In the late 1990s, I was involved in a repatriation project that took me to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC. I was looking at a “collection” of Gashkibidaaganag[28] with Mark Thompson-ba, a Nishnaabeg medicine person from Manitoba.[29] He explained to me the meaning that the beadwork on each bag is a form of language that communicated the particular medical and healing skills of the owner. Each bag however, had a section that was completely blank, absent of beadwork. When I asked Mark what that meant, he explained that this was the period of time when the owner of the bag stopped learning about medicinal plants because they were busy raising their children. Nishnaabeg people saw their parental responsibilities as paramount. They recognized that children require a lot of time, and that healthy relationships take time to foster, develop and maintain. Nishnaabeg parents have been taking parental leave for thousands and thousands of years.
The other important concept in our teachings regarding the Seven Stages of Life is the responsibilities of extended family in nurturing children. Everyone is both a teacher and a learner in this model; each individual both teaches and learns different things at different stages in their lives. Grandparents were responsible for teaching their grandchildren, often through the use of personal and traditional stories, as well as life’s lessons. Community Elders taught children spiritual lessons.[30] The sharing of responsibilities around children takes the pressure for complete childrearing off the parents and is a fundamental requirement for parenting that is non-authoritarian in nature.
Protecting the First Hills of Life
In terms of resurgence, we need to make sure more of our babies, children and youth are making it to the top of their hills, that they are healthy and full of life once they get there, that they have made it through their struggles using Nishnaabeg ways of being, and that they have cared for others on the way.
Nengaajgchigewin in Parenting
Nengaajgchigewin means the art of doing something gentle, to be gentle on something.[31] This permeates Nishnaabeg parenting practices, especially for infants with extended nursing, strong attachment to the mother, and immediate response to infant’s cries. Infants bring with them a tremendous amount of unconditional love from the Spirit World. In following this philosophy, it is our responsibility to respond to them with that same unconditional love. Recognizing that they are people with needs, it is the parent’s responsibility to figure what those needs are and how to respond to them. This is in sharp contrast to settler style parenting strategies, centred around detachment—placing infants alone in cribs for long periods of time, scheduled bottle feeding, and “crying it out.” These strategies are an avoidance of parental responsibilities justified by attempting to create infants that can self-soothe and obtain a level of self-sufficiency (i.e. require no parental effort at night).[32] Strong attachment parenting followed children often as long as they needed it (with extended nursing and communal sleeping areas) because there was a fundamental belief that children only asked for things as long as they needed them. Children were continually given the benefit of the doubt. They were never far from parents, so parents were always there to calm any fears. Some of these practices extended into the colonial period and to present day. My Grandmother, who has very few happy childhood memories, recalls that sleeping in her Grandparents’ bedroom along the shore of Pamashkodeyong was the time in her life she felt the most safe.
Culturally based Nishnaabe parenting styles assumed that infants were utterly dependent upon their parents and they worked hard to meet those needs. During my first pregnancy, an Elder directed my partner and I to construct a Tikanagan, a traditional baby carrier.[33] She told us a traditional story about how the Tikanagan came to the Nishnaabeg people. In short, a young Nishnaabekwe new mother was having trouble living up to her responsibilities to her family because her baby would cry whenever she put her down. One day, exhausted and frustrated, she came upon a Haudenosaunee woman in the bush, with her baby snuggled into a Tikanagan. The young Nishnaabekwe carefully observed the moss bag and the carrying apparatus and went home that night to construct one of her own. She was then able to wrap her baby and take her everywhere with her, simultaneously calming the baby and completing her other responsibilities to her family. Our Tikanagan hangs in our home now that our children have out grown it, and it serves as a constant reminder of traditional Nishnaabeg parenting values: interdependence, non-interference, teaching by modeling, learning by doing. It also reminds us of the importance of co-operation, generosity, sharing, non-competitiveness, harmony and respect for life in Nishnaabeg society.
Zhinoomoowin: Modeling and Learning by Doing
Zhinoomoowin is the art of showing someone something, to act, or to show how it is done, in other words modeling desirable behaviours for children to mimic.[34] In Nishnaabeg philosophies regarding education and knowledge, Zhinoomoowin is a very important way of teaching children—more important than telling or directing. Good relations provide the context for everything from learning to governing and interacting with other nations. Great lengths went into preserving, maintaining and nurturing relationships personally, ceremonially and collectively. This is true also for parenting. The relationship between the parent and child was extremely important and parents were taught that the primary nurturing relationship should be positive, supportive, and absent of fear.[35] This is part of the reason that there was an absence of punishment in traditional Nishnaabeg society. Former Crown attorney Rupert Ross recounts this experience in his book, Returning to the Teachings: “At one point I asked what the community used to do in traditional times, before the courts came, to those who misbehaved. An old lady answered immediately. Through an interpreter she said, “We didn’t do anything to them. We counseled them instead.”[36] There was a strong commitment to learning and healing in the restorative justice system of the Nishnaabeg and this extended into family relations. Punishment was frowned upon because it was seen as violent, interfering, and authoritarian.[37] But pre-colonial Nishnaabeg also recognized that punishment was not a good tool for teaching in the long term. Fear of punishment may cause children to avoid undesirable behaviours in the short term, but in the long run, it teaches them it is all right to exert violence onto a smaller or weaker individual—something abhorred in the Nishnaabe worldview. Counseling, healing and taking responsibility for one’s actions, on the other hand, eventually guide children into avoiding undesirable behaviours not out of fear, but out a sense of right and wrong. The belief that children deserve to be treated with dignity, respect, understanding and compassion, just like any adult, simply meant that manipulation, excessive praise, punishment, rewards, withholding of privileges, criticism, and threats were out of the question as parenting strategies.
The same is true for criticism. I have never heard a legitimate Nishnaabeg Elder ever offer anything remotely resembling criticism, and sometimes members of my generation mistakenly interpret this as complacency.[38] In my experience, nothing could be further from the truth. The older ones hang onto their traditional values tightly, and rather than criticizing others, they are committed to offering alternatives and solutions. They are committed to Aanjigone and to processing emotions in a healthy way.[39] Criticism and anger are immediately communicated by silence. After a period of conservative withdrawal, people engage in open discussion, healing and solution building.
Modeling is central to Nishnaabeg beliefs around parenting. Parents and extended family members teach by modeling, a “do as I do” philosophy rather than a “do as I say” mentality.[40] There is a strong belief that if children are treated harshly, they will treat other harshly. If children are subjected to authoritarian parenting styles, they will in turn be authoritarian leaders. If paternalistic violence surrounds a child, she will behave in paternalistic and violent ways when she is an adult. Modeling, like other tenets of Nishnaabeg parenting, takes time to work, but in the long term has proven to be highly effective.
Aanjigone in Parenting
The concept of no
n-interference described earlier in this book as Aanjigone was significant in parenting. The grammatical structure of our language was founded on the premise of non-interference, making it difficult to express gossip and hearsay. Combined with our value system, people recognized they only had a right to their own experiences. They did not offer advice unless it was asked for directly. And meddling into another’s affairs, under the guise of friendship or parental responsibility, was not tolerated. Nishnaabeg concepts of trust also reflect non-interference with the absence of a universal truth in exchange for a plurality of truths.[41]
Non-interference encourages children to have control over their lives and to make decisions. This is much different from the contemporary settler parenting strategy of allowing children to make choices only when they don’t matter (would you like to wear your red pajamas or your blue ones?). Both of my children immediately detected the manipulative non-authentic nature of this “choice” and of course chose to sleep naked, or wear all of their pajamas to bed.
Non-interference can only work in a system where children are highly connected and attached to their parents and extended family, where the culture is inherently child-friendly. It needs to be where the culture and environment are set up so that children integrate into every part of daily life and that “good choices” are easy to make (and in the best interest of the child). Raising children with a commitment to traditional parenting styles requires a tremendous amount of time and commitment, since the quality of the relationship between the parent and the child is the base for all of life’s learning. Allowing children to have freedom of choice in a detached, individualistic, adult environment would of course put children in danger; and this is the misunderstanding that settler societies continue to make in reference to Indigenous parenting philosophies. Freedom of choice is just one facet of a philosophy designed to create honourable, responsible, healthy adults.
It is my understanding that older members of the family would intervene if a child’s choice was going to cause great harm to herself or to others. But in reality, this is a rare occurrence. Most parental interference is over the small stuff. The role of the parent is to love, guide and support, not to control. We allow children to make mistakes, supporting them in finding solutions to their problems.
Giving children freedom of choice has historically been treated as an abdication of parental responsibility, a sign of a lack of care and in short, an unfit parenting practice by colonial authorities, including the legal system and child and family services.[42] But it is Dr. Clare Brant’s view that “children raised by non-interfering parents become enormously loyal to them and to the entire extended family. They have, after all, enjoyed only pleasurable experiences with them, free of complaint, criticism, advice or coercion.”[43] Children were taught to respect boundaries through ritual, protocol, and storytelling. There are several examples in Nishnaabeg oral literature of stories designed to illicit responsible behaviour in children.[44] The enforcement of those boundaries was deliberately external to the family and the community, thus protecting the safety and security of primary nurturing relationship. Grandparents readily shared personal and traditional stories with younger family members as a mechanism for gently guiding children into behaving in an appropriate manner. Children were taken to ceremonies from the time they were infants and understood the rituals and rhythms of daily life.[45] Strong positive, nurturing connections between the child and his or her family brought out a strong desire to respect those individuals and relationships, not out of fear of punishment, but out of love, honour and genuine respect.
Parenting in a culture that requires a high level of attachment, indulgence and protection is very taxing, which is why extended family’s support is so critical. The support of extended family allows mothers “breaks” from parenting in order to preserve the loving nature of their relationships with their children and prevent any one relationship from becoming “too frightening for the child.”[46] The “conservative withdrawal” ethic—the idea that one retreats into one’s own self when one’s emotions are running high—also promotes a safe environment for women and children. Modeling this “retreat” behaviour taught Nishnaabeg children the importance of being responsible with one’s own emotions, while reinforcing “healthy” ways of dealing with strong emotion. Mechanisms for dealing with anger, such as Sharing Circles and shared decision making, could occur only after emotional restraint had been regained, and this precluded hostile behaviour towards others. These tenets of traditional society ensured that gender violence and violence towards children were rare occurrences with decisive consequences and that the expression of authoritarian power was categorically less than in European society.[47]
Nurturing Leaders for Resurgence
As a parent, I continue to try to put many of these values into practice in my daily interactions with my children. It is not easy. It is not the way I was raised. I am certainly more controlling than I mean to be; and I have at times, often in desperation and suffering from exhaustion, been coercive, manipulative and authoritarian. Nishnaabeg parenting is not a parenting style that is even remotely supported by settler society, and in contemporary times, few of us have the support of extended families and healthy communities to assist us. The legacy of the child welfare system and residential schools means that I have no role models in my family or my community for what I am trying to accomplish. Contemporary Nishnaabeg parents do not have many of the requirements for this kind of parenting at their disposal—the support of extended family committed to decolonizing their interactions with children and paid long-term parental leave. We do not necessarily live in communities that are able to gently convey a cohesive set of values to our children. However, many facets of this parenting philosophy are “do-able” in a modern context for many Nishnaabeg families, and I believe they are vital to passing on a legacy of responsibility, hope and love to the next generation. Just as stories stitch together our nation, children are the glue that holds our families together. It is my hope that we begin to honour them as such.[48]
* * *
Linda Clarkson, Vern Morrisette and Gabriel Régallet, Our Responsibility to the Seventh Generation: Indigenous Peoples and Sustainable Development, International Institute for Sustainable Development, Winnipeg, MB, 1992, 17. ←
Basil Johnston, The Manitous: The Spiritual World of the Ojibway, Key Porter Books, Toronto, ON, 1996, 244. John Borrows noted in previous drafts of this book that this interpretation of the word was consistent with what he had been taught as a young person. ←
Vanessa Watts, Towards Anishinaabe Governance and Accountability: Reawakening our Relationships and Sacred Bimaadiziwin, unpublished ma thesis, Indig-en-ous Governance Program, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, 2004, 89, web.uvic.ca/igov/research/pdfs/Vanessa%20Watts%20-%20Thesis.pdf, accessed September 20, 2010. I confirmed this with Doug Williams, Waawshkigaamagki (Curve Lake First Nation), July 15, 2010. ←
This was explained by Elder Fred Kelly (Onigaming First Nation) to Vanessa Watts, Towards Anishnaabe Governance and Accountability: Reawakening our Relationships and Sacred Bimaadiziwin, unpublished ma Thesis, Indigenous Governance Programs, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, 2004, web.uvic.ca/igov/research/pdfs/Vanessa%20Watts%20-%20Thesis.pdf, accessed September 20, 2010. It means “togetherness,” in the sense that one must practice good relationships and fulfill their responsibilities to themselves, their families, community, clan, nation and the natural world. ←
Basil Johnston, Ojibway Heritage: The Ceremonies, Rituals, Songs, Dances, Prayers and Legends of the Ojibway, McClelland Stewart, Toronto, ON, 1976, 109–119; Thomas Peacock and Marlene Wisuri, The Four Hills of Life: Ojibwe Wisdom, Afton Historical Society Press, Afton, MN, 2006. ←
Edna Manitowabi, Stoney Lake, ON, December 14, 2010; Lillian Pitawanakwat, www.fourdirectionsteachings.com, accessed September 12, 2010; Thomas Peacock and Marlene Wisuri, The Four Hills of Life: Ojibwe Wisdom, Afton Historical Society Press, Afton, MN, 2006. ←
> Clare Brant and P.G.R Patterson, “Native Child Rearing Practices and Their Role in Mental Health,” A Collection of Chapters, Lectures, Workshops and Thoughts, published by Ann Brant, 1997, 99–118. ←
Clare Brant and P.G.R Patterson, “Native Child Rearing Practices and Their Role in Mental Health,” A Collection of Chapters, Lectures, Workshops and Thoughts, published by Ann Brant, 1997, 99–118. ←
For a broader discussion of pre-colonial Indigenous leadership, see Volume 2, Chapter 3 of the Final Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, available online at www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/sh14_e.htm. ←
Kiera Ladner, “Governing Within an Ecological Context: Creating an AlterNative Understanding of Blackfoot Governance,” Studies in Political Economy 70, Spring 2003: 125–152; Taiaiake Alfred, Wasáse: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom, Broadview Press, Peterborough, ON, 2005; Andrea Smith, Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide, South End Press, Cambridge, MA, 2005. ←
Edward G Bourne, ed., Algonquins, Huron and Iroquois, Champlain Explores America 1603–1616, Brookhouse Press, Dartmouth, NS, 189. ←
Edward G Bourne, ed., Algonquins, Huron and Iroquois, Champlain Explores America 1603–1616, Brookhouse Press, Dartmouth, NS. ←
Rupert Ross, Dancing with a Ghost: Exploring Indian Reality, Reed Books Canada, Markham, ON, 1992, 11–38, 116–125. ←
Taiaiake Alfred, Wasáse: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom, Broadview Press, Peterborough, ON, 2005. See also Dale Turner’s discussion of this in This is Not a Peace Pipe: Towards a Critical Indigenous Philosophy, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, ON, 2006, 107–108. ←
Taiaiake Alfred, Wasáse: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom,Broadview Press, Peterborough, ON, 2005, 32. ←
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