Musings on parenthood

 Two things have me thinking about motherhood today, and well, the societal state of parenthood in general I suppose. First, my boyfriend mentioned a quote from something he was reading for a project where a child (four years old) was shown some new plastic toy figures to play with and her response was "wow this is great! it's like a pretend app!". This is somewhat upsetting to me for obvious reasons. The second thing to happen was yesterday, when I came across and watched the new movie Wolf Children. There's plenty to praise about the movie (and plenty to criticize as well), but the aspect that had me thinking was the theme of being free to choose a path. The children are by necessity trapped and hidden in an urban setting, so the mother moves her family out to the far more secluded country where her little human-wolves can have the freedom to be their full selves and make their own choices for their future. 

It'd be horrifying to me, to bring a child into the world without being able to provide them with a great variety of experience, perspective and an overall respect for this life and this world. I have little cousins for whom the world is like that of the little girl who no longer even recognized toys as being real; just "pretend apps". When my cousins visit, they sit and poke furiously away at an ipad for the duration of the visit. If anyone tries to take it away for a moment, they scream. They're only 5 and 7. Their mother is on facebook more than most people I know. Screen time is fine (indeed, it'd be hypocritical of me to say otherwise) but I'd never want my life to revolve around apps and ipad games and facebook. I don't wish to live in a societal bubble and I'd never want to raise a child in that way as well. 

I hope to live somewhere where balance is more easily achieved. I want to provide any children of mine with modern medicine and social options and many wonders that technology has to offer, sure. But I also want them to have a respect and understanding for everything else that isn't "us". I don't want them to have a stunted and cartoonish sense of how our species relates to other species and to larger ecosystems. I want my backyard to be forests and streams and hidden places and open fields and rough craigs. I want cold, beautiful, ruthless and resourceful nature to be just as much their teacher as I could ever hope to be. I want them to climb and fall and explore and wade barefoot through the mud and wonder and learn and get a little lost. I want them to come home with skinned knees and rodent skulls and injured insects, as I did. I want to build things with them and go on crazy camping trips and have wonderful, hilarious and sometimes frightening misadventures. I want there to be choice and balance and variety, but I want the world beyond ipad apps and facebook and fashion trends to truly *matter*. I want to give them a thirst for the world beyond the known and experienced. 

Lucky for me I found the perfect partner, and if the time ever comes that there are children in our life, then I hope that we truly can give them that perspective and respect for the world. We have our dreams of extensive traveling and then settling down and constructing our own part-treehouse, off-grid home so if children end up figuring into that, I fervently hope that we can provide the right setting and the right lessons to keep them open-minded and awestruck about life. I don't know if I could bear to have a child of mine see the world in terms of apps and pretend apps or to be like my little cousins. The idea of such a task is quite daunting and a little terrifying. :/

For now we'll stick with our rats and our travel goals and our weird, spontaneous adventures and I'll try not to worry too much about my ability to be the right kind of teacher for a child. With any luck, I'll be ready if that point ever comes.