Musings

[aelfie]

So one of my mantra's lately when I'm feeling blue has been.

I am who I am and that is enough, And its enough because I am where I am and its enough. Its enough because I am who I am....etc, etc

I'm perusing my various Waldorf homeschooling blogs, forums, yahoo groups, etc, and silently lamenting to myself that I'm not Waldorfy enough.

Then I said wait a minute. I am enough. We are enough. Okay, so we aren't the full on all organic food and clothing, living on a farm growing our own food, while raising our own sheep and using it to create our clothes, and haven't owned a TV in years, who's kids not only don't own a single plastic toy but have no idea who in the hell Spiderman is, never seen a comic book, never played a video game family. But its okay. We are enough.

We are our own family. And although my kids watch more TV than I think is healthy, and they have plastic toys, we are doing our best to raise them to be ethical, thoughtful, and kind people. We are giving them the best education possible. Guess what? Its enough. And it will continue to be enough as long as we continue to do our best and strive to improve.

It is enough.

Now where in the hell is the heavy duty lamp timer I bought to put on the TV? I'm gonna cut down their babble box consumption somehow. I'm almost ready to get rid of it...but not yet.

Comments

[allanh.livejournal.com]

Honey, you and Joe are two of the most functional (as opposed to DYSfunctional), loving, thoughtful, and wise people I know. Your kids are healthy and happy, you've taken the ultimate interest in providing them with a superb education, Joe is SuperDad...it's more than enough. It makes me inadequate sometimes. Especially when I eat one of your dinners. :)

[rephetibel.livejournal.com]

Into everyone's life there enters someone who crochets market bags out of belly button lint. You just have to say 'good for you' and go on living your life your way.

[urbear]

You know, I'm not convinced that going all the way on the Waldorf thing is in the best interest of the kids. They have to live in the real world eventually, and depriving them of all the pop cultural references that their peers will be using would be doing them a serious disservice. Strictly limiting that consumption, sure... preventing it entirely, not such a good idea, IMHO.

Or to look at it from another perspective, what sort of reasonable educational goal involves withholding information that the rest of the world is intimately familiar with?

[mollygm.livejournal.com]

Isn't it amazing that there are so few sociopaths, considering every woman on the planet is a BAD mother, RUINING her children?

I only read parenting articles for entertainment.

[mollygm.livejournal.com]

I feel like I should add more.

As you know, I was a child development major. The first two classes you take are Child Development, where you learn the major theories- Piaget, Erickson, Freud and Vygotsky, and Child in the Community, where you learn sociological principals. We didn't learn about Waldorf and the othe pop-philosophies until after we learned the science of the developing child. The way we learned them was basically they were all just ways of interpreting the major theories.

So I don't get wrapped up in subscribing to any one philosophy, whether it's Waldorf, Montessori, Reggio Emelia, etc. I look at individual practices, like logic toys from Montessori, longterm art projects from Reggio or form drawing from Waldorf and compare to what Piaget said, Erickson said and so on. And of course, does it fit with our family's lifestyle, my teaching style and, most importantly, would it work for Mel?