The Family Bed is Not For Everyone

Caleb woke me sometime in the middle of the night last night. I knew it was some hazy early morning hour. I could tell I had been asleep at least a couple of hours after I had gone to bed at midnight. He was begging me to come into the living room and help him turn on a movie. I told him to just crawl in bed with me and let's go to sleep. He refused. I told him to use the remote. He said some vague reason that he couldn't. He kept waking me up when I would doze off. The half asleep conversation continued with "no, you come in here." "No, you come in the living room to sleep," and back and forth. Up until 6 months ago, Caleb shared our family bed. Now that he is 8 he desperately wants to be independent and sleep on his own. But he has these nights where he still wants to sleep with me. Only, he wants me to come in with him to the living room, neutral territory.


I should explain our family bed. I sleep with my 2 daughters in their bedroom. We have 2 twin beds squashed together. Caleb slept with us there until recently. Now he sleeps on the couch watching his favorite Spongebob DVD. I guess you could say it is a partial family bed. My husband sleeps in our lovely sleigh bed which he bought as a gift for me. And my oldest son sleeps in his own bed in his own room - lights out, door closed at midnight (his choice). My husband and I do not sleep together. We have been married 16 years and we are still madly in love. But sleep together we do not. Sex is a different story, if you really must know. Having 4 children makes you an opportunist whether you sleep together or not. We have fabulous but short sessions as often as possible. We recently had a weekend getaway to a cabin on a lake where it rained the whole weekend. We did a lot of catching up! Sometimes we can't keep our hands off each other which might be a little sickening to those who know us. And there are those nights when I wake up,see that the girls are sound asleep and I sleepwalk in to our grownup bed and snuggle. But I have to admit he has gotten used to sprawling out in the middle of the bed, as if, perhaps, he doesn't mind too terribly much. I have to think back a couple of years to remember how this all came about. We had neighbors who had a family bed before our first son was born. That was the first I had heard of it. But it didn't seem like a fit for our family. We ended up getting a crib and encouraging our kids to sleep in their own beds. I would bring them to our bed to nurse. But I believed in the sanctity of the master bed. This was the place where grownups sleep, as if this was some sacred order, some unquestionable rule. I've learned to question quite a lot of things since then. It wasn't until my oldest son was 7 that the family bed finally made sense. I remember reading about mindfulness and peaceful parenting - what Naomi Aldort calls authentic parenting. The revelation that each one of my kids, no matter what they do, is doing exactly what they need to do in that moment. All of his "acting out" and behavior issues were for a reason, not because something was wrong with him. Caleb was plagued with nightmares and would crawl in bed with us every night. He was getting bigger and our bed was getting cramped. We decided to let him move his twin mattress onto the floor in our room. Zane wanted nothing to do with a change in sleeping arrangements. By this time we had twin babies. They quickly outgrew the bring the baby to bed, stick her on the boob and fall back to sleep in the middle of the night routine. I was forever creeping out of bed in the night to get the girls back to sleep up in their nursery. Once they learned how to get out of their cribs (at a very young age) and open the door, I knew it was over. I took apart the cribs, put a mattress on the floor in their room and slept with them. My husband, a great father and loving spouse, has absolutely no patience when it comes to sleeping with children. When he is tired, he wants to go to bed right then. Then he morphs into the grumpy old troll - and believe me nobody wants to be near him. It's better that he falls to sleep by himself. I love him. He knows I love him. He missed me for a long time. But he finally agreed that it was just sleeping. If we could have a satisfying sex life, then he could live without the sleeping together part. After we moved, we set up the family bed in the girls' room for me, Caleb and the girls. Caleb has a room and bed of his own that he uses to store his clothes and toys. Part of the reason he moved into the living room was to get out of sleeping in the girls' room. He is very sensitive to things that take away from his "boy"ness. And sleeping with his mom in his sisters' room was clearly cramping his "lost boy" style. It is important for him to get me into neutral territory to have the comfort of mom close by.


Finally I agreed to help him turn on his movie. I stumble into the living room. But the movie is already on. All he has to do is push play. I realize he must have been desperate to lie to get me in there. I push play. He begs me to tuck him in and sit for a while. I tuck him in and go back to bed, because I was already asleep, damn it. I go to the bathroom in the dark with the door open. I see him run past me down the hall. I call to him. He finds me, wondering how I can pee in the dark. I tell him I don't have to aim. Then I go back to bed. He follows me and asks for a hug. It was during that hug that I realize what is bothering him tonight. He saw his first dead person yesterday. It was my grandfather in an open casket. It's not the first time I have seen one. I saw my grandmother in the exact same funeral home 15 years ago. But she looked beautiful and peaceful, if not quite asleep. My grandfather, on the other had, looked pasty and thin. In fact, he didn't look much like himself at all. Each one of our kids went down to look in the casket. The girls took it in stride as they usually do. Although Carmen was not happy about going back into the viewing room when it was time for the funeral. As we were gathering to file in, she asked a little too loudly, "why do we have to go in the room with the dead guy?" Caleb, in his quiet way, hides how he feels until the middle of the night.. As I'm hugging him, I ask, "this is about the funeral, isn't it?" He says yes. I go with him into the living room and stay until he falls asleep.

I Like That

Lying in bed last night at one in the morning with my daughter, we were the last ones awake. I was reading my book. She was trying to settle down for sleep. She has been sleeping with my deodorant under her pillow the last two nights. She doesn’t want me to see because she’s afraid I will take it away from her. She goes under her blanket and opens the deodorant. I can tell she’s busy doing something. I ask her what she is doing. She says, “don’t look.” It’s too late. I have already glimpsed her rubbing deodorant all over her hands. “Are you putting that on your hands?” I ask. “Yes. I like that,” she mutters. “Does it feel good?” I wonder. My kids are an endless source of information about things I have never tried. “Yes,” she answers tersely. “Well, don’t twist it up too high so it breaks off. And don’t dig your fingers in it,” I remind her. OK. She won’t, she says. “Thanks for telling me.” Thanks for telling her? She knows how to melt my heart. She has such uncontrollable desires to spread, smear and paint with anything smearable. I’ll admit I have gotten quite upset with her many times because of the messes she makes. “I like that,” she mutters under her blanket. A little while later I notice she has slipped out of bed. She comes back with blue eyeshadow heavy on her eyelids. Her hair is parted down the middle and slicked down with water. She is dripping and shivering slightly. I go back to the bathroom with her and dry her off. She asks me not to mess up her hair. Then she climbs into bed, slides the deodorant under the pillow and falls asleep. I think about how I have a need to keep things somewhat organized and unpainted. And she needs to mix paints and color her body. She needs to dwell in the possibilities of creams and colors and the whole world as her canvas.
Earlier that day she went out into the garage. We have paints and paper set up out there. She wanted to paint. I didn’t want to stop what I was doing to help her. And she had been asking for two days to paint. I had put her off long enough. I could tell she was determined to do it whether I said yes or not. I just asked her to at least take off her dress first. A little while later I peaked at her. There she was with pink paint spilling around her. She was still in her dress. I yelled at her, “I told you to take off your dress.” She got perturbed with me and showed me that there was no paint on it. I told her I want to keep it that way so take it off while she paints. This is, of course, not at all how I like to talk to my children. I take great pains to work with them and help them be successful in a very supportive and loving way. I also try to balance my own need for calm and quiet with their need for rambunctious experimentation without being overbearing and punitive. But lately I have been feeling self-absorbed and impatient. When she comes into the house with paint on the bottoms of her feet, I sigh loudly. She sighs back at me. Clearly she is just as frustrated with me being frustrated with her. Her muttering, “I like that,” under the blanket like the incantation of a bag lady brings it to light for me. She really needs to touch and feel and rub and paint. I remind myself to reach her there and help her meet that need. She also desperately needs to know that I still love her even when I get angry. Whenever I raise my voice at her, she makes a kiss at me and says, “Mommy, I love you.” And when I get really mad like when she poured syrup on the carpet, she asks me, “Mommy, do you still love me?” “Of course I love you,” I answer. “I’m just really frustrated right now. I always love you even when I’m mad at you.” It’s the best I can do sometimes. I would love to greet these situations with patience and a peaceful, “Ah, well, let’s clean it up. Please ask for help if you need the syrup.” Or, “please do your Picasso drawing with face paint crayons on paper instead of the carpet.” I’m still working on my reaction. Isn’t that the very definition of mindfulness? Bringing clarity and peace to the most stressful moments. I’m a work in progress.
At the park last week another mother and I were talking about our daughters and how they draw on furniture and walls, etc. no matter how many times we have asked them to stop. This is a mother that, I can already tell I have very little in common with. She has already said a few motherisms that I recognize, such as, “I don’t let my son…” or “we don’t allow this and such.” Just the typical bossy way moms talk about their kids while their kids are young and they still feel in charge. The kind of annoying smugness that says she is clearly doing the right thing. What she said about her daughter was, “she has been threatened within an inch of her life,” to stop drawing on the walls and furniture, etc. Of course she didn’t mean it literally. I know how exasperating it is to have girls who believe their whole world is an extension of their bodies and their bodies are their canvas. I wonder how many of them are out there. Parents at their wits end. Girls desperate for artistic expression, promising not to do it again. Then, unable to help themselves, doing it again and again. I’m reminded that there is no end to what a person will do in a position of authority if they feel they have to make a child do what they say. Perhaps threatened within an inch of her life is not such an exaggeration after all. I remember my aunt almost bragging about how she spanked her daughter so hard she gave her bruises. Her daughter kept running across the street to visit her friend without looking and without permission. This happened years ago but my stomach turned when she told this story at my cousin’s wedding shower.
At some point you have to stop and ask yourself, how far am I willing to go with this. This kind of forceful control so easily leads to violence. You have to realize she will grow out of it. So, I will keep reminding my daughter. I will keep cleaning up after her and even ask for her help. I will encourage her to follow her interests. And I fervently hope she will continue to be true to herself.

New posts/ Old posts

Anything before is considered an old post. I saved a few of my favorites and deleted the rest. I plan to use this blog as a space to work through my neurotic ramblings on parenting and unschooling - however selfish or saintly it may be.

Greta Swims

Greta swims. She has a deep down need to swim and no force on earth will stop her. She's 3 years old. When we started swimming this summer, I pulled out the usual floaties and life jackets. I puffed and padded both girls and set them afloat like tiny michelin men bobbing around in the water. I have long been intimidated about going to the pool with twin preschoolers who are pre-swimmers. Greta dutifully wore her life jacket for one swim. Then she absolutely refused to put it on again. She would push me away and say she wanted to swim by herself. There were 2 times that she got in while I was looking away. And I turned around to see her flailing around in the water unable to come up for air.

After that, I keep her within arm's length at all times. I was so worried and fearful about her swimming. She clearly needed to learn a lot before becoming a strong, independent swimmer. I fought and struggled with her. She pushed me away. She wanted to jump in by herself. "Don't catch me," she would say. I finally realized I was letting my fears control me and not embracing her need to swim. Once I realized this, I was able to work with her on her swimming. She wiggles her body like a mermaid and propels herself even without using her arms. She goes under and twirls around and around. Now we play together in the water. I can hold her tight to my belly and do a backflip in the water. She loves that. She has tried repeatedly to swim down and grab something from the bottom of the pool like her brothers can do, but her body is too light. She will go under with her little bottom sticking up out of the water and swim and swim and go nowhere. So we go down together. I hold her and swim down as fast as I can to the bottom. She grabs the ring and we zoom back up. She also loves to jump in with her brothers. When the boys are jumping in, she is right there with them doing cannonballs and twisting around. She even tried a dive last time.

It's fun now that I have let go of my fears. I certainly stay very alert with Greta in my sight at all times. I have to be ready and willing to be with her in the water the whole time every time we go swimming. It's a celebration and a joy.

Zane and Legos

"Hey Mom, what if they combined Lego Spongebob with Aqua Raiders?" Zane, 8, is holding Gary the snail and a tiny submarine with a deep sea diver inside. He walks into the other room and I hear, "Oh no! A giant snail! Captain, reverse thrusters, fire harpoon gun."

My son has been playing with Legos in the den all morning. This wouldn't be noteworthy except that he hasn't played with Legos for the last week. It all started a month ago when I suggested he enter the Lego display contest at the State Fair. He spends so much time building Legos, mostly Bionicles. He makes up stories and whole mythologies to go with his creations. He is continually taking them apart and building new ones. It is a large part of what he does and who he is. He was interested when I mentioned Lego display. He readily agreed. I submitted the entry form and the required $2.

The display needed to be on a piece of board. We talked about settings and designs. I continued to bring it up regularly so he could think about it and plan for it. I sawed the board we would use for the project. He told me he wanted it to look like lava. So we worked on it one day. I painted it how he wanted. Then his interest vanished. He stopped planning for it or even playing with Legos. I tried not to keep reminding him. I didn't want to pressure him. I asked him if he felt pressured by the project. He said yes. But he still wanted to do it.

The deadline drew closer and he still wouldn't touch his Legos. He suddenly couldn't think of anything to do for the project. He couldn't find the right pieces. I offered to help him. At one point he was digging through the bin of pieces. He sighed and said, "I need a break." I need a break? from playing Legos? I knew he was struggling and paralyzed. Whatever the reason, I wasn't able to help him work through it. I had to ask myself why I needed him to do it. I let it go. The day before the Legos were due, he told me he didn't want to do it after all. I hid my disappointment, because it was mine. I worked through it later. It had something to do with wanting to impress relatives. So I got my head back in line with my values.

We'll go to the State Fair in a few weeks. We may even look at the Lego displays. Zane will be able to see what one is. And maybe he'll ask to do it next year. But it will have to be his idea, his desire, his motivation and his own pressure. Until then, the sound of hands tinkling through the Lego bin looking for just the right piece (to please himself and nobody else) is music to my ears.

Seasoning

My daughters are 2 1/2 yo. They are delightful and happy and very busy. Lately I have been frustrated with Greta, though. She frequently pulls food and milk out of the refrigerator. She pours herself milk and spills quite a bit of it on the floor. She draws on her body (which I don't mind). But also on the furniture. She pulls things out and makes huge messes. These are things I expect from a 2yo. But it tries my patience when it happens all day long every day. I was watching her sleep the other night. She was so peaceful. It was one of those moments when I felt huge amounts of love gushing out of me. I realized part of the reason she has been pushing me away and screaming at me and fighting me lately is because I have been so frustrated with her. I tell her no and I get annoyed. She reflects that back to me. I resolved to do my best to respond to her with patience and love.

Today Greta had my lipstick. She was putting it on herself. Then she started rubbing it on the carpet. I wanted to get it from her. So I offered to get out the markers so she could draw on herself. I got the markers. I sat down with her and offered to help. I drew a flower around her belly button. I drew a stem out from the flower and down her leg. Carmen got into it too. She drew on herself and asked me to add some flowers. Then Greta pulled away into the other room. She didn't really want me to draw on her. She kept coming back and flirting a little. We turned it into a game.

Later Carmen had some spices. She was smelling them and putting some on the counter. She had a capful of coriander. She wanted to sprinkle it on my head. My automatic answer would normally be, "no, thankyou." But today I thought, why not? I let her sprinkle it on my head. Now I'm scented like coriander. I asked Ian to smell my head. He smelled it twice. I told him is was coriander. He said Tom's of Maine uses coriander in their deodorant. So there you have it. I enjoyed some time with my daughter and discovered a new exotic scent just by not saying no.

This seems to be a lesson I have to learn over and over again.

the Beginning...

When we started unschooling a year ago, I had read John Holt and Alfie Kohn and a few others. I was spurred on by visions of utopia. Visions of child prodigies and ivy league-bound geniuses, who were self confident, self motivated, content. This of course was in the back of my mind. I wasn't fully aware of it at the time. I knew we would throw out all thoughts of structure and settle into our own rhythm. I had no idea how profoundly we would all change. I now know that unschooling cannot be done just to learn academics. Unschooling cannot be done part way. In order for it to work in the way nature intended, we had to delve deeply into a whole new lifestyle.

My kids are still quite young. When I pulled them out of school, my oldest was in the first grade. I had one other in half-day preschool. They both excelled in school and were well liked. But I never intended to send them to school. While my oldest son was still in preschool three years ago, I researched many schooling alternatives. My search led me to Montessori then to homeschooling. I heard other people talking about unschooling. I was intrigued by it but not willing to let go completely. That summer I found out I was pregnant with twins. I panicked. Perhaps to a mother who can count all of her children on more than one hand, this may seem amusing. But I was no less than terrified. I was going from mother of two to mother of four in a few short months. So I enrolled my boys in the nearest public school and busied myself getting ready for babies. I struggled daily with my son, getting him dressed and out the door, as my body swelled to the size of a walrus. After the twins were born (full term and healthy), I had family members here to help struggle with my son - getting him dressed and out the door. We finished the year. Summer came and went and we automatically started school again. Not wanting to be away from his brother, my second son started preschool. It was my husband this time who brought up homeschooling. My focus began to change as I dusted off my books and prepared myself. This time I was ready for unschooling. I read everything I could find. We kept struggling through the first semester of school. And finally pulled them out at Christmas. Other people were so nervous for us.

After reading about deschooling, I made every effort to make no plans. The first few weeks were blissful, like a forbidden indulgence. We could just be. Then little by little doubts and worries crept in. I doubted myself. I doubted my children. Things got uncomfortably chaotic for me. None of us seemed to know what to do with ourselves. My tension was reflected back to me from my children. We fought and struggled. Tempers flared in my oldest son even to the point of rage. This began my journey toward peaceful parenting. How beautifully my children continue to teach me. We struggled for months. I was holding fast to the fact that we were deschooling. I blamed many things for my children's anger and their fighting.

At home together all day, week in and week out, we were faced with our own dysfunction. It was hard to admit. I needed to stop looking at outside influences as the cause of my children's behaviors and look inside myself. In some ways, I wanted my children to be my "proof" to everyone else that unschooling works by doing something spectacular that they thought of all on their own. I was impatient to see my own "proof." My children felt that pressure. As I learned to question my doubts and worries, I found my fears were totally unfounded. I was learning to trust the process of unschooling. I was learning to trust my children.

I continue to make peace with myself and peace with my children. As a result, I have fallen in love with them all over again. I look at my five and seven year olds with the same wonder and awe of a new parent. I see the curve of their bellies, their excitement and their struggles as little miracles. They now reflect that love and peace back to me. My oldest son had a major breakthrough with his rage. Nonmanipulative, peaceful parenting has changed him. It has changed my expectations of him. It has changed me. He still yells when he gets angry. But I figure for every time I ever yelled at him, like an echo, I will hear it back from him 100 times. He is far less aggressive with his brother.

My children continue to learn all day every day as do I. My oldest son began reading soon after he came home. He learned by reading signs and things on the computer and looking over my shoulder while I read to his siblings. He is now teaching himself math by coming up with problems and figuring them out in his head. He is also working on spelling and story telling. Ironically my focus has shifted from academics. It's clear to me now that they will learn all they need to learn in their own time. It is such a relief not to have to worry them there. As if my stress and guilt and clenched teeth could get them to Harvard! All the energy I was spending trying to get my children to behave and do what I thought they needed to do can now be spent loving them and enjoying them while they are here. We play together. We laugh and cry and stare at the wall together. But mostly we're all busy doing our own thing. I have been able to explore my own interests like music, art, food and nature. My daughters, now almost two years old, will unschool from the beginning. Lucky for me I don't have to worry and badger them into being the wonderful people that they already are. I just have to love them and be here. They remind me to stay right here in the moment.

So much has changed since we started unschooling I can hardly believe it has only been one year. Now we flow from day to day without thinking about what should or should not be done. Many times the kids don't want the day to end. I don't feel like I have to come up with some exciting game or project. I don't get too excited when they show an interest in something "academic." I can love them for who they are, not what they do. They amaze me with their discoveries as I watch them unfold. I am excited every day about who they are -- without expectations. It has taken a year but I feel like I finally get it. I think my children figured it out a long time ago. But they needed me to be at peace with them. And they needed me to be at peace with the process so they could feel safe and fully able to express themselves. Only then have we all been able to discover the freedom of unschooling.

Struggles

I have, in the past year, read quite a lot of books, articles, online posts, blogs, anything I could get my hands on about entertainment and children. Specifically, I have read about children watching television and playing video games. I have read about violence in games. I have read about noncoercive parenting and unschooling. I have read about giving children freedom to choose how they order their day. I have read about "radical" unschooling. Some circles insist on giving children absolute freedom to eat what they want, to play and do anything all day long. These people advocate giving their children a big life, exposed to as many things as they feel comfortable including unlimited video games and television. Most moms who do this say their house is peaceful and joyful because they don't have the struggle of setting limits. They also say that their kids aren't interested in a lot of adult TV with sex and violence. Their kids enjoy educational shows as well as cartoons and other kids shows. They watch with their kids especially if there is something scarey or confusing. This movie and tv experience opens the door for many conversations about all of life including violence, respect, sex, death, love etc. Although many of these moms admit their personal preference is to eat a healthy, low sugar diet and watch little or no tv. Some have said that if they were living alone, they would probably not even own a television. They want their children to make their own opinion about food and tv. They want their kids to learn to self regulate. They want to show their kids how they (the adult) eat a healthy diet and talk about nutrition but ultimately give the child the choice. If they eat too much sugar and feel sick, they learn that maybe they shouldn't do that next time. Rather than the parent telling them they will get sick and not allowing them to have it, they can experience it for themselves. The lesson will be more meaningful. Here is the quandry. When you decide to unschool or rather give in to this organic way of living and being together, suddenly everything is redefined. We are redefining education and family and how we move through the day. It permeates your whole life. Every thing and every person associated with this family is affected by this change. The whole notion of unschooling is dependent on the child wanting to learn about their world. They will eagerly learn everything they need to learn to function in this world. That is, they will learn to read because there are books and signs and other people reading in the house. They will learn math because it is an integral part of our world. They will learn how to care for themselves and their home. They will learn about science and nature because, once again, it is all around us. Then they will pursue their interests which will lead them to more studies and skills. These are things that make up who they are individually. A child who grows up to be a scientist will need to learn more math and science. A child who grows up to be a dancer will need to learn other things. These are things a child will beg for. If you watch and listen, you will know where they need to go, what they need to do. Because only they know who they will be when they grow up. I love the idea of unschooling. I love the writings of John Holt and many other's stories. This is how nature intended for children to learn. We are equipped with powerful learning tools. I see this at work in my children every day. We started unschooling almost a year ago. When I first pulled my children out of school (1st grade and pre-K), we totally relaxed. I made no plans or demands. We just followed the rhythm of the day. It was blissful at first. My children lost weight (not that they needed to) because they jumped on the trampoline for hours a day. As time went on, they discovered some cartoons that they love (that plays almost all day long). They play video games and computer games. We have also played many board, paper, card games. My 7 year old some days would watch cartoons all day long. Or, when he got board with cartoons, he would play video games and computer games. He was in front of a screen all day long. I have come to believe that children's television and video games are so orgasmically stimulating that young children lose their ability to entertain themselves without it. I think it is addicting. I'm not saying he is not learning. He has learned a lot. He started reading over the last year. He doesn't need my help on the computer anymore. But he is angry a lot. He and his brother fight quite often (always physical). I'm not blaming television for my son's anger. But they are both quite cranky when they stop watching tv while they are deciding what to do. They no longer want to go outside to explore nature (except to jump on the trampoline). They have lost interest in books. Their fantasy games are all about what they have watched or played. They are very creative. When you allow the freedoms of unschooling, freedom to eat when and what they want, freedom to bathe when they are ready, freedom to sleep when they are tired, freedom to move throughout their day according to their own rhythm. Then, inevitably there will be a gravitation to lots of tv and video games. Unschooling is a natural way. It uses a child's nature as a guide. I now agree with Naomi Aldort that keeping a lot of sugar and tv and video games out of the house is a kind of child proofing. Books, blocks, art supplies, musical instruments are no competition for the kind of extreme entertainment of television and video games. These toys and games do not fit into the natural model of unschooling in its original intent, at least not the way I understood it to work. I will not rid the house of tv or video games because my husband enjoys them too. But of course he is not here all day every day playing them. And he does not have a young developing mind. It would be easier for me to get rid of all of them. But that would be like cruel and unusual punishment to my kids. I admire the moms who feel free and joyful allowing their children true freedom in a world that values "screen time." I think it can work especially with older children. Many of these kids may be working on becoming game designers and computer whizzes. There is certainly a place for them in this society. A friend who does not watch tv in her home told me something that made me think. When you have a home that is electronically stimulating, you are not giving children a choice either.



Since I wrote this post, I have continued to struggle with how much television my children want to watch. I have made a special effort to not discount my children's choices. I don't want them to feel like I don't value their choices. I feel like such a grumpy, old censorship maven writing about the dangers of television. Nickelodeon is ruining our lives! I know my son needs to watch tv all day for a reason. He has told me that if I can't play with him, then all he can think to do is watch tv and if his cartoons are not on, then he'll play video games. "You don't know what it is like, Mom," he has said to me many times. And he's right. I don't know what it is like to be seven and have control over what I do all day and when I do it. I don't know what it is like to be 7 and not have someone telling me what to do all day. I don't know what it is like to be the oldest child of 4. I don't know what it is like to have toddler twin sisters. I don't know what it is like to be him. I do understand that he struggles between wanting to do his own thing and wanting someone do tell him what to do. I do know that he has mirrored my own anger at the world and my desire to be away from most people. These are things I'm becoming aware of about myself. I do know that those days when we have kept the television off, we talk about these things. We spend more time together. We grow. We play. We learn. And I see his curiosity and his interest in little things and his sweetness return.

UPDATE: I wrote this while I was struggling with the television issue. We did cut off our cable. But the kids have access to dvds, computer, video games. They order their favorite Nickelodeon shows on Netflix. They have free access to all of these things. For some reason, our lives are all much better without tv. We spend a lot more time together. This works for us.