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December 27, 2019

Parenting Cooperatively

Your child is crying or broke something . You are extremely stressed. That stress while warranted, is not necessarily needed. Stress occurs when your flight or fight response is activated and your cortisone and adrenaline levels are raised. You can think, react, and move quickly, so you won’t die.

While your little child Rose has abilities, they are definitely not supernatural skills that can cause death. If they are, I can not give you advice, as I only have experience with human children.  Perhaps you can reach out to Professor Charles Xavier or Miss Peregrine. 

When you think back to the worst disaster that your child was responsible for, it wasn’t even that bad was it? And maybe it was kind of funny.

As you think back, remember you can’t go back in time, but think about what can you do so neither you nor your child will experience that stress again.

To support a child in making appropriate choices you must create an environment where good choices are a desirable option.

A 2-year-old often needs an adult nearby to help them make appropriate choices and adults usually need to be by themselves if they are climbing on top of the house to get the cat down.

Who knows why kitty keeps doing that?!

This is a conundrum!

Do you have another person helping you? 

Regardless, if you are a parent that works at home or a parent who works inside and outside of the home, you need physical help. Children are not a job. Their needs hours are 24/7 and so are yours. You need physical help and there is nothing I can say ethically to get around that.You can’t organize yourself into three people. 

I am not giving you unethical advice that supports capitalism. I want to help your family.

So you need help.

OK, so how can you get help?

Where are you reading this?I don’t know about you, but my partner, cat, house, and best friend, were all obtained via a search online. 

You can search for parenting groups online or you can create your own.

No one should be spending the day without guidance from another human being.  Prisoners are punished with Solitary Confinement, why are you punishing yourself?

Find  collaborators. You and your buddies can alternate weekly or monthly between the house that you visit and do tasks together. You can wash clothes, take care of your children and babies, do lunch, and yoga and you can do it all —together.  

And if your group is very successful and works well together, you could build it into a cooperative.

Cooperatives are democratic institutions that are collectively owned working together toward a common goal.  Their democratic structure tends to prevent exploitation while equally sharing the fruits of your labor.

Cooperatives aren’t just grocery stores, they can also be parenting groups, schools, almost anything that can be done with others can be a cooperative.

You can’t do it all by yourself and most people can’t pay an ethical, just wage for a mother’s helper or nanny, besides you need support, not a subordinate.

Cooperation is what is human and mindful, individualism is mechanistic and mindless.

 

 

 

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