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...}
make your bed and be on time
Happiness is a funny thing. Sometimes it hits you just as hard as its arch-nemesis, sadness and/or depression.
And then you don't know what to do about it.
You don't want to talk about it, because then you'll *JINX* it. You don't want to celebrate anything too wildly, because you don't want to seem boastful or like you are rubbing it in anyone's face. And because of the nature of our often cruel and spiteful world, you hold your breath, silently enjoying your happy, while at the same time, constantly looking over your shoulder, waiting for that ominous other shoe to drop.
But why should anyone feel ashamed of being happy? That just seems incredibly counter intuitive to the whole concept.
Yet, there it is.
I'd like to blame the Internet for this shame (or more specifically, Facebook), but that's not quite right. The Internet, for all that we capitalize the word, it not an identity, not a person or persons that we can "blame" for our happiness, our sadness, or any emotion that we feel. The Internet is a means of communicating, of connecting and of sharing information. How we FEEL about that information is completely up to us. We are in charge of our use of it and of how much or how little of it we filter.
Last week, I read about tech journalist Paul Miller's return to the Internet after 365 days offline. I think most people, including Paul, expected this grand epiphany to occur during his time away from the digital world. He left the internet to find the 'Real Paul', because he thought that being online had somehow 'corrupted' him. What he in fact ended up realizing was not quite what he had in mind.
What I do know is that I can't blame the internet, or any circumstance, for my problems. I have many of the same priorities I had before I left the internet: family, friends, work, learning. And I have no guarantee I'll stick with them when I get back on the internet — I probably won't, to be honest. But at least I'll know that it's not the internet's fault. I'll know who's responsible, and who can fix it.
Right now, at this moment in my life, I am happier than I have been in months.
Life does not feel overwhelming to me right now. Maybe it is because I have slowed down and am paying closer attention to the little things more. Maybe it's because I am paying someone a crap-load of money to let me cry buckets in her office and leave all of the sadness there before our time is up. Maybe it's because I have FINALLY realized that flying by the seat of one's pants is not always the best way to go about one's life, especially when you are the one responsible for other, smaller people's lives as well.
I believe that a strange combination of a lot of little things has added up to me being a happier, more calm, more zen version of me than I have ever been before. Some of these things may seem silly, but here are just a few examples of what makes me feel happy these days.
All the beds are made every morning in our house. I never thought of unmade beds as a big deal before. We were just going to go to sleep in them again in 12-16 hours, so why bother making them? Well, I am here to tell you that it does make a difference. A made bed looks better, it makes you feel ORGANIZED and it gives you a good jumping off point in the mornings. And why spend all that money on a fancy duvet cover only to crumple it up in a ball every day?
Being on time. For those of you who don't know me very well, punctuality is NOT one of my virtues. It's a running joke within my family that I am told to arrive at least 30 minutes before the actual start time for any important events. My clock in my car is set 17 minutes ahead for the same reason. It got to the point that the one time a few months ago when we were early for an appointment and I mentioned this to the kids, my son looked at me and said, "Mom, what does early mean?" I vowed then and there to change that and for the most part, I have. Now he asks me if we are going to be TOO early everywhere we go.
Date nights. My husband and I have always had date nights, but we used to fill them with things to do. We would go to a movie or shop or stroll through Ikea or go for a drive. Date nights now are dinner at a new restaurant we haven't tried before. They are a minimum of three hours long and we eat wonderful food and we TALK. We talk about our life, we talk about others, we discuss plans for the future, we people watch and and *sometimes* we make up funny stories about the folks at the next table. We sit across the table and give each other our undivided attention. It's not just about getting out of the house and away from the kids, it's about growing together and discovering all over again why we love each other so much. And... *ahem*... all that intellectual stimulation makes for great foreplay!
No more Facebook. I know it seems silly and according to Paul, was not what was making him unhappy, but for me, not engaging on Facebook has somehow given me a release from something that was holding me back. I can't quite articulate what that something was just yet, but I do know that it is not there anymore. I admit that I do creep on FB sometimes and have to keep my account active to manage the page for the Natural Urban Mamas community, but I do not LIKE or COMMENT on anything. It simply doesn't seem genuine to me anymore and although I can see and love all the new baby/new house/new car/fabulous vacations that you are all posting about, I really would rather we went for coffee or I popped over to see you and the baby/house/car/pictures in person.
Losing the fear of just being ME. The other day, my good friend Jen Banks asked me to present an award at The Yeggies, a celebration of all the local and amazing social media folks in my fair city. I was thrilled to do so and immediately said yes. The wonderful Tanis Miller won for Best in Family and Parenting and it was an honour to present the woman who inspired me to blog this well-deserved award. Afterwards someone asked me if I was scared speaking in front of a room full of so many people. I said no, not at all. I may have been nervous right before I hit the stage, but I was not afraid. A few weeks ago, I changed my Twitter handle from @SAHFeminist to @NatashaChiam. And while it is a bit scary to put one's REAL name out there for all the Internet to see, it felt right. Just like being up on a stage with a microphone in front of me does.
It's a strange thing to be fearless. I don't think that it means to fear nothing. That would just be silly, because if a tiger escaped from the zoo and made its way to my back yard, trust me, there would be FEAR (and possibly some soiled underpants as well). I think fearless means to be brave and the dictionary defines brave as "being able to face fear and danger without flinching." *I* say being brave and fearless means being able to face LIFE without flinching.
And in that regard, I believe that fearlessness is a direct line to happiness. If we can face our lives without flinching, if we can own who we are, the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, and if we can do so honestly, than one day, without you even seeing it coming, HAPPINESS is going to come right up to you, smack you in the face and say,
HA!!
GOTCHA!!
Natasha~
Photo Credit: Sparklerawk on Flickr
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What about you? How do you define happiness? Or fearlessness?
Everyone needs a good coach in their life...
I have Jessica Zapata of Infinite Fitness. And she is going to help me to LOSE....
A LOT!
Food.
Jessica has told me for years now that in order to lose weight, it doesn’t really matter how much I work out, if I don’t change my eating habits, it will be all for naught.
And so here is where I get to tell you that I have some pretty bad eating habits.
Not so bad that I am putting junk food in my mouth every chance I get and hitting the McD’s drive-thru every other day, but bad enough that I don’t even think I realize how detrimental all the “little” things that I do are to my body and my health and fitness goals.
What are all these little things you ask?
Well, first of all, I eat fast. I have two kids who are in two different schools and also in various activities across the city and in order to get to where we need to be at whatever time we need to be there, MY meals tend to be rushed and not really MEALS at all. A banana here, a handful of carrots there, whatever the kids don’t eat off of their plates or whatever I can grab to eat in the car. Trust me folks, a grande skinny vanilla latte and honey-glazed almonds do not a good breakfast make.
Hitting {my} milestones
***As I was cleaning up my ridiculous draft folder full of half-written, what the heck was I thinking, random thoughts posts and I came across this one. I wrote it more than a year ago and can’t for the life of me figure out why I never hit publish on it.
So here you go… Oh and look at how LONG my hair was!!!***
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Milestones.
We all have them.
Your first tooth.
Your first haircut.
Your first step.
Your first day of school.
Your first kiss.
High School Graduation.
Your first REAL job!
Your first time.
Your first vote.
Your first love.
Your first car. (Note to the guys that this is not the same as the milestone above!)
And all of a sudden you are a full-fledged adult.
You have a job, bills to pay, an apartment to clean, friends you can count on and perhaps someone special to love as well.
Your life is all before you and is really is your oyster!
You have dreams of your life and what you want it to look like....
You hit another major life milestone, turn thirty and there it all is laid out before you.
The career that gives you freedom and power and travel and perks and one heck of a nice salary.
The man who will sweep you off your feet and be the one who stands so far out of the crowd that you can't help but fall in love with him.
The perfect wedding in the mountains, surrounded by so many that love you.
The starter home that you build together.
The trips and travelling that will take you to amazing and exotic places.
The beautiful babies your love will create.
When I hit my 30th birthday I was excited. I had all of these amazing life experiences to look forward to.
The past 10 years have been the most fulfilling, challenging, character developing ones of my existence. They have {re} defined me as a woman, a wife, a mother, a sister and a daughter.
If you asked 30-year old me what 40-year old me would look like or be doing with her life, I am pretty sure THIS would not be it.
Not that what I am doing is a bad thing, just probably not what the newly-engaged, childless, career-focused, younger me would have envisioned.
I would have never seen myself being a stay-at-home mom. I didn't have one, so I just sort of thought I would never be one.
I would never in a million years have seen myself as a breastfeeding, natural birthing, babywearing, attachment parenting advocate. It's was not what I was brought up with or witnessed growing up and really, who ever REALLY thinks about all of these things before they even get pregnant. I assure you I did not!
I never imagined I would leave a career that I fought for and worked so hard at. One that gave me such satisfaction and great opportunities for moving up in the corporate world. I had my palms read sometime in my twenties and at that time the reader told me that I would always be a 'career' woman. I truly believed her. I guess I just ended up choosing a different kind of career.
Why all this retrospection you ask?
Last week I read a post by a mama on Twitter about her thoughts on turning 30 and it got me thinking about how our lives are so much the same yet so much different. A lot of what she has accomplished before her 30's, I did IN my thirties. I really do think it was my best decade. I entered it in 2002 a very different woman than the one I was when I exited it in 2011. I GREW so much in those 10 years. I also happened to grow people in those years and I know that those two amazing events accounted for a lot of the growth in me.
On January 1st of 2012, I hit yet another major life milestone.
I turned forty.
Up to that point I had all these thoughts of what this year would be like for me.
I wanted to have a BIG Birthday party to celebrate, but in the end, it just didn't really happen and I let the day come and go without it being a big deal.
I have been wanting to write about my year of being 40 here on the blog, sort of like what @CoffeewithJulie did for her 40th with her #MonthofMe posts in October 2011. You know, a diary of sorts letting you all know how wonderful it is and how yes, of course 40 is the new 20. (Side note: Can someone PLEASE tell me what that means? Because I may have done some things in my 20's that I am not overly proud of and could seriously not even attempt at this point in my life without a paramedic crew waiting in the wings!!)
My sweet dear husband has indulged my desires to make this the year of me and on the 1st of every month, he has been making me AWESOME cards and giving me a small present. He has been calling this year the "10th Anniversary of my 30th Birthday!" And man, do I ever love him for all that he is doing to make this year easy on me and so special. But I think herein lies the crux of my problem with forty so far.
I can't continue on like this, trying to relive or dwell on my past and think that my thirties where my best decade. I may be getting old{er}, but in this thing called LIFE, I am a far cry from DONE! If my thirties where so much better than my twenties, then what is stopping my forties from being that much more than my thirties?
Aside from myself that is....
You see, I may be having somewhat of a mid-life crisis right now. Okay fine, crisis may be too strong a word. Let's call it a mid-life, "oh-my-god-what-do-I-do-now?" moment. I really am having a tough time setting, or even figuring out what my life goals are right now.
The last ten years have been filled with so many goals and projects and such that I just kept going and going. Marry the boy, have the babies, build the houses, build the business, build a brand, be a baby mommy, plan the holidays, meals, activities, school, etc... It has all been so very non-stop. Until now.
The business was closed. The dream home was built. The babies are growing up {way too fast for my liking} and everything is good.
But...
If you asked me for my five year plan or that ever annoying "where do you see yourself in 5-10 years" question, you would get a big ol' blank stare from me. Because I really DON'T KNOW.
Now, I am not saying that everyone needs to have a very set and specific life plan, but it helps to have some goals and aspirations right?
I bought this back book in January and must have packed it away shortly thereafter. Looks like it might be high time to crack this baby open and figure out what exactly it is I want to do with the rest of my life!
I do know one thing for sure. My 40's are not going to be like my 20's or my 30's... they are going to better.
That is a goal right?
Natasha~
On motherhood: the ultimate vulnerability.
I had coffee with a friend the other day. A pregnant friend who is in that "second-trimester, starting to feel uncomfortable in her own changing body, slightly grumpy about the restrictions it is placing on her" friend. We are relatively new friends (and yes, we did "meet" via social media), but our stories are quite similar. She could be me seven years ago. A woman in her mid-30's with a burgeoning career, life experiences and accomplishments that she is proud of and someone who is pretty sure of who she is in this world.
And she is afraid.
Afraid of what becoming a mother means.
Afraid of losing herself to this new role in her life.
Afraid of following in the footsteps of the mothers in her life, who became wholly consumed by motherhood and whom she feels lost all of who they were before then.
So I told her what motherhood did for me as a woman.
I told her that becoming a mother has taught me more about being a woman and has opened me up more to the world around me than any other life experience I have ever had.
And then she looked at me with the wide-eyed look of someone whose fears had just been confirmed!
So for my friend, and for everyone else who may have these fears about motherhood and losing themselves in it, I felt the need to explore this more. This is what I have come up with...
~~~~~~~~~~
You can read every "what to expect" pregnancy and new baby book on the library shelves, watch every TLC show about babies and childbirth, listen to all your friends tell you all their tips and tricks for being a new mom, and it won't matter one bit. The minute you have a child, the moment you open your eyes after that last big push, or you finally hold your baby in your arms after a long adoption wait, or you wake up after your c-section to see your baby sleeping cuddled with your partner in one of those uncomfortable hospital chairs... you have new eyes.
And they see everything differently.
All of a sudden, everything takes on a slightly different tinge, has a more sweeping scope, uses a different filter.
I was not a "natural urban" anything before I had kids. I was Natasha, and all I really had to worry about was me. Yes, I was married and we were (and are) a great team and we were as inseparable then as we are now, but my life really was primarily about me. My career, my promotions, my wants, my needs, my whims...
When we started planning a family, in that plan was me going back to work after six months, a list of recommended daycares and day homes and a career to get back to ASAP. We decided to start "trying" in earnest after a trip to Tanzania in 2005 and we got pregnant within three months. All was going according to the plan.
Half-way through my second trimester, all the shit hit all the fans!! I had dangerously high blood pressure. I was admitted to hospital within an hour of a routine OB appointment and 24 hours later we were having a discussion of "fetal viability" with a neonatologist.
THIS WAS NOT IN THE PLAN PEOPLE!!
We had to make some big decisions. I had to take a medical leave from work immediately and was kept in hospital for two weeks. After I was finally allowed to go home, our life became about daily Non-Stress Tests (which is a really ironic name for them by the way!), weekly ultrasounds, perinatologist appointments and ultimately full bed-rest. We lived each week holding our breath until after the ultrasound to hear whether or not our baby would have to be delivered then or if he would get another week to grow and develop in utero.
Maybe it was because my "vision" changed earlier than some. Maybe it was because I "saw" my baby every week from 26 weeks until 3 days before his birth through the lens of the ultrasound wand. Maybe because I had to read different kinds of "what to expect" books (ie, what to expect in the NICU, how to care for a premature baby, what long term complications we might encounter, etc...). Whatever the case, from that first moment of panic, nothing in my life was about ME anymore.
And here is the plain truth of it all.
Yes, motherhood is an all-encompassing endeavour and yes, one does become consumed by it, but in my opinion, that is more biology than it is sociology. A human child needs its mother to survive. She provides it with warmth, love, nourishment, protection. Our bodies and the systems within them, adjust to the post-natal state and function perfectly to do all of this. A mother and child will breath in sync while sleeping together, a baby will imprint on the mother's scent and will be primarily soothed by her nearness. The hormones released by both mother and child during breastfeeding, not only serve to perpetuate this amazing feedback loop of supply and demand, they also provide both with a sense of calm and an endorphin rush of happy. In essence the mother and child are really just two parts of one beautiful and biological machine of great complexity. It does no one any good, especially mothers, to fight that part of our nature.
I did not and I do not see this initial all-consuming part of motherhood as a surrendering of one's self. I see it more as an opportunity to explore a deeper part of one's self that has not been readily evident before. Motherhood teaches us the true inventory of our bodies, our minds and our souls. Motherhood made me look very closely at every aspect of my life. From the obvious ones, like getting the safest car seat and making sure I knew how to install it properly and using non-VOC paint when decorating his room, to farther reaching environmental issues like choosing to cloth diaper and researching every product that touched his tiny little body. I was relentless in all of this and I spent hours on parenting forums (remember those days?). I was a sponge for all things mothering. I wanted to be GOOD at this. Really, really, good!
What I discovered through all of this was that in order to be 'good' at it, I had to let go. Let go of plans, of schedules, of ridiculous expectations (both mine and those of others), of doing things a certain way without exception. This was hard for me. I am a creature of habit and I like a certain amount of order in my life. Having children has taught me that sometimes a nap is just as important, if not more so, than a shower some days. It has taught me that what I say and do with my children and to my children is going to have a lasting impact on them and therefore on this world. It has made me so much more aware of global reproductive rights and how much work there is to be done right here in our own back yards, let alone across the globe. It has made me painfully aware of all of the misinformation that exists in our world with regards to both breastfeeding and formula feeding. Motherhood opened me up to the most amazing parenting practice ever - babywearing. And through babywearing, motherhood made me an entrepreneur. Motherhood made me an advocate for women and in turn a voice for many... and yes, it made me an ACTIVIST and a FEMINIST too.
Some would look at my life and say that I have indeed surrendered my former self to motherhood. I mean, look at me, I am a stay-at-home mom, I drive a micro-van, I arrange play-dates and go to yoga while my kids are in school. AND I did some of those "extreme" parenting things too, like extended breastfeeding, elimination communication and co-sleeping. Oh, and I have a blog too! They might as well slap a MOMMY sticker right on my forehead and move on to the next person in line to ask what they "do" for a living. It's got the be way more interesting that motherhood, right?
To these people, I would say look closer. Motherhood has opened my eyes to a world far beyond my front door. Seriously people, giving birth (without drugs to boot!) is an experience that tests you both mentally and physically, and I passed that test. TWICE. There is nothing I can't do now! The world has opened up to me, and not just because of the internet (although it has helped immensely), but because I have let so much more of it in! My children are going to inherit this world after me and I will do my part, however small it may be, to ensure that not only is it a better one for them, but that they in turn will see my example and want to make it an even better world for their children.
You know that iceberg picture that everyone shows at every presentation you have ever been too? (Go here to see the one I am talking about). I think of that image when I reflect on my life. I was the tip of the iceberg before I was a mother. Like my pregnant friend, I had a full life, I had adventures, I had a career, I was proud of what I had accomplished and felt I was a valuable, contributing member of society. Motherhood didn't make me forget about all that, nor do I think that it consumed me. Motherhood just opened up my life to boundless possibilities and to the depths of my mind and my soul that existed below the surface. It has made me grow and has pushed me and made me take risks and venture far out of my confort zone way more than anything else in my life. Motherhood has made me accept my vulnerabilities as a human being and see them not as a weakness of character, but as a path to create more goodness, more beauty and more LOVE in my world.
In a nutshell (and 1700 words later-Ha!), motherhood was the beginning of my legacy. I have actually birthed three babies that will live on after me and carry a part of me with them always and forever. My son with his thirst for knowledge and attention to detail, my daughter with her quirky sense of humour and love of all living things, and finally my writing. My story... their story...
My evolution as a mother
and as a woman.
Both sides of the same coin.
And as I have learned, it serves no one to fear or resist either one!
natasha~
Cookies before dinner.
You tell yourself you are just going to try it. To see what all the fuss is about. I mean its free, right? So there is no harm done there and besides, all your friends are trying it too.
It's pretty fun actually. You have a good time, play some silly vampire vs werewolf games, find out your stripper name, poke some people, catch up with old friends and even find some new ones.
You start doing it more and more. You start adding pictures of your life. What you made for dinner, what you did that day, funny shots of the kids. You like more of your friend's stuff and your 'friends' like your stuff too. Soon you are sharing all kinds of things with all of these friends. Things that you like and things that you think they will like too. And they do, they really, really like YOU and all your things!
This all starts to feel really good. Whenever you share a picture or a status or a post, it gets liked and then YOU feel good and popular and LIKED. And repeat
and repeat
and repeat.
.
.
.
.
And then one day, somewhere between a healthy dose of keeping in touch with friends, obsessive ranting about EVERYTHING, and scrolling through your timeline to like as much as you can and see how many likes you have that day, it somehow becomes more important to constantly update your Facebook status and check on all your "friends", than it is to actually spend time with the real live people in your life.
.
.
.
This is your wake up call....
for you and your kids!
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This past weekend I attended a lecture by Dr. Gordon Neufeld on Raising Children in a Digital World. My friend Nancy has been bugging me for years to go to one of his talks and I finally listened to her.
Dr. Neufeld is a clinical psychologist and the author of the wonderful parenting book, Hold On to Your Kids. If this book is not in your possession yet, then I highly recommend it (just maybe wait for the updated edition coming out this summer). Dr. Neufeld's research and field of study is that of human attachment and how this affects development in our children. His book is all about why parents need to matter to our kids more so than their peers and his theories and practical application of them is even more relevant in the bright lights of the digital revolution than ever before.
Dr. Neufeld started his talk with a quote from Marshal McCluhan, who said that for every tool of the media that extends our reach (and I guess that would include social media these days), there is an equal and proportional amputation of something else.
What I learned at Dr. Neufeld's talk is that we, the parents of all of these "digital native" kids, are quite possibly that "something else" at risk of being amputated from our kids lives!
In his book and in his lectures, Dr. Neufeld talks about a phenomenon he calls peer orientation. Simply put, this means that children become more attached to their peers than to their parents or the adults responsible for them.
Attachment is the most significant and pre-eminent need of human beings. We need to connect with each other. This is true of the newborn baby needing closeness and proximity to their mothers and it is also true for the toddler who is having a complete temper tantrum and needs a hug far more than he needs a time-out. It is true for the teenager who is desperately looking to belong and to simultaneously be their own individual and it may very well be true of the grown-up on Facebook, trying to make connections with people who are like her, who understand her, and who can validate her life.
So what does this all mean? What are we, the parents, to do in this digital age when our kids have such easy access to their peers practically 24/7?
We can't turn back the clocks and take away all the digital media in our lives, so how do we make sure that it is not RUNNING or RUINING our lives and the lives of our children?
Dr. Neufeld gave a very simple analogy at his talk that made everything so very clear to me.
Cookies.
Yes, cookies.
Cookies are delicious treats and everyone likes them.
BUT...
There is an optimal time for cookies.
If we eat cookies before we eat dinner, than we will ruin our appetites for the real meal that fills us up with all the vitamins and nutrients that our body needs to grow and stay healthy.
In the digital world, cookies are the internet and all it's fudgeo, marshmallow-y, gooey chocolate chip fillings!
The cookies he is talking about refers to any form of digital media - Facebook, texting, gaming, Instagram or the new and in my opinion, kinda sketchy, Snapchat. The MEAL is the attachment we have with our children, our connection to the people in our lives that are closest to us. We need to fill our children with a good healthy meal of attachment, of love and trust and respect (for self and for others) before we let them out into the digital world to have cookies.
And even then, when we do let them out into that world, we have to make sure that they are not INGESTING more cookies (information) than they can actually DIGEST. This can be a tricky thing to figure out and is probably different for every kid, but one thing is certain, we are putting these devices into the hands of our kids, giving them unlimited access to all of this information and education, and what we are failing to realize is that they are then re-purposing them as a means of connection and attachment. If we are not filling them up with that kind of connection with US, that sense of belonging and sameness, then all we are doing is sending them out into this world hungry for those connections and that intimacy.
And intimacy they will find online. IN SPADES. It will be a superficial kind of connection though, one that is empty and does not actually provide any kind of lasting fulfilment. Just like cookies. They are delicious, but they don't fill you up properly and in an hour, you are just hungry for more cookies.
At the halfway mark of Dr. Neufeld's talk, I literally grabbed my head and gave it a shake, because what he was saying just then, quite literally BLEW MY MIND!!
He was talking about his sabbatical in a small town in Provence, France and how he coud not figure out why he and his wife where not getting good service from the local merchants in town. It wasn't until a resident told him that he was being "barbaric" in his interactions with people, that he understood the problem. He had not been making eye contact, getting a smile and a nod from the town merchants, before launching into his needs or wants from them. In other words, he was not using basic manners for human discourse! It wasn't until they understood this concept of "collecting", this face-to-face setting of the stage for human interaction, that things started to turn around for them in town.
Now take this concept and apply it to FACEBOOK!
There is no 'collecting' in social media. There is no eye contact, no smiling, no acknowledgment of 'Yes, I SEE you, I KNOW you.' Basic manners and rules of human interaction have left the building people! Trust me, I've been in one too many Facebook "conversations" to know that this is precisely the case. Digital intimacy is EMPTY because this simple attachment invitation does not get across. Nowadays parents, not only do we need to talk to our kids about unsafe intercourse, we have to talk to our children about the dangers of UNSAFE DISCOURSE!
Dr. Neufeld points out that the consequences of this kind of empty digital intimacy can be just as devastating for our children:
- it spoils the appetite for true intimacy and meaningful connection
- it takes them away from their parents who are meant to be their 'answers'
- it fuels obsessions and addictions (new research from Germany shows that digital addictions are more addictive than cigarettes and alcohol)
- the preoccupation arrests the maturing process, rendering them stuck in immaturity
- and ironically, it increases feelings of loneliness and frustration
And really, it's not just our kids who are in danger here. These kinds of empty and superficial connections are affecting grown-ups as well and perhaps this is the real danger. If we are spoiling our own appetites for meaningful connections, if we are not being fulfilled in our own relationships and are depending more and more on superficial ones via social media, than how on earth are we to be the example for our children and show them how to foster proper human attachments?
I went home Sunday night with my mind abuzz with so many swirling thoughts about my own dependency on social media, and what and how I can keep that attachment component of parenting alive within my life and with my family. The concept of attachment seems so easy when they are babies. You just keep them close to you physically. Wear them, breastfeed them, sleep with them - Easy peasy, lemon squeazy as my kids like to say!
The real challenge of parenting comes as they get older, as they start to learn that they are not the same as us and as they start to emerge as their own separate beings, with their own ideas and thoughts and intentions. This emergence does not signify a release from us and from attachment. It means that we need to work harder to keep those attachments viable, even when we are apart. BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT ATTACHMENT MEANS! It is EXACTLY about how to stay close, especially when we are apart.
We wonder all the time "what is wrong with kids these days?" Where is the empathy? Where are their manners? Where or when or how did things get so messed up?
You don't have to look far to figure some of this out. Dr. Neufeld points out that we are routinely use a child's need for proximity against them. We use time-outs for discipline, we do "123 Magic", we shun them when they misbehave and do the one thing that is the polar opposite of attachment and we send them away from our presence. We also use the things that children are attached to against them - do this or that/don't do this or that or I will take away your lovey, your soother, your leap-pad, your phone, MYSELF. This is a dangerous game we are playing, parents, and we are the ones courting a lack of attachment and empathy because of it.
But fear not! All is not lost and we CAN still make a difference for our little digital natives!
Dr. Neufeld finished his lecture with some key tools and behaviours for moving forward and parenting in this digital world of ours.
He says that we need to:
- Believe that we are what our children need (and not just as babies and toddlers, but well into the teenage years).
- Invite dependence in other ways. No one can compete with Google, so share something that only you can teach them, be it cooking, wood-working, drawing... Whatever it is, invite your kids into your world and give them a legacy that is from you and only you.
- Create rituals and rules that safeguard healthy attachment. Make family meals a priority, have a game night with no electronics, have weekly or monthly family date night, vacations together, etc...
- "immunize" our children by fulfilling their attachment hunger. Don't let them out into the world hungry and looking to fill up on cookies, because they will find them, they always do!
- Be the example for our children and take the lead with our own use of digital technology.
We all know that being a parent is a tough job. Throw the digital revolution into the mix and things just get that much more complicated. We can't stop our kids from being a part of the revolution, but we can equip them for it. And I don't mean by getting everyone their very own laptop, iPad, iPod, smart phone and Facebook account.
We must equip them with the knowledge of our love, our trust, and our respect, and by fulfilling their need for attachment TO US! So that when they are out there navigating their way through the digital world and they get lost, they always know where and who to come back to to reset the compass.
And you know what, we should probably put that jar of cookies away from us for a time too...
Natasha~
Photo credit: Henriksnet's Photo from Flickr, used under Creative Commons licence.
one year later. After the Mirena break up.
I feel like it is time for a follow up post about my Mirena experience. My original post receives between 700-1100+ visits daily and has generated over 200 comments from women from all over the world who have shared their own, sometimes very personal, struggles and experiences with this supposed innocuous form of birth control. I appreciate each and every one of these women for sharing their stories, for listening to their gut and for persevering for answers when they were not getting any from their health care professionals. It is proving difficult to answer every single comment, but there are some common questions within a good majority of them that I feel like I can answer, at least from my perspective and from my experiences at this point, one year post-Mirena. The dreaded "Mirena Crash".
Before I had my IUD removed, I too did a lot of research and reading on the Internet and the number one thing you hear about is the Mirena crash. This plummet in hormones can cause all kinds if symptoms ranging from general malaise and feeling unwell to outright rage, depression and severe mood swings. It seems to last for about a week in its most severe form and then tapers off. Thankfully, I do not believe that I suffered through any major crash after my removal and I honestly started feeling better within days of having it out.
Bleeding.
I did have some removal bleeding initially the first night and into the next day. It was very bright red, and I admit that after 3 years of not seeing that kind of blood with my 'sort of" periods, I was a bit concerned. Turns out that it really was nothing that a couple of sturdy panty liners couldn't handle and it stopped after that second day.
A return to normal menstrual cycles.
Since that initial visit from Aunt Flo 5 weeks after I had the Mirena removed, my periods have been like clockwork. I have a pretty nice 28 day cycle and a 3.5 day period. And all I use during that time is my Diva cup. THAT IS IT! I can't complain about anything on this front. I feel like a normal woman and aside from the fact that I think I may be a bit peri-menopausal now and experiencing an increase in emotional PMS symptoms, I feel good about all of it.
Hair loss.
The hair loss that I was experiencing while I had the Mirena was REE - diculous!! I would run my fingers through my hair in the shower every morning and they would come out completely COVERED in strands of my hair. Normal daily hair loss for women is between 50-100 strands a day, with new ones growing almost immediately to replace the ones lost. I estimate (based on what I removed in the shower and what I swept up off the bathroom floor every other day) that I was losing about triple this amount EVERY DAY. Luckily I have a lot of hair to begin with and wasn't noticing any balding patches, but I do know that some women are not that lucky. In my opinion, I believe I am back down to a normal hair loss pattern and did notice this difference within about 4 months post-removal.
Weight loss.
I'd love to tell you all that I had the Mirena removed and magically dropped 20 pounds. Alas, this did not happen. Unlike some of the brave women who have posted their stories and comments on the original post, I did not have a huge amount of weight gain while on Mirena. What I did have was an inability to LOSE any weight even with a pretty strict fitness routine and a healthy, balanced diet. One year after my Mirena removal and four months since I stopped nursing my daughter and finally, that extra 10-15 pounds of what I liked to call my "Milk Reserves" is slowly starting to come off.
EXTREME fatigue.
This was one of the side effects that disappeared the fastest. I went from not being able to keep my eyes open while DRIVING and absolutely NEEDING to nap every day, to sleeping better at night (no more night sweats either) and having more energy throughout the day. I am serious people, the level of fatigue I was experiencing was dangerous. I would literally fall asleep at red lights and I even think I somehow fell asleep with my eyes open a couple of times and jerked "AWAKE" just in time to avoid crashing the car with all of us in it.
Libido.
It's BAAA-aaack. And it was relatively soon after removal. The fact that I was not feeling like I could literally fall asleep at any given minute of any day had a lot do do with that. I had ENERGY again. To be with him, to care about my sensual and sexual needs again and to want to just get it ON! Now don't get me wrong, we are still a busy family with a lot going on in our lives and some nights I am thoroughly exhausted and it's a quick peck on the cheek and lights out, but now, I at least have my DESIRE back. While on the Mirena, it was as if that part of me was completely removed from my mind. And I am kind of a sexy beast, so this was very troubling for me! ;)
Abdominal Pain, Bloating, Cramping.
I am very happy to say that since my Mirena removal I have not had one bout of the severe abdominal cramping and the excruciating pain that was a monthly occurrence with it in. As it turns out, I do not have ovarian cysts, I do not have appendicitis or endometriosis and I do not have ridiculous levels of noxious gas in my bowels! Whether my doctor agrees with me or not, I truly believe that I had a device in my body that was poisoning me.
...................
The one thing that has bothered me the most about all of the comments and stories that have been shared with this post, is the fact that so many women (including myself) have had to FIGHT with their healthcare providers to be heard, to be believed and to have this device removed from their own bodies . This speaks volumes to me about the state of our society, where a woman's voice and decisions about her body own are constantly questioned, where the simplest answer is not even considered and where women are being bombarded with more and more medications to treat what may actually be the side effects of what is considered a fairly benign medication.
So benign in fact that last September, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology made this statement in their Committee Opinion on Adolescent Health Care:
"Increasing adolescent access to long-acting reversible contraceptives is a clinical and public health opportunity for obstetrician-gynecologists. With top-tier effectiveness, high rates of satisfaction, and no need for daily adherence, long-acting reversible contraceptive methods should be first-line recommendations for all women and adolescents."
And while I understand that the issue that the College was addressing was the increasing rate of unwanted teen pregnancies, I wonder at the long-term effects of this kind of contraception (hormonal IUDs) on these teenage girls still developing bodies and hormonal systems. Will these long-acting contraceptive methods affect their future ability to conceive? We don't know the answers to these questions and I for one don't think it is a risk that I would want to take with my teenage daughter.
Of the 218 comments that have been shared on the original post, there are maybe 5 that reflect a positive Mirena experience. Granted, most women who find my post are doing so by using search terms like "Mirena IUD" and "Mirena side effects" (my post is second only to the official Mirena website on a Google search), the statistics of this small sample population make me feel very good about my decision to remove my IUD and return to a normal menstrual cycle. I am glad that my post has been helpful for so many women and I am grateful for all the shared stories. I feel for each and every one of you who have suffered so much because of this teeny tiny not-so-innocent device.
I can not tell anyone what to do in any given situation, even though a lot of you have asked. I can only tell you to trust your gut, trust your body, and TRUST yourself. If this form of birth control is causing you more problems than it is worth, than try to find an alternative. (For anyone wondering, my husband and I are condom users and NO, he still has not booked his vasectomy!) And if your health care provider is not listening to you, find one who will.
I have one last thing to say to those of you who have decided to have your IUD removed. Please don't let your family doctor or OB/GYN tell you that you shouldn't have it removed or make a big deal about the removal or tell you to go to the doctor who inserted it. If the strings are visible and reachable with a simple pelvic exam, then removal is a 10 second procedure that requires nothing more than a speculum and some medical tweezers. It pinches a bit, but if you have had babies already, well,... enough said.
I hope this follow-up post about my experience with Mirena proves as helpful as the first one has been. I am very happy that one year later, I can say without a doubt, that life has been a lot better since I broke up with my Mirena IUD.
Take care of yourselves ladies,
Natasha~
the ordinary life of a {closet} loner
This is what I love doing. I am sitting alone at one end of a dining room table that can easily sit 10-12 people. A cup of tea to my right and the Tar Beach Lullabies playlist from Songza playing on my iPad to my left and my sleeping pup at my feet (keeping them warm). The lights are mostly off and I am writing by the glow of my laptop and the still light dusk of a Northern Alberta spring night.
Today, I took my children to a birthday party at one of those jumpy castle play place establishments that are all the rage these days. I knew most of the parents and kids at the party and while it was nice to visit with everyone, I felt this strange urge to escape from this social situation. I wanted to hightail it out of there and run off for the two hours of the party, or at least plunk myself down in a corner and read a book, or pull out my iPad and get lost in the long list of Favourited links from my Twitter stream. I did manage to escape for about 45 minutes and ran a few errands (ie, went to Anthropologie and bought a new top. Shopping, also something that I love to do by myself.)
I know this is going to sound a bit crazy to those of you who know me, but I think I am a bit of a loner.
I sometimes dream of being that woman who hosts perfect big dinner parties or the one who has that group of Ya-Ya Sisterhood friends that meet on a regular basis and tell each other everything and know all of each others secrets - the good, the bad and the ugly. I dream of going on holidays with another family (or families) that we are so close to, our kids are more like brothers and sisters than friends. I think that these are the things that I should be dreaming about.
I just don't know if I am that person.
In one week, we will have been in our Natural Urban Home for exactly one year and we have yet to have an official house warming party. To be perfectly honest, I have only had a handful of friends over and never all at once. I am not ashamed of my house at all, it's just the opposite. I love this place so much and we worked so hard to make it 100% us and ours, that sometimes it feels strange to have other people here. And it's not just me, my husband has always been one to consider his home his sanctuary from the world and on any given day, my kids are usually 70/30 when it comes to going home to play or going out. This is our centre, our starting point and our end every day and walking through our door often feels like exhaling after having held one's breath for a long time.
Now, I know what you are all thinking, "Natasha, you are not a loner. We've seen you work a room! Your the most social of the social butterflies!" I won't deny that I feed off of the energy in a room and yes, I do like to be social, but at most events that I attend I am just that, a butterfly, flitting from one conversation to another, stopping in for a sip of the nectar from this group and then flying off to the next. I know why I seem like the social, extroverted one. I know the reason behind my flitting about and social insect behaviours.
I fear depth.
I fear that if I spend too much time with people, that they will see deeper into the real me and then not really want to be around me. And I can feel it. I can physically feel the wall that I put up when things get serious. It's both a defence mechanism and a protective shield. I am defending myself from the inside out and protecting myself from any {perceived} attack from afar. If she could, my therapist would tell you that this all goes back to my very early childhood and my feelings of never being good enough, of always being an outsider, of always dealing better with other people's feelings and problems than facing my own. This all makes me think that perhaps then my home, my concrete walled home, and the sense of relief I feel when I walk through it's doors, is a physical manifestation of this fear.
Commander Chris Hadfield of the Iternational Space Station, tweeted this photo and caption today.
That is how I feel some days, like mostly liquid rock covered by a thin crust. For the most part I can control the hot spots and keep everyone {including myself} safe and sound on the surface. If anyone tries to crack that surface though, my biggest fear it that it is gonna get really ugly. Everyone will see the messy, not so pretty parts of me, and will head off running in the other direction. I know that this is not likely true of most people and that I should give folks more credit, but hey, it's fear! It messes with our minds!
I also saw this tweet from Maria at @boredmommy earlier tonight. It is what sparked this rambling train of thought and post.
I thought about this and then came to the realization that I wouldn't change anything. I have a really wonderful life. One that I am incredibly grateful for. I don't want to go back to the career that I had pre-children, it just wouldn't work for our family and I don't foresee myself getting back into the 9-5 workforce anytime soon. I made a choice to be the at-home parent for my children, not just for when they were babies and in the safety of my arms, but for when they are leaving them and beginning to navigate the world beyond the walls of our home. This is when I think they are going to need me the most. I believe that part of my fear in the aforementioned social situations is that someone is going to ask me the dreaded "What do you DO?" question. I am afraid that I won't have an answer that is good enough for them. That me being a stay at home mom and yes, a sometimes blogger/writer too, will not be interesting or extraordinary enough for them.
As it happens when I am tackling issues of fear and vulnerability, I defer to the expert on these things, the wonderful Brene Brown. Please watch this 2010 TEDx talk she gave. At 6:34 she kind of blows my mind (as she has a tendency to do to a lot of people I am sure) and takes ALL THE WORDS FROM MY HEAD and puts them up on her screen!
[youtube]http://youtu.be/_UoMXF73j0c[/youtube]
I am an ordinary woman, living an ordinary life, loving my ordinary husband and raising my ordinary kids. And I like to write alone, at the end of my huge table, in my big beautiful sanctuary of a home.
And I am trying not to be afraid of scarcity anymore.
Maybe one day you can come over for coffee and we can talk about ordinary things together.
natasha~