From Pandas to Polar Bears: The San Diego Zoo

We have a winner: Trekaroo just announced that the photo I took of Juliana at the San Diego Zoo won first prize in it's summer photo competition. They asked if I'd be willing to write a review of the Zoo to accompany the photo, so here it is:

By Kevin

“What kinds of outings work well with not-quite-two-year-olds?” my wife and I wondered. We often bring our daughter to parks or take her to play with friends. And Juliana loves those things. But we figured it was high time for her first visit to one of Southern California's many attractions.

Juliana plays some peekaboo near the Hippo exhibit

Disneyland will undoubtedly be fun, but the price-to-enjoyability-over-other activities-ratio seemed like it wouldn't make it worthwhile for another year or two. She'd probably have just as much fun digging in the sandbox and going on the slide at the local park. Same with just about any other amusement park we conjured up. Our then 20-month-old daughter just isn't old enough to maximize the fun factor.

But we knew she loves animals. After all, she had recently entered the phase of life in which she is grabbing hold of every opportunity to name her world, particularly, every giraffe, horse or cat that pops up in her picture books.

So when our friends and their three daughters mentioned that they had a San Diego Zoo membership and were planning to make a trip, it didn't take us long to figure out where we should go.

The 100-acre zoo was fantastic. It's easy to see why the San Diego Zoo is generally considered one of the best zoos in the world. Although it is home to more than 4,000 animals and 6,500 plant species, the habitats are spacious. The animals are easy to spot and well-cared for.

Giant Panda Bai Yun gnaws on some bamboo

One of the highlights – given our connection to China – were the panda exhibits – one of the few exhibits at the zoo you have to wait in line to see because of their popularity. As we entered the line, I was excited that one year of Chinese studies meant I could actually read the Chinese characters for the panda's names, written at the entrance. Of the zoo's now four Giant Pandas (a baby was born just after we visited in July), we were able to see two: 白云 (Bai Yun or White Cloud) and 高高 (Gao Gao or Tall Tall). Unfortunately, we arrived while Gao Gao's cage was being cleaned, so we had to wait about ten minutes for him to arrive back in his cage. Then we only had a few minutes to snap a few photos before being urged on to make more room for other visitors to get a glimpse of the black-and-white bear as he lazily gnawed on sticks of bamboo.

Juliana gazes at an orangutan

Our daughter also loved other exhibits. She gazed adoringly at the orangutans. She eagerly pointed out the giant elephants. She giggled at how much bigger the giraffes are in person than in her picture books. She smiled as colorful birds whizzed past in the spacious aviaries, then picked up the tropical leaves that had fallen onto the walkway.

Orangutan rests between swings

She particularly enjoyed the polar bear and hippo exhibits, which allow you to look at the animals from multiple vantage points – both below the surface, through a giant aquarium-like window and above it. There's also a small play area which a hippo statue outside the hippo exhibit, which Juliana eagerly explored, popping her head from behind a tree in a game of peekaboo.

It didn't hurt that the polar bear exhibit was also surrounded by faux-ice caves for kids to play in. Juliana followed her older friends in and soon was emulating them as they popped their heads out of “holes” in the “ice.”

Juliana pops her head through the "ice" at the polar bear exhibit

Previously, every time she saw a bear in a picture book, she called it a dog. On the ride home, she was identifying them correctly, also adding words like “snake,” “rhino,” “panda” and “zebra” to her vocabulary.

I can't find much to fault about the San Diego Zoo. One slight negative, however, is that it is a bit tricky to navigate the hilly terrain with a stroller. Thankfully, the zoo has installed moving sidewalks that weave up and down along the hills, making it a breeze to climb them if planned out correctly. The Skyfari aerial tram is also helpful for seeing the polar bears. However, since we couldn't bring strollers on the aerial tram, we didn't explore much further than the zebra exhibit in that section of the park.

Families planning a trip to the zoo can save money by purchasing zoo memberships. Members are entitled not only to unlimited entrances to both the zoo and the San Diego Safari Park (formerly known as the Wild Animal Park) for a year, but they also receive a pair of “Super Discount Admission Coupons” to use on guests (which reduce the gate price to $15, making them worth $27 if used on adults or $17 for kids). They also get a subscription to the ZOONEWZ magazine and several other discounts. Through a deal available to California residents, we bought a dual membership, which covers two adults from the same household for $109 (a single membership is $88). Since my parents were also along for the trip, buying the membership was a no-brainer.

Regularly, adult tickets are $42 apiece. Children ages 3-11 are $32. Admission for younger kids is free, so when you factor in the discount passes, buying a dual membership is much less expensive if four or more adults are going together. Since four $42 tickets would cost $168 and the total cost of a dual membership plus two $15 “Super Discount Admissions” comes to a grand total of $139, it saves money from the getgo (for two adults and two kids it would actually cost $148 – making it slightly more expensive to buy the membership). And, on top of that, we can go back again for free. Additionally, parking is always free at the zoo.

However, a potentially even better deal is on the horizon: Kid's Free Days. In honor of the Zoo's founding, from Oct. 1 through 31, 2012, kids ages 3-11 will get free admission when accompanied by an adult. However, tickets to use the guided bus tour and Skyfari Aerial Tram (which are included with other ticket fees) cost extra.

Another way to save a few bucks is to bring your own food and water. Yes, the San Diego Zoo is one of the few amusement parks that actually allows you to bring your own food. And when you're pushing kiddos around in strollers, it's easy to pack meals for the whole family.

To Graciously Receive

I sort of shoved her out the door.  

I had just given our ayi (babysitter) a summer bonus.  We would be gone over the summer, but it wasn't her fault we were taking away her work for almost two months.  I knew she would reject the money if I gave it outright, so I put it in a red envelope, specially used to hold gift money, hearing that it was impolite to refuse a red envelope.

It was the day before we were flying back to America and when ayi came to watch Juliana one last time, I reminded her that we would be leaving tomorrow.  Unfortunately, she looked surprised.  "You will leave tomorrow??"  Hmm, perhaps that communication didn't go through as clearly as we thought.

I knew we had better wait until the last minute to give the bonus since every month she argues about the salary.  When she started working for us and our teammates in the spring, we set what seemed to be a fair salary, the high end of average for this area (about $2.50/hr).  But apparently our children have been such a joy to watch that ayi feels like she is being paid too much.  Or something along those lines.  Though we give her a flat monthly salary, if she ever misses a day (usually if we are gone or have a holiday), she tries to return part of the salary.  It's a very perculiar problem and not quite your usual bargaining!  "Take the money!  We already agreed on your salary!"  "No, it's too much.  Pay me less!"

In reality, she is already getting paid less because she works much longer hours than we hire her for.  Technically she comes to our house 2hrs each weekday afternoon, but she usually arrives about 20 minutes early and leaves 30 or even 45 minutes late.  While the weather is good, she takes Juliana outside every day to play.  The first time she brought her back at 6:40 instead of 6pm, I was a little worried; now we know to expect it.  By the end of the week, instead of the agreed 10 hours she has worked at least 15.

She is a pretty private person so we know very little about her homelife other than she has a grown son.  Perhaps now that her son is out of the house, she doesn't like being home alone.  Her husband must either work long hours or be the one who cooks dinner since she doesn't usually get home until about 7pm (and Chinese people usually don't eat late).  At any rate, she is never in any hurry to get home.

We are certainly glad to have such a willing helper who loves playing with Juliana and tries to help us out however she can.  We wanted to show her the we appreciate her, and we wanted to make sure she would have income to get through the summer.  Thus the money in the red envelope.

I slipped the envelope in with a cute picture of Juliana (a bit of distraction) and passed it off to ayi just before she left.  She thanked me and headed home.  Excellent - our plan had worked.

Not two minutes later there was a knock on the door.  "This is too much money!  I can't take this!"  It had seemed a little too easy.  I assured her that we really wanted to give it to her and this was the point that I more or less shoved her out the door saying, "Take it!  Take it!"  She left, I felt successful.

Of course we did not have the last word.  The next morning, as we prepared for our afternoon flight back to America, ayi showed up at our door with large bags full of presents - local specialties, meat, rice cakes and sweet breads for Juliana.  Between gifts for us and our teammates, she had spent at least half of her bonus.  Foiled again.  But now she was very happy.  Chinese people generally love giving gifts.

It reminds me of Spring Festival when we gave our last ayi a holiday bonus and ended up with a large, expensive toy car (except this time our ayi was happily able to continue working for us).  Sometimes you just can't win.  Sometimes the best gift you can give is to graciously receive someone else's generosity.

Which is why tomorrow, despite our protests, ayi is bringing us a roasted duck.       

Home

The first couple of years after I came to China, I remember people returning after the summer talking about how nice it was to "be back home."  I thought they had to be making it up, wanting to look cool and well-adjusted, because obviously this was not home.  I didn't return with home-like anticipation - my thoughts were more along the lines of, "Why did I come back??" 

Over time, though China has become increasingly more normal, more homelike.  The past few summers upon returning to America I think, "It's so strange here!  So normal and yet so strange.  I kind of want to be back in China where everything is familiar."  I have a similar feeling when I come back to China - I suppose it's only natural to feel a slight disorientation when jumping across the world.  I notice all the stares and remember how foreign I am.  I stumble over the simplest Chinese phrases.  I remember how ugly that bathroom tile is and see those roaches I managed to put out of my mind.  But after a few days, the strangeness fades and life goes on as normal.  We are surprisingly adaptable. 

What actually bothered me this summer is how easy it was to adjust to America, and more particularly an American mindset I hoped to leave behind.  After the initial strangeness, America is so pleasant. It's so clean and pretty and people eat so much cheese.  It's so normal.  You almost forget that most of the world isn't like this. 

It is easier in China for me to look in my closet and think, "I have so many clothes!  Especially since I wear the same things over and over again anyway..." but it didn't take long for me to think, "But wouldn't a new shirt be awfully nice?  It's not all about necessity.  Aren't I entitled to some variety?"  It was easy to envy other people's beautiful bathrooms (including almost every public bathroom I went in) and think, "It sure would be nice to have a bathroom that was so pretty like this."  It was easy for the big houses and the cars and all of the daily wealth to seem so normal.  It was easy to compare myself to other Americans, to think of the luxuries I rightfully "deserve."  The rest of the world seemed far away. 

That is not to say that everyone who lives in America is selfish and unmindful of the rest of the world, but I think I could easily become that way, when the rest of the world isn't constantly getting in your face and forcing you to see a small taste of what "normal" really is. 

I really like America, and it will always be my home.  When I got married I felt sad because I thought I had to give up the sense of home I felt in my childhood Georgia home.  I was afraid I would never have that security of my own home.  But now I realize that home isn't just one place.  It is my parents' peaceful country home.  It was the Pasadena apartment for those 8 months after we married.  It was the Weinan apartment where we got to live for three years, where Juliana spent her first year.  It is our comfortable 6th floor apartment where we get to live for one more year.  Instead of having no home, I actually have home everywhere I go.  In fact, few people will get to have as many homes as I do. 

I miss my home, but also, I'm glad to be home.

Small Steps toward Natural Living

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been thinking a lot about how to live more simply.  I have been wanting to take steps toward more natural living as well, and I think the two can definitely be related.

I find living simply to be difficult because it involves not having everything you want and stepping out of the comparison cycle.  But in general simple living seems pretty...simple.  It's easy to figure out what to do; it's just hard to follow through with it.

Living more naturally, however, seems a lot more challenging.  When I read about eliminating processed food or canning I think, "Oh man, that sounds like so much work!  That's anything but simple."  This is perhaps because I have been confusing simple with convenient, when they really aren't the same thing at all.  Many of the choices we make for convenience are because our lives are so jam-packed we don't have time/energy/money for simplicity.

I hadn't thought too much about natural living until recently.  Really it is through reading "natural parenting" blogs and information that I also came across a lot of people interested in natural living as well.  I guess it makes sense.  But while my natural parenting tendencies seemed to come naturally, other natural choices have been more of a struggle.  Probably because I really love convenience.  And I really love boxed Mac N' Cheese.

I also find natural living to be rather overwhelming.  People talk about growing their own foods, home-making condiments, avoiding processed flour, or using solar power and I think, "I don't know how to do those things!"  I tend to pick up on the slightly more bizarre ideas ("Ooh, cloth toilet paper!  That's such a good idea.").

Some things are trickier in China. When it comes to food, I have no idea where our meat comes from.  I know our milk is local, but I wouldn't be surprised if the cows and chickens are pumped full of steriods, antibiotics, and hormones. We buy all our fruits and vegetables from the small sellers at the vegetable market.  They could either be organic, covered with pesticides, or grown with "humanure." I really don't know and I have very little control over it.

Some things are easier in China.  It's easier to stay away from pre-packaged foods because there aren't as many.  I love the convenience of a can of cream soup, but when you can't get it you discover it's not too hard to make a close-enough approximation.   We can buy local honey (probably from the bee-keeper just down the street) and local yogurt, although it includes plenty of sugar.

So between the things I can't do, try to avoid doing, and aren't sure about, living naturally can seem overwhelming.  Therefore, I have been trying to think about small steps I can make to live a healthier, simpler, more natural life.  Just because I will never live on a self-sufficient homestead doesn't mean I should give it all up as a lost cause.  I think once I start making some small steps in the right direction, some bigger changes will be easier to put into effect.  Here are some small things I'm doing:

- Making some of my own bread - less processed, no preservatives, and more whole-wheat flour than the vaguely-wheat bread we can buy.  And it's really surprisingly easy.  The rising and cooking take a while, but that actual hands-on time is 15-20minutes.

- Made reusable produce bags.  I always use reusable grocery bags (or rather, I usually put everything in a large backpack to carry home) but we collect tons of small produce bags since we buy small quantities of produce every few days.  I bought a $1.50 sheer curtain from Goodwill and sewed up some quick bags.

-Cooking with more tofu and beans and less meat.  I like meat and don't think meat is essentially unhealthy.  I just think we tend to rely on it too much.  Also, tofu is about 1/5 the price of meat (at least in China) and beans are much cheaper as well.  As students, this has become more important to us.  When I do cook (which I'm trying to do more of - baring this summer when I'm doing NONE!), I try to use less meat and add more veggies instead.

-Plan to use cloth diapers next time around.  I really hated how many bags and bags of diaper trash we went through.  It's not at all hard to imagine filling up the world's landfills when you see how much trash is produced from one child in diapers.  I also dislike how much we spend on diapers every month!

-I've started using vinegar as a household cleaner.  Vinegar has natural antibiotic properties (and the smell goes away when it dries).  I have still used bleach for some things (like persistent mold), but I'm glad to be inhaling a few less chemicals.

-I just bought my first Dr. Bronners all-natural soap.  It is organic and fair-trade with natural scent.  It's also very concentrated so a little bit lasts a long time.  It has a large variety of uses but mostly I'm planning to use it just for soap.

Now I'm not saying, "Yay me, I'm so progressive and I can't believe you still use soaps with chemicals and eat store-bought bread."  (snooty nose sniff).  I'm not trying to brag or act miss-natural-ier-than-thou.  Partly because snooty people are abnoxious and partly because I'm not very natural at all.

For example, I really like drinking coke even though I know full well it has no redeeming qualities (except caffeine, which I do consider a redeeming quality).  In fact, I have a weakness for all kinds of processed sugar.   I definitely ought to cut my sugary/corn-syrupy calories down again.  I also just bought a tablet computer, and even though its to replace my old laptop, I'm pretty sure there is something in the definition of "tablet computer" that says ("Warning: This product is 100% not natural and guaranteed to make your life less simple.  It will, however, make Facebook that much more accessible.")

So it's a work in progress.  Hopefully next year I can tell you about more natural choices I'm making.  What are some things you do to live more naturally?

Simple Abundance

Yesterday I was reading two different magazines proportedly about "simple living."  One was Real Simple.  I like this magazine because of the pretty pictures (I mean, advertisements) and occassional clever ideas, although it has gotten a bit more pretentious in recent years.  Real Simple included articles about making more time in your schedule, organizing your over-full closet, redecorating your living room, and the perfect bargain shirt (only $100!) for your figure.

I was also reading Mother Earth News.  It talked about growing your own vegetables and how to find deals at the local farmers market.  One article was about how to live in a "tiny home" (these were less than 600sq feet) and another about using solar power. 

I was struck by the difference of these two magazines: One telling how to simplify your life while hanging on to your wealth.  The other telling how to live well with less.

One thing that has stood out to me this summer is the overabundance in America.  Not the American rich but "normal" middle class America, even people who feel like they are hurting.  I can't get over the average size of our houses.  The multiple family cars.  The giant closets full of clothes.  Basements, closets, and storage units for all our extra belongings.  The Chinese middle class would never dream of so much stuff.

It's been easier to live more simply in China.  We have a comparatively small apartment and don't have room for extra storage.  Moving every few years forces us to "purge" a lot.  We don't have (and don't need) a car - we can bike almost everywhere we go.  We buy very few non-consumable items during the year.

Even so, it's frustratingly difficult to live simply.  I came to China with two suitcases and after two years, gave away a bunch of stuff and still shipped 5 boxes.  After a year in the States, Kevin and I came back with 4 suitcases.  Three years and one baby later, we shipped 25 boxes to our latest location.  Where did all this come from?  How do you accumulate so many things without even realizing it?

I've been realizing that it's easy to live a China life with an American mindset.  It's easy to feel that the abundant American lifestyle we are used to is normal, even though it is anything from normal in most of the world.  It's easy to feel entitled to matching towels, cool baby toys, or a dryer, as if wealth is our birth-right.  A change of mindset and a broader perspective are a necessary start.

This past year and especially this summer I have been increasingly challenged to live more simply and and more naturally.  I have also been encountering a theme of generously, which I think is certainly related.  I don't want to simplify so I can be more comfortably surrounded by my wealth.  I don't want to simplify just for my own sake.  By simplifying my life, doing without a little of the "normal" abundance, can I help someone else live a better life or maybe just have the chance to live?

California

When I first came to California with Kevin five years ago, I wasn't sure what the big deal was.  I was about as impressed as Kevin was by August in Georgia (he wondered why in the world people live there).  It's desert.  The "trees" Kevin pointed out are more like tall scruffy bushes.  I thought that a lake was supposed to be a body of water, not big expanses of sand like the "dry lakes" around. The rivers are dry most of the year too.  The yards were dirt or rocks (and everybody knows a yard is supposed to be grass).

While I still like trees (real ones), grass, and rivers with water, I have come to appreciate the desert.  For one thing, you can actually see the sky.  Not a tiny patch of sky in between the trees, but a full expanse of sky from east to west.  Kevin's parents' house is situated in the foothills, so it looks out over the whole valley.  They have a view of fabulous sunrises and sunsets and a whole sky full of stars.  We are surrounded by mountains, a couple of hours away from numerous beaches, and near major airports (important in our life), plus we get to have In-n-Out and a lot of good Mexican food.

In our post-marriage California year, I also had to adjust to a more relaxed west coast approach to life. I don't really know if it's California in general or just Kevin's group of friends, but it took me a while to realize the social protocol was a little different.  When I hung out with friends, I usually felt like there was a general time frame for our time together.  If we had lunch together I assumed we would part ways by mid-afternoon.  If we were going to hang out at night, we probably wouldn't get together until at least dinnertime.

So I was confused when we went over to Kevin's friends house at 11am and were still there at dinnertime.  By 9pm I started saying,"Don't you think we should go?  They probably want us to leave now.   They have kids and all."  Kevin didn't understand why I was so eager to leave.

Once I adapted my expectations, I found that I really liked this approach to friendship - casual involvement in each others lives with no set time frame.  I realized they really weren't looking at the clock, eager for us to leave.  I started to feel a little disappointed when my friends would leave after 2 hours.

Now when we hang out with Kevin's friends, who aren't really "Kevin's friends" anymore, I know we'll probably be there for eight hours or maybe twenty-four.  Since it's no longer practical to stay out until 1am, we just bring Juliana's bed and spend the night.  We never get much sleep but it's lots of fun.  Eventually I say, "We should probably go home..." and then we leave five hours later.

Maybe we couldn't do this all the time, but it works great for summer when we have more freedom of schedule and want to spend as much time with friends as we can.

Today is our last day in California this year.  I guess if we miss it too much we can head to the mountains outside of Yinchuan which looks almost exactly like Southern California.  The abundance of Mexican food and good friends, though - that's harder to come by.

Juliana's American Adventures

We're back in the States! Actually, we got back a week and a half ago, but my great blogging plans have fallen to nothing. The trip went smoothly. We thought we'd miss our flight to CA, but after running through the BJ airport, we arrived before the flight even boarded. Juliana slept about 7 hours of the 12 hour flight and spent the rest of the time watching Shawn the Sheep cartoons and saying, “Airplane? Airplane? Airplane!” at least 500 times.

Since arriving at Kevin's parents, we have been busy visiting friends, reading library books, preparing to talk about China, helping Juliana play with all her new toys, buying out the 99 Cent Store... Our time in California is flying by, and we are working hard to arrange all the activities we still want to do like camping, visiting a children's museum, seeing lots of relatives and friends.

With Kevin's Opa on 4th of July - I'm in my blue Thai shirt, Kevin's in his red Cambodia shirt, and Juliana's red, white, and blue outfit was a gift from our Chinese tutors!  Very patriotic.

It's interesting to see the US through Juliana's eyes. After we got to California we took a walk down the country dirt road outside of Kevin's parents' house. When Juliana started getting tired she said, “Taxi? Taxi!”

Juliana has been having a great time just walking around in a big house. Nana bought her a little dolly stroller, and she has spent hours just walking her dolly around and around the house. She also loves walking right the door to get outside – no bother with six flights of stairs. She is used walking outside and seeing tons of people, though. She finds the birdy and doggy sounds interesting, but I think she wonders where all the people are. She does not appreciate car-seats, however, since her only experiences with them have been a few months in the States. She keeps saying, “All done? Stuck! Stuck!” It's hard to explain that being “stuck” is the whole point.

Mid-splash

In general, Juliana is having lots of fun with her Gramps and Nana. She has lots of new toys to play with and a whole new house to explore. She also has new friends. When we spent a day with our friends who have three young daughters, I've never seen so little of Juliana! She was so busy playing and being entertained by the older girls she hardly had time to notice I was there.

She is not really enjoying her new sleep arrangements, though. She is still afraid of falling asleep in a strange place, so we're back to holding her until she falls asleep and the sneakily slipping her into the crib. Jetlag was not kind to her – the first few night she was up for 4 hours in the middle of the night. The past few nights she has slept through the night again (yay!), or woken up briefly, but she is still resisting falling asleep at night.

Juliana stares down a hippo

Our most exciting outing was to the San Diego Zoo. It was a long day – 9 hours walking around the zoo and 5 hours in the car, but the zoo was great. Juliana was excited to see all the animals she's seen in books, and she learned how to say “panda” and “polar bear.” She was mesmerized by the polar bear and hippos playing in the water just inches away.

I have plans to blog more as the summer progresses, but I guess we'll see what happens...

Water, Water Everywhere...Except in our Apartment

Just one more week until we are back in America! Never before have I been so excited about the luxury of having running water all day long. Of course, I haven't before been in a place where the water is off about 18 out of 24 hours. Imagine being able to flush the toilet and wash your hands any time! Juliana can paint and play in the dirt and do messy activities because we can actually clean her up afterward. Kevin can take a shower when he gets back from playing sports all hot and sweaty. We won't have to plan ahead to get the laundry and dishes done in the short “water windows.” If our child should throw up in the middle of the night, we can actually clean her up (unlike last week when we had no water).

Juliana's idea of a fun playtime

After a couple of months of this, we are getting better at filling up basins and jugs so we can wash hands and flush toilets during the day, but if we forget it's a real pain. Usually we have water from 7-8am, 12-1pm, 6-7pm, and about 9-11pm. We have finally been remembering to fill up Juliana's tub with water before dinnertime so we can give her a bath before bed. After playing outside every afternoon in the heat and dirt, she definitely needs it! Laundry is trickier. I have to remember to put it in as soon as the water comes on so it can finish before the water turns off again. Our washer may be small but it takes forever to fill up! Fortunately, it's so dry here that we could hang up laundry at 9pm and it would probably be dry by bedtime.

We live in on the edge of the desert, so if our lack of water was due to actual water shortage, I wouldn't mind it so much. Saving water is a good thing, and nothing helps water conservation like not having any water to waste! However, our water is not off because of water conservation. It is only consistently off during the springtime, and it's because they are busy flooding the grass. Not watering – flooding.

The typical “watering” method seems to be: Place an extra-large hose on one spot in the ground. Eight hours later, move hose to a new location. It makes no sense to me. And yes, sometimes when I see all that nice water making a mess out of the ground, puddling on the sidewalk, and forming lovely mud playgrounds for children, I'm a little bitter that we can't wash our hands.

Our friends in another neighborhood have had similar water issues, but some in a third neighborhood always have water, so it seems to depend on where you live. My tutor said the water is always off in their dormitory as well. “It seems strange,” she said. “The grass gets lots of water but the people don't have any!”

(I know you are on the edge of your seats for all of my stunning parenting wisdom in the posts I mentioned before, but those will have to wait until after finals, which I am obviously busy studying for...)

This is Christian Parenting?

As I mentioned in my last post, most parenting decisions are not worth the division they often cause, but I feel there are a few definite exceptions. I have recently been reading about some teachings of “Christian parenting experts” Michael and Debi Pearl that I find deeply disturbing. I have not read their book, To Train Up a Child; I had heard of it before but didn't know much about it. I usually don't like to make judgments about something I haven't read since I don't want to take things out of context. However, after having read a number of direct quotes from the book and website, and I cannot think of any context in which I could consider them acceptable.

For example, in their book the Pearls recommend spanking babies under one year old to train them, giving an example of switching their 4 month old daughter!

At four months she was too unknowing to be punished for disobedience. But for her own good, we attempted to train her not to climb the stairs by coordinating the voice command of “No” with little spats on the bare legs. The switch was a twelve-inch long, one-eighth-inch diameter sprig from a willow tree.

In another particularly disturbing quote related to the philosophy and goal of “training up” your child, the Pearls say:

“However, if you are just beginning to institute training on an already rebellious child, who runs from discipline and is too incoherent to listen, then use whatever force is necessary to bring him to bay. If you have to sit on him to spank him then do not hesitate. And hold him there until he is surrendered. Prove that you are bigger, tougher, more patiently enduring and are unmoved by his wailing. Defeat him totally. Accept no conditions for surrender. No compromise.” (Emphasis added)

You can read further examples here.

I find these teachings deeply troubling on many levels. In fact, I felt physically ill as I read. It would be bad enough if these were the teachings of a strange cult, but the Pearls' book has sold over 670,000 copies, and they have a website and magazine publication as well. In 2010 they said on their website that “one out of every 75 Americans have been introduced to our ministry.” Somehow these ideas have been accepted as good Christian parenting.

While I mentioned that we do not plan to spank, I do not think that all spanking is physically or psychologically harmful. I was spanked (though not much) as a child, and I don't think it caused me any  lasting harm. I am just not convinced it is a necessary part of discipline, the best method for our family, or “the Biblical method.” Maybe I will talk more about that later. Fortunately, most of the parents I know who spank (the majority of the parents I know) do not practice the extreme methods as outlined in the Pearls' teachings.

If you do follow their teachings, I'm sure you are offended by my attack. I generally don't like to offend, even through the internet, but in this instance I am very offended by your parenting. I don't believe this falls under the category of “personal differences in parenting;” I believe it is harmful and wrong.

I am ashamed that teachings such as this are equated with Christianity. Not only are they harmful to children, they seem to completely ignore the grace and mercy that God shows toward us in favor of continually reminding children of their sinfulness and their need to earn good standing with their parents and presumably also with God.

“The parent holds in his hand (in the form of a little switch) the power to absolve the child of guilt, cleanse his soul, instruct his spirit, strengthen his resolve, and give him a fresh start through a confidence that all indebtedness is paid.”

I have been thinking a lot lately about what Biblical parenting actually means. It is clear to me that these teachings are not truth, but what does it mean to parent Biblically?  I plan to write more of my thoughts on this, even though I know I am no expert!  

After reading some of the Pearls' disturbing teachings, I saw these verses in my daily devotional (Daily Light):

* He arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.

* The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him.

* You received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

* You who were once far off have been made near by the blood of Christ. Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

(Luke 15:20; Ps. 103:8-13; Rom. 8:15-16; Eph. 2:13, 19)

What wonderful reminder of the kind of God we serve and the grace that we can reflect in our parenting!

Getting Past the "One True Way" of Parenting

There are a lot of things that bothered me about the now infamous Time's breastfeeding cover. It wasn't the woman nursing her three year old. It was the sensationalism, the obvious attempt to get a good rise for the sake of money making. It was the stupid caption, “Are you mom enough?” - what does that even mean anyway? It was all the ensuing comments – a lot of judgment on every side, a lot of ignorance, and a general negativity toward mothers of all types. Somehow public controversy really brings out the stupid in people.

I didn't read the actual Times article (you have to pay for it), but there were about 5000 articles, blogs, and random, unrelated people talking about the article (for free), so I read some of those. Some I appreciated and some that made me angry, but today I read a related article that I really, really like.

“Parenting websites, Facebook pages and forums are consistently bogged down with people debating the right and wrong way to parent...sometimes there's even a bit of smugness or nastiness, as AP parents take the moral high ground over bottle feeding cot users, who in turn accuse the AP'ers of being enslaved to their kids.

If we try to cut through all this, what really matters? If we look at what we as parents are actually trying to achieve - healthy, happy adults...what is really absolutely crucial to healthy child development, is not 'Attachment Parenting', but 'Responsive Parenting.'” (click here to read the rest - it's good!)

I consider myself to practice “moderate attachment parenting.” This means that most hardcore Attachment Parenting people wouldn't consider me AP at all, while many people who make more conventional parenting choices think I'm a little “out there.” It's a wonderful place of being too weird and not weird enough.

To give you some examples, I had a natural birth with a midwife in a hospital. I am still nursing Juliana at 21 months, but only twice a day. Juliana slept in our bed part-time for most of the first year, but now we are all happy with her in her own room. We felt strongly about not leaving Juliana alone to “cry it out” even though she woke up 3-39843x a night the entire first year. When we were once again up with her for hours every night at 18 months though, we decided it was time to let her cry (which by that point she did surprisingly little of). We have four different types of slings and baby carriers but in recent months I almost always use a stroller. We didn't put Juliana on a schedule as a baby, but she gradually developed a pretty consistent routine, and we put her to bed whether she thinks it's time or not. We lean toward “gentle discipline” principles and don't plan to spank (which is not the same as no discipline).

While I have made each of those decisions because I think they are important and work best for our family, I don't think everyone should do things the same way as me. Okay, sometimes I do, but I really try not to! There are some parenting decisions that I honestly think are terrible and potentially harmful, but most don't fall into that category.

It's easy to obsess about the specifics and say, “you MUST do things THIS WAY to be a good parent.” Some AP people say you must sleep with your baby, only wear your baby in a sling, breastfeed for years, etc., etc. or you are neglecting your children. Some popular parenting philosophies say you must put your baby on a schedule from birth, they must learn to sleep on their own, they must be spanked, etc., etc., or you will ruin them for life.

These decisions are important, but when it comes down to it, the most important thing is loving responsiveness to your child. Knowing your child's personality and developmental level and individual challenges and abilities. Parenting should be thoughtful – and we should spend a lot more time examining our own parenting instead of others'. There are good parents and bad parents represented in every style of parenting, and most people I know really are good parents and really care about their children.

I want to be less judgmental. I want to remember that each person's situation and children are different, and I don't know the specifics of why they make the choices they do. I want to stick to my convictions about what is best for Juliana and our situation while also being flexible and knowing I might change my mind. I want to be tuned in to Juliana, not expecting her to be like other people's children or like a small adult. I want to be confident in my parenting, not trying to measure myself with others. I also want to be humble and learn from people who have a lot more experience than I do. And mostly, I want to be loving.

'While children need food, sanitation and access to health services to survive and develop optimally, a warm and affectionate relationship with an adult caregiver who is responsive to the child’s needs is equally important' and that responsiveness is 'parenting that is prompt, contingent on the child’s behaviour and appropriate to a child’s needs and developmental state.' - World Health Organization