parenting – Page 5 – Life and Lims

Down syndrome discrimination in the skies

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??

Flying — 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!

Mama bears unite

Classroom — 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.

The magic of reading aloud to a child

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?

The best moms … know their limits

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.

Stretched to snapping — 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.

‘Having it all’ as a parent: ha!

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.”

Honoring my father from afar

My dad has been dead for 2 1/2 years, which makes this my third Father’s Day without him, I guess. After this kind of time has passed, I can walk past the Father’s Day card display at the store without crying, which is nice. I don’t think I’ll ever walk past it without thinking of him, though.

Dad died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 71. It tore my heart out to lose him like that. I think about him every day and miss all kinds of different things about him. We spent a lot of time together, so not having him around is strange. That space he filled in my life, which was a pretty big one, is still empty. Nothing else and no one else has seeped in to fill in any of that gap. It’s still a hole. But, again, thanks to the passing of time, it’s a hole that generally doesn’t leave me gasping and crying about anymore. It’s one I notice and think about; the hole now reminds me of all that used to fill it. I just think about all the things we did together, all we had in common, and all we would talk about.

As a mother, I understand pretty well how my mom felt years ago when she was a stay-at-home mom to three kids. I know exactly why she had to get us out of the house sometimes to JUST BE ALONE, for crying out loud. But what’s funny now is that because she sent my dad out with us kids to give her some quiet time, I now have all kinds of great memories of spending time with Dad. In her efforts to get us out of her hair, she gave us a gift.

Dad took us all kinds of places. We never lived in any big towns, mainly rural areas, so there probably wasn’t a lot to choose from in the way of cool ready-made activities, but my dad found the seeds of treasured memories. He took us to a nature preserve we just called “the deer park,” near Penn State’s Beaver Stadium.

Me and my little sister at the "deer farm" — My dad took this picture of me and my little sister at the “deer farm” during one of our many trips there.

It was this wonderful wooded area that had a large fenced-off area within the trees that was dotted with deer. Mom would give us some supplies from our food storage, and off we’d go to stick our hands inside the fence and feed the deer some dried corn or wheat or something. We’d feel the roughness of their tongues as they licked the food right off our palms. In my memory, the area seemed quite large; walking around the whole perimeter was a long distance. There’s no telling how big it really was, but it still seems vast to me inside my head.

Dad also took us to little local museums and to parks and creeks. On one trip to a creek, he took some photos that document forever how he put my little sister’s bikini top on upside down. He took lots of photos, which he developed as slides. So we don’t have family albums; we have boxes full of slide trays. I even have good memories of sitting with our family in the quiet and dark of an evening watching the slides. I can hear the whir of the fan on the old slide projector and smell its mechanical smell as I think about it now, even.

All those rural areas gave us so many places to roam and play. We lived in Pennsylvania, where there was plenty of snow. Dad would take us sledding, steering us on our big Flexible Flyer down hills packed with snow. It was wonderful. We would also go on walks, hiking around through the woods and lanes where we lived on farms, observing and talking. He took pictures of those times, too.

Me in Pennsylvania — Dad took this picture of me on a path near where we lived in rural Pennsylvania. I loved it there. Dad was very pleased with how this photo turned out. I like it too, except for 1) he’s not in it too and 2) my hair is hideously chopped off. Ah, well.

I could go on and on about all the memories I have of Dad, but it would take up a book, and it would probably bore you. What’s important is that I have memories to treasure. Now that he’s gone and I won’t see him for a while, I can pick those little gems out of my mind and browse them at my leisure, keeping myself company with what we had together while I wait to see him again. It’s Father’s Day today, and I remember him and honor his memory. But every single day he’s gone is just another opportunity for me to think back, to treasure those memories, and to thank him within myself for what he left behind. And Mom, thanks for making him leave the house with us.

Parenting … joy or misery?

Apparently, the world needs studies to “prove” just about anything. Troll the Internet and you’ll find some great examples, both “duh” ones and ridiculous ones (“clothing keeps you warm” or “soap operas lack accuracy”). The latest I read about today regards parenting.

New studies now refute some previous studies (and isn’t THAT typical as well?) that indicated that parenting made couples unhappier than their childless peers. Now, several are saying that “parenting makes you (relatively) happier.”

I’ve thought about this for, well, about 16 years now. First, I think I can say as a parent, I can speak from both perspectives: as a wife without children and a wife with children, because I was married for almost three years before I had my first child. So I know the difference. Honestly, can people who have chosen not to have children speak from both perspectives? No.

But on to my opinions on this subject. I think that there are days I’d say, yep, parenting can be the pits. It’s sometimes miserable. I was just talking with my 16-year-old a few days ago about the stage of parenting infants and how it can just drive you to sheer desperation. Those early months in which you’re constantly being awakened at night and during the naps you MIGHT be able to try to take during the day are miserable. They’re foggy and hazy and overcast by exhaustion. I don’t do well on small amounts of sleep, and while I was eager to get up and take care of my babies for the first few weeks, my energy and enthusiasm dimmed a bit over time as my sleep meter went down into negative numbers. The sleep loss alone can turn you into a zombie, hungry for energy. Add to that the irritants of incessant crying or fussiness and the huge demand one little baby can create, and yeah, I felt desperate. I can still remember that feeling even now, it was just so strong and overpowering, so much that I simply can’t put it into words. Holding and putting down and picking up again an infant who’s overtired or gassy or just doesn’t like to be put down can make one go quickly insane. Doing that four times? Insanity, indeed.

And that’s only the first months of each new life. Then there are the “terrible twos” and the days they say “no” over and over and throw fits or scratch pictures into the surface of your new wood table with the little tab from an aluminum can (that was merely a week ago with my 5-year-old…). There are the years where you’re in and out of the car, ferrying children to and from school and activities. … I couldn’t possibly keep this post to a reasonable length if I went into even a few examples of each age and stage. Other parents know what I’m talking about here, and non-parents have heard many of the “horror” stories.

But at the same time, I have felt my most sublime joy holding or watching my children. Just this week, I stretched out in my recliner on a Sunday evening after the younger three kids were in bed and invited my oldest to climb in next to me. We cuddled and talked for an hour, which wasn’t what I had planned, but it was wonderful. I don’t consider myself a super-emotional person, but just thinking about it right now makes me a little teary-eyed, it was so perfect. And as much as I remember those days of exhaustion and desperation with that same kid a mere 15 to 15 1/2 years ago (she was a very demanding baby, and there were many times I thought I couldn’t wait for her to grow up), I would not trade away that hour in the cozy chair to save myself those many, many hours of struggle.

I think frequently of a scripture in my faith. A father is talking to his sons and explaining life, starting with the story of Adam and Eve. That first couple could have stayed in the Garden of Eden (in fact, many people think they should have), but if they had, they would have not known the transcendent joys of life. As this prophet put it: “And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin. But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things. Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.”

Yep, the studies are right: parenting can induce misery. And the studies that show parenting can lead to great happiness are right too. As that same chapter says, very wisely: “For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things.” You can’t experience true joy without experiencing misery. You can’t be happy to eat if you’ve never been hungry. And on and on.

Smack in the middle of parenting, if a researcher comes in and asks a few questions on any given day, in one slice of time, the odds are that researcher is going to find that parent frazzled. It’s unlikely he or she will find that mom or dad right in the middle of a sublime moment of happiness. But just because there are more moments of craziness than not doesn’t diminish the importance and amazingness of the moments of joy. And that’s true with everything in life; parenting is just one example. Anything great that requires hard work and sacrifice is worth that work and sacrifice, but don’t ask those people about how great it is while they’re in the middle of buckling down and sweating and crying and pouring their whole selves into the work.

No, I’m not going to go on and on about how amazing parenting is, and be a rah-rah cheerleader about it. I’m a realist in many ways, but I’m also an optimist. I’m not going to sugar-coat, but I will be happy to share both sides of the parenting coin, the hard work and the beauty. If others choose not to go through the experience because they don’t want the bad parts, that’s their choice. But they will surely be deprived of a kind of joy that they couldn’t possibly experience any other way. That’s their choice too. For me, I’ll take the good and the bad, the misery and the joy, just to be able to savor those moments out of time that are almost beyond normal happiness. And I’ll try to laugh about the misery, because that’s the best I can do with it.

Motherhood: from pack animal to beauty queen and everything in between

As I hit 42 yesterday and pretty much suffered the “epicenter” of a nervous breakdown that’s been brewing for a few weeks, I had a few epiphanies. One was this: I can totally understand why a woman my age would want cosmetic surgery.

Why? At this age, I’ve given birth to four kids and don’t expect to give birth any more. What’s done is done, baby-wise. Now I’m into a different stage of mothering, one I didn’t expect to make me as crazy as the stage of early childhood (and I really thought that was tough): having kids of varying ages, able to fend for themselves in survival-type ways, but dependent on me in completely different ways, ones that are actually somehow more important to who they are and who they will be. They need guidance, not just food and clean bottoms. My girls range from ages 16 down to 5, and each has specific needs related to her age and unique personalities and interests. None are heavily involved in lots of activities, but just having a few activities all together, along with the usual things to support them in, adds up to a lot of work on my shoulders, a lot of expectations and four precious, amazing young people relying on me to help them grow and develop as good human beings.

Donkey — Yep, that’s me. Anyone need to add on another bag?

So lately, what with it being “birthday month” at the Lim household, and near the end of the school year, and all the things that go along with those events, I have felt like I am merely a donkey, laden with a huge pile of heavy packs, trudging along, trying to knock off a pack or two at a time. Even as I do so, more packs keep getting laid on my back. I’m about to collapse under the strain, my hairy donkey legs splayed out to all sides at cartoonish angles, my belly and chin flat on the ground.

Every mother has these kinds of obligations, especially at this stage of parenting, and they never fully lift. But every mother is also a woman who just wants to feel pretty and special and … womanly. Sure, I’m not 21 anymore, and I don’t turn guys’ heads, and that’s OK. But I’d like to feel occasionally that I can still turn one man’s head, that I am an object of desire and fascination to him, not just the pack burro who takes care of his home and four kids. It’s really easy for life to get so unbalanced with scheduled events and obligations that each parent becomes an automaton, fulfilling those obligations but losing themselves and their “hearts” in the process.

In interviewing doctors and others, I have learned that most women who have cosmetic surgery are either at the beginning of their reproductive lives or the end. The surgical improvements are done either before childbearing and, often, before attracting a mate or after giving birth to a whole brood and closing up shop in the womb. I’ve talked mostly to women who are in the latter category. They’re mostly parents to children of varying ages and are often stay-at-home moms. I suspect that they’re feeling overwhelmed, out of balance and pretty donkey-like, much as I am feeling right now. I can imagine the siren call of surgery would be very tempting right at this point, when a mother can easily feel very undesirable physically — not necessarily even because she really does look significantly older or plumper or scarred because of giving birth, but because she just doesn’t have time to feel attractive and be a woman, rather than a mom.

Every mother needs to explore and regularly experience that side of herself that is simply a woman, with her own unique beauty and personality. If she doesn’t have time to feel feminine and admired somehow, it’s going to throw her off her game everywhere else. Unfortunately, I don’t have a whole lot of answers as to how to solve this very common problem of unbalance (if I did, I’d probably be a millionaire). I just know that somehow it’s vital to find that balance, to find some time to be pretty, to be oneself, to feel one’s husband turn and look appreciatively, even if that admiring gaze must skim right over a toddler with a smelly diaper and a high school student who needs help with homework or finding a modest prom dress. I know that husband and wife both need to find the time to be themselves, to be just a man and woman who still find each other interesting and attractive. I doubt that plastic surgery can permanently solve these issues, but it certainly would sound tempting as a temporary measure.

Me, I’m just trying to figure out how to stand back up, shoulder my load and trudge on, and balance my life a bit better so I can at least sometimes put down all my packs and revert to my womanly form for at least a little while. Fairy godmother: can you wave your wand for me, please?

Time magazine, moms and sensationalism

I’m beginning to think that most news outlets are forgetting their news roots. I’ve long since given up on watching any kind of TV “news” programs. Those seem to have left behind reporting news and facts, replacing journalism with who-can-shout-louder editorializing. Magazines don’t seem much better. Time magazine has just proved that with its newest sensational cover about attachment parenting, asking “Are you mom enough?”

I’m not going to dispute that reporting about the practice of attachment parenting, and some facets of it that seem “extreme” to many parents out there, is a fascinating idea. But I am not happy with the cover, and many people are not, but there are all kinds of reasons that it’s getting attention, mostly negative.

Some are finding the cover to be offensive because it is partially showing a woman’s breast; many find it repulsive because it shows a young boy with his mouth on that woman’s breast. I’ve seen some people calling it “child porn.”

I’ll try to express why the cover bothers me, but first I’ll explain what doesn’t offend me about it. I don’t mind seeing a child suckling on its mother’s breast. I don’t mind seeing that in public, perhaps even in print.

I’d like to express also why it is not “child porn.” Pornography is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter. Child pornography is the portrayal of sexual activities involving a child. For this cover to be porn, it would require sexual activity to be occurring. A child breastfeeding is not sexual activity. More on this later.

Now. On to why the cover does bother me. Time has deliberately chosen subjects to portray that will garner attention, and the artist has posed them in a way that will grab viewers. First, I think it’s interesting the magazine chose a very thin mother who looks like she should be a lingerie model to demonstrate breastfeeding in the preschooler years. Even though this is a real mother and child who are still nursing, the mother has been chosen to reflect a sexualized image of a model. Second, the way the photo is posed isn’t what I would guess is the usual way this mother and child (or others) would take some time to nurse. Having the mom standing up, posed like a model in an advertisement, with her son standing on a stool is pretty unusual. Most likely, this mother takes a few minutes at the end of the day to sit or lie down to snuggle with her son to allow him to nurse, and it’s part of some quiet, private, mother-child personal bonding time. And neither would be looking away from each other, especially not at a camera.

What bothers me in addition to how Time has chosen to represent this topic is the reaction that it is guaranteed to cause, a negative one about breastfeeding. Even though the topic is about an “extreme” version of parenting that many of us don’t choose, this photo is essentially painting nursing with the same wide brush, and it’s going to be a setback in the still-needed push forward to make nursing more understood and more accepted in public society. That bugs me.

Having given birth to three children and nursed them all for periods of about 10 months up to about 13, I think, I know what it’s like to be a nursing mom. It’s a challenge because you’re ALWAYS on call, always needed, and this particular duty cannot be handed off to the dad or anyone else who could help. (Let’s leave out the topic of breast pumps right now and keep this simple.) I know the difference, too, because I adopted our last daughter, so we fed her formula, and man, was it nice to be able to let everyone in the family take turns feeding her. I was so free, compared to when I was tethered to the previous three by my milk supply! Add in issues that may come up with nursing — sore breasts, sore nipples, infections, what-have-you — and it’s tough work, on top of all the other things that are hard about mothering a baby or toddler.

At the same time, breastfeeding is pretty cool. I wasn’t the “natural mom” type who always gushed about how great it was to nurse, sometimes just complaining about that constant on-call thing, but I did appreciate the benefits. It was the neatest thing to know that my body was producing exactly what my babies needed, just at the right times. I was happy to make the sacrifice to nurse because I knew it was the absolute healthiest thing I could do for them. And snuggling up with them and having it just be their little soft mouths on my breast was a gift. It was just the two of us, skin to skin, and I treasured (some of) that time. (Sometimes/most of the time I just got it over with because it was feeding time and I had to move on to something else. No, I don’t treasure every single moment of life, parenting or anything.) When I gave birth to my last daughter, I knew that would be the last time I’d breastfeed, and having her latch on that first time in the hospital almost brought tears to my eyes because I knew that it was special, and not too long in the future would be the last time I ever nursed a baby.

I also know just how tough it is to nurse a baby when you’re not at home. I was raised to be modest, and still teach my own children to be modest and not show too much skin, so the idea of the possibility of any of my breast showing even for a split second in public was one that was completely opposite to that notion that was so ingrained in me. Plus, I’d never seen almost anyone out and about just nursing a baby, so doing that myself while out shopping or eating at a restaurant or running any of the myriad of errands most people do in the course of everyday life felt strange. I felt like everyone would be staring at me, no matter how discreet I was. Even in my church, where we have more children than average per woman, and where many of us breastfeed, there’s one small room set aside for nursing and taking care of babies, and I’d never seen anyone nurse a baby outside of that room, even when we were in a meeting that was just women. Thinking about it now, I still think it strange. Why in the world do young mothers surrounded by other women of various ages, most of whom probably did nurse, feel the need to leave a room full of other women to isolate themselves in a tiny room in a corner and miss out on uplifting messages? Modesty? Self-consciousness?

Nope, our society is not at ease with the idea of women nursing their babies where anyone can see. Ask any of us women who have had to try to nurse a baby in a bathroom stall (can you say ick? Would you want to eat your lunch in the bathroom?) because there was nowhere else private to do so if we’d like to see more acceptance of breastfeeding in public, and we’ll respond with a very loud and hearty YES!

I find this all so ironic because our society is so highly sexualized. Women of all ages, teen girls, and even 9-year-olds wear revealing clothing without almost anyone batting an eye anymore. Scanty tank tops are certainly normal, and sleeveless dresses are the standard for any fancy occasion. (Try finding a dress for a nice occasion with sleeves that doesn’t look like a grandma dress. Good luck to ya.) Not only celebrities sport revealing clothes: everyday people wear plunging necklines and show a lot of cleavage and breast skin. Yet women who are feeding their babies the way nature intended, with the healthiest possible food made JUST FOR THEM, are stared at and marginalized if they accidentally show any skin for a split second, or (heaven forbid) show part of their breast at all while nursing (I always preferred to be completely covered, and there are some really handy nursing cover-ups, but what’s wrong with letting a little of the top of a breast show while the baby’s head is covering most of it?).

Breasts have become, in our society, simply an object of sexualization. Women have breasts so they can feed their babies, and, yes, they are alluring and exciting for men. That’s natural as well, and part of the whole important biological process that brings new people into the world and feeds them in the early stages of life. Breasts are really useful for feeding, but they’re also fun for men and women as they come together to feel close to one another and to reproduce. But we have lost sight of the fact of their usefulness, seeing them ONLY as sexual objects. So if we see women with a baby attached to them, because of this cultural pattern today, we think “eww” because we think of them exclusively in sexual contexts.

So Time has not done nursing mothers any favors with this magazine cover. Nope, with the choices it made that I already mentioned, it has shocked viewers and made them feel revulsion. What we need as a society is to do better to educate everyone, male and female, about nursing and the great usefulness of breasts, to encourage women to use them as they need to with their babies wherever they are, and however they feel comfortable nursing. Our society has everything backward, upside-down and inside-out. Let’s help encourage women to be more modest and show less skin on an everyday basis, saving sexual behavior for the privacy of the bedroom. But let’s also encourage women to feel free to use their breasts to feed their babies, even in public, and not force them to stay at home or run for cover (especially not to a bathroom!). Parents can teach their sons and daughters about nursing and how the body works in so many amazing ways, and women who are nursing can show their other children and friends how it’s done. It’s just going to take lots of women being comfortable enough in public to feed their babies so everyone can get more comfortable to the sight of nursing moms and babies.

Time, you let us all down and did a great disservice. Stop sensationalizing and show us how things are really done.

Mothering deja vu

I must have a tendency to brace myself mentally for certain outcomes. When I was preparing to enter college, I had just graduated high school as valedictorian, with stellar grades and test scores and lots of admiration-worthy activities and awards on my university applications. Even so, I already knew that I would no longer be top dog when I got to school, so I kind of worked to switch over my mindset and expectations from being the big fish in a little pond to just an average fish in a very large pond. It worked, apparently; I didn’t feel a need to be top of the class anymore, and I found I was generally comfortable not having that pressure any longer. I finished up college with about a 3.5 GPA and was pleased with that. I did a few activities and extracurriculars and largely made sure to take plenty of time to have fun and enjoy my time at Brigham Young University, in part because I’d been dreaming of going there my whole life and probably in part because I’d not been able to relax and have fun in high school.

Going into parenting, I think I also steeled myself to NOT have certain expectations. I especially did not want to expect my children to look like me or act like me or have the same interests. (Perhaps my husband is going to snicker at this statement, considering how I spend so much time reading with them, but in my heart of hearts I believe it’s true.) I didn’t want them to feel pressure to be a certain way or to live up to expectations that were not their own dreams and interests.

Having said that, I am now finding myself mildly shocked when I find out that they are doing things I did or expressing interests in some things I was interested in long ago but no longer do much with. This morning gave me two opportunities to reflect on my own earlier years.

One is something odd and not even an interest, just a somewhat strange behavior. My oldest was leaving early this morning to go on a long-weekend trip with her high school band. I didn’t really plan to wake up to see her off, but since I did end up opening my eyes at 5:30 a.m., I drifted downstairs to hug my girl and bid her adieu for a few days during which I know I’ll heartily miss her presence. She was making herself some eggs, as she frequently does (a trait she did not get from me; I rarely ate breakfast foods for my morning meal growing up: I preferred leftovers), and she told me, “It was the strangest thing. I started cooking these eggs last night at 12:20. I thought it was 5:20, so I got up and started getting ready. Then I looked at the clock and realized it was only 12:20. I don’t know if I was sleepwalking or what, but it was weird. This morning I wondered if it had been a dream, but I opened the fridge and saw the eggs, and I knew it was real!” I said, “Did I ever tell you I used to do that same thing?” No. “Well, when I was a freshman, I woke up and did that same thing a few times; I would start getting ready, then eventually look at the clock and it would register in my brain that it was only 3 a.m. and I’d go back to bed. One time I washed my hair before realizing, and since I didn’t have a blow dryer and it was the middle of the night, I tried desperately to get it to dry by lying over the heating vent.” I told her that after a few times of that happening, I started to take a moment when I first woke up to REALLY look at the clock to make sure I noticed the real time. Eventually I stopped doing that.

It was just an odd feeling to have my daughter experience the same strange phenomenon.

Later this morning, at a more reasonable hour of the day, I trooped off to the county office of education building to watch a large group of elementary school students gather to participate in the “Poetry and Prose” performances. It wasn’t a competition, but it felt a bit like one; the children were all put into small groups and sent off to rooms with judges who gave them feedback on their recitations of poems. My fourth-grader decided a few months back that she’d like to be involved, so she’s been working on a poem (Shel Silverstein, of course) to perform. (Unfortunately, I have not been as involved as I would have liked, with everything else I’ve had going on; it’s right up my alley, and I could have been helpful to her. This I regret.) Sitting in that room watching her and about 10 other students perform their poems was eerily deja-vu for me. For four years in high school, I participated in the speech team, going to competitions around the state giving speeches and performing snippets of plays either individually or with a partner. What was unnerving was seeing all the same theatrical affectations I used to sit and watch in one classroom after another, four years in a row, for most weekends from October to March. These kids were younger, but it was the same stuff: unnatural, exaggerated gestures that had been taught them and rehearsed and affected speech rhythms that sound somehow “professional.” Some of the kids were genuinely, naturally talented, and it was fun to watch them. But even some of those kids had been coached too much so they were just a bit unnatural. The judge ate it up. And that reaction just got to me like fingernails on a chalkboard. I hadn’t felt that feeling in 20-plus years and it came back to me in a flash: that annoyance at watching those kinds of too-rehearsed performances. Sure, anything like that has to be practiced over and over to be good, but a really, really talented actor or performer makes it look natural, as if they never thought about what they were doing or how they would be moving or saying things. And here these adults are turning these impressionable young kids into unnatural performers. Argggggghhhh. I honestly wanted to run away screaming and never look back.

But this same daughter has just this week told me she’d love to get into acting, and she confessed a few days ago, “I want to be a STAR.” So if she wants that, I’ll help her. But we’re going to stay away from the people who would introduce the far-too-exaggerated stuff into her repertoire. I think it’s time to start looking forward to next year and talking about how to make things entertaining but natural.

At any rate, it’s not just the fact that my girls have now, against all expectations, done things I’ve done; what’s interesting are my reactions. I was amused and surprised by my oldest’s nocturnal preparations, and at my 9-year-old’s activity I was just viscerally kicked in the gut by memories of how I felt at speech competitions. It’s amazing how memories can be so strong, the emotions attached so vivid, after being buried for decades.

I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised; after all, a decade ago, I did write a whole book about how my little girl was reminding me of moments from my childhood. How life comes full circle still astonishes me, though, and it will again and again while I live it.