On Monday I talked about parenting styles, the slew of different ones that people adhere to, and perhaps the path through which we arrived at so many differences. Well, I am back to parenting styles again, not because I want to talk about all the different ones out there, but rather, because I want to talk about how they relate to my wife and I. Let me first start by saying that my wife and I stay as far away as we can from society's view of how a child should be raised. This distance we keep between ourselves and society's view ranges from our refusal to vaccinate to technology and its absence in our son's life to toys. Let me sum all this up. We don't believe in vaccinating our son because we feel that his immune system needs to develop on its own and not be "primed" by vaccines and the chemicals they contain. We also don't believe in allowing our son to watch TV, explore our iPhones, or stare at a computer screen until he is older. Similarly, we also don't believe in buying our son every possible toy or developmental tool to help him learn about the world around him. In our minds, experience is the best learning tool possible and as such, we allow him to explore our house, the outdoors, essentially anything that doesn't have the potential to be harmful to him. Obviously everything has the potential to be harmful, but I am talking more about knives, chemicals, fire, etc. All this pretty much sums up our views that go against what society deems necessary or essential to a child's well being. I am sure that there are some other points that I have missed, but these are the most essential.
Anyway, now that I have highlighted our views as they differ from society, let me move on to talk about our views as they relate to other young parents that we know with children our son's age. At our BBQ this past Saturday, an older friend of mine said that it must be nice to know other parents with young children and have at least that common thread amongst others with which to relate. I agreed, but I also said that there is a certain tension that arises, at least within myself, when we encounter other parents with young children. That tension arises due to the fact that I know how some people react to certain aspects of how we raise our child. We have encountered plenty of parents who disagree with not vaccinating children, in fact, 99% of our friends have their children vaccinated. This in and of itself does not cause the tension, but rather its the way that some react to the fact that we haven't vaccinated that causes tension. Its simply our view that goes against the mainstream and that no one really understands. There also arises a certain tension in regards to technology. A good number of our friends allow their children to play with their iPhones, watch TV, and explore the computer all before the age of 2. This I see as being more of an issue. My wife once commented to me that she really didn't want to hang out with "so and so" because of the way they raised their child in regards to technology. It wasn't that she had a problem with the parents, in fact, she like the parents, it was rather trying to figure out how our son would interact with their children. The comment I had for my wife about that issue was, "you are going to run into many different parenting styles out there, most that don't coincide with what we believe, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't hang out with them." I don't know if other parents feel the tension or not. With us, at least, its not an outward tension, but more of an inward one; an uncertainty, a questioning if you will.
The last point of contention, not a big one by any means, is the amount of toys that other children have. This raises the least amount of tension, if any, within us. When we have hung out with other parents and their children, we have notice an over abundance of toys strewn around houses. There seems to be a basket of toys in every room, some that sing songs, some that make noise, and others that are just, well, toys. Our son has toys, but they could probably fill one laundry basket if that. Even when we break out the toys for him to play with, he would much rather grab a newspaper and play with that. This isn't even to say that we won't buy our son toys in the future, it will just be kept to a minimum. It seems that even at his ripe old age of 9 months, he would rather play with items around the house than with his actual toys. Maybe that will change, but it doesn't seem too likely. So how do we reconcile our beliefs with those of others? Simple, we keep our mouths shut because everyone has their own beliefs about raising children and the last thing we want to do is cause rifts in our friendships over beliefs. Nothing we say or do is going to change the way other's raise their children. The best we can do is raise our son to the best of our ability and hope that what we instill in him (hopefully) will take root and hold. It still doesn't relieve the overall tension, at least not for myself. I think that I will always harbor a little, but it won't affect my friendships, that's for sure. Anyway, I am done with talking about parenting till at least next week or later. For now, I will simply focus on my son and giving him the best childhood possible.
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