things kids should do as kids

i keep seeing this piece about things that kids should do by themselves before they turn 13 circulating on facebook. and while it's all well and good that kids do their own homework and can make their own lunch (i really should have enforced that one) and set their own alarms, i feel like it's kind of a careful and tentative list and a little self-serving for the parents. and who the hell doesn't talk to the teacher when it's necessary or help with homework? that's just lazy, it seems to me.

my child is 16 now, but when i think back to the things she did before she was 13, i could add a number of things to the list:

~ fly somewhere alone. when she was 7, we sent the child to the states for the summer. of course, we paid the unaccompanied minor fee to sas, and i delivered her to the gate in copenhagen and my sister was waiting for her outside customs in chicago, but she did an 8 hour flight by herself. she had to entertain herself, excuse herself to go to the bathroom, tell the stewardesses what she wanted to drink and mess with that infernal onboard entertainment system on her own. it wasn't her first time on a plane, so she was already a routine traveler and knew how it worked, but it was still a big step. and she did it with flying colors, also flying home again on her own at the end of the summer.

~ have secrets. we all need something that's our own, that we maybe share with a friend, but not necessarily our parents. a couple of summers ago, we were walking down a creek that flows behind our property and the child and her best friend were reminiscing about a time that they ran scared from some aggressive swans at a little lake that you come to, some ways down the creek. i knew they had played down there, but not that they'd had a bit of an exciting experience, nor that they had walked as far up the creek as they had. it made them strong and brave and gave them something they had together that wasn't anyone else's.

~ eat food you planted and picked yourself in a garden. our child has grown up picking strawberries, popping a warm, sweet cherry tomato, picked directly from the greenhouse into her mouth, sifting through soil after freshly-dug potatoes. she knows where food comes from and how it tastes different and much better than what you buy in the store. she has spent time helping me pick countless little tiny violets so we could make a vivid purple cordial that we mixed with fizzy water and enjoyed on a hot summer day.

~ make the child use public transport. to get to school, to get to a movie, to get to her friends, to get to a party. buy a travel card and know how to use it. to find her way to the brandy melville at sloane square in london, leading the way for a group of her friends. to get herself around london. and copenhagen. and st. petersburg. know how to read a metro map. and figure out how to get on the metro in the right direction. these are important steps to adulting.

~ eat sushi. the child should learn to eat sushi. early and often. mine started at age two and a half. and at about 4, she woke up briefly in a restaurant in manila, ate her weight in sashimi and then fell back asleep. i'm pretty proud of that.

and if i expand the age range to 15, there are a couple more...

~ be part of a major protest for a worthy cause. i will be eternally grateful to my strong female cousins for the idea that we would head for the women's march in washington, d.c. and i am so happy to have shared the experience with my 15-year-old child. now she knows the energy of half a million women and people and her father who support women on her own body and mind and psyche. it strikes me as one of my strongest parenting moments.

~ know the difference between good makeup and drugstore makeup. yes, this is a girl thing, but it's important in today's world. and some drugstore makeup is good, but you can't know which unless you've tried it and also tried the good stuff. (and yes, maybe i am justifying buying my child chanel foundation. but that doesn't make it any less important.)

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very cool, evocative photos of small town america.

and he even used flash! or maybe just lit them up at night.

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what a cool story. goes off to buy a metal detector.

on parenting and advice columns and the natural progression of time

on the way home late last night, i listened to a couple episodes of the dear sugar podcast. it's the one with cheryl strayed of wild fame. i'm not sure what it is about advice programs on the radio - there's also one on saturday mornings on danish radio and it's somehow fascinating, even when people's problems seem far from my own. there's something comforting in listening to other people's problems and the opinions that the agony aunts (and uncles) have about them. cheryl and steve almond (who was sugar before her) are surprisingly compassionate and deep. i'll admit sometimes when i hear the letters people write in, i wonder how they're ever going to take it seriously and not just tell the person to suck it up or piss off, but they always do, in a compassionate and empathetic way, without being sappy. it's a delicate balance and they strike it. 

it seems like parenting and especially motherhood is often a topic and it got me thinking. i never wanted children. i was traumatized by my high school boyfriend's older sister getting pregnant in high school and going to her wedding instead of her senior prom, missing out on a basketball scholarship and not going to college. i also viewed my own mother as singularly unselfish and doing everything to give my sister and i all of the great experiences she could and i felt i could never be like that. so, i went around for 30 some years, not wanting children. but then i met husband and it started to seem like a good idea. and although along came sabin a bit before i was entirely ready, i have not once regretted becoming a parent. of course, parenting has its moments of frustration and no sleep, but overall, i have generally been in awe of this whole, amazing person that i made and feel like some kind of privileged bystander who gets to watch her grow up into the confident, funny, opinionated and smart young woman that was somehow there within her all along. 

she's away this year at a boarding school, coming home one or two weekends a month. next school year, she'll be in the states, getting a high school experience. people often ask me if i'm not horribly sad that she's not at home. and perhaps it will make me sound like one of those dear sugar parents who hates being a parent when i say that i'm not. i love watching her blossom into who she will be - confident, finding her way, learning who she is and what her style is. and being away at boarding school was the natural next step in that process, just as going to the states next year is the next step after that. it's how she will find her way to being who and what she wants to be. she needs us less. it's completely normal and natural and i don't feel sad about it. i feel happy and proud that she's come so far and is ready and embracing these experiences and finding her way. 

but, i can see on some of the faces of people who ask me, that they think i'm a bit heartless for not missing her more. of course, i do miss her, but i get texts from her pretty much daily, so it's not like we're not in contact. but there are parts of her life, her inner life especially, that are hers now and not mine to share. and that's just fine! it's how it should be, it's time for that. i hope that we've given her a solid foundation from which to unfold her wings and i am secure in the knowledge that she knows that we're here, should she need to rest them. 

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amazing photos of a place both frozen and abandoned by russian photographer andrei shapran.

taking lessons in creativity from my child

the child is in her second round of painting lessons. she's learning so much. she really knows how to mix colors. they have been working on repetition of shapes and on seeing the shapes of things in nature. she's not pleased with this painting, but i love it and have hung it in the hallway near my desk. i took it outside to photograph it because the light sucked where it's hanging. it's bright and alive and represents a step on her painting journey and i love having it hang nearby where i'm working.

in general, i am in awe of her creativity. she looks at pinterest or more likely instagram or her facebook feed and finds a youtube tutorial and moves quickly from inspiration to action. she dressed up her keyboard (and her light switch) with washi tape the other evening. you can still see which key is which through the tape and since it's washi, it won't get all sticky and be ruined if she decides to take it off again.

she painted up these vans to resemble a starry night sky. she's so pleased with the result that she doesn't wear them that much, since she doesn't want to ruin them, but that's another story. she also dolled up an old pair of converse as an homage to her favorite boy band 1D. some of her classmates are amazed that she's allowed to alter her shoes and clothing the way she is (she put a whole bunch of colorful studs on some shorts one afternoon when she was inspired). their parents would be angry with them for "ruining" their things. i want to jump for joy at her creativity and her desire for individuality!

i hope she retains that ability to just dive in immediately when she's inspired. there was a time when i did that, but these days, i spend entirely too much time thinking about creating things and far too little time actually creating them. i'm going to have to take a lesson from the child and remedy that.

parenting fail

photo by sabin's friend - they dress up and do photoshoots of one another.
at least in that area i've succeeded.
creativity with the camera is never a bad thing.

i've had some frustrating parenting moments of late and it doesn't bode well for the coming teenage years. you see, i've been trying to do less waiting on my child hand and foot. i've done it far too much - i think it started because she was born ten weeks early and so we spoiled her. then it just became habit and it continued. at times, i'll admit, it's also easier and less messy to just do things myself, so there's that element in it as well.

but, i've grown weary of all the waiting on her all the time when she's a big girl and perfectly capable of making her own smoothie or popcorn. and it doesn't seem to be going that well.  very often, when i suggest that she do something herself, she elects not to do it at all. which leaves me feeling that all that i've done for her all the time isn't really that important to her. she'd rather not have a bun with nutella or a cup of tea if i don't get it for her. and i have to say that really pisses me off. and i'm not handling it very well.

instead of redirecting or trying to take a deep breath and be a bit rational about it, i end up being sarcastic to her about it - asking if the things i do for her are so unimportant that she'd rather not do them if i won't do them for her. rather like a martyr, which doesn't make me proud. but it provokes the hell out of me, it really does.

any thoughts on how to handle this differently?

it's quiet around here

sabin is sailing.
it's endlessly raining.
it's awfully quiet around here.
i'm enjoying it less than i thought i would.

but there moments.
i get to finish whole thoughts.
all in my own head.
usually while sewing.

and that's a very luxurious thing.

i've also listened to regina spektor's far about 600 times.
because there's been no one to complain about it.
(husband has been in his workshop, listening to endlessly to eliza dolittle.)

and that's a very luxurious thing.

on friday, we'll go get her.

but in the meantime, i read this. and i'm reading this. and next i'll read this. (i'm loving the library.) you can read a lot when it's quiet.

but i'll be glad to have her back.
noise and all.

so i'm counting down 'til friday.

all is quiet on the western front

mathilde is well enough again to go out in the pasture and eat some fresh grass.
she had quite the snot nose on the weekend - a natural consequence of all the new horses she's been around of late.

after a bit of time spent hugging the horse, we had an after-dinner walk around our lake (have i mentioned we have a lake?) in the golden early evening light. the sun finally emerged around 6 or so after being rather shy for most of the day (and the preceding two weeks).

that blurry white spot in the middle is a mean swan.

this time we went over to the other side of our lake. you can see the boat across the way.

it was really pretty, tho' rather overgrown, on the other side.

father and daughter are just fine again after last evening's meltdown. we all have a meltdown once in awhile and there have been a lot of changes around here of late, so i suppose it's all to be expected. but i appreciate very much your supportive comments in regard to my parenting doubts.

i was thinking about that today. our parents never had any doubts. moms of the previous generation just shipped us off to a babysitter, popped a couple of valium and went to play bridge and drink daquiris with their friends. maybe that was quite a healthy way of handling it. we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to be perfect these days. and let's face it, nobody's perfect. we just have to do the best we can. and possibly speak to the doctor about that valium prescription...

resourcestærke forældre

i've written before about resourcestærke forældre. it's a danish phrase that's haunted me ever since it was used in some or other note sent home by the school when sabin was in nulte class (grade 0). directly translated it's "resource-strong parents,"and i'll admit i initially thought it was about money, but it's more metaphorical than that. it's more about how strong you are as a parent - how many resources you have and by resources i think they mean whether you have the proper surplus to be a good parent. do you have the energy, patience and time it takes? do you take the child to activities, do you make her do her homework, do you read enough to her, do you give her a proper lunch, does she brush her hair and teeth on a daily basis, do her socks match, does she have clean clothes, do you make sure she has playdates with her friends?

as i watch the child pull her hair back into a ponytail and run a brush through just the tips of it, i wonder sometimes if i'm particularly resourcestærk. with my tendency want to buy my way out of trouble with her (see recent acquisition of horse) and desire to see new pretty electronics (see recent iPhone and iPad acquisitions) as a bandaid of sorts for hurts both imagined and real, i've had a sneaking suspicion that i'm not doing all that well on the resourcestærk front.

you're given the one chance with a child (well, if you only have the one, like i do), so there's a lot of pressure to get it right. you want that child to have the best opportunities, to be good at things she loves, to see the world, to fly business class (you get the idea)....but it's all so fragile, isn't it? things can seem to be going well and then there's a big giant melt-down and homework doesn't get done and tears flow and threats are issued by a parent (who is not me but who shall remain nameless) in a moment of non-resourcestærke-ness and frustration and everyone ends up with a big fat headache that can only be cured by going over and hugging the horse and breathing in her horsey-ness and listening to her crunch some grain soothingly. and then you realize it's really the horse that's resourcestærke and you probably should have acquired her long ago, tho' she would probably be pretty heavy on the carrots in the lunchbox if she were making it...