Sunshine in February

I sit in undying gratitude that I was brought up to believe that small children are best left to their own happy devices out in the mud and chicken shit, chattering to hens and inventing worlds with pebbles, while mothers sit and write. Or draw. Or think. 

Well done, Mom. 

I can see how some would criticize it as a type of detachment parenting -- the polar opposite of the symbiotic closeness of the baby days, where I wore my children on my body and fed them that way too, reading their needs without a conscious thought. I think it is exactly the same thing: an honoring of essential human nature, which likes its needs met without a struggle and then to go off wandering.

At any rate: the kitchen sits in disarray and I have a clean spot at the table for my sketchbook, and Daphne has come inside with two eggs still hot from a hen's body. Why waste sunshine in February wiping up crumbs? 

Comments

[Tine]

Beautiful.

[amy]

No, I don't think it's detachment parenting. It's perfect.

[Robin]

Perfect.

I like my needs met without struggle and to go off wandering, too. Now I know why I've been so ornery.

[Lilian]

Nah, detachment parenting? Nah... you know better! that's called free-range parenting and it's all the rage these days and, in my opinion, it's the direction most attachment parenting folks turn to because their APed kids are so securely attached that they become more independent than other kids. There's even this well known blog "free range kids."

Free rang i the very opposite of "helicopter parenting" which, IMHO is not AT ALL related to AP!

Oh, I have a blogging friend who refers to this as "benign neglect" and I love that expression too.

Hey, you have free range chickens & kids!! ;)

[Lilian]

P.S. talking of your mom, he book is in my wishlist at Amazon. I'm sure it's just beautiful. I hope I get it someday. Lately I buy books & they go unread and the backlog is growing. :(

[Lilian]

HER book, not he book! :(