the good and the bad

Someone recently asked me what I thought about authenticity, in the context of how the unschooling life is depicted online. I think there is, in human nature, a tendency to depict ourselves in ways that promote the wonderfulness of our chosen life. We all want to look capable and successful. We want privacy for our flaws and foibles. We naturally feel a desire to protect our less-than-wonderful moments from the harsh judgment of others.

When we're talking about and encouraging others to understand what we love, like unschooling, it's easy to share the good and triumphant moments, and we're understandably reluctant to share the rough moments. I've always felt that's unfair to others, because sharing only from our good file can make whatever we're doing look unattainable to anyone who is slogging through the trenches. People new to unschooling sometimes reply that our kids must be easier to live with, which is unfair to their kids and ours. Some days we're all in the trenches, so it's not even fair to ourselves to pretty it up all the time.

When I share the difficult moments, I do my best to do it in ways that don't malign Gary or the boys. I don't always share everything, because as a mom, I feel a responsibility to respect my sons' privacy. The same is true for my relationship with Gary. Just like I don't complain about his flaws (no, it's not just because he's perfect), I also respect the privacy of our more personal conversations.

I don't share any bad on the family blog, and not a lot here either. I'm thinking that's about to change -- at least on this blog. The family blog address has been shared with the grandparents, and I'd rather not share my bad days with them, thankyouverymuch.

Whether I'm posting in an online unschooling forum, or talking in person with other unschoolers, when I share the things that make me look bad or petty, it's because I want to be called to task, to be reminded of my higher standards and goals. I don't want someone to tell me it's okay that I'm falling short, that my kids will forgive me or that we all fail sometimes. Still, it helps me to know that everyone fails sometimes -- not to excuse my failures and mistakes, but to let me know perfection isn't required and that I can keep trying, even when everything has me feeling like I should just give up.

I think the risk of sharing only good, happy moments is that people can become ashamed of their own ugly moments, which can result in not sharing the bad, and what's never given the light of day can't be improved. It becomes just more secret-keeping, which is crazy-making for kids. All this said, I still struggle with it today - how to keep my kids safe from prying eyes, (I'm reluctant to share my kids' bad moments because I don't want those moments to define them forever) while being honest with myself and my kids, and finding answers to our struggles -- all without ever really detailing for someone else all of our struggles... it can become a vicious cycle that increases shame.

Sometimes I need a good kick in the pants, and I count on my friends to do that for me. I've read the argument that posting about our shortcomings and failures won't help people to come to unschooling/peaceful parenting faster. Some people apparently feel that talking about failing for a moment (or several) gives the impression it's okay to be unkind to your kid or partner when you're having a bad moment/day; that if we admit that even long-time unschoolers sometimes yell at their kids (I know I do on occasion, when I'm overwhelmed) we set the standard too low. So ugly moments are seldom shared, which can leave some feeling that 'real' unschoolers never have ugly moments. Trust me, we all have them.

And maybe, I'll be sharing some of them here, when I'm feeling the need for a good kick in the pants... Now, tho, I'm off to find online info about the James May's life-sized lego house.