When I think about it, following my gut has been a part of how I have always lived. I had a wonderful teacher in kindergarten. She was kind and soft spoken, she wore long floral skirts and sandals. Our room number was 17 and we had a class pet- a turtle named Ricky. I liked Kindergarten and my mom tells the story of wanting to walk me to the classroom the first day of school and I was bothered that she wouldn’t let me go alone. Each Friday, after snack and before a story, Miss K would pass out tiny paper cups of liquid flouride for us to take. I did not like this. I did not like that I felt like my teacher was handing out “medicine”. One Friday at recess, I told the other kids in my class that I would not be taking the flouride that day. I encouraged them to do the same. The plan was simple, when it was time to sip from our little paper cups, we would just quietly set down our cups and walk out to the monkey bars instead. I remember a dark haired boy asking me “Won’t we get in trouble?’ I said “Probably, but we won’t have to take our flouride.”
Imagine my surprise and delight when my plan was set into motion and a group of kindergarten students walked quietly to the monkey bars. Miss K came out and asked whose idea this was. Several fingers pointed my way. I was sent to the principal’s office. They struck up a plea deal that I could return to school if I didn’t have to take the flouride but would just pretend to do it when the other kids did. I didn’t love this plan but expulsion seemed a bit extreme.
From the time our oldest child and first son was old enough to talk, he formed strong opinions about how things should be as well. He always was, and still is, very gentle in the world. He had a sensitivity that I felt so appreciative to be able to nurture and I wanted to give him the skills to nurture that quality in himself as well. Unfortunately, our culture puts a lot of emphasis on “classic” (but now referred to as toxic) masculinity. The “Oxford American Dictionary” defines masculinity as : “qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of men. ” That is fine, albeit vague. Our friends at Oxford define man like this, “an adult human male”. For some reason we live in a culture that likes to label. “Mama’s Boy and Daddy’s Girl” are descriptors handed to children from infancy. There seems to be a positive connotation with a young girl who views her dad with a halo- the opposite is true though with the descriptor, “Mama’s Boy”. These children are often viewed as “softer” in the world, as if that is a negative. If we look back to our definition of masculinity, it is interesting that displaying adult like behavior is not only expected of young boys, it is celebrated -whereas girls are often met with sadness as they grow older. I remember the first time someone referred to him as a “Mama’s Boy”. It didn’t feel good and although T was too young to understand those words, I felt the sting of a culture being set in assigning blame or fault in children who didn’t “fit” the expectations of others. T would cover his eyes when he saw and animal dead on the road. He cried with deep sadness when things were over; Christmas, vacation, visits with family. He also created very loving connections with people around him, choosing quality time over anything else. These things are part of his make up and aspects of his person that we still treasure in him.
When he was about three I had roasted a chicken for dinner. I remember him staring at the roasted chicken in the middle of the table. “Who killed it?” he asked. “I am not sure.” I responded. “Do you think the chicken had a happy life?” he asked. “Ummm, maybe.” I answered, with great uncertainty. “Why do we get to kill things to eat?” This one I thought I had an answer for. “Well, chicken is a good source of protein.” There it was, a solid response to his question. He couldn’t argue with that. He gently slid his small dump truck plate to the seat next to him. “I can’t eat this.” The next few year, he didn’t touch meat…..unless it was a chicken in some sort of breaded form. Somehow that worked for him still. Friends laughed at me. They kept telling me that he was “in charge” and “didn’t know what he needed”. We learned a lot about alternative sources of protein those years. That is what I could do. What I couldn’t do was question my child’s objections to eating meat, he had been quite clear.
One rainy day we were crossing a busy road. T was wearing a yellow firefighter raincoat that he adored and green dinosaur rainboots. Halfway across, with a car waiting for us, T stopped. “Mama! There is a worm. We can’t leave it. It will get run over or dried out!” I gently tugged on his little hand, trying to pretend I didn’t hear him. His younger sister was in the baby sling, diaper bag on my back, shopping bags in my hand, rain falling hard on all of us. But he wouldn’t move, not an inch. “Mama! Did you hear me, we HAVE to save this worm.” I looked down at his brown curls as he was watching a worm wriggling around in a puddle. “Okay Buddy, let’s save the worm.” I reached down and scooped the worm up and carried it to the other side of the road.
T was happy and watched the worm slide into the earth under some hedges. The driver of the car rolled his passenger window down.
“Hey, did your kid just ask you to pick up a worm from the middle of the road?”
I was instantly on guard, my eyes widening as if they could scare off a predator.
“Yes, yes he did.” I answered triumphantly.
The man smiled and said “Don’t let anything or anyone change that about him.”
That night, my husband and I googled, “How to homeschool.”
They Homeschool 