My Husband Weighs In

We are home now. Home from where the incident took place. And the situation continued along those lines the rest of the time we were there. No more physical abuse occured between them.

....Is that really physical abuse, you ask? That is a debate for another time. I tell my kids there is no excuse for abuse. Physical Abuse in our house means any time someone touches you in a way that you don't approve your body being touched like. If it isn't a clear line like hitting, for instance maybe you don't like being tickled, then the first "no stop" is a clear STOP sign. Put another way, I tell my kids that as an adult when someone tells you stop and you don't stop, you might go to jail. I don't mean stop putting so much jelly on my sandwiches. I mean stop touching me like that. Stop doing that to me. Stop hitting me....

Anyway now we are home. I believe we have a really busy week ahead, so really today I didn't do much of anything. Just lazed around tired because I felt tired from our trip. I haven't even unpacked our tubs of stuff yet. Figured I would have more energy for other stuff tomorrow when I need it.

My husband wanted to go to Bass Pro to return some things he bought and decided they wouldn't work for him. Then he said he noticed the Golden Corral that I told him was by Bass Pro and did I want to get a bite together with him. I said sure. And I sure could use the break after those last four exhausting days I had. (Fun! But exhausting.)

At dinner I asked him to weigh in. His opinion is often very opposite from my way of thinking. I know this. I still ask for his opinions often. And I think on it. He is a pendulum that swings one way and I am the pendulum that swings the other way. A lot of times we help eachother meet in the middle. Not always. And the middle is not always where either one of us wants to be. But sometimes when I hear his point of view it helps me to at least see where the middle is for a vantage point in my thoughts.

I told him, "My thought on unschooling is that we learn to do whatever we want with consideration for not doing harm to others." (One might say, 'but you cannot always do what you want without "harming" others'. This is where my thoughts get murky. Because sometimes hurt creates growth, one might say. Sometimes hurt is not really me HURTING you or your feelings directly. Maybe I said something that you disagreed with and that hurt your feelings because you think my beliefs go against who you are, for instance. Anyway I didn't say any of this to him. I just think it while I am talking to him. And this is not the hurt that I speak of.)

We start talking about how you "can" do whatever you want but there are consequences. And then I agree but I remind him that if we let life's consequences instead of "our family made" consequences take their course, they can still learn those same lessons, right? (The truth is that real life consequences are not always there. This girl doesn't get in trouble for what she does to my daughter. And no doubt if I called her on it, she would have a different story, if for no other reason than because no one saw it to say otherwise and she seems to be sneaky enough to know it.) He says but then why not ask everyone, 'who wants to do heroin'? Why not let 10 year olds smoke even though we know that at 10 years old the reality of death from lung cancer is not really something that he grasps like we do. After all how many times have I said I am lucky to be alive after all the things I did as an 18, 19, 20 year old. I thought I was invincible. And all of that is true.

So I tell him, "Why not do whatever you want?" He doesn't like it when I ask him things this way. To him the why not is clear. So what am I really asking him, he probably thinks. He says, "What do you mean" in an irritated voice. "Why not do whatever we want all the time? So what? So what if we do?" He says in his own words, look over to the ghettos and trailer areas to find out why not. I ask what he means. Because I am wondering if he means the quality of people and the quality of their lives, or if he means the violence that seems more prevelant in those areas. So he says that how about the people at our exit with their signs begging for food. "So what," I say, "if they WANT to sit on the side of the street with signs begging for food? If they COULD live different but CHOSE not to then SO WHAT?" That is my point. Whatever you do, if it is what you WANT TO DO then so what to the world if you do it? Even if it is sitting at the side of the street begging. I know it doesn't "look" good. And I know we don't WANT that for our children. But if it is what someone wants to do, then pitch to me why it is not ok? (Feel free to respond to these questions yourself if you choose. Keep it clean and friendly please.)

But I know I am back peddling, with this line of questions. Because begging for food doesn't REALLY hurt anyone, and I was originally talking about doing whatever you want when it hurts someone else. Luckily my husband notices this, or at least chooses not to continue on this path. He doesn't like these kinds of conversations.

So his response is... "You could say whatever you want to me. I could punch you in the mouth. We both did what we wanted to do. Yes I might go to jail for punching you. Yes you might have to go to the hospital for saying what you said. But we both did what we wanted."

Here our convo ended. What do you think about THAT?