When food is given the status of a religion (the place where sacrifices are made to ensure a positive outcome and long/eternal life), then there IS the necessity of a devil/Satan/"the dark side." When food is just another casual part of life, kids will choose melons over biscuits/cookies and chocolate eggs sometimes.
When unschoolers discuss limits they're often discussing arbitrary limits, trumped up to make the parents feel good, or used as magical talismans to guarantee that their children will be creative, healthy and safe. What creates much more magic is to help children discover and do and be.—Sandra Dodd
Limits and Influence
Okay—here's the first report from Spartacus. We're still in the first tape, and we watch it the way we live the rest of our lives, with frequent re-winds and pauses, breaks to eat, and at the moment Kirby is fast-forwarding to the next fight scene while I come and post my press release. (I started taking notes on the back of an envelope as soon as I saw it was getting good!)That one is ceremonial, and "make-a-wish" benign. It became the "Cake as Sacrifice" page, which is one of my favorites, and has more about the role of cakes in ceremonies.The senate has decided to put one of their members in charge of quashing the slave revolt. One of the leaders of the senate bought a live chicken from a passing chicken-wagon and said to a younger senator, "Let's have an old-time sacrifice for [what's-his-name's] success" or something, and Kirby was looking at a book so I said, "Look, Kirby, they're going to sacrifice a chicken!"
(K=Kirby, 8; M= Marty, 6; S=me)
K: What's a chicken?S: You know—a chicken!
K: You mean a scared guy?
S: No, a bird with feathers—buck, buck, buck. They're going to kill it.
K: Kill a chicken!?!
M: That's really EASY!
(this followed on some discussion of how hard it would be for the guards of a villa to stop fifty trained gladiators, since they had no guns, only hand-to-hand combat.)S: They're not doing it because it's hard, but to ask a god to help the guy.M: What, are they killing a SPECIAL chicken!?
(we put the show on pause, and I told them to come where I could explain it to them)S: You know how Jesus died on the cross?M (impatiently, like I was changing the subject): Yeah, yeah, yeah.
S: Well that was a human sacrifice. They used to do that a long time ago. If we believed in a god we were afraid of and wanted this god to do something for us and we had a bunch of chickens, we might take the best chicken and kill it, offering its life to that god in exchange for him doing something for us. So you kill the chicken and kind of say a prayer or make a wish."
(They were nodding with recognition, and Marty was headed to turn the show back on,S: It's kind of like when you throw a penny into a fountain or blow out your birthday candle to make a wish.
and then...)(Marty just had his birthday on the 14th, and had a single numeral "6" candle.)K: Oh! Sacrificing a penny, or sacrificing fire.
Wow! When Kirby said that I got a chill. I have had for ten years a theory (one of my collected masters' thesis ideas) of cakes as sacrifices—wedding cakes, birthday cakes, graduation cakes—I'll tell you that one later. I had thought of birthday cakes as "burnt offerings" but had NEVER until Kirby beat me to it had the notion of "sacrificing fire," but sure enough—think about it. What's more valuable to mankind than fire and light? And kids make a secret wish and blow out a fire. I STILL have that creepy, exciting feeling that I just learned something mysterious and wonderful, and I'm 41. Kirby will have known that for 33 years by the time he's my age. Cool!!
There are other sacrifices, though, that can cause harm to relationships, to clarity, and to unschooling, to greater or lesser degrees.
The idea that one can make a sacrifice to assure future success is ancient among humans, isn't it?
Deprivation doesn't create appreciation. It creates some or all of desire, neediness, curiosity, fascination, resentment, obsession, anger...
Unfortunately the real sacrifice parents make too often is their child's happiness and their own hope of a full and healthy relationship with that child and future adult.
Sandra Dodd wrote this in a discussion about food. It was preceded by a comment about gluten sensitivity. It is beautiful.Where Schuyler shared that, on her own facebook page, some people came and defended their own sacrifices of gluten or whatever, not understanding that they were making my point.(Sandra:) It's the new religion.
People walk to a little church in northen New Mexico every year, the Sanctuario de Chimayo, near where I grew up. Some go on their knees the last part. Some walk 100 miles. Thousands walk five or fifteen miles. They want to be blessed in that church, and get some of the holy, healing dirt to take home to others who couldn't come. When I was a kid, the room with the dirt floor, where people could go in and scoop some up to take home, was miraculous. There was always more dirt, and the walls were covered with crutches and leg braces from people who had been cured of polio and other afflictions.
Making sacrifices to obtain better health and a longer life has been known to help people since before history was recorded.
The belief that giving something up will have sudden and measurable effects might be what causes the effects. Hope and a feeling of being more in control, of finally having help or an answer might be part of what makes people feel better. If they feel successful and powerful, they might continue to feel good about their sacrifice. If they fear the substance they have sacrificed, then eating it might stress them and stress is known to trigger problems.
People seem to have an instinct to look for angels and devils (of one sort or another) and even in a person who rejects what they consider superstition or religion, they might need to know what is holy and beneficial, and what is evil and destructive, and many people are characterizing foods in those ways now. If there is a biological imperative to have villians and blessings, people can find them.
Some villify plastic and worship wood.
Some praise bicycles and hate motorcycles/cars/trucks.
Some worship books and revile movies or electronics.
Some even reject the use of electronic versions of the same books they worship in paper form; some don't, and that is why religions have sects and denominations, because one person gets VERY attached to one aspect as the strongest element. The head covering, the dates, the method of baptism and the age of the subject, pork or shellfish, Saturday or Sunday sabbath, beard or no beard, hair cut or not cut, hair showing or not showing, skirts long or short, foreskin cut or not cut (there's a sacrifice BIGtime—to please God or to prevent disease).
People swear by these things, or against these things. And swearing is a magical sacrifice. It is "I will state this as truth and will put my life/freedom up as surety." Swearing an oath has magic and dangerous risk. Perjury is a crime.
Belief is powerful. When mothers swear that their children get hyper from sugar and don't want to consider that it might be excitement over finally getting something they longed for that was forbidden, they act as though their children are possessed by a devil. They laugh at their kids, and tell neighbors and strangers how "hyper" they are, and the mothers feel absolutely justified in controlling their children further, protecting them from that devil. It will make the children sneak and lie, but that will be seen as proof of evil and the power of sugar.
There is so much fear and nonsense, it's hard to see what actually is plain truth. And people get pretty het up when someone says "fear and nonsense." They get hostile, defensive, hyper. It's like someone whose religion has been criticized, especially if they feel that holy dirt cured their mother, or child.
The topic started off, I think, about moms saying "Drive carefully," and whether it's a kind thing to say or irritating. Some of it is missing. The topic called driving; sacrifice is where the quote below appears; I was responding:
I sacrifice my peace to allow my boys to drive away in vehicles powerful enough to kill them and others.I'm sorry the beginning of the discussion is lost; I'm glad we have the archives we do!My husband sacrifices money and "power" to let them use two of his cars as though they were theirs.
It's a loving sacrifice, but it's a choice we've made. If it's not our choice, it's not really a sacrifice. Without choice, we would've been just trod upon, and robbed, and abused.
The notion of valuing generosity or inconvenience or sharing or compromise in terms of something spiritual is
1) beyond some people's understanding
2) embarrassing to many
3) "not in the Bible" (pick your religion, but probably not on the short list of what one "has" to do)Sandra