Feminist Fare Fridays: Edition #4
Phew! Is anyone else exhausted after the first week of school? And I don't mean the kids! This was my first week of making lunches everyday, of walking to school and starting to figure out our new one in full-day and one in half-day routines. And so, with school in mind, I give you somewhat of an education-based round up of feminist fare this week!
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1. I have a couple of blogging heroes and one of them is the wonderful Annie Urban at Phd in Parenting. (She is one hell of a dance partner too!) And just in case you need to know why, just check out her post on all the back to school and back to gender-role stereotyping that we are inundated with at this time of year. I personally have made a strong effort to stay away from and not buy clothing that turns my kids into walking brand advertisements and reinforces the pink/blue world that we live in! And while I may have favourited a bunch of those "what to make for my kid's lunch" posts" for future reference, the assumption and reinforcement of parental gender roles by mass media is maddening! And PLEASE, make sure you also click on that last link in her post and read up on why mothers shouldn't have opinions.
2. And speaking of mothers and their opinions. There were PLENTY this week in the world of the "mommy bloggers". One particular blogger, we'll call her Mrs. Hall, had a lot to say to all the girls tempting her teenage sons with their racy pyjama'd and {ahem} bra-less Instagram pictures. And then the internet quite literally exploded with various other "open letters" to Mrs. Hall, to the teenage girls she is supposedly addressing and to anyone and everyone who read her post and had an "Uhh, what the...?" kind of reaction to it. I don't have much to add to the conversation that has not been said in the above posts, but suffice it to say I believe that it is this kind of perpetuating of our sexual stereotypes that leads to....
3. THIS! A university's frosh week with 80 student leaders, "leading" 300-400 students into their new lives on campus with a chant about rape. Seriously people, I wish I was kidding. I wish the St. Mary's student union president had not called this chant an "oversight". I wish that just because something has been done "for years" doesn't mean that is is OK and should be continued. I wish that sending a daughter to university didn't mean having to send her with a rape-whistle and a talk about NEVER walking back to her room at residence alone at night. And I hope that this is indeed a teachable moment for these students and for all of us about the pervasiveness of sexism and rape-culture in our {children's} worlds!
4. And then I read something like this and my faith is somewhat restored and I know that the daughters we are all raising will be stronger. That one day very soon, they will be the confident, wonderful, intelligent and fierce women that this world needs!
5. This one has nothing to do with feminism. I just think that this might be the most ridiculously awesome thing I have seen on the internet in ages. And I like foxes!
[youtube]http://youtu.be/jofNR_WkoCE[/youtube]
Happy Friday everyone!
natasha~
(Update: If you have a few hours, Jenna Hatfield at Blogher did a nice round-up of most of the responses to the original post in #2.)
How to relieve tension: A list.
I feel like today is a list day. The past few days (weeks?) have been trying ones around here. I have an almost 7 year old son who wishes he was a grown up so he can do whatever he wants whenever he wants, who thinks he KNOWS everything and who likes to speak at a volume that most people reserve for the front row of an ACDC concert.
So because of all the yelling that I have been doing, all the frustrations I am feeling, all the tension in my upper back, I give you the following:
The top 15 reasons my kid is the BEST EVER!
1. He gives full body hugs. Arms, legs, all of him is in it.
2. Regardless of how crappy our day is, he tells me how much he loves me before he goes to sleep at night. Most of the time it is "more than all the grains of sand on all the beaches in all the world".
3. He knows more about dinosaurs than any other person I know, big or little!
4. He still crawls into bed with me every morning for a snuggle and sleeps in my arms exactly like he did when he was an infant.
5. He has the core strength of an Olympic gymnast and could likely shame a grown man with his plank and one handed push ups!
6. He has some MAD illustrating skills and can draw a wicked Godzilla (circa 1998).
7. When he laughs, he does so with his whole body and soul!
8. He bugs her mercilessly every day, but on the playground, NO ONE messes with his baby sister.
9. He can climb anything. And scares the SHIT out of me doing so!
10. He wears his heart on his sleeve and is not afraid of his emotions or of showing them. It's the part of him I know he got from me.
11. We have a secret mom and kid handshake that means "I love you".
12. He will eat almost anything at least once!
13. He calls me on my bad language or when I break any of our house rules.
14. He is not fearless, but will push himself to face his fears and overcome them.
15. He is and always will be my baby boy!
I do love this kid!
natasha~
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Summer Blog Challenge: Updated List Here!
first instincts
As you may or may not know, my first foray into motherhood was not a smooth road. It was more like the Dakar Rally to be honest. At twenty-six weeks pregnant I was diagnosed with gestational hypertension and immediately admitted to hospital. And what followed for the next nine weeks was an uphill battle to grow a healthy baby, while flat on my back. Did I mention that we were building a house at the same time too? Yeah, this time in our lives was quite the opposite of stress-free and relaxed.
At our 35 week ultrasound we heard the words we had been preparing for, "It is time." Our baby was the size of a 30-week fetus and my body just wasn't giving him enough sustenance anymore and he needed to be delivered. On the evening of December 11, 2006, after a surprisingly fast induction, our tiny, fuzzy, 3 lb, 13 oz, skinny little baby, quite literally flopped his way into the world and onto the delivery room bed. I gave him one kiss and he disappeared with his father and a brigade of nurses and residents into the bowels of the NICU.
Our days and nights blurred and became about life in the neanatal intensive care unit. Wires, tubes, beeps, blips and alarms, blue lights, an emergency transfer to another hospital to see a specialist and back again the next day. I honestly can't remember much of those first few weeks of my child's life. I spent about 18 hours a day at the hospital and Christmas 2006 didn't really happen that year. I had one focus, and one focus alone; feed my baby, help him grow and bring him home.
I was a tired, stressed, on edge, first-time mother, with a tiny baby, who needed so much of me and from me and once we got him home, this did not change. He needed to be held constantly (or I needed to hold him constantly) and fed almost every hour. I did not sleep, I am sure I forgot to eat most days and I spent countless nights with tears streaming down my face and onto my sore nipples every time I got up and moved to another room to feed him, so as not to wake my husband.
I have the pictures from this time in our lives and in most of them I am smiling, but for the life of me, right at this moment, I can't remember half of what happened in those first 4-5 months. I know that at least once a day I would be breastfeeding him in our chair and then wake up 20 to 30 minutes later, with a kink in my neck, not able to remember falling asleep or knowing how long we had been there and thankful that I hadn't dropped the baby.
I was obsessed with my little preemie's weight and became a regular weekly fixture at the public health clinic. I charted his pees and poops and I timed how long he fed on each breast and the intervals between feedings. I scheduled his naps like a drill sergeant and I had a three ring binder to house all my colour-coded charts. My poor baby was slowly becoming a set of numbers that somehow I had to make sure all added up.
And then, probably around the same time that I was about to lose my mind and a friend suggested I attend a La Leche League meeting, something clicked. I realized that I was reading too many books and blogs and forums about how to do this mothering thing. I was listening to the advice and good intentions of everyone around me and I had not even considered listening to myself or to my child.
I threw away all the charts and the ugly binder. I got rid of the timers and gadgets to remind me which breast was up next and I let go of trying to control every aspect of our new life. I came to realize that doing so just meant that I ended up frustrated and depressed that I couldn't actually control any of it.
I looked at my baby and not the charts that I had assumed he had to measure up to. I listened to him. I fed him when he wanted to be fed. More often than not, in bed, lying down with him. We slept together. Better than we both had in MONTHS. I wore him in our favourite sling and we found our comfort zone with nursing in public. We started to go out more, made new friends and I continued to let go of my need to control and schedule every moment of his life.
I started to worry less and relaxed into motherhood more and a natural rhythm to our days and nights started to emerge. I admit that sleep was still our most difficult hurdle. My husband wanted our baby to sleep in his own room and my son wanted none of that! I believe that had we not pushed back on this so much and just let him continue to sleep with us (as we ended up doing most nights anyhow), we might have avoided all the nights of trying all the different no-cry-gentle-shushing-sleeping-on-the-floor-sleep solutions and whatever other tactics suggested in the sleep-book-du-jour we happened to be reading. Yet despite this, I finally felt like I was doing motherhood the way I was meant to.
Why all this reminiscing about early motherhood you ask?
I wrote this with a friend in mind. I think she may be struggling a bit with being a new mom and trying to figure it all out and get it right. The sleep, the breastfeeding, all the other stuff that still needs doing, all of it is overwhelming. I want to remind her, and all new mamas, that motherhood is in us. It is written in our mitochondrial DNA from our grandmothers, grandmothers, grandmothers and we just need to trust in our nature, our instincts, to access it.
Think of a mama cat who has her first litter of kittens. She has never done this before, but she makes a nest, she births her babies all by herself, she licks them out of their caul, chews off the umbilical cords, starts nursing the first one even before the next one is delivered and will eventually eat the afterbirth and placenta. No one taught her to do these things and she didn't read "What to Expect when you are Expecting a Litter of Kittens." She is following her instincts and doing what in in her nature to do and what her babies need her to do.
Perhaps, for some, the charts and the books and the schedules help to make the transition to motherhood easier. It makes sense to want an Operations Manual or Policy and Procedures binder for a new job, and in this regard, there is no lack of written material out there to read and use as our manuals for motherhood.
I would like to propose that we look deeper within ourselves for our own motherhood manual. It is there, just waiting to be accessed. And what I have learned is that the best way to access it, is to throw away all the other books, focus on your baby and listen to what your heart, your body and your mind are telling you do to.
If your child is crying and "the book" says don't pick him/her up, but your gut is twisting up with anxiety and the cries are like knives in your brain... LISTEN TO YOUR GUT and hold your child!
If you know what your baby does when he/she is hungry, but "the book" says to wait 3 hours between feedings to get a good schedule going... throw away that book, watch for these hunger cues and FEED YOUR BABY!
If you know that the only way your baby is going to sleep is safe and warm in your arms and against your chest and beating heart... then establish a safe place to co-sleep and SLEEP WITH YOUR CHILD! ( I am almost certain that you will get more sleep too!)
Trust your instincts mamas. They are there for a reason. And as it was for our grandmothers, grandmothers grandmothers, it is and always will be about survival. These days it may not be a saber-toothed tiger that is the main threat, but the constant bombardment of images and information about 'how to be the good mother" can be just as devastating to us!
Take a deep breath and relax.
You got this one, Mama!
[youtube]http://youtu.be/Vw4KVoEVcr0[/youtube]
natasha~
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I took a teeny little hiatus from the Summer Blog Challenge these past few days. I am sorry, but life trumps blogging and really, if I have no life, I have nothing to write about, so it is actually a win-win for everyone!
Be sure to check out the other fine #summerblogchallenge writers who have no lives... JUST kidding! Liam, Zita, MagzD, Peter, Christine, Cliff, Hethr, April, Karen, and Kim all have wonderful lives that you can go read all about on their blogs!
Feminist Fare Fridays: Edition #2.
Summer is winding down at our house and the kids and I are trying to squeeze in the last of our city's summer festivals, beautiful weather and lazy days of doing whatever we want before school starts and schedules and routines take over. I have been spending more time away from the internet because of this, but don't worry, I still managed to curate some of this past week's feminist fare for you!
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1. I like the Onion. Satire makes us look at our world and realize how incredibly worked up we all get over a lot of silly things. And I will admit that a few times I have been almost fooled by their articles....almost. Last week though, they crossed the line with a post titled, "Adolescent Girl Reaching Age Where She Starts Exploring Stepfather's Body". I don't care if it is supposed to be satire, this was NOT FUNNY. As a survivor of sexual abuse at the hands of a trusted neighbour when I was 12 years old, this post made me sick to my stomach and was incredibly triggering. How many times does this need to be said? Sexual Assault is not funny, RAPE is not funny, ABUSE is NOT FUNNY!!! Please stop trying to make it funny. It is never going to work. {Sigh}
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2. Do you know what the Bechdel Test (for movies/TV/literature) is? I actually didn't until early this month. In a nutshell it goes like this:
To pass the test your movie must have the following:
1) there are at least two named female characters, who
2) talk to each other about
3) something other than a man.
Think about it for a bit. Pick your top five favourite movies and see if they pass. NONE of my favourites pass (Sound of Music, Dirty Dancing, Highlander-don't ask!, Breakfast Club and Shawshank Redemption). And it seems that there is a reason for that. This is an older post, written in 2008 by Jennifer Kesler, but as you can see, writing male leads FOR a target male audience with female roles serving only as props for these men, seems to be the norm in Hollywood. And as far as I can see from the last few movies/television series I have watched, (with the exception of breakthrough series like Netflix's Orange Is the New Black which feature a mainly female cast) not much has changed in the past five years. Definitely something to think about next time you are spending your life's savings to go see a movie at the fancy new theatre.
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3. Blogger Nate Pyle wrote an incredibly compelling post about a future conversation he is going to have with his young son. I think it is a good reminder to all of us about how we 'see' those around us; man or woman, black or white, gay or straight and everything in between...
"Humans objectify the things they love in effort to control them. If you truly love a person, do not reduce them to an object. The moment you objectify another human – woman or man, you give up your humanity."
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4. My wonderful online friend, fellow fabulous feminist and all around really cool chick, Avital Norman Nathman has complied an incredible list of essays from mothers of all walks of life and written a book called "The Good Mother Myth:Redefining Motherhood to Fit Reality". As of this week, the book is available for pre-sale on Amazon.com. Go ahead, be one of the first ones to get this book in your hands and maybe, just maybe we can all stop trying to live up to some great mythological deity of perfection!
'till tomorrow my lovelies,
Natasha~
hope > fear
In 2005, my husband and I took a trip to Tanzania. It was primarily to attend the wedding of one of his best friends and since we were half way around the world we decided to explore a part of the world we had never experienced before and booked a tour through Northern Tanzania and a safari as well. And while being 10 feet away from mating lions was indeed a highlight of the trip (ask me for the pics some other time), the experience that stood out the most for me was our friend's wedding.
It was the most amazing, joyous, vibrant ceremony of love that I have ever attended. It was also the first time that my husband (a first generation Chinese-Canadian) and I had to deal with questions about our inter-racial relationship. For the most part the questions were not offensive, just more curious and mostly from the younger crowd. How did we deal with people not approving of our being together? Do we hold hands and/or kiss when out in public? What did our parents think of our union? In those moments and conversations, the bubble of our privileged lives in Canada was effectively POPPED! We heard stories of interracial couples being spit on in the streets of Johannesburg. Of them having to leave places at different times so as to not arouse suspicion. Of not being able to share with their families their happiness in finding love. It broke our hearts to hear these stories and all we could offer these young couples was our hope that someday this would not be the case for them.
That somehow racism would cease to exist.
That trip was almost 6 years ago.
I am trying not to give up hope.
I am trying not to let it get over-run by fear.
A fear that is on television, in the news and in our faces EVERY SINGLE DAY.
That fear that feeds itself and grows exponentially in the wake of every incident of horror or injustice in our society.
This past week the verdict in the Trayvon Martin case fed this voracious fear one hell of a hearty meal. And once again, my heart was broken and my head hurt from trying to understand how this could happen in our world. I can't and won't speak for the millions of women of colour whose own fears for their sons were confirmed on the day Trayvon was shot dead and again on the day his killer was acquitted of his death. I refer you to The Feminist Wire to read Christen Smith's open love note to her son and to Ebony.com to read Asha French's A Time for Tantrums and to Heather Greenwood-Davis's post over at Embrace the Chaos. To read their words and too know that no matter how hard you try, no matter how much you imagine yourself in their shoes, you will likely never know that kind of fear for your child.
What the Trayvon case has done for me is make me question the things I haven't talked to my kids about. Specifically the topics of race and racism. We haven't really talked about our Canadian (and their Chinese) history and how we all came to be where we are today. And we certainly haven't come remotely close to discussing oppression in the Americas.
One of the many wonderful feminists that I follow on twitter had this to say the other day:
What followed was a great discussion about how to start this conversation with kids and a few others joined in to give ideas and suggestions on age appropriate books and materials as well. This was one of the posts shared, with links to some great books as well. I also picked up "If the World Were a Village" yesterday at our local library to start these conversations in our house.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/FtYjUv2x65g[/youtube]
And while we often hear parents saying things like, "Oh, they are just kids, they don't see the differences in skin colour, they just see another friend to play with" or some variant of the rhetoric of "colour-blindness" in children, I think that we need to help our children recognize and appreciate the differences in all their friends. Everyone is unique and special and instead of pretending that these differences do not exist, we need to teach our children to understand those differences and to accept those differences in each other. Because like it or not, at a certain point, they do see them, especially if they are the different ones. I have already started to notice that far too often there are not a lot of girls in stories and books that look like my daughter. Dark haired, dark eyed, slightly darker skin tone. And what pains me a bit every time it happens is that she chooses the books (and toys) with the girls with long blond hair over the ones that look more like her. One of her favourite movies is Disney's Tangled, but do you think you can easily find a Rapunzel doll with her great (and much more practical) AFTER hair cut? No, you can not. It is up to me to make sure my children see themselves as valuable and beautiful and worthy of their own stories and adventures.
I am not even going to pretend to understand the levels of hate and racism that continue to exist in our world. All I can do is teach my children to love themselves for who they are and to accept and love others for who they are regardless of size, colour, gender or orientation. And I will continue to work hard, and be an example in my life and as a parent and guide in my children's lives, so that one day, love and hope will drown out the fear.
Natasha~
Have you discussed the Trayvon Martin case with your children? How do you address issues of racism in your house? Please share any books or ressources you may have. Thank you.
**UPDATE**
Please read this post from Mahogany Motherhood with more links to the parenting community's conversations and posts about racism. Please read them to help you understand their stories and Trayvon's tragic one too..
Why I don't think anyone should regret being a Stay At Home Mom.
As I am writing this I feel like I need to have a few disclaimers.
1. I am a teensy bit pre-menstrual (read-ranty!). My nose is on the fritz, everything REEKS today and my "geez-lady-sensitive-much?-o-meter" is kind of off the charts.
2. I am not, nor would I ever judge another person for their CHOICES in life and I applaud anyone who writes with a realness and honesty the likes of "OMG, I can't believe she just said that!".
3. You MUST read the linked article FIRST to fully understand this post. It's OK, I don't mind giving HuffPo some linky love! Maybe one day, they'll return the favor. ;)
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Now that being said, I just read an article written by a woman who is at least 15 years down the mothering road from me that has every hair on my body bristling. Lisa Endlich Heffernan from Grown and Flown just published a post with a laundry list of the reasons she regrets being a SAHM for the last 20 years. Now again, I am not judging her for her life choices or diminishing her feelings about them. What I would like to do is maybe offer a different perspective on her list. Maybe things are different as a SAHM in 2013 than they were in the '80s and '90s. Then again, I may read this post in 15 years and be all, "Yeah, RIGHT! Little did you know back then smart ass!" Either way, here is what I think.
"I let down those who went before me." Lisa read The Feminine Mystique in the '70s. I read How to be a Woman in 2013. Both contain strong messages about feminism and what that means to each individual reader is up to them. Betty Freidan was preaching for woman to dream big and beyond the confines of being a housewife and a mother. Caitlin Moran was preaching (with lots of colourful words) to a new generation of women on taking ownership of our bodies, our minds and our work, whatever that work may be! I am a stay at home mom by choice. I have the privilege to make that choice and I stand on the shoulders of the women who came before me that gave me the right to actually have a choice in this matter and so many others in my life!
"I used my driver's license far more than my degree." I can't disagree with her on this one. I live in an urban setting that requires a vehicle to get around and so yes, I drive a lot. I have also graduated high school and I too spent 6 years in university and have a B.Sc. in Medical Lab Sciences. My years of education taught me many things: how to splice genes, how to diagnose a parasitic infection and how to match someones blood-type for an emergency blood transfusion. It also taught me how to interact with all kinds of people, how to WRITE, how to look at situations critically and analytically, how to manage projects and people and most importantly, it taught me to always have an inquisitive and open mind. My driver's test taught me how to parallel park.
"My kids think I did nothing." OK, I am sorry, I have to get a bit judge-y here. Who's fault is this? Lisa says her kids knew what a job looked like and that she didn't have one. Hmmm... Raising three boys and not helping them to understand that what you are doing as a stay at home mom is indeed a job and a damn valuable one at that is not anyone's fault but her own. Little C and I had this very conversation yesterday when he was about to have a meltdown because I had to go to the bank. We talked about how my job is to look after the family and then we discussed all the different ways that I do that. Daddy may go to an office for his job, but my job is everywhere my family is and without me doing it, things would get really messy around here. And I am not just talking about the piles of laundry!
"My world narrowed." I get this. When your world all of a sudden becomes about the frequency and consistency of someone else's bowel movements, you want to be able to talk to people who are also concerned with these type of things. It makes the experience less isolating and far less scary. I too have made many "mommy" friends in the past six years that I hope to have for many years to come. AND, even though I am still wiping bums at home, I have also started getting myself out there in the world to meet other people too. Multiple events in my city get me out of the comforts of my inner circle and into the far-less-scary-than-I-thought circles of many others. Circles in which the talk is substantially less about poop and more with and about people of all genders and all walks of life lifting each other up and trying to make our world a better place for all of us.
"I got sucked into a mountain of volunteer work." ME TOO! Because, you know what, I too have the time. And for a lot of the volunteer work that I do, I also have the skills (See above, re: my degree). I can also say NO to the things that don't work for me. It's really that simple and the thing with volunteer work is that it is not a job, it is something you do freely, without any expectation of payment or recognition. Some of it sucks (think 6 PM to 3 AM shift at a Casino fundraiser), some of it is ridiculously fun (sitting with 5 year olds making rainbow fossil rubbings) and some of it helps keep great programs and organizations GREAT. You do what you can with your time and skills, say no when it doesn't work for you and make the best out of all of it. Kind of like anything in life!
"I worried more." I don't know about this one. Can anyone really say they worry about their kids more than another parent? It's all rather subjective. I don't think being in their presence makes the worries any less "substantive". If you click on the link to Lisa's Overparenting post, you'll see the lengths to which she has gone in this regard. Would I do anything less? Perhaps not. I am a fan of natural consequences though and eventually some cute girl will comment on how stinky a college boy who doesn't do his own laundry is and that problem will be solved and mama bear will have one less thing to worry about!
"I slipped into a more traditional marriage." I guess this depends on what one means by "traditional". If, like the author, you tend to see things in a very narrow 1950's way with the mom at home and the dad at work, and the division of labour as simple as that, then yes, I suppose that is what happens. What actually happens inside the houses of these traditional looking marriages may be very different. My husband is a very active part of our household maintenance and cleanliness and has changed just as many dirty diapers and wiped as many bums and snotty noses as I have. He is not off the hook from being a parent because his "work day" is over and we divide our household responsibilities based on our strengths and weaknesses. (Apparently, my weakness is my ability to properly clean a toilet. A task I GLADLY gave up! On the other hand, my husband's weakness is shopping in any way , shape or form, and this is something that I am very, VERY good at!)
"I became outdated." I think this is another way of saying "I got old." Sorry hon, it happens to all of us! Our parents got outdated the minute we figured out how to get the damn blinking 12:00 off of the VCR at 7 years old and still have to go over and help them change the message on their answering machines (aka, voicemail) AND remind them that the beeping sound they hear when they are on the phone means that they have call waiting. Technology is moving light years faster than human beings are evolving and it is as inevitable as the laser disc was a bad idea that our children will be more technologically adept than us a some point in our lives. In ten years from now when everyone has an actual EYE phone, I'll be clutching my dear old 4S like it is a long lost lover from my past, while my kids roll their "phones"at me!
"I lowered my sights and lost my confidence." Nothing, and I mean NOT ONE DAMN THING in my life has shaken my confidence in myself like motherhood has. I believe this is what happens when someone else's life is actually in your hands and it takes all the effort one can muster to not totally mess it up! Add to that all the outside pressure that exists for all of us to be "mom enough" or this or that kind of parent and the limited value society as a whole places on motherhood, and really, the cards are quite stacked against us and any self-confidence we may have had. It's why we surround ourselves with others in the same boat. We support each other and we give one another booster shots of confidence when our titres are low.
As for lowering one's sights, I am not sure that is the right way to look at this part of life. I like to think of it more as a matter of changing the line of sight and having different goals for this particular project. It's no longer the corner office and the big fat bonus check that I lean-in to and work for. It's the ridiculously tight full arms and leg hug that I get at the end of a long day letting me know that I rocked it at "work" that day. My bonus check is seeing a big brother help his little sister learn her letters and encouraging her when she is losing her confidence. The payments I receive for my "job" are infinite and for the most part invisible. And the view from my "corner office" (the dining room table) is damn sweet!
One particular line in Lisa's post really struck me and I am not sure what to make of it. At the end she says....
"And despite it being obvious, I did not focus on the inevitable obsolescence that my job as mom held."
Unlike Lisa, I am not at this perceived tail end of motherhood. I feel it is unfair of me to comment on an impending empty nest and lack of marketable skills to re-enter the workforce. I may very well feel her same sense of remorse in 15 years time. I do know one thing though and it is something that my kids and I talk about all the time...
Motherhood is NEVER obsolete!
Natasha~
Outside the adventure zone.
I am not the "play" parent anymore. There, I said it.
I swear it wasn't always like this. I did play with them when they were smaller. A lot. There was painting and puzzles and peekaboo and play dough and all the other play stuff. We would bake cookies and get messy and then all tumble into my big bed for a nap, exhausted and blissful. I used to take pictures all the time, I needed to capture all our silly adventures together. And we had lots of them. Swimming, forest walks, bug hunts, a day at "Fish Mouth", hanging out with Lucy the elephant or howling with the wolves or Gibbon monkeys at the zoo, roaring at dinosaurs at Jurassic Forest. Life with the littles was ridiculously fun!
I am not sure when things changed. Maybe it was when both of them started going to preschool at the same time. And then came the other activities to fill up our days. All of a sudden there were swimming lessons, gymnastics, Sportball, music, dance... All the activities and programs meant to enrich our lives and give my kids new skills and learning experiences. This year it was kindergarten, soccer, school events, and more.
I have became obsessed with our schedules, finding programs that they can both do or at least do at the same time and then getting us from point A to point B to point C and back again. I wait outside their classes with all the other parents or sneak away quickly to grab a coffee or run an errand. Somehow, lost amidst the thrill of them being old enough for "unparented" classes and finding all these great programs and activities, I have become the person outside of the adventures. It is second nature to me now to get them to their classes, find my favourite waiting chair, pop open my phone and entertain myself on social media for 30-45 minutes. Yes, that is right, I am THAT parent. On the phone, with my head phones on, in my own world, separate from the one I have paid a lot of money for my kids to be in.
I am ashamed to admit it, but all of that sitting on the sidelines or in the waiting rooms "unparenting", seems to have seeped into my world at home too. Too often I find myself telling the kids to go play together without me (which they do really, really well) while I sit back and waste time online or busy myself with housework. It took me overhearing a conversation between Little C and his dad last week to make me realize how much this kind of behaviour is affecting my kids.
Dad: "Why are you so upset with Mommy right now?"
Little C: "Because she never wants to play with us anymore and is always chit-chatting or working on her phone."
And there I was, standing around the corner with a laundry basket in my hands and my heart breaking into a thousand pieces.
What have I done? How did I let this happen? And more importantly, how do I change things?
Here is my plan.
It is time to find the FUN again. School is done in less than 2 weeks. We have one bike camp booked and will continue with our swimming lessons throughout the summer, but other than that, we are not enrolled in any other programs. The kids and I are going to make a list. A summer bucket list. A big one we will write out and can put up on the wall, full of all the fun adventures we want to have this summer. And then we are going to do it ALL and I am going to take a LOT of pictures!
Because this tiny bit of disconnection that my child is feeling from me, and to be honest, that I am feeling from my child, I have done this to us. For all the good intentions I have enrolling my kids in extracurricular activities and enriching arts and physical activity programs, somehow in all of it, I have let them down. In my efforts to provide them with new life experiences and skills, I have forgotten the most important one.
Being connected to me and a part of my world.
And the thing is, they are not only a part of my world, they are THE MOST IMPORTANT AND PRECIOUS parts!
So if you'll excuse me, I have some reconnecting to do and a bucket list to make with my children!
Natasha~
P.S. I will post our #summerbucketlist once it is completed (and which will likely be a dynamic one) and we can all have some great adventures this summer! I'd love to hear what's on yours too!
Happy Mother's Day. No, really....
Yes, here it is. The Mother's Day post.
Now before you roll your eyes and click over to some other link, just hold on....
I will not be bombarding you with sappy stories of motherhood and heavily filtered "candid" shots of me kissing my kid through a sheer curtain.
There will be no, "these are the lessons my mother taught me" huge revelations for you to get all teary about.
And I promise not to bore you with a ridiculous list of household chores I wish someone else would take care of for one day.
Nope, none of that here.
What you are going to get is a dose of reality. It may be only MY reality, but I am putting it out there because I am not completely convinced that I am alone in this.
Do you know what I really want for Mother's Day?
NOTHING.
Absolutely nothing.
And NO ONE.
That's right.
I want a full 24 hour coffee break from my job.
This job. Mothering. Being a mom. Mommy, mama, MOMMMMMEEEEEEEEeeeee!
I want a day off. And from this day forward, every year, from now until eternity , that is what I want Mother's Day to be.
This "job" is like no other job ever. You are "at the office" 24-7, 365 days a year (364 if I have anything to say about it). You are on call ALL THE TIME and have to be available for any and all emergencies, from the slightest "I dropped my bottle on the floor" to the more extreme, "This is the school calling, {insert kid name here} fell off the monkey bars and we think something is broken" or even, please let this never happen to me, "Hi Mom, it's me. Can you come and bail me out....". When you are a mom, you can't just pack up and go home and leave your work at the office. There is no logging off for the night or weekend. Your life is your work. And your work is your life.
So for this one day. This overly-commercialized, make-you-feel-guilty-for-not-thanking-your-mom-for-EVERYTHING-she-does, buy-her-some-kind-of-stinky-candle-or-another-tea-mug, day, I say NO THANK YOU.
I do not want any things. I don't want presents or flowers or candles or tea or jewelry or spa shit. Heck, I don't even want a card.
I just want to be left alone.
I want to sleep in a bit and then have a nice long shower and take as long as I damn well please to get ready for my day. And then I want to go out, by myself, for the rest of the day. I want to get a coffee at my favourite cafe. I want to go shopping at all my favourite boutiques. I want to take my dog for a long, leisurely stroll along the river valley, just the two of us. I want to go to my OTHER favourite cafe with my book and my laptop and read and write without a limit on how long I have before I need to get back to anyone. I want to eat a late lunch from a food truck and sit on a park bench while I watch people go about their day. I want to go to a yoga class and not feel rushed to either get there on time or leave to get to somewhere else to pick up someone up. I want to find a patio to sit on and have a few Grey Goose dirty martinis and a plate of nachos with extra guacamole. And then I want to go to a movie, OF MY CHOOSING, with a big bag of popcorn all to myself. I want to check into a boutique hotel and have a long bath and slip into a plush robe, curl up in the big poofy over-pillowed bed and watch all the TV I want.
So yes, for Mother's Day I want to be selfish. I want every hour of that day all to myself.
Because for every other hour of every other day, I can get all the cuddles I want from my kids. I can have as much time as I want playing in the backyard with them. I can get someone to clean my house and yes, I can even get an hour or two to myself (although they are usually at the grocery store). I don't need a special day on the calendar to ENJOY my family.
But for this day, this "Mother's" day, the day created on the calendar by some dude at Hallmark, what this mama really wants, is to ENJOY being with myself and by myself for the day.
A whole day.
ALL..... BY.... MYSELF......
Happy Mother's Day Everyone!
I hope you all get exactly what you want.
Mwauh,
Natasha~
P.S. I just couldn't resist, I love this cover, and I am pretty sure I rocked that hairstyle sometime in the late '80's....
[youtube]http://youtu.be/o22i_gqAf_o[/youtube]
{And actually Celine, I DO wanna be all by myself. At least for this one day...}