vive la France!

Posted on August 17, 2018 by Miriam McCaleb

Salut mes amis,
Kia Ora e hoa ma,
G’day mates, hey y’all, hello my friends.

The resistance is rumbling. There have been courageous law changes in France meaning that the children and adolescents there are being given mandated time away from the persuasive design of the tech companies that live in all our cellphones and feed off our attention.

Speaking of which, I enjoyed this trifecta of articles about Yondr, which is a simple and exciting option for creating tech-free oases. Yes, schools are a perfect place to be phone-free, (may I remind you of this report from the London School of Economics) but also at live shows (we should all be allowed to be one with the music without fear of some meanie uploading our gyrations & undulations without permission!)

Meanwhile, the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood have sent this open letter to Mark Zuckerberg (if you know him, give him a nudge will you?) the Children’s Screen Time Action Network are continuing to advocate and agitate, which is just as well; because there are multiple layers to the weirdness of tech in kids’ lives, like how our distracted parenting can lead to bonkers patterns of child misbehaviour (and subsequent avoidance … the downward cycle of technoference, just like McDaniel told ya), OR like how our tech habits at bedtime are robbing our children of sleep.

(ah, Sleep! I love you so!)

Other stuff: crazy finding reported here by Scientific American, about the likelihood of women with heart problems dying/not dying upon admission to an emergency room depending upon the gender of the doctor on duty that day, HERE is a transcript to a wonderful interview with Ashley Montagu, and this is a link to an article I wrote aaaages ago, for my pals at OHbaby!. Love y’all!

Finally: new podcast obsession this week … Song Exploder. All hail Jonathan Van Ness, whose Getting Curious podcast led me there.

Podcasts. They are amazing. Put them on the list of things I do quite like about tech.

sharing, by clearing (tabs)

Posted on July 27, 2018 by Miriam McCaleb

Sooner or later I’m going to have to learn how to use some of the tools at my disposal. I can barely use my computer, I’m not sure I could even thread up my sewing machine, and I’m terrified of the new software I need to master. To reference, graph, and get my shit together.

I’m so mad at tech. How will I learn to love her? Appreciate the good bits. Get playful with leaning new software. Play with the wonderful communicative bits.

Like sharing stuff. That is a cool gift. Access to all the stuff. I need to share some:

Here is an awesome article (with some blue language, look out) from Esquire magazine, about Fred Rogers. The man is a hero. Apparently there is a new movie coming out about Mr Rogers’ life. If I was a diligent blogger I’d go find you a link, but I’m due at a school assembly, and my computer is running slow!

Very good resource here, based around Bruce Perry’s Regulate, Relate, Reason, which is some life changing stuff. Ain’t foolin.

Now here is an article from the Huffington Post, about how we are all checking our smartphones more than we know. It’s becoming apparent to me that the ‘checking behaviour’ is possibly more an indicator of worrisome stuff than just straight ‘time on screen’ measures.

by the way …

Posted on June 29, 2018 by Miriam McCaleb

Kia Ora e hoa ma,

Hello friends.

As we honour our pals across the Pacific continuing to raise a loving hell on behalf of the babies that are being caged by Prez#45, (truly: my pal flew from SFO to DC to chant loudly and get arrested. Bless you, thank you!), those of us in somewhat saner Aotearoa deal with challenges of different sorts.

But we hold you (babies, children, immigrant mothers & fathers). We wrap our wings around you. Crikey, I feel an Einstein quote coming on:

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

Life is holy and complex, as it is mundane and relentless. The clock is a tyrant, and relationships are everything.

Anyway, friends, today’s picture is of the most recent issue of OHbaby! magazine, which holds two articles that I am proud to have written. One is about Respect, the other about toddler development. Which are a couple of my favourite subjects.

BYO sunshine, outrage, action & poetry

Posted on June 25, 2018 by Miriam McCaleb

Kia Ora ladies and gentlegeeks,

Warm soup and winter sunshine. What a joy it is to be alive when you’re fortunate in the birth lottery (yay, NZ in the 70’s! Yay! Thanks Papatuanuku!) but jeepers, mate, there is lameness and horror a-plenty. I was just crapping on to my big brother over coffee a few days back about how if we could just ask all scenarios an overarching question (be the scenario designing a town hall, or prioritising health funding, or creating immigration policy) all would shift.

The question:
What would this mean for babies?

Whatever it is. Going for a walk. Approving an irrigation scheme. Consent processes and elected officials would all have to prove how their decisions impact babies. Most parents are pretty good at considering how their decisions impact their own babies (“if we stay for dinner, what does that mean for our bedtime routine?”), so we must now all consciously expand to our infuse all our decisions, large and small, with babyhood.

Because if it’s good for babies, it’s good for everyone (friends! You know why! Because attachment and neurobiology and human potential. Because overstimulation and pace and wellbeing. That’s why!

The only group I can think of who will suffer if we truly prioritise infant wellbeing are those with financial interests in selling nonsense to babies’ families.

And they can stuff off, anyway.

We have a rare opportunity here, because our Prime Minister just gave birth to her first child. Well done, Jacinda! And now you get to view decisions large and small through a lens you didn’t even know existed. None of us knew, till we knew. Welcome. Nau mai, haere mai. Welcome, Baby Neve, to the world. And welcome, Jacinda, to motherhood.

a wildly satisfying life!

Posted on May 14, 2018 by Miriam McCaleb

What’s up party people? Kia Ora te whānau!

I have just committed an act which could be described as mildly rebellious OR exceptionally sensible, depending upon yer point of view. When I could have (should have?) been hitting the books I was, instead, undulating my spine with the exceptional Kelle Rae Oien, who has been in NZ teaching. How lucky am I!?! Such joy. So sweaty!

I adore her language when she expresses her desire for her students to live lives that are wildly satisfying. Wildly satisfying! I dig that contrast. It’s like … passionately content. Enthusiastically calm. Playfully satiated. Wildly satisfying. Yeah, imma keep that one!

What else? Just had mother’s day … probably a good time to share this excellent article from Harper’s Bazaar about emotional labour (aka invisible labour, aka mental load, aka kin keeping). Oh, young women, study before you procreate! The mental and practical energy that it takes to keep the home fires burning while you’re committing the audacious act of betterment is something that you cannot possibly know, yet.

Casserole, school trip, reference list. Dishes, flu shots, literature review. Wha …?

Now, some links. Let’s clear a few tabs before I do battle with the referencing software. I know, I know, that is NOT the attitude. Not doing battle with, playing with! I’ll play with it…

First … here is an article that freaked me right out. It’s about the ways that millennial parents are raising their children. I could weep. The needs of human infants have not changed, just cos our technology has. Interesting that the writer acknowledges the longing that “parennials” (millennial parents, apparently) have for simpler times.

Meanwhile, from the Atlantic, another look at the tech habits of parents. This deserves multiple and repeated reads, cos I tell you what, it’ll take you to some terrifying places. Like this and this.

And you know the bit that kills me, crazy baby lady that I am? There is this cyclic thing going on, where new motherhood seems “boring”, and sure enough the literature points to women going online (eg during the intimate act of breastfeeding) because they are bored and seeking distraction. But by succumbing to the distraction, mothers aren’t practicing SEEING their babies. Really seeing them. And we know that with older kids, the distraction leads to child misbehaviour, which leads to parental dissatisfaction, which makes a big’ol’ downward spiral of technoference.

Boredom? What would happen if we could sit quietly with that, and even lean into it. Incredible things happen when we let ourselves just go with the tricky things that motherhood offers us – even exhaustion! (My struggles with describing invisible labour – what do those struggles offer me? I’ll report back!)

I remember when my girls were babies, (1 pre-, 1 post- smartphone) people would confess to being bored/lonely at home with their infants, and I would think that if they could only see their babies as the exceptional scientists, sociologists and artists that they are, and if we honoured the power of home visiting as transformative in the lives of families, then mamas would be neither bored nor lonely. There is something afoot with our culture that we deny so many people the chance to KNOW babies before they become parents themselves, then we physically isolate new mothers (now with a damaging tool for adult communication/distraction at their fingertips) and all the while we radically undervalue infants (and therefore parents).

Anyway, I gotta get dinner sorted before school pick up. We do a Meat Free Monday, and I try and make it extra delicious, so my omnivorous family won’t grouse. Also, it’s swimming lesson day for little girl, so time’s a-wasting.

Quick round up of the tabs I need to clear … an article from NZ’s Stuff website about the Modern Learning Experiment. I’m far from convinced, especially about the “screens for all!” attitude of it all. A couple more things about schools: this from Sir Ken Robinson (oh, hell yes! Dance is as important as mathematics!) and I would also like to share a quote that has been rocking my world:

“We’ve bought into the idea that education is about training and “success”, defined monetarily, rather than learning to think critically and to challenge. We should not forget that the true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers. A culture that does not grasp the vital interplay between morality and power, which mistakes management techniques for wisdom, which fails to understand that the measure of a civilization is its compassion, not its speed or ability to consume, condemns itself to death.”

― Chris Hedges, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle

LOVE THAT.

For no good reason, read about an inspiring, alternative method of farming, here. Here is a gorgeous blog post about childrens’ spontaneous singing , and finally, an article from Mothering magazine, about missing your mother. I posted a comment at the end of the piece which I’m kinda disappointed the author hasn’t acknowledged. Maybe she doesn’t know how to. I will keep a compassionate heart. But only just.

quick and squinty

Posted on May 3, 2018 by Miriam McCaleb

Geeks!

I have a bit of a headache and I suspect tech use is not helping. Eyes are unhappy, so I’ll make this snappy. Damn, I’m poetic under pressure!

K: so, let’s begin and end with podcasts, shall we? The first one I have listened to already – it’s good. From the Urban Monk podcast, with our new pal Dr. Freed. IT was a response to this awesome article on Medium, which we’ve linked to previous like.

While we are reviewing the need for caution around familial tech use, check out this article from the Atlantic, wondering how much we know about the tech habits of parents. I’ve been doing a TON of reading on this very topic, now that I have university library privileges (WHOOP!! WHOOP!!).

This is why we are joining in on Screen Free Week – at least some family members are. We just seem to need to be reminded about other stuff we love doing. Lego! Cross stitch! Playing guitar!

I get the irony that I am online posting this during said week, but I’m at least trying to clear tabs before children return home. And this is not entirely entertainment media. So there.

Here is an article from Scientific American about implicit bias (cos, why not?) and this is a link to an abstract for a paper about doing postgrad study with a title that made me smile.

And check out the smartypants commenter on this article from Mothering magazine. Oh wait, that’s me …

While we’re talking parental leave and Mothering mag, here is an article about the attitudes of women around the world maternity leave laws in the US. Mate. I shake my head. If a culture isn’t cherishing mamas and babies, that is called Devolution.

Finally, to get us back on track, behold the wisdom and wonder of Dr. Dan Siegel, interviewed here on the Doctor Paradox podcast. This is the one I haven’t listened to yet, but will tend to that tomorrow during school hours! Thanks to the lovely Dr. C for this link.

becoming my own wife

Posted on April 12, 2018 by Miriam McCaleb

Kia Ora my lovelies,

This beautiful picture accompanies an article I wrote for the fine folk at Family Times magazine. The article can be found here, I hope you will enjoy it.

It’s very, very cold in NZ this week. Autumn just decided to be Winter, for a few days. We have had snow, sleet and gales and we’ve all busted out our puffy jackets. At my house, I’ve relocated my laptop from my office (separate building, poorly insulated and fairly freezing) to the main abode. Here I can keep a potbelly stove alight in the kitchen, and just now I lit the main firebox in the living room as well. I know! Bad ass!

I do this despite knowing I have electric forms of heat available, but my rural setting gives me permission to burn wood freely, and my state of self-wifing means I delight in performing these loving acts of care and nurture. When I gather yet another heavy basket full of firewood, I do it as an act of love. When I empty ashes a la Cinderella, it is as a gift to my future self. As I vaccuum the inevitable trail of wood bits and sawdust, it is because I recognise my own right to pass the evening without crap stuck to my socks.

For weeks (years!) I have been grousing about my lack of a wife, (I know, greedy … because I want to keep my husband …) and sometimes I’m fairly jealous of my husband, because he has one. So I’ve decided to imagine that I am my own wife. In contrast to lots of the thinking I usually do about Self (or lack thereof!) I am mucking around with the notion of compartmentalising my time – here I am at my desk, researching and writing. Here I am folding a load of towels just so, so desk-self doesn’t have to worry about that domestic task. Worker me, wifely me. Both equally valuable.

Righty ho … I will now do the baby geek thang, and that is to share a variety of interesting links with you.

First, a news report about some important research highlighting the way that parental distraction by cell phones interrupts a child’s language learning abilities. YIKES. Tech is a risk to children in other ways, tooski, like YouTube stealing childrens’ data. Classy.

Next, a TED talk about neuroplasticity, and LOOK! The Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne has issued another of their excellent Policy Briefs, this one about the first 1000 days of a child’s life.

Now an article from Scientific American, about being a scientist and a mother at the same time (I know, radical!) and that led to this piece by the same author about conferences and provision for breastfeeding mothers.

Here is a blog post advocating for sane social media policy in schools … love it. I want to quote a paragraph from this and ask you to substitute”Social media”, “Facebook” and “tweet” in the following with “SeeSaw”, which is an app showing up in schools and EC centres in NZ. I’m not a fan. (I’m also not a fan of an education strategy which aims to put digital devices in the hands of all 6 year olds, but I’ll save that convo for another day).

Here goes:

Finally, when teachers or administrators are using social media in the classroom or at school activities, it models the addictive, life-negating behavior that we don’t want our kids to emulate. If teachers are looking for social media opportunities during the school day, then they are being distracted from the face-to-face, in-person contact that defines classroom education. Taking a selfie with a student, however well-meaning, conveys that the moment is less significant than the Tweet. Sad. I want my kid to feel that what she’s accomplished in class matters in its own right, even if it is not posted to Facebook!

I know plenty of y’all are keen on SeeSaw, and will disagree with me, and that’s OK … let’s discuss.

link slam

Posted on February 1, 2018 by Miriam McCaleb

Here we go … cos I’ve gotta go meet the school bus in a jiff, but I’ve also gotta share links with my geeky pals.

Nice article here about treating children with respect, and now won’t you behold this splendid long read from the Guardian about the diabolical genius of the baby advice industry. (hehe)

This is an interesting paper about education and the 4th industrial revolution (ie tech) and I simply love the pushback against neoliberalism. Says the woman who had to pay for fees at university when her parents’ generation did not.

Here is a summary of the AAP’s screen time recommendations for children under 6, and it sure as heck does not include social media for kids. Tim Cook from Apple gets it, while Mark Zuckerberg clearly does not. Please sign this petition to tell him that you reckon Facebook for 5 year olds is a crap idea. In fact, if you wanna, you could go ahead and use this awesome resource for creating a family screen time action plan.

Some cool stuff now: a post about the joy of making do (OH! I get this! Love!), here is an awesome paper about doing good to feel good, and now from the NY Times, a piece about the benefits of having a purpose in life.

How about some amazing birth photos? Thanks OHbaby. Last one, cos little girl is home and we need to hang out. This is a crazy article from our hot NZ summer about how parents are so distracted by their flippin cell phones that kids are drowning. For the love of everything that’s holy. Turn the sucker off when poolside!

things I get to do …

Posted on November 14, 2017 by Miriam McCaleb

Alrighty … so the power of language is well documented (*never more enjoyably than in THIS EPISODE of the podcast “On Being”) and just lately I’ve been playing with “get to” instead of “have to”, or “should”.

I have to feed the calf. I have to organise an early dinner for my kids tonight, so we can go out. I should weed my veggie garden. I should write that essay.

I get to feed the calf. I get to organise an early dinner for my kids tonight, so we can go out. I get to weed my veggie garden. I get to write that essay.

Reminds me to have gratitude for the blessings that are wrapped up in those sentences. Reminds me to look for the blessings.

Quick link dump, then.

Fab article here about the many and unexpected benefits of teaching kids philosophy in schools (YUM!!) Even pro-business publications are making the case for it!

Parents want some life skills in schools, too, apparently. Could we categorise philosophising as a life skill? Man, teachers are going to be busy.

Good paper here, balanced and calm writing about adolescents and tech. FLIP. We gotta set some limits.

(OH MY GOODNESS it works here too. Instead of “We have to set limits on our kids’ and our own tech use …We get to set limits on our kids’ and our own tech use. Empowering. Yeah!)

Anyway, This is a quote from that aforementioned paper:

The Pew Internet and American Life Project Foundation synthesized results from their survey of over 1000 technology stakeholders and critics in a report with the less-than-decisive, but I think ultimately accurate, title of “Millennials will benefit and suffer due to their hyperconnected lives”

Here is a list of scary things about the internet (with an outdated Halloween theme. Sorry.) And here is an article by a doctor from Harvard about what parents need to know (*Get to know!!) about children and mobile digital devices. Kids and cellphones. Y’know.

I read this some years ago, but it’s still great … and for some reason, this week it recrossed my path so, SHARE I shall. Wild Play. God, I loved the book Savage Park.

In other news, I was super proud of the kiwi doctor who has had self care put in the medical oath. Is it called Hippocratic?

Finally, for joy’s sake:

Flower beards: I love them SO MUCH.

deep breaths and crossed eyes

Posted on October 18, 2017 by Miriam McCaleb

at last … I’ve made it out into my glorious office and photographed the OHbaby! mag which houses my article about Technoference. Oh, friends and gentlegeeks, if money (and courage!) were limitless I’d rush off to Rome for the World Infant Mental Health Congress in May next year. Just to hear Jenny Radesky and her “Digital Media in the Dyad” prez. Swoon!

But alas … I’m neither rich enough NOR am I sufficiently brave. Travel often feels pretty daunting. I managed a trip to Canada last year, communing with other disciples of the Gospel according to Bruce.

But a foreign language, another whole continent away? For a New Zealander to even think about Rome you’d have to pad it with ages either side, to justify the costs. Both the monetary expense and the time. Uproot the whole family for a good month. Spend as much as it’s going to cost to fix the laundry/kitchen conundrum.

Too much, too soon for this geek.

Ah … a wise local recently reminded me: for everything there is a season, etc.

For today, I’ll stay home with an ailing teen and tend to some office time.

First … may I share some links?

I’ll start with some light reading for the nerdily inclined … a paper published by the American Academy of Pediatrics. It’s by Jenny Radesky and others, and then an awesome longread article by the Guardian about smartphone addiction … the dude who invented the “Like” button and his peers all send their kids to schools without screens.

Mark my bloody words: To learn to think creatively enough to be able to build such immensely complex and innovative things as iPads and apps and pull-down refresh functions. … you gotta have a childhood full of relational richness and hands-on play. Nature and sunshine and eye contact. Opportunities to lose yourself in discovery and enjoyment.

Meanwhile … what are we like?

What are we actually like?

Honestly, I could go on all day.

Between the angsting about technoference (think of the children! And not just to sell stuff to them!) and the all the coveting I’ve been doing (WANT and WANT) I’ve barely had time for much else. School holidays are over, of course, which changes things a bit.

Speaking of schools, there’s been another conversation about teaching values/life skills (dare I say it! Social and emotional intelligence stuff!) in the classroom. I’m kinda all for it, but remind us all that amazing things like Roots of Empathy, and the Nurture Groups, and other cool things exist. We can call on existing ideas with evidence based results. We can do better than dodgy posture and other forms of self harm. We can find ways to heal.

We bloody well ought to. Digital focus, my eye.

Life, eh! What, ho! What a ride.

www.baby.geek.nz

Category Archives: happiness