Category: Raising Decent Humans

Raising children to be acceptable humans is hard. And when I say “acceptable,” I mean we’re doing our damnedest to raise our son and daughter to be progressive minded, inclusive, and unapologetically intersectional feminist people. It’s a daily challenge, but it’s full of magic, too.

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My kid is totally gonna get a book deal before me

My six-year-old son has not had time to develop any of the insecurities about writing I’ve spent years perfecting. He just turned six and he’s only just learning to write, but I’m pretty sure he’s well ahead of me on the path to publication.

“Sweetie Bird” has been writing and illustrating his book, (not even his first book, but certainly his most serious effort to date,) for a week or so now and he’s definitely onto something. The story had been brewing in his young mind for a couple of years. As far as he knows, all it takes to be a writer is to write. Why didn’t I know that FFS?

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Till There Was You: Nostalgia & Mortality

I have a six-month-old. Well, six and a half, as of this writing. As her mother, I can tell you she is gorgeous and incredibly charming and we waited so long for her. I adore looking at her. It’s hard to tear my eyes away from her. It took three years to get her to stick and now that she’s here, she is growing so fast. Just so damn fast. I don’t remember my son growing so fast, although I’m sure he did. But I am older now, so perhaps my perceptions have changed.

When I look at my daughter, I think about my own mortality. I was once a baby like her – not nearly as mind-blowingly beautiful and sweet – all head and cheeks and eyes, everything round and bulging. That was so long ago, but in the blink of an eye, she could be having the same thoughts about her own child.

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White People, We Must Cut the Shit Right Now

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day – or as my son called him last year when he was learning about him in Pre-K, “King Martin Luth Jr.” I was home with my six year old and six month old all day. This afternoon we went for a walk and my son rode his bike. On our way back home, in our very own street, one house was flying a brand new confederate flag.

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Girls can’t use power tools!

Have you ever done *literally* everything in your power for years to raise your kids to reject gender role stereotypes and sexism only to hear that very same garbage coming out of their sweet little baby mouths in spite of the evidence in front of their little pudgy cherub faces? I have…

FYI: according to my son at age four, girls can’t use power tools because they are too dangerous (the power tools, not the girls. Someday he’ll learn…) He told me this while he watched me cutting deck boards with a circular saw and continued to lecture me about his safety concerns while I drilled holes and screwed said boards into place on the playhouse platform. And I didn’t even screw my finger to the joist!

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Please, just DON’T touch the baby!

How I feel when strangers touch my baby without permission – especially her hands and face! 
Photo by Ben Hershey on Unsplash

Everyone knows you’re not supposed to touch babies! When I say “everyone,” I mean that four- and five-year-olds ask permission to touch baby’s feet when I drop my son off at school. They are brimming with excitement to see a baby and yet they manage to ask permission before touching. And somehow they know you don’t touch a baby’s hands and face, since that’s how germs are passed around.

Randos in airports, shops, and restaurants, not so much… 

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Notes on Abundance (or this child has way too much stuff)

It was time. Several months, like eleventy-nine months ago, I should have done something to avoid spending my Saturday in this godforsaken disaster area. Should being the operative word. I knew I’d have to face the music eventually. While I tend to be an uptight perfectionista in some areas of my life, I am an extraordinarily messy person. My son has definitely followed my lead…

Horrid scene depicting some, but not all of my son’s myriad possessions. Not pictured: piles of junk in the closet and on the dresser.
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Linguistic silliness: Readjusting to life in English

Our son told us, in French, on Friday evening after we returned from our trip to France, that he spoke French all day at school. He did this once before when he went back to preschool at the age of three for the first day or two, but I didn’t think he would really go through with it in Kindergarten. 

Never be normal, my darling…stay silly!

Sure enough, this morning, when Fab dropped him off at school, he asked his teacher if he had spoken French on Friday. Indeed, he did. All day. Not a word of English. Luckily, Montessori education values exposure to other cultures very highly, so his teacher very good-naturedly pulled out google translate and did her best to figure out what he was saying.

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Boost bilingual kids’ second language with immersion

Family trip to Saint Malo in Brittany – our son’s first time visiting a walled city. That’s Saint Malo in the background. The photo was taken from Dinard.

Want to be amazed by your kids’ mad linguistic skillz and jealous at the same time? Curious about the absolute best way to activate a non-dominant language in your kids?

Surprise! It’s immersion.

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