Mothering

I mentioned in my last post that Mothering Magazine has been central to my development and evolution as a mom. It's one of a few written sources that have fundamentally affected the way I think of motherhood and, more broadly, about myself (which is by way of saying, I'm not talking about my own mom, my co-mom Mama Hungry, my mom friends, my educator friends/professionals, my church, here). So I thought I'd mention a few others, because the loss of this publication has gotten me thinking of what other texts, specifically, have changed me. You'll notice these aren't your usual sleep/discipline/general parenting tomes by Sears, Brazelton, Spock, Inc. (of these, Tracy Hogg's Baby Whisperer was my favorite because of its comforting you-can-do-it tone, but it was really limited to the baby years, while these are much more general). In no specific order:

• Mothering Magazine: from articles about circumcision, faerie houses, children's reading groups, the dangers of plastics, yoga for kids, the importance of the Green Hour, recess, homeschooling, etc, etc, etc., I learned about ideas that weren't in your traditional parenting magazines, even when I didn't always embrace for myself attachment parenting, home births, the family bed, long-term (into toddlerhood) breast feeding, etc. But the magazine gave me the resources and space to explore new options.
• Momma Zen: Walking the Crooked Path of Motherhood/Cheerio Road/Hand Wash Cold/Karen Maezen Miller: I first heard of Karen Maezen Miller's first book, Momma Zen, in the Chinaberry catalog and was intrigued. And so I got the book for Christmas and was entranced and inspired by this Buddhist priest's approach to parenting and life. I read her blog, correspond with her on occasion, and loved her second book, Hand Wash Cold. She introduced me to Buddhism and meditation, to compassion and mindfulness and simplicity (to use trendy catchphrases that she generally eschews). While not my teacher in her lineage's sense of the word, she has taught me so much. And I am a better mom and person for her.
• Non-violent, or compassionate, communication: I'm not sure there is one NVC text that has influenced my life so much as the theory of it in general. Compassion. Feelings. Needs. Quality of connection. The beauty is in the practice, not in the texts explaining it. So, if you want a place to start, a workshop is great, but any number of texts (Non-violent Communication: A Language of Life; Respectful Parents, Respectful Kids), including the website, would help.
• Jim Trelease's Read Aloud Handbook: This one is different from the others in the sense that it doesn't really espouse a life philosophy but is a very honed treatise on a specific practice: the importance of reading to children. I'm reading it with my school reading group, led by the principal, though I've had it for years. It has revitalized my own love of reading while also expanding our family's reading habits--from reading chapter books like the Water Horse (based on the understanding that children's listening levels are a few grades higher than their reading levels) to letting the children have their own lamps for free-reading time after bedtime. And even if it isn't directly related to poetry month, I know that our current exploration of poetry was implicitly encouraged by this book.
• NurtureShock: This meta-analysis of contemporary psychological, sociological, educational, and other studies reconfigured many of my assumptions about child development and parenting, from why children lie, the specific affects and importance of sleep, race issues and kids, sibling relationships, the role of praise, intelligence and schooling, etc etc etc. Anyone who has talked to me about parenting recently has heard me quote this book. And it's changed the way I do things: I talk about race, specifically, naming races, discussing its importance, avoiding cliches about color-blindness and skin tone not mattering because it matters just not in the way I thought (because, of course, I'm a white person who hadn't given race much thought beyond "we're all the same beneath our skin."); my use of praise has changed--no more blanket congrats or encouragement, but specific comments on skills and effort; I don't ask my kids to lie to me by encouraging them to please me with evasions to questions like "who put that there?"; nothing, nothing, nothing is more important than sleep (even food!) because I now know the incredible deleterious effects on kids who miss even an hour of sleep on weekends and drop 2 grades in performance or the equivalent of 10 IQ points when they aren't rested--and they can't make it up the way adults do; the key to sibling relationships and the role parents don't really play (what was amazing about this section was the study that showed that kids only really came to parents 1/10 times to have help negotiate a disagreement, though it feels like more; I am now a lot more understanding of their calls for mediation and appreciative of how often they work it out on their own. Even if it doesn't feel like it.). There's more--on school IQ testing, teenage rebellion--that I'm only beginning to think about, especially because I'm still mulling over the rest of it.
• Lisa Belkin's Motherlode blog on the New York Times: While the comments range from supportive to divisive to contentious (and never fail to get me riled up), the posts address a wonderful array of current issues, trends, and news items in parenting, all with Belkin's generous, informed, even-keeled analysis.
• Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle), Mark Bittman (Food Matters, his blog, his Minimalist columns), and Michael Pollan (Food Rules, Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food), writing about food issues today. I spend much of my time thinking about food, both micro- and macrocosm: what's for dinner? are they getting enough calcium/iron/protein? what constitutes a healthy snack? are conventional grapes better than organic cheddar bunny snack mix? how can we wean Sis off chicken fingers? should I have raised the kids as vegetarians? must they take a "no, thank you"-bite? And these thoughtful writers give me the resources and paradigms for making decisions, and the support and inspiration to keep doing my best.