Please forgive me, this post is going to be more scattered than usual. This article touched a rawness in me that I haven't explored in a long while. Prior to becoming a mother, I felt (or thought or maybe imagined) a pressure from society to marry and have children. By 'society', I may mean my family. Some of their pressure was loving, some just came from a place of ignorance (or even meanness). I also felt a kind of stigma from my peers as the unwed, non-mother, not-in-a-long-term-relationship, haven't-been-in-a-long-term-relationship-in-years. Or maybe it was pity?
I'm not trying to be unkind to my family or my friends. I realize I could have misconstrued their concern as judgement.
Still, I didn't feel any less alone in my childlessness and aloneness as I approached my mid-30s.
So I'm still very sensitive to the Helen Mirrens of the world. Women who, for whatever reason - a reason they don't need to explain to me - are not mothers, a choice that we should support, accept, and move beyond.
Interestingly, the author of this article as well as Helen Mirren, have been quite kind to other women, saying that they never get pressure from other women. Really? REALLY? As a new mom, I know I have fallen into that awful stereotype of bullying my friends (wed or not) to have children. My reason was selfish: I felt lonely in the beginning of motherhood, being one of the only people in my friend group to have baby. I was charting unknown territory and I desperately wanted someone to be on that ship with me.
I hate that I immediately became one of the people who I didn't like, a person who made someone feel bad or isolated in their life choices. It's as bad as if a feminist told me that being a mother makes me less of a feminist. If someone said that to me, I would be furious. "Why does being a mother preclude me from being a feminist? Isn't it about choice?!"
Have we whittled down women into one of two roles: the mother and the not mother? Is that all women can aspire to be?
I don't think so, and I look forward to the day when there is no stigma attached to deciding not to have children. I'm happy being a mother and I want my friends and family members to also be happy in whatever way the choose.
I enjoy writing about my experiences as a mother. I love hearing about other women's experiences with it as well. There is an abundance of literature on motherhood, the article is correct in stating that parenting is an industry. Businesses have learned that parenting sells. What a dreary world it would be if business ONLY catered to parents.
There is a restaurant in my neighborhood that my husband and I adore which refuses to serve children. It is strictly 21 and up, no exception ever. I love this. It would be lovely to go there randomly on a Saturday afternoon with my family but I like that this is at least one place where I can go and not feel guilty about being out enjoying me time without my son (while he is home with a sitter). I don't have to watch what I see or eat or drink and I don't have to look at any other children and feel pangs of "oh he should be here" guilt. Nope. Not there. There it is okay to be a child-free adult.
While I do love writing or reading about motherhood, it is not all I want my life to be, not the only thing I want to be defined as. The same as the amazing Dame Helen Mirren doesn't want to be defined as the not-mom (though I'm pretty sure she will be remember for so, so much more).
I have no idea if Eddie is still working. I hope so! I hope he is doing well! We need more T2s in our lives.
Oh, little Eddie! Photo courtesy of US Magazine.
I'm not just reminiscing about Edward Furlong, this is a follow-up to yesterday's post. I want to be clear that divorce does not create or cause Terminators or the end of days.
Unless you break up with Skynet...
Rather, I felt the point of the post was the future is uncertain. There could be Terminators. We simply don't know.
Though yesterday's post discussed the fear or worry associated with divorce, we didn't touch on how ending a relationship can be healing, healthy, or in some circumstances, necessary (safety, etc.). The end of one thing - childhood, a relationship, a job - can be the beginning of quite another great thing.
Look? He left Terminator and modeled for Calvin Klein!
At P&P, we are simply reflecting on change inherent to the human experience. Divorce is part of that experience. (And woo boy, have we had some changes! Where do I begin with my body? Let's call it lumpy. But we'll talk about that in a later post.)
How do we talk about change with our children? There are big changes they'll have to confront at different ages. Take for example Natalie's daughter. How do you explain divorce to a 4-year old? What about death, say of a relative, a friend, or a pet? What about more minor changes but ones that are still quite impactful: loss of a job, changing schools, moving, or a new teacher?
In the previous post, we wondered aloud how to confront a moment like this as an adult. Now, how do we as parents confront these moments with our children? There is the first step, steeling ourselves and saying "It's going to be okay." But where do we go with step 2.
Well, according to people who know these things (family counselors), the next step is simple honesty in terms they would understand. A 4-year old doesn't know what the word (or perhaps has never even heard the word) 'divorce' means, so you wouldn't start there. A 8- or 9-year old would have heard the word and may understand what it means. In either case, present the information slowly, don't overload them all at once. Next, listen. They may have questions or concerns. Hear them.
Finally, and I think this is really important, allow yourself and your children to be around caring friends (whether this is family, or a playgroup, a team, or a faith-based group).
"Look, in the next movie I'll be blond. Then, Christian Bale." Photo: The Daily Beast
I've found that friends keep me grounded and prevent me from sliding too far into darkness. Friendship isn't just good for sharing laughs or shoulders to cry on, it can actually make you happier. (See here, here, and here.)
And that's what I love about this blog. Friends sharing their experiences as parents. P&P is thankful for that!
"No fate but you make." Kyle Reese AKA Michael Biehn AKA my first boyfriend.
Below is a guest post from P&P's dear friend and contributor, Natalie. What I love about this post is how she is willing to be open and raw for us. So often as parents (or at least me) we want to shield our children, which may include shielding the truth from them or shielding our emotions, but she reminds us that honesty is okay, is important, because we don't need to know the answers since we don't know the future.
This week at P&P we're going to focus on openess and letting go, being aware that we cannot control every detail of our lives. I hope you enjoy this post as much as I did! - SRW
Because the future has Terminators.
I
am 30. I am also married with a young child. I am your average middle
class working mom. That is just a little background so you know where I
am coming from.
I have to consider myself an adult at this point: I have the child, the
husband, the mortgage, the job that pays for the health insurance. That
is about as adult-ish as you get; I even drive a station wagon with
stickers on the back window and change in the
glove compartment for parking meters. Yet it wasn’t until recently that
two contradictory feelings popped up in me: 1. I started to feel like an
adult (or maybe feel my age is more accurate) and; 2. I began to realize
that no one is truly ever "grown up".
What
caused these opposite emotions? My first adult divorce. Not mine, but a friend's. I met my husband at my co-worker's wedding. My husband was the
brother of
the bride (my co-worker), we hit it off and began dating. Within a year
we were living together and engaged. My co-worker eventually became my
sister-in-law, and she and her husband were the best of both worlds --
my friends and my family. They were the kind of couple
that everyone thought would be together forever: easy-going, fun-loving
and most importantly, happy. But within the last year they encountered personal problems and things began to unravel. Two months ago we were told they were separating,
by Christmas we heard the final decision. Divorce.
This
divorce has me reeling because, yes, I too thought they would be
together forever and because I love them both. But also…well…we don’t
ever grow up do
we? I watched my aunt’s marriage disintegrate over lies and pain, I
watched friend’s parents divorce, always comfortable that my parents
would never do that. Until my Dad left my Mom (for his knocked
up girlfriend who was half his age, cough cough…you
don’t hear any lingering resentment, do you?) when I
was in high school. All of those relationship endings were what adults
were doing. They obviously had it figured out and were making decisions
and being adults about it. I was mostly a kid
looking in on a world that I didn’t understand, and somewhere along the
way I grew up but never really looked back with a new perspective, I
still viewed those moments the way my child or teenage self did.
This
divorce is different. We are adults. We were supposed to make it
work, do what our parents couldn’t manage. We feel like adults. And yet… we aren’t, are we? We are still those
same scared kids who don’t really understand what we are feeling or why.
Sometimes we are just stabbing blindly in the
dark and we don’t know how things will turn out. And that is what gets
me…all those years ago I assumed the adults in my life had a clue about
what they were doing and now I realize, much like myself, they didn’t.
When my mom would hug me and tell me it was
going to be ok, like I do with my daughter, she wasn’t really saying
that she was sure it was going to be okay but rather that she was going
to try to make it okay.
This
divorce is frightening because it is a mirror. I can see my own
relationship struggles in it more clearly than I ever could looking
back through the
lens of my parent’s marriage. Suddenly, days after my 30th birthday
and facing another new year, I feel more like my mother and less like
me, more like an adult and less like the wild teenager I left behind.
More afraid of divorce because it is in my lexicon as a
present tense and not just a past tense. It's
okay, because like my mother, I will make it okay.
Also, I am
pretty sure I am going to rock the senior living house like I am Blanche
from the Golden Girls, so I have something to look forward to!
We mothers are hard on ourselves. Mothers are hard on other mothers and society in general is hard on mothers. Right now there is a lot of chatter about Adam Lanza's mother, which I won't discuss here, nor will I add any more to the discussion of that tragedy. However, it has created a lot of 'bad mom' chatter.
So I just wanted to say something positive. You're a good mom.
When my son was 2 months old, I took him to work with me (long story short: I work from home for a government agency that insisted I have a badge that I HAD to pick up right away, which meant taking my son who I was breastfeeding and snuggling all of the time with me, I had no nanny and honestly didn't want to be away from him for the 3+ hours it would take me to get my badge) and he slept the entire time I was there, disturbing no one. Nearly everyone was delighted to meet him, as they had worked with me the previous year during my pregnancy.
I work for an agency of mostly older males. As we stood in the lobby of the building preparing to leave, they oohed and aahed over his sleepy face and tiny hands. They recalled their own children and sighed wistfully about their some-day grandchildren. I received hugs and pats on the back and "he is beautiful, good job!" Then I was approached by a man I'd never met who asked me how old was my son. "2 months," I replied.
"BAD MOM! BAD MOM!" He yelled at me, at everyone around us, loudly while shaking a finger in angry gestures at me. "You should not have brought him out before 3 months. Babies have to stay in the house for 3 months. I tell all my kids, keep them babies home for 3 months. No, no. You're bad."
Two security guards stepped closer to me as I zipped the car seat cover over my son to shield him from the cold. "My son is well," I replied. It was all I could say. I pushed his stroller out quickly, waving good-bye and feeling my face flame with embarrassment. I heard the security guards arguing with the man, telling him kids were different today. It was the first time a complete stranger passed judgement on my parenting skills. It hurt and scared and saddened me.
Yet, I knew it wouldn't be the last. We are a culture full of judgement. I do it myself all of the time. We are culture of negativity as well. Moms aren't alone in this criticism or judgement, either. Dads receive a lot of negative attention and worried glances if they take their children out without a woman close by ("could he be abducting that child?!).
Parents will and should shut out most of the noise, the negativity, and the judgement, but being a parent is a tough job. We need support, we need positivity, we need society telling us "you're good". Maybe not all the time and certainly there are people who are simply bad parents (see: my own bio mom). The majority of us are good and I want to tell you that.
You're a good mom.
You hugged your child today. You listened.
You spent some time on your own to recharge.
You played or helped with homework or read a book to your child(ren).
You made mistakes. You were forgiven. You forgave.
I realize the title of this blog is grammatically incorrect. Stay with me...I'll explain it soon.
Photo by Michael Sheridan.
This will probably be my last post before baby. He is due this weekend, and while I realize babies don't always come on time, I am convinced I won't encounter anything as odd as my recent visit to interview a pediatrician.
In my search for a pediatrician, I set up a few interviews with recommended doctors. Not knowing what to ask, I also downloaded a list of questions from babycenter.com. Having never interviewed a doctor before, the whole arrangement felt strange to me. However, my first doctor interview went very well and was encouraging.
Last week's interview felt more like meeting a politician. Kind of a slimy politician.
We're going with a nature theme here. Slugs are slimy! Leopard slug courtesy of fcps.edu.
He was over a half hour late. I was willing to forgive that because he was probably tending to sick children. Though, he didn't mention his lateness at all. Hmm...
His handshake was a vice grip, like he was he trying to crush the tiny bones in my hand. This may be wrong, but I judge handshakes. Too limp and I think someone is uncomfortable in their skin or with people. Too firm or too much squeeze, I think they have self-confidence issues and want to dominate everyone through their hand. (I don't think about what either of these assumptions means about me. Let's leave self-reflection for another post.)
So that's two strikes against future baby doctor. Not to mention my hand was sore.
I proceeded to ask him a few questions. He gave me stock answers to the basic questions (on call, after hours, email, etc.). Then I asked him if he recommended any parenting books.
"I tell my parents not to read. Rather they should trust their intuition." Okay, so as a doctor he tells people not to read. Also, he had strong objections to the book I was reading as I waited in his office, Nurture Shock. "Nurture," he went on to say, "is inherent. Every person knows how to parent."
Really? Why then do so many people fail? I'm not talking about the people who think they fail. I'm talking about the people who starve their children or beat their children or sell their children or murder their children and leave them in a trash can. They haven't tapped into their nurture instinct. They may not even have it.
Clearly, I don't agree with the doctor. So that's strikes three and four. (As a writer, I am a fan of reading.)
But the final blow came when he interrupted me to say I wasn't going to "try" breastfeeding, I was going to breastfeed without fail. "Every woman can breastfeed. The hospitals make it difficult on women to breastfeed. None of my home birth patients have any trouble breastfeeding. Look at the pictures on my walls. I went to China, I went to Africa, I went to India. There were no lactation consultants. They just did what came naturally when their milk came down. They were all fine. Look at the giraffe'" There is no giraffe on his wall, though he is pointing to one, "Its baby is born and then it suckles. No intervention needed!"
I wanted to stand up and scream crazy demon lady at him that he was lying. One of his patients, who recommended him, had a home birth and needed to call a lactation consultant. Strike Five!
I envision myself as the old demon lady from Legion.
We are also not damn giraffes (no offense to the beautiful creatures) and not all baby mammals and their mammas breastfeed inherently or properly. Some baby animals die because of this. Just like not every child in China, India, or Africa survives. Hence the history of wet nurses. We have supplanted our tribal communities, from which we could have utilized that generational knowledge of breastfeeding or called upon our sisters to help us wet nurse, with lactation consultants and midwives. These aren't sacrifices, they are changes we should embrace.
It was time to go. I stood up and said thank you. He shook my hand again; it felt pulverized. "What are you going to do?" He asked. Never see you again, write a blog about this, rail at your stupidity to my husband. "Um, breastfeed?"
Either, I have a lot of free time on my hands (true) or I am a little obsessed (also, true) with swaddling.
See Exhibit A below.
Poor ET. Not only was he dressed up by Drew Barrymore, tortured by government scientist, and stuffed into the front of a bicycle when he only wanted to get the F* home, he was also my swaddling demo doll.
A family member asked if I knew how to swaddle. This particular family member has no children and likes to tell me how easy every aspect of baby care is. Of course, I said "Yes, I know how to swaddle. I've done it a bunch of times."
I've never swaddled. But, hey, I've seen it on TV! Or at least in my baby care class video. This time my family member was correct; it is easy. Though, less so on a 20+ year old decaying ET doll.
It's third trimester, y'all! In fact, it's week 37. Baby is just around the corner, and it has me thinking about ALOT of things. However, today I'm focused on pregnancy resources and advice I've received thus far.
As always, these are my opinions and may not reflect anyone else's pregnancy experience.
Pregnancy books - Natalie bought me one manual, which was helpful and short. I didn't want "What to Expect When You're Expecting" because I wanted to rely on my OB and my own experience. However, the short book Nat sent was helpful and comforting. One book about pregnancy is plenty for expectant moms and dads.
Pregnancy pillows - I purchased two different types of pillows: a wedge and leg support. I regret both purchases. A lot of moms referred me to the full body pillow, which I rejected because I was already sharing space with a husband and a very snuggly cat. If I have a second pregnancy, I may try this (and kick hubby and cat out of the bed...just kidding). The pillows I purchased were too hard and too wide for my petite frame.
Prenatal massage - I had three throughout my pregnancy and I loved every single one. Granted, as I grew bigger it wasn't as soothing as when I'm not pregnant, because I couldn't lie on my stomach and really melt into the table. Still, they could reach kinks that I couldn't get or hubby couldn't work out (as he is not a certified masseuse), especially in the hips, and that was a relief making the massage worth every penny. I will definitely give my friends this as a gift when they are pregnant. And I'll probably treat myself at the same time!
Manicures and pedicures - I love mani-pedis all of the time, but my feet and legs are especially sensitive now. It could be the swelling or extra water weight. The soaking does wonders, so I request a lighter touch to maximize the benefit and minimize the discomfort. Plus, I can't reach my toes and I like having regular nail maintenance.
Baby gear - One of my worst experiences (aside from morning sickness and general nervousness about pregnancy) was building my baby registry. The amount of materials you're told you need is overwhelming, picking your preferred brand based on suggestions and reviews is daunting. Most moms will tell you that half of what you receive you won't use. Why? Because you and your baby are individuals. Your friend's baby may love a sling, yours may hate it. Your baby may love the bouncy seat, your sister's child may have shrieked in pain when he was put into it. I registered for what I thought was necessary based on recommendations from a few people and places. I probably still have too much. My main resource was this list by alphamom, that Natalie edited for me from her experience: Ultimate baby registry checklist.
While it told me what to buy, it didn't give me brands to buy, and the task of reviewing brands for every item was equally stressful. Here, I would turn to different resources (aside from internet reviews) including new parents, family members, my OB, and my hospital's baby care class.
Advice - From the beginning of my pregnancy, I have said that I would welcome all advice. And I've received a lot of it from many people in many place (including a 50-year old coworker who insisted I get an epidural, instead of having a c-section, as if the two are interchangeable). Some of that advice has been helpful and kept me sane, some has cracked me up (see parenthetical above), some has annoyed me (my aunt telling me that I had to wash baby clothes separately just "because that's what you DO."), some has made me feel prepared, some a little scared, and some left me confused (differing views on how to care for an uncircumsized penis).
I took in what they said and tried to weigh it on my common sense scale (or do more research if I needed more direction). I listened to all of it, I opened myself up to what was being said by others, and I feel like that has been a wonderful experience. Almost every piece of advice has come from a place of care and love. I remembered that if ever I was annoyed.
Boundaries - Even if you're open to advice, it's still good to set boundaries. This is something I've struggled with throughout my pregnancy and am really learning in my final months. For me it has been balancing the knowledge that baby is mine and Panda's with the reality that he is important and part of the lives of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. They want to claim him as much is I do.
When they push, my instinct is to push back, be angry, and then give in to their demands. This doesn't really help the situation and creates a lot of tension and frustration that I hold inside. The word "boundaries" always makes me a little uncomfortable, as it sounds like I'm erecting an impenetrable wall and refusing to allow anyone access.
It's also not compromise, which at times is really no one getting what they want.
For me it's been about saying "no" and me respecting my decision right or wrong. I do try to explain my "no", to minimize hurt feelings, but at times people may feel jilted. I hope they will come to understand my decisions and appreciate me for standing by my decisions. As I said, I'm learning.
In learning boundaries, there has also been learning about letting go of some rigidity. I can't control everything, can I? (Okay. A small part of me wishes I could...)
Friendships - As pregnancy progresses, I become more and more absorbed in all things baby related. I never thought I would. In fact, I said I wasn't going to be one of those mothers-to-be who talks all about her pregnancy. As my world narrowed to nothing but baby questions and baby preparedness, it was unavoidable. I also craved more discussion about children, parenting, and general baby wellness. Maybe it's the writer in me or the nervous new mama needing the information, the background, the research, and the general observation that what I am thinking about IS normal.
Thankfully, my friends have been patient, understanding, and indulgent. Either they realize and/or hope this won't last forever or they are really just great people.
