I have a favorite recipe from The Frugal Gourmet which I have been making for years. The first time I made it, I didn’t have any green peppers as called for in the recipe, so I made it without. It was delicious, so for the next twenty years I have made it my way and been quite happy with it. In fact, when I contemplate it with green peppers in it, it just doesn’t seem right.
It occurs to me that this is somewhat how I approach life in general. But I know that it goes against rules that we seem to think are important to teach in childhood, such as:
-
Giant fruit follow the recipe
- don’t start something you’re not going to finish
- don’t do things unless you have a reason to do them
The fact is, life is full of changed recipes, abandoned projects, and aimless yet completely fulfilling activities. When it comes to raising kids, I can see that I habitually break all those rules. First of all, I am always amazed that there are parents out there who profess to follow a single parenting “theory.” You’ve got your Positive Discipline disciples, your 1 2 3 Magic practitioners, and your Attachment Parenting adherents. They will attempt to follow a theory precisely, and on message boards and in real life they’ll ask each other advice for handling a situation within the worldview of their chosen parenting guide.
In our house, however, we mix it up the way we serve raita with South Indian curry. Sometimes I’m trying to be all Positive with a kid and it’s clear that she needs a countdown: “Get off that computer 3! right now 2! or I will lower your feet into our aquarium and let the sucker fish clean your toes 1!” Or Discipline seems to be agitating rather than calming so we go for the big hug instead.
Another one of my parenting beliefs is don’t be afraid to jump ship at any time if your designated coordinates don’t fit your current needs. So say you’ve decided that your family must be trained always to put away their shoes the second they come in the house, then you realize that means that your own shoes won’t be accessible when you’ve got an armload of used kitty litter that needs to get to the garbage can. Did I really say you had to put all your shoes away? Well, change of plans.
Life is full of abandoned plans, and let’s face it, some of them deserved to be abandoned. Did I really think I liked my kids being in private school more than being able to do something fun with all that money? Did I really say that if we kept all the scrap wood from the old fence I’d help the kids build a playhouse? Did I really buy ricotta thinking I’d spend the time to make homemade manicotti? How about baked ziti instead?
And finally, some of our most fulfilling family activities are done for no particular purpose. I noticed the other day that I had two adult passes to the deYoung Museum that were about to expire, so we decided to hop over to San Francisco for the afternoon. Usually we plan ahead, find out what’s showing at the museum, call up some friends we don’t often see to set up dinner, make a shopping list of things we need at our favorite Asian groceries on the Peninsula. But this time we just up and went. We wandered through the museum split (spontaneously) into two groups. My daughter and I spent a haphazard couple of hours wandering around with her taking photos of things she liked, like the giant, glass fruit. She also decided to look for horses in every room, which necessitated that she at least look at each of the paintings. A few of the ones she appreciated didn’t actually have horses in them.
I think it’s very easy to lose a sense of spontaneity with so many things to do in our hectic world. We schedule ourselves into a corner, making sure that every activity is done the correct way, done fully, and done with purpose. Sometimes it’s really great just to wing it. Who knows? You might find a painting you liked in an exhibit you would have skipped, or you might just prefer that recipe without green peppers, after all.
I love this. I tend to be this way too, but I let those people who are adhering to a prescribed method make me second guess sometimes. Thanks for the reminder that we have to spice it up sometimes.
One thing I’ve learned is that when you try to go against your own instinct in parenting, it often backfires. So it’s great to try things out if they work for other people, but that doesn’t mean you have to subscribe to it completely if it doesn’t work for you. For example, we really wanted the “family bed” to work, but it was a complete disaster. Once they were done with a lot of night nursing, neither of our kids was able to sleep well until they were further away from us. So when people say “the family bed is best,” I respond, “it’s best for families that it works for. Our family needed to start getting some sleep!” So I say, take what works for you and happily discard the rest.