We just went on the best family camping holiday to date.
When I first heard about the "Burning Man" festival in Nevada, USA, it was through the
videos on internet and
an amusing episode of The Simpsons. It was something that I didn't even look into hard, because the ideals of the thing seemed intuitive to me. What I didn't know was that there is a regional event here in New Zealand called Kiwiburn.
It's said time and again in my parenting circles that "it takes a village to raise a child" and this festival really did feel like that. What happens when you get nearly a thousand hippies camped on a farm with a little forest, in the Central North Island of New Zealand, next to a river? Well a lot of it comes down to values.
The Simpson's episode warns that a Burn festival may not be "family friendly"... but a lot of that has to do with the family and their cultural ideals. Much of that which was cherished by the people at Kiwiburn were ideals that our family already held dear - freedom of expression, conscious decision making, explicit consent, creativity, collaboration, participation, having a go, taking reasonable risks, taking responsibility for one's actions, recycling/upcycling, gifting and rehoming, and basically cleaning up after yourself, making a contribution... and enjoying electronic dance music and tribal rhythms :)
At this stage of my children's learning voyage, it is shaped predominantly by the experiences social contexts we provide. Interacting with different people, in different contexts, people learn that certain things have a place and time, and Kiwiburn provided a fairly unique social context. We knew before the festival that this is an environment where people often greet each other by hugging and express affection openly and physically. We believe in a person's body being their own, and so we let the kids know well before we even got to "The Paddock" that at Kiwiburn people often hug, but that if they weren't comfortable with hugging someone they didn't have to, they they could instead say "no thank you" or say "hi" and wave instead of going in for a hug. The fabulous thing about this environment is that the people knew that different people have different social boundaries, and that a person holding back is not an insult. Everyone was very accommodating of our kids and never pushed social engagement especially with our toddler, who they let engage on her own terms.
A lot of the things that the adults at burn events do will never be interacted with by children. One burner told me: "I bet they enjoyed seeing adults play. I see burns as giant playgrounds for adults." Some of the ways that adults "play" are not child friendly. Thankfully most of these they keep to themselves. My children are ignorant of most of the sexual habits of adults, but it's not like they haven't seen naked bodies before. Some people might find it particularly inappropriate to expose children to nudity, but at events like this there is a disconnect between nakedness and sexuality. A naked body is just as likely to be a canvas for body art. My children are used to seeing naked breasts. That's just how you feed babies. There were a lot of people in states of undress at Kiwiburn. Our kids didn't care.
I consider the lack of body shame to be a parenting success on our part. The children know that these things have a time and place, and they aren't going out in town wearing no clothes. They were clothed throughout the Kiwiburn event, buy they weren't phased by people stripping down to cope with hot weather, or to celebrate around a bonfire.
My kids got in and did. They took part, and were supported to take part. They were offered musical instruments, art and craft supplies, and opportunities. They watched as adults tried to do things they had never done before. They watched as people unashamedly messed up over and over again trying to rope walk, paint, do yoga, juggle, perform card tricks, or use a hula-hoop. They watched as people tried to improve their skills by practising the things they found really difficult saying things like; "Step back when I try this; I'm going to drop it because I'm really bad at this..." and "Just one more time! I think I'm getting better...". Taking part was more important than getting things "right". Making your mark was more important than making a masterpiece. Getting better, was better than being the best.
If there's one thing that an event like this has, it's a lot of people with a lot of energy. I was thankful to have my exhausting progeny be cared for by young people who felt that their energy was contagious. My kids socialised with people from toddler age to grey haired elderly people, who all listened to their fresh take on the world, and helped to contribute to their understanding of their world. They were cheered on as they dressed up like rock-stars, or had the supportive presence of other artists as they wrote their name in shared art space, facilitated as they collaborated with spray paint on canvases destined for a community art gallery, spotted as they climbed up towering artworks, or thanked for collecting pine cones for use as kindling in the drum-circle fire.
Kiwiburn has a tradition of gifting. "Burners" are encouraged to give each other gifts (without expecting money or favours in return). My eldest son was given many treasures, but the greatest was experience, and the one he remembers fondly was being given hand crafted items to redistribute to other people.
When asked what the greatest thing about Kiwiburn was his reply was: "MAKING FRIENDS!"
Today I was conversing with a friend about the size of the glasses we have. She was wondering if her glasses were bigger than ours and we were musing that because of the fluting on our glasses if you filled them to half the way up you probably wouldn't get very much drink. We wondered where the "half way" mark would be on our glasses if you were judging by volume.
Then the moment of truth... pouring the water back into the glass. "I got pretty close!" he cheered. This is fantastic for him, because he's finally aiming for a best guess rather than perfection. He's come so far. I'm happy for him.