Samantha Wilde's Blog, page 6
May 31, 2012
Nose (Knows)
I kept walking through my mudroom thinking, it smells like a pile of mildewy wet clothes! I did this for two days over a busy weekend spent mostly outside working on a fence. I looked around the room for the source of the smell, but could not find it.
Today, I opened up the dryer to put in a load of clothes and--!
Someone (probably our terrible cleaning lady--a.k.a. me--...she always gets so distracted by the children!) forgot to push the ON button. There was the culprit of the stink. Just what I smelled, a pile of mildewy wet clothes.
So this morning while in my children's closet I said, it smells like a big pee in here. I had been smelling this for days and had already empited the laundry basket and looked around for what could be causiing the odor. I asked my children if someone had peed in the closet (because, you never know!). My daughter very assertively told me she knew the source of the smell, then she searched through a basket of toys and pulled out a soggy, old pull-up!
Such wisdom have I gleaned! Even if you cannot SEE it, if you SMELL it, believe it! Because it's there somewhere.
Today, I opened up the dryer to put in a load of clothes and--!
Someone (probably our terrible cleaning lady--a.k.a. me--...she always gets so distracted by the children!) forgot to push the ON button. There was the culprit of the stink. Just what I smelled, a pile of mildewy wet clothes.
So this morning while in my children's closet I said, it smells like a big pee in here. I had been smelling this for days and had already empited the laundry basket and looked around for what could be causiing the odor. I asked my children if someone had peed in the closet (because, you never know!). My daughter very assertively told me she knew the source of the smell, then she searched through a basket of toys and pulled out a soggy, old pull-up!
Such wisdom have I gleaned! Even if you cannot SEE it, if you SMELL it, believe it! Because it's there somewhere.
May 14, 2012
Well, I still want to be Michelle Duggar....
Michelle Duggar made big news again, a few weeks ago, when she outrageously, scandalously said: "The world needs more children."
The incredible response to this! The uproar, the anger, the alarm. But how could anyone aware of her enormous family be shocked by this idea? If she DIDN'T feel that way and had nineteen kids, something would be wrong. Of course she doesn't believe in overpopulation; if she did, she'd be like the rest of my friends and have one--maybe two!--children.
Here's how I see it. All kinds of people have children, people who don't want children, people who don't like children, people who don't know what to DO with children. Some children are molested, raped, abused, mistreated, used, maligned, ignored, abandoned, starved, murdered.... Other children simply suffer the usual dramas of childhood and growing up, which always includes some level of benign neglect, even if it's just that Mama can't play with you all the time because she has to do the dishes!
(I should be doing the dishes. But at least I'm blogging while my kids are asleep.)
If you see it from the Duggar perspective, the world does need more children--more children who are seen to be precious, incredible, vital, useful, gifts from God (or you may put in a more meaningful word here that you use). Michelle Duggar may be crazy, but not any more crazy than many parents I know--just differently crazy. She and her husband say that many years ago they prayed to see children they way God sees children, which, to me, is an amazing thing. It means you stop seeing children for what they can do FOR you, stop seeing them as a part OF you, stop feeling like who they are is a mere reflection of you, and see them in their own right, perfect and whole, wanted and necessary in the great world.
The point is not that there are too many children, but that there is too little love--and too little love for children. I don't mean we all need nineteen children. In fact, I am very much in favor of those who don't want children not having any! But to grow in our ability to appreciate children, to welcome them, to treat them kindly, to learn from them, to let their challenges change us into better people? That is what I understand from what the Duggars are doing. And I do believe motherhood is a spiritual practice. (Oh, how I practice, practice, practice every day!)
Sharon Lerner in her book THE WAR ON MOMS, writes, "And children are treated as something akin to puppies--cute little extras we've opted for, perhaps because we find them diverting--rather than as actual people. In what economist Nancy Folbre describes as a children-as-pets mind-set, there's little recognition of the fact that children are essential to society, or that keeping them well and ushering them into the arena of tax-paying, job-holding adulthood is in the public interest."
Two things: "children are essential to society" and "Keeping them well" is in the interest of all.
We do need more children. More children who are beloved, seen as essential, and kept well in the fullness of such an understanding, in body, mind, heart and soul, with value beyond measure, not just OUR children, not YOUR children, not simply MY children, but children of the great I AM.
The incredible response to this! The uproar, the anger, the alarm. But how could anyone aware of her enormous family be shocked by this idea? If she DIDN'T feel that way and had nineteen kids, something would be wrong. Of course she doesn't believe in overpopulation; if she did, she'd be like the rest of my friends and have one--maybe two!--children.
Here's how I see it. All kinds of people have children, people who don't want children, people who don't like children, people who don't know what to DO with children. Some children are molested, raped, abused, mistreated, used, maligned, ignored, abandoned, starved, murdered.... Other children simply suffer the usual dramas of childhood and growing up, which always includes some level of benign neglect, even if it's just that Mama can't play with you all the time because she has to do the dishes!
(I should be doing the dishes. But at least I'm blogging while my kids are asleep.)
If you see it from the Duggar perspective, the world does need more children--more children who are seen to be precious, incredible, vital, useful, gifts from God (or you may put in a more meaningful word here that you use). Michelle Duggar may be crazy, but not any more crazy than many parents I know--just differently crazy. She and her husband say that many years ago they prayed to see children they way God sees children, which, to me, is an amazing thing. It means you stop seeing children for what they can do FOR you, stop seeing them as a part OF you, stop feeling like who they are is a mere reflection of you, and see them in their own right, perfect and whole, wanted and necessary in the great world.
The point is not that there are too many children, but that there is too little love--and too little love for children. I don't mean we all need nineteen children. In fact, I am very much in favor of those who don't want children not having any! But to grow in our ability to appreciate children, to welcome them, to treat them kindly, to learn from them, to let their challenges change us into better people? That is what I understand from what the Duggars are doing. And I do believe motherhood is a spiritual practice. (Oh, how I practice, practice, practice every day!)
Sharon Lerner in her book THE WAR ON MOMS, writes, "And children are treated as something akin to puppies--cute little extras we've opted for, perhaps because we find them diverting--rather than as actual people. In what economist Nancy Folbre describes as a children-as-pets mind-set, there's little recognition of the fact that children are essential to society, or that keeping them well and ushering them into the arena of tax-paying, job-holding adulthood is in the public interest."
Two things: "children are essential to society" and "Keeping them well" is in the interest of all.
We do need more children. More children who are beloved, seen as essential, and kept well in the fullness of such an understanding, in body, mind, heart and soul, with value beyond measure, not just OUR children, not YOUR children, not simply MY children, but children of the great I AM.
February 20, 2012
I haven't blogged in a great long while, mostly because I...
I haven't blogged in a great long while, mostly because I decided I wanted to do other more fulfilling things with my time, and for whatever reason, I did not find blogging a really satisfying activity (which I know makes me uncool, unpopular and off the radar...alas!). I have always been a Luddite and it seems times haven't changed! In graduate school I refused to get an email account; I often think I might have been better keeping that committment. Real human contact is at the top of my list for what makes life wonderful; as for the written word, nothing beats a letter. If the postal service wanted me to, I'd start the campaign to bring back the letter.
So a brief reading update anyway. I've been really satisfied with some of my recent parenting reads. Here they are:
Still love to read and re-read: Mothering as a Spiritual Practice
How to Behave, So Your Kids Will To!
Children: The Challenge
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
So a brief reading update anyway. I've been really satisfied with some of my recent parenting reads. Here they are:
Still love to read and re-read: Mothering as a Spiritual Practice
How to Behave, So Your Kids Will To!
Children: The Challenge
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
July 29, 2011
I realize that, on the surface, it appears that I haven't...
I realize that, on the surface, it appears that I haven't been blogging. But, actually, I have. I write a little blog post in my head every day. And when the technology finally catches up with my post-post-post modern methods, you will be able to read them.
In the meantime, in case anyone wonders what I've been doing all these months, I want to share the pile of books I have on my nightstand. This is, of course, not what I have been doing with my time (I wish). But I thought, hey! that's a big pile of books, maybe I can blog about them....
THE WILDER LIFE
SCIENCE AND HEALTH
THE HEALIING LIGHT
THE SPA
THE WEIRD SISTERS
THE LONELY POLYGAMIST
MOTHERING AS A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
BONK
THE NINTH WIFE
THE SHALLOWS
WHOLE CHILD/WHOLE PARENT
MY MONASTERY IS A MINIVAN
YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE
THE ART OF PRESENCE
PARENTING FROM THE INSIDE OUT
THE NO-CRY SLEEP SOLUTION
No time to write...I have too much to read!
In the meantime, in case anyone wonders what I've been doing all these months, I want to share the pile of books I have on my nightstand. This is, of course, not what I have been doing with my time (I wish). But I thought, hey! that's a big pile of books, maybe I can blog about them....
THE WILDER LIFE
SCIENCE AND HEALTH
THE HEALIING LIGHT
THE SPA
THE WEIRD SISTERS
THE LONELY POLYGAMIST
MOTHERING AS A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
BONK
THE NINTH WIFE
THE SHALLOWS
WHOLE CHILD/WHOLE PARENT
MY MONASTERY IS A MINIVAN
YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE
THE ART OF PRESENCE
PARENTING FROM THE INSIDE OUT
THE NO-CRY SLEEP SOLUTION
No time to write...I have too much to read!
