less is more: on fighting fear and perfection.
The white of the page stares back at me like an accusation.
"Why aren't you filling me? Where are all the WORDS??!!
They are here, I tell it, I know they are in here. I hear them, I see them, I write them in cursive, loopy scroll all over the hills and valleys in my mind. They are here. Waiting. For what, I am not sure.
For the perfect post? The perfect story? The perfect something.
perfect
PERFECT
PER..... FECT.....
The word loses it's meaning and any sense the more you write it or say it.
So why am I so stuck on it? Why do so many people get stuck on it? Why do we always feel like we have to wait for some ideal, exact, precise moment in time/space/life to DO something?
Perfect doesn't exist. It is a construct of our minds. A place/time/planetary alignment that is completely made up. And as such, this made up thing that we think will just BE at some point, becomes like an anchor, holding us in place, not moving, waiting, always waiting....
Want to know what I think?
I think that perfection is the flashy accessory that fear wears to disguise itself. Fear likes to be in control and the way it does that is by waving it's colourful, oversized, PERFECTION infinity scarf at us and telling us things like:
"The timing is not perfect for this right now, you shouldn't do it."
"These are not the perfect words to express your thoughts, you should wait until you have better ones."
"You aren't going to do that perfectly, so maybe it's just not for you."
Fear convinces us that if we can't do something perfectly, then it is not worth doing. That there is no use in even trying. Fear does not want us to go anywhere, have new friends, try new things. Fear is like that one controlling ex-partner you had who tried to keep you all to themselves and convince you that you are better off with just them. Fear is wrong. If there is no trying, then there can be no failing. And if there is no failing, there can be no learning, no doing better, no growing.
Right now, fear is keeping all the words locked up in my head. It is working hard to convince me that they might not even be there anymore, and maybe they never where, and I was only writing from a place of rage and righteous indignation because of my displaced anxiety and depression.
I want to tell you that fear is not winning. I want to tell you that the words are here and I am writing them and I am doing what I feel I was meant to do in this world.
The thing is...
Some days fear wins. I over-accessorize on the quest to PERFECTION and can't string more than a few words together on a Facebook post, let along a blank page. I busy myself with other life tasks. I tell myself that I have more important things to do than write. I don't put writing on my to-do list. I read other people's writing and think that I am never going to be as good as they are so why bother. I let fear hold me down and believe the story it tells me of my lack of worth as a "real" writer.
Last night I attended a lecture given by the one and only Margaret Atwood. I found out about the lecture on Sunday and bought a couple of the last tickets available. As I sat way up in the nosebleeds and listened to her talk in her distinctive, dry, delightfully vocally-fried voice for an hour and a half about life as a writer in the 60s and 70s, I wondered how much, if ever, fear played a part in her life, in her writing.
At one point she talked about how back in the day, she and her writer friends (you know, like Michael Ondaatje, Mordecai Richler and Marion Engel) never considered writing as a career. It was more of a vocation, a calling. Something that HAD to be done, and that was done, and then published, sometimes by hand-lettering and binding of first books in the back rooms of friends apartments and teeny publishing houses.
That statement above all else she said, has been stuck in my head since last night and for all of today. As I sit here and fight perfectionism and fear, and struggle to get these words on this page, I am making a conscious decision. I am a writer. I need to write. It is the best way I know to communicate my thoughts and ideas, and I truly believe in my heart of hearts, it is through my writing that I will positively affect change in this world.
THIS IS MY CALLING. And that is what you do with a calling right? You make the world a better place. Even if it is just a little bit.
My heart feels full and my mind is alive when my fingers are dancing on the keyboard. My soul is energized when I know that my words have spoken to another human being and moved them in some way (big or small). And sometimes, I also happen to crack myself up and need to write that shit down somewhere to remember it.
So, no, maybe today is not the day the New York Times is going to come calling and say, hey, YOU, come be a regular columnist and write for us and we will pay you loads and loads of dollars. And maybe this is not the year that I will finish the book I started writing in January.
But today, I wrote words on the page. Today, I took to heart Coco Chanel's advice, to "always remove one thing before you leave the house. Less is more." Today I removed that oversized infinity scarf /quest for perfection and wrote the words that are here.
These imperfect, choppy, words about words.
And this is a good thing.
N~
#fangirl stoopid grin while Margaret Atwood signs my books!
Spring Cl... arity.
I have been in some kind of talk therapy for the past four years. It was a necessity given all that has happened in my life in that time period. I reconnected with my estranged father and he passed away three months later. My son had a critical illness and a stroke. Friendship and family changes happened and left me questioning everything about how I relate to people. Having a place to go to work out all that has happened and how my brain is processing all of it with an objective third party, has proven an invaluable tool in my living-life-the-best-way-possible toolbox. It has also had the interesting side effect of making me incredibly curious about the human mind and how it handles the experiences and the events that shape us.
It has been two years since the worst day of our lives - the day my son coded in the PICU and had to be resuscitated and put on life support. Thankfully he survived his sudden and unexpected illness and is now thriving, but those five minutes were the longest ones of my entire life and they changed me forever. What I didn't know then, was exactly how much, and how fundamentally those few minutes would change the very fabric of my being.
This is the part about trauma that you don't hear about until much, much later. About how trauma changes you. And not just the person at the centre of the catastrophe, but everyone in the immediate blast zone as well. Trauma leaves an imprint on our brains, and it's effects can be felt for years after the initial traumatic event. In my efforts to understand how trauma has affected my life, how it continues to affect me, and what I need to do to heal from it, I thought I would try to write out what this process has been for me and hopefully make some sense of it all.
Here goes...
You probably already know this, but when you are in the thick of things during a traumatic event - regardless of what that event is - your body and your mind go into automatic pilot. Much of what you do is instinct and not necessarily carefully thought out and/or planned. You are in your fight or flight mode and your body responds appropriately and automatically. You do what must be done to get through your day(s), with just enough reserve to get you up the next day and do it all over again. (And coffee, lots and lots of coffee.)
When Nine was in the hospital, I remember many people asking me how I was able to handle everything? How surprised they were at how well I was doing "considering", and how they "couldn't imagine" what it took to keep going day after day. I remember at the time thinking, "What else am I supposed to do? How is me losing my shit going to help anyone right now?". I know that no one meant any harm in what they were saying, and sometimes people don't know what to say when confronted with situations that are really terrible, but those comments struck me as odd at the time. Yes, it was difficult and terrible and awful and really, really bad, but we had to keep moving forward, stay focused on getting him well, and all of us making it to the next day.
And we did. And those days turned into weeks, weeks into months and in record time, Nine healed physically, blew away all his therapists and doctors with his determination and goal to be discharged on a certain day and he was able to come home - on that very day. Life eventually started to feel normal again. We all went back to our routines, and everything was just FINE.
But was it? What I didn't realize then, in those weeks and months of healing, was what I had unwittingly started to do, and what we were all doing to some degree. We were building walls around us. We insulated ourselves more and more from the outside world. In our efforts for self-preservation, we started letting fear guide us and keep us from moving past the physical healing from our shared trauma. My husband and I became the SUPER-hyper-uber-vigilant parents and our already heightened sense of risk-aversion became even more pronounced. Our reactions to the sometimes crazy things the kids did, (because you know, they were still kids) was often way out of proportion to the actual antics they were getting up to. A fever in our house sent us into a complete tailspin. A swollen lymph node or an unexplained pain in the leg was cause for a visit to the paediatrician - STAT! Casual talk in the school playground about so-and-so's kids having strep throat sets the hairs on the back of my neck on end.
We were living in a vacuum of our own making, always waiting for the next shoe to drop, the next bad thing to happen, because now we knew - bad things can and DO happen. FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER! At times it's felt like our lives were still in autopilot mode and we were simply getting through our days as opposed to living wholehearted lives. Our fight or flight button was stuck in the ON position all the time. We were moving forward, but with so much caution that sometimes it didn't really feel like movement at all.
There are consequences to living in this vacuum. They have names like anxiety, depression, anger, and frustration. They can only be ignored for so long before they start manifesting themselves and affecting not only our connections with the world, but also our connections to each other within our newly built up walls. In our efforts to protect ourselves from "all the bad things that COULD happen", we ended up living in a place where we couldn't see that we weren't actually protecting ourselves at all and our fears began manifesting in other destructive ways. Even when we thought what we are doing was for the "greater good" and for the safety of all, we ended up hurting and not healing.
It has taken me two years to realize that I can't be a good mother, wife or person in this vacuum. Whatever internal generator I had that was keeping the fight or flight button in the ON position has run out of battery and all my coping reserves have been effectively used up. I recognize now that living with a constant buzz of fear in my ear and a sympathetic nervous system on overdrive is unhealthy and unproductive, not just for me, but for those around me as well. And worst of all, I am not being an good example for my children in how to work through these tough feelings and/or to admit when I need help.
I wrote a few weeks ago about finding a new baseline, but what I didn't realize was that I also needed to accept that the trauma that we experienced had actually put me at a different baseline already. A POST-trauma baseline so to speak. THIS is the not-so-secret secret to healing from trauma, and it is what most people fight against (to no avail). We mistakenly think that healing means getting back to where we were before the "bad thing" happened to us, and fail to see that this simply can not be done. We are changed, our world has changed, and we have to first accept and then adapt to these changes. We have to find our new touchstone and move forward from that point. There is no going back. There is only now. After.
I have a clarity right now that I didn't have a month and a half ago and I know it is because I hit my limit. I know now that I was reaching backwards for a place within myself and from those around me that no longer exists. I had to say out loud that I needed help finding my way. I needed to take the anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medication to clear the path in front of me. Even knowing all that I do about maternal mental health, the stigma that surrounds mental illnesses, and my hundreds of visits to a psychologist, I fully admit that this decision still made me feel like I was a failure and too weak to "handle things" all by myself. The harsh truth is that in a sense I was, and I needed help to get strong again. I know it is only with the help of the medications and continued talk therapy, that I have that clarity to see what was holding me back from truly healing and moving forward with my life.
I feel as if I am no longer in my fight or flight mode. This in and of itself is a new mind space for me to get used to, and I am finding my way down this path slowly but surely. Now starts the work of tearing down the walls that we were building up around us. Of opening up our hearts and our lives to each other and to those around us. Of me stepping out of my own cocooned comfort/safety zone and being open to what the world has in store for me and what I make of it for myself and those I love.
It seems fitting to me that this is happening right now as spring comes anew. As the earth thaws, and new things start to grow, and there is more light in our world, and the forest creatures wake and frolic. We can not forever live within the winter of our souls. The seasons know when it is time to change and so too it seems, do our own minds. Sometimes we simply need to get better at reading Mother Nature's signs and knowing when we need a bit of help to get the buds to open up and push through the earth.
I am excited to say that there are more changes afoot in our lives this season as well and I can't wait to share these with you! And yes, all of these changes continue to stem from our new baseline. Our "after".
Going forward.
Growing stronger together.
Without fear.
Without walls.
With LOVE and patience and clarity and...
a little bit of help.
N~
(nearly) NAKED MOTHERS UNITE!
A couple of weeks ago I took a selfie of myself in a new bikini I bought while on holidays. Not gonna lie, I looked good. I felt good, I loved my new suit and I wanted to take a picture and remember that feeling. So yeah, I took that picture and then I went one step further and I posted it on Instagram. That's right, I posted a nearly naked picture of myself on the internet.
I admit that for a second, I hesitated before doing so. I worried about what people would think. Amidst the pics of my kids building sand castles on the beach and our nice family vacay, there I was in almost all my glory.
There is a part of me that sometimes worries about my chances of ever running for any kind of political office and what would be dredged up from the thousands (yes, that many) of pictures I have posted online. And then I remember ALL I have learned from shows like Scandal, and House of Cards, and Madame Secretary, and then I realize, I am never going to run for office, I will be someone's Chief of Staff or campaign manager. Because, DUH... we all know THAT is where the real power is... Amirite?
But I digress...
Back to (nearly) naked pictures on Instagram.
Kim Kardashian posted this one the other day.
And in true KimK style, it apparently "broke the internet". Now, listen, I am not a fan of Kim's or any of the Kardashian family. I have never seen an episode of their show(s) and I don't follow them on any social media sites, and yes, I feel a perverse sense of pride in these facts. But the response to this particular photo pissed me off.
In particular all the responses basically saying "YOU ARE A WIFE AND A MOTHER NOW!! HAVE YOU NO SHAME??!!"
See more HERE
It seems a lot of people (and dishearteningly, most of them women) are under the impression that there is some kind of memo that gets delivered right alongside the baby that says...
"As of this minute, you are a MOTHER.
You are no longer a sexual being, and you and your body are not to be seen as anything more than the life-giving, food-bearing, self-sacrificing person whose sole concern is now the care of your progeny.
Your mom-jeans and sensible shoes will be delivered in 6-8 weeks time.
Please cover up appropriately until then."
FUCK THAT SHIT!
Becoming a mother, does not take anything away from a woman. Least of all her ability or her prerogative to adorn her body in whatever way she wants - and yes, that includes two black bars across her chest and pubic area. If anything, I believe that becoming a mother makes a women acutely aware of the magic and wonder that is her body and this is something to be celebrated!
And you know what, we all have these moments. After a shower, or a good workout, or just waking up in the morning, when we walk by and catch ourselves in a mirror and are all, "DAYUM WOMAN, YOU LOOK FIIIIIIIINNNE!!" Most of us are probably not going to take a selfie right then and there, or post it to our 63 million followers on Instagram. But you know what, if you do decide to do that? GOOD FOR YOU! I SALUTE YOU. I CELEBRATE YOU! I FUCKING THINK YOU ARE AMAZING! AND YOU CAN BE DAMN SURE I WILL COMMENT AND LIKE THE CRAP OUTTA THAT PICTURE!
Do not EVER feel shame about your body because you are a wife and a mother. Do not ever think that BECAUSE YOU ARE A MOTHER, you can't be sexy, or proud of yourself AND YOUR BODY, or like Kim posted today (yes, with another nude shot), feel #LIBERATED.
You can go ahead and hate on Kim Kardashian all you like for any number of reasons, but I will tell you this; when you go after ANY woman and try to shame her into being some kind of subservient and patriarchal version of the "good wife and mother", I WILL CUT YOU (with my sharp, sharp words)!!!
Yes, even you Bette Midler.
N~
Baseline
I am afraid to write. I am afraid that I can't do it anymore. That whatever well of ideas and words that was in me has dried up, and the effort to dig a new one is just too much for me right now. I am not sure what to do about this, so I thought I'd just get these thoughts out of my head, on the page and tell you about what's been going on with me.
February was somewhat of a rollercoaster month and I am feeling slightly woozy from the ride and still trying to get my bearings on solid ground.
I am sure you are wondering how this can be, given that I just had a lovely vacation with my little family on the beautiful island of Kaua'i* and I should be all rested and relaxed and rejuvenated right?
What you don't know is that right before we left for our holidays, after 14 months of staring at the bottle in my medicine cabinet, I decided to start taking the anti-depressants that I have been avoiding for.... well, for a long time. I thought I was strong enough, able to cope with whatever life had to throw at me. You know, just toss a little bit of meditation and yoga and "me time" at it and all will be good. I was wrong.
My breaking point was a few days before when the kids were home from school for a PD day. I was trying to get everything ready before we left for holidays and was feeling increasingly overwhelmed and over-tired and over-spent. And then I lost it. Over something that I can't even remember now and was mostly likely utterly ridiculous. I screamed. I slammed doors. I cried. I made them figure out their own lunch. My sister and her family came over for dinner later that day and the first words I said to her when she walked in the door were, "PLEASE HELP, I JUST CAN'T MOTHER ANYMORE!"
In early 2015, my family doctor had diagnosed me with PMDD (pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder), which is fancy for REALLY BAD PMS and it was for this that she had prescribed the aforementioned antidepressants. I was at the right time in my cycle and in full PMS/PMDD mode at the time of my break. On that day, I realized whatever mechanisms and abilities I possessed internally to cope with life, they were not going to be enough this time. I took the first little white and yellow capsule that night.
Over the next few days, things became even more clear. For the past few years, I've been functioning with a baseline that stems from a traumatic event - Nine's septic shock and stroke, and then having to face surgery for him again this past summer. Even typing those words out right now has my guts going into an automatic tailspin and flutter-whirl. Time apparently likes to take it's own sweet-ass time to heal all the wounds. My therapist had said to me, on more than one occasion, that she would like to see me functioning with a different baseline, and thinks that the medication will help me get there. I think she was right.
I have been on the meds for just over a month now and I am thankful that I started them when I did as this has turned out to be a rougher than usual season of our lives. I know, I know, I'm being somewhat vague about what is going on. Please understand that some of it is not my story to tell and the parts that are, I am just not ready to share them yet. Trust me when I say that we will all be fine, better than fine actually, but like they say, change is hard. Good for you in the end, but sometimes hard at the beginning and in the middle parts.
Please bear with me as I navigate with my new baseline and take care of all of myself and the people closest to me. I know the words and ideas will come back. As you can see, some of them already have.
I call this my daily Bones, Brains, and Blood concoction.
N~
*P.S. I will tell you all about Kaua'i in another post soon! It is by far my favourite of all the Hawaiian islands!
On cheerleading and being the emotional "handlers" of the world.
Every summer, the pop charts decide what the anthem du jour is for that year. Last year the top honour, according to Billboard's Top 100 Chart, was OMI's hit song "Cheerleader". I would argue that it was The Weeknd's "I can't feel my face", but what do I know? I admit Cheerleader is a catchy tune. I have found myself bopping to it's Jamaican reggae beat and digging those sweet trumpet riffs, but something about the song lyrics has always made me feel somewhat ick and I would often end up changing the radio station anytime it came on.
It wasn't until this week when I was on my couch trying to fit in a 15-minute power nap while my kids did their homework, that I realized why I disliked that song. And it was thanks to another musical artist also singing about cheerleaders. In my half-asleep, dazed state of mind, I heard St. Vincent's Cheerleader chorus playing, and maybe because of my semi-conscious state of mind at the time, the words of her song penetrated deeper than they had the hundreds of other times I had listened to it.
This week the words that I needed to describe what I was feeling about all this cheerleader stuff were revealed to me via a couple of different sources, including this gem from Jess Zimmerman at The Toast.
Apparently all of this "cheerleading" is something called EMOTIONAL LABOUR.
Yes, yes, I know. I am late to this party, but can you blame me? I'VE BEEN FREAKING EXHAUSTED because of all the damn cheerleading/emotional labouring I've been doing for most of my life!
And my good god Ladies, do we ever do a lot of it.
Anne Theriault sent out a series of tweets last week outlining just a few of the ways that emotional labour works in relationships and it was such a revelation to me and, should be required reading for all men and women! (Click the image to read all of them.)
Then it really hit me how much emotional labour is wrapped up in motherhood and the things that we are expected to do or that we take on because the thought is again that "women are just better at these things". Except the truth is - we are not. We've just been conditioned for hundreds of years to accept that the unpaid work that women do, (housework, child rearing, sex work-yes, even in marriages), and the emotional labour that comes with it, are simply our "natural, female" attributes. And don't you know? All of this unpaid work, it's not real "work" and all of these things are actually fulfilling activities. HA! Good one patriarchy.
The problem is, WE'VE BELIEVED IT ALL THIS TIME and we continue to believe it.
It's why I feel guilty for having a housekeeper come in every couple of weeks. Because, really, shouldn't I be the one keeping a nice, clean home for my family and feeling pride in my "work"? That's what a good wife and mother does right? It's why I had an undiagnosed post-partum depression after my first child, but didn't say anything to anyone, because I had to be strong and take care of a preemie baby, build a new house, do it all on literally zero hours of sleep, and we already had so much on our plates, that "don't worry about me, I can handle it." became my mantra. And so it goes and we do this thing. We take on the role of the Strong Ones, the Multitaskers, the Keepers of all the Key Information, and we accept these roles, because if we don't, we are convinced that no one else is going to do them and never-you-mind, we'll just do it because, after all, us women-folk are just "better at all this STUFF!"
I am not saying that men don't do any emotional labour as parents, but I would bet that if you took ten couples, separated them and asked the men and women some basic questions about who does what and who knows what about their family and life, you would get two very different sets of answers. I am talking about things like, what size of shoes the kids wear, who has a birthday party to attend this weekend, what summer camps are available and when you have to register for them, where the babysitter phone numbers are, when the kids are due for their next doctor check ups/vaccine boosters/dentist appointments, what the meal plan is for next week, when the library books are due, who is being mean to them at school, or how to log on to the school website to check their report cards, just to name a few things that fall primarily in the "things that only Mom seems to know", and subsequently takes care of, bucket. Mothers are just expected to KNOW these things, to carry these seemingly endless tidbits of information in our heads at all times, and be the ones to take care of everyone's general emotional well-being along the way - often at the expense of our own.
Women are EXPECTED to carry around the emotional baggage of everyone around them, knowing full well that this will inevitably start to weigh them down. And when that happens, when we stumble, there is a tendency to feel an inordinate amount of shame that we are letting everyone down and not being the good mother or the good woman (or friend, coworker, wife, partner, etc...), when in reality, we just need someone to take some of that emotional load from us and share the work - yes, even (especially) all that unpaid work.
And people wonder why mothers are so fucking exhausted all the time. IT'S BECAUSE ALL THIS DAMN CHEERLEADING IS HARD WORK and ain't nobody paying cheerleaders anywhere in this world nearly enough for all that they do or are expected to do to support the emotional well-being of the folks around them, especially the men-folk. Women are the emotional "handlers" of the world and we have been well-trained in the art of not letting our own emotions cloud or overpower those of our "operatives". We've been conditioned to think that we aren't supposed to ADD TO or SHARE our own emotions in our relationships, we are there to offer our partners a safe place to offload their own and then make them feel validated and better about themselves.
This is exactly what the OMI Cheerleader song is saying and why it has always bugged me.
"When I need motivation
My one solution is my queen
'Cause she stays strong
Yeah, yeah
She is always in my corner
Right there when I want her"
Sorry dude, JUST NOPE!
Like St. Vincent says, I don't want to be a Cheerleader NO MORE!
When you need motivation, get it from within yourself. Do some of your own emotional heavy lifting, 'cause I am done with being the beast of burden for men's feelings, I am done keeping my own needs and feelings small and "manageable", and I am done being the keeper of all the damn lists and details of life!
Who is with me?
N~
Lord, give me the confidence... GIVEAWAY!
My Dearest Readers,
I am in a giving mood.
Maybe it's because it was my birthday two weeks ago and 44 feels like it's going to be a good one. Maybe it's because I started on a new project today, and I'll probably tell you more about it in time, but not right now, because baby steps and I like to keep some things just for me sometimes. Maybe it's because what I want to give you is SO FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC, that I couldn't NOT give it to one of you!
One year ago, Sarah Hagi penned this epic tweet and with it, a battle cry for women (especially women of colour) was born!
In December of 2015, Audra Williams started a Teespring campaign in collaboration with Sarah, to make sure Sarah got the rightful credit (and some compensation) for her brilliance. To date over 800 of these t-shirts have been sold and I am sure many ended up under plenty 'o feminists Christmas trees.
Now in case Santa didn't get the memo about this, you have a couple of options. You can still order one! Teespring seems to LOVE this campaign and keeps renewing it, so you can get your t-shirt, tank top or sweatshirt with the mantra to combat Imposter Syndrome emblazened across it right now while the campaign is still live.
OR
You can leave a comment below (please make sure to comment with your name and email). Tell me how you are combatting Imposter Syndrome and channeling some of that MWM confidence in your life! I will make a random draw for ONE winner next Thursday, January 21st, on the anniversary of Sarah's tweet.
The t-shirt is a Size Medium BELLA+CANVAS Slouchy Tee and is super soft and plenty roomy and yes, I had to try it on and bask in it's glory, if only for a minute. (Don't worry, I've ordered one for myself as well!)
Good Luck!
N~
eat your damn broccoli or it's the end of parenting as we know it.
In case you didn't know this (but I know you do), parenting is a tough gig.
Most of us are completely convinced that we are totally fucking up our kids on a daily basis and setting them up for years of therapy later in life. That's part of the package (it was in the VERY small print, trust me). And just to rub that in a little bit more, here comes this month's Maclean's magazine to tell us this in a 2500+ word article, quoting some of North America's leading experts in the field titled, "The Collapse of Parenting: why it's time for parents to grow up."
I read this article, mostly because a friend of mine is one of the experts quoted and I like to support people I know when I can. But as I read it, I was getting increasingly angry, and I wondered why? I realized a few more paragraphs in that the sweeping generalizations made by the author about parents kowtowing to our children's every whim and demand was really getting to me. It was that and the assumptions being made about all us poor stupid parents sitting around wondering why are kids are such little shits these days and throwing up our collective hands in despair.
Yes, tiny human beings need guidance, and boundaries, and even some of those pesky RULES. Wait, edit that - ALL human beings need boundaries and guidance and rules to live by. As parents, our job is to help the tiny humans in our charge realize these things and learn to navigate and adapt to an every changing world around them and their own developing minds and bodies. We all know this already. You want a kid with good manners, model good manners. You want a kid who tries new things? Try new things yourself. You want a kid who understands how to behave in public, take them out in public and show them. This is not new NEWS in the parenting world.
Here's what I know. Parenting is at times as complicated as rocket science and at the same time, NOT FUCKING ROCKET SCIENCE AT ALL (see above). It can be a fly by the seat of your pants, hold on for dear life, enjoy the damn ride and hope you don't puke, kind of journey. It can also be "read all the books, try some new things, figure out what works, do whatever that is, and screw all the people saying you are doing it wrong", meandering walk in the desert, without a whole lot of water to sustain you or a damn compass to guide you. In other words, some days are easy, some days are hard, it can be exhilarating, it can be fun and it can also feel like an ultra-mega-super-marathon with no discernible finish line in sight.
There is no one-size fits ALL for parenting. And no, there is no imminent collapse of parenting. Are more kids having tantrums these days than in the past? NO. But more kids are being videotaped having tantrums or being shamed via social media for having (God-forbid) BIG emotions (in a time when we are trying to educate more people to allow for these big emotions) and we are being subjected to these very public frustrations (both kid and parental) online. Are parents trying to ensure that their children are raised with the ability to make conscious choices about their own lives/bodies/identities, while also figuring out how to instil healthy and necessary boundaries? Yes, they are. Can we please not scuttle the whole damn ship because a few kids are having the fries with their burgers at Red Robin and not the steamed broccoli/green peas?
Mmmmm, broccoflower!
While we are at it and although I am SO not a millennial parent (read, I am old enough to be a millennial's mother), I feel like this article, though not specifically defining them as such, made enough inferences for us to guess which parents they are talking about, and I think that is unfair. Look, I don't know how to break this to you, but every generation wants to do better than the last and since that is universally the case since the beginning of time (I am pretty sure Cain and Abel's kids were all "Hey, let's not kill each other OK?"), we are all navigating new seas. No parenting book in the whole entire world is going to every fully prepare you for the tsumani-force that is having a child. That's not to say you shouldn't do some reading, but do so with the understanding that all kids are their own unique versions of square pegs and they will never fit into the textbook version of the round hole. And really, is that what we want for our kids? NO, we all want our kids to be the unique beautiful flowers that they are and damn it if we aren't going to give them whatever nurturing we feel is necessary to help them grow!
What this Maclean's article feels like to me is someone seeing a change in the way that parents are doing things, THE STRUGGLES that come with any large scale change in social and cultural behaviour and then saying, "Nope, see, that's not working. Let's go back to the way it used to be." I mean, Andrea Nair (my super smart friend) said RIGHT IN THE ARTICLE that parents must “have a higher tolerance for things not going well." and open themselves to the opportunity to learn and become more confident. I would go one step further and say that all the observers, unsolicited-advice-givers and well-meaning strangers/commenters also need to increase their tolerance for parents and children not always doing things the way they think they should and to open up to some new ways/waves of parenting.
And on a personal note, here are just a couple of the reasons why I am all for this new fan-dangled way of parenting where my kids are seen as PEOPLE with agency of their own. I don't want to raise my kids to never question their elders or voice their opinion or concern when something feels off. You want to know why? Because that was how I was raised, and then one of these adults that I was taught never to question because they were the "grown-up" and therefore "knew better", sexually abused me and I never said anything. I don't want to raise my kids in a "That's the way it's always been done and look at me I turned out OK" kind of world. I actually want my kids to turn out better than OK and yes, better than me. I want them to know that their voices matter, their autonomy will be respected and that I will have their backs always and forever. And that last part, about having their backs, means that along with respecting them as the tiny humans they are, I will also provide for them the boundaries that they need to feel nurtured and loved and able to grow into their own amazing abilities and personalities.
So, NO! Parenting is not collapsing, it is evolving and we need to allow for this growth and support it, not tear it down and tell everyone how badly they are failing at it. Parents do not need to be criticized and questioned and told to grow up, because trust me, nothing anyone can say in this article or any of the "expert" books or websites out there can hold a candle to the self-criticism and constant questioning we do to ourselves. WE'VE GOT PARENTAL SELF-DOUBT COVERED Y'ALL!
Now, how about someone look over at that Dad at the restaurant negotiating a couple of bites of green peas with his headstrong daughter who is likely to grow up and know EXACTLY who she is and what she wants and is not going to let anyone tell her she can't do it, and give him the universal look that all parents know as "Been there done that dude. You are doing it right and I support you!"
'Cause that is what parents really need. Some fucking solidarity please!
This shit is HARD!
N~
Channelling my inner Obama: a #yearofNO f**ks to give.
I am going to say this here.
I hate the beginning of a new year.
I know, I know, it's supposed to be this fabulous new year, new you, resolution-filled time when we shed our old skins and start all new and shiny and fresh, but this year, all of my being is rejecting all of it so hard.
It was my birthday on January 1st too, so you'd think I would feel very different about this time of year, but nope. Not happening.
I can't handle all the expectations that are piled onto everyone, most of them self-administered, and then the eventual (inevitable?) failure to achieve said expectations and the subsequent guilt about it all. It feels like a set-up and I can't do it this year. I mean, if you weren't doing these things a month ago, what has changed so much in four weeks that you are going to do them consistently now?
It's January 5th already. If you haven't started your #365whatevertheheckitis by now, you are now five days behind and you probably already feel awful about it and are scrambling to catch up. Better find those 5 things you have to throw out. Take 5 selfies today and pretend they are all from different places/times/moments. Read another 11 minutes of that first in your #100booksin2016 list. Do your thing and add it at the end of your already busy day. Feel like you're being all goal-oriented and committed. Go ahead. I give you another 7-10 days before it starts feeling like a chore and not as much fun anymore. (I know, I am being such a resolution killjoy right now!)
The pressure to make new year's resolutions is massive in our western culture. It makes me wonder? Is this a thing in other parts of the world?
I just googled this question and it seems all the resoluting that happens around New Year's has a very North American, Protestant/Christian/puritanical background, with the advent of the new year signalling a renewed commitment to God and promoting the ideals of physical and emotional restraint in the face of life's indulgences. Colour me not surprised about this.
Nowadays, it's not so much about a commitment to God and limiting life's indulgences, and more so about losing weight, stopping a bad habit, or starting a new one, something often thought to make us "better people". So in a way, I suppose it is kind of the same idea - promoting physical or emotional restraint in the face of life's so-called vices. Not eating all the chocolate, getting to the gym more, cutting back on alcohol/smoking/spending/facebooking/etc... Just with less God as the reason and more selfish or self-centered ones. I think we'd all agree that losing weight or becoming more physically fit is the top resolution for 90% of the western world. Or as Abigail Saguy, a sociology and gender studies professor at UCLA puts it, ‘How can I be thinner and better conformed to social expectations in the hopes of having more privilege?’
Now, I am not knocking anyone who wants to lose weight or be healthier, but I do sometimes question the reasons for this. In a few weeks, I will be in a bathing suit on a beach. Societal norms of beauty and size tell me that I must get myself "beach body ready" for this, and I'd be lying if I told you that this is not at least part of the motivation for having upped my workout schedule this month. At the same time, THIS is my body. It has scars, stretch marks, a round belly I lovingly refer to as "the donut", big thighs, and those arm flappy things. It is not going to change that much in a matter of weeks.I mean sure, I can probably shed 5, maybe 10 pounds between now and when I am supposed to be on the aforementioned beach, but to what avail? I don't particularly care about the strangers on the beach or their opinions of my body, and I don't want my focus to be on how I look in my bathing suit, I want to have FUN! Learn to stand up paddle board, catch a few good waves with the boogie board and build epic sand castles with my kids. I am (mostly-like 92.7%) comfortable with this body of mine and what it can do, and to quote the amazing Carrie Fisher, who has been criticized recently for aging LIKE A HUMAN BEING,
“Youth and beauty are not accomplishments, they are the temporary/happy byproduct of time and/or DNA. Don’t hold your breath for either.”
So I say NO to setting unrealistic, manipulated-by-our-culture-of-beauty-worship-because this-is-what-society-tells-me-I-should-do, resolutions for 2016. I am opting out of this tradition. I am not going to start the year depriving myself of things that give me joy (good food, good coffee, good shopping, riffing on FB with my secret society of intersectional feminists) and I am not going to take on multiple social media or blogging or lifestyle challenges or set resolutions to prove I don't know what to I don't know whom.
Some people are calling 2016 the #YearofYES (no offence Ms. Shonda Rhimes), but I am feeling like this year is more of a #YearofNO for me. NO to other people's bullshit. NO to volunteering my time and efforts in places I feel I am taken for granted. NO to being the fixer and everyone's (other than my own two children's) mother all the time. NO to anyone's racism, sexism, homo- or transphobia and general intolerance towards fellow humans. NO to any but my own definition of what my body should look like, feel like and is capable of doing. NO to anyone calling me "just" a (insert pejorative term/label for stay at home mother, blogger, writer, feminist, etc... here)!
This #YearofNO also includes me saying NO to that voice in my head. The one that keeps telling me resistance-type things like, "you can't do A, B or C, you really are no good at this, someone else will do it better, why bother?". This is the year I shut that biatch down - HARD! This year I will be like Obama in the final months of his second term - the giver of NO fucks! Dropping executive orders all over the damn place and removing all roadblocks to an unapologetic, wholehearted, purposeful, shouty as fuck, life. LIKE A DAMN BOSS!
Damnit.
Do you see what has happened here?
In the writing of this, I've gone and made resolutions.
Kind of. I am going to call them anti-resolution resolutions.
Like I said, this year I am the giver of no fucks and I am what I am.
Take it or leave it.
Happy New #YearofNO.
N~