Joyfully At Home: Chapter Five - Part Three

Communication is a hallmark of human life. 

My son entered independent life much earlier than most babies - but I was amazed how quickly he figured out how to communicate with us through wiggles, grunts and growls.  He was fuzzy all over at birth - but his real hair on his head grew into a Patrick-Steward type ring of male-pattern baldness by the time he weighed 3 pounds.  That was around the same time he was moved into the 'big babies' room and Spawn started sulking when the other babies were crying too loudly.   Between his male-pattern baldness, the fact that he had very little fat on his face, and the fact that he has a killer scowl, I often felt like I was cuddling a curmudgeonly old man while cooing, "I know they're loud, Spawn, but they are new babies, not an old baby like you. They are too young to know that you only cry for serious reasons like diaper changes or a nurse weighing you."

Spawn's 2 and a half years old now - and we finally got a tentative diagnosis of apraxia for his speech delay.   I've always had some niggling concerns about his speech.   For example, Spawn's repetitive babbling sounded different than any other infant I knew.  Most infants go through a period where they make repeated plosive consonants combined with a vowel sound like 'babababa' or 'dadadadada'.  Spawn would occasionally give a single plosive sound - but he mostly babbled with a 'y' in the place of the plosive like "yayayaya' or 'yeyayayeya". At a year, he could say "ma", "da", "-ooh" (book), "meow" (cat) and "-ock" which was about right for his age.    By the time he was around 18 months, he was picking up new signs at a rate of around three signs a week, was trying to combine signs when he wanted to describe an object or action he didn't have a sign for (like 'food-drink' for an applesauce pouch) and was imitating lots of environmental sounds - but he had around 5 verbal words and was acquiring less than one new verbal word a month.   By two years, he was starting to use signed verbs for 'help', 'walk' 'do it again' and 'sleep' and starting to do new combinations of nouns and verbs that we'd never demonstrated like "Masha again!" when he wanted to watch an episode of "Masha and the Bear" - but he still had around 5 verbal words. 

The hardest part for me was trying to explain to medical and rehabilitation professionals that Spawn's skills in speech seemed way behind his ability to communicate.   Using sign language with small children has gone from being an anathema when my twin and I were tots in the early 1980's to progressive parenting today - but that only bridged some of the gap.  (Especially when professionals still don't understand the idea of a name sign like the one we made for Masha.... I digress.)  I've seen Spawn react with confusion when I tell stories about involving a coworker with the same name as Spawn.  Spawn looks at me like "Mama, I didn't do that!"  instead of grinning when I tell stories about his newest skills or glaring at me when I used to explain his tricks to new therapists*.  He's figured out a process to show me what he means by a sign when I am clueless by looking at my eyes, doing the sign, looking directly at the object, repeating the sign, then looking back at me to see if I get his drift.  He mimics the cadence of conversations and mimics different levels of intensity when talking to himself in his crib or in his car seat.  Heck, he used to run entire conversations that sounded like a business meeting that sounded like him alternating between someone who disliked an idea and a person who was trying to convince the other person - at less than a year old.   And that's ignoring the entire series of "Hootie the Babyfish" concerts** he would produce in lieu of naps.

People listened - but I kept getting a mix of platitudes (boys talk later than girls!  he's quiet! different schedules of development!) or explanations of how I should change what I do....to what I already do with him.  I was losing my ability to be professional - or at least courteous - when people told me to use one or two word phrases repeatedly and provide context clues like holding a toy pig while saying "pig".   I was concerned that I would flash back, "Damn, here I thought toddlers enjoyed Melville!  No more Moby Dick for you, Spawn!  In your professional opinion, should we do Chaucer or Tolstoy first?".

With that background, you can imagine my relief when his most recent speech and language pathologist evaluation started with a simple question "Are you more worried about Spawn's communication or his speech?"   I teared up slightly and said, "Speech. I think he's pretty close to his age in communication across the board - but he wants to be able to talk like the rest of us and he just can't.  I didn't mind waiting it out before he started seeming frustrated - but he's acting more frustrated in communication now and I'd like to figure this out."  After an hour of medical background info, developmental info and yet another parent-reported behavior analysis, the SLP said that she was pretty sure that Spawn's low muscle tone issues that have made it trickier to learn how to walk also affected his mouth and made it harder for him to figure out how to make certain sounds.  The good news is that they see a lot of former preemies with that issue at his outpatient rehab center and that Spawn is at an age where he's participating more and more willingly in therapeutic activities either because he finds the activities fun, because he enjoys showing off to other adults or because he makes some connection between the activities and doing more things.

From that standpoint, I think you will better understand while I find the next section on communication in "Joyfully At Home" by Jasmine Baucham completely exaspering.   Yeah, communication is an art form and we can all learn new skills - but Jasmine is talking about communicating with members of your family of origin about household expectations.   Believe you me, this is something that started when Jasmine was a toddler and her parents worked on having her put her toys away and not standing on the couch.  By the time a teenager is graduating out of homeschooling and becoming a stay-at-home daughter (SAHD), the lines of communications between parent and child should be ingrained regardless of how functional or dysfunctional the family is.

Take this quote as an example:

We have to communicate. What do your parents expect from you on a day-to-day, week-to-week, month to month basis? Something as simple as, " Jasmine, when you do such and such a thing, I don't like it -- stop" ( in much kinder, more biblically grounded terms) gives me something to go on. Something like, " Jasmine, by the end of the week, I want this done" or " Jasmine, it would really help us out if, every day, you did these chores" set clear boundaries. I don't make plans that infringe on the expectations my parents already have for me on a given day, for instance, and because we communicate about what exactly those expectations are no one has to become frustrated if they aren't met. (pg. 69)

I had daily and weekly chores starting when I was an elementary schooler - and I doubt I'm very unusual in that respect.   The chores were hardly onerous; it was "put the dishes away" daily and "dust the living room then vacuum the downstairs" on Saturday morning.   By the time I was capable of doing an adult's amount of work in the home as a late teenager, the instructions became less detailed because I knew what "clean the bathroom" entailed - but I also earned more freedom in discussing when making dinner would fit into my schedule of homework and extracurricular activities.   After all, children need a lot of help scaffolding time and daily living activity skills because they are still learning how to do both.   Young adults should need minimal - and ideally no - scaffolding from their parents to figure out how to fit daily, weekly, monthly and seasonal chores into their lives.

The largest impediment I see to developing these skills in CP/QF land is homeschooling.  In traditional schools, teachers are expected to collect work from students in a timely manner and track the skill progression of their students.  From a student's perspective, this leads to a mixture of daily assignment, longer-term projects and unit assessments that have due dates attached firmly to them.  As a teacher, enforcing the consequences of missing work was tedious - but students are not my kids.
When I taught, any disagreements over consequences had a firmly scheduled end because of changing classes or the end of the school day.   If a student failed to turn in an assignment and was angry/grumpy/sulky/whining because the resulting zero hurt their grade, I only had to deal with them for the remainder of that class period.   Occasionally, a particularly determined student might resume the argument the next day - but that 23 hours of cooling off tended to dampen their urge to change my mind.   I can only imagine the fun of being in the same household as a pissed-off teenager who missed an assignment deadline and trying to enforce that boundary.

Plus, over my 8 year teaching career, I taught at least 600 students which limited the amount I needed to prove based on any one particular student's academic track record.   In homeschooling, the ties that bind a teacher and student are so much stronger - but also more entangled.   The tiny numbers of students that a single parent-teacher will ever have in their homeschool makes the process fraught.   If a homeschooled kid drags their feet at doing their schooling, rushes through an entire subject the week before vacation and earns a 62% (D-) overall in high school Biology, how many parents are going to honestly record that grade on their teen's transcript - the only form of professional excellence that a parent-teacher can submit to colleges? How many parents would chose instead to make their kid redo the class the next year and use that grade instead?   How many parents would give their kid a higher grade based on 'outside interests' or some other philosophical construct?  In a traditional school, students retake classes if they failed them - but the new (hopefully higher) grade is added to the transcript rather than replacing the original D- unless there are extraordinary circumstances in play.  I did have a few focused, highly motivated students manage to scrape out a passing credit by doing 16 weeks worth of work condensed into a week - but the passing credit was generally in the "D" range and far more students who attempted this failed to meet enough standards to get a passing grade in the class.   That made me sad for the student - but I had 20 (or more) other students who passed the class.

That line about parents having to couch all of their requests in biblical terms harks back to the last post in this series on the dangers of living with a spiritual director.   People who live together can ask a relative or housemate to stop doing that irritating thing simply because it is irritating as hell  Making everything into a biblical thing is ridiculous.

This next quote makes me wonder if Jasmine was raised on the Pearl's horrible idea of first-time-obedience for children.   For anyone who has not heard of first-time-obedience, it is the idea that kids should obey their parents instantly and cheerfully without questioning or arguing.   The Pearls get this level of subservience by beating children early and often; they include recommendations for the correct diameter of plumbing line to use starting at under one year of age.   I bring up this because it's the only way I can think of to explain why Jasmine connects these two ideas in one sentence.

When your parents give you a directive you don't understand or don't agree with, learn to ask polite, respectful follow-up questions, and to make a gentle, biblical appeal when necessary. (pg. 69)

For normal human beings - and I include military commanders dealing with new recruits in this group - there's a world of difference between clarifying what a person wants you to do and objecting to doing an action.   At a staff meeting at my home improvement job, a store director asked for someone to help flat-stack the lumber department.   Being new, I had no idea what flat-stacking was so I asked what flat-stacking was.  The store director explained that flat-stacking was the process of dragging lumber to the front of shoppable displays in a roughly similar process to facing shelves in my paint department - but the lumber required the use of reinforced hoes.   I said that I could help out doing that.   That's an example of asking for clarification.  At that same meeting, a paint coworker was directly asked by the store director if he would assist in flat-stacking.  Said coworker had no interest in flat-stacking (based on his facial expression and his general dislike for extra work as observed in the department), but he simply explained that he had two paint chores that needed to be finished before the store closed.  The store director agreed that those two chores were more important and my coworker returned to paint.    I have no idea what a Biblical appeal looks like - but this interaction fit well within the framework of professional objection to a directive.

What I didn't do was jump onto the nearby display of throw rugs and scream to the sky, "What is it with you and all the jargon here?  WHY, GOD WHY?" while crumpling to my knees in agony and my coworker didn't begin chanting "Strike! Strike! Strike!"  While much more fun and memorable, those would be inappropriate ways to get clarification or object to a directive.

I worry very much about a culture where teenage girls need instructions on how to say "I'm lost on which lawn you wanted me to rake first, Dad" or "Can I switch that chore with my brother?" or "Can I do it on Friday instead of Saturday?"

This last quote makes me wonder if more communication is a good thing in a CP/QF family:

This one's hard, but if you keep those lines of communication open, you're bound to hear some correction from your parents. If you've made a conscious choice to live under the authority of your parents after high school, then know this: As an adult daughter, you are going to have to learn how to submit your will to the will of your parents. When I was a younger teen, the very word submit made my skin crawl - I wanted to be my own woman! But I had to learn that the authorities God has placed in my life weren't a punishment, but a blessing; my family and I were a team, and we all played in different positions, and we're all shooting for the same goal. Sometimes, daughters, you have to " take one for the team," so to speak, swallowing your pride, and trying to see things from a different perspective: every hill is not a hill to die on. (pgs. 69-70)

Just when I thought I'd faced all of the drawbacks of being a SAHD, Ms. Baucham brings up another one: your parents get to nag you about your spiritual shortcomings AND they get to use your labor to accomplish their goals regardless of your opinion about the goal.   Ironically - and thankfully - Ms. Baucham's mother informed Jasmine that Jasmine needed to lead her own life rather than trying to do her family's goals - and Jasmine is now a wife, mother and teacher.   Compare that outcome with Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin's attachment to the Western Conservatory of Arts and Science founded by Geoffrey Botkin and Sarah Maxwell's laboring going to keeping Titus 2 running while occasionally receiving some faint praise as the family's blogger.

God seems to have put a drive for independence in everyone - absolutely everyone.   Why shouldn't we celebrate the blossoming drive to accomplish new goals when it appears in young adults rather than squash it in women?    Some families work because the husband is a driving force, some work because the wife is a driving force and others work because both parties trade off being the driving force.   Honestly, forcing women with strong drives for achievement to be subservient to a more-laid back husband sounds like a recipe for disaster. 

The next post is three surprisingly good pieces advice from Ms. Baucham.

*He had an entire routine as a small infant where he'd slump over, cough dramatically three times, slowly raise his head with his last bit strength, bravely make eye-contact with his therapist, and give one deep hack.  I translated that as "PT, I really want to do PT with you today, but my multwi-dwug resistant tuburculosis -hack-hack-hack- is worsened by PT.   I will only survive if you cuddle me...." and start laughing.  Oh, if looks could kill, I'd be dead from the looks Spawn gave me.

**I tried to stop a "Hootie the Toddlerfish" concert during one nap time this month by going into his room and saying and signing "Spawn, you need to sleep now!" in a calm but serious voice.  Spawn looked completely innocently at me like "What do you mean, dearest mother?" , signed "Sleep, sleep" very seriously, put his head down like a good toddler - and began hooting and vocalizing as soon as I closed the door again.