Simplicity Parenting

A Day at the Museum

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 6 Comments

The New York State Museum in Albany was one of my favorite places as a child. Despite the fact that my mom is a teacher and deeply devoted to education, I dragged her there so many times that even she started getting sick of it. While it’s far from a world-class museum, it has a lovely diversity of exhibits, including large dioramas of taxidermied animals, rock and minerals displays, histories of New York’s Native American tribes, and a tribute to New York City. So when my mom suggested bringing Sprout there over Christmas break, I thought it was worth checking it. Even though he’s was too young to read the placards, we thought he would enjoy looking at the exhibits.

We headed to Albany on Monday morning, walking to the Museum through the huge underground Concourse. I pointed out to Sprout the huge abstract art covering the walls, thinking he would like the giant multi-colored snake and interlocking black and white shapes. However, he was more interested in the noisy construction equipment than looking at modern art. When we finally arrived at the museum’s front doors, we discovered that the exhibits are closed on Mondays. While we considered detouring to a different museum, we ditched the entire thing and headed home.

The day after Christmas, we decided to give the New York State Museum another try after a play date with one of my mom’s friends’ kids was canceled. This time, they were actually open.

We started off with the Adirondack exhibit. Sprout was fascinated by the majestic stuffed elk in front of a running waterfall, although I couldn’t tell if it was the animal, the water, or the coins in the pool that kept his attention. We spent about 10 minutes looking at that single display and he still kept trying to go back when we tried to leave. However, not all of the animals were nearly that popular. Looking skeptically at both the moose and the mastadon, he wouldn’t get too close, wary of their size.

On our way out of the Adirondacks section, we came upon the Children’s Discovery Center, which I had forgotten about. When I was a kid, it was filled with computers that allowed you to play Odell Lake (a game where you played a fish trying not to get eaten) and other vaguely educational games. When hardly anyone had a home computer, those black and green screens were the height of excitement. As many kids now have their own iPads, the Center has since gone in the opposite direction. Everything was touchy-feely, with the only screens being those showing a microscope close-up of insect mouthparts. Like our local nature center, they had animal furs, skins, bones, and fossils to touch.

They also had a small collection of wooden puzzles, animal puppets, and dress-up costumes. Playing with one of the puzzles, Sprout brought one piece over to the middle of the floor, near another, slightly older boy. The boy must have been playing with the same puzzle earlier, as he immediately shouted, “Mine!” in typical toddler fashion. While the little boy’s dad was in the middle of telling him that he had to share, Sprout did something surprising. He went back to the puzzle across the room and brought back a different piece for the boy to play with. When the kid kept whining, he brought over the entire puzzle to share. It was such a kind gesture; I was so proud of him for being generous when he didn’t have to be.

Next up was one of my favorite sections of the Museum – the area on the Iroquois Native American confederacy. While these days it looked out-of-date and probably had some level of cultural insensitivity (I didn’t have time to read the placards), at one point, it did spark my interest about a culture very different from my own. The heart of the exhibit is a large replica of a longhouse. While visitors can walk through much of it, the end of it is blocked off and has a diorama of people listening to a story around a fire. With its poor lighting and audio narration, entering that longhouse felt a little like stepping back in time to me. Creeping into it slowly, afraid yet still very interested, I think Sprout understood a little of that feeling. As we left, I explained to him that descendants of these people are still around and continue to use some of the costumes for ceremonies. While I know he didn’t understand my explanation, but it was important for me to say it anyway. I want him both to know about the history of a variety of ethnic groups as well as understand that history is more than just a story in a book – that these people still exist today and the events of the past reverberate through our modern day.

Next up was the New York City exhibit, which was a bit of a mixed bag. He loved the subway car parked in the middle of the floor, giggling as he ran in and out of it. Although we’ve been on the D.C. Metro many times, he clearly didn’t make that connection that they were the same thing. Obviously, we haven’t made the jump from generic “train” to “subway” yet. He was pretty indifferent about the Sesame Street display, only interested by the historical clips they were playing on a dinky TV. He could have cared less about Oscar the Grouch being there in person. For obvious reasons, we skipped the September 11 exhibit and finished off with a walk through the room of historical fire trucks. As he took in the 20 pieces or so of huge shiny fire equipment, his eyes went wide. While many of them were both practical and decorative, a silver one that could have been Cinderella’s carriage was actually used only in parades.

We wrapped up our trip with a ride on the museum’s historic, restored carousel. While not as bright or elaborate as some, its horses were truly lovely. Although we’ve been in carousels elsewhere, Sprout had clearly forgotten those experiences, because his mouth dropped when his horse moved upwards. As the ride spun faster and faster, he gazed at the cranks spinning round and round that move the horses up-and-down. I definitely knew he enjoyed it when as soon as it stopped, whiny grousing commenced. Fortunately, we had a built-in reason we couldn’t repeat the ride – the carousel is so fragile that they only run it every 15 minutes, saving both the historical landmark and parents’ sanity.

Reflecting on our day, I realize how drastically different my experience was before and after having a child. I used to read every placard, trying to imprint the information into my brain. This time, I had neither the luxury of time or focus to do more than skim them. Previously, I meandered from exhibit to exhibit, lingering on those I found particularly interesting. Now, I followed Sprout from place to place, letting him take the lead.

This is not to say that we’ll stop visiting everything but kid-oriented museums. In particular, I know the New York State Museum so well that there was nothing I would have gained from a close reading. There’s still plenty of places that I’ll want to do more than skim and I believe it’s important to show him we love to learn as well.

But it does mean that the way I approach museums – even the most beloved of them – will radically change. And that’s quite alright with me – seeing my inquisitive little boy learning right beside me brings new meaning to the whole experience.

The Best Ethically-Made Toys for Your Holiday Gifts

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 12 Comments

Ethically-made toys can be challenging to find, but these companies make toys in an ethical manner. 

The Best Ethically-Made Toys for Your Holiday Gifts (Photo: Toy fire truck, pounding hammer toy, stuffed raccoon, green wooden toy car)

Browsing the internet and flipping through catalogs, I sigh and frown. I wonder if the toys I’m buying my kids for Christmas won’t just make them happy, but will also do good in the world. While I want them to enjoy them, I don’t want their toys to cause toxic pollution or be made by people who are underpaid and treated poorly.

Ideally, I’d love to buy perfectly ethically-made toys, with workers paid well in safe conditions, materials that are sourced in environmentally-friendly ways, and production that supports local economies. Of course, I also want them to be high quality, encourage creative play, and be usable over a long period of time.

While there’s no such thing as a perfect product, the companies that produce these ethically-made toys get about as close as possible. This post is not sponsored and I do not have affiliate links with these companies. I just personally like them and want to encourage ethical shopping.

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Food is our common ground – James Beard.

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

As a parent, I’m very aware of the messages my behavior sends to Sprout, intentionally or not. With Sprout getting more observant every day, I’ve become particularly conscientious about our eating habits, as I know how and what we eat will shape his eating habits for life.

This has become particularly important now that he thinks everything the “big people” eat is fair game. As I understand it must feel unfair to see your family members eating something you can’t, I try not to eat anything in front of him he can’t have. (Except my tea – they’ll have to take that from my cold, dead hands.) This became exceptionally obvious at my company’s annual picnic. One second, there was a chocolate-chip cookie on my plate, the next it was in my son’s mouth with a big bite out of it. Not what I had planned.

This awareness came to a head last week, with a spiritual element added to the practical one. Leading up to Food Day, my church is focusing on eating as a spiritual practice. As with most spiritual practices, the first step is increasing awareness of your current habits. As such, my pastor challenged everyone to keep a food journal – a list of the food consumed as well as the circumstances in which we ate it. Personally, I also wrote down whether the food was processed, local and/or organic.

While I normally try to be aware of my eating, it was amazing how many decisions the food journal influenced. I chose to have an apple instead of crackers. I didn’t drink the fake cappachino that’s 90% sugar water and 10% preservatives. I had a little thrill when I wrote down “locally made whole wheat toast with locally made jam,” even though it wasn’t exactly healthy. It didn’t stop me from having three desserts at the picnic (including the stolen cookie), but I did have a greater appreciation for sharing that lunch with my husband, son and co-workers.

While I’m no longer writing everything down, I’m still thinking the best way to model good eating habits for Sprout. I think the best way to do this is keep him as involved as possible in growing, choosing, and cooking his food.

Before this weekend, I hadn’t been able to get him involved in gardening, as he was always too destructive. But with the fall season winding down, I’ve started pulling out my plants in preparation for winter. As I’m usually telling him not to hurt plants, he looked very confused. He tried to help at first, but just picked off a few spare leaves. He also didn’t know what to do when the plants were too thick for him to walk through without tripping. Once I had cleared a space for him, he was much more content, sitting there and whacking at the soil with a spade. In the end, he was a dirty, happy kid, with soil everywhere from his hair to the soles of his sneakers.

While he can’t identify different vegetables yet, we’ve been bringing him to the Farmers’ Market since he was a newborn. The vendors are so used to seeing us that the one girl recognizes Sprout and asks about him. As he grows older, we’ll teach him about the different fruits and vegetables and why they’re available some times of the year and not others. Unfortunately, we’ll never be able to buy his beloved bananas (the only food he has a word for yet) there.

Obviously, we’re going to teach him how to cook. Sprout already shows great interest when anyone cooks, whining if you don’t keep him informed of what you’re doing. Chris will often pick him up to show him what’s in the pan and explain the steps he’s taking.

While it’ll be quite a while before he can touch the knives, we did get him involved in food preparation for the first time a few weeks ago. We made these date-almond-chocolate energy bites, but swapped out the wheat germ for shredded coconut. After we blended most of the ingredients in the food processor and formed balls, we let him roll the balls in the coconut. Or more accurately, throw coconut on/at/over them. He seemed to have a good time and the bites turned out to be surprisingly tasty.

Eating good food that has been thoughtfully, sustainably grown and prepared with people I love is one of my great joys in life. I hope it’s one of his too.

The Many Non-Toys My Kid Loves to Play With

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

Sprout has plenty of toys. Now, he doesn’t have as many as some kids, but there are plenty to hold his attention. But despite that fact, some of the things he likes to play with the most aren’t toys at all. Some of them seem pretty boring to me, but then I’m not a toddler.

Blankets and napkins: Sprout has embraced the great joys of peek-a-boo. Before, he just enjoyed watching us disappear. Now, he finds it hysterical to hide himself behind a blanket or napkin. He’s very aware there’s a performative aspect that he’s in control of. The photos from Disney that he’s smiling the most in are the ones where he’s peeking out from a napkin. Cloth napkins are also very good for random waving around at restaurants.

The remote controls: Of course. Unlike a lot of parents, we let him play with the remotes if we forgetfully leave them on the couch. We used to believe this was harmless, until he bought Sherman and Mr. Peabody On Demand. It couldn’t even be a good movie! Now that Chris set parental standards, it’s probably harmless. As we rarely let him watch TV, he’s more interested in pushing buttons for the sake of pushing buttons, as well as the fact that one of the remotes actually lights up.

The grass and dirt: In the spring and summer, I often brought Sprout to hang out in our yard while Chris makes dinner. Even when I brought a ball to play with, Sprout usually just ignored it. Instead, he’d sit in the grass and pull it up, or pick at clumps of dirt. This happened more when he was younger, as now our front porch has more allure due to the next item on the list…

All stairs, everywhere: We are still obsessed with stairs.

Doors and gates: He loves opening and closing doors and gates. He’s not tall enough to reach doorknobs, but he’ll swing an open door back and forth over and over again. He also adores the giant metal gate at the tennis court near our playground. What’s pretty amazing is how careful he’s always been. Even when it looks like he’s about to close his hand in the door, he draws his fingers or the door back just enough to avoid it. Occasionally, he’ll use his palm to close it all of the way, shutting us out of his room. We then knock on his door and say, “Can we come in?” Even though he has zero sense of privacy yet, it’s still good to model those respectful habits. Plus, he finds it hysterical when we ask. We have a fifteen-month-old going on fifteen years old.

The doorstop: Before having a child, I never thought about doorstops. They’re so low to the ground that adults hardly see them. But they’re at just the right height if you’re a baby. Sprout has spent an absurd amount of time batting at his doorstop, listening and watching it sproing back into place. He found it even more entertaining when he was crawling, as he’s getting a little tall now to reach it comfortably. But every now and then, he’ll stop, sit down next to it and start to flick at it, remembering, “Oh yeah, this is awesome!”

Chris and I: His mommy and daddy are finally starting to become his playmates, as in someone who actually plays with you. But a long time, he treated us much more like things to be played with – like really big toys. He scales us like we’re climbing structures, twirls my hair, and previously nibbled on our fingers (although we discouraged that). He still gives us raspberries on our stomachs that make the most realistic and hysterical farting noises. But better to be a whoopee cushion than a chew toy.

Hanging Out with My Favorite Little Guy

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 5 Comments

Last week, I turned to Chris and said, “These days, I don’t really know what a day alone with Sprout is like.” His schedule now is drastically different from when I was on maternity leave and Chris and I are usually together on the weekends. Seeing an opportunity, he responded, “Do you want to?” We didn’t have anything planned, so I gave Chris the “day off” on Saturday and had a whole day dedicated to mommy-kid bonding.

Of course, deciding on an activity was paramount. Both Sprout and I get antsy hanging around the house, so I definitely wanted to get out. I first contemplated going to a “toddler play date” advertised on Meetup, but then realized that I didn’t want to mar it with my awkwardness of needing to make small talk with strangers. I also decided against attending a local puppet show, figuring that Chris would want to be present for Sprout’s first theatrical experience. In the end, I decided to go to a local nature center (we have a lot of them around us) that we hadn’t been to yet.

The Nature Center turned out to be even cooler than I had anticipated. The largest room replicated a Mid-Atlantic deciduous forest, with a stream running into a pond populated by turtles and catfish. Sprout loved observing the turtles from a bridge over the stream – even more than he enjoyed climbing up and down the steps. Across from the bridge, there was a tunnel with a window into the pond, allowing you to peer into the pond at eye level. Unfortunately, holding him up to the window didn’t last long because my arms were starting to give out. There was also a mysterious “cave” that required crawling into a dark tunnel. While I was totally keen, Sprout was uninterested in exploring anything he couldn’t stand up in, backing straight out of it. At least it’s something to save for when he’s older.

Another room was super old-school, with a yellowed Mark Trail comic and beaver and fox pelts on the wall. He found stroking the fur fascinating, while I scrambled to rub his hands in sanitizer before he stuck them in his mouth. Those are so old that they can’t have bacteria anymore, right? It also had a kiosk where you could press buttons to hear different bird sounds. Pushing buttons plus high pitched noises equals toddler crack.

Outside offered more opportunities to critter-watch; the Center is a rescue facility for predatory birds. All of their birds, which include vultures, hawks, owls, and even a bald eagle, are so injured that they can never be re-released. We happened to be lucky enough to be there while the keeper was feeding the vulture. I found watching the vulture methodically tear apart a mouse fascinating, but Sprout was wiggly. In only a few years, I’m sure it will hold his interest far more.

We spent the rest of the time at the Center rambling along the hiking trails. I let him walk ahead of me, redirecting when he’d start to wander off the path. Besides it being good environmental stewardship, I also didn’t want to deal with the threat of poison ivy. He’d stop occasionally to pick up a stick, look at a leaf, or poke at a stone. However, he was surprisingly focused for his age. Our time ran out before his attention span did.

The rest of the day was more pedestrian – lunch, a nap for both of us, and a trip to our downtown area and grocery store. I even made dinner! But it was good to even have that ordinary time together.

I’m so grateful that we had our mommy-son bonding time. Sometimes I get jealous of Chris because he has so much time with Sprout alone. While I wouldn’t want to be a stay-at-home parent myself, I wish I had a little more time than the hour and a half before bedtime and the weekends.

Even when I’m there and all three of us are together, Chris can unintentionally dominate the play. He tends to be a little more physical with Sprout when playing, with more tickle fights than I do. He’s also just inherently funnier, being able to make up silly songs on the fly. I’ve learned a lot about being flexible from him and I’ve become much more comfortable as a mom, but I still feel intimidated once in a while.

Obviously, Chris benefitted from this time away as well. In fact, he attended a gaming group he found through Meetup and enjoyed himself! As he hates attending events where he has to talk to strangers, much less going by himself, I was so proud of him.

So this uninterrupted time with Sprout was refreshing. I could luxuriate in spending time with him without worrying about being back in time for dinner or anywhere else. I suspect we’ll make this a regular monthly event, as it seems to be good for everyone’s emotional health.

Guest Post at the Children and Nature Network

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

I have a guest post over at the Children & Nature Network! Their founder, Richard Louv (author of Last Child in the Woods), read my post on what I want to teach Sprout about nature and asked if I could adapt it for their blog. Obviously, I said yes. Their organization has a great mission – to get more kids into nature – and I’m so glad that I could contribute. I edited the original post quite a bit, so I think it’s still worth reading this one even if you saw the one before.

Go check it out: Valuable Lessons – What I Want to Teach My Son About Nature.

Out-Growing Mommy’s Favorite Things

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 6 Comments

We all hold certain childhood objects fondly in our memories, even if we no longer have them. But until I became a mommy, I didn’t understand the relationship between the parent and the child’s possessions. Lately, Sprout has grown out of a number of things that are my favorites. Even if we have another child who uses them, knowing that he will never use them again makes me a little sad.

Most recently, Sprout got too big for his whale baby bathtub. I had needed to switch him into the real bathtub for weeks. By the last bath, his legs were squashed to the point where he had no choice but to bend his knees. Depending on his position, either his legs or butt were on the slanted section, throwing him off balance. While I kept saying that he couldn’t switch because the bathtub desperately needed to be cleaned (which it did), at least part of it was that I was sad to move him out of the little tub. I remembered picking it out for our registry while pregnant, charmed by the marine mammal theme. (We also got the whale faucet cover.) I remembered his first bath, when I gingerly laid him on the padded section, worried he would slip and drown. He spent the whole time frowning, punctuated with occasional crying. I remember him learning to sit up in it and discovering the joy of splashing. And by the end, I remembered him nearly crawling out of it, pulling up to his knees. So now it’s at least temporarily retired, well-loved, with its padding pulled off and its sides scratched.

Sprout has also grown out of a huge amount of clothing, much of which I was fond of. The first one that I really missed was a onsie my sister-in-law gave us a few days before he was born. It has a picture of the earth and says, “Hi. I’m new here.” The thought of that phrase in my tiny baby’s imaginary voice was so sweet and hilarious. We planned to bring him home from the hospital in it, but it was way too big. Once it fit, I dressed him in it in often because it brought some light to those difficult early days. Although he swam in it at first, he grew into it quickly and then out of it just as fast. He was no longer all that “new here” anymore. It was probably the first thing I was sad to put in storage.

More recently, we had to retire the most awesome pajamas ever. Over the winter, he regularly wore fleece footie pajamas with rocket ships. They were the epitome of everything kids’ pajamas should be – warm, fuzzy, comfortable, a little retro, and fantastical. I actually Googled “women’s fleece rocket ship pajamas” to see if I could find similar, non-footie ones for myself. Unfortunately, they do not design the same pajamas for grown women as they do baby boys.

Packing up these items did help me better understand a conversation I had with my mom a few years ago. I was sorting through a number of things in my old bedroom at my parents’ house, deciding what I wanted to keep and what to get rid of. Having decided not to keep a set of ceramic bear figurines, I told my mom she could give them away. Much to my surprise, my mom got rather upset. To me, they were just some cutesy knick-knacks that had always been on a bookshelf and didn’t reflect my personality. But she struggled with the fact that they didn’t hold any nostalgic value for me because they had so much for her. She bought me one each year for my birthday, so they symbolized all those passing years watching me grow up. For her, they evoked the memories of all of those birthdays that for me as an adult, were hazy at best. The bears had much more tangible echoes of the past for her.

It’s funny how even the simplest things – a bathtub, a pair of pajamas, a ceramic bear – can have such meaning imbued in it when it’s your child’s. I know we have so far to go, with so many clothes and toys yet to be bought, used, and retired. But those earliest things of Sprout’s will always hold a special place in my heart.

An Open Letter to Parenting Philosophers

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 6 Comments

I believe in being positive, especially as a parent, but sometimes I do get frustrated. I get angry when people are being oppressed, when someone is reinforcing prejudicial societal patterns, or when people are putting others in unnecessary pain. Rather than making Chris listen to me rant (yet again), I’ll write an Open Letter addressing whatever is making me angry.

I don’t believe in parenting philosophies. That’s not to say that I don’t believe they exist – the reams of parenting books and blogs would immediately disprove me. Rather, I don’t believe in their usefulness as moral and ethical frameworks. Instead, I think they’re useful as broad sets of guidelines from which parents can and should pick and choose based on their own values. Trying to apply something as restrictive as a specific ethical philosophy to something as situational, deeply personal, and chaotic as parenting is bound to end in frustration. Parents feel judged enough – making them feel as if it’s straight up immoral if they don’t follow your philosophy in every situation is just wrong!

Lately, I’ve felt very frustrated when I’m reading a blog post or book where I agree with the broad viewpoint but they take a position that’s so extreme that it doesn’t match anyone’s lived experience that I know. This is a pretty common issue with philosophical frameworks – it’s how you end up with annoying thought experiments like the trolley problem. Normally, this isn’t a huge issue. In “real life,” the only person who will judge you if you don’t follow a single philosophical framework in every area of your life is a freshman philosophy student. However, everything in parenting is about people’s personal, everyday lives. Unfortunately, most parenting philosophies don’t make space for the variability between families.

Often, this narrow viewpoint comes from the author’s unacknowledged privilege. This unexamined privilege shows up in all sorts of issues, from prenatal care to sleeping arrangements.

Broadly, it’s a good idea if pregnant women eat a variety of fruits and vegetables. But using language that’s going to inspire guilt in women who can’t meet those requirements (looking at you, What to Expect When You’re Expecting) is unfair to the many pregnant women who feel hideous nausea all of the time and can only eat very limited diets. And that’s not to mention the women who had food sensitivities before they got pregnant.

In general, breastfeeding is a important behavior to encourage and teach new moms how to do. But for women for whom breastfeeding exasterbates post-partum depression or is so awful that they’re in chronic pain, telling them that using formula denies your child “what is needed for development” is just reinforcing the narrative of failure that’s already running through their heads. Besides physical restrictions, there are many women who have to return to workplaces – especially retail and other service industry positions – that have no space or time accommodations for pumping, making breastfeeding after a few weeks impossible. New laws require employers to provide these resources, but considering how common wage theft is despite the fact that it affects a much larger population, I’m not confident in enforcement. While these articles often blame the larger society for not supporting breastfeeding instead of the individual, the language still feels intensely personal.

I’m all for the general idea of attachment parenting, but saying that co-sleeping and baby-wearing will guarantee that your child will never be a bully minimizes so many other social pressures and makes non-attachment parents feel unnecessarily guilty. Statements like that fail to acknowledge that not everyone is capable of that level of intense exercise after giving birth. A friend of mine was left with severe back pain after a very long, intense delivery and unable to carry her son around. However, that doesn’t mean that she loves him any less or he’ll be irrevocably damaged.

Beyond privilege, some of the philosophies are just absurd when carried to a certain point. I believe that babies shouldn’t be cooped up in seats or forced into positions they aren’t ready for. But claiming that propping your baby to sitting once in a while will doom him or her to a life of klutziness is ridiculous.

Basically, these philosophies and their advocates need to cut parents – especially moms, because they’re usually targeted at moms – some much-needed slack. Moms are expected to get everything just right these days, truly “leaning in” and “having it all” when that’s impossible or much too stressful than is healthy. Adding to that pressure by implying that moms who don’t follow a definitive philosophy are permanently damaging their children is irresponsible and mean. Babies have flexible brains and are remarkably adept at developing well even when we screw up once in a while. Similarly, making hyped up promises that everything will go perfectly – your baby will definitely sleep through the night, be wonderfully calm or naturally graceful – makes the parent who follow those philosophies and don’t get the results feel like there’s something wrong with them rather the idea that maybe the approach doesn’t work for their family. While there are (TW: descriptions of child abuse) some philosophies that no one should ever adopt, no single philosophy is perfect for every situation or every family.

Instead of presenting these philosophies as the end-all and be-all, I wish that the advocates would present their ideas as a toolbox of skills and options that parents can use as needed. I would like them to acknowledge that other philosophies may have some good points that parents may want to draw from. I would like them to even show parents how actions offered by their philosophy can fit with or complement others.

In the meantime, it’s up to us as parents to not allow ourselves to be intimidated by dire warnings and over-promises. By rejecting the formulation of One Right Way to parent, we can embrace the fluidity and chaos of parenting in all of its messy glory. By allowing ourselves the freedom to pick and choose, we can end up with what’s right for our families, no matter what anyone else thinks.

Of Board Books and Bibliophibians

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

Chris caught Sprout “reading” earlier this week. He obviously didn’t understand the words, but there he was on the floor of his bedroom, flipping through a book page by page. As a touch and feel book, he was running his fingers over the textured spots and even had it the right side up! Moments like this make me glad we haven’t abandoned physical books yet. As convenient as e-readers are, they don’t have the material presence of books, which is essential for a child to build an appreciation of them.

For one, e-books can never provide the tactile feedback of board books. You can’t allow babies to gnaw on the edges or turn the pages with drooly little fingers, even with the best covers. There’s no such thing as a touch and feel e-book, with furry and fuzzy patches that simulate the baby’s senses. Having a direct interaction with books, not just seeing them held at the parent’s arm length and out of reach, is important for a baby. It builds an inherant affection for books that they’ll carry throughout their lives. Many lovely e-picture books have sounds and animations, but those just aren’t the same, especially for infants.

E-books also don’t have the physical presence in the house that regular books do. While this is a huge advantage when you are traveling or facing a serious lack of shelf space (who, me?), you can never get the sense of being “surrounded by books” as you can with a good family library. It’s been shown that kids that see their parents reading regularly are much more likely to read themselves. I feel that having a physical library reinforces the self-image that “we are a family who values reading and books.” To quote Wondermark, I want Sprout to be a bibliophiban, to breathe books as he does air.

Relatedly, e-books also don’t allow a child to have a personal library, unless you purchase them their own tablet. Despite Amazon’s claim that an Kindle is a perfect Christmas gift for a one-year-old, I disagree. But with board and picture books, Sprout already has a whole bookshelf full of wonderful stories that he enjoys pulling off the shelf on a regular basis. Many of them carry special inscriptions in the front, reminding him of the fact that a gift of a book is a sign of love in our family. With electronic versions, it’s much harder to pass down beloved books. It’s simple to let a child read one, but it lacks the history of worn covers and bent pages that remind you that you were once their age.

I’m glad that in this day of electronic media – which I’m certainly prone to favoring myself – that there’s still a place for physical children’s books. I know reading to him on my lap, watching him turn the pages (even if it’s often backwards), has given me more appreciation for their simple charms.

Risks and Rewards

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 4 Comments

I want Sprout to be a free range kid. I want him to be able to go to the park by himself, explore the neighborhood, and when he’s old enough, take the Metro into the city. I want him to climb trees and rocks. But right now, I kind of want to outfit him with a helmet.

In the last few weeks, Sprout has racked up the milestones: crawling forward, getting two teeth in, and pulling up to his knees (and today to his feet!). While the others pose their own challenges, it’s the last one that makes me gasp. Except for the continuing allure of the sproingy doorstop, pulling up on everything is his new favorite activity. In his opinion, the couch, our wooden and metal coffee table, bookshelves, his crib bars, the mesh sides of the pack-and-play, my pant legs and the wall are all excellent surfaces to conquer. At first, he didn’t know how to get down, so he’d just tumble over.

He’s fortunately gotten better at balancing, but that’s just made him bolder. He regularly pushes against the wall, leaning backwards to bat at the curtain, not understanding that leaning on and holding on are not the same thing. Perhaps some yearning for adventure was embedded in his genes when I rock-climbed early in my pregnancy.

We’ve tried to vigilantly prevent accidents, but have been far from successful. We try to prevent him from hitting his head on our hardwood floor by spotting him, but he always manages to fall in the one direction we don’t predict. He cries, then shakes it off quickly after a good hug from mommy or daddy. Even though he’s recovered after each incident and the pediatrician says not to worry about it unless he passes out, I still feel terrible every time it happens. I’m always convinced that brain damage is imminent.

I’m torn between wanting to encourage his adventurousness and protecting him, a conflict I know will only grow more challenging as he gets older. If I’m worried about him bumping his head now, how much harder will it be when he’s on the playground equipment or high up in a tree? Some of my most cherished childhood memories were doing things that are banned or at least discouraged during recess today. Even now, my outdoor hobbies involve some level of physical danger, from rock climbing to urban biking. My life is better for having these activities in it and I think his will be as well.

As Sprout gets older, I think the best compromise between these positions is to teach him how to take calculated risks. Rather than doing everything or nothing, it’s best to take a measured approach to risk. Thinking about your own capabilities, evaluating the difficulty of the action you want to take, and working to reduce the risk as much as possible can provide a framework for making good decisions in general. To go back to rock-climbing, I personally do not boulder (climb short routes without ropes) more than a few feet off the ground unless I’m confident in my ability to climb back down. If I’m going to do a route at the edge of my current ability, I use ropes, harnesses and other safety equipment to reduce the risk of falling. While it’s obvious how these principles apply to physical risks (no one wants to be stuck in a tree like a cat), they also apply to big life decisions. From taking a difficult college class to moving to another country, every major decision has risks associated with it. There’s always a possibility of failure, but calculated risks help you figure out how to minimize it and recover if you fail. Some people in my generation are having difficulty dealing with adulthood because their parents never let them make these big decisions at all, much less taught them the critical thinking skills to deal with the risks.

Unfortunately, Sprout doesn’t understand the word “no” yet, much less have the capacity for any critical thought. But now and in the future, we’ll be there to spot him when we can and hug him when he falls.