Read-aloud

"And best of all, their father always read to them for an hour after dinner, even though they'd been able to read perfectly well to themselves for years now."

~Knight's Castle, by Edward Eager

The Valentine Bears Book Recommendation

There is a book by Eve Bunting, illustrated by the wonderful Jan Brett, called The Valentine Bears. I picked it up from the library to share with my children before Valentine's Day. Reading through it, I have been inspired to romance.

Romance is about putting extraordinary effort toward pleasing your loved one. Mr. and Mrs. Bear both demonstrated a cheery willingness to inconvenience themselves in order to make a special Valentine's Day. For starters, they woke up early from hibernation to surprise each other!

It may sound silly, but the text together with the beautifully drawn pictures inspired me to go to those extra lengths for my husband. The illustrations made me want to create one of those elaborate, old-fashioned, handmade valentines for him. For examples, there are these cards in a Martha Stewart tutorial. (Past class members of Mrs. Wayne Hunter's Fascinating Womanhood class may recognize some symbolism if they scroll to the third picture.)

Especially if you have children to read it to, The Valentine Bears is a nice depiction of true love.

I Want to Be a Homemaker

 Has anyone seen or read the children's book I Want to Be a Homemaker, by Carla Greene? It was published in 1961 by Childrens Press, and the picture above is one of its illustrations.

In the book, Jane gets a new playhouse and begins to keep house with her three dolls and her dog. With her mother's help, she learns that a good homemaker is a cook, cleaner, nurse, teacher, and artist.

This is a precious book with neat, lovely illustrations (by Frances Eckart) that can influence a young girl's heart and mind. Unfortunately, there seem to be only somewhat-pricey editions available at places like Amazon.com, Ebay, and possibly others. None of them are in great condition, either. If you ever see this book, take a look! Anyone who values Mrs. Andelin's books Fascinating Womanhood, The Fascinating Girl, or All About Raising Children will enjoy it.

When I had just learned to write, my mother and I borrowed this book from the library. I liked it so much I copied it out word for word before we had to return it.

Fun tidbits about the book:

•  Part of the text opposite the illustration above is: "'You have made this little house very pretty. Your children will think it is the best place in the world,' said Mother. 'You are an artist!'" This reminds me of the "Space and Privacy" section in Chapter 1 of Mrs. Helen Andelin's book All About Raising Children.
• My copy has a sticker on the front free end paper that says, "Please remember to wash your hands before you read this book."

Models of Fascinating Womanhood

To read about a couple of interesting examples of Fascinating Womanhood from books, see this post from Oil of His Grace.

A bonus (to me) was the mention of some of my most beloved books, the Anne of Green Gables series.

Book Review of 168 Hours

Photo by kojotomoto used under Creative Commons license

The book 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think, by Laura Vanderkam, is not targeted to fascinating women, so readers here may not have read it. It is a well-written book that makes a few good points, but fascinating women will heartily disagree with its premises.

It is important to note, as Ms. Vanderkam does, that we all choose what we do with each hour of our lives. When we do not do something, it is usually not because we don't have the time. It is because we don't choose to make the time. This doesn't mean we are wrong to choose not to make the time. Ms. Vanderkam emphasizes the importance of planning a decent night's sleep, for example, which is right to do. Most people cannot do their best work when they don't sleep enough; therefore, choosing to use sleep time to do something else is not very effective.

The author's main ideas of optimizing time and outsourcing inessential tasks (mostly domestic tasks, in her book) are not fascinating-friendly. It is a purposeful and wonderful practice to plan the most important things into our schedule first, and only fit in the less important things if there is time after those most important things are scheduled. Optimizing time in that way is essential for a fulfilled life. However, to try to fit in work, work, and more work does not help a woman to become fascinating.

Several times throughout the book, Ms. Vanderkam urges her readers to outsource everything that is not a "core competency;" that is, something they can do better than anyone else can. Nurturing their own children is given as an example. It is too bad that quality time before and after work is the time she recommends that they set aside for this. A few people who like to cook are encouraged to try it once or twice a week, but otherwise, she says, it is liberating to hire someone else to cook for the family. Any domestic chore, in her view, is an unfortunate necessity that can be hired out. Laundry, organizing the home, cooking, house cleaning, choosing one's wardrobe, and child care during main working hours are all examples given of things to pay someone else to do.

First, quality time is not always best when it comes to children. Quantity time can work wonders. Time sitting around while children make mud pies can be just the time needed for a child to be comfortable voicing his or her deep concerns. Parents who "maximize" the time spent with their children by reading to them, going to museums with them, and putting them to bed are doing a few fantastic things with their children. These may make a huge difference in their children's lives. They are not, however, having enough downtime with them to truly relax in their presence and to allow things like deep thoughts to come up the way they do: slowly, inefficiently, when people are comfortable enough or off their guard.

Second, what will children of these parents learn about domestic chores? What if, sometime in the future, one of these children wants or needs to do some domestic chores on their own? They will have to start from scratch, with no knowledge of how these things are done and no memory of seeing them being done. This includes such life-sustaining basics as cooking, vacuuming, and getting clothing clean.

Third, isn't there something to be said for having done certain things with one's own hands for one's family? Is it just symbolic, or is there some deeper need being fulfilled when a mother washes dishes, mends clothing, sorts toys, and cooks dinner with her own two hands?

Perhaps some people can be the parents they yearn to be while using the optimization process shown in 168 Hours. One topic that is barely mentioned in the book is how to maintain a good marriage. There are a few sentences about trying to schedule a weekly date night with one's spouse. Another sentence mentions that, of course, one's spouse might "sabotage" these weekly date nights by insisting he needs to work during those hours. Who can blame him when the rest of the spouse's time is organized around being able to work more so that there is plenty of money to outsource all the tasks that need to be done at home? Besides the argument that quality time is not enough for children - they absolutely need quantity time, too - there is this objection: Especially in a marriage, there are some other things in the home that should never be outsourced.

One can live any kind of life using the process in 168 Hours. Ms. Vanderkam has free time management spreadsheets available for download at her 168 Hours website. Anyone can track the way she spends her time using these spreadsheets. Then she can make decisions and plan her time based on her own deep values. I do think that fascinating women will disagree with a lot of Ms. Vanderkam's examples of how to optimize their time.

All About Raising Children Review

 

The title of the book All About Raising Children, by Mrs. Helen Andelin, promises a lot. How could one book encompass everything about raising children?

There is, of course, a vast databank of information that a parent acquires while learning, day by day (sometimes hour by hour), how to care for their children. Assuming that parents have this huge bank of detailed and specific knowledge they have learned from raising their children, this book delivers on the promise of the title.

All About Raising Children covers educational philosophy and curriculum, care and breastfeeding of infants, behavior training from toddlers on up, instilling values, and an elegant framework that allows parents to gradually give more and more responsibility to their children as the children grow and learn. There is even a chapter on married adult children.

The Table of Contents is clear and helpful. Instead of an index, at the back of the book is a more detailed reference outline of the chapters. Although I wanted an index a couple of times while reading the book, I found the reference outline worked well to point me in the right direction.

Mrs. Andelin’s wisdom is staggering. She found and promoted a rewarding path for married women to follow in her book Fascinating Womanhood; this book about raising children includes just as much depth and even more breadth and practical tips.

Even the behavior training concepts, which are generally the more controversial and challenging parts of parenting publications, are well-thought-out and fitting for the applicable age groups.

It will take more than a few reads or skim-throughs to take in everything this book has to offer. Every time I open it, I find another topic of immediate relevance.

These are some of the highlights: the section on “House Appreciation,” especially useful for those who have jumpy little boys; “How to Deal with Negative Emotions,” which is a way to allow children to feel how they feel but not to bother the whole family with their outbursts; “Methods of Training,” which explains when retraining is necessary and how to do it; “Promoting Good-behavior: Ages Two to Five;” “Problems in Behavior: Ages Two to Five;” “Developing the Intellect,” a whole system for reforming education as well as teaching at home; “Help Your Child Think Confidence;” and “Our Married Children.”

It was beyond the scope of this book to fully elaborate all the details of every stage of life. Parents may want supplementary books or resources on baby care, illness, and teaching the arts. There are sections called “Musical Instruments,” “Singing,” “Art,” “How to Develop Artistic Taste and Talent,” and more, but materials that provided greater depth on these subjects would be interesting and valuable for parents.

Parents who have a strong belief in other parenting methods may not agree with every practice mentioned, but in general, the sum of this book’s reason, practicality, and inspirational parenting goals will be helpful along with the other methods.

As a mother, I find All About Raising Children to be a friendly, inspirational, easy-to-read manual for one of the very most important areas of my life.

As a person who studied school counseling, I notice a few things in particular from the book that promote healthy overall development in children. The emphasis on guidance and consistent limits is one that helps all children to learn, feel secure, and have good personal habits. What sets All About Raising Children apart from some other parenting methods is its emphasis on training, retraining, and gentle yet firm guidance that allows parents to teach their children what is expected before imposing consequences.

The book strongly supports the idea that a living example is one of the most powerful teaching tools. Parents must work on the qualities they want to see in their children. This idea is backed up by educational and health research. An author named James Baldwin had it right when he said: “Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”

Another way that All About Raising Children upholds psychological and educational research is in its ideas about expressing emotions. It is important that children be allowed to feel the emotions they feel without suppressing them; on the other hand, it is not okay nor psychologically healthy for them to use those emotions to bother or manipulate other people. An outburst of a negative emotion like sadness, anger, frustration, or annoyance is not punished in All About Raising Children. It is, however, directed and guided so that a manipulative outburst or major disturbance to the household is removed to the person’s room. The child is allowed to feel badly, but may need to express it in the safety and privacy of a separate area. This also effectively deals with tantrums because there is no audience to give the tantrum its value.

A last note on acquiring and owning the book: The only place I know of that has All About Raising Children at a reasonable price is the official Fascinating Womanhood website which was started by the author, Mrs. Andelin, and her family. Please see the tab at the top of the page, "Where to Find the Books," for more information. These copies are thick little books but light for their size. I found that the pages needed to be handled with some care. Shipping costs are reasonable through the Fascinating Womanhood website as well, and my copy came very quickly.