My son turned 7 in May, and I feel like it's just been since maybe this spring that he's had a conscience. In the past, he'd have empathetic responses to things--not all the time, but sometimes. If a child was hurt, he'd get upset. But, I don't think there was much reflection involved. Now, he'll do something wrong or say something mean (because he's still very impulsive, especially in terms of things he says), and he'll tell me later that day or even days later that he feels really badly about it. It usually takes him some time to get to that point; he'll say something mean, and be corrected for it (usually just one of us reminding him that it is unacceptable to talk to people that way), stew for a while, and then later realize that it was wrong and give a genuine apology. So I guess I think it's going to depend on the child, but probably a reflexive empathy is a different thing from the kind of conscience where a child reflects upon their actions and decides if they are right or wrong. I think that kind of conscience develops quite a bit later. My DD can be reflexively empathetic; sometimes when her baby brother cries, she tries to comfort him. But I don't think there's conscience or any real reflection on right and wrong going into that, at all, and it will likely be years until she gets there. I also think it's a lot harder for children to feel that damaging property is wrong than it is for them to feel that hurting people is wrong. For my oldest, it really wasn't until he started getting kind of possessive about his own stuff, and getting upset when his little sister broke something or put something in her mouth or otherwise messed with his possessions, that he started to be more careful about other people's things.

In theory, I like it. In practice, as an English teacher I have actual nightmares about showing up to a class on the first day, getting there late, and then realizing that I'm supposed to be teaching chemistry. I wake up in a panic every time!

Not very busy. My kids are young enough that we're either at home or close to home (like at a friend's house on the block or at the library that we can walk to) nearly all the time. I take DS7 to a breakdancing class on Tuesday nights, and Wednesday nights I go to a small group at my neighbors' (I take the oldest and youngest), but otherwise, we're pretty much at home during the week. I find that it's really going different places that eats up all my down time. I definitely have times where I'm overwhelmed, mostly because sometimes all the kids have very pressing needs at the same time, or just feel frustrated with the amount of time and number of trips it takes to get everybody out of the house (one trip for the stroller, one for the baby, one for the toddler, one for the items we inevitably forgot...). But, it's more like, during my day, I have some moments where I'm overwhelmed than that I'm busy. I definitely have a good amount of downtime. DD still takes a nice long nap every day, and we all rest during that time. I also usually have some free time in the morning before the kids wake up, and once DD is in bed things also calm down, and I get a few hours of free time at night. I don't have long stretches of uninterrupted downtime--somebody usually needs something at regular intervals--but I definitely, if you add it all up, have a good amount of time to relax and do what I want during the day.

Hmm, this would be hard. On the one hand, I have absolutely no desire to go vegan and would not be serving my entire family vegan food for every meal. On the other hand, I think it's a valid choice and if she was doing it for ethical reasons, I'd want to support her. I think I'd try to work out a compromise. Like, maybe I'd agree to make 2 vegan dinners a week (which she could help me prepare), and one vegan item with the others. The rest she'd need to take care of. I'd expect her to do the research to make sure she was eating a healthy diet, but if she could come up with foods that were healthy, not-too-expensive, and easy-to-prepare, we could maybe spend a few hours together on the weekend making vegan stuff that she could eat the rest of the week. We could make some vegan muffins for breakfast, pull together some vegan lunches, and put away items that she could warm up at dinners when the only vegan item I'd be preparing was a vegetable and/or grain. I'd want to find ways to support her in her decision while putting at least some of the responsibility for it on her (because mom wouldn't be there to make all of her vegan meals for her forever) and not forcing the rest of the family to change to a vegan diet.

If you want something a little slower and more literary, I'd highly suggest Marilynne Robinson's Gilead and Home. She a novelist who's a Christian rather than a Christian novelist, and they are beautiful, beautiful novels. For more "manly" Christian fiction, you might want to try Signmund Brouwer.

1995 was a fun year. That was the end of my junior year and start of my senior year of high school. It occurred to me the other day that people born in 1990 are now old enough to drink legally. And that, out of my entire class of students (all college students), only two were old enough to vote in 2008. Crazy!

I am normally a person to consider calling the police an absolute last resort. In this case, though, I really don't think there's another reasonable course of action. I'm so sorry your family is going through this, and I hope the neighbor boy can get some help.

Thank you so much for posting this. My parents bought a home in 1980 in NJ for $30K. They sold it in 2010 for $300K. My DH and I were just talking a few nights ago about how silly this idea of a student working their way through college is, particularly for full-time students going to anything other than a community college. My husband worked more than anybody we know (we were full-time students at a pretty well-regarded state school). He probably put in 20-25 hours/week for most of his college career. He didn't make enough to cover his housing costs, much less his housing, tuition, books, and all other expenses. It's much worse today, and I can't imagine how a full-time student could actually manage to work enough to pay for tuition, living expenses, and other costs.

If you are poor, it's difficult to just up and move. Seasonal work means moving a lot. That's not practical for many people. It also means that you need to figure out something to do when it's not the season for farm work. There is also, as noted, the transportation issue. Does public transit run to these farms? Are the owners willing to send busses out? Is the unemployment rate in the immediate vicinity high? I mean, you're not going to get the unemployed in Detroit moving to do farm work, because 1) moving is expensive, 2) they have no experience doing farm work, and 3) you aren't going to uproot your life for something that is only going to last a few weeks or months and will not provide you with experience that will help you land a long-term, full-time position. Plus, I imagine that many poor people who are in a position where taking the jobs might be practical are unaware of them.

Is it offensive/disrespectful to wear a headcovering just because you like it? I am seriously in love with some of those coverings from Garlands of Grace--like I said upthread, I wear my hair back in a bandana regularly because it's easier to manage and I think it looks nice. My DD has my very curly, crazy hair, and she'd look so adorable in some of the coverings for girls. (I doubt I could get her to keep it on for more than five minutes, but she'd look really cute for those five minutes.) So would it be wrong to order from them if I didn't have religious/modesty reasons for doing so? Yes, I do worry about things like this. I'm paranoid that way.

I concur. I probably won't wait until 6th grade, but we've put LfC aside and I have Song School Latin coming (actually, it should be on the UPS truck to us right now). DS actually likes Latin, and he's very good with grammar, but it is too much. Way too much. My revised Latin plan, at this point, is to do SSL this year for second grade, SSL2 (which I'm glad to hear is coming out!) next year for third grade, and then spend two years on LfC A in fourth and fifth grade. I'm thinking we'll spend one year each on LfC B and C in sixth and seventh grade, but at that point who knows? Honestly, I was mentioning on the Wheelock thread that my husband wants to learn Latin but is intimidated by Wheelock. I'm seriously considering handing him LfC A as a less-intimidating introduction!

Looking at the sites linked to, apparently I cover and didn't even know it. ;) I've got lots (lots!) of long curly hair, and probably 75% of the time I tie it back with a bandana. It keeps it out of my face, keeps down frizzies, and I think it looks cute. I generally buy them when I find them--dollar stores, thrift stores--but a few times I've found nice plain ones online at craft supply sites.

I say 14. Right now that sounds reasonable, if cost isn't being considered. But my DD is 1-1/2, so my opinion is completely abstract right now.

I was a shy child, and then a very outgoing (or at least outspoken) teen and adult. I don't think my parents should have handled that aspect of my personality any differently. They're both pretty reserved people, though. In our house we have the opposite issue, where my DH is extremely shy and reserved, and our DS is super outgoing and extroverted. There are definitely personality clashes that happen. As to the anxiety issue, that's a whole different thing. I have panic disorder, which didn't become a significant problem until I was 14 or 15, but which I'd had some issues with for as long as I can remember. (Anxiety disorders and particularly panic disorder run on both sides of my family; my maternal grandmother was agoraphobic to the point of not leaving her house for about 15 years at one point.) I wish that my parents--or some adult in my life--could have affirmed the realness and scariness of what I was feeling, even as they assured me that I was and would be fine. I feel like the realness--the fact that my heart really was pounding, I really did feel shaky and sick, etc.--of what was happening to me was just brushed aside, and I was always told that there was nothing wrong and it was all in my head. I thought I was nuts for years, because it seemed to be very much in my body, not just my head! It wasn't until I was older and read a book about panic disorder, which basically said something along the lines of the sensations of panic being very real, very scary, and extremely unpleasant--but also totally harmless and temporary--that I was able to start managing better. I think that maybe before that, it had been hard to trust the people telling me that I'd be fine, because they were also telling me that nothing was wrong and it was all in my head, and I knew that wasn't true. Once the reality of the sensations I was having were validated, then I was able to feel like somebody really got it and also trust that it would be okay. I'm not sure if that's at all clear or helpful or relevant to your son's problems. In any case, I hope you guys figure out lots of positive ways to relate to each other!

I really like my rice molds. As long as the rice I make is sticky enough, I can press it into a compact little shape for DD, and she can eat it a lot more neatly than if I just scoop it onto her plate.

I'm a bento drop-out. DS was super into the idea for a while, and we got some bento stuff, but we didn't use it for long. Too time-consuming, and mine never came out very well and just made me feel kind of incompetent. But, my DS does sometimes like to use the food cutters. If he's being a pain about lunch or just bored, I can give him some bread, lunch meat, cheese, sliced fruit, and a bunch of little food-cutters, and let him get to work putting together a lunch for him and his sister.

Since I've got this on my mind this morning, I'm going to add one more thought. I wonder how much of it is due to the fact that many of us, I'm guessing, were probably good kids and good students, and used to getting a lot of validation. I was an excellent student. I got a lot of praise and encouragement and affirmation from my teachers growing up. All the way up until grad school, actually. Then, all of a sudden, I was just one of a bunch of good students, and I didn't get the kind of effusive praise I got before that. And then, once I was done with school, nobody was praising me! Nobody was telling me what a smart girl I was. It honestly took quite a while for me to adjust to that, to life without that kind of evaluation and affirmation. It also makes me think about how to walk that line with my kids, between genuinely affirming them and validating achievement, and making them dependent upon that as the source of their self-worth or even their whole identity. It took me a very long time to figure out who I was once "good girl" and "good student" weren't applicable any more. I think maybe it can be very easy to want to have "good worker" or "good mother" replace that, by having other people validate your success in those roles, but in general I think that sort of affirmation is much less forthcoming for most people.

Right. And, in most cases, no matter what you choose, you simply are not going to get that kind of outside validation. Unless you have an extremely important and prestigious job, it's very, very unlikely that you're going to be receiving the kind of ongoing, outside affirmation that it sometimes seems like writing aimed at moms/homeschoolers assumes is the norm for anybody working outside the home. But, again, maybe I'm biased, because as somebody who works a not-prestigious part-time job and also homeschools, I can say that, hands down, my kids and husband are way more appreciative of me than my students or employer. I get much more validation from them than I get for my teaching.

I guess I don't see my paycheck as appreciation. (Maybe if I got paid more, I would!) And certainly I sometimes feel like, by not bringing in a paycheck, I'm not doing enough somehow. I just don't think that has much to do with motherhood being unappreciated, though, but with our value being tied almost completely to our incomes in the larger society. It's not just moms who feel that: it's the unemployed, it's people who are disabled and can't work, it's the retired, it's people receiving government assistance. I do think I feel more appreciated as a mom than I do as a teacher, though. I love my students, but very, very rarely does one of them thank me for something I've done for them. Even more rarely does one of them hug me. My supervisors have never either thanked me or hugged me (which is probably good, because the hugging at least would be kind of weird!). My kids, on the other hand, thank me and hug me all the time, and my husband is very good about appreciating what I do.

Maybe that's it. Maybe I just feel annoyingly patronized when people start in with the "That mean ole feminist society doesn't value what you do, but you are really doing the most important job in the world" stuff, which always feels to me like it should end up a pat on the head and being called "little lady."

Who is telling us that, though? The thing is, most people don't have a job that other people admire. They have jobs that other people either don't care much about or see as boring/unimportant. So, sure, if you end up being governor, you'll get applauded for that. But if you get the kinds of jobs that most people are getting, you are still not living up to society's standards. You're still not going to be appreciated. I think the anti-feminist backlash in the homeschooling community is based on wrong assumptions. The media isn't telling people, hey, be anything other than a SAHM and you'll be successful. The image of "success" held up is just as out of reach for most women who work outside the home as it is for SAHMs. You don't measure up just because you've got a job: it has to be a very prestigious, very important, very high-paying job. The mom who works as a nurse or a teacher or a construction worker or a cashier or a mail carrier or an administrative assistant or a librarian is no more the "supermom" and no more appreciated/valued/affirmed than the mom who is home full-time.

This whole discussion about the role of Mormon missionaries has been really interesting to me. Honestly, I had no idea that service was even part of what they did; I really thought they just spent all day, every day, going door-to-door looking for converts during their missions.

I was just thinking of this reading the couple of posts in the Mission of Motherhood thread. I hear a lot of people talk about how motherhood is so unappreciated, how you are lauded for doing anything in the world but being a mom, that it's the most important job in the world but nobody gives moms credit, etc. I don't know about all that, honestly. The thing is, are other jobs really all that appreciated? My husband is a full-time research associate. As far as I can tell, people don't come up to him very often telling him how important his job is or how much they appreciate him. I teach writing part-time, and I don't think anybody has ever told me how much they appreciate what I do or how important it is. In fact, I've gotten far more positive, supportive, encouraging comments about being home with my kids and homeschooling than I do about my outside-the-home work. It's not that people criticize my teaching job, they just don't laud me for having it, in any way. Maybe if you're a brain surgeon or a senator or a CEO people are always telling you how important you are and how much they appreciate what you do. I don't know. But I don't think most people are getting that kind of affirmation for what they do. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that moms aren't under-appreciated; I think I'm saying that maybe we under-appreciate most things that people do. I'm guessing my mail carrier doesn't have people telling her how much they appreciate what she does and how important it is on anything like a regular basis--although it is really important and I do appreciate it! My mom was a preschool teacher for years, and I'm not aware of anybody ever telling her how she was doing such an important, appreciated job. My MIL worked as a cashier at Caldor for many years, and I know that nobody ever told her those things. I'm just wondering where this idea that moms/SAHMs are uniquely unappreciated comes from, and if it's realistic. It just doesn't seem realistic to me, because it seems part of this idea that women are loudly applauded for having careers, which just isn't the case. Most jobs that most women do are just as unappreciated as being a SAHM, and that's true for most men, too. And I think maybe it breeds a certain amount of resentment in SAHMs, who are being sent a message that if they were doing anything else, they'd be like showered with praise and admiration, when that's just not the case. I don't know. I'm not even sure why I'm writing this. It's one of those things that was in my brain that I just needed to get out. And it's making me think that maybe I need to do a better job showing my appreciation for the many things that the people I know do.

My DD will eat butter if it's within reach. My oldest was never into butter, but his thing was sour cream. He'll still, if you let him, eat sour cream right out of the container with a spoon. Yuck!