2 Tips on raising kids, and some random stuff, including a picture of the moon.
I never found the guide that would have been helpful, so I started creating one. This is a small part of it.
I honestly didn’t intend to push the publish button on this, but I think I’m going to. It turns out I still don’t have a “direction” or “niche” about what I feel like writing here on Substack. But I’ve been writing a lot, and have a bunch of these sort of sort essays on random topics, and it’s spurred writing outside of this arena, so I’ve been doubling down on just writing about the random here. So here we are. Todays post is about… DRUMROLL… Storage bins.
Before you pass, or think it’s inapplicable, I have this to say… You might be right. But I like to think I go a little beyond the three dimensional boxes that are storage bins. They were simply a launch into thought. So here we are.
And as a bonus, I’m adding a small section at the end on media I’ve consumed and liked this week.
I know a lot of people just getting into parenting. For myself, being a parent has defined my life more than other thing I’ve done, ever. Maybe not to outsiders, but for myself. Work has changed. Evolved. Waxed and wained in its importance to me. Friendships and how I spend free time has likewise changed and evolved over the years. But parenting has been here since the spring of 2005. Sure, I’ve changed how I approach it, but it’s been integral and central to my everyday existence and something I think about quite a bit.
Sometimes we think about the existential aspects of it. Life, death, genetics passed on, behavior learned from parents, behavior ingrained in our dna, but for the most part, simple logistics is what has been what dominates many aspects of parenting.
Do you want your kid to be endlessly entertained? Or, as has been my approach, is a little boredom a good thing. I vote boredom. Boredom is the mother of childhood invention. Kids that have it all, and have every moment of their day planned by their parents often find themselves unable to cope with the responsibilities bequeathed upon them as they age. And this is central to one of the most foundational aspects of parenting… Parents should strive to raise ADULTS, not children. Yes, they go from babies, to toddlers, to kids, to young adults… and every phase has it’s own modus operandi of interaction, but all with the same goal… we are not raising children. These humans can and should be reared to someday in their late teenage years be fully ready to act independently and confidently without your input in the world. And to this end, one of the most devastating mistakes you as a parent can make, is to always fill their time and make their decisions for them.
Of course it doesn’t start this way. A two year old is in no condition to make their own decisions. But a fifteen year old who has been guided properly through the challenges of life probably is quite close. A three year old needs to be taught what to eat. But by 16 they probably can cook much of it for themselves if needed. And while sometimes you have to tell the kids they need to try something, if after weeks of playing soccer they still hate it, maybe it’s time to find something else. The younger they are, the more you do for them, but as they grow you have to keep in mind that they need to be able to make mistakes, need to be able to get hurt, need to be able to explore more on their own. Bumps, bruises, cuts, scrapes. All good things. Confidence builders. There is a fine line between protection and over-protection. But I digress. These are the more existential components of parenting. Unavoidable, but not necessary or even healthy to over-dwell upon.
There are plenty of practical tips I wish I’d known about early on. Take for example, the box. While toddlers are developed enough to have specific and often expensive wants, it is often just the box they actually crave. A good box is often of more valuable than the thing that comes in it. I wish I’d realized sooner and saved more money. Every once in a while go find a new box. A different shape, an absurd size, whatever. Allow it to be parked in the house. Cut holes in it. Make it a fort. A sled. A slide. Boxes have endless possibilities. Blank slates are what the human mind loves. Toys that already have everything spelled out lead to boredom quickly. The kids move on. But a box offers endless opportunity.
Bins: You will want a lot of bins as a parent. The bins are more for you than the kid. They will keep you sane. The bins need to be moderated, and they will help control the level of toy dispersement throughout the house while raising children. Bins that stack neatly are a bonus, and purchase at a minimum a bin that you can live with the aesthetics of because they are going to be present in your life for a long while.
Place the bins in strategic places. In our house we kept two bins on one side of the living room. When pushed beyond the couch against the wall they were virtually unseen to the casual eye. But they contained for years all the parts necessary for nearly endless hours of frequent play… One contained a wooden train set, track, the train cars, the houses on the side, etc. The other bin contained miscellaneous toys that frequented the living room. Hot wheels, legos, balls, stuffed animals, whatever. This way they can be scooped up quickly, neat and tidy, everything feels put away at the end of most days, and your brain can enjoy for a brief moment a little clutter free peace after the kids are asleep. I am all for the chaos of kids. But I’m also all about a little sanity at the end of the day and clean house helps foster that mental space.
On the other side of the living room is another bin full of kids books. This bin sees frequent rotation from a bookshelf we keep upstairs, but it makes it more likely they get through a stack without the overwhelming number of options available on the shelf upstairs. (I’m a collector of kids books. I have been since my 20s.) Too many options of anything is overwhelming to kids. Too many books to choose from and they will chose none. The same goes for toys. Less is more.
We have in our house another room that was not used by the kids when they were little… it became a “play room.” That room had more bins. A bin for costumes. A bin for toy trucks. A bin for legos. And a bin for crafty stuff. With a good bin system kids can learn early to clean a space. Simply scoop everything into its bin. It’s good for them even at a young age to learn to deal with their shit. As they get older their methods of cleaning and organization will naturally evolve, but basic bins is a terrific starting point. And again, it makes the house that used to be child free have moments of sanity. That is good for parental health.
As you settle into parenting you realize that the house will never be the same as it was before, but it can be sane. A clean house leads to clarity of thought. It allows your minds to wander beyond its walls. For me cleaning has always been a sort of meditative act I undertake before writing. If I’ve cleaned the house, my mind has time to process what has been going through it the last several hours, even days, and I can put those thoughts away in their own mental bins. And from clarity comes creativity. I also sleep better knowing I’ll at least get to start the day with a clean house, even if it goes to chaos an hour later.
TOOTHBRUSHES AND GERMS
You are having kids. Congratulations. You are about to enter an era where you get sick with more frequency than you’ve experienced since you yourself were a child. Buckle up.
If you keep your child at home the first few years you have a buffer, but eventually that sweet little child will be out in the real world, either at a day care or a school (unless of course you homeschool) and they will bring back with them from wherever they go a daily dose of hellish germs along with them. Those germs will bring colds, flu, and whatever unsettling things you can theorize, and others you can’t. And if you aren’t prepared, you are going to get all these things yourself. Actually, even if you are prepared it’s going to get you. These small monkeys carry countless sicknesses back to your home.
But good news. There are some basics that can help. Obviously hand washing is a good habit to be in. But there are some other basics. After one particularly fun snotty bout I paused one day in the bathroom in disbelief at a daily habit we’d fallen into, which started innocently enough and had gone a couple years without much thought of incident, but then it struck me… our toothbrushes were being kept in the same vertical cup with our childs. FFS. I immediately went and found individual cups for each toothbrush. I began putting my own into my personal dopp kit that until then had been used only for travel. The kids toothbrushes were moved to the other side of the counter from my wife’s (she wanted hers out… I offered to put it away like mine.) I tried to convince her she’d be better off putting hers away like I had my own but she felt some sort alliance with them by keeping hers in the open. I attribute this alliance to several colds she succumbed to that I did not. She would point out that as their mother she is clung to, puked on, sneezed on, and has her face coughed on with more regularity than me, and there is no denying that is the case, however, there is also the matter of her toothbrush, out there in full view of all passing bathroom sneezes, coughs, sputters, etc.
For me, I recommend individualized tooth brush storage systems. It’s an easy way to avoid one another’s germs.
Ok. You are going to get sick as a parent. Get ready. But here is the good thing. You also will find that you are less affected by sickness based simply on the fact that you can’t be. You have to be up and going every single day of your life now. Kids don’t take vacations. And with this knowledge now forever in the back of your mind you slowly build more fortitude as a human. It’s weird. But true.
This week was busy. I wrote a few essays on paper that I was hoping to transcribe here but it’s Thursday, I still have a busy day ahead of me, and those will all have to wait. But here are a few of the media pieces I’ve read or listened to this week:
RACKET NEWS published THIS PIECE and it’s well worth reading. As main stream media seems ever more disconnected from the realities of people living the average American life, Racket News has become one of the most worth while news streams I’m more than happy to pay for to support.
Along the line of news I also recently subscribed to COUNTY HIGHWAY - AMERICA’S ONLY NEWSPAPER. And it’s fantastic. A little irreverence mixed with some obscure, but solid writing and covering from a real world angle that corporate journalism lost years ago. And you can not read it online. It is analog only and I love that. I’ve been looking for excuses to get me off my damn phone and laptop for news/entertainment media consumption, and this is one of my favorites.
Do you listen to Rich Roll? I don’t, but I came across this interview with Scott Galloway and enjoyed it far more than I thought I would. I’ll dive into more podcasts with Rich Roll and certainly want to dive further into Scott Galloways work.
I came across this podcast interview with
on the Over-Therapification of America. This made an hour + trail run that I otherwise would have been thinking about my sore legs (I should have been taking the day off running, but when it’s this nice out in Montana I simply couldn’t) go fast. I actually tacked on more distance so I could finish the interview. It goes into a lot of things, but one of my key take aways is that we have a lot of untrained people incessantly telling our kids they are weak and need help when they are simply going through every day life development, and it’s starting to show across society. Kids can and should do hard things. Life is challenging. We don’t need to constantly barrage them with “help” that isn’t actually helping anything. Great interview.
So hoping for a little free time to transcribe a few essays from paper to pixels, maybe over the weekend. As I said before, it’s been wildly beautiful in Montana this week, and any free time has been spent outside the doors. I’m making concerted efforts to curb my incessant phone checking. Tips? I’m open. I’m making steadfast efforts to reduce my consumption of brainless media and try to consume media that has had some thought and interesting perspective put into it. (And here I am writing about bins and boxes for kids, lol. I’m doomed.) One consideration is to get an Apple Watch so my family can still get ahold of me, but so that I don’t have the device to habitually pull out and look at. Have you tried this? I’d love to hear if it’s been helpful or just another distraction.
