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Strollerderby
Are Your Children An Extension of You?
I was watching “Back to Woodstock” on Dateline NBC Sunday night. I’ve seen lots of footage of the music, the people, the enormous piles of trash. This time I was struck by a line from Lisa Law, a photographer and filmmaker who documented much of the 3 days. (She also ran a “trip tent” and cooked food for the thousands of people who showed up.)
Law is also a mom: she was pregnant during the Summer of ’69, and already had a toddler in tow. Talking about going to “music and arts festival” in the Dateline piece, Law says, “Having a baby and being pregnant does not slow me down. My children are an extension of me, and so I have no problem doing things with them attached to me.”
I never thought about it, but I don’t think of my kids that way. Having them did slow me down in some ways. That’s not to say that’s a bad thing. As wonderful as kids are, they also interrupt what you were doing before you had them. Having them changes things. That isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it can be good. But life certainly isn’t the same as it was before they arrived.
I’m not sure what Law meant, but it seems that she meant that for her having kids did not mean a lot of changes. She was doing something before she had children, and she continued to do that afterwards.
As for children being “an extension” of yourself, that’s trickier. I don’t think that I see my kids that way, but there are certainly times when I see parts of myself in my children. I’ve also been guilty of feeling too involved in their lives. Again, I’m not certain what Law meant by the statement; it was one sentence in an hour long news special. It looks like it means “my kids will do what I do” — Law was going to Woodstock, so the kids were going to Woodstock. If I like it, they’ll like it.
Do you see your children as an “extension” of yourself? Did having kids “slow you down”?
Image: Amazon
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[...] as well. Parents who don’t want to change their lives once they have children are bashed (I don’t entirely disagree, although the Post piece makes some wide generalizations), and the phrase “adamant leftist [...]
Judging the Childless | Strollerderby commented on Aug 12 09 at 1:00 pmAdd your take:
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