Category: Mothering
Friday, Apr 9, 2010 | Mothering, Sick |
When the two eldest kids were small, and we only had two kids, I remember complaining vociferously whenever our routine was thrown out of whack–by illness, unexpected travel, or unusual weekend obligations. Somewhere between then and now, I gradually came to realize that there was no “normal.” Or, more precisely, that the unexpected was normal. Something always arises. Often these are good surprises and changes, and arrive on a small scale, and it is easy to roll with the waves. Surfing on the unexpected. Have an extra friend over to play. Get invited for a cup of tea at someone’s house. Go to a concert at the kids’ school.
But then there is illness. It comes in waves, too. And there’s no disruption quite like it. I find it tolerable, even calm and pleasant, when it is brief and clearly not harmful to the child and he or she sleeps a great deal more and the day goes on mostly as expected, but indoors. A day or two of this kind of quarantine is okay. I have some hermit-like tendencies that don’t mind the excuse to huddle away from the light, on occasion.
But beyond a day or two, and enforced quarantine begins to feel like imprisonment. We’ve been at this latest flu for nine full days. Of course, we managed to sneak away on a road trip (only one child throwing up en-route) for three days during the early course of this bout, but just when it looked like we’d be in the clear, the little one on the mend and everyone else pink with health, oh no, we woke on that first night home to a dreaded sound in the night: a child throwing up. It may not be the worst sound a parent gets to hear, but it’s right up there for producing those electrical night-time shocks of pure horror. Actually, I exaggerate. If it’s just once or twice in the night, I find myself capable of dealing with it with calm. But the child went on and on, every fifteen to twenty minutes, her body rejecting every sip of water. We ran out of sheets and moved on to towels. I did three loads of laundry before 8 o’clock in the morning. And, then, of course, it spread like wildfire. I even had the pleasure of experiencing it myself, though poor precious Fooey was the worst off. I have never seen a stomach bug like this before, and hope never ever to see it again. It’s a miracle that this morning she arose with a spark in her eye again, having spent four days of her life being unable to eat or drink without her body severely punishing her for trying. It is heart-rending to see your four-year-old clearly despairing, even depressed. She was too sick and miserable to watch TV. That’s saying something.
But we all have experienced that sense of despair and misery this week, and it’s not just due to the illness. It’s due to the distance between us and our normal, our routines, our safety-net of activities and human contact and outdoors and alone time that we’ve so carefully constructed for ourselves. It’s taken practice to build a flexible and adaptive framework of routine that allows both me and Kevin time to go out and exercise and work and be creative. So I’m going to take a minute here to remember good health and look forward to it again. And I’m going to take an additional minute to remember that throughout the world there exist so many other disruptions to routine, much more profound than the stomach flu, from natural disasters to war, to the private violences and silences that go on in lives around us that we may not even know about or guess at.
So there’s disruption and there’s disruption.
This reflection almost makes me grateful for the stomach flu. But that’s likely because we’re coming out of it. I can sense a return to “normal” on the horizon. And I’m grateful we have such a happy routine to return to.
:::
Today: AppleApple went to school. She never looked very sick, but was content playing at home with those well enough to play, so I didn’t fight it. She was excited to be back at school today. CJ also went to preschool, screaming bloody murder in a fit of tantruming rage because (this is just a guess) I didn’t let him put his own shirt on this morning. We were in a hurry. Have you seen a two-year-old trying to dress himself? Oh, and I’ve created a potty training monster. Now he refuses to wear diapers, but gets a kick out of peeing on the floor. The semi-compromise we’ve currently arrived at is pants: he wears pants, gets them slightly wet, decides he doesn’t like the feeling, and agrees to sit on the potty. We go through a lot of pants, but he has a lot, being the recipient of three sets of hand-me-downs, plus a few new ones of his own. I’m thinking of writing a ParentDish column on how one feels like an expert only when one’s child is not at the stage one is having expert-like feelings about. In the midst of it, one feels like a complete incompetent utterly stumped by the whimsies of human behavior.
Sunday, Mar 14, 2010 | Birthdays, Friends, Kids, Mothering |
Had a long conversation yesterday morning with Albus. He wanted to talk about two things: one, when can we get a Wii and why don’t we have one when everyone else does? and two, why can’t he have a friend birthday party with presents?
Well.
On one, at least there are still a few friends in the neighbourhood whom I could point to as being similarly Wii-less. But that’s not really the point. The point is that we don’t choose to do things just because our friends are doing it too. And the reason we haven’t gotten a Wii yet (though we may, eventually) is because Kevin and I prefer to encourage creative, active, cooperative play–and we see our children playing in these ways when they are given the freedom and time to do so. The best moments in my life, right now, are watching my children playing together–all four of them. In this play, they learn how to solve problems, how to compromise, and how to find ways to include everyone. It doesn’t always run smoothly, and there are plenty of moments which cannot be romanticized. I don’t think a Wii would ruin this. But I also don’t think it would enhance it. What I explained to Albus was that if/when we decide as a family to get a Wii, it will only be after we’ve come to an agreement about how often it should be played, and when, and under what circumstances (ie. special rules for holidays? after school? once a week? weekends only?). It would become like the television is for us, and the DVD player: something we have, but choose not to use without considering others activities first.
Did Albus hear what I was saying? Debatable. “So I can get one for my birthday?” “No, I don’t think so.” “So I can get one for Christmas?” “I don’t know.” “When can I get one? Could I get a DS instead?”
Onto question two … Albus is already planning his birthday party (which won’t be till May, on his birthday). “Could my friends bring presents this time?” “No, we don’t do friend parties with presents.” “But why? I would get so many toys!”
Since we started hosting friend parties for the kids’ birthdays (around age six), we chose to request no gifts. Cards welcome. We got a few phone calls from baffled parents who really really really wanted to bring a gift, but everyone has so far respected the request; the way I see it, the gift is the presence of friends. We also don’t hand out giant loot bags afterward, but like to send every kid home with something they’ve made at the party, or a related but inexpensive prop used at the party: ie. one year I found pretty little china tea cups and saucers at a thrift shop for a tea party; another year, Kevin designed and made personalized t-shirts that all the kids wore to a “bike rally.” Nothing fancy. The birthday child gets to the choose the party theme, what to eat, who to invite, what the cake should look like, etc. It’s a fair bit of work for us, and held in the child’s honour, and adding ten gifts into the mix never made sense to Kevin and me. Like over-salting the soup. We also always host a family party for the birthday child, to which aunts and uncles and grandparents are invited–and gifts are brought. They don’t need to mine their friends for extra treasure. There are already gifts in abundance.
Does this sound like an odd, puritanical rule? I appreciate that giving gifts is something that many people want to do.
But we’re trying to live a less wasteful life, less packaging, less of what we don’t really need.
And we live in a country that is enormously privileged and we sometimes forget that and want more and more and more, without recognizing how much we already have. (I’ve observed this phenomenon at other moments with the kids: If I put out a big buffet of a snack, everyone goes greedy, grabbing and hoarding, even though there’s more than enough. If I put out a small and simple snack, the greed disappears.)
By the end of the conversation (which wasn’t the lecture that appears above; sorry to be so dull today), Albus seemed reconciled to the basic principles of doing with a bit less. Somewhat reconciled might be more accurate.
This is just the beginning, right? Of my children testing our family’s principles and choices against what their friends are doing? I recently wrote a review of Craig and Marc Keilburger’s The World Needs Your Kid, and highlighted from the book ten suggestions for encouraging compassion in one’s children. Number two was to know and identify your own beliefs, as parents. It felt in the conversation with Albus that I did know, and I was grateful. But I also want to remain open and flexible to their changing needs, so that kids don’t feel like their living in a totalitarian regime, but in a living and growing ecosystem.
Which is why we might get the Wii, eventually. Maybe this Christmas. Maybe. We’re still thinking about it.
Thursday, Jan 14, 2010 | Family, Mothering, Photos |
So. I have a plan to hold a family meeting. But we have two separate topics to discuss.
First, I want to talk to the kids about the humanitarian crisis happening in Haiti right now, and I want to ask them for ideas about what our family could do to help out. And I want to broaden that out to talk about ways we could help in our own community more often.
(I’ve also requested an interview for my ParentDish column with Craig Kielburger, who is a young Canadian man I greatly admire–his parents, too! The mandate of his foundation Free the Children is to help North American children to help other children around the world–in essence, educating our children, helping them to make the connection between their own actions and the effect these can have on other children’s lives. I’m really excited about talking to him.)
That’s topic number one.
Topic number two might sound a little out there, but I’m thinking of having a family meeting about creating a family mission statement (and I must confess, we NEVER have family meetings, and I’m not entirely sure what this will look like in practical terms–sitting around the dining-room table with pieces of paper and pencils? Will we make it more than five minutes before chaos erupts??). Now, a mission statement sounds almost too serious, but what I’m hoping to accomplish is that we can all agree on some basic guiding principles for our household.
This is what I’ve jotted on my piece of paper: In our family … everyone is respected. In our family … it’s okay to feel mad or sad, but we express our feelings appropriately. In our family .. we ask for help when we need it. We help each other. We help others, too.
These are my ideas. How to bring everyone’s ideas into it? We’ll see. This is yet a pipe dream. My motivation for doing it, however, comes from a rather dark place, and that is the anger we’ve been seeing our older children express, recently, and our inability to help them find ways to express this anger appropriately (or to interpret it). I want to stress that I don’t think anger is a bad emotion. It’s human. But destroying your baby brother’s duplo project in a fit of rage isn’t a good way of expressing that emotion. So far, Kevin and I are not getting far with our attempts to step in and help the children find another way. Time-outs work, sort of, at least for removing the child from the situation. But anger tends to be an emotion that is actually pointing toward or masking more complex emotions. Ever felt angry about a situation, only to gradually recognize that your anger was saving you from experiencing a much more frightening emotion like fear or grief? Sometimes anger can give us a feeling of power in a situation in which, if we stopped to think about, we’d realize we feel awfully terribly vulnerable.
Stop me now, I’m rambling.
And it’s time to get ready for swim lessons.
Above, my youngest, sharing a quiet moment on the couch. And I caught it before it devolved!
Saturday, Dec 5, 2009 | Mothering |
And by solo, I mean one parent with four children. Pictured above is last night’s highly successful outing, wherein I silently basked in my children’s fine behavior. I didn’t put much thought into the outing, which was probably a good thing, because too much thinking and I might have thought better of it. We brainstormed places to go for supper, and agreed on a Thai restaurant within walking distance, as we had no vehicle at our disposal (Kevin is away for a few days; and this is what happens when you decide to be a one-vehicle family). Every kid chose a small entertainment item, I threw the diaper bag into the small stroller, and we headed merrily on our way. Since we arrived before 5pm on a Friday evening, we had the place to ourselves, and food arrived quickly (we are familiar with the menu and had made our meal choices beforehand). CJ is the real wild-card, but everyone was equally hungry, and we ate and talked and CJ pointed out animals in the artwork, including making loud dragon noises for the Chinese dragon (“why is a Chinese dragon at a Thai restaurant?” the older kids wondered). The photo above pictures him choking on a piece of Albus’s chicken. Awesome camera-work, Perfect Mom! Yes, he survived. We stopped at mains (no ice cream), and left the restaurant while everyone was still in happy spirits. I was one proud mama, and even got to hear an elderly woman who’d just arrived with her friends observe in an admiring voice: “Look at that woman, out all on her own with four children!”
:::
Then, today happened. I was tired. CJ woke four times last night, and though he agreed each time to go back to sleep without nursing, nevertheless that was four times I was up, giving him a hug and a kiss (“kiss, kiss,” he requested each time) and tucking him back in. Thankfully, we all slept in till 7:30. Then we hurried through breakfast, starting a crockpot supper, and organizing to go to a previously arranged dr’s appointment for Apple-Apple. By bus. Since we have no vehicle, as mentioned. You know, I just didn’t feel up to the task. Everyone else seemed grumpy, too, and didn’t appreciate being rushed on a Saturday morning. I tried phoning Kevin for commiseration, which resulted in a farcical game of phone tag. And did not help. There was a small meltdown. Mine. But. We made it to the bus stop, climbed aboard, stroller and all, made it to the dr’s office, all in good time. It was an up-and-down morning, I guess, now that I reflect on it. I was proud of the kids on the first bus ride, and in the dr’s office. We then headed to the Children’s Museum, and I was proud of them there, too. Mostly. But there were some definite rotten mothering moments. Such as when I texted Kevin while letting CJ glue and marker himself unattended at a craft station. And lunch was hairy. Though perhaps it was just exuberant and I’m being too hard on myself (and them). Lunch was followed by an entertaining session in the bathroom with CJ and a poopy diaper, while I left the other children unattended in the main room. I could hear Albus shouting directions all the way to the bathroom. When we finally emerged, CJ ran for the play area, climbed onto a wooden box and promptly fell off. I picked him up, howling, only to realize that my other children were being watched with some disapproval by parents in the snack-area. My unattended exuberent offspring were standing on top of another tall wooden box building a stool out of giant blocks of squishy Lego in order to climb up and make their CN-tower-sized structure even bigger. And then they crashed it down.
We could have gone home then, but we didn’t. We stayed till Santa arrived, whereupon AppleApple kept asking, in a loud voice, “Why would anyone want to sit on an old man’s lap who is wearing a fake beard and pretending to be Santa Claus?”
And then we left.
Friday, Dec 4, 2009 | Feminism, Mothering, Work |
How does she do it?
How does the Perfect Mom manage to care for her children 24 hours a day, cook fresh and healthy meals from scratch, source her food locally, keep her house tidy and clean, launder her family’s clothing, arrange regular doctor and dentist appointments, read books to her children, spend special time with each individual child, ferry children to after-school activities, cope with conflict creatively, stay patient and calm amidst the great and constant storm of chaos, spend meaningful and romantic time with her partner, and even do paid work on occasion? Oh, and still make space to nurture herself.
I ask because this is the kind of mom I strive to be. And because we’re all familiar with that Perfect Mom ideal. We’re bombarded with images of her.
I also ask because it’s the kind of mom that I’m not.
I’m not against setting the bar high. I want to learn and achieve and strive to do better. But when I look at that list of Perfect Mom achievements, it becomes really clear that the ideal is not just impossible, but improbable, even mythical.
There is no way, for example, to do paid work while caring for children. I might be able to involve my children (with effort and time lost and extra mess afterward) in helping to cook a meal, but I can’t involve them in helping me write a story (my paid work). In fact, as anyone knows who’s ever chased a toddler around house, in order to do that work, I need my children to be elsewhere entirely, being looked after by someone else (though the television is also an occasionally effective babysitter). Which completely nixes the possibility of Perfect Mom-dom.
In fact, the answer to how does she do it? is: She doesn’t. Those of us who occasionally look like we’re achieving the impossible are working with smoke and mirrors. We’re magicians of special effects. We’re faking it.
And I wonder whether there’s something intrinsically wrong with that, have we created an image of motherhood that is both alluring and ultimately disappointing. And yet …
I strongly dislike wallowing, complaining, whining. I think negativity is corrosive and infects others, too. Part of my mothering goal is to be as positive as possible, to create an optimistic family culture, to live inside even the most difficult situations and cope with grace and humour. To forgive my own mistakes and be careful not to judge others, too.
Part of faking it is reminding myself of what is possible.
But maybe I should be reminding myself that there’s an imperfect human being behind the curtain. And sharing that conflicted, often harassed and frustrated self.
Are those ideals even my own, at heart? Really? How do I know?
One more question: Is there a Perfect Dad?
:::
Note: This is cross-posted from my Moms Are Feminist’s Too blog, because it applies equally to what I’m doing here, and what I’d like to be doing there.
Friday, Dec 4, 2009 | Feminism, Mothering |
Above is the hard copy of my women’s studies project. Some of you were involved in it, having responded to my questionnaire on a separate blog created for the project, called Moms Are Feminists Too. Thanks for your participation. I continue to feel inspired to add content and thought to that blog, even though it feels like I’m formulating ideas even as I go along. The above zine was produced with a great deal of self-doubt, and I almost didn’t hand it in, despite the effort behind it. I almost handed in an alternative production that was tidy and pleasant and not very activist-y (yes–that is how much of a keener, I am–I actually completed this single project TWICE). The zine you see above was produced late at night in a fit of scissors-ing, pasting, and scrawling. The words came from the heart and were not exactly well-planned, and I lost a few marks for that, but the emotion and purpose must have come through because the prof liked it enough to keep it.
I confess that the project surprised me in a number of different ways. It surprised me that I felt this passionately about motherhood and work, and the value (or cultural undervaluing, to be more precise) of children and childcare. I was surprised by how hard it was for me to step out and declare a position. It was difficult even to declare myself a feminist, with all the negative connotations associated with that word, and because this blog, Obscure CanLit Mama, has never had much interest in politicizing family. It doesn’t seem the place for it. I wonder why not?
Here’s another tiny and rather ironic revelation that came over me on the drive home from my last class, tonight. I thought: gee, I kind of took this class to see whether my brain could still retain information and regurgitate it on command (which is what most educational testing schemes require of students). Apparently, I still can. Really, it stands to reason that I’d be much the same student now as then. So why the heck did I think my capacity to be a “good” student might have changed? Easy. Because in between the last time I was a student, and now, I gave birth to four children. Somewhere along the line, I must have bought into that theory about “motherbrain.” You know, how motherhood fuzzes our brains, how we become all leaky and exhausted and incapable of rational thought. Forever. Um. Damn! I cannot believe that some part of me actually believed that theory enough that I needed to test myself, to prove myself. Personally, I think motherbrain is probably the same as fatherbrain–caused by severe sleep deprivation, and, generally, passing post-infancy. This is just one small example of how insidious these messages are, how ever-present, how we tell them to ourselves, and pull them into ourselves, and how they have the potential to keep us from exploring wider possibilities, or pushing beyond what’s expected of us–and what we expect of ourselves.
This class has actually been something I never anticipated it being. It’s been consciousness-raising. (And I already considered myself a feminist). Oh, how I would like to push my children’s gender boundaries just a little bit more, how I would like for all of them to share those best qualities that shouldn’t be gendered at all. Kindness, gentleness, empathy, grace, ambition. To be thoughtful, hardworking, confident, open. To lead, to share, to cooperate, to give. To be creative, active, brave. Never to fear judgement. To develop job skills and domestic skills, and to be loving caregivers.
Imagine.
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