On Shaming Our Kids

Yesterday, a meme came across my facebook feed.  I won't share it here, because I don't want so participate in the shaming it imparted. It was yet another instance of a parent punishing a child by making them hold up a sign on which was written (presumably in the child's own hand) the child's offenses and that the child was being forced to sell an ipod so the proceeds could be donated to a charity for the prevention of bullying.

The friend who posted the meme thought it was fitting punishment.  Usually, I just hide those postings in my feed; recently I've begun hiding the person who posted them from my feed.  This friend, tho, is special. She's my favorite cousin.  She's much younger, only a few months older than my firstborn. She doesn't have any children of her own, and she grew up in a home where shaming and punishment were the preferred parenting method.  I know some of her stories; I felt compelled to say something.  Something positive and helpful, and to speak out against the damage I know shame does, especially to children.

I commented that I don't believe punishment is the best way to parent. I'm pretty sure this was no surprise to my cousin; she knows I'm not the kind of mother we had (our moms are sisters). 

If a parent feels some sort of penalty is really needed -- and really I just can't justify it -- then please, not shaming.  It may feel very gratifying -- in the moment, and in light of our culture's current rush to punish and shame seemingly for every misstep -- to be able to tell people you made your child sell their important-to-them item and give the proceeds to the charity.  It may even help to alleviate your own embarrassment and shame about your child's choices and actions. But will it really stop a child from bullying? Probably not. It will stop them from getting caught. It will push their behavior underground, or maybe delay it until they become an adult and can bully others without being punished by their parents. Until someday they are parents, and the handiest tool in their parenting toolbox is to shame your dear, sweet grandchild.

As expected (really, if no one replies, I'd have to wonder if my words made a difference) I was asked what I would do if my child bullied others, given my opinions on punishing children.  I replied that shaming people -- even people who have bullied others -- is bullying. It's no better than hitting your child as punishment for hitting other children. I'd have to ask my child and myself why my child did what he did. Why is he so unhappy with himself that being mean to others was even a choice he'd make. I'd ask my child what he was thinking, why he said what he did, how he thinks the other person feels. We'd talk about ways to make this better, to genuinely apologize to the people he'd hurt, and how to move forward.  How to be the loving person I know he wants to be; the loving person we all really want to be.
 
But before children become teenagers so unhappy they hurt others as a way to feel more secure about themselves, or as a way of lashing out and spreading their own pain around, there are better ways than shame and punishment.  Instead, we can use kindness. We can be truly present, gently helping our children navigate the world of friends and peers in kind ways, paying attention to the smaller details of smaller people learning to find their way in a big world. 

As parents, we've made it a conscious way of life to be kind -- to our children, to each other, to people our children see us interact with; to be always present and helping our children find positive ways to meet their needs.  Shaming isn't kind.
I admit it wasn't easy finding better ways to respond to my children.  I  grew up in home where shame, punishment, demands for obedience, were the order of the day.  We were publicly shamed, hit, grounded, had our personal belonging taken away from, even destroyed before our eyes.  All in the name of making us better people.  While I hope I'm a better person, a better mother, wife, and friend, I know that's not the result of the treatment I received as a child.  I'm the person I am despite the shame, punishment, and mistreatment I survived.

When I became a Mom, I was 22, badly married, and very unhappy. I was overwhelmed and didn't have any good tools to raise a child.  I had been given a toolbox filled with hammers made of anger, embarassment, and control -- desperate tools not fit for any task as awesome as raising people.  I made some missteps, and wasn't always as kind as I aspired to be, as kind as I hope I've become in my more recent years as a Mom.

I found my way because what I knew what had been done to me wasn't right. Society, tho, is full of voices telling me those tools that felt wrong were essential; that it's necessary to respond strongly to our children, and to ignore their feelings (and often our own) telling us that we're being unkind. That means I'm called to be a voice calling for kindness, a voice exposing the damage shame and punishment do to our children, and to society as a whole.

In my experience (I've been at this Mom gig for 29 years now) children do what they see others do. A child who bullies and is mean to others has been on the receiving end of meanness and maybe abuse. At a minimum, he has parents who turn a blind eye to younger missteps with friends and playmates, a parent who for whatever reason doesn't give helpful and kind advice, or maybe who gives no help at all, when the child is young and still learning the most basic social behaviors.  Often, parents don't know how else to respond to their child; they have a parenting toolbox full of hammers and shame; they feel compelled to come up with a visible quick solution so they feel less embarrassed in front of the other parents.
 

Parents who shame or punish children have children who have been on the receiving end of shame and humiliation. The children have seen firsthand that shaming or embarrassing or excluding someone has an effect - it freezes them out, shuts them up, makes them go away, and stop seeking your attention. They've seen it's a very effective tool for exerting one's power and perceived superiority over people. Or they've been mocked, insulted, denigrated and learned that it's okay to do the same to other people. Shaming and humiliating people who bully others only perpetuates the meanness. It's the authority figures becoming bullies. 

We can do better. We have to do better -- our children are counting on us.
 

Feminist Homeschooling?

Earlier today, I came across a discussion at Radical Unschoolers' Network about an article that appeared recently in bitch magazine online. The author was writing about what she called ‘feminist homeschooling’ and use the phrase 'Radical "unschooling" Moms' in the article's subtitle.

I posted a reply at RU Network. Here it is -- still no excuse, tho, to skip the network.

Overall, I wasn't really impressed with the article.

The whole topic of feminism is a challenge for me. The idea that unschooling is somehow an obstacle to feminism? I'm not crazy about feminism and the way it's presented anyway.
I'm 45 yrs old, and grew up in the days when the feminist message made it very clear that no self-respecting girl should want to be 'just a mom and wife.' Child care was beneath anyone but babysitters and grandmothers. My mother was always back to work 3 wks after having a baby.

I can see that in the 70's, feminism was very much about giving women rights to self-determination. Feminism started as a great idea -- everyone is entitled to self-determination, to find and define their own identity in the world. In that time, there was a need to help women find the power in their own lives to not be dependent on a partner who mistreats, abuses or controls them. Women didn't have any real expectation of rights to fair divorce, reasonable child support and custody or equal protection in domestic disputes. In some instances, women were denied equal access to colleges, jobs and legal equity.

As happens in so many instances, tho, feminism was more a reaction than a response. Not surprisingly, there was much anger, posturing and just general flailing about -- at times, it looked like an all-out tantrum against anything traditionally feminine. Feminism, in many ways, pitted women against children. It said women are ultimately more important than their children.

Wow, there's a message to send your children.

From the age of 10 or so, whenever I told people that the only thing I knew I wanted was to be a Mom, that I wanted to stay home with my kids, I was told I was 'too smart' to be just a Mom. Somehow being a Mom was viewed as a 'just' vocation, presumably only for lazy, not-so-bright women. Who wanted to be 'tied' to a baby?

Recently, my brother told me that he believes I'm 'not living up to my potential' as a person. I could be doing much more important things than being home with my kids, let them go to school. Apparently, spending my time with my kids isn't worth full-time effort -- it can't possibly really engage an adult full-time. Really, caring for children is so unimportant it can be done by any string of minimum-wage-paid daycare workers. It sounds to me like he thinks adults pursuing their own interests is more important than adults supporting their children in exploring the world. Oh wait -- that is what he thinks! And that may be his reality, but it's not mine.

I was bothered by this question: Can women trade their careers for their families without sacrificing a few of their feminist values - the very values that inspired many of them to homeschool in the first place?

I'm always suspicious when anyone tries to tell me how I should feel/behave/respond based solely on the fact that I'm a woman (or because I'm white, or whatever group they lump me into).

The author then goes on to talk about a Mom who worries that her economic dependence on her husband could set a bad example for her daughter. Would she prefer that the wife support the husband, or is both parents working as proof of each partner's independence the only acceptable model? Isn't the Mom's contribution of time and energy at home valuable? Is there no place in feminism for interdependence?

The idea that choosing to be at home always means we're vulnerable and dependent is offensive to me. It implies that no matter how successful a partnership is, the woman can't really trust that it will work out. Really it says women can't trust any man. That's not a message I want to send to our sons. I spent years -- decades -- getting past that message myself. My definition of a family is one where any adults involved in providing for their children need to do whatever is required to meet the children's needs. In the early years, it works best when one parent is able to be home. Being the one at home need not be a precarious, dependent position. Certainly it doesn't define one's inherent value as a person.

I understand the premise of equal rights and protections for everyone -- women, men, people of color, those of any economic class. I see it more as a call for individual rights; for everyone to have the right to find his/her own authentic call to joy and life and happiness. It's all about choice -- some women choose to have a full-time career, some choose to spend time at home with children instead. Many of us have the opportunity to spend a season of our lives in each pursuit.
I've been a single working Mom (with my child in school then), then a work-at-home Mom with one child in school and an infant at home, now I'm an at home, unschooling Mom. As it happens, I'm happiest at home with our kids. I don't feel diminished in any way by choosing to be at home with my kids. I'm not powerless because Gary earns the money. I don't feel that I'm giving Will, Andy & Dan the message that the only option for a woman is to stay home and care for the kids.

This brings me to the part of the article that really did offend me. Near the end of the article, the question was posed: What does it mean to raise a feminist kid?

Do I need to raise feminist boys? Is that the same as raising masculinist girls? Is that even possible? I'd much rather we helped our kids to embrace the ideal that every individual, regardless of sex, race or class, has a birthright to define oneself, free of titles that separate us from each other.

Is there really a feminist homeschooling movement? Wouldn't the kids be better served by a 'kid-ist' homeschooling movement?