It’s been a year. A year since we sold our sweet little Toyota Yaris, and committed ourselves to the hands of Toronto’s public transit system (TTC).

To be honest, I wasn’t keen on buying a car when we moved back from Brussels, but I saw the sense in taking advantage of our privilege to be able to plunk down the cash for a smallish eco-friendly car. Aodhan was still a very little guy and getting things like grocery shopping done on my own was tough enough – even with the car. I appreciated the ability to get to my parent’s house , an hour away, after my first year of parenting in an expat vacuum. The ease of being able to hop in the car and speed off for a hike or quick little weekend getaway kept us from selling the wheels that weren’t sitting so well with our family rhythm of not living with more than what we needed.

Last year, as we prepared to downsize our life, I tossed out the notion of getting rid of our car and within a month we were meeting prospective buyers and scheduling test-drives. We most certainly didn’t make as much money as we could have, but we wanted rid of it as quickly as possible and had it sold a week after putting it up for sale (we used kijiji and craigslist).

After a year of car-free living in a major urban centre, we are thrilled with our decision. We have rented a car for a couple of vacations, and during a family visit from the UK. My lovely parents have kindly helped us with big shipments of kitty litter, and the occasional trip to Ikea. When we have needed emergency transportation, like trips to the vet, or when Aodhan suffered from his first (and horrific) ear infection, we simply rang a taxi.

We have saved a significant amount of money in car insurance, fuel and maintenance. Of course, living in Toronto, paying for public transport isn’t inexpensive, but it doesn’t come anywhere near to the cost of living with a car.

I love that we have increased our family exercise time. When I hit the gym or go for a run, that is something that I do on my own. However, in having given up the car, we find ourselves walking for miles as a family (though, Aodhan is getting a little big even for his daddy’s shoulders!).

Our own personal rhythm works wonderfully without a vehicle, as neither of us are commuting a great distance, we live just slightly west of the city centre, and we are pretty focused on our quiet family life. Obviously, this isn’t going to work for every family and there are certainly multiple ways to decrease vehicle usage, without ditching your wheels.

Thank you for visiting the Simply Living Blog Carnival co-hosted by Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children, Laura at Authentic Parenting, Jennifer at True Confessions of a Real Mommy, and Joella at Fine and Fair. Read about how others are incorporating simple ideas around their homes. We hope you will join us next month!

• Embracing the Schedule – Jennifer at True Confessions of a Real Mommy writes about how her family learned to keep on top of household life by creating a family calendar.
• Simply: Car Free – On the one-year anniversary of selling her car, Lyndsay from ourfeministplayschool, reflects on her family’s decision to go car-free in urban downtown Toronto.
• The Importance of Finding Your Housecleaning Rhythm – Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama outlines how she keeps her housecleaning under control with a daily rhythm. Even her 4 year old gets in on it!
• Keeping It Simple At Home – At Living Peacefully with Children, Mandy shares some tips for keeping the clutter and cleaning at bay.
• Cleaning? – In her post, sustainablemum outlines how keeping clutter to a minimum makes for an easy life when trying to keep her house clean and tidy.
• Simply Downstairs – Jorje of Momma Jorje has found a way to simplify laundry AND bedtime… all with one simple move.
• In Shares, not Chores: Helping your Kids Help You Without Coercion Laura from Authentic Parenting tells us how she gets work done with two little kids and without coercion.

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Tattooing and other forms of body modification, from make-up application and hair dye, to branding and scarification, have deep and continuing connections with women, their bodies and their identities. According to this year old survey, women (in the United States) are currently more inclined to add some type of ink to their body. This figure suggests that increasing numbers of women are working against the still-held notion that a woman’s body is never to be modified, but should be left unadorned of tattoos or piercing; never does a woman want to step into the territory where she is owning her own skin. 

I would like to drill more deeply into those statistics and look at the differences between the acceptance of women with tattoos in middle class groupings, and those who are struggling with poverty or homelessness?  Does privilege make it easier for us to buck the stereotypes that surround women and body-art? I’m going to say yes.

How is this complicated when a woman is a mother? The image of the ‘good’ mother is still very much a white cis-woman who wraps her babies in white receiving blankets, adorns her shoulders with creamy cardigans, and irons her gap khakis. Ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but the assumption that tattooing oneself makes a woman less womanly, less feminine, and thereby less motherly still exists. These false binaries continue to do harm and they need to be packed away.

With the hopes that we can all think about these assumptions a little more deeply and possibly come up with some answer, today’s media links connect either overtly or discreetly to my Marked Mama series.

Could I love this book more? Bodies of Subversion, by Margot Mifflin is worth grabbing: both for the images and the piles of information, personal stories and social fragments captured between the pages. Highly recommend.

Here is an article about Britain’s first female tattoo artist. Jessie Knight’s career spanned more than 40 years, and has connections with the second world war, women’s movement in and out of the home environment, and body politics.

Here is a little (I mean little) video about Jessie. Love the narrator’s comment at 0:30.

Here is a link to a non-profit organization that uses therapeutic tattooing as an opportunity to assist victims who have experienced harm to their bodies at the hands of others. If you have a tattoo shop and want to get involved, you can contact Sacred Transformations.

A recent post from Feministing offers up some links worth clicking through.

This is also a great blog post in considering the connections between feminism and body art.

Don’t forget to send me your submissions in the form of images and thoughts to ourfeministplayschool {at} gmail {dot} com. See here for full info.

Do you have any tattoo-ish links that you would like to add?

photo credit

In her words:

In 2007 I met my husband.  We met on Myspace (how very 2007 of us), and we lived 2200 miles apart.  I got on an airplane to go meet him and on the day we met we got matching tattoos.  They say “soulmate.”  (Or so I’m told.  I can’t read Kanji.  Again, how very 2007 of us). That was one of the first of many big risks we took but a year later we married, and in 2009 we had our precious son Jack.

So back to my small regret.  While I love my dragon tattoo – artistically it is beautiful – I regret that covers up my birthmark because amazingly enough, my husband has the same birthmark in the same place, although his is lighter.  And our son has our shared birthmark.  His is darker and smaller.  It is as though we’ve always belonged together, even before we met, even before we *were.*  We match.

Personally, in our own imaginative play, we use playsilks for a huge amount. Including, but not limited to: making forts, using as a backdrop, a cuddly blanket for a doll, a dance costume, a super-hero cape, a habitat for dinosaurs, a make-shift pond, a baby-sling for Aodhan’s favourite stuffies, an octopuses’ ‘cloud of ink’, the ocean, a queen’s gown, the end of a magic wand, a ghost costume, an invisibility cape – and now, we also use our super special PlayMeMama playsilks as wings!

This playsilk panel also comes with an organic cloth harness that allows your kiddo to wear the playsilk as a set of wings (be they fairy, dragonfly, or other beasty).

Loads of people use playsilks in their play and learning. I love the idea of playsilks at circle time and here are a few other activities to try with your playsilks.

Need a great way to store your playsilks? I love keep ours inside earth-material baskets. The contrast of the materials is stunning and intriguing.

And if you are feeling extra creative, some magical folks endevor to make their own playsilks!
Want some more ideas for your playsilks? Check out my pinterest board devoted to playsilk play!

Want your very own pair of playsilk wings without having to pull out the fabric dyeing supplies? You can head over to PlayMeMama Craft’s Etsy page and snap up any number of her delightful items!

OR

You can win it right here! PlayMeMama Crafts and I will be giving away any item from her shop that you would like to call your own.

Just hop onto the rafflecopter entry form below! Winner will be drawn on June 21. The giveaway is open worldwide.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Why Have Kids, by Jessica Valenti
I have decided to give this one another go. I spent my first read with my back up. I can’t think of another parenting/feminist text that irritated me so very much. Going to see if I can re-ingest with different results.

Gravity’s Rainbow , by Thomas Pynchon
Feminist Daddy is plowing through this one.

The Kiddo
The Big Noisy Dinosaur Book, by Britta Teckentrup
Awesome. Times a Thousand.

Volcanoes, by Cassie Mayer
Science. All the Science.

The Magic School Bus: Shark Escape, by Eva Moore
Ms. Frizz and Liz makes everything wonderful. Even Sharks.

What are you and your kids reading?
Do you use an electronic reader or ‘real books’?

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Vegan Dinosaur Breakfast

I am grateful for my beautiful parents, who rushed, without question, to be by our side and provide any level of support that was needed. They took Aodhan away from the hospital and spent the day with him at LegoLand. They helped Aodhan settle into reuniting with his dad. Just seeing my parents on Saturday helped calm me and focus on supporting Feminist-Dad.

I am grateful to the years of Attachment/Gentle Parenting. To all the gentle parents that have inspired me and encouraged me to raise our son to be emotionally aware and in full connection with his family – Thank You! Because of this, Aodhan was able to process the experience and everything that he saw and felt during and after his father’s episode.

I couldn’t say more lovely things about the paramedics that came to our house. They were efficient, funny and made me laugh when I thought I was going to lose someone I love more than anyone could ever know. They thought of the little things like bringing clothes and shoes, toothbrushes and wallets. Plus, in retrospect, how cool were they to let Aodhan ride in the ambulance?!

The staff at our local hospital were gentle and kind. {though there is something to be said about the privilege of being a middle class, middle aged white guy in an ER and the way he is spoken to compared to the elderly and people of colour – but that’s a different post}.

To my friends. I want to wrap you in my heart and hold you there. My best friend of 29 years was researching and reassuring, she was texting and communicating – through the whole thing, despite the late hour on her end (she lives in Ireland). My dear friends here in Toronto who were making offers of vegan food, childcare, transportation, company, information, reassurance, and love – you were wonderful and made both of us feel loved and supported. So many friends and ex-colleagues from around the globe reached out with words of support and love.

Twitter. You wonderful birds, you. The tweets and DMs made me feel that we weren’t alone or in some weird ER vacuum. Thank you for your love. Although I feel sick to share the words of a particular slut-shaming woman, I do agree that for many women, the connections we make online are more supportive than those that we have in real-life.

Us in Paris. Circa 2007 I think.

Mostly, mostly, mostly. I am grateful to have this man in my life. There aren’t any ways to communicate to you just how much I love him. He is a most wonderful parent and a most fantastic partner. Currently, I am struggling to not touch his shoulder or hold his hand every single second. I am making him grumpy with my constant ‘are you oks?’ But there is no more terrifying, sinking, debilitating experience than seeing your partner in a crisis that you believe to be life-threatening. I want to protect everyone from this vision and wrap myself in a cloud of ‘that will never happen again, not to anyone’. But of course it will. It will. But, I am not ready for that. We may have traveled the world, and had a son, and we have even kissed at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower, but we aren’t done: I’m no where near done with this guy.

I have more to post about this – like: how to support your child during a medical emergency and the benefits of having a packed ‘safety bag’, but it will have to wait a couple of days.

Welcome to the June 2013 Carnival of Natural Parenting:

Parenting in Theory vs. in Reality

This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our participants are sharing how their ideas and methods of parenting have changed.

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When I found out I was pregnant, I didn’t really have any visions of parenting stored up in my head. This was mostly, due to the fact that I was 100% not expecting to be expecting. But, being natural people by nature, our inclination toward gentle and attached parenting seemed an organic direction for both myself and my partner.

Thus, it wasn’t long after his birth, that I began thinking about homeschooling. It seemed a bit odd that two teachers who were ever so passionate about the work that they did would want to homeschool their child. My desire to homeschool grew out of many different aspects of parenting.

First, we knew that we were only having one child, and for as long as we could manage, I wanted to keep him close to our home rhythm.

I also think that the age where children begin school in my home country of Canada (4) is too early. This opinion is not simply grounded in my maternal thoughts and heart strings. Studies show that starting formal education at a later age is beneficial to a child’s ability to think creatively and process information more effectively: with Finland being the best example.

Further to my discomfort with four being too young to start institutionalized education, I also dislike just about everything there is about institutionalized education. Sure, I am a teacher. But, I was a college teacher for a good long time, and then headed across the ocean to teach at an international school with a focus on individual learners. I’ve never gone in for standardized testing, benchmarks, or same-age groupings. Simply because: for all the moaning and groaning that gets tossed at homeschooling parents about not immersing our kids in real life – a ‘normal’ classroom is in no way ‘normal’. I certainly don’t spend my days with 25 other 34 year olds doing the same activity (or set of activities) at the same time to then be tested with the same test in a disingenuous manner.

It seemed easy enough. I wasn’t keen for him to go to school, and he was loving the sandbox. But then something happened. He met Teacher Sam.

As a part of home learning, we still very much honour the role of other teachers our son’s learning journey; we activiley seek out learning opportunities that can enrich his understanding of the world. Thus, last Fall, Aodhan started an early-learning museum education program at The Royal Ontario Museum. The first day will stay with me forever. He was so blissfullly happy. He was truly in love with the notion of learning from another person. He was engaged, he was excited, he was having fun. He was like this at home, but I naively and selfishly thought that he wouldn’t discover these moments in other people’s classrooms.

I knew from that very moment that Aodhan needed a classroom environment – of some sort – in his life. We looked around at a private Waldorf school and were unimpressed, and the local Montessori schools were not the fit we were looking for. Incredibly, it was a local alternative school that is walking distance from our home and a part of our public system. Toronto District School Board offers a number of ‘alternative schools’ that aim to cater to a specific theme, element, aspect or philosophy. This particular school has a goal of mixed age groupings and honouring parent involvement to a level that each family feels comfortable with.

It isn’t perfect. If he stays in school, we will pull him out for the standardized testings that they are required to complete as a part of the province, and I have yet to wrap my head around issues like: aggressive play, bullying, and not-so-gentle discipline. But, it is an option that we are ‘trying on’. It might last a couple of weeks, it might be the best thing he has ever experienced. Additionally, by no means will our homeschooling ‘end’ now that he is experimenting with new teachers and new environments. He stands to be in a classroom for potentially 2.5 hours per day (not suggesting that I will actually send him every day….), and that leaves us masses of room to still learn in a play-based, project based manner.

Of course, homeschooling is a privilege. Believe me, I understand that we are a part of a very small minority that have the option to keep our child out of daycare and childcare. I also appreciate that there are many wonderful and beautiful ways for children to learn in schools. I also acknowledge and respect people who aren’t inclined to home educate. My way is not better, it is simply one way.

I also believe that there are ways to change the existing modes of learning, and the ways we define our culture’s approach to education . Again – Finland. They pay their teachers better, they don’t test until middle school, and their students are academically head and shoulders above countries like the United States where the policy and practices are the exact opposite of Finland. No, homeschooling is not an option for everyone, and one shouldn’t feel less-than if it isn’t the path they are able to or want to chose, but we have  to do better where our schools and learning are concerned.

I don’t know where this path is taking us, but it is most certainly not the one I imagined. I will hold his hand and support him as he takes this bend in the road, ready to return to full-time homeschooling or celebrate his success in a more traditional education system.

What surprises have you experienced in parenting your children?

***

Visit Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!

Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants (posts will be live and updated no later than afternoon on June 11):

• My little gastronomes — “I’ll never cook a separate meal for my children,” Maud at Awfully Chipper vowed before she had children; but things didn’t turn out quite as she’d imagined.
• Know Better, Do Better. Except When I Don’t. — Jennifer from True Confessions of a Real Mommy was able to settle in her parenting choices before her children arrived, but that doesn’t mean she always lives up to them.
• Judgments Made Before Motherhood — Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama looks back on her views of parents she came in contact with before she became a mother and how much her worldview of parenting has changed!
• A Bend in The Road — Lyndsay at ourfeministplayschool writes about how her visions of homeschooling her son during the elementary school years have changed drastically in the last year – because HE wants to go to school.
• I Wish Children Came with Instruction Manuals — While Dionna at Code Name: Mama loves reading about parenting, she’s not found any one book that counts as an instruction manual. Every child is different, every family is different, every dynamic is different. No single parenting method or style is the be-all end-all. Still, wouldn’t it be nice if parenting were like troubleshooting?
• The Mistakes I’ve Made — Kate at Here Now Brown Cow laments the choices she made with her first child and explains how ditching her preconceived ideas on parenting is helping her to grow a happy family.
• I Only Expected to Love… — Kellie at Our Mindful Life went into parenting expecting to not have all the answers. It turns out, she was right!
• They See Me Wearin’, They Hatin’ — Erin Yuki at And Now, for Something Completely Different contemplates putting her babywearing aspirations into practice, and discussed how she deals with “babywearing haters.”
• Parenting Human Beings — Erika Gebhardt lists her parenting “mistakes,” and the one concept that has revolutionized her parenting.
• Doing it right: what I knew before I had kids… — Lucy at Dreaming Aloud, guest posting at Natural Parents Network realises that the number one game in town, when it comes to parenting, is judgement about doing it right. But “doing it right” looks different to everybody.
• A synopsis of our reality as first time parents — Amanda at My Life in a Nut Shell summarizes the struggles she went through to get pregnant, and how her daughter’s high needs paved the way for her and her husband to become natural parents.
• Theory to Reality? — Jorje compares her original pre-kid ideas (some from her own childhood) to her personal parenting realities on MommaJorje.com.
• The Princess Paradigm — Laura at Pug in the Kitchen had planned to raise her daughter in a sparkly, princess-free home, but in turn has found herself embracing the glitz.
• Healthy Eating With Kids: Ideal vs. Real — Christy at Eco Journey In The Burbs had definite ideas about what healthy eating was going to look like in her family before she had kids. Little did she realize that her kids would have something to say about it.
• How to deal with unwanted parenting advice — Tat at Mum in Search thought that dealing with unwanted parenting advice would be a breeze. It turned out to be one of her biggest challenges as a new mum.
• How I trained my 43 month old in 89 days! — Becky at Old New Legacy used to mock sticker charts, until they became her best friend in the process of potty training.
• My Double Life: Scheduling with Twins — Mercedes at Project Procrastinot was banging her head against the wall trying to keep up with the plan she made during pregnancy, until she let her babies lead the way.
• Parenting in the land of compromise — As a holistic health geek trying to take care of her health issues naturally, Jessica at Crunchy-Chewy Mama regrets that her needs sometimes get in the way of her children’s needs.
• Practice Makes Good, Not Perfect — Rachael at The Variegated Life comes to see that through practice, she just might already be the parent she wants to be.
• 3 Dangerous Myths about Parenting and Partnering: How to Free Yourself and Your Family — Sheila Pai at A Living Family shares in theory (blog) and reality (video) how she frees herself from 3 Dangerous Myths about Parenting and Partnering that can damage the connection, peace and love she seeks to nurture in her relationships with family and others.
• 5 Things I Thought MY Children Would Never Do — Luschka at Diary of a First Child largely laughs at herself and her previous misconceptions about things her children would or wouldn’t do, or be allowed to do.
• Policing politeness — Lauren at Hobo Mama rethinks a conviction she had about modeling vs. teaching her children about courtesy.
• The Before and The After: Learning about Parenting — Amy at Me, Mothering, and Making it All Work reminisces about the perspective she held as a young adult working with children (and parents) . . . before she became a mother.
• Parenting Beliefs: Becoming the Parent You Want to Be — Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children discusses how we can make a mindful decision to become the parent we want to be. Decisions we make affect who we will become.
• The Great Breastfeeding Debacle — In Lisa at The Squishable Baby’s mind, breastfeeding would be easy.
• What my daughter taught me about being a parent — Mrs Green asks, “Is it ever ok to lock your child in their bedroom?”
• Sensory Box Fail! — Megan at The Boho Mama discovers that thoughtful sensory activities can sometimes lead to pasta in your bra and beans up your nose.
• Montessori and My Children – Theory vs. Reality — Deb Chitwood at Living Montessori Now shares her experiences with Montessori parenting and describes the results she sees in her now-adult children.
• I Like The Mother I Am Now More Than The Mother I Intended To Be — Darcel at The Mahogany Way thought she would just give her kids the look and they would immediately fall in line.
• How I Ended Up Like My Tiger Mom With Peaceful Parenting — Theek at The Laotian Commotion somehow ended up like her Tiger Mom, even though she purposely tried for the complete opposite as a peaceful parent.

(photo credit)

Allison Jayne Jack can be found on the tweeter right here.

In her own words:

There’s a lot I could say (and I will) about having tattoos, but it mostly boils down to this: I like them, and I love the way they make me feel about my body.

Like many girls, I struggled with body image. Hurtful words from my peers became my inner voice. I measured my body parts religiously, and tracked my ‘progress’ in a notebook for years. At 14, I sketched out an image I wanted to be my first tattoo: a dragonfly with symbols for ‘woman’ and ‘infinity’ incorporated into it. And at 18, my dad took me to the tattoo shop recommended by my brother-in-law, and half an hour later, I was hooked.

I’m 32 now, and I have spent more money than I’ll admit on tattoos. I still take my time, waiting at least a year from when the idea comes into my head until it actually makes it onto my skin. As such, I don’t have a lot really, but I’m happy with every single one.

I love my body. It feels like a strange thing to say, like I should qualify it with something, but I really do. Full stop.

One quick digression: I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge my body privilege. I’m still pretty small, and I realize that has a huge effect on how I am treated by people. I benefit from skinny privilege, and white privilege, and I just want to acknowledge that before I go on.

Before I got pregnant, I had my wife take photos of me in various stages of undress. I wanted to have a record of my pre-pregnancy body, because I was worried I wouldn’t be happy with the changes that would come. But I am. It’s become a cliché now, loving our bodies because they are so powerful as we create, birth and nourish new people. I do think pregnancy and childbirth had a positive effect on my body image, but it’s a lot more than that. It’s been a long time coming. I outgrew the flat abs and perky tits of my early twenties, but I also outgrew the social anxiety and low self-esteem.

There’s that line from Coco Chanel about how to make sure you’re not wearing too much jewelry: “Before you leave the house, take one thing off”. It sounds silly, but having tattoos makes me feel like I’m always properly accessorized.

I like putting permanent images of the things that are important to me on my skin. And, the organizational nerd that I am, I’m always planning. I have certain areas ‘saved’ for things. I know I want to get something that reminds me of my daughter, and I’ve got a few areas saved for when the right image comes to me. I’m not sure what it will be yet.

It’s not that I’ll ever forget her obviously. But I want something here, on my body, that’s for her.

Thank you Allison. The images and words are a narrative that I think many mamas (and childfree women) will connect with. And can I just say that the last picture is pulling at my heartstrings! Such love! Be sure to check out Jeni, who with Allison, opened our Marked Mama Series!

This series is ongoing and you can submit your body art and thoughts to ourfeministplayschool {at} gmail.com! I look forward to hearing from you and seeing your stunning body art!

(photo credit 1 & 4)

Here is Jeni, who you can find blogging over at Inside Jeni’s Pants, while over here she is tweeting a balance of serious business and funny guffaws.

In Jeni’s own words:

My wrist tattoo is my “mom” tattoo. I am a huge nerd, and a huge fan of Battlestar Galactica. So, after naming my now 3yo “Galen Tyrol”, I got a tattoo as a gift from a friend. Rather than use standard Zodiac figures, I used their equivalent symbol from the 13 colonies. At the top is Tauron (Galen), and the bottom two are Gemenon (Brodie) and Libran (me). I have one more to add (Aerelon)!

The second is on my back, and….well it is a complicated math expression with an answer of 42. Which stems further into my nerdery, with Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy reference.  (The Ultimate Answer is 42.)

So, there are my two tattoos. I want more!!

Thank you to Jeni for sharing her body art and story. I encourage you to check out our second post from Week One of Marked Mamas.

This series is ongoing and you can submit your body art and thoughts to ourfeministplayschool {at} gmail.com! I look forward to hearing from you and seeing your stunning body art!