Bees in My Bonnet

The old-school thinking was along these lines: My private life is private.  I keep it to myself.  I don't share much of my struggles or burdens.  No-one really wants to hear about that.  People want to hear what's positive.  So I'll share what's positive of myself, of my life.  That way, everyone can get along and enjoy life.  Blah blah blah. New-school thinking is more along these lines:   Everyone is interested in me.  The good, the bad, the ugly.  So what if there's more of the bad and ugly?  I'll just share it all - hellooooo world!  Here I am - warts and all!  Like what you see?  If you tell all like me then you can join me in my misery, self-absorbed, how-open-I-am kind of life! Now let's talk about transparency.  Let's make that TRANSPARENCY.  With CAPITALS. I wanted to title this 'integrity' but thought 'transparency' fit better. Transparency means allowing people to see us as we are - ev...

Hannah has been slow to talk.  This is no surprise as all but one of our kids was behind.  But she seems to have perfect pitch.  Before she could say a word we knew what song she was singing.  It was unmistakable. When we went to the airport when she was about 10 months old, to pick up Grandpa from Hong Kong, she would not settle.  She didn't like staying in her seat.  She squirmed and began to cry.  Her cries escalated.  At some point Grandpa decided to sing her his favourite song.  She quieted immediately.  Every time he stopped she'd start crying again.  So he sang and he sang and he sang.  Somehow that song has bored its way into her memory and we continue to have to sing it to her, over and over. She now can talk some and has some of the words - which are barely recognizable.  She will sing when she's bored, when she's doing something, when she's sick and weary.  She will sing the same lines over and over. ...

Whenever we hear the two words 'discipline' and 'children' in the same sentence we immediately think about all the ways in which children are under or over-disciplined.  We think of the debates raging on forms of punishment, punishment at all, training, nurturing and the like.  We get tied up in knots over the best and right way to discipline. Recently I was reflecting to myself on all the things having children has done for and to me.  All that it has taught me - how it is shaping my life.  And the phrase that summed it up for me was 'The Discipline of Children.'  Having a child, or many children has instilled in my life certain disciplines that were near next to impossible for me to learn in any other way.  Many people learn these disciplines without the aid of heel-nippers.  But for me, these were a necessary part of my on-going education in the art of living. The presence of children in my life has introduced many aspects of discipline into ho...