Response to Kami

Let me stop laughing first. Hee hee. No, I'm really getting myself under control. HAHAHAHAHHA--you're JUST LIKE MOM!!! AHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHH HEEE EHEEE.

I'm better now. Yeah, I'm totally authoritarian too. It doesn't bother me much. I TOTALLY agree with you about the need to find authentic ways to teach work ethic and follow through in a city. I think your music idea is fabulous. I just won't stop to imagine for too long how you would have reacted. Ha ha. No, I'm really not going to laugh anymore. I'm still much more firmly in the "make them do it" camp than the "inspire them to want to do it" camp. Then again, I was a lazy potlicker as a child and I know I wouldn't have done jack squat if Mom hadn't made me.

What's also funny is that I just posted about what a great day I had with the kids today (and we really did have a great day) but I did not mention the small episode where I was making the pie crust to go on top of the chicken pot pie filling and Emeline and Cowen were standing on a chair watching (I hate cooking with children). Emeline kept picking in and then she brushed a bunch of flour onto the floor, and I had flour all over my hands so I felt a little out-of-control of the situation. I yelled at her to stop touching. Then when she brushed another ton of flour onto the floor I screeched at her to stop touching. Then I took a deep breath, reminded myself that I hadn't yelled in weeks and that there must be a better way to solve this problem, picked up her naked-except-for-diaper body and stuck her outside on the back step and closed the door. And quite frankly, I didn't care about her poor cute toesies and our prickle infested backyard.

Two year olds are DEMONS. Besides, she was happy as a clam out there on her naked lonesome.

I also didn't mention in my cheerful blog post about scriptures and prayer when Miriam couldn't find the right page and started whining and whimpering, and I smacked her on the head with my scriptures. Ironic. It didn't hurt her much, but still . . . time and place made me feel less than impressed with myself. Especially as I'm opposed to physical punishment. Sigh.

You're not alone. Like I mentioned before--nobody is ever going to be real impressed with my parenting. Although you made me feel good this morning when you were talking about chores. I thought about it and my kids (Miriam and Cowen) can wash and dry dishes, clean mirrors/windows, clean the bathroom sink, and sort laundy all without supervision. Their Saturday chore is vacuuming their rooms, they put their clothes away, and they keep their rooms clean or they don't eat breakfast. They still struggle with making their beds, but they're working on it. They also vacuum, but the vacuum is heavy so they don't do quite a perfect job with that yet. And yes, we already covered that I'm an authoritarian work-a-holic parent who thinks modern parents do too much for their children and don't make their children part of the running of the household. One of my big core values--sharing the load a little more so children feel more involved in the success of the family.

Rambled on too long, but this is interesting stuff. I ran the "permanent homeschooler" idea past Timothy tonight. He expressed a worry about math education. Not surprising considering I had to add up on my fingers the answer to the difficult math problem Kami posed. He also expressed a worry about teaching our kids about deadlines since homeschool moms don't really flunk their kids if they don't turn things in on time. Hmm. I'll have to think about that one. He's tentatively okay with it though. Now, am I okay with it??