Life in My MotherHOOD

For the last few months I have been thinking a lot about being a mom and what my approach is and will be with our kids. I don't know what exactly has been driving me to think about all of this. I am naturally a very contemplative person, but you'd think I was working on a thesis or something with the number of hours I have spent reading books and scouring the Internet to learn more about the philosophies and ideas that interest me.

Anyway, it has been very fun and soul-satisfying and I finally feel like I have a concrete idea of the mother I want to be. I expect that my opinions and perspective will continue to change often as I experience new things as a mom, but I at least feel like I have discovered some key things I needed. Anyway, I thought I would share a few things, in case anyone cares about this sort of thing or wonders why I approach things the way I do.

One of the things that has made itself clear to me as I have been thinking about all of this is that everyone really has to march to the beat of their own drum when it comes to raising their kids. I think that there are many ways to raise successful, happy kids. And marching to the beat of your own drum means that you will have to occasionally ignore the well-meaning advice of others when it just doesn't suit you. I have yet to read one book or opinion that I completely agree with. But I think that when reading parenting books and the like, you have to pick and choose the parts that you identify with and embrace those things - and then forget the rest. I think that is especially true when you are around other parents. When two people handle something differently, it doesn't always mean that one of them is right and one of them is wrong. They're just different.

So a couple months ago, one of my good friends was telling me how she is teaching her oldest son to read using Montessori ideas. Montessori, I thought, didn't I learn something about that in college? I googled it later and discovered it is an educational/parenting approach developed by Maria Montessori, an Italian physician and educator. I have since read a few books about it and have gotten a huge refresher course on child development. Which helps. Somehow, frustrated toddlers and squirmy babies are not nearly so difficult to handle when you understand where they are coming from.

So, my favorite Montessori books I read were Montessori from the Start: The Child at Home, from Birth to Age Three and How To Raise An Amazing Child the Montessori Way. I checked out those two books, along with some others, from the library. I have to say, at first I totally thought that Montessorians were snobby, liberated, and organic-loving people, but I actually really agree with a lot of what they have to say. And, a lot of their approach just makes sense if you have spent time with kids.

Anyway, after I read Montessori From the Start, which tells you how to make your home Montessori-friendly, there were oodles of ideas I wanted to use. This was a few months ago and I was noticing more tantrums from Braden and that he seemed frustrated by the way things were set up in our house. What do I mean by that? Just that our house was catered to adults...with gates and everything out of reach and not even a stepstool for him to use in sight! Reading that book opened my eyes and helped me to see that there were a lot of practical things I could do to decrease his frustration and include him in the things I was doing. The result is a happier, more independent Braden.

For example, Braden often tried to help me with housework and cooking. I used to see this as unwelcome help, but I now realize that he is trying to learn to be an adult and model what he sees me doing...and there are things he can do to participate. I hunted around and found some real child-size cooking utensils so that he can "work" right alongside me in the kitchen with tools that fit his hands. We found a child-sized broom and dustpan and he can now sweep up when he makes a mess. And there are many other little changes I made in how things were set up. I got a stepstool so he can reach the sink and I put his dishes and silverware and cups on a low shelf so that he can reach them easily. I store some snacks on low shelves that he can reach. Basically, I realized that with the way I had set things up, he needed my help for every little thing...the child couldn't even wash his hands without me lifting him up to the sink and doing it for him. So I tried to change that so that I can teach him to do those things for himself. Not because I don't want to help him, but because he needs to learn those skills for himself.

For his closet, I bought some cheap bins and drew pictures of whatever clothing item goes in each bin so that he can find his clothes easily when he gets dressed in the morning and so he can also put his clothes away when we do the laundry. The cards with the pictures on them are laminated and have velcro on the back so that we can switch them around for different seasons, etc.



Anyway, I like a lot of things about the Montessori philosophy. Not all of it, but it has been very helpful as I have tried to make the house more child-friendly. And there are also lots of great ideas of educational activities you can do with kids. There are some things about it that are a little bit over the top for me and that I never see myself doing (such as having my babies sleep on a floor bed instead of in a crib so that they can explore their environment...!), but the majority of it is great.

So back to the mother I want to be...as far as discipline, I really like the Love and Logic approach. It totally makes sense to me and they are some of the few parenting books I have read that really resonate with me. I read Parenting With Love And Logic and Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood: Practical Parenting from Birth to Six Years when Braden was just born. I now own both and refer to them often. Neither Tom and I are perfect at it (far from it), but our kids are still young so it's a good time to test the waters :)

I guess the other major influence on my parenting philosophies is my religion and all that entails (which is huge). But that seems like an obvious one. Still, it is very important to me that I teach my children to "Do as I say AND as I do." So I'm working on that.

The last thing that I have thought of often lately is a saying on my late grandmother's wall: "Children do not interrupt my work, children are my work." I rather like that little saying. I think that one of the most important things a mother can do is BE with her children and not just BE NEAR her children. They notice if you are making eye contact with them when you are talking to them. They know when you are more interested in your craft project/blog reading/book/TV show/whatever-else-is-distracting-you. And so, as much as I often feel like even ten minutes by myself would be lovely - I am trying to stop multitasking all the time and just BE. Just sit and watch them playing and listen to their comments or babbles and just take it in.

Well, that is just a taste of what's been on my mind lately.

And now that I've gotten that out of my brain and into this post, I promise to get back to my regular days-in-the-lives-of-the-Drapers posts. Very soon.