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Posts Tagged ‘children’

The Big Thing

Feb 27th, 2010
by ianpeatey.
6 comments

For the last weeks I’ve been focused on other things and not been writing much. I say ‘other things’ but in reality it was just one thing.

A ‘big thing‘ nonetheless.

The ‘big thing‘ was the birth of my daughter, Sara Emma Peatey.

I’ve been overwhelmed by the welcome she’s received from those who know me through Facebook, Twitter etc.. So a huge ‘Thank You’ for that.

They say having children changes your life and, even though Sara is my third child and I was ready for that, things are definitely different around here! We are gradually getting back to ‘normal’ as we settle into sleeping, feeding and diapers. There’s not a whole lot else in these first days!

I’m going to be resuming regular service here in the next days, starting with some reflections on the birth – so look out for that!

Basically I just wanted to say I’m alive, well and enjoying watching the first days in the unfolding of new life.

Journey Of Life

I’d also like to take the opportunity to promote a workshop I’m running in the summer with some dear friends.

The workshop is deep in ‘vampire country’ in the Romanian mountains close to Dracula’s castle in Bran. If you’d like to find out more then we have a small website Journey Of Life.

It would be wonderful to have some of you join us there, and as an added bonus you would get to meet Sara!

5 Questions While Waiting For A Baby

Feb 6th, 2010
by ianpeatey.
12 comments

I’m waiting for a baby to be born. To be exact, my third daughter is due to be born around 8th February.

I know many people find it hard to get excited about other peoples’ children, no matter how cute and angelic. If you’re one of those people then you probably haven’t even got this far into the article which is a shame because it’s not really about babies and kids and stuff.

On one hand it seems like I’m in a baby limbo where everything is ready and we’re just filling time waiting. We’re ready, the apartment is ready, family is ready, birth support is ready. Even the dogs are ready.

Just no baby yet!

On the other hand, and apologies for the well worn cliché, everything happens for a reason – even if we don’t know what it is.

One thing it has allowed me is a little space to reflect.

1.   Nature Is Perfectly Designed Just As It Is

If a group of people had sat down and said, ‘Hey! Let’s create a way to make babies,‘ I doubt they could have come up with anything even close to the perfect way nature designed it.

The female body is beautifully constructed to grow, give birth to and then nurture a child. Everything is taken care of – even the feeding arrangements.

Isn’t this perfect design true of everything in nature?

We have great power to change the face of the earth and do so in the interests of making things better. We dig huge holes in mountains, mold the landscape, reclaim land, change the course of rivers, cut down forests and add to the gases in the air.

Does anything we do to the planet improve on nature?

2.   Life Is Full Of Hazard

Child birth is a major physical, emotional and spiritual experience in which new life is brought into the world. Pregnancy is not an illness and birth is a perfectly natural event.

It happens all the time.

Yet every visit to the doctor, every time we open a book on the subject, we’re bombarded with lists of all the things that could go wrong. Most people we talk to are amazed Mona wants a natural birth without any chemical pain relief.

Faced with all these birth horror stories and the fear of pain, it’s no wonder so many women elect for a planned C-section – the standard way to give birth in Romania. Can anyone really tell me that in a perfectly healthy woman who has had a problem free pregnancy that it’s better to cut open her belly and pull the baby out?

Of course things can go wrong – but that doesn’t mean I should expect them to!

Bad things can happen walking down the street but I’d never go out if I took precautions for every single thing that could befall me. It’s good to be on the look out for danger and have an idea what to do – but not to assume that the sky is going to fall on my head when I step out the door.

Have we become so fear driven we’ve numbed ourselves to the experience of living?

3.   We Could Move Things On

Mona, especially, is getting very impatient as she gets more and more uncomfortable and wanting her body back. As time goes on, the impatience and discomfort starts to outweigh any fear she might have of giving birth (though it’s my third, it’s her  first). Inside, our baby is snug and warm and as she gets bigger the ’snug’ gets to a point where she’s squeezed as she runs out of room.

Allowing nature to run its course brings both mother and child to a point – a ‘tipping point’ – where it’s time for the birth.

It’s tempting to allow the impatience to rule and forget that everything happens at exactly the right time. We could take control and move things on. We could use chemicals. We could use surgery.

Many people do.

But do we really understand the consequences when we interfere with that perfect design of nature? Do we really know the long term effects on our baby? On the mother? And without wanting to sound overly dramatic … on the entire future of the human race?

In our desire for control, do we create long term problems by interfering?

4.   Everyone wants to be involved

Everyone has an opinion on everything – from what Mona should be eating and doing, how we should give birth and even what name we should give our daughter. I suspect this is just the start and all these well meaning people will have plenty of advice for us for the next 20 years or so. I’m not talking about family and close friends – people close enough to us to know when their support is welcome and when not. I mean people who hardly know us or, in some cases, complete strangers.

It’s got to the point where we no longer answer the phone!

I take it as a sign of care and consideration but I’d love it if they could find different ways to express that.

I guess it’s no surprise when the papers are full of ‘news’ about the private lives of the rich and famous and our TV’s are a constant source of ‘reality’ shows (though not like any reality I’ve ever experienced).

Have we lost our capacity to judge when we’re welcome or not?

5.   The State Doesn’t Trust Us

We are responsible people.

Both Mona and I are well and widely educated, we don’t take parenting lightly and are quite capable to make our decisions.

We’ve researched, spoken to many people and, though this is Mona’s first, it is my third birth. Everything has gone smoothly during pregnancy. We’ve checked with doctors and midwives and there are absolutely no signs of anything other than a perfectly normal birth.

We both believe, for many reasons, that a natural home birth is the best way to bring our daughter into the world. Recognising that things are unpredictible we’d like this to be supported by a trained midwife and a hospital ready to provide back-up if needed.

The state thinks we are stupid and irresponsible. Not just us .. but everyone.

They believe that hospital birth is best and have effectively made home birth illegal. If we do what we believe is best for Mona and for our baby then we risk not getting treated if things go wrong, prosecution and (I’m guessing here) being blacklisted by the social services.

People who don’t know us are making decisions about our lives.

In what areas do we allow others to make fundamental decisions about our lives?

A World Of Deals And Exchanges

Sep 23rd, 2009
by ianpeatey.
12 comments

What happened to altruism and generosity? The sheer pleasure of giving without any expectation of getting something in return.

“Oh Ian! You’re so naive!” the cynic may cry and then quote some well worn epithet:

You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours

or

There’s no such thing as a free lunch

Well, I think it’s sad!

I noticed it very clearly yesterday evening. I went with Elena, my daughter (6), to a restaurant to meet some friends for a few hours. I was watching how easily Elena made contact with people. I think by the end of the evening she knew all the staff in the restaurant, to the point she was helping one of the waitresses serve the tables. I found it wonderful seeing her proudly take bread baskets to the customers.

Then on the way home, as we waited at the bus stop, she befriended a middle aged lady. I’m not quite sure how she did it but by the time we’d got off (coincidentally at the same stop) she’d recounted her life story to the obviously enraptured lady.

None of this was in any way exceptional to my little one, just another day out meeting people and sharing a few important stories from her life. There was no hint of a suggestion that she might want something in exchange other than the pleasure she got from smiling, chatting and helping.

It’s natural – not learned.

I’m such a proud father!

I’d like to take credit that it’s how I’ve raised her but I honestly think it’s natural. In the innocence of childhood we are not suspicious of others and wondering what they want from us. We’re not scared to smile freely and give of ourselves with no expectation of getting something back.

As children grow up they learn to behave differently. And where do they learn that?

It is us adults that teach our children to be suspicious, to negotiate for things, to do deals and to withhold themselves. It is us adults that have a hard time making effortless connection with people we meet day to day. It is us adults that transform the perfectly natural and innocent approach of our children into something more selfish and based on a mentality of scarcity.

It’s all about exchange

We’ve become so used to turning everything into an exchange we’ve forgotten the sheer pleasure of just giving without any expectation of something in return. Even as something as simple as a smile or eye contact is a free gift – yet we expect something in return.

Consider this. If you are walking down the street and a stranger approaches you or maybe just smiles at you, what’s the first thought that enters your head?

If you’re like me it’s probably something like “What do they want?”

If I turn that around, that’s precisely the same reaction I’d expect from you if I was the stranger walking towards you and smiling. I don’t like it but that thought is so deeply engrained it’s hard to remove.

Over the last couple of years I try an experiment from time to time. I make the small step of making eye contact as I go about my daily business. With shop assistants, people on the bus, walking down the street or in a café.

Try it yourself sometime.

It’s very revealing as it’s almost impossible to get eye contact with someone. Everyone goes about with their heads down and their hearts sleeping. I thought maybe it was just me. Perhaps I look a bit creepy (I don’t think so but I can never be sure) and it’s only me that people avoid. But it’s not. Everyone goes about their day to day stuff avoiding most kind of contact other the unavoidable.

And I still think it’s sad.

I don’t want my children to grow up that way.

A final thought.

After I die, will I be remembered more for what I took from the world or for what I gave to the world?

Reward! Wanted dead or alive

Jul 22nd, 2009
by ianpeatey.
15 comments

We seem to have built a world where reward in the form of  money, position, compliments and promises is an integral part of how we operate.  We reward our children for doing what we expect, employees for doing their work and the ultimate reward for living a ‘good’ life, apparently, is a place in heaven. It is so much engrained that we rarely take the time to consider if there’s any other way.

The problem with reward

Actually there are several problems, as I see it.

1   It works … up to a point

As a tool for manipulation or coercion it’s highly effective and based on a fairly primitive view of how we are as human beings. If it didn’t work I doubt it would be so common and it’s clear many people (me included!) do things to get rewarded and avoid punishment.

Just because something works doesn’t mean it’s the best way to get things done.

Once upon a time ships were powered by slaves, the Earth was flat and humans were sacrificed to appease the gods. Times change, we learn new things and gain new understanding about how the world works – including how we ‘work’.

I think it has become pretty well understood that reward works in the short term and to get aims met, rather than a more holistic motivation.

Once the reward is earned there’s no longer any forward movement and the system needs to keep feeding itself. There’s no longer term motivation and neither the means nor the goals have to be useful, meaningful or have value.

2   Fear (and greed)

Reward goes hand in hand with punishment. The two are inseparable because, even where no punishment is threatened, the failure to get a reward is a punishment in itself.

And reward often uses greed to get things done and punishment uses fear.

These aren’t the most endearing of human traits! And they reinforce the ‘ends justify the means’ approach to getting things done.

3    Power over

The whole concept sets up a reward bestower who has power over the receiver.

Bestowers of rewards include parents, teachers, employers and the ultimate bestower, God (at least as God is taught in some doctrines). Anywhere you find ‘authority’, you will almost certainly find reward and punishment operating. It is one of the tools that those in positions of authority use to keep themselves there. And in most cases it’s combined with superior power – either physical, emotional or moral.

I have 2 concerns about this.

  • whenever I respond to reward (or punishment) I give away my power to an authority figure. I stop taking responsibility and I expect to be looked after.
  • while I’m a great believer in humankind, I also realise not one of us is perfect and power has a nasty habit of becoming abused and misused.

Is there another way?

Do you believe that if rewards are taken away as a motivating tool, things would still get done?

Well, I doubt that everything you do is motivated by seeking gain or avoiding punishment. I do many things willingly, even joyfully without any external influences. Probably most of what I do, and most of the things I truly enjoy, I do because I want to and not because I want to be given something as a result.

I believe motivation comes from inside. It comes when my needs are being taken care of, when my life and the lives of others are being enriched in some way – not from the reward but from the act itself.

For example, I prepare food and wash up because I enjoy feeding myself and I enjoy cleanliness and order. I write because it gives me a sense of purpose and interaction with you. I run workshops because I enjoying sharing, learning and the community this brings me. I could go on …

The ‘reward’ (if I can call it that) is through meeting these various needs and from the activity itself. I don’t rely on anyone ‘giving’ me or ‘awarding’ me anything. If I receive money or praise then I take that as feedback I’ve done something that others have enjoyed.

This kind of motivation comes when I’m in touch with my inner drivers, my needs, my values. I don’t need external reward and I’m not putting my power in the hands of others.

And when I’m connected to this internal power of my own, I never want to use reward or punishment to get others to do what I want them to do.

Not at home, not at work and not anywhere.

What To Do With Naughty Kids

Jul 6th, 2009
by ianpeatey.
29 comments

The first thing you can do is get the concept of ‘naughty kids’ out of your head. You can surgically remove the idea of ‘good kids’ while you’re at it. I believe this thinking, that there are two types of children – one ‘good’ and the other  ‘naughty’ – is the source of more stress in families than anything else.

It’s not the children. It’s not even what children do – though for sure that can be frustrating at times. It’s our thinking about it.

I was a good kid!

In my up-bringing a ‘good’ kid was an obedient one who:

  • learned the social rules of politeness and applied them without question
  • did whatever adults asked (parents, teachers, clergy – but not strangers, especially men)
  • never complained
  • rarely asked for anything (asking for a glass of water was acceptable!).

And they grow up into good adults who:

  • maintain the ‘culture’ by following the unwritten rules of behaviour
  • do whatever authority figures ask (parents, bosses, clergy, the government, even the taxman – but get suspicious when strangers ask)
  • never openly complain, no matter how tedious, obnoxious or soul destroying the task at hand
  • rarely ask for anything (buying stuff is acceptable!).

In fact, I was a very obedient child and for a while an equally obedient adult. I still get a bit nervous around authority figures (if I pass a member of the police force I still feel a pang of guilt, even though I KNOW I’ve got nothing to hide) but I gave up being good and nice a long time ago. You could even say I tend to live a very ‘naughty’ life.

No sniggering, please! That’s not what I meant! See? Even the word has been taken and twisted around so that it’s really not ‘appropriate’ to describe myself as naughty.

I don’t know about you, but being naughty seems far more attractive than being ‘good’. At least if it means questioning everything, treating myself as at least as important as anyone else, standing up for myself and only doing things that have meaning.

Encouraging the naughtiness

As a parent, I encourage the rebellious side of my children. I can’t say it’s always easy or enjoyable and I do wonder sometimes if it’s the right approach. I’m also often fighting my own up-bringing and pressure from others. But I want my kids to:

question the world and not accept things just because I say so

hold their head up high and make decisions for themselves, not because it’s expected of them

learn how to ask for what they need in life and not suffer silently for lack of those things

be compassionate to everyone – even strangers

do everything they do because they see the meaning in it not out of fear

Everything they do is part of their learning process, and I want to respect that and be there to protect them if they go too far. To be there to help them develop a strong sense of self and a clear and deep set of values to live by.

So I’ve removed good and naughty from my vocabulary.

There is a line, of course.

And that’s where they stop valuing the people around them. That stage of ’screw you’ rebelliousness, often accompanying puberty, is a tricky path to navigate but there is a line. Naughty becomes ‘unacceptable’ when people are at risk of getting hurt in some way.

What to do with ‘naughty’ children?

Celebrate it.

It could be a sign they’re waking up and growing into happy and fulfilled adults!

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