Redefining Success and Celebrating the Ordinary

<p>I was kind of a lazy parent and I also read a lot of unschooling boards, so I actually was a fairly hands off parents. Both kids had private music lessons, younger son longer than he really wanted except it was a requirement of the orchestra he was a part of. Both dropped soccer when it got too competitive to be fun. They both spent hours of their childhood in our enormous sandbox with a hose because I remember that being the best part of my childhood. When the oldest got interested in computers we answered his questions, but he set the pace for teaching himself programming. He was lucky that his interests made him highly employable. The jury is still out on whether we hit the happy medium or if a little more nudging might have been helpful.</p>

<p>Although dh is a total workaholic, mostly because of the horrific grant situation where only the top 5% of grants get funded, but the kids were exposed to hiking, non-competitive sailing, living in a cabin without electricity in Vermont etc. And we always set a good example of lying around reading books for fun.</p>

<p>I just saw this article in the NYT – and the quote by Katrina Kenison is what made me come here to discuss it – so imagine my delight to come here and check first, to see if it was already posted, and then discover this fully-laid out conversation, pre-packaged and ready for take-out!</p>

<p>I think I must be over sensitive, but ironically, I feel the pressure to parent perfectly and to do just the right amount of exposing my kids to the finer pursuits without pushing right here on this thread! I think ultimately, it is our children who are the only ones who truly will be able to say whether they felt under pressure or not, and whether they had enough carefree days in childhood. (Just being on his board makes me feel inadequate sometimes, like I have not done enough or maybe like I am doing too much. Maybe it’s a good thing that I didn’t know what “ECs” were, at least not the acronym, until after my son was accepted to college!)</p>

<p>“Our current system is simply unsustainable.”</p>

<p>The Supreme Court decided today that since corporations have free speech rights, that they are also entitled to freedom of association. Accordingly, all anti-trust laws are hereby declared unconstitutional.</p>

<p>(Just thinking ahead.)</p>

<p>We must define what we deem ordinary and extraordinary for ourselves. </p>

<p>What’s one man’s ordinary may be another man’s extraordinary.</p>

<p>I have two urges that are not entirely aligned and these are expressed, often in different posts in this thread.</p>

<p>The first is to nurture what is within our kids, to guide them but in many cases not to pressure them (especially in the HS and college years). We’d like them to pursue a path that is consistent with their strengths and passions, though we may help them develop both.</p>

<p>The second is to see them have decent lives, which involves both the economic considerations and the non-economic one (live a life of integrity, manageable stress, be a loving parent if that is a direction they choose, etc.). As mythmom notes, in an increasingly global world, what we think of as a middle or upper middle class lifestyle that in times past was available to almost all college graduates is likely to be restricted to a much smaller group. [I suspect that things are going to become tougher than most of us imagine]. The obvious paths for making the economic hurdle is already much more competitive (although there will always be other non-standard paths).</p>

<p>There are a couple of approaches that we as parents have to deal with the potential divergence between these urges. The first is to decide that an ordinary life without the creature comforts we associate with middle/upper-middle class is just fine. [“She loves dance and she’s very talented, but as long as she understands the tradeoffs, I’m happy for her to be a dancer.”] The second is to help our kids find paths that harness their strengths and their passions in a manner that is likely to bump them into the higher economic category. I did that myself many years ago – I surveyed the things I could do that would be consistent with what I was good at and loved and there was a big range of incomes associated with these choices. I consciously chose a path that was toward the high end (but was not the highest end that was available) and really enjoy my life. I just had lunch with a friend who went to graduate school in sociology where he was trying to understand tastes, which might seem like an esoteric academic direction, but transformed it into a career doing research for major media organizations. I’m trying to guide both kids in the direction of finding life paths that play to strengths and passions that also have the potential to earn a decent income.</p>

1 Like

<p>Shawbridge: I agree with everything you said. And sometimes kids stand out more if they pursue passions. S got a summer job teaching violin when he couldnt get hired at the supermarket. D just got a job that reflects education and poise but not her academic discipline.</p>

<p>Each ARe getting humanities PhD’s.</p>

<p>I read Katrina Kenison’s book last summer - a random plane ride pick up at the used book store. It was a great book, but there a few things to keep in mind. Like the famed “Eat, Love, Pray” (woman takes book advance and divorce settlement for a spin) their family downsized from go go suburbs to a country summer cottage by choice and with backup resources. They were not have nots or have littles trying to break into (or stay in) the middle class. They started with enough privilege not to be on that edge of panic. If you can afford college for an average kid then there is some comfort in allowing your child to follow their bliss instead of reaching for merit money. The son applied to Berklee and Bowdoin among others and and several visits. Again, for east coast affluence they might be simplifying and downsizing but not so much for the rest for us. Her son “settled” for St. Olaf out in the middle of nowhere on the frozen plain according the the author. Other than that her description of the school was quite accurate, but she writes as if it is completely off the map of the known universe.</p>

<p>I did enjoy her book and there are many good ideas - it is very timely as she charts her son’s travel through the senior year process but definitely written from a certain perspective.</p>

1 Like

<p>

</p>

<p>Me too. How many dinners from scratch do I need to make to be doing it right; and I am screwing up if I let my son do what he wants which is something like playing X Box all day. </p>

<p>On the other hand I thought the Busy article was great.</p>

<p>Hey pennylane2011, it’s still possible to have that sort of childhood. I’m 18 and I remember playing outside (in the alley because we didn’t have a yard) all day and playing on neighborhood sports teams. It was kind of unorganized though because we’d always get killed by the teams from the suburbs, but it was pretty fun. There was competition but no one really cared that much about it (at least on my team). It was just about fun.</p>

<p>I took guitar lessons and played just for fun, jamming with friends and just playing alone. No competition or pressure from my parents. I’ve been teaching myself on the internet since my local music store went out of business a few years ago. </p>

<p>I took my SAT without any prep work or any real studying. I did alright on it, and I didn’t take it again. All I wanted to do was get into my local university, and I did. </p>

<p>So I just wanted to let people know that it is still possible to live without excessive stress in the new world.</p>

<p>The last paragraph of George Eliot’s great novel “Middlemarch” and its celebration of the ordinary: “For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”</p>

<p>I love this quote and copied it here for anyone who didn’t get to the end of the original article.
It made me think: Who were my grandparents? My great grandparents? What historic acts did they perform? (None, really, besides coming to the USA. . .marrying, and raising a family.) Does anyone ever visit their graves? Probably not. I don’t even know some of the great grandparents names or where their graves are. I suppose I will be just as unremarkable and as quickly forgotten. And it doesn’t bother me.</p>

<p>George Eliot did say this of Dorothea, but I wonder if there isn’t the slightest trace of irony.
She does make fun of Dorothea’s great ambitions and Causabon’s too, and even Dr. Lydgate’s, but she was such an ambitious woman herself that it’s certainly a case of do what I say, not what I do.</p>

<p>And dictating a “stop and smell the flowers” ethos is controlling, too.</p>

<p>I think we can tell kids the likely consequences of what they do and then let them decide if they want to be a whirling dervish or not.</p>

<p>My S practiced his violin many hours to succeed, and often needed my help, but he cherishes his ability to play the instrument though he is certainly not talented enough for a professional career. My D spent more hours in the dance studio than at home, and does not dance any longer, but she cherishes this part of her childhood.</p>

<p>For some, accomplishment is more enjoyable than the proverbial swim in the pool, and some kids need the constant support of their parents to realize their own dreams.</p>

<p>Neither of my kids ever went with me to my nightly visit to sunset on the beach thinking me rather quaint for my ritual. And I asked them if they experienced Freud’s “oceanic feeling” when the see a sunset, and they don’t, but I do.</p>

<p>I certainly wouldn’t dictate that they needed to. </p>

<p>Each is very grateful for whatever internal discipline I instilled in them, having already discovered how competitive their world is. And neither enjoys the same things I do. </p>

<p>My mother was very frustrated that I liked nature more than people and always wanted me to be a joiner.</p>

<p>I think people must discover their own joys in their own ways.</p>

<p>Atomom, Slightly TIC - but not really :wink:
If you have any LDS relatives, anywhere, you won’t be forgotten!</p>

<p>ek, Nope. Not yet, anyway. All Catholics as far as I know. . .</p>

<p>(mm–I read Middlemarch about 30 years ago and remember nothing about it. Just liked the quote in the article.)</p>

<p>atomom, I think what we guide our kids towards should depend more on who they are and not who we are.</p>

<p>Some kids are wired to pursue big goals and sometimes actually make real contributions to the lives of many. I have one friend, who was absolutely driven, maybe out of insecurity, to make a difference and searched for ways to do it. He’s immensely gifted and has indeed made that contribution, revolutionizing a field of science that will likely have real impact on human health. Another responded in part to the continual arguing of his parents by focusing on conflict and its resolution and now, among other things, mediates conflicts between countries. I love being at what is probably the top of my field (depends, I think, on how you define it) because I get to do extraordinarily interesting work. I wouldn’t want someone to have told either of my friends to relax and stop being so insecure or reactive and just relax and focus on the little acts. By thinking big, they’ve done great things.</p>

<p>Some kids are not wired that way and they can benefit from parents who don’t push them to be the next Albert Schweitzer or Gordon Gekko.</p>

<p>I always do things a little differently. As a teen, my ambition was to retire early. So, after college, I worked systematically with that goal in mind. I search out a job that paid well enough, not hard to do, and had a great defined benefit pension plan that was indexed to inflation.</p>

<p>Some of my friends were shocked by my lack of ambition. What they did not know was that I directed my considerable free time to the search for the right spouse, and to the study of financial planning.</p>

<p>Although I could have walked away from my job by age 48, I stuck it out for an additional 2 years. I knew a financial windfall by way of pension is coming my way because of the high tech boom, and I was not willing to leave all those goodies on the table.</p>

<p>It worked out perfectly. My early retirement made it possible for me to help out a family member with mobility needs, to start checking off my bucket list and the promise I made to Mrs., and to devote more time to my life-long hobby.</p>

<p>Life has been good. As politicians like to say, if I am given the chance, I would do it all over again.</p>

<p>saintfan, I read Kenison’s book and I agree that the path along which she is stopping to smell the roses is not one to which most of us have access.</p>

<p>She left a VERY upscale community (Newton, MA) and then had the resources to basically rebuild a house, which must have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.</p>

<p>I seem to recall her spending money to move a large boulder and relandscape her multi acre yard
also her son went to a private high school
 so yes, the sensitivity to the need to remain competitive in order to earn that kind of money is perhaps not there
</p>

1 Like

<p>Yes - It was a good read and she has some nice messages, but I’m glad my recollection isn’t totally misplaced. It read a bit like Anne Morrow Lindberg’s “Gift from the Sea” - a chosen escape to simplicity from life of comfort and privilege. She was definitely working the narrow end of Maslow’s hierarchy. :)</p>

1 Like

<p>You can see pictures of the tasteful home in which Kenison lives her ordinary life here:</p>

<p>[Ordinary</a> Day Gallery – Katrina Kenison: The Gift of an Ordinary Day](<a href=“http://www.katrinakenison.com/about/ordinary-day-gallery/]Ordinary”>Ordinary Day Gallery - Katrina Kenison)</p>

<p>I have always believed in this simple life. My kids always went to swim in one of the top ponds in the state. Because of their training, they had the satisfaction of swimming and diving better than the other kids. On the way home we would try out ice cream from a list of the best brands in the world. We grew and milled heirloom wheat to make pasta from scratch, and raised free range chickens so they could also learn something about genetics in passing.</p>