is sensible):
Schuyler:
I don't know what did it, but I can almost pinpoint the minute when I turned from feeling a need to have my own needs met in a separate but equal kind of way to seeing how being with Simon and Linnaea was meeting my needs in the most involved and deep way. We were playing a game on the floor and I just sat and watched and listened and my cup ran over. Before then, there were moments, there were flitting bits of fulfilment, but somehow, in that moment all those moments cumulated and showed me, viscerally, the way to meet my own needs by meeting theirs.
Does that sound like martyrdom? Maybe. What did it take? It took being in Toys R Us one day and getting really hungry and getting really unhappy and recognising that the two things were linked. It took making sure that I wasn't hungry. It took smelling their heads when I was making lists of things that needed to be done away from them, a sort of biofeedback that pulled me back into them and turned my head from the chores that I was lining up to go and do. It took a growing awareness that they were at least as engaging and interesting as the things I was thinking of doing or that I was thinking would fill me up. And it took a real recognition that when I got "my time" it didn't satiate my needs, it didn't even begin to meet them.
For me, it was very clearly incremental, it was a step by step building from small changes to a point where I was in a position to find personal fulfilment in being with my children. It wasn't martyrdom, or it didn't feel as though I'd sacrificed myself for their joy. It did help to get the almost kinetic memory of being kind to them, of meeting them where they were instead of expecting them to meet me where I was.
http://sandradodd.com/needs
__________SERIOUS DISCLAIMER for serious topic: ________
This is not a beginning topic, nor an intermediate topic. Anyone who is baffled or wants to argue with it should not.
Just look away at more basic ideas.
http://sandradodd.com/partners/child
or
http://sandradodd.com/generosity
Sandra
[link to the facebook discussion, for the record, not to invite people over there; I would rather discuss selflessness itself, here.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/303347574750/permalink/10152734989139751/ ]
This is too much for someone lightly curious, or new. Skip it on by.
On the facebook page (NOT the best place for a deep discussion for sure), these two posts seemed too good not to set out for others to think about.
Meredith and then me, in response to an original question about not being schoolish with a child, asking those teacherly "Class... if you have three of this and five of that, then..." kinds of questions.
Anyway, down the conversation a way:
•
Meredith (quoting someone)
"Don't say anything to your children that you wouldn't say to your [spouse]."
Now and then I've seen people flip that around and use it as a kind of rule - if I'd say it to my spouse, then it's fine to say to my kids - and use that to defend criticism and nagging. It's not a rule, and it's not permission to be snotty, it's an idea that some people find helpful in shifting perspectives. It could also be helpful to consider what you might say to a friend, someone whose opinion you valued and whose feelings you wanted to consider. Or it can be helpful to ask "how would it feel if my husband or close friends said that to me?" But the goal of any of those thought experiments is to open up communication with your kids by striving to understand their point of view.
____________________________
Sandra Dodd:
Thanks, Meredith. I honestly forget about people who justify shocking rudeness to a spouse. (I try to forget them. )
In the distant past on this discussion, someone wrote once: "I've felt blood boiling pissed at my hubby (more than) several times in our marriage, many of those times I had a really good reason to be. None of those times did I ever consider divorce. There is absolutely nothing wrong with feeling whatever you feel…."
I just happen to have come across it this afternoon and thought I should really save it somewhere.
One problem is that if my partner, or friend, or child, had written something like that about me (divorce translated to 'leaving' or breaking off from) what it ignores is that *I* might be full-on done with extreme blood boiling pissed-offedness and it might not matter to me anymore whether the other adults would like to stay in my presence justifying that kind of anger for life. I might be ready to leave myself.
And so on a much smaller scale (I hope) with teaching and schoolishness and speaking to a child in a poodle voice. Just because the parent is planning to maybe change those things gradually and eventually doesn't mean the child isn't deciding on her own that she's not going to answer any more weird requests for her to perform some sort of baseless tricks.
I think both of those involve failure to put the other person first, even on a case-by-case basis. http://sandradodd.com/balance (Some people hear "put your child first" and go all emotional like we've said "sacrifice every wish you ever might have had," or "Be generous with your spouse" to mean "become a slave without desires of your own." VERY OFTEN, put others first.)
_____________________________
There's something Schuyler wrote some years back that I recently quoted in Just Add Light, but this is the longer passage (with a link to where it is framed by some things Joyce wrote about parental assumption that selfishness in the parent is sensible):
Schuyler:
I don't know what did it, but I can almost pinpoint the minute when I turned from feeling a need to have my own needs met in a separate but equal kind of way to seeing how being with Simon and Linnaea was meeting my needs in the most involved and deep way. We were playing a game on the floor and I just sat and watched and listened and my cup ran over. Before then, there were moments, there were flitting bits of fulfilment, but somehow, in that moment all those moments cumulated and showed me, viscerally, the way to meet my own needs by meeting theirs.
Does that sound like martyrdom? Maybe. What did it take? It took being in Toys R Us one day and getting really hungry and getting really unhappy and recognising that the two things were linked. It took making sure that I wasn't hungry. It took smelling their heads when I was making lists of things that needed to be done away from them, a sort of biofeedback that pulled me back into them and turned my head from the chores that I was lining up to go and do. It took a growing awareness that they were at least as engaging and interesting as the things I was thinking of doing or that I was thinking would fill me up. And it took a real recognition that when I got "my time" it didn't satiate my needs, it didn't even begin to meet them.
For me, it was very clearly incremental, it was a step by step building from small changes to a point where I was in a position to find personal fulfilment in being with my children. It wasn't martyrdom, or it didn't feel as though I'd sacrificed myself for their joy. It did help to get the almost kinetic memory of being kind to them, of meeting them where they were instead of expecting them to meet me where I was.
http://sandradodd.com/needs
__________SERIOUS DISCLAIMER for serious topic: ________
This is not a beginning topic, nor an intermediate topic. Anyone who is baffled or wants to argue with it should not.
Just look away at more basic ideas.
http://sandradodd.com/partners/child
or
http://sandradodd.com/generosity
Sandra
[link to the facebook discussion, for the record, not to invite people over there; I would rather discuss selflessness itself, here.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/303347574750/permalink/10152734989139751/ ]
fishbeensnail@...
This list has helped me in many ways but one of the ones I am most grateful for is the change in how I see housework and how easy it is to meet my own needs at the same time as meeting my family's needs. Letting go of 'have to' was a life changer.
My daughter has a dust allergy and asthma and keeping the house well dusted and mopped keeps her healthy. I am grateful that such a small thing can help her so much. And grateful to have twenty minutes a day of repetitive activity which is perfect for meditation! Doing the dishes is time to sing or time to talk with my daughter or wife. And I love cooking. Acts of service are a gift to my family but also a gift to myself.
After a hospital stay for my daughter last summer I was very stressed and some good advice from this list convinced me I needed a way to manage my stress levels. One of the suggestions was Tai Chi. I got a DVD and tried it out. My daughter was not happy. She interrupted a lot and it was not helping my stress levels. She wanted to go to the swings. So we went to the swings. I pushed her and sang to her. We sang the songs from Frozen, and slowly added in other songs that I know. Lots of them. We would be there for hours every day. Sometimes five hours a day. Singing. Loudly. The stress just flowed away. It was exactly what we both needed. I could have pushed her resentfully, wanting to be elsewhere, chivying her to move on sooner than she was ready to and neither of us would have got our needs met. I set aside what I thought I needed and engaged with my daughter. I got my needs met. Singing was exactly the catharsis I needed to let out the feelings that were overwhelming me. I got what I needed and more. But I had to let go of my idea of what that would look like.
There are interests that I have put aside because they are hard to fit in with my life now. My daughter is very young still and she needs me a lot. Her childhood will not last forever and I will have the rest of my life for my interests. In exchange for the things I set aside I get so much more back. My daughter has led me to wonderful new interests, ones I never would have found without being with her wholeheartedly while we discovered new things together. I have discovered skills I never knew I had and found that some things I thought were true of me were so wrong.
To illustrate, I thought I was bad at maths. I'm not. I'm pretty number blind but I built a steampunk train station with a glass roof in minecraft a couple of months ago. It has a huge multi-faceted dome and the floor below it has a massive cog set in the floor. I plotted parts of it on graph paper, worked out lots of complex angles, got the hang of building circles and arches out of blocks. There was so much maths involved. And I absolutely loved it. I'm good at maths! I enjoy maths!
My childhood was often unhappy. I know Sandra and others have written about how they have healed the hurt child in themselves by meeting their children's needs. The same is very true for me. My daughter is having a childhood full of joy and I'm not a spectator. I'm not watching it happen, I'm right there with her. I've gone native and I am having a wonderful time, full of learning and healing and joy. Her wonderful childhood is not my gift to her. It's her gift to me.
I'm not sacrificing anything. Everyone is winning here.
janine davies
I am one of the people who wrote about how I have healed the hurt child in me by meeting my children's needs.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2015 12:15:23 -0800
Subject: [AlwaysLearning] Re: Generosity, Selflessness (Deep Topic #1)
This is so beautiful and so powerful, and I can so feel your joy as I'm reading it, and while reading I found myself doing one of those long slow deep and happy intakes of breath and smiled and smiled as I was doing it. Like at the end of a feel good movie.
>>I've gone native and I am having a wonderful time, full of learning and healing and joy. Her wonderful childhood is not my gift to her. It's her gift to me. <<
You are now singing (literally 
) and dancing your way through it and healing deeply on the way. It is a gift, the best gift ever!
) and dancing your way through it and healing deeply on the way. It is a gift, the best gift ever! >>I'm not sacrificing anything. Everyone is winning here. <<
YES!
I want to shout this from the roof tops often! It's so true and again so healing when it is realised and understood deeply.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2015 12:15:23 -0800
Subject: [AlwaysLearning] Re: Generosity, Selflessness (Deep Topic #1)
This list has helped me in many ways but one of the ones I am most grateful for is the change in how I see housework and how easy it is to meet my own needs at the same time as meeting my family's needs. Letting go of 'have to' was a life changer.
My daughter has a dust allergy and asthma and keeping the house well dusted and mopped keeps her healthy. I am grateful that such a small thing can help her so much. And grateful to have twenty minutes a day of repetitive activity which is perfect for meditation! Doing the dishes is time to sing or time to talk with my daughter or wife. And I love cooking. Acts of service are a gift to my family but also a gift to myself.
After a hospital stay for my daughter last summer I was very stressed and some good advice from this list convinced me I needed a way to manage my stress levels. One of the suggestions was Tai Chi. I got a DVD and tried it out. My daughter was not happy. She interrupted a lot and it was not helping my stress levels. She wanted to go to the swings. So we went to the swings. I pushed her and sang to her. We sang the songs from Frozen, and slowly added in other songs that I know. Lots of them. We would be there for hours every day. Sometimes five hours a day. Singing. Loudly. The stress just flowed away. It was exactly what we both needed. I could have pushed her resentfully, wanting to be elsewhere, chivying her to move on sooner than she was ready to and neither of us would have got our needs met. I set aside what I thought I needed and engaged with my daughter. I got my needs met. Singing was exactly the catharsis I needed to let out the feelings that were overwhelming me. I got what I needed and more. But I had to let go of my idea of what that would look like.
There are interests that I have put aside because they are hard to fit in with my life now. My daughter is very young still and she needs me a lot. Her childhood will not last forever and I will have the rest of my life for my interests. In exchange for the things I set aside I get so much more back. My daughter has led me to wonderful new interests, ones I never would have found without being with her wholeheartedly while we discovered new things together. I have discovered skills I never knew I had and found that some things I thought were true of me were so wrong.
To illustrate, I thought I was bad at maths. I'm not. I'm pretty number blind but I built a steampunk train station with a glass roof in minecraft a couple of months ago. It has a huge multi-faceted dome and the floor below it has a massive cog set in the floor. I plotted parts of it on graph paper, worked out lots of complex angles, got the hang of building circles and arches out of blocks. There was so much maths involved. And I absolutely loved it. I'm good at maths! I enjoy maths!
My childhood was often unhappy. I know Sandra and others have written about how they have healed the hurt child in themselves by meeting their children's needs. The same is very true for me. My daughter is having a childhood full of joy and I'm not a spectator. I'm not watching it happen, I'm right there with her. I've gone native and I am having a wonderful time, full of learning and healing and joy. Her wonderful childhood is not my gift to her. It's her gift to me.
I'm not sacrificing anything. Everyone is winning here.