On that same Oprah show that featured Heather Armstrong, the famous Mommy Blogger, I watched as Moms across America shared with their sisters the hardships of sleep deprivation, diapering, potty training, etc..... It was a funny show in many ways. First off, the women who literally wrote the book on Mommy Burnout presented this stuff in a very humorous way. C'mon, although I am sure that at the time, it was no laughing matter, who wouldn't find it funny to picture the woman who had to pee in one of her babies diapers while driving because stopping at a rest stop would mean waking up her kids.
At one point, one woman on the show, speaking about mothering said, "I realized one day that I just was not enjoying this!" It reminded me of a interview I once had with a client who said to me that she wanted to avoid the pain of childbirth by having an epidural because she wanted her and her husband to "enjoy" the birth. They wanted to look back on it and remember it the way they did their wedding day.
I know that if my mother were there watching this Oprah episode with us or if she had been in the interview with that client, she would Kiss her Teeth in the traditional way Jamaicans do when confronted with something we consider Foolishness. "What kind of foolishness is that?" she would surely ask. The kind that sells books and gets you on Oprah, Mom.
Her next question would have been "Who told them that they are supposed to enjoy themselves?"
And this is exactly what I am pondering right now. Who told these women that motherhood, parenting and all that goes along with it was Fun? Who told my clients that childbirth was something that you and your partner Enjoyed together? Like watching the sun rise or seeing a great play. For sure, these are life altering things, momentous and overwhelming...but a party? No. I realized at this point that we have made some sort of shift in our perception of regular life events. In my mothers day, things were just what they were. You didn't ask questions, didn't complain, and certainly didn't analyse. You did not take classes, read 2 dozen books and spend hours and hours on the internet researching the pros/cons of Montesorri vs. Waldorf. You did what was expected and you took what came along with it and you certainly did not expect Rewards or Enjoyment.
Thank goodness, we have come a long way from those days, where women stayed in bad marriages because that was what was expected of you. We no longer have to suffer in silence through legitimate depression issues, we have resources to inspire us to rise above the grindstone of poverty and are encouraged to strive for meaning and connection inside our personal relationships. No one wants to go back to those days.
But has the pendulum swung too far. Do we expect that EVERYTHING has to feel good, be pleasurable, be easy in order for it to be Right? So very often motherhood feels rotten, hurts like hell, is inconvenient, messy, smelly and expensive, regardless of who you are and how much you have to support you. Is it ok for me to say that maybe this is just the nature of the game? That it is impossible to escape it? That if finding Joy in motherhood is something you value, then you have to find it on your own because it is not inherently built in and no one is going to hand it to you?
Is this attitude; that everything we do has to Feel Good in order to be Right something that we have acquired through the media? Is it Global Warming? Is it the fault of our school system, economic system, religion? Does something have to Feel Good in order for it be worthwhile doing? Is this an attitude we want to pass down to our children? Whatever. All I know is that we certainly do have much different expectations of ourselves as mothers now than the women raising children in my own mother's day did. Not only are we expected to care for our children's physical needs, but we also have to make sure they are properly stimulated in all the right ways (crafts, music, books, playdates and the like....) And as women of the new millennium, we often have to hold down jobs, nurture marriages and engage in massive amounts of Self Care (you know, exercise, eat right and apply moisturizer with SPF), in order to be doing it all properly. The job description of motherhood has changed drastically. I KNOW for a fact that my mother couldn't do all what I do.....wouldn't do all that I do. watch me tell her that! She did not read to us, do crafts, take us to the park, ensure we had the right amount of cultural exposure, etc....But she was a Great and Wonderful mother! How did she do this inside of her own bad marriage, while working full time to put food on the table? Because she excelled at what she did. Her job description of motherhood was nowhere near as lengthy and complicated as mine. And, she did not lay awake at night worrying that whether or not she was doing the right thing for us (in our nutrition, educational choices, amount of tv watching etc...) She felt in her bones that she was a good mother and did not question the hardships that came along with it. We now do SO much for our children, provide them with so much more than we received and yet suffer the huge insecurity about whether we are doing it right, about why we are not having fun yet. So, here's the news flash; being engaged and in tune with your kids does not make the job of motherhood any easier or more enjoyable. As a matter of fact it makes it harder. Which is a big reason why now a days we do need to support each other and have structures set up for us to be there for one another. My mother had that built in. She could lean over the fence and holler for Miss. So and so next door to keep an eye on me while she ran down to the post office or whatever. Nowadays, even if Miss so and So did live next door to you, chances are you don't know her well enough to let her watch your baby. So, these women were right in that department. We need each other.
I will add too that these women on the Oprah show were white, middle class women, living in beautiful homes with supportive husbands. One of them even had a Nanny and other household "help". So they were not even anywhere near to facing the kind of challenges most mothers in the world face. It goes to show that with more privilege and ease of life, comes the yearning for more. Now that I don't' have to worry about feeding my kids, keeping a roof over their heads or making sure they dont get blown up, I have the opportunity to turn my attention to more lofty goals; like self fulfillment and pleasure. OK, so now I am getting smarmy and cynical.....AND jealous. I am sure that if I had a beautiful house, supportive partner and no money worries, I could make this Motherhood thing a piece of cake. Right?

Having had my first child at 17, I had grown accustomed these past 2 decades or so of people exclaiming "oh my, I can't believe you have a 2yo, 10yo, teenager", etc..... In those early years, I was truly annoyed at this - in my late teens and early 20's, I saw these comments as an aspersion on my competence as a parent. As time went on, slowly, the irritation morphed into a sad dependence on people telling me what a young mother (ie. young Looking) I was.
Are we not supposed to get more and more comfortable with our bodies/looks as we get older?
I wasn't consciously aware of this dependence until those comments started slowing down.
The first time it happened I brushed it off. But it keeps happening! It started like this:
I declared my status as a grandmother to someone the other day, after which I inserted a little pause. [This pause is supposed to be space for the other person to look taken aback, widen their eyes and say "Holy cow! I cannot believe you are a grandmother! No way!" "Way" I would respond with a slight roll of my eyes to show how fatigued I am to hear this again.]
Anyway, the pause just floated there in between us. Apparently this woman had not been given the script. "Aaawww, " she said "How old are they?" What? Never mind that! How about how old I am, or more accurately how NOT old I am to be a grandmother? Well, she just didn't get it and the conversation alarmingly, just went on from there. I couldn't even concentrate on what she was saying. Blah, blah, blah was all I heard coming out of the mouth of this woman who obviously thought that I looked like a grandmother. OK, so this has happened a few times since then and I now have to come to terms with my age and grandmother status catching up with each other one day soon....like last month.
I wonder if I can approach it the way parents of preemies calculate the age of their babies by subtracting the time from when they were supposed to be born from the time they were actually born? So, I would say: Hi, I'm Suzanne. I am a grandmother, 10 years adjusted."

You know, it's not like I have wrinkles. Wrinkles are supposed to be the hallmark of looking old. Well, in my family, they're not. My mother's 65 year old face has nary a line on it. No, the women in my family don't crease. We droop.
This means that I cannot use an eyelash curler anymore because the thing keeps pinching the skin on my eyelids that is now hanging a few millimetres lower.
My "jowls" for lack of a better term are well, now Here. I don't remember having jowls before. I look like a sad hound dog.
And the freckles!! Good Lord. I know this is sun exposure. 7 years living as a child in the Caribbean + 35 Canadian summers (25 of which was lived in ignorance of the value of SPF) = a face full of "dots" as my children used to call them when they were small. Now they call them Connect the Dots. Smart Asses. There isn't enough concealer in the universe to mask them.

Here is another equation for you: 5 babies, all carried to Belly-Skin Busting term and birthed vaginally in One Screaming Push, that I think put a tear in the fabric of time, never mind my poor perineum = stretch marks from bottom to top, saggy stomach skin and pathetic pelvic floor muscles.
Some of you will say that the flip side to that equation is:
20 years of Excess eating - the 100 Kegels per day that I should be dong - the 3 sets of Ab crunches I should also be doing daily = the stretch marks, sagginess and occasional incontinence.
For those of you, who would say That, I say to you: Whatever........

Before I start, here is a little Feed Forward:
My Mom and I get along swimmingly. The comments below are restricted to this One issue between us. Also,there are slight bits of religious sarcasm in this post. No offence meant.

This afternoon I had a conversation with my mother who lives in Jamaica. She had been hit with a sudden inspiration. Why didn't she make the arrangements for my grandson (her great-grandson's)"Blessing" from down there, before she came up for her annual visit?

A little background: my mom lives most of the year in JA, and comes up to Toronto usually in late spring, staying till summer ends. She is a Seventh Day Adventist...a fairly committed one as are most of my large extended family. SDAs do not "christen" babies as is common in say, the Catholic faith. They do what is called a Dedication; a ceremony where the family members attend church together and gather around the baby with the Pastor who prays for the baby and asks God's blessings on the child. Sounds good. The only issue is that there is a component to the ceremony wherein the mother, father and other close relatives need to promise to raise the child in the ways of the church. This is fine if you make that promise sincerely and mean to keep it.
A little more background: my son and his wife are NOT Seventh Day Adventist, nor do they subscribe to the tenets of the faith. Respectful, yes, but not subscribers.
My mom knows this. Yet, every so often she gets into this Mood...this Fit, where she is determined to get us to "see the light", break us down, exhaust us, so we can finally admit that Jesus is God, He died for our sins and through Him and only Him can the Kingdom of Heaven be attained, etc...... No matter how many conversations we have she will not retain any of my clear, thoughtful responses to her views. Whenever we have a talk like this, she behaves as if she is hearing me for the first time. It is totally crazy making.
So this afternoon, she calls and offers to make the baby dedication arrangements. To be fair, my son and daughter in law DID go along with the whole church dedication thing with their first child. So, she was not totally out of order by thinking that she would get the pleasure of seeing her second great grandson dedicated to the SDA Lord in this way. I responded by letting her know that I would surely speak with the parents and they would get back to her but that I was fairly sure they were not planning to do the dedication this time around. Getting indignant, she asks me why and I answered her honestly that they simply do not believe in this Thing as a Necessary Thing to do. She asks me ""Why don't they believe!? Why CAN'T they just BELIEVE?!"
What's the answer to this? They cant believe because they just cant. Or to put it quite frankly, because God doesn't want them to! That what I believe.
Anyway, what ensues after that is her questioning Me vehemently to make sure that I am not an Atheist, the worst possible thing you can be...which I am not....not that there's anything wrong with that.....
I try so hard to keep my voice clam and loving 'cause what I am telling her (over and over...) is that my religion is LOVE; that what I truly believe is that all religions have this as their core message. But that we have surely perverted religion to mean self righteousness and hatred in so many ways. But I am preaching LOVE and need to sound loving. I hear my mother's voice getting tighter with a thread of hysteria running through it. [To be honest, my own son told me today that he hates the tinny, shrill way I speak to them when I am mad...whatever...that's a whole other ball game....]
She is deathly afraid that I will be heading to Hell when I die and well, according to her belief system, she's right. I am hell-bound. If not for the countless number of major "sins" I have committed this week alone, then my non belief in the J Man as my Personal Saviour is enough to buy me a one way ticket to the Hot Zone.
It takes a lot of effort on my part (and probably hers too) to maintain an even keel during these conversations. I know she is worried about my soul...the Eternal nature of which I do believe in. She will never accept my mixed bag of spiritual beliefs. Her faith teaches that Salvation is the only goal worth striving for and the only path to that can be nothing less than a full scale dunk into the holy waters of SDAism. To show that she is not 100% intolerable to ALL religious beliefs different from her own, she did tell me last year (in our '08 Religion Discussion) that she would "even accept it" if I chose to attend a "Sunday church", so long as I was washed in the blood of the Lamb (you know who that is...) I think it is darned flexible minded of me to remain tolerant of her intolerance. She loves me dearly. I know this. I gotta keep this fact at the front of my head and on the tip of my tongue when we speak about religion. I love her too. But does her love for me have to be directly proportionate to the amount of irritation she causes me during these conversations?

Holly Jones

I read yesterday an interview with Maria Jones, the mother of murdered 10 year old Holly Jones. The article, which was written in Ms Jones' words was simple and straight forward yet conveyed exactly what I would have expected her to say years after losing her child in such a horrific way. What was particularly touching was her account of the day that Holly disappeared. A regular day really, with only one small thing out of the ordinary; that Holly brought home a new friend from school. A friend who she had offered to walk home after their play date [the girl had just moved into the neighbourhood and Holly was trying to be nice] Going against her usual rules, Ms. Jones allowed her daughter to go out into the spring afternoon and walk her friend home. She never saw her again.
Two seemingly small things stand out for me in Maria Jones' story. One is the fact that Holly was murdered in May right close to Mothers Day; a time of year here in Toronto where usually you cant go 1 block without seeing something blooming. Tulips, daffodils, dandelions. Crab apple trees are in blossom with pink fluffy flowers lining the branches. The air is clear, the sky is blue. How can a little girl die the way Holly died in this season? The grey, ugly days of November or March are more of a season for sorrow and tragedy.
The other thing was the fact that Ms. Jones was worried about what people would think about the way Holly was dressed when her body was found. Holly and her friend had been playing dress up and she had not changed into regular clothes for the walk. Holly's mother was afraid that people would think that this was the way she always dressed her daughter. This is so sad. That we live in a society where women live in fear of being held to blame for their own rapes and murders or their children's murders based on how they are dressed.

All little about me

Well, so I have been running around the web trying to find out about blogging as it is something that has always appealed to me.  I was stuck though on the public/private thing.  What I thought I wanted (still do actually) is a place to put my meanderings, air my dirty laundry, engage in self therapy and do this in a public-like venue.  Well, good luck with that.  A experienced blogger friend of mine told me that I would certainly need to decide what I specifically wanted to get out of blogging as it would be hard to get meet all my needs in one blog spot.  Sort of like your spouse.  He/she cannot possibly meet all of your many and varied needs and so you have to go elsewhere (and I DON'T mean it like THAT!) to get your love of quilting needs met, or whatever.

Fine, I have reconciled myself with the fact that my deep, dark secrets will have to be worked through in ye olde diary with the lock and key.  Or in the confessional.  Or on the therapist's couch.  This, I want for creative outlet.  Yes, that's what this will be for me.

I doubt I will get into making this a place that is gorgeous to look at like some of the blogs I have seen.  Wow!  They are works of art!  

So, I am a person of unique life characteristics; or so I like to think.  Some of the things I may or may not wax poetic on is the fact that I:

-am a 42 year old woman

-have 5 children

-have 2 grandchildren

-homeschool my last 3

-am a doula, ie. attend births, provide post partum support and teach childbirth education classes

-have been separated from my spouse for almost 2 years

- am an accredited La Leche League Leader

-gave birth at home

-chooses to selectively vaccinate

-enjoy trashy television

-am trying to lose weight

-am a bad housekeeper

-love to read

Check in later!

There are a host of other things that I hope to visit in this blog but for now, maybe some of the above interests you?