{quote found via}

post-workday brain dump

"Play can just be fun. Fart jokes can just be funny. Daydreaming and wasted time don't have to be framed as developmental tools; they're just nice."

Someone just posted this article on Facebook, and I am a huge fan. As I begin navigating the world of parenthood I often find myself responding to new parenting trends with thoughts like "but, my parent's generation seemed to do this very differently, and I/my friends all turned out well and good.".

Discussion around parenting styles are always so loaded -- our kids are the most important, wonderful people in our lives. So as we make decisions about how to raise our children, they are implicitly going to be loaded with meaning. Thus, it's hard to discuss parenting styles with others in a way that is open and non-judgemental when you have such a deep connection and greater sense of purpose driving your particular decisions/approaches. Same goes with conversations about politics and religion, I s'ppose.

--> Enter, this article! I find that these words provide a freeing frame of mind/perspective as we enter in to these conversations.  And I don't think the deeper takeaway has to be "parenting approaches don't matter." It's "do your damnedest to give parenting your all, but know that the most important thing is loving your kids." Make the big-picture focus on appreciating and experiencing the day-to-day together.

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However, I think there's another side to this article that I've been grappling with, in conjunction with reading Coates' book and being 'Mom' to Asher: "If the [experts] of the world were honest, their parenting advice would begin: Have a healthy kid, live in an affluent area (with low crime and good schools), be from a socially privileged demographic, and make a decent amount of money. From there on, it's pretty much coasting."

When we live in a society that still remains segregated, where our children's lives diverge sharply based on the zip code where they live, how do I/(we) respond? (And by respond I mean, in DOing and not just in reading a lot of chic articles about social justice and race.)  What do I do as a parent to live in such a way that I am daily trying to address/break down these systemic injustices and raise up my son to do likewise?

I hope to start writing more about how I'm trying to deal with my life in the 'burbs and my search to figure out how to be more engaged (civic-ally) in a real, honest way, because it's been totally consuming my headspace lately. So I guess more on that soon.