Easy Parenting

Parenting is "hard" is a generally accepted concept, why make it harder? Having a play date, going to a Moms Club event, volunteering, joining Cub Scouts...all these things at first consideration seem like more work. Why bother? I hem and haw and procrastinate in planning them. Weeks go by and my kids don't have a friend over, months could go by before I venture out to a Moms Club event sometimes, and years went by before we joined Cub Scouts because we were coming from "making life easier" and "doing less" because "it's all too much".

The reality is, that just thinking that it's "hard" makes parenting harder. I know, there is the reality of it... the kids are home 24-7 with each other and they start to get tired, as any one would, of their stinky brother in their face. They start to whine about the way he breathes and cry about the way the other one mimics him. Tempers flare and no toy seems interesting anymore. I start doing a lot of sighing, threatening, cajoling and shouting and I exhaust myself just sitting on my butt planning the meals. But my perspective is actually what makes it tiring and hard.

Staying home, staying "small" by trying to reserve energy and do as little as possible is actually the most exhausting way to parent. The easy way to parent is to BE fun and interact with them doing stimulating activities. Not necessarily structured activities like shoving them into a tennis lesson or art lesson everyday, but by calling friends and lining up play dates, where the kids run around and "free" play, showing off the toys they haven't touched for months like they are gilded with gold. I can actually sit in the living room as they play and learn a new piano song or clean out the kitchen drawers as they have a snack and chat with them about their Pokemon collections. Having a play date is easier because they are better behaved in front of peers and more excited about home.Plus,you get a peek into their social life and get in their world. This relatedness makes communicating with your child much easier.

Going to a Moms Club event, where we meet new people, leap through a sprinkler, pick fruit off trees and read books together, works. Going to Moms Clubs events definitely makes being a parent easier because while the kids are playing I get to talk to a real live adult who isn't picking their nose or burping the alphabet. She actually listens to what I have to say and actually responds in complete intelligent sentences...unless she is interrupted by her screaming toddler. Which actually doesn't bother me, in fact it's often a relief and even funny sometimes. Many a Mom has been known to laugh at another Moms chaos, not out of ridicule but out of sheer bottled up frustration at their own kids. When we see another Mom dealing with the same thing, suddenly it's okay to let that energy out and it tumbles out in the form of uncontrollable laughter. Pretty soon all the Moms are laughing and we are just present to joy. Getting out of the house, connecting with the Moms Club makes parenting easier because you get you aren't crazy while the kids make new friends.

Volunteering at school, I thought would be especially taxing. I envisioned being sequestered to a room full of paper collating all day while a teacher's aid examines my work or complains about school politics. In reality, I get to observe the teacher's style in the classroom and hear her teaching lingo and use these words at home to reinforce the learning. I get to observe my child learning, his style, when he is comfortable or not and speak with him about how he does his homework at home with insights to what works for him. I get to be a part of an art project or writing lesson and learn how how my children learn, and use this at home when I am guiding them in their homework. Volunteering makes my life easier as a parent because I am tuned into how they learn.

Joining the Cub Scouts seemed like an impossibility for years. Give up our Saturdays for constant camping in the dirt? Sewing on badges til my fingers bleed? Trek them back and forth to flag ceremonies and memorize old fashioned fuddy duddy mottos? In reality Cub Scouts camp two or three times a year and it is awesome. We go boulder climbing, make marshmallow air guns with pipes, hike in canyons and sing songs around the campfire. The badges are less than you think and you can sew them while you watch TV. As far as it being old fashioned, there is nothing outdated about BB Gun shooting, deep seas fishing, archery, catapult making and learning good character:what it means to be responsible, respectful, honest and loyal. Cub Scouts makes parenting easier because you get a wonderful community of parents who support teaching your boys good character while you all create adventures together. Being a leader in Cub Scouts is even more awesome because you get to create with other leaders and your kids get the experience of having their parent be a leader. Being a Cub Scout leader makes it much easier to raise your son to be a leader.

Now, when I consider an option, even if I feel like draggin' butt all day, I look at what is possible...what might the kids get out of this? What might I get out of this? What might I be able to contribute? And my world shifts, from "too hard" to exciting new and marvelous wonders. And we just GET OUT! We go outside, have fun and cause a ruckus and I get to participate, create and cause being an adventurous parent and having amazingly happy and stimulated children. When I am an involved and connected with my kids, I am happier, and when Momma's happy, everyone's happy! What's hard is checking out. Checking in, and creating makes it all easier. Coming from the world creating, all there is is ease, freedom, excitement and fun!
Not just easy, but Inspired Parenting!

Zen Honeycutt

The Love of a Three Year Old

I wish the world the love of a three year old..
To love like one and to receive love like one.

A three year old loves everything. Even when he is screeching NOOOOOOO he is loving screeching.
Love is self expressed.

A three year old loves with warm, snuggly cuteness that has you hold him even when your back is screaming and sore.
He comes in for hugs often and insistently. There is no other option but to stop what you are doing and hug this human being.
Love is now.

A three year old puts his face in the nook of your neck, sometimes licks you and woofs like a puppy.
He does this because love is play.

A three year old crawls into bed with you and squiggles in between the two warm bodies he loves the most in the world, so he can smell them all night.
Love is safety.

A three year old follows you everywhere, even when you are busy and grumpy. Your grumpiness will not deter him from crawling on your back when you are bent over cleaning up the milk he spilled.
Love is overlooking the little things and being love anyway.

A three year old kisses your nose, then your left cheek and your right, then your chin and your forehead. It must be done in this order and all kisses must be delivered or holy hell breaks loose.
Because there are traditions that strengthen and expand love and we make them up because it's fun.

A three year old will ask for tickles or tempt you by flashing his tummy. Then run and squeal and roll in giggles that sprinkle you with delight over and over and over again.
Love is silly and delightful and we want more, more, more!

A three year old loves his things. He will ferret them away or pack rat them into a bag and carry them around. He will cling to them as he sleeps and cry for them in the car. He loves his little notepads, or erasers or toys from a party goody bag. He cares not of value, but he makes it valuable. And then... the thing is just a thing and he moves on to love something else.
Love relishes, it is not required.

A three year old loves to be powerful. He love to say no and pound the table and demand room on the couch. He shouts when it suits him and skillfully makes puppy dog eyes when asking for a cookie. He knows he has power because we love him, and he uses it.
Love is not shy.

A three year old hugs and kisses and rolls around with, he tickles and allows himself to be carried and swung, anyone who wants to play with him...his brothers and brothers friends and cousins and sisters of cousins, classmates and new friends in the play ground. A three year old loves freely and fleetingly. There is no sadness when the hug ends and the friend runs off to his car, never to be seen again. That was then, now is time to play some more.
Love is everyone. Love is not sad, but a moment to share no matter what, because we can.

BEING the Fun

As I drop my two eldest of at the pool for swim lessons I suck in my breath and tell myself, "Ok let's have some fun." I am gearing up for what could be another 30 minute scream session with my almost three year old. Yesterday at this time of the day was an episode out of sheer Mommy Hell Movie. Bronson just couldn't bear it that Ben and Bodee could go for swim lessons and he couldn't (just not available)and he screamed to wake the Gods. I realized standing that with my monster outside the gate drooling at the cool pool in 93 degree heat would probably not be fun for anyone, so I stupidly asked him if he wanted to go swimming at another pool. He looked at me like OF COURSE!!! and lowered the screams into broken whining and crying. I then attempted to get him INTO the swim diaper. At this point in his tantrum, sweating, red faced etc, in retrospect,I could have asked him if he wanted a bath in ice cream and he would have said no. So he said NO to the swim diaper. I took this to mean he was growing up and yes in THAT stage of potty training. Yea! Then I remember he is still screaming.

So we get in the roasting car, buckle up, with Bronson crying like I am strangling him or something, drive to the OTHER pool, unbuckle, get out, walk down the block in the glaring sun and get finally to the pool. I get in, begin to sizzle with gratitude that Bronson has stopped whining for a moment, and then he starts up again. This time he has decided he DOES want his "Diapey". He totally resists even putting his toes in the water. The car is waaaaaaay over there I think....and then realize people are watching me sit in a nice cool pool while my red faced toddler is screaming for a water diaper. Obvioulsy I am not going to drag a toddler who is screaming for a diaper into a pool and risk a huge mess. So I drag myself out of the delicious water into the heat and grumpily haul my screaming toddler back to the car. I give up on the pool. When he learns this, he screams another round of resistance, piercing my brain and puncturing any bubble of hope and patience I had left... and then FINALLY falls asleep. That was yesterday.

Today I am CREATING a different outcome, FUN, Generosity and Creativity. I say creating because I get that reacting to a situation is asking for trouble as a Mom. I can see that if I am reacting a lot,then I am being a lazy parent. I'm not creating anything. I'm tired, resentful, overwhelmed and just plain playing a victim of what I created.
So today I prepare Bronson by telling him we are drop off Ben and Bodee and that we are going for our OWN swim. I say it with glee and anticipation.I describe the Fun we are going to have. He claps and can't wait to get into his swim "diapey" and runs like a gerbil set free towards the pool shouting "Yeaaaaaaa! Fun!"

When we get to the pool we, swim, play bounce and splash together in the big pool. Then we go to the kiddie pool, his domain, and I change things up a bit ( usually we just coexist with the other pool mates) and talk to two other bright faced little girls. I invite them to play Marco Polo with us and pretty soon we are laughing and lunging through the water with utter abandon. I am a child... gleeful, giggling, sputtering, shrieking and shouting. Bronson looks at me with happiness that could lit up a city. The other little girls are fascinated with me. (Usually other people's kids and I find each other mutually and utterly boring.)And I am delighted by them. I experience a stranger's child as a treasure.

As I lay back down, floating in the water with Bronson resting his head on my heart, I sigh with fulfillment. I realize I am in the mode of creating, and it occurs to me that I usually am not. Usually I might get in to "get wet" and then get out again just so I can sit and watch the kids play. I sit on the lounge chair and MONITOR the fun. I watch the fun. I am not, like many of the Nannies or Dads, BEING the fun. I look around and see many Moms lounging and kids playing. Now, there is nothing wrong with lounging. I love to lay around,lounge, please, lounge away...and I also get that rounding out a day at the pool with a good healthy dose of getting off my butt and BEING the fun is where the real joy lies.

When Todd gets home, Bronson exclaims proudly that "I had fun at the pool with Momma!!!." I want to cry. Usually it's just "We went to the pool" or "I had fun at the pool."
I have choice to be a stay at home Mom. I choose to not have two incomes and make that work. I choose to be Mommy NEED Central, the source of filling my kids needs all day. And I choose, by being present with our children, BEING the Fun.

Love, FUN and Joy to all,
Zen Honeycutt

Kids, I give you Nothing.

I am sitting at a huge round dinner table with three of my classmates and their parents from the graduating class Parsons School of Design, 1996. We are up on the balcony, and can see below, the tables gathered around the runway, and the exciting top designers, like Tommy Hilfiger and Donna Karan that have come to support the up and coming fashion designers. We are not entirely sure why Fergie is there, but we are all in a buzz, seeing her red hair and smile amidst the sea of black cocktail dresses and tuxedos.

One at a time, they call the student winners of each mentor designer's group to the stage to accept their awards. I realize, with a sudden sadness, that all of us at the table, save one, is receiving an award. I feel awkward for a moment, sad for my friend. Then I realize she isn't sad at all. In fact, she looks genuinely happy for us. I go down to the stage, walk in tiny steps across the stage in my skin tight, electric blue, rubber dress, dizzy with joy of the moment. The "Gold Thimble Award" is a real gold thimble, the several hundred people before me are real important people in the industry. It all seems so very, very, important.
When I get back to the table, and my friend is smiling so lovingly at me, I remember that she is the only one out of all of us that actually already has a job in the fashion design industry. Several weeks before Banana Republic came to interview at our school and hired our friend Cathy on the spot. I know why, too. She is delightful. Her warm and joyous smile makes anyone feel happy and calm. She is genuine, honest, funny and always looks on the bright side.
She got the job, not just because she is a creative fashion designer, but because of who she was being.
That's what is important.

At a recent birthday party, as several Moms discussed the classes we are putting our kids into after school, french, swim, chinese, art, soccer, tennis, math tutoring etc...I was compelled to tell them this story. Because in the end, our kids will get their dream jobs,or become entrepreneurs, not because they are the smartest or most accomplished,or because of what they know, but because of who they are BEING.
We parents are the only ones who are going to actually take the time to teach them and guide them from that perspective. Teachers don't have time, with their classrooms of increasingly ballooning sizes of 36 or more, to actually coach kids on being responsible, being humorous, being a person of integrity and compassion. No, teachers, bless their hearts for what they take on, need to get to the next chapter and meet the standards set before them. If the child doesn't stop talking, or start answering, they get just consequences and move on.
We parents are the ones that need to take the time to talk with them about who they are being.

If a child has ten after school activities, when do they get a chance to just BE?
We are a culture that is so busy doing, doing, doing...sports, tutoring, games, practice, classes...what about the joy in watching them play with their stuffed animals in bed, or perform a dance or song? That's a dance or song they never would have made up had they been in soccer or Chinese school. That's a self expression that never would have been created had they been in tee ball. They are imagining, creating and developing who they choose to be...they need time, and nothing, to do that. In fact they need more of NOTHING and LESS of outside sources to create.
So kids, I happily give you Nothing today.

I am not saying there is anything wrong with after school activities. But Moms, there is nothing wrong if they are not in them either. In fact, it is just as important for them to have afternoons of NOTHING planned, including no TV or computer, so they can generate themselves. Bored? Good! Go create something! But, but...what about everyone else? Judy's kid is playing chess already, Martha's kid takes a language and three sports.
So? That's them, That's their life. My kids have their life. There is no race, there is no scarcity of time for them to learn. They will learn, they will do...I vote for them, and empower them, to just BE now.

Zen Honeycutt
www.zenspurplegarden.com