Simplicity Parenting (37 page)

My last suggestion for backing off from overinvolvement is a simple one. I’ve seen it make a profound difference, however, in some parents’ attitudes, and the emotional climate of their parenting. It is a meditation, a mental exercise for the end of the day that will take just a minute or two. Before falling into sleep, remember the ordinary moments of the day, the moments with your children that meant something to you. This simple exercise is like a spiritual corrective lens. In your vision of your kids, it helps restore the prominence of “who they are” over “what they need to do” or “what they need to work on.”

Review the images; revisit the funny yet strangely insightful thing your daughter said, the gesture your son made that surprised you. Think about how your little one climbed up on the bench by the window at three o’clock, somehow sensing that her sister’s bus would arrive soon. Remember how your twins looked at the park; the newly minted freckles on their cheeks; their pride in mastering the jungle gym rings. Remember the way your daughter looked minutes ago when you checked on her: horizontal on the bed with her arm flung back over her head, as though she had tried to outrun sleep. Relive those moments, and give them their due. Let the images rise to the surface of your day. Let them fill the emotional waters that will lull you, in waves of appreciation and wonder, into sleep.

Imagine …

• feeling calmer, safer, and less anxious as a parent.
  

• maintaining your emotional well-being as a goal, and taking steps to reduce your exposure to media that profit from fear and sensationalism.
  

• your child’s early years, without television.
  

• how engagement and connection—rather than passive “entertainment”—will feed your child’s imagination, enrich their play.
  

• your child
  not
  being exposed to thousands of commercials and violent TV shows while they are young.
  

• your child not being privy to, or involved in, adult issues and problems.
  

• the sense of calm increasing in your home.
  

• that by emphasizing connection and increasing the regularity of daily life while your child is young, you are building a “base camp” of security that will serve them into adulthood.
  

• that you increase your chances of being heard when you talk less.
  

• being able to back off overinvolvement as your partner increases their involvement in the daily tasks of parenting; or
  

• stepping up and becoming more involved, so your partner can experience and project more ease as a parent.
  

• what is said at home becoming kinder, truer, and more necessary.
  

• feeding your dreams with a rich appreciation of the present.
  

EPILOGUE
•
Simplicity Parenting to Go

W
hen I first met Carla, there was great mistrust in her eyes. I had come for a visit, unexpectedly, and as her mother introduced us, Carla turned a steely gaze my way. She was sitting on the floor, a large pile of wrapping paper and shiny fabric in a pile next to her. As we chatted I could see that this bright almost-six-year-old was very much in control of the home. Just what, her eyes demanded, was I doing there, anyway?

Carla’s mother, Michelle, had come to see me a week or so before, to share her concerns about Carla’s behavior. Michelle and Clark Adams were expecting a baby in a few months, and Carla had been acting out at home, school, and day care. “I know this is very common,” Michelle had said. “Carla is not at all happy about the baby. But her behavior, on top of all that we have going on right now, is more than we can take!” She explained that Carla had recently become quite aggressive—hitting and kicking—and they were concerned about how she might be with the baby. “Carla has a flair for the dramatic,” Michelle had said, “and we’re trying our best to support that, while doing everything we can to reassure her of our love.” Michelle felt they needed help—“and quickly!”—to get Carla excited about the baby.

From our conversation, I could see that Michelle and her husband really did lead busy, stressful lives. Both had demanding jobs, and Clark, as the manager of a professional sports team, had work hours that were anything but regular. Neither parent had family in the area, and their friends were more connected to work than the neighborhood or community, Michelle and Clark were short on time, and media “babysitters” were often used to bridge the gaps, but there was no end to their love for their daughter. In fact, they had taken years to consider another child because they both harbored doubts they could possibly love anyone as much as they did Carla. These two were doing their best, but generally flying without any net of connection or support. And Carla was smart enough to see that her already unpredictable time with her parents was headed for a reduction. With new and more frequent episodes of naughtiness she was testing the age-old theory: Isn’t
any
kind of attention better than none?

“This is a child who knows her own mind!” Michelle had said when we met. I remember that expression clearly, because it didn’t begin to explain the controlling behavior she went on to describe. Carla had sworn off all but her three favorite foods: bread, pasta, and apples. (“Luckily, I’ve learned to be creative with those,” Michelle said.) There were many things Carla insisted on: her meals had to be on a certain Wonder Woman place mat, her pink sweater with the appliquéd pony was the only sweater that would do, and she was very particular about how she was driven to places. She hated when her parents varied from their standard routes. She had recently made an “off-limits” corner of her bedroom. Nobody was allowed to touch anything in that area. (“I think she’s anxious about the baby getting into her things.”) Carla would not go to bed until she felt “really tired,” and that magic moment seemed to vary nightly. (“I’m the same way,” Michelle reported. “I can’t sleep until I’m dog-tired.”)

Just before my visit—perhaps because of it—Michelle had given Carla a beautiful gown made of yellow and blue satin. “It’s Beauty’s dress,” Michelle explained as she picked it up to show me, “from
Beauty and the Beast.”
The dress was lovely, but Carla could not be coaxed to try it on. She left it on the floor and insisted that she be the one to give me a tour of the house.

Carla’s room looked like the dressing room for a national theater company after opening night. There were mounds of costumes and accessories everywhere, a jumble of sequined shoes and feather boas strewn on top of furniture and wadded among heaps of toys and books. When I asked her where her “off-limits” area was, she pointed vaguely to a corner of the room. It wasn’t very easy to distinguish, I told her; wasn’t that dangerous for those who wandered into it by mistake? She looked at me quizzically, amused but surprised. “No, silly! I know where it is … and besides, I can change it whenever I want!”

The baby’s room was jam-packed, too, but the clutter was of a different sort. Unopened boxes and shopping bags were stacked up the walls, and in the center, covered in plastic, was a brand-new crib. Michelle’s plan was to work until a week before her due date (“I should be fine; Carla was late …”) and use that week to get the room ready. After the baby was born she would take off her allotted six weeks and then go back to work; Carla’s day care would accept the baby. It could work. Time was tight—it always was—but both Michelle and Clark felt that things could possibly fall into place if only they could “get Carla excited about this baby, too.”

If only. If only you had seen Carla’s suspicious appraisal of me, you would understand my concerns at the outset of this work. How much would this family really commit to change, if their sights were limited to their immediate dilemma? Carla and her parents shared a deadline—the baby’s birth—but had very different goals to accomplish by then. Michelle and Clark wanted to please and appease Carla; Carla wanted (it may sound crazy, but she was well on her way) to gain total control of the home. The clock was ticking.

When I think back to this family I remember my doubts. If the Beauty dress had limited appeal to Carla, I clearly had less. And Michelle and Clark seemed less interested in the work than in squeezing it in before their first Lamaze class. I was not hopeful. Yet I’m telling the Adamses’ story because it was ultimately very moving—for them and for me—and illustrative of a number of things. There is no “ideal candidate” for this work; no prerequisites or credentials are required. Any family can bring fresh inspiration and attention into their daily lives. And despite my doubts, the Adamses did exactly that. Any family can, by limiting distractions, take a new measure of what is important to them. The Adamses’ illustrated what is possibly the most important thing I’ve realized about this process: When a family simplifies, what happens is usually more far-reaching and powerful than what they imagined when they started.

Having read to this point, you know that simplification is not a quick fix. But as Carla showed me around, I realized that her family needed to move quickly. They needed to make some space—not only in their cluttered home and busy lives—but also in their hearts. To make room for one another, and to carve out a center in their family, from which they could begin to look forward together. Michelle and Clark wanted Carla to be more excited, yet what seemed lacking in their home was harmony, not excitement. I also felt that Carla was not alone in her anxiety about this baby; she was just the dramatic flag bearer for everyone’s concern. Before they could move forward, the Adamses’ needed to take a big step back to pick up some things they had dispensed with along the way. Only then could they dream this baby into existence before its arrival.

This was a tall order. I decided to ignore the impending birth date as a deadline but use it as a hinge. Would Michelle and Clark agree to fully commit to the process, to make perhaps more and faster changes than I might otherwise suggest, at least until the baby was born?

My first request was for Michelle and Clark to stop giving Carla presents (a sign of their anxiousness) as we began to simplify the clutter in the house. All but one or two of Carla’s costumes were removed to a hanging rack in the attic. This would serve as a lending library so she could periodically discover each dress anew. Her room seemed much more spacious after it was dramatically decluttered. There was a special area with the room’s long-buried comfy chair, a wool rug, and a lamp, which Carla instantly proclaimed “Carla’s corner.” It seemed to me this was the general area that had been off-limits, but we didn’t press the point.

As part of this process, Michelle and Clark set up the baby’s room, but they backed away from the instant clutter they had gathered and planned for the room. Instead of multiple mobiles, pictures, and stuffed animals, they decided on a simpler but welcoming look: the crib and a changing table, and two rockers, with a smaller one for Carla. Having just done the work of simplifying Carla’s room, neither parent had any desire to overload the baby’s room. They both felt excited about this new aesthetic—a more spacious and less cluttered look—and about expanding it throughout the home. They felt they had discovered it, and earned it, together.

We moved on to our primary focus: increasing the rhythm and consistency of daily life. Clark, who was generally a walking force field, was willing—just barely at first—to turn off his cellphones and pager when he was home. A family dinnertime was set and he agreed to make it home for dinner at least four times a week, marking those nights on the calendar. Sometimes Michelle could just manage picking up takeout in time for dinner, and sometimes Clark had to work afterward, but a groove was slowly being dug in the procession of days. Dinner was not pasta and applesauce, as you might think, given Carla’s diet. No, dinner was a well-balanced meal, and they all ate it—even (after a few days of fussing) Carla. Small rituals were established—bath, reading, talking about the day and what might happen tomorrow—as a platform was built toward a set bedtime.

What was Carla gaining with all of these changes, you might ask? She had less “stuff,” less power, and it looked like her parents were still going to have “that baby” (as she liked to say). She had to set the table each night and go to bed at a regular time. Her television viewing was being severely curtailed, and her menu horribly expanded. Carla was suspicious; wasn’t she in charge here? She definitely felt the shift. But the new rituals didn’t go away, and not a lot of fuss was made of them. In their regularity (“Carla, time to set the table!”) they seemed, at least, reliable. What did she gain? This is the point when I’d love to pull a rabbit out of my hat, but the answer is less surprising, though still magical. She gained time and connection, security and ease.

When Michelle and Clark decluttered the house, they reclaimed the dining room table. It had become a depository for all manner of things: papers, junk mail, little toys, old golf scorecards, misplaced piano books. I suggested that Michelle make this table not a workbench, but a place for building. What exactly they would build remained to be seen. But what they needed were things that lasted. So often in the rush of days, home becomes a sort of way station, with people coming in and out, meals on the run, and schedules in a state of flux. Even with the best of intentions, when busyness rules the day, life can seem hurried and transient. Consistency in the home sends down roots, and the family begins to anchor their days. But with no sense of inner calm, even consistent rituals can be treated like items on a checklist, instead of invitations to slow down. Both Michelle and Clark were constantly in motion, and Carla was having her own troubles with stillness and focus. Michelle and I talked about a change, one that might begin at the old dining room table.