When I received an email newsletter from Ape to Zebra featuring a new balance bike they were carrying, I showed it to my husband to see what he thought.  He was puzzled at first, but after I explained the intent of them, he was sold.  He said, and I quote, “we are SO getting that.”

A bit of research into different options led us to the Norco Run Bike, which we could order in at our local bike shop for no shipping charges, unlike the wooden ones (which we did also like).  It worked out a little cheaper, and while the wooden bikes are certainly cool-looking, we did like the fact that the Norco one looks like a bicycle.

So it arrived yesterday, and to our surprise, it was black.  We had ordered the “boys” colour version rather than the gawd-awful Pepto-Bismol pink girls version (even the WHEELS are pink), but the catalogue showed the boys version as a rather muted white and beige.  This thing handed to us was black, with red accents — red handlebars, red seat.

It’s awesomely cool.

In fact, before we settled on this bike, when we were comparing different options, Pomme declared that she wanted a red bike.  If we had known that this bike came in a black and red version, we would have ordered it!

So bike in hand (quite literally, the thing is tiny), we headed home, Pomme super-excited about trying out her new bike.  We get home, put on her helmet, and she climbs on.  She sits there a moment, perplexed, and I tell her to walk a little bit.  She takes a few steps, smiles, then frowns, then says “all done bike.  Get down now.”

Trying to figure out what the problem was, she said “no pedals!” and went over to her tricycle.

No pedals.  That’s the whole point!  She can’t even push the pedals on her tricycle yet.  I suspect the real problem was the lack of stability, she couldn’t just let the bicycle go like she could the tricycle.

This was confirmed on subsequent trials later that day.  She was scared of the tippiness.  Even though she wasn’t taking her feet off the ground, just walking while rolling the bike under her, really.  She still found it scary and wouldn’t go more than a few steps at a time.  She did warm up to it a bit more when we played a taking-turns-zooming game, when hubby would hold the bike and run with it saying “wheeeee!!!” and then we’d say “mommy’s turn!!!” and I’d go “wheeeeeeee!” and then we’d say “Caileigh’s turn!” and she’d say “no, daddy’s turn!”  Um, ok.  But she did take it a few times.

That evening when grandma came to visit, she was happy to show the bike to grandma — and this time went for several meters, not just several feet.  There was hope!

Today, she was walking it all around the back yard.  Once, she fell down flat on her back, with the bike on top of her.  She was shaken and cried, but once she and the bike were upright again, she hopped right back on it and toddled off.  No fear!

I observed that one of the interesting things she did with it, was stand with her feet firmly on the ground, and slowly rock the bike beneath her from side to side, tipping it about 30-40 degrees each way.  You could see her little brain working out the intricacies, the idea of balance and control.  Bingo.

Pictures once I find the portable USB SD card holder thing that Pomme ran off with a few days ago so I haven’t been able to take any pictures…

Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of unschooling and I’m actually really excited by the way he’s self-teaching himself some very interesting things on the guitar and how passionate he is about it.  And his favourite video game right now is Harvest Moon, which has many great attributes about it.  But it’s about balance, and about responsibility, and about self-regulation.  I have learned (through repeated attempts at giving him more control) that my son has none of these qualities innately, like this is a kind of “learning disability” for him.  With no structure, he simply flounders about and then becomes selfish, developing a false but powerful sense of entitlement.

He has become accustomed to a lack of stucture this past month and has been very resistant to its reintroduction.  This has actually been quite surprising to me, because he had really been thriving on the Charlotte Mason schedule, cooperative and even enjoying it.  But today he was having a no good, very very bad day – or should I say, yet another one – and was refusing to cooperate with anything. It really was quite as bad as he’s ever been.  I really don’t feel like describing in great detail how things transpired, let’s just say they didn’t transpire at all well.

This is only the latest in a series of very bad days, and so we’re in the midst of a crackdown period right now, where he needs to learn that I do, in fact, have some authority, and that he does, in fact, have some responsibility.  I’m so in love with the ideas of consensual family living, no punishments, etc, but I also have to realize that with this particular child, those ideas just do not work.

And I also recognize the flaws in a behaviourist approach to discipline… rewards and punishments may motivate behaviour changes but they do not address the underlying cause of the problems (which is most often a lack of a healthy attachment), and so any changes are impermanent and superficial.

However, there does come a point where the behaviour is so out of control and out of alignment that it has to be radically dealt with before any healthy development can happen with the attachment.  When the behaviour is so self-destructive that it is next to impossible to make any kind of headway into finding (and fixing) the causes.  When you just need the crutch of some kind of control so that you can start rebuilding whatever is broken.

Heaven help me, I’ve even played the school card.  If he’s not interested in homeschooling anymore, then fine, he can go to school.  Of course, he wants to continue staying at home, just not the schooling part of it.  I have gone out of my way and broken my back to find the right balance of schooley-stuff for him, keeping it interesting and relevant and appropriate for his development and personality, finding the philosophies that work for him.  It’s not like I’m insisting on a rigid, sit-down, school-at-home, textbook-heavy massive curriculum.  His schedule is actually very, very, very, very light.

I sometimes just feel so fed up with his contrary attitude that I think, fine, let the school system deal with him for awhile.  Maybe the ridicule of his peers, a few poor grades, a few trips to the principal’s office, and some direct experience with how much busywork kids have to do in public schools (both at school and then for homework) will turn him around and make him realize just how easy he has it at home.

Or, on the other hand, maybe it would scar him so desperately and permanently that I’d never be able to heal him.

But that’s where I’m at.

One thing that really frustrates me to no end, is that after all the fighting and arguing and then the eventual cooperation (usually after I’ve confiscated something important to him), he ends up saying “Oh, that wasn’t so bad.  That was actually kind of fun.  Huh.  I’m sorry I argued with you, mom.”

This happens Every.  Single.  Time.

When, oh when will he just remember that he actually enjoys the work we do, BEFORE getting all upset about it???  Oh that will be a happy, happy day indeed.

To tell the truth, I’m not sure what I think of it.  On the one hand, I totally agree with the premise.  On the other hand, I see some comments saying how it confirms that it’s okay to be “good enough”, and I have a problem with “good enough” sometimes.  “Good enough” is an excuse often used for formula-feeding when there was no real reason not to breastfeed other than, perhaps, a belief that it would be more difficult.  “Oh I know breastfeeding is BEST, but formula is GOOD ENOUGH.”

This is why we need to change the language we use when discussing the pros and cons of breast vs bottle… rather than portraying formula as normal and breastfeeding as BETTER, we need to portray the breast as the norm, and anything else is below the norm.  As in, instead of saying “breastfed babies have lower incidence of diabetes”, we should be saying “formula-fed babies have higher incidence of diabetes”.  Yes, formula is plenty ‘good enough’, it’s a life saver when breastmilk truly is not available.  But it’s too easy to turn that into a wimping-out excuse.

Anyway, that’s a whole other topic which I’m sure I’ll blog about someday!

When it comes to parenting, what qualifies as “good enough”?  I suppose none of us can possibly be perfect, and “normal” varies so much.  Is it “good enough” as long as we’re not actually abusive?  Is it “good enough” as long as our intentions are good, however our actions might present themselves?  Is it “good enough” if we are constantly striving to learn and do better, even though we may feel every day that we are somehow letting our children down?

The article does say it’s about balance.  And the right balance for me might not be the right balance for you.  I guess I can live with that.  It’s good enough.

We strive to be eco-conscious in all things, to live in harmony with nature and each other. We endeavour to nourish our bodies with whole foods, locally grown, rich in the nutrients nature gave them, clear of artificial processing and toxic additives. We aim to nourish our children with strong family bonds, freedom, integrity and perceptive discretion, away from the influence of rampant consumerism, peer-orientation and pressure, the wastefulness and shallowness of contemporary western society.

We don’t always quite live up to these ideals.

I was contemplating this at lunchtime today, as I was eagerly pouring from our jug of whole, organic milk — it’s the only milk I ever buy. I’d get raw milk if I could find any. We don’t drink much milk as a rule, but I use it in baking and how can you possibly have chocolate chip cookies without a glass of cold milk? It costs a fair bit more than “regular” milk, but it’s worth it.

I was eagerly pouring that precious white gold into a pot of Kraft Dinner. What more sublime example could there be of “processed convenience food”? Is there real cheese in there? Maybe it used to be cheese in some former incarnation of itself…

And I couldn’t decide… was the milk enriching the macaroni, turning a processed junk lunch into something at least moderately healthy? Or was the mac ‘n cheese ruining the milk?

This got me thinking about the other contradictions in our day to day lives. We are active supporters of the Green Party, participants in the local riding association, very involved in the campaign in the recent federal election. Our cars are the most fuel-efficient ones we could afford. But… we do drive. In fact, we live outside of town and have to drive in almost every day. We own two cars. And there’s no bus service out here. I suppose this isn’t our fault, necessarily, but a true radical could say we always could have chosen to live in town… or for my husband not to have taken a job in town… or to not allow my son to be involved in any activities that would necessitate our driving… or we could ride our bicycles into town (which would likely be an hour’s trip), even in the depths of winter and with a 2-year-old tagging along. We feel like we don’t have much choice about the driving we do, but we still can’t help feeling a little guilty about it.

Then there are our toys. Little Pomme’s toys are mostly wooden, natural, simple. We don’t own much noisy electronic plastic garbage. We don’t buy Flipper every single fad product that comes along. We strictly limit “licenced” products, like Hannah Montana jewelry boxes or Barbie hair clips or Elmo dolls. We’d much rather our children play with their imaginations, make forts out of boxes and blankets and run around outside in the yard and in the trees and on the swings. We don’t have cable TV. But — we have a Playstation II, and a Wii, and not one but two PC’s running all kinds of games. And did I mention there are two televisions? One for the Wii and for DVD’s, the other for the PS2. And we play on them. A lot.

We would happily live out in a cabin in the woods, grow our own food and raise our own livestock, build our own furniture from fallen logs… just so long as we still had a high-speed internet connection.

I bake all our bread from scratch. Even when I cook Indian meals, I make fried poori bread or baked naan myself. I cook large, vegetable-rich healthy meals and freeze portions for later. I make hearty, rich bone broth from free-range organic chickens and local vegetables. I buy lots of fresh local produce at harvest time (and next year will have my own garden) and spend weeks canning and freezing, preserving for the winter months. We buy a half-side of grass-fed pasture-raised beef for the freezer about twice a year. And I will supplement this wonderful diet with frozen lasagna from M&M Meat Shop, chicken nuggets, frozen pizzas, more than our fair share of Doritos and chocolate, and of course… Kraft Dinner.

How can we rationalize this? Are we hypocrites?

My husband simply says… we do what we can. Like it or not, we live in this society, in this paradigm, and it is very difficult to live a lifestyle very far removed from that. We make our priorities and sometimes, the need to fulfill a family obligation outweighs the desire to spend all day making soup. Or allowing my son the freedom to carve his own path in life necessitates driving into town everyday for the activities which he loves. We make compromises, balancing nutrition and fair trade and ecology with the need to stretch a budget to feed the family.

We have an ideal that we do not live up to. But if we did live up to our ideals, though, perhaps it would only be because the goal was set too low. An “ideal” is, by definition, something to ever be reaching for, to have as an ultimate dream. As long as you are continuing to reach for that ideal and not giving up, then you are making progress, you are trying, you are doing what you can.

My son used to have a poster in his room which said “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” And when we compare our lifestyle to the average, it becomes easier to see where we are succeeding, where we have made important steps in a positive direction. Rather than dwelling on what we’re still not doing ‘right’, we should be focussing on how far we have already come.

I have a vision of a perfect unschooling philosophy, but I can’t hold to it. I get lazy, and we all get lazy. I try to parent playfully and fairly and cooperatively, with love and attachment, unconditionally. But I do find myself, every so often, falling into bribery, threats, ultimatums, and rigid expectations of finishing however many worksheet pages I insist upon. Or I disconnect, withdraw into my own world and ignore the intense needs of my children. But little by little, we’re getting there, we’re finding our way. The enrichment of the whole, organic milk of our relationships and our joy is outweighing the Kraft Dinner of our self-centredness, our narcissism, our need for control. I need to remember to look at how far I have come, how far we have come, and see how far we still need to go as simply the next step, the next phase, and not as an insurmountable obstacle that signifies only my failure in not having already achieved it.