I've been thinking a lot about parenting lately, and about how we're going to handle certain things as Topaz gets older. I told Jake earlier that I feel like I want to pretty much avoid a majority of what is dominant in our culture: fast food, unhealthy food in general, TV, unwholesome movies, plastic crap, wastefulness, and on and on and on. I want to raise her to eat good food and make healthful choices, but I also don't want her to be the kid who goes to her friends' birthday party and has to take her own food because she's not allowed birthday cake and pizza. I don't want her to be singled out in a negative way, but I do want her to be separated from so much of the crap that surrounds us and makes up the American lifestyle. There aren't going to be any McDonald's birthday parties for her, and she's not going to have piles of loud and obnoxious plastic toys. She's not going to be a 10-year old wearing low-rise jeans and halter tops. There are LOTS of things I am not going to allow her to be part of.
But on the other hand, I know what it's like to BE that kid, on the outside, not allowed to do/have what my friends did/had. I just never fit in because of it. And while I want Topaz to be healthy and conscious of the reasons behind all our rules, I don't want her to be an outcast either. I've given this all so much thought, but I have a long way to go before I have a clue what is really best.
I hate that my own culture is something I detest so passionately. I don't know what the point is of traveling within this country, because it's all the same. Pick a road in any city and it could be the same road and the same city. You'll see a Walmart and a CVS and ten McDonalds and a Wendy's and a bunch of crap and it's just all the same shit. I hate that everything I believe in or stand for is completely contradictory to that of our society at large. Will I one day be called a bad parent because Topaz doesn't have a collection of Happy Meal toys?
As it is now, I already have so many limitations that it's just a matter of time before our families get mad. I choose to cloth diaper, breastfeed exclusively for at least a year and probably much longer, use only natural fibers, no plastic/battery-operated-character-related toys, no pacifiers, attachment parenting, cosleeping, natural bath products. I don't leave her for any longer than it takes to run to the grocery store. I don't rely on plastic parents like swings (except when I'm in the shower) and pacifiers and playpens. I've gotten some flak because I won't "supplement" with formula, won't give her a pacifier, won't leave her with a babysitter, carry her too much, respond to her cries too quickly, and it just goes on. I've cut dairy from my diet because it seems to make Topaz feel much much better. So yes, bring me a cheeseburger and wait for me to die of gratitude.
It's a war. It's just a constant battle with the world at large. If you're not fighting your family, you're fighting perfect strangers who seem to believe they know what's best for your child.
What all of this has led me to conclude, is that reasonable or not, I want to isolate Topaz and all our future kids from as much of the crap and pitfalls of our society. I am thinking that this might be accomplished simply by finding the right school--probably a Waldorf--where her classmates and their parents will be likeminded and understanding. I don't see anything wrong with giving our kids a glimpse of a world that is perhaps less popular than what is mainstream, and surrounding them with people, things, ideas that are more healthy and beneficial. I would love to be able to send Topaz to school with a healthy lunch and know that she's not supplementing it with two Cokes, a bag of chips and Reese's peanut butter cups. I don't want to put them in a position of being treated like freaks, and I think that's far less likely to happen if her classmates have parents who think like we do.
My dad decided to take us out of public school and homeschool us. To this day I don't know how I feel about that, but it's got me thinking. I don't want to homeschool our kids. The only reason I would ever consider it is if I lived in a town that had a large group of homeschooling parents so that our kids could socialize and grow up together. I am not remotely interested in isolating our kids the way my parents isolated us.
There is no Waldorf school here. Apparently there is a Waldorf-inspired school in Ithaca, but I have no idea what that means, and anyway we don't live in Ithaca. So it's important to me that we find a place to live where all of this is possible.
Also, Waldorf schools aren't cheap and I would have to come up with some way to pay for it. With several kids, it's going to be extremely hard to pull off financially. I'm trying to come up with money-making ideas that I can do from home. I have no idea, though. Maybe I'll figure something out.
But there's just so much to consider. I don't want to raise a house full of "stupid Americans." I want my kids to have more sense than the average idiot in this country, and to be exposed to a wide range of ideas and cultures. In Binghamton and in Texas, it's extremely common to meet people who have never left their hometown, have never been to another country, and who base their entire view and concept of the world on their little bubble. I don't want my kids to be like that. I don't want to be like that myself. I think travel is very important, and I'll be thinking about other (cheaper) ways to expose Topaz to the rest of the world.
My head is full. I want to do right by my kids, and not have any regrets that I didn't give them every advantage. I want them to set themselves apart by who they are, not by what they aren't allowed to eat. There must be a very fine line between being a caring parent and being a fanatical paranoid lunatic. But to be honest, I think I would rather be paranoid than just toss my kids out into the world and let them take their chances.
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