Why?

Why would he do that? It is a question Cutter, almost 10, asks me while we are debriefing about the previous night spent with friends. There was much fun and laughter, swimming and ice cream, and there were also some difficult interactions among the kids. In particular, Cutter and our young friend, age 5, were having struggles. I imagine the younger boy was trying to figure out how to play with the older kids and not quite getting it right. So instead of that, he threw plastic cups and spit at Cutter. I discovered the tension as I rounded the corner of the house and found Cutter throwing a plastic cup back as he burst into tears. There were no innocents in the cup throwing department. I made sure they were both physically okay and then I apologized to Cutter.

I apologized because part of my role as a parent is to act as a buffer when necessary, as protection, as a guide in social situations that can so easily spiral out of control. I apologized because two kids were clearly very upset and on the verge of physically hurting one another and I did not make it clear that I was available, I did not make myself available enough. There is surely a line of thought, of parenting, that goes something like: "Parents don't always have to be with their children, kids need these difficult interactions; they're a "normal" part of childhood." In response, I'm reminded of the words I read recently while writing a speech about play, "The ego is implicitly nurtured by the absence of failure." It's very powerful, this idea of being nurtured by the absence of failure. I don't believe Cutter is learning anything about healthy relationships when I leave him to hash it out on his own, to throw cups and get spit upon; I don't believe a joyful adulthood arrives through such interactions. And so I apologized. And the next day, we debriefed. I asked why he didn't come to let me know they were having problems, as he usually does. He shared that his young friend, while spitting and throwing, had said, "Don't tell my dad. He hits us."

And then Cutter very seriously asked the question I cannot fully answer, for which there is no simple answer, "Why would he do that?" It is the second time in two weeks that someone we love has been revealed as someone who also hits and/or spanks his children. The first revelation came as friends were filling out paperwork for foster care certification and the dad lamented the "no spanking" rule. His example: If my child runs into the road, I'm not going to let them get hurt. I'm going to give them a good spanking so they don't do it again.

I try to explain the logic, or rather lack of logic, of this to Cutter. That parents are afraid their children will get hurt and so they hurt them believing this is the only way to keep them safe. I try, but I cannot truly explain. Explain how we come with deep hurts that we choose to heal or not; how those who hit, don't hit with their love and their strength and their wisdom, but with their past and their anger and their weakness; how embarrassment from buying into society that judges a parent based on the age-appropriate activities of a child can keep us from showing love and kindness, keep us from conversation; how I believe that the unexamined life can be easier and more damaging; how I learned, through our life with Isaiah, that I cannot prevent harm nor "create" a perfect dream child, but can merely question my own reasons for living, for acting, heal my own pain and in doing so, help Cutter find his own path, ask his own questions; how I'm so sorry that he lives in a world where it's okay to hit kids, to poison the ocean, to imprison the weak. How I love him, in his anger and his tears, his joy and his pain, just as I love our friends in their strength and their weakness. How I'm always trying to learn how to forgive, how to grow, how to question, how to love.

No, I cannot fully explain everything, and so we turn to play, to DragonQuest IX, battling next to each other on the couch, and I try to live the questions, because I know I don't have all the answers.

Be Imperfect.

Make mistakes.
Apologize.
Erase.
Fall down.
Lose.
Don't know the answer.
Don't even pretend to know the answer.
Do this all in full sight of children.


I imagine that many of us, when we become parents, think, I am going to teach this child how to be in the world, how to live right and be successful. I doubt many of us think, I am going to show this child of mine what it looks like to fall down, to apologize, to make a mistake. Yet, I am discovering that this second aspect of living, the falling down, is just as important, if not more so, to a child trying to make their way in the world. Watching Cutter, I see that he has no difficulty doing what he loves, celebrating his successes, be that rollerskating or swimming or video games. It is in his struggles, his challenges, where I see space for my living to offer guidance.

The first time this really came to my attention is after I told my Gramma that I'd illustrate a children's story she'd written for all of her grandchildren. I've always loved drawing, but hadn't really given it any space in my life for a long time, not since high school. I recall thinking that if what came out of my brain through my pencil wasn't automatically perfect, well then, I was not meant to draw. So it was with excitement and a tinge of doubt that I found myself at the kitchen table post-holidays with a veritable treasure trove spread before me: drawing books, a new sketchpad, charcoals, pens. As I began drawing, Cutter pulled out his own treasures: How to Draw Aliens and Monsters, a #2 pencil, tracing paper. He watched as I bit my lip, drew a line, erased, occasionally cursed, made notes of what needed to be different. I asked his opinion frequently. When he said a particular drawing looked like an alien, I drew antennae on the man's head and we laughed at the strange being I had created. And we both kept drawing.

After this time, I remembered back to Cutter's first (and only) time trying to snowboard. He stood on the board, fell off and announced it was much harder than he thought it would be and that he couldn't do it. I recall that we continued with sledding and had a fun time, but I also remember having thought to myself that he should try harder, that of course it wasn't easy and of course he didn't start out perfect. After our time drawing, I remembered back to that time on the snowy hill, and recognized myself in Cutter. I think sometimes it can be scary to go out on a limb and try something again at which you fear you aren't "good enough." Especially, I think, for children, who see adults everywhere seemingly competent in everything, from hair brushing (I actually realized a few months ago that I needed to ask Cutter if he knew how to brush his hair; he didn't) to cooking to reading, to claiming to know everything, to ruling the world.

The latest adventure that we've embarked upon has been roller skating. Cutter chose to learn roller skating from his own body's movements, without instruction from anyone. He has his own unique way of moving around the floor and in the past two months, he has become a skilled skater. My body has slowly recalled the ways of its youth, how to cross over on the curves, how to pick up one leg to avoid a downed skater, but there are many aspects of skating at which I am currently unskilled; jumping with both feet, for one; skating backwards, for another. So I throw self-consciousness to the wind and I try. I ask kids to show me their moves. I practice and I bump into walls. I fall down. Through it all, Cutter is doing his own thing, but he is also watching me: watching me laugh, watching me ask for help, watching me enjoy the entire process.

Just last week, we were skating and I fell down on one knee. Later, I said to Cutter that I had fallen. He said, "Yeah, I know, I saw you." I told him that I yelled when I fell. He said, "Yeah, I know. I heard you, too." I'm learning to not be bashful about looking foolish, imperfect, ever learning; I am indeed all those things, and every time I fall down, I can't help but think that my child learns something about how to get back up again.

The never empty world

"There can never be nothing... there's always something."

We were kneeling in the snow after a wrestling match and Cutter had paused in eating his snow snack in order to make this observation. He seemed truly fascinated by this thought.

It led me to talk about why I meditate, because there is always something, it's true, but that we don't always have to be drawn away from where we are by what else there is. I asked if he recognized that look in my eyes when we play, that look which tells him that I've started thinking of something else. He said yes, as I knew he would. I've been practicing for years to not drift away from where I am and when I do, I try to point it out to him, offer my apology. He's learning as well, especially when he's reading or playing a video game, to say, I can't give you my attention right now, but when I reach this point, I can.

So, there we sat in the snow, and I tried to explain meditation. We tried to make our minds blank and he said maybe white was blank. I began talking through a small meditation on where we were... I close my eyes, I breathe deeply, I hear the quiet and the cars and the wind in the trees, I feel the cold in my cheeks and the snow under my legs... I snuck a peek at him and his eyes were closed, his body still, head tilted up toward the sun... then he laughed and jumped up, throwing a snowball at me on his way past. I am thankful that the world is never empty, that there is space to sit and to jump, room for laughter and quiet, time for presence and joy.

Come look at this!

First, a list of us, the short version of what we've been up to: Reading, book review writing, rollerskating, FlipNote drawing, pretend with friends, video game playing, GoogleSketchUp creating, candlemaking, food baking, comic book writing, movie watching, snow fort building, family visiting, new job settling, christmas music listening... and so forth.


It has always been difficult, for myself and for Cutter, to respond to the question of what we've been learning. Cutter, because he tends to go with what he's doing at the moment and blanks on the rest; everyone in the state of Michigan and my family is likely quite certain that the only activity Cutter engages in is video game playing from morning 'til night. For myself, the question is difficult because this life, this choice, is so much broader than the question of what information he's learned in any given day or week or year.

Some clarity has come in the form of a young writer, Idzie, who has lived an unschooled life, as well as in the form of a friend and mother, Pam, who unschools with her kids and is planning a book around the subject of her radical unschooling experiences. Their blogs are worth checking out.

It seems to me that what is most important in our daily living is how we have connected with each other and the world and most days, it is with intense interest and open communication. It is with a constant refrain of, "Come look at this!" Unschooling, for us, has meant inclusion of one another in the living. When Joe is working on a deal, we talk about it at the dinner table and we all ask questions. When I am dipping candles, I say to Cutter, "Hey, I'm going to dip candles. Want to help?" or when I find a new They Might Be Giants video on YouTube, I say, "Hey, this looks cool. Wanna watch with me?" When Cutter is playing a video game, he invites us to come see something that has excited him and before he goes to bed each night, he has a plethora of drawings, stories, action figures that he's sure we'll want to see. Oh, I've no doubt the learning is there, but it is there in the play and in the passion, and it is there for all of us. We are a family growing in the world, not two adults who know better than the youngest member and set out to prove it by filling him with our knowledge. Oftentimes, he knows better, and one gigantic bonus to this way of living is that he has the freedom to say so. Just this past week, Cutter and I were going for a walk in the winter wind. I tried to insist that he wear a coat, giving my many reasons why it was better than the sweatshirt he had chosen (though I've known for years that he rarely wears coats). I said something along the lines of fine, you can wear the sweatshirt and Cutter said quietly, "You sound disappointed in my choice." But what he really said was, "Come look at this, come look at what you are saying and help me understand it, understand you." I can not tell you how thankful for that boy, and this life, I was at that moment. I was able to step back, to say, "Huh, you're right. I did sound that way and I did slip into wanting control over your choice and I am so thankful that you help me to be a better person." But what I really said was, "Come look at this, look at me. I am imperfect and make mistakes, but this is how you say you're sorry, this is how you reveal need and gratitude. This is how you grow."

His own sense of justice

While we talk with Cutter about why we, Joe and I, believe certain ideas, hold certain values, donate to certain causes, we try to never assume that he will hold those same ideas, values and causes dear.

While I feel strongly that nature is essential to my well-being and that of the world, I have not said to Cutter, "You have to take care of the Earth or we'll all something-about-doom-and-gloom." Instead I have gone on walks with him, pointed out leaves I find beautiful, speculated about dead animals, pointed out hawks and herons galore and played out countless ninja/sword/spy battles in the woods.

While I think that growing our own organic foods is important to the health of body and soul, I have not forced him to garden with me, but have offered him the opportunity to choose seeds, plants that he would like to grow, with the promise that I would care for them. Even though I feel that healthy foods are key to a healthy life, I have let him choose what goes into his body, based on what his body needs.

None of these choices has come without much thinking and even struggle within myself, and much conversation between all three of us. All that to say, it has been interesting to see, with this freedom, where Cutter's sense of responsibility and justice have been popping up these past few months.

Recently, while hanging out at a backyard gathering, a squirrel began heading into the homeowner's garage in an attempt to stash nuts for the winter. Once he saw the squirrel, the homeowner began throwing a ball at the squirrel to try and stop it from entering the garage. Cutter turned to us, dismayed, and said quietly, "Why is he doing that?" I said that I didn't know but that he had every right to ask. So Cutter spoke up and asked his adult friend why he was throwing a ball at the squirrel, that the squirrel wasn't hurting anything. I can't recall what the response was, but Cutter had spoken up for what he saw as wrong and the ball throwing did stop in a karmic sort of way, after it was thrown one more time, and knocked over the owner's bike.

At the bagel shop recently, after we were done eating, Cutter looked at the bottom of his plastic cup, noted the number one and said, "Where do the recyclables go?" We looked around and saw that there was no recycling, so I said he could carry it home to recycle it if he wanted to- which he did.

Yesterday, while watching cartoons, Cutter saw a commercial for the new Lego Miners set and became very upset. He noted that the Lego humans were invading the land of the Rock people in order to mine for crystals, and that they were actually stealing the Rock people's food. He was upset and he said the commercial was lying by showing the Rock people as monsters who attacked the Lego people when really it was the other way around. We talked about justice and resources and the war in Iraq. We talked about how to respond to the commercial, and today, we'll be sending a letter to Lego, Inc. to let them know, in Cutter's words, what he thinks of their commercial.

It has been a fascinating journey with this boy, watching him form his own ideas about the world and his role in it and I am so glad that I'm traveling with him each day.

Where The Wild Things Are

Oh, my. I knew it would be lovely, I knew I would shed tears, but I could not say in advance why I knew. Even now, having seen the movie, I can not clearly say why; I know because I tried to explain my feelings about the movie to my Love and I don't think they quite came across as I felt them:

How Spike Jonze and Max Records got perfectly that look in a child's eye when they know they're not valued, that look that brings me deep sadness; that for reasons beyond their understanding, what they see as their work and joy is looked down upon so often, placed beneath the level of what we grown-ups have to do. You know the look, I'm sure- the one your child has when they ask you to play Legos or color with them and you say, "Oh, I'd love to, but I really have to -fill in the adult blank-." And the look says, "Yes, I knew you'd say that and my heart is broken, but I'll keep trying." They try politely, asking you to play each day or, like Max, demand their needs be met with wolfish antics and howls, which we punish or ignore, depending on how our adult day went. Until one day they stop trying and we can then lament how they're growing up so fast that they want nothing to do with us.

How each of the Wild Things was able to express parts of Max that he himself was not able, in words, to express, because kids don't have all the words we adults have just yet. So that when Judith is angry and growling at her king, and Max growls back, Judith says that he doesn't get to do that, that when she's upset he doesn't get to be upset back because he's supposed to make it better (that's a paraphrase). And I was taken to those times in my parenting history when a small child, one of my own, was upset and I, with more words and greater experience, "growled" back. I thought, Judith is right - I don't get to growl back.

How perfectly Spike captured the living of a nine-year old boy- and that it was familiar to me. Not in a Yes, my son's room is that messy, too sort of way but in a way that, to me, means I am deeply connected with my child. I have built the same snow igloo many winters over, times two, so that we both have stockpiles of snowballs to throw. I have sat and marveled at Lego creations more times than I can count. I have transcribed stories about aliens and knights and countless other wonderful beings. I have loved living this life with this boy who is now nine and when he has turned wolfish I have loved the work that has led me to understand him, and so many times, myself, better.

How the movie shows that children believe anything is possible and while it may turn out imperfect, it is still beautiful- and that letting them learn what is possible is the only way for them to come home, to who they are, to relationship, to so much more than my sleepy writing can contain.

Let it suffice to say that when I came home from the movie, I laid on the carpet and took turns steamrolling with my Love and my son, looking into his 9 year-old eyes and knowing that laying in a pile was the most important thing I could be doing at that moment in my life.

One day

Our world has been very full the last four months and every time I consider writing, I become overwhelmed with the sheer amount of what I want to share. To avoid that altogether, I'm starting with just one day: yesterday.

Yesterday morning found Cutter a little groggy, as he said he'd stayed up until 2:00 a.m., finishing the first volume of Elfquest. He'd gone through the entire series over a year ago, but that was before he was reading, so he wanted to revisit the comic and his namesake, Cutter, to get a better understanding of the story.

We watched a Japanese/English sub-titled episode of Naruto Shippuden; it was Cutter's first experience with sub-titles and he found that the Japanese version uses different voice actors, so the characters felt unfamiliar and we decided to wait to watch the rest of the episodes in English. Because Naruto eats so much ramen, Cutter was sure that it must taste good, which led us to look up authentic ramen recipes.

While looking up ramen recipes, I came across a French-made cartoon maker, so Cutter spent a good amount of time making cartoons with captions and sending them to Joe at work. It was fun for me to use some of my French and we were able to translate the phrases into English.

After that, our first stop was the Halloween store, where Cutter found a costume, Shadow Ice Ninja, which he's pretty sure (and pretty excited that) he'll be able to wear two years in a row. From there, we went over to the home goods store, where we found chopsticks for our ramen as well as a Japanese knife so we could cut the ramen dough into noodles. Next stop, the bookstore for a book of pizza recipes. Cutter and I have been making homemade pizza dough and pizza lately and he's thinking it would be a good idea to start selling our homemade pizza. He's got it figured out that we would need 1/4 of the necessary pizza-making ingredients on hand at any given time and that our ingredients should be healthy. We're going to test out different pizza recipes until we find favorites and then go forward with our business plan.

When we got home, a new video game had come from Gamefly in the mail, "Destroy All Humans." Cutter had fun figuring out the rules of the new game, which makes me think of this article a friend posted on video games.

We began our ramen adventure by watching a few instructables and an instructive, yet strange video of a Japanese woman cooking with a poodle. We chose to make a shiitake mushroom broth. We then added bamboo shoots, mushrooms, green peppers, scallions, noodles and hard-boiled egg, accompanied by Sesame Chicken. It looked pretty cool and the boy who in recent years has said, "bleh" to most new foods declared it pretty good. This was not the 99 cent ramen Americans are used to eating.

After dinner, we headed to a local Ag Silver concert with Joe. It was Cutter's first rock/pop concert and while he was quiet and serious-looking throughout the concert, he could be spotted clapping, singing along and afterwards said it was a really cool concert. Other days are less active, to be sure, but most are at least as learning filled and joyful as this one.