Natalie Rose

We have a small flock of 5 and we have two bedding piles - one's a year old and the other is from this year. I take an old pillowcase and fill half of it with the year-old stuff, tie it off, and drop it in a 5 gallon bucket. I fill the bucket with water and leave the whole thing - uncovered - in a sunny place for a couple weeks. Makes a sort of fertilizer tea that I then dilute with water in a 1 to 4 ratio (usually 1 gallon tea to 4 gallons of water), then I spray that on my garden periodically throughout the growing season.

So far it's worked great - no burning. I'd imagine if you dug down to the bottom of the pile you'd find some older, more decomposed bedding and manure that might work for this purpose. Although I'm not sure how you'd avoid mixing the newer stuff in. I wonder, though, if a small amount of newer compost might be okay given how diluted this fertilizer tea is.

Like a couple other posters here, I don't have kids of my own. I was a nanny for many years, however, for many different families and took a huge role in the raising of my two younger siblings from a young age. I love that you're working with her on lists and I think what other folks have suggested about mixing in fun is great.

Kids, like adults, want to feel like what they do day in and day out is important. They love to feel like they have something to offer - whether that's to themselves or to others. Even little ones want to "contribute" in some way towards the work that the big people are doing. For example, when I was a housekeeper/nanny for a big, wealthy family, I had a terrible time getting chores done. I was always being interrupted - the kids just wanted attention always! Then I realized what they really wanted was to spend some time with me, so I started letting them help me with chores. The kids were 2-12, so they helped in ways that matched their ages - and I often had to re-do chores after they'd helped me - but we all got what we wanted. They got to feel like they were contributing to the house the same way I did - and got the same appreciation I did - and I got to move through the chores. It didn't save me a single minute of time or an iota of effort of course, but I felt it was worth it to avoid the stress it caused us all.

When I think about it, doing chores and homework doesn't sound like much fun to me either. But working together can lighten the load and leave room for some fun. For example, maybe there's an audiobook the two of you can enjoy while you work together on a chore. If you have a library card, you likely have access to an app called Libby which will have thousands of free audiobooks available! Forgive the library plug - I'm no longer a nanny but rather a librarian these days. There might also be some fun programming at your local library where you can let her get some of that extroverted energy out - while you take a break and read in the corner!

You might also see if there's a way to lighten the load for yourself, too. We know that "it takes a village to raise a child," of course, but many of us are working with depleted villages these days. Is there anyone you can lean on to help you with your own responsibilities? Or even just vent to? Those outlets are so important for parents - I wish our communities had more of them.

This is so interesting! I've just moved my own gardening focus toward starchy, calorie-dense crops and I would love to give this a try. It seems to be such a practical solution to many problems around growing grain, even for small homesteaders and home gardeners. I'm by no means an expert, but I'll be watching this thread to see what other folks think. Thank you for sharing this!

I have a really tough time with exactly this question. I keep my own parents at an arm's length for my own comfort and security. My childhood was marked by a strange, confusing combination of abandonment/alienation and crossed boundaries. The message from my parents was, essentially, that I couldn't expect much from them, but their expectations of me were exceedingly high.

I don't think they were awful parents, and I don't say all of this to bash them. On some level they were doing the best they could with their own unhealed trauma. I can hold both - they hurt me in a lot of avoidable, irresponsible ways and they didn't mean to do it. We have a cordial relationship now that suits us all. My honest, kind, supportive relationships are with my friends now. In many ways, I've chosen my own family. This is a pretty common experience for young queer folk like me, but it seems to be becoming more common. I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with relying on your found family rather than your biological family if that's what's right for you. I do think that, even if we choose to go low- or no-contact with our biological families, we each have a responsibility to identify and heal from family trauma in order to avoid passing it on to the next generation.

My partner and I are choosing not to have children, but our chosen family members do have kids of their own. These kids are also part of my community now, and I'm delighted to help support them. So to ensure I'm not regurgitating my own trauma onto these younger members of my community, I'm working hard to address it head-on. I think that's how we move away from this as a culture (if it's not too lofty to say so) - by breaking that cycle of trauma and neglect and making sure the toxicity ends with us.