This List Would Exhaust Me

[debrand]

ttmillermoments.blogspot.com/2012/01/10-point-manifesto-for-joyful-parenting.html

How do you refuse to see anything but beauty or not have an emergency? Not only does that seem impossible but I would be exhausted just trying to be always ultra positive. Number 4 is that she will only feel one feeling at a time. There are plenty of times in my life when I have had conflicting emotions. I don't understand why allowing yourself to feel only one emotion at time is considered good.

10 Point Manifesto for Joyful Parenting by Ann Voskamp

1. Today, I will make our home a house of prayer. I will pray at set times. And I will invite our children to come move into an interior space that lives with God.

2. Today, I will transfigure all things into beauty, and I will refuse to see anything else.

3. Today, I will not have any emergencies. There are no emergencies! Only amateurs hurry.

4. Today, when stress mounts, I pray to dismount it with gratitude. My stress management plan will be intervention with verbal thanks. I can only feel one feeling at a time, and I choose to give thanks at all times. Fight feeling with feeling!

5. Today, I will pray to speak words that are only STRONG words, words that make these children feel strong. Grace words. Grace is the only non-toxic air. All other words I breathe are death words.

6. Today, I will pray to be consistently consistent. I will create safe rhythms that our children can find security in. I will create daily ceremonies because everyday we are CELEBRATING the gift of now!

7. Today, the moment when I am most repelled by a child's behavior, that is my sign to draw the very closest to that child.

8. Today, I will hug each of my children as many times as I serve them meals -- because children's hearts feed on touch. I'll look for as many opportunities to touch my children today as possible --- the taller they are, the more so.

9. Today, my priorities will be all Things Unseen.

10. Today, I will laugh! And I will let the little children laugh! I will create a culture of JOY!

I've been very angry at my kids but I've never been repelled by them.

The type of emotional control needed to follow this list would make me more tense and upset.

[Little Miss Alien]

I hug my son a lot more than I give him meals. And I usually touch him at every opportunity.

I don't need a manifesto to remind me to hug or touch him.

Are these people really that dumb that they need reminding? Are their lives so empty they can sit and create these stupid lists? :doh: Don't worry, I already know the answer to that!

[Anise]

I'll look for as many opportunities to touch my children today as possible --- the taller they are, the more so.

Wait, so she wants to hug her older children more often than her younger children? WTF?

[tinuviel]

My mental image of a person living out this list is of a woman in a fluffy and mystical Valium fog saying pseudo-magical nonsense to her children. Don't you know that being a good person is supposed to bathe you in a super special aura 24/7??

When I was a fundie, I always assumed that the posts that made me feel the most guilty and inadequate were really the most edifying ones. They were just challenging me to a higher standard of godliness--if I tried to follow it, that meant I was godly enough to accept whatever God/bitch-tastic fundies told me. Basically feeling guiltier=being godlier.

Also, can I just say that her "profound" purple prose is RIDICULOUS. "dismounting stress"? Non-toxic grace air and death words? Blergh.

[Glass Cowcatcher]

If I didn't hang around here I honestly wouldn't know if this was new age whoo or christian whargable.

[quiningseven]

Meh, doesn't seem that bad to me. No different than non-religious admonishments to enjoy EVERY SINGLE moment with your kids; which can be either helpful, or annoying depending on one's mood.

[VVV]

There have been times when my kids' behavior has made me very, very angry (I have teenagers) but repellent? I can't imagine being repelled by anything they do. That's a very strong word. Unless, as is very possible, it does not mean what she thinks it means.

[feministxtian]

"3. Today, I will not have any emergencies. There are no emergencies! Only amateurs hurry."

No emergencies? Hmm...guess she's never had a 3 year old fall off the bunk beds or a 6 year old break his arm playing baseball or a 10 year old sprain an ankle at dance practice, or any number of other things that threw my day into chaos when my kids were little...I like to say I have a Phd in Crisis Management after raising my crew...we lived crisis to crisis and chaos to chaos...

[ladypuglover]

2. Today, I will transfigure all things into beauty, and I will refuse to see anything else.

All I see is my beautiful toddler sitting in her crib. I don't see her finger painting the wall and crib with her diaper findings.

3. Today, I will not have any emergencies. There are no emergencies! Only amateurs hurry.

I will not hurry to wash up my toddler that is now flinging clumps of her diaper findings on to the lamp and carpet. I have done this scene before with her older siblings.

5. Today, I will pray to speak words that are only STRONG words, words that make these children feel strong. Grace words. Grace is the only non-toxic air. All other words I breathe are death words.

I will tell my toddler how proud I am of her art and free style and I all I breathe smells like death.

7. Today, the moment when I am most repelled by a child's behavior, that is my sign to draw the very closest to that child.

Fine! I will get up off my ass and go clean the toddler that just flung poo on me. Maybe she was trying to tell me that she needed a diaper change? If only there was a way to know for sure.

[AnnieC 305]

OK, let me have a go

10 Point Manifesto for Joyful Parenting by Ann Voskamp

1. Today, I will make our home a house of prayer. I will pray at set times. And I will invite our children to come move into an interior space that lives with God.

I will try to get the kids to stop running around screaming and maybe get them to sit still for 10 minutes.

2. Today, I will transfigure all things into beauty, and I will refuse to see anything else.

I will not be dissatisfied with my life given that it sucks compared to the loveliness I see on the other "Fundie" blogs. After all, they would never lie about their perfection.

3. Today, I will not have any emergencies. There are no emergencies! Only amateurs hurry.

I will stop losing my self-control and stop freaking out about every single things my children do. Spilling milk is not an emergency. Leaving toys out is not an emergency. Calling your sister a poopy-head is not an emergency.

4. Today, when stress mounts, I pray to dismount it with gratitude. My stress management plan will be intervention with verbal thanks. I can only feel one feeling at a time, and I choose to give thanks at all times. Fight feeling with feeling!

Dear God help me, I cannot cope with this many children.

5. Today, I will pray to speak words that are only STRONG words, words that make these children feel strong. Grace words. Grace is the only non-toxic air. All other words I breathe are death words.

Because when I lose control (and I do, a lot) I tend to scream hurtful, awful things at my children.

6. Today, I will pray to be consistently consistent. I will create safe rhythms that our children can find security in. I will create daily ceremonies because everyday we are CELEBRATING the gift of now!

I will make it work like the perfect "Fundie" families.

I will make it work like the perfect "Fundie" families.

I will make it work like the perfect "Fundie" families.

7. Today, the moment when I am most repelled by a child's behavior, that is my sign to draw the very closest to that child.

Because there are so many, and they are so disgusting and I have no clue what I'm doing and I really don't like being a Mom at all.

8. Today, I will hug each of my children as many times as I serve them meals -- because children's hearts feed on touch. I'll look for as many opportunities to touch my children today as possible --- the taller they are, the more so.

It's bad enough with the clueless little ones who still love me. I think the older ones really don't like me on top of it. I think they're miserable and they know it's my fault because I have too many kids and can't cope.

9. Today, my priorities will be all Things Unseen.

Because I cannot deal with the Seen. At all.

10. Today, I will laugh! And I will let the little children laugh! I will create a culture of JOY!

Help.

The type of emotional control needed to follow this list would make me more tense and upset.

[PennySycamore]

No emergencies?

Good thing she isn't a EMT, a nurse, a doctor, a police officer or a firefighter.

Like feministxtian said, what about when you three year old falls off the bunk bed or your kid sprains an ankle? What about if you have a heart attack or a stroke? After a stroke, there's a critical period of three hours to administer meds and the sooner you get to the ER the more likely you are to recover. Some situations are absolutely emergencies.

[Jessica]

How lucky she is, that her children don't have febrile seizures.

[Whydoyouask]

She must not have a child with asthma, or blood sugar issues.

I wonder what my life would be like with out 'emergencies'. Hummm

[terranova]

And tomorrow I will drown my children in the bath tub because I realise I am only human.

[Sola]

No emergencies?

Good thing she isn't a EMT, a nurse, a doctor, a police officer or a firefighter.

Like feministxtian said, what about when you three year old falls off the bunk bed or your kid sprains an ankle? What about if you have a heart attack or a stroke? After a stroke, there's a critical period of three hours to administer meds and the sooner you get to the ER the more likely you are to recover. Some situations are absolutely emergencies.

My daughter did that last weekend. She tried to reach over the bar to turn off her TV and went right over the side. Luckily other than a few bruises, a skinned elbow and lots of tears she was OK.

You can never be sure what will happen, kids are one step away from an A&E trip most of the time - it's in the very nature of being kids.

[chaotic life]

I had a two year old climb up her sisters bunkbed and fall down, hitting her upper lip just below her nose on the frame of the bottom bunk. Good thing as a nurse I could recognize an emergency because you can only put stitches in for 6 hours after an incident and having a huge, tertiary healed scar right at the base of her nose would have been horrifically scarring. The tiny scar she has usually dips into her nose and cannot be seen.

I have a terminal child dying of hepatic cirrhosis now. I darn well DO consider every incidence of Hepatic Encephelitis a medical emergency.

I considered my roommate's type I Diabetic unresponsive on the couch in the midst of chaos a medical emergency yesterday too. As well as his bizarre, unexpected petit mal seizure last week.

I considered my roommate getting stabbed in the eyeball with a dirty dinner fork an emergency.

I consider a child falling 30ft out of a tree onto her forearm a medical emergency (did consult our Ortho friend, brace her and give her pain meds for the night and took her to him in the am versus a non ortho in the ER who would have either set it wrong or told us to see our Ortho during daylight hours).

One thing you absolutely learn as a parent is that emergencies DO happen. They happen ALL THE TIME. It is not whether emergencies happen that matters. It is how you HANDLE yourself in those emergencies. I remain calm, act appropriately, provide emergency medical care as necessary, call 911 for seizures, and keep everyone healthy, safe and getting proper care.

My children do not panic in an emergency situation for the very simple fact that for their entire LIVES they have watched their father and I respond calmly and appropriately. Yes, when roommate's son had a seizure and she started freaking out, one of us took the child, the other took hold of her and coached her on how to stay calm and how he needs to see her calm and collected in the emergency.

The list isn't *that* bad, except that it frames everything expecting mother to be super-human and all fault in that failure is hers. I see that a lot in fundie-land. Hell, I bought into that in fundieland. I've had to learn to give myself grace to be human as I exited that kool-aid. The principles are good, but the expectations are excessive. However, I take GREAT exception to the no emergencies statement. That's just ignorant. The most humbling thing you learn as a parent is that yes emergencies DO exist and there's absolutely nothing you can do to prevent them--it's all in how you handle them when they come.

[sage]

I read things like this:

2. Today, I will transfigure all things into beauty, and I will refuse to see anything else.

And I think to myself: "And this is why we have a world that looks like this:"

I understand that at times we all need to retreat to a less hectic place, but for the love of gnome, not everything is beautiful and if you keep blinders on, nothing will change!

[julie paradox]

I don't think she's refusing to feel only one thing at a time. I think she's saying that she'll make herself feel grateful because then she won't feel stressed because one can't feel more than one thing at a time.

Which is no less bollocks, of course.

(I gave thanks with strong words just now. Thank God I finally got this fucking APCM booklet ready. Please remind me next year so that I don't leave it till Patrick is asking me where it is.)

[indigospeakeasy]

My mental image of a person living out this list is of a woman in a fluffy and mystical Valium fog saying pseudo-magical nonsense to her children. Don't you know that being a good person is supposed to bathe you in a super special aura 24/7??

When I was a fundie, I always assumed that the posts that made me feel the most guilty and inadequate were really the most edifying ones. They were just challenging me to a higher standard of godliness--if I tried to follow it, that meant I was godly enough to accept whatever God/bitch-tastic fundies told me. Basically feeling guiltier=being godlier.

Also, can I just say that her "profound" purple prose is RIDICULOUS. "dismounting stress"? Non-toxic grace air and death words? Blergh.

So true! I was the same way.

[chaotic life]

LOL, should have checked out the blog and not just the list posted here.

Yeah, three LITTLE kiddos....I'm thinking she has a LOT of growing and learning to do before she gets to earn her title she so dearly wants of Titus 2 woman. You don't get to teach the younger women and mothers when you ARE the younger women and mothers.

That's one thing about Fundieland that has always annoyed me. Any woman who wants to present herself as a motherhood and parenting expert merely has to start a blog and holler, "Look at me!" It's nonsense. The entire concept they are striving for is a Titus 2 woman. They want to BE the mentor and not find other mentors. You don't get that title because you WANT it. Even in that world, you get that level of respect and authority by earning it, by living it, and by NOT calling yourself an expert but by having others see you as one.

Self proclaimed, young mother, "mommy experts" in Fundieland are super arrogant and super entitled with their opinions. All I ever see is young and inexperienced. They are great fun for snarking though, just not much good for anything else. They simply have lived and learned and experienced enough LIFE to know anything yet, including the ability to realize that they should KNOW BETTER.

[chaotic life]

Evidentally, the list comes from Ann Voskamp, who has a lot of contraversy over her book she has published about finding joy.

arewomenhuman.me/2011/03/22/ann-voskamp-and-jesus-as-lover-perspective-from-the-puritans-pt-1/

That said, I have a bit more compassion for the original author of the list, given that it appears it is part f her own personal journey to not drown in the greif and overwhelming lack of joy from her own history. It's still unrealistic and extremely guilt-inducing. However, it appears to be born from her own need to seek joy instead of continuing to be haunted and drown in the trauma of witnessing the violent death of her sister as a child.

Someone should have gotten the woman trauma therapy and not merely told her she must find joy. She could find joy without the heaping side of GUILT.

[deelaem]

If I didn't hang around here I honestly wouldn't know if this was new age whoo or christian whargable.

I was thinking exactly the same thing! It caused me to cringe, remembering when I tried to follow all that new age nonsense. You live, you learn.

No emergencies? I bet if she were bleeding profusely she'd be pretty pissed if people around here moved slowly and didn't consider it to be an emergency.

[Sister Mozz]

1. Today, I will make our home a house of prayer. I will pray at set times. And I will invite our children to come move into an interior space that lives with God.

Maybe it's because I live in the Midwest, but when I hear "interior space" I think about deadly tornadoes and the need to protect yourself. That last sentence doesn't even make sense.

3. Today, I will not have any emergencies. There are no emergencies! Only amateurs hurry.

No, plenty of professionals hurry, too. It might even be part of their job. It's ridiculous to think you could ever reach the point of being so prepared that you'd never have an emergency... and terrifying to think you could be so emotionally dead as not to feel the weight of one.

Lists like these make me happy I didn't get married as a fundie teenager.

[Burris]

Aaaaand this is part of the reason why I can't read Ann Voskamp.

When I was a fundie, I always assumed that the posts that made me feel the most guilty and inadequate were really the most edifying ones. They were just challenging me to a higher standard of godliness--if I tried to follow it, that meant I was godly enough to accept whatever God/bitch-tastic fundies told me. Basically feeling guiltier=being godlier.

Alas.

Come as you are. God is no respecter of persons. And you'll know grace because it feels lile grace, rather than like condemnation or "conviction."

[2xx1xy1JD]

The list seemed pretty mild compared to the other snark-worthy stuff here. I suppose it's all in how you read it. I found the wording a bit prissy and started wondering what exactly she meant.

Seeing beauty - to me, I would take this as actively trying to see the cup as half full and looking for the positive, not sticking my head so far up my butt that I ignored real problems.

A simple example: I remember going shopping with a baby and toddler, and by the time I got to the checkout I had 2 kids covered in tomato sauce and chocolate (the store had pizza and free cookies), the little one was starting to fuss and cry and the toddler was making faces. I asked what exactly she was doing, and she replied, "Baby was crying, so I was trying to make him laugh". Well, at that moment my perspective shifted and I just saw the beauty - my little girl was so sweet that she decided, totally on her own, to make her baby brother feel better because he was sad, and that was far more important than a bit of mess.

No emergencies - to me, it's obvious that you can't take this 100% literally and fail, for example, to call 911 if warranted. If you find that you are constantly reacting to things or in crisis mode, however, it's worth considering if better planning would help. This is part of standard positive parenting advice - do safety planning, have routines so the kids don't meltdown from being tired or hungry, etc.

Hugging older kids - I think that it's natural to hug babies, but all too easy to give older kids responsibilities instead of hugs. I take this as a reminder to actively make sure that you are still giving your older child love and comfort.

Points on stress and feelings - one of my favorite parenting books says that you can either get angry or you can focus on solving a problem, but you can't really do both at the same time. This advice might be intended for someone who tends to get stuck in anger or depression.

Is it part of any longer, more empathetic passage? I agree that lists won't do much good if they just make a person feel worse.