Fighting My Nature, and Winning

Below is the text from a blog that I found very powerful. Reposting instead of linking because I don't trust their servers to keep it intact. Below are my thoughts on why it's so meaningful to me.

(I will insert image of hallway with huge chunks of shattered mirror all over it later)



This was my hallway last Wednesday.
Broken. Sharp. Treacherous.
This was my hallway.
It was my son who did this.
Sometimes, often really, things break — irreparably. And it takes your breath away . . . straight away.
It took my breath away when my son stormed into the bathroom, frustrated, angry, fed-up for his very own, very significant to him, reasons. And when he chose to SLAM the bathroom door, causing the heavy mirror mounted to the front to slip out of the hardware holding it in place and crash onto the floor — a million, BROKEN pieces were left reflecting the afternoon light.
I was quiet. I surveyed the damage and took a deep breath. Put the dog outside so he wouldn't cut his feet, put the cat in the basement for the same reason.
I walked into the backyard and felt the hot tears streaming down my face. It's amazing how alone you can feel as a single parent in moments like these. I realized how scared and disappointed I felt. Did this really just happen? Yes. This was real.
And as I stood and considered whether or not this was an indication of his developing character, I heard his tears through the window above me, coming from inside the bathroom.
His soul hurt. This was not what he expected either. Hello, Anger — I don't remember inviting you into my house.
Scary.
Terrified.
Ashamed.
Worried.
Scared.
Deep breath, #MamaWarrior. Deep breath. That small, fragile soul needs you right now. He needs your very best. Your biggest compassion. Your most gentle and firm mama love and reassurance. More deep breaths. Go Mama.
Go. Go now. Go open the front door, tiptoe through the broken glass, hear him hearing you coming, watch the bathroom door crack open, see the face you love most in the world red with worry and wet with tears, his voice is suddenly so small: "Mama, I'll never do it again, I am SO sorry." More tears. More weeping. Such uncertainty on his sweet face.
Go Mama. Get him. Go now. Scoop him into your lap. Yup, you're crying too. Damn this was big. Hold him tight. Watch how he curls into a ball in your arms so quickly. See how eager he is to be loved by you. To be reassured by you. See how small he still is. See how fragile that spirit is.
I love you.
You are safe.
I am right here.
The worst part is over now.
I've got you.
I'm here.
I love you.
Go Mama. Tell him about Anger. Tell him now. Anger is a really powerful feeling. You have a right to your Anger. Anger burns hot. It can purify. It can also destroy. He nods. He feels it. He's met Anger now.
There's a better way to show your big feelings.
We'll work on it together . . . tomorrow.
I'm here to help you.
You are safe.
You are never alone in your anger.
You are never alone in your fears.
I'm here. We're here together.
Now we will clean together.
And we cleaned up the broken pieces. We swept and we vacuumed. It was quiet work. It was careful work. It was thoughtful work.
Sometimes things break. Sometimes we break them. It's not the breaking that matters, the how or why. What matters is how we choose to respond to the broken-ness. Does it kill us? Does it throw us into a downward spiral of blame and punishment?
OR
Does it help us remember how to love deepest? Does it push us towards compassion and over the hurdle of "rightness" and "wrongness" into LOVENESS?
Yes. LOVENESS.
Go Mama. Go now. Get that baby of yours. Teach that. Show that. Live that. It's called LOVENESS. Go. Now.
(We will pause here while you go collect yourself and possibly cuddle your little ones. It's OK.)


Growing up, Anger was a frequent visitor in my home. In words, in action, in retribution. I had Rage and Anger issues for a long time (giving them a capital letter like a proper noun seems appropriate here). I very recently realized that I come from a long line (well, at least the three generations I've met) of very emotionally guarded women. Women for whom showing affection was seen as a weakness, or at least not especially encouraged. Women who used words as weapons, and sometimes flat backed brushes as well. Men weren't especially touchy-feely either. I made a very conscious decision quite a while ago that I would not continue that. Especially if I had a child of my own. ESPECIALLY.


So far, I feel I'm doing really well in this regard. I spanked Katherine a couple of times early on, before I found my footing and better, more respectful ways. Those were personal failures on my part, not hers though. I can't remember the last time I felt RAGE though, and that's huge. Because rage is scary for everyone, it's like a wild animal held captive against its will. You never know when it might break free and really hurt someone. That can't be taken back. You may cage it again, but the scars from the wounds are still there. And some day, it WILL break free again.


Recently, it was pointed out to me that making a choice to be a different kind of parent goes against my very DNA, that epigenetics shows us how trauma is passed from generation to generation, causing us to repeat patterns of those before us. However, epigenetics also shows us that the effects of a life filled with empathy and a lack of trauma is also passed down. That by us choosing to parent Kat in a respectful, compassionate, and empathetic way, she will be much more likely to choose to love people that will also treat her with respect and kindness, but will also likely raise her children that way, and they will raise their children that way, and so on.


Whoa.


My focus has been entirely on trying to raise Kat to be happy, confident, independent, compassionate, strong and kind. It just hadn't dawned on me that by doing so I was also helping to set the standards for future GENERATIONS of mothers and daughters and sons and so on. That I was defying nature, and saying to a history of angry and emotionally distant women... YOU SHALL NOT PASS or HERE, AND NO FURTHER (depending on if you prefer LOTR or ST:TNG). As someone told me "It's not just a gift you're giving Katherine, but to the world."


Whoa again.


So my natural stubbornness and defiant nature has found a cause, and it's a damn good one. Even bigger than when I told my 1st grade teacher to stuff it when he tried to punish me for "using the devil's hand" and remaining a lefty. I'm not just raising my daughter, I'm raising future GENERATIONS, yo. So stand back, lest you feel the wrath of my... respectful questioning if you need some time to calm down so we can talk about this later.

Along these lines, years ago I read a story about a small child accidentally dropping a carton of milk and it spilled in a huge puddle all over the kitchen floor. The mother said "Well, it was an accident, and you know now that's it too heavy for you to lift, so the lesson has been learned. Let's not let all this milk go to waste though, shall we?" and she proceeded to splash and play in it with her child before they both helped clean it up together.


I've always remembered this and try to internalize it. Accidents happen. Remember the tiny soul of the person who caused it. Once the lesson is learned, find the joy, the humor, the playfulness in that if you can. If you can't, there will always be another spilled carton of milk. Try, try again.

When Do I Get A Time Out?!!?

So, here are my thoughts on time outs, based purely on us and my kid. Your experiences will likely vary greatly.

We used to do time outs. When Kat was ignoring us, hitting, making a mess on purpose, whining excessively. They sort of worked. We talked about why she was going to get one, and then why she got one, linking behavior to consequences. Mild, short-term success.

Then one day, she was especially upset about things, SHE told ME that she needed a time out. That got me thinking. And reading. And I realized that nearly every time she got a time out, it was because she felt ignored and/or out of control. The ignored part was my fault, and the out of control part certainly wasn't her fault (toddlers have hormones and neural connections running amok and growing, it's virtually impossible for them to control that all the time), so if the factors that were causing her to misbehave (most of the time) were not her fault, how was it fair to punish her, and what was that teaching her?

So, I started focusing on being much more mindful. Part of that meant zero tolerance on bad behavior. It's so easy to let whining escalate to a full-blown screech fest. That didn't mean that I punished her for every whine, it meant I didn't let it slide. I told her that I didn't want to help her when she whined, and modeled how to ask nicely. Sometimes I repeated it so she could hear what she sounded like. After starting this one morning, she was catching herself and starting over by lunch. Within a day, she was doing so much better. We slip on this and have to go back to square one occasionally, but over all it works really well. Consistency is the very difficult key.

When she would hit, it was almost always because I was making arbitrary decisions and ignoring or not asking for her opinion, so she expressed her frustrations by hitting (this was back when her vocabulary was much more limited too). The vast majority was a poor choice of words on my part. "Do you want to come here and put these pants on now?" (Not really a question) Kat- "No!" and runs away. I get frustrated, go and grab her, and she would start flailing/hitting. Now, the questions are "Do you want to wear the yellow or grey pants?" Kat- "Yellow!" "Great, now do you want to put your pants or your shirt on first?" Kat- "Pants!" I dread the day when she wants to do it ALL herself and we have to leave the house with her looking like the cutest little hobo circus clown. At least there will be no cartoon characters on any of it, my rights of veto as the Mom.

Kids are alternately told "you're such a big kid!" and "you're too little for that." and "big kids don't do that!" and it's got to be amazingly confusing and frustrating as a "big kid" with all these new skills to not be able to try them out as they want to and over all have so little control in their daily life. So I let Kat get dressed, feed the dog, water plants, cut up food, etc as much as possible. This involves lots of effort, planning ahead, and more patience than I EVER though I'd have. But it works, and now she's a really independent, self reliant kid.

I try to let Kat be involved in making as many decisions as possible/age-appropriate now. It's all about selling it though, and sometimes I feel like the world's most obnoxious QVC host "Tonight, do you want these amazingly orange carrots, OR... this fantasticly green broccoli?!!? But wait, choose now and I will even throw in... SOME CHICKEN!!!!" It works most of the time, for kids and seniors, which is why Grandma's everywhere have "collector's plates" that they never eat off of. Another one of those "circle of life" things I suppose.

The other part of this was that I realized that when I was giving her a time out, those were times when I was the one who really needed one. I was frustrated and just DONE with her behavior right then. Also, sometimes she just gets overwhelmed with her own emotions about things (the trauma of watching her Bobo in the washing machine for instance), and banishing her for that was just cruel. So now we approach things with a lot more empathy.

 I have set up a comfy spot on the window seat with a blanket and stuffed animals, and sometimes she'll sit there alone or with me as she calms down and we talk through it. I've seen things on Pinterest for "meditation bottles" filled with swirling glitter to watch and focus on while breathing and calming down. I think we all need things like this at times. My "meditation bottle" tends to be full of swirling wine however. To each their own. Whatever you do, do it with empathy, patience, and a real attempt to connect with your kid and understand what they're going through. My hopes are that this will set us up for the ability to have life-long conversations even when emotions are high.

So far, so good.

I Feel Pretty, Oh So Pretty...

The blog found here touches on a personal truth for me. I ALWAYS felt very awkward, weird, different, and alone growing up. At least being considered petite and "cute" at various points helped me escape the worst of the bullies, but certainly not all. I constantly battled the desire to conform and have it easier, or be true to myself and suffer the backlash for daring to be "different."

Some of my friends may remember my pink cowboy hat. It was an Australian style hat my Dad bought me at Disneyland when I was about 13. I LOVED that hat. I decided to wear it to school. I lived near the coast in Southern California, not exactly cowboy hat culture. It did not go over well, not that I expected it to. I even acquired my own theme song that people would sing at me where ever I went "I wanna be a cow boy, and you can be my cowgirl."(from a popular 80's song at the time). The thing is, I STILL loved that hat. I STILL chose to buy the boots I liked that were not the slouchy suede ones everyone else wore. Even though it made my life harder, I still chose to do and wear things that felt true to me. I still do, and it's one of the things I like and admire most about myself.

I hope my daughter has the same inner strength and stubbornness, even if it means taking my clothes, experimenting with makeup too soon, or blowing her allowance on "THE jeans." I know I'll regret these words at times, but if she's not pushing boundaries, then she's not really trying. I also hope she's attractive (but not "too" attractive, that's a whole other problem, and no less difficult) when she's growing up, because like the woman in that blog points out, life is simply easier for those who are. She will have a longer leash to wear her own pink cowboy hats and experiment with hairstyles and find her personal style and truth.

I take care in dressing her now, and it makes a difference. Virtually every time we go somewhere we have people engage us in conversation that if she was dressed in a stained cartoon shirt and jeans likely would not. Having her in a cute dress and pigtails allows her personality to shine when people smile at her, or bend down to talk. She is the most socially adaptable kid I know. Store owners that I see once or twice a year remember her (even what she was wearing last!), ask after her, and even send me home with an extra something for her. She engages with a variety of people because they WANT to engage with her. 

The danger lies in when people ONLY see how cute she is, and not how funny, sweet, caring, smart, fearless, joyful, empathetic, tough, and engaging she is as well. Or, using her good looks as a crutch for not having to really develop the rest. So yes, looks are important to me because they continue to be very important to the rest of the world, and I want my child to have an amazing life where she finds it easier than I did to live her personal truth.

Isn't that what we all want for our children?

   My daughter on her first day of preschool. Badass NPR "Fresh Air" tattoo, black leather boots (her choice) and all! Who could resist this adorableness?!!? 

P.S. I went looking for the people who bullied me earlier this year as it was time for my 20th high school reunion and I was curious. Sad to say, the majority of them did not "live their personal truth." My moments of schadenfreude were replaced by sadness when I saw posts about divorces, drug use, rehab failures, kids born right out of high school, stagnant jobs, and general unhappiness. In light of the better understanding we have of bullying now, I feel so sad for those kids (and some teachers) who were too afraid to shine their light, and felt the need to squash mine. However, without someone forcing me to dig in so hard, I might not be the person I am today. 

Can I Have a Time Out Too?!!?

This article touched a deep and sensitive nerve with me. In case the link doesn't work, it's about the rarely spoken of problem of being a Mom, and having a temper, which I have, in spades. The red hair color may not be real, but the fiery Irish temper is, and at times it's scared me.

My primary strategy for dealing with my temper was waiting until I was 35 to have my one and only kid. Before then I was still struggling with patience, empathy, and my temper that REALLY wanted to be violent at times. I also know I don't have the capacity to deal with being out numbered with another kid either. One and done. I'm not tempting fate with another.

I try to remember that this whole world is brand new to my independent toddler, and she is doing the absolute best she can to cope with it. Also knowing that if I lose it and yell or force the issue (you WILL wear that dress, right NOW!) it will have the exact opposite outcome I want. By making an effort to make her laugh instead usually gets both of us laughing, and the issue is much easier to resolve.

The other HUGE part of the solution was choosing a man that I knew would make an AMAZING and supportive husband and Father. He's fantastic about giving me "Me" time and helping out when she's being especially difficult. I wouldn't be nearly the successful Mom I am without him. Additionally, the friends, family, and teachers who are also invaluable sources of support and much needed breaks make my job soooo much easier. 

Still, with all these coping mechanisms in place, I come dangerously close to losing it sometimes. At those times, I can see the appeal of spanking, because DAMNIT, I TOLD her just TWO MINUTES ago NOT to draw on the sofa! With the black marker, that I gave her, first, unsupervised, while I went to go look for paper and got distracted making dinner... oh. Yeah. Who's fault was that really then? Spanking her because I'm pissed that I had a lapse in judgement is the epitome of unfairness. That is not a lesson I want her to learn from me.

However, I will always remember the look of shock, pain, and tears the first time I hurt my child while angry. 

It was a long day, her Dad was out and we were on our own all evening after a trying day of teething and boundary pushing. She made her way up to the kitchen counter and was precariously balanced and starting to fall off of a stool (that I'd already pulled her off of several times) while playing with a big knife I'd left within reach. In horror I ripped it away with one hand and hauled her down and out of the kitchen with the other gripping her arm tighter than necessary and I was angry to cover how afraid I was because I was acutely aware how very close tragedy was at that moment, but the LOOK she gave me, confused, hurt, surprised, as she said "Mama! Boo boo!" and pointed to her arm and came to me, ME! for comfort... It makes me tear up and feel ashamed every time I think about it. I didn't hit her, she wasn't bruised, but that LOOK said that I had betrayed something important between us, and made me realize that I NEVER wanted to let things escalate to the point where it happens again.

I said "the first time" because I'm not perfect. There is this frustrated, fearful, angry demon of a temper that I still fight. It's still a possibility that I'll devolve to spanking her one day. Many of our parents did (including mine) and we turned out just fine... and yet. For me, it can't be an option. It just can't. That LOOK. 

There will be many things and people that will cause my daughter pain... the mean kid on the playground, a first crush, a first love. Hopefully fleeting, hopefully not physical. I just don't want one of them to be me. I want to be the one she can always come to and say "Mama, boo boo!" instead, and I will kiss her and hold her and help make it better any way I can. 

Amen.

Not that I'm hoping this happens any time in the next 50-60 years, but just in case, this is what I want said should my bungee line break...

I want a physicist to speak at my funeral. I want the physicist to talk to my grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that my energy has not died. I want the physicist to remind my sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. I want my mother to know that all my energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. I want the physicist to tell my weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, I gave as good as I got.

And at one point I'd hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to my brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off my face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by my smile, by the touch of my hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by me. And as my child rocks in the arms of a loving family member, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from me were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through me in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.

And I'll want the physicist to explain to those who loved me that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. I can hope my family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they'll be comforted to know my energy's still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of me is gone; I'm just less orderly. Amen.

-(Paraphrased a bit from Aaron Freeman)

When Skies Are Grey

We went to a "Celebration of Life" memorial for a long time, dear friend of Brooke's family who recently passed from cancer. She was a lovely, vivacious, and amazing woman. I like to flatter myself to think that if I was 30 years older we would have had much in common and been great friends. She too looked great in hats.

I kept it together through all the readings and stories until one of her daughters, who had just given birth to her first grandchild just a few weeks after her death, got up to speak. She told of how her Mom used to sing her this special song when she was a child, and that she had been trying to sing it to her newborn daughter, but just hadn't been able to manage it quite yet. So she asked for our help and the entire room softly serenaded her daughter as she lay in her father's arms with "You Are My Sunshine."

Luckily I was just outside the doorway with Katherine keeping her company and quiet when this happened, because I kind of lost it. Between the thought of losing my Mother, my Daughter losing me, and memories of my Grandmother (who passed 10 years ago) singing that very same song to me, as well as me singing it to Katherine when she was a newborn... oy vey. Thankfully she was very tolerant of the sudden deluge of kisses and hugs that were bestowed upon her... as long as I didn't get between her cheddar bunnies or Sid the Science Kid video. We all have our priorities.

You will be missed and are loved by many Chris, but the legacy and family you have bestowed upon the world are a blessing to us all. Thank you.

New Priorities

Laundry, making a shopping list,

Dirty bathroom, food to prep

My daughter wants me to read her a book

Nothing is more important than this.

Chores all done? Oh don’t I wish!

Headache looming, hair not brushed

My child is hungry and wants to nurse

Nothing is more important than this.

My former life, I sometimes miss,

Happy hour, sleeping in

My angel is sound asleep on my chest

Nothing is more important than this.

Things I now love? My baby’s kiss.

Toddler’s laughter, a tearful hug.

“Mama! Dada!” and each new milestone

Nothing is more important than this.

Not too many years ago, the childless version of me would have recoiled in horror that my entire day (today in fact) could be made by an unsolicited hug, kiss, and a thank you from my child. What an ignorant fool I was back then! We all were though, there's just no way to comprehend the magic and knee-weakening emotions such experiences impart until you experience it personally. I wish everyone could feel at least once the soul-renewing power of being loved and needed by a small child. What a different world we would live in.