Where did you get your values?

So today’s post is about being my son’s mother. As some of you know, I have a blue-haired ten year old boy named Ethan. He’s an amazing kid. He’s bright, communicative, kind, and adventurous. Today when we finished eating, he offered to take my plate to the kitchen, and asked if I wanted a cup of tea. He loves star trek and lego and nerf guns. He loves to skateboard, build things and sing. He’s wonderous. He does his chores without being yelled at (most of the time at least). He is a really special kid. I love him.

I wish I could take the credit, by being an amazing, patient parent. But I can’t. He came pre-wired to be awesome. And he’s been surrounded by a huge team of humans who care about him.

I got married when I was 5 months pregnant, at 19 years old. I was a very young mother and very naive. I tell people the truth: he was planned, yes, but not planned well. If my pre-frontal cortex had been fully developed, I would probably have known that there are reasons to wait until you’re a little older. But I didn’t know, and so I did what I did.

When I was 21 or 22 I separated from my husband. Ethan was 2 when we split up. From the beginning we decided to share our son, as close to 50/50 as we could reasonably do. It has almost always been 4 nights with me, 3 nights with dad.

Ethan’s Dad met a woman he loves, and they moved in together before Ethan was 3. The interesting thing is that the values in the homes were different at moms house and at dad’s house. Different religious beliefs, eating habits, and value systems began to exist between the households.

I think most children naturally adopt the values of their parents without having to evaluate them. Mom and dad are vegetarians, and the young child eats vegetarian. If Mom and Dad go to church every Sunday, and pray before bed, the little ones do it too.

So when Ethan came home with new and different religious beliefs than my own, I needed to figure out how I was going to handle it. He was, with all his four year old innocence and wisdom, trying to tell me why I should believe the same thing as him. It was a strange conversation that he attempted more than once.

I wanted to give him the freedom to believe whatever he wanted, because who is to say that what I believe is the truth? I have beliefs, but I know that my beliefs are based on the experiences I have had. Other people have other experiences, and believe different things. I can’t say that I am any more right than they are. So I wanted my son to decide for himself. When he asked me about my beliefs I was honest. I said “Some people believe that God created the earth, and some people believe that evolution and other things happened.” (This is very simplified because really, I was talking to a 4 year old).

He had some pretty convincing arguments, actually. But I tried my best not to negate his beliefs with my own. I admit there was some part of myself that was threatened by the idea of my child having different beliefs than me, but I figured that was better than forcing him into mine, or alienating him with my desire for him to share my beliefs. So he was given the opportunity to choose which religious beliefs fit his own. He wasn’t just handed down beliefs, he adopted his own.

His dad’s wife is a Vegan, and I eat meat. So Ethan has had the fortune of choosing, and experiencing different styles of eating. He’s a really open minded kid when it comes to food, too. When he was about 4 years old (there was a lot of discovery that year!) I had made him some chicken to eat. He was sitting at the table picking at his lunch, and this conversation followed:

Ethan: Mom, is this a chicken?

Me: ...yes, it’s a chicken.

Ethan: Where are its eyes?

Me: He doesn’t have his eyes anymore.

Ethan: (sounding worried) Where did they go?

Me: (getting squeamish) Umm. The farmer cut his whole head off and his eyes were on his head.

Ethan: Is it dead?

Me: (feeling mortified) Yes.

Ethan: Can I eat something else please?

Me: Yes!

I felt that this was quite the conversation for a 4 year old. I was entirely shocked and mortified and yet curious about his thought process, and somewhere inside of me I was laughing at the whole thing. But, that day, he was a vegetarian. He eats meat now, but often only at mom’s house. And I think its working for him. It will be interesting to see what he will eat when he’s old enough to buy his own groceries.

But I like to think that experiences like this, how he has had more than just one set of values to choose from, has made him who he is. Because we all respected his voice and his ability to choose what works for him, he is who he is. And I am lucky and thankful that he’s had such a rich life of experiences. He is a very lucky boy and I am truly lucky to be his mom.

Have you ever questioned or decided your beliefs, or have you always accepted the values that were handed to you by your parents? Do your values work for you? When did you truly adopt your values? How do you think that would have been different if you had or had not been encouraged to choose?

Loneliness

Lets talk about loneliness

Something I’ve discovered while writing this blog is loneliness. I started writing because I was lonely. And I have had many conversations with men and women who are also lonely. Being single can be very lonelyBut even being coupled can be lonely. Being a parent is lonely. No one tells you this.

I know that you’re sometimes lonely. I also know that you’re not lonely all the time. But I know, most of you sometimes feel lonely. I think loneliness is more common than we as society make it seem. They say things like “enjoy being single” but they don’t admit to how hard that can be. And they don’t say that sometimes you will be in a relationship and feel really lonely then too. They tell you everything will be perfect once you have found someone to love, and it’s misleading for the single people, and for the coupled people. The stories say that love will come to those who wait, and just garden and sing or whatever until it happens. But that’s really hard. And then love comes, and it isn’t always pretty and perfect. It’s sometimes complicated and vulnerable and sad.

We’re social beings that exist soley in the uncomforts of our own sculls. We interact and relate and seek praise and acceptance and love, but we only have access to our own, solitary minds.

So we need to acknowledge the loneliness we all feel. Because talking to other people who can say “I’m lonely too” makes the loneliness feel smaller. While we’re stuck in our own solitary minds, we really want to reach out and share a moment with another person. So share how you feel with another person. Write in a comment about how you are feeling, or respond to someone’s comment with a word of encouragement. This world, this humanity, it is lonely but we do not have to be alone.

Comment anonymously if you like (that’s the option at the bottom of the list of ways to comment and won’t require any special information or pre-existing accounts), but be sure to sign off in your comment with a name or a pseudonym, so that people can address you by name when they respond. We have a community here. Access it. Ask questions. Say hello. We have a rich resource of human beings here for you to take part in. It’s beautiful. If you comment using anonymous, be sure to hit "subscribe" to the comments so that replies are emailed to you, or just be sure to check back in to see what has been posted!

Was just reminded that this video really fits here:

Life!

Hi everyone!

I've gotten many comments wondering when the next post will be up. I'm sorry that I've left you waiting. Today's post is an informal one. I want to talk about the blog, and about what you want from it. And I want to tell you what I've been up to.

Today, I left work early to make it home in time to pick my son up from after school care. He's ten years old and I need to meet him by 6 oclock when the daycare closes. I was rushing to catch the soonest bus, and I remembered that I hadn't picked up my bus pass yet. So I was fumbling through my purse, wondering why I had to carry SO MUCH stuff in such a small bag, and saw the bus. Everyone else got on, and I was still searching for the change to pay. The driver waved me aboard, probably willing to accept what change I could find. I found the change I needed, and we were off.

Half way home I notice that the driver has not taken an important turn off towards my neck of the woods and is now on a highway headed in the wrong direction. I had apparently gotten on the 57 bus instead of the 50 bus. The visual appearance of these two buses are only subtly different (whats one digit between friends?) and yet, they are not the same.

I ended up in the middle of nowhere, waiting in the scorching sun for one of two buses required to land me at home. It was a good 25 minutes before the first bus arrived, and by this time it was nearly 6 already. I called Ethan's after school care. His Monday childcare is a licensed daycare, and they have all kinds of rules in place for my child's safety and I'm pretty sure actually for my inconvenience. Such rules as: there will be a 25 dollar late fee if you don't pick up your kid by 6:00, and then a billion dollars a minute after 5 minutes, or the "your kid cannot leave without being signed out by someone authorized on the official form" rule. So here I was, stuck in the middle of nowhere, dying in the sunshine, with my child across town being held hostage by a daycare that was going to charge me a million and a half dollars in ransom for being late.

I phoned everyone I know that lives within a reasonable proximity to the daycare and not a soul answered their phones.

Thankfully for me, while the daycare is designed with these awful (and very important safety) rules, they are also staffed by highschool kids who don't want to do any more work than they have to. So I begged them to release him into the wild to fend for himself, while I prayed that a bus would arrive and I could get home before he died of starvation or lit himself on fire.

In the end, the bus arrived and then the second bus arrived, and Ethan made it home and he knows how to work the TV so he was happy and fine. I was exhausted, and he was fine, and I didn't have to pay a million and a half extra dollars ransom to the daycare. What a day!

So I was going to write an amazing post about truth and happiness and emotions, but I thought that this would be more true to where I'm at today. Today is an unpolished post about what being a single mom is REALLY like. Sometimes it's tricky and imperfect. Sometimes I'm an idiot, and I get on the wrong bus because I forgot to buy a bus pass and end up across town and stranded. But it all worked out. I didn't burst into tears and flail myself into the street in a desperate attempt to acquire rescue, and Ethan didn't light himself on fire. I think it went well.

- KR Munro

PS. What do you guys think of this kind of post? Is this something you would enjoy once in a while? I am hoping to post frequently again, but know that sometimes I won't be perfect about it. Sometimes I'll be stuck on the other side of town because life happens. Sometimes the posts will be polished and artful, and other times they may be casual and playful, or uplifting, or who knows. But they will most likely reflect real life. Real life as a single mom isn't always easy.

Thanks for reading. I'm glad to be back.

- Kell