Cogs

I have a friend who feels very strongly that she doesn't want her children to be "cogs" in the great American machinery that turns us all into human-robots and lulls us to a place where we don't question the things people tell us to do or the way our life is going. I see her point, but I also want my children to fit in. I want questioning cogs; we need to keep this machine going for God’s sake.

Well, I like how they each questioned things this week:

I was telling Ramona that her new school won't have parent helpers, like the Corner Coop, a parent cooperative, in Boston did. She started to tell me that they should and then she stopped herself. She said, "When I am at my new school I am going to give them suggestions. Whatever they don't have that the Corner Co-op has, I will suggest to them."

Then last night at bedtime, I shouted at Sumner for putting his toothbrush in a germy, gross spot. He told me he wouldn't have done it if I told him why. I told him [shouted at him] that he had to stop what he was doing and then I could explain. Then he said, "Instead [of reading one of my] books tonight, can we talk about this? Can we talk about why we [you] all get so angry and frustrated at bedtime?" I was blown away.

Of course when we all met up on Ramona's bed 15 minutes later these ever-so-reasonable children had a huge negotiation about whether he could sit on her bed because she was worried he would wrinkle it and fart on it and make it stinky. He later told her that he'd like to dump "a bucket of hot lava on your head from the place where the hottest lava comes from."

Cogs they are not.