Value Added Parenting

In list format (lists! The lazy way to organize the internet!) these are my assumptions, values, and approaches to parenting.  I'm sharing this, because maybe someday my children will find this blog and want to know WHY.  But probably not.

- Humans start out as savages.  Seriously. Infants are demanding, hungry, uncivilized tyrants who need to be fed on demand, sleep whenever they feel like it, poop themselves and expect to be cleaned, and REQUIRE extreme acts of love and devotion to thrive.  And parents do this because of the cocktail of hormones our brains produce that view the tyrant as the most amazing and wondrous creature in the known universe.  As far as I can tell... it doesn't wear off. My infants are still the most amazing and wondrous creatures, ever. HOWEVER,  as a more experienced human, I also know uncivilized tyrants usually end up dead. So, I teach them general civilization because I'm the parent. Potty training, basic hygeine,  food preparation, saying please and thanks, and why hitting your sibling doesn't end well.

- Kindness, compassion, and listening are IMPORTANT LIFE SKILLS.  This seems to go against most of the cultural programming of modern American life. I don't give a shit if my kids have the highest grades, the fastest times, the newest computer games, the most dance or karate medals, play 4 sports, etc.  I care that my kids know the planet is full of humans, just like them, with hopes, dreams, skills, and abilities.  I want them to know that even if they meet a stupid jerkface, the right thing to do is listen to the opinion, evaluate it against what they know and believe, and engage kindly if possible, or walk away if not.

- Vulnerability is strength in action, not weakness.   To be vulnerable is to say, I am strong enough to share my fears. I am trusting that sharing will make it easier, not harder.  I believe that seeking help is good.

- Failures and consequences are awesome.  Trying new things is fun! Change can be hard, but fear isn't a reason to stop and give up,  fear is a signal to approach it a little differently.  We learn more from failing than we do from success.

- Do your best.  Always do your best. It matters not how another human judges your effort,  but if you have made that effort the best you were capable of - you can be proud.

- Be honest and tell the truth. When you set a precedent for honesty and truth telling combined with habits of compassionate listening - people will listen and trust what you say to them.  Even if they don't want to hear it, honest words spoken compassionately are easier to accept.

- Use your words.  Humans are such complicated beings, with so many amazing abilities, and yet, we can't read each other's minds. (Thanks, God! Appreciate that!!!)  So use words to communicate, to share your thoughts and let the people who love you know what you need.  They won't know if you don't tell.

And that's basically it.

TL; DR version:  Parenting = loving savages enough to teach them how to love.

Family Trees

There's family you grow up with,  and family you give birth to, and if you are lucky  - at some point in your life you realize you have a family that you made.

I have a huge family - related by blood and birth and marriage.  They are a mixed bag of awesome, crazy, obnoxious, and loving.  Some are narcissistic, snobby, uptight.  Some are the very epitome of red-neck trailer trash. It's a very broad spectrum.  Not surprising, I suppose, when the count of first cousins reaches higher than 50 without including in-laws.  It's a big family tree by any measure.  I'm stuck with that family.  I love them, they love me. I'm closer to some of those branches than others, and it's okay.  They are my roots and have helped me to grow strong.

All the same - I'm one of the "strange" fruits on my family tree, and they don't always know what to do with me.  I've bucked the traditions of my upbringing in a conservative church.  I don't agree with or conform to the expectations of my youth.  I choose my own path.  It causes some consternation in my close knit family. I don't rub their faces in my life choices, nor do I let their concerns impede what I know is right for me. I will love them where they are.  They try to do the same for me, as best as they are able.  I will love and support their endeavors to the best of my abilities, even when it requires a love buffer.

And then there's my other family - the dear people in the world who have.... I don't even know the verb I want here.  Helped. Held. Hugged. Loved. Waited. Stood near.  These are the people who have seen my worst and best moments. They are not blood relations, nor people I've known since birth - but they are a group of people who I can only think of as soul siblings - like the spirits that inhabit our bodies just KNOW each other, without words. They offer a sense of resonance and completion whether we are together or distant.  Their presence in the world enriches and strengthens my life.  Sometimes the connection is evident on a first meeting - like love at first site without all that romantic nonsense added by movies.

These people are also my family, and often closer than family.  They are the people who let me be as I am in the world, and they are glorious.  It's like having a forest of family trees.

A Rose by any name

Lately, I've been giving a lot of thought to names.  Specifically, surnames.  Specifically because I'm getting married later in the year.

So, surnames.  Preliminary research says they are based on:

• patronymics - you are the son of John, or daughter of John, or you take the last name your father had. 
• profession - you are a Smith, or a Cooper, or Farmer, or a King
• place - Fairfield, a pretty pasture, or Harrington, the town you came from.
• personality - a trait that describes the person, Quick, Strong, Tall, Blackbeard

Surnames were created to distinguish one Mary from another Mary, one John from another John. Then they were used to demonstrate family connections.  Then make new family connections.  In English traditions, sons kept the family name. Daughters were given away by fathers, and took the name of the husband's family.  A father passed on the care and responsibility of his daughter for another man to assume.

So, names... Juliet told Romeo that a rose by any name would smell as sweet, and he should stop being a Montague so she could love him without family politics. I suspect Shakespeare was a feminist, to tell a man to give up his name.  

I didn't struggle the first time I left a name behind... I ditched my middle name. It was seldom used except in highly formal occasions.  I wanted to keep my family name, and take my husband's family name.  So I did by moving my maiden name to my middle name, and adding a new last name. And I was married. And I had children.  And time passed and crap happened. And I was divorced.  And I kept the name I married into to maintain the connection of a family name to my children, as though the connection of body and blood and birth and love were not a strong enough bond in themselves.

And now what?  Now I am looking at the reality of a name that no longer fits me. I am no longer married to the man whose name I have. I love another man, whose name I respect, but does not feel like my name.  I am come to a time and place where I want my name to be my own, to reflect my own agency and the authority of my self.  I belong to me, not to my father, not to a husband, not to my children.  And yet, I will belong to them through the ties of body and blood.   But I want my name to be mine. To be me. The song of myself, as Walt Whitman put it. 

So what is in my name?  Not a patronymic. While I love my father, I am equally my mother's daughter. And where is her name in me?   My family shaped the person I am, in ways both obvious and silent. I carry them with me everywhere, and that is enough. Perhaps a profession?  Doubtful. Which profession or task names me best? I've been too many things, have too many interests, and don't believe that my work should be the definition of whole self.   Place?  I use it as my twitter handle, @minn_finn. My places of origin, both present and ancestral.  It suffices.  Which leaves personality.

In an attempt to get a handle on my own personality, I asked friends who've known me for longer than 6 months to share a word that describes me to them.  The results were uplifting.  It's not why I asked, but the responses told me that the values I hold and hope to make evident through action are indeed visible. Loving. Gracious. Awesome. Kind. There. Caring. Beautiful. Aunt. Genuine, just to list a few.  It was a long list, but in the end - inconclusive. There was no defining theme of personality to draw a name from. 

So the question remains - what's in a name when a rose by any name would smell as sweet?   What I can say is this; I want to acknowledge my heritage, to have my name remind me of what I value, or who I am.  It may be a name like "Kindness," even if that sounds like a Hippy name.  Or it may be a name like Hauskanainen,  meaning "Funny Woman" in Finnish.  Or perhaps Sulo which means grace, or Nokella, meaning wise, smart, or sharp.  Or maybe just Nainen, woman.

I will keep considering, because I feel as though I have taken a sufficient number of names already in my life, and the next one I assume, I have no intention of giving away again.