bearing blog

Fasting in Paradise.

Melanie has dug up a quote that suggests the Genesis "don't eat that fruit" rule amounted to a prescribed fast:

"Fasting restores to those who practice it the father’s house from which Adam was cast out… God himself, the friend of man (Wsd 1,6), first entrusted to fasting the man he had created, as to a loving mother, as to a teacher. He had forbidden him to taste of one tree only (Gn 2,17) and if the man had observed this fast he would have dwelt with angels. But he rejected it and so found anguish and death, the sharpness of thorns and thistles and the sorrow of a miserable life (Gn 3,17f.) Now, if fasting is shown to be of value in Paradise, how much more must it be so here below to win us life eternal!". 

(Link: http://thewinedarksea.com/index.php/weblog/on_fasting/ )

It is a fruitful meditation. I wrote about a similar theme some time ago, only I identified the forbidding of the Edenic fruit as a "dietary law" rather than a fast:

"Which takes me to the Garden of Eden. How many times have you read or heard a non-Christian, non-Jewish person complaining of the arbitrariness of that whole "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" nonsense? Why would God care if they ate this one fruit? There's no good reason for it -- whoever wrote it down even made a point of mentioning that the stuff was good to eat, so what's the big deal? Alternatively, you'll occasionally see a well-meaning believer defending the don't-eat-that rule on some practical ground of healthfulness or learning obedience or some such thing.
I think it's easier to understand the story -- and this works both if you take the story as something that really happened, or if you take it as a useful teaching story passed down by one of the world's most influential cultures -- as the story of the first dietary law. The first "We eat this, not that. Just because."Pointing at the fruit of the tree while uttering "In the day you eat of it you shall surely die" is not, inherently, any nuttier than pointing at your tablemate's cheeseburger while muttering, "That shit'll kill you." It doesn't matter that the modern health nut thinks that science is on his side -- it's still a prediction of religious significance -- because in reality the connection between any given cheeseburger and the untimely death of the cheeseburger-eater is practically zero, unless the eater chokes on it, I suppose. And even if a lifetime diet of cheeseburgers will shorten your life, who's to say that's not a reasonable choice for someone who likes cheeseburgers?But let's go back to dietary laws for a minute. It's significant that the breaking of a dietary law should play such a crucial role in the stories I'm speaking of. And it's not something that's alien to human nature either. There are many layers to the story, but I can't help but think that it's in part a lesson that there are limits to our natural inclinations. The tree's fruit was "good to eat," and there is no reason to assume the senses of the man and woman couldn't be trusted. Yet, as the story goes, it was better, in that place and in that time, to choose not to eat it. Resisting, if only on occasion, what we naturally want and can see is a good thing, must itself be something good. And doesn't that fit with our ordinary experience?"

(link: http://arlinghaus.typepad.com/blog/2010/04/dietary-laws.html )

One difference between a dietary law and a fast is that a dietary law is generally lifelong -- see the regulations of keeping kosher or halal, or the philosophy of an ethically committed vegetarian. Fasts, on the other hand, are generally temporary. In Jewish history, the permanence and complexity of the dietary law served many purposes -- among other things, to provide a concrete manifestation of identity among the chosen people, to clearly demarcate them from the peoples that surrounded them.  

Another difference is that fasting can be regarded as a positive act, and when prescribed, as a positive duty similar to the duties of prayer and almsgiving. To adhere to a dietary law is more like a negative duty, a "thou shalt not." Negative duties are by their nature more binding than positive ones.

Does it matter whether we identify the forbidding of the fruit as a dietary law or as a fast? Or is it simply a third example of the same sort of class of commandments? Either way it is instructive to meditate upon the words, "for in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death."

   

Anticipation. -- at Pho Tau Bay in Mpls.

A parable.

Okay, let's say that the governor of a midwestern-to-southern state has an idea for a new, modest-cost, kind of feel-good sort of social program.  Reading scores in his state are low, and especially there seem to be a disturbing number of children who grow up in "text-poor environments," meaning that for one reason or another there aren't many books or magazines or other reading material in their homes.  The governor suggests, "Let's use taxpayer money to send a few new children's books home from the hospital with every new baby born in our state.  It's a token, a small thing, but it will send a pro-reading message, and maybe it will do some good."  The appropriation doesn't turn out to cost all that much, and the political/economic climate is one in which being seen as "anti-book" makes the legislators feel nervous, so the bill passes without much debate.  A few grumpy letters are written to the editor about whether it's just a political stunt, or whether a handful of books will make enough of a difference to be worth the cost, but in the end, this is a small program, and so "Books for Babies" is launched.  New parents love it, the program pleases librarians and educators, local authors are highlighted, it isn't all that expensive, and by and large it's pretty harmless.  A minor kerfuffle ensues when homebirthing parents attempt to claim books for their kids, but it's all worked out by adding involving an alternate way to get books via a letter and a copy of a birth certificate.   Everyone, it seems, is satisfied enough with this small social program to keep it going.

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Now let's say that a few years later, the governor of the next state over admires this program and announces a plan to establish a similar one in his own state.  Only this time, things don't go so well in the legislature.  Even though many of the same conditions exist which prompted the first governor to dream up "Books for Babies" -- reading scores, children who lack books -- the political situation is different.  Government waste and corruption is more in the news, there is a larger faction in the governor's opposition party, there has recently been an expose of unforeseen expensive in innocuous-looking social programs, and people are in a cutting-back mood and suspicious of anything that smacks of feel-good political stunts.  Even though it polls really well among mothers of young children, across all incomes, and especially well among Hispanic voters, this governor's "Texts for Tots" program dies an early death in committee.

But let's say that this governor is a true believer.  He wasn't trying to put on a stunt -- he really thinks that free books for new babies is a great idea, and the polls have him convinced that if he can just get the ball rolling, public opinion will turn and everyone will see what a great win-win situation this is.  Educational costs might even go down, if even just a few more kids on the margin arrive at kindergarten with a positive view of books and reading.  So he looks for a way to do it that doesn't involve the pesky legislative process.

With a little research, an aide discovers some provisions that allow the state administration to set certain operating rules for businesses in the state, ostensibly to promote accessibility to various services.  The law is broadly enough written that the governor's idea just might work:  require booksellers to provide five free books to new parents on demand -- easy, the records office can just send a little piece of paper with the birth certificate, good for five books, any children's books the parents choose from any bookstore they like.   If a parent reports that a bookseller won't honor the paper, the bookstore will have to pay a fine.  

It's a great idea.  So great, the governor wonders why he bothered with the "Texts for Tots" bill in the first place.  Using a rule is so much easier:  no debate, no votes, no argument.   It's simpler, too -- hospitals don't have to stock books, there's no committee to choose which books will be featured, and parents even have the freedom to pick exactly which children's books they want, as long as they're in stock in a physical bookstore somewhere in the state.  Why, some of them will surely become regular customers!  The booksellers will probably make more money in the end.  And if they don't, well, they'll just  raise their prices.  In the end, the cost will be borne by other book buyers, people who love books and certainly will be happy to see a few pennies of each purchase go to promote children's reading in the state.

The day after the rule is announced, hardly anyone complains.  A state bookseller's association takes a hurried poll of its members and finds that an overwhelming majority want to express support of the bill.  A few small independent bookstores express concern that they'll be swamped with requests, but they are drowned out.  One crotchety old man, the owner of a tiny independent bookstore specializing in global environmentalism, argues that he should not be forced to reward people for reproducing.  He is mostly jeered at, as being "against books for kids," and otherwise ignored.  A few months later it goes into effect.  New parents love it.   Educators love it.  Big bookstores love it and don't even have to raise prices.  Small bookstores in some neighborhoods discover that when parents come in to get their five free books, they usually add several more to their orders.  Small bookstores in other neighborhoods raise their prices and scrape by.  All this without costing taxpayers a dime.  It's perfect.

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The next governor has a different pet issue:  chronic, expensive health problems in the state, especially an epidemic of diabetes.   She wants to promote exercise and healthy eating choices, and it's in the news a lot and is a popular issue.  Her program is impressive:  tax breaks for new supermarkets in "food deserts," more tax breaks for quick-serve restaurants that include fresh vegetables and fruits in kids' meals, a revamping of the state school-lunch program, and various educational outreach programs.  Research shows that among several key demographic groups in the state, many people cite "don't know how to cook from scratch" as a major reason why they rely on heavily processed foods that the state has identified as unhealthful.  Wouldn't it be great to get some basic information into those folks' hands?

A popular local food writer, working with a local cardiologist, has recently published an award-winning cookbook that would fit the bill perfectly.  It's expressly written for people who aren't used to cooking for themselves, and includes lots of basic information: how to select produce, and how to read labels, and how to plan balanced meals on a budget, as well as elementary cooking techniques for beginners -- it practically tells you how to boil water.  Even a chapter on how to eat well if you don't have access to a full kitchen.  And every recipe in the book is low in saturated fat and packed with nutrition.  The language is clear, engaging, and uncomplicated.  There are links to free instructional videos on the Internet.  It's a stellar book.  The governor begins to think that this is the book that she wants every family in the state to have on the shelf.

Now, how to do it... "Hey," suggests one staffer, "you remember how the last governor put out the Texts for Tots rule?"

There was practically no opposition to the requirement that booksellers give away a certain number of free books.  How hard can it be to require them to give away a particular book? 

Soon, in a speech to the state association of school nutritionists, the governor announces the new rule:  Booksellers all over the state will be required to give away copies of the wonderful cookbook by the local food writer and the local cardiologist.  If they refuse, they'll pay a fine.  Obviously the booksellers will benefit, because the people who come in to get their free book will probably buy more.  They can always raise their prices a few pennies a book to cover the immediate costs.  The whole state will benefit in a reduction of long-term health care costs and improved quality of life.

The state booksellers' association hastily conducts a poll and, over a few minor objections, issues a statement in support of the governor's plan.  "Healthy eating is good for everyone in the state," the press release reads.  "We are proud to be a part of this impressive effort to educate the public."

In a tiny storefront a couple of doors down from the local food co-op, the owner and manager of a store that mainly sells nutritional supplements but also stocks a small selection of vegetarian cookbooks slits open a padded envelope.  Out tumbles one copy of the governor's favorite book, plus a letter explaining the new requirement, the deadlines, a table that provides a suggested number of copies to have on hand, and information about the sliding scale of wholesale prices from the publisher.  Also a couple of glossy brochures about healthy eating, picturing a smiling nuclear family of mixed ethnic heritage sitting down to a picnic lunch.  At the sight of the photos the store owner feels an uncomfortable sinking feeling in his stomach.  He cracks open the paperback book and as if it knew what he was looking for, it opens up to the chapter on delicious, low-fat recipes made with chicken and fish.

He thumbs through it.  Yeah, there's some lip service paid to the benefits of choosing organic, free range chickens and avoiding overfished species.  But there's no getting around it:  most of the people who read this book are going to be buying conventional frozen boneless, skinless chicken breast from conventional caged chickens from conventional crowded farms, conventional fish from conventional stores.  He has never -- never -- stocked any cookbooks except vegetarian cookbooks.  Lately he's been forced to confront the inherent cruelty of conventional egg and dairy farms, and has been reluctantly facing up to the truth that his principles really are pushing him towards all-out veganism.  

The store owner closes the book.  

He's going to fight this stupid rule.   Even if it means the fines are going to put him out of business.

First triple-family co-schooling day in a while.

It is vaguely embarrassing that we all drive the same car, too. The neighbors must think we belong to some kind of cult. Perhaps someday we can get our own compound.

A more interesting statistic about Catholics and birth control.

In one sense, statistics about "who does what" are irrelevant.   The fight to overturn the HHS mandate forcing insurers and/or employers to cover contraception is a fight about religious freedom, and it really doesn't matter how many people use contraception and how many employers object to paying for it directly or indirectly.  

It is, after all, religious minorities -- groups of people who adhere to beliefs that are unusual in the wider society -- who require the most protection and who desire the most accommodation in the civil structure.  If your philosophical beliefs and practices are common, ordinary, and widespread -- such as making time for worship on the weekends, or eating only non-animal foods, or giving presents to your children on a quiet, at-home Christmas morning -- we can assume that there is some accommodation for them built right into the fabric of society, since some of your co-believers will have helped put that society together.  Indeed, if we look around we see that many jobs (though not all) are available which leave room for weekend worship, that Christmas is a day when few people (though not without exception) have obligations outside the family, that vegetarianism is largely accepted and that many eating establishments offer meatless items year-round.

If you're a member of a religious minority, though, you occasionally may ask for, and legitimately receive, accommodations written into the law.  Laws like the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which prohibits the federal government from burdening a person's exercise of religion unless it demonstrates that it does so in furtherance of a compelling government interest AND  is the least restrictive means of doing so.  The mandate doesn't further the government's interest (which is stated to increase "access" to contraception, and that has been shown not to be a problem) and it's not the least restrictive means (which would be something like a rider that an employee can purchase) and so the 1993 law, enacted during the notoriously right-wing Clinton administration, almost certainly renders the HHS mandate illegal.  

But it's obvious that the media is happy to wave this "98 percent of Catholic women use birth control" statistic around because someone thinks  it matters, or that it will matter if enough people hear it.  I think the idea must be something along these lines: Few Catholics consistently obey the Church's teachings, therefore we can make the nation think that it isn't a "real" or sincere religious belief that deserves accommodation.

If that's the case, then there is a lot of misdirection going on.  Because of course the freedom that is being infringed here is not the freedom to refrain from taking contraceptive pills or being sterilized.  (The government had to stop forcing people to contracept and be sterilized some time ago... must have been back in the dark ages... oh wait, it was 1981.)

No, the freedom being infringed is the freedom not to buy pills and sterilization for other people who want them.  So perhaps a much, much better thing to ask is:  "How many Catholic employers and insurers either cover contraceptives in their employee insurance plan or directly pay for them for their employees?"

Oops, now we have a conundrum.  Because if the number is small compared to the general population of employers and insurers, well then, there just might be something to the argument that Catholic employers and insurers have a real and sincere religious belief that precludes them from paying for other people's contraceptives.  And if the number is similar or large compared to the general population of employers and insurers, well, then, what exactly is the problem that needs to be solved by forcing them?  

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But even the question of "how sincere is this religious belief" is misdirected.  There is no test for sincerity in the Clinton-era law protecting the free exercise of religion against the federal government.  

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Here is a pair of recent statistics that you may find interesting.  (Via Red Cardigan, who herself found it via Get Religion).  

Of U. S. Catholics:

•  Fraction who say they attend Mass once a week or more:  22%. 
•  Fraction who say they agree that using artificial means of birth control is wrong:  22%.

(The first statistic is from CARA, a Catholic think tank.  The second is from a recent CNN poll.)

Only twenty-two percent of people who call themselves Catholics are going to Mass once a week.  This number is, of course, disturbingly low.  Recall that weekly Mass attendance is, in the Catholic faith, compulsory (though allowances are made, on the honor system, for duties and conditions that interfere with the obligation).  

Often, when you wish to define who is and who isn't a "practicing" Catholic, weekly Mass attendance is used as a reasonable proxy.  It's a practice that is required by the Church, it is relatively easy to measure, and it is public.  It is debatable whether this is the best proxy, but it is at least convenient.

The same proportion of Catholics agree with the teaching against artificial birth control.

+ + +

Let's do a little calculation with estimates using data from the Pew Forum.   Nearly 24% of the U. S. population is Catholic.  Twenty-two percent of that is 5.3% of the U. S. population.  This is only a little bit more than the number of people (4.7%) who belong to non-Christian religions, who, I think most reasonable people agree, deserve careful attention to their religious accommodations because their minority status places them at the margins of public discourse.  Just as unpopular speech is the speech that most needs protection, uncommon exercises of religious belief are those that most need accommodation.

We are a religious minority.

It is not what we would choose, but it is the reality we live in.

 

Not giving up.

I thought I'd take a minute to mention that I am not giving up blogging, Facebook, or email for Lent.

However, the children in a lively discussion last week came to a consensus that a good family Lenten discipline would be to turn off the computers and other devices right before dinner and leave them off until morning. This will undoubtedly cut down on my total output (and input, I suppose).  So:  you've been forewarned. 

To those who are planning on seriously curtailing your electronic media exposure for the next forty days or so:  Godspeed, and see you at Easter!

Letter from a liberal homeschooler.

Last week, the left half of the homeschooling-o-sphere exploded with discussion of this piece by Dana Goldstein entitled, "Liberals, Don't Homeschool Your Kids:  Why Teaching Children At Home Violates Progressive Values."  

I know, my conservative homeschooling readers might be going "W00t! Bring it on!" but as you can imagine, it contains a lot of stupid.  Homeschooling is a symptom of being rich and white and privileged, we have a duty to keep our children in public schools because we believe in public education, lefty homeschoolers preach sound social values but... you can imagine how well this was received ... don't practice them.

There is an absolutely fantastic piece in response to this today, called "An Open Letter to Dana Goldstein," by Stephanie Baselice.

What is a Liberal Homeschooler? Am I, for you, merely the assumed opposite of a Fundamentalist Christian Libertarian Dominionist Homeschooler? Do you imagine we are a group essentially just like the women at your office, or the last cocktail party you attended, except we are nursing toddlers in the park with our older children readingMark Twain and Philip Pullman nearby? What exactly leads you to presume that your idea of “liberal values” is one that the entirety of non fundamentalist attachment parenting unschoolers would share? Just because we are not raising revolutionaries for God’s Christian Army does not mean we agree with you about the meaning, let alone the value, of public education.

In my personal experience, you are right about some things. Home school families are indeed diversifying as a group. I live in an area where the home school community spans the spectrum from those who want to ensure that their God-fearing children are not sullied by exposure to science to those Dragon Mamas who want to make certain their offspring get into Stanford. Yet there are a wide range of perspectives somewhere between those poles, or somewhere else altogether. Many are families whose children for one reason or another did not thrive in the school system. Many have children with mild to moderate ADD, ADHD, Aspergers or OCD.

There are indeed those parents who prefer to spend family time together, perhaps running a family farm or traveling instead of attending school. There are Homeschoolers of Color who feel their children will be ill served in a public school system which tracks them towards low achievement (many of the Moms I know who meet that criteria are former public school teachers). Plenty of homeschool families I know personally live at or near the poverty line, making lifestyle choices from the bedrock of their values. Choices which involve significant financial sacrifice. 

This is my favorite line:

...You do not own the cause of progress. And the liberal tradition of fighting for public schools is a particular expression of values, not a value in itself.

... because failure to distinguish between values, and a particular expression of values, is a really common error.  For people both on the right and the left.

Another great insight:

When I worked in finance, pre-child days, I had been a registered assistant for an investment adviser. I was seriously underpaid. The number one question we got from couples under 50 was “Our family is so stressed and exhausted…is there some possible way one of us can stay home? ”. My job was to take in all their financial data, and put it together so we could analyze their situation and present financial options. Unless Mrs. Client was an attorney or a physician, or had a job she deeply loved and did not want to leave, I saw the math prove over and over again that these families would be better off financially if Mom stayed home.

Mothers, even highly educated ones, seemed often to bring in just enough money to put these families in a higher tax bracket. Usually two income households lock themselves structurally into this problem by buying more house than they really need—an expense that has recently become all to clear to families struggling with layoffs in the economic crisis. Granted, the families I was working with were usually well to do. But the same problems apply broadly to our whole society. Our lifestyle choices and our incomes are interdependent, not unidirectional. The values perpetuated by consumer culture lead us to view accomplishment in terms of income. It has long been possible to purchase status. If one lets go of that wheel, and is willing to live with less, according to different values, other economic possibilities can and do open up....

This is not to say that fathers cannot do the job of care giving, or that Mothers cannot provide adequately for families. There are all sorts of  ways to structure families. I know many families where the parents both work part time to support homeschooling, or where Dads stay home with kids while Mom works. Some of the non traditional families are gay. Yes, extended breastfeeding does indeed create a prevalence of very traditional looking stay-at-home Moms in the AP and homeschool communities. But this is more a response to the way the consumer society and nuclear family is structured than anything else. Most Moms I know would ideally work part time and spend lots of time at home with their little ones. In a tribal situation, there is extended family and lots of help with the work of raising a family. My homeschooling group has come to be almost a tribe to me. We help each other. All the time. Because that is how we wish to live. Relationships have replaced the need for revenue in many areas of my life.

Read the whole thing.  As I've said time and time again, one of the greatest things about homeschooling is the way it brings into agreement people from across the political spectrum.  Liberal and conservative homeschoolers often have more in common than they have separating them.

Healthy King Cake from the bread machine: A Mardi Gras recipe hack from a reader.

Back just after Epiphany, I received this great email from a reader named Jenny:

I just wanted to let you know that I tried your faux cinnamon roll recipe... but not for cinnamon rolls. 

Down here in New Orleans, Epiphany heralds not so much the end of the Christmas season as the beginning of the Mardi Gras season. The famous parades don't really happen until a couple of weeks before Mardi Gras itself--but the balls and banquets begin on "Twelfth Night". An important (hee) part of this whole Mardi-Gras-season is, of course, King Cake. Every local bakery makes them--you can get them at coffee shops, grocery stores--just about anywhere, in this town, at this time of year.

King Cakes are usually a brioche made into a circle and decorated with icing and purple, green, and gold sugars (the "official" colors of Mardi Gras). I tried my hand at making one a few years ago, but I find brioche difficult to work with. And then I started having babies. And I stopped trying to get a handle on homemade brioche and started using a bread machine. 

But your bread-machine cinnamon roll recipe has saved me! It makes a delicious King Cake bread!

 I used your recipe...

[added by bearing:  here's what you put in the bread machine, taken from the link above]:

•    2 and 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
•    1 and 1/2 tsp bread machine yeast
•    1/2 tsp salt
•    1/2 tsp cinnamon (cardamon is also nice, as is chai spice)
•    3/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp milk (or you can use apple juice; omit the sugar)
•   3 Tbsp sugar
•   1 Tbsp coconut oil (or butter)
•   1/2 cup raisins or currants

 

....but when I took the dough out of the machine, I sort of stretched it into a long snake--which I then flattened out and dotted with small pats of butter and an additional sprinkling of cinnamon and white sugar down the center. I folded up each side to enclose the cinnamon/sugar/butter and then laid the whole thing in a ring on a baking sheet. I baked it at your recommended time/temperature.

[After the second rise of about 30 minutes, bake it at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes --- edited by bearing].

When it came out and had cooled a bit, I did a simple powdered sugar/milk/vanilla glaze and then added the colored sugars.

Everyone loved it. My husband, an actual New Orleans native, proclaimed it "the best King Cake he'd ever had", even after I'd accused him of just trying to get in good with the chef (ha).

Anyway, thanks for the recipe! The good/bad news is that now we've decided that since it is, in fact, better than store-bought King Cake, I am now assuming the role of Official King Cake Baker from now until Mardi Gras... 

I've attached some photos of the cake, in case you're interested.

Am I? Am I?

.

.

 

I almost feel bad about this because... this is a reasonably healthy recipe!  That's why I use it for an everyday, if fun-to-eat, breakfast bun.  It's made from 100% whole wheat flour, a little bit of coconut oil, milk (or apple juice if you want), and not even very much sugar.  No eggs even.  Heck, you can make this recipe vegan if you want!  Not exactly in the spirit of Mardi Gras!

It is possible to make non-faux cinnamon rolls in the bread machine, with a brioche-style dough, if you want a richer version (e.g. with eggs and milk and butter and not so much whole wheat flour).  But Jenny is right that brioche dough is harder to work with, so this may be a lower-stress version as well as a lower-sugar-buzz version.

Traditionally you're supposed to hide a trinket inside the cake, and the person who gets the trinket has some kind of obligation or wins a prize or is lucky or something like that.  Be careful not to choke on it!  

 

"When Ordinary Parenting Practices Can Land You in Court."

That's the title of a blog post at the Volokh Conspiracy today.  I encourage anyone interested in the "free-range kids" movement to read the post and then click through to the legal article by David Pimentel that the blogger is referring to.  It's called, "Criminal Child Neglect and the Free Range Kid:  Is Overprotective Parenting the New Standard of Care?"

Lots of good stuff in there -- the whole article is worth reading.  A lot of problems are caused by vague statutory language that requires "reasonable" behavior (who decides what is reasonable?) and that implies parents are criminally negligent for not eliminating certain risks to their children.  It appears that jurors are regularly ready to punish parents who have different parenting styles that appear merely substandard to the jurors.  Jurors and prosecutors who are themselves parents of only one child appear readier to punish parents who are accused of neglect because they left one child in the care of another (say, a three-year-old in the care of a twelve-year-old sibling).  If you think the mommy wars are bad enough when they are outside the courtroom, imagine being a mommy accused of neglect, about to be tried by a jury of her peers!

I'm back, more or less.

I've been out of town with the family for a week, hence the lack of posts. I should be back up to my normal level, or at least what it has been lately, within a couple of days.

We drove to Montana, a place I had never been before, to go skiing. It is a gorgeous drive. You know, people joke about North Dakota being flat and boring, at least till you get out West and hit the Badlands, but I thought it was pretty. When the land is flat, the sky is big, and on a clear blue day the sky coming down all around you is a sight worth driving to see, I think. Maybe that gets old if you have to drive the same road over and over again. I certainly don't get excited anymore about the path through Illinois and Indiana that we travel a few times a year going back and forth from Minnesota to our extended families in southern Ohio. But North Dakota was pretty: snowless this year, golden-brown and grassy.

And of course there is a moment when you are driving along, minding your own business and gazing at the grasslands, when you go around a turn and the wide, particolored Painted Canyon opens up before you, carved down below the grasses, the weird alien landscape of the Badlands. Welcome to the West, it seems to say. "Wow!" said all the kids. We took a little detour there into Theodore Roosevelt National Park, stopped at the visitors center (which has a tiny little T.R. museum, plus a petrified tree stump you can touch and examine, and a short historical movie about Roosevelt and the Badlands). Then we decided that we had a little extra time, not long enough to drive the whole scenic loop in the park, but long enough to drive in a little wa us and then turn around and drive out. So we paid our National Parks vehicle fee and went in, where we saw bison and prairie dogs up close. It was a very worthwhile half hour.

We skied at Moonlight Basin, a resort in western Montana about an hour and a half outside Bozeman. Moonlight Basin is adjacent to the ENORMOUS ski area of Big Sky, and in fact one can ski from one to the the other; there are two lifts that you can access with lift tickets from either side, and it is possible to buy a shared lift ticket that allows you access to all the lifts on both resorts, which is apparently the lift pass that gets you the most acreage of any lift ticket in the U.S., though not as much as Whistler in Canada, according to my husband, who memorizes ski area statistics as if he were training to appear on All-Skiing Jeopardy.

The five- eight-, and eleven-year-old all took at least some lessons, and I took a half-day lesson too, at the start of the week, to get back into the feel of the skis. My five-year-old daughter was the star this week: she went from barely being able to form a wedge to skiing black-diamond tree runs. It was so exciting to accompany her for a couple of hours on her all-day lesson (day 3) and watch her following her instructor, a cheerful young woman from North Dakota who spent most of her time skiing backwards so she could watch my daughter from below, around the little moguls that were starting to form in a clearing of the tree glade. "Hockey stop against the bump!" the instructor would call out, and my little girl in her pink helmet and pink coat and pink mittens would *swoosh* around one mogul and stop, her skis throwing a little spray of sparkly snow into the air. "Do it again! Hockey stop against the bump!" and she would turn the other direction and swoosh to another stop. And I, who had last entered a mogul field several years previously when skiing with Mark and he accidentally sent me into one (I had to climb out of it), listened and watched and then figured that if my five-year-old could do it, I could too.

The big boys are better than I am by now, but they want to ski with me at least a little bit anyway. ("Why, when I am so slow?" I asked the 11-year-old on the lift. "I have my reasons," he replied mysteriously.) I spent some time with Mark and each of the others, and then he and the big boys went off together. One of the days they bought the all-mountain pass and skied over at Big Sky. Even though the eight-year-old crashes a lot and the eleven-year-old is naturally cautious, they both have a way of carrying themselves on their skis -- natural and easy, at home. I enjoy skiing, but I only feel the way they look once in a while, when I happen to carve a few turns in a row just right, usually when I am trying to ski down to the base in a hurry to pick up a child from a lesson in two minutes, and so I am not thinking about how I am doing but only trying to go fast. The boys look like skiers. They are following their dad and loving every minute.

Meanwhile, the two-year-old spent a few hours in the slopeside child care center, three of the four days. Skiing trips with the family are a good object lesson in how one must balance the needs of everyone in the family, and how the balancing techniques evolve as families grow, and how each sibling has a different set of experiences by necessity. I never -- never! -- put my firstborn in hourly childcare settings with unfamiliar staff at that age, and he would not have gone happily into them. But when there is an eleven-year-old boy around who really want to ski with Mom and Dad, well -- you know, I just don't want to keep saying no to that until there are no more little babies around. Babies don't keep, I always say, and -- this is important -- neither do eleven-year-old boys who want to ski with both their parents.

But by now, because of that different balancing, the two-year-old has had plenty of experience in hourly childcare settings and with new babysitters and the like, mostly with one or more of his siblings around, and occasionally by himself, and he didn't seem to mind it at all (dropping him off is always touch and go, but Mark is good at waiting till he is enjoying a toy or a story and then sneaking away). So he had fun too, finger painting and eating applesauce and getting taken out in the snow with other children to watch the skiers, and the women on the staff told me that he didn't fuss or worry, and he told me the names of the other children who were there each day (only two or three -- busy season for Moonlight Basin hadn't started yet).

On the last day we picked up the five-year-old from her morning lesson and had lunch together except for Mark -- he slipped away so he could do one good solo run on the steeps up top, from the lift you have to hike to. Then all five of the skiers went for a few runs together. My daughter amazed her big brothers, who could not believe how well she could ski after three and a half days of lessons. She linked her turns smoothly across the slopes, and one time skied right down to my eight-year-old and made him flinch when she executed a perfect hockey stop, on a dime, inches before colliding with him. On these runs, we sent her down first, followed closely by Mark who was keeping an eye on her, then the two boys, and then I would come behind last, a sort of insurance against leaving any children behind. There was one moment, as we came down the shallower runout of a wide groomed intermediate-level slope, when I saw before me three of my children and my husband, crisscrossing each other back and forth across the hill, in their yellow and green and orange and pink coats, and the littlest pink one going just as fast and as smoothly as everyone else, and I wished I had a helmet cam or some other way to keep it going forever. We made this happen, he and I, and it is very good.

The five-year-old and I were going to stop early and go get the toddler, so the younger children wouldn't be overtaxed and the bigger ones could get in a few last black-diamond runs with their dad. As we came down from our last run through the terrain park, my oldest shouted the toddler's name. We turned and there he was in his pudgy little snow suit and hat, toddling toward us as fast as he could in his boots, calling out his brother's name, the child-care teacher following with another little one by the hand. The little ones had been taken out to watch skiers and go for rides on the "magic carpet" (a conveyor belt that takes little beginners a few yards up the bunny hill, with or without skis). He was grinning from ear to ear and jumping with excitement to see his family on skis all around him, and his big brothers and sister gathered around him and cooed and picked him up and cheered.

That was obviously the end of my last run, so the five-year-old and I followed him back to the child-care center, and we took off our skis and gathered him up and went back to the rental condo for bathtime and hot chocolate and animal crackers while we waited for the daredevils to return.

Every family is different. I think, though, that it is good for all families to have some *thing* (many things, really) that helps define an identity as a family. We are a family who skis, among other things. The kids know it and say so, though I occasionally have to suppress the expression of it ("Our family doesn't *like* snowboarders," I overheard the five-year-old loudly announcing to her instructor near the start of a lesson). It doesn't have to be skiing, it could be many other things. And you would think that it was kind of unimportant, just one sport that we all like together, compared to more important values that we want to pass on to our children. But you know, I think it gives us practice -- practice passing on those values. We can see how it works with skiing, how the kids want to do it because we want to do it, how they want to do it well because they want to please us and also because it feels good to do it well for its own sake. We can see how if we are confident (as Mark is), we can teach them easily, and how if we are not so confident (as I am not), teaching them presents more of a challenge; and we can see what kinds of other teachers can help us along the way. We can see how these brothers and sisters encourage and challenge and goad each other, too -- sometimes not so helpfully, but other times cheering each other on with genuine enthusiasm and admiration. As it goes with leaping little jumps and moving on to bigger ones, maybe it will go with the other skills and knowledge and values that we want to share.

And if not, at least when they are young adults, if we want them to visit us we can bribe them with lift tickets.