I met two women in the library today. One had children in a private school part time and homeschooling part time. The other has three children that she wants to homeschool but her ex-husband isn’t interested. As she says “He doesn’t like thinking outside the box; not many people do”. As we continued talking, she mentioned how she wished her son (age 8) had more time. I talked about homework and she balked. No way could homework be bad. No way could she consider eliminating even the busy work. She asked the other mom, who answered that her children have no homework. Her scrambling and reactions made me think.
Do I think outside the box? I mean I homeschool, and I have home birthed, and I have 10 children…but honestly, that just puts you in a different box. You’re welcome for the limitless joke potential there.
Every box I’m in changes the way I see the world. For that reason, I worry most about the boxes I have forgotten about or never even recognized that I am in.
Living outside the box is hard! It takes effort and thinking and planning. It takes creativity. Life is easier in some ways when you are in the expected boxes, or assume others are. There are less questions to answer and ask. There is a previously established path to walk.
Children are Individuals
One reason parenthood is a challenge is that children are not born in a box. Babies don’t belong in boxes, they belong in their mother’s arms. But, when my first child began life in NICU, I was very, very thankful for the very literal box she was in. She didn’t fit it. She didn’t keep their schedule, she didn’t react the they thought she would, she wasn’t doing what they expected. She had a little fluid in her lungs and they were worried it would get infected (it didn’t). They were expecting it to dissipate quickly (it didn’t). They had a standard practice based on statistics that stated a baby stay in the hospital as long as they have fluid in their lungs. We learned to understand the reasoning behind the words “Against Medical Advice” and we signed her out and checked with our pediatrician very regularly. It took months for the fluid to finally leave her lungs and she never had any negative effects from it. She could have spent all of that time in a box.
No, children don’t understand boxes. They sometimes don’t even get the simple, very nice, concept of day and night. They laugh at paper ripping or at sneezing. They avoid sleep when they most need it. They lick mud if you let them. They try to catch water, and are endlessly fascinated by things like bubbles and dirt. They don’t walk the same…even one child scarcely walks the same way down the length of one hallway. They say the most interesting, unexpected things.
As children learn language they also learn more about boxes. At first they group things together (all four legged animals become cows or dogs, for instance). As they learn, words slowly become steeped and strengthened by culture and social meanings with facial expression and body language. Children remember that the goal of language is communication, and they don’t worry so much about the specifics. Children focus on the goal of communication and don’t mind making a fool of themselves in the process.
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Is that the key?
I am outside the box when I am focus on principles instead of boxes. I am outside of the box when I am learning. I am outside the box when I don’t make assumptions or jump to conclusions. I am outside the box when I laugh. I am outside the box when I forgive and love. If I value education, it might lead me to choose homeschool or private school or tutors or public school, depending on the needs of any one particular child. If the principle is a child’s well-being, it may lead to a home birth or a hospital birth, breastfeeding, or formula feeding. Living based on principles takes one person at a time, instead of forcing them into a box that never completely fits. It’s not that I have to live outside of boxes, but that I recognize their limits in the only places I really have power, here and now with just one person.
Britt grew up in a family of six brothers and one sister and gained a bonus sister later. She camped in the High Sierras, canoed down the Colorado, and played volleyball at Brigham Young University. She then served a mission to South Africa.
With all of her time in the gym and the mountains and South Africa, she was totally prepared to become the mother of 2 sons and soon to be 9 daughters. By totally prepared she means willing to love them and muddle through everything else in a partially sleepless state. She is mostly successful at figuring out how to keep the baby clothed, or at least diapered, though her current toddler is challenging this skill.
She feels children naturally love to learn and didn’t want to disrupt childhood curiosity with worksheets and school bells. She loves to play in the dirt, read books, go on adventures, watch her children discover new things, and mentor her children. Her oldest child is currently at a community college and her oldest son is going to high school at a public school. She loves to follow her children in their unique paths and interests.
She loves to write because, unlike the laundry and the dishes, writing stays done. Whenever someone asks her how she does it all she wonders what in the world they think she’s doing.
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It takes real courage to live outside the box especially when so few others understand why you are living outside the box.