What if there was a place designed for families to come together to share their happiness, uncertainty, sadness, frustration, and any other emotion that they felt? What if families could feel safe in the conversations, the environment, and their relationships with other families? We all wish for less stress, less isolation, and more community, but how do we accomplish this?
Four years ago I began to ask these questions and to hope that someone had the answers. I was on an extended maternity leave and despite loving my time with my children I was struggling with isolation, loss of identity, financial adjustments, and the loss of my work community. I had been a pediatrician for 12 years. I had started my solo practice before marriage and kids and then transitioned from fulltime to part-time work as I raised three children. My fourth child however, was a life-changer. At six months of age, he did not tolerate separation from me for even a couple of hours.
Reading has always been my escape, so I read everything that I could about all that I was experiencing. I devoured books about motherhood (the good, the bad, and the ugly), books about simplifying life and living on less, and books about community. With each motherhood book that I read, it became more and more clear to me that even though I was lonely, I was far from alone. There were dozens of books about the isolation, stress, and loss of community that can accompany motherhood. There were however, few books that discussed solutions to these problems.
An unexpected source of hope and inspiration came from John Holt’s book, “Instead of Education”. In this book he describes the Peckham Centre, a facility for families that existed in England in the 1930’s and 40’s. It was described as “something blazingly new, yet at the same time something you had always known, so that you felt you had simultaneously both shot to the stars, and come home.” Had the term existed, it would have been called a “holistic” family center. It encompassed education, health, philosophy, and even architecture. The goal was to provide a suitable space for families to get accurate information about their health, associate with other families, and have available to them equipment related to physical health, the arts, and even hobbies. Were there family centers like this in existence today? Not that I could find.
As I searched for models of family centers I began to find references to them in book after book. Naomi Wolfe’s book, “Misconceptions” described the need for “play centers” and “true community centers”. Ann Crittendon’s book, “The Price of Motherhood” calls for “a public green or common, a space where people can interact; a living, heart-beating, vital space with stability and coherence”. “A Tradition That Has No Name” by Mary Field Belsky states, “The aim is to find (or create) an authentic public space, that is, one in which diverse human beings can appear before one another as ‘the best they know how to be’.”
With my youngest still clinging to me, it was clear that the only way I was ever going to work again was with him at my side. Since I had been home fulltime for four years, my relationship with my older three children was much richer and I had no desire to leave them either. But the pediatrician in me yearned for the interaction with other families that was as much a part of me as my children. Was there a way to combine work and family life in a way that enriched both instead of pitting one against the other?
The need for family centers was clear and the model was known to exist, what would it take to start one? Was it possible to re-introduce community into our modern nuclear families? With the support of my husband and children, I decided to find out.
I discussed my ideas with a group of like-minded families and we began to dream of our own family center. Our early goals were:
We felt that the physical site for our center would be crucial to its success and came up with the following attributes for an ideal site: “A home-like space with places to eat, talk, play, and linger. An open floor plan that would encourage interaction between families and allow for spontaneous giving and receiving of assistance and support. Flexible and adaptable space to accommodate the changing interests and activities of the members. Outdoor space that is green and alive, with room for exploration of nature and boisterous play by children and adults. After a year of searching, we found a home with the above description on just over an acre of wooded land and our Family Centre dream was on its way to reality.
The following resources immensely helped our community building efforts. The first, Nonviolent Communication, a was a model for respectful communication described by Marshall Rosenberg. “Through its emphasis on deep listening—to ourselves as well as others—NVC fosters respect, attentiveness and empathy, and engenders a mutual desire to give from the heart. The form is simple, yet powerfully transformative.” The second was a description of the four stages of community by Scott Peck. (sidebar) Even with this resource the journey through chaos can be painful and challenging. Having clearly stated goals and respectful dialogue are essential to surviving the process. The third was an article by Scott Noelle entitled, “The Healing Gap”, referring to the gap between the parent that we are and the one which we wish to become. Scott eloquently articulates the need to heal from our detachment parenting childhoods before we can become the attachment parents that we are striving to become. Bridging the gap requires awareness, empathy, and support. Learning to forgive ourselves instead of carrying unproductive feelings of guilt is an important step. Every parent does the best they can with the knowledge and support available to them at any given time.
We are still in our infancy as a village but we have made some important discoveries:
Time: When parents commit to spending 3-4 hours at the Centre they really begin to see the difference in themselves as well as their children. The stress of their lives starts to melt away, their children begin to play in an unhurried and more peaceful mode, the conversations become more important and focused. Our families report that the effects can last several days after a day at the Centre.
Support for learning nonviolent communication (NVC): NVC requires a focused effort for most families to implement. Over and over we heard, “it makes such sense, why is it so hard to implement?” The reason of course, is that it goes against everything that our culture has taught us. Most of us were raised with, and continue to be surrounded by, behavior modification and shaming instead of compassionate connection. We have spent hours of our Mother’s Circle time discussing Marshall’s book chapter by chapter, discussing NVC parenting articles by Inbal Kashtan, and bringing examples from our home life to show what it looks like in our own lives. We have stressed that it isn’t “magic words” that bring peace. NVC provides the words, love and empathy help us to identify and meet needs, and support enables our compassionate nature to thrive. Accepting that it is OK to need and ask for help is perhaps the biggest hurdle our families face.
Parenting as Emotional Healing: I started out with the notion that accurate information on health, education, and family life combined with support for parents making their own decisions in these areas would define the Centre. What surprised me was the extent of emotional healing that is urgently needed by parents as they attempt to parent in a more natural way than they were parented. (I was relieved to find that I wasn’t the only one!) We spent many hours discussing the ways in which our needs were misunderstood or denied and how this affects our ability to listen to our own children when they express their needs. Fortunately, parenting provides us with both the motivation and the model for our healing: Love is the most powerful motivator and children are born knowing what they need and how to express their needs. We just need support as we learn to trust our children.
So what lies ahead?
We will continue to grow and evolve as our families help us to learn what supports community. We hope to explore ways to support working spouses and bring them into the community without adding to their overburdened schedules. We are reaching out to collaborate with other family centers, nonviolent communication instructors, and stress reduction providers such as yoga and meditation.
Perhaps the most important thing that I have learned from this Family Centre adventure has been to accept and trust my own needs (and failings) as a parent. This has allowed me to experience true empathy for all parents. Unlike sympathy, empathy requires understanding, and more importantly, acceptance. (Sympathy stems from a judgment that someone needs something to make them better, and therefore does not support a parent who needs to be accepted just the way they are.)
Learning to love ourselves and accept our current state of development, even as we strive to further this development, allows us to truly empathize with our children and trust them as they develop at their own pace. Trusting in our ability to grow as parents allows us to trust other parents to do the same, and this is one of the most important steps in building a supportive community.
-Bettina Vaello, M.D.
Bettina Vaello is a pediatrician seeking to empower and support parents to make natural choices regarding their health, education, and families. She and her husband Tom are thrilled to be learning from their four homeschooled children in Austin, Texas.
Four years ago I began to ask these questions and to hope that someone had the answers. I was on an extended maternity leave and despite loving my time with my children I was struggling with isolation, loss of identity, financial adjustments, and the loss of my work community. I had been a pediatrician for 12 years. I had started my solo practice before marriage and kids and then transitioned from fulltime to part-time work as I raised three children. My fourth child however, was a life-changer. At six months of age, he did not tolerate separation from me for even a couple of hours.
Reading has always been my escape, so I read everything that I could about all that I was experiencing. I devoured books about motherhood (the good, the bad, and the ugly), books about simplifying life and living on less, and books about community. With each motherhood book that I read, it became more and more clear to me that even though I was lonely, I was far from alone. There were dozens of books about the isolation, stress, and loss of community that can accompany motherhood. There were however, few books that discussed solutions to these problems.
An unexpected source of hope and inspiration came from John Holt’s book, “Instead of Education”. In this book he describes the Peckham Centre, a facility for families that existed in England in the 1930’s and 40’s. It was described as “something blazingly new, yet at the same time something you had always known, so that you felt you had simultaneously both shot to the stars, and come home.” Had the term existed, it would have been called a “holistic” family center. It encompassed education, health, philosophy, and even architecture. The goal was to provide a suitable space for families to get accurate information about their health, associate with other families, and have available to them equipment related to physical health, the arts, and even hobbies. Were there family centers like this in existence today? Not that I could find.
As I searched for models of family centers I began to find references to them in book after book. Naomi Wolfe’s book, “Misconceptions” described the need for “play centers” and “true community centers”. Ann Crittendon’s book, “The Price of Motherhood” calls for “a public green or common, a space where people can interact; a living, heart-beating, vital space with stability and coherence”. “A Tradition That Has No Name” by Mary Field Belsky states, “The aim is to find (or create) an authentic public space, that is, one in which diverse human beings can appear before one another as ‘the best they know how to be’.”
With my youngest still clinging to me, it was clear that the only way I was ever going to work again was with him at my side. Since I had been home fulltime for four years, my relationship with my older three children was much richer and I had no desire to leave them either. But the pediatrician in me yearned for the interaction with other families that was as much a part of me as my children. Was there a way to combine work and family life in a way that enriched both instead of pitting one against the other?
The need for family centers was clear and the model was known to exist, what would it take to start one? Was it possible to re-introduce community into our modern nuclear families? With the support of my husband and children, I decided to find out.
I discussed my ideas with a group of like-minded families and we began to dream of our own family center. Our early goals were:
- To investigate ways of re-introducing community into the lives of families as a means of providing support and relief from isolation.
- To provide accurate information and helpful resources pertaining to health, learning, and family life enabling families to investigate more natural alternatives to Western medical and childrearing practices.
We felt that the physical site for our center would be crucial to its success and came up with the following attributes for an ideal site: “A home-like space with places to eat, talk, play, and linger. An open floor plan that would encourage interaction between families and allow for spontaneous giving and receiving of assistance and support. Flexible and adaptable space to accommodate the changing interests and activities of the members. Outdoor space that is green and alive, with room for exploration of nature and boisterous play by children and adults. After a year of searching, we found a home with the above description on just over an acre of wooded land and our Family Centre dream was on its way to reality.
The following resources immensely helped our community building efforts. The first, Nonviolent Communication, a was a model for respectful communication described by Marshall Rosenberg. “Through its emphasis on deep listening—to ourselves as well as others—NVC fosters respect, attentiveness and empathy, and engenders a mutual desire to give from the heart. The form is simple, yet powerfully transformative.” The second was a description of the four stages of community by Scott Peck. (sidebar) Even with this resource the journey through chaos can be painful and challenging. Having clearly stated goals and respectful dialogue are essential to surviving the process. The third was an article by Scott Noelle entitled, “The Healing Gap”, referring to the gap between the parent that we are and the one which we wish to become. Scott eloquently articulates the need to heal from our detachment parenting childhoods before we can become the attachment parents that we are striving to become. Bridging the gap requires awareness, empathy, and support. Learning to forgive ourselves instead of carrying unproductive feelings of guilt is an important step. Every parent does the best they can with the knowledge and support available to them at any given time.
We are still in our infancy as a village but we have made some important discoveries:
Time: When parents commit to spending 3-4 hours at the Centre they really begin to see the difference in themselves as well as their children. The stress of their lives starts to melt away, their children begin to play in an unhurried and more peaceful mode, the conversations become more important and focused. Our families report that the effects can last several days after a day at the Centre.
Support for learning nonviolent communication (NVC): NVC requires a focused effort for most families to implement. Over and over we heard, “it makes such sense, why is it so hard to implement?” The reason of course, is that it goes against everything that our culture has taught us. Most of us were raised with, and continue to be surrounded by, behavior modification and shaming instead of compassionate connection. We have spent hours of our Mother’s Circle time discussing Marshall’s book chapter by chapter, discussing NVC parenting articles by Inbal Kashtan, and bringing examples from our home life to show what it looks like in our own lives. We have stressed that it isn’t “magic words” that bring peace. NVC provides the words, love and empathy help us to identify and meet needs, and support enables our compassionate nature to thrive. Accepting that it is OK to need and ask for help is perhaps the biggest hurdle our families face.
Parenting as Emotional Healing: I started out with the notion that accurate information on health, education, and family life combined with support for parents making their own decisions in these areas would define the Centre. What surprised me was the extent of emotional healing that is urgently needed by parents as they attempt to parent in a more natural way than they were parented. (I was relieved to find that I wasn’t the only one!) We spent many hours discussing the ways in which our needs were misunderstood or denied and how this affects our ability to listen to our own children when they express their needs. Fortunately, parenting provides us with both the motivation and the model for our healing: Love is the most powerful motivator and children are born knowing what they need and how to express their needs. We just need support as we learn to trust our children.
So what lies ahead?
We will continue to grow and evolve as our families help us to learn what supports community. We hope to explore ways to support working spouses and bring them into the community without adding to their overburdened schedules. We are reaching out to collaborate with other family centers, nonviolent communication instructors, and stress reduction providers such as yoga and meditation.
Perhaps the most important thing that I have learned from this Family Centre adventure has been to accept and trust my own needs (and failings) as a parent. This has allowed me to experience true empathy for all parents. Unlike sympathy, empathy requires understanding, and more importantly, acceptance. (Sympathy stems from a judgment that someone needs something to make them better, and therefore does not support a parent who needs to be accepted just the way they are.)
Learning to love ourselves and accept our current state of development, even as we strive to further this development, allows us to truly empathize with our children and trust them as they develop at their own pace. Trusting in our ability to grow as parents allows us to trust other parents to do the same, and this is one of the most important steps in building a supportive community.
-Bettina Vaello, M.D.
Bettina Vaello is a pediatrician seeking to empower and support parents to make natural choices regarding their health, education, and families. She and her husband Tom are thrilled to be learning from their four homeschooled children in Austin, Texas.