Preface
When Andy first started coming around our family, he was struck by how bright and well behaved the boys were, and by the absence of any apparent discord in our family. He thought that if I could detail how I did it, we could use the ‘technique’ to help other families or children in group home situations find harmony.
At first he was sure that the secret lay in the particular activities we did. For example, we garden together, play music together, cook together, study together… an awful lot of togetherness, eh? I convinced him that it wasn’t the activities that did it. In fact, the harmony apparent to him in our activities was only possible because of something much deeper and more subtle. He finally accepted the possibility that it was my ‘Taoist approach’ to raising my kids that was the ’secret’. This, along with some disillusion with his western paradigm prompted him to try to understand this ’secret’. The letters to Andy skim the surface of our back and forth on this.
The catalyst for this essay was the showing of our “Trading Spouses” adventure. When the surrogate mother saw how harmonious our family was, it baffled her. She couldn’t understand how people could walk barefoot, love the forest, river, mountain, ocean, bugs, birds,… in short love Nature. She was bewildered by how we happily work together and live in a house without furniture, i.e., Japanese style. On top of that my boys are cooperative, respectful, gentle, honest, enjoy working, etc. This is just not in accord with the American norm. Moreover, they weren’t rebellious teenagers so something must be wrong with the Abbott family. She could only conclude that I somehow ‘brain washed’ them or had some mysterious ‘control’ over them.
Now, her conclusions are understandable considering that she jumped to them within a day of meeting us, and only needed the few remaining days of her visit to ‘prove’ to herself that her assumptions were correct. That should be enough time to get to know another family intimately, right? Okay, so I’m indulging in some sarcasm. It’s irresistible.
The baffling part of this “Trading Spouses” episode is the fact that when my mother saw the show, she agreed with Vickie (the surrogate mom). After talking it over she agreed that her ‘brain washing’ assessment might stem from the fact that because my family is so outside the American norm I must be ‘controlling’ or ‘brain washing’ them. What else could it be? Okey, that’s ‘reasonable’, but I needed to dig deeper. I’m unrelentingly curious.
Complete Freedom
So try to follow this… I reminded her that, as she knows, I do not force my kids to do anything. I never ‘discipline’, punish, yell at, or criticize them, So, how is it that I’m controlling them? She said she didn’t know, but that I never-the-less was. So, I asked her what would I be doing if I made them do what they didn’t want to do… for example: play a instrument like the tuba, study as subject like accounting, learn a language like Polish, do a sport like hockey, or you name it. She said that would also be controlling, but extreme in the other way. In her eye’s I had to make them do at least something they didn’t want to do to develop their character. It didn’t seem to matter that they are, as most people say, remarkably well adjusted responsible honest, blah blah blah, kids. In my mother’s eyes it is just not right that I bring up my kids in complete freedom. Somehow giving them complete freedom is ‘brain washing’ them and controlling their lives. Note: My mother’s view here can give anyone who deeply ponders them profound insight into human nature. Take your time.
Now, let me offer an example of how I ‘brain washed’ the kids into learning Chinese as our home schooling foreign language. Some years ago we met an elderly Chinese couple at a party hosted by another home school family. The next day they visited our home and the father did some beautiful brush calligraphy for us as we looked on. Subsequently, my younger son Kyle (then 10) expressed a desire to learn some Chinese and try brush painting. So I gathered the appropriate materials and he and I began to learn. Not too long after, Luke decided he wanted to learn also, so the three of us proceeded to learn to speak and write Chinese. Eventually, not wanting to be left out I assume, my wife Leslie began to learn. Everyone was, from the get go, free to do what they wanted. In this case everyone eventually took up Chinese, to one degree or another. It happened naturally. In other areas, it might be just Luke and I, or Kyle and I, or Leslie and I, Kyle and Luke, or well, whatever combination you’d can imagine depending on what we’re talking about. Each of us is guided by our interest in the activity and our desire to participate.
So, this complete freedom that exists in our family is somehow ‘brain washing’ and ‘control’ on by part? I suppose that’s true in a sense. For, by taking a Taoist approach to family life, e.g., “taking the lower position”, “not contending”, “not meddling” (to quote the Tao Te Ching), I’ve facilitated family harmony. I can only say that if this is ‘brain washing’ and ‘control’, the world would be a lot better off with more ‘brain washing’. There I go with my little sarcasm.
Complete Respect
A Taoist approach to family life, e.g., “taking the lower position”, “not contending”, “not meddling”, which gives complete freedom, also instills complete respect. Freedom must be counterbalanced with respect. Without respect, freedom is profoundly destructive.
It is also important to note that complete freedom does not mean getting all you desire, or even anything you desire. Complete freedom, in the Taoist sense, is the total freedom to be who you are, your original nature. This is also balanced by the complete freedom to suffer the consequences of your attitude and actions, or in-action.
The Three Secrets to a Good Taoist Brainwashing
First: Leave them alone. Stay out of their way. Patiently wait and allow the flowers to bloom in their own way and in their own time. Look within and watch for those impulses to get your kids to conform to your image of how they should be. The emotional push to project your own fears, insecurities, desires, and ideologies (beliefs) onto them is nigh irresistible. Only your deep realization that pushing your agenda onto them presses down on them and causes them to rebel. Family harmony can’t breath in such a repressive environment.
Second: Invite them to share in your life as much as possible. Invite them to work with you, learn with you, play with you, talk to you, walk with you, cook and eat with you, make music with you, ponder life with you and notice Nature with you, make mistakes with you. All this is only possible if you’re able to slow down your own ambitiousness enough to allow your them to keep up and share your journey.
Third: Without a healthy portion of this third ’secret’ the other two above won’t work well. It is based on self understanding, i.e., to know Nature, you must know yourself. So, consider the following in light of your own experience. For more depth, see the related essays: The Four Noble Truths, Understanding Buddhism, and Poking a Little Deeper.
When we get what we want-desire-need without a counterbalancing struggle, we easily become emotionally imbalanced. We lose respect for life because we lose a proper sense of awe which comes spontaneously to creatures living in the wild. This loss of balance and respect occurs in most mammals, to a degree, who live under such similar circumstances, e.g., pets come to mind. The more affluent the circumstances, the more noticeable this will be. One caveat, the degree of imbalance, and how it is expressed, depends largely on an individual’s innate nature. Some of us do well, some of us disastrously, and most of us are somewhere in between.
Symptoms of this imbalance are especially ubiquitous in our affluent culture. Life didn’t evolve to survive the easy way, yet out species has discovered how. We take shortcuts to avoid as much struggle as possible. Nature can not be ’short circuited’ so we end up struggling and suffering in other unforseen (to us) ways. Civilization is the means with which we’re able to get what we need with less and less struggle. Thus, we first need to realize that civilization is not ‘the solution’… it causes our imbalance. The human quest to gain ‘complete freedom’ from ‘Nature’s discipline’ has upset the natural balance of our lives.
Next, by understanding, in principle, how Nature works, we are better able to identify particular ways in which we can counterbalance our immediate circumstances. You can say we stand in for ‘Nature’s discipline’, especially in raising our children. It is up to us to replace some of the balancing influences which civilization circumvents. We need to serve as ’substitute teachers’ for the wilderness influences we are missing.
So, how does Nature work? What are the wilderness influences we’ve lost? Much of this site is dedicated to point at various features of that ‘elephant’. You must decide whether you concur or not. A major difficulty there lies in how we believe or wish Nature ’should’ work. Should the lions lay down with the lambs? Our ideals—political correctness in the broadest sense—blind us to the way Nature is. All I have done is observe Nature and a little wild life. It is right there out in the open. I’m talking about insects, plants, as well as the mammals. Come to think of it, also, the rain, wind, night and day. Simply take notice of how Nature works. Nothing is hidden. Let what you notice be a model for how you approach all aspects of life. How do you notice? You watch, and reflect on what you see. Give it your time and effort in this way, and Nature will teach you all you need to know.
Exactly How Can We Stand in For ‘Nature’s Discipline’?
There no particular thing to do. The wisest action is that which conforms to the circumstances and to the unique nature of the individuals involved. The wiser you are, the wiser your actions will be. Actions are neither wise nor foolish by themselves. It really comes down to the individual. Actions can never be ‘wiser’ that the ‘fool’ who is doing them. The world is full of advice on what to do, and yet… Only one way that works; seek to honestly know yourself. Knowing yourself helps you know others and understand life more deeply. Your actions will reflect that intuitive sense, and you will know ‘exactly’ how to stand in for ‘Nature’s discipline’.
Note: It is important to begin standing in for ‘Nature’s discipline’ as close to the birth of the child as possible. It is during those first years after birth that the nervous system is configuring itself; it is then that your parenting influence is most deeply effective. Don’t miss the opportunity. The years fly by. Although, adopting it at any age would improve relationships I suppose. There is much in the Tao Te Ching which points to the way Nature works, and to its ‘discipline’. If you haven’t guessed by now, ‘discipline’ is so much more far reaching and subtle in the Taoist sense, than in the ‘common view’. It is weakness more than strength, female more than male, stillness more than action, mysterious more than clear. Consider these examples:
The middle of Chapter 10 reads: (Here, simply translate people as children and state as family).
Can you love the people and govern the state
Without resorting to action?
When the gates of heaven open and shut
Are you capable of keeping to the role of the female?
When your discernment penetrates the four quarters
Are you capable of not knowing anything?
The beginning of Chapter 16 reads: (Here, simply translate creatures as children—and anything else that comes to mind as well).
I do my utmost to attain emptiness;
I hold firmly to stillness.
The myriad creatures all rise together
And I watch their return.
The teaming creatures
All return to their separate roots.
Returning to one’s roots is known as stillness.
The beginning of Chapter 40 reads: (Here, simply translate way as a model for how you can approach life, flowing with its current instead of against it).
Turning back is how the way moves;
Weakness is the means the way employs.
The end of Chapter 51 reads: (Here, simply translate It as parent and them as children).
It gives them life yet claims no possession;
It benefits them yet exacts no gratitude;
It is the steward yet exercises no authority.
Such is called the mysterious virtue.
The end of Chapter 61 reads: (Here, simply translate large state as parent and small state as child).
All that the large state wants is to take the other under its wing;
All that the small state wants is to have its services accepted by the other.
If each of the two wants to find its proper place,
It is meet that the large should take the lower position.
The Social Connection
Much of what we are talking about here can be difficult to do alone, depending upon your innate nature of course. Most people have strong social instincts and so working together as a group works best. For example, Alcoholics Anonymous and religious groups have remarkable success in helping people turn their life around. Granted parenting is different in many regards, but it can become a struggle just the same and so should respond to group effort.
Maybe it is time for a SPA—Struggling Parents Anonymous—self help organization. The village and the extended family of our ancestors is long gone, so the need is very much there. As a culture, I imagine we are just at the beginning, or pre-beginning, of realizing the underlying causes of family dysfunction in modern society.
A Step Towards Applying Principles to Practice
Take, for example, the need we feel for rules, consistency and order. On the surface these needs are virtuous strengths in society’s eyes. A Taoist view sees these as symptomatic of deeper forces within us. Underneath these needs lie our fear of change, fluidity and chaos—entropy. And rightfully so, to a degree, for life requires a certain degree of consistency, solidity and order to survive. Entropy equals death. Our fears of this is instinctive. However, again, civilized circumstances have removed the counterbalancing influences of ‘Nature’s discipline’. Thus, the pendulum swings too far… back and forth.
Let me briefly describe how I approach the issue of rules and consistency from a Taoist model, especially in raising my children. I am deliberately inconsistent with the rules—most of them anyway, (i.e., it depends on what we define ‘rule’ to mean). That’s not saying I flip-flop all the time, mind you, but rather now and unpredictably then. Breaking the pattern models Nature. This is how Nature works.
Of course, at the deepest level Nature obeys its rules consistently, i.e., water always boils at 100c at sea level. I model that deeper level in matters of personal integrity—honesty for example. I make no exceptions, ‘theoretically’ anyway. Here, stillness and silence are golden. They permit me to remain honest, yet not disturb and contend, and yet communicate in the deepest sense of that word.
Weather is Nature at its surface level. Winter is cold… except for that surprising hot spell that surprises us. I model this surface level in matters relating to food, for example. Usually, the ‘rule’ is we eat dinner before desert. But then out of the blue, we’ll have cake for desert (much to my wife’s distress). Although, it goes the other way too. We usually have lunch around noon. But, if we’re doing garden work, or we are away, then we don’t eat until… whenever. No problem, no whining, for we are used to letting life flow ‘its’ way, i.e., wildlife does not follow a clock or tight routine, and neither can it indulge itself. Nature’s discipline helps keeps wildlife non-attached and living fluidly.
Mimicking how Nature works—consistency at the deepest levels, change and spontaneity at the surface levels—gives children the deep stability they need to develop emotional security, yet keeps them ‘alive’ to the reality of life—it is unpredictable. They need to sense that real hairy unpredictable side to Nature to maintain a sense of awe. Awe engenders a sense of respect in us all, regardless of our age. An over meddling and over protective family environment inhibits that. Of course, going to far the other way is probably worse! Balance is a must.
How do we know when there’s balance?
First, to model Nature requires one to be deeply anchored—self secure. That stillness enables you to be spontaneous on the surface suddenly now and gradually then, but also consistent and still most of the time. This makes it impossible for children to ‘read you’ like a book. They remain in awe, and with awe they feel respect naturally.
Second, to the extent you are self secure, you can watch yourself, your emotions—fears and needs. When you sense you are being moved strongly in any direction by either your needs or fears (pleasure or pain), alarm bells go off in your psyche. You know you have left the middle path and balance is waning. It is time to remain still and begin turning back.
Third, remember, words are cheap and actions speak louder than words. Oh, no!… how much self security do we need? How much is enough? What we have right now is enough! Ten years from now our self security will be deeper… and that will be enough then! We have no choice in the matter, no free will, so we only and always end up doing the best we can for who are at the moment. The first hurdle is simply beginning to understand what is happening, how Nature works—Nature’s model. Putting this into practice is another matter. Our knowledge always exceeds application. Our mind allows us to see life in moments of calm reflection that our daily emotions (needs and fears) can’t follow up on. Frustrated, we cling even tighter to our ideals of perfection which only succeed in blocking our path further. It can become a vicious circle.
This is the great irony of life: Our emotion insecurity drives our ideals for ‘perfection’ and our fears of ‘failure’. This expectation of ‘perfection’ becomes a self fulfilling prophecy of its opposite. We lose what we cling to, cling to what we feel we’re losing. The way the ancients had it, ‘Bowed down then preserved’ is no empty saying. Truly it enables one to be preserved to the end.
And Now, a Few ‘Tools’ for Discipline
Here are two (the only two as I recall) discipline ‘tools’ I used raising my sons. They worked extremely well and were all I needed. Will they work for other parents? I imagine so to one degree or another, depending on the parent and the child. Try them out and see; modify them to fit the circumstances.
(1) The first, prolonged shunning, is based on the deeply rooted human social instinct. All things being equal (e.g., not provoked to rebel), we want to feel we belong to the ‘tribe’. This generally drives us into wanting to please, to be liked, and to be heard. Shunning is a potent way to take advantage of these social needs. Of course, it ‘hurts’ the shunner just as much as the shunned, but it engenders profound long term respect—without coercion I might add.
In my case, when a boy would lie or be dishonest, I would, for a span of several day, behave as though the boy was not there—did not even exist. Afterward we’d sit down and review the situation that led up to the shunning. Shunning anyone who lies or is dishonest is a deeply natural consequence. In fact, banishment from the tribe (shunning to the extreme) is practiced by other social animals besides humans. Note: I’m not suggesting banishment from the family! Also, I only used shunning a couple of times over these many years. Shunning more often that this would be intuitively ‘read’ by the child as the parent’s ‘problem’, and thus loose effectiveness. Of course, this doesn’t apply to mini shuns of a few minutes or even a few hours, I suppose. Those just help unwind situations and can be a way to deliver a message without nagging.
(2) My main ‘tool’ for maintaining daily discipline was taking ‘bites’. Some of the surprising power of this method may rest on the fact that the child’s reward is certain and any losses are in the child’s hands. This models Nature. If hunter gatherers (of any species), hunt and gather diligently, they find their food reward. If they goof off, they will go hungry. Here is how I applied this model in our family.
Each of member of the family would have a big Cinnabon (very tasty cinnamon sweet rolls) for breakfast on Saturday. That was a real treat. During the preceding week I’d mark on a chart a ‘bite’ every time the boys got out of line. Every time was not every time by any means. So, in practice, each boy would get from 3-5 ‘bites’ marked on the chart each week.
On Saturday I’d place a big Cinnabon on each boys plate, unroll a few inches of it, and then proceed to deducts the ‘bites’ they had lost during the week. Each ‘bite’ was a 1″ long piece removed from the Cinnabon, which if unrolled fully would probably be a 20″ long strip. I then would eat those ‘bites’, after which we would all eat our Cinnabons.
This was extremely effective beyond what you would think. Even more so when you consider some other factors. For example: (1) They were never able to finish the whole bun even with the ‘bites’ removed, yet they really hated to loose ‘bites’. (2) They understood that I was only taking a small fraction of the ‘bites’ I could take if I was expecting them to be perfect. They realized it was kind of an arbitrary game, and that they would never ever loose more that a 3-5 ‘bites’. Yet, they took it very seriously. I assume that losing ‘bites’ was a personal disgrace in their eyes. Using a person’s sense of pride as a ‘tool’ taps right into the social instinct, which accounts for it’s effectiveness.
During the week, when a behavioral issue popped up, I often would ask them if ‘it’ was worth losing a ‘bite’ over. Invariably the response was no. Otherwise, I’d just tell them when I marked off a ‘bite’, when for instance, they’d leave the toys out overnight, or bath towel lying on the floor.
Conclusion
If you take sincere care in how you approach your life, and your family, you can not fail. It all depends on what you really, deeply want out of your short time on the planet! So have I followed the path I laid out above perfectly? Of course not. What do you think I think I am, a sage? I’m nobody. And knowing that I’m nobody has helped me, more than anything else, serve my family. When I asked how well I followed my own advice, my own family rated me at above average. Of course, that might just be a C+, but I’ll take it. Thankfully, I waited until I was 45 before I began a family. It took me that long to mature enough to ‘follow Nature’ instead of trying to control it. Had I begun in my 20’s, fool that I was, I would have failed terribly; I believed I was in control and nothing was going to stand in my way. Alas, I would not have had the mature influence of a live in extended family or a village to guide me. Such are the circumstance of modern civilization.