What an earthworm taught me about being a good mother
Jul 15th, 2008 by Rachelle Beckner
Rachelle Beckner is a thirty-something mother of two beautiful, rambunctious girls, ages 3 and 21 months. She lives, works and plays in Charleston, WV, the capital city of the Mountain State, with her husband of four years. Her online presence also extends to two blogs — the most recent of which is Mountain State Motherhood. Read more about Rachelle on our Contributors page.
It’s funny how you can pick up parenting tips and advice in the strangest of place. The best parenting advice I received in my three years as a parent, I learned while I attending a national fundraising conference earlier this year. From Jane Goodall of all people! And the advice that Jane offered wasn’t from the perspective of being a parent, but rather from a child’s perspective.
As a parent, you often suffer from a misguided form of perverse altruism: unsolicited parenting advice. “You know what you do to get a baby to go to sleep when she’s teething, rub a little whiskey on her gums.” Um, yeah, because what I want is an alcoholic 6-year-old. When I was pregnant with our first daughter, Belle, we received all kinds of unsolicited parenting advice. And I’d just nod my head and say uh-huh. When our second daughter, Lilly, came along and we were struggling with a newborn and a 16-month-old we sought out a lot of advice — especially from parents with two children. It’s then that many folks who were so willing to offer advice the first go-around clammed up.
See, Jane’s mother encouraged her interests in the outside world, in bugs and animals — which helped shape her future. Jane shared stories about her childhood with us at this national conference. One story in particular brought tears to my eyes as I thought about our oldest daughter, Belle, and how I should be shaping her future.
As a young girl, poor and living in the English countryside, Jane enjoyed the outdoors. One evening, she brought four earthworms with her to bed. Did her mother go scream and shout, “What are you doing? Look at the mess you’ve made,” when she discovered Slimey and his friends had come inside for a sleepover? No! She didn’t angrily strip the bed, throw the sheets in the wash and threaten to bath Jane again. No, Jane’s mother simply explained to her curious daughter that if she kept the earthworms with her in bed they would die because they needed the soil to live. So Jane went back outside to deposit her friends back into the garden.
Jump ahead a couple of decades, Jane’s mother encouraged her to save her money to make her first trip to Africa to study the chimpanzees and when the British government said they wouldn’t let Jane sit out in the jungle to study chimps without an escort her mother gladly volunteered to join her for four months in the African jungle.
Now I’m not jumping at the chance to sit in the woods with Belle to study deer poopies (as she fondly refers to them) but I realized one important lesson that day. Rather than squashing my daughter’s natural curiosities (she loves bugs and animals), I should encourage them. I could refrain from jumping off the deep end when she wants to jump into a mud puddle or collect caterpillars in her jacket pocket. I could, instead, jump in that puddle with her and help her identify which type of caterpillar she has found.Who knows? Maybe one day, she will become a Jane Goodall.
To learn more about Dr. Goodall’s work today, visit Roots & Shoots
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I love the Jane Goodall story
I’m like you in that I have to remember to let things be and EMBRACE nature and all the dirt that childhood brings in……..I love playing out in the garden and sand as much as my kids do, so why I tense up when I see them covered in mud? I think it just comes down, unfortunately, to the extra work that messiness brings into motherhood - guess I just have to accept that it’s part of this gig and get over it. I’ll be checking out Jane Goodall’s site!
Thanks, Kate. I agree. I think that I get upset thinking about the extra work. Or how you the kids just dirted up a new outfit and I was hoping it would last at least through twotimes of wearing it. There is also part of me that says, Belle is a girl. She shouldn’t want to play in the dirt and with bugs. But that’s placing a stereotype on her and I definitely don’t want to do that.
Rachelles last blog post..What an earthworm taught me about being a good mother
Hi Rachelle,
Good to have a West Virginian on board thismommygig. I’ve spent LOTS of time in WV doing educational research and have a particular affinity for the state. I also love your message and, for what it’s worth, my wife the psychologist strongly believes in the message. My son can’t get enough of his “cars from Radiator Springs” (i.e. the cars from the Cars Disney/Pixar film) to the point where I occasionally worry about “obsession”. But, my wife tells me that we should “let him be” and allow him to explore and create with those cars in any way that’s natural. Whatever piques their interest, we should let them explore…even if it is deer poopy, right? (-:
Jon Beckers last blog post..Change and Mutual Adaptation
This is a story very dear to my own heart. I believe playing in the mud, and learning about caterpillars and deer ‘poopy’ is a fantastic way for young minds to be creative and grow. I can certainly see the positive results in my own daughter.
I buy secondhand clothes or accept hand-me-downs for play clothes so I can let her loose in the garden without cringing every time she lands in the mud…and if it all gets a bit too messy then I just hose her down and then head inside to the bath.
I can’t tell you how proud I was when my little girl organized her Kinder class to gather leaves to make compost. She did a great job.
Jon,
Thank you for the encouragement to allow Belle to develop her personality and to encourage her in areas that I wouldn’t necessarily prefer. I like the outdoors pretty well, but I’m not a huge bug fan. She gets that from my husband. We’re also quite familiar with the cars from Radiator Springs. Belle said Lightening McQueen before she was 2! Yes, she’s always discovering bugs and saying look Mommy. Come see this cool bug! I sigh and then remind myself to say yes, honey that’s nice. I was disgusted when she actually let a cicada crawl on her face! Yuck! But she just loved it.
Rachelles last blog post..What an earthworm taught me about being a good mother
Neirda,
Thank you for sharing your personal story of your daughter’s interest in the outdoors. I think some of the fear we have is that she won’t be a “girly girl” at all. In fact, when spring hit this year, she hadn’t worn a dress for so long, that she actually fought us the first time we put one on her! And yes, most of our clothes are secondhand from local consignment stores. It just seems on the rare occasion she has on a nice or new outfit (like one she received for her birthday) that’s when she’s exploring! And she can find mud on the short walk from our driveway to the door!
Jon,
Where have you studied in WV?
Rachelles last blog post..What an earthworm taught me about being a good mother