Practicing Ahimsa. Badly.

“In the presence of one firmly established in non-violence, all hostilities cease.” 

– The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Sutra II.35

Ahimsa is the first of the Yamas, the yogic discipline of compassion and non-violence, the tenet which calls for us to cause no harm to ourselves or other beings and challenges us to dwell in the absence of pain.  I am afraid I am having trouble with that today.  Today I am in need of grace, as I my feelings are less than pure toward all of you parents who received your childrens' grade cards this week and then posted to Facebook about how many A's your kid got.  

And if the me 10 years ago heard the me today saying that I am made angry, jealous, and sad by your joy, I would really consider myself a complete jerkwad.  An anti-intellectual.  A giant bunch of sour grapes.

See, I was that kid, the "A" kid, when I was in school.  Things came pretty easily for me.  I conformed to rules as expected.  I had minimal emotional outbursts.  I did my homework, I studied for tests, and I loved to read.  I liked to please my teachers.  I raised my hand to answer lots of questions and I rarely ever missed school.  I was a parent's dream.

So I find it really, really hard to understand my autistic child.  I find it hard to understand why he finds school so emotionally tumultuous.  I don't get it when he clams up with anxiety and refuses to act.  I am perplexed when he cannot make simple choices about assignments, nonplussed when he has a meltdown over having to write a couple of sentences, and exasperated when he refuses to do work that I know he is fully capable of doing.  And I am left angry, defeated, and damn near despondent when his report card comes home with the news that this quarter, because he basically sat in the corner of the classroom reading books and generally being avoidant, he has failed all but one subject.  Or rather, his progress was "insufficient"--so he got all "I's," not "F's."  Whew!  That makes me feel better.  

Let me come clean and tell you what the devil on my shoulder wants me to think when I see you post that little Janie got all A's, or little Dickie is at the top of his class.  The little devil wants me to be rude and disparaging, and say that my kid is probably twice as smart as your kid, because my kid can break down words into their Latin roots and problem solve to understand new vocabulary, such as today when he figured out that a geosynchronous satellite will always stay over London, no matter what time of day it is, because it travels in time with (synch) with the earth (geo).  It wants me to say that my kid has a notebook full of inventions he wants to create someday, and that his heroes are Einstein and Tesla, and that he knows that starfish have thousands of tiny feet and that the peregrine falcon is the fastest animal on the planet, diving at up to 260 mph to catch prey, and that he will kick your butt in Minecraft knowledge any day of the week.

But the angel on my other shoulder knows that I should be celebrating with you, just as when my child has victories, I would want you to celebrate with me.  The angel tells me that someday, we will get beyond the need for headphones and sunglasses for sensory processing issues, he will learn to properly interpret social cues, he will learn to manage the anxiety that so often causes him to quit before he even begins, he will ride a bike without training wheels, and he might actually take, and finish, one of those stupid standardized tests so that the school district can have an accurate picture of his abilities for their stupid files.  And the fact that he doesn't do any of those things now isn't anyone else's fault, and it is wrong of me to take out my frustrations about it on other people and their children.  Their perfect children.  Children who get A's and win dance competitions and make home runs and take first place in spelling contests.  

And the angel tells me to be nice to myself, that I can't possibly do any more to help him than I am already doing, that it isn't my fault, and that I need to stop beating myself up over it.  I need to start practicing ahimsa--not just toward you, but toward myself.  

So please forgive me when I don't "like" your status update.  It's not that I don't like your child's successes.  It's that I can't stop seeing your child's successes as failures in my own.   

An Open Letter to My Children

First, I want you both to know that my expectations of you are simple:  Be honest, have integrity, learn to admit when you are at fault, and treat others as you would want to be treated. 

With that said, I have a few other requests for your consideration:

1. Don't shop at Wal-Mart.  Wal-Mart is directly representative of everything that is wrong with this country economically and socially.  I don't care if you have to drive 45 miles out of your way to get a new bathmat.  I'll send you gas money to cover your losses. 

2. Respect and honor the little man.  Go out of your way to have the local shoe cobbler fix the soles of your favorite shoes; old fashioned, I know, but someday you'll understand.  Frequent the littlest hole in the wall restaurant you can and tip the server generously.  Buy your vegetables from a little shack along a rural roadside.  I promise you that you will not regret doing any of these things.

3. Vote.  Educate yourself first.  Then vote your wallet.  This family never has been, nor is it likely to ever be, anything but middle class.  This means you are stuck on the left.  Feel free to stay here with Mom somewhere in the vicinity of Ralph Nader, or join your Dad in the realm of Che Guevara, but never try to walk the middle.  Should you break through the family glass ceiling and become a millionaire, stay on the left anyway.  The little people need your voice because they do not have one.

4. Remember when I made you watch documentary films about the U.S. food industry when you were in elementary school, and taught you how to read ingredients labels on your food?  Remember running around trying to find foods that *didn't* contain corn syrup or corn oil, and telling me that corn was "bad news" and that we will have to get our food at Trader Joe's from now on?  Remember talking about how the corn is infected with pesticides, which is then eaten by the cow, which then becomes part of your hamburger at McDonald's and your Frosty at Wendy's?  At the least, may you both become herbivores; but if you can take it beyond your own dinner plate, feel free to change the world.

5. Hold doors for people--old people, young people, disabled people, pretty people, ugly people, slow people, people that smell good, people that smell bad, and people who are making you late for another appointment.

6. Let others go ahead of you in long checkout lanes, especially if they are pregnant (or old, or disabled).  If they don't have enough money to pay for their groceries, pay the difference for them.

7. You will likely each marry someday and it will become glaringly evident to you why in some cultures, parents still arrange marriages.  Remember that long before Johnny or Jill invaded the family, there was only Gavin and Talia and that they loved each other.  The most important thing you can ever do for your family, as siblings, is to make it clear to all parties that you love everyone and nobody is going to be shunned from the family.  Should a wound be caused by your relationship, the longer you let
it bleed and fester, the worse off you will be.  There will come times when you just want to call your brother, but you will be afraid that he won't answer.  And there will be moments you'd like to share with your sister that you'll avoid because you think she hates you.  She doesn't--she can't--and she never will.  Remember, children, that no people in this life form bonds like those of a set of siblings.  Blood such as that is hard to leave behind.

8. Eventually you will come across people--people you will be forced to deal with--that you will strongly dislike.  Maybe they are negative, or unhappy, or rude, or mean...be nice to them.  They will have no idea how to handle it.

9. There will come a day when your father or I will disappoint you.  I'm not talking about forgetting to put your milk money in your lunchbox or failing to show up at the Cub Scout crossover ceremony.  I mean that we will do something really irrepairably stupid for which you will not want to forgive us.  Forgive us anyway, not just because it is the morally upright thing to do, but also because someday you're going to let your kids down, too, and you'll want them to do the same for you.

10. Read Harry Potter with your children.  Every night until you finish all seven books.  Discuss the books with them--especially the parts about making the right choices in the face of adversity.  Instill in them the honest belief that in the end, even when the wait is long, good always triumphs over evil.

11. Every day, tell your daughters they are beautiful and that they are loved, and don't let them see you fretting about your own body image. 

12. Value your natural talents, value your education, and value your friends, family, and community.  Then share.

13. Sit with me quietly to hear the vibration of the universe.  I promise you it is there.

14. Grow things.  Grow flowers, grow vegetables and herbs, grow turtles and puppies--but most of all, grow yourself--your sense of self, your pride in yourself, your spirituality, your intellect, your talents, and your understanding of others who are not like you.  Grow to love all those things you cannot do well as well as the ones you do.  It is the only way you will continue to grow.

15. Help those who are in need in some way, be it in a grand way or a small one, every single day.  Give away your unused toys and clothes at Christmas time.  Offer to help serve food at a food bank for a day.  Shovel little Old Lady Smith's sidewalk for her when it snows.

16. Be fearless and uninhibited.  Dance.  Sing.  Do something zany and unexpected.  Take an unannounced roadtrip or work with the circus for a while.  Backpack though Europe, or climb Machu Picchu, or mush some dogs across the Yukon.  Live more liberated, less stringent, less stiffled lives than your father and I lived.  Do it all and live with no regrets. 

17. Call your grandparents.  You've already lost one--you never know when the next will be called away. 

18. Make family of friends who want to be your family.  The times where families all lived communally and respected each other are long gone; perhaps they are even a mythology.  There will be people in your families who will hurt and betray you, who will drive wedges between you and other people that you love.  F-ck those people.  If you find people who love you and treat you as if you were part of their family, let it ride for a while.  Okay, on the one hand you might have just joined a cult, but it is far more likely that you have found your best friends for life.  Love is not restricted to bloodlines and DNA matches.  Love is having a mutual respect with someone for whom you'd walk into a threatening position--gladly--if it meant that you could help that person in some way.

19. Side with the righteous.  By this I do not mean that you need to be a sanctamonious asshole.  But you do need to determine, with clear head and heart, which side is the right one and once you've figured it out, stay there.

20. We are going prom dress shopping TOGETHER, Talia.  And bathing suit shopping, too.

21. Gavin, pay for your date.  It is corny and old fashioned.  She will be impressed and find it quaint.  Prove that you want be a part of her support structure. 

22. You are both smart and talented.  Beware of arrogance.  It will earn you few friends.  Many, many other people are smart, too, and they expect that to be ackowledged.  So what if your classmates don't know about the mummification and entombment of an Egyptian Pharoah?  What, you think that's common knowledge for a 7-year-old?  It's not.  If the other people around you don't share your prior knowledge, it doesn't make them dummies.

23. Someday you are going to find a spouse and you are going to start a family of your own and you are going to forget about the woman who washed your butt and took you to ballet and made sure you always had healthy food in your lunchbox and helped you with your homework and loved you more than she thought she had room in her heart to allow.  Call her.  She misses you terribly.

24. When given a choice to make, you always have the choice to do nothing.  ALWAYS do something. 

25. [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]
By E. E. Cummings 1894–1962

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

The Curse of the Children's Birthday Party

Let me begin with this disclaimer:  I have friends and family who love to host parties, and who are great with little kids, and I do not begrudge them their choice to throw a big birthday bash whenever it suits them.  My kids have had a great deal of fun at some of these birthday parties, and I am grateful for that.  Far be it from me to criticize a friend for showing generosity to my family.

With that said, I don't do kids' birthday parties at my house, nor do I pay money to have them hosted elsewhere.  Not anymore, anyway.

I will begin with the apolitical reasons why I will never again, under any circumstances, host another children's birthday party in my home.  First of all, the only reason I started inviting school friends to have parties in my home (note, I will not spend $200+ to rent space for this kind of thing) was because we moved away from our hometown when the kids were small, and I felt bad that there was no family nearby to invite.  I didn't even invite that many kids--I think the most I ever invited was ten, the fewest, five.  On my son's 6th birthday, my husband went to great lengths to make a treasure map and bury a real "pirate chest" in our yard so my son could dig it up.  We filled it with real metal doubloons, rhinestone jewelry, and glass and plastic gems.  The neighbor boy, who wants nothing to do with my son except when it comes to birthday parties, took a liking to the treasure and we caught him pocketing some of the coins.  A couple weeks later, said neighbor boy came over to play, and when he left, all the jewelry in the treasure chest was gone.  I never did get up the nerve to ask his mother if she would look for it.  It was too awkward.  Then came my daughter's 5th birthday.  After it was over, I went up to her bedroom to find nearly everything she owned strewn all over the floor and nail polish spilled into her rug.  I nearly had a panic attack over it; my husband had to clean it up for me so I wouldn't have to be hauled off in a straight jacket.

Destruction and theft aside, I just can't handle that many kids in my house.  I teach teenagers, and I can tell you with 100% honesty that I would much sooner have 20 teenagers in my home than five kindergarteners.  Little kids run, they scream, they make a mess, they cry, they fight, they let their noses run all over everything, and they pee their pants.  I spend five hours of my life preparing for the party, two hours suffering through it, and 48 hours recovering from shock.  Birthday parties turn me into a raving lunatic.  No thank you.

Now onto my liberal hippie commentary.... When I was a kid (I know, I'm getting old when I start using that cliche), my mother invited grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins to come have a simple cake and ice cream party.  People would usually bring gifts, but certainly were not made to feel obligated. There was no Chuck-E-Cheese, no Little Gym, no McDonald's Playland, no big barbeque fiesta at the local public pool.  We hosted parties in our homes, and that was that. 

Now that I have children of my own, it seems things have changed.  Now you can't simply offer a cake and some ice cream anymore.  Parents are expected to buy party favors, pinatas, and dinner as well.  Today's birthday parties dictate that there be games with prizes, and that the kids will be supplied with craft supplies to make sock puppets, or icing to decorate cookies.  Giant inflatable moonwalk attractions are rented.  Every damn kid in the school is invited, not just close friends.  And home parties aren't good enough anymore.  The cool kids' parents rent space in public places--at museums, at the zoo, at the local crappy restaraunt--for hundreds of dollars.  If a kid is lucky enough to have parents who will throw away that kind of cash, they are guaranteed more guests at their parties.  Even the kids who don't like you will show up if your party is being held at an amusement park and all expenses are paid.  All it costs is the price of a gift.

And let's talk about the gifts.  Why don't we just send our money directly to China, or throw it into a furnace?  So you get 30 people to show up to your party--this means at least 30 gifts, usually more, because some parents feel the need to buy multiple gifts for children that they do not know and to whom they have no particular attachment.  So now little Sam or Sally gets all this crap that he or she will most likely lose interest in within 20 minutes, or that will break within a week. 

We have taken a day that is supposed to be a celebration of life and we have turned it into a cheap, consumerist, gluttonous freak show.  We spend boatloads of money to fill children with high fructose corn syrup and Crisco, top it off with a side of Kool-Aid, and then wonder why the kids in this culture have type-2 diabetes and too many extra pounds. Why not just save the money and the bullcrap, take the kid out for a proper dinner at a decent restaurant, and buy the kid a high quality gift that he or she really desires and that can be enjoyed for longer than a week?

So here's what it boils down to, at least for me.  I refuse to teach my kids that birthdays are all about stuffing your face with frosting, bribing guests with baggies filled with cheap toys, or seeing how many presents you can get.  I want them to see that birthdays are about sharing time with close friends and family to celebrate the fact that you are alive, that you are loved, and that you are worth more than what any amount of money can buy.