Your Will >> Mine

Issue 101
By Peggy O'Mara 

I awoke this morning to the smell of smoke in the air. I knew at once what it was. A forest fire is burning about 20 miles to the northeast of our land. Three days ago, I watched a huge cloud of smoke form above the mountain behind my house. The last few evenings I've seen helicopters fly back and forth across the canyon bringing water to the fire. This morning it was slurry bombers wending their way above us every 15 minutes. New Mexico is burning.

I live in a ponderosa pine forest. In the last month there have been four major forest fires in our state. One 45 miles west of here in Los Alamos and Santa Fe National Forest; two 200 miles south at different locations in the Lincoln National Forest. This new one, in the Pecos Wilderness, is just a few ridges away from me, but not close enough to actually be a threat to us.

The children and I have already talked about what we would take with us if we had to flee the house. Not very much, really. Old family photos, albums, mementos, my books of poems. Pretty much everything else is replaceable. Of those who lost their homes to the 48,000-acre fire that destroyed much of Los Alamos, most said they were just grateful that they and their loved ones were unharmed. Tragedy underlines what is really important in life.

In tragedy, such as the fires in New Mexico, one appreciates the simple things. As I listen to the slurry bombers fly over my house, I water the garden. It helps me counter the drought. I make the gardens beautiful with straw and wood chips. I get such joy from playing in the water, doing what I want to do outside. There's a kind of joyful recharge that comes from wandering, meandering, being spontaneously self-directed. That's why we call it play.

Self-direction is one of the great values of play. We all enjoy it. Children love to--need to--play. This is how they create themselves. They practice different realities in play and from them form a personality. It is easy for parents to forget the importance of simple, unstructured play because of the pressures we all feel to make sure that our children have all of the appropriate advantages. The greatest advantage to childhood, however, may simply be free time.

When my children were young, there was a growing number of programs for children. Now there are endless choices of dance, music, art, sports, drama, martial arts, gymnastics, yoga, etc. for children of all ages. Many parents feel pressured for our children to compete with other children for excellence and achievement in these and other pursuits. We often feel in competition with their parents. We also feel pressure to begin our children in formal educational programs at younger and younger ages, and for longer and longer periods.

While it is important that children and families interact with their peers and take advantage of appropriate learning opportunities, it is also essential for us not to expect of our children too much abstract learning in their first three to five years. This is when they are learning from the home environment, digging in the dirt of themselves. This is their matrix, their focal point of learning, during these early years.

While early childhood education is right for some children, it is not necessary for all children. Don't forget that it was first created for children whose home environments were compromised. The home environment is superior for learning during the early years.

My children are now 18 through 26, and they were all home at once recently. On that occasion, I laid in my bed at night beaming, as I counted one, two, three, four--just as I used to before we crossed the street together when they were little. While they were all here, my daughter found an audiotape of their voices when they were six months through eight years old.

They were amazed to hear their own young voices. Hearing the games they played and their interactions took me back. I had remembered well their dear, sweet voices, and while they delighted me, what amazed me most was my recollection of the intensity of those early, busy years with the children. The noise of their play resounds even now. I wrote this poem when they were all at home recently:

Just a Glance

I can tell
My kids apart
From the back
Of their heads,
The knave
Of their necks,
The curve of
Their hands as
They wrap
Their fingers
Around mine.
They are older
Now,
But still the laughter
Of their rowdy
Play
Echoes
Through the house.
They dug deeply
In the earth then.
They drew sweetly from
Themselves.
They feast now
On the fruits of
That foundation.

That recording my children found not only recalled the intensity of my early years with children, it reminded me of how earnest I have been. When the children were younger, I felt that I was preparing them for something, thought that I had better make sure they took advantage of the right opportunities, realized their potential. I'm still unsure if I've done that--if I could have. I know now, as I did not with my first, that we're always realizing our potential. We don't just get done with it. Even with adult children, I still have dreams, uncertainties, regrets--and plans for them.

I remember in the movie Parenthood when the older father tells his son, also a father, that parenthood is not like reaching the goal line, after all. We never reach the line. There's no end. We're always playing the game. I like that. It keeps giving me more chances to get it right. But, not right like creating a product, a certain result. Right like correct.
It is not correct for us to make our children in our own likeness. It is correct for us to facilitate their own likeness. I am reminded of the words of Kahlil Gibran in The Prophet:

Your children are not your children,
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself,
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which
you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make
them like you,
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday...

Just as we cannot make our children in our image, so we cannot prepare them for everything. There will always be the unexpected. The best antidote to the unexpected is the capacity to improvise, and that capacity is rooted in an ability to trust our own inner authority. We can give our children that. We parents must not handicap them with the belief that authority rests outside of themselves--in friends, teachers, sweethearts, parents, scientists, journalists, politicians. We can demonstrate to our children that authority resides within each of them by raising them to believe in themselves.

What is the correct balance between imposing our authority, our will, on our children and facilitating each child's own authority, or will? There is no one way to answer this question. There is always a dance. A literal push and pull. It changes with the ages and growth of our children, and with our own capacity and current persuasion. This correct balance mirrors the natural world, where learning happens through interaction. In other words, the world and our relationships are self-learning tools. They teach us what we need to know.

Children learn about the natural world and thus about themselves by having opportunities for unstructured time and self-directed play. It is easy to confuse our own lost ambitions for ourselves with our ambitions for our children. Who wants to play the piano? Who always wanted to be a dancer? We can learn to love our children as they are, not as we want them to be. This doesn't mean that we give up our dreams of our child's greatest possibility, but we also live happily with what is. That's the dance.

And it's the dance that is the point. We believe that we are teaching our children how to do this or that when, in fact, we are teaching them how to be. They often learn more from how we solve problems, how we interact, how we rebound, than from the fleeting information we offer. It is moments that are unforgettable. The feeling of the moment is what creates the memory.

What we remember, what we treasure, in the end, are the spontaneous, intimate moments when we feel connected with a beloved human being. It is the mementos of those moments that we keep in case of tragedy, that we treasure in life. We remember at those times that we are already always living a miracle. How wonderful just to remember this and to give thanks.

Now that my children are grown, I see the wonderful roots of their childhoods bearing fruit. I see how those early years with them were hard because they were digging their foundations. Twenty-two years ago, I wrote this poem. It has turned out to be true:

There Will Be Time

There is time still
for sitting in cafés
in Paris
sipping wine.
Time still
for going to meet
The guru.
There is time still.
Now I am caring for eternity.
Carrying bodies soft with sleep
to beds of flowered
quilts and pillows.
Answering cries deep out of
nighttime fears.
Buckling shoes.
Opening doors.
Pretending.
My soul now is dwelling in
the house of tomorrow.
Tomorrow there will be time
for long leisurely conversations,
For poems to write,
And dances to perform.
Time still.
So I surrender now
to them and this,
Knowing it is they
who will teach me
how to do it all.

Peggy O’Mara is the mother of four grown children. She has gained international celebrity as publisher, editor and owner of Mothering Magazine. She is also the author of four books: Having a Baby Naturally: The Mothering Magazine Guide to Pregnancy and Childbirth, Natural Family Living: The Mothering Magazine Guide to Parenting, The Way Back Home: Essays on Life and Family, and A Quiet Place: Essays on Life and Family, all of which can be purchased in the Mothering Shop. A dynamic speaker, she has lectured and conducted workshops in conjunction with organizations such as the Omega Institute, Esalen, La Leche International, and Bioneers. She has appeared on numerous television and radio programs and has been featured in national publications including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Mother Earth News, and Utne Reader.

Read Peggy O’Mara’s editorials for philosophical information and practical advice about Natural Family Living

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