The Mother

If you like Sourdough bread, you know about The Mother. The source of fermentation and flavoring of the bread that makes it taste more sour than other types of bread. In each batch, a small amount of this dough is reserved to be reused for the next batch.

This is kind of like how a style of mothering runs through a family for generations, creating a unique flavor for each family.

When we started this endeavor 10 years ago, I mistakenly believed my mothering decisions which I wrote about on the post called Generational Amnesia were self-evident and non-controversial, because these basic ideas are pretty commonplace on parenting blogs and books written by experts. I can tell you, the state and federal inspectors overseeing my daycare business activities appreciated my style, and it was easy to be closely aligned with their childcare aspirations and standards. The daycare parents seemed to really appreciate it based on their comments. The kids seemed to really love it. My son says he misses our daycare business frequently. I even got compliments from senior citizens when I took the daycare kids out as a group on field trips.

I had to surrender the daycare business because of a year of debilitating illness, followed by echos of illness that reappear from time to time. This is disappointing for sure, but I can always create a new business that is more of a match with our circumstances.

What I didn't expect was how controversial and challenging and polarizing my parenting style, or my business success would be for my in-laws and some of my key friendships. In my blog post called Chapters, I talked about how there have been times in my life when everything changed all at the same time, in such a way that there was no way I could ever go back even if I wanted to. When I had to close my business, there were many changes in a lot of my relationships that happened around the same time.

In some of these relationships, I sincerely believe my style of parenting creates problems for some of the family and friends around me. I sincerely believe it separates my kids from fitting in with the kids in our neighborhood. And, I think the contrast between how my husband grew up and how we are raising our kids creates conflicts in our marriage and extended family.

The reason I say 'I believe' is because I don't know for sure. I have many relationships with people who just stop talking to me or acknowledging my existence instead of voicing their objections and trying to work out new ways of relating so we can continue to be close. Even when I ask them to tell me what is wrong, and even when I say I would like to apologize and make changes going forward. And then, months or years later, they circle back around and want to continue the relationship as though nothing happened, which, is rough for me, because I am certain we will have a repeat of the icy phase.

I have many posts to write about mothering, leadership, independence, and the lesser acknowledged strategies that keep many groups together and what it means for people with differences who don't fit in.

Maybe what I learned sifting through all of this can spare you hours of confusion and searching in the darkness?