how our social system perpetuates cruelty, and how we can break the cycle

When I was a kid, I wanted to disappear. I didn't have much resilience, and didn't know how to protect myself from the typical schoolyard bullying of the eighties. I felt small and dark and afraid, and spent many lunch-hours sitting out on a small, hidden bluff, hoping desperately that nobody would find me, and with a number of shrubby, mossy escape-routes already mapped out. Hiding was my solution to a social situation I wasn't prepared for. I escaped grade school into high school and became weird and vaguely threatening as a means of keeping other kids at bay. It worked, and I was lonely. Throughout the first thirty years of my life, I assumed the problem was me. I assumed I was just simply anti-social. Worthless.

It wasn't until I was a mother that my desperation to save my own children from the same fate caused me to really consider how I could prepare them for the culture that had crushed my own childhood. I began with keeping them home from school in order to protect them, but amazingly, it was a piece of wisdom from their school-going friend that finally helped me see a real escape-route: how we raise our children, and the society we build for them, matters entirely. We can look thoughtfully at our schools and other community groups just like we can carefully consider our home environment, and how those things make or break our children's mental health.

Once in those middle-years of raising my children, a boy I love very much and who I consider an extra son had this conversation with me:

"I feel like I'm at preschool when I'm at your house."

 

He was about 10, so this very much surprised me, and I asked him what he meant.
 

He responded, "...like I have to be polite and not swear... like in preschool."
 

I was astounded by his self-awareness, and even by his memory of preschool, but I pressed on. "Don't you still normally behave that way when you're not at my house?"

"No." He said, assuredly. "I can't. People would beat me up."

"What?!" I was incredulous. I, with my kids who stayed home every day and had big happy romping visits with friends (including this boy), couldn't imagine the threat my treasured child was describing. The threat of his schoolyard.

"I have to swear and act mean at school. I have to."

"But not at home," I begged, looking for a bit of hope.

"Not always but the boys from school come over to use my trampoline, so I kind of do there too. They always come over."

My heart broke for this boy--one of the gentlest I've known--to feel so trapped in his own community that he felt he had to become a different person. 

I have known a variety of violent, cruel men in my life. And every single one of them was a loving, compassionate person who had been raised in a culture or family that made him feel inadequate, hopeless; small. Every one of them used emotional, physical, sexual or verbal violence to control the world around him when he felt he was threatened. Every single one of them was doing what he felt was necessary to survive. 

After the conversation with my young friend, I saw so clearly the desperation in all those men's behaviour. I sat with that realization for weeks at the forefront of my mind, and it changed the way I saw that boy's father. It changed the way I saw my own partner. I forgave my fathers. I forgave my ex-boyfriends and my husband their variety of transgressions. I forgave my son for the many things I imagined he might end up doing because of a heartless culture that mocked him for wearing a tutu as a preschooler and pummeled him into a little corner full of muscle trucks, fear, superheroes, villains, and existential threat. And as I saw my own brave, intelligent daughter growing up toward a sexualized, diminished expectation of humanity, I forgave my mother and myself for all the ways we've fought without conviction and tried to disappear in life. I forgave us. Then I just cried.

What are we to do, as parents of children who our own community vilifies for the mere fact they're boys? I've been a feminist, all my life (yes, I've been fighting for my own and my mother's rights since before I ever heard the word 'feminism'). And I'm surrounded by the anger of my fellow feminists over boys who are excused from terrible crimes because their social status is at stake. I'm aware that those excuses leave girls unsupported; women languishing in shame and lifetimes of victimization. But as a mother of a boy, I also think about the boys. The 'social status' or 'future prospects' argument sure sounds hideously arrogant and small-minded, but maybe it's worth looking at. Those boys' and mens' social status may be what pushed them to commit the crimes in the first place. 

Perpetrators of abuse are usually victims of some form of abuse, themselves. That doesn't excuse their actions, it opens up a door for healing. It opens a door for us to see them as humans in need of help. In fact, it opens a door for us to look at every single child as a potential victim of abuse (familial, scholastic, societal, sexual, intellectual, etc.) and set them up to be resilient and--hopefully--to avoid abusive situations.

It was all very simple for me to assume that my kids would be safe from the schoolyard bullies because I didn't send them to school, but isolation from their own community isn't a solution, either. Both of my kids did end up attending some form of school in the few years after my conversation with their friend, and we did deal with the kinds of social trauma that happen there. However, the best thing I think I ever did in this respect was keep them home in the first place.

I and my husband unschooled our kids at home from Kindergarten to grades six and seven, respectively. They weren't isolated while they unschooled, because we did have a small community of other home- and unschoolers that we visited with multiple times a week. Picture groups of three to ten kids of all ages and their three or five parents all hanging out together at a park. Or maybe somebody's house. It was messy, it was chaotic, but it was whole. And by whole I mean that each gathering was a motley collection of different ages and types of people, all awkwardly sorting out social cues and each other's needs and values, in each moment, all the time. Together. We were a whole. Of course there were disagreements and social issues that came up among kids in the group, but the parents were involved in each moment, and were developing and modeling our own social skills in front of the kids, all the time. Our kids learned to respect each other, and more importantly, they learned to respect themselves and their own needs. 

Because so many of them were unschooled, and the play-times were for leisure, with no expectations of 'learning', kids weren't obliged to come along, and when they did they weren't obliged to participate. If something felt wrong to them, they could step aside and nobody would fault them for it. They learned to trust themselves in this way; they learned self-preservation that didn't rely upon reactive, hurtful behaviour. They learned practical social coping strategies from free, open play in a supportive environment, and by watching their parents engage with thoughtful empathy and a sense of enjoyment.

When my kids went to school, they both eventually experienced some form of social cruelty. I can't say they weren't harmed--they were. But pain happens in life. Other people do and say things that hurt us. We can have compassion for those people, but we can't change them by changing who we are. That's a lesson I am still learning now in my forties, but my children had apparently learned it by the time they were young teens. And I note that so had many of their homeschooled peers. 

So no, I'm not saying everybody should keep their kids home. I know that's not an option for most people, nor is it desired by many. But I feel like there must be a better way to raise our kids so that they develop a sense of self-worth. Boys and girls are equally susceptible to the degradation of self-worth that happens in the schoolyard and in our culture in general. Boys are more often encouraged by our culture to preserve their dignity and physical safety with violence, cruelty, and a kind of masculine arrogance. Girls are encouraged to do so by emotionally belittling other girls, by remaining calm in the face of fear, and by not taking up too much space, physically, intellectually, or emotionally. All are expected to conform. And may heaven help you if you don't fit the mold.

Can we just stop this now? No, I know it's not that easy to change centuries of cultural learning. But we can sure try harder! I would like for all children to spend their time in small, supported groups of mixed ages, genders, cultural backgrounds and political ideals. Free exploration in a supported, diverse environment is how we learn to really see other people, and it's how we learn empathy, as well as real dignity and self-awareness. 

That once-ten-year-old boy who told me my home felt like preschool is now eighteen. He's studying computer science and he still comes by and talks to me about his life. He's not here mainly to visit me; he's here to visit my son, who considers him a best friend. But he also takes time to talk to me. He takes time to talk to my daughter, who considers him an extra brother. He has grown out of those schoolyard bully days to find a path in his life that feels right. He doesn't have to swear just to keep himself safe, anymore. Probably through his amazing self-awareness, as well as his many social connections with people from all walks of life, my 'extra son' has grown out of the culture that limited him as a child, and is one of the beautiful young men emerging as a new adult in this world.

We can learn to live and tumble along with our culture's faults, or we can heal them, and thrive. We're never going to keep our children safe from pain and struggle. Hard times and heartbreak are part of life, and how we get through them is how we grow. But we can build diverse, supportive environments for our children and for ourselves, so that the getting through is easier, safer, and conducive to personal growth.

our kids aren't going to save us

Ever since I was a very little girl I knew that the teens of today will save the world. Or make that the teens of yesterday. When I was around ten, I remember hearing someone say that it was up to the (then) teens to make the big changes the world needed. Wow! I thought! They're going to fix the ozone layer! And pollution! And get rid of nuclear weapons forever! And this new thing called global warming that we were just starting to hear whispers of. I looked forward to the beautiful world those just a few years older than I was were creating for me. 

A few years later, when I graduated, and couldn't yet even vote, that burden of saving the world had shifted to my shoulders. I was the generation that was going to make the big changes. Well, OK, I thought. I can do that. I don't know what the rest of the generations were doing -- I mean, what happened to those teens from when I was a kid? Didn't they fix things? Well anyway now things were different. And me, I was going to finally fix things. We were going to finally fix things!!

Fast forward another five years and find me teaching some teens in a rec centre art program. It wasn't that I wasn't "fixing" the world, but plans for great upheaval, protests and really doing something big were on the back-burner as the need for paying rent and paying off my student loans was forefront in my mind. I tried to keep climate change and social justice on the menu during all activities, but, you know, that's not what parents were looking for in these art classes, so I had to temper it. You can't rock the boat too much if you're a new teacher and trying to keep your job; trying to keep people opening their wallets to pay you for teaching their kids. I figured I'd change the world when I made enough money.

Another couple of years later, I was joyfully welcoming my own kids to the world. It was even more imperative to me to save the world from the increasingly terrifying prospect of climate change which, by calculations at the time, was likely to cause global catastrophe by the time my kids were old. Well... if we didn't stop it, which we planned to. The only thing was, we all still needed to make money, and to do that we had to keep our jobs, and keep up the status quo, and really support the industries we knew were destroying the earth's ability to regulate the climate because, well, those companies had bought out all the smaller companies and were now the only affordable ways for us purchase the many many things that seemed to be required for home-life and babies! After all, what good is protecting your kids' future, if you can't even give them a semi-normal, socially-conforming lifestyle to start out with? But you know what I told myself then? Those kids I taught. They were about graduating age by now. They were coming up to voting age, and not yet burdened with the need to pay rent and student loans and preschool fees. They would save us!

Climate change, as we know, eclipsed the miraculously-diminishing ozone hole, as well as nuclear weapons threats, in the list of potential perils. And by the time my kids were ten years old, we knew for certain that their lives would be cut short by the ever-growing, ever-menacing list of catastrophes caused by climate change. In fact, the hurricanes, forest-fires and floods had already begun, and we began to realize that even our own lives would likely end in a kind of apocalypse we 80's kids had never fully imagined. Around that time it began to be acceptable to use the word apocalypse in my blog posts. Nobody was shocked, anymore. We were apathetic. We couldn't not give our kids tons of gifts, because we wanted them to be happy! We couldn't not buy the plastic toys and fleece clothing that they needed to fit in with their friends. We couldn't step off of the rat-race treadmill because somehow we had to afford all these things, and we still weren't managing to take them on enough vacations for their social and emotional well-being. We knew we were doomed. So we sipped up our lattes and attended some climate rallies on lunch-breaks, and told ourselves that the teens of the current generation would save us.

My son voted, this week. He's eighteen. I just can't bring myself to tell him to save me. 

This is bullshit, and we all know it. Telling ourselves that each new generation will fix the mistakes of the twenty before it is a bright shiny carousel of lies we tell ourselves so we don't have to make the hard changes that are required to save ourselves from climate change. And those changes are HARD! We're all going to have to sacrifice the tarred dreams we pursued; we're all going to have to sacrifice our income, social status and the careers, homes, vacations; even relationships that are threatening our sustainable future. Because if we don't, our future is far more bleak than we can imagine. And I don't want that for my kids. I don't want that for me. 

We have to stop buying things we don't need. We have to reassess the meaning of the word "need", according to a non-commercialized, non-selfish scale. We have to stop supporting industries and corporations that are fiscally tied to financial gain. The pursuit of money isn't saving the world; it's destroying it. Growth isn't saving the world; it's destroying it. We have to stop seeking more, and start acknowledging how much joy there is in what we already have. We have children. We have love.

My son was interviewed by our local paper about his first voting experience, and he had this to say: "I think a lot of politicians are afraid to take the necessary drastic steps to counteract climate change because of the possible short term cost to our economy, but I say it's worth it to ensure that we have a safe, livable future for us and our families going on into the future."

In the upcoming election, we have an opportunity to stand up and vote for the candidate or party who is most likely to make the hard changes. People, get out and vote. Then let's look at our lives honestly and just make the changes we should have made decades ago. We are adults and it's time we started behaving like adults. It's time that we all stood up and made the change we want to see in the world, instead of expecting our kids to do it for us.

Why every kid should be raised as if they might be LGBTQ

 

Today is National Coming Out Day. I didn't even know that was a thing, until I saw it posted on Facebook this morning and went to Google it. As a parent I've tried to be so careful; so deliberately woke, but, like the term 'woke', I'm watered down. 

When my kids were little, I consciously referred to their future partners as a genderless "they", or "he or she". I wasn't very familiar with trans culture at the time, and my only gender-defying parenting feats were to encourage them to play with all manner of toys, and to dress themselves in every colour, and every style of clothing. If I knew then what I know now, I would have encouraged them to choose their own pronouns, too. Some brave souls are raising kids that way, now. And in 2016 the province of Alberta presented schools with guidelines for allowing students to choose and live by their own preferred pronouns. Amazingly (or not, when you consider the culture we live in), both of my kids subscribed to gender stereotypes from very early ages, and defined themselves as cis-straight. I defied - just in case - and kept telling them that was fine, but that I would love them and their partners no matter what genders or pronouns they may happen to use. I wanted to be sure that there was never a day when my kids questioned their sexuality or gender, and didn't feel safe talking about it. I didn't just wait for the conversations, I started them.

And when my trans cousin committed suicide just after Trump was elected, I started even more conversations. Can you imagine knowing that your cousin felt so unwelcome in society that he no longer wanted to live, and then perhaps discovering you might be similarly different from the norm? I don't know what my kids' place on the spectrum of gender and sexuality is, and they had only met our cousin once, but I needed them to know that they had a safe space; that their feelings would always be valid, even if they change, and even if they don't want to talk about them. The necessity of being an accepting parent became deeper and more desperate for me.We attended Pride like it was our special family party, having finally had a taste of the loss from which pride is cultivated; the ashes from which humanity is trying to rise.

When my kids were little I was told that if I didn't help them identify as cis and straight, I was damaging their sense of self-worth, messing with their identity, and setting them up for bullying. Those comments terrified me, because what I'm trying to do is the opposite. But I carry on anyway, because you know what really damages kids' self-worth? Feeling like they're not acceptable to their own parents. All kids are potentially going to question their sexuality or gender. Everybody should question those things, just so we can know ourselves and live our best lives, with open eyes. If we want our potentially-LGBTQ kids to feel self-worth, we need to openly accept and advocate for LGBTQ people in our community, so they can see people they may or may not identify with, and feel safe around them. Even if our kids are consistently cis-gendered and straight, they need to know that it's normal not to be, as well. They need to have no fear about identity, love, or their belonging in community. So no, I'm not messing with their identity - I'm refraining from messing with their identity. Because it's theirs to determine. Not mine.

Bullying is scary. I'm telling you, as the girl who knelt, eating weiners off the floor, being kicked by my classmates, while my teacher stood at the font of the room looking through her papers. You know what I did when they stopped? I went outside and I told a younger kid that I'd magically turn her into a frog if she didn't give me the swing. She ran away crying, and I took that swing and my pride and rode it all the way through recess. I felt terrible about becoming a bully, myself, and it's what makes me so determined to raise children who feel secure enough to be neither victims nor perpetrators. Fear is what makes bullies. Fear is what makes victims. The only way to give our kids a ticket out of this dynamic is to make sure they know they're safe in who they are; that they can always come home to a pair of loving, accepting arms. No matter what.

Accepting our kids is not as much about being OK with whomever they become as it is about being OK with the whole world, so our kids know that they'll be acceptable, whomever they become. They have to be accepted to become themselves. The right to self-determination is as important as shelter, food, love and security. It isn't any of my business what my kids' gender or sexuality may be, but it's my business to provide a safe place for them to self-identify, and to be flexible enough in my own mind that whenever their identity changes, I'm ready to accept it. And there is no end-point; no final level of consciousness to achieve. There's just a constant, always-learning, growth.

finding hope when there is no good news anymore

Seeds in Spallumcheen Graveyard, September 2020

I'm struggling hugely to keep on finding positive things to say; positive ways to look at the collapse we're now experiencing and keep seeing a good way forward. They say this is a natural feeling of hopelessness, six months into the pandemic, but I know it's more than the pandemic. The giant, horrible, depressing pandemic is just one small thing that happened to the world this year. Climate change is so much worse. With the ongoing rampage of fires, floods, storms, extinctions, social unrest and ecological collapse, people are spouting F2020 memes all over the place, but we pretty much know next year will be worse. And F2021 just won't have the same ring to it.

I've tried looking away from the news, but my daughter danced into my room this morning, grinning because "Trump has coronavirus", and all my pessimistic mind could think was how that would just create sympathy among his growing number of supporters, and be followed by more hate. Everything he does or doesn't do either supports, provokes or emboldens more hatred. Why? Because Trump isn't the problem; people are. Every single one of us who is running around scared and looking for somebody to either blame or help us is the problem. Every single one of us who hasn't nurtured a feeling of empowered possibility is the problem. And I have nurtured that feeling of empowerment, and yet I'm still feeling so helpless, now. Everywhere I turn is a problem too big for me to solve.

I've spent so much of my life trying to convince myself and those I care for that trust and understanding will carry us through anything; love will save us. I still have love, but we're all afraid to hug the people we love, and we don't know if our homes will burn down or wash away next year, and we don't know if the pandemic will ever end.

Are you waiting for this to turn positive? Me too. What are we going to do, people? How am I going to make it OK that I bore two children into a world without hope? The usual means of supplying hope aren't working. We want to have Thanksgiving under the harvest moon, but it's obscured by smoke - the particles of our southern neighbours, their animals, farms and forests all burned and floating through our sky. We went to meet our new puppy and our son pointed out that the road-trip we took to get to her was ecologically irresponsible. And he was right. I'm still waiting for this to turn positive.

OK here goes: My little grain of hope. I had to get that off my chest in order to get to this; it's the compost from which I hope my little seed will grow. Generosity. Gift. And love, after all. 

I turned off my computer, walked away from the stream of bad news: politicians lying, stealing and grappling for power, parents panicking and people dying, forests and neighbourhoods burning; the infestation of moths beginning to lie dead all over the place. I felt the familiar grip of despair around my heart; I made a thermos of tea and went to give a tour to some local gardeners. I work for free, now, most of the time. Under the smoky sky, we talked about the future of their garden, and how they plan to expand it, but with respect and understanding of the wilderness it grew from. They paid me with a kabocha squash, fresh-cut from their land. Then I went with my son to film the next episode of our Outdoor Exploration video series with a local mushroomer. And under the smoky sky we talked about the mycelium spreading itself, below us; the rotting, spore-y mushrooms proliferating themselves all over. She gave me a bunch of lobster mushrooms, which we enjoyed for our dinner. Every week I consult with parents who are struggling during the many stresses of pandemic life. I hear their stories and share mine, and tell them I know they're doing the best they can, and I support them, and sometimes they offer their own services in exchange. My children give food and water to our chickens, and just this week they have begun returning from the coop with eggs. I put seeds in the ground and, despite all odds, they grow.

Can we hold each other through this horrible time, even knowing that it might not end? Can you wrap your arms around me again so I can feel the comfort of not being alone? Can we plant seeds of respect and understanding in each other's hearts; give when and what we can without knowing that anything will grow, but hoping? Can we do this, even in the face of all the horrors? I love you. Whoever you are, and although we haven't met, and no matter how our politics or moral standards may differ, and even if you don't love me back... I love you. Let our love be a well-tended soil, as we keep on planting seeds of hope, even in the face of all odds, and grow.

I took my kids to see the old church in the town I once lived in, but it was boarded up, so we just stood together and looked at it. Love is constant, even when the world around us changes. September 2020.

Chicken Introductions Then and Now!

It's time to update you on our chicken flock. 

We bought thirty chicks last spring, and sadly, five of them had to be put down due to various ailments. One beloved rooster, Little Mister AKA Gonzo went to live with a whole flock of lovely chocolate Orpington hens where he discovered his masculinity and now basks in glory. All the other roosters we couldn't keep have made their way to various forms of packaging in our pantry and freezer (dried, canned, and frozen). And the remaining fourteen birds are living happily in the main coop, now. 

So I thought I'd introduce those who have made their way so far into our hearts as to have received names. I'll provide baby photos as well, when possible.

Lester Clark. He's that guy. That Australorp rooster guy. The guy who always hops on the chair when the lady stands up just to show his dominance. He crows with a big proud musical voice long before the sun wakes everybody else. He's a good guy, and he's generous with food, usually allowing the hens to eat before he does, and protecting them, always. Beware if you do anything that looks threatening, because he'll stomp his feet at you! And beware if you threaten his masculinity by petting him as if he was a hen or (heaven forbid) picking him up... he'll sit patiently in your arms but as soon as you put him down he'll have to regain that masculinity by quickly mating with whichever hens are nearby.

Meet the Splash. Like every good superhero, he stands tall, protects the weaker among his flock (really just the smallest ladies, since the bigger ones are a little frightening), stands up against tyranny (as long as it's not too too scary), and has an alter ego where he hides between my ankles to get treats and snuggles into my lap for a little nap when he's tired of being a superhero. His voice is rather hoarse but after Lester starts crowing, he does his best to join in with his very rusty, uncertain little crow. He's a Splash Ameraucana and generally hangs out with the smaller hens, where he bravely defends them from unwanted advances of that way-too-big guy. Then he runs away.

Bonus photo: The Splash is not only a superhero -- he's also a parchment scroll mail delivery guy. Like Hedwig, only cooler. And gawkier.

Kalamata is an olive-egger. Or at least we think so, since we didn't order any chicks with feathery feet, and yet seemed to get four of them. The other three had some kind of health problems and we lost them. But Kalamata lives on in her delightfully reserved but curious way. She likes to hop on my lap for a snuggle that lasts about ten seconds, or preferably she likes to nestle on the back of the chair I sit in (you can see her up behind Lester in the photo above). She's always very interested in what's going on, but generally sits back and observes from afar.

Those two lovelies facing each other at the roost are Audrey (left) and Big Bird (right). That's Audrey's baby photo, too. They're crested legbars and will lay blue eggs for us one day. Audrey is very very timid, but likes to stand around my feet and get attention. Big Bird is Rhiannon's special friend and likes to wait in the coop each morning so that she'll be lifted onto Rhiannon's shoulder and can be carried around for the morning chores.

That's Blue. We don't know yet if they're a pullet or a cockerel because they're a Jersey Giant, and growing more slowly than the rest. Blue is a little aloof, as you can see even in their baby photo. They go around minding their own business, munching some tasty grubs, checking out the passing cats and dog, and just generally being independent. I really hope they're a hen because they're so beautiful and I'd like more eggs, but we'll have to wait and see.

Fluffy Face! Isn't she just adorable? She's our funny little white Ameraucana hen, and is even more independent than Blue. She really doesn't like to hang out with anybody and just waits until they're gone to come for treats or even doesn't come at all because actually she probably knows where something tastier is. If you asked her something she would answer 'hmph' if she could, but she can't because the only sound she can make is that of a squeaky barn door...

Meet Francey. She's very stalwart. We're not sure what breed she is since we didn't order any barred chicks, but possibly an Orpington or Orpington cross. She doesn't care what she is because she's just so self-assured. She often just stands and stares right at me, thinking her chicken thoughts and not posturing at all.

Lastly, the Grey Lady. She has a sister named Peeves, who is plain too peevish to photograph. The Grey Lady isn't quite as mean as her sister. Just does her best to get what she wants, usually by slipping in quietly and simply snatching whatever morsel from somebody else and then running away quickly with it, often loudly. They're not very nice ladies, but they do well for themselves, and nobody bothers them (who would dare). Like every good poltergeist, they're just there. Nothing you can do about it but learn to cope.

Why Explorative Learning Matters