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Posts Tagged ‘parenting’

Special needs AND adolescence? Whoa.

Posted in Home life, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 28, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

I’ve mentioned a few times I have a daughter with Down syndrome. She has been an utter delight in so many ways, and such a blessing to our family. She smiles and hugs and just shines like the sun around pretty much everyone. She’s silly and goofy and has a great time with everything. She was even an “easy” baby, just so content to sit and observe and smile (a relief after my first baby, who was very demanding and had to be held ALL THE TIME).

Yeah, I had an adjustment period getting used to the idea of having a child with a mental disability. Luckily, I was able to absorb that information before she was even born, thanks to a blood screening test and then an amniocentesis. It is a shock; it’s scary; it’s unnerving. It’s not something you ever expect will happen to you. It changes things. But I came to terms with the new emotions and fears and uncertainties and just embraced the sweet daughter I got.

Honestly, even though for the first few years of her life, she was slower in her development than other kids (and than my first), and she needed special early-intervention services, it wasn’t often I thought that it was just that much different than raising my older daughter. It was mostly just a minor adjustment in expectations and in schedule, sometimes. I thought, “you know, this isn’t too bad. She’s not really different from other kids.” And honestly, she still isn’t.

But as she’s gotten older and is now a teenager, so much has changed. As time has marched forward further and further, it’s become clear just HOW much behind other kids she is, at least in terms of what she is learning (reading is great; comprehension is still not as great; and math? ARGH), and how much younger she really acts than other kids. When your child is only 6 and has lags in development and seems more like a 3- or 4-year-old, compared to other 6-year-olds, it’s still not a big difference. But when she’s now 14 and acts like and has the grade level, basically, of a 7-year-old, that gap is much bigger. It’s a gaping chasm that is obvious to everyone.

I was getting accustomed to that growing distance in development as well. But now she has hit puberty and has started menstruating, and man, that is a whole other story. My 10-year-old, who is bright and intensely curious and conscientious, learned about the whole “female thing” last year and asked me with great concern, “Mom, have you told Marissa about this? ‘Cause she’s going to start this soon.” I replied, “You’re right, kiddo. But how would I explain this to her ahead of time? Would she really understand? How would she react?” I thought it would be easiest to just catch her when it first happened and do a very simple explanation. She was fine with it, too, for a few months, happy to be like a “young woman,” like her older sister and mom.

rainBut then the hormones seemed to kick in. Now she’s been moody and sometimes snappish, completely out of nowhere. She will burst into tears like a sudden cloudburst. I thought it was probably just PMS, as in “pre-” menstrual, but now it happens whenever. Her teacher called today to let me know she’s been bursting into tears in class sometimes too.

It’s so much easier to explain the how and, especially, the “why” of hormones and moods and all that female stuff to a young woman who understands the nuances and can do a little better at looking inward and analyzing a bit and piecing things together. But I fear those kinds of things are lost on my second child. So it just breaks my heart to see her going through these moods and having no idea why she feels so sad all of a sudden.

Nope, this is a lot trickier than just making sure my toddler is learning to walk properly or hold a pencil well so she can write. Those were walks in the park. Now, life is much more complicated. But isn’t that always the case?

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Parents’ and schools’ responsibility to young readers

Posted in Reading life, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 14, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

So I received an email through my Rated Reads site, asking me for guidance on resources that can provide information about content in books for younger readers. It got me thinking again about the place for parental involvement and potential restrictions on books for elementary-school students. I suppose I’m a little late to the game in terms of this topic because Banned Books Week was over a month ago, but here goes anyway.

Before I say anything else, I’d like to make clear that I am against “censorship” in general (let me restrict this discussion purely to books). That entails actually suppressing and forbidding the viewing or use of particular passages or entire books. It’s not my place to decide what kind of content should be completely forbidden, and it just sets a bad precedent. I wouldn’t want someone else to have the power to forbid what is viewable by me or my family members.

So while I am against forbidding things entirely to most readers, parents and educators do have a responsibility to young children to make sure they read material that is appropriate for them. Even then, I hesitate to ban books entirely because, while I wouldn’t want a child getting hold of soft porn, for example, I wouldn’t agree with those people who were eager to ban Harry Potter because of its theme of magic.

What I am a proponent of is information. That’s why I started Rated Reads, a modest effort though it is. But at least it’s something. We have nearly 1,000 books featured with content ratings and moderately detailed paragraphs explaining what kind of potentially objectionable content is in each book. I firmly believe that each reader and, in the case of children, each parent should be able to have resources to find information that will allow him or her to make a decision.

I would like to think that books that are selected for a children’s library are going to be appropriate for young readers and acceptable to most parents, both in thematic content and possible sex, violence, or bad language. But young readers who are ready for young adult books, for instance, deserve to not be shocked by what they read or to have their parents be shocked. There are a lot of great young adult books that are fine for younger readers, that don’t have strong language or detailed violence or sex scenes. But there are just as many that I wouldn’t want my younger kids reading.

Since elementary schools generally have limited space, I think it would be wisest to select books that will be most age appropriate and least objectionable to parents. But at the same time, there may be a few YA books that would be great reads, in terms of stimulating thought on various topics, that might be nice picks for those libraries. And some of those might have some violence or other scenes that could be objectionable to parents or their kids. In these cases, it seems it would be particularly smart for everyone to include a kind of electronic ping with further information for the student and her parent when it comes to checkout time. This would allow parents to give a yea or nay to their child reading that book; a note could be sent home before the book is approved for checkout, providing details about why that book could be a poor choice, including themes, sex, violence, and language.

Now there are going to be some parents who are very careful about using this system, saying no to some books and yes to others based on their consideration of the information provided; there are definitely going to be other parents who simply won’t care. And that is their business. If I were that child’s teacher, or a fellow parent, I might not agree with those parents’ decision, but it wouldn’t be my responsibility to override or actively disagree in some other way. As long as a parent hasn’t been declared unfit, it is his or her responsibility to make decisions regarding his child, and that needs to be respected.

But there is no doubt in my mind that more information should be available so readers and parents of readers can make more informed decisions. I don’t think it’s always possible or practical for a parent to read every book a child would like to read, becoming the child’s first reader. We just need more information. Again, that’s why I’m doing Rated Reads. But I’d love to see more coming direct from publishers or something similar (I suppose that’s kind of another topic, but in brief, I don’t see why it would be so hard for the editor to include a brief description that states how much language or sex or violence is in it…). There’s simply not enough information available about most books.

So. What are your thoughts? Do schools sometimes need to be more cautious about what they choose to stock in their elementary libraries? Do parents need more information, and how should it be provided? And what about junior highs/middle schools and high schools?

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Remembering my dad

Posted in Full life, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 15, 2012 | 4 Comments »

Dad’s shadow still looms large in my life.

With today the third anniversary of my father’s death, I’ve been pondering what to write. I thought for a while I might take a particular “angle” to discuss, like organ donation. My father suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage and was declared brain dead, so his body was viable, and my siblings and I all agreed to donate his organs, so his kidneys and liver are now keeping three people alive. So I could take the opportunity here to talk all about that. I felt so happy to know that my very health-conscious father could help other people even as we had to lose him. I was particularly pleased when we received a letter from the woman who received his liver, and it became even more personal.

But no, I decided not to make this post all about that angle. After the full weekend I’ve had, I’ve just realized that, as always, I simply want to honor my father by living my best life. I felt blessed the other night to have a few prayers answered and to be able to make progress in some goals I’ve had for a while, and I thought it was wonderfully appropriate that my exciting evening of those things coming together came over this weekend. Saturday was three years after the hemorrhage, when I realized, late that night, that my father would not survive it. Yesterday I remembered our long drive to where he was lying in a hospital, his body kept alive by machines and medicines, so his children could be there with him. Three years ago today, we met with doctors who officially informed us of the steps they had taken to assure he truly was “gone.” We said goodbye to him and held a funeral service two days later, just a small group of family and a few friends who were in the area.

I’ve remembered him every single day that he’s been out of my life, but these anniversaries have brought home again the memories of those days and moments, where I had been hit and flattened by an emotional truck and felt hollowed out by grief the magnitude of which I had never before experienced. I had dreaded the days when my parents would die, because I knew they would be devastating, but I thought I had a lot more years with my dad. The unexpected event blindsided me.But the grief has eased over time, and the hole in my chest doesn’t feel quite so gaping. Now I remember with a chuckle all of his foibles that would make me crazy, and I recollect with fondness all the time we had together, all the experiences we shared. He taught me so much.

Right now I’m writing a book, and I’ve been able to incorporate some of the lessons he taught me about media literacy into what I’m writing, and it gives me such great satisfaction to be able to use his work within mine. He’s a part of my present even now, as I work on a project that is so important to me. I may not be able to talk to him about it and share my excitement, but I’m still somehow sharing this with him.

As I watched my oldest participate in a marching band competition on Saturday on a perfect fall afternoon, I thought of Dad, who marched in band himself many years ago and loved watching when I did so too as a high school student. My heart swelled with pride on his behalf as well as mine. I listen to my fifth-grader practice on the very same trumpet my dad played, and I feel him around somehow.

So many things remind me of Dad and keep him close here in my life. The best “angle” I can write about today is simply that he  lives on, quite literally, and I will see him again someday, and even now, he is still present in my life through all he taught me and all I do that honors him.

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The best of (mothering) times

Posted in Home life, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 19, 2012 | 1 Comment »

Motherhood did not come naturally to me. Babysitting, on the rare occasions I consented to do it, was a rough job, one that wasn’t worth nearly the small pay I got to do it. So once I gave birth for the first time and was presented with a tiny little stranger, I was absolutely flummoxed about what to do with her. Even looking at pictures of me with that first child, I can see the confusion and nervousness in my eyes: “What now?” I was thinking.

And that first child gave me fits. She was a very demanding baby. She didn’t eat for half an hour and then settle down quietly for the next four hours. She snacked for ten minutes and then needed to eat again two hours later. She did NOT like to be put down. I had to hold her constantly. For someone who was pretty independent and used to going about my business, having the little seven-pound interloper in my arms nonstop made it pretty difficult to get anything done.

So that darling child did not ease me gently into motherhood. It was a bumpy ride, and I did not enjoy it. I was exhausted and overwhelmed and overloaded. I remember many times that first year thinking, “I can’t wait til I’m done having children and they grow up a bit.”

Time slowly went by, and I gave birth two more times and adopted once. I knew what I was doing the second and third times, and the second baby was just the most easygoing child ever. She would eat and then sit in her bouncy seat or car seat and smile beatifically up at me, doing whatever I needed to do. Third child was somewhere in between. But by then I had help: two older sisters to distract her (and one time push her off the couch…). Fourth baby was a breeze in many ways because I didn’t breast-feed her, so everyone else could take turns feeding her a bottle. And changing diapers. And holding and playing with her. It was so much more fun that time around to have a little baby. I enjoyed her.

They all went through the terrible twos and their early stages of independence and potty training. Those days are now behind me. My oldest is now 16, and the youngest 5. They’re now all in school. They can feed and dress themselves and read to themselves, except for the kindergartener. Yes, I am finally getting to that magic place I imagined when I had that first demanding baby. And it’s struck me that this time is finite. The oldest is now not a squalling infant; she’s a high school junior. And she is amazing. She’s delightful and smart and talented and beautiful and makes me laugh. She can talk my ear off about her day. We can share jokes together. She’s one of my dearest friends, and I am loving life with her in it. Now the day of her leaving the nest is actually in sight (less than two years!), and it’s paining my heart to even think about. I DON’T WANT HER TO LEAVE!

Ah, what a difference 15 or 16 years can make.

So I have realized that, despite the absolutely crazy, hectic pace of my daily life with four children in school and all the needs they have, these are the best of times. In a few years, one daughter will be gone, and the others will be making their way towards that direction as well. The clock is ticking. And at this stage of my life, it’s not a biological clock. It’s the clock reminding me with every tock and tick that while motherhood is permanent, having children at home is not. I bemoan the lack of peace and quiet and sufficient time to myself now, but even in the midst of this busy-ness, I can’t imagine my house being quiet all the time. I love knowing that I can cuddle and squeeze all of my girls any time, that I can talk to them, listen to them, just study their faces. That we can laugh together.

I’m going to keep reminding myself during the tough days or moments that these really are the best of times. It might take a loud reminder during those moments, but I hope I can somehow still remember and appreciate what I have now.

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Pinferiority: dodging a complex

Posted in Home life, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 12, 2012 | 4 Comments »

I’ve been thinking a bit lately about how Pinterest can be really useful, and also how it can be just another brick in the backpack full of guilt that moms carry around. I read a great column yesterday by another blogger and thought it was just along the same lines of what I’d been pondering. As Tiffany writes, “I have this real and palpable fear that on my deathbed, surrounded by my children, they will say something like this: ‘Yeah, you were a pretty good mom, but you never, you know, made us apple snacks in the shape of ladybugs.’” Isn’t THAT the truth!

Because as any Pinterest user knows, here’s the breakdown on boards: 25% of pins are recipes, 25% home decor, 15% crafts, 15% exercise and diet tips, 10% jokes and inspirational quotes, and 10% everything else. And the recipes and home decor ideas have their own breakdowns: recipes are maybe a quarter cutesy kid-oriented, as are the home decor and crafts. Recipes show these darling cupcakes and unbreakable kid plates festooned with hot dogs and spaghetti noodles or vegetables or fruits cut and meticulously fashioned into animal shapes.

And kids’ rooms? They’re filled with professionally painted wall scenes, organized and clever bunk-bed arrangements, or fairy-tale canopies and related frou-frou. Pinterest is now the haven for moms gone wild decorating and cooking fantastical items for their adored little ones, who have endless ideas for educational and fun projects they do with their preschoolers. I’m guessing they sleep three hours a night, don’t work outside of the home, and focus all their time and energies on their kids.

Sixteen years into this parenting gig, I have mostly made peace with the fact that I can only do so much for my kids and everyone else. I have to sleep; I have to write; I have to take some quiet time for myself. I definitely need to take time to be with my husband. Alone. I decided I wouldn’t put my girls into lots of lessons and keep them busy all the time; I wanted them to have plenty of free-play time to just imagine and create on their own. Since I love to read, I did take the time (and still do) to read to them. Since I like to cook and bake, and since I want all of us to be healthy and use our food budget wisely, I make almost all the meals we eat. We don’t do much take-out or restaurant eating (maybe a couple of times a month). I don’t tend to make the kids a fancy breakfast most school days, but I do make something nice on weekends and maybe throw some muffins in the oven on an evening for breakfast the next day (because I’m not baking at 6 a.m.).

What I don’t do are these time-consuming jobs: home decorating. To me, function comes before form, and almost everything (except the pictures of the family on the walls) is useful in some way. Shelves hold toys and books. I don’t decorate for every holiday; I don’t, for instance, go all-out for Easter or Halloween, including a candy-corn-shaped nightlight (for instance, which I have seen) as part of the hundreds of orange/black or faux-scary decorations in October. I don’t do a lot of crafts. I do sew maybe a couple of times a year when I get the urge or when one of the girls needs something in particular for school or something else. I typically make skirts or dresses. The sewing machine otherwise sits quietly in its closet, awaiting my next yearly burst of sewing energy. Particularly, I don’t combine the two by crafting cutesy decorations, particularly not for transient seasons. I am not going to take the time to swap out dozens of decorations every month. Nope.

And yes, I like to cook, but I am not going to spend any extra time making the food look kid-friendly. I never even called broccoli trees. The girls love it, but I didn’t have to give it a cute name so they would eat it. It keeps me busy enough making weekly dinners and then breakfasts and lunches during weekends or school breaks. I can’t imagine doing any more prep or finishing work. It exhausts me thinking about it.

I’ve been able to largely be satisfied with my strengths and be OK with not doing all the other stuff over the years. I’d visit friends occasionally and be impressed with their decorations or cute kid bedrooms, but it was easy to brush aside feeling inferior because those were brief forays outside of my own good-enough child-rearing sphere. But then Pinterest came along, and it reminds every single mom out there that pins just how much we’re not doing. Well, now I have to steel myself against feeling inferior every time I get on Pinterest to look for recipes or great ways to get out stains (or the occasional really good laugh). I think I should just put a permanent pin up on the corner of Pinterest that tells me, “Being a good mom doesn’t make crafts mandatory” or any other reminders of reality.

Yes, Pinterest has its usefulness and a place in my life. But I refuse to let it make me feel bad. It’s just another time for me to go to my happy place and chant “I am a good mom, I am a good mom” until I stop looking at boards for the day.

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Down syndrome discrimination in the skies

Posted in Home life, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 6, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

I’ve concluded that I’m not really much of the litigious sort. When I fell down and broke my foot on the DMV sidewalk, I didn’t immediately figure out some way I could sue the state. Whenever I get the little postcards or emails about class action lawsuits involving some company or other I have patronized, I don’t just jump on the bandwagon to “get mine.” Most of the time, those suits seem pretty petty, and I haven’t had any problems with those businesses.

But once in a while, my “sue-’em-for-all-they’ve-got” side gets incited. Yesterday, my husband told me about a story that got me fired up. And it even involves a family in a town near us. The short story is that a teenage boy with Down syndrome was refused access on one airplane and on another wasn’t allowed in first class (which his father had upgraded to), instead being forced to “the back of the plane.” The airline even kept other passengers away from the family, keeping two empty rows between the teen and his parents on the back row and the rest of the passengers.

WHAAAAAT??

Yep, my girl is a great traveler.

As some of you may know from reading my blog, I have a 14-year-old daughter with Down syndrome. I wrote a post about her on World Down Syndrome Day. I’ve also, incidentally, written about traveling with kids and how airlines have been making it more and more difficult. I am quite sure airlines would be very happy to only allow business travelers to fly with them. They’d make more money and have no delicate issues to deal with. But they still do allow everyone to travel, so for now they’re stuck with families and people with disabilities. SORRY, poor little airline businesses. Boo-hoo. So I know what it’s like to be a parent and have to fly with a posse of little ones. It can be tiring and annoying on the best of days and absolutely crazy-making on the worst. I have flown a number of times over the years with all my children, including my child with Down syndrome.

I have also been able to get to know lots of great families with children with Down’s over the years, and I know that parenting a child with DS can sometimes pose some extra challenges. But I have not found the kids I know with DS to generally have lots more behavioral issues than other kids. I know that mine doesn’t. She is extremely eager to help and listen to instructions, sometimes more so than her siblings, and is really well behaved. I’ve been blessed over these years of travel to have other passengers on airplanes gush over how well-behaved she and all my kids were (at the end of a flight).

So it just rankles me to hear that an airline and pilot had the nerve to discriminate against this young man. If people with Down’s really had a known history of having behavior problems, and if this young man had truly been extremely disruptive in the gate area, then maybe I could see their concern. But I know the first isn’t true, and it doesn’t sound as if the second is true.

Yep, if it were my daughter in this situation, I’d be out at my lawyer’s office at dawn the day we were back in town, chomping at the bit.

I hope this family does pursue the case, not to make money, but to raise awareness. I’m all about raising awareness about all kinds of things, and it’s just the principle of the thing. Someone who has a disability (and in this case, what I consider to be a fairly “minor” one) is and should always be protected under the law against this kind of knee-jerk reaction. From this mama bear to another, go out there and show ‘em how great our DS kids can be!

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Mama bears unite

Posted in Home life, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 29, 2012 | 2 Comments »

Education nowadays is topsy-turvy.

I ran into a friend in a Wal-Mart parking lot yesterday after dropping off my youngest at kindergarten. She asked how I liked the teacher, and we ended up launching into a fiery discussion about the schools. Issue after issue arose, and we resolved to get more involved and have a say by going to school board meetings.

This isn’t the first time the education of my little ones has caused me to rise up in righteous indignation. Before we moved to California, we lived in a small town in the South in which there were a number of problems with the school system in town. One big problem was that of “white flight,” quite honestly. Even though the town was maybe half and half whites and blacks, with a very small sprinkling of other minorities thrown in (which included our family since my husband is Filipino), a huge percentage of the students in the system were black. Now I had no problem with that at all except that things basically had split along economic lines. Many whites and the more educated and better-off-economically blacks had moved to different neighboring towns or the county (which all had separate school systems: don’t get me started on the craziness of that: what a waste of resources), and most families left behind were poor. Again, not a problem in terms of how I viewed them, but it definitely had an impact on the system and how things ran. Before I end up having to write a lengthy discourse on all the issues, let me just cut it short here by saying there were many issues, and I started going to school board meetings and speaking up. I didn’t want to just join in the “white flight”; I wanted to see if I could stay and make things better.

Needless to say, I realized that it was a fight I simply couldn’t fight alone. We ended up moving to California, where we found a great neighborhood to live in and in which the school setup is a much better one, with small neighborhood elementaries that seem to work well. But that doesn’t mean that all is great.

First off, the economy is bad. Like THAT’S a piece of news for everyone. But it certainly has affected our schools. In California, the economy and the schools have been hit particularly hard. What once was a wonderful, thriving system is now scraping by.

I could write a whole doctoral thesis on each of the facets of the larger issue here, but let me just say a few things as I see them.

First, there is no question that the breakdown of the nuclear family has contributed to the difficulties we face in schools today. Divorced and single parents have it harder in terms of trying to parent their kids and be available for them when it comes to schools. The economy has made it incredibly challenging as well. When every parent out there is working and no one is able to stay home even part-time, it makes it difficult to have the parental support needed for great education (volunteering, fund-raising, time just spent teaching children at home casually). Collapse of family structures has led to children not being taught or modeled all the things they need to help them be secure, (somewhat) well-behaved citizens of society. What has happened is that schools (and teachers) are now expected to teach young people EVERYTHING they need to know to be good members of our society. And that is impossible. Historically, families have nurtured and taught children, and schools have simply focused on making sure they know how to read, write, do math, know history and science. Now the schools have to teach citizenship and get kids to learn to behave, when that should have been a priority at home. Again, simplifying here tremendously, but this is the Cliff’s Notes version. Suffice it to say I have heard so many stories from teachers about the issues they have to deal with and what they are expected to do to, basically, parent children. Teachers have never been paid enough for the work they do, and they certainly aren’t paid enough to parent 30 or 100 kids.

Second, I have had to conclude that the more the federal government has tried to get involved, the worse schools’ situations have become. It’s been well-intentioned, I’m sure. But as more and more laws and guidelines have been created and passed down (with badly needed federal dollars attached by a thousand strings), the more hamstrung districts, individual schools, and teachers have become. They’ll do anything to qualify for those federal monies. What infuriated me yesterday was learning that our school system had instituted a new teacher-inservice time that’s incredibly inconvenient for just about anyone (parents and teachers alike, as far as I can tell, and any parents, whether working or stay-at-home) just because having the meeting every Monday morning from 8 to 9 a.m. would allow fewer kids to arrive late to school. Yes, they’d had such problems with students arriving late that the district then could not count the students as present. And an absent child means no money that day from the government. So the district thought, “Hey, we’ll have this meeting at this precise time so kids won’t be late and we’ll get the money.” I can appreciate that in some way, but it just riles me up that 1) the district had to inconvenience everyone with this new stupid plan and 2) the district is in such dire straits and in such desperate need of every penny from the government that they’d have to do this. Again, the government should not have such power over the schools as to cause this kind of stuff to happen.

I could write pages here. But what makes me angry is that as a parent who cares deeply about my children’s education, I have had to put in a ton of time and effort to make sure that it’s a decent one and they’re getting all they need. I shouldn’t have to check up on every little thing or be mightily inconvenienced. Education should be something that I can trust in. But I have to figure out how to squeeze in yet another thing in my already heavily-loaded schedule (which, might I add, is not full because of trips to the spa; it’s loaded with things that benefit my four children, who range in age from high school junior down to kindergartener) to just be sure that crazy things aren’t going on.

Sure, there are definitely places and people who have it worse. Sure, I’m grateful that we have a free country and one in which it’s a priority to provide a free education to all citizens (and non-citizens…). I’m generally glad to participate in the process and do my part to volunteer. But my mama-bear instincts sometimes make my claws come out when I find out about all the problems that exist.

I don’t know for sure how to solve the problems. I know one solution would be to strengthen families. But that’s certainly a big one, isn’t it? Another is to get the federal government less involved in education and cut a lot of the strings tying funding to a ton of regulations. I’ve learned that No Child Left Behind has flopped. There are still tons of children being left behind. More testing of students, more teachers being judged by frankly meaningless numbers, and more oversight by big government isn’t going to fix anything. It’s just made things worse.

Yep, this mama bear is super-busy already. But now I’m going to figure out how to find some time to get even more involved. I wish it were possible for more people to do the same.

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The magic of reading aloud to a child

Posted in Reading life, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 17, 2012 | 4 Comments »

I’ve been blessed with four amazing daughters, and I have to say that, despite my general unease and unpreparedness for being a mother when I first gave birth, one of the things I most looked forward to at that time was being able to read to my children. I wasn’t a big fan of newborns or even older babies; I was eager to teach and talk to little people. Over time I did get better at appreciating the fun parts of having babies around, but I still think that my favorite part of raising children is teaching them and interacting verbally. What fun!

As a reader myself, sharing books with them was a big part of that teaching and communicating. I admit, however, when I first started reading aloud to my now-16-year-old, I was not a fan of the ABC and 1-2-3 books that we had to read OVER AND OVER. And over. And over. And … well, you get it. And over. Gah! Richard Scarry, cute. But I can only count so many bunnies and watermelons up till 3 or 4 or even 10 until my head’s about to explode like a ripe melon hit by a sledgehammer. I was SO excited when she got past that stage and I could read actual stories to her. Then we went through the stage of the very short stories that we read over and over and over. Even Dr. Seuss started to get on my nerves a bit. No, Mom, no. Don’t say that!

At any rate, I toughed it out and read to my girls every night. Unfortunately, I will also admit that as the third and fourth came along, I ended up getting a little busy and just overwhelmed to read to every single one of them every single night. My youngest hasn’t had the privilege of me reading to her every night before she nods off. The best she’s had was me reading to her in the middle of the day just before naptime. Now that this littlest one is in kindergarten, I’m going to have to figure out a good time to read to her and with her regularly. ‘Cause for a while there a few years back, I really was going bed to bed and room to room at 8:00 at night and reading with one girl at a time. An hour later, I was definitely ready for bed myself. Alone time with the husband? Important, yes. Did we get much of it? Not really.

So the routine’s gotten shaken up, but I’ve still logged many very pleasurable hours reading with the girls, at various stages and differing ages. Even my oldest enjoys having me come in at night sometimes as she’s finishing up schoolwork and Facebook-chatting and all that kind of teen stuff and lie down next to her on her double bed and read aloud as she winds down and relaxes to the sound of my voice. With her, I’ve read some of A Tale of Two Cities or Huck Finn or All Quiet on the Western Front, all assignments for classes, or we’ve pulled out a few old favorites for some fun. Maybe I’ll even read to her the night before she gets married someday. It’ll be the best way to remember our time together as mother and daughter at home.

My third daughter is an absolutely voracious reader and has been wolfing down books this summer in particular. We’ve had fun with a few in particular: I read Freaky Friday, one of my favorites from when I was a pre-teen long ago, aloud to all of the girls who wanted to listen some months back, and we all laughed and chortled and chuckled together at all the funny things that happened (Boris and his beetloaf … funny stuff, man). This past month or so, this third girl and I have been reading the very charming and quotable books about the Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place by Maryrose Wood. I am of the opinion that read-alouds are most fun when they provide many opportunities for giggling and lines to quote later as a shared experience. Daddy has no idea what we’re referring to, which is different from all of our shared family movie quotes.

I read Eragon aloud with my oldest when she was probably about 10, and it took us six months to get through. But we enjoyed it. The movie version came out not long after, and she and I joined together in great distress and disgust when the movie version was absolutely horrible. What a shame!

I admit that though I do have children of varying ages, picture books up through teen and adult books, and I do a ton of reading on my own, young adult books aren’t my specialty. I have lots of blogger friends who really know a LOT about the middle-grade and young adult genre. So I think my last point here is: what do you think qualifies as great read-aloud material for middle readers, in particular? I think that something of a modest length and with some silliness is extra handy. More “serious” material is fine as well, but the silly factor makes it lots of fun. Any ideas?

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The best moms … know their limits

Posted in Home life, Life of the mind, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 6, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Much talk has been made over the years and even recently about “good moms” or moms who “do everything for their kids” and so on. The Time piece titled “Are You Mom Enough?” stirred quite a bit of controversy and buzz. But there are clearly as many ways to parent out there as there are parents. I would venture to say that a number of those methods employed by some parents are probably not so great, but in general, most parents get the job done passably well. But I think what bugs me the most is when people make judgments about parents whose kids are doing just fine and start saying that their parenting style is lacking. About a month ago, right around the time I was in dire need of a little me time, a Facebook “friend” posted that she was so disappointed in all the mothers who were complaining that their kids were driving them crazy. She ended by saying, “It’s about attitude!” I gently responded with a couple of kindly worded comments to the effect that just because some of us mothers were rightfully saying our kids were making us nuts (this is summertime, people!), it doesn’t make us bad parents. Just normal. A few hours later, my comments (which were completely appropriate) had been deleted. What the heck, man?! But that’s a whole other story.

Let’s just say that I consider myself in many ways a pretty normal, typical mom. For years, women have dreaded the summer months in which a passel of kids would be constantly underfoot and looked forward to school starting again (even a popular Christmas song refers to the relatively short winter break: “And mom and dad can hardly wait for school to start again!”). So feeling nutty here at the end of the summer does not make me an unusual mom, let alone a bad one.

I will say that what makes a good mom, I think, is knowing your limits. I figured out long ago that, given my personality and my mental health issues, having consistent and dependable time alone, preferably weekly, can keep me going at my best. I’m a gas-guzzling, large-capacity van, let’s just say, at this stage of my life, and I need frequent infusions of gas, oil, and water to keep me running effectively and continually transporting my load of children through their lives. I also need good quarterly maintenance.

Unfortunately, the summer months disrupt my fairly well-planned and nicely balanced routine that keeps me at my mothering best. I know this going in and start feeling a little nervous come May. But I do the best I can to plan and make allowances. And then I still end up running low on gas and oil and burning out at least once, sometimes twice, usually in the middle and at the end of the summer. A month ago, I felt myself snapping, stretched to my utter capacity for patience and sacrifice, and I scheduled a Saturday for myself. I hadn’t had more than an hour to myself in about two months. I hired a niece to babysit for the day and I went for a lovely bike ride and then had lunch and manicures and facials at the beauty school with a friend. It was wonderful. And not nearly long enough. I was not ready after merely seven hours to get back into the grind. The timing the next day of that Facebook post of my friend (unnamed here) was very unfortunate. I thought it was insensitive and judgmental. After having my comments deleted, I deleted the friend (this was not this person’s first “offense” at overreacting to innocuous comments, either). At the time, I felt it was the simplest and quickest solution to help reduce the negative influences in my life. Again, I suppose that’s a whole other story.

Mama’s stretched to snapping: it’s not a pretty picture.

A month later, I am back at snapping point. Having four children with all their demands (and whining and fussing amongst themselves, which can just grate on one’s nerves) around nonstop; then having to make sure the two older ones get to a girls’ camp; then the oldest, who can actually babysit, be gone for an entire week at band camp; then breaking my FOOT and being unable to do the things I need and want to do; then not having any time or brain-space for thinking clearly in order to work on the writing projects that mean a lot to me personally; having other big responsibilities on my plate that still need to be taken care of, broken foot or not (band boosters [the band director needs us to raise $150,000 for new instruments over the next three years?], being in charge of my university’s local alumni chapter, other volunteer things); then throw in PMS, and it’s a recipe for burnout. (Not to mention having all kinds of large and small expenses pop up until the point of ridiculousness this past four or five months, and the astonishing number of things that have kept breaking down on me the past few months till where I’m begging the financial universe for mercy…) It’s the rubber band being stretched entirely too far. It SNAPS.

I wish I could be the kind of mom who enjoys every single moment with her children. I wish I could savor every moment during the summer with them. I have done some fun things with them here and there. I just haven’t been their everything for every moment. (Nor do I think that is good for them, anyway.) I am still absolutely ASTONISHED at the amazing journey a dear friend took this summer with her seven children. They drove in a pop-up camper all the way from the western United States to Alaska and spent two months making the trip. I would have gone nuts probably on the second week, the third at the latest. How she did it is beyond me. But I am in awe and I tip my hat to her. What an amazing experience for them all. But me, I’m just getting my kids through the summer at home, barely gripping on to my sanity.

I am still trying to figure out right now how to just survive the next eight days until my children start school. It sounds silly now that I’ve managed to get through a whole summer, but the last days are seeming like an eternity because I’ve already snapped. I have no spring left. I pretty much want to curl into a ball in my bedroom, take some kind of sleeping pills so I can coast through the next days mostly unconscious, and lock the door.

I would probably be a slightly more “normal” mom if I didn’t have my mental health issues. But I do the best I can to stay on top of them. I take medication, check in with my psychiatrist, and have regular visits with a therapist. I try to be reasonable in my expectations. I’ve been trying to repeat all kinds of useful and inspirational mantras the past weeks to keep myself positive enough to survive until I have some time alone to just regroup in pretty much every way. I just don’t know who or how to ask for help. And unfortunately, when I mention my feelings and am aware that I am being stretched too far, I end up with mostly unwanted advice (one-sentence cliches that too often start with “just”… if you’d just do X, Y or Z, you’d be fine. Or just “let go and let God.” Yeah, I know all that. Doing it is really the battle, isn’t it?) I don’t want advice. I want support and practical help. Someone want to take my girls on a vacation for a few days? That would be most welcome. No mantras, no judgment. Just support and caring.

As you can see from this long post, my manic side is coming out a bit. Sorry ’bout that. But it’s my reality. I am who I am, and I’m daily trying to improve the parts of me that can be improved, and manage the things I can’t change (genetics, brain chemistry: I’m talking ’bout you). But I’m still working on it. I’m going to fall down a lot and fall short a whole lot. I just wish I were better able to figure out ways to practically deal with the snapping of the rubber band before it stretches too far. My aspirations for being a great mom are simply in knowing my limits and not pushing past them. I’ve given my children so much and taught them so much and love them a great deal. Yeah, I need some time alone, away from them, sometimes in order to be able to continue to be a good mom to them. I just want to be able to stave off the snapping.

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‘Having it all’ as a parent: ha!

Posted in Home life, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on July 8, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Just read an excellent piece about another set of articles that have continued to stir the public conversation about parents in the workplace, specifically mothers, and the idea of “having it all.” I’ve long thought and said that just seemed laughable. What is “it all”? Usually when the subject is brought up, somehow it’s assumed implicitly that phrase means that women can raise children and work in the career they have been educated for, and progress exactly as they’d like in both facets of their lives. But as a mostly stay-at-home parent who has worked part time and full time at different periods of my life, I have long known it is impossible to have that kind of “all.” Let me clarify: “all” essentially combines the concepts of being an “attached parent,” as one might put it today, and doing everything for one’s children, and going the distance in a career, all the way to “the top” of whatever field has been chosen. (And may I also now add in that our society today is including as bonus points that a mother who has it all can also look 25 when she’s 45, wear a size 2, run half-marathons by training at 4 a.m., and always be beautifully pulled together, displaying her family in a house that’s decorated by all the best ideas on Pinterest.)

Nope, not possible to do both. Not at the same time. Something is going to give. You won’t be at every single event your child is involved in, or you won’t end up at the top of the food chain in your job. But what IS possible is to take the best of both facets and focus on those parts that mean the most to you and make those count. And that balance, that particular combination of elements, is going to vary person to person, and be utterly unique. Then, knowing that you achieved at least fairly close to the combination of things you chose to do (and were flexible to go with the flow as you rethought things and reworked along the way), you could say at the “end” that it was satisfying.

I think in the article I read one thing that bothered me the most was this observation from one female writer: “But my other thought about Slaughter’s beautifully written piece is what a missed opportunity it was. Yet again, a powerful, influential woman had a platform to talk about the issue of choice when it comes to women, parenthood and power and chose not to discuss one of the most undervalued choices of all: the choice not to become a parent.” For one, that means nothing to this current argument of “having it all” as a parent. If you’re not a parent, all those choices become irrelevant, and there is nothing to “balance.” Simple as that. For another, I guess it struck me because I can’t imagine someone giving up the opportunity to raise children. Sure, it’s a messy, frustrating, difficult and time- and energy-consuming job, but it is absolutely the most joyous and satisfying in the long run. Nothing beats having reared a whole separate, unique HUMAN BEING from infancy to capable, independent adulthood. Nothing. (But I know even as I say this that a few people really just aren’t cut out to be parents. And if they absolutely know that, then I respect that choice. Absolutely. I just don’t want people who are on the line to give up on the possibility and never know the joys they could have known.)

What I found was a great observation was actually from a reader. This person commented, in part, “Even though it is difficult to live in our current economy without both parents working, we are expected to spend more time catering to our children than any other generation. Sacrificing your life for your children, however, does not make them strong, responsible adults.” Hurrah, commenter. Great observation. We as parents today are doing much more for our children than they truly need. I took this evening to remind my four progeny that as much as I love them and enjoy time with them, I do not need to nor should I spend all my time with them nor do too much for them. For one, I do have responsibilities to take care of our home and keep meeting their basic needs, whether that is shopping for food, earning some money, cooking, cleaning (the work they are not quite capable of), and so on. Second, it is not good for them for me to be with them all the time. They need the space and time to decide for themselves how to use their time, how to work and play within their own sphere. Choosing and keeping themselves busy allows them to become independent and allows their brains to develop in the best way. If I provided answers for all their questions and wants, they would not be able to stretch their brain muscles and grow as separate individuals. So no, I do not cater to my children. And they are better off for it. They actually do step in and wash dishes or clean up without me asking them to (not all the time; this isn’t a dream world!). But they show initiative and can make decisions for themselves. They work and contribute to our household in the ways they are capable of. We all work together as a team. Nope, it’s not seamless, but we’re working on that. And that’s my job as a parent: to allow them opportunities to function as a viable member of this family team.

So I’m throwing in, again, my two cents’ worth on this topic that will be dissected over and over throughout all levels of our culture. I hope that the parts that should change for the better do. I hope that all parents will feel more comfortable and accepted as they say at work, “Nope, I can’t stay late for yet another night; I need to be with my children.” I hope that more businesses can find ways to allow all workers to have flexibility in when and how they do their work. I also hope that parents can feel comfortable in allowing their children some room to be themselves, to make their own decisions, to not “helicopter” them. I hope that we all can give ourselves some breathing room as we live the only lives we have, one messy step at a time. Life will never be exactly what we envisioned, either in the realm of career or family. It won’t be perfect. It won’t align with a rigid plan. But in the end, I hope that each of us can feel satisfied that we did the best we could with every decision we made and feel our lives were full and good, despite not “having it all.”

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