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Nov. 11, 2012 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
43:09
2255 Dayna Martin and Stefan Molyneux: Philosophical Parenting Part 2
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All right, ladies and gentlemen, we are back.
A dynamic duo of fairly reasonably decent internet popularity, I would say.
It's the Dana and Steph show.
And thanks to everybody who emailed saying that it was great to have her on.
It was a great rapport, great conversation.
And so welcome back, Dana Martin of danamartin.com.
Thank you.
Thanks so much.
It's great to be back.
So, I was mentioning just before we started the danification of my family, because I thought I was a fairly liberal parent, and it turned out that apparently I had a mustache, a little square paintbrush mustache, a little Charlie Chaplin mustache, and my daughter, unfortunately, was not goose-stepping with her feet high enough.
So, I've tried to liberalize that, and I've had some success, I'll share.
So, My daughter is Fruit Loops.
I mean, if she could grind them up and snort them like a Hollywood executive, she would.
She loves Fruit Loops, which she's had once or twice at a hotel we've stayed at.
And so the other day, gritted and she wanted more Fruit Loops for breakfast.
Gritted my teeth.
Wanted more Fruit Loops.
Gritted my teeth.
Go ahead, honey.
Explained to her about the sugar.
We've been talking about it and so on.
She just kept eating them.
Ate a whole bowl.
And since then...
She's not wanted Froot Loops at all.
In fact, she's even, you know, they put these things at evil, sinister children's eye height in the supermarket, and we were walking past them to get some porridge, and she just walked right past.
And it's like, I almost wanted to point out, Your crack is there, honey.
I mean, but she just walked right past, has not had any particular interest in Froot Loops.
So I must say that the first pass appears that your evil witchy ways do seem to have some validity to them.
And so we're looking at expanding that to other areas.
So has that sort of been in accordance with your experience as well?
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I think if children have the freedom, they're going to make, you know, really good choices, just like we do most of the time as adults.
Sometimes they'll have their moments where they'll, you know, splurge on something more than other times.
But, yeah, that's been my experience.
Wow, it's kind of freaky.
I feel like it's, you know, these aren't the droids you're looking at.
This is kind of a Jedi mind trick.
But it has taken a kind of chafey battle about sugar and has kind of reframed it so that...
We can discuss it in other ways.
Like we were doing this roleplay the other day where I was playing the tongue and she was playing the rest of the body.
And the tongue wanted lots of sugar, but the rest of the body didn't want so much sugar.
And we were sort of playing, I want sugar, says the tongue.
I don't want sugar, says the bowels and the belly and the teeth and all that.
So I found it's actually helped me because I'm not controlling her food nearly as much, if at all.
I have found that I have to be more creative in getting...
Ideas across to her that are important for her health, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, for sure.
It definitely brings out the creativity in you as a parent when you're walking this path.
I love that opportunity to be able to explain, and it provides opportunity to share about information that is important with your kids.
So it sounds like you're doing just that.
That's awesome.
Yes.
Now, so a couple of questions that I've had.
What would you say to parents who would make the argument, That they would only spank as a last resort.
I have my own thoughts about it, but let's get your thoughts, of course.
First, what would you say to a parent who made that argument?
I mean, there would never need to be, you know, a last resort from my perspective.
If you're focusing on the needs under the child's behavior, once the needs are met or you're helping facilitate meeting those needs, there shouldn't ever be a situation for a last resort.
Of course, I don't agree with spanking on any level.
I think it's abuse and so I am not in alignment for that.
The last resort comment for sure.
Yeah, I also think that if you have Aggression in your back pocket, it really changes the whole interaction, right?
So, you know, if I sort of went up to a woman and said, or maybe a woman I knew when I said, I'd really like to ask you out, and in the back of my mind was like, I hope she says yes, because if she says no, I have to put her in my windowless van and take her to my basement.
I mean, like, well, I obviously want her to go out with me voluntarily, but if it doesn't work, I will chloroform her and put her in a case.
That would change the way that I ask.
It would change the whole interaction, and of course it would make it much likely to get a completely creepy vibe from me and not want to have anything to do with me, thus provoking the chloroform and windowless van option.
Or if I said, well, I really want an iPad by the end of the month, I guess I'll either get a job and try and save for it, or if I can't do that, I'll just go steal it.
Because I would have...
Some negative interaction as my backup.
I think that would really influence how I interacted up front.
I mean, if I had the option of stealing it, which would be okay, I would be much less likely to work and earn for it.
And so I found that as I have stopped controlling as a parent, it has really opened up a lot of creativity, which because I had the option of restricting her diet and so on before, it's really opened up a lot of creativity, which isn't there if you have that as an option.
Right.
And not only is that kind of perspective that you're going to spank someone as a last resort, it's such a narcissistic focus because it's not even taking into account the child's needs.
And in a partnership parenting paradigm, you're focusing on the needs of the parent and the child.
The parent's needs are just as important.
So if I was working with that family, I would just find out what is pushing this child to Get to the point of feeling like it's the last resort for you.
What needs aren't being met?
What you're sharing, too, is children learn what they live.
If you're spanking a child, they're learning that power rules and that's how they're going to go about their whole life.
Partnership parenting takes more time to find those win-win situations, to get creative, but in the long run, it's really promoting world peace on a little mini microcosm.
It's an old statement but a true one.
The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.
Now another question that I had came from a number of single parents who were thrilled by what mainly you were talking about in our last show but did not know exactly how they could bring these principles to bear when like in the single parent unschooling and so on if you're a single parent you probably have heard this before but what are your thoughts about that?
There are so many single parents unschooling.
I have a conference in New Hampshire called the Life Rocks Conference, and we have probably, you know, a dozen single moms and dads coming to the event.
I personally am really good friends with a lot of single parents that are unschooling.
They find lots of ways to make it work.
Connecting with other people, you know, that are walking this path is really helpful.
You know, you can exchange babysitting or, you know, make sure the care provider you have for your child is really aware of Your perspective and your philosophy.
So it's so doable.
If you Google unschooling and single parenting, you'll get a lot of information.
Okay.
So it's not a barrier that should be of any...
I mean, obviously, it's a little easier as parenting as a whole, but it's not a barrier that we should provide as an excuse to not do it.
Exactly.
No.
For sure not.
Okay.
And another question, or I guess comment, that I got from our last show.
Is there a limit where you have found that it's really hard to go in terms of the laissez-faire and negotiating approach to parenting?
Where were your barriers in the pursuit of this process?
I mean, just tuning into my own authentic feelings.
If something's feeling like I'm getting tired or hungry or it's something I don't really want to do, I communicate that as peacefully as I can.
There's only so many hours I can...
Play Barbies on the floor.
I don't really get into that so much, you know, but a lot of times my daughters want me to hang out there and play, and I do the best I can, but I kind of struggle with that kind of play sometimes, so I tell them, you know, I'm kind of feeling like I'm not, my heart's not into this right now, but I'll sit with you guys, and you mind if I flip through a magazine, and I'll be present with you if you'd like, and you know, so we try to figure it out together.
Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't allow myself to be hurt.
You know, I always like to say that, you know, your freedom is only, you know, your freedom ends where somebody else's begins.
So if it's offending somebody in the family, something somebody's doing, we talk about that.
So it's not about just anything goes all the time, total chaos.
Our life doesn't look like that at all.
In fact, it's a lot of discussion, a lot of, you know, communicating other people's needs when they might not have the ability to at the moment and negotiating and, you know, We try to make it peaceful, but, you know, with siblings, sometimes it gets kind of crazy, but...
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I find that sometimes...
Sorry, go ahead.
I was going to say, you know, to answer your question, do I have a limit with a laissez-faire kind of approach?
You know, for one, I don't really...
Did I lose you, Stefan?
No.
Okay, cool.
I heard something a little pop up.
Good boy.
Good boy.
Okay.
Okay, what was the next question?
I'm sorry.
Oh, yeah.
So the next...
I mean, it's more of a comment, really, that I really enjoy the fantasy play with my daughter.
But yes, there's a certain amount of time after which I'm just not that into it anymore.
I'm a little tired of it.
And I mean, I think that the children really need honesty.
I do sort of have, I guess, in my head the meta plan of parenting, right?
So I want to engage with her.
I want her...
I want to play with her.
I don't want to miss those opportunities and all this kind of stuff.
But at the same time, I also want to make sure that she has the capacity to play on her own, to not necessarily always need, you know, mega creative fantasy dad coming in and, you know, rocking the abstract play.
And so I do find that...
And I also want her to learn...
For instance, take an interest in reading through watching me read, because if I'm always playing with her, I'm not actually showing her any adult behavior that she can pattern herself after.
But there is this point to me where I say, she's like, oh, daddy, come play with me.
And if I've been doing it for an hour or two or three or whatever, I don't really feel like doing it anymore, then I do feel that honesty is always the best approach in those situations, even though I have a script in my head which was saying, A really good parent would...
But I always try to veer back to just being honest with her in the moment and recognizing that giving her the opportunity for self-play and also having her say, see me read a book is not the worst thing in the world either.
Right.
I think that, you know, kids know if your heart's not in it.
And my kids can always pick up on that.
Like, they know if I'm not into something that we're doing.
And you can't just go through the motions.
I mean, so being authentic is so important to me as a parent, you know, and telling them how I'm feeling.
I can remember people going through the motions with me as a kid, and then I so felt that they didn't even want to be connecting with me, but they felt like they should.
So I think it's kind of dropping the shoulds and moving forward with what feels best in each individual situation with your kids.
When you do that, when you're authentic, your cup is so much more full to be able to interact more.
And I think one of the biggest Difficulties for a lot of parents walking this path, I find, is meeting their own needs.
It's almost like people think that you're just running around meeting your children's needs all day, but you'd get really burnt out by facilitating the learning of, in my situation, four kids.
So, if I'm feeling tired or hungry or I just need to go for a walk, it's so important for me to meet my own needs, to be present and have a full cup and have a positive attitude most of the time.
That's a challenge for people, I think.
Yeah, and in terms of...
I want, obviously, my daughter to extend her long view of what is going to make her successful and happy and healthy and all that kind of stuff.
Extending the chocolate in the moment versus the feeling good in an hour.
And so to do that, I found...
And I've actually explained this to her.
if I end up playing with her when I don't feel like it, or if I end up playing with her longer than I want to, I actually don't look forward as much to playing with her next time, because then it's going into like the roach motel of play.
You check in, but you can't check out again.
And so we really, I think as parents, want to guard the pleasure that we have with our children.
And that means not doing stuff because of a should, but doing stuff out of a genuine desire.
Right.
And, you know, I interact the same with my husband.
I If he's showing me something that he's really interested in and I'm starting to fade, I might say, okay, babe, that was awesome, but do you want to do something else?
It's kind of your thing, and I'm right on board with it, but I'm kind of bored of what we're talking about, of where we're going now.
It's the same kind of respectful communication that I'd have with a best friend or my husband I would have with my kids in regards to how I'm feeling in the moment with whatever we're doing.
Yeah, I mean, I'm probably not quite as clear as you are.
I actually, I pretend to faint.
So I try and turn it into a medical emergency, make it all about me, and that does actually get me out of the situation.
Of course, the challenge is, if you're going to pretend to faint, as I learned recently, do not faint in the direction where there's something hard, because it may actually become a lot more realistic.
Than you're hoping for.
I haven't done that with my daughter yet, because obviously I don't want to scare her when she's too young, but my wife certainly doesn't.
You know, I'm dropping like nine pins sometimes.
She doesn't even notice anymore.
But I like your approach, too.
I think there's something to be said for that directness as well.
I don't know.
I kind of want to do the fainting thing now.
It's actually quite a lot of fun if you give it a shout.
Again, if you're bored on the stairs...
Wait till you're at the bottom.
Otherwise, you really do pull all kinds of stunt moves, which may be inadvertent.
I'll make sure that Devin's videotaping will be a great YouTube.
You could just get a montage of them if you end up doing this quite a bit.
Now, let's talk a little bit about the conference that's going on next year.
Well, I run two conferences in the country.
One is in New Hampshire, and it's the first week of April.
It's called the Life Rocks Conference.
And then I run the conference that I've recently taken on.
I was asked to take over the Rethinking Everything Conference, which is in its 17th year in Texas at the end of August.
So that's a new endeavor for me.
It's really exciting.
I'm actually really honored to have you attending, speaking, where so many people are excited about you coming out to Texas and doing that.
So, yeah, it's a big event.
A lot of families from all over the world attend both of these events.
I think it's one of the best things, it seems like especially for dads in my experience for, you know, a lot of times it's the mothers that are kind of researching alternatives.
And, you know, dads, you know, philosophically can get it, but to be around a bunch of families that are walking this path, it so reinforces it for so many people.
You know, especially talking to my husband after his first unschooling conference, he was like, wow, you know, I didn't know what to expect, what the people would be like at this type of event.
And they're just, you know, Average people.
They're doctors and lawyers and people from all different professions and entrepreneurs.
It's not just fringe people walking this path.
It's really coming into a more mainstream awareness that this is it.
Tides are turning.
You know, it wasn't that long ago that men were told to beat their wives if dinner wasn't on the table on time.
They were told by their fathers, by their brothers, by their community that you're supposed to train up a woman to obey you.
That's what this is all about.
And, you know, look how far we've come since then.
And in my opinion, the same exact shift is happening in regards to children and children's rights.
So it's kind of like the leading edge conferences in my eyes.
And yeah, if you want to know more information, go to my website, danamartin.com, and I'm happy to Yeah, I certainly think that my daughter is not very impressed with my speeches so far.
She's seen a few of them, and she is very clear that they're very dull for her.
So I've actually asked her, and I'm going to obviously bring this to bear on the August 1 in Texas, I've asked her how I can make my speeches more exciting.
There seem to be three things that are required.
One is more frogs.
And Texas obviously has a lot of frogs.
As far as YouTube says, they seem to be quite enormous.
So I'm going to figure out how to work out frogs.
Probably be somewhere in my clothing.
Give me a very animated speech as they move around.
The second is I need more dancers.
Actually, I just need dancers.
She's offered to be one, and she's got some pretty spectacular moves.
Most of which just involve hurling herself at various pieces of furniture.
And third, confetti cannons.
We saw those the other day.
And so obviously we'll be arranging all of this ahead of time, but it is going to be a very child-friendly speech.
It just may be a little confusing for the adults.
So, you know, try and get as much feedback from my daughter as possible.
I'm sorry?
I can facilitate all of that for you at Rethinking Conference for sure.
Well, I feel I just need to raise the ante then.
We need giraffes and we need cannons.
Yeah.
I'm a challenge.
I can probably get it all.
So you let me know what you need and we'll hook you up.
Fantastic.
Man, if I could work a frog into my speech, my daughter would go completely mental.
It's her favorite thing these days is frogs.
I'll remember that.
Now, is there a transition?
Your kids, of course, are a little older than my kids or my kid.
What are the transitions in peaceful or participative parenting over the The great threshold of puberty, is there anything that changes in particular during that, what is for a lot of parents a lot more of a challenging time?
You know, it's funny, you hear so much about teen rebellion in our culture, and in my experience with my own kids and with other unschoolers who are teens, the teen rebellion thing never happens.
I mean, I've never gone through it.
When there's nothing to rebel against, It's a whole different dynamic.
And so, you know, as far as puberty goes, like I think, you know, being aware of mood swings and those kind of things and, you know, again, focusing on the needs under the behavior.
You know, sometimes my kids will, just like me, I mean, get moody sometimes.
And I know that's due to hormones at times.
But as far as like the teen years, I haven't experienced any teen rebellion.
My child's partner, Devin and I, are really, you know, he's one of my best friends and we can stay up all night talking or, you know, Go shopping for clothes together.
I mean, just the typical mother-son things, but then in addition, we have a real friendship and a partnership that I value so much.
It is interesting.
I was not really expecting the degree to which I admire my daughter.
Just as a human being, her confidence, her energy, her enthusiasm, her friendliness, also her judge of character, which I think is very good.
I was really quite surprised at that, and I was also very much surprised Like, she's genuinely hilarious.
She will actually make me double over in laughter.
And not like cute kid stuff, but like really, really funny stuff.
And I really was quite surprised at how much, quote, adult characteristics are available to, I mean, she's still three, and she still does stuff that is, I mean, the other day, right, she just, we were just chatting away in the car, there was a short pause, she says, Daddy, are babies people?
And then we talked about that for a while, and then she said, and are children people?
We talked about, oh yes, they're the most important people.
They're people first, because if they're not people, nobody else gets to be people.
And then she said, do babies think?
And she's like, whoa.
You know, to pull over the car, you know, and okay, let's get eye contact.
It's a big question, you know, and so we were chatting.
I've had some developmental psychologists on my show to talk about that, Alison Gopnik and so on.
We were talking about that, and I really, I'm like, literally, I'm driving in a daze, you know, I mean, a very lucid and well-driven daze, but it is amazing to me the degree to which I forget that I'm talking to a child, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, completely.
In fact, we talk about, you know, I never knew I would be like this type of parent ever.
If you would have told me 15 years ago that I'd be walking this path, I would have never believed you.
It just happened and unfolded so organically.
You know, the things that I thought would be hard to talk about, like sex and drugs and like heavy issues, alcohol and, you know, media, you know, horror movies.
I mean, you name it.
All these things that I thought would be so hard aren't.
They're easy.
And they just, because we've always like just talked about things openly.
And so there's a lot of parenting myths that I feel like, you know, walking this path that I've been able to kind of blow out of the water for myself personally from Teen Rebellion to, you know, You know, just being able to talk about anything.
My kids are free to ask me anything, and I'm happy to share.
There are times where, you know, inside I'll turn a little red, like, wow, I'm really grateful they're able to just come out and ask me this.
But then I'm, like, kind of working through my old past conditioning with certain things, because I would never have asked my parents some of these really blunt questions.
But, yeah, they're amazing.
I'm in awe of my kids every day.
It's true.
Oh, I remember another question that I got, which was...
If you have a very different style of parenting relative to how you were parented, have you found or have you heard whether this causes any discomfort or problems with grandparents who obviously have an idea of how children should be raised and are seeing something very different happen than what they did?
Yeah, I mean, in my own experience, honestly, you know, my in-laws live right behind us and it's been extremely challenging right up until, you know, even yesterday.
You know, we get letters from them, you know, saying how much they disagree with it and the kids should be in school and, you know, it's been really hard to the point where we're considering, like, moving because we've tried everything for a decade, you know, from We thought we'd be the example.
You know, I kept saying to myself, to my husband, like, once the kids get older and they see how awesome they are and that they do know how to read and they're wonderful and caring and they go for hikes down the road and pick up trash and, you know, just the things that they do amaze me.
But yet, I think if somebody already is, like, so against it, they're going to focus on everything negative that they see.
So, I personally have had a lot of challenges with in-laws who are not supportive And then on the other hand, I have a mother and a stepfather who are extremely supportive, so I'm lucky.
I get to experience both sides of it.
But, yeah, it hasn't been easy.
Yeah, I mean, there is, of course, the great belief, which tragically so often turns out to be a fantasy, that people who disagree with us when irrefutable evidence, empirical evidence, and rational theory begins to pile up that they're going to change their mind.
mind, but science seems to indicate that for the majority of people, if they are directly shown data that contradicts their prior prejudices, those prior prejudices actually get reinforced in some bizarre alchemy.
It actually, time goes backwards, up is down, black is white, and data which contradicts your position gets borged in, turned upside down, and ends up reinforcing your position.
So it's not too shocking that, you know, we sort of cross our fingers and say, yes, but the evidence, the evidence, right?
I mean, in the political scene and the economic scene, you know, for...
50, 60 years, people have been saying that the statism is going to lead to bad things.
Now the bad things are here.
People are even more into statism than they were before.
It's quite mad.
So, yeah, I'm sorry about that.
That is difficult and frustrating.
But I love that it gives me such insight, working with families and when I'm doing conference talks, I can really share from the heart how it feels.
I've been trying to practice what I preach.
I've been extending this philosophy to other people in my life, my family, my friends, and I try so hard with my mother-in-law to focus on the needs under her behavior.
I keep telling myself, let's focus on what we have in common.
But after a decade of trying to do that, it's like hitting my head up against the wall at this point.
So time to move on.
I'm sorry about that.
That's very hard there.
And how is it, your kids with the grandparents, particularly the ones who are more negative?
Well, it's really interesting because I've always wanted them just to, you know, have their own relationship.
But, you know, time and time again, they come home from visiting and saying, you know, Nana wouldn't give me something unless I said please in the way that she wanted.
Or, you know, she's so focused on obedience.
And, you know, I believe the kids will use manners when they're grateful and it feels best for them, too, in the same way I do.
But she's really into the mode of training them.
And they don't respond well to it.
It confuses them.
It's degrading.
And so they end up coming home after half an hour and say, Nana was being mean.
You know, they really just perceive it as mean, even though I know in my heart it's like another form of, you know, dynamic that adults have with kids and I try to explain it to them.
And they're getting it more and more, but they just think it's ridiculous when they hear a parent talking to their kids disrespectfully.
Hmm.
just felt the chill batwing of another possibility of liberalizing myself as a parent.
So let's talk a little bit.
Let's talk a little bit about manners.
Let me walk into the valley of the shadow of death to the sunlight of reason and peace beyond.
Because, you know, if my daughter basically says, get me a drink, I feel that kind of like a negative experience.
And I've tried to explain to her, you know, when you want a favor, please is a way of saying, I'm not ordering you, but I'm asking you and it would be nice if.
And but I'm sort of at the point where and she's she's making progress on it.
But what are your thoughts about the please and the thank yous of the little little positive social lubricants that I mean, I was trained, of course, and I want to make sure it's not that training to to replicate itself this way.
But it does kind of sting a little bit if she just kind of gives me a little order.
Yeah, and that is such an opportunity to, like, when we're triggered like that, it tends to make us think back to our own childhood and how we were raised.
And, you know, there's so many feelings I have about the please and thank you thing.
For one, if I do realize that my husband doesn't always say please to me, and I don't always say please to him, yet I know, you know, when we're together that he is grateful.
And, you know, I don't know percentage-wise how often adults say please and thank you, but people generally don't extend that same kind of understanding to kids.
So if one of my kids, you know, asks me for something like your daughter, I try to approach it and respond as if they asked me in the nicest way possible, like unconditionality, like unconditional love, unconditional response.
There are times where I will say, you know, thank you for my child, like if we're out in public and somebody gives them something and I know that maybe they're feeling shy.
A lot of times if kids are feeling shy, they don't know somebody, they may not say thank you.
So I will just be their voice in public and I'll just say, oh, thank you so much.
And instead of putting my child on the spot and embarrassing them, because I remember what that felt like.
I will be their voice in public.
And then at home, I mean, things unfold where they do say thank you very often.
So the times where they forget or overlook it, I don't sweat it.
I know they're grateful.
So, you know, forcing a child to say please and thank you, you know, what do you say?
I mean, that's really just demanding obedience.
It's not developing real gratitude in the human being.
So I think that's...
Yes, it's manipulating the behavior, not allowing for the source to...
Right, and I don't think there's anything wrong with discussion or talking about it, you know, saying like, you know, Nana really likes when we use manners and please and thank you before we go up, just to give you a heads up.
That's kind of where she's at.
So, you know, if you can remember, and if not, I'm happy to help out and I'll be your voice, you know, at the times where you do forget.
So it's that true partnership.
And knowing that they're As long as you're being polite to them, kids learn from modeling.
They learn through how you are in this world.
So I take the full responsibility to use manners and say please and thank you to them and to others in my life.
And in turn, that's how they learn the social etiquette.
Right, right.
And what about when...
The toys and various detritus of childhood appear to be like a massive Japanese tsunami about to swamp your entire living space.
And I can only imagine with four children just where that's at.
It's going to be some square of two and three and so on.
What is your approach to communal living space and organization, tidiness, cleanliness and so on?
You know, that's one thing that I've learned is that this home is all of our home.
That's the choice that I've made.
It's not just mine.
Our home is not a museum of our things like it is for most people in our culture.
Instead, the way that we live our life, our home is like a workshop of our interests.
And so our home definitely doesn't look like better homes and gardens.
It's not perfectly matching everything.
In fact, our beds look like Like, giant beds with all different blankets and stuffed animals.
And I know that someday I'll have time for that kind of home once the kids are grown.
In the meantime, I mean, I like order.
I like organization.
For me, personally, to function in that environment is better for me.
But I do know that that's my need.
It's not the need of everybody in this home.
It's not everyone's need.
So I've really tried to find a balance.
I will help the kids always pick up things if something's on the floor.
You know, as far as housework goes, You know, if kids learn what they live, what are they learning if I'm going around picking everything up off the floor, huffing and puffing and swearing under my breath, and, oh, why don't you guys pick this up, blah, blah, blah.
Housework sucks!
Exactly.
They're learning that housework really sucks and it's not a fun pleasurable thing.
So, you know, and I know this and so I really try to find a place in my heart where I'm grateful like what I'm picking up.
It might sound really corny, but you know, like I'll see scraps of paper on the floor in the corner and I'll say to myself, oh, you know, Orion made this beautiful craft project for me.
I'm so grateful, you know, that he did.
I'll pick them up and, you know, I do my best to model that A clean home is a choice.
You know, I can choose to have it messy but instead I'm making the choice to have it clean and I'm cleaning as joyfully as possible.
Not out of a means of control that if they see me joyful that they will in turn clean.
It's not really with that intention.
It's more like really authentically finding a reason to be joyfully cleaning.
So my kids help out.
They don't have chores.
They never have.
Yet they help out often.
They see something, especially the older they get.
I knew it was my role to bring these kids into this world and I wanted to have the house of a certain standard.
You know, it was my role to have the default setting for the house.
You know, I always cleaned my kids' rooms when they were little.
You know, even now I'll help my older kids out if they need help.
But because they really got used to the home and that kind of organization, then they almost expect it and want it and desire it.
And now, in a partnership, help to keep it that way.
So again, it's really uncomplicated when you think about it.
Right.
Well, my approach is slightly different.
I've taken out a subscription for my daughter to Architectural Digest and I do sort of sit down and patiently explain to her that they could drop by at any time and that the house needs to be ready at any time for the drop-in celebrity photographer.
And so far she's having a little bit of I agree with you.
It's all about balance, for sure.
Now, what about money?
Money, money, money.
So how does that work in the, oh, look at me picking your brain like a vampire.
How does that work in this approach?
You said they don't have chores because, you know, some people try and teach their kids responsibilities by paying them for chores and so on.
How does money work?
I remember you saying that I think your son is quite entrepreneurial, but what happens if they want to buy something?
Well, that's a great question.
My kids will get paid for chores if they're trying to earn money.
They might say, is there anything to do around the house?
I'm trying to save for this, and what can I do?
And I'll say, I'll give you a dollar to fold that load of laundry.
I give like a dollar a chore.
And my daughter Tiffany, who's 11, is the only one that really, really does that.
Out of all the kids, she loves things and collections, and so she's always in the mode of acquiring, where Devin and Ivy and Orion are kind of more simplistic in their desires.
I'll help them earn money.
I'll jump on eBay.
Actually, right before our interview, I was on eBay listing some things that my daughter wanted to sell because she wanted to earn money.
We talk about money so much.
It's such a big focus in a good way of life because my daughter's always wanting to buy things.
She's really into this Justin Bieber collection she has.
We're always looking at like what can we sell.
She started a pet sitting business actually recently and she makes really great money from that but she's having a hard time doing it because she gets really attached to the dogs that she watches and then has to say goodbye to them.
So we're brainstorming on different ways to go about it.
I want them to feel really comfortable about giving out of their heart as well.
Doing a lot of volunteer work is something that's important to me and also important to them.
One thing that I try to tell them is you can get so much in life without money.
Money is just one means to get what you want.
That's a really big part of our conversation that there's bartering.
There's so many different ways to get what you want in life that money is just one avenue.
Right.
And did they have an allowance at some point?
Or has it always been for services rendered, so to speak?
We've done the allowance thing before.
But then they'd never ask for it and we'd forget to give it.
And so now it's kind of morphed into, if somebody wants something, let's talk about it.
We'll talk about our budget.
If we can afford to get it, we will.
If not, we'll start saving or selling things on eBay.
There's so many ways to go about it.
Fantastic.
Now, we talked about some of the challenges.
Let's just, I guess, finish up with talking about some of the rewards of how easy it is to parent this way.
Because I think people who've got the sort of friction-based, control-based, authority-based parenting, it's sort of like, you know, because you have this hierarchy, you feel that if there's no hierarchy anymore, You know, it's like having an elephant jump up and down on a tube of toothpaste.
Things are just going to go everywhere in a big mess.
But I've really tried.
I don't have a great way of putting it.
And again, I'm still relatively new relative to you and certainly fewer children to manage.
How can you explain to people just how easy it is to parent in this kind of way?
And not easy lazy because, I mean, it's work to negotiate.
It's work to figure things out ahead of time.
It's work to guide kids without controlling them and allow yourself to be guided in return.
But I wonder if you could give people a sense of just how easy it is to parent this way.
You know, I'd say that it's more pleasurable than negative because when you're controlling another human being all day and enforcing punishments and rules, all these arbitrary limits, it never feels good to control somebody else.
It's not a pleasurable experience to parent in the way that our culture tells us to.
So for me, Because it's more pleasurable and it just feels more instinctually better to respect them as human beings.
And then in turn it becomes easier because you're not pushing up against this internal voice.
You're not pushing up against your child all the time.
You're their partner.
And so partnership is ease and joy.
So I don't know.
It depends on who I'm talking to, how I go about explaining it.
That's pretty much what I'll share.
And also, I'll just share that culturally, you know, kids are just pretty much focused on obedience.
You know, parenting is focused on obedience and how this is a more evolved, kinder, gentler approach and focusing on the needs and their behavior.
And, you know, if somebody's face starts to glaze over that I'm talking to, I know I should probably move along because they're not understanding or sometimes people are really receptive to it and they want to hear more, more often than not.
So, yeah, it's a joyful, more joyful life, period.
Yeah, it's often struck me, certainly since becoming a parent, the sort of great wave in the 60s and 70s of women going to work.
And it was fairly easy to convince a lot of people, a lot of women, to leave their kids with others and go to work.
And I've sort of thought about it since going down this path.
I wonder, Dana, the degree to which if parenting had been more fun, Would it have been as easy to lure women into the workforce and, I think, have significant problems with the family that come out as a result?
Because in the studies, they gave a list of things that moms like to do more than spend time with their children.
And it was a list of 20 things, shopping and watching TV and going to a movie and picking their nose.
It was just massive.
And then way down, it was like, oh yeah, and spend time with my children.
But if it's more fun to spend time with your children than anything, I think it would be harder to go out and kind of be a wage slave and contribute to the military-industrial complex through taxes and that kind of stuff.
And so I think that by making parenting more pleasurable or by showing how much fun it can be, I mean, I'm going to say, well, what do you do when your daughter has a temper tantrum?
Well, my daughter's never had a temper tantrum because a temper tantrum happens when a desire and an impossibility to communicate it or find a way of resolving it coincide.
And so...
You know, we have a huge amount of fun together.
It's very easy.
And this is even with my vestiges of totalitarianism that I'm still working on erasing.
But I just think if it was more fun to be around kids, I think that's what we'd want to do more.
And I think that would be a whole lot better for the future of freedom.
Yeah, and I totally think that this type of parenting is more natural for people.
I mean, I think back to my inner voice, you know, after I gave birth.
Didn't even really know what an inner voice was because mine had been so silenced for so many years.
But, you know, tapping into that, and it felt really good and normal and, you know, natural to respect my son's needs to be held when he wanted to be held, you know, like we talked about with the first conversation.
That felt natural.
What felt really awful and negative is to, like, silence that voice and put, like, culture's ideas, like, over that.
And I think that's what a lot of people do.
Like, if you can just, you know, parenting is supposed to feel good.
It's supposed to.
You know, we would have died off a long time ago, you know?
It's supposed to be a pleasurable thing, and it's, um...
Something a lot of people almost need instruction and permission to do, and I'm here to tell you that you can love parenting.
That could be on the top of your list.
We're told that it shouldn't be by hearing that, I'm not your friend, I'm your parent, and all these catchphrases and quotes.
I'm not here to be your buddy.
It just hardens parents against their role.
Their role becomes just half of their role.
Just demanding obedience and enforcing rules is easy, but it's not pleasurable.
Anyway, so I'm just really grateful that people are coming to understand, like, this whole other perspective and in turn are really enjoying parenting and, you know, I think that's great.
Yeah, you don't have to be the local enforcer for a very toxic hierarchy in society, which I think is one of the ways that that hierarchy really sustains itself is that parents are used to being authoritarian, they're used to giving orders and, you know, bypassing all the hypocrisy that that is so obvious for in children.
And, you know, like the other day, so some telemarketer called.
I had to get off the phone.
I said, oh, I'm making dinner, and it was not true or whatever, right?
My daughter heard it.
She said, Daddy, you lied.
I'm like, okay, here's another conversation that we can have about that kind of stuff.
It's like, you know what?
I shouldn't have done that.
I should have told the truth.
I don't want to, right?
That kind of stuff, right?
So, I just, if you actually just have, you know, honest and humble conversations with your kids, the idea of discipline, the idea of control, it certainly...
Can go really out the window and you can just have such an enormous amount of fun.
And where the fun isn't there is just another way to look at where there may be some old trickle-down, top-down stuff that's going on where a vestige of you wants to groom your children to fit into an irrational society, always at the expense of your relationships.
Oh, always.
I mean, even like with the institution of school, like one thing I was saying to somebody recently was like, people don't realize how unfree they are.
You know, the institution comes before the family.
I mean, you have to ask permission to be with your child when your child's in school.
And, you know, that's just an example of how, you know, unfree we truly are as a culture.
So I think, you know, Unlocking this idea for people that you can be freer, you know, and more joyful by letting go of all these cultural ideals surrounding what your role needs to be as a parent.
You don't have to be your child's trainer in life, like training a dog, which is a cultural kind of perspective with like all the nanny shows and stuff like that and all the parenting books, but you could be your child's partner and in turn, There's such freedom in that joy and freedom to parent authentically that a lot of the stuff I'm talking about, I think a lot of people know deep down to be true.
They felt these things.
They just haven't given themselves permission to interact with their child in this way.
So I'm giving you permission.
Now, also I wanted to mention just as we finish up here that I didn't know this, but I found out that you actually also do You do consultations through your website as well.
The people can call you up and for a fee you can step them through taking these squid tentacles of control off the necks of the kids.
Yeah, there's a few different things.
I do like Skype calls and I also am known as the un-nanny.
So people just like the nanny shows on TV, Nanny 911 and so forth, People can hire me to come in their home and I'll spend, you know, a weekend or a week with their family and share with them how to, you know, apply through total immersion, you know, this whole philosophy.
So it's been incredible to work with families doing that.
I've loved it.
And some of these people have gone on to become incredible unschooling advocates themselves and have written books.
And so, yeah, I do, you know, sliding scale for Skype calls.
I'm happy to chat with people for free anytime, too.
It just might take me a little longer to get to you if you send me a message.
Right.
And so, thanks again for another great show.
Very illuminating, and it's always humbling.
Stepping across my little inner Wehrmacht is always kind of enjoyable.
But, so it's danamartin.com, D-A-Y-N-A-Martin, I-N.com.
And once again, thank you so much for sharing this.
To me, it should be natural, but a completely still mind-blowing aspect of the conversation, and I really appreciate you sharing everything that you've learned with me and with my listeners.
So thanks again so much, and If you can give the date of the conference, August in Texas, I'll be there.
And of course, it doesn't matter if anyone else is there because I'll be there.
No, there'll be lots of other people there who'll be talking.
What was the date of it again?
It's the Rethinking Everything conference and it's in Irving, Texas.
And it's the last week of the last five days of August.
So it's, yep, we'll get the exact dates are up on the website.
All right.
Thanks again, Dana.
It was a real pleasure as always.
Thank you so much, Stefan.
Take care.
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