Preschool Parenting Culture

I stick out a lot here because I have four kids, but I was expecting that. Two is the average here. I get a lot of “are they twins?” about the younger ones as apparently it would be odd for us to intentionally have four children, or comments like v“how do you do it?” (still don’t have a great reply for that one).

But I stick out in another way I hadn’t anticipated: people are always surprised when they hear that I keep the younger two at home. I get asked regularly where they go to preschool, and incredulous looks follow when I say that they don’t.

Apparently it is rare for children to remain at home for their earlier years here, probably due to a few factors—both parents having to work to afford living here, or there being more highly-educated people likely to elect focusing on their careers.

But third, and this is the part I’ve been pondering, I get the sense people here place a higher value on early-child development: they have such a high standard that they feel the only way to do it well is to outsource it to the professional experts. There is a lot of talk about education strategies and things like SEL’s (socio-emotional learning), Carol Dweck growth mindsets, optimizing your child’s brain development and exposures by a certain age. Combine that with a resource-rich environment and parents who either naturally want the best for their kids or are the “Stanford-or-bust” types, and you get competitive preschools teaching based on the latest Stanford experiments, preschools touting specific play-oriented environments, and lessons for little ones ranging from the typical (music, multiple languages, sports, ceramics) to the unusual (Legos to teach political skills, metal-working).

It’s easy to ask, how can I possibly be doing all that by myself at home? Maybe some people are wondering, why would I want to? Why not go do what I trained for twelve years to do, or go get some self-care, and leave that to the experts?

I am in no way judging kids who do go to preschool (we’ll probably find one for the three year-old next year) or lessons, but part of adjusting to being here has been processing this sort of tension. It’s made me realize that I do personally believe in and desire to teach them myself, in large part because the most important things—world view, values, priorities, principles—are taught implicitly, as they are lived out, and I want my kids to see that from me. Maybe I’m just too sanguine and laid-back to worry overmuch about what they are missing, though in that case it’s good to be challenged about what and how I teach them at home.

And that’s the bottom line about living here: there are so many things that are good, but I’m constantly having to decide when there’s too much of a good thing, or whether that good thing in fact aligns with the gospel and our purpose. Without that lens, it’s so easy to get sucked into a certain way of feeling and operating, because the culture here is so strong: its values are like a riptide that can pull you under unawares. We thought a lot of that through before making this move, but it’s interesting to see how it plays out in ways we do or don’t expect.

California

Well, we have moved to California, nearly two months ago, and I think I’m ready to write about it. To the two people who still check this blog.

This was not a shotgun move. It was several years in the making, and made intentionally for mission and community, which I’m realizing is very strange in Silicon Valley. People come here for tech, for Stanford, or for the academic success of their kids. Where we live, houses cost anywhere from two to ten million dollars: it’s this strange oxymoron, seeing dated, small houses that would go for 100K anywhere else in the country, but that cost millions because of the dirt they sit on.

This place is full of contradictions like that. Inclusivity, awareness, and diversity, for example, are huge values, but while people are diverse in terms of ethnicity or lifestyle, there isn’t much diversity socio-politically or economically.

That’s led to a sense of personal dissonance, because while I fit in perfectly on the surface—I’m a highly-educated, slim, casually-dressed Asian female, which every other woman seems to be here—I’m actually really different inwardly. I have way more kids than anyone else here probably thinks is responsible (or affordable), and I primarily parent them myself rather than outsourcing for the sake of career or self-care. Our kids go to a choice school that they pretty much accidentally (providentially) got in to, not because I had orchestrated or worried about it. Similarly, we live in a covetable house, but due to an act of grace, not by merit or striving. Our kids do have some enrichment skills like language or music, but because I try to teach them myself at home, not because they were enrolled in a ton of extracurriculars from a young age. I secretly compost and recycle not for the good of the earth, but because our regular trash can is sized for a midget. I have ties to an Ivy League, but I’m an under-achiever in my career. I value kindness and inclusivity, but I believe in absolute truth.

When we first moved here, there was just so much to thrill the heart, and I was just soaking all that in, rightfully so—our kids are around other kids that look like them! The weather is disgustingly perfect, all the time! There are (almost) no mosquitos! The food—the food! The parks and playgrounds and zoos and museums and things to do with the kids! Perhaps I will never get over seeing an orange tree outside the window, opening the windows to a fresh cool breeze at night, or seeing blue mountains in the distance. I’m still amazed by the 100-book checkout limit at the library, the way our kids have taken to biking everywhere, and how any retail store in the universe appears to be within ten minutes of our house.

But eventually things about the culture started to soak in. Part of me feels lonely, and I’m not even sure what for—I don’t think Virginia was a place we could have stayed forever, or that I really belonged in either—perhaps what I miss are people who unconditionally love and support us; people I felt I could completely be myself around. And I know that only comes with time. Part of me is trying to make myself relevant to the culture here, while figuring out how to be intentional about who I still am. A few days ago, after realizing I was getting a bit swept away by school stuff, we finally got back on some spiritual and marriage routines we had lost with the move, and that was good.

So there are a few unique things about this time period: it’s going to be lonely. It takes a while for a place to feel like home (someone told me eighteen months) and that’s okay. The loneliness hits me at random times, like when I think of something a friend back in Virginia would have liked to know about, or when I get lost again going somewhere. And this is also a formative time: we have a new chance to define ourselves, to set the right foundation, and part of that is intentionally not getting swept away by various pressures, is being willing to wait and discern before making decisions about our commitments.

And a lot of it is drawing closer to God, as to an anchor in changing seas or a resting place in lonely times. This move throws into clearer relief that we all long for home, a place where we belong, where we are unconditionally loved and inexpressibly understood, and yet we could search forever on earth and not really find that place. As St. Augustine wrote, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you”—one could add, “until it finds its home in you.”

Perfectionism and Enneagram Types

One thing reading this book about enneagram types has helped me with the most is understanding not myself so much as other people. In brief, it breaks people down into nine different personality types, which you self-identify, and for each type the book describes the healthy, average, and unhealthy versions of the type; the particular sin that type is prone to; how that type tends to be in childhood, work, and relationships; general characteristics of that type; and what spiritual growth of that type looks like, with a healing message for each. In general, enneagrams help most with understanding people’s motivations: two people may have the same behavior or outlook, but from very different motivations, and it’s helpful for me to see that what drives me may be completely different from what motivates, and thus will help heal or change, someone else.

For example, Ellie and I are both perfectionists, but our different enneagram types has helped me understand how differently it works for her (a type 1, the perfectionist) than for me (a type 3, the performer). On the surface, we’re similar: we both care a lot about excellence, about completing a task well and meeting high standards. In a way, this makes it easy for us to get along: she does great at school, just like I did; we enjoy painting or playing the piano or writing a book report or building a tent just right.

But as soon as something isn’t done perfectly right, we run into problems. My typical approach is to say, suck it up and try again! Focus on the task and get it right! When someone talks to me like that, it makes me more determined than ever to show them I can do it well. But when I talk to Ellie like that, she becomes completely paralyzed; she shuts down and starts crying and is unable to proceed.

What I’ve found is that we are perfectionists for very different reasons, with almost opposite effects. I’m driven by performance: I’m a perfectionist because I want to perform well in front of others; I want to look good, to achieve a lot, and I have an inherently strong sense of self and high self-confidence. External observation energizes me. If I make a mistake, I’m more liable to shrug and move on to something else I can do well, or just figure out a way to get over it; my focus is always on the task, the performance, rather than the relationship. As a result, I don’t really feel I want to understand others or bother with people who get in the way of performing the task well.

Ellie, on the other hand, is a perfectionist because she is driven by a high inner standard. She wants to do something perfectly because she genuinely wants to, not because she cares about performing for others. She is less motivated to do something if others are watching. And because this comes more internally, she has a constant inner critic in her head, a voice telling her that she is not doing it well enough, not measuring up: she is inherently more prone to insecurity than self-confidence. If she makes a mistake, she is more liable to beat herself up in her head about it, to let it affect her sense of self. Her focus is often more on relationships than the task itself: how the mistake is affecting her relationship with others and view of self. As a result, though, she is more naturally empathetic with others, more interested in understanding others.

Completely different! When I make a mistake, what I need to hear is: the perfect performance is not always the most important thing. It’s good to learn and move on in doing the task well, but don’t forget to see how this is affecting others and things that are more important than the outward image. Remember that God sees you for who you truly are, not just the image you project, and loves you.

Naturally, when Ellie makes a mistake or is crying because her brothers messed up her tent, my tendency is to respond with what I need to hear: to tell her, it’s okay if it’s not perfect. But I think the message she needs to hear is: you’ll make mistakes, and that’s okay, and God and I still love you. Because her sense of perfectionism is coming from a more internal place, the point is not to tear down this inner standard she will probably have anyway, but to separate that from a sense of shame or insecurity: to restore relational security and love, to consistently remind her that she is not defined by her mistakes, that mistakes happen and she is always loved regardless.

So when we’re playing piano and she forgets a note, or when we’re painting and she accidentally does a whole section in the wrong color: we both care, and we’re both frustrated. But now the first things I say are: it’s okay that you made a mistake. I still love you. I might expand on that or vary it by saying things like, I forget notes all the time too, or look, now we can mix in a new color that looks even better, or I love that you try so hard, or I love how you are always brave enough to practice very day, etc. And I see her face light up, instead of crumpling up into tears, and she seems energized to keep going, and then I can start talking about the actual task.

As a type 3, it feels sort of laborious and foreign, and sometimes when I’m tired I think why does she have to be so darn sensitive and emotional? or gee whiz, just move on and try again! but I know those things won’t motivate her, and don’t reflect a true understanding of who she is and how God has created her. And I see more and more that she has wonderful traits—empathy, kindness, integrity, true discipline—that come much more naturally to her than to me.

Relational Sin

We all intuitively grasp, I think, the difference between an isolated sin and a relational sin. Let’s say I mess up and hurt myself: sure, I feel bad. But let’s say I mess up and hurt someone I know: I feel worse. Let’s say I mess up and hurt Dave: I feel much worse. The closer that person is to me, the more my sin becomes less and less about itself, and more and more about how it affects the person I love, until the two are linked. The sin becomes as much about the other person as it is about the act itself.

But here’s the thing: every sin we commit is relational, is against a being I value more than any person on earth. If God did not exist, neither would sin; sin is sin only because God is God. The more I value God, the more I see him for who he is, the more I see my sin for what it is. One day, when I stand before God, this will be glaringly obvious: I won’t be giving an account of myself to Dave, or my parents, or myself, or my friends, but only to God.

This changes confession. I don’t just confess the act; I ask myself, how was this an act against God? How has this sin hurt God? The answer is almost always deeper than it appears. I almost always see running underneath the act a lack of faith, or pride, or misguided need for control, or more. And coupled with the confession is a deeper sense of grief, because I have not only disappointed myself, but I have wronged God, by both the sin and by my deeper heart issue. And I grieve because I see what the sin has cost me: not just the time or energy spent in sinning, but the other ways I could have been growing or impacting others if I wasn’t in the sin.

I think Satan would love us to think of sin, especially the habitual and unseen ones, in a diluted, isolated way: no big deal, try harder next time, no permanent effects anyway. When in reality, each sin is a deep lie, a deep act against God, cheating us and changing us, crippling our relationships and ministry. The satisfaction it promises are either non-existent, or much emptier, than the life-abundant we could have. Because when the love of God pierces our hearts and draws us to repentance, and we start to resist the sin and change—that’s when we start to see the sin for how empty it is. And that’s when we start to see God’s love and promised life for what it is.

That’s the most wondrous thing about relational sin: understanding sin leads to a deeper understanding of God’s love. To know you have wounded him means to understand his grace in a completely new way. To act not out of self-inflicted guilt, but love-empowered conviction, is to change with joy and greater ease. God, help me not waste a single act of sin: may each one show me more about you and myself, and bind me more fast to your grace.

Efficiency vs. Productivity

One concept I’ve enjoyed thinking about lately is the idea of efficiency versus productivity, after a friend made the argument, after listening to a freakonomics podcast, that the two are related but not necessarily the same.

It’s been a challenging thing to think about because, as is probably obvious, efficiency is very important to me (apparently it’s a hallmark of being a “3” enneagram type—more about that later if anyone is interested). I live nearly every minute conscious of how to multi-task and prioritize such that tasks get completed using as little time and energy as possible. I was the kind of resident that had new orders in before we even finished rounding, that dictated clinic notes super quickly while the patient was still in the room so I didn’t have to stay late at the end of the day to finish. Inefficient meetings annoy me so much I try to avoid them; sometimes I find myself irritated if someone is sharing inconcisely.

But I do think that efficiency and productivity are two different things. Efficiency is simply a statement of how quickly something gets done: completing a task with as little waste of resources as possible. Productivity, though, includes something more: I would define it as reaching a goal by using resources as effectively as possible. Efficiency only looks at a task: productivity looks at the goal.

Efficiency almost always includes productivity: if you do things faster, you’ll have more time and energy to get more done. But productivity does not always include efficiency, and in fact they may be at odds with each other: some goals require being inefficient. If you want optimal small group dynamics, you have to allow for inefficient times of hanging out or icebreakers. If you want your child to share deeply, you likely have to allow for inefficient periods of doing other things before coming upon the right moment to talk. If you want to bond deeply with a friend, you may need to linger without time limits, or allow for messier or needier relationships.

The point is, when the goal is simply to get a task done, efficiency is good. But when the goal is about more than a task—and I suppose much of life is, actually—then efficiency may be harmful. I don’t particularly resonate with the word “productivity,” but I think the word “meaningful” works—this may not be efficient, but is it meaningful? Is it working towards achieving an important goal or outcome? If it is, then it is more important than being efficient.

Because in the end, while being outstandingly efficient is a sort of talent, it is a mindless one. To move with purpose, to use limited and available resources in the most strategic and meaningful way possible: that is more difficult, but more important.