Welcome to Annie's Peak Oil Parenting Page. 

This page is for those of you that are familiar with the concept of Peak Oil.  If you're a new reader, I would like to suggest that you visit my resources page for a list of helpful links to get you started.

I also want to share a really important resource with you call the 'Crash Course.' This is a online video series that's completely free and has tons of very important information. You can find it at www.chrismartenson.com

I'm also  looking for some comments to put on my page, so PLEASE write in with your thoughts about anything I've written.  I keep all email addresses entirely confidential and they are never shared with anyone else.

In case anyone is confused about how to contact me or make a comment, just press on the postbox on the main page and I will post your comment asap.   (For those of you that have already written in, thanks so much!)

Peak oil: Why trouble might lurk ahead in parent land.

I thought it was about time that I re-iterated what this blog was all about. I have written all sorts of articles about peak oil but some of the more pertinent ones are now buried under ones where I have deviated to the peripheries of the topic.

I started this blog to essentially give people a ‘heads up’ that the world that they know is changing very rapidly due to a phenomena known as 'peak oil'. Peak oil is simply the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached. When that happens and many argue it already has, it will bring it not only a fundamental shift in life in general but also in how people parent because the energy supply their current lifestyles depend on, will no longer be so freely available.  This energy shift will, of course, happen on it’s own. However, without knowledge as to why it’s happening and without any ability to foresee the coming changes, people may well be left with their proverbial shorts/knickers around their ankles.

Children are generally pretty adaptable but of course, the older we get, the more entrenched we become.   I recognize it in myself.  Years ago, I enjoyed heading out with a boyfriend, not knowing where I was going to land up next, with a pack on my back and little else.  That was a real true holiday and something that fed my adventurous spirit.  Now in my forties, none of that is really very appealing.  I’d much rather go somewhere where I know I can expect decent food and a comfortable bed.  I’m simply not prepared to wing it anymore.

We may become more entrenched as we age, but no matter what age we are, we are still no less entrenched in the way we view the world in general.  We rarely, if ever, question our belief system and

because energy has always been cheap and readily available, we presume that will always be the case. We have also always perceived the growth of GDP as both inevitable and healthy and certainly don't expect any of that to change. Despite the warnings from geologists and other professional individuals and bodies, including the IEA itself that energy may soon be in short supply, the media for the large part, refuses to tell people the truth.  Why?  Well because they depend on advertising and advertising depends on everything being peachy, despite significant evidence to the contrary.

So in my own little way, I want to draw as many people’s attention to the issue that I can. Having said that, I’m really going to have to make an impression on people for them to even want to read on about this strange and likely unfamiliar subject presented as it is, on a parenting site.  To my regular readers this is old news but my new readers will, I’m sure, want an explanation.   Perhaps it has crossed their mind as strange why someone that spends their days dealing with temper tantrums, sleep and potty training issues should want to alert people to anything so odd as a inadequate energy supply.

Well, fair enough.  The reason I want to alert people is that I believe that fundamentally the energy that we have available to us in the western world has led us to completely change the way we bring up children.  Cheap energy in the form of oil, natural gas and coal has completely altered human behavior, including that of bringing up children and has fundamentally changed the parent/child relationship.  It’s my assertion that this in turn, has created many of the behavior problems that parents deal with today. I’m not going to try and put all my arguments down here as they are due out in my upcoming book and are discussed there in great detail.  The reason for this blog is to say, if the way we deal with children is dependent on energy and that energy supply decreases dramatically then what follows will be an uncomfortable and perilous wake up call for parents.  Not only will they have to deal with a rapidly changing lifestyle but their children will still be stuck in an old paradigm with ideas and desires that can no longer be realistically met.

My blog is designed to give parents that initial 'heads up' and help further their interest in the subject so as to find out how it will impact them and to help them prepare for coming changes.  I don’t think we should be scared of these changes and indeed, how we approach this shift as parents will determine how successful our children are at negotiating a somewhat different future.

If you were standing on the rail tracks and could see a train coming, you’d get out of the way even if you had never seen a train on that track before.  The oncoming train would be all the proof you needed that the situation has changed.  In terms of energy situation, the train that is rumbling down the track toward us is still out of view, but it’s coming relentlessly and is just a few years away.  If you can avoid waiting until it’s right there you and your family will be much better off and much more able to negotiate a unfamiliar world.

 

Some thoughts.

Even though this week’s article is not about peak oil, it is related in terms of what oil has done for our society and then how that society, then behaves.  I thought I’d heard everything, but last week’s article in the Calgary Herald surprised me.  Titled ‘Treats can boost parent-child bond: (says) chocolate maker’, the article when on to describe how giving children chocolate, ‘shows a child that their parent is concerned about making them happy.’ Really?  So now parents are being told that if they aren’t taking the opportunity to hand out chocolate bars to their offspring, that they are obviously not concerned enough about their children’s happiness?  What unadulterated rubbish!

Where do these advertisers get off?  Isn’t it enough that they already saturate the airwaves and print media with their nonsense hawking everything from electronic toys to junk food.  Both of which, have combined to give us a generation of kids that have a hard time leaving the couch.  Now we supposedly have to feed them a diet of chocolate bars just to show we that we care.

I hope you’re not buying this.  In fact, I hope you will actively boycott any business that tries to sell it’s product under the guise of a campaign that ‘encourages parents to engage in active play with their children, by linking handing out treats in a ‘thought-out and responsible manner.’  I can’t wait to see this responsible manner in action along with the ‘Mommy….I want…give me…now!”

Let’s take a further look at their ‘campaign’.  Active play? Ah, yes most parents would see that as good.  I often spend time in the playground with the various families I work with and am amazed at the numbers of parents who are bopping up and down on the slide and climbing the bars, not for a quick moment as an introduction to the play material on offer but for the duration.  Some parents are so engaged, that they actively prevent their child from playing with the other children that are occupying the space.  This is obviously done because some parents think it’s expected.  If I play actively with my child, then I am obviously a good parent.

The trouble is that if they think that, they would be wrong.  Children are designed to play with…yes, you guessed it, other children.   There’s nothing wrong with being playful but that’s quite different from actually being encouraged to ‘play’ constantly with your children.  We should also separate ‘play’ from spending time explaining or talking or cuddling or simply enjoying something together with our children.  If you think that playing at the playground falls in to the latter category, then I’d suggest you find out if you’re doing it because it’s expected, or because it’s a moment of you having fun being silly together.  To differentiate the two, look for the fact that silly moments, don’t by their nature, last that long.

Children are designed to mimic adult activity through play.  They are looking for you to be engaged in what adults do from which they can learn how the world works.  What do they learn if your priority instead is to play with them?  Well, first they learn that the world revolves around them.  Mom or Dad can’t have much to do because they’re focused on me.

Secondly, they learn that adults are play-things which will, if demanded upon, happily entertain them from morning till night.  Lastly adults, aware of the nature of child play are often keen to let their child lead the play, which is fine in the sphere of play but a little confusing when that period is finished and they must get on to other things.  Children can have trouble transitioning with this kind of role confusion.

I don’t know many moms and dads that enjoy playing Barbie or blocks. They may do it because they think it’s expected but let’s face it, we’ve grown out of those games and there’s nothing wrong with that. 

The bottom line is your parenting worth is not linked to how much you play with your children, nor should it ever be.  Instead, try letting kids play with each other and even themselves.  The ability to be playful and chase your kids with the vacuum cleaner on occasion, is something far more valuable.  Frankly, that will make far more of an impression on your kids than an enforced period playing something they know intrinsically, that you’re not that interested in.  Children are not stupid.  Leave real play to the kids.

Monday May 11th, 2009

Natural parenting sounds lovely and indeed it is.  Having baby close and responding to baby's signals etc. are all wonderful. I'm a strong believer in it. Having said that, I'm also a realist and as I actually deal with the results of every parenting method out there, I've come to a conclusion.

What conclusion, I hear you ask?  Firstly, I think people realize something is amiss in the western world and want to change it.  There are rising obesity rates, medicated kids and soaring levels of misery across the board.  Parents hope that if they start dealing with the young from a more natural standpoint that it can’t help but have a trickle down effect and lead to happier children.  I can see their point and I do think the idea behind natural parenting is a good one. However, the natural parenting style has one big problem.  First, what I can’t get over is that nobody has looked at the ‘natural’ style of parenting and figured out what is really at its essence. In reality, because they miss this fundamental factor, a significant proportion of people that try natural parenting, get the opposite of what they'd hoped for.

Let me tell you why.  First, they fail to notice what makes natural parenting really natural.  Parenting was practiced a natural way historically for a reason.  That reason was because the energy didn’t exist to practice parenting in any other way.  Babies were put in a sling because mother was constantly on the move providing for the family as a whole and therefore a sling made the most sense.  Baby was not put there so as to facilitate connection as nobody had the time to even consider connection.  They were way too busy putting food in front of the family.  Baby simply came along for the ride.

As baby became larger, baby got off mom’s hip and started toddling about.  They would venture away and come back for reassurance, as necessary.  Again mom and dad went about their activities and baby either came too or toddled about the general area.  Parents had in their child an independent human being who as soon as it was no longer practical to carry about, simply mimicked mom and dad and happily played along with whatever was lying around.  Mom and Dad busy with their own activities, attended to the child when needed but for much of the time they weren't needed and life rolled on.

As the child aged they would venture further and further away, certainly out of sight and mom and dad knew intrinsically that they would be ok, having mastered many of the skills needed to look after themselves.

Contrast the reality of real natural parenting with the natural parenting that is for the most part practiced in the modern western societies and you can see one major issue popping up.  The energy levels are completely different. What do I mean by energy levels?  Well, our western lifestyles are only possible because the fuel that runs them is cheap and readily available. In countries that can afford those prices, you get all the trappings of modern society. In the developing world where the money that comes from energy or energy itself is in short supply, mom and dad are busy constantly providing the basics for the family as a whole.  Days are taken up, planting and harvesting produce, looking after cattle and fetching water.  Parents are not focused on their children because the energy does not exist to allow them to.  Therefore they parent naturally, providing leadership and love without constant focus.  Instead of being ferried around being entertained, these children are free to discover the world around them without constant adult intervention. The result is happy children.

Western parents desperately try to mimic this natural style but they are prevented by the surplus energy that exists in the society.  That is why so many natural parents end up on my list for interventions.  They have swallowed a concept that sounds lovely, is indeed lovely, yet they fail to notice the one factor that will make or break this parenting approach.

That’s why I was heartened when I read a description on a natural parenting site that essentially said that natural parenting included baby-wearing, co-sleeping, etc but that however, in fulfilling those needs, it was important not to place too much focus and attention on the baby, or the dynamic can become rather child centered.’ However, unfortunately it’s not enough because that’s exactly what’s happening and it’s why I’m so busy.

Natural parenting can only be successfully practiced if you live as if you had a low energy lifestyle.  By that I mean that you are busy doing important adult activities yet are close to your children for when you are needed. That doesn't mean you can't cuddle them or play a game but it does mean that you should let them play naturally without your intervention while you get on with things. It also means you should resist the pressure to  spend all your time driving your kids to all sorts of activities or trying to figure out what that they might need next.  

The reason why it’s so difficult to parent naturally is because the energy exists to push you in to the opposite.  Why not compromise and stay longer at the park when your child displays their anger at having to leave, if you can?   If you are secure in the knowledge that your clothes will be dried in the dryer on your return and are not soaking wet on the line, you have that option. Why not make something else for dinner if your child demands it, if all it takes is a quick stop over in the SUV?  Like it or not western luxury has turned natural parenting on its head. None of parenting examples above are even contemplated in the developing world because they’re impossible. The energy available simply does not exist and there’s the difference.

Monday May 4th, 2009

W. H. Davies

Leisure

WHAT is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare?—

 

No time to stand beneath the boughs,

And stare as long as sheep and cows:

 

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

 

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

 

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance:

 

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began?

 

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

 

This has always been one of my favorite poems as it sheds light on a way of life that has, for most children, disappeared. It captures a serenity that is lost in today's manic world. I for one, mourn its loss as it represents the kind of childhood where unhurried exploration was the norm and not the exception. 

As you would expect from my job, I have a lot of contact with families and what I’m seeing is a world where the word ‘child’ has been removed from childhood.  What we have replaced it with, is an adult definition of what we think childhood should be.  People want their children to be successful, to be kept busy so that they don’t get in to unpleasant things and to be kept happy.  Parents convinced this is the goal of good parenting and spurred on by the media and corporate greed, sign their child up for activity after activity in a misguided attempt to anticipate what their child might like to do next.

Where is the time to stand and stare?  Where is the time to wobble on a real bike while turning a corner too fast?  Where is the time to dig in the dirt unheeded and unsupervised?  Where has childhood gone?

I know what a real childhood is because I experienced one.  It has instilled in me a love of nature, a love of exploration and a connection with the earth I live on.  My mother didn’t worry what my needs were.  She was too busy looking after general family matters, yet she was always close.  I could talk to her while she hung out the washing or better yet, give her a hand.  I could venture off and come back when my stomach told me I was hungry.  I could ford rivers and climb trees and spy on old ladies walking their dogs.  I was free!

Many of today’s children never experience such freedom.  They are ferried around, each moment accounted for, each hour divided up to get the maximum amount of life enhancing experiences.  There is ballet and tap.  There is piano and many other skills to be mastered and there is school and homework.

If we are to recapture a sense of ourselves, it must start with our children.  We must step back and stop organizing and scheduling.  We must allow our children room to breathe without us.  We must drown out the marketplace and realize that children’s happiness does not come from something you purchase.  Nor does it come from being focused upon in a misguided attempt to smooth out the trials of life.

Happiness comes from adversity.  It comes from falling down and getting back up.  It comes from running in to obstacles and finding a way around them.  It comes from experience, a world mastered under a child’s own steam.  Give your child the opportunity to stand and stare and they will make their own childhood.

Our energy picture is changing and with that change comes the ability to to examine where we are versus where we need to be. Even though climate change and peak resources will have a significant effect on the consumptive nature of our lives, the changes needed don't have to affect our quality of life. Indeed, if we act now, we may be able to re-capture a vital element of human nature and give children back their childhood.

Monday April 20th, 2009

I took a long walk today.  It had to be long to finally leave the endless housing tracks behind and get in to real forest without any people.  I was expecting that given how far I was, I wasn’t going to see anyone, but to my surprise there was a bunch of kids building a fort and there wasn’t a parent in sight.  My heart leapt, not because I was scared for them but because I was so thrilled to see a bunch of kids playing without the benefit of a hovering parent.  The kids themselves looked to be about 10 or eleven years old and there were about four of them and they were having a lovely time or at least they looked like they were, judging by the screeches of laughter and the muddy jeans.

Unfortunately seeing kids playing on their own or indeed doing anything on their own in this culture is becoming something of a rarity.   Take the poor mom in Mississippi who let her ten year old walk to soccer, having told him she would be leaving 20 minutes later and would meet him there.  Apparently he got three blocks before he was accosted by a police officer who, later told mom she could face a child endangerment charge. Police had responded to several 911 calls telling them the child was walking alone.

Really, what have things come to when a child cannot go anywhere without mom or dad in tow checking out their every move?  Have we any idea about how we are destroying our children’s very ability to navigate the world without us?  Children cannot learn if they have no experience and those experiences have to be ‘real’ experiences, not manufactured ones.  

The more I look at our culture, the more I come to the conclusion that it is horribly off kilter.  Of course, I’m not the only one that believes that our culture has removed child from the word ‘childhood’. We seem to want to organize and maximize every moment starting even before our little ones take their first breath.  We’re encouraged to play music whilst they lie beyond our reach in the womb, so that by the time they come out, parents have primed their brain capacity for maximum input.   Once on terra firma, they can be soothed them to sleep in cribs full of brightly lit up floating fish and strange shapes that bounce about.  Enough to keep anyone up! By day parents can keep them constantly entertained with Baby DVD flashcards, baby swimming class and brain games. By two, must get them on those skates as the NHL is definitely in their genes.  It’s enough to give any parent an anxiety attack.  Which activity should I choose?  Which will give him the best head start? This one? That one?  All of them?

Childhood has become some sort of manic race and at its core it misses what is most important for the healthy development of children; non rushed, unguided, unsupervised child initiated play.  That our culture doesn’t seem to recognize this is disturbing to say the least.  It is also turning out children who simply can’t cope with life because they’ve never had a chance to experience it without be shuttled here and there and watched by a parent’s eagle eye.  Parents have been encouraged to so smooth out their child’s way in life that the road is no longer pleasurable and the experiences, bland.

So what has created this?  How did we get in this boat and what might be our way out? There is only one thing that has led to this manic culture and it’s surplus energy.  I know that because I’ve seen it first hand.  Go to any country we like to call ‘undeveloped’ and you can see the difference in how people parent their children. In many of these countries energy is available but it’s very expensive and people without money go without energy.  Thus their attention is focused on the really important things like having something for the family to eat, having a place to sleep etc, collecting water etc.  As long as their basic needs are met and children are loved, they learn naturally by mimicking their parents, venturing forth and coming back to them for reassurance, as needed.  With mom and dad focused on the task at hand, children are able to really explore.  Nobody is bending over them trying to discover ‘their needs.’

I remember a trip to Tanzania and at the time I couldn’t get over how happy the children were and how little they had.  They played with whatever was hanging around, sticks, a pot and they were totally happy and self contented.  What’s more they didn’t appear to need constant reassurance from their parents.

By contrast parents here are so busy trying ascertain their child’s needs that the child begins to feel that whatever they have is not good enough.  Their parent is quite obviously not content with the status quo, so maybe they shouldn’t be either.  The child then starts to realize that if they show displeasure, they are rapidly rewarded with lots of extra attention and someone leaning over them and trying to placate them with new stuff.  Hmm…what fun!  Slowly, the natural tendency for children to explore themselves and entertain themselves is whittled away.

Add to that the parent who hovers constantly and who provides near constant entertainment and the child’s innate drive for self-discovery becomes stunted.   Soon the mere prospect of a challenge without mom and dad in tow becomes frightening.

If a child does not ever face a challenge, a tree to climb, a fence to walk along, a steep hill to roll down free from the watchful eye of mom and dad, they never develop the confidence to tackle new and bigger challenges later on. 

With energy has come a misunderstanding of our role as parents.  Our role is not to ferry them constantly between ballet class and gym in a desperate attempt to stave off boredom but instead to allow them to develop the innate self-confidence and resilience that will one day allow them to live without us.  Isn’t that the whole point?  One has to wonder.

March 4th, 2009

For my blog this week, I wanted to talk about resiliency, not only how important it is in a peak oil world but how you encourage it to develop naturally in your kids. 

Looking at the news over the last few months, I think we can all agree that some tough times are on the way.  The global economy is suffering and will by its nature force some changes, some more pleasant than others.  The ability to be resilient in the face of that change will be a very valuable skill.  So what do I mean by resiliency?  Well, according to the dictionary it is the ability to recover from depression or discouragement.  In other words, it’s the art of being flexible.  Living in a post peak world is going to mean coming to terms with significant changes in how we live our lives.  How our children cope with those changes is going to determine what kind of future they have.  So, how can you teach children to be resilient? 

Well, the first thing you have to do is to provide security.  Children are hard wired at birth to securely attach to their parent or caregiver.  That attachment arises from the child getting their primary needs met, which in turn, then spurs the development of their social, cognitive and emotional abilities.  A secure attachment also provides the foundation of their coping mechanisms for times of stress. 

What many parents don’t understand however is, that the primary purpose of attachment is to facilitate eventual separation.   What’s so amazing about the normal attachment processes of an infant is that it initially provides the child with the comfort of that attachment person in reality, but later swaps to providing a primary source of comfort in the form of internalized image of that comfort person.  As the child grows this allows them to explore the wider world with a coping mechanism ‘on board’ as it were.

In order for the child to be able to utilize that internal comfort mechanism there has to be a chance for them to do so.  Therefore it is critical that a child undergo periods of separation.  They don’t have to be long but they do have to exist.  Many parents feel that by separating from their child or allowing those coping mechanisms in to play, they will fundamentally damage the trust their child has with them and thereby thwart their child’s natural development.  Nothing could be further from the truth and it is these erroneous beliefs that allow parents to go overboard in trying to cushion every experience their child encounters by their direct interference. 

I’m sure most parents will admit that at times they have failed to step back and allow their child to fully experience the wider world and sometimes for good reason.  The trouble is that parents cannot remove all risk from the world nor should they.  Not allowing children to fully participate on their own terms is what creates a lack of resiliency.  Think about it.  If you constantly hover, you send a signal to your child that their coping mechanisms must be inadequate.  You send a message that they must need you and so they do.  By expecting them to require your intervention you are actually setting them up to require it, whether or not they actually needed it in the first place.

If resiliency is key in dealing with change, then these skills will become even more important in the years ahead.  They are also naturally learned.  As a parent you can either stand in the way of that development by trying to remove all unpleasant experiences or stand back because you realize these are natural processes.  Resiliency is going to be one of the more important determining factors in our ability to deal with some of the changes that are coming.  Preparation as ever, is key.

 

Monday January 21st, 2009

The Changing Face Of Parenting.

To those of you that are familiar with my blog/writings, you’ll know that I believe that the explosion in parenting methods in recent times is directly related to the amount of surplus energy that has been available to us as a society.  A surplus of energy, leads to more chores being done by machines, which in turn, leads to more ‘leisure time’ to be with our children or engage them in other activities.  You can witness this by looking at any aspect of modern life, such as the explosion in activities available to children and the sheer number of soccer moms driving around the city.

Just as energy provides parents with choice as to what to do with their time, they can only access that choice if their bank account is of sufficient magnitude.  If they are poor, they have limited choice.  Instead of hearing the whirl of their brand new washer whilst they play a game with their two year old, they may instead have to drag their child down to the laundromat.

It would be easy to assume then that the more energy we have, the better lifestyle we will enjoy, just as it would be easy to assume that the more money that is available to society, the better childhood we’d be able to offer our children.  However, is this really true?

We live, according to a paradigm, which has always seemed to me to be completely ridiculous, yet few people ever question its legitimacy.  The paradigm is this.  Growth is good.  We expect our children will enjoy a greater material standard of living than we had.  With growth, we supposedly have more money in the system, more opportunity, more products….more choice.  We can choose to buy a house in the suburbs because it is available.  We can choose to spend the week running our kids between extra curricular activities because they exist.  We can choose to eat fast food because it’s convenient and it’s there.  We can choose….

Or can we?  Endless growth and the idea we can continue to enjoy material improvement is the mantra of our time, the elephant in the room.  Why?  Because we can never acknowledge the unthinkable, that endless growth is simply not possible on a finite planet.  As Schopenhauer, a famous 18th century philosopher said, ‘All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.’  As self-evident as this is, with all the back up data to support it, it is still a long way from being recognized as such.  Having said that, my job is not to go on about what the idea of endless growth means but instead to talk about how it has wormed it’s way in to our social consciousness and how it affects the way we parent our children.

Given that growth gives us increased choice, what can we supposedly choose?  Well, a vast array of products and services to be sure but by absorbing this paradigm, we have also chosen something far more fundamental, to change the way we raise our children. 

With the help of the advertising industry we are encouraged as consumers to constantly upgrade, to buy a new and better vacuum cleaner or new improved toothpaste or a bigger and better car.  Just as we’ve come to believe in new and improved products, we’ve also absorbed the idea that there is a new and improved way of raising our children. There are literally hundred of differing ideas on how we should parent.  We can now choose whatever parenting style compliments our family….or can we?

Historically, the large majority of the populous could not choose how they parented.  They simply parented in the most effective and simple way possible because their attention was directed to keeping food on the table and a roof over their heads.  And it worked.  Over the centuries humanity has not only survived but thrived.  We have learned the skills, the attitude and the self-reliance to make our way through the most trying times.  Those trying times are now so far in the rear view mirror, that most couples parenting today have no idea what they looked like or even how they manifested themselves. Nobody in the parenting world seems to have absorbed the fact that the unhealthy focus that some modern parents make of their children, is at best misguided and at worst, quite possibly disastrous in world where excess energy is on the decline.

 What do I mean by an unhealthy focus?   I help a lot of families and the one overriding problem that the majority of them have, is that their children are running the show.  I could easily look at these families in isolation but if I did I’d be missing the big picture.  These problems are created because the afflicted parents have swallowed the idea of a new and improved parenting method as dictated by books, magazines, parenting classes or as enunciated by the latest guru.  These parents have been very diligent in searching for new solutions.  They have read the books, gone to the classes and yet their children have responded to their efforts in a very negative way.  The more these parents focus on the children, trying to read their ‘needs’ the worse the behavior gets.  They focus on trying to negotiate boundaries with their children, asking for co-operation instead of expecting it.   They are so coached in the importance of all expression that when their child has a tantrum they sit with him or her to work through their feelings.   It is true that children do need to be close to their parents.  They need to feel they matter and that they are loved for who they are but over the years that expression of love has slowly morphed in to a preoccupation with the child’s needs to the exclusion of needs of everyone else, including the family as a whole.

Imagine how a family a hundred and fifty years ago would have reacted to a their two year old child’s tantrum, with a crop to harvest before winter set in. They did not get tantrums because they did not provide the focus necessary to make tantrums a payback behavior for their child.  We have learned over the years that the discipline of the wood shed is unnecessary and cruel yet the pendulum has swung so far to the other side that our children continue to ramp up unpleasant and time consuming behaviors because they are rewarded.

A growth in negative behaviors with their inherent draw on time and energy is to be expected when there is time to spare, when there is money to spare, aka when there is energy to spare but imagine how a parent could deal with a child who is used to being indulged when that time, money or energy is in short supply?   When suddenly they are once again preoccupied with the basics.  Imagine?  Do you think the tantrums and other time-consuming behaviors would stop just because the parent wanted them to?  No, at the very moment when they needed their family to come together, their child would be pulling out the stops to get the attention they’ve always had, adding to their problems and the overall levels of family stress.

If I felt sure that life was to continue on its merry way, I’d I wouldn’t feel the urgency that I do to get through to people. I firmly believe that the paradigm by which we live of endless growth, is about to change, indeed it is changing as we speak.  To use a Richard Heinberg expression, ‘Industrial civilization meet wall, wall meet industrial civilization.’ If you are new to this concept, I would urge you to see as a first step the crash course at http://www.chrismartenson.com/  and take it from there.  We are at risk of a number of serious converging issues, peak oil, water scarcity, the exponential stress on earth’s complex systems, the unraveling of world’s monetary supply.  It is a thrilling yet scary period to be alive.

I have been talking about this now for several years and I’ve no doubt that as some of these new realities emerge we will see a remarkable turn around by the majority of parenting gurus, as they realize the paradigm by which they were guided no longer exists. 

As the river starts to flow the way I have predicted, it doesn’t give me any joy to see people struggle.  What I do want to do, is to communicate the need to change how we deal with our kids now whilst we still can, so that when time comes we’ll have children that are as prepared as they can be to work together.   I want to convey a set of tried and true principals that transcend race and culture.  I want to offer a message of hope, of practical solutions that are doable, that send a message to the child that they are loved and secure, yet part of something bigger than themselves.  I want to encourage parents to listen to their instinct.  Everything  a parent needs to know is there.  Lastly, I want to assure all moms and dads that it’s ok to be a good enough parent.  Perfection is seriously overrated. 

The road ahead may be rocky but together we can give our children the skills and attitude necessary to make the best of it.  The human experience knows how to create thinking, hard working, kind and resourceful citizens.  Let’s hold on to that and work with it.

 

Tuesday December 16, 2008

Ten Practical Tips For Parenting In Tough Economic Times.

The economic crisis is affecting the pocket book of many a family and as such, I’m starting to get questions as to how people can best cope. Here then are a few tips on parenting in difficult times.

1. Admit to your position.  Children over three can deal with some explanation as to your changing financial circumstances but keep it simple and age appropriate.  Be careful not to scare them.  They can understand the fact that finances are tight but they still need to know that you can take care of them.

2. Be engaged.  It’s easy when you’re under stress to disengage from your family because you’re constantly worried.  From your child's point of view, this is like pressing an elevator button for an elevator that never arrives.  The elevator is you.  By not being engaged you will cause your child to feel uncomfortable and ramp up their behavior to get your attention by banging on your buttons.   When I say ‘be engaged’, I don't mean that you make your child the focus of your constant attention.  What you want your child to feel is included and safe, not idolized.

3.  Get enough sleep. It's hard to get enough sleep with children at the best of times but it's also critical in terms of your ability to cope. You are more likely to stave off behavior problems and deal with the stress if you are rested.  If you are married, take turns to give each other extra rest.  If you aren't and you're at home with the kids, try swapping play dates with people who have children the same age as yours and have a nap on the days when they aren't with you.  Ask your neighbors for help.  We are going to need them a lot more in the future, so start getting to know them now.

4.  For most of us, holidays are a stressful time and they're even more difficult when you feel you can't give your children what others have.  In order to help reduce your children's expectations, you have to get them thinking about other things.  During Christmas, place emphasis on being together and having traditions that you can do from year to year, that don't cost much money.  Decorating a tree, making a snowman together if the weather co-operates or having a winter picnic with a roaring fire.  Consider IOU’s for fun family activities as presents.

5.  Start getting your children to help.  As we enter tough times, it's even more important that members of your family learn to pitch in.  At two years and up, children can start helping out.  It's a great way for them to earn your positive attention and in the long run, it will make things a lot easier for you.  Start small with little simple tasks like sweeping the floor.  Initially, your children won't be much help but getting them involved is more about teaching how a family helps each other, than about the task itself.

6.  Eat together.  I can't tell you how important this is and I've no doubt you've heard that old favorite, 'a family that eats together, stays together’. Turn off the TV and ask questions about each other’s day.  Really listen to the responses.  Everybody should get a turn and eating meals together will do a lot for the strength of your family unit.

7. Christmas will be over soon but the realities will remain.  You may be in a situation where many of the sports you relied on to keep your children occupied are no longer available to them.  How can you help them deal with that reality?  If your budget has previously allowed tons of sports and activities but now you can't afford as much, ask them to scale it down to one.  Let them choose that one and explain that they can swap to another activity after that particular course/club season is finished.   Make sure you explain any additional parameters before they choose.  If you can't afford to get them there, don't put that sport on the table, unless your child can share the ride with a friend.

8.  Consider how your family works and prepare.   What is your level of emotional preparedness? Do you have a back-up plan for how you will find a job if you lose yours.  Do you have any money/other assets set aside at all?  Have you made any other preparations? Don't stick all of these issues under the rug.  Discuss them with any other adults in the house.  Note that I said adults and remember little pots have big ears, so discuss these issues away from the children.

9.  Keep your children's routine going strong and if you don't have a routine yet for your young child/children, start one.  Children need two physical activity periods a day to get rid of all that excess energy.  They also need a predictable schedule and a calming bedtime routine.  Start your bedtime routine with plenty of time.  Include stories, teeth brush and bath or calming wash.

10.  Examine your parenting approach. Do you try and negotiate with your two year old?  If you do, consider that even learning how to phrase things to a two year old can make your life very much easier. Instead of saying ‘Do you want to go to the park” say instead, “Let’s go to the park”.  So why is the latter better?  Well, because there is no choice offered.  Learning to choose is an important skill but asking children to make a choice they are not equipped to handle makes them confused and unhappy.  Do I like the park?  Did I like it last time?  You are the parent, yet it seems odd to them that you do not know what you want to do.  It’s fine to teach children how to choose but keep it simple. With a two year old, offer two pieces of fruit and ask them which one they want to eat first?  They can change their mind sixty-six times if they please, coming to terms with the concept of choice but without the inherent loss of either option.

 

Monday December 1st, 2008

Could the current financial misery help us with the challenges of Peak oil & Climate Change?

 

In the midst of a crisis there are always a ton of voices to listen to, highly qualified voices to give you in depth analysis of current trends and economic forecasts.   For my part, I just see the world through the eyes of the families I work with.  Many of these families are scared at the moment, perhaps more scared than they’ve ever been. 

Christmas is generally a time to splurge and many people are faced with having to tighten their belts dramatically at a time when they’re usually letting them out. Kids expect a decent Christmas which puts added financial pressure on their parents. This pressure, exacerbated by uncertainty, in turn provokes family stress and discord. 

Words like ‘recession’ and ‘depression’ abound and they are scary words. For many people, the knowledge we have of the Great Depression extends to little more than the standardized textbook description we were forced to read as school children. Since then, we have probably seen the odd documentary or movie depicting the unemployed poor, riding about on trains in desperate hope of financial deliverance.  Few of us have any real idea of what life was really like. 

The trauma of the Depression was long-lived.  Our adopted Canadian grandmother who lived through it, saves everything.  Every plastic bag is washed out and re-used.  Food is horded well past its sell by date.  Christmas wrapping is saved from year to year and milk is purchased dried to avoid the usual wastage that comes from infrequent use. ‘Waste not, want not,’ is her favourite mantra. Depression era thriftiness seems to me as a modern mom, like an obsession, but to those that lived through the Great Depression, the word ‘necessity’ has taken on new meaning, which often fails to be understood by the rest of us. 

Contrast such thrifty attitudes from those that went through the Depression to the more prevalent ones today and you can see the difference.  To many of today’s parents, the maintenance of a certain standard at Christmas time is an absolute necessity, despite a rapid change in their economic circumstances.

The modern marketing machine has created a world where necessity and want cohabit, one indistinguishable from the other.  Although the economic crisis has already cooled many wallets, there remain a significant number of consumers who continue to consume despite economic turmoil.  These are people who obviously can’t say ‘no’ to lower prices whether for themselves or their children.   Nothing made this more obvious to me than an article I read in the paper recently.  Apparently in the US, in a rush to take advantage of the first real Christmas shopping day occurring after Thanksgiving, one Walmart worker was crushed to death in the ensuing stampede.  To kill a person simply to buy more stuff is tragic. 

On the TV report of the same incident, I watched to see if the desperation of shoppers had been somehow been fueled by a lack of food or essentials, so I scanned what was in the carts to get an idea of the purchases made.  The TV report lingered long enough for me to get a reasonable look, not an exhaustive one, but an indication.  This man was killed not for diapers or other necessities to keep hungry families going.  No, on the contrary, he was killed for flat screen TV’s, blue ray disk players and a bunch of other high tech equipment.  Not only is this a tragedy of the highest order, it begs a larger question.  How on earth when people are suffering financially in unprecedented numbers, are they queuing up to buy ‘stuff’ that is no doubt not needed and can be ill afforded, just to fulfill the expectations of a holiday?

Now I know there are people out there that are seriously suffering who are not able to afford food, let alone fancy TV sets.  I also know there are many others in serious danger of joining the ranks of the unemployed and truly poor, that act in ways that seem to make no sense.

What force is it that creates people’s inability to regulate their consumption even when faced with direct personal peril?  A marketing industry certainly helps to be sure but how much are we, as humans, capable of rejecting the demands of marketers and our own seeming need for ‘acquisition.’

If you put my family down in the wilds of nowhere and give me an axe and a few basic supplies, I will cut down trees to create shelter, kill local wildlife to eat and clear land.  I will in short, acquire.  My question then is this, will my desire to acquire stop at some level or will it continue despite having enough?  Am I hard-wired to eat two rabbits when one is enough?  Or am I manipulated to continue consuming only by our consumer environment?

 From the study of early man, we know that humans will stock up in times of plenty in order to deal with periods of lean pickings.  Is this then the drive that has been so efficiently exploited by the marketing world?  Is this the same drive that propelled the Walmart frenzy? 

Our environment obviously plays a huge part in how strong that acquisition drive is.  If I live with my family in a tent and all the people I know live around me in tents, I will probably be reasonably content, even perhaps if I had known better times.  If on the other hand, the person living next to me lives in a mansion and drives her SUV up the driveway to live a life of comfort, I will probably be driven insane.   In other words, if I can see more, I will want it.

The financial crisis is hard enough, yet we face serious additional challenges in the years ahead in the form of peak oil and climate change. The success of our adaptation is dependent on developing a consensus amongst all people to move toward a more sustainable way of life.

History has shown us that as the environment changes negatively, so do our attitudes, pulling us together for the better and helping us accept less with common purpose.  Think of the Great Depression and the war years.  This financial crisis may force many people to adopt the idea and practice of less from which their attitude may be permanently altered, much like my adopted grandmother. 

There will always be those that do better and retain much of their wealth and no doubt consumer attitudes will remain with those that have the ability to pursue them, presuming that ability exists to some degree.  The question remains however, whether those who have suffered least or escaped the crisis altogether will see the need to adopt a different lifestyle based on a moral imperative?

If enough people are forced to consume less, this financial mess may have an upside and we may yet see a brighter day.  It may be a rocky and unpleasant ride and one that we'd rather not take but in the end, we may be in a better position to tackle the world's most pressing concerns.

 

Monday October 27th, 2008

Let's not get aboard Titanic number 2

I’m sure there aren’t many of you out there that aren’t getting worried about our economic prognosis.  I for one, have been watching the stock market swirl around in mass confusion and then plunge down the proverbial plughole.

We all know that this crisis is being exacerbated by a crisis of confidence.   Investors of all kinds are in a cut and run mode and whispering in the hallways of financial powerhouses have reached a fevered pitch. Such rumbles of disaster and the implications of the failure of our financial system, got me thinking about all the institutions that we take for granted, the blind faith by which we interact with them and the dependency we create by doing so. 

In Canada, we drop off our children at school confident they will come out at the end of their time, educated.  We go to work confident that once we have put in our time in the workforce, roughly 45 years, a pension and/or our savings will be enough to see us through. We pay our Alberta Health, assured that if we get really sick the ambulance will pull up to the door and someone will take care of us.  We pay our taxes, so that our roads, schools, hospitals and cultural organizations, amongst others, will continue to run.  We are in effect, wholly institutionalized.

Institutionalization is the way our society is organized but it is the fact that we are so dependent on our institutions, that will turn out to be our greatest liability when facing a disaster, financial or otherwise.  Before we can discuss that further, we need to look at both the physical and the mental side of institutionalization. 

From a physical perspective, we live within a network of providers, all of whom fill a part of an enormous circular chain.  We go to our job and produce goods, services or whatever but we are but a tiny cog.  If enough of the cogs stop working, or the grease for the chain doesn’t arrive, everything stops.  Pretty obvious stuff, yet what would it actually mean if for instance the financial system crumbled?  What would happen if you could no longer use your credit card or be assured that groceries would be available on the store shelves?  Complete chaos no doubt, but it’s the mental institutionalization that we suffer from, that I believe restricts our abilities to survive such an event, the most. 

We live by a set of paradigms that would in a critical situation be rendered rapidly obsolete.  Our ability to get though a great depression or other disaster would, in large part, be based on our ability to ‘think outside the box’ and drop faith in institutions and paradigms that no longer serve us.

We have become so manipulated to believe that our institutions are fail-safe that we simply don’t notice the fragility of our way of life. 

The other night, just before bed I was reading a book titled ‘The Titanic.  End of a Dream.’ by Wyn Craig Wade.  It was a fascinating book and started out by explaining the enormous feeling of optimism, faith in technology and mastery over their environment that British society felt in 1851 at the Great Exhibition in London. Although the Civil war set back similar sentiments in the United States, they soon recovered. Their natural resources swelled and giant factories mushroomed in urban areas.   According to the book, immigrants began flocking to US shores in hordes.  In 1850, the population of New York City had been less than 700,000.  By 1900, that had grown to over 3 million.  Optimism and a feeling of invulnerability was everywhere.

Things were good and most people thought they could only get better.  Everything had to be bigger and better and more luxurious than before and these sentiments culminated in the Titanic, a project of co-operation between British and the American interests, which came to it’s untimely end by hitting an iceberg on April 15th, 1912. If the Titanic was the end of the dream, what dream was it that ended?  Was it simply the sinking of a ship or something much bigger? 

In retrospect, the sinking of the Titanic represented the end of an era that had its genesis in the Industrial Revolution.  The self-satisfaction, the inevitability of progress, the smugness that all was possible, disappeared.  The limitless was found to have limits and views changed profoundly as a result.  In other words, man had not yet conquered nature…yet.

Are we on Titanic now?  Did we just hit the iceberg?  Up until very recently the same feeling of limitless growth abounded, the same feeling of confidence, the same smug self-satisfaction seemed everywhere, particularly here in Calgary.

Just like the people who watched their gilded age float away, will we see what ours has become, only through the rear view mirror?  I don’t know but I do think it is a wake-up call.  What we need to do now is to see the true vulnerability of our institutions.  We are no less unsinkable than the Titanic and our institutions can flounder just as easily.

Our only protection is to see institutions for what they are and to work within them only as long as they remain useful to the population at large.  A child puts blind trust in a parent because they are without any understanding of the world.  They need a secure base and time to build that knowledge in a supportive environment.

We are grown up and we are supposed to have acquired that knowledge.  Part of being grown up is the ability to accept and deal with reality.  Wherever our savings end up, I do hope this financial crisis has helped shatter an illusion that we hold collectively.  It is not the government that will help us in a crisis.  It is not your friendly corporation.  It is your community.  It is your family, neighbours and friends combined with an ability to think outside the box.   People in past centuries knew that.  We would do well to remember the lesson.

 

Monday  September 1st, 2008

I’ve just returned from what can best be described as Canada’s most tropical destination, Savary Island.  Situated in the Georgia Strait, between Vancouver and Vancouver Island, Savary is a paradise of old growth forest and white sand beaches. Oysters abound, the clams and muscles are easy to spot and one can handily feed oneself off the bounty of the ocean for now.

However, there is trouble in paradise.  At only seven and a half kilometers long and one kilometer wide, Savary is the most densely subdivided island in the Georgia Strait.  The lots subdivided in 1910, are nine times greater in density than Bowen Island and twenty times greater than Denman Island. Driven by the recent Alberta boom, virtually every lot is now occupied save a small piece of government land in the middle.  And as they get occupied, those with too much money and no sense move in, cutting down trees and putting up mansions that they rarely visit. By creating unnatural spaces in the forest, they unwittingly subject the interior of the forest to wind damage and even though there are no paved roads and nowhere to drive to, they insist on bringing their cars and trucks anyway to bounce up and down on what are little more than rocky paths.

As much as I like Savary Island, I admit to being gloriously depressed whilst there.  The sound of banging and building rarely stopped and it seemed to be one more place on a long list of beautiful places that was being loved to death.  The island is essentially glacial outwash sediment anchored by an ancient granite outcrop.  Its cliffs and beaches erode easily and are highly susceptible to disturbance, making it a sort of migrating sand bar.  With a fragile sequence of ecosystems that nurture beach, beach strand and dune forest to name but a few, Savary has little protection in place.  With only basic provincial guidelines dictating the placement of septic systems and wells and no municipal governance, what you get in reality, is a recipe for disaster. Critical development thresholds are moving ever closer, complicated by the haphazard development that comes with little regulation.  Although it hasn’t happened yet, I suspect that it is only a matter of time before Savary gets its own full-blown water quality crisis.

So what analogies can we draw between what’s happening on this island paradise and what’s happening to our world in general?  Savary Island, like the rest of the world is suffering from population overload.  The fragile ecosystems and the beautiful scenery that drew people in the first place, is on track to be a victim of its own success. 

I admit to being perplexed.  While the US and parts of Canada suffer economically and many in that part of the world have their prospects for a reasonable life turned upside down, I live in a part of the world experiencing a massive boom.  A boom which is destroying places like Savary Island in a barracuda feeding frenzy.   Even the western world is increasingly a place of extremes.  We may have become complacent seeing images of poor Indians, eking out a living in Kolkata but now Kolkata has moved to North America.  While many lose their homes, others feel they ‘wants’ must come without boundaries.

As the extremes in wealth become even bigger, what about Savary Island’s right to exist without becoming a manure dump? What about the forest’s right to remain standing? What of the rights of ordinary people to enjoy a preserved area that is now swallowed by private property owners?

When I was a child I wanted ice cream before dinner. “No”, my mom would say, “It’ll ruin your appetite”.  I wanted a scary TV show before bed. “No”, my mom would say, “It’ll give you bad dreams”.  I wanted this and I wanted that and my mother granted those requests she thought reasonable and denied those she thought weren’t.  As such, I became aware that just because I wanted something, it didn’t mean I should have it or could have it. 

We have a mother, yet we ignore her voice. She shows her disapproval in dying trees and polluted rivers and in the long list of creatures that are in danger of losing their place on the earth.  Surely it is clear to all but the most blinkered that we are destroying the very place that supports our survival.

Savary Island is in trouble.  Chocked by a plague of humanity of which I am part.  I have no doubt however that in the end, Savary will be victorious.  When the water is poisoned and the forest destroyed and the holidaymakers gone, she will reclaim her wilderness without us.  Mother will have the final word.  She always does.  You’d think we’d know that by now.

 

Monday July, 28th, 2008

This is a post that expands on last week's article. Bob's letter below gave me the impetus to tackle this particular subject, a letter which is well worth reading if you have a moment.  However Bob's  letter has now been replaced as per his request to read less like a letter and more like an independent article, the same one that he has now posted on his own blog. A very interesting blog by the way and one that can be found at http://rationalunderground.blogspot.com

What are the real implications of peak oil in a culture where common sense has been suppressed by consumerism?

A lot of parenting is about common sense.  Deep down as parents, we realize that if a child gets showered with gifts, they become unappreciative.  If they receive things because they stamp their feet and scream, that behavior will continue because it has been rewarded.

In the last few decades however, common sense seems to be on the decline and its commonality is certainly fading. Let me give you an example. When I was growing up, my parents would have a birthday party for me with perhaps five or six friends at maximum.  There would be sandwiches, cake, balloons and big back yard in which to play.  There might be a treasure hunt or a simple game, if my mother was feeling energetic.  For the large part though, I was instructed to entertain my friends on my own, hardly an onerous task. The end result was an enjoyable afternoon and a few small gifts for me to play with, once everyone else had gone home.

Fast forward a few decades and you see something very different. The birthday party has been organized by an outside company bought in to make the birthday wishes of the ‘Fairy Queen’, a reality.  The house is decorated in an inspired fairyland design and the mothers arrive at the house with their very own princess darlings who clutch enormous presents.  You watch the numbers, two, four, six and it just keeps going. “How many are coming?”,you ask mom innocently.  “The whole class”, she answers, removing her fairy wings before deftly maneuvering a pile of brownies through the door.  The party lasts for an insane three hours of…fun, punctuated by the occasional melt down amongst the clearly overwhelmed kids.   At last the party goers waddle out the door, stuffed with cake and brownies and clutching a goody bag equal in value to the GDP of Montenegro. The fairy queen instead of extolling the party’s virtues lies in a heap exhausted, ripping off her wings and yelling “How come I didn’t get the pirate party!”

If this sounds like something only those with big fat purses would think of doing for a child’s birthday, I would urge you to think again.  In my experience as a parent educator, this scenario or ones like it are played out all over North America on a daily basis.  It’s not that people don’t know good sense, it’s that they can’t seem to put it in to practice.

It’s an abundance of energy that makes possible the kinds of excess that many parents practice with their children.  It is also energy that elevates and continuously upgrades our expectations, which then in turn become the new societal norm. Our common sense tells us these expectations as to what is normal, have little basis in reality and in many ways are harmful to our children.  So why then do parents that know all the reasons that they shouldn’t do something, do they do it anyway?  Whatever force it is that encourages moms and dad to throw away the parental rulebook must be effective indeed and the only way that rulebook can be ignored, is if a definitive effort has been made to render it obsolete.

Is it possible that then that there is a force out there that is purposely trying to render us mentally impotent?  A force that makes us unable to distinguish what we need from what we want.  If so, what would they have to gain?  The answer to that question relates to the pursuit of the almighty dollar.  The ability to sell us stuff that we neither need nor really want is the brainchild of the marketing industry.  It had its birth in the work of Edward Bernays, Freud’s American nephew, a man often thought of as the father of public relations. 

So what is the definition of ‘public relations’ and how does it connect with selling us thing we don’t need?  Public relations is the business of generating goodwill toward an individual, cause, company or product.  Bernays believed that you could persuade the public to do things they would not normally do, by tapping in to their unconscious desires.  In the late 1920’s, he illustrated this to his contemporaries while working for the American Tobacco Company.  He arranged for a group of young models to walk in a New York City parade and to light Lucky Strike cigarettes at a predetermined time as, ‘Torches of Freedom.’  Photographers who had been warned ahead of time, eagerly snapped photos, which were later printed in the New York Times on April 1, 1928, under the headline of ‘Group of Girls Puff at Cigarettes as a Gesture of Freedom.’  These photographs helped to break the taboo that women were not supposed to smoke in public.  Bernays cleverly tied in women’s freedom and equality with a product, supplanting ordinary desire for a cigarette with the strong underlying motivator of gender equality.

Bernays’ theories were very successful and corporate America must have felt that its train had arrived.  However, it had not counted on the depression or the war years.  It was really the post war boom that allowed corporate America to have the blank canvas they’d hoped for.  In earlier generations, the masses simply didn’t have enough money to make a difference but after the war and as the years passed, wealth seemed everywhere.  Good jobs abounded and prosperity ruled, which was of course, largely a function of the oil age. 

Along with the economic boom came the baby boomers, the first generation that threw off the constraints of the past.  This was not just on a political level but on a social level too.  Suddenly, the parental constraints deemed necessary by parents that had lived through the misery of the depression and the war years, looked old fashioned and completely irrelevant. And at the same time as the baby boomers threw off the cloak of parental rules, they leapt keenly in to a world where it was not only ok but encouraged that they fulfill their most innermost desires. 

As consumerism gained a strong foothold, it suppressed parents’ natural ability to say ‘no’ because parents felt that if they denied their children they would be judged by societal norms as an ‘improper’ parent.  As a result, children began to lack the boundaries necessary to grow in to well-rounded adults. With every generation now, the broken chain gets harder to re-forge because the constraints that once occupied the parenting landscape are no longer present, at least for the time being.  The reason for them has become more and more obscure, and has finally faded from our society’s collective memory.

I wish I could say that this kind of manipulation occurs only a commercial level and they limit of it’s power is whether or not we buy a pair of jeans.  Instead, it pervades every aspect of our modern lives, including our political processes.  The latter is an area where Bernays theories found equally fertile ground.  He believed that the manipulation of the masses was an important element of democracy.  He saw that by fulfilling the unconscious desires of people, a society could then be manipulated and saved from itself and the dangerous ‘herd like’ impulses that lurk beneath the surface of the human mind.  It is in this way that the government and the corporate sector have become complicit in using mind manipulation to achieve their various and frequently similar aims.

So will peak oil change this scenario and allow us to throw off all that impedes common sense?  Will we refuse to be manipulated?  Will the economic troubles ahead allow all of us to make the right choices that will no doubt determine our long-term survivability?  One of my readers posed that very question, asking whether adults that have been kept in a state of dependency will be able to adapt successfully in a rapidly changing society?  

I think acceptance of our new reality, is key.  Because peak oil is not a temporary setback, I suspect people will behave in one of two basic ways, neither of which immediately lead to the acceptance necessary for an orderly transition. The first route is one where I have a feeling that the ‘petulance’ that my reader suggested, won’t even begin to describe the feelings of your average American, Canadian or for that fact, European.  Let’s face it, will the Cadillac Escalade owner now faced with the reality that his dream machine is a worth a fraction of it’s former value, react in outrage or be so dumbstruck as to not know what to do?  Whatever the reaction, the net result is that the victim is ripe for manipulation.  Consequently, whatever ‘Messiah’ comes along is likely to find fertile ground.

When the masses find out that their consumerist dreams are an empty promise and that their democracy is a shell, their disillusionment will turn to anger.  I believe this is the moment when ‘adults’ will ‘grow up.’  It will be this point when the state of dependency and adolescence will  begin its death throes and I have a feeling that the result will not be pretty.  Inequities, which before were barely noticed will become glaring.  The gated communities will still be gated but this time perhaps with razor wire on top and a mob outside, fended off by armed guards.  When the prospect of consumer bliss is no longer achievable, what will be used to keep the masses in line?  I don’t know entirely but I suspect it will be something altogether repressive.  No doubt we will end up with an angry population that is revolutionary in nature.  Whether or not they are successful, is entirely an open question.

Route two, follows the path of least resistance and follows what happens to societies that are inflicted with ‘shock therapy.’  According to Naomi Klein, author of the recent book, ‘The Shock Doctrine’, societies that receive the kind of economic shock we’re talking about often go through a period of a sort of collective paralysis.  Although peak oil is not an economic doctrine that is imposed by one group upon another, it shares many of the same facets.  If the rate of change is rapid, people do not have time to adapt.  The paralysis delays the beginnings of adaptation in the very same way that rebellion does and cruelly prevents action when it is most needed and when it would prevent the worst hardship.  The Government may also exhibit the same paralysis, confounding matters.  In the end, acceptance comes to the occupiers of both routes and probably at much the same time.  Route one’s chaos would be unpleasant to live through but would no doubt lead to a rapid equalization of resources, perhaps at the point of a gun. Route two, would quite conceivably give those that are already in positions of power, time to render a population completely under their control to the point that we may end up the equivalent of medieval serfs.

Our only hope as a society, is that the right political leadership will emerge.  Just as a parent should provide direction, so must our governments.  I would like to believe that our capacity for change is a function of knowing what we’re faced with and the truth of our future predicament.  In other words, we can manage what we know but we can’t manage what we don’t know. From my work with parents, I can tell you that people are remarkably adaptable once they are presented with the root cause of their problems and the necessity for change.  Our adaptability then, will be determined by our ability to elect enlightened political leaders and re-learn and transfer long forgotten skills.

We are approaching the cusp.  On balance, our long-term survivability will be largely a function of whether we shake off the manipulations that so cleverly direct us. We must acknowledge that our abilities and energy are best expended on acceptance of reality rather than on resentment and revenge.  We must stave off collective paralysis and act together.  As for leadership, who’s to say whether America will rise to the challenge or that Canada will find the kind of leadership it needs.  If we do, we have a hope.  If not…I think I’ll need a stiff gin and tonic...while it’s still available.

Aloha Annie:

Just read the post on the Energynet.

Have you by chance heard about or read John Gatto's The Underground History of American Education?

Although I note that you're Canada I suspect Canada's experience with compulsory education might have essentially the same genesis as ours.  Therein is the why of "where" common sense has gone (imho - and, what was more of a relief and a worry is that I am a product of that system)!

Cheers,

Lonnie

Hi Annie:

Excellent post – as usual!  By God you do hit the nail on the head.  Wondering whether you've ever read this astonishing quote:

 

“Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever-increasing rate.”  — Victor Lebow, economist, Journal of Retailing, 1955

 

Having thrown the restraints of traditional religions out the window and declared Secularism victor, the field was left wide open for the Growth Economy to dominate men's souls.  We humans cannot choose whether or not we will worship a god; we can only decide which god it will be to whom we proffer obeisance.

Hans

www.entropicjournal.blogspot.com

Thank you for your story, "What are the real implications of peak oil in a culture where common sense has been suppressed by consumerism?"

In that article, you wrote,

"In the truest sense, I believe that the USA is a very sick society."

I think this is a key point. I've personally believed this to be the

case since I was a child.

I was fortunate in that my mother explained to me somewhere around the age of six (around 1957) that the world of advertising is full of falsehoods, and that the Mickey Mouse Club was not being broadcast for my benefit.

(Parenthetically, I think Disney played a big part in the whole

process of commercial-television-ification of the US, without which I doubt that Bernay's program would have had much long-term effect. We now effectively live in one big Disneyland, a Magic Kingdom of dreams and unreality).

After my mother explained these hard facts to me about advertising and so forth, I thought about the subject quite a bit (I just happened to be that kind of kid). I concluded that she was right about it all. As a result I started to watch television with at least a small amount of skepticism, which grew into a strong perception that commercial television was a very negative force. Now I think we all, to lesser or greater degrees, suffer from what I call "television sickness."

I don't think we can realistically put too much blame on Edward

Bernays. Certainly it seems that his techniques got the whole

advertising system off to a very bad start. But once the US made the unfortunate decision to hand its airwaves over to commercial

broadcasting to be funded by advertising, the present result was

essentially inevitable. People -- in this case, advertisers and

television networks -- will find ways to maximize their incomes. Given the structure of funding for home entertainment, the whole science of TV manipulation was bound to advance to the stomach-churning place we have reached today.

In our country at the present time, public opinion and behavior is

literally for sale to the highest bidders. Those high bidders will of

necessity possess enormous wealth, and will therefore seldom have the best interests of ordinary people in mind.

All the rest follows automatically, including the domination of the

political process by vastly wealthy media companies and their

corporate associates. In every important respect, we have sold our

country to the wealthiest entities on the planet. And perhaps even

that was inevitable, because government does not have, and probably never will have, the resources or the wisdom to manage our indescribably complex economy and communications system.

Regards,

Ralph

NJ

Annie concludes: If not∑I think I‚ll need a stiff gin and tonic...while it‚s still available.

 

You want that with lime, lady?

 

 

John

Monday July 21, 2008

In response to one of my previous articles, 'What happens when the Reality of 'no' becomes clear to middle class America.' you can see a number of very interesting responses from readers.  Bob wrote a letter which you can see below too that has since been re-posted to read more as an independent article.

Pondering the Endgame

After almost a year of regular study and analysis, I have cross referenced various theories and independently performed countless calculations using data from a variety of sources including my own empirical evidence. As they say, "I'm from Missouri".

I have concluded for myself, and to a certain extent by myself, that we are entering an era that involves a change so massive that few people can comprehend it, and perhaps more importantly, fewer still are willing to comprehend it. We are in denial that the present paradigm is not sustainable and no amount of tweaking will fix it. We are on the cusp of the era of a very limited resource budget. This era will likely be long lasting.

I have been labeled a cynic, but I think cynicism has been given a bad rap. Evolutionary theory has shown that self-interest is essential for the survival of any species. I define myself as a realist with experience. But I digress; I am not a Cassandra (yet) although I have few illusions.

The ramifications are wide ranging and profound, almost endless. Rather than dwelling on them, I now am trying to unravel what the endgame will look like.

In order to do this, I think it is important to examine where we are right now. Our starting point will factor largely in our upcoming journey. Making an assessment of our mental and emotional capabilities is no less important than performing an inventory of our physical resources. This applies both to yourself and to those around you, to decide how you choose to interact and with whom.

The reaction to dwindling resources and a radically different paradigm will be determined by a number of factors;

    * The maturity of the individual.

    * The general mindset of the society as a whole and the local community (peer pressure).

    * The mental and physical skill set that each person possesses and the skill sets that exist as a whole.

 

In a nutshell, this means the ability to accept and adapt. As these abilities will vary widely due to socioeconomics, local climate and political environment, so will the success of adaptation vary widely. While many of our capabilities will be determined by technology, I am looking at our sociological capabilities. Whatever we accomplish will not be done by machines but by people, but most of us are starting out with a serious disadvantage.

Our most pressing problem is the abrogation of parental responsibilities and the tacit usurping of those responsibilities by an entity that is far from benign. This must be acknowledged, examined in detail, and dealt with if we are to overcome it.

Through a sustained and methodical process lasting almost 100 years, our priorities have been hijacked and our values have been perverted. In the truest sense, I believe that the USA is a very sick society. It is less so in Canada, but that doesn't mean it deserves the Gold Star. To be clear, these are not personal value judgments. I am not a religious fundamentalist nor am I a social activist. I make these assertions simply on the basis of common sense and critical thinking. To wit, a result of simple observations of trends and analysis of the observed consequences.

The "American Dream", perhaps better called the "American Folly" is by far the No. 1 export of the USA. It is the foundation of most, if not all of what is produced by the USA and has made many individuals obscenely wealthy. Sadly, the USA now produces very few physical things, as most of its revenue-generating physical output is produced by proxy. Many of the country’s wealthiest people, such as marketers and stock traders produce nothing at all. Sadder still is the fact that this deluded concept has been very effectively propagated throughout the world.

This unbridled growth has been driven by consumerism. I won't rant about consumerism per se although I could easily do so. That said, I will make the following assertions and clarifications:

I differentiate consumerism from the legitimate exchange of goods and services. Consumerism is a process of producing goods for the consumer that is no longer a symbiotic process but a parasitic one, with little regard for the well-being of the host:

    * No products are produced which are expressly for the benefit of the customer. Some products may actually be beneficial, but this is predominantly a pleasant side effect. Most products produce no benefit above tradition methods and cost substantially more. Hand sanitizer is a perfect example, as it is no more effective than soap and water and has been promoted through fear mongering.

    * Products, promotion methods and production methods that are detrimental to the consumer, society or environment are limited only by potential legal liability or loss of reputation. Anything else is an externality.

    * Customer satisfaction is important only to the extent that any lack thereof would impede future sales. This is less of a problem than you might think, as the consumerism contract is often fulfilled simply through the mere possession of the product. To express dissatisfaction is to attack the basic tenets of the delusion.

    * No producer has ever made a product any better than necessary, and succeeded in a mass market.

 

A far more troubling aspect than consumerism itself is the intentional process of establishing a new mindset and belief system in the collective public mind that is necessary in order for consumerism to succeed. The first step is to break down any existing value system and any cognitive skills which could thwart the marketing effort. This involves:

    * Suppression of the rational mind.

    * Suppression of personal responsibility.

    * Suppression of potential consequences arising from personal actions.

    * Prioritizing the needs and wants of the individual above that of society.

 

Once this mindset is established, the misguided mind (or perhaps unguided mind) is then ripe for destructive and brilliantly executed messages:

    * Exploitation of existing rational fears.

    * Creation and/or exploitation of irrational fears.

    * Creation of unrealistic expectations.

    * Creation of an unrealistic sense of entitlement, assuming entitlement is not itself unrealistic.

    * Creation of a false sense of abundance, both generally and personally.

    * Creation of false needs and continuously advancing those false needs.

    * Denigration of anything which is old or "obsolete" be they physical items or societal values.

    * Assertion that "standard of living" equates to “quality of life".

    * Intentional avoidance of anything implying restrictions, limits or boundaries.

    * Assertion that consumption equates to living well. Replacement of a possession needs only the most trivial of justifications.

 

Generally, anything which is "unpleasant", i.e. reality, is ignored or discounted.

In this Alice in Wonderland existence, the oft-used economic term “discretionary spending” is perhaps the most telling. The term now only addresses where the money will be spent, not if it will be spent. Considering that personal savings in the USA are at the lowest level since 1933, and credit card debt is out pacing income growth by over 150%, this assumption seems to have merit. In the world of consumerism, spending involves little or no real discretion, to the extent that the spending is not determined by any available funds after essentials are covered, but by the spender’s available credit. This is a testament to the success of the above campaign.

A byproduct of this barrage, in concert with reduced education standards and poor parenting is the reduction of key skills such as literacy, numeracy and critical thinking. This loss of abilities that are essential to self-direction further advances the decline.

The damage to the quality of life, both for the individual and the society is enormous. This has taken several forms;

    * The goal of consumerism is to reduce an individual, or limit a developing individual to a developmental stage somewhere between infancy and adolescence, thereby limiting or eliminating any opportunity for true self-actualization.

    * In the ongoing, frantic drive for ersatz success, parental responsibilities have been neglected or ignored, and influence from the extended family has been greatly reduced. Through these multi-generational actions we have all but lost any contact with, or access to, key values and knowledge which will be critical to our upcoming survival needs.

    * Further, reduction or elimination of these positive parental influences has severely impaired the very capacity needed to expose and counteract the above fantasy world. Indeed, once the first generation that is in a state of arrested development starts parenting, the process is almost self-sustaining. We have lost our culture of symbiotic mutual self-interest.

    * Once the link between material acquisition and so-called fulfillment is forged, the consumer is placed in a never-ending destructive cycle, resulting in sustained discontent, emotional imbalance, and often depression. As the victim is rarely able to discern the error in the underlying premise, correction of this psychopathy often requires professional treatment.

    * True social interaction, the sense of self-worth and the sense of place that comes from existing in a community has been largely lost.

    * Consumerism has achieved a Nirvana where shopping is now a recreational activity in and of itself, irrespective of any real need or the means to support the purchase.

 

As damaging as the above is, I feel that the biggest loss of all has been perpetrated by the insidious repackaging and promotion of negative values by presenting them as positive attributes. While many of these labels have some merit in a rational environment, they should not be confused with the doublespeak that has permeated the present skewed society.

    * “Rights”, are foisted upon us with no mention of the accompanying responsibilities (see Entitlement below).

    * "Empowerment", is in reality selfishness.

    * "Liberation", is in reality sanctioned irresponsibility.

    * "Independence", is in reality denial of the individual as a part of the society.

    * "Entitlement", is in reality the disconnection of reward from effort or accomplishment.

    * "Self Worth", is in reality egotism.

    * Obfuscation of the difference between "quality of life" and "standard of living" completely ignores the very real emotional and spiritual needs of a society and the individual.

    * The trivial is exalted as important and anything of depth is ignored or met with vacuous stares. Dysfunctional behaviour is celebrated.

 

True, healthy values have been palmed and replaced with false, unhealthy ones. This bit of legerdemain puts control in the hands of the magicians and quashes the very attributes that they purport to provide. This is slavery sold as emancipation. I see little difference between this conduct and drug dealers that present their product as a solution to one’s woes.

Psychologists have shown that an individual raised without limits or boundaries becomes a very unhappy and insecure person. Further, I believe that there is an intrinsic drive in a developing child to establish a framework and belief system unconsciously. He or she is akin to a sponge, which through the laws of physics has no choice but to soak up water, regardless of whether it is mountain spring water or sewage.

One could question how responsible the individual is for this situation, but it is largely moot or at least a starting point for another discussion. There is a lot of blame to go around. We are where we are, with a lot of deluded and damaged people on the loose.

All of the above is little more than preamble, as the key question is still “How will we behave when we are told no?” As I mentioned, the length and success of the adjustment period is dependent on how we choose to adapt. A deeper question is, how adaptable are we really? This is a question that I do not have the experience or knowledge to answer but it begs some fundamental questions about human development. Allow me to explain.

During the stages of an individual’s development, there are windows of opportunity during which physical, emotional and cognitive attributes are established. Outside these windows, development of a given attribute is more difficult and in some cases impossible. This has been clinically shown for the immune system, sight, speech, spatial orientation and motor skills to name a few.

In practical terms, we are not the same generation or even the same grounded society that was largely agrarian and accustomed to physical labour, which survived the hard scrabble existence of the great depression. We have neither the experience nor a point of reference. Whereas those entering the depression were faced with a new reality, many of us must first confront reality at the same time that reality is in great flux. This does not bode well for the future.

So, will the population that has been kept in a state of dependency and adolescence be physically able to reject these artificial, but nonetheless entrenched beliefs and develop the skills that were denied them during their critical development periods or will those neural pathways be inaccessible?

In simpler terms, will we see petulant children or mature adults face the challenges?

The answer to this question will be the difference between discomfort and not surviving. It will play a big part in how the endgame of peak oil, overpopulation and climate change is played out.

Regardless of what physical solutions may or may not exist, denial, disbelief and ignorance must be conquered before anything else has a hope of succeeding. If this adjustment period is protracted, it will waste valuable time that we can little afford.

It’s time to wake up, and grow up.

Posted by Bob

 

Monday July 7th, 2008

For this week's update please go to my editorial page for an article on the importance of resilience.

Monday June 30th, 2008

What Happens When the Reality of ‘No’ Becomes Clear to Middle Class America?

I find the word ‘No,’ fascinating.  It is in many ways one of the most expressive words in the English language and has a multitude of meanings including, among others, denial, disbelief, emphasis or disagreement.  In families, parents tend to use the word a lot. No, you can’t have that candy before supper.  No, you have to get your homework done before you can go out and play. Even though it seems to have fallen out of favour in the last few years, the economic problems that peak oil will leave in it’s wake makes me wonder what might happen when you take a society that is used to yes and tell it, no.   Much of that is already happening but like any social or financial crisis it’s always the poor that suffer first and as we all know, it’s the poor that have heard the word most often.

Particularly in the US, the word ‘no’ is making itself felt amongst the formerly middle class.  Through a combination of the housing bubble burst and rising oil prices these are the folks where the word ‘No’ was a minor inconvenience, which rarely popped up. Yes, you can have a mortgage with no money down.  Yes, you can afford that new truck.  Have that trip to the Bahamas because guess what…you’re worth it!  Yes…yes, you can.  Everything is growing.  Everything is good…You can’t lose!  Well, it would seem like we can and as $150 a barrel oil looms in the short term, the ‘No’ word is on its way back. How will the public take it?  What will they do?

When children are told ‘no’ it often improves things.  Generally it’s because they’re looking for boundaries and once you apply them, their behavior shows significant improvement. By implementing boundaries you are also showing leadership and your children settle down because they know they are safe.

As adults, for the most part we hate boundaries.  Unlike a child, we understand enough about the world to find them confining.  Of course boundaries surround us constantly.  If we drive too fast, we get a ticket.  If we don’t buy or rent a house by the rules, we cannot have our own space.  We cannot opt to fish in the local river for our dinner either because we need a license or because it has been polluted. Deep down, we understand the societal limits under which we live but are distracted by the concept of being free to choose in other areas.  That freedom by its nature, is very limited and the less wealthy you are, the less choice you have.  Therefore much of what constitutes daily life for the average person is about the illusion of choice. 

However, if everyone had true free choice you could argue there would be anarchy.  After all, isn’t there a point at which one person’s right to choose impinges on another’s?  Perhaps, but what I want to concentrate on today is that as the economic problems get up steam the illusion of choice will start to be stripped away.  Even in its most limited sense, choice is rapidly disappearing for a large segment of the population.  When you can’t choose which car to drive from your suburban home because you have no car, what will happen then? 

Any family who watches their ‘choices’ slip away must be under relentless stress. What happens when the families undergoing these problems turn from the tens of thousands to the millions? What will happen when their collective conscience realizes they have been duped and that the things that have maintained the human spirit for centuries, love, kindness, community and citizenry have insidiously been replaced with possessions that once they 'chose' and now they either have to sell or cannot afford to power.

And just at the moment that people wake up to see that their freedom of choice is really illusory, they must watch all the things that they have believed in get whittled away.  Who told them they were worth it?  Who sold them that mortgage?  Who encouraged them to refinance their home for that RV?  Who created this misery?

One can argue how large a part personal responsibility plays but if history is any judge, people will want someone to blame.  It’s human nature.  The disparity in income has reached record levels.  The rich get richer by the minute.  In Calgary, where I live the most well paid CEO earns in 10 minutes what it takes their workers a whole year to earn. Yet at the same time the food banks are doing record business.  The only thing that has kept the masses quiet up to now is the illusion of wealth and self- determination that supposedly created it.  What will happen now as prices rise and the rose-coloured glasses lose their warming tint and the options available to people become stark? 

I don’t know but so I can only look to history for a hint of what might be on the road ahead.  Economic downturns have given their marching orders to a number of insidious regimes, Nazism being one of them.  High inflation created by the Weimar Republic in Germany during the 1920’s, followed by the economic misery sparked by the 1929 stock market crash, set the stage for Hitler’s ascendancy.  Thus, we must be very careful.  People in economic trouble are easy prey and want to believe in something that will make it all better.  Peak oil will at it’s best, bring a transition that will make the world a better place and allow us to continue to exist on this planet in a pleasant and more sustainable way.  At it’s worst, it will usher in a time of unprecedented hardship and political uncertainty.  We are on a train ride to an unknown station and as I watch the hoards of parents south of me, using the word ‘No’ on both themselves and their children, I realize it’s not even the ‘No’ I had naively hoped for.  The self-imposed limits created by responsible citizens who care for the world around them.  It’s a very different ‘no’, a ‘no’ of absolutes, a ‘no’ born of massive disparity. 

Who knows where this ‘no’ will take us. I don’t know but I think that we may soon find out.

(Do you agree or not?  Write a comment.  Tell me what it's like where you live?)

Yes, I agree with you. I am an ecopyschologist. My collegue, Linda  have written about what we call Waking-Up Syndrome, http://www.hopedance.org the process people go though whenthey realize our lives are changing dramatically in ways that will indeed involve facing a lot of "no's." I love how you have cast this in terms of setting boundaries and how we do that, or shall I say these days "try" to do that, in rearing our children. But the 2-year old lesson of learning about boundaries and the 4-year old lesson of learning about the limits of magical thinking, have flown out the window with adulthood. The "you can have it all, everything is possible, you deserve it, build it and they will come, whatever you believe you can achieve," message we've been fed for decades to enrice us to spending ourselves into massive debt has set us up for a very rough and very bumpy road ahead.

I've written another article on my blogy about who I believe will be most vulnerable and why A Pre-Traumatic Stress Syndrome Loss of Expectations for the Future, Who We Will Be within It, and Hopes for a Semblance of Normalcy Help Predict Those Most Vulnerable. As you can see from the list there, unfortunately it will be most of us.

 

This is and will the the true source of massive eco-anxiety. While that term is being bantered around and made fun of, the economic impact of today's environmental issues relative to resource depletiion, climate change and population pressures are anything but funny, as many people are just now beginning to realize.  We will have to grow up! We will have to learn about boundaries and limits to the possible.

I especially like your reference to childhood developmental lessons because hopefully we will have the insite as adults to see that we need to "parent" ourselves in today's new reality. I will post a link to that article from my site as soon as I get a chance.

Thank you for a great post.

Sarah

http://www.eco-anxiety.blogspot.com

 

Hi, Annie!  I just read your posting on Peak Oil Parenting.  That is just the sort of thing I like to write too!  I love imagining how we could live so much better than we do.  I invite you to visit our website, www.fitchburgfields.org to see the vision for a center for sustainable agriculture and living that we have dreamed up!

Phyllis

 

I read your insightful piece on "No" this morning in Carolyn Baker's site and was delighted to hear a kindred spirit tell it like it is.  

At 68, I was raised in an extended family that remembered the Depression all too well.  Though indulged with love, I learned deferred gratification, a work ethic and many other things like the enjoyment of cooking, the connection between cows and milk, gardens and food, etc.  Later, i studied sociology and social psychology before going into the army and working my way to up a captaincy - largely living in Europe.  There I observed national differences and learned to truly enjoy and respect them while I began to see America from other perspectives.

Now, looking back at the social entropy that has been taking place in American society for generations, I am dismayed and, I must admit, a little frightened at the prospect of the "children" of today that are the third generation since mine learning how cold and hard life can be when the carnival begins to shut down.  Adults with adult children themselves haven't a clue nor any survival skills.  Their education has been pathetic, they have been (as you pointed out) trained in a true Pavlovian manner to assume entitlement, their entire lives have been focused on the hood ornament and not the road ahead, and, now, they are totally unprepared for the avalanche that is already beginning to sweep away much of their world.  And, unforgivably, Joe and Sally Sixpack have - for several generations now - opted completely out of their responsibilities as citizens of the Republic, leading to the evisceration of our Bill of Rights, the debauch of our financial system, and the complete whoredom of our national elected officials and their appointees.

We have been a truly rich nation where even the poor are rich by international standards but we have truly sold our birthright for a mess of pottage.  And part of that sellout has been our loss of grit, humility, civility, compassion and technical expertise.  Like your two year old analogy, we are in the early, whining stage of a two year old's  tantrum.  It isn't going to be pretty but it is well-deserved.

Thanks, again, for putting into words that which really needed to be said.

Stephen

 

Hi Annie:

 

Just read your latest posting at EnergyBulletin.net – I LOVE it!  Why the hell can't nominal adults "just say 'No!'" at the gas pump – at least SOME of the time?  Why are we waiting for prices to "tell" us when it's time to change?

 

This is the challenge I keep thrusting into the faces of people where I live.  Almost no one wants to grapple with it …yet.  We still find it much more comfortable to talk ABOUT.  My possibility in life is to interrupt "about" conversations.  If we are going to transform life on Earth to sustainability, we need to transform our language.  Have you ever heard of Landmark Education?

 

I have a blog and you are welcome to copy stuff from it wholesale as well as linking to it:

 

http://www.entropicjournal.blogspot.com

 

Thank you for your efforts to "enlighten the people's discretion"!

 

Hans

Hi Annie,

 

I was pleased to have been forwarded your article.

 

For weeks, I have been considering the psycho-social interplay in our minds/souls of "yes" and "no" as we mature.

 

In general, I observe that the dis-empowered tend towards using "no" as an apparatus for control and risk-aversion - those with more hubris tend towards "yes."

 

Keep up the good work!

 

Dani

Monday June 23rd, 2008

Canada's Tar Sands Eldorado...Or Is It?

To those of you that consistently read my posts, it won’t come as a surprise that I live in boomtown. Yes, Calgary is the economic hub of one of the last remaining massive energy plays in the world, the Oil Sands.  The economic woes that are causing tsunamis everywhere else are barely making a ripple here.  The hummers are humming, sporting personal license plates like ‘Got Gas’ and the jet boats and personal watercraft are happily speeding up and down the lakes belching out smoke and pushing those of us with sensitive hearing to an auditory hell.

So you’d think with everyone drinking out of the tar sand cup of wealth that we’d be one happy population, wouldn’t you?  Well, I hate to burst the bubble but we aren’t.  The truth is that as quickly as some get their sticky paws on the wads of oil dollars, others are falling further and further behind.  Our homeless population doubles every two years as rental units are turned in to condos and families with kids wait for buses to take them to one or other church for the night.  How can this be?  Does this not fly in the face of capitalism and the idea that the wealth will trickle down to the masses…eventually?

And that’s not the only sign that the Eldorado of the Canadian west is in its full glory.  Foreigners of every description are pouring in to labour at the Tim Hortons doughnut shops and on construction sites and give their lives in oil accidents up north. Yes, you’ll be happy to hear that unbridled capitalism is alive and well in Alberta.

Admittedly at first sight this doesn’t have much to do with parenting, nor perhaps peak oil but if we look below the surface (no pun intended) you’ll find that it actually does.  First let’s look at why oil companies are in the Oil Sands to start with.  If there were abundant and easily accessible supplies of cheap and easy to produce oil, why would so many companies be making multi million dollar stakes in the dirty, expensive, labour intensive and environmentally disastrous oil sands?  The easy answer is they wouldn’t and so we can safely assume that the cheap and easy to produce oil is effectively on it’s way out and the dirty, expensive to produce oil, is on it’s way in…or should I say, one of the few options left open to us.

Secondly, peak oil is rapidly affecting the economies of other countries so much so, that the economic refugees heading our way are arriving in every increasing numbers.  I only have to go to my local store to hear any number of regional British accents not only as fellow shoppers but also working the till. These economic refugees from England are able to bring their families with them but I can’t say the same for the scores of Mexicans and Filipinos that come in on temporary work visas that allow them to stay for a year or two, sample the good life and then force them to return home.

What could be more cruel than removing a father from his entire family for a couple of years or more at a time and then shunting him back with no hope of allowing his family to drink from the Canadian well of economic bounty, that he has helped facilitate?

Bringing in foreign workers from the Philippines and Mexico amongst others, also begs another question.   As the economic woes of those south of us become even more apparent, why on earth do we continue bringing in people from so far away?   One would think that our leaders were aware of a workforce who are already culturally assimilated, geographically close and speak the same language, yet are suffering with fewer and fewer jobs.  Ditto for other parts of Canada where the economy is also on a downward slide. Let me speculate.  Could it be that it’s cheaper to bring in a workforce of Filipinos thereby maximizing profit?

If you are going to bring people in, it is only fair to offer them the same rights and protections and future as other Canadians.  Bringing them in simply to add on a temporary basis to the economic bottom line is wrong-headed.  It creates a under class of workers who are easy prey for unscrupulous employers as many have language difficulties and are unaware of their rights.   Bringing people in also has another effect.  In a world with rapidly rising prices and economic woes, it perpetuates a myth that the city of gold still exists, if only people can get to it.  It tells people that the economic hardship they’re experiencing is far from universal because there in Alberta it is supposedly, oh so much better.  Lastly, it perpetuates a myth that the Western world is still humming along when its foundations are being shaken to the core.   When the bubble does burst in all its glory, the ramifications will be felt everywhere and only a fool would believe we could escape such a powerful equalizer.

In the meantime however, I’m no economist but as I watch the wealth stay firmly at the top and seldom if ever, trickle down to the rest, I still ponder the age-old question of why some people should be stuck working the streets of gold, while others see fit to drive their hummers on it.

Monday June 16th, 2008

Adapting to Peak Oil and Discovering Our Core Needs.

There is something that’s always puzzled me about humanity and how it functions in a crisis.  We remain head locked in a battle to retain our methodology even when it clearly is not working.  It happens with parents that ask my advice then refuse to institute my suggestions and it is happening on a global level with peak oil and climate change.  It is in essence, a protective instinct.  Faced with the unknown, it’s is a rare member of humanity that does not scurry back to their cave whether they be McMansions or condos, all the while clinging to habits that are clearly obsolete.  There are many examples of this, the Easter Islanders who cut down all their trees, the Norse settlement in Greenland who could not adapt and others.

The speed at which we adapt is key and given that a more rural or certainly a more manual labor orientated society is in the works, it might be interesting to take note of how our families are doing and just what they’re up against.  As one might expect, our ways of behaving are defined by the era we live in.  We drive all over the place because we can.  We eat convenience foods because there is no time to cook.  We consume because we have absorbed the idea that our individual success is defined by it.  Many parents try valiantly in their own way to provide their children with a healthy lifestyle and outlook.  However, given that many are completely unaware of the implications of a post peak society or the real ramifications of climate change, it becomes clear that they are largely approaching solutions from the wrong angle.  They see organized sports as the only answer to surging obesity rates, forgetting that as they drive around for miles they are unknowingly helping to sink Bangladesh. They try and provide entertainment for kids whilst they work or perform other vital activities, forgetting that by not removing the TV they are exposing their 8 year old kids to violence, sex and a whopping 7600 food ads a year. They send their kids to school expecting that the system will promote healthy lifestyles, except that in the US only 4% of elementary schools, 8% of middle schools and 2% of high schools across the country include daily physical exercise for all students. In Canada, we’re a tad better off but it’s certainly no cause for celebration.  According to the Globe and Mail, in 2007, only 26% of school boards included daily physical activity periods for students. 

Given that rising oil prices are creating a wallet squeeze that many of us know will continue unabated, I can’t help thinking many parents are on a treadmill to nowhere.   Add to that the fact that in many areas of the US, Americans are currently undergoing unprecedented hardships with the busting of the housing bubble and other economic woes and the necessity for a rapid adaptation is obvious. As the stress builds for both Americans and other countries that follow in their wake, life will become increasingly difficult for families as a whole.  The question is how hard will parents hang on to patterns of behavior that clearly no longer work?  Will they hang on to the SUV and run out of gas on the highway on the way to football practice?  Will they continue to purchase convenience foods while their price skyrockets in to orbit?  Will they keep sending their children to schools that receive less and less funding exhausting a good portion of their budget just to get them there?

And what about the emotional ramifications of a rapidly changing society? One of the offshoots of a mobile public is that families often find themselves spread far apart.  As the gas in the tank dries up literally, many parents are going to find themselves alone dealing with these problems.  When people find themselves trapped and hurting they often behave in ways that further stress what’s left of family unity. Given the lack of support in suburban neighborhoods that are already so denuded of ‘community’ and I have to wonder what may be in store for the many children as their parents cling to maintaining a lifestyle that no longer works. 

No matter what your living arrangement, the only way to counter such stress is to start the process of adaptation now whilst we can still undertake it at our own pace.  Many of you have indeed started and are far ahead of the curve but if you aren’t, the first step is to recognize the importance of your local community and adopt the notion that it takes a village to raise a child.  That means trying to involve your neighbours in your life and involving yourself in theirs.  How do you do that?  Well, to begin with ask them over.  If your budget is way too tight, suggest sharing a meal in the backyard.  Send the kids over to help them with snow shoveling or lawn mowing or getting groceries for those unable to get out much.  Remember that in the past neighbours and not just parents provided guidance to children.  This was seen not as interference as it is now but instead was a real bonus as it took some of the pressure off the parents and reinforced the idea that the whole community has a place in the raising our children. 

As a society over the last fifty years, families have become increasingly nuclear and isolated.  Our neighbors are the most obvious practical resource we have available to us, yet few people interact with them on a real level. We have been so manipulated by the media to believe that there is an offender around every corner that we have stopped trusting those that can offer us the most help.  There have been and will always be horrible people who exist to cause to pain to others but they are few and the only way to fight against them is to be part of a strong community whose members look out for each other. 

The most important part of the adaptation process is not a physical but a mental one.  Once you know what you need to do you can do it but in order to get to that place we have to be able to drop the parameters that have defined us during our cheap oil era and rediscover the core needs we have as humans.  So what are our core human needs? We have a need for shelter but we may have to drop the idea that we have one family to one house living arrangement and look at the practicalities of bunking up either with friends or family.  We have a need for love so let’s promote inter-generational living giving Grandpa and Grandma the opportunity to remain valued and offer lots of love instead of being cast away in a home.  We have a need for connectedness.  Assuming people start living together and family groups become larger, family meals with their inherent conversation are just going to make more sense. If you don’t have to fly out of the house for swimming practice and you’ve just spent weeks tending the veggies, it at least makes sense to enjoy them together.  Just this change in itself will provide much of the support missing from our current living arrangements.

We have a need for food and everybody knows that helping hands create a lighter load.  As such, children will gain their self-esteem not from the latest fashion or gizmos but from the help they give to their families and community. We need to know where we come from and have the education necessary to thrive, even though it may be different from the concept of education we have today. As the TV fades in to the background in importance and funding, we will have a need for the oral and visual storytelling of the past, which may in turn, create a cultural resurgence.  These are true human needs, many of which we seem to have lost.  Let’s hope peak oil brings them to the forefront again.

Monday June 9th, 2008

The reader featured below, recently sent a response to my article, 'Attachment Parenting:  The Reason It Won't Work in a Changing World'.  It was such a passionate defense of the method that I felt I should clarify my opinion in my next editorial.  She has her own personal response but below is her letter and my editorial, which I hope more clearly outlines my opinion.

Dear Annie

I recently read your articles on peak oil and parenting via the Powerswitch website. I was somewhat puzzled by the one on attachment parenting and why it won’t work in a changing world.

I have been aware of Peak Oil for the past 4 years. I’ve volunteered for Powerswitch to raise awareness of the energy crisis and have been involved in promoting Transition Towns where I live in the UK. I’m also a mother of an 18 month old and have been practising attachment parenting. I must stress that our definitions of attachment parenting seem to be very different.

For a start, I don’t consider attachment parenting to be permissive at all. I read Jean Liedloff’s book The Continuum Concept which describes the childrearing practices of a traditional hunter-gatherer tribe in South America. The tribe’s children were carried everywhere as infants, breastfed on demand and co-slept with their parents yet they were active contributors to their households at a very young age and looking after younger siblings at age seven. Far from being dependent, they were self-reliant, happy and capable.

My husband and I base our parenting style on similar core principles of extended breastfeeding, babywearing (using a carrier or sling) and co-sleeping. These have been covered in detail in a series of books by William and Martha Sears. At no point do they advocate a soft approach. Children need firm boundaries. My son eats what we give him, is not allowed to interrupt adult conversation, has to share, wait his turn, and must also fit in with what we’re doing and end activities when appropriate, not always when he wants to. However, we also give him lots of affection, fun and unconditional love and have respect for his feelings and sympathy for his point of view. Really, it’s a case of mutual respect. Because of the security provided by attachment parenting, he is a very sociable, confident and happy child who plays independently and already demonstrates empathy towards others. He is also assertive rather than aggressive and is not attached to material possessions, preferring interaction with people. We’re not perfect parents but so far he is a good advert for the attachment parenting approach.

With regard to the impact of Peak Oil on parenting: I accept that I live in the UK where we do have a tradition of public transport. I can’t even drive a car, so tend to walk everywhere or use the bus or train and that’s in a semi-rural market town. In fact we don’t even own a car, just hiring them when absolutely necessary (every couple of months on average). I’ve already adapted to a more localised lifestyle, and the attachment parenting model I follow seems to accord with that rather than conflict with it.  I also think the approach will be highly useful in a transitional society where resources are scarce and formula milk, expensive gadgets and so on are no longer possible.

I think you have perhaps come across children who have been permissively parented by those who believe they are practising attachment parenting but in fact aren’t. I strongly recommend that you read Liedloff and Sears to find out what is meant by the term.

I look forward to reading your future posts and hearing your comments,

Best wishes

Fiona

 

Peak Oil Parenting:  Has The Nobel Goal of Attachment Parenting Been Hijacked?

One of my readers challenged me over an article I wrote on my website concerning attachment parenting and the difficulties of using that method as the constraints dictated by peak oil make themselves known.   She wrote a sentient and very interesting response in support of attachment parenting which you can see on my site.  I responded that in my view, the whole approach of  ‘Attachment Parenting’ in North America has been hijacked. There seem to be many parents that I work with who have adopted this approach and yet it works badly for them and after reading her spirited argument, I speculated that perhaps the real reason for this lack of success for many participants is because over the years, attachment parenting has morphed in to something very different. For those of you that don’t know anything about this approach, it was Jean Liedloff, an American writer who articulated many of the principals on which attachment parenting is based.  She visited South America in the 1970’s and noticed the Yequana Indians had far better behaved and more resourceful children than those of the western world and set out to find an answer as to why that was so. What she came up with is detailed in her book, The Continuum Concept, in which she stresses the importance of the notion of responding to baby’s needs and creating early attachment bonds through baby wearing and co-sleeping, which would then form the basis for later life.  This approach mimicked that of the Indians and their traditional lifestyle.

Since she wrote the book, Liedloff who was one of the architects of the movement, has noted that the approach she helped pioneer has often morphed in to child centeredness.  She says and I quote “I didn't foresee this problem of child centeredness, but when I realized what was happening, I tried to address it in the introduction in subsequent editions of the book. I've also written about it in Mothering magazine. But, you know, I never intended for the book to become a childrearing manual. I was just writing what I saw in South America.”

The problem with talking about this movement is that it is often practiced in way that doesn’t fully understand what Liedloff meant.  As a result, in many cases it has morphed in to a child-centered approach, instead of remaining pure to Liedloff’s research.  Although this is a generalization, it’s something I come across all the time.  Unfortunately though, these parents still insist that they are attachment parents and vehemently stick to that title even though all hell is breaking loose around them.  What causes hell to break loose?  Well, Liedloff makes a very good case that although baby remains with mom, she is not mom’s focus.  In other words, the parents get on with activities and baby simply comes along for the ride.   When attachment parenting morphs in to child centered parenting whether or not the difference is noted, the child becomes the focus and that is the problem. Even many of the educators of attachment parenting adhere to a similar approach. Let me give you an example.  Recently, I read the work on an attachment education site which championed negotiation as a way of dealing with small children.  In my view, negotiation is a learned skill, which should not be employed too early on.  In other words, you can only negotiate with someone who wholly understands all points of view.  If your small child needs to take a ride in the car and refuses to wear a seat belt, you cannot negotiate your child's compliance.  They have no concept of danger and no concept of the consequences of such a decision.  Trying to negotiate in such a situation also looks remarkably like bribery.  ''If you do this, I'll do that", which I don't believe is a healthy route to take either.  In a situation like this, mutual respect and empathy for the feelings of your child are all very well and necessary but they cannot be allowed to determine the outcome.  The advice also went to explain that what boundaries are in place, needed to be constantly renegotiated, as moods and values change.  I don't know about you but I would hate to live in an environment where the goal posts are always moving.  How do you know what is acceptable from day to day?

The line between real or pure attachment parenting and fuzzy attachment...child centered parenting is unfortunately blurry.  Many sites that have popped up on the Internet seek to explain the difference but in practical terms, once you dig deeper you find all sorts of inconsistencies.  Perhaps in my earlier article I should have used the title of 'Child Centered Parenting….The reason it won’t work in a changing world' but then many attachment parents who are de facto practicing the child centered approach would not have seen themselves and therein lies the dilemma.

Liedloff recognized that children needed to be part of the family and not the focus of it.  Such recognition is of huge importance and something I have witnessed myself through observation.   I also looked at another attachment parenting education site linked with Dr. William Sears who was the first to coin the term ‘Attachment parenting’ and although they had quite a pool of writers, I agreed with much of their advice.  However, what I was trying to get across in earlier articles is that there are some moments in a peak oil world, where parents and kids will just have to get on with it.   Let me give you an example of a letter they answered.  A woman was having problems with three and a half year old identical twins.   Essentially, the children wouldn't do what was asked of them, so the writer suggested sitting with them in time out.  Now you might say...What's the problem in that?  The parent is taking time to help the child calm down and deal with their feelings.  Ok?  But is that really realistic?  What if the washing needed to come off the line right at that moment because a huge thunderstorm was headed their way?  What if dark was approaching and they had to get those potatoes out of the ground for dinner?  What if they were a walking back home and still had some way to go when their child threw a similar tantrum and they had to make it back before dark?  In a pre-peak oil world they have the option to let their child slowly come to terms with their feelings while they sit and wait.  They know that once they get in their vehicle, all will be well or once they get home, perhaps much later than they intended, they can zap dinner or order in?

I've seen and worked with a lot of children and I honestly believe the more attention you pay to them when they undertake behavior you don't want, the more bad behavior you will get.  Sitting with a child on the stairs while they calm down does indeed impart the message that you care but it also imparts a message that I will stop what I'm doing to attend to your temper.  Those two messages are entirely conflicting and therein lies the problem.  If the misery is due to an insect bite or bump or some other tangible discomfort, fair enough but if it is due to the fact that the child didn't get their way, such a response will create more problems than it solves.  These are the moments where you start veering in to a child centered approach and it's easily done.

In the final analysis, I still have reservations about the practicality of certain aspects of the approach.  Having said that, I’m not one to quibble if it works for you.  If parents can practice this method without delving in to a child centered approach then the method will certainly work in a post peak oil world and create resourceful independent children.  If not, I have my doubts. 

May 26th, 2008

Peak Oil Parenting...Back to the Future Style.

Last week, I talked about how society looks at children and how that in turn creates the parenting methods in use. This week, I want to concentrate on peak oil and the upside of the coming transition. Too often, we dwell on the negative and although many of the changes may be difficult to contend with, they may bring with them unanticipated benefits.

The first and perhaps most obvious change is that as fuel becomes precipitously expensive, two car families are likely to become one car families. Most people would probably consider this a bad thing but let’s for a moment look at how it might change our lives for the better. For the vast majority of Canadian and American families who do not have access to decent public transportation, life is likely to become much more home-based. Whether parents work in the home or outside the home, daycare is only practical if it’s available in the community in which you live and as such, community will suddenly take on a new relevance. If you’re an at home mom or dad, instead of driving your kids to playschool or play dates in neighboring communities, you’re more likely to involve your child either in a community school or be content with the unstructured play opportunities that will spring up as a result of more people staying at home. This is likely to have additional benefits. Released from the organizational paranoia that many parents display, kids are likely to become more resourceful. As their children’s resourcefulness grows, parents will find themselves taking on other activities with the result that ad hoc gardens are likely to start springing up on common and private ground. These productive gardens will provide children with valuable and real learning experiences with the added benefits of helping them become more connected to the land around them. We might even see the sense of ‘backyard farming’ with animals such as chickens, rabbits and other small creatures that can provide us with a more diverse, healthy and local dining experience.

The car when it’s used will be used with care. To cut down on trips, progressive small business owners will start to offer the delivery of many of our staple products. Instead of visiting a grocery store as we do now, we may instead choose our groceries online and have them delivered. A delivery charge is likely to be vastly less costly and far more efficient than each individual family undertaking grocery trips. We may even have the return of the ‘milk man’ or ‘fresh produce purveyor’.

For older children the entire school experience may change. I don’t know what it’s like where you live but where I live, schools are often built far away from the people they serve. To make them accessible, giant yellow school buses meander their way along the highways and byways picking up kids and taking them to school. As prices rise, this is going to become an increasingly large part of both the school board and the family’s budget to the point that it may eventually become out of reach. As a result, many parents are going to keep their kids at home. This will lead to a surge in home schooling but it also may spearhead a resurgence of the true ‘community school’ in which teachers are members of the community they live in and tasks as a community, are shared out.

For young adults, school may finish earlier with further education in standard colleges or universities becoming more elitist. Although this has an obvious downside, it may also challenge us to redefine what we regard as ‘achieving success’ and lead to the development of practical skills and opportunities that are currently undervalued or unobtainable. For those that don’t go on to further education, multi family dwellings are going to become more commonplace. It’s likely your children will stay on with you and not in a temporary way. Instead of society viewing older children that live at home in a negative light, we are likely to have an altogether different view. Right now, we perceive older kids who still live at home as unwilling to leave the nest and unable to cope on their own. In a changing world, we are more likely to view their presence as helpful. They are after all, another adult who can contribute to the family’s economic well-being. A relationship based on mutual need and the respect it generates, is likely to create much richer relationships for all involved.

Children will also benefit from multi generational contact as elderly relatives live with the rest of the family. This would create a greater appreciation of older people along with the past they represent. They would once again become useful, perhaps caring for smaller children or using their time to teach forgotten skills.

If this all sounds remarkably familiar, that’s because it is. Welcome to the world of your grandparents or your great grandparents, as the case may be. Kind of like ‘plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose’ or ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same.’ In a very real sense, it’s back to the future.

Comments:

I'm a peak oil solutions specialist. My wife plans on us working toward our first child soon, so I am certainly going to be one of the peak oil parents you are writing about.

My blog is www.lawnstogardens.com and I sincerely appreciate you offering people a positive vision rather than much less attractive doomer side of the peak movement. Keep up your great words!

Randy

 

You might be interested in this: Colleen Smith is a professional beach volleyball player who works with kids teaching them that gardening and exercise are wonderful approaches to life and great ways to be "green"  visit at: http://www.6footsix.com

Steve

May 16th, 2008

Parenting and a Culture of Dependence.

Last week, I talked about why I felt traditional parenting methods would work in a potentially energy-constrained world and why I thought other methods fell short. This week, I’d like to take a closer look at how we view childhood in general and how our views toward children have changed over the centuries. It is after all, society’s view of children that dictates the parenting method in use.

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, which is generally considered to have started somewhere between 1760 and 1780, children were viewed not as a separate category but simply as small adults. As soon as they were capable, children were expected to make a contribution of labour to the family. When they played, they did so in a spontaneous unstructured way often mimicking grown-up tasks. There were few if any toys available. Those that did exist were only for the upper classes, leaving children made to make their own play with whatever existed around them.

However once the Industrial Revolution hove in to view, childhood took on a new dimension. Children could now be trained and utilized for labor in an industrial economy. Instead of helping out mum and dad in the fields or with other activities and taking in periods of unstructured play along the way, they were now were viewed as a commodity, one that could and should grease the wheels of commerce. Working in factories, young children put in long hours in what were often horrendous conditions. Slowly, this exploitation became noticed and gradually gave rise to child exploitation labour laws. Along with the public noticing these abuses, a gradual shift was also taking place. Realizing that increasing specialization of the economy demanded workers who were educated, mass education of children came to be viewed as economically friendly and something to be championed. Available previously only to the upper classes and some of the merchant class, society started to look at education across the board as something to be encouraged to deal with the emerging demands of different types of technical work.

As more and more people began to benefit from a burgeoning economy driven by easily accessible energy, a much larger middle class emerged. It was during this period that for the first time people started to concern themselves with how their children were educated and raised. Increased family income allowed more moms to stay at home. With servants to take care of things, they lived in large part, a life of leisure. For the first time in history, many moms had the ability and the time to fret about their offspring. They may not of actually fretted enough to take care of them, as that was nanny’s job. However, the period did usher in a change in how children and childhood were viewed. Wealth allowed childhood to be seen as a distinct phase, one to be organized and arranged for, ushering in what we might understand as the concept of ‘modern childhood’.

Modern energy in the form of oil has taken over from the coal that saw us through the Industrial Revolution and has simply speeded up economic activity and the wealth that it generates. As a result, children are now not only children but are consumers as well and are seen as such. The moment they are placed in their parent’s arms they are the target of a huge marketing industry, which has given rise to a kind of childhood that few in past would have thought possible. A kind of childhood driven by adults both literally and figuratively, not in an exploited sense as in the Industrial Revolution but in an equally disturbing sense, by commercialization.

As a byproduct of the economy and cheap oil we have been driven to consume. We have consumed the suburban living arrangement and the car necessary to make it possible. More families have both parents in the workforce to make those two car homes possible. We have consumed larger houses when in reality, our families have grown smaller. We have consumed the idea that organized sports have to be part of a child’s life because the neighbourhoods we live in are so hostile to un-structured play. We have consumed the idea that our children are helpless and dependent. Citizenry has been replaced by consumerism and as a result, families have become defined by what they buy rather than who they are or what they do. Dependent children become dependent adults who do as they’re told and buy what they’re told will make them feel good. They become divorced from nature around them and immune to its constraints.

The lives of our families have been profoundly affected. Many people don’t know their neighbors and as such have become paranoid of strangers. When abductions happen and they are rare, the media sensationalizes each and every episode. Play has ceased to be the spontaneous unstructured play of earlier generations and must now be planned. We drive all over town and to other towns just so our children can participate in play in an adult defined capacity with other children. The wild places, the places that children have gone for centuries are now out of reach and replaced with an antiseptic playground or adult directed structured play. Our children's souls have been as denuded as any forest.

What is clear, is that children of the past were expected to be far more capable than children are today.  Instead, we treat our children simply as consumers and not contributors, part of the family but not wholly integrated, special but in an increasingly focused and unhealthy way. I think the energy constraints created by peak oil may change that and change it for the better. It may bring back a richness for children and adults alike, one that we lost long ago.   It may also act to strengthen the connection between us and the land we live on.  Let's hope so.

May 12th, 2008

Attachment Parenting: The Reason It Won't Work In A Changing World.

I introduced the general subject of peak oil last week and made my case for the fact that it’s the root cause of the pain at the gas pump and rising prices. I also suggested that the end of cheap energy is going to change the world of parenting in a way that few realize. I’ve always been a traditionalist on the parenting front and sometimes I’ve felt a bit like a lone voice in the wilderness or someone on a raging river, fighting hard to swim upstream. I knew from my experience that the traditional approach worked and I also knew why it worked but I always felt it difficult to explain why it worked better than the attachment parenting method and their many offshoots, empathetic, natural etc. There was something I just couldn’t put my finger on. I could see that those methods failed many parents because I dealt with their refugees but I couldn’t seem to alight on just why their methods fell short. After all, they seem very reasonable. It’s a parenting approach championed by a lot of very intelligent, well educated and very dedicated people. Surely they couldn’t be wrong?

I am now more convinced than ever that they are wrong but not in the way you might think. I realized that attachment parenting and the other similar approaches have one thing at their core, cheap abundant energy. Attachment parenting for example is a very energy intensive parenting approach that relies on a consistent loving and responsive caregiver (s). At first look, nothing seems wrong with that. After all, aren’t parents supposed to be responsive to children? Yes, to a point. When they're tiny of course you need to be responsive but as they grow, they need to learn what it means to be part of a family, where their needs are balanced with those of others members. You can also only give energy if you have energy available. Modern parents do have excess energy largely because machines have taken over manual tasks and freed up time. You now no longer have to hook up the horse and wagon if you need to go to the store and you no longer have to dig for potatoes, if you are to eat dinner. In other words, the energy is there to make it possible for you to be responsive in the kind of way that attachment parenting groups, suggest. Imagine if you will though, a time when that extra energy is in less supply. You have chores, perhaps many more of them than you have today. How extra responsive could you be then, particularly if your extra responsiveness means no dinner for the family as a whole?

Additionally, how do you think a child reacts when someone is responsive all the time. I’ll tell you. In my experience, that child becomes more, not less dependent. They need you because you have never allowed them to develop coping mechanisms on their own. Take as an example an older baby who is tired. Any child that is tired will eventually fall asleep. If you continually rock that baby, the child associates your rocking with going to sleep and will eventually expect you to provide it each and every time they close their eyes. At this moment you are prepared to set aside perhaps your gardening activities to be responsive and on call to baby. Imagine for a moment however, that the potatoes you currently grow for pleasure are now a necessity because your regular store bought ones are frequently held up.  Your very ability then to provide for your family is threatened. This is why attachment parenting did not exist in earlier times. It wasn’t because great minds didn’t occasionally wander but because implementing such a style required energy that people simply didn’t have. That didn’t mean kids weren’t loved and cherished but simply that they were not the continual focus of family activity.

To understand the third reason why such parenting methods should remain abstract you have to look our history. In earlier eras childhood was short and for good reason. Children were treated as mini adults and essentially every step forward brought the child closer to being someone who contributed to the family and further away from being dependent. In modern times we view this as sad and rightly so, as it often gave rise to horrific child abuses but it also has something worthwhile to teach us. Abundant energy has allowed us to navel gaze over our parenting approach to the point of absurdity but our rose coloured glasses should not obscure the fact that it is energy that allows us to dable in our theories. Energy that may one day, be constrained. Should we not prepare our children for a middle ground where sense rules? We value all parenting approaches because we can. We would be wise to remember that just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.

May 5, 2008

An Introduction to Peak Oil and It's Effects on Parenting

I’m sure if you’re like me you’ve been feeling the pain at the pump recently and have noticed that the number of grocery bags you come out of the store with doesn’t quite match the amount of money that seems to have exited your purse. Whether it’s for food or simply to allow us to get around, we seem to be getting less, significantly less for our money. It’s been dominating my thoughts lately and I wish I could say that I thought it was going to get better. The assumption up until now for most people is that this is a temporary trend. Once the refineries have sorted out their problems and the supply hold ups have been ironed out, the taps will again be flowing normally and we can go back to life as usual. That assumption however is rapidly changing. Prices continue to surge and now economists are talking about $2.50 a liter or $10.00 or more a gallon.

Unthinkable only a year ago, it seems now that not only are the price increases here to stay but that they are growing at a rapid rate. So what’s behind this change and what will it mean to those of us with families and children to support? Are we talking about simple prices or could these changes force a major societal shift that not only changes what we do and how we do it but impacts everything and everyone around us? The first question to ask is what is causing this phenomena. Are these price rises a result of speculators trying to get richer or is there something more fundamental at it’s root?

I have done a lot of reading on this subject and there is much research and scientific analysis of current oil reserves that points to peak oil being at the root of these enormous price rises. Peak oil simply means that we have arrived at the point in our history where oil demand exceeds a finite supply. If you want to check the research for yourself, there are any number of websites, all of whom highlight the scientific data far better than I could. The best place to find them is at the bottom of the wikipedia definition which you can find at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil or simply plunk in peak oil in the computer and you’ll be amazed at what shows up. Before you do that however, I should warn you that peak oil theory falls in to two groups. One’s viewpoint is rather depressing and survivalist in it’s view and the second is a more a realistic appraisal of the situation we face, including the understanding that our current lifestyle may be forced to change, but is still full of hope for the future.

As population rises and more countries attain first world status what we are beginning to see now is the result of the oil supply not being able to keep up with world demand. Virtually every aspect of our modern lives revolves around oil. Crops use oil based fertilizer to grow which are then reaped by large agricultural machinery run by oil and finally delivered to your table by an aircraft, container or trucking system, again all powered by oil. Ah ha, you say but we’ve got renewables like solar and wind and geothermal and you’d be right. The question is whether they can be implemented quickly enough in a society so throughly addicted and highly dependent on the black stuff. I can’t answer that question, however, whatever position you take it is highly likely that the transition period will be a challenging one which may require a global effort to transcend. We will certainly have to become more energy efficient either by force through a hit in the pocket book or by societal mandate. How difficult it will get, I don’t know but I do think it’s important for people to start thinking about and discussing this issue.

Many sites talk about peak oil and their impacts but I think it’s also important to talk about these coming changes from a family and childhood point of view. In fact, I think it’s critical. There is a fundamental shift taking place and not only should we be aware of it but we should also prepare both ourselves and our children to meet the challenge ahead. We are, to use a Howard Kunstler expression, ‘sleepwalking in to the future.’ I realize that by bringing this up I risk alienating people who don’t want to know but I also know that if I don’t draw attention to this, I’m not helping families in the way I should.

Budgets will in all likelihood continue to be squeezed. Gas and simply getting around is going to become more and more difficult. Taking your children to soccer practice from the suburbs three times a week may become impractical. So, how do we adapt to such change and how can we help our children cope with these changing dynamics?

Those of you that are my regular readers will know that I espouse a traditional child rearing point of view. Kind and loving but firm. I’ve practiced this method with great success for well over twenty years but during that time, I’ve seen things change as one might expect. New child rearing philosophies come and go. Parents try new things. All these new and different philosophies have at their core one thing, cheap abundant energy. So how are energy and child rearing connected you might ask? Well, when you have energy you have the ability to have options. You can go to soccer practice while your dinner heats up in the oven. You can let your wash dry in the dryer whilst you take your kids to the zoo. You can offer a peanut butter sandwich when your child refuses the ham, because obtaining another loaf is easy. In short, energy provides choice. If you lose energy you lose some of those choices and as a result life becomes more linear.

Let me give you an example, electricity is expensive and as it gets more expensive you decide that it makes financial sense for you to hang your laundry on the line. To do that, you have to monitor the weather. You can take a walk to the park with your two year old but you have to keep an eye out for approaching storm clouds. You’re at the park having a terrific time when you notice a big black cloud approaching your home. You have to get back....now. Right at this moment your child decides to throw a tantrum. In a world with cheap abundant energy you have time to stay at the park and allow your child to come to terms with their emotions and then offer cuddles to help them return to reasonable equilibrium. In a world without cheap abundant energy, you do not. You need to get home as fast as humanly possible and grab the clothes from the line. If you are delayed because of your child, it means no clean clothes for everyone or using the clothes dryer at the expense of something else.

These choices at the moment seem hypothetical. Gas prices are high but price by volume they are still well below that of your favourite pop, bottled water or your shampoo. In other words, black gold is still undervalued but it has started the long climb upwards. We can wait for the moment when these choices leave the range of the abstract and become painful reality or we can start preparing now. The choice at this point is still up to you. It’s something to think about, isn’t it?