Suburban Correspondent linked to a fascinating article, in which someone finally articulates my own philosophy of parenting–the Idle Parent. (Read the entire article–it’s worth it, especially for the Manifesto at the end) Kids thrive when parents leave them alone, says author Tom Hodgkinson. They don’t need to be shuttled back and forth from soccer and piano lessons to Latin tutors and horseback riding instruction. That’s too exhausting, and not just for the parents. They don’t really need Baby Einstein and Mozart in utero. Paradoxically, argues Hodgkinson, the idle parent is actually the responsible one, raising children who are independent, self-sufficient, self-entertaining, imaginative, and all sorts of good things. These parents are thrifty, sociable, and anti-materialistic.
Best of all, idle parents get to sleep in.
Can I get a hearty AMEN here?
I first realized I was an Idle Parent (without exactly putting it that way) the year we lived in France. I had already been training the children–from Day One really–to let me sleep in. When Elliot was two and had switched from a crib to a toddler bed, he’d bounce into my room every morning and announce at the top of his healthy lungs, “Five more minutes! Five more minutes!” “Yes,” I’d mumble. “Just five more minutes,” while keeping my eyes firmly closed. Of course he had no idea what that meant, and would usually bounce right up in bed next to me (often landing on one of the twins, gone back to sleep after that darn early morning feeding), but still. This shows that I was working on the concept.
By France, they were 8 and 6; good ages to grasp the concept of Not Disturbing the Parents. On Wednesday mornings and the Saturdays that they didn’t have school, they learned to get up on their own. Anybody can fix cold cereal if they’re hungry–none of this hot-breakfast-every-day for offspring of the Idle Parent. They would carefully close the door to the combined kitchen/living room and turn on the TV. Elliot wanted to fix us coffee but we were a wee bit uncomfortable with that, so instead we’d get ourselves up round 9:00 or so, when the cartoons were ending. Sometimes we’d even send Elliot across the street for croissants, which are as special and meaningful as pancakes any day.
Although my friend Heather might not be the person who would spring to your mind (assuming you actually knew her, which you don’t) when you think of Idle Parenting, when our family inevitably end up spending weeks and weeks in their basement during our visits home, we do practice it together. She and I spend hours in the kitchen, talking and talking, while the children swirl and flow and eddy around us, moving outside and in, demanding and being satiated in turn. So that I told her the other day, “I don’t really know your boys–I just see them in passing.” And when we’re here, I don’t see much of my own children either.
(However, Heather is not very good at being Idle. We were room-mates in college and I noticed in her then a tendency towards hyper-organization and a mania for cleanliness. I just wanted to get that on the record, in case you do know her.)
But here I am, staying at her house again. She and her husband have been going through a rough time lately, and a friend gave them two nights away at a nice hotel, and she asked us to stay with their kids. Today, three women, friends of theirs, stopped by to do yard work as a surprise for them, spending a cold March day pulling weeds and filling bag after bag with yard debris. (Don’t they have terrific friends?) These friends brought their kids, and their kids’ friends who were staying with them (it’s Spring Break in these parts), and there were a lot of children here–16 if you count the baby, which I very much do since I’m in charge of his general feeding and changing and happiness and things like that.
But I held true to my newly-articulated philosophy. I mostly ignored them all, and they did great. They held fantastic battles in the tree house, played bumper-cars with scooters in the driveway, pushed the two-year-old on the swing for hours, and allowed me several uninterrupted minutes to blog in peace. Amazing what can be accomplished.
Although I’m still glad that we’re back down to 9 kids in the house now. Which is normally rather overwhelming, so I guess I’m making progress.
Are you an Idle Parent? I’d love to take a poll. If you are, share your most proud Idle Parent moment in comments. Here’s mine:
Last school year, we had Idle Parenting Mornings down to a science. We had only one alarm clock, next to my side of the bed. It went off at 7:00 a.m. “ELLIOT!” I’d yell across the hall, and I’d wait to hear his answering, “Ok Mom!” Then I’d happily roll over and go back to sleep.
The kids would get up and go downstairs, where they’d make their own breakfasts, eat, get dressed, and brush their teeth.
By 7:45 I’d be up to check that they had everything and that their clothes didn‘t clash too horribly, and I’d brush and braid Ilsa’s hair. At 7:50, another American named Todd would pick them up and take them to school (we car-pooled). After seeing them off, I might shower and make coffee, or I might go back to bed for another 20 minutes. My classes never started before 10:00 so I had some time.
Looks like Elliot had it right, when he accused me of inactivity.
21 comments
March 26, 2008 at 2:49 pm
meredith
I guess I am somewhere in between
March 26, 2008 at 2:54 pm
suburbancorrespondent
Kids do best when largely ignored. But you already knew that I was in your camp.
March 26, 2008 at 4:33 pm
kellilu
De-lurking… found you through Gretchen at Lifenut, I think (?)…
I’m not a parent yet, but I have to weigh in as the daughter of Idle Parents to say amen! I can only imagine that such parenting does great things for the sanity of mothers and fathers, but it also does wonders for the kids. My brother and I are still very close, largely because we were left to entertain each other. (btw, we also learned early on that Mom liked to sleep in – and it behooved us all to let her! (c: ) My parents were staunchly against the idea of ferrying us to many activities, so we had laid-back time to read, lots, and be sociable in our own house. We never felt neglected – not by a long shot – but were left enough space to be ourselves.
I hope i get to start a family sometime in the next five or ten years, and if I do, i’m pretty sure i’ll end up being this sort of parent. thanks for the post!
March 26, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Rebecca
There are ways in which I am inactive and ways in which I hover like a busy little helicopter – the right mix is impossible to know, I think.
March 26, 2008 at 5:37 pm
ShackelMom
Oh my! This describes me to a T, but I can now use the capital letters and have Idle Parenting be a respectable something! How redeeming!
I raised and home schooled seven children by this honorable method, although the more kids we had, the less likely the sleeping in part. My goals were internal (character, skills, understanding, curiosity, etc.) rather than external (schedules, subjects, pages, hours, etc.). When I looked around at the frantic women with carpools, sports, ballet, music lessons to go to with their kids, I consoled myself with the thought that Laura Inglalls Wilder did just fine without any of those things, and mine would too. Oh, and without a TV as well.
Idle Parenting moment? Maybe when I let my boys (five of them) do dangerous things, like climb tall trees, play on the roof, make fires, melt lead, play with fireworks (real ones, in a third world country) and so on. My method was to not watch, ignorance being bliss and all.
My kids are now adventuresome adults who love to teach and explain things and can teach themselves any skill they need to know. They are also interesting and fun parents and all want to please the Lord, for which I am so grateful.
March 26, 2008 at 7:39 pm
LIB
Definitely an Idle Parent. Glad to have a more redeeming sounding label than “Lazy Parent”.
Proudest Idle Parent moment: So I could sleep in on Saturdays, I had servings of cold cereal in tupperware containers and tupperware glasses (w- lids) of milk in the fridge. (This was to avoid waking up to find a spilled box of Cheerios and a spilled gallon of milk in the kitchen.) The girls were allowed to have their cereal in front of the TV. This was a BIG DEAL, because meals in front of the TV were usually verboden(sp?).
March 26, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Jolyn
My 12-yr-old gets his own breakfast, makes his own lunch to take to school, and makes my coffee for me before I get up.
Just kidding about the last part. His dad does that.
My 5- and 3-yr-old regularly play together and just … play. I referee and direct them away from electronics when necessary but otherwise they have their pretend world with their stuffed animals and barbie dolls and who knows what else. People ask me all the time why I don’t put my daughter (5yrold) in preschool/pre-k, and I just poo-poo them. Not really, but I want to. But an amazing amount of them do congratulate me for keeping her home with me, and a sad number of them wish they would have kept theirs home longer, too.
That same daughter also basically learned her alphabet sounds from watching Leapfrog’s Letter Factory, and is learning to read from playing her leappad. Not all electronics are bad, in my eyes. Mom of the year, I am.
Oh, it’s verboten, just fyi.
March 26, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Linda
I was an idle mother years ago as my children grew up. They did have piano lessons, soccer and swimming lessons but mostly they just played on their own. I think children get really tired of structured activities. My oldest son has his children over structured and over planned, I think. My youngest son doesn’t let his children watch TV and they aren’t in any activities and are so full of life and curiousity. Can they play! I suppose all of my grandchildren will end up being great adults. We will see.
March 27, 2008 at 5:29 am
canadacole
I love being an Idle Parent. Like Jolyn, my 3 year old knows all his letter sounds and even several basic words from playing with the Leappad. My children are each other’s best friends and play happily together for hours.
As a child of Idle Parents though, I do have to caution against doing all the housework while they are Idle. My mom used to shoo me away when she was cleaning/canning/etc. and I’ve had to teach myself how to do these things as an adult. Mostly though, they play and I blog. It’s a good thing 🙂
March 27, 2008 at 10:06 am
Shalee
I am an Idle parent. My most successful moment of IPing came when we decided to not have cable and we limit our kids tv time to 2 hours a week and the computer time to 2 hours a week. Do you realize how many hours our kids have to find things to do? On the up side, our kids play a lot more, read a lot more, draw a lot more than most kids I know.
On the down side: They can’t type nearly as fast, they often don’t know what computer games are what and I have to wash a lot more dirty clothes.
I’m okay with the tradeoff.
March 27, 2008 at 11:41 am
My Adventures in Simple Living » Blog Archive » Idle Parenting
[…] Planet Nomad has an interesting post about the article Idle parenting means happy children. So far, the article hasn’t mentioned slacker parenting, but that’s another term I’ve heard for this same idea. Basically, it’s all about letting your kids be on their own and not scheduling them and planning their daily lives. […]
March 28, 2008 at 1:56 am
Megan
We’re working on it. Unplugging them. Buying loads of books. Not serving them hot breakfast in bed anymore (i shudder to think i actually did that!) My proudest idle moment? When I told my 6 year old to go play quietly so I could read and I returned to find my living room covered in Corn Nuts. Of course she had been playing “farmer” and had fed the chickens!! How’s that for creativity?!
March 28, 2008 at 9:17 am
Ann
I too have trained my children to get up and get ready in the morning. I get up 15 minutes before they have to leave to make sure they brush their teeth.
I think it’s great for them to learn to do this on their own. I know adults who’s mom still wake them up for work by calling them! Now that’s crazy!
March 28, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Michelle in Mx
de-lurking to cast my vote – definitely an idle parent and I recommend a book in a post about pro-idleness here:
http://betweendiapersanddishes.blogspot.com/2008/02/germs-are-good-for-you.html
March 29, 2008 at 10:49 am
suz
I have been trying to decide what to tell you about this,I sure feel I was and am an idle parent-my kids watched a lot of channel 10 when little so
I could stay in bed,or get things done-and they learned to cook a bit for
themselves-my kids do and have done a lot of sports and we can’t always
attend the games and meets..my kids now 21 and almost 19 are very independant and have traveled without us-they do not call as often as I would like-my son has adjusted to college away from home..he does not
seem homesick a bit!..my kids also did read and color and PLAY-one blessing of having four kids they can all play together-but I will say we parent along time-we are still sharing and talking over life with our older kids-
March 30, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Carrie
Great post!
I think I am the daughter of some fairly Idle Parenting, and I am so glad! While there were the occasional ballet & swim lessons, I was a bookworm, and my sister & I spent many an hour in imaginary worlds with our toys, inside and outside. I am so glad that I wasn’t part of the computer-game/Nintendo group. I still love to learn and do creative things, and I don’t think those things would have grown in me had my childhood been over-structured! So, thank you, Mom! And when it’s my time for a family, I plan to be more hands-off, too. 🙂
March 31, 2008 at 9:51 pm
LIB
I forgot something I was going to say in my comment: When I was a kid and said, “I’m bored.” My dad would say, “Only boring people get bored.” The idea being, that if you were an interesting person you’d be able to find something to interest you.
I used to quote my dad to my kids. At the very least, it stopped that annoying whine; at best it caused them to be more interesting/interested people.
April 1, 2008 at 7:19 am
L the D
First-time reader . . . so I guess I’m technically delurking and saying hi at the same time 🙂
I’m still really new at this, but it sounds like that’s the kind of parent I am! My Munchkin keeps herself entertained in the mornings until it’s time for breakfast (which she still needs help with), and pretty much turns her room into a fairy castle for most of the day when she’s home. She does go to school (3xweek) and gymnastics (1xweek), but outside of those, it’s mostly self-entertainment. Good for building up the independent side . . . I’m still trying to figure out if it’s working on the behavioral side.
April 2, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Mary@notbefore7
LOL! Loved the humor with which he made his point.
Yep…love so much about that! We have our babies trained to just play in their cribs till we come get them…usually we get away with about an hour.
If there isn’t a 7 on the clock, then stay in your own room.
All about the work less, enjoy life!
Loved your post and glad I came by!
April 2, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Caffienated Cowgirl
Oh, this is great! While living in the UK, we were constantly hounded by other parents with children the same age as our son. They all sent theirs to “school” from the age of 2 years. And then after “school” they signed them up for every activity under the sun. By the age of 3, these children had a more demanding schedule than most adults. Being of an old fashioned American mindset, we kept our son at home, with only two activities a week. We were the outcasts…
…and then another Brit paper ran an article similar to the one you mentioned. My husband and I felt justified 🙂
April 3, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Pieces
I’m an idle parent, although I do feel like it is going against the grain of society. Girlkiddo used to have a friend whose mom would always call me when her daughter was here for a playdate and ask how they were doing. My answer was always vague “Okay, I guess. No one has cried or been injured.” She would always relay to me the things the girls talked about when they were at her house. I wouldn’t so the same because I am rarely close enough to eavesdrop. The kids are usually up a tree somewhere away from me–where they belong.