With so many responses to “Dear Mom on the iPhone” zipping around the web these last few months, I figured that I should go see what all the huff (counter-huff and supportive-huff) was all about. Last November, a blogger named Tonya Ferguson, who writes her family blog 4littlefergusons, wrote a post that she title, “Dear Mom on the iPhone.” And all  was quiet for Ferguson, until it wasn’t anymore.

Ferguson shares later, after getting all the attention, that it was a hypothetical situation with a hypothetical mother. That she wrote to herself as much as she wrote it to any woman. She doesn’t explain this until after the fact, after garnering the attention and responses, but even that seems reasonable due to the unlikelihood that it would matter much to anyone but her then small readership. She blogs for herself and isn’t, or at least wasn’t, on the radar of other “mommy bloggers” until recently.

Here is a portion of Ferguson’s original “Dear Mom on the iPhone” first posted on November 14, 2012. Click here to go to the her post in full.

Dear Mom On the iPhone,
I see you over there on the bench, messing on your iPhone.  It feels good to relax a little while your kids have fun in the sunshine, doesn’t it?  You are doing a great job with your kids, you work hard, you teach them manners, have them do their chores.
But Momma, let me tell you what you don’t see right now…..
Your little girl is spinning round and round, making her dress twirl.  She is such a little beauty queen already, the sun shining behind her hair.  She keeps glancing your way to see if you are watching her.

You aren’t.

Your little boy keeps shouting, “Mom, MOM watch this!”  I see you acknowledge him, barely glancing his way.
He sees that too.  His shoulders slump, but only for a moment, as he finds the next cool thing to do.
Now you are pushing your baby in the swing.  She loves it!  Cooing and smiling with every push.  You don’t see her though, do you?  Your head is bent, your eyes on your phone as you absently push her swing.
Talk to her.  Tell her about the clouds, Mommy.  The Creator who made them. Tickle her tummy when she comes near you and enjoy that baby belly laugh that leaves far too quickly.

Put your eyes back on your prize…Your kids.

Show them that they are the priority. Wherever you are, be ALL there.  I am not saying it’s not ok to check in on your phone, but it’s a time-sucker: User Beware!

I had actually only heard of original post after reading Fried Okra’s (Megan Cobb) response piece that a friend shared on Facebook. I really liked Fried Okra’s letter to that attention-getting, but yet again, hypothetical mom on the iPhone.

Here is a portion of Fried Okra’s post, “Dear Mom on the iPhone, I get it.” Click here  to read the original post in full.

Dear Mom on the iPhone -

This morning at 6 AM I checked Facebook and saw a letter re-posted by a friend and addressed to you. As I lay there in the grey dawn, listening out for the sounds of my own two kids waking, I pictured your tiny girl spinning in her pretty dress as you completely ignored her, staring transfixed at your phone. What an image, right? An image I think was meant to bring you guilt and shame, written into a “kind” letter under the guise of giving you a gentle reminder that your kids won’t be small forever, and that if you don’t stop using your phone instead of focusing all of your attention on them, all of the time, they’re going to think your phone is more important than they are to you.

Listen, Mom on the iPhone, I’ve met you a million times. You’re my best friend, my sister, the other mom at the bus stop every morning, waving until the bus carrying our kids to school drives out of site. I see you everywhere I go, we smile knowingly over the heads of our kids in the grocery store check-out lane, and you struck up conversation with me at the mini-gym while we watched our 4-year-olds play together last weekend. I read your blogs and empathize with your Facebook posts and talk to you via text and Voxer. We get together for coffee so our boys can play together. We help out at classroom parties together and sit in the lobby of the dance studio while our daughters take ballet. I know you, hundreds of you, and I know your kids aren’t confused about their place in your life because you’re planning next week’s meals while they have some free time on the playground. Don’t buy into the shame and guilt, friend.

From our many interactions, Mom on the iPhone, I’ve seen that you’re smart, capable and resourceful as well as being loving and caring and giving where your family is concerned. So I trust you to know when you and your kids need to give one another your undivided attention, and when it’s okay for you to take a few minutes while they’re occupied to attend to one or two of the myriad of other things for which you’re responsible. I trust that you talk to and laugh with and teach and cuddle your kids enough that they know the difference between being neglected and being allowed a bit of independence to figure out they’re still important and valued even though your world, and the world at large, doesn’t always revolve around them. I trust that when you have doubts or worries or need advice, you use your resources to find answers and solutions to care for and protect your family. You’re an adult with adult responsibilities and you handle them well, Mom on the iPhone, so you’ve earned my respect.

You use your phone to do all the things our Moms did with paper and pens, stamps, recipe files, checkbooks, clocks, timers, typewriters, fax machines, calculators, calendars, phones with cords, newspapers, books, thermostats, televisions, radios, and cameras. Your phone helps you plan, manage and communicate with regard to your job, your household, your family’s schedule, in short, your life from the park. Or the library. Or the pool. Or your child’s hospital room. Or the commuter train. Or Disneyland. You have a phone because it makes you more portable and productive, and that’s beneficial in a hundred ways for you and your family. It’s funny – the author of that letter saw you with your phone and judged you to be “messing.” I wonder if she’d have bothered to write you a cautionary letter if instead of an iPhone, she’d seen you at the park with a video camera or a cookbook or a handwritten note from your mother? I’m willing to bet not. I wonder why your having that phone in your hand makes some people so uncomfortable? Why does a simple piece of technology give a stranger license to accuse you of being a selfish, too-busy, disengaged woman who’s threatening her children’s self-esteem and self worth? We both know that’s not who you are.

Who are you? I’ll tell you who you are.

You’re the mom with the critical project at work who is managing it from the park because the babysitter’s child came down with chicken pox.

You’re the mom, the dear friend of mine, who lives across the country from me but is as close to me as my own heartbeat thanks to our phones.

You’re the mom who is also my sister. Between the two of us we have seven kids, so we’ve both long given up the idea of truly meaningful phone conversations that aren’t interrupted constantly by the needs of our offspring.

And so, Mom on the iPhone, I say carry on. (And you too, Dad on the iPhone, although you seem to have escaped criticism again. And I wonder why that is?) You’re showing your kids how a person can love them fully, take good care of them, get them out and about on a beautiful day, while still being successful in other arenas and managing her other responsibilities, and even take a few minutes to do something that she simply enjoys, just for herself. You have my respect and support. Text me sometime and we’ll play Words with Friends while we wait in the carpool line.

With love and appreciation,

Me

So, there you go. Two different letters–a little of both sides and what overlaps between the two iphone’ing mothers. Honestly, I feel them both, and I can see myself in both.

I try to stay aware any time I am using my phone. Whether I am using my phone to run our home and financial worlds, or skyping with my best friend who lives on another continent while both of our babies nap, or when I am texting with my mom who learned to text in her 70s so she could receive near-daily photos of her grandbabies.

My phone keeps me connect in important ways and it also helps me get my work done quickly and while I am with my son, rather than leaving him with a sitter. I can zip off items to the accountant, transfer funds at the bank and reserve library books for an later pick-up all in 5 minutes flat. I can make quick edits for my clients and turn my work around fast and without being chained to my computer. I see myself actually freeing up time to be with my son by spending some quick, smart minutes on my phone.

And I absolutely use my phone for some “me time” during my day too, because who is anybody kidding, it is great for that. There is no doubt about it. I like to check out recipes while I am cooking, or to take a few minutes to learn how to prune my raspberries properly, or just to take a spin through Facebook for some quick social relief.

All of it is valuable in my book and none of it too much, until it is too much. And we all know when it is, so when we do, it’s time to get really honest with ourselves and straighten up our priorities. (I am taking about our real priorities. You know, the ones you are always answering to, regardless of what you may say your priorities are. Yup, those are our real priorities.)

If your phone use is something that you don’t feel good about, then make a change. If your use is cool? Then phone on, my mothering friends, phone on.

We all make plans for our births. Whether we explore the many options that we have available to us by researching, discussing and preparing for our ideal birth, or if we choose (yes, it is still a choice) for a more “procedural birth” going ahead with your particular hospital’s standards or those of your attending nurse midwife or OB.

And one of my favorite birth-centered blogs is www.birthwithoutfear.com. This blog shares stories of home births, hospital births, in-the-car births, births of all types are welcome in order to build a worldwide culture where woman can truly birth without fear, whatever her choices may be and however a birth may move into reality, even in the face of a mother’s best laid plans.

I was particularly touched by the recent heart-baring post by a mother named Amber. She wrote about the birth of her son, Ben, and her deeply personal journey since his birth. You will see from the photos that they shared with us that Ben is an absolutely gorgeous baby. You will read about the tenderness between Amber and her husband and how they have created a beautiful family from this place.

I share Amber’s story with you here because if am I am to be honest with myself and with you, her birth story is the birth of my greatest worry while I was pregnant for my son. During my pregnancy I allowed myself to acknowledge that a cesarean delivery had to be part of my awareness, even if it was my absolute last choice among the options I had in front of me.

My husband (who was born at home) and I prepared for a homebirth with two attending licensed midwives to support me during my labor. And as far as hospitals go in the USA, I live in a particularly privileged area of the country where natural births (in and out the hospital) are the most sought after births, therefore they are more common and laboring mother gets more support in doing so.

We did have our ideal unmedicated birth at home, with all of us resting well and safely after, but I also had some peace of mind before my labor began that if a transfer was needed during our birth, or if in the weeks before the birth we learned that it was no longer a safe option for me to birth at home, then we would have been in a good hospital in the end. And as I sit here reflecting on it all right now, I realized that I never thought of a transfer at any point during my labor, that it was only something that my mind needed before the big day.

I share Amber’s story with you, and some of my own story too,  to help move myself past the lingering fear that I discovered still within me two years later, made evident by the changes in my breath and in my own body as I read her beautiful and moving story. She is so blessedly raw and real, so deserving to be healed in what will best serve her, not some ideal that any of us may hold for her, or for any mother whose dreams and ideals give way to a birth other than their deepest hopes.

I share and link to Amber’s story to heal myself of that echoing fear within me.  I share it in the hope to shift us all, every last one of us, into a world that is truly a place for every woman to birth without fear.

After shedding so many tears, I have been stewing over whether or not to open up my heart and share my honest and reflective thoughts about Ben’s birth. One night, after reading some powerful stories about women who successfully had a VBAC or HBAC (vaginal/home birth after cesarean) I nursed my baby, and then crawled into bed weeping in my husband’s arms. In the end I decided it would be cathartic for me and help heal the pain I have been going through to let the feelings flow out of my fingers. To some, the fact that I had a cesarean surgery won’t be a big deal, especially since (very sadly) they are all too common. Of course there are bigger things going on in the world, with many people experiencing real losses that don’t compare to me having a c-section. But this is a personal hurt for me that needs to heal. It’s easy to say that we are lucky because we have a healthy, beautiful little boy, so how he came into the world doesn’t matter. Very true, but Ben would have been born healthy no matter what. And it does matter to me. Mothers matter. It’s a little piece of the way I will always define myself. I missed out on an incredibly empowering experience.

I strongly believe that all normal, healthy pregnancies should happen naturally, but obviously some people would disagree with me on that point. With all of that being said, my disclaimer is that I realize doctors, hospitals, and c-sections all serve a very important purpose when necessary, and we are so lucky to have them when we need them. I’ve had friends need the services of the NICU and emergency c-sections, and friends who have had completely natural births. My husband and I educated ourselves and wanted a drug-free birth. Drugs make things harder, not easier. We took natural birthing classes and thought we were well-prepared, and I still ended up having a c-section. I continue to feel great loss and sadness over how our birth experience played out. After Ben was first born I didn’t feel upset because I was so glad he was here, but the more I reflect on the experience the more pain I feel over it. Giving birth is a normal, beautiful process. We had a plan… We had a dream for how we wanted to welcome Ben to the world. I felt confident having goals and being educated about how to meet them. Our surgery was so far out of the scope of what I expected that I am still grieving the loss of how Ben should have entered the world. I am probably being too hard on myself, but I truly feel like I let my baby down. I should have done better by him.

I don’t want Ben to feel badly because I hate how he was born, so I need to find some way to move on from these feelings, if possible. I need to heal my mind and soul and come to peace with the experience. Because I have major regrets. I wanted to push and give life to my son, bring him to my chest and not let anyone take him away to poke and prod at. I wanted to nurse him and lie with him for as long as I wanted. I wanted no drugs coursing through either of our bodies. I wanted to smell him and feel him and spend as many hours as I wanted looking at him. I wanted to remember all those first precious moments of his life. I don’t know why on earth I thought these things would happen in the hospital. Those people seriously don’t like when you try to mess with their protocols.

We had so much going on right after his birth that I really suppressed my feelings. I was focused on getting breast feeding going, getting us healthy, dealing with Ben’s reflux, etc. Now that some time has passed, I am in a grieving process. I wrote a version of his birth story a few weeks after he was born. I think I wrote with my rose-colored glasses on. I wanted to be polite. I didn’t want to seem dramatic or overly negative. Maybe I was embarrassed that I had been openly advocating how much I believed in natural birth and then I didn’t have one. I don’t think I had enough time to fully process and reflect on the experience. This is me digging deep and tapping into unfiltered, raw emotions and details I haven’t shared before.

Some of the words I heard during the end of our labor: “failure to progress” “take the baby out” “you can’t have more time” “risk of infection is too high now.” How terrible. I left the hospital feeling like a failure. I failed to bring my baby into this world in the way he deserved. But I tried… I tried damn hard before they took us to the operating room. The ridiculous, pitcon-induced contractions were killing me. I was having back labor. I was trembling. But I was breathing. I was working. I wanted it. I was close… 7 cm. But I was exhausted. I keep going back and thinking that I could have done it if I weren’t limited on time and movement restrictions. If I wasn’t hooked up to the IV machine, and if I didn’t have to wear the fetal monitor I could have actually moved around the room. I could have swayed and rocked, and maybe got in the tub or shower. They didn’t like the position I was laboring in, and I couldn’t be more than a few feet away from the machine.

Sometimes I’m not even sure if I can wholly call the surgery his “birth.” I guess he was born, but it was a surgery, not a birth, and that also makes me sad. While most of the time in the OR is really blurry, I distinctly recall lying terrified in tears, without my husband with me, on the surgery table. I overheard the medical team casually talking about baseball. Baseball! I realize I was just another surgery, just another day on the job for them. But here was a historic moment in my life, and none of the doctors in the room even talked to me. Yes, I realize their job isn’t to be lovey dovey… but it still seemed really impersonal. I was lying on my back, having powerful contractions I could still feel through an epidural. It took forever for the anesthesiologist to get my body numb, which resulted in a painful spinal tap. I do have to give major props to my LD nurse here, she was amazing and became the person I anchored to when everything else was confusing. While the doctor paced impatiently waiting to slice me open, I remember apologizing to him… as if it were my fault this was happening. I even stated out loud how awful I was at giving birth. It must have been a comment to mask the loss, but I am ashamed of myself for saying it. My tongue was numb and I became frightened that I would stop breathing. One of the nurses tried to tie my arms to the table, and of all the things that happened in that room, I am happy I forcefully said no and wouldn’t allow it. I mean seriously, I’m not a wild animal, not to mention I couldn’t even move my legs, let alone hop off the table. Where on earth did they think I would go? Justin later told me they ripped my stomach from side to side getting Ben out…it hurt him to watch. I can imagine. I still can’t feel the lower half of my abdomen. An intern in the room passed out. When they pulled Ben out, I didn’t have enough function to turn my head entirely, but I could see him to my left. He was bright pink, screaming, and so beautiful. They had me guess his weight, to which I replied “11 pounds!” They laughed at me, but when his real weight registered at 10.1, maybe they realized mama knows best (and that my baby was nearly a week overdue!) It was a surreal experience though, because I didn’t really feel part of it. I was behind a curtain, the doctors took my baby out of me, and then I was wheeled away. It was like I was pregnant, and then I wasn’t.

Can you imagine being a baby, leaving the warmth and familiarity of your mama’s womb to be ripped out of her into a cold and very bright room, and then not having the one human who you have spent your whole life inside nowhere near? Instead of letting the chord pulse and give blood to my baby, it was immediately cut, and instead of resting on the warmth and comfort of his mama’s chest, he was wrapped in a blanket. I was crying, and I got to kiss his cheek before they wheeled me away. I was in the recovery room with my wonderful nurse, but Justin and Ben weren’t there (I insisted he stay with the baby). My catheter broke and my nurse had to re-insert another one. My eyes felt heavy. The room was spinning. When Ben was finally brought to me to start nursing for the first time, he didn’t get to try it on his own. We didn’t get to be skin-to-skin, the way nature intended. My shirt was pulled down and his mouth was shoved on my breast. Then I threw up. Yes, the first time I nursed my baby, which is supposed to be this incredible bonding experience, I was vomiting green liquid over his head into a pan. All the drugs made me sick. Ben didn’t get to stay and nurse as long as he wanted, because the nurses upstairs were waiting for us in our postpartum room and we had to meet the needs of their schedule. Ben deserved better than this. Shortly after, I passed out, exhausted from the long night and the drugs. I don’t remember any of the first couple of hours with my son, because I was sleeping. When I woke up the pain from the surgery was incredibly uncomfortable. I had circulation cuffs on my legs. Despite my protests, I was given more pain medication, and then more medication to stop the nausea  At the time I felt somewhat happy. Happy that Ben was here, that the whole thing was over. But I missed out on so much. I didn’t get those first few moments when the happy hormones take over and all the world is said to be perfect. I didn’t get to be skin-to-skin with my baby for a long time. Instead, I was practically in a comatose state with my new baby lying in a plastic box on the other side of the room.

Throughout the entire labor and birth experience my husband and sister-in-law were my rocks.  In no way does my sadness about our birth reflect either of them and the course of events. At first I felt like I had not only let my son down, but I must have also disappointed my husband. I really wanted him to be proud of me. I know now that he is proud of me. He knows I tried hard. But after the birth I really couldn’t let go of how ashamed I felt that I couldn’t do one of the most basic things a woman’s body is designed to do. I found comfort that Justin and I made every decision along the way together, and each choice we thought was going to be the right one. God showed my husband to me in an entirely new light throughout the hours before Ben was born. He was strong. He was protective. He cried with me. He was incredible. And then my dear sister-in-law, Marian, prayed over me, comforted me, and came up with an ingenious way to keep hot packs on my back. After Ben was born, Justin was a saint (as you may notice I mention a lot). Physically I couldn’t do much of what I wanted, and he did it all. When we got home from the hospital, nursing was tough. I was tired. Justin had to use little tubes and syringes to feed Ben. We “had” to give him formula for one day, which just about broke my heart. My milk came in late and I felt like Ben was rejecting me as his mother. I didn’t feel super connected to my baby, and that made me sad. I felt depressed, but didn’t talk to anyone about those feelings in the beginning. People don’t seem to give them much merit, because they don’t want them to be true. “Oh yes, it’s normal to feel overwhelmed…” But it was more than that for me. So I laid naked, skin-to-skin with Ben to form a bond. I kissed him everywhere. Heck, I even licked him! I breathed in his scent. I tried to make all the connections that should have happened at his birth, happen later. And it took awhile, but eventually I felt bonded with my baby, and I finally felt like he was mine.

So I’m angry. It took some conversation with my husband to figure out who I am so angry at. At first I thought I was angry at the medical system in the US and how poorly maternal healthcare is handled. Or maybe the doctor who came in with an entourage of people at the end of my labor and said condescendingly “I think you know where this is headed…” It would be much easier to blame them. I wondered, how in moral conscience can these OBGYN’s be cutting people open so freely? Or maybe I was mad that the midwife on call told us that the overseeing physician would “Have a chat with us if we refused pitocin.” Whether they do it intentionally or not, it seems they use scare tactics to force their options on you in order to protect themselves for liability reasons. Ben’s heart rate was awesome and stable throughout my whole labor and he was handling everything, even the nasty artificial contractions, with ease. But they slapped the ol’ “risk of infection to the baby is too high to let you continue…” and made me feel like there was no other avenue to pursue but a c-section in order to preserve my baby’s health. Maybe I would have been too exhausted and couldn’t have done it anyway, but I wanted more time to try. I am upset because my c-section wasn’t necessary. Ben and I were both healthy. I think Justin and I are both really disappointed in some of the early choices that we made. I think we knew they weren’t right for us, but maybe out of fear we did them anyway. We would really like to focus on a gentler and less reactive way of making decisions.

Knowing what we do now, we would have made better choices for our family. I didn’t do enough research when choosing a care provider that would support us (and I think this is one of the most important things.) I switched from a doctor to a midwife halfway through the pregnancy, thinking it was the right decision. I thought a midwife is a midwife is a midwife. Wrong. Apparently we had a nurse midwife, who has a background in medicine and picks up a certification later. The midwife we had for my care (who wasn’t even on call and present at our birth) didn’t support the holistic approach we wanted. It should have been a red flag when she casually mentioned that she could “snag my bag” if I wanted to “get things rolling” sooner than my due date. Justin and I were both upset about the comment but still figured that we had enough willpower and strong decision making skills to not let them bully us around when the time came. In reality, we should have ran like crazy to the nearest birth center without a bag of drugs in sight and found a midwife who wanted the same things for us that we did. We should have given it a real shot.

So who am I so mad at? It’s not the doctors. They are just doing what they were trained to do. They think they are saving moms and babies, when in reality they are creating the problem with their interventions in the first place. So eventually, I figured out that I am most angry at me, and that has been the hardest thing to come to grips with. I feel like we should have known better. We were educated! We knew that going to the hospital significantly increased our chances of having an intervention or surgery. We took a 12 week natural childbirth class and learned nearly everything there was to know about giving birth. Our instructor was amazing and even put us through likely scenarios that are common in the hospital to prepare us for the battle. I turned a blind eye and figured that it wasn’t going to happen to me. We hoped for the best I guess. And now I am part of an ever-growing statistic in our country. I can’t figure out why my past self made the decisions that I did. I’m mad at myself for allowing so many things to happen that we didn’t want. I’m mad at myself for ever agreeing to head to the hospital when we did.

There is a specific moment in time I would go back to if I could, and it’s truly where I believe one of the real differences could have been made. Justin and I went into the clinic, and our midwife told us we should head to the hospital. It felt surreal. Seriously? No contractions or other labor signs… I was feeling normal. We listened to her because we were excited I guess, she told us our baby would be born soon, and we thought we trusted her. We stopped to eat lunch. We casually went home and gathered our things. We picked up my sister-in-law. I was smiling and cordial and… definitely not a woman in labor. I would go back to that moment and say, “No.” I should have come home and relaxed and agreed to come back later when my body went into actual labor. I basically signed a waiver agreeing to a hospital time limit, instead of trusting my body.  I shouldn’t have even mentioned that my water was leaking. I shouldn’t have allowed her to do a vaginal exam. I have done some research about labors that are preceded by the water breaking, and the more I read, the more frustrated I feel. From what I now understand, I believe my hindwater was leaking, since my bag of waters was still fully intact at the hospital (they wanted to tear it open at one point while we were laboring, and Justin said when they cut me open there was a huge gush of water everywhere…in other words, my bag of waters never really broke). A hindwater leak occurs when only a small amount of fluid is released, which is what happened to me. Once a leak or water breaks, real labor is sure to follow at some point. This means I was probably very very close to having natural labor on my own without ever having been induced in the hospital. I have read that no matter how much fluid you have left in your belly you should stay home until contractions are strong and close together, otherwise you will be told you are at risk of infection and will be on a timetable (gee, sounds familiar.) I learned that leaks can easily reseal over several days with no ill effects. In the UK, doctors allow women to go up to 96 hours after their water breaks before being induced! Some midwives in our country allow their patients to go a few days to a week or more! The likelihood of infection is very small if you have no vaginal exams and stay home in your own environment as long as possible. I really wish we had known this. I wish we would have called someone for a second opinion. Oh, how I wish we would have just stayed home and waited.

I’m struggling with what could have been. It’s nearly impossible to not go back in time and say “What if?” But “ifs” aren’t good for healing. And it’s so easy to go back and say what we should have done. So easy.

The silver lining is that now we know better for next time. We know for sure what to expect and what we want if we are fortunate enough to have another child. Sadly, having a vaginal birth after a cesarean can be tough in terms of finding a care provider who will not only do it, but also really support the goal. A lot of doctors take on VBAC patients, but don’t really care whether or not it happens for them. Also, many doctors won’t help women with a VBAC who were “failure to progress,” which is now what I would be labeled. From what I understand, the risk of having a vaginal birth after cesarean is that there is a higher chance of uterine rupture. But the risks of having multiple cesarean surgeries is also unnerving. The odds of me successfully having a vaginal birth are fairly slim, but I am going to try my hardest anyway. I think in the future we will put a lot of effort into choosing a care provider who is completely supportive of a VBAC, whether that be an OB and we end up in a hospital, or a midwife and we end up in a bathtub at our house. If we do get to have another a baby, we will absolutely do research and put together the best qualified people to help us have a better experience. I am going to lose weight, get healthy, and get fit. I want to be low-risk when the time comes to have another baby and know that my body will be up to the task.

Phew, that was some major mending…a step in the right direction. Thank you for listening.

Source: Sandra Bianco Photography

Source: Huffington Post

Source: Everyday People Cartoons

(Source: idontwannagrowup.com)

(Source: Single Dad Laughing)

(Source: LifeIn the Now)

 (Source: Waldorf Homeschoolers)

(Source: HaHas for HooHas)

(Source: Documenting Delight)

(Source: Dr Momma)

(Source: Smart Ass Mommies)

Where do you go if you want to rent books? The library.  So why can’t the same principle be applied to baby carriers? Well, it can!

What is a lending library?

Quite simply, it is a place to rent baby carriers.

Some people rent lots of different carriers in their pursuit of the right one before buying their own; others come because they can’t get the carrier they own to work for them.  Others come because they have a special event such as a wedding or baptism.  All I know is that there is no particular group of people who use my lending library – each session brings a different set of moms, dads and even grandparents.

I set up the North East Sling Library in Durham, United Kingdom in July 2011 because there was a big gap. We had no babywearing groups local to us and the only carriers available to actually ‘look at’ were in mainstream high street shops, and Durham with its Norman Castle and Cathedral and cobbled streets is not very stroller friendly. It had taken me a long time to find carriers that worked for us; I wanted to be able to help others find the one right for them.

Can anyone set up a lending library? How do you do it?

Yes! A lending library can be as big or small as you want it to be. It can meet when and where you want it to. You choose how long to hire carriers out for, whether you want to charge hire fees, take deposits etc. It is your library; there are no set rules.  I charge a small hire fee and ask for a refundable deposit equivalent to buying a replacement in the event of damage but other libraries charge a standard deposit or you pay to join the library and then can hire for free or reduced rates. The simple rule is do what works for you and your library.

The NE Sling Library now has a stock of 60 carriers and it continues to grow. I reinvest the hire fees to buy more slings for the library and try to match user requests to the carriers we buy.  We have carriers suitable for carrying premature babies to pre-schooler.

When I first set the library up it did cost me a lot of money and we started with just 4 carriers from my own stash. I approached as many vendors and distributors as I could possibly think of; some donated slings, others offered reduced prices and some did not reply. In the early days the knock backs were hard because I knew there was no way I could finance it all by myself, but when someone says yes it makes it worth the time spent writing letters and emails. I made a website using a free service and I add all donations to a ‘thanks and contributors’ page on there. I also use Facebook and Twitter to interact with different people and groups.  I also try to follow and ‘like’ them too and provide updates on when carriers have been hired.  I also made the decision to invest in some business cards and postcards which I have on me whenever I am using a carrier and try to advertise wherever I can think of. I put posters up in children’s centers, day nurseries etc. I have found word of mouth plays a big part in getting people to come to the library.

To run a lending library you do not need any specific training or insurance (I am in the UK) and this fits with the tradition of babywearing being passed from mom to daughter, person to person and so on. It is a skill which has been dying but which lending libraries and the internet are helping to continue.  I decided that I wanted to also have some form of qualification so I decided to take a Babywearing Consultants Course.  I trained with Trageschule UK  and joined the British Association of Babywearing Instructors (BABI). There are other schools in the UK, Europe and the USA. I joined BABI as it allowed me to buy insurance through them but this is not necessary. Most lending libraries have their own Terms and Conditions which we ask users to say they have read and signed.  It is also important to remember that you may need to declare your income for tax. We are not for profit but still needed to make a tax return.

Since starting the North East Sling Library I have helped over 120 families to carry their children. It does take up a lot of my time but I do it because I enjoy it. I love “helping the North East Carry their babies big and small”.

TOP TIPS.

• Get a website or Facebook page
• Like or follow other libraries and related pages
• Have a selection of carriers suitable for all age groups
• Remember you are mostly running as a hobby and that sometimes you have to say no. Your family come first and you physically can’t do everything for everybody.

Finally, good luck and enjoy.

Editors Note: This is a guest post written by Boba Ambassador Rachel. She operates a successful babywearing lending library in the UK. Boba happily supports babywearing lending libraries.

The simplest option would be to simply pump for relief and dump out the milk.  I would save myself a lot of trouble that way.  Another option would be to save the milk and find a way to smuggle it back on in a cooler.  The final option was to save the milk but find a donor recipient who was willing to pick up 4 days of my milk from the hotel.

There was no way I was wasting the milk so the first option was out.  Breast milk is too amazing and it is hard work to get.  With TSA guidelines as strict as they are now I was also not willing to risk having to dump out my milk in airport security.  The logical choice was to donate.

I posted my proposition on the San Diego Eats on Feets page.  Eats on Feets is a peer to peer milk sharing program where mothers with extra milk will donate directly to families who need it.  Eats on Feets and similar organizations have websites and Facebook pages for local chapters making it easy to find a match.  Quickly a mother responded saying she would be happy to work with me and pick up the milk.

Since I knew that thousands of women would be attending  I also assumed at least a few dozen would be currently breastfeeding a baby or toddler.  Many women, like myself, would be leaving their nursling home with a loved one and would be faced with the same dilemma.

Through social outlets like Twitter, Facebook, and by writing a post on my blog I found many others who wanted to join me in donating milk.  We used a hashtag to keep organized.  During the conference we saved our milk and, towards the end, I met up with the women either in their rooms or at parties.  (Yes, I had a large bag and collected milk from a donor at a party!)  Another blogger and friend who didn’t have such an early flight home met with our recipient on the last day.

Pumping in the hotel room

I’m so proud to say that 13 women collectively pumped and donated a whopping 300 ounces of milk in 4 days!  The recipient was thrilled and had a large stash for her freezer and all of the donors were just happy that our precious milk wouldn’t be lost to the sewage system.

I attended BlogHer 12 in NYC last week and unfortunately did not have enough milk to donate.  Several other women did join forces and sought a recipient.  Next year BlogHer will be in Chicago and I am planning on working closely with Gina from The Feminist Breeder and utilizing her local connections to make sure we are able to better plan out a donation group.  I’m hoping the BlogHer planning committee will be more responsive to helping out in an official manner as well.

1) Could you start us out by telling us a little bit about yourself and your family?

We are the Bradley family! Billy is a classically trained actor and wellness coach, and I am a writer and stay at home mom. Our little one is Kaya Alaqua, who turned 4 in March.

2) Why do you think that so many families who dream of travel [mistakenly] believe that living abroad or a traveling lifestyle is out of reach for them?

I think families assume that travel is expensive. The thing that I have learned is that it really isn’t, IF one really does enough research. The thing is that some good hotels and guest houses are not listed on mainstream travel sites, so it takes either knowing a local or posting in a forum about places in your price range.

3) How do you keep the dream to travel as a family alive and in practice? How do you and your husband work with your own doubts when they creep in?

Well we did things by accident, very differently then other travel bloggers. We had initially wanted to move to Italy, but my husband kept stalling until eventually he said he wanted to live in Asia. Our dream has always been to live in Japan, although recently we decided we wanted to settle down in the UK ( I’m British and have family there). We left LA and went to South Korea, where my husband taught for a year. We adore Korea and really, deeply miss it, although that year was very challenging for us; we lost several family members and Billy was perpetually working. We then decided to spend a month in Phuket and headed over to Italy, where we thought we would settle down, but my husband really loved Phuket (and so did Kaya) so we moved back here!

We have made good and bad decisions but I am happy that we ‘felt the fear and did it anyway’. Our family is not too keen on us traveling, and it was a challenge finding work in Phuket, but we both really love our lifestyle and things have worked out well!

4) Many parents worry that traveling as a family means their children won’t have a greater sense of “home,” but you share in your blog that you are homesteaders and nomads. Can you tell us more about how you do both?

I think there is a lot of truth in that, but not the physical dwelling itself but the community. Our society desperately lacks community. In so many towns and cities, people barely know their neighbors. And there is so much criticism within some families that it makes it very hard for members to get along. But I think travel has taught us a lot about the necessity of community, and about just how important it is to find the right one for one’s family. Some people stay in the same hometown their whole lives, despite never fitting in, and I think they are missing out. Somewhere, there is a place where they will feel welcomed and have permission to be themselves. All in all, travel is a great teacher and can show a family or individual exactly what they are looking for.

5) Money and time seem to be the two biggest mental blocks for most people who dream of traveling with their families. Can you speak to both, offering us an example for each on how your family makes it happen and flourishes together on the road?

I can speak a lot about this subject. When we arrived here, the job we had lined up basically fell through. We were very scared, and had to think creatively. Billy found a local teaching job at a great school that offered him almost a part time schedule, and I’ve spent the last year attempting to work from home. I made a lot of errors but they all taught me my greatest lessons. The best advice I can give is to figure out what you like to do or can do/make, and then invest in educating in online marketing so you can sell your product or service. Digital Nomad Academy, Site Build It, and Keyword Academy focus on this, but a lot of popular ‘you can work from anywhere!!’ books don’t, they just repeat the same thing over and over and never get into marketing or how to make a landing page. For newbies I recommend Site Build It and Keyword Academy as well as reading 4 Hour Workweek.

You can visit the Bradley Family and their inspiring blog at sattvicfamily.net.

It is so incredibly rare to have a directive come down from the very top of a company (even a small family company like Boba) to forget SEO (search engine optimization) and to write from our hearts and our own interests. Write about traveling, write about families living their dreams in big ways, in small way and in every way in between. Write about finding and enjoying freedom together as a family. Share how other families spend their days, share what works for them and what does not. We are being asked to build community, foster freedom and celebrate family togetherness.

Each month we will be featuring families who travel together and live on the road. Even if long-term travel is not a personal dream of yours, get ready to be inspired all the same because these are some tremendous people who have taken their dream of travel and made it a reality through planning, preparation and perhaps the most essential ingredient, a deep gratitude for the opportunities they have created for themselves. These are not necessarily wealthy families, at least in the most common understanding of wealth, but they are disciplined and focused and adaptable. They are courageous self-seekers, they know themselves and their families, and they have put it all toward living their dreams.

I have an interview coming up with the Bradley Family, aka The Sattvic Family, and I am feeling incredibly inspired by their courage and devotion to each other. I look forward to sharing our interview with you soon. Until then, I hope you’ll join me in taking a good look at the dreams that we have each been dreaming–dust them off if you have put them aside for a while. Come up with just one thing you could do to facilitate that dream. Don’t stop when it looks like you have come up against an obstacle too large, have fun and get creative. In fact, get wildly creative! Have an office job? In your dream quit it and develop your existing skills and passions into something that allows you to earn a living from the road. Have a mortgage that you need to pay? Imagine selling your house or renting it out while you live in another country where the cost of living is less, allowing you to pay off debts while you live well. You might be ready to make it all happen tomorrow, but if not, I hope that you will join me in dreaming a little bigger and in asking myself, “What if we just…?”

Want to have a family centered life and schedule everything around what matters most?

Do you view life as an adventure and family travel as a unique way to bond and learn about the world?

Do you value staying healthy while enjoying life as a family unit?

We do too.

(from sattvicfamily.net “about us” page.)

]]> http://www.bobafamily.com/blog/2012/06/14/families-who-inspire-us-yours-included/feed/ 0 http://www.bobafamily.com/blog/2012/06/12/babywearing-all-star-feature-charlotte-kaufman/ http://www.bobafamily.com/blog/2012/06/12/babywearing-all-star-feature-charlotte-kaufman/#comments Tue, 12 Jun 2012 20:07:32 +0000 Heather http://www.bobafamily.com/?p=11642 ...read more >]]>

Meet Charlotte Kaufman, founder and owner of Red Charlotte, a popular baby carrier accessory shop on Etsy, and a Boba Babywearing All-star. Charlotte designs and produces all sorts of things to make life while babywearing even easier and more enjoyable for mom, dad and baby, like sucking pads and stuff sacks (she helped Boba in the early development of ours), and even recently released her own child-sized baby carrier for dolls.

But beyond the promotion that she and her shop do for the ease and joy of babywearing, she is a living example of enjoying life to the fullest and striking out on adventure with the whole family (in this case, her toddler girl, husband, and she).

I caught up with Charlotte recently to talk babywearing, business and living life outside of the box. She shared with us how beneficial it was to be hands-free by using a wrap and then a soft-structured carrier with Cora, her now 22-month-old daughter, especially for life on a boat. Charlotte and her family live on their boat Rebel Heart year-round and the joys and challenges that presents make for some creative problem solving!

On our second date my husband told me he wanted to sail around the world. This intrigued me. I love to travel and the idea of bringing my “home” with me was enticing. 10 months after our first date we bought our sailboat together. Living on a boat has truly been the foundation of our relationship so when we decided to have children there was never any doubt about having them on the boat with us. Cora is a boat baby through and through!

I became hooked on SSCs and started researching others as well. No one in my immediate family had ever worn their babies and I was the first of my local friends to have babies so I had no one to talk to or ask questions. I turned to the internet and found local babywearing mamas who were speaking my language! It is so helpful to have a support group of fellow babywearers.

Charlotte was a high school teacher and took a semester off to be home with her baby girl, but after the semester was over she didn’t want to leave her baby to go back to work full-time. It was her direct experience of babywearing and life aboard a sailboat that led her to sew her own now popular sucking pads (to keep her SSC in good condition) and stuff sacks (to keep her SSC wrangled up when not in use). After getting lots of positive feedback from friends, she turned to the idea of opening an Etsy store to share her creations at Red Charlotte was born.

There a lot of things I love about working on Etsy. They give you so many tools to help you succeed. There are a tremendous amount of tutorials and ongoing shop seminars. I also love that so many Etsy sellers are fellow work at home moms. I am blown away and inspired every day by the creativity I see on Etsy. I try to support fellow Etsy sellers as much as possible with my own purchases.

I never knew how hard it was to be a mother until I became one myself. Now I think my own mother is a SAINT! Being a working mom has its own unique challenges too but I’m so grateful that I have a platform like my Etsy shop because it gives me a lot of flexibility with my schedule. I can still take Cora on play dates or to swim lessons because I do a lot of my work in the evenings or during her naps.

Charlotte also co-authors a blog with fellow creative and photographer Ella Sherman called FinchFound. Covering motherhood, conscious consumption and design, the blog explores topics like babywearing and often features other work at home mothers and Etsy shops. Life on Rebel Heart has given Charlotte a keener sense of consumerism, and the blog often reflects ways to keep the “stuff” of life at a minimum while enjoying life to the maximum.

FinchFound gives me a space to show people why I love what I do. Living on a sailboat has forced to me truly think about everything I buy and whether I need it or not. I try to reflect this attitude in FinchFound. Many of my posts showcase items that are both beautiful AND useful and preferably sustainable or handmade.

We think her life on board a sailboat and conscious outlook in regards to consumerism and function are especially inspiring. There are a lot of families making “alternative” choices about raising their families, be it by simply reducing rampant baby bling, living in unusual locations or traveling with children long-term, and the parents of these “out of the box” families often express huge benefits that outweigh challenges associated with their lifestyle choices. As per living on a boat, Charlotte echos this notion; that a life chosen out of passion and inspiration leads to creativity and joy, and is easier than you think.

The benefits are many to raising a baby on a boat. We live very close to each other, and both my husband and I can quickly respond to her needs. Cora loves the wildlife that lives right outside our boat. She is always on the water either swimming, dinghy sailing, or paddle boarding with us and she gets lots of fresh air and sunshine.

The challenges are few. Laundry was difficult when she was a newborn just because there was so much of it. Bathing her also has been interesting. We don’t have hot or running water on the boat (we manually pump water via a foot pump). So we heat water on the stove to bathe her.  She has far less toys than most of her peers and that suits us just fine. There is plenty to do outside anyway!

When I asked Charlotte about her personal Babywearing All-stars, she had this to say:

I have to say the most important all-star in my life is my own mother. She didn’t know about babywearing and she had SEVEN children. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time like Marty McFly in Back to the Future and meet my mom and introduce her to babywearing. I think it would have helped her a lot. She is absolutely my biggest cheerleader. She has embraced the idea of babywearing wholeheartedly and tells all of her friends about it as well.

I am also inspired by my fellow babywearing boat mamas. We are a very close-knit (and small) community and we share tips and tricks for living our unique lifestyle. Lastly, my own local babywearing group, Babywearing San Diego has amazing leaders and members. I have to give a shout out to the entire group for their wealth of knowledge and support of my own San Diego business.

Thank you Charlotte, for all you do and for being a strong role model for babywearing mothers and adventurers the world over!

~ Heather

—-

Know a Babywearing All-star you’d like to see featured on the Boba Blog? Send me an email or tweet me to nominate a person or business and we’ll check them out! (Note: I’ll be on maternity leave after June 30, 2012, so if you have a recommendation to make after that date, email bethany@bobafamily.com, thanks!)

Meet Sara Janssen from www.walkslowlylivewildly.com! Her blog is an amazing blend of fun colors and inspirational stories of traveling, simplicity, and family life. The Janssen family traveled the United States living in RV’s full time for 5 years, and now after the birth of their third daughter they have just bought a pop-up camper for smaller trips while living in a house.

I asked Sara some basic questions to inspire our Boba readers to follow their dreams like Sara and her family. Enjoy the interview and be sure to get lost in Sarah’s blog after!

• Why did you decide to travel full time? How did it simplify your life?

In the Summer of 2005, we were staying in a hotel for 4 weeks for business. We had a small suite that had a bedroom and a little kitchen. We realized while we were there that we were EXTREMELY HAPPY living in a smaller space. We liked knowing where Bella was at all times without searching. We liked that cleaning up only took a few minutes instead of an entire afternoon. It just clicked.

We talked about that for a long time and when we returned from our trip, we decided to sell our house (that we had just purchased a few months before)…and downsize everything. We spent entire weekends cleaning out our basement, selling things on eBay and Craigslist. Slowly, we came out from under our self-imposed weight of possessions.

In that time, we also had a strict budget and paid off all of our consumer debt (credit cards, cars, etc). It took one year…but by the end of that year, we had paid the debt, sold our house, and moved into a smaller apartment.
We were also reading a book called “Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical” by Shane Claiborne. In it, he talks about what life would look like if Christians actually lived out what Jesus taught. Shane and others live in a community called “The Simple Way”…and they “attempt to live like Christ and the earliest converts to Christianity, ignoring social status and unencumbered by material comforts”. This book was a major catalyst in our desire to make a change.

It was during that time that we discovered the Compact and also many blogs that were discussing simpler/greener living. We loved the freedom we felt in giving things away, helping others, and feeling the wonderful “light” feeling that comes with getting rid of things that you don’t need. The group of friends we had in Des Moines were also instrumental in our journey…so many wonderful, thoughtful families, encouraging each other to make slow changes.

The jobs that we had during that time were great for our pocketbook, but not so great for keeping our sanity. We made the hard decision to resign, move to Bozeman, MT and seek out a slower pace of life. It was a great time of reflection, rejuvenation, and searching out what God had for our lives.

Before we sold our house, we had purchased a gorgeous VW Westy and we had planned on traveling the country in it. We ended up selling it before we moved to Bozeman…but the traveling lifestyle was still calling to us. We were always talking about how we wished that we would have “just done it”.

We decided to follow our hearts. What is the worst that could happen by pursuing our dreams? Failure? No big deal…at least we can say we tried! And in the end, we’ll have no regrets.

While we are now settled in Longmont, Colorado for this season of our life, we look forward to continuing this journey and seeing what God has planned for us around each corner!

• How old were your children when you started traveling?

Bella was 3 when we started. After about 18 mo, we stopped in Bozeman, MT and lived there until Lucy was born. We hit the road again when she was 2 months old.

• What children’s items did you decide to bring or leave?

Our first RV didn’t have much “open” space for Bella to spread toys out, so we didn’t bring many toys that first year. As our RV’s grew in size, we brought a few more items. Some of the items we cycled through over the years were: the wooden kitchen, nesting blocks, doll houses, puzzles, a cash register, and dress up clothes. We tried to stick with classic toys that didn’t make too much noise When you’re in such a small space, it’s important to have a place to put the toys completely away (in a drawer, box, etc). The key was to not have very many toys…but to keep their very favorites! I’ve attached some photos of several of our RV’s and the toys.  When you are living in an RV and so close to the outside world, you tend to play in nature a lot more and it was rare that the kids would play with their toys. It was mostly on rainy days or when we had friends over.

• What are your favorite towns or places to go with children?

We loved any big city that was easily walkable or had a subway system. New York City, Boston, and Washington, D.C. were amazing. It was fantastic to be able to walk all day long with Bella in a sling…nursing as needed along the way. We also loved San Diego, Santa Cruz & the redwoods, and the Oregon/Washington coast.

• Do you think natural parenting practices like breasfeeding, co-sleeping, and babywearing make traveling easier?

Absolutely! There is no other way to do it in my opinion. It made our life so much more enjoyable. There were no bottles, which meant we didn’t have to worry about storing them in the RV. Co-sleeping is the perfect solution to small living quarters…we all slept in a king bed and eventually built a small bunk area right off of our bed in several of the RVs.  And babywearing! Oh the joys! As a traveler, we were constantly in new situations with new people and places. Wearing my children allowed them to see everything and feel secure and comfortable…even when everything around them was changing.

• Would you recommend long term traveling to other families with young children?

Yes! If you are currently dreaming about it, it might seem like an overwhelming and crazy endeavor. However, it is such a rich and rewarding life! Once you become a traveler, you are always a traveler. It’s addicting Children are so adaptable and love new adventures…we never had any reservations about taking them anywhere. Our four years of full-time travel were the best thing we could have ever done as a family and we will be out there again someday!

Enjoy!

———-

Miller Family in Belize, 2010

We are the Miller family of the Edventure Project: Tony (40) and Jenn (37) and our four children: Hannah (15), Gabriel (14), Elisha (11) and Ezra (9) are in our fifth year of an open ended world tour. It began with a year long bicycle ride through Europe and North Africa, grew into a North and Central American road trip, rested half a year in the highlands of Guatemala, and has morphed from a “gap year” into our lifestyle. In just two days we lift off for a year or two of travels in Asia & Oceania!

1. Why do you think so many families think a traveling lifestyle is out of reach for them?

Time, money and social pressure seem to be the big three among the families we talk to. It takes a major priority restructuring to find the time to travel in larger chunks with children. So many families are locked into the status quo of work-home-school life that there is little time to even take a Saturday picnic, never mind a three month wander. It’s not that we have more time than anyone else (we all have exactly the same amount) it’s just that we’ve chosen to use ours a little differently.

Money is a constant struggle for lots of families, regardless of how and where we live life. With the internet as a resource it’s getting easier for parents to work remotely and we’ve just taken that one step further by converting our static careers into freelance careers that allow us to live and work anywhere. Something that surprises a lot of people is that it’s actually cheaper for us to travel and live our dream than it was for us to have a house, two cars and a “real life” in America. The key to finding the money for long term travel is two-fold: changing your priority structure and leveraging your skill set in new ways.

Social pressure is a biggie. It’s hard to live life very differently from the way those around you do. It’s hard to have the confidence that children raised in the world instead of in community and schools will be “okay” later. It’s hard to chase a dream when the world says “be realistic.” I’m very blessed to have been raised by parents who did all of these things first, so in our family our lifestyle is very normal. I was a kid raised on the road and it was the best thing my parents ever did for me, that gives me a confidence for my own children that might not come any other way.

2. What do you say when people say, “you must be very rich to live the way you do!”

I laugh! We are not rich. My husband’s freelance database design and iPhone/Android programming business makes plenty of money for us to live and we stretch that by choosing to live in places that the US dollar goes further much of the time. The real secret to being able to afford long term travel is to reevaluate your priorities, reduce overhead that needs to be maintained (houses, cars etc) reduce or eliminate debt and convert the skill set you have in your current job to something portable.

Miller Family at the Austrian border with the Czech

3. What inspired you to first take to the road with your family?

There were several motivating factors. One of which was my own childhood, the best part of which was spent traveling. But the seminal moment happened standing over my grandmother’s casket when I had this clarion moment. The world stopped and it was as if the Universe spoke: “She’s not here, her stuff is not here, her titles aren’t here, nothing she worked for, not her name, not anything she accomplished in this life fits in the box.” In that moment it was so clear to me: no one knows for sure what we take out when we die, but at best, it’s our relationships and our memories, and yet most of us spend the best twenty years of our lives (or more) working for the stuff that doesn’t matter. We decided in that moment that we’d do the opposite: spend the best years of our lives investing in the relationships and the memories. It required us to restructure our entire lives, but it’s been worth it, beyond measure.

4. If you don’t mind answering, how do you provide for you family income wise?

I mentioned that my husband does freelance database development & design work in addition to iPhone and Android programming. If you’ve ever purchased an Ocean Spray product his work has passed through your hands as it’s his database that controls every layer of their packaging process. His business pays the bills.

I am a freelance writer for the home education and travel markets. It’s more of a “hobby that pays” at this point than a career, but it is fulfilling to me and is something I hope to do more of as our children grow up and out. I also teach a course with my friend Nancy called the Dream Intensive that helps people live their dreams and get big ideas off the ground.
We can both work anywhere we can find Internet which allows a great deal of flexibility.

The Miller Family on Christmas Day, 2008

5. What do you think are the two biggest misconceptions of traveling as a family?

That you need a lot of money to do it and that our children are somehow “missing out.”

We know a range of families, single parents with one child, to two parent families with seven kids, all of whom manage full time travel and support themselves as they go. It doesn’t take a lot of money, it takes a lot of creativity!

The idea that children who are raised outside of the status quo with public school during the week and soccer tournaments on weekends are somehow “missing out” is laughable to those of us who’ve been traveling for a while… and to our children. So much of what we consider “normal” for children is really an artificial social construct (when do you spend 8 hours a day with 20 people exactly your age and experience in the “real world?”) Kids who are raised in the real world don’t miss out socially, in fact they encounter a more diverse social set than they would any other way. They don’t miss out educationally either as parents who care enough to spend 24-7 with their kids, meet the challenges of funding, travel and language barriers also are savvy enough to know how to find the resources their children need to grow and develop without “missing out.”

6. How did you overcome your biggest fear around being a traveling family?

Because I was raised traveling we didn’t really have any major fears setting out. Our big fear emerged when we were camped on the highest sea cliff on the Adriatic coast of Italy in the fall of 2008. Overnight the stock market crashed and all of our savings was gone. We suddenly had nothing left in our travel fund that we’d saved up to travel our year on. That was terrifying. It was also, perhaps, the best thing that could have happened to us because it forced us to really think through what we were doing, what we wanted and how to make it work. We took a ferry to Tunisia, where we could live less expensively, and set about creating work for ourselves, and building the business that now supports our travels. Without the desperation brought on by the market crash, we might not have been forced to be as creative and we might not be where we are today.