Comments on: The solutions are… here

By: Parenting and safety and judgment, oh my! | Raising My Boychick

Parenting and safety and judgment, oh my! | Raising My Boychick — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 20:33:31 +0000

[...] root as the reason I don’t know more than two of my neighbour’s names, for all that I’m in favor of village living… in theory. And in theory, I don’t mind someone trying to help me, even if I disagree with them. But in [...]

By: Zoey @ Good Goog

Zoey @ Good Goog — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:18:08 +0000

Three months paternity leave was a godsend for me. Having my husband home to cook, clean and keep me (relatively) sane during the first few months was a real blessing.

By: Katherine

Katherine — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 10:19:51 +0000

Hi Arwyn. I can’t work out how to reply to your repl (Firefox issue?), so I’ll say here – it would be fantastic to do a guest post – may I email you after the holidays?

Also, I’m glad you found even a temporary such “standing-plan”. I’m still working on getting together an even semi-regular afternoon group and bloody hell it’s hard work to get a few people to even semi-commit to a regular afternoon!

By: The Nerd

The Nerd — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:58:27 +0000

In my own circle of nonreligious friends, I would love to see an awareness that some of us have children! I can’t count how many times I’ve had to stay home because the activity of the evening is at a bar, and I don’t know anyone who will take my child and $20 off my hands for a couple hours. And not only is there no place for me in a church, even non-religious church-like communities only have daytime events. A community that had weekly Saturday evening potlucks would be okay by me.

By: Arwyn

Arwyn — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:42:45 +0000

For about half a year, I had a weekly standing plan to go to a friend’s house once a week, for pretty much the whole day (from whenever we got there in the morning — dependent on when the Boychick woke up — to when I had to leave to go pick up The Man from work). Her kid was not quite a year older than the Boychick, close enough that they could get along pretty well. Some days I wondered why on earth I bothered — when we were running late, when he screamed for most of the 30-minute car ride, when neither of them would nap (or one would, but then get woken up by the other), when the two kids were at each other’s throats — but most days I thought we were absolute friggin’ geniuses, and even just looking forward to that day made the rest of the week bearable.

So yes, I am 100% in favor of that idea. Personally, having some social anxiety, I wouldn’t want to go to a big group, but one or two other families, the “right” families (other parents I could get along with, of similar-enough parenting styles)? That would be BLISS. Bliss and blessing.

Also, there was an article in I think the most recent Mothering magazine about multi-generational semi-communal living. When the logistics and inter-personal relationships work, that can be a great way to enact change on the personal even within this messed-up society. Hope it goes well for you! (And if you ever want to write about it, I’d be honored to have you guest post.)

By: Katherine

Katherine — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:22:40 +0000

I’m totally with emjaybee. End of nuclear family. Am plotting my own small version at the moment – my partner and I are planning to buy a house together with his mother and partner and live semi-collectively.

But on the smaller scale what would have (and still would, on the days I am at home) helped me are mother-and-baby/play groups that last longer than an hour or two. One of my favourite groups is the breastfeeding support group I go to, because that it three whole hours. Why can’t someone (me?) set up a semi-childcare-semi-stay-and-play scenario where you get to go somewhere for a whole day, where your child can play and you can stay, where food can be prepared, and naps taken. Why this complete disconnect between at-home and at-nursery?

By: Arwyn

Arwyn — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:39:01 +0000

Thank you. That rocked.

RMB readers: I highly recommend checking it out.

By: Arwyn

Arwyn — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:27:35 +0000

Paid would be nice. Perhaps even just equivalent of what would be covered with paid time off, for those of us who don’t have jobs?

There’s this idea that if we don’t HAVE to work, we wouldn’t — but that doesn’t bear out, when the options aren’t between soul-sucking drudgery or living on the dole. When we have work options that support us, that are family- and person-friendly, that are meaningful and hopeful and helpful, then most people CHOOSE to work, at least most of the time. And that doesn’t mean that no one would be a janitor, either: we just have to offer the janitor dignity and autonomy and flexibility and a livable wage as well, not force her to scrape by at 1/100,000th of the wage and respect of the CEO whose trash she picks up.

More achievable, perhaps, I think we in the USA need to be earning Social Security credit. Not doing so harms so many marginalized populations: infants when parents have to work in jobs that don’t allow for adequate carer substitutes just so they can have some sort of retirement fund (or have parents stressed out by money concerns), parents who stay home and get no recognition for the work we do, and the senior citizens we become.

By: Arwyn

Arwyn — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:17:13 +0000

One of the ideas that keeps coming up is not only all-parental leave (for both parents, if two there be), but time off for other kith and kin as well. It's so important to have all parents have time off, not only to support the parent who birthed (if one did -- I would want all these options to be available to adoptive situations as well), but because those early weeks and months are so important for the PARENTS to attach to the baby. With an infant, it really is quantity time that matters, and all parents deserve to have that foundation with their child. BUT, at the same time, two (if a family even has two) parents are simply not enough -- having grandparents, aunts/uncles, friends, etc come to help out relieves so much of the burden. Even just having someone to fetch food when the baby falls asleep at the breast, or play with an older child, to talk with, can make such a difference.

By: Sheri

Sheri — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 03:07:58 +0000

Ideally, I’d have liked to be part of an extended family/friend network where everyone simply cares about each other enough to take care of each other when it’s needed. It wouldn’t necessarily have to be a commune type of setting, but even just having people living near each other would help. Being paid to parent would be great, too.