Jesus said one word, and a dead man sat up,
but creation usually unfolds,
like calm breakers.
— Rumi, Essential Rumi, tr. Coleman Barks, p. 258
March 2009
Wednesday the boys are scheduled to visit a local private school from 8:30 to 12:30. I think sending them there would be a huge mistake.
There is a part of me that really wants to passively sabotage this…as in, not prepare the kids for their visit, not get them to bed on time, not wake them up on time, feed them the wrong kind of breakfast, etc. Then I realized — don’t bend over backward trying to make it perfect, don’t bribe, and don’t passively sabotage.
I could ruin this entirely by bribing or getting punitive about it. Tell them what’s going on, set them up for success and see what comes.
The inclination tonight is instead of fearful silence, to sit down in what I feel is right, like sitting deep in the saddle. Nonviolent protest. Allowing this weight to speak the viewpoint, and that is to be more deeply involved in the other school we're already involved in and to allow the kids to remain there a couple more years.
We can do more structured academic work to help the writing along, to accelerate the math. But to seize them out of this world we've been cultivating and put them in that totally different world: a mistake. At least at present.
Here are a few of the things I want to protect: C’s happiness (hard-won!), B’s endless reverie about airplanes, B’s obsession with drawing — these things speak deeply and resonantly: Do not touch.
We need community. We need to deepen community, to broaden our opportunities as a family to interact with other families.
I need to sit down deeper in what I can feel -- not just know, but feel — to be the truth.
I will prepare my children but not force them. I will let the right answers come, allow my own desires to surface and allow them to filter away and let the answers that are most appropriate for all concerned to come to light.
When I got the image of sitting deeper into the truth, as if on horseback, and I yielded to it, the fear left.
If truth is truth, then sit in it.
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ReplyDeleteMay I ask, since I've been out of touch for so long, is it the particular school you don't like, or just the idea of sending them to any school?
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to say that one of my goals as a parent is to trust my children and get out of their way as much as possible. I really like how you use this blog to help you do that yourself.
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ReplyDeleteWhat I meant to say was, it was that particular school.
ReplyDeletePoor old brain, always complicating things ;-)
Great post, Jenny! Is this the school that the boys are going to now? Or a school you were considering, and kept them in the one they're in at the moment?
ReplyDeleteI think any new thing we do with our kids can be frightening--each time we let them do something like ride their bike around the corner away from us, walk to a friend's house unaccompanied, etc, etc. It's terrifying to me each time, and yet allowing them to do these things makes them stronger, usually. . . But it's so hard!
Hey Cindy--we didn't go to that school. We stayed with our original plan. :-) J
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