Re: [Unschooling-dotcom] extended families
[email protected]
In a message dated 7/4/00 5:06:36 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
naake1999@... writes:
<< The whole AP thing would be a lot easier if you lived with an extended
family and could, for example, take a bath or prepare a meal and know that
other adults or older cousins or whatever were in the other room with your
kids. Or, that your kids had playmates their age so that it wasn't all up to
you.
naake1999@... writes:
<< The whole AP thing would be a lot easier if you lived with an extended
family and could, for example, take a bath or prepare a meal and know that
other adults or older cousins or whatever were in the other room with your
kids. Or, that your kids had playmates their age so that it wasn't all up to
you.
>>
[email protected]
In a message dated 7/4/00 5:06:36 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
naake1999@... writes:
<< The whole AP thing would be a lot easier if you lived with an extended
family and could, for example, take a bath or prepare a meal and know that
other adults or older cousins or whatever were in the other room with your
kids. Or, that your kids had playmates their age so that it wasn't all up to
you.
Good point. However, it would not be to my benifit to live closer to my
family because they don't parent anywhere near the attachment style I use
with my children. I have made a community of friends, who parent the same
style. I have a sub-culture in my beliefs that offers me support on my worse
days and laugh with me on my best. I, also, am a facilitator for Attachment
Parenting International and provide a meeting place for like minded parents,
so that they can start making up their own "extended families".
Julie
naake1999@... writes:
<< The whole AP thing would be a lot easier if you lived with an extended
family and could, for example, take a bath or prepare a meal and know that
other adults or older cousins or whatever were in the other room with your
kids. Or, that your kids had playmates their age so that it wasn't all up to
you.
>>Annette,
Good point. However, it would not be to my benifit to live closer to my
family because they don't parent anywhere near the attachment style I use
with my children. I have made a community of friends, who parent the same
style. I have a sub-culture in my beliefs that offers me support on my worse
days and laugh with me on my best. I, also, am a facilitator for Attachment
Parenting International and provide a meeting place for like minded parents,
so that they can start making up their own "extended families".
Julie
[email protected]
In a message dated 7/4/2000 2:07:38 PM US Mountain Standard Time,
naake1999@... writes:
<< it's true that in the past moms had
their babies at their sides all the time and children grew up surrounded by
loving family who were there for everything they needed, but that is way
different from mom at home all day with the kids, isolated in some bedroom
community or exurban homestead, dad off at a distant job, coming home late
and tired, and trustworthy family members hundreds or thousands of miles
away. >>
Annette:
This is one of the reasons dh and I moved back to Arizona so that kids could
grow up around one set of grandparents... Recently my brother and his fiancee
moved here from Canada as well so now we really do have extended family and
even though we'd love to move somewhere cooler, like Colorado or Northern
California and up that coast, it's not such a good idea. Mum spends a lot of
time with Zak and Max and it's good for them and for me. Recently my brother
and f started babysitting so we could go out and the kids loved it. They got
new playmates (so much for problems with socialization as my friends who
don't believe in homeschooling will tell me about).
Dawn F
naake1999@... writes:
<< it's true that in the past moms had
their babies at their sides all the time and children grew up surrounded by
loving family who were there for everything they needed, but that is way
different from mom at home all day with the kids, isolated in some bedroom
community or exurban homestead, dad off at a distant job, coming home late
and tired, and trustworthy family members hundreds or thousands of miles
away. >>
Annette:
This is one of the reasons dh and I moved back to Arizona so that kids could
grow up around one set of grandparents... Recently my brother and his fiancee
moved here from Canada as well so now we really do have extended family and
even though we'd love to move somewhere cooler, like Colorado or Northern
California and up that coast, it's not such a good idea. Mum spends a lot of
time with Zak and Max and it's good for them and for me. Recently my brother
and f started babysitting so we could go out and the kids loved it. They got
new playmates (so much for problems with socialization as my friends who
don't believe in homeschooling will tell me about).
Dawn F
[email protected]
In a message dated 7/4/2000 9:51:37 PM US Mountain Standard Time,
naake1999@... writes:
<< However, it would not be to my benifit to live closer to my
family because they don't parent anywhere near the attachment style I use
with my children. >>
I think for me that I don't need my parents to be the same as Steve and I
because they are not my kids parents, they are their grandparents. I have
watched my mum talk to my son about where she grew up and about how she went
on a train (Zak's passion at the moment) when she was 5 years old into the
country where she'd never been. (She was talking about being evacuated
during the second world war).. She obviously didn't use those words, but Zak
asked her questions about why she had to live away from her parents and what
was war. She used to rock him to sleep when he was 2 and sing "The White
Cliffs of Dover" by Vera Lynn... She made him a tape of Vera Lynn songs and
that's from nearly 60 years ago. Zachary knows all the words to many second
world war songs (I didn't know them until we got the tape).
My mum's not a paragon of virtue, but what she brings to Zak's childhood is a
part of my history and past as well and Zak cannot get that from people we've
just met, as lovely and wonderful as a lot of those people are.
I also feel safe leaving my kids with her. She wouldn't abuse them in any
way and for me that's worth a lot, even living in this horrible hot desert
for the next 7 years (dad retires and they may move to somewhere cooler, in
which case we're out of here)...
I don't always get along with my mother, and I've had to learn to set a lot
of boundaries with my family and explain to them the way we are raising our
children, and mostly they have respected that, whether they've agreed with it
or not. On the whole this has been a massive learning experience for my own
psychological growth and a journey I don't think I would have missed.
Dawn F
naake1999@... writes:
<< However, it would not be to my benifit to live closer to my
family because they don't parent anywhere near the attachment style I use
with my children. >>
I think for me that I don't need my parents to be the same as Steve and I
because they are not my kids parents, they are their grandparents. I have
watched my mum talk to my son about where she grew up and about how she went
on a train (Zak's passion at the moment) when she was 5 years old into the
country where she'd never been. (She was talking about being evacuated
during the second world war).. She obviously didn't use those words, but Zak
asked her questions about why she had to live away from her parents and what
was war. She used to rock him to sleep when he was 2 and sing "The White
Cliffs of Dover" by Vera Lynn... She made him a tape of Vera Lynn songs and
that's from nearly 60 years ago. Zachary knows all the words to many second
world war songs (I didn't know them until we got the tape).
My mum's not a paragon of virtue, but what she brings to Zak's childhood is a
part of my history and past as well and Zak cannot get that from people we've
just met, as lovely and wonderful as a lot of those people are.
I also feel safe leaving my kids with her. She wouldn't abuse them in any
way and for me that's worth a lot, even living in this horrible hot desert
for the next 7 years (dad retires and they may move to somewhere cooler, in
which case we're out of here)...
I don't always get along with my mother, and I've had to learn to set a lot
of boundaries with my family and explain to them the way we are raising our
children, and mostly they have respected that, whether they've agreed with it
or not. On the whole this has been a massive learning experience for my own
psychological growth and a journey I don't think I would have missed.
Dawn F
[email protected]
Annette wrote:
<< The whole AP thing would be a lot easier if you lived with an extended
family and could, for example, take a bath or prepare a meal and know that
other adults or older cousins or whatever were in the other room with your
kids. Or, that your kids had playmates their age so that it wasn't all up to
you. >>
Yeah...finally someone has the courage to say what I've been thinking for
years! I thought this when I read Jean Liedloff's Continuum Concept
also...that the tribe make-up and communal living situations was just so
different from what most of us live in that it's very difficult to do the
same kind of parenting amid our situation of other parent working far away
and long hours, extended family living miles away, etc.
I think that even several years ago in our country we had more of this sense
of community. I know that when I grew up in a small town 30 plus years ago,
kids were allowed much more freedom to "run" because there was always someone
around looking out for them. I don't see that as much anymore.
It's difficult to find that sense of community for our families. Or am I
just looking in the wrong places??
Carol in WI
<< The whole AP thing would be a lot easier if you lived with an extended
family and could, for example, take a bath or prepare a meal and know that
other adults or older cousins or whatever were in the other room with your
kids. Or, that your kids had playmates their age so that it wasn't all up to
you. >>
Yeah...finally someone has the courage to say what I've been thinking for
years! I thought this when I read Jean Liedloff's Continuum Concept
also...that the tribe make-up and communal living situations was just so
different from what most of us live in that it's very difficult to do the
same kind of parenting amid our situation of other parent working far away
and long hours, extended family living miles away, etc.
I think that even several years ago in our country we had more of this sense
of community. I know that when I grew up in a small town 30 plus years ago,
kids were allowed much more freedom to "run" because there was always someone
around looking out for them. I don't see that as much anymore.
It's difficult to find that sense of community for our families. Or am I
just looking in the wrong places??
Carol in WI