7.15.2012

what s/he wrote

a friend recently shared this new yorker article on facebook:  why are american kids so spoiled?  it's a ten-minute read, but it's well worth it.  the author discusses a lot of the same ideas that i recently read in the continuum concept, a book written in the 1970s that had me nodding my head, reading bits out loud to my husband, and saying "oh, right, of course!" when just about every page had something to say that made great intuitive sense to me.

back before my husband and i got married, we did an exercise that i got excited about trying after reading this at the fabulous a practical wedding.  the exercise: over the course of several conversations, we identified the values that we wanted to be present in our marriage, and then we tried to plan our wedding based on those values, too.

we had planned to have a similar set of values conversations before our daughter was born that would help guide us as we raise her, but she busted out a month early, and that exercise--like many other things on our "to do before baby" list--remains undone.

after reading the continuum concept and the new yorker article, though, i think we might need to make time for that conversation.  here's a quote from the article: "what values do we convey by turning our homes into warehouses for dolls? by assigning our kids chores and then rewarding them when they screw up? by untying and then retying their shoes for them?"


we don't have a "warehouse of dolls" and we're nowhere near shoelaces-age yet, but the idea is important to me.  and while i don't agree with everything in either reading, i do think this:  we make so many small, in-the-moment decisions to try and do what's best for our kiddo, and those decisions would feel stronger to me if we had our personal list of values to measure them against.


so all of this talk so far is marriage- and kid-related, yes, but it gets me thinking about our busybusybusy, choice-choked adult lives of all kinds.  do we need to be more explicit with ourselves about our values so that, at the very least, all that busybusybusy is spent in ways we really want to be spending our lives?  has everyone else already done that except me?  do you have a list of your values posted to your bathroom mirror or what?

6 comments:

  1. absolutely agree. Auto pilot - that is a life lived without it being driven and steered by your articulated values. I think turning off the devices and sitting cross-legged and talking is the best way to uncover those values and check ourselves on whether we are living by them. I read something recently about how we are all so busy and yet it is mostly self imposed and because we don't have our priorities straight. We are supposedly too busy to have quality time and conversations, and yet we spend hours and hours a day in front of email, facebook and TV for example. I still have some letting go of email and FB to do. Not having TV is amazing.... there is SO much time for other more important things when there is no TV. And now... i am shutting this computer down to go read a book. I will say, however, that 15 mins reading your posts are well spent. :)

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    1. yes! the devices are overrunning me, especially now that i have the dang smartphone. it's much harder to have the cross-legged conversations, the kind i used to have when i was in college and had all the time in the world (though i didn't recognize it then). i think we still need those cross-legged, values-exploring conversations as adults, mamas, papas, workers,...

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  2. Preach it, sister. One thing I've noticed with my Brownie troop is that they all want to be entertained all the time, but if you take away all planned activity, they find much more creative things to do. Kids in an empty room will put on a play, or chase each other around, or invent games--which is surely more valuable than me providing "something to do." There are so few ways that adults can stretch their imaginations with no prompting. We should let kids do it while they can...and maybe they won't lose the ability later.

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    1. amy, i love this example. i remember in elementary school, my friend and i used to say to her mom, "we're bored! what can we do?" and she'd say, "mildew. three times in a row." it didn't make any sense at all, but even though we left in a huff, we figured out something to do on our own.

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  3. i read that article in the New Yorker too, and what stood out to me was the talk about it's ok to get the kids frustrated. The whole French mom thing. While I didn't agree that I would let my kid scream for 5 minutes on principle before i went to pick her up, i did like the idea that it's not only ok for your child to be frustrated and work through frustration sometimes, but that it's really, really good for her. At every age. I have tried to be a little less susceptible to answering her every beck and call just because it's easier...and to keep taking the time to do the laundry with her and give her chores to do (like feeding the dog). It definitely takes longer to do such things with a 2 year old, but it's worth it. oh, i'm rambling.....also wanted to say that I like the values idea very much. We never sit down and talk about those except in opposition to others' demonstrated values -- as in, "we would never do what X&Y do", which I think is a mistake. The last serious conversation we had about a life plan/values was pre-wedding, while writing vows. Hmm. Thanks for the post!!

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    1. we've been experimenting with how long to let our baby be frustrated before we help her, too. it's hard, and sometimes we get it wrong, but i think it's good for all of us.

      AND...such a good thing to bring up: talking about values in opposition to others' demonstrated values. yes. that's often how it comes up for us when we haven't talked about it in a while on our own, and i don't like the way that feels either. thanks for the comment, lady!

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