conforming consumers

Hi Maggie,

I love your description comparing counseling with Quaker meeting - simply waiting in silent anticipation.  I want you to be my counselor!!  Or someone like you. That was so beautiful.

I hope the dog is home and settled and refreshed.  I recommend you give her some nettle tea. Just put some in her water. I think that relationship between human and furpeople is so important. They hold our hearts. They teach us to be more human/humane.  Sending love to her...

And my big-sisterly advice is to trust your process.  There is a reason you are in slow motion.  It is okay. You will kick into gear. You always do.  Then you get the most amazing things done.  It will happen again.

S#5  joined an on-line community of people who will move 100 miles this month.  Walk, run, swim, bike, treadmill - it doesn't matter, as long as the goal is 100 miles.  She inspired me, and I joined.  I mentioned it to her, and she said this is her second month.  But I have begun walking in earnest.  Today the baby and I walked down to the little convenience store at the bottom of the hill.  Then we trudged back up.  On the way up I passed my middle child.  He was on his way home from work, and he pulled over so we could chat.  I was glad for the break, and glad to see his beautiful face!

I told him I had just heard that their older child, my oldest granddaughter, wants to go to school again this year. But the little one will be homeschooled, at least for a few years.  My son told me his daughter had a school friend stay overnight. She came in with her cell phone - the kids are 11 now.  When my daughter-in-law asked the friend to turn off the phone, the child said she is not allowed to turn it off when she is away from home.

My granddaughter is, of course, begging for a phone.  My son explained the process of making a phone - people in China forced to work long hours, the use of toxic minerals.  He told her how there were people his age with destroyed joints because of the way they are forced to work.  He said he refuses to support this industry.  (That's definitely my child!!!  I am proud!!)

My granddaughter did not hear him.  All she knows is that her friends have a cell phone, she wants one too.  It is hard to be different from the others.  We just want to be like everyone else...

Which was when I started getting angry.  When my oldest was in first grade and in the public school, her teacher called me in for a conference. They were worried about her, she said.  At recess she preferred to play with the kindergarteners - the younger kids.  They thought this might indicate some problems with her development.  And I sat there and swallowed the BS, I started to worry. Until my own brain, my own wisdom broke through. She was six.  They were five.  There was not a big difference between them.  This was all about drama. This was all about conformity.  We must conform or we make the institution nervous.

When my oldest son was in kindergarten, he did a math page in class. Every answer was correct.  (In fact, he got moved to an older classroom for math because his skills were more developed than his peers.)  But he doodled as he thought.  I do that. If you look at my notebook page when I am taking minutes, there is a lot of delightful artwork. His teacher told him he could not go out to recess with his class. He had to sit and do the math sheet again, with no stray marks.  This was part of the reason he became a kindergarten drop-out.

Again, I was livid. That had nothing to do with math and everything to do with conformity.

We are only allowed to talk to people born the same year as us. We have to wear the accepted clothes and have the accepted accessories of life. If we don't we are losers. We are pushed out.

When I was in school, I like being outside, most of the time. But it's hard.

I just can't get passed the fact that the purpose of public education is to produce conforming consumers.  Conformists are necessary, so they don't have to produce many different items.  Just something new every year to make sure we have to have it...

So my granddaughter will have to suffer with my son as her father, my son who says no to immoral products. 

So, that's where I am today...

Love and hugs from Clare