Comments on: Idyll speculation

By: LesbianDad

LesbianDad — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 17:16:11 +0000

Wow. That is about the finest thing I could hear. That’s the main reason I’m rummaging around in the bushes up ahead and calling back over my shoulder to give reports of the landscape I see. It’s not everyone’s landscape, but if it resembles something you see too, then I’m so so glad to work together to sharpen our vision of it. Thank you, Shereen.

I so appreciate it that this is the image of parenthood and child-rearing you get from these words in here, since that’s exactly what I feel so strongly. Kahlil Gibran’s “On Children,” from his work The Prophet, is my main guidepost (won’t be the first time I’m compelled to cite it).

On Children
Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

By: Shereen

Shereen — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 16:16:48 +0000

Now that’s the kind of talk that makes my fear go away. It’s a good, good point about the both/and mentality. I didn’t mean to suggest an either/or paradigm, but isn’t it interesting how that either/or mentality inserts itself into the North American discourse so easily? I find myself having to work on removing that kind of narrowness of thought from my language, and my thought patterns, repeatedly. Thanks for the reminder.
One of the most easing and heartwarming perspectives I continually receive, as I mentally sit at the knee of your blog, is the perspective of abundance instead of territoriality in child-rearing. Abundance of love, community, family, respect, joy and learning, all moving in all directions. The vision of our families and our children not as our ‘property’, but as a wellspring; not ours to be controlled or owned, but shared in our hearts. Not sure about that image now that I think back on it, but I’m sure you know what I mean.
Lordy, but it makes me feel better about becoming a parent, having you out there cutting trail.

By: LesbianDad

LesbianDad — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 22:40:46 +0000

Ah, sister! And the same back atcha! That is to say, lord knows I am a sponge for insight far more than I am a font of it. So I hope you share your own here (and/or offline!) as they evolve.

I have to say right off that a little voice always shouts out “Both/and!” whenever I see (or pose myself) an either/or question. I’m always surprised how often “both/and” actually winds up being a decent answer. So to all your versuses up there: basically, yes! Family diversity makes sense as diversity when it’s situated in a, well, diverse context. So family diversity is all of the above. Todd Parr’s The Family Book makes that point sweetly and simply, and has been a big hit in our brood.

One big, very comforting realization , on the other side of our family’s inception (the journey of “developing” it will be a life-long one, I’m figuring) is that love is thicker than water. Or other folks’ bile. Or other people’s ingrown notions of what constitutes a family. I had so, so many more worries when we were on the other side of getting our little pack going. Now that we’re underway, I can see that the love-filled work of parenthood supercedes so very much. Not all, but a very very lot.

I also think that a major blessing comes in the gradual pace of a child’s growing-up process, and their gradual capacities to see the world around them through other peoples’ eyes. Think of their drawings. They draw what they see of the human body (when they eventually manage to see it distinct and not abstract), and even then it consists of a huuuuuuuge head and far less consequential limbs which sprout directly out of the head. Eventually the details emerge, but only when they become relevant.

I am hoping, hoping, this continues to work as a metaphor for our children’s developing understandings of family. And that their picture can indeed develop, limb by limb, into the large, multi-branched organism my partner and I experience our family to be. Which is basically akin to your South Asian friend’s conception of family. His family tree is the kind I want our kids to draw, and climb up into, and sit in the shade of.

By: Shereen

Shereen — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 21:50:24 +0000

A friend of mine, a man of South Asian descent who spent a fair number of years growing up in London, tells a story about how he and his siblings always got family trees ‘wrong’ in school. Their cultural concept of family meant that when they drew a picture of family, it included a whole raft of people, including the man who owned the corner store.
I’ve found your last two posts profoundly thought-provoking. On the verge of adopting, my wife and I are having to consider how to juggle all sorts of notions of family and community, and how we name them. Is it more important that we help our children work on the concept of birth vs. adopted family? Same-sex vs. hetero families? Multi-cultural families (my wife and I are a multi-cultural couple) where all the family members look different? Which of these conceptual struggles will be the ones that mark them most deeply, the ones they’ll struggle with the hardest? And in helping them with all of that - how will we name and describe all of it for them, and for others, in simple, accessible terms?
Of course, thinking about how to deal with all of that makes me freeze in terror. It seems as though you and your partner have done some very pro-active and thoughtful work on this; any (extremely detailed) thoughts on how you’ve gone about making the choices you’ve made would sure be welcome!

By: AllieGreenhouse

AllieGreenhouse — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 08:59:53 +0000

Yes, I don’t tend to assume any titles for the adults that kids are with. If talking to young children I usually refer to the adult/s with them as ‘your grown up/s’. Our kids sometimes call us ‘the mummies’ collectively but use our first names mainly. When they were born I thought it would matter a lot to be called ‘Mummy Allie’ by both of them but I have actually found that I really like the fact that they just use my name. They have also adopted loving nicknames for the two of us that only they use, which is very sweet.

By: love.ceej

love.ceej — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 00:42:50 +0000

I am always very careful never to use “Mom” or “Dad” when referring to customers or speaking to their children. I think this is partially because I would like to be careful anyway, and partially because I live in a city with a large LGBT community, specifically the L and T kind of people, and I never know what they’re called among family and friends. It’s actually quite easy to avoid those dichotomous (is that even a word?) names. Instead of saying “But Mom, I want to eat it with my fingers!” to a woman whose child has just attempted to faceplant into his or her ice cream, I simply say “But I want to eat it with my fingers!” Same idea comes across. No difference. All it takes is one more millisecond of thought before opening my mouth (which all of us could probably use).