parenting

Book Review: Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn

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Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn is essential Charlotte Mason reading. Full stop.

You need to read it.

I liked it so much that I bought a copy. It’s definitely a “reread periodically as a reminder” book.

I originally read the older version but bought the 25th Anniversary version. There are lots of used copies, and quite affordable.

A must for your parenting library.

You might even learn something about yourself along the way. I love that the book focuses on three areas: parenting, school, and the workplace.

Book Review: Raising White Kids by Jennifer Harvey

Some light reading, right? First White Fragility, now Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America by Jennifer Harvey.

This book is a must-read. It is a challenging but very necessary read.

I can’t help but compare this book to Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne. That is also a very good read I’d like to re-read again and will probably review it here.

I’d already thought about and bought into his ideas about minimizing our stuff and schedules. So the biggest take-away I took from Simplicity Parenting about a year ago was his suggestion to simplify kids’ exposure to news and other “adult” conversations. It really struck a cord with me because we were screen-free at that time except for us adults watching news over dinner. Oh yes, we break all the Good Parenting Rules and watch TV at dinner. Granted, we pause to debate frequently.

What he said resonated with me, and I knew that our nightly news would have to go sooner or later. It’s not appropriate for little ears. Spoiler alert: it probably should already be gone and isn’t.

This book threw a wrench into what I thought I knew from Simplicity Parenting.

I can’t protect my children from the world forever. Yet I can protect them from a lot of the world if I listen to Simplicity Parenting, but only because of white privilege. As I described in my review of White Fragility, I can avoid dealing with racism because I feel anxious, yet people of color with anxiety get no such reprieve. That has been the driving force for me since. This book had a similar effect on me:

Meanwhile, the reality of racial injustice raises genuinely difficult questions about what and how much to say: when to leave the radio on and when to turn it off. As one parent put it to me, “I don’t want to lie to my kids about US history and our society. But how do I talk about histories of violence – for example, what slavery or treatment of Native Americans was like? I don’t even let my eight-year-old watch violent television shows.”

How much and in what detail are, in many ways, personal parental questions that have to do with many things, including the temperment of our particular children. At the same time, just as I felt myself viscerally react to the mom who said to me, “I’m just glad she doesn’t have to worry about any of it,” I felt in the painful experience with my daughter the visceral knowledge that having chosen to allow her some heartbreak was, in fact, life-giving, humanizing, and necessary,

It’s deeply necessary we let our children’s hearts get broken a bit if they are going to remain able to recognize the humanity of their fellow humans whose lives are at stake in the system we live in. It’s necessary if they are going to grow any rooted sense of themselves as part of a larger, multiracial community of people to whom they are committed, and with and for whom they must speak out and act.

What I’m describing here goes well beyond tactical questions about teaching kids how to engage in activism. It goes beyond saying, “Well, if Black kids have to learn about police violence then so should white kids – otherwise we are just embracing white privilege.” This is certainly true, of course. But it’s a rather surface assessment of the stakes.

What I’m getting at is creating space for our kids to move into their deeply embodied relationships with injustice, as risky as that may feel. We need to create space for them to literally feel injustice and feel, touch, and ache from its real costs.
What I relearned in this painful experience with my daughters was that the entire enterprise of raising white kids for racial justice requires a difficult, vulnerable recognition: in a world where human beings are suffering from human-caused injustice and violence, the humanity of even the youngest of our children is directly tied to their ability to identify with that suffering. And our children also need to explicitly come to understand that same truth.
It’s understandable we want to protect our kids. But if we confuse finding age-appropriate ways to tell the truth about racial harm with overly insulating them, if we are too cautious because we are afraid it’s just too much, if we don’t want to cause them suffering, we withhold the very things they need to participate in deeper and more truthful ways of living. Indeed, we withhold the very things they most need to retain their humanity.
Raising White Kids, p257-258

No pressure, right?

As hard as the work will be, I’m thankful to be able to start with my kids so young. I wish I could start when I was a toddler, but now is better than tomorrow. And I’m lucky to live in a much less segregated place than the one where I grew up. As powerful as White Fragility is, this book was far more practical, though I still wanted more.

The two take-aways I had from this book:

Talk about race. Stop being silent. Discuss skin colors as you would discuss hair colors or professions. Babies pay attention to skin color from before the time they can talk. And little kids also quickly realize that they’re not “supposed” to point out skin colors or race, being shushed as soon as it’s mentioned. (See the race chapter in Nurture Shock for studies.)
Desegregate your life. This is a much harder project. I had chosen not to see how segregated my life has always been, despite my liberal values. This is a work in progress, but I’ve started with the two easiest parts: reading and media. Of course, I’m also continuing my way through the [free!!!] Me and White Supremacy Workbook. I’m trying to find other ways to desegregate my life, and some are in the works already, but this will be a lifetime project. Just like dismantling the white supremacy subconscious within me.

Reading: about racism and the parts of history that is still relegated to “electives” in schools as well as understanding other people’s experiences and how they differ from mine as a white person. I have a lot of catching up to do. I haven’t written about this yet, but I’m (again) doing a self-created Mother’s Education Course à la Charlotte Mason and the PNEU. One of the reading categories I included is social justice and another is biographies, focusing on people notable in the fight for social justice. (I’ve read few biographies, but I’ve twice read The Autobiography of Malcolm X and highly recommend it. I’m not sure when or why I originally picked it up, but I think of his story often.) I have never learned about most of American history. Really, have you considered how much history is missing from our educations?? And there’s a lot to learn now too about the ramifications of structural racism. There’s so much I have never seen because I was trained to not see it. It’s time to see the world from a fuller, more truthful perspective. Here are the books I’ve checked out from the library right now:

Media: I have never felt like I’m “allowed” to watch or listen to “ethnic” media. Except In Living Color. I watched the heck out of that, at a much younger age than was appropriate. I think I was just too young to catch The Cosby Show, though I watched Steve Urkel and the Mowry twins. But as an adult? I cut out most media when I dropped TV at 19 because it was expensive. My media intake became much more segregated. An echo chamber of the worst kind. I started by seeking out new podcasts, then branched out into some new TV. No, I don’t understand all the references, and that’s important. In the rest of my life, people cater to my culture and my perspective. Becoming Jewish exposed me to codeswitching and being that outsider perspective, and now I’m going through that process again from yet another perspective. It’s keeping me humble, that’s for sure.

Read Raising White Kids. You won’t regret it. And if you’re a Christian, also check out her book Dear White Christians: For Those Still Longing for Racial Reconciliation. (I might read that too eventually just because.)

An Amazing Book: White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

Normally, almost all my books come from the public library. That’s how I stumbled upon this book. But it was so good that I bought a copy for myself, and I’m recommending it left and right!

Really. If you’re a white person (like me), you should read White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo.

It is important. So important. This has been one of the most important reads of my life. While it’s about racism, I found the ideas helpful to understand all conversations about bigotry, whether discussing transphobia or people responding to me pointing out antisemitism against me.

Being perfectly honest, I checked this book out because I wanted to understand “other” white people. Because clearly I’m “one of the good ones,” someone who has been trying to learn about racism and be a good ally for years.

Oh ho, this book was all about me. Yes, it also helped me understand my interactions with other people (especially now that I’m less likely to stay silent), but there was so much going on inside myself that I never recognized. Why I was silent most of the times when close friends said explicitly racist things, why I didn’t challenge hard-to-explain-to-the-unconverted racist statements and actions, why my heart literally races at top speed when I read these books about racism. My anxiety is literally triggered by these conversations.

The biggest take-away that I remind myself very frequently now: no matter how uncomfortable taking about racism is or what it costs me in friendships, that will never be as big a cost as racism costs to people of color. Prioritizing my comfort is being complicit, and it is a mark of privilege for me to say “this makes me anxious, so I won’t do it.” An anxious person of color gets no such reprieve.

Obviously, I’m not perfect. I have a ton of work to do. But I’m doing it, and it gets easier the more I speak to others, as I figure out how to put these very complicated concepts into words. I’ve lost a few friends, some my choice and some theirs. I don’t need people in my life who say such horrible things and dehumanize people of color, especially when they have reacted so poorly when the problematic nature of their statement is pointed out (as kindly as I can, but really, does dehumanization require kindness?). Those are not middos (character traits) I want to cultivate in myself, and you are often the sum of the people you spend the most time with.

As Jews, we exist in a liminal state between whiteness and Other. Most American Jews are white, whether or not they want to admit it. We benefit from white privilege all the time, while we also struggle with antisemitism all the time. One foot in, one foot out. I particularly see this myself as someone who wears a headscarf for religious reasons. Here in NY, people know that’s a Jewish thing but I also fear Islamaphobia, especially when I visit my family back down South where orthodox Jews are uncommon.

We’re not the only people balancing on that razor’s edge, but we’re a very large group who are. Jewish tradition speaks strongly of social justice, and the Torah itself tells us at least 36 times (there’s debate whether there’s more) to care for the “stranger” because we were strangers too. A few thousand years and that hasn’t really changed. I’m disturbed by the anti-stranger sentiment within the Orthodox community, and I think it’s absolutely against the Torah. Anti-racism work is religious work for me, what I’ve been commanded to do. I just didn’t see the full extend of the work before because I had been blinded by the White Supremacy soup I’ve been surrounded by since birth. Personally, I know I’ve been surrounded a bit more by that soup than the others in my Jewish community because I converted as an adult. Perhaps I experience antisemitism and Otherness differently than they do because I grew up without personal exposure to bigotry. I chose to join a group who faces bigotry, which is not a choice many white people make (not saying they should, it’s ok to be a white Christian). I had a taste of it growing up in an atheist family in the Bible Belt, but it’s nothing like having armed guards in my house of worship. Granted, I used to fear my children’s school one day being shot up (as Jewish institutions have been), but now it seems all schools face that issue 🤷

Given that it’s such an important book, I’m happy to report it’s pretty affordable as new books go, under $11 as of when I bought it and today (a month later).

Further reading: To continue the work started in this book, I highly recommend the free workbook Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad. It’s set up as a 28 day journaling process, but you can do it in a shorter or longer time frame if that works better for you. I have found it incredibly useful.

Right now, I’m also reading Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America by Jennifer Harvey. It’s excellent.

I’m continuing my anti-racist education, continuing to work through the workbook, planning to join an anti-racism course that’ll be offered in the spring, and working my own way through the Black Lives Matter syllabus. I’m doing a Charlotte Mason #MotherCulture challenge this year, and like last year, have mapped out a reading list for myself for 2019, with different books in different categories. I added anti-racism work as a category for this year to teach myself parts of American history I was not taught and more about the experiences of other marginalized groups in America, particularly the black community. I also added a memoir category, and about half of the books I’ve mapped out (what actually happens may be pretty different, as 2018 was) are activists or other change-makers.

What are you doing to challenge yourself to be a good ally to groups different from your own?

You Represent Public Opinion to Your Child

Charlotte Mason writes about “the force of public opinion in the home” in reference to the creepy-crawlies that make me cringe:

Some children are born naturalists, with a bent inherited, perhaps, from an unknown ancestor; but every child has a natural interest in the living things about him which it is the business of his parents to encourage; for, but few children are equal to holding their own in the face of public opinion; and if they see that the things which interest them are indifferent or disgusting to you, their pleasure in them vanishes, and that chapter in the book of Nature is closed to them. (Vol. 1, p58)

She is absolutely right, and I try to keep this passage front of mind every time we’re outside.

She continues with the story of a particular naturalist:

It is likely that the Natural History of Selborne would never have been written had it not been that the naturalist’s father used to take his boys on daily foraging expeditions, when not a moving or growing thing, not a pebble nor a boulder within miles of Selborne, escaped their eager examination. Audubon, the American ornithologist, is another instance of the effect of this kind of early training. “When I had hardly learned to walk,” he says, “and to articulate those first words always so endearing to parents, the productions of Nature that lay spread all around were constantly pointed out to me . . . My father generally accompanied my steps, procured birds and flowers for me, and pointed out the elegant movements of the former, the beauty and softness of their plumage, the manifestations of their pleasure, or their sense of danger, and the always perfect forms and splendid attire of the latter. He would speak of the departure and return of the birds with the season, describe their haunts, and, more wonderful than all, their change of livery, thus exciting me to study them, and to raise my mind towards their great Creator.” (Vol. 1, p58-59)

I distinctly remember being a “miniature naturalist” as a kid, not afraid of any creepy crawlies (except for a memorable encounter with a scorpion). But at some point, that changed. When did I become afraid of nature? When did I start withdrawing in disgust from a worm? I can’t answer that, but I would bet it had a lot to do with the reactions of adults around me and what they valued instead (the indoors).

So I do my best to breathe deeply and smile when we encounter bugs and worms outside. I purposely point out to the toddler any bugs I notice so we can observe them. I’m not perfect, and I’m still stiff about it, and I still jump. But I’m working on it. It can be done. I loved these things once, and I intellectually know they’re nothing to be afraid of, so surely I can get back to that state again with the help of some enthusiastic companions?

Placing a worm on my chair and proclaiming she'd found a "needle." — Placing a worm on my chair and proclaiming she’d found a “needle.”

A “Quick” Method to Make Decisions

Charlotte Mason isn’t a checklist or a curriculum you can pull off a shelf. It’s a philosophy, an approach to family and raising children, an approach to life. But how can you translate her ideas into concrete educational decisions (and life decisions)? Ms. Mason has a very succinct suggested analysis:

“Why must the children learn at all? What should they learn? And, how should they learn it?” Vol. 1, p171

Well now, isn’t that easy?

Ok no. The questions are quick, but the answers probably aren’t.

But at least it gives a framework to analyze decisions, and even to consider the CM approach itself. What do I want for my children? Based on what I know, what I see, and what I’ve researched, how do I think children learn? Especially those with ADHD, since statistically I will likely parent at least one ADHD kid. Once I have that as a baseline, what does CM say? Does that mesh with what I already know and/or believe?

Yes. So far, it’s like giving words to what I knew but couldn’t have said out loud. It just instinctively feels right. Except some of the weird Victorian health “science,” obviously.

Going forward, this set of questions can help me (and you, no matter which educational/parenting philosophy you follow) analyze new curricula, teaching styles, programs, extracurriculars, anything.

Short and sweet but cuts right to the heart of the matter of educating children.

Keeping It Real

Today I’d already had three major temper tantrums. I was tired, I was cold, and I just wanted to listen to podcasts in peace (so I can learn about being a good mom and homeschooler instead of actually doing it) while my toddler played in the yard. But I listened to CM, knew what I “ought” to do, sucked it up, and pulled out the grass encroaching in the garden I’ve been ignoring… and it turned into an impromptu introduction to roots and how plants eat.

Grass with roots and dirt

Did she “get” it? At just over 2 years old, probably not. But now she knows the word roots, might recognize them again in the future, might recognize them on a different plant. Maybe she made a warm and fuzzy connection to the idea of nature and plants and gardens. Maybe she just enjoyed playing in dirt with her Ima. These are all great goals for a toddler.

Trust the process. It works even when I’m not in a good place. Just get outside. Just take a little step and look for something positive to do. Even if it’s three steps back and one step forward, that’s ok. End the day moving in the right direction and on a good note, if at all possible.

Parenting #ProTip I learned from a baby book at some point: the outdoors is like a “reset” button for a crying child. Whenever there’s a tantrum or inconsolable crying, we step out on the back porch, and within a few minutes, they usually stop. They might start up again when we come back inside, but usually not. Usually we’ve changed the tenor of the moment and can start fresh. I always forget this tip when I’m at the end of my rope, but with enough “practice,” I’m beginning to remember. Two kids under two gives me a lot of practice.

Book Review: Raising a Child with Soul by Slovie Jungreis-Wolff

As central as children and family are in the Jewish world, there really isn’t that many parenting books. I was even surprised how few books there are on the halacha related to raising children, especially babies. (There are a fair number of books on chinuch, as in teaching Jewish law and practice to your children, but those have seemed to me often limited to just ritual practice matters and often skewed toward male children, based on perusal in bookstores. Having girls, I haven’t bothered to buy any yet but probably will soon enough.) But when I asked around for the halachic considerations of having a newborn, the response was overwhelmingly:

Friend/Facebook: What do you mean? What’s there to know?

Me: Like halacha of kids. I’ve heard people talking about how you need to change diapers differently on Shabbat. Rules for how to sort toys to clean them up. Feeding meat and milk to kids. Can you wash breastmilk or formula bottles in a meat dishwasher? C’mon. How do you not see a million questions here?

Friend/FB: I never thought about that. It seemed obvious. / I just did what I had to do and didn’t ask questions I didn’t want answers to. / I just did what my mom or friends do.

Color me shocked. We analyze everything. Everything. Every detail of life. Why did I see so little discussion of halacha with kids? There are some books, mostly older. (I don’t recommend them – ask your posek/mom/friends. Way too many issues involved, and the books just give the most stringent answer based on assumptions that aren’t always articulated clearly.)

There’s a similar lack of books about parenting Jewishly, though there are more coming out all the time, mostly from the non-orthodox perspective, which I think is interesting. I have several Jewish parenting books I’m going to be reading over the next year or so, so look forward to more reviews! But let’s start with an excellent one: Raising a Child with Soul: How Time-Tested Jewish Wisdom Can Shape Your Child’s Character.

Raising a Child with Soul by Slovie Jungreis-Wolff

But what if you’re not Jewish? Is this still worth a read? Sure, why not? Given the nature of the parenting publishing world, I read a lot of parenting books explicitly written from a Christian perspective (heck, most of the Charlotte Mason community writes from this perspective). I’ve learned a great deal from them. You take what works and leave what doesn’t, and that’s true for every parenting book we encounter. Personally, I find it interesting to read parenting books that present cultures very different from my own, whether Christian, Dutch, or French. (Those are the groups I’ve read the most about.) Seeing common questions from a very different perspective of your own and with very different justifications or assumptions, you can analyze your own perspective and assumptions with a fresh eye.

I was so happy to discover this book at the library. I knew about the author’s mother, Rebbetzin Jungreis from the Hineni Center in Manhattan. When I was in my first year of law school and not actively affiliated with a community, I began watching Shalom TV since my roommates had cable (my first time with cable in 10 years at the time!). I was floored to find a Jewish channel on tv! Each Shabbat morning, I would watch a parsha shiur by Rebbetzin Jungreis on Shalom TV, and it was a major part of what pulled me back into shul and my conservative conversion (affectionately referred to as Conversion 1.0). When I learned that her daughter had written a book on parenting, I knew I wanted to read it. But at the time, I didn’t have any kids! Then of course I forgot about it.

I highly recommend this book. I like that this book gives Jewish sources and perspectives on the gentle parenting practices thankfully prominent today. But while still being authoritative and maintaining a clear distinction between parent and child, which I personally think is an important component of gentle parenting. There must be a foundation of respect of a parent, just because they’re the parent. While a child deserves respect as a born person, my home is still a benevolent dictatorship at the end of the day. She can’t understand every reason for the actions I take, and that’s ok and means I don’t always have to explain myself in the here and now. She’ll understand later. And while I’m happy to reconsider a situation based on new facts, I’m not trying to raise a lawyer who negotiates every decision. That’s not always a popular thing to say in the crunchy-ish groups I belong to, but my own life experience has shown that friend-based parenting isn’t a model I believe in.

And that’s also the model Charlotte Mason advocates. Both would argue that a child deserves a reason if they ask, but they also must be obedient regardless of whether they understand our reasoning or not. I believe both offered this excellent advice: if you tell your child to do something (and you shouldn’t overwield this power), and the child asks “why,” they can have an answer. But only after they’ve done what you asked. After they’ve obeyed quickly and cheerfully, they can come back to you for an answer and discussion. Funnily enough, they rarely come back because during the action, they magically remembered the reason you’ve explained to them 32 times before. It was usually just a stalling tactic. You’ve respected their request, respected their personhood by making reasonable requests in the first place, and also demanded the obedience that builds good character.

This book doesn’t explicitly say so (that I remember, but I remember hints at it), but Jewish parenting fulfills a key aspect of CM’s parenting advice: your child should understand that you too are bound by rules and must do the things you “ought” with quick and cheerful obedience just like they have to. Parents must obey Gd and the secular laws, just as a child must obey his parents. Few religious communities make that as clear to children as halachically-observant Jews. We have so many opportunities to model quick and cheerful obedience in our own behavior: “I’d really like a piece of cheesecake, but I just ate meat. I’ll have to wait three (or six or whatever) hours. Darn! Oh well. Wanna go read a book?”

The only downside of this book is that I didn’t connect well to the examples given. The author’s work is obviously primarily with very wealthy families. I’m not wealthy. It seemed that many of the parents were not orthodox like the author (and myself, though we are likely from very different orthodox communities), but I didn’t find that to be a barrier to connecting with the examples. Maybe that’s because I haven’t always been orthodox, but I think both orthodox and non-orthodox folks can connect with these examples.

On the other hand, I did have a hard time connecting to the example because I have different parenting practices than they do. I don’t (yet) have iPad and Disney World battles, and I hope that my parenting practices will nip most of those questions in the bud. For example, we’re not totally screen-free, but we’re close to it.

But I’d love to have summer home and international vacation problems. Hook me up!

Tl;Dr: Check it out, Raising a Child with Soul is definitely worth a read. Very practical and presents a different model of authoritative parenting than I’ve seen before, though many writers today tackle that fine line between permissive and authoritarian parenting. If you struggle with that line between being a crunchy parent and a traditional American parent, this one will speak to both sides of you and harmonize the best parts. If you lean toward one side or the other, you might benefit from a different viewpoint that’s still closer to the middle of the parenting spectrum.

Further Reading: