Re: [pf] mud between the toes. Bringing up kids.

At 06:34 1/6/2001 -0400, Gary Barrett wrote:
>David Mac,
>
>You say:
>"3. We had enough sun yesterday that, when I found my daughter
monopolising the computer to do her assignment most of the day, ..."
>
>So David, how does your daughter take to your being such an adventurer in
simple living?  From my own experience, the kids in my area (rich and poor)
would have their parents arrested for child abuse rather than live such a
frugal lifestyle.  (An exaggeration, but not by much.)
>

· There are several parts to this: age, inheritance, running costs, and
combined training and intelligence (nurture-and-nature).
  (I've just taken a few minutes to fill a hot water bottle and put it
against my shirt under my sweater-and-winter-jacket: at 4:30 Saturday
morning, after a clear night with southerly{polar} breeze, it's _cold_!)

· Age.

  There was a little of what you said, Gary, while they were at secondary
school, at the time when keeping up with their friends was one of the
biggest things in their lives. It's true that there was some talk from a
student-counseller about whether our daughter was being mistreated by her
parents, with the suggestion that a government agency should be brought
into the picture, but the daughter demurred, and nothing was done about it.
My guess is that her description was exaggerated.
  By the time the youngest (the daughter) reached 13-14 though, I had
retired and it was obvious (and sufficient, as far as giving a reason to
friends was concerned) that my wife's income was quite limited. So all
three have come to accept that they are among the poorest people they know;
they even, now they're in their 20s, are sufficiently proud of us that they
take at least a little pride in making do with little; the "moral high
ground", I guess.

· Running costs.

  I am the extremist, the radical. My guarantee to them is that they can
always, for as long as they wish and independent of whatever they've done
in the past, live under whatever roof I'm under, and eat the same 10 food
items I eat (see: http://davd.tripod.ca/dsmenu.html#top ).
  They don't have to live at my _very_ low cost while my wife has a
sufficiently good income that some quite good food is coming into the
house, and, if planned weeks and months in advance, things $80 to $800
dollars _can_ be bought, by persuading her.
  We also put aside Canadian$10,000 for each when they were toddlers (as
Canada Savings Bonds, then), which they had full control over when they
reached about 18.
  So they don't feel a fundamental lack of money, just that it should be
spent with great care.

· Inheritance.

  The one complaint I can remember is something like: "should you be
letting the house run down, and using all your savings for getting your
retirement house (on the farm) built? Other parents are building up their
investments, so their kids will be provided-for after the parents are gone."
  My wife and I do have two adjacent bush-covered waterfront sections on a
harbour on Kawau Island north of Greenhithe, for which I get occasional
realtor enquiries; I always ask everyone in the house here what they think
I should do, giving some idea of my thoughts about it (e.g. "we could sell
if they offered 50-100% more than the government valuation"), but although
they might reconsider if that happened, the children and my wife have
always said "don't sell". I guess the children see that piece of land as
the place they can always decide to live on if they don't want to (or
can't) be "out in the world".

· Combined training and intelligence.

  My wife and I have always been frugal (our parents lived through the
Great Depression and the second World War), so fixing, repairing with
whatever's on hand or at little cost, has been the norm in this family -
the children grew up with it. Also, their growing-up was in Canada and
Nigeria until 1980 (born '72-'77) and then New Zealand, where the US trend
to materialist conspicuous consumption has been muted (earlier:
disparaged), so the only push for showing that you have lots of money came
while I was teaching at (and the kids were attending) a private school
where the (unaffordable) fees were halved for staff.
  Our first and third kids (particularly the girl) are noticeably
intelligent, and the second boy is above average, with the consequence
(IMO) that they quite soon, through teenage, became critical of their
peers' thinking and expectations. They've also had a steady stream of
internet news items and many of my better letters (to first: Frugal-Ed, and
now Positive Futures), and they are well aware of the state of the world,
from radio news and personal visits (Canada, Nigeria, Wales, India, France,
China), so I'm not at all surprised that they've come to understand that
"living lightly on the earth" is the only way to go.


· So, Gary; I'm very proud of my children (like Priscilla and others here),
but realise that it must be a great deal harder to live yourself and to
bring up your kids in the USA, in that miasma of consumerism. 
  To me, the examples of many on this list - turning your own life towards
a sustainable future - is the basis for hoping and expecting that the
children will grow up as sensible citizens of the future world. They really
do respect people who live their beliefs, even when the kids are strongly
drawn towards other attractions.


David.
(David MacClement) davd@ihug.co.nz 
http://www.geocities.com/davd.geo/index.html#top
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