Wandering with Kids

Tags

children, Risk, travel, wander

It’s interesting all the advice you get when you have a child. It’s as if suddenly the filters of what people really think come off and they start giving you all the meaningless but well-intentioned ideas they have ever had. It’s interesting how the very people that are so democratic and libertarian in their stated views suddenly all become socialists, telling you how to raise your child for their good and the good of the community.

Much of this seems to have to do with our fear of risk. It’s odd when you consider how proud Americans in general tend to be about the risks their ancestors took with uprooting their families and moving to a great unknown – how now we believe that mitigating and minimizing the very instinct that was responsible for our existence in the first place.

Many parents find the idea of ever leaving the US distasteful. “What about the children” is a common question. It was one thing when I took off as a single woman and moved to China by myself (though there was still the insinuation that I was crazy quite often) it was another when we moved to Japan as a newly married couple (this was slightly less insane than the first crazy move, because we as Americans also have issues with being alone but that is another post) now we have a baby boy. According to everyone it is time to stop wandering around the planet and come back and be normal.

But that leads me to another question – what is normal anyway? For thousands of years human civilization has consisted of two groups – those that stayed and built the cities into the amazing places we have today for generation after generation and those who were nomadic. Tensions have always flared between the two groups as each considered the other abnormal.

Yet both are needed. There is no way to understate the value of travel and interaction nor the broad depth that it brings. We speak of creativity as if it were innate but the truth is experience usually factors into it. Steve Jobs for example drew on his admiration for the precise elegance of Japan in creating the Apple look that it is so well known for. Creativity is a learned practice.

So back to children – everyone is different. We did in fact buy our son an airplane ticket before he was born. We forwent the wipe warmer in favor of infant luggage. We took him to Tokyo tower at 10 days old. Yes I know I am crazy.

But at six weeks he’s already looking around with that same curiosity that drove his parents and grandparents and great-grandparents and likely further back into history to wander the planet. There is no settling down. How can I deny him that instinct?

So for those that lived in one place all their lives – more power to you. We need people to settle and build. But there is also a need for people to wander and learn and slip in and out of worlds to represent each to the other in a different way. I believe that is who we are, and though it may look different than expected it is also needed.

Boys are Better

Tags

America, China, gendercide, Humanity, India, Japan, Steubenville

We are having a boy. I’m excited, but honestly either gender would have been exciting for us. We want both. I used to want a brother so I was excited about having a boy who would be a brother for his future (hopefully!) sister. But we honestly didn’t have a preference one way or another.

Seeing people’s reactions has bothered me.

Japan is a very male-dominated society. So while it is frustrating to hear “You must be so glad it’s a boy first!” I understand a bit more. I’ve been in Asia for nearly eight years. I get the preference for boys.

Gendercide is one of the greatest problems facing China, India, South Korea, and multiple Asian countries today. In some places the ratios are 100 girls to every 150 boys born. Girls are property, a commodity, they are devalued. They are often thrown away and adopted out. Or bought and sold like cattle. While Japan doesn’t engage in gendercide, girls are still not equal by any stretch of the imagination. They have very little voice here, are underpaid, mistreated and abused.

I know this. I have lived here too long to not see it and hate it. But I know it is deeply embedded in the culture. We do what we can to lift up those girls, but we can’t change it.

But what I wasn’t prepared for was the reaction of so many of my American friends.

We have come a long ways right? We should be better than this right?

Right?

The guys have all been telling my husband how awesome it is to have a boy first. I have listened to it and was a bit bothered. But all men probably want little versions of themselves to do activities with. I tried to ignore it. But it made me pause. Because these same guys when finding out another friend was having a girl were less enthusiastic.

But that’s just normal right? They just want someone they can do stuff with. I let it go.

Then I began talking with some of my girlfriends and started hearing this: “you a lucky, boys are so much easier.” “Boys are less drama.” “Boys are so much fun.” “So much less to worry about in high school!” “Boys are……” You get the idea.

It was a revelation to me. Even before they are born, the stereotypes begin. Just in the way we talk about our children, even if we don’t say it outright, we, American women prefer boys to girls by almost a two to one ratio.

I love my soon to come baby boy – but I am scared to death at the same time. I’m scared because I want to raise this little boy not to believe all that. I think of the mothers of the boys from Steubenville and wonder what they thought.

I think of the mothers of the school shooters and wonder “are boys really so much easier?” Where do we get this idea? Is it because boys don’t pay the consequences of their actions as much as girls do? Or do they? From a purely natural standpoint, the ratio is 105 boys to 100 girls. This scientifically necessary because boys are more fragile, more reckless and more likely not reach adulthood. That’s easier? That’s terrifying!

Where did we get the idea boys are easier? It’s not girls that are constantly making the news! How is it easier to raise a boy than a girl? Why would we think that?

How do I raise him to see them as people? To believe that his little sister (theoretical sister of course) is just as valuable, intelligent, capable, and worthy as he is?

I wonder if it starts in the way we speak, from even before they are born. Boys and girls are valuable, they are precious. They are (equally) a gift. How do we communicate their value from before birth? I think it matters, deeply matters the way we speak of our children. We should not let boys get away with bullying and aggression just because they are boys and girls get away with drama and manipulation just because they are girls. This is not to deny there are differences, but we do our children a disservice when we define them by gender first and then by their humanity. (I am well aware this is easier said than done!) Male and female, we need to teach them first and foremost their intrinsic worth as people.

Galatians 3:28 reminds us that there is neither “male nor female…..but all are one in Christ.” This was not a denial of gender, but an emphasis on the deeper issue – that we are first defined by our identity in Christ as fellow human beings. As “joint heirs” we should beware of speaking in a way that devalues half of humanity.

How do we do that?

Sundown

Tags

agenda, Fiji, sunset, travel

Sunset in Fiji

The more we travel, the less likely I am to schedule in the neverending bus tours and “cultural” activities.

The more likely we are to just observe moments like these. The breath catching moments of beauty, that simply can’t be replicated on film or anywhere. They are those moments of beauty that remind you of the wonder and exquisite design of the world in which we live. They are beautiful.

In Fiji we met people who had to be the nicest on earth. Service took forever. My take away from this was the atmosphere of the island is one that forces you to relax and take time to just be. How many glorious sunsets have I missed in my fast-pace from one project to the next? When I threw out the agenda and just watched, I realized the wisdom of the pace.

Sometimes, we need to just stop and watch the sun go down.

Gugu Bites Again

Tags

China, dumb tourists, Gugu the Panda

One of the first conversations Anthony and I ever had was about a giant Panda, Gugu, who lives in the zoo in Beijing. It was right after he bit the original drunk man who climbed in the panda cage to hug Gugu. The panda like many people I know, didn’t like the drunk man hugging him uninvited and chomped his leg pretty nastily. Where upon the drunk man bit the panda back. It was quite the spectacle in the Chinese papers for the next week or or so.

Seems GuGu has been quite busy biting people who climb in his cage over the years – for the record, since there seems to be some confusion after each incident, it is important to note that Pandas may be cute, but they are bears! And bears don’t usually like people climbing into their territory and taking photos of them. http://english.people.com.cn/90882/7821524.html

Poor Gugu – it looks like many tourists over the years have disturbed his territory and climbed into his cage. Fortunately, he is a panda and can defend himself.

Earthquakes and an English Speaking Doctor

Tags

birth certificates, earthquakes, hospitals, Japan, US Presidents

So the military decided to renovate the hospital on base. Apparently this has to do with “earthquake readiness” which is really, really not something you want to mess around with in Japan. It is also because they need to repaint the walls.

I get it. I also understand that they don’t have much control over when these things get done, or how long it takes. We have earthquakes in Japan a lot – like little ones daily, so I totally agree that the hospital should be ready in case of one. Big ones happen – we definitely know this!

I just wish the renovations weren’t when Baby Felix is due.

So a month before the baby is due, we scrambled to find a doctor that spoke English and understood that I am not a very natural mom and wanted access to pain medications. No small feat. A Japanese friend helped out a lot and we have a winner.

Now to figure out the birth certificate issue. Because it will be in Japanese and then validated at the US embassy, it isn’t the easiest process. Hope our kid doesn’t want to run for US President someday – this will be fun to explain – “actually you might be ineligible – theoretically, we don’t really know – but it was for a good reason because earthquakes are nothing to mess with kid. That’s a rough job and half the country will always hate you, so you are better off without the privilege.”

He can’t be too upset can he?

God & Guns

Tags

America, Christianity, freedom, gun control

Living in Japan a country which is among the world’s lowest for gun murders, averaging between 2-8 average a year, it is surreal watching friends and family back in the States continuously post about gun laws. Worse is to try to explain is why we associate it with Christian freedom.

Good questions keep coming up from this – questions that I have no answers to, but I am increasingly seeing as just another part of the marriage of culture and religion, and realizing how little of some of the things we insist Christians believe in America is Christian and how much is simply “the culture of American Christianity” which is in itself neither right or wrong, but purely a construct. I wonder if guns don’t fall into this category – it really has nothin to do with Christianity – it’s just cultural.

So here I am left to explain – why would “Christians” in America respond to a tragedy like Newton by buying more guns? What does that have to do with Jesus? Japanese Christians (and Christian expats from several other non-gun obsessed countries) have been asking how do I possibly explain? Especially since its not like America has such a corner on “Freedom” Australia, Japan, etc. are free countries and this is where the questions come from.

Thoughts?

Pass the Sushi!

Tags

American Healthcare, high fructose corn syrup, maternal health, natural birth, panic, pregnancy, Sushi

So since we found out I was pregnant, I have pretty much been systematically ignoring most US medical/pregnancy advice. I live in Japan, and have been following the Japanese diet recommendations for the most part, and supplementing with a bit of the European/Australian info that is out there as well. This isn’t meant to be a US bashing post, but it is a recognition that the logic that fuels the US system is deeply flawed. We over panic about things like sushi because of general ignorance of the preparation process, and don’t worry about longer term problematic issues such as high fructose corn syrup.

Sushi for example, is flash frozen which kills just about everything in it just as much as cooking it would. Furthermore, most parasites in seafood come from shellfish which is not recommended in the Japanese diet.

The main reason that I went this direction was simple statistics in the form of the worldwide healthcare rankings. The US is currently 37 in overall healthcare, 35 in infant survival, and a horrible 47th in maternal health. Japan ranks 2nd. All of this is easily verifiable, just read the reports from WHO, the CIA etc. it’s all routinely published and updated annually.

There are many, many factors that contribute to these issues – one of the big ones seems to be that the US unfortunately leads the world in another statistic that likely is a huge contributor to its horrible healthcare ratings; obesity. We are far and away the most obese nation in the world. Our horrible commercialized and manufactured diets contribute to a lot of this.

Healthcare also contributes to these problems since we have no national healthcare system, corruption, fraud and abuse runs amuck. “Natural Healthcare” gets far more play than it is actually worth because insurance companies etc. want to cut costs. On the flip-side, we are over medicated and overly prone to have unhelpful procedures due to pharmaceutical and medical companies wanting to make a profit. Death rates for infants and mothers doesn’t seem to be a particular concern in the US. Yet we fight to keep our same, broken, corrupt healthcare system because someone, somewhere is making a profit. “Natural” birth and elective c-sections have both become big business. The only consistency in our system seems to be that as long as money is being made we will stay the course.

We are in desperate need for balance, and that would take a complete overhaul in our system. I think it is highly likely that the dollar cost for that to actually happen is too great. So change is highly unlikely. In the meantime, pass the sushi.

The Beautiful “Other”

Tags

China, Humanity, Rush Limbaugh

I moved to China in 2003. I went young (23) idealistic, and thinking I could change the world as is often the case with youth that go overseas. It is now 2013. More than eight of the past ten years have been spent in Asia. I am writing this from Japan, reflecting back on that young, idealistic youth who got on an airplane not knowing a soul and took off for a country that I had never been to. What an idiot I was – but I am so glad I was!

Much has been written about China, the differences, the struggles of the cross cultural life. The truth is, there are plenty of those to go around. It is hard. It is grueling. China, and cross-cultural experience in general has a way of pushing you past the bounds of what you considered real and possibly shattering much of your hard held world-views. But I realized to focus on that misses the significance of what China was for me.

Somewhere along the way, China lost its “otherness” no longer was it “the Chinese” do “these things” but “we” and “my friends” do “this together.”

The “otherness” was the backstory only. The real story is the beauty of learning from the kindness of strangers. Seeing the wonder of a very different culture and our commonalities became forefront rather than our differences. The importance of the moments that I forgot I was in a “foreign” country, and just saw it as normal life.

I remember returning home to America from China and hearing people criticize everything about the nation I had come to love. The Olympics was a scam, the products from China were toxic, the people were evil communists, I heard one well known conservative radio host refer to the people as the “Chi-coms” and it disturbed me so much I shut off the radio and never listened to him again, even to critique what he would say.

I found myself unable to connect with the stereotypes of my own nation anymore. Yes, China is corrupt. Yes, a lot of things are wrong in the country. Yes, it has a lot of issues. But the categorization of “those people over there” was forever lost. Especially as I found myself homesick for that beautiful country. The thing that gets forgotten is that it is a nation of people. Those people are far more like us than we would be willing to admit and humanizing “them” means you lose the ability to hate them.

We like to focus on the differences in culture because it makes a good story. I remember writing home many times to describe something “different” or “weird” that I saw.

Far more often though, the “weirdness” was normalized. What was once “weird” no longer was – it was just life, and we as friends enjoyed it. I think it is really important to see this, the beauty of the humanity and friendship that is there.

We as people are far more similar than we ever will be different. I look back on my years in China knowing that the people who walked with me down that road from a different “foreign” country are some of the best friends I ever could have dreamed of having. If people would go, and know them, it becomes so much harder to stereotype and categorize the “other.”

So this is why I keep traveling. Maybe, maybe someone out there can see the humanity of the other. My goal is to be a good representative of my people, and hopefully to help others to see humanity in the others that they fear.

The Fox and The Grapes

Tags

Aesop's Fables, Sour Grapes, travel

There is a story in Aesop’s fables called the “Fox and the Grapes.” In the story, the fox can’t figure out how to get the grapes so he convinces himself that they must be sour and therefore he shouldn’t feel bad about killing his desire for the grapes. “They must be sour,” the fox decides, for surely the idea that they are sour is better than the knowledge that something better is out there and there is no way to get to it.

Many people have this idea about travel. I used to do it myself. It is one of the great mental games we play on ourselves. We decide that the effort must truly not be worth it because of the great perceived cost it will take to achieve what we truly want. So we tell ourselves about the great inconvenience of travel, the cost, the lack of comparative value, etc. we make it bearable to not pursue what we truly want by telling ourselves that it can’t truly be that good.

The trouble is, many then talk themselves out of fantastic experiences. The persuade themselves not to try – but the truth is – it truly is that good. And if we lie to ourselves, we miss out.

So that dream vacation? Take it. Sacrifice, pay the cost. Make it happen. Don’t talk yourself out of it.

Many people tried to talk me out of moving to China. They pointed out all the potential problems and setbacks. I talked myself out of it once. But the truth is, something deeper about the opportunity wouldn’t let me go, and in the end, I found I would be denying who I truly was and what I truly believed to not take that risk, get on that plane and go.

The truth is, there were rough times. There were awesome times. It was so much more beyond, deeper, more painful and more beautiful than anything I had ever imagined or anyone else who cautioned me could have dreamed. It was worth everything I gave up and more – in fact as I look back, I the to me of going seems to be silly in comparison to the experience that I gained.

So if you have a dream, don’t talk yourself out of it. Make it happen. Don’t tell yourself its just sour grapes when the truth is it may be amazing beyond your wildest dreams.

Travel Beds for Babies

Tags

babies, Baby Bjorn, Phil & Ted's nest, travel, travel cots, travel cribs, travel with kids

In the picture is Phil & Ted’s Travel Nest and the Baby Bjorn Travel Lite Crib. Baby Felix isn’t born yet, so I have yet to try these out but we bought them for specific reasons –

1. Weight – The nest is less than five lbs. the Bjorn is 11. They are the lightest travel beds that I was able to find with good reviews.

2. Quality – both are made of breathable materials which is really comforting to a first time parent.

3. Price – though initially put off by the higher prices of both, on cyber Monday both dropped significantly in price which made the original difference negligible in light of the weight we would save.

4. Simplicity – both have to be among the easiest set-up that I have seen.

Now the questions – are you really going to travel that much with an infant to make it worth the purchase?

1. Yes, we do plan to travel with a baby. It might be crazy, but I’ll let you know how it goes. I don’t think we are able to stop traveling – so we’ll just have to adapt and see how it goes.

2. We don’t intend to use these only for travel – having an easily setup bed so that the baby can nap in other places in the house and outside was important. It would be nice to be able to have him in the office napping while I am grading or working on a project or even out by the Tama river. Again we’ll see.

3. We want the baby to be able to sleep in other places besides his bedroom in the dark. This may be ambitious, but the hope is to get him used to more than one place so that beds on the road won’t come as quite the shock that they might otherwise.

4. The normal use – places without baby beds. Like my parents house for example. When we go to see family and friends in the US, I would imagine this would solve the “no crib” problem as well there.

So I’ll update later on. In the meantime, I was impressed at how easy the setup and how lightweight these were. I hope they work.

But isn’t that the point with most baby stuff? It’s bought on the hope that it will help somehow. And I think the hope that we will all adjust and travel well as a family is a worthy hope.