Family Life

Blog posts about parenting and family life

2016: The Soundtrack

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One of my favourite non-family-related holiday traditions is the browsing of “Best albums of the year” articles, blog posts and podcasts. Back in the days, my holiday music-buying lived and died according to what former broadcaster and pariah Gian Gomeshi offered as his top 20 albums of any given year. Since Gomeshi’s fall from grace, I have not found a compilation that was as consistently up my aisle as his. Oh well.

Now a normal music compilation would give you a list of “Best Albums Released in Given Year” but this is not how my world goes round. I’m a binge-everything. Binge-writer, binge-eater, binge-Netflixer, binge-music-listener. When I love an album, I love it until I break the machine. As a teenager, I warped cassette tapes. I don’t listen to music when it’s released, I listen to music when I want to. As a result, this is a compilation of the best bands and albums I discovered in 2016. I came late to the party on some of them but that should be no reason to neglect them. Happy listening!

1. Half Moon Run. Originally from Montreal, now mostly touring, the band kicked-off their latest tour in Ottawa this December. I went to their show with my oldest daughter, who was a fan back in the days when they drew a crowd of 15 at Ottawa’s Bluesfest. Now critically acclaimed and playing to sold-out mid-sized venues, the time to catch them up-close and personal is surely running out. Music style: alt-pop, Indie rock, rich melodies, vocal harmonies and acoustic arrangements.

On the playlist:
Consider Yourself
Full Circle

2. Scroobius Pip. I discovered this rapper/Hip hop/spoken word artist through my favourite podcast Sodajerker on Songwriting. As a writer, his work was a revelation to me. It inspired me to start writing my own poetry. My gateway song was The beat that my heart skipped but if you can take a bit of sound distortion, do listen to Magician’s Assistant: It’s brilliantly written, raw and hits you like a gut punch. Music style: Slam poetry, hip hop, spoken word, rap, electronic.

On the playlist:
The beat that my heart skipped
The Struggle
Magician’s Assistant

3. The Lumineers. Another discovery through Sodajerker’s interviews. I already knew Ho Hey (because who doesn’t?) but I recently discovered their second album, Cleopatra. The Lumineers are taking the old quip about 3 chords and the truth to it’s most beautiful expression. Their arrangements are creatively minimalist, in the way that only genius musical minds can muster. They don’t rely on instrumentation and over-production to round-out their songs, relying instead on rock-solid melodies, hooks, and riffs on the piano and guitar. Their songs tell stories that are made even more poignant by Wesley Schultz’s haunting voice. You can get a better look at the stories told in Cleopatra by watching the videos. In each video, the characters of the different stories cross paths and impact each other’s lives in direct and indirect ways. Music style: Acoustic, Americana, folk.

On the playlist:
Cleopatra
In the light
Ho Hey

4. Hamilton. Not having lived completely under a rock, I had heard about the musical Hamilton. I knew it was a phenomenon. I knew that tickets on Broadway were sold out until the cows came home, yadda, yadda, and my friends who loved Hamilton wouldn’t shut up about it already. Still, I was not inspired to listen to it until my 14 year-old daughter bought it on iTunes and it found its way on my phone through a sync accident. Hamilton is the Pulitzer-prize winning, viral, hip hop musical about one of the Founding Fathers. It doesn’t matter how you feel about viral phenomenons, musicals, hip hop or Founding Fathers, Hamilton is the kind of opus that will entertain, educate and punch you in the gut regardless of taste. The songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda are lyrical genius, the main characters of Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton capture the human struggle between right and wrong, rationality and emotionality, with accuracy and style. The two Hamilton albums are the musical by the original broadway cast (including composer Lin-Manuel Miranda in the title role) and The Hamilton Mixtape in which various artists offer their takes on the songs and themes of the musical. Music style: hip-hop, rap, musical.

On the playlist:
Aaron Burr, Sir (From the Broadway Cast)
Wait for it (From the Broadway Cast)
The Battle of Yorktown (From the Broadway Cast)
Immigrants (From the Mixtape)
I wrote my way out (From the Mixtape)
Valley Forge (Demo) (From the Mixtape)

5. Sweet Crude. This Indie pop-rock band seeks to revive the traditional sounds of French Louisiana. This is my most recent discovery and I haven’t listened to their work quite enough (yet) to distil it but it’s coming. Their music is dazzling and engaging, it’s like an old-fashioned kitchen party except that everyone can play and sing. Strongly recommended. Music style: acoustic, Indie pop-rock, folk, Americana.

On the playlist:
Parlez-nous à boire
Mon esprit

6. The Nashville soundtracks. Nashville is a TV series about the lives of a cast of music-industry types set in the city of Nashville, Tennessee. The characters include country music stars at the top of the heap (Rayna, Juliette), nobodys on their way to stardom (Scarlett, Will), nobodys looking for a break (Gunnar, Layla), the supporting cast of band members, songwriters, managers and producers (Avery, Deacon) and other hangers-on. It ran for 4 seasons on ABC before being canceled and picked-up by CMT when the fans raised enough of a ruckus to bring the show back. The fifth season kicks-off this week with a one-hour sneak-peak at the two-hour premiere scheduled for January 5th. But enough about the TV, the real main character of the show is THE MUSIC. With each season, a full-length EP is released plus single tracks for a total of (at least) 20 songs per season. And what songs! The show creator, Callie Khouri, is married to mega-producer T-Bone Burnett. The music is written for the show by an all-star buffet of Nashville’s best and brightest songwriters and was produced by Burnett first and then by Buddy Miller. The actors are doing their own singing and the music is curated to advance storylines, develop character arches and narrative exposition. Music style: Country, blues-rock, folk, Americana, acoustic, alt-country, country-pop.
It was too hard to pick the best tracks of the 150-or-so songs for the playlist so I went with my favourite combos of characters to songwriters:

On the playlist:
If I didn’t know better (co-written by John Paul White, performed by “Scarlett and Gunnar”)
No one will ever love you (co-written by John Paul White, performed by “Rayna and Deacon”)
Undermine (co-written by Kacey Musgraves, performed by “Juliette and Deacon”)
Changing Grounds (written by Gillian Welch, performed by “Rayna”)
When the right one comes along (co-written by Justin Davis, Sarah Zimmerman and Gloria Middleman, performed by “Scarlett and Gunnar”)
A life that’s good (co-written by Ashley Monroe and Sarah Siskind, performed by “Deacon”)
Lately (co-written by Ashley Monroe and Sarah Siskind, performed by “Scarlett and Gunnar”)
Heart on Fire (co-written by Kate York and Sarah Siskind, performed by “Maddie and Daphne”)
Boomtown (co-written by Maren Morris, performed by “Juliette and Luke”)
I will never let you know (co-written by Kate York, performed by “Scarlett and Gunnar”)

7. John Hiatt. I discovered John Hiatt through the Nashville soundtrack when his hit Have a little faith in me was covered by Maisy Stella and Will Chase. The album Bring the family was his first release following his sobriety. He started recording Have a little faith in me in studio with a heavy arrangement but the session was plagued by setbacks and delays. The next day, he learned of the suicide of his ex-wife and recorded the pared down acoustic version he his most widely known for. The rest is history. This album is no one-hit wonder however: every track is a hit. Music style: Folk, country, blues-rock, Americana.
On the playlist:
Have a little faith in me
Memphis in the meantime

8. Miranda Lambert. Yes. Miranda Lambert. I don’t care how you feel about over-produced blond country singers, this girl is the real deal. For sure, some of her songs are cut for commercial radio success but her early albums were critically acclaimed as well. Pick any of her albums and you will find that most of her songs swing country-country rather than pop-country. I’m partial to Platinum as her best album although Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is not far behind. Music style: Country, alt-country, country pop, bluegrass.

Once again, it was hard to pick my favourite songs so I went with my favourite songwriters instead:

On the playlist:
Little Red Wagon (written by Audra Mae)
Dry Town (written by Gillian Welch)
All that’s left (written by Tom and Dixie Hall)
Gravity’s a b**ch (written by Miranda Lambert and Scott Wray)

In 2017, I’m looking forward to dig into the work of Gillian Welch. Her songwriting hits all my buttons. Otherwise, I will just float where the music leads.

What were your favorite finds of 2016? Feel free to link your Spotify Playlists in the comments and let’s chat tunes!

On being fearless

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Today marks the launch of my long-awaited website Fearless Family Life.The vagaries of life in a large family tend to stretch every possible timeline beyond recognition but I also suffered from an uncomfortable want of knowing where to take this train.

Over the last year, I have had countless opportunities to reflect on the direction I wanted to move in. At first, I did what most business-minded writers would do and looked at popular parenting blogs. Parenting seems to be as divided as politics, from the more liberal “it’s ok to suck, you have it so hard” to the more conservative “parenting is a war to be won”. In between lies the world of listicles: 10 reasons why your toddler is a jerk and Why good moms start drinking before 9. As an educated woman with both a love for my children and a struggle to be the best person I can be, I found these messages confusing and wholly uninspiring.

The truth is that parenting is hard but we are all stronger than we think. Whether we started our journey from a position of strength or a position of weakness, whatever our challenges are, we can always push ourselves a little farther. Strength builds in increments: fearless family life is about taking the next step on our parenting journey, from wherever we currently are.

In family life, our fears are too often born of our own judgment. We love to read about overcoming mommy-guilt but women are crumbling under the weight of their own expectations. Being fearless is refusing to be guided by our fear of inadequacy. It’s about challenging ourselves without judgment.

Fearless Family Life is my gift of encouragement to you. It’s here to tell you that you can do this. It’s here to share the most important lesson I learned in 20 years of family life: that you love your children better than anyone. Fearless Family Life is about allowing yourself to be guided by love rather than fear, by hope rather than shame. It’s about stepping into the world of possibilities and looking up to where you are going instead of down and around on everyone else’s journey.

Imagine that you and your family are in a boat. You can work together to get somewhere or you can work against each other and sink. Whatever you decide, you’re in this together.

Peppers

In the pantry, a jar sits on a shelve, lonely and unused. Its bright red colour livens the mess of spices and aromatics standing at attention in a practical array. Bird’s Eye chili peppers, dried to a dusty crisp, artifacts of a summer’s past.

We had planned a large garden, tilled long and narrow mounds on which we planted gourds, lettuces and root vegetables, our knowledge of gardening inversely proportional to our enthusiasm. Seeds of hot peppers thrown on the edge of a row of romaine lettuce testified  to our inexperience. They should have been sprouted indoors while the deep brown earth laid dormant under a crust of snow and ice.

Shortly after laying our cornucopia underground, we had seen our own little buds sprouting deep inside the warm comfort of the womb. Twins. Bed rest. Our garden was left to fend for itself as we fought the forces of chaos on the home front. Within a few weeks in July weeds choked everything but the sturdiest squashes, potatoes, and zucchinis. “No wonder that’s what the pioneers ate,” I thought as I laid hatching. The spring rains gorged the edible plants as well as the weeds, the summer sun ripened them. The children picked what could be salvaged and eaten raw and the twin buds rested and grew. Summer lingered into September, then exceptionally into October and the weeds got more luscious. The twin buds matured and bloomed and I was released to the garden just in time to harvest a late crop of red hot chili peppers before fall threw its blanket of frost, smothering weeds and herbs alike. I strung the peppers on a thread with a sewing needle and hung them to dry in a south-facing window, letting the summer rain evaporate from the taunt red flesh.

Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer, the sequence of a year. The peppers adorned our window for a year, long dried but too hot to complement our family’s dishes. Some were rehydrated with boiling water, cooked with oil and garlic and made into chili garlic sauce following Margaret’s authentic Malaysian recipe. We used it by the drop, careful not to breathe deeply while the jar was open.

The house and the garden wrapped their weight around our necks like a boat anchor, dragging our family into a wake of debt and fear. When  we decided to sell our house to pay off all our debts the peppers were duly packed into a glass jar, wrapped in packing paper, and moved to our new landing, a relic of the dreams we left behind as we looked up and ahead. The peppers remained untouched as we welcomed our ninth child and moved again when we made our home in the highlands.

Here they live, a vibrant reminder of a summer past when we learned the wisdom of letting things grow as they must.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Netflix and Chills: Gran Hotel

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Today I am reclaiming the concept of Netflix & Chill because someone has to and because there has to be a voice for people watching a period drama while knitting. Edgy. In Canada good TV shows are few and far between. Regional licensing *yawn* agreements — or lack thereof — mean that the Netflix Canada catalogue accounts for about half of what is available in the U.S. I don’t fancy myself a TV critic, even less a TV writer, but I do fancy myself demanding when it comes to how I waste my time. As such, I decided to share with you my favorite series and movies from the very limited selection available on Netflix Canada, starting with my latest infatuation  obsession, Gran Hotel. (The trailer below is in Spanish only but the Netflix offering has subtitles.)

After Downton Abbey was wrapped-up with a bow and a cherry on top — I like my endings happy and this beautiful series was tied-up with the same flawless class that characterized all 6 seasons – I found myself suffering from a severe case of hangover, which may have been due to my unapologetic crush on everything Matthew Goode . I started scouring Netflix for something, anything, to scratch that itch. Netflix kept suggesting “Grand Hotel” but from the cover pictures I could see that the production — including the costumes, writing and verisimilitude — would not be as tightly spun as my beloved Downton. Well, was I ever right in a wrong way!

 

Cast as the “Spanish Downton Abbey” Gran Hotel — titled “Grand Hotel” on Netflix — is set with the same “upstairs-downstairs” dynamics as Downton Abbey, and that’s about where any possible comparison stops. Where Downton Abbey sought to be a reflection of the era it portrayed, Gran Hotel is using the period as an accessory to its storytelling.

 

The popular series, which ran from 2011 to 2013 in Spain, is offered by Netflix in 3 seasons totaling 65 episodes of about an hour each (so that’s about 100 hours when you factor-in re-watching all the hottest kissing scenes, *coughs* *loosens collar*). The series is in Castilian (European) Spanish with English subtitles. The subtitles are easy to follow — and entertaining for the third season where typos, missing words and the original Spanish sneak-in, suggesting that the translator got as carried away as I did — and the repetitive nature of the plots, roving and twisting around each other, may even allow you to pick-up a few words of Spanish such as disculpe, lo siento and perdon (excuse me, I’m sorry and pardon me). It turns out that Spaniards apologize as much as Canadians do.

 

Each one the three seasons is wrapped around a main plot and a few simple subplots. But unlike American series who like their plots and subplots to go on forever and finish abruptly, Gran Hotel’s writers wound and unwound each plot with satisfying regularity. Questions are answered in ways that are not always believable but consistent once you accept to suspend just enough disbelief to enter into this lavish parallel universe. Gran Hotel is light and satisfying entertainment. There are no zombies, no gore, except for some obvious cinematic blood, and your favorite characters will not be killed willy-nilly. If this is how you like your entertainment, read on as I share — without spoilers except for one that should be obvious from the series’ cover picture — my 7 (plus one)  favorite things about Gran Hotel.

 

1. The romance. Here comes the obvious spoiler: the series is spun around the star-crossed romance between Julio (Yon Gonzalez) and Alicia (Amaia Salamanca). Now, I am a very demanding consumer when it comes to fictional romance and let me tell you, this is one of the most contagious TV romance I’ve seen since Colin Firth longingly beheld Jennifer Ehle in the BBC production of Pride & Prejudice. Gonzalez and Salamanca have incredible chemistry, they burn right through the screen. Pacing is the key to a good romance and this romance is perfectly ordered. It always leaves you yearning for more but never frustrated. Their first kiss — deservedly — won TV awards in Spain and each subsequent one is equally deserving, not to mention the hotter stuff. I’d watch the series just for the kissing, seriously. Add two beautiful actors speaking Spanish to each other with the slow-burning emotionality we’ve come to associate with everything Spaniard and you have a love story playing out without a false note over 60 hours.

2. The pacing. One thing that seriously annoys me in American TV entertainment is the tendency to take viewers within a hairsbreadth of a plot resolution, only to be taken on another round of near discoveries, near deaths and missteps. I heard Gran Hotel aptly described in The Protagonist Podcast — listen here, it takes about 10 minutes to get in gear but it does justice to the first 2 episodes and doesn’t contain any spoilers — as “Downton Abbey meets 24” and it’s a true description. Of course — as with 24 — viewers need to overlook how quickly characters get from one place to the next, get changed and read letters. But I was happy to oblige in exchange for not being taken down some obscure plot rabbit-hole.

 

3.The physicality. Spaniards sure like their face slaps and Gran Hotel actors really know how to put their backs into it. When Julio fights, he fights. At first I found it a little ridiculous, over the top maybe. But I came to appreciate the unrestrained physicality because it carried over to…

 

4. The men-hugs, men-tears and men generally being very expressive with each other. The friendship between Julio and Andrès is real and meaningful and nothing else would explain how Julio can keep his job by so rarely doing it. My British period drama habit had me used to very restrained displays of manly emotions. The spectrum of British male emoting oscillates between angry, outraged and “I’ll go speak to your father…” Julio and Andrès hug, kiss, confide in each other and cry in each other’s arms, while remaining perfectly attractive — and attracted — to the female kind. Fancy that.

 

5. The smoking. The series is a 60 hour long shameless and unrestrained cigarette advertisement. The smoking=sex pipeline is not even thinly veiled. To this Canadian viewer this is entertainment anathema and I love the Spanish for their unapologetic want for political correctness.

 

6. The beauty. This series is visually enchanting. The outdoor scenes were filmed at the historic Palacio de la Magdalena in Santander, on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. The men are good looking but the women are stunning in a non-Hollywood kind of way. The make-up was purposely kept to a very natural look, allowing us to truly appreciate the beauty of the ladies. Except for a few shots of bare backs throughout the 3 seasons, everyone keeps their clothes mostly on, even the few sex scenes are tasteful and understated. The beauty and romanticism are wrought through acting only and this is a feat that should be attempted by American entertainment sometimes.

Women of Gran Hotel

 

7. The cheese. There is some seriously awesome cheese in Gran Hotel. From oodles of fake blood, to a Laurel & Hardy-like policemen duet, to Julio digging his own grave with his shirt off, fighting with his shirt off, looking for a lost button with his shirt off, to babies being born completely clean and as chubby as 3 month-olds, to weird twists and turns in unlikely plot lines, Gran Hotel has a soap-operatic quality that would be overwhelming if it wasn’t for how honestly it comes by it. Embrace the cheese, don’t fight it.

(Plus one) * A word of warning to my Catholic readers. I know that many Catholics are sick and tired of the perpetually negative portrayal of the Catholic Church in entertainment. The third season of Gran Hotel features a plot line involving an affair with a Catholic priest. If you can’t stand the sight of a Catholic priest behaving badly, you might need to give the Padre Grau story-line a pass. I found it tolerable myself because unlike in American entertainment where he would have been portrayed as a cruel or sick pervert, Padre Grau comes across as just another sinner, which most priests of my knowledge would admit to be. Every single character in Gran Hotel has a morally questionable dimension. Everyone has a secret, everyone hides something, protects someone, makes poor decisions. The Catholic priest is just as sinful as the rest of the cast, no more, no less. Otherwise, Catholic ceremonies and Sacraments are portrayed tastefully and many a thing are left “en las manos de Nuestro Señor” (in the hands of Our Lord).

Et voilà! Gran Hotel is the stuff cult followings are made of and considering how much fun I had looking-up links and information for this post, I am in grave danger of booking a themed tour of Spain’s Mediterranean coastline soon. This is a series that remains true to itself from start to finish and consistently treats its viewership with respect. If you have a taste for pure escapism entertainment, book at night — or 20 — at the Gran Hotel.

Julio y Alicia

 

 

 

Are we killing you yet?

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This post was originally published on Vie de Cirque in March 2014

About a month ago, our family was the subject of a full-page feature in our local newspaper. This is not the first time that my little gang and I appear on the pages of a newspaper: last year, I took part in a Globe & Mail piece on the decision to stay home or return to work.

When you are the mother of a large family and you make a media appearance, you have to expect the global warming trolls to come to the party, regardless of the topic. We seem to be a looming menace: if everybody did what we did, the environmental impact would be disastrous. In theory maybe, but what about reality?

A quick glance at the literature shows that concerns over demographic decline are at least as pressing as those relating to overpopulation. Birth rates (the number of live births per thousand of population per year) and fertility rates (the average number of children born to women of childbearing years) are declining throughout the world. While many under-developed countries still show birth rates over the population renewal rate (2.1 children per women), their birth rates are in decline. Statistics suggest that the increasing world population is not caused by too many births but by an increase in life expectancy. In other words, we didn’t start breeding like rabbits; we just stopped dropping like flies. The elderly population is on the increase worldwide but the children population is decreasing steadily.

Blaming large families like ours for overpopulation discounts the fact that for countries like Canada, the fertility rate is significantly below the population renewal rate despite a handful of large families. Think about it: the fertility rate of 1.1 children per woman includes women like me. We don’t seem to be making a noticeable difference. If anything, we make demographic decline slightly less scary. I often meet funny people who enjoy telling me:

“I’m happy that there are people like you to make up for people like me.”

Except that we are outweighed: there are too many people like you for people like me to compensate.

Some will tell me that demographic decline is desirable to make-up for our poor ecological balance sheet. While it is true that resource abuse is threatening the environment, I would counter that what is killing the planet are abusive mentalities, not large families. If large families are too few to make a statistical difference in birth rates, what makes you think that there are enough of us to compromise the environment? Resource abuse and overuse happened in parallel with demographic decline. The problem is not simply how many people are killing the planet, but how they are doing it!

Our family lives in the suburbs of Ottawa in a typical wealthy suburban neighbourhood found throughout North America. Large single family homes, 4 bedrooms, double car garage. Two cars, or rather, one car and a larger vehicle such as a minivan or a SUV. The house we currently live in was designed for a family of 4 or 5 people. On my street, in houses of similar size and function, you will find mostly couples with no children or 1 or 2 children. Some are young families hoping to expand but most are older. They all live in 3 000+ sq. ft. homes built on prime agricultural land, with 2 vehicles, air conditioning and heating brought to you by some coal-fired power plant somewhere in Ontario. It doesn’t cost more to heat-up 3 000 square feet for a family of 10 than it does for a family of 2 by the way. Except that with the size of my bills, when the weather is nice I open the windows. Most of my neighbours turn-on the A/C in May and turn it off in October. And while my pile of garbage is bigger than theirs, the diesel-powered truck moves for them as much as it does for me… and their garbage pile is not one fifth of mine, although their household is. Their vehicles are never full and move at least as much as mine do. Every March Break, we stay home while most of my children’s school friends fly-off to a sunny destination. And you are shaking your accusatory finger at me?

Let me tell you what is killing the planet. It’s egotism. It’s a culture of entitlement that drives us to grab what should be ours, whether we need it or not. It’s the pursuit of “more”, not to say “too much”. Take a drive through Ottawa’s old neighbourhoods and take a look at the little brick bungalows. 2 or 3 bedrooms, no bigger than a triple car garage. Reflect on the fact that these homes were once considered family-sized, at a time where families were bigger. Today, my single family home features two bedrooms with full ensuites. Ideal for the only teen who would rather not share a toilet with his parents: your children can now sleep, socialize and shower in their very own personal wing. They don’t even need to interact while going to take a pee! Progress would be a built-in meal door. But the problem with the world is my husband, my children and I???

From my home office window, I watch the school buses go by. Every day, a well-meaning mother drives her daughter – who looks to be about 12 years-old — to the corner and picks her up at the end of the day. In Ottawa, a student cannot walk more than 500 m to get to a bus stop. If the distance between his home and the bus stop is greater than 500 m, a new bus stop is created. Throughout this very cold winter, the coldest on recent record, our attentive mother drove her daughter to and from the bus stop. The daughter never wore as much as a hat. No scarf, no mittens, not even a pair of boots. You need to understand that within a 500 m radius of my home office window, there is no low-income housing. We are not talking about a child in need; we are talking about a child who cannot walk 500 m (probably less) in the winter because it is “too cold”. And it’s too cold by choice. That’s the kind of choice, made every day, multiplied by millions of us, over our lifetime that brought planet earth to her knees. Not a handful of large families.

Yes, we use too much electricity, we drive too often and we wear too many clothes. We gather so much that we must build air-conditioned condos for our stuff. Not only have we covered our prime agricultural land with asphalt, we now build apartments for our stuff! We got there while our population was decreasing. Could you be looking for a culprit at the wrong place?

As for me and my husband, we will keep having children and raising them to become responsible citizens. I don’t know if we will succeed: the social forces pushing us toward overconsumption and self-centeredness are strong. But I believe that we have a better chance of succeeding because a large family is an incubator for the values that we hope to pass-on to our children. You should be happy: they will be paying for your adult diapers and performing your hip replacement surgeries for the next 60 years.

Picture by Jenna Sparks, Lifestyle photographer: http://jsparksphotography.zenfolio.com/

Picture by Jenna Sparks, Lifestyle photographer.

Unsolicited Advice: Achieving potty training success – Don’t be anal about it

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True confession: I never waited for my kids to be “ready”. I potty train at 2. That’s it. None of my children (until the twins) cared about spending some time in a soiled or wet diaper. Some of them may still be in diapers had I been waiting for signs of readiness. There is a window of good will at age 2 and we jump right through it.

Our no-nonsense approach to potty training hinges on the knowledge of our potty-training children’s temperaments and the unavoidable fact that we cannot control their sphincter function. Keep cool, calm, and collected. This is not about you. First read the preamble to this potty training edition and make sure that you are in the right frame of mind to teach your child: The Potty Training Edition

Take time off work, or plan to stay home for 4-5 days. The key to potty-training success is repeated successes. Success is defined as peeing in appropriate places. This is very difficult and immensely frustrating if you are always on the go.

Ask me about the day I sat my potty training toddler on a cashier’s counter at a department store and she emptied her bladder. I asked for a towel and the cashier gave me 2 tissues… That’s how I learned that if I was going to keep my temper, I would have to stay home for a few days or use Pull-Ups.

Don’t set yourself and your child for failure. Being constantly on-the-go will cause setbacks that are frustrating for you and demotivating for your child.

Figure out what motivates your child. Our approach is based on rewards or positive reinforcement. Some children respond well to motivational charts with stickers. Others respond well to the feeling of being a big boy/big girl. Some children are motivated by a special treat. Don’t skimp on the rewards: this is for a limited time only. Once the habit of peeing/pooping in the toilet is well established, you won’t have problems removing the treat, it happens very naturally. We use Smarties all the way. If you see that one motivator is not registering, try another. One of my friends buys a big toy that goes on display on top of the fridge. She uses stickers and after 7 days without accident, the toy is theirs. My kids would get discouraged by the delayed gratification and responded better to the immediate gratification of a single Smarties candy. For the purpose of this post, I will use “Smarties” as a synonym for “reward”.

Reward liberally. At first, I give Smarties to everybody who pees in the toilet. It sets the mood for the potty training child.

On the first day, I put my child in underwear. A little note: some children will treat undies like a diaper and only have success completely naked. That’s cool too. Just have a lot of cleaning supplies handy and let go of your inhibitions. Make sure that your partner, significant other or co-parent is on board. If not, delay potty training until you can teach with one voice. I strongly advise against using any form of punishment to potty train. It causes more problems than it seems to solve at first.

Your goal for the first few days (it can take a few hours or a few days) is to make your child aware that she is peeing. What does peeing feels like? Before a child can learn to hold pee, she needs to learn what pee feels like. The sensation that we “need” to go is the feeling of pressure in the bladder and tightening our sphincters. The first phase of potty training is to make them aware that they are peeing. I watch them like a hawk and offer the potty but I never force them. As soon as they pee I take them to the potty and say “You peed! Next time we’ll do it on the potty”. No rant, no lecture, no disappointment. I try to get them to sit on the potty long enough to pee but this can be difficult. I make a game out of it, try to read a book, watch a movie, whatever. Otherwise, I just let them be and tell them when they pee. “Oups, another pee. Next time you’ll do it in the potty.” I always have some cleaning supplies handy because this can be a messy stage. I also buy 2 dozens cheap underwear. They have to be cheap enough to be cut and thrown out if the child has a really bad poop accident. The key to potty training success is to keep your cool in all circumstances. Scrubbing poop and swishing disgusting underwear in the toilet is not a circumstance that commands coolness. Life is too short to spend it up to your elbows in a toilet bowl. Unless you work in the septic tank business. But I’m not paid for this gig.

Keep body functions matter-of-fact, will ya? Peeing is no big deal. There are no air-horns going-on when you pee, are there?  Some children may be jubilant when they have early success. Jubilate with them. But for some temperaments, the jubilation is a cause of stress and increased expectations. At first, keep the horns and sirens under wrap until you get a feel for what motivates or stresses your child. I ask my early potty-trainee if she needs to go every 2 minutes. At the first sign of stress or stubbornness, I ratchet-it-down a few notches and leave my child alone. Yes, she may pee on the floor, and that’s ok: she is learning what peeing feels like. Never force your child to sit on the potty/toilet. Just walk away, make tea, go scrub your baseboards or something. At the end of a long day, I have been known to put a diaper back on. Relax, this is not a salvation issue. If you can’t respond in a constructive way DON’T RESPOND. Put a diaper on the child and pour yourself a drink or three.

Every time your child puts even a drop of pee in the toilet, give her a Smarties. The goal is to teach her what peeing feels like. Be liberal with the Smarties: she may want to go to the toilet every 30 seconds, fantastic!! Take her. If you get a single drop of pee every 30 seconds, give her a reward every single time. To expel a drop of pee, she is using her sphincters. This is good stuff. One of my friends (a mother of 10) uses pretzels because it makes them thirsty…. Then they need to go more often. Apple juice and pretzels, Baby! Now you understand why you are taking 4-5 days at home to do this.

As soon as you see the pee=potty relation consolidate, build on it. If you go to the park, bring a potty. The more time you invest in potty training during the early days, the more success you will have. If you interrupt your potty training for errands, playgroups, coffees etc, it will take longer.

Once your child understands what peeing feels like and can control the outflow of pee, she will naturally start to keep it in. I find that this happens naturally: when they understand what pee feels like and are motivated to do it in the toilet, they learn to hold it. This may take a day for a motivated child but it can also take longer. That’s why I don’t like any method that promises success within a certain number of days. “Success” is not potty training in 3 days, children are not machines. “Success” is peeing and pooping in appropriate places with no damage to your relationship.

Be ready for setbacks. Potty training is often two steps forward one step back. As your child learns to control her bladder, she can get overconfident and start having accidents again. As always, keep your cool. She is not doing this to annoy you. Stress and tension in the household can also compromise potty training. Potty training is very demanding on the child: if her brain is occupied by a sudden language spurt or a stressful situation in the family, it may take away from potty training. Once again, keep your cool and stay the course.

The answer to any and every accident is calm and composed: “Oups, you had an accident! Next time you’ll do it in the toilet.” Don’t rant, don’t argue. Walk away, go make tea, call your girlfriend or take-up crochet. I usually just check Instagram and see what cooler people are up to.

Just stay the course. Remember that the most important key to success is not to let potty training turn into a power struggle. You will lose that struggle. It’s as simple a physiology: you cannot control someone’s sphincters. On the up side, your child cannot control your response. Manage what you can control and let go of what you can’t. Remain unaffected by your toddler’s antics. Respond constructively or don’t respond. It’s ok to ignore the bad stuff, how do you think I went this far without taking-up drinking?

If you have questions, just leave a comment. Don’t get married to a deadline, those only cause friction and stress. After 5 days in underwear, if your child shows no awareness of her need to pee, nor willingness or ability to go on the potty, stop and wait another month. If after 5 days your child has anxiety or throws tantrums at the sight of the potty, stop and waits another month. If your partner supports harsh methods of potty training and punishes your child when she pees in inappropriate places, stop and get a supportive partner. If your child is scared of the toilet, use a potty. If your child doesn’t want to use the potty, try a toilet adjuster. If your child is severely constipated or has pain when urinating, stop and seek medical attention.

Recap:

You cannot your child’s sphincters, your child’s mind or your child’s temper.

You can control your response, your temper, the purchase of diapers.

The key to success is to know the difference between what you can control and what you can’t and acting accordingly. Stay calm and happy potty training!

Unsolicited advice : The potty training edition.

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I posted a reply about potty training on a local parenting group. As I was writing it, it occurred to me that I had already given the same advice on the same group page. And elsewhere. Many, many, times. In fact, if I had a dime every time someone asked me for potty training advice and I answered, I would be a millionaire. In fact, I would be a “Parenting Expert”. Heck, by now I may even be on Oprah… Or whatever show people are on these days.

Maybe you came to that post through Google. Maybe you did a Google search about “potty training advice” and the robots lead you here. And maybe right now, you are expecting me to tell you how I trained my kids in 3 days with no accident. Maybe you are expecting to read on how to train your kid in 3 days with no accident. Presumably, and unfortunately, you’ve been trying for 3 months with no success and you are desperately looking for the magic word, the key to unlock your child’s underwear potential. This post may disappoint you.

Because I am not going to tell you how to train your child, even though several of my 6 potty-trained children trained in (almost) 3 days without (barely any) accident. Nope. In this post, I will tell you how to train yourself so your child can train herself.

(I feel like I should add that this post applies to children and parents who do not have any physical or mental illnesses that could undermine the potty training process. But we knew that, right? Goes without saying.)

Whenever parents write to me for potty training advice, their story comes in variations of:

–          We started potty training. It worked at first, and then we had a setback (new baby, travel, illness etc.).

OR

–          We started potty training and it never worked.

Now potty training is a scene right out of a horror movie. There is screaming, crying and threatening and that’s saying nothing about the child. There is hiding in a closet to poop or pee, and when not hiding there is laughing while soiling pants in front of the parents. Poop and pee is either coming out in inappropriate places, undies being the least of it, or has completely stopped coming out.  There is suffering the complications of retained fluids and feces: bladder infections, anal injuries, severe constipation. The relationship with the child is going down the drain (pun intended). Every week brings a new gimmick, a new approach, a new potty training miracle method. Parents and child go through positive reinforcement, threats, punishments, rewards, stickers, Smarties, in short cycles of emotionally charged back-and-forth.

STOP. IT’S NOT WORKING. STOP, PLEASE.

There are a few important principles of potty training that need to be well-understood before success can be achieved. Accepting them may not lead your child to toilet reliability overnight but it will save your sanity and prevent any long term physical and emotional damage in your child’s toilet parts.

Principle 1 : You cannot use the toilet for your child and you cannot make your child poop or pee. This may sound so obvious, but this is where most parents bite the dust and stay down. Potty training may be the first time parents have no control over what their child does or decides not to do. Your children’s sphincters are completely out of your reach. The interaction between your child’s brain and her sphincter is ever farther out of your reach.

When parents ask me for potty training advice, I often feel like they are asking me “How can I control my child’s sphincters?” You can’t, you never will. None of us who have achieved early potty training success have done so because we could control our child’s bowel/bladder function. We did because our children were willing, able and receptive to potty training.

If you feel like potty training is a loss of control and you are grasping for a way to retain control; if you feel like you are caught in a battle of wills with your child over potty training, stop. Put your child back in diapers and start again when you accept that this matter is out of your hands.

Principle 2: There is a difference between normal potty behaviour and abnormal potty behaviour. Don’t ignore abnormal potty behaviour. When emotions run high, it is too easy to lose perspective. Toddler is stubborn: normal. Toddler is defiant: normal. Toddler screams in pain when using the toilet or holds back urine for days: not normal!!  Too often, I get potty training stories that include all of the above in one sentence. Whoahhhh… If your child sounds like she’s delivering triplets, maybe it’s time to back off and let her body heal. Put your child back in diapers until her bodily functions run normally and you learn the difference between stubborn and severely constipated.

Principle 3: Using sphincters won’t happen if pain is the outcome. Toddler soils his pants; he gets a clean-up in the cold shower. That’ll teach him, right? Wrong! A cold shower was the outcome of using his sphincters. You are holding baby on the potty until she pees. She screams, you get mad, eventually you win. Right? Nope. She now associates using the potty with intense frustration and anger. Toddler poops in the closet so he gets a spanking. He was willfully defiant and you had to act. Fine. But now he associates pooping with a spanking. Don’t make pain the outcome of using the sphincters. There is two kinds of response to bowel/bladder movement: the positive response and the no response. Don’t allow pain or shame to become part of the pottying equation: remember Principle 1.

Principle 4: You potty trained a long time ago; you are conditioned to pee and poop in the toilet. Your frustration comes in part from not understanding why something so simple can be so complicated. Sit, pee, done. Right? Wrong! Deconstructing peeing and pooping really helped me understand why my child was struggling. Since birth, your child has never held a pee. He doesn’t associate the sensation of holding pee with the need to go. He doesn’t associate the need to go with the need to hold it. He doesn’t associate the need to hold it with the need to hold it long enough to find a toilet. Once he’s learned to hold it, he needs to learn to let it go, which is not the same as just going in a diaper. Then he needs to learn to let it all go and recognize the sensation of an empty bladder. It’s not that simple, it is difficult, and you getting mad only add an emotional component where one shouldn’t be.

Until you understand these principles, put your child in diapers and don’t meddle with her healthy body. Don’t allow potty training to become a battle of will: this is your responsibility. Once you have accepted those 4 principles, write to me, I’ll tell you how I potty trained my children. It may not have taken 3 days; it may not have been accident-free. But we never cried, never screamed, and only got mildly constipated.

And furthermore … (still on yoga pants)

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This post was originally published in December 2011 (wow!) on Vie de Cirque

I wanted to add a few thoughts — such as my sleep-deprived brain can conceive — on the yoga pants. My last post was about dropping the parenting ball more than yoga pants. But what do I think about clothing bans?

First, let’s clarify a few things. The ban on yoga pants is not across the board. You may want to read this piece from Kelly Egan in the Ottawa Citizen. He writes:

According to the board’s website, every school is required to have a dress code, which may involve uniforms. It is to be consistent with the teachings of the Catholic church and is accordance with parental views. The code does not appear to contain the word “yoga.”

(…)

The policy does state: “This (code) may be as general as addressing the wearing of ball caps and the length of skirts and shorts.” There is no Lulu sub-clause, or any hint about dealing with a student wearing yoga pants, a ball cap and a short skirt.

One school in Barrhaven reportedly banned yoga pants as part of their dress code. The problem with banning a piece of clothing is that it doesn’t prevent inappropriate dress more than banning a breed of dog prevents dog bites. Ban yoga pants and the girls will wear skinny jeans. The problem with modesty and the quest for attention through revealing clothing runs much deeper than the particular make and  model of the pants. Children learn trough example and repetition. It is somewhat naive to think that you can ram some modesty in a teenage girl who dresses for attention just by banning a piece of clothing. Pants are pants. The problem is how you wear them.
My oldest daughter wears yoga pants and skinny jeans at school. Yet, you would never see her as dressing inappropriately. She is naturally modest. My two middle daughters are competitive gymnasts and spend a fair amount of time training in what amounts to a bathing suit. They need more formation on modesty than their older sister. Banning yoga pants for girls such as my oldest daughter serves no purpose other than send parents scrambling to the nearest Old Navy. As for the other girls, just type “girls in school uniform” in the google search  box… wait… uh, don’t…
Am I saying that I oppose clothing bans? Well, yes and no. Teenagers need to learn that there is such a thing as inappropriate attire. The school can and should determine what is appropriate dress for a learning environment. We’ll let the bar scene determine the appropriate attire for picking-up a one-night-stand. And the world-wide-web for getting the attention of pedophiles and other deviants. But schools can’t hide from the subjective nature of sending a kid home to change behind the curtain of banning a piece of clothing and calling it a day. Yes, good taste is in the eye of the beholder. However, the beholders who are sending your children home to change — because you wouldn’t or couldn’t or just didn’t notice — are the same beholders of the jobs your children will be refused, the raises your children will be denied and the opportunities your children will seek out. Some lessons are better learned before you have a family to support, I’m just saying.
Another problem with clothing bans is that they tend, by nature, to overwhelmingly target girls. Yes, there is the odd ban of graphic tees and bottom-grazing jeans that apply to boys. But short-length provisions, belly-shirts bans and yoga pants clauses apply to girls… Ok, they won’t spell it out, boys are also prohibited from wearing yoga pants. But believe me, if a boy shows-up in high school wearing a tight-fitting belly shirt (and it’s not Halloween or cross-dressing fundraiser day), he will be sent home by his peers faster than the Principal can grab his parents’ phone number. Clothing bans that target female attire reinforce the message that girls are responsible for boys’ sinful impulses and must be reigned-in. Same idea as the burka, just different degrees. Bras are more distracting to boys than they are to girls, that’s how they are wired (the boys, not the bras). But boys have to learn to live with distractions of a sexual nature without acting on their impulses. That’s also a lesson better learned sooner than later.
Post-script:
One of my children took issue with my previous post on raising teenagers (it may have been one of my teenagers…) and told me with a surprising (to me) mix of scorn and sarcasm (paraphrasing): “You write that you are raising adults, not teenagers. That’s so ridiculous. You’re treating us like children!” Now I feel like I should specify, in case this was not clear to other readers, that by “raising adults” I didn’t mean treating teens like adults. I meant raising your children with a vision of the adults you want them to become. Clear?