Birth of a Blog, Part 2: The Moral Compass

I warned my guru that a recent email to her probably would become a blog post.

I've been incubatory (if that's a word) this winter. Some thoughts wanted thinking. And -- if you give a mouse a cookie -- they demanded a blog.

This is my third blog. I maintained Dressed in Yella to keep the family posted on the girls. Before that, I kept a robust online "diary," before "blog" was even a word. It was totally anonymous and sorta shady and I would have died if any reader had met me on the street. And, no, you can't see it, because the Internet ate it by accident a few months ago, which was probably just as well.

Enter Incarnation #3.  I feel like I've found a) a voice, and b) something to say. Oooh, and both at the same time!

Plus, the world has changed. Keeping your children's photos off Facebook? Some kindly relation is posting and tagging. Downplaying your political leanings? Some well-meant friend is sharing and liking.  Even the app store on my phone requires my credit-card-linked identity before I can write a dang review.  Short of becoming a true hacker, which I'm too lazy to do, or completely checking out from online society, islandhood is no longer practical.

This is probably good for me. I've always belonged to the "nod and smile" school. You do your thing, I'll do my thing, and we'll all just go-along-to-get-along.

But in the wake of November's election, the smile feels forced and the nod feels stiff. Regardless of whether you think a) the country's headed for facism in a pizza box, or b) the second coming of Novus Ordo Seclorum is at hand, I think we may all agree that -- remember about the children? -- home-based moral guidance has become imperative.

The great privilege of parenting in America is raising your children as you see fit.  The older I get, the more strongly I believe that we're never more than a generation away from losing our foundations: social, political, lingual, religious, and/or moral.  So I've decided to up my game on the conscious, mindful, thoughtful, respectful, gentle, and unapologetic indoctrination of my children to my moral views, as expressed in a clearly-articulated family mission.

'Cause this is all I'm doing right now, and, uh, I don't like to do things half-baked.

My children may not always embrace my views.  I hope they will make their own considered decisions in time. I hope I am teaching them how to make considered decisions. If I do nothing else for them, I want to give my children a place to which they can look back and say, "I came from there."

In service to that goal, this blog plants its flag.

Well . . . and there may be a few crafts and checklists and travel itineraries and woodlore notes and recipes and RV camping tips along the way.

Birth of a Blog, Part 1: Retrenching

[S]eek adventure, even in the little things. . . . . Your example will greatly influence your children. If you are caught in your own rut, then so will your children be, but if you break free, then you give your children freedom.

-- Tom Brown, Jr.
Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Nature and Survival for Children

This winter, I lost my way for a while. These things don't happen quickly. Usually you trot along cheerfully until the moment you look up and realize, "Aw, damn."

That happens in the woods. Sometimes, it also happens in the laundry room.

Moss is on the north side, right?

We put 2016 to bed amid a welter of business, financial, and health issues. I'd barely looked up while hopping from rock to rock all year. But after the morass was stabilized, questions came creeping:

• Now that my children mostly dress themselves, how does my role change?
• Now that my parents have moved to town, how do I support their active aging?
• Now that my spouse is commuting 1,000 miles for work, how do I hold the fort at home while remaining engaged with his professional goals?

I found myself writing to a friend, "Is this how I am going to spend my middle years, obsessed with everybody else's developmental phases?"

It's very pretty, but there's no trail in sight.

After that burst of honesty/self-pity, I began to wonder if my RV obsession might be a harbinger of larger issues. That line of thought led to:

Maybe I'm allowed to have a new developmental phase too.

The thought arrived with such a big "click" that I physically jumped. Accordingly, this blog -- and the next chapter of my life -- began with mopping up spilled wine from my computer desk.  Figures.

At this point, I could have run out and bought a red sports car.  But, no, I'm still keen on the idea of an RV. I think it's a better fit with the work I've chosen for this time of my life:  raising my girls to find their own way, both in and out of the physical woods.