my post today is an essay i wrote for a fabulous blog project called “a liberated life.” vanessa and sarah solicit and post essays wherein women of every age and stage chronicle their joys and concerns along the path toward liberation.

here’s an excerpt, but you’ll have to scurry over to “a liberated life” to read the rest:

Liberation, as it turns out, is not as simple as a dream job or a grad school diploma, or a positive pregnancy test, or a happy home. In fact, I cannot even begin to envision what a liberated life might look like for today’s mothers, whose souls brim with enough passion and opportunity to fill a warehouse full of moon bounces and inflatable slides. There is an anxiety that comes with motherhood that has far outgrown the widespread dreams for balance and the tired juggling metaphors. Scientists study it, and talk show hosts allude to it, but this anxiety, for the most part, remains undefined.

how would YOU define a liberated life?

having been on the receiving end of some pretty unwanted, ludicrous, and rudely-delivered parenting advice, i vowed long ago not to volunteer my unsolicited “wisdom” to other parents. you will not find me approaching strangers in parking lots with unsympothetic words such as, “you need to put a hat on that baby!” in fact, my children convince me more and more every single day that, when it comes to mothering, i have no idea what i am doing.

but i must break my no-advice rule just this once to impart this sage tidbit:

if you go to a friend or relative’s house for dinner, and the other guests there happen to be members of a folky, old-time, blue-grass band, YOU SHOULD DEMAND A CONCERT ON THE SPOT. i mean it. don’t let these people eat until they play for you. it will be a spiritual experience. your children will be enthralled. the fiddle and harmonies and lyrics will make you cry. and weeks later, your heart will swell just as it did that night, as they played shyly at first from their seats on the couch and proudly in the end in front of the fireplace.

a few weeks ago, my parents hosted the members of red june in their home. will straughan, john miller, and natayla weinstein are friends of my brother, and they were in memphis for the folk alliance conference. they gave us such a gift, and now, i am giving it to you.

enjoy.

blockprint by mary allison, text from pc(usa)'s "brief statement of faith."

during one of my recent stream-of-consciousness drifts into theology and mom-tology (that’s ontology for moms), something beautiful occurred to me.

i was reflecting on just how much i have changed over time. the essence of me is the same, of course, but when the kids hit the scene, andy and i became full-time adapters to the whims, patterns, needs, and developmental requirements of the little people in our lives. this awareness makes the metaphor of god-as-parent all the more fascinating. does god, as the process theologians claim, change over time according to the movements of the universe?

i was interested in this concept in college and divinity school but now that i am a parent, i find myself embracing process theology for the blessing it can offer mothers. what good is the metaphor of an all-powerful, hands-off sort of god to a mother whose power in society is questionable and who is intimately involved in the details of her children’s lives? i like thinking about a god who would postpone her sleep to help a child out of the fog of a night terror. when i think of the possibility that god has shaped her plans around her children, i remember that what i am doing is valuable.

i am not saying that god has surrendered the entire universe to human control. nor am i saying that we should surrender our lives to the irrational notions of a two-year-old.

 i’m just saying that it’s possible that we were created in the image of a makeshifting god.

when andy and i were pining away for children (in between jumbo margaritas at el porton or after the seventh consecutive episode of 24), we looked forward to things like playing outside with them, showing them our favorite mountains, and generally introducing them to all that is enjoyable and beautiful. even then, i knew that disciplining children would be my weakness. i looked upon the prospect of setting rules and enforcing time-outs as a dreadful necessity. and now that i am four years into parenthood, i would like to congratulate my twenty-something self for her accurate foresight. setting rules and enforcing time-outs is, in fact, a dreadful necessity.

the child experts say that children thrive under the presence of two equally present conditions: high nurture and high structure. the former is something that comes easily to me, and especially to andy. we try to mirror and help the kids name their feelings. we plan ahead for shared experiences that are enjoyable and beautiful. but when it comes to the latter, there is much less planning ahead. though the kids rely on a pretty steady routine and schedule, the discipline piece is often spur of the moment (and ineffective). in the grand game of parenting, i make up the rules as i go and announce them to the younger players, who return my half-hearted efforts with half-hearted compliance.

enter the wii.

after the second week of house arrest due to sub-arctic temperatures, andy and the kids braved the icy roads and returned home with a wii. it was fun for a while. there were family bowling tournaments and ridiculous collective attempts at nailing m.c. hammer’s dance moves. and then, without warning, the monkey stumbled into a deep, black, techy hole, and nobody has heard from his former self since. as recently as last week, he could be heard uttering heartbreaking phrases such as,

 “i don’t want to play outside in the warm sunshine. i want to play wii.” 

the wiihas brought the need for discipline and limit-setting in our home to a level that is far beyond the reaches of spur-of-moment-rule-making. so in a reluctant act of planning and plotting, andy and i discussed and created this chart to regulate wii time and create incentives for the monkey to act like a civilized human being.

though this is not the hand-held chart that the tech-crazed monkey requested, (he wanted one “like a smart phone”), it is actually becoming the key to pleasant life around here. the monkey earns stickers for being sweet and cooperative, and each sticker translates into ten minutes of wii time. he can earn up to an hour per day, and a strategically-placed timer above the wii lets him know when his time is up. i am utterly shocked that the monkey loves this new system. he loves rules. he loves structure. he now gets himself dressed, takes bottles to the recycling bin, makes his own breakfast, and quits playing the wii when asked, all for precious stickers and minutes spent clutching the white plastic control.

it turns out that my twenty-something self was only half right.  setting rules and enforcing time-outs is, in fact, a dreadful necessity. but the absence of structure and discipline is fifty times more dreadful. rules simply make life easier. and we can’t have all that is enjoyable and beautiful without them.

name: Mary-Ellen

age: 40+ (one gets squirrely after a couple of the 40 something birthdays!)

current city: Memphis

about a year ago, the MakeShift revolution was born of equal parts anxiety and creativity. anxiety and creativity are a likely pairing in most cases of  forward progress, no  matter how big or small. anxiety about the way things are leads to the creative resolve to make things new.

but on the subject of anxiety, perfect madness author judith warner suggests that many mothers are unwilling to be honest with ourselves and others about the sources of this natural maternal emotion:

“basically, it is acceptable to air all your dirty laundry about yourself, your husband, or your children but it is not acceptable to look beyond your family to suggest that there is something wrong with the world. it is not permissible to talk about policy, or economics, or culture… and this is because, i think, policy, economics, and culture are perceived as being things that we have no control over…. and so we fixate on those things we feel we can control — how our child holds a pencil, whether or not she eats gluten — rather than worry about what we can’t control: our economic futures, kids’ education, health care costs, whether or not we’ll ever be able to afford to retire….

the perversity in all this, of course, is that what we’re trying to control is precisely what one cannot control; you can’t shape and perfect human beings, pre-program and prepare them along the way. but you can — ostensibly — exert some control over what kind of society you live in…. you ostensibly have the power, en masse, to set the national agenda” (209). 

i am often guilty of shying away from “setting the national agenda” in favor of setting our family agenda. but today’s post is a venture into a space where the personal and political are intertwined: the issue of educating the children of memphis and shelby county. below is an interview with gretchen stroud, a representative of friends united for school equality (FUSE). FUSE is a group of parents and grassroots activists in favor of the proposed merger of local city and county school systems. read below for a beautiful example of how the collective forces of parental anxiety and creativity are moving beyond the home and into the broken world.  

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mary allison: please introduce yourself and let readers know why are you in favor of the consolidation of shelby county and memphis city schools.

gretchen: I am the parent of an Memphis City Schools (MCS) student in first grade. We have had a wonderful experience with MCS so far and are very happy with his school. However, I support consolidation for a few key reasons:

1. If Shelby County Schools (SCS) were to obtain the special school district status (with taxing authority) pursued by its school board president David Pickler, this would cut funding for MCS and do away with the equitable per student funding that currently comes from Shelby County. In this scenario, Memphis would be responsible for educating approximately 70% of the county’s children with only 40% of the tax revenues. Taxes in Memphis would have to rise substantially to make up the difference.
2. Although the money issue is concerning, the major reason I support the consolidation is that you cannot have “separate but equal” school systems, by law. We are creating a widening division between those students who come from middle and upper class families and those at the lowest end of the economic spectrum. This is immoral, unethical and will ultimately create great harm to Memphis and all the surrounding towns and cities who depend on Memphis as the anchor for our mid-south cultural and economic sustainability. Every single child has the potential to learn, and I can tell you from watching the children in my son’s school that every one of them wants to learn. It is up to the adults to figure out how to do that fairly and equally for all.

mary allison: what is FUSE?

gretchen: FUSE stands for Friends United for School Equality. We are a group of Shelby County residents (which means, of course, those living in Memphis and in the suburbs – we are ALL Shelby County) who believe that for our county to remain viable and competitive in the 21st century we must work together as one to provide quality education to ALL of the children in Shelby County.

mary allison: how did FUSE start? please describe how the idea emerged and how so many mid-south parents became organized and mobilized so quickly under the umbrella of FUSE:

gretchen: Well, it started as a group of MCS Optional School parents who came together on Facebook after Mr. Pickler started trying to scare people by threatening the Optional program. I think that he was hoping that our fear of losing this program would drive us to vote against the merger. However, he definitely underestimated us. We came together to start talking about consolidation and quickly realized that this isn’t just about our kids, it is about ALL of the kids in Shelby County. Every single one of them deserves a great education – not just the ones we are raising. And we talked about how we wanted to reach out to other parents from the county schools because we felt that there were more people like us out there who are committed to the concept that you cannot raise your children in a bubble of privilege. What is good for my child should be good for ALL children, and if it isn’t good for all children then it really isn’t good for my own child in the long run either. I think we have grown so quickly because our group is devoted to fostering kind, honest, and real conversation among parents and other “regular people.”

mary allison: what are some of the reasons that fuel opposition to school consolidation, and what do you to say to parents who are not in favor of merging?

gretchen: Fear and lack of truth. Honestly, people think that MCS are pits of danger and despair. I partly blame the media because they will run a hundred stories about teen pregnancy, a fight at a school, and an underperforming principal. But, I didn’t see a single mid-south news organization cover the news this summer when Memphis was named one of the 21 “overachieving” urban school districts based on a large study of urban school districts in the US. Not just one of the 21, but one of the top five! That is great news for Memphis, and NO ONE reported it. The report can be found in this Education Week article. 

We had a group of Germantown moms send us a list of questions that they honestly wanted to ask (but were a little embarrassed and afraid to, I think). They wanted to know if our elementary kids in MCS have art or music or libraries. I was blown away! But, the sad fact is that the myths and stereotypes people have been hearing about MCS for years are in many cases their only exposure to the city school system. We were able to answer those questions in a non-threatening manner that encouraged further dialog. And, in case your readers are wondering, yes, MCS elementary students have art, Orff music, P.E., and library every week. And most elementary schools also offer foreign languages starting in first grade. In addition, the gifted program in MCS begins in kindergarten. They start instruments in fourth grade too.

What I say to parents who oppose the merger is, come and see what MCS is really about. Our kids are great kids who want to learn, just like yours do. We have wonderful, hard-working teachers, just like you do. Great things happen in Memphis City Schools every single day. Beyond that, I would say consolidation is the RIGHT thing to do. Shelby County cannot survive with this crazy  us vs. them mentality. And, you aren’t creating the kind of place where your children will want to live when they grow up if the city that is the keystone of this entire mid-south area is left to decay and decline because we cannot come together as one community.

mary allison: what actions do members of FUSE take to affect change?

gretchen: We have some really great members! We write letters to the newspapers, and we are working with Stand for Children to host educational events for the community about the pros and cons of consolidation (although I should note that FUSE supports the consolidation and Stand is non-partisan on this issue). We had a very active email campaign to city council last week ahead of their vote. We contact our state legislature and the governor to try to give Memphis a voice in this process. We educate others about what consolidation could look like. We reach out to parents across the county to start the conversation now about what we parents want a unified school district to offer. Do we want smaller sub-districts? Do we want magnet schools? Do we want smaller class sizes? Do we want every child to get foreign language instruction starting in first grade? What do we think our children need to be competitive in the 21st century? I’m not saying that I have a position on all of these issues, but so far no one is asking parents what WE want in a new, unified district. And they should be asking.

mary allison: could you describe in layman’s terms the timeline and political process that is currently structuring the consolidation decision?

gretchen: Ha, ha, ha!  If I could do that, I’d be rich!  As of this moment, the city council has accepted the charter surrender, but Memphians STILL need to vote in the referendum (early voting begins Feb. 16). Shelby County Schools has filed a federal lawsuit against a whole lot of people, including (but not limited to) MCS, Memphis City Council, US Dept of Education, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, US Dept of Justice, Attorney General Eric Holder, Tennessee Department of Education, Education Commissioner Patrick Smith (and others). And, that is just the beginning.

But, and this is important, it is time NOW for all of us in Shelby County to seriously contemplate whether we want this issue tied up in federal courts for the next five to ten years. Who does that serve? Certainly not the children. It really just serves our fear and our prejudices. And, if we want to come together and try to figure out the best way to educate all of the children in this community in the best way possible, then we need to tell our elected officials that we want to come together and fix this now.

mary allison: how might others who are interested in FUSE become involved in your work?

gretchen: First, let me say that we would love to have anyone join us who is interested.  You can find us at www.fuseshelby.org or on Facebook.

[source info for perfect madness is located on the bibliography page, which is listed on the sidebar to your right.]

until six weeks ago, the monkey was a strict observer of naptime. to say that he was an “observer” of nap time is to say that he spent two hours per day holed up in his room. sometimes he slept, but most of the time he invented games for himself to play within his four walls.

for example, it was not uncommon for me to open his door after naptime to find a “puzzle piece room,” a carefully created state of affairs wherein the entire floor was covered in adjacent blankets, er, i mean “puzzle pieces.” other days were “sorting days,” and the monkey would spend the two hours organizing and cataloging his stuffed animals, game pieces, markers, and books. still other afternoons were spent “reading.” once, i walked in on this scene:

but times are different now. i gave in to the monkey’s complaints that he was bored in his room, and now, while his brother sleeps, he does things that require much less imagination (many of which involve the television and/or the wii). perhaps this is because i have not made the shift away from cooking dinner, folding laundry, and catching up on work between the hours of two o’clock and four o’clock. or perhaps it is because the monkey and i are both drawn to what is easier. for him, making a puzzle piece room takes more effort than wii bowling. and for me, extracting him from the tv takes more effort than cooking dinner in peace.

the problem with this scenario is that i don’t want to deprive the monkey of the gift of boredom. catherine newman, author of an essay entitled bored again, which appeared in the fall 2010 issue of brainchild magazine, defines boredom as “that agitated space between relaxation and action: dialed down, it can become a pleasant kind of inertia or a meditative stillness, where it feels good to sit quietly with your own thoughts; cranked up a notch, it can produce creative release.” newman goes on to write,

“i’m not trying to sound like one of those crafty-mama blogs that makes you want to kill yourself, the kind you bookmark one day because you think that putting out a wooden bowl of felt gnomes sounds like a good idea… and yet. you do have to learn boredom, learn to live with it, to manage it with the power of your own mind, without recourse to video games or bungee jumping or sniffing glue or starting a nuclear war or date raping your roommate’s girlfriend. the most dangerous people we know are the least able to sit still, to be inside an absence of motion.”

i definitely don’t want the monkey to become “a dangerous person,” but that’s not my main attraction to boredom. i simply think that boredom facilitates creativity and imagination, and these things are what ultimately make life beautiful.

our family spends significant periods of time away from our memphis routines and addictions to technology. our family camp weekends and julys in the north carolina mountains are hopefully deterrents from future glue-sniffing tendencies. but building boredom into our daily memphis routine, one that must also include my own significant accomplishments on the home and work fronts, is becoming increasingly difficult.

is there any way to give the monkey the gift of boredom (and creativity and imagination and beauty) without forcing him to play with a wooden bowl of felt gnomes?

our little bird is a picasso.

he will stack and climb bar stools and yoga blocks, tricycles and throw pillows to get his hands on a forbidden stash of markers. this child has an endless supply of paper AND a giant cardboard rocket ship opon which to illustrate his brilliance.

but alas… he prefers the walls.

there was a time when i would frantically scrub down the bird’s “canvases” with all manor of products guaranteed to erase even the most stubborn toddler doodles. but i got tired of my surroundings looking smudgy, like the back of that “soul-glow”-covered sofa in the movie coming to america:

so i no longer make any effort to eliminate the bird’s masterpieces. i even took a cue from my friend autumn, and i put a frame around this particularly nice mixed-media piece that the bird did with his cousins on thanksgiving:

pen, ink, marker, boogers, and eye pencil on flat latex

the bird knows that drawing on the walls comes with consequences. it is now common for him to fetch cleaning supplies himself or to retreat to his room for self-imposed time-outs. but to him, these are but small prices to pay for the thrill of making his very own mark on the world.

crayon on glass

to the bird, everything is an art supply. toothpaste is a turquoise sky. chocolate is a muddy swamp. and strawberries… well, who knows what they’re supposed to be.

strawberries on latex flat

i am seriously contemplating drawing on the walls myself. after all, we will already have to have the entire house re-painted in a few years (and possibly sanded first). why not follow the lead of virginia wolf and her friends, whose entire home in england is full of unconventionally placed art:

if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. 

name: Ashley

age: 33

current city: Memphis, TN

monday was parent/teacher conference day at the monkey’s school. with his seize the clay shenanigans  still weighing heavily on my mind, i folded my limbs into a plastic preschool chair and sat across the table from the monkey’s teachers with but one defense: nothing they could say about this child would shock me. having been to the depths of disastrous public behavior with the monkey on more than one occasion, i am becoming immune to the natural embarrassment one feels when one’s four-year-old turns into a frat boy from the movie animal house. 

but i was wrong. the teachers’ words were shocking. apparently, if gandhi and mother teresa were to have a baby together, one blessed with every ounce of compassion, social awareness, and self direction possessed by his parents, that child would come close to behaving as well as the monkey behaves at school.

the teachers suggested that perhaps the monkey uses up every ounce of his self-control at school, and that home is a place that is comfortable enough for him to let loose. as much as i sometimes wish that the angelic behavior were reserved for me, perhaps it’s better this way. at school, he’s learning how to participate in the order of society and make positive contributions to the community. and at home (and unfortunately in public), he is free to examine the roaring undercurrent of emotions that sweeps through his and all of human experience.

as much as it feels like i am getting the raw end of the deal, i’m glad that the monkey seems to know deep down, that andy and i are the two people in this world who will love him fiercly no matter what.