On the day that Baroness Deech claims home educated kids can't socialise, the Grit family has a big fight and Shark locks herself in the shed.
Normally, I wouldn't mention the fight.
But I am so totally confident in our chosen lifestyle - or so far gone you can call security - that I can now claim with a sincere heart how this great big nuclear argument is actually proof that home ed works.
Like I can't be insane enough for you, I'll also add that home ed leads to fine rounded adults, social awareness, personal strength, and may be responsible for roses in bloom in June.
I can tell you, Baroness, why I am so confident. It is because this home ed life, I have lived it.
Some days I have felt there is no difference between home education and the serving of a lifetime prison sentence nailed to a cross overlooking the market square. And some days are so blissfully perfect, so star shootingly knockout, that we can only stand bewildered, and wonder why everyone isn't simply building a society based on the freedom to fulfil their ambitions and capabilities.
Baroness, it is because I have lived both types of home educating days, that I am so confident.
But today there was this big, big fight. When everyone calmed down, and I tracked Shark to the new home she'd set up in the back of the garage, then there was a long and deep two hour discussion on all matters moral, social and individual.
Eventually this led all the gritlets into a discussion of the four worthies at the Temple of Ancient Virtue at Stowe Gardens, and some thoughts as to the roles of poetry, philosophy, lawmaking and military strength in ancient Greek society. We didn't stop there. We talked about whether these virtues are the best guide we have to run a country; to run a family; to live a life?
I wonder how this discussion might have played out, with fifteen minutes to get Shark into school. Or how it might never have happened at all. Instead, maybe I'd resort to bribery. Giving in. Coercion. Shouting. Threatening.
Baroness, our home educating life today was not about do what I say missy but drew us in thoughts and talks about what it is to be human, what it is to show weakness, what it is to show strength, what it is to build a society, and why poetry and philosophy matter.
Did that happen - in all its complete experience, emotional impact, intellectual debate, family understanding - did that happen in a classroom near you?
(P.S. I would just like to add that Tiger going bonkers twenty minutes later had nothing to do with how she is socialised. She is simply traumatised from the recent news that come June she may be living sixty floors up without unicorns or paint. That is called work in progress.)
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
Monday, 8 February 2010
Did we socialise?
If you've come to this blog before, you've encountered the s-word.
Get thee gone, Mr Spooky, seeking sexy pigeon. Here is the s-word in the world of home education.
The first question I asked, the last doubt I harboured, was socialisation. How will my kids socialise? Will they be able to socialise? Don't kids go to school to be socialised properly?
On that last point, I worried. I know that socialisation takes a particular form in schools. Kids are told to shut up, sit down, listen. If the kids work their way round that, then yes, they talk with each other. They may establish pecking orders, or create a hierarchy of the classroom. People are assigned labels. The clown. The shy one. The geek. The swot. Is that socialisation?
Groups of types will form. People hardwire into those groups, and it's difficult to break out. Kids carry them through the playground - perhaps to describe a personal identity; to create a community; to protect themselves in a large crowd. Some groups want to dominate and extract signals of submission. Is that socialisation?
Then there are large crowds - assemblies, fire drills, all the routine large pack systems - what is socialisation here? Is it knowing when you can whisper to get away with it? Try and subvert the authority. Try and redefine the event on your own terms. Try and not be a number, when you are a number. Is this socialisation?
There are people who move, between individuals, large groups, small groups; they transcend the labels. They ultimately deal with a large-scale organisation; an organisation with a command line from head down through deputy heads, form teachers, class teachers, supply teachers. They handle it. They are the succeeding people. We're glad. They survived socialisation.
But in the home ed world, what is socialisation?
My flippant answer, is that whatever socialisation is, we do too much of it. There are too many play dates, parties, all group meetings; mixing with adults, little kids, babies; all in workshops, lessons, parks, all day events. Then shops, high streets, libraries, galleries, museums. Everyday, somewhere. Can't we take a month off and stay at home?
My scared answer - on the days when all goes bellyup - is that whatever socialisation is, we don't do enough of it. We have issues. Too much shyness. Timidity. Fear of dogs. Strange people. New people. Too few people. Too many people. Wrong moment. Wrong place.
My more considered answer is, socialisation means what you want it to mean. It is the life you choose.
So today, socialisation is this tree. It contained eight kids for thirty minutes. One, reaching the top, yelled down to the others to come up.
Socialisation is this straggly walk through the conifers perched, wind blasted, against the Greensand Ridge.
Socialisation is this moment, wondering how many times a dog can jump into a lake to fetch a stick before it feels the cold.
Socialisation is walking on forest paths, talking about soil, the weather, lost scarves, and wondering about the lives of people who on Mondays must take themselves into schools.
Get thee gone, Mr Spooky, seeking sexy pigeon. Here is the s-word in the world of home education.
The first question I asked, the last doubt I harboured, was socialisation. How will my kids socialise? Will they be able to socialise? Don't kids go to school to be socialised properly?
On that last point, I worried. I know that socialisation takes a particular form in schools. Kids are told to shut up, sit down, listen. If the kids work their way round that, then yes, they talk with each other. They may establish pecking orders, or create a hierarchy of the classroom. People are assigned labels. The clown. The shy one. The geek. The swot. Is that socialisation?
Groups of types will form. People hardwire into those groups, and it's difficult to break out. Kids carry them through the playground - perhaps to describe a personal identity; to create a community; to protect themselves in a large crowd. Some groups want to dominate and extract signals of submission. Is that socialisation?
Then there are large crowds - assemblies, fire drills, all the routine large pack systems - what is socialisation here? Is it knowing when you can whisper to get away with it? Try and subvert the authority. Try and redefine the event on your own terms. Try and not be a number, when you are a number. Is this socialisation?
There are people who move, between individuals, large groups, small groups; they transcend the labels. They ultimately deal with a large-scale organisation; an organisation with a command line from head down through deputy heads, form teachers, class teachers, supply teachers. They handle it. They are the succeeding people. We're glad. They survived socialisation.
But in the home ed world, what is socialisation?
My flippant answer, is that whatever socialisation is, we do too much of it. There are too many play dates, parties, all group meetings; mixing with adults, little kids, babies; all in workshops, lessons, parks, all day events. Then shops, high streets, libraries, galleries, museums. Everyday, somewhere. Can't we take a month off and stay at home?
My scared answer - on the days when all goes bellyup - is that whatever socialisation is, we don't do enough of it. We have issues. Too much shyness. Timidity. Fear of dogs. Strange people. New people. Too few people. Too many people. Wrong moment. Wrong place.
My more considered answer is, socialisation means what you want it to mean. It is the life you choose.
So today, socialisation is this tree. It contained eight kids for thirty minutes. One, reaching the top, yelled down to the others to come up.
Socialisation is this straggly walk through the conifers perched, wind blasted, against the Greensand Ridge.
Socialisation is this moment, wondering how many times a dog can jump into a lake to fetch a stick before it feels the cold.
Socialisation is walking on forest paths, talking about soil, the weather, lost scarves, and wondering about the lives of people who on Mondays must take themselves into schools.
Sunday, 7 February 2010
Here comes some practical reality
I'll be honest. It's a shitty day. Tiger has broken the sound barrier with the screeching, possibly fuelled by emotional tension. Shark is now feverishly writing a novel to deflect any possible criticism that she does no writing at all, and Squirrel has thrown a towel over her desk to hide it. Then she had a big squeal and ran off. Maybe she thinks I'll follow through my threat from last week.
I think things are a little tense.
Thanks to the weeping, I'm not going anywhere sporting bullfrog eyes, and daddy Dig pushed off to the Indian restaurant to hunt down dinner. Without that lifeline, it's cereal again.
Maybe one way or another, we are starting to experience the collateral damage.
Just a couple of days ago, Dig sort of, maybe he did, yes he might have done, said OK, I agree. Those terms I can live with, so I may take that post in Hong Kong, just for the year. And because I want a husband then I'll follow and we'll all live happily and everything will be brilliant and no problem.
Only of course right now it is not all brilliant and no problem. It is a great big bomb that we have talked about and dropped, and forgive me, man seeking pigeon, because I might use my blog not to admire pigeons, but for some stream of consciousness typing, so that I can organise my hysteria, and in six months I might even look back and wonder what all the problems were about. Either because we never went anywhere and I am still sat at my office desk writing poopoopoo, or admitting I am so dreadfully, awfully homesick and am missing the English fields and a reenactment of the Battle of Bosworth.
But this blog exists to tell the life of the home educating family. How it is normal in a strange sort of way. So here are the pictures I took Thursday while Shark, Squirrel and Tiger listened for six hours 50 minutes straight to The Witch Trade by Michael Molloy, and drew and listened and made collage and drew and made books.
I think things are a little tense.
Thanks to the weeping, I'm not going anywhere sporting bullfrog eyes, and daddy Dig pushed off to the Indian restaurant to hunt down dinner. Without that lifeline, it's cereal again.
Maybe one way or another, we are starting to experience the collateral damage.
Just a couple of days ago, Dig sort of, maybe he did, yes he might have done, said OK, I agree. Those terms I can live with, so I may take that post in Hong Kong, just for the year. And because I want a husband then I'll follow and we'll all live happily and everything will be brilliant and no problem.
Only of course right now it is not all brilliant and no problem. It is a great big bomb that we have talked about and dropped, and forgive me, man seeking pigeon, because I might use my blog not to admire pigeons, but for some stream of consciousness typing, so that I can organise my hysteria, and in six months I might even look back and wonder what all the problems were about. Either because we never went anywhere and I am still sat at my office desk writing poopoopoo, or admitting I am so dreadfully, awfully homesick and am missing the English fields and a reenactment of the Battle of Bosworth.
But this blog exists to tell the life of the home educating family. How it is normal in a strange sort of way. So here are the pictures I took Thursday while Shark, Squirrel and Tiger listened for six hours 50 minutes straight to The Witch Trade by Michael Molloy, and drew and listened and made collage and drew and made books.
Saturday, 6 February 2010
Win some, lose some, at the RI funday
To the Royal Institution for their science fun day. They succeed, and they fail.
They succeed, because the lectures are fantastic science fun, with bangbang noises and scientists who play potassium permanganate for laughs, then blow things up.
Who doesn't want to be a chemist after that?
They lose, because the science activities are craft in disguise, and come without interpretation or scientific support.
No, I don't call student volunteers telling us how to glue lolly sticks together science. That's craft. Tell me why it's science. After the third time round, tell me anything. Tell me a science factoid in Chinese. That'll do.
But then they succeed again, because we are all excited by the fire engines. The bangbang sets off the smoke alarms, twice, and the audience churns out on the street while burly firemen come and probably tick off the RI for not properly turning off their fire alarms, and let's just hope that next time there's not a real fire.
Just when we thought it was going OK, we're all sad, and they lose again, because of the whole Susan Greenfield taking the RI to court thing. I know nothing outside what I read in the newspapers, so you could say that's next to nothing. But I suspect as home educators we've benefited from the RI makeover, and as home educators we'll lose when the RI goes bust, bolts its doors, and is sold as premises for London's 567th Pret a Manger. Like we needed another one of those instead of the dear old Royal Institution.
They succeed, because the lectures are fantastic science fun, with bangbang noises and scientists who play potassium permanganate for laughs, then blow things up.
Who doesn't want to be a chemist after that?
They lose, because the science activities are craft in disguise, and come without interpretation or scientific support.
No, I don't call student volunteers telling us how to glue lolly sticks together science. That's craft. Tell me why it's science. After the third time round, tell me anything. Tell me a science factoid in Chinese. That'll do.
But then they succeed again, because we are all excited by the fire engines. The bangbang sets off the smoke alarms, twice, and the audience churns out on the street while burly firemen come and probably tick off the RI for not properly turning off their fire alarms, and let's just hope that next time there's not a real fire.
Just when we thought it was going OK, we're all sad, and they lose again, because of the whole Susan Greenfield taking the RI to court thing. I know nothing outside what I read in the newspapers, so you could say that's next to nothing. But I suspect as home educators we've benefited from the RI makeover, and as home educators we'll lose when the RI goes bust, bolts its doors, and is sold as premises for London's 567th Pret a Manger. Like we needed another one of those instead of the dear old Royal Institution.
Friday, 5 February 2010
Shut up. It just got the job done, OK?
Total joy on seeing Squirrel's desk covered in purple soap bubbles.
For first time in six months, not piled three foot high in crap.
I would like to say this proves what a perfect autonomous life we lead, because Squirrel volunteered this moment, totally unprompted.
She did not. She did it because I said if she did not clear up her desk by midnight, I would throw away all her stuff, then her hair would fall out in shock, and somewhere a unicorn would die.
For first time in six months, not piled three foot high in crap.
I would like to say this proves what a perfect autonomous life we lead, because Squirrel volunteered this moment, totally unprompted.
She did not. She did it because I said if she did not clear up her desk by midnight, I would throw away all her stuff, then her hair would fall out in shock, and somewhere a unicorn would die.
Thursday, 4 February 2010
Come round here, Sir Al.
This isn't news, is it? It isn't news to me. Maybe it's news if Al Green says it.
I think other folks have said this too. Probably since Victoria Regina. Is that when the upper classes taught everyone else how to shut kids up, prop them in a corner and berate them for not displaying the dour and serious mind they thought an adult should have?
But, from what I've experienced, I think Al's right. In this country, adults betray the idea that kids are your life sentence. The first cheerful words sang out to me after the near-death-birth experience were, That's it! You'll never leave the house again!
Well, they were wrong. But they were nearly right. Resolving to learn how to enjoy and break free with kids, I made it to the Co-op after a month's hospitalisation, pushing three micro preemie babies swamped beneath a blanket in a buggy made for two.
Incompetent baby pusher that I was, and gingerly learning to balance upright and smile, I blocked the narrow bread aisle. I was pushed out the way by a high heeled harpy: she beat her wings, clicked her tongue, and snatched the bread rolls from under my nose like they were hand grenades.
I guess I had to be grateful she hadn't spat at me and shot me with raisin buns. But it was an introduction to that sudden change in life. Once, you were an adult. Now, you have reproduced, and offered children to the world, when you should have birthed adults. Your admission of failure, so you asked for it. Now you get what you deserve. And wipe that smile off your face.
Of course not everyone in England is like this. There are always the tender hearted who happily help with buggies, bags and kids; always the back-broken elderly ladies who cheer Aren't children lovely! Even when one is covered in vomit and the others accidentally painted green.
But for every one of these soft-hearted, there are ten more who steal that parent and child car parking space and stride single to the shops; a hundred more who scowl impatiently because you dawdle to cross the road; a thousand who, grim-lipped, laser eyebeam your criminal child, waiting. Will they dare touch something you never knew before was never to be touched?
Underlying that - our institutions, businesses, society - a pervasive attitude that if you bring children, your job is merely to control them; to make sure they never intrude upon the serious minds of adults, to educate them that being a child is a hard-grind business, and preparation for work.
Bugger. In her bit of Britain, Grit is doing it all the wrong way round.
In Gritty Britain, adults and children aren't separated; they're not partitioned off to different day-stay institutions. They work and live together. They learn from each other. Children learn what it is to see the world as an adult: adults learn what it is to see the world as a child.
Dare I even whisper I enjoy the company of children? And, worse, children not my own? Because in these labourious days these words have been made to sound like an admission of pedophilia. Now beyond the pale, I'll admit. I introduce to my children other adults too, who, like me, wonder at the world, who think trees are brilliant, and say so.
I am probably lost. But anti-child Britain will have to excuse me. The children have come calling. So I'm running off, over the hills, to play.
I think other folks have said this too. Probably since Victoria Regina. Is that when the upper classes taught everyone else how to shut kids up, prop them in a corner and berate them for not displaying the dour and serious mind they thought an adult should have?
But, from what I've experienced, I think Al's right. In this country, adults betray the idea that kids are your life sentence. The first cheerful words sang out to me after the near-death-birth experience were, That's it! You'll never leave the house again!
Well, they were wrong. But they were nearly right. Resolving to learn how to enjoy and break free with kids, I made it to the Co-op after a month's hospitalisation, pushing three micro preemie babies swamped beneath a blanket in a buggy made for two.
Incompetent baby pusher that I was, and gingerly learning to balance upright and smile, I blocked the narrow bread aisle. I was pushed out the way by a high heeled harpy: she beat her wings, clicked her tongue, and snatched the bread rolls from under my nose like they were hand grenades.
I guess I had to be grateful she hadn't spat at me and shot me with raisin buns. But it was an introduction to that sudden change in life. Once, you were an adult. Now, you have reproduced, and offered children to the world, when you should have birthed adults. Your admission of failure, so you asked for it. Now you get what you deserve. And wipe that smile off your face.
Of course not everyone in England is like this. There are always the tender hearted who happily help with buggies, bags and kids; always the back-broken elderly ladies who cheer Aren't children lovely! Even when one is covered in vomit and the others accidentally painted green.
But for every one of these soft-hearted, there are ten more who steal that parent and child car parking space and stride single to the shops; a hundred more who scowl impatiently because you dawdle to cross the road; a thousand who, grim-lipped, laser eyebeam your criminal child, waiting. Will they dare touch something you never knew before was never to be touched?
Underlying that - our institutions, businesses, society - a pervasive attitude that if you bring children, your job is merely to control them; to make sure they never intrude upon the serious minds of adults, to educate them that being a child is a hard-grind business, and preparation for work.
Bugger. In her bit of Britain, Grit is doing it all the wrong way round.
In Gritty Britain, adults and children aren't separated; they're not partitioned off to different day-stay institutions. They work and live together. They learn from each other. Children learn what it is to see the world as an adult: adults learn what it is to see the world as a child.
Dare I even whisper I enjoy the company of children? And, worse, children not my own? Because in these labourious days these words have been made to sound like an admission of pedophilia. Now beyond the pale, I'll admit. I introduce to my children other adults too, who, like me, wonder at the world, who think trees are brilliant, and say so.
I am probably lost. But anti-child Britain will have to excuse me. The children have come calling. So I'm running off, over the hills, to play.
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!
Late back home, thanks to a shindig with the Buddhists.
They keep us up all hours with their party people lifestyle. Once you get in the door at the local temple, you could be happily lost for days. And they make a mean spring roll. Squirrel deftly handed twelve of them into her fairy bag without anyone noticing, which should give you an insight into how she came by her moniker.
By nine pm, Tiger was dropping near to bits, it being the excitement of her name year, while Shark was all for going into town to see if she could pick up a couple of dolphins and boogie all night.
We've been celebrating Setsuban at the local temple.
You can say we celebrate this alongside the Buddhists because we are smug home educating types who like to involve ourselves in the rich society we live in, if you're kind. If you're unkind, you can say it's because the Buddhists give the fat Grit a free dinner in exchange for a bit of chanting. It's true she mixes up the ooohaas and the dooodahs, but no-one minds. Everyone's happy with the Buddhists. They're all filled with smiles, and that alone is one big, big reason to go during this year of Britain in Gloom.
Anyway, after the chanting, all the stuff about marching with Bruce Kent is read out, and I feel transported back into a student union bar somewhere up north. Then they turn out all the lights, just like at a student rag, and all the birth Tigers pelt us with beans and sweeties. Some of those Tigers had a pretty good aim, even in the dark, and I'm glad I wore my glasses.
Dinnertime, I sat by someone who spoke no sense at all but spoke it so winningly and happily that I didn't care. Sometimes he was speaking Japanese and sometimes he just talked about boxes and where you could be oriented if you stood near one, upside down and inside out.
And that just about expresses it. I understood about ten percent, I enjoyed one hundred per cent, and the kids spent two hours discussing the merits of Buddhism vs Christianity. Success. Both in a smug bastardy sort of way and a smiley human sort of way as well.
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Breaking the law is a simple step
The little grits went about their normal business today. Reading in bed first.
When the clock hands turn to eleven, it's time for me to threaten them with skewers. We must arrive at French early. If we do, we have time to chat and meet the regular group of kids, mostly ages nine to twelve. And, secretly, I suspect Mme is less generous with the fruity chews for late foot dragging stragglers who interrupt her quatrevingtdix.
The weather is cold and wet and grey, so after French, the children choose not to stay for outdoor play. Anyway, Shark is keen to make a splash with her spending money at the second hand bookshop in town. Choosing Leopard Trail, we hurry back home, and pick up our project to make leather bound notebooks for our summer journeys.
The leather is donated by a local bag and shoe making business to Scrapstore. I go there weekly, and pick up great, exciting bundles of cut offs and cast offs for our art and craft. The butterfly is recycled from a belt, picked up at the hospice charity shop.
The notebook took half an hour to make, is stitched with embroidery thread, has a magnetic catch, serves as a jotter, and helped me take my mind off things.
Because today the bill which contains a licensing scheme for home educating parents like me, makes its steady passage through the House of Commons. And, if it becomes law, the question of how I will break the law has been much on my mind.
Probably, I will break the law by non compliance. I will not put forward my family to the local authority. To do so is to accept the premise that local government should licence me annually. That, I cannot accept.
Because as a parent, my first promise is to my children, not the state.
I believe that my children are my responsibility. I am the person they look to for support, to defend them and protect them as they grow. It is a very great trust my children place in me, and I have a responsibility to meet their trust as best I can. I want for Shark, Squirrel and Tiger to grow and make their bigger and better decisions independently, wisely, imaginatively, bravely, while knowing of themselves, and knowing of the world. I do not believe the government can match the education I offer for that. I offer creativity, imagination, boldness, independence.
I will not permit a situation where government says these states cannot possibly exist, this condition of trust cannot be, unless they have inspected me; examined my home; approved me, furnished me with a licence to be with my children, but only for one year, renewable upon my compliance with any further requirements they make.
I cannot accept that. And from that basis, breaking the law will be simple.
When the clock hands turn to eleven, it's time for me to threaten them with skewers. We must arrive at French early. If we do, we have time to chat and meet the regular group of kids, mostly ages nine to twelve. And, secretly, I suspect Mme is less generous with the fruity chews for late foot dragging stragglers who interrupt her quatrevingtdix.
The weather is cold and wet and grey, so after French, the children choose not to stay for outdoor play. Anyway, Shark is keen to make a splash with her spending money at the second hand bookshop in town. Choosing Leopard Trail, we hurry back home, and pick up our project to make leather bound notebooks for our summer journeys.
The leather is donated by a local bag and shoe making business to Scrapstore. I go there weekly, and pick up great, exciting bundles of cut offs and cast offs for our art and craft. The butterfly is recycled from a belt, picked up at the hospice charity shop.
The notebook took half an hour to make, is stitched with embroidery thread, has a magnetic catch, serves as a jotter, and helped me take my mind off things.
Because today the bill which contains a licensing scheme for home educating parents like me, makes its steady passage through the House of Commons. And, if it becomes law, the question of how I will break the law has been much on my mind.
Probably, I will break the law by non compliance. I will not put forward my family to the local authority. To do so is to accept the premise that local government should licence me annually. That, I cannot accept.
Because as a parent, my first promise is to my children, not the state.
I believe that my children are my responsibility. I am the person they look to for support, to defend them and protect them as they grow. It is a very great trust my children place in me, and I have a responsibility to meet their trust as best I can. I want for Shark, Squirrel and Tiger to grow and make their bigger and better decisions independently, wisely, imaginatively, bravely, while knowing of themselves, and knowing of the world. I do not believe the government can match the education I offer for that. I offer creativity, imagination, boldness, independence.
I will not permit a situation where government says these states cannot possibly exist, this condition of trust cannot be, unless they have inspected me; examined my home; approved me, furnished me with a licence to be with my children, but only for one year, renewable upon my compliance with any further requirements they make.
I cannot accept that. And from that basis, breaking the law will be simple.
Monday, 1 February 2010
Something to inspire
Look. Isn't this fantastic? Can you see that? I know you're not thinking, Grit, that is just a pile of old junk, stacked in the street, waiting to be collected and fly tipped. No. You know this heap of broken household refuse represents a long, gruelling journey I have made; charting that perilous course with blood and heartache and pain. This is my moment of triumph and achievement. You can share.
But Dig, foolish Dig! He is thinking here is something very tiny and insignificant happening on the periphery of his world! He is in the office right now, all blood pressure face red and sudden quiet with the laying of flat hands on the desk, like some internal combustion is about to explode, so don't look.
Dig has a mission to bring peace and stability to this world with his fine commas but see what happened? I would suggest someone better duck now, because that urgent travel to Nepal? Let's just say all his travel plans are fine to Afghanistan.
Nepal, Afghanistan, close enough if you live behind an admin desk twelve floors above Brompton. But Dig, console yourself with your thwarted ambitions, and look at my achievement! You can surely relate to this. For I have organised the pick up, steeled my resolve, gritted my teeth, and dragged this huge pile of crap lain untouched in the yard for two years and dumped it in the street. You can be justly proud. Call me your wife.
Do you remember the barbells? These barbells hounded my life for fifteen years. Dear reader, these barbells were left in the flat upstairs; the same flat we now use as bedrooms; the flat offered at the bargain price which, unknown to us, came with five sets of bailiffs and a county court judgement. These barbells were left behind by the kind and thoughtful resident called Bruce who, before he disappeared to Brazil, balanced them on the gas pipes under the floorboards together with a stash of 150 pornographic DVD covers, where they could be found by the delighted gas man. Then I had some explaining to do. Like please stop leering at me, because the look on my face is surprise at revelation, not shock of recognition. But you can bet if I ever see Bruce walking down this street again someone better hold me back.
I could go on, detailing the items that have drained my life and lain stashed in the ancient falling down pile and which I am slowly picking out for removal. I could write volumes on the old mattress from Corbridge, the broken chair from Bournemouth, the plastic furniture from Milton Keynes. But it is enough to know that by their departure, my day lifts with success.
So, console yourself, dear Dig. Remember that order can be drawn from chaos. Success can be hewn from bitter experience. Achievement can be a street blockaded with junk.
Think of that, brought about by Grit's resolve, when you tentatively offer up your outstretched hand at that bombed out bus stop in Afghanistan.
Sunday, 31 January 2010
All death in the Imperial War Museum
Clapping eyes on Blair's tanned and unrepentant visage at the Iraq Inquiry on Friday is still coming back on me, like bad indigestion.
Yesterday helped a little. But it might explain why this morning I'm aggravated enough to jump out of a warm Sunday bed and shout Get up! you are going to the Imperial War Museum and we have a damn train to catch!
I do not know what I was expecting in my children at this declaration of intent, like, Today you are going to learn about WAR.
I have not exactly prepared the kids for this. If I tot up the wars we have so far talked about, most are Plantagenet. Sure, I have introduced both world wars, but the words sound enormous and incomprehensible to me, coming out my own mouth, so goodness knows what the children have made of it. What? The whole world? Everybody? It's easier to divert myself back to the Wars of the Roses.
Probably for several reasons. One, mostly I prefer to talk about war in terms of power politics, agendas, factions and rivalries, rather than actual legs blown off or eyes put out. And the first and second world wars are just too close and well documented photographically, and my parents just a little too nearby in those conflicts, for me to feel capable and cool in this discussion. I have seen the photographs my father took in the Middle East, and I simply cannot relay to his grandchildren the actual bodily harm that war inflicts.
Anyway, in my experience, considering the minutiae of actual violence brings out a lot more grudges. Like if we think about the time Shark hit Tiger with a spade, then we must also recall the time Squirrel retaliated by hurling at Shark's head a puffin strapped to a bamboo skewer.
The second reason I shirk from battle talk is that I probably don't know all the fine print of those world wars: which campaign was spearheaded on which front by which general at which point. I know some people can do that, and I find it spooky and intimidating.
I like to justify my lack of fine detail in military history by arguing that wars have a social cost and a domestic impact. I am on safer ground there. Because if we are going to analyse a conflict at home, like, who stole what book, and who deserves a punch in the face with a cycle helmet, then I can talk about resources and consequence and how we can all go to the library and let's remember sharing time.
Then there's a third reason. I am obstinate, bloody minded, and a little difficult to handle. If you tell me the world is going in this direction, then I'll go in the other. Thank you very much. And I know that in school kids have a lot more focus on the world war stuff. I can say for a fact the local museum marches in the primary evacuation groups one after another during summer.
As schoolchildren, my kids would have notched up at least three evacuations, a blitz and a bombing in an Anderson shelter by the age of seven. So we don't want to do that. I think there is time enough yet for the world wars. While Tiger is interested in medieval armour, then we talk Edward III. Or the Hundred Years War. Or the Wars of the Roses.
Finally, I have a prosaic reason. I can talk about sex better than battlefield bloodshed. Sex is easy. Put your hand here. I don't want to engage with that idea for working out how to kill someone at close range. Physically, it's not a body experience I'm hoping to be invited to. And as for what happens in my head, I don't want to imagine how my body would react in a trench surrounded by death. I can simply find no decent fantasy to be made of pain and misery.
So I hope someone else can tell the gritlets about world wars. More than that. What can happen when the population is hoodwinked; what happens when people in power cannot step back; when war is treated as inevitable, and viewed from a position in power, desirable?
The gritlets are remarkably accommodating at the Imperial War Museum today, even facing up to a building rising from the bones of the old London Bedlam hospital, and now filled with killing machines, suffering, and hardship. And I am grateful to the museum curators for bringing issues to my children that I find difficult to explain. Not cases stuffed with dummies and uniforms, but video, audio, ways of feeling, ways of seeing, ways of hearing.
Shark, Squirrel and Tiger can take from their experience today new ideas about conflict, more thoughtful discussions about power, questions about violence, issues of peacekeeping, and reasons for war. But not from me. And certainly not from Tony Blair.
Yesterday helped a little. But it might explain why this morning I'm aggravated enough to jump out of a warm Sunday bed and shout Get up! you are going to the Imperial War Museum and we have a damn train to catch!
I do not know what I was expecting in my children at this declaration of intent, like, Today you are going to learn about WAR.
I have not exactly prepared the kids for this. If I tot up the wars we have so far talked about, most are Plantagenet. Sure, I have introduced both world wars, but the words sound enormous and incomprehensible to me, coming out my own mouth, so goodness knows what the children have made of it. What? The whole world? Everybody? It's easier to divert myself back to the Wars of the Roses.
Probably for several reasons. One, mostly I prefer to talk about war in terms of power politics, agendas, factions and rivalries, rather than actual legs blown off or eyes put out. And the first and second world wars are just too close and well documented photographically, and my parents just a little too nearby in those conflicts, for me to feel capable and cool in this discussion. I have seen the photographs my father took in the Middle East, and I simply cannot relay to his grandchildren the actual bodily harm that war inflicts.
Anyway, in my experience, considering the minutiae of actual violence brings out a lot more grudges. Like if we think about the time Shark hit Tiger with a spade, then we must also recall the time Squirrel retaliated by hurling at Shark's head a puffin strapped to a bamboo skewer.
The second reason I shirk from battle talk is that I probably don't know all the fine print of those world wars: which campaign was spearheaded on which front by which general at which point. I know some people can do that, and I find it spooky and intimidating.
I like to justify my lack of fine detail in military history by arguing that wars have a social cost and a domestic impact. I am on safer ground there. Because if we are going to analyse a conflict at home, like, who stole what book, and who deserves a punch in the face with a cycle helmet, then I can talk about resources and consequence and how we can all go to the library and let's remember sharing time.
Then there's a third reason. I am obstinate, bloody minded, and a little difficult to handle. If you tell me the world is going in this direction, then I'll go in the other. Thank you very much. And I know that in school kids have a lot more focus on the world war stuff. I can say for a fact the local museum marches in the primary evacuation groups one after another during summer.
As schoolchildren, my kids would have notched up at least three evacuations, a blitz and a bombing in an Anderson shelter by the age of seven. So we don't want to do that. I think there is time enough yet for the world wars. While Tiger is interested in medieval armour, then we talk Edward III. Or the Hundred Years War. Or the Wars of the Roses.
Finally, I have a prosaic reason. I can talk about sex better than battlefield bloodshed. Sex is easy. Put your hand here. I don't want to engage with that idea for working out how to kill someone at close range. Physically, it's not a body experience I'm hoping to be invited to. And as for what happens in my head, I don't want to imagine how my body would react in a trench surrounded by death. I can simply find no decent fantasy to be made of pain and misery.
So I hope someone else can tell the gritlets about world wars. More than that. What can happen when the population is hoodwinked; what happens when people in power cannot step back; when war is treated as inevitable, and viewed from a position in power, desirable?
The gritlets are remarkably accommodating at the Imperial War Museum today, even facing up to a building rising from the bones of the old London Bedlam hospital, and now filled with killing machines, suffering, and hardship. And I am grateful to the museum curators for bringing issues to my children that I find difficult to explain. Not cases stuffed with dummies and uniforms, but video, audio, ways of feeling, ways of seeing, ways of hearing.
Shark, Squirrel and Tiger can take from their experience today new ideas about conflict, more thoughtful discussions about power, questions about violence, issues of peacekeeping, and reasons for war. But not from me. And certainly not from Tony Blair.
Saturday, 30 January 2010
Friday, 29 January 2010
I'm going down the gym. It's the only place I can watch TV.
It's no good thinking in this house that come mid morning I can loll on the sofa and watch the Iraq Inquiry on TV. I'd like to think that I could. In reality, gritlet number one will come and find me and demand the spelling of hooves and police and then tell me I am boring.
Then driblet number two will wander in front of the screen and pick a fight with me because I said I would teach everyone how to stitch books and now look. I am wasting time watching TV.
By the end of that fifteen minute argument the third griblet will start off with a big attention grabbing squeal which tells me it's time to switch off TV and make lunch.
The frustration I feel at my meagre ambition thwarted will finally cause me to have a big shout. Then all the gritlets will cry and I'll spend two hours explaining why I wanted to watch the ruddy TV in the first place.
There's only one thing for it. Escape. Dump the kids with Dig and go and sit on a bike that doesn't go anywhere.
Each bike down the gym has a TV screen clamped to the front, which comes in very handy for moments like this. No one interrupts me, no one tells me to move, no one demands food, and no one screams in my ear.
On the minus side, after 45 minutes I am forgetful as to my whereabouts and start to fingerjab the screen and mouth obscenities at the gold plated moral righteousness of our ex prime minister. And after another ten minutes my blood pressure is at boiling point.
But at least I can say this was the day I was there, on a bike not going anywhere, watching this hollow moment of justification in a world made fearful and dangerous and deadly. And I didn't make the children cry. But how many children must have cried for what's done, and how many more have to cry for what is yet to come.
Then driblet number two will wander in front of the screen and pick a fight with me because I said I would teach everyone how to stitch books and now look. I am wasting time watching TV.
By the end of that fifteen minute argument the third griblet will start off with a big attention grabbing squeal which tells me it's time to switch off TV and make lunch.
The frustration I feel at my meagre ambition thwarted will finally cause me to have a big shout. Then all the gritlets will cry and I'll spend two hours explaining why I wanted to watch the ruddy TV in the first place.
There's only one thing for it. Escape. Dump the kids with Dig and go and sit on a bike that doesn't go anywhere.
Each bike down the gym has a TV screen clamped to the front, which comes in very handy for moments like this. No one interrupts me, no one tells me to move, no one demands food, and no one screams in my ear.
On the minus side, after 45 minutes I am forgetful as to my whereabouts and start to fingerjab the screen and mouth obscenities at the gold plated moral righteousness of our ex prime minister. And after another ten minutes my blood pressure is at boiling point.
But at least I can say this was the day I was there, on a bike not going anywhere, watching this hollow moment of justification in a world made fearful and dangerous and deadly. And I didn't make the children cry. But how many children must have cried for what's done, and how many more have to cry for what is yet to come.
Thursday, 28 January 2010
Are you having enough fun with boxes?
Back by popular demand!
OK, Mamacrow asked. Plenty of encouragement for the socially misaligned Grit.
So, here we go.
Seven days of crafty education with a kid and a load of boxes!
Have you noticed how kids and cats are exactly the same? Both investigate boxes. And neither laugh along with you when you slam the lid shut and take them off to the vets. Here are some other things to do with boxes this week apart from lock your baby up in one.
Day 1: Make a feely box.
A wondrous item.For this, you need a glue gun and 14 extralong gluesticks, so get down the DIY shop.
Next, give your kid away. It is more fun if Tinkertop does not witness the preparation. And this project might be fun for you; you don't need small people asking where are you going? why do you need scissors? what are you doing with daddy's trousers? why are you laughing like that? At this point it would help very much if Tinkertop wasn't hanging onto your leg or eating the gluesticks.
Get your cardboard box. The bigger and stronger, the better.
And clear out your wardrobe. Look for fabric to cut up. Like your leather trousers. I know it's tough, but let's face facts. You bought them to impress kinky Simon with the bleached hair. He disappeared with your bezzy mate and your Duran Duran CD over fifteen years ago. You have never worn the trousers since. Scissors are therapy.
You've started, so may as well continue. Howabout that velveteen red pencil skirt, size 8? If you have a stomach like mine, it has motherhood stamped all over it and it ain't going inside a size 8 pencil skirt ever again. If it does, it is clearly near death's door, and will want comfort food on recovery. Enjoy the sound of those scissors.
Try the faux suede coat. It made you look like road kill. Unlike the bitch of a neighbour, ten years younger and size zero, who looked like a filmstar. Scissors are infinitely more satisfying than a plasticine poppet and pins. With faux suede, no-one can see what you are thinking.
While you're seeking vengeance, find those skinny jeans that gave you a muffin top and consider the pointlessness of Victoria Beckham. You'll feel better for it.
Now you're on a roll. Hack apart that string vest you deny ever having bought in 1988 when Madonna turned them into sex for one week. Afterwards, they became you like Rab C Nesbitt. You know even the Oxfam shop will hand it back.
And why stop with the wardrobe? One turn round the house yields torn net curtain, worn out satin cushion covers and velvet throws covered in vomit. And we haven't even started on the table linen yet. Or the wardrobe belonging to daddy. He's out and will never notice. If he discovers one leg of his linen trousers is missing, you can tell him Tinkertop did it.
By the end of three therapeutic hours you have amassed a fine pile of cut up leather, string, cotton, silk, voile, plastic, linen, satin and nylon, all in a glorious riot of colours and textures.
Unless every item you possess is black. If so, realise this fundamental problem quickly. The RSPCA shop may have a pound rail. Bulk buy fabrics here in every colour but black, bring them home and cut them up instead.
Next, rummage in your drawers. I told you this would be fun.
Five minutes in a cutlery drawer round here and we find cork, wooden blocks, tinfoil, pan scourer, feathers, cardboard, bootlaces, cotton reels and a bent cheesegrater. Perfect. It might suggest why dinner times are problematic.
Back to your big cardboard box. On two sides, cut holes, round enough for your arms to get in.
Set to work on the inside. In our feely box I glued hard stuff like wood, ridged plastic, cold metal, scourer, a small cardboard box, and a bent grater. You might be nice, and line your feely box with soft stuff. Cover the holes in the cardboard with curtains, hanging down on the inside. I used a see-through black polyester fabric from a 1980s Dorothy Perkins top. I'm so classy, it hurts.
Now start on the outside of the box. If it is a box with flaps, bring them together and seal them up with super strong packing tape. Apart from the holes you cut, it should be sealed all the way round. If you used a box with only five faces, you're in trouble. (I thought I'd wait till step 8 to tell you that.)
On all the six faces of your box, get going with the glue and fabric again. Cover every surface. Make it as fantastically Niedojadlo as you can. Do stuff like tie that linen trouser leg at the ankle with a shoelace, then fill it with polystyrene foam, and attach it to side of your box. Keep going, until the childminder rings up and begs.
Voila! Introduce feely box to child! Introduce child to feely box!
Caution. After you have laboured all day with love, burned the skin off your fingers with boiling glue, and cut up your clothes, do not be disappointed if Tinkertop stares indifferently past your box of delight, or is overawed and starts screaming in horror because daddy's leg is glued to the side. Your child might simply need encouragement to approach the box and stick her hands in the holes. At this point, do not say the box contains demons. Say the box contains chocolate. Be brave, Tinkertop, and find the Smarties.
OK, it's a long-term box. You can try and be an uber parent like Grit. Over a year of managing screaming child temper tantrums I sought to use the soft and hard materials of the box as a vehicle for discussing emotions. Like sometimes we say sharp and angry words which feel like cheesegraters; sometimes we feel soft and soothing words like this old suede pocket. It never worked. The only thing that ever worked for Tiger was smashing up her bedroom.
Day 2: The magic story box!
Now that your feely box lies discarded in the front room, try this one. (This takes some setting up, so plan ahead! Now you really feel the benefit of Grit's fantastic guide, don't you?)
Think up a story to tell. One that includes a magic box, obviously, or there's no point. Introduce a padlocked box. I don't know where you get it from. Be resourceful. I used the office petty cash box. Anyway, alongside the padlocked box, offer a range of different keys in envelopes or containers or, better still, put them in the ruddy feely box. Encourage Tinkertop to find the keys, try them all, and find her way into the padlocked box. Is she going to find anything? Link it to your story. And resolve that next time you won't use your car key because now you have no idea where it is.
Day 3: Make your own boxes
Drag some patterns off t'internet. There are loads. If you can't do that, make some up. I bought this book, which I admit is specialist interest, but I was in love with the design teacher at the time, and bellow dust flap, tuck lock, and auto lock bottom all made for a perfect fantasy.
Day 4: Geometry with boxes
You've probably done this because you are smart, but when I realised after two hours I was actually doing maths it was like the dawn of all divine revelation to me.
Collect lots of small containers in different geometric shapes, like cylinders, cubes, spheres, cones. Or give in and buy a set because it's quicker. Fill them all endlessly with coloured rice or beads or anything you won't mind the baby shoving up their nostrils. Sit happily pouring rice from one to the other, talk volume and ask questions like Do boxes have to look rectangular? What's a face? A corner? A solid? Side? End? Perimeter? Angle?
Oh I bet you could go on for hours. Soon you'll be doing singalong Pythagoras while the kids amuse themselves shoving stuff up their nostrils.
Day 4: Living in a cardboard box
After yesterday's hospital visit to remove six beads from Tinkertop's nose, you need to do something calming with boxes. Throw lots of empty boxes, Playmobil, and kids into the hollowed out front room and ask them to make a cardboard city for all the sad homeless people. With a bit of snip snip snip boxes make very good castles, doll's houses, stables, Travelodges, supermarkets and Barratt homes.
If you are really motoring on this one, or blind and careless to the destruction ahead, the kids can paint bricks and rooves and walls and make roads and hospitals and crematoriums and stuff. Hide the matches.
Day 5: How many can you think of?
Looking back to these old diaries, most weeks I included a discussion day. I take that to mean this was the day I threw the kids in the library and tried to hide for a cry in the toilets. Because you are stronger than me, you could make a big picture collage of boxes for your display wall, i.e. the last visible bit of wall in the front room. Cut up magazines or draw pictures of boxes: wooden sound boxes on guitars, shell inlaid music boxes, tin boxes of snuff, pirate boxes of buried treasure, Victorian food boxes, ceremonial scroll-storing boxes, Roman lead coffins. Oh the fun you can have.
Day 6: Get rid of all the bloody boxes
When you can't take any more, tell the kids everyone can play Post Office. Dress them up in polyester uniforms, sellotape up the boxes you've collected, write out address labels to teddies, unicorns, anyone, and create some stamps. Rubber stamp everything like mad with a scowl just like at a proper post office counter. Exchange plastic money. Then take all the boxes to a recycling point and dump them. This is called posting them, and in some circumstances is as good as using the actual post office.
Memo: Check for actual box contents before tipping. Buying a replacement classic pooh bear at £9.95 is not a mistake I recommend to anyone.
Day 7: Travel back in time with your box
By now, you are interested in boxes through the ages, aren't you? Stop watching Doctor Who and read Hans Christian Andersen's The Tinder Box. Come on, do some actions. If you really want to come over all English teacher, draw pictures of the main events on different cards, jumble them up, and ask the kids to put the story back together in proper picture order. Make the dogs especially terrifying.
Hmm. Now I think of it, Tiger's terrible fear of dogs might have started here.
There, Mamacrow. I am all boxed up for the week, and hope you are too.
(And I observe there are actually two day 4s. I thought that was a week of achievement.)
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Pleasure and pain
I hardly dare admit it. By the time you are sipping your chilled chardonnay and preparing for another evening of Celebrity Big Brother, I'm already upstairs in the attic bedrooms. Once there, I put on a squeaking voice and pretend to be Mr Wopsle.
If you do not know who Mr Wopsle is, that is probably because you are a well-rounded uptotheminute individual. I bet you live in the twenty first century, know what dongles are, and can converse about the likely trajectory of Vinnie Jones' career.
Think of me, then. Upstairs, I am living in a Victorian drama. I tell everyone I have tried to get out.
I am reading Great Expectations by Dickens, to Shark, Squirrel and Tiger as their bedtime story.
I will admit I quite like Dickens. OK, I confess to a prolonged affair with Trollope too. Sometimes I still gaze at him, wistfully. Then he winks at me from his place on the top shelf, but really, I haven't got the time. I may fondle his crinkly pages again in my retirement.
But Dickens. And Great Expectations. I am upstairs with both. With Dickens, you wade through a lot of prose and strange referencing to Victorian practices of grease-selling, then suddenly there it is. A lawyer with a black chair like a coffin. A man who staggers and falls backwards upon a sofa in the manner of a dying gladiator. The silent frustrations of one who pulls themselves up by their own hair. And I act that out, and Shark, Squirrel and Tiger all laugh, and want another chapter.
Yet although you can guess I strangely enjoy this bedtime book, I also wish it were over.
Mostly, because it is hard work, reading all that long sentence prose when it is evening, and you have to add all the voices, some of the actions, and your audience is getting in and out of the bath while traipsing wet and dripping and towel clad across the story-reading place, which is a furry chair propped up against the radiator on the hall landing.
It's not over quickly, either. This story routine can go on for hours. I'm not telling you that last night I finally managed to coax lights out at 11.30pm.
Then there is all the explaining to do. Why does Miss Haversham want Pip to play? Why did Jaggers bite his finger? Why does Biddy get cross? After fifteen minutes of sounding like an English teacher I want to slap myself around the face to shut myself up.
So this is why despite the pleasure, there is also pain, and I wish it were done.
And if you're wondering, Great Expectations is Tiger's choice. She pulled it off a bookshelf and said, that one. I wanted Kit's Wilderness by David Almond. I'll claim that next.
Meanwhile, I feel strangely cut off from normal life, with Great Expectations in the attic bedrooms. Is Dickens a must-read these days? Do children read him? Do they know who he is? Or is it only us, reading about Jaggers till past eleven, wondering about butter fat and cobweb cakes, knowing there is only one answer to my half-hearted question, Do I really have to read another chapter?
If you do not know who Mr Wopsle is, that is probably because you are a well-rounded uptotheminute individual. I bet you live in the twenty first century, know what dongles are, and can converse about the likely trajectory of Vinnie Jones' career.
Think of me, then. Upstairs, I am living in a Victorian drama. I tell everyone I have tried to get out.
I am reading Great Expectations by Dickens, to Shark, Squirrel and Tiger as their bedtime story.
I will admit I quite like Dickens. OK, I confess to a prolonged affair with Trollope too. Sometimes I still gaze at him, wistfully. Then he winks at me from his place on the top shelf, but really, I haven't got the time. I may fondle his crinkly pages again in my retirement.
But Dickens. And Great Expectations. I am upstairs with both. With Dickens, you wade through a lot of prose and strange referencing to Victorian practices of grease-selling, then suddenly there it is. A lawyer with a black chair like a coffin. A man who staggers and falls backwards upon a sofa in the manner of a dying gladiator. The silent frustrations of one who pulls themselves up by their own hair. And I act that out, and Shark, Squirrel and Tiger all laugh, and want another chapter.
Yet although you can guess I strangely enjoy this bedtime book, I also wish it were over.
Mostly, because it is hard work, reading all that long sentence prose when it is evening, and you have to add all the voices, some of the actions, and your audience is getting in and out of the bath while traipsing wet and dripping and towel clad across the story-reading place, which is a furry chair propped up against the radiator on the hall landing.
It's not over quickly, either. This story routine can go on for hours. I'm not telling you that last night I finally managed to coax lights out at 11.30pm.
Then there is all the explaining to do. Why does Miss Haversham want Pip to play? Why did Jaggers bite his finger? Why does Biddy get cross? After fifteen minutes of sounding like an English teacher I want to slap myself around the face to shut myself up.
So this is why despite the pleasure, there is also pain, and I wish it were done.
And if you're wondering, Great Expectations is Tiger's choice. She pulled it off a bookshelf and said, that one. I wanted Kit's Wilderness by David Almond. I'll claim that next.
Meanwhile, I feel strangely cut off from normal life, with Great Expectations in the attic bedrooms. Is Dickens a must-read these days? Do children read him? Do they know who he is? Or is it only us, reading about Jaggers till past eleven, wondering about butter fat and cobweb cakes, knowing there is only one answer to my half-hearted question, Do I really have to read another chapter?
Tuesday, 26 January 2010
It comes down to two reasons.
There's a debate. I'm not sure where I stand. Do I care? Maybe my mind's made up.
It's this blogging business. Again. Like, these mummy bloggers. Do I count? Not sure. Some say we're lonely. And, er, what was it again? er, seeking validation. Emotionally needy, erm... should I believe that?
Maybe someone can make money. They try. Blogs take ads. The whole bloggy business can turn into a business. Then it's definitely competitive. Is it? Places on PR lists definitely matter. Would that change the blog? Should it?
These debates in blogland lead me all ways. Back I come to reflect on what this blog is for. I feel I need to patrol the bounds. Wee in the corners. Conclude that I don't want to rebuild this place anytime soon. No ads. Stamp over this patch. My ground. Press in some words that no one may read.
Because I have two reasons. I'll remind myself, for when I'm led away down those future debates.
One, this site shows anyone who travels by that it is possible to home educate, and not die.
If you think it is right to do by your child, and you feel able, then do it. What is the worst that can happen?
Admittedly, from this point of view, I try not to pull punches. Some days I occupy a prison cell while a surly guard blocks the doorway dressed as a princess goth threatening to clobber me with a unicorn. My whole life reduces to outwitting that scowl. And I may not succeed. Days pass too, dragging a leaden spirit, a dying heart and a failing brain. In the midst of despair, someone who claims they are a horse will burst into inconsolable weeping because they never received the 200 white mice.
Those are nothing compared to the collapsing days. When even meagre ambition turns bellyup.
But surely these problems are normal in life. Aren't they? I can chronicle them, and discount them. Worst times do not mean my home educated offspring will end their days sprawling on streets as homeless vagrants selling themselves for drugs. (OK, I admit I'm trusting: I may get back to you.)
I want this blog to say that despite the blood, sweat, pain, trauma, and mice, a home educating lifestyle can work. It creates a different set of priorities. It creates a different way of thinking. Shows different ways to live. Like, competing in national tests takes a low priority: thinking through a human relationship with a sister who just broke the law by stealing that pencil takes high priority. Afterwards, we may talk Socrates.
Through it all, I hope you can see that home ed children are thriving, happy, involved, creative, social.
Dare I admit, some days I even have fun in this anarchic, chaotic, selfish, taunt the devil lifestyle. Thrilling freedom is here. Choice, aspiration, autonomy, independence.
The second reason why this blog exists is just that I get a lot of pleasure from it. I don't care if that sounds corny. It's a very personal truth and I don't mind admitting it in public.
At least that one's simple.
It's this blogging business. Again. Like, these mummy bloggers. Do I count? Not sure. Some say we're lonely. And, er, what was it again? er, seeking validation. Emotionally needy, erm... should I believe that?
Maybe someone can make money. They try. Blogs take ads. The whole bloggy business can turn into a business. Then it's definitely competitive. Is it? Places on PR lists definitely matter. Would that change the blog? Should it?
These debates in blogland lead me all ways. Back I come to reflect on what this blog is for. I feel I need to patrol the bounds. Wee in the corners. Conclude that I don't want to rebuild this place anytime soon. No ads. Stamp over this patch. My ground. Press in some words that no one may read.
Because I have two reasons. I'll remind myself, for when I'm led away down those future debates.
One, this site shows anyone who travels by that it is possible to home educate, and not die.
If you think it is right to do by your child, and you feel able, then do it. What is the worst that can happen?
Admittedly, from this point of view, I try not to pull punches. Some days I occupy a prison cell while a surly guard blocks the doorway dressed as a princess goth threatening to clobber me with a unicorn. My whole life reduces to outwitting that scowl. And I may not succeed. Days pass too, dragging a leaden spirit, a dying heart and a failing brain. In the midst of despair, someone who claims they are a horse will burst into inconsolable weeping because they never received the 200 white mice.
Those are nothing compared to the collapsing days. When even meagre ambition turns bellyup.
But surely these problems are normal in life. Aren't they? I can chronicle them, and discount them. Worst times do not mean my home educated offspring will end their days sprawling on streets as homeless vagrants selling themselves for drugs. (OK, I admit I'm trusting: I may get back to you.)
I want this blog to say that despite the blood, sweat, pain, trauma, and mice, a home educating lifestyle can work. It creates a different set of priorities. It creates a different way of thinking. Shows different ways to live. Like, competing in national tests takes a low priority: thinking through a human relationship with a sister who just broke the law by stealing that pencil takes high priority. Afterwards, we may talk Socrates.
Through it all, I hope you can see that home ed children are thriving, happy, involved, creative, social.
Dare I admit, some days I even have fun in this anarchic, chaotic, selfish, taunt the devil lifestyle. Thrilling freedom is here. Choice, aspiration, autonomy, independence.
The second reason why this blog exists is just that I get a lot of pleasure from it. I don't care if that sounds corny. It's a very personal truth and I don't mind admitting it in public.
At least that one's simple.
Monday, 25 January 2010
Let me use the damn blog for something
Grit rarely steps out her little home educating bubble.
Like, North Korea points sixteen nuclear missiles at South Korea, but over here at grit's day, it's all tiddlypompomlook! Squirrel drew a cute wallaby!
This is because, on world matters about which she has little direct knowledge or practical experience, Grit normally follows that smart advice - better to remain silent and be thought a fool than open one's mouth and remove all doubt.
I like to think there is great benefit to you all in this dignified silence on so many controversies - whether it be Aboriginal politics, the contribution to economic philosophy by David Hume, or the manufacturing process of Rice Krispies. And I like to think, by this restrained and measured approach, that I do not automatically become a fully paid up member of the blogranting brigade. (Don't disillusion me, please.)
But all bubbles burst every so often. Sometimes because Tiger pops them and runs off, but she gets away with it, because she is cute. Sometimes the bubble thins as the soapy molecules are pulled down by gravity, and we are thinking science.
But sometimes they pop because Grit takes an enormous swinging punch at something to stabilise herself in her enormously volatile emotional life, aka just make herself feel better.
The latter applies today, obviously. So I'm blogging an opinion which is not much informed by direct knowledge or practical experience, but is SHOUTINGOUTMYPISSEDOFFMOUTH. Anyway, better for the neighbourhood for me to shout at the blog than shout at the wall. And you might wish to click away now.
This particular temper tantrum is prompted by my bete noire Balls, and his response to the terrible case of The Edlington Boys.
There he was on Newsnight, two-tonguing his way through an interview designed to rip something from him. Like integrity.
All I can hear is a squirming man protecting the system. A system that has become paper-heavy, bureaucratic, phone-based in place of face-to-face, destructive and ineffective. A system that justifies itself through the paperwork trails it creates, and which it must hide when asked to show what it really does, because the paper trail will show it does nothing but generate paper trails.
This is a system where people interpret their jobs through the roles ascribed to them by middle managers. Where managers are themselves policed by paper targets. Building a system that has become incapable of acting - even though the people with in it, like Grit's sister in law, might so desperately want to effect good and bring about better change in struggling lives.
But to Balls, protecting his bureaucratic pile matters more than any of the people it was designed to serve.
So what is the party response to all of this mess? First, call on the NSPCC. Second, call on Lord Laming. And third, the solution to this database rich world, is to extend it.
Right. I feel better now. For more on Balls, you'll need to go somewhere else.
And here is a cute picture that Squirrel drew.
Like, North Korea points sixteen nuclear missiles at South Korea, but over here at grit's day, it's all tiddlypompomlook! Squirrel drew a cute wallaby!
This is because, on world matters about which she has little direct knowledge or practical experience, Grit normally follows that smart advice - better to remain silent and be thought a fool than open one's mouth and remove all doubt.
I like to think there is great benefit to you all in this dignified silence on so many controversies - whether it be Aboriginal politics, the contribution to economic philosophy by David Hume, or the manufacturing process of Rice Krispies. And I like to think, by this restrained and measured approach, that I do not automatically become a fully paid up member of the blogranting brigade. (Don't disillusion me, please.)
But all bubbles burst every so often. Sometimes because Tiger pops them and runs off, but she gets away with it, because she is cute. Sometimes the bubble thins as the soapy molecules are pulled down by gravity, and we are thinking science.
But sometimes they pop because Grit takes an enormous swinging punch at something to stabilise herself in her enormously volatile emotional life, aka just make herself feel better.
The latter applies today, obviously. So I'm blogging an opinion which is not much informed by direct knowledge or practical experience, but is SHOUTINGOUTMYPISSEDOFFMOUTH. Anyway, better for the neighbourhood for me to shout at the blog than shout at the wall. And you might wish to click away now.
This particular temper tantrum is prompted by my bete noire Balls, and his response to the terrible case of The Edlington Boys.
There he was on Newsnight, two-tonguing his way through an interview designed to rip something from him. Like integrity.
All I can hear is a squirming man protecting the system. A system that has become paper-heavy, bureaucratic, phone-based in place of face-to-face, destructive and ineffective. A system that justifies itself through the paperwork trails it creates, and which it must hide when asked to show what it really does, because the paper trail will show it does nothing but generate paper trails.
This is a system where people interpret their jobs through the roles ascribed to them by middle managers. Where managers are themselves policed by paper targets. Building a system that has become incapable of acting - even though the people with in it, like Grit's sister in law, might so desperately want to effect good and bring about better change in struggling lives.
But to Balls, protecting his bureaucratic pile matters more than any of the people it was designed to serve.
So what is the party response to all of this mess? First, call on the NSPCC. Second, call on Lord Laming. And third, the solution to this database rich world, is to extend it.
Right. I feel better now. For more on Balls, you'll need to go somewhere else.
And here is a cute picture that Squirrel drew.
Sunday, 24 January 2010
Teaching the kids about politics
Hey! Cute Squirrel! You've got a great line in argumentative backchat.
How about dumping the aspiration to be a poncey ballerina and becoming a proper knuckle-dusting politician instead?
Squirrel, politics is more fun than dancing. Politics is about noble ideas like honesty and integrity. Dancing is prancing about a stage foaming in pink.
Politics can be about more interesting stuff, too. Like screwing the system for everything you can get. Then, when you've made something of yourself, or you're thrashed on election night, you could forge a career as an after dinner speaker, publish your memoirs, take a cushtie job in Europe, or front up a BBC2 history show. Howabout that? Much better than starving yourself to fit into a tutu and hoping to open a suburban dance school on a minimum wage.
I can tell you're interested Squirrel. Here are some ideas to get you started.
Black is White, and White is Black.
Squirrel, you face tough times being a top politician. You must stand in the House of Commons and say the opposite to what you know to be true.
You are right. That is shocking. And lying. But it is called presentation.
You have to do it with a straight face. You may get away with it. If the opposition is weedy, drunk, misinformed, or couldn't be arsed to show up for the debate, that helps. If you do get away with your presentation, remember not to pump your fists in the air or high five the Speaker.
Let's look at Two-Tongues Ed. Ed is a master. Listen Squirrel, and learn.
Say you asked over 5,000 people whether they thought some strange geezer from the local authority should have the right to march into your house, say your learning isn't good enough, and whisk you off for a proper grilling.
You'd say no thanks, wouldn't you? Of course. Like 94 per cent of people did.
People like mummy Grit, who said No thanks. We're not inviting strangers into our home. He might be Mr Spooky from the corner. He might be a retired head teacher who thinks you all should sit down for 25 hours a week colouring in pictures of Anne Boleyn.
But when Ed hears that 94 per cent of people say no thanks, he replies, The vast majority of parents would be happy to let that happen. Didja hear that? Like 94 per cent turns into 9POINT4 per cent! Fantastic eh! Black is White, and White is Black!
But that's not all. You have to do more than two-tongue your way through a situation, Squirrel.
You have to mix up black/white with statements of fact and part-truths. Then add a sprinkling of prejudicial language and some crafty grammar.
Yes, I agree, that is difficult. Let's look to our master A-lister. Once more.
Ed spoke in the House of Commons on the 11 January this year. He said adding penalties would further inflame the minority of home educators who do not like the current provisions in the Bill.
There. It is true that home educators would face no financial penalty if they do not comply with the government. What Ed said is true. But he failed to mention that if parents do not comply, their kids automatically get a School Attendance Order! Off you all trot to the local primary! No argument!
Squirrel, don't cry. Potential politicians don't snivel.
At the moment, Squirrel, I have a legal right to argue that I am providing an education for you. But under Two-Tongues Ed, that right is removed. He is taking final control of my educational decision. But hey! While you're colouring in a picture of Anne Boleyn, we won't be fined a grand! So cheer up!
Anyway, here's a tissue, and I shall leave you to ponder political opportunity, dear daughter. But finally, I just want to tell you to be careful. Because every politician must deal - not only with the smelly hordes called voters - but with the tunnel-dwelling army that is the civil service.
These scurrying, studious workers can be on your side. Or they can be working to undermine you. Do not underestimate them Squirrel. They have agendas. Like the release of documents strangely at variance with the political timetable. Perhaps timed to maximise your embarrassment. That's right. They can make you look like a prat. We will think on. But for now, lesson over.
Thank you for the tutu. I can see you're the sort of feisty gal who won't need that. Now, here's your homework.
How about dumping the aspiration to be a poncey ballerina and becoming a proper knuckle-dusting politician instead?
Squirrel, politics is more fun than dancing. Politics is about noble ideas like honesty and integrity. Dancing is prancing about a stage foaming in pink.
Politics can be about more interesting stuff, too. Like screwing the system for everything you can get. Then, when you've made something of yourself, or you're thrashed on election night, you could forge a career as an after dinner speaker, publish your memoirs, take a cushtie job in Europe, or front up a BBC2 history show. Howabout that? Much better than starving yourself to fit into a tutu and hoping to open a suburban dance school on a minimum wage.
I can tell you're interested Squirrel. Here are some ideas to get you started.
Black is White, and White is Black.
Squirrel, you face tough times being a top politician. You must stand in the House of Commons and say the opposite to what you know to be true.
You are right. That is shocking. And lying. But it is called presentation.
You have to do it with a straight face. You may get away with it. If the opposition is weedy, drunk, misinformed, or couldn't be arsed to show up for the debate, that helps. If you do get away with your presentation, remember not to pump your fists in the air or high five the Speaker.
Let's look at Two-Tongues Ed. Ed is a master. Listen Squirrel, and learn.
Say you asked over 5,000 people whether they thought some strange geezer from the local authority should have the right to march into your house, say your learning isn't good enough, and whisk you off for a proper grilling.
You'd say no thanks, wouldn't you? Of course. Like 94 per cent of people did.
People like mummy Grit, who said No thanks. We're not inviting strangers into our home. He might be Mr Spooky from the corner. He might be a retired head teacher who thinks you all should sit down for 25 hours a week colouring in pictures of Anne Boleyn.
But when Ed hears that 94 per cent of people say no thanks, he replies, The vast majority of parents would be happy to let that happen. Didja hear that? Like 94 per cent turns into 9POINT4 per cent! Fantastic eh! Black is White, and White is Black!
But that's not all. You have to do more than two-tongue your way through a situation, Squirrel.
You have to mix up black/white with statements of fact and part-truths. Then add a sprinkling of prejudicial language and some crafty grammar.
Yes, I agree, that is difficult. Let's look to our master A-lister. Once more.
Ed spoke in the House of Commons on the 11 January this year. He said adding penalties would further inflame the minority of home educators who do not like the current provisions in the Bill.
There. It is true that home educators would face no financial penalty if they do not comply with the government. What Ed said is true. But he failed to mention that if parents do not comply, their kids automatically get a School Attendance Order! Off you all trot to the local primary! No argument!
Squirrel, don't cry. Potential politicians don't snivel.
At the moment, Squirrel, I have a legal right to argue that I am providing an education for you. But under Two-Tongues Ed, that right is removed. He is taking final control of my educational decision. But hey! While you're colouring in a picture of Anne Boleyn, we won't be fined a grand! So cheer up!
Anyway, here's a tissue, and I shall leave you to ponder political opportunity, dear daughter. But finally, I just want to tell you to be careful. Because every politician must deal - not only with the smelly hordes called voters - but with the tunnel-dwelling army that is the civil service.
These scurrying, studious workers can be on your side. Or they can be working to undermine you. Do not underestimate them Squirrel. They have agendas. Like the release of documents strangely at variance with the political timetable. Perhaps timed to maximise your embarrassment. That's right. They can make you look like a prat. We will think on. But for now, lesson over.
Thank you for the tutu. I can see you're the sort of feisty gal who won't need that. Now, here's your homework.
Saturday, 23 January 2010
Friday, 22 January 2010
Grey sky day
Grey sky days are nothing days. They taste flat. They are workaday days. Sensible motherhood shoes and no make up. They are January, with all spoiled resolutions and far-off expectations. They leave me exhausted, inactive, disillusioned.
Grey sky days disappear before I become aware of them. Night falls, and I think, Was that it? I never heard dusk coming. I didn't see the light disappear and I didn't hear the day deflate. Not a gentle pshwssssss tells me the day is ending, the night is coming, whispering get thee to bed, hope not to die in my dark.
I have energy only to wonder why grey January days slip by so effortlessly; I might do that.
I think it is the slanting light on this side of the planet. The way the sun never turns round over here, on this side of the kitchen, where I dutifully stand, just here, peeling old potatoes and washing dishes.
No sunshine bothers to come round to the disordered bedroom either, nor behind the wall, nor into the schoolroom, nor the office, not the hall. No sunshine comes there, unless the children manufacture it, by lolly sticks and string. Sometimes they do, and I join in. But not today. Today they have all taken themselves invisible off to hobbit holes, and are reading and scribbling resentful notes to each other about unicorns who are hoof injured and cannot go to birthday parties.
No sunshine. No children. No distraction with lolly sticks and string. And dwelling too much indoors. For that, I blame my school-taught responsibility. I should chuck it all up, and run and pull on pink wellington boots.
Because I need to walk outside, in mud, and feel wind on my face. That would be good. I can complain at pigeons. I can make my feet wet. I can poke the ground with sticks. I can imagine blue leaves, messages hidden in hard granite rock, soil that scurries off noisily when I approach, smelly trees that mutter as I pass by, then follow me, until I turn. I could do these things. I think they would be the right things to do.
Grey sky days disappear before I become aware of them. Night falls, and I think, Was that it? I never heard dusk coming. I didn't see the light disappear and I didn't hear the day deflate. Not a gentle pshwssssss tells me the day is ending, the night is coming, whispering get thee to bed, hope not to die in my dark.
I have energy only to wonder why grey January days slip by so effortlessly; I might do that.
I think it is the slanting light on this side of the planet. The way the sun never turns round over here, on this side of the kitchen, where I dutifully stand, just here, peeling old potatoes and washing dishes.
No sunshine bothers to come round to the disordered bedroom either, nor behind the wall, nor into the schoolroom, nor the office, not the hall. No sunshine comes there, unless the children manufacture it, by lolly sticks and string. Sometimes they do, and I join in. But not today. Today they have all taken themselves invisible off to hobbit holes, and are reading and scribbling resentful notes to each other about unicorns who are hoof injured and cannot go to birthday parties.
No sunshine. No children. No distraction with lolly sticks and string. And dwelling too much indoors. For that, I blame my school-taught responsibility. I should chuck it all up, and run and pull on pink wellington boots.
Because I need to walk outside, in mud, and feel wind on my face. That would be good. I can complain at pigeons. I can make my feet wet. I can poke the ground with sticks. I can imagine blue leaves, messages hidden in hard granite rock, soil that scurries off noisily when I approach, smelly trees that mutter as I pass by, then follow me, until I turn. I could do these things. I think they would be the right things to do.
Thursday, 21 January 2010
Let's go to Mexico.
You see? Home education takes you everywhere. One morning our eyes open and focus on a teddy bear; another hour, the snow, clumped in great heaps against the window. And today, anticipating having our hearts ripped from our bodies, atop a step pyramid in Tenochtitlan.
For that delight, we have to walk to get there.
Mostly because I am too mean to pay the extra £2.60 for the bus from Euston to the British Museum. Anyway, it's only 20 minutes, and in this free-range world of ours we can call it nourishment for our bodies as well as our minds.
You know the exhibition for Moctezuma is over. I hope you didn't hang on for a review from Grit. Anyway, don't worry. Grab hold of the exhibition guide. The exhibition itself? Dour.
I can't write about it all. I could say lots. The use of the Reading Room as an exhibition space. The tone of the exhibition. Moctezuma's place in an ordered hierarchy of the Mexica world. The supporting materials. The dead cold sacrificial stones. The eagle. Spare me, the eagle. The arrival of the Spanish. More slaughter. The sudden story switch, from one told in carved volcanic rocks, to a shiny oil on canvas. All dealings with death.
Shark, Squirrel and Tiger pause at every exhibited item, drawing and writing obsessively. I promise to buy the exhibition guide twenty-five times over, so we can go. They force me to linger. Squirrel returns to me, time and time again, Why did they do that? Why did they kill people to make the sun rise? Did they kill the children too?
Some things, I tell Squirrel, with a cuddle, I cannot explain. I cannot explain Mexica thinking. I am on the wrong side of the world. I can try with the Conquistadors. I know the story there. God, gold, glory, girls.
But in Mexica, it's all so different to how we live today. What we see here, in this world left behind, no-one is tender, no outstretched hands in love. No fat bellied women, no domestic pictures, no ordinary chores. Men are warriors, demi-gods, offerings.
Mortal women are invisible. Except one. She's a statue, female figure, kneeling. She has breasts, says the caption. I stare at her. I can't see them. She doesn't have breasts. She's different from the male because he has shoulder blades and she doesn't. Shoulder blades? Breasts? It's an easy mistake to make I guess if you are the industrious curator to the female figure c 1325 Mexica 42x19.6x26.5cm. But by this stage, and we are only in Room 2, I want her to have real, heaving, breasts. I know I'm living in this twenty-first century implant world, but still, by now, even a couple of fried eggs would be good. Because breasts mean children. And children mean love. But there just isn't any.
I don't know whether this exhibition simply chose all the stone carvings of power and hierarchy and eagle bone, and hid all the statues of beautiful women with breasts and plump thighs, or whether the Spanish so truly destroyed any remnants of softness, that now there really aren't representations of women in Mexica culture that are not all clawed hands and bared teeth.
So we're left with Coatlicue, who hangs dismembered hands around her neck and chills my soul with her fangs and lethal stare. Or the moon goddess, Coyolxauhqui, lying dismembered, a skull under her arm.
But there must have been mortal women; women giving birth, nursing babies, shaping the land, picking corn, working cloth, smoothing garments, pressing their hands against the scrap of life in a child. Here, nothing like that. Nothing at all.
Now I could come over all feminist and say that this strikes me as a supreme example of a patriarchal society. What is it with you boys? Military conquest, sharp spears, ripped up hearts, bloodletting, war, death and corpses.
Yet it tells me other things too, like the supreme power of any ideology. Women, giving up their children, sons, brothers, husbands, ushering them on to sacrifice, because this is Wednesday, and this is how devotion is shown. Did those hands willingly guide those kin farewell on the journey to feed the sun?
Did no one say, let's not do that? asks Squirrel. Let's give the sacrifice a miss, just for today? Let's play music, and see what happens instead, tomorrow, at dawn?
I draw Squirrel close, and tell her that ideology means sometimes people do things that it's not in their best interest to do. And while individuals might question the vision, they can rarely break free alone; they need the support of many. And if we're taking home a lesson, it could be that one.
Or perhaps that we should all draw more pictures to leave behind us. Pictures of fat women and men enfolding children and laughing with love.
For that delight, we have to walk to get there.
Mostly because I am too mean to pay the extra £2.60 for the bus from Euston to the British Museum. Anyway, it's only 20 minutes, and in this free-range world of ours we can call it nourishment for our bodies as well as our minds.
You know the exhibition for Moctezuma is over. I hope you didn't hang on for a review from Grit. Anyway, don't worry. Grab hold of the exhibition guide. The exhibition itself? Dour.
I can't write about it all. I could say lots. The use of the Reading Room as an exhibition space. The tone of the exhibition. Moctezuma's place in an ordered hierarchy of the Mexica world. The supporting materials. The dead cold sacrificial stones. The eagle. Spare me, the eagle. The arrival of the Spanish. More slaughter. The sudden story switch, from one told in carved volcanic rocks, to a shiny oil on canvas. All dealings with death.
Shark, Squirrel and Tiger pause at every exhibited item, drawing and writing obsessively. I promise to buy the exhibition guide twenty-five times over, so we can go. They force me to linger. Squirrel returns to me, time and time again, Why did they do that? Why did they kill people to make the sun rise? Did they kill the children too?
Some things, I tell Squirrel, with a cuddle, I cannot explain. I cannot explain Mexica thinking. I am on the wrong side of the world. I can try with the Conquistadors. I know the story there. God, gold, glory, girls.
But in Mexica, it's all so different to how we live today. What we see here, in this world left behind, no-one is tender, no outstretched hands in love. No fat bellied women, no domestic pictures, no ordinary chores. Men are warriors, demi-gods, offerings.
Mortal women are invisible. Except one. She's a statue, female figure, kneeling. She has breasts, says the caption. I stare at her. I can't see them. She doesn't have breasts. She's different from the male because he has shoulder blades and she doesn't. Shoulder blades? Breasts? It's an easy mistake to make I guess if you are the industrious curator to the female figure c 1325 Mexica 42x19.6x26.5cm. But by this stage, and we are only in Room 2, I want her to have real, heaving, breasts. I know I'm living in this twenty-first century implant world, but still, by now, even a couple of fried eggs would be good. Because breasts mean children. And children mean love. But there just isn't any.
I don't know whether this exhibition simply chose all the stone carvings of power and hierarchy and eagle bone, and hid all the statues of beautiful women with breasts and plump thighs, or whether the Spanish so truly destroyed any remnants of softness, that now there really aren't representations of women in Mexica culture that are not all clawed hands and bared teeth.
So we're left with Coatlicue, who hangs dismembered hands around her neck and chills my soul with her fangs and lethal stare. Or the moon goddess, Coyolxauhqui, lying dismembered, a skull under her arm.
But there must have been mortal women; women giving birth, nursing babies, shaping the land, picking corn, working cloth, smoothing garments, pressing their hands against the scrap of life in a child. Here, nothing like that. Nothing at all.
Now I could come over all feminist and say that this strikes me as a supreme example of a patriarchal society. What is it with you boys? Military conquest, sharp spears, ripped up hearts, bloodletting, war, death and corpses.
Yet it tells me other things too, like the supreme power of any ideology. Women, giving up their children, sons, brothers, husbands, ushering them on to sacrifice, because this is Wednesday, and this is how devotion is shown. Did those hands willingly guide those kin farewell on the journey to feed the sun?
Did no one say, let's not do that? asks Squirrel. Let's give the sacrifice a miss, just for today? Let's play music, and see what happens instead, tomorrow, at dawn?
I draw Squirrel close, and tell her that ideology means sometimes people do things that it's not in their best interest to do. And while individuals might question the vision, they can rarely break free alone; they need the support of many. And if we're taking home a lesson, it could be that one.
Or perhaps that we should all draw more pictures to leave behind us. Pictures of fat women and men enfolding children and laughing with love.
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