Your Rich Ancestry

To my Little Lion,

We’ve been reading up on the RIE (Resources for Infant Educarers) philosophy of Magda Gerber in more depth since you were born. We were already familiar with the basic principles from observing practicing friends, reading the introductory literature and hosting a RIE-class at our home before you were born. But now we’re eagerly doubling down to make sure we really understand it. The information is digested quite differently when a child like you isn’t a theoretical possibility but a living, breathing actuality. We want to try to get it right.

One of the things Magda Gerber stresses is that the most important thing we as your parents have to teach you is who we are as people. Everything we do and say in front of you you will be paying attention to and learning from. You’ll be internalizing ideas about what is normal, what is desirable, what is ideal or typical for parents, for adults, for people who are more powerful than you in various ways, etc. You’ll also be looking at us as examples of how to relate to oneself, and to others– is it with compassion, empathy, respect and benevolence? Or is it a pattern of vindictiveness, aggressive assertiveness, leverage and manipulation?

We feel relieved that this is really all we need to teach you, although it’s an epic task by itself! It makes sense to us also that this is really all we CAN teach you. If it was a parent’s job to teach their child everything they needed to know, every parent would be bound to fail from the get go. No parents are omniscient because no people are, and parents vary in their ability to communicate and educate about key ideas. But teaching who we are is something any parent can do and will do, as it happens normally in the course of living one’s life. We’re going to be mindful of this reality as we learn more about you, and you learn more about us.

One thing may give you pause, though– we will know almost everything about you, because we will have known you since the moment you were born. But we have lived for several decades before you arrived, and even if we do not mean or want to keep secrets, we can not possibly recount every detail of our lives as they existed prior to your arrival. We will try to share with you what we think is important and worth knowing, but you should understand that there is some bias inherent in this selection and try as we might, we may not always be objective in the telling of the facts. As always, it will be up to you to ask questions and make up your own mind. We hope we can be faithful partners in that process.

Now, there are other things that we can teach you and that we want to teach you, especially things we feel especially well-suited to provide guidance and our individual experience about. Your mother, the Wolf, is a talented home cook despite a lack of professional training, and she is eager to share her skill and passion with you if you’re interested. Your father is a bibliophile and has many books and stories to share with you, and years of methodology on how to extract the most juice from the pulp. These are just a few examples, there are many others.

Aside from teaching you about ourselves and modeling what it is we can model for you, you have a wealth of other family members and family friends who can enrich your life with other skills and wisdom as well.

Your Auntie Lionesses are students of film and photography, business and marketing, athleticism and foreign languages. One has picked up the guitar, which your father has never managed to learn but which he just might if you wanted to give it a go together. They can model great compassion and kindness for you.

Your Grandpa Lion is a mechanical person. He didn’t manage to impart many of these skills to your father, but he can probably be convinced to make good on that missed opportunity by teaching you how to use simple tools and DIY around the house, how to work on cars and motorcycles and other things with engines and transmissions. He’s also an outstanding businessman and leader. He knows how to rally excellent people to a cause he believes in and drive the effort forward to a successful conclusion, a timeless social skill you will benefit from immensely if you can learn it from him. Your Grandma Lion is extremely artistic and creative, with a strong eye for design. She can teach you about how to create a warm, decorated home environment, how to develop style in your clothing. Your Grandma Wolf can teach you about what it is like to grow up in another country, and the experience of leaving home behind to start over in some place unfamiliar. She can model what it means to work hard, which means getting on with life and its challenges and doing it with a smile. She can help you grow up to be bilingual so you’ll have an immediate advantage in your future travels, business opportunities and relationships.

Your mother and father have so may close personal friends with endless things you can learn about from them. One is a pioneer with his family, literally hacking a living out of a remote jungle location far from us. Another is learned in the ways of artisanal butchery and can teach you all about the cultivation and processing of nutritious animal proteins. We have friends who have had corporate careers, and those who are entrepreneurs. We know people who are incredible professional investors and people who are thrifty amateurs. We know people who know all about how to have a good time and others who know about being serious and keeping one’s head down. If you desire a balanced life, you’ll want to consider all these examples and choose what makes the most sense to you.

You have great grandparents and practically innumerable aunts, uncles and cousins on both sides of your family. Your life is so abundant and rich in so many ways, the biggest challenge you will have will most likely be taking advantage of it all– you won’t have enough time or interest, so you’ll need to learn to be selective.

When people think of education, they primarily think of books and schools. There will be some of that in your learning process, no doubt, but where you can learn the most is by interacting with other capable people. Just like us, they can model who they are and what they know and love and in so doing offer you a wealth of ideas on how to get the most out of your life.

All of this you get just for showing up in life!

Notes About The First Ten Days Of Your Life

To my Little Lion,

I wanted to share some observations about the condition of your world at the time of and shortly after your birth, just ten days ago. It may interest you to look back on this some day, and it will be of benefit to me and your mother to remind ourselves of our good fortune, and yours.

You were born during the Winter Solstice last year (it’s New Year’s Day today, so I can already say “last year”, as if you’ve been around so long… we’re already shocked when we realize you have not been around even a month) and what’s more, you were born during a rain storm, the rarest of rare weather conditions where we currently live. Your mother and I are not superstitious people and we don’t believe there is any cosmic agency behind the concurrence of these events, I just find them remarkable because of their natural beauty, much like the nearly perfect weather conditions this morning when I finally took our dog for a walk– cool, breezy, clear, sunny, good visibility all the way off the coast to the island, fresh smelling air after another night’s rainfall.

You were born at home, as planned. The Wolf and I planned for months for that moment, as you were slowly growing inside of her belly, because we thought it gave the most advantages to you and to us. All of our friends who have had children describe the happiest part of the birth of their children as the moment they were released from the hospital and able to come home. We figured, why not just start at home and skip a few steps? We valued the privacy of it, as well. Your mother could labor anywhere she felt comfortable doing so, in an environment she knew well, with only your father and the three birth attendants (the midwife, the midwife-in-training and the doula to comfort your mother) nearby. We looked at your birth as a natural, healthy process and we were concerned that bringing you into the world in a hospital would encourage everyone around you to try to notice what might be wrong with you and your health, rather than what is right. It’s not that we’re anti-hospitals, and we appreciate that we live nearby one in case we needed extra help in bringing you into the world, we just try to live our lives simply and it seemed like we could do without. Your mother took great care to eat well, exercise, think happy thoughts, read a lot about you and how you were growing and how you’d be when you arrived, and so it seemed with such low risks to keep it that way by having you at home.

What did not go as planned was the specific day you decided to arrive! We were expecting you a few weeks from the day you were born. The Wolf and I were methodically going through our preparation checklists each day and week as your expected due date got closer. The day you were born, I was supposed to run to the market and start stocking up on supplies to feed your mother and the birth team. I didn’t get there in time! Your mother started laboring early in the morning and had pushed you out (without any drugs or medical intervention) by the afternoon! We didn’t even get the birth tub here in time for your water birth, she had you right on the bed you sleep in with us at night. The midwife was very kind and let me “catch” you as you came out. It was an exhilarating experience to grab your wet, slippery, bony, hot little body for the first time and lift you up and place you on your mother’s chest. We didn’t know what you’d be — a little boy or a little girl, though your mother says she secretly suspected you were a boy, and every passerby on our daily walks thought for sure you were a boy from the way your mother was carrying you, which is more superstition — but we were excited that you were what you were, if that makes any sense!

The birth team was so great with your mother. The doula arrived first and comforted your mother. Even though you couldn’t LEGALLY be delivered in our own bath tub (well, your bath tub, in your room), which I will tell you more about such silliness when you’re older, your mother labored in there with the doula while we waited for the midwife and her assistant to arrive. Everyone encouraged your mother and gave her the confidence and support she needed to bring you out, even though your father didn’t have any food or drink for anyone!

Your Grandma and Grandpa Lion came over to visit that first night and brought your mother and I some much needed food. They were so excited to see you! Your Grandma Wolf came a few days later, she lives a few thousand miles away and had to quickly change her plane tickets to be able to see you. She’s with us now and will be for the next few weeks. She is a big help for your mother and father, helping with sweeping, cleaning up dishes (your father is rediscovering his penchant for cooking these past few weeks), caring for your dog, doing laundry and even spending time with you which is really her greatest reward. She does all the hard work without complaint, with a smile on her face, getting to spend time with you for even a moment seems to make it all worthwhile to her. Even when you poop and pee on her, the chair, the floor and your dog during your “air time”. (Oh, and your Grandma Wolf is super obsessed with you staying warm, she is always chiding me about it.)

Your Auntie Lionesses came by and pitched in, too. They helped change bed sheets, sweep floors and they gave your mother and father an awesome early Christmas gift– six nights of meals that we packaged and put in the freezer to make more time available for me and your mother to spend with you. You’ve had a few visitors already, mostly your mother’s friends and some of Grandma and Grandpa Lion’s friends. They’ve bought food, gifts and good wishes. We didn’t have a name for you at first. Well, we did, but we hadn’t settled on it. So the first five days of your life created an obsessive mystery for many of the people who care about you. We “revealed” your name on Christmas Day while visiting at Grandma and Grandpa Lion’s house and everyone was overjoyed. Your Grandpa Wolf doesn’t get to meet you, but he gets to enjoy being part of your namesake, which we hope you will be able to appreciate some day.

As I said before, it is hard for your mother and I to believe you’ve only been with us for ten days now. All you know of the world is our bedroom, our living room, our kitchen, the view of the sky on the way to the local bakery and back, the ceiling of your mother’s car, and a few rooms of Grandma and Grandpa Lion’s house. The only people you know about are the few people who have come to see you so far, and most of them looked like funny blurs to you that you couldn’t focus on. You might imagine there are three animals in the whole world, your dog and your grandma and grandpa’s two dogs. We try to keep remembering that everything is new to you right now and everything will be new to you for years to come– you will need patience and your own space to learn and explore the vast diversity of the world and to make sense of it all.

We spend time holding you, but we also give you time on your back — on the bed, on the couch, not yet on the floor but eventually — to look around and move your body on your own. Your movements are jittery and random, but they have great meaning and importance to you. You are working on developing yourself, even when you’re moving around in your sleep, trying to become the person you will be. We don’t ever want to forget that, or try to hurry it, or expect anything of you but that. We resist as much as we can the temptation to “pattern-fit” your behavior right now, especially when people ask silly but well-intentioned questions like “How is he sleeping?”, “How is he eating?” etc. The answer is always, just as you are supposed to, whatever that is each day and night, it’s always changing because you’re always changing, getting a little older and a little bit further along your own plan each moment.

There’s so much more I could say, but this is what I want to focus on for now. Raising you is indeed a challenge, but it’s a challenge we chose and it’s a challenge we love (even aside from all the help we’ve gotten so far). We look forward to each day with you!