“Please don’t give my daughter an eating disorder. But you will. You will…”

2011. Flora is six and lives in a bit of a bubble. There’s no TV—and thus commercials—in the house. No glossy magazines. The meme videos she watches on Youtube are big brother-tested and, while generally in poor taste, rarely an assault on the self-worth and identity of a young woman. She chooses her clothes among her favourite friends’ hand-me downs, and loves them because of who they came from. “Designer jeans,” to her, are an ethically troubling line of scientific research.*

She eats real food—and lots of delicious, sweet things. She never has to clear her plate. She can eat dessert first. Or never. For breakfast or in the middle of the day. She eats when she’s hungry, and does not eat when she’s not.

She loves herself.

And then, that stupid bastard, he tries to wreck it. When she’s six.

He’s not a bad man, you know. Just a guy. With a TV and without a daughter. I think he was just trying to be nice, make conversation.

This is what he said:

You’re eating a second ice cream? You are going to get so fat.

To my six-year-old daughter.

He moved on. Forgot. The effect on her? That evening, as she comes out of the bath, my six-year-old daughter looks at herself in the mirror—for the first time in her life, critically. She thrusts out her belly. And asks me:

Mom? Am I fat?

And I, who have spent much of my adult life struggling against the eating disorder and body image damage inflicted on my teenage self, I freak. But manage to hold it in, for her. And hear the story, what’s prompting this. And engage in a little bit of deprogramming. And tell her, that the next time I see him, I will explain to him why what he said was inappropriate and wrong and ensure he will never say that to another little girl again.

I figure by the time I see him, I will be… less angry. Because, you know, I know he’s not a bad man. Just a guy. With a TV. And no daughter.

But I’m still furious, seething. And so, what comes out of my mouth, instead of the rehearsed, rational statement I practiced, is this:

I understand you tried to give my daughter an eating disorder.

And he’s shocked—hurt. Doesn’t understand. Then, as I explain—a little appalled. Both at me, and I hope, at his lack of reflection? But perhaps not. I do think, however, he won’t call a little girl fat again. Or suggest she might be getting fat because she’s eating an ice cream cone.

But he hasn’t changed, he doesn’t understand. No, I don’t think I was that effective.

He’ll never do it again, because he’s afraid the little girl’s psychotic mother, who clearly has issues, is going to go medieval on his ass. As I did.

And you know what? That’s good enough. Not perfect. But good enough. That’s what I think in 2011…

2013, now. Flora’s eight and a half. A specimen of physical perfection: healthy, strong, athletic, beautiful. She kicks ass in Tang Soo Do. Does one-handed cartwheels for fun. Can outrun just about every boy on the Common, except for her big brother.

Eats when she’s hungry. Doesn’t eat when she’s not. Snacks on chickpeas. Loves ice cream. There’s no TV or glossy magazines in the house. She’s still lives in a bubble, at least some of the time.

But when she gets out of the bath tub, when she’s in the swimming pool change room—not always, but every once in a while, I see her looking at herself in the mirror—critically.

It rips at my insides.

I thought I could save her. But how can I? She has nine-year-old friends who talk about diets—who are on diets. Too many women in her life, around her torturing themselves, hating themselves. Unhappy with themselves. Passing the message on.

It’s everywhere. She’s learned “fat” is a horrible insult when thrust at a woman. She’s learned the look, shape of her body is what matters the most to too many people.

She’s not even nine yet. She still doesn’t know about designer jeans. But she knows this.

I thought I could save her.

But you won’t let me.

♠

Inspired by Urban Moo Cow‘s guest post on Finding Ninee in the This is Our Land Series: The Greatest Gift

* My kids are brilliant. Deal with it.

Posted in At Least Mildly Sappy, Longer Essays
Tagged body image, eating disorders, raising girls
73 Comments

The Authoritative New Parents’ Guide to Sex After Children, Redux

(or, how to make sure you keep on doing that thing that landed you with children in the first place!)

Ambitious title, but I bet I’ll deliver. Tell me afterwards. Two caveats. First, if you’re currently childless, don’t read this. It will either depress or embarrass you. Especially if you’re a guy. It’s the weirdest thing, really: when it comes to talking about sex and bodies, there is no creature more uptight than the childless male. Anyway, if you’re one of those, go read How I got deprogrammed and learned to love video games or Math + Gun = or … (I’m not being sexist, am I? You can read this if you really want to. But I know you’ll be mortified… Here’s a test: let me tell you about the time my bestest male friend first saw me breastfeeding. Where are you going? Come back!)

Second, if you’ve got young children and you’re having all the sex you want—really? Honestly?—you probably don’t need to read this. But you should anyway, because maybe at the end of it, you might be having more sex. And what could be better than that?

And thirdly—I said two caveats, right? Oops—in case you haven’t noticed, this post is going to be about sex. That’s how you get children. If reading about sex makes you squeamish, stop here and go read… how about It’s not about balance: creating your family’s harmony or 10 habits for a happy home from the house of permissiveness and chaos. Or that fabulous, famous They tell you, “It gets easier.” They lie post.

Also, mom, dad, mother-in-law, father-in-law, brother—um. Yeah. You’re excused. Go read how Cinder and Flora became Greco-Roman Pagans. And never, ever mention this post to me. OK.

The rest of you, come with me.

OK. Here are the three assumption I’m making:

1. You have kids. Babies, toddlers, preschoolers, sentient school age kids. The babies need to be breastfed and rocked to sleep at all hours of day and night, the toddlers and preschoolers exhaust you, and them older kids stay up later and later and open doors and need help with homework and need you to feed them and take them places and…

2. You don’t have enough sex. Define enough as you will. You’d like to have more.

3. You’ve got a partner to have this sex with (if you don’t, I canna’ help you with that, but I hear there’s these dating sites…). The partner would also like to have more sex. The will is there. What’s lacking is time and opportunity AND STRATEGY. (If the will’s not there… well, I can help you with that a bit. There will be an addendum about that at the end.)

With me so far? Want to. Don’t have (enough) (at all these days). Don’t worry. There’s hope. Really. You’ve just got to rethink a few things.

First, there are three principles you have to internalize.

1. Sex is more important than sleep.

2. Sex is more important than cleaning.

3. Sex is more important than work.

Somewhere between child one and two—or maybe it was two and three?—my partner and I made the following pact: either one of us was free to wake up the other at any other time for some quick love making (stress on quick: I’ll come back to this point shortly)… unless the sleeper had a 6 a.m. appointment with the client from hell or some other such situation. We made this pact after the following conversation:

Jane: Dear God, do you realize this is the first time we’ve had sex in… oh my god, has it been three weeks? Four?

Sean: Well, by the time I come to bed, you’re always asleep. And I know you’re going to be up half the night with the baby, and then up super early with the toddler, and…

(This is why I love him so, by the way. What a guy.)

Jane: You can wake me up.

Sean: Really?

Jane: Yes.

Sean: You can wake me up anytime, too. I mean, if you’re ever awake after me. Well, unless I have a 6 a.m. shoot. Don’t wake me up then.

Jane: Deal.

Sean: Deal.

(And we draw the curtain so we can have some privacy.)

So. Make this pact with your partner. Sex is more important than sleep. (Or watching that 10 p.m. show on HBO. Turn on your PVR, and romp. If you’re not drowsy after, then watch your show.) Agree to wake each other up when you’re horny. Agree to say yes—at least 4 out of 5 times. (I’m assuming you’re going to show appropriate discretion in when you’re doing the waking up. If partner’s got strep throat, you know, let the guy sleep. If the baby’s been going through a particularly tough phase—let the mama sleep. Find a different time for sex. We’ll get to that in a minute.)

Next: what do you do when that most miraculous thing of all happens and all your children are either simultaneously asleep, totally mesmerized by a movie or activity that doesn’t require your presence, or (gasp!) out of the house?

If you’re a mama, I bet in 9 out of 10 cases you clean. We can’t help it: the little monsters are messy, and if we clean when they’re out of the house, then at least we have the satisfaction of a clean house for a few minutes… an hour.

I’m not going to tell you to stop cleaning. But have sex first. The children are asleep—quiet—gone. Put down the vacuum cleaner, turn your back on the kitchen floor, and go fuck.

You can scrub the bath tub afterwards.

This is really easy for me, because I hate cleaning. However, if you derive some pleasure from the cleaning process, this may be harder for you. Do this: tell the messier partner to grab the initiative. When the children are asleep—quiet—gone, it’s his or her job to drag you to the bedroom, bathroom or living room rug. All you have to do is say yes.

Say yes.

Sex is more important than work. In our case, we both work from home, so this is how it goes—one or the other or both of us is always on deadline. There’s always one more thing to write, edit, produce, revise, research.

There will always be one more thing to write, edit, produce, revise, research.

Have sex first.

Then go back to the computer. Have a project you took home, memos to revise, report cards to mark? Fine. They’ll still be there in fifteen minutes. Five, if you’re both properly motivated. Two, if it’s been as long as I think it’s been… Have sex first. Then work.

Now before you quote Dan Ackroyd at me,* it really is that easy. If you believe that…

1. Sex is more important than sleep

2. Sex is more important than cleaning

3. Sex is more important than work

…you will have more of it. Maybe not as much as you’d like to… but more.

To have even more, embrace the next three principles:

4. Foreplay is icing.

5. Beds are optional.

6. Matinees rule.

Remember those hours and hours and hours of sensuous, languorous foreplay that went on and on and on and on…

Yeah, I don’t really remember either. It’s been 10 years… eleven. Well, there was that one night we sold the kids to the grandparents for the entire night exclusively for those purposes… but that might have been four years ago. Anyway. You now have kids.

That means foreplay is being alone in a room together.

Agree with your partner that foreplay is icing. Frankly, when you’ve got toddlers, it wastes precious time. You can after-play if the kids don’t barrel into the room. When you’re in one of those “OMG we never have time for sex” phases, this is your modus operandi:

A. Hey, we’re alone!

B. Clothes (but only the essential ones) off!

C. Coitus.

Everything else is icing.

Note how nowhere in the above did it say we’re alone in bed. Beds? Who needs beds to have sex? We’re alone in the bathroom. We’re alone in the kitchen. We’re alone on the landing. In the living room while the kids are in the bedroom… If you’ve got a family bed, the kids are always in the bed. Have sex somewhere else. Anywhere else. Just draw the curtains first.

Finally—especially when you’ve got teeny ones around—break the sex/night association. No law. Not mandatory. Repeat after me: you can have sex in the morning. In the afternoon. When the baby’s napping. If one or both of you has a regular Monday-to-Friday job, you’ve got less flexibility—but you’ve still got weekends. The hour before supper. You got the baby and toddler down for a nap on Saturday afternoon? Cancel the visit to Joe and Marla, and screw.

Be late for dinner at Mom and Dad’s. Don’t clean, don’t nap, don’t work until after.

“But Jane… you know… the truth is… I don’t really want to. I feel blah. Unattractive. Unsexy. Touched out.”

I know. I think every mother—and many a hyper-involved father, frankly—has been there post-partum. Babies and toddlers take a toll on you. (This part’s mostly for the mamas, boys, but read along to get educated.) Your hormones might be out of whack, and you might simply be exhausted. I’m going to send you to kellymom.com or Dr. Jack Newman’s breastfeedinginc.ca to look for some evidence-based research on how pregnancy and lactation might affect your libido, because I’m no doctor. From personal experience I can absolutely tell you this: I love my partner dearly and I love making love with him—and with each child I’ve gone through stretches where it’s just not been a priority and desire’s been hard to scrape up.

Here’s what’s helped me:

1. Exercise and sunshine. Bonus: if you do the Pavlovian “I have an orgasm after exercise” association, the motivation to exercise spikes.

2. Going to Mom’s Nights Out. Really. How does hanging out with a bunch of women help your sex life? Simple. You dress up and spend an evening with adults talking adult stuff and enjoying a meal without anyone throwing up on you. You go home—and if your partner played things right, the children are asleep. S/he’s not. Woo-hoo.

3. Put it on the schedule. OK. Least romantic thing ever, right? It sounds awful. Sex Saturday. You know what’s worse and less romantic? Not having sex at all.

4. Make it a habit. Here’s the weird thing about thinking you don’t want sex when you’re not having sex–as soon as you start having sex, your priorities shift. You think, “Sweet Jesus, this is great! Why don’t we do this more often?” Hold on to that thought… and do it more often. In the afternoon. Instead of cleaning. Before working on that work project. Quickly if you’ve only got five minutes. Hey, if it turns out you’ve got more time, you can always do it again…

Photo (Heart) by mozzercork

All right then. That’s it. To recap:

1. Sex is more important than sleep

2. Sex is more important than cleaning

3. Sex is more important than work

4. Foreplay is icing

5. Beds are optional

6. Matinees rule

Get off the computer, and go wake up your partner. And if you’ve got other tips for reigniting your sex life post-children, share them.

xoxoxo,

Jane

PS Veteran mamas, can you tell I just weaned the third? I bet you can…

PPS Play carefully, eh? Seems every time we have a frank sex post-children discussion on one of my groups or lists, someone gets pregnant. Once it was me…

*(That’s Jane, you ignorant slut, the best SNL quote of all time, read about it here if you don’t know what I’m talking about, and no, it doesn’t show you how old I am, I saw it in re-runs.)

PPPS For a different point of view, visit my brilliant friend Dani at Cloudy, With A Chance of Wine and read Having kids kills your sex life, but then, pop over to when she changes her mind and tells you the 5 ways sex gets easier once you have kids. And then pop over to read Julie De Neen spew coffee all over her friend in Lying to your kids about sex toys.

PPPPS “Woman, I need an antidote to all the sex talk, cause I ain’t getting any.” I’m so sorry, babe. (But you know there are toys, right?) Go visit Wonderland by Tatu and read Hi, my name is T. & I am a screamer. Get your mind out of the gutter! Not everything’s about sex–she’s talking about something else. And, do pop on by The Sadder and Wiser Girl as she celebrates the one year anniversary of her blog–good on you, Sarah, and write on!

PPPPPS One more. The funniest thing from my over-crowded in-box this week so far comes from The Book of Alice: Wrongly Accused. It’s about boogers. And children. So you know it’s worth clicking on.

Jane out.

Posted in Longer Essays
Tagged intimacy after children, marital relations, partners, Sleep
50 Comments

They tell you “It gets easier.” They lie

So there she is, stumbling down the block—walking circles around the playground—sleepwalking through the mall. The mewling baby inside a sling—a car seat—stroller. Glassy eyes, cause she hasn’t slept more than 45 minutes—no wait, two days ago, she got three hours in a row, score!—in four months. Wearing ratty pants—because they fit. And her husband’s sweater—because all her tops have been puked on and laundry, she was going to do laundry yesterday, but then the baby had a fever and…

So there she is. The new mom, the first-time mom, and she’s so exhausted and she so clearly needs—what? A hug, help, empathy, reassurance. And you—you’re a good person, and so you want to give it to her. So there you go. Run up to her. Smile. And you want to say, you’re going to say:

“It gets easier.”

Don’t. Just fucking don’t. Because, fast-forward two years, three, and there she is. Running down the block. Maybe another baby in sling. Toddler in stroller or running away. And maybe she’s getting more sleep—but maybe not. Maybe the toddler has night terrors, and wakes up screaming for hours on end in the night. Or maybe, even if Morpheus has been kind to her and the children sleep—she doesn’t sleep nearly was much as she should, because when they sleep, that’s the only time she can be free. To… think. To read. To be… alone.

The toddler makes a break for it and tries to run into the street, and she nabs him, just in time, and pulls him back, and starts explaining how streets are dangerous and he must hold Mommy’s hand, but he really, really, really wants to be on the other side, and he’s two, so self-will is emerging with a vengeance and soon he’s screaming and tantruming, and you, you can see she’s on the edge, about to lose it, because maybe this is the seventh time today—this hour—she’s had to deal with this, and you want to help. You want to give her a hug, help, empathy, reassurance. And you want, you’re going to run over to her and you’re going to say:

“It gets easier.”

Don’t. Don’t. Because a year later, there she is, with her three-and-a-half year-old. Before they left the house this morning, he put her iPhone in the toilet, cut his dad’s headphone cord into shreds, and threw $30 worth of grass-fed beef off the balcony in the compost pile. And now, his pants around his ankles, he’s chasing a flock of pigeons, penis in hand, yelling, “I’m going to pee on you, pigeons!” at the top of his lungs. And she’s trying to decide—should she catch him? Or should she take advantage of the fact that he’s distracted for five minutes, so she can change the new baby’s diaper? Because she hasn’t had a chance to even check it for the last five hours… And I swear on any of the gods that you may or may not believe in, if, at that moment, you come up to her, and you say—because you’re an empathetic, loving person who wants to help—if you come to her at that moment and say,

“It gets easier.”

she’s going to rip that diaper off the baby and throw it in your face. Followed by the tepid remains of her coffee (you’re lucky that she hasn’t had a hot, scalding hot, deliciously hot cup of coffee in three and a half years). And then she’s going to sob. And she’s going to say…

“When? When the fuck does it get easier? Because I’ve been waiting for it to get easier for ~~two three five~~ six years.”

I’m sitting in the middle of my living room—11 years into motherhood—and I’m in a brief picture-perfect postcard (Instagram for those of you born post-1995) moment. I’m stretched out on the couch, coffee cup beside me, laptop on my lap—and, for a few minutes at least, I’m chilling. Three feet away from me, my 11 year-old is building worlds in Minecraft, and Skyping with a friend. My eight-year-old is running with a pack of her friends just outside—I hear their voices, hers most distinct among them to my ears, through the balcony. Tucked under my arm is the three-and-a-half year old, taking a break from wrecking havoc and destruction on the world to play a game on the iPad.

I’m messaging with a friend a few years behind me on the parenting path. And she asks me, and I can hear the tears in her words even though she’s typing them (people who think texting lacks nuance do not text enough; she is weeping through the keyboard),

“When does it get easier? People keep on saying, ‘It gets easier.’ When? When?”

So, I wonder, is she ready to hear this? Is she ready to hear: It doesn’t get easier. All the people who say this? They’re all liars, every last one.

But I won’t say that. First, because I do not wish to make her despair. Second, because it’s not true. It does get easier. It really does. But when people say it, what you, first-time mother, hear it is not ‘It gets easier,” but this:

“Things will get back to the way they were before, soon.”

And that, my lovely friend, will never happen. Things will never be the way they were before. Never. Things have changed forever. Things will never get back to “normal”—as you defined normal when you were single—when you were childless. Never.

And so I tell her this, and again I hear tears in-between the words she types to me.

And now I have to deconstruct the lie to her. I have to explain. That they don’t mean to lie. It really does get easier—sort of. The stuff that’s killing you now—be it the lack of sleep, the aching nipples, the endless diapers-laundry-is-she-sick-is-he-teething or be it the toddler tantrums, potty training regressions, “She won’t leave the house!” “Getting him in and out of the car seat is hell”–all of that, it will get easier—and, in fact, end. They all wean. Toilet train. Stop drawing on walls (unless they in this house). But see, then, other stuff happens that’s really hard too. Ferocious Five. Sensitive Seven. Bullies on the playground—social issues with friends and ‘frenemies.’ Broken hearts. Explosive anger at things and issues much, much bigger than all those daily rubs that cause toddlers angst.

“It gets easier”: yeah, I suppose it does, because you figure it out, and adapt, and get coping strategies. But every time you “master” a phase—they change. Grow. Face new challenges. And you’ve got to change, grow and adapt with them. If only you could do so ahead of them…

But you can’t. And so, you see, “it gets easier” … it’s a lie.

And it’s the most destructive lie, the most life-damaging myth you can buy into. See, because if you keep on waiting for things to get easier—if you put living, changing, adapting, figuring out how to dance this dance, walk this path as it is now, with all of its bumps and rubs—if you put all that on hold until it gets easier…

Well. You’ll be fucked. Totally. And completely.

So. My dearest. It doesn’t get easier. It changes. You get better. You grow. Learn. And that little squealer—that awesome toddler—that slightly evil three-year-old—he grows. Learns. Changes. It gets better. When you learn and change and grow and all that—it all gets better.

But. Easier? No.

So. There she is. Frazzled. Exhausted. So fucking tired. And she sees you coming, and you have empathy poring out of your pores. And you want to help her. Offer her empathy. Support.

What are you going to tell her?

Hey, all, wow, thanks for all the sharing and massive Internet love. Bad day for my RSS feed link to break — this is it: RSS Feed https://nothingbythebook.com/feed/ — and even though there are a bazillion comments, I am reading and responding to every single one. Thank you so much, beautiful people. You can also email me privately at nothingbythebook@gmail.com. Or find me on Twitter @nothingbtbook. You know the drill. xoxo “Jane”

♥

Two great things from my weekend in-box, from the #FTSF blog hop, that fit in beautifully with the theme of today’s post:

Kristi Campbell’s post on FindingNinee.com: I blog because of you, I blog because of us, and

Katia’s post on I Am The Milk: Closest to Me

“I Give The World To You,” by Flora (May 2013)

Posted in At Least Mildly Sappy, Longer Essays
Tagged " new mothers, "It gets easier, attachment parenting the older child, first-time mothers, lies people tell first-time mothers
106 Comments

May 21, 2013

Tongues off my Facebook

I’ve been filling an unusual role the last few days: holder of the Facebook password for a friend who needed a bit of a detox/distance from the social media platform… but neither want to complete total Facebook seppuku nor felt she had the self-discipline required to just stay off—if she knew she could go on.

I give her access back today, and we’ll debrief afterwards to see what she learned from the experience… if anything. Thus far, all she’s learned is that I’m a “fucking hard-ass bitch,” who won’t give her access early, no matter how much she joneses for it. Ha. I’m mildly shocked she didn’t know that about me before. But. The experiment wasn’t supposed to be about the strength of our relationship—I’m pretty much it will survive the name-calling of the last few days—but about her bumpy relationship with Facebook.

Ironically, as my friend has been struggling to figure out how to make that relationship functional, I’ve been crafting a post about how much I love Facebook. Because I really do. And it massively ticks me off when people dis it—and the social connections people make, have, and preserve on it. It particularly ticks me off when people are contemptuous about how stay-at-home moms and parents of young children use Facebook—and how much time they spend on Facebook.

Time that the detractors believe would be more productively spent—oh, any other way. Cleaning, cooking. Hyper-focused on the children. Knitting. Reading. Canning. Blogging? Maybe not so much blogging…

Now, I won’t deny that some folks run into trouble with the role social media in general, and Facebook in particular, plays in their lives. Others have documented that up the wazoo; my friend’s recent decision to detox is a specific example from my own bubble.

But I find it quite disturbing that much of the dialogue and criticism around mothers and women on Facebook—in the blog world—in social media and cyber-space generally—has this undercurrent:

Be alone. Be isolated. Don’t talk to others.

It’s there. Ponder it the next time some expert, Luddite or just run-of-the-mill jack ass takes you—or someone else—to task for Facebooking, texting, tweeting or blogging.

This, really is the subtext, almost always:

Be alone. Be isolated. Don’t connect with others.

Oh, they might fake it by saying “Instead of Facebooking, foster real life relationships.” They don’t mean it.

See, they—you know who ‘they’ are, right? ‘They’; it’s always ‘them’ who do this sort of stuff—have always done this to women, to mothers.

Before Facebook et al.—they took exception to the amount of time women spent on the telephone. Flip through any cartoon collection from the 1940s-1980s, and you’ll see images of women gabbing on the telephone—wasting time—neglecting their duties.

Not connecting, communicating, building community.

No. Always negatively depicted. (Think Sybil on Fawlty Towers. “Oh, I know…”)

Before the telephone… women wrote too many letters. ‘tis true. The novels of the 18^th and 19^th century—many of them epistolary novels, which is such a beautiful irony—are filled with slags at lady letter writers. Even my beloved Jane Austen, letter writer extraordinaire, engages in this slag-fest (I hope, unconsciously), mocking Lady Bertram’s letters in Mansfield Park even as she describes what a critical lifeline to the people she loves these letters are for Portsmouth-stuck Fanny Price.

Before letters—gossiping in the town square, the market. Getting together to wash clothes in the river—and talking, sharing. Talking while gathering nuts, roots, berries together.

‘They’ have always come down on women talking. Sharing. Communicating.

Think about it.

Be alone. Be isolated. Don’t connect with others.

A medium without its problems it isn’t, for sure. And because it’s so new—as is so much that we have deal with these days in the communication world—many people will struggle with it, abuse it, suffer as a result. And we have to figure out how to control it and make it work for us, instead of having it control us and make us miserable.

And we ought to be critical of it, absolutely, if we think its effect on our lives and the lives of those we love is negative.

But for me, as the primary care giver for my children and someone who works from home, Facebook is, very often, a critical antidote to this:

Be alone. Be isolated. Don’t connect with others.

It keeps me connected to people I love who are in different cities, different countries, different continents.

It continues to nurture important friendships when people get busy, get into incompatible phases that make getting together difficult.

It lets me answer an SOS when a friend needs—a meal delivered, a child chauffeured, a pair of size 7 rain boots. Or, just a brief sanity break or a cyber-hug.

It lets me send out an SOS when I’m out of eggs, milk or salt, and stuck at home with a sick toddler. Invariably, there’s neighbour who’s en route to the grocery store who can help.

It means I get to see and share my nephews and nieces’ milestones as soon as they happen.

It allows me to get a hit of sociability when circumstances force me to, physically, be trapped at home alone.

It helps me build community.

It helps me break isolation—be connected. It’s a tool. It’s powerful.

It helps me ask for help when I need it. Be it a real, physical “do this for me” need–or a more intangible “I’m going crazy here and I need to vent!” kind of crisis.

And it ticks me off when ‘they’ dis it—because I think they dis it because they want me—us, women, mothers, parents—to be alone. Isolated. Disconnected.

They always do that, you know. They always have.

Don’t let them.

I’m tempted to end with a list of 10 ways to make Facebook (and social media generally) be a positive and not soul-sucking experience. But I’m sure scores of these already exist out there. So let’s just end on this note:

Washing clothes on the riverbank together. Chatting in the market. Telephone conversations. Facebook exchanges.

All examples of women—mothers—striving to make connections, build and maintain community. Break out of solitary confinement.

Which these days, too often, is a perfectly comfortable, beautiful suburban home.

♠

“Wow, what’s with the heavy? I come here to laugh!” OK, babe. Then go read House Rule #713, or why we don’t hold a lot of dinner parties or He’s not evil, he’s a toddler. Or last Friday’s post about penises.

♥

I supported my friend during her detox by staying off Facebook, Twitter and Gmail and Google+ through the long weekend, so I have no idea what cool and fascinating things the blogosphere put forth this weekend. But I’d like to introduce you to my blogging friend Deb at the Urban Moo Cow (awesome blog name, awesome mama, awesome writer) whose last post, The Asshole Brigade Coming Soon, is sort of about building community. The challenges of building and maintaining community. Anyway, that’s the spin I’m putting on it to make it fit with my Facebook rant.

P.S. Was it hard staying off social media for a mere 72 hours? Yes and no. No pain, no shakes, no jonesing… but it made a few things harder. Had to walk around the neighbourhood looking for someone for the three-year-old to play with on Sunday, with not much success, instead of posting a Facebook SOS/play invite… Couldn’t invite random people to share a meal with us Monday night… couldn’t share this awesome link from BrainPickings.org on Good Writing versus Talented Writing even though I really wanted to… didn’t find out that my neighbour had a washing machine meltdown and needed to use someone else’s washing machine in time to help her… and I’m sure there’s a new puking cat video out there that I need to see to make my life complete.

Posted in Longer Essays
Tagged BrainPickings.org, building community, detox, Facebook, Fawlty Towers, isolation, Jane Austen, jonesing, keeping mothers in isolation, Mansfield Park, social media, Urban Moo Cow
36 Comments

May 14, 2013

Secret to raising healthy eaters: don’t feed your kids crap; don’t force “good for you food” down their gullets

True story: the 3.5 year-old is rooting around his plate, and then looks up at me in anger.

“There is no more cauliflower here!” he hollers. “I want more cauliflower!”

I give him more cauliflower. Our dinner guest blinks, and not at the unique brand of rudeness that belongs only to 3.5-year-olds.

“How did you do that?” she asks. “I mean—he just asked for more cauliflower. How did you do that?”

And as I open my mouth to answer, the 11-year-old does so for me, by catapulting his cauliflower onto his little brother’s plate.

“Here, eat mine,” he says. “I’m not so into cauliflower these days.”

And I shrug, and look at my friend, and wonder if she needs me to extrapolate? And I think perhaps she does, and while food remains pretty much the only part of the parenting puzzle that I feel confident soapboxing about these days, I’ve boiled down that particular lecture to two very succinct points. Very short, brief—did I already say succint?—points, which, alas, aren’t actually heard by most of the people who ask me to elucidate them.

So to my friend, I just shrug, and I change the subject.

But to you, to you I’ll tell my secret.

It’s two-fold.

1. Don’t feed your kids crap.

2. Don’t force your kids to eat good food.

There you go. That’s it.

Do these two things, and your 3.5 year-old will scream for more cauliflower. Your 11-year-old might not even want it on his plate. But he’ll eat it again. When he’s 12. Or maybe not until he’s an adult. And maybe he’ll never love it—I’ve never learned to love brussel sprouts or celery, although I have now become one of those obnoxious people who can’t get enough kale (I know! Who knew?). The point: he’ll have a palate for good food. He won’t eat crap (much). And he won’t associate good food with battles, torment, cajoling and Mommy going on a power trip.

I think #1 is actually easier. However you define crap (in my world, if it needs a list of ingredients, it’s probably crap)—just don’t feed it to your children. Parents make this difficult for themselves because they’re—what’s the word I’m looking for… oh, yes—hypocrites. They don’t want their kids to eat chips, store-bought cookie dough and sodapop… but they want to eat it themselves. So it’s in the house. Available. Taunting. Forbidden.

If you don’t want your kids to eat it—don’t eat it yourself. Don’t have it in the house.

Sidenote: I let my kids eat crap at other people’s houses (with minor exceptions—there are things I will not let them put into their bodies. No discussion allowed). At parties, fairs. I don’t make it a forbidden, madly desired fruit. It’s just never in the house. If it’s in the house, they can eat it—whenever they want. It it’s not in the house—it’s just not an issue.

Sidenote 2: I don’t call crap a treat. Sometimes, when life falls apart, and the only way the children will get any calories into them is if I whip through an A&W or Wendy’s on the way home, we do it. It’s not a treat. It’s Mom-doesn’t-have-her-shit-together-today-so-you-have-to-eat-crap-I’m-so-sorry. The children: “We love A&W hamburgers!” Jane: “I know, but I feel so terrible about feeding you such bad-for-you-crap!” The children: “It’s okay if it’s just once in a while, right, Mom?” Jane: “It won’t kill you immediately.” Yes, I’m mildly insane. Back to the post proper:

So, see, not feeding your kids crap—really, pretty simple. Not forcing your kids to eat good food—a little harder. But just as important. It’s there. In the house. On the table. Available. Never forced. Don’t ask the reluctant two-year-old to take one bit. In a couple of weeks or months, he’ll reach for it on his own. Don’t threaten the five-year-old that she can’t leave the table until she eats her broccoli-carrot-chicken whatever. Just don’t. Trust that in a house full of food, full of good food—the children will eat as much as they need, and they will learn to eat and love good food. Eventually. Not on your schedule. But as their taste buds develop and as their willingness to experiment grows.

Trust that in a house full of good food—they will neither go hungry nor choose crap.

Yeah. That’s it.

1. Don’t feed them crap.

2. Don’t force them to eat good food.

Do those things, and there are no battles, no issues. Just kids who eat when they’re hungry, and only as much as they need to. Kids who leave desert unfinished because they’re full, too. Kids who prefer to ask Grandma to make them her special soup for lunch than get taken out for fast food.

“Mom! Why did you let Ender eat all the cauliflower before I came to the table?”

“Sorry, Flora. Next time I’ll save you some. Cinder? Do you have any left on our plate?”

Kids who fight over the last piece of cauliflower.

♦

More like this:

Picky eaters: how can he know he doesn’t like it until he takes a bite?

The family the eats together: “Help! I can’t make my kids sit still through a meal!”

Posted in Longer Essays
Tagged feeding kids, picky eaters, unfooding
44 Comments

April 9, 2013

Emotional Eight

I’m sitting on the couch with Flora curled up in my lap, her tear-stained face crushed against my chest. I’m not sure what she’s crying about—she does not want to tell me. I’m not sure she remembers what she is crying about, now. But this much I’ve learned from by Emotional Eight—as I watched her struggle from Inarticulate One to Tormented Two to Traumatic Three, Fragile Four to Ferocious Five, Struggling Six to Sensitive Seven—all she needs from me now is quiet acceptance. All she needs is for me to hold her. All she needs is for me to shut the fuck up.

It’s hard, it’s so hard. To not say anything, you know? To not press. To not find out. To not offer a solution. To not—repress. To not say, “It doesn’t matter.” “Why on earth are you crying about that?” “Get a grip, get some perspective.” So hard.

I hold my Emotional Eight a little tighter.

“I’m calming down,” she whispers.

“Good,” I whisper back.

“I’m so sad,” she says.

“It’s all right,” I say. And that’s so hard for me too. To give her permission to be sad, to feel, to suffer. I rarely grant myself that permission. Flora’s the child of mine who I feel I fail, if not quite constantly, than certainly more often than her brothers—and it’s because she feels, she feels so fully and so acutely, and she’s been cursed with a mother who has severe intimacy issues.

(You, reader-who-knows-me-only-from-my-writing, I see you scoffing. You’ve perhaps told me that you read me because I’m so naked, raw, honest? Lies, all lies. I am a competent writer. That means I control the narrative. You see only what I want you to see. And, you, reader-who-knows-me-in-real-life, that glimmer, glimpse of what’s behind the curtain? I meant for you to see it. I’m that manipulative—and that skilled.)

Flora is my opposite: so open, so vulnerable, so transparent. It terrifies me, because oh-god, will she suffer. Suffers. And every time she is torn open, every time she feels too much—I need to combat my desire to arm her, repress her, wall her off, turn her into me.

Because, you know, she is such a gift. It is people like her—not people like me—who will save the world. So I hold her. Say nothing. And later, when she is calmer and the immediacy of the wound recedes into the past, discuss coping strategies that may protect her—help her react and process—but not wreck the power, depth and fullness of feeling that make her who she is.

I so suck at this.

So thoroughly.

But. I try. I keep on trying. And when I know I’m absolutely failing… I call in her Dad.

(Do you want to deconstruct with me what I’ve done here? How I’ve played you? I dare you. Do it.)

Posted in At Least Mildly Sappy, Longer Essays
Tagged attachment parenting the older child, emotional children, Sensitive Girls, Spirited Girls
29 Comments

unLessons from the Posse

As we come around the corner, the crowds scatter, jump, recoil. First one–two–three–flying like the wind, silver scooters carrying them along like lightening, legs pumping–and then four–five–bent lower over the handle bars, legs pumping even faster to keep up with the vanguard–and you think they’re all through, but no, here comes six, working harder than everyone else because he has to keep up. And me, at the end, with number seven in the bike. Calling out, “High traffic area! Everyone keep to the right!” But they don’t hear me, of course; of course, they don’t, because there is only speed, wind, the path, and the posse.

I love the posse. Three are mine, four are borrowed for the day. Four people have the temerity to ask, as we zoom by, “Oh-my-god-are-they-all-yours?” and sometimes, I would punish them with The Look, but today I am happy, so I just smile. One-half of one couple is so appalled by the procession that is us that the beautiful young woman turns to her husband-boyfriend and says, loudly, fully intending me to hear, “And this, honey, is why we always use condoms.” I’d give her The Look, but then I catch the husband-boyfriend’s look, and it is one of such joy-envy-lust that instead of giving her The Look, I give him The Grin, and we have a very quick, secret psychic conversation:

Him: Seven, eh? Six boys? Man. My own fucking hockey team.

Me: Imagine the soccer games you would have.

Him: Basketball. Camping!

Me: You’d just sit in the chair, and they’d set up the tent.

Him: The littlest one would bring me beer.

Me: You’d build them the best treehouse ever, right?

Him: Oh, fuck, yeah. Would I ever. So… um… you wanna have more kids?

Me: No, I’m done. Sorry.

Him: Okay then. Well, have a good day

Me: Good luck with her, eh?

Him: Yeah… not sure this is going to work out.

We move on. Along the river. Over this bridge. That one. I don’t even attempt to tell them to stick with me–they are a posse, The Posse, and The Posse don’t wait for no Mom. But I am wise in the ways of The Posse, so I don’t ask. I command. “Meet me at the Dragonfly!” I yell to their backs. “Go ahead–and wait for me at the crossing! We all cross together!” It doesn’t matter how fast I go–they go faster. It’s all about being alone, really. I can read the fantasy, in the three eldest anyway. As far as they are concerned, they are alone.

We stop. Regroup. Do a headcount.

Me: Fuck. Five. Who’s missing?

They: The twins.

Me: Your mom’s going to kill me. Where are they?

They: Who knows?

Me: Dudes! No man left behind! Find them!

Phew. Just fixing their helmets by some bushes. Onward. But now I have given them a new war cry. They push off:

No man left behind!

Flora scoots beside me. “Did they leave me behind because I’m not a man?” she whines. “They didn’t leave you behind,” I point out. “You came to visit with me.”

Up ahead on the path: wipeout!

Me: Blood?

Him: I’m okay.

You don’t show weakness in The Posse.

The Posse fractures. Its members fight. When we stop at a playground and they play a mad game of tag with rules so complicated it makes my head spin, my eldest gets his nose out of joint. The twins think they’re picked on. Flora feels left out. Mostly, I stay out of it. Sometimes, I nudge towards a solution. But mostly–I let them be The Posse. I’m there to make sure there is no real injustice … but they know most of the rules of engagement. They are learning how to work things out. This is not Lord of the Flies.

My final test as Mom-wise-in-the-ways-of-The-Posse comes when we hit an ice rink. The ice is melting, sloppy. But still slippery. I see the desire in their eyes. The two eldest look and do a risk analysis. Then decide to try to break their bones on the nearby playground instead. The littles dump the scooters and go to slip and slide on their feet. But he-who-will-test-me comes up to me and says,

“Can we scooter on that?”

It’s a test. Any mother in her right mind would say no, and he knows this. And I know that he knows this. We look at each other, take each other’s measure. And I say,

“I can’t fit seven kids in my car if we have to go to the Children’s Hospital… Look, keep your helmet on, and no whining or crying at all unless there’s massive amounts of blood, and you’ve lost more than two teeth.”

He looks at me. Mildly appalled. His mom would have said no, outright, his eyes tell me, and I’m clearly irresponsible. Criminally so. But I’ve just given him permission. Really. If he doesn’t go on the ice, I’ll know it’s because he’s afraid. Of blood. Losing teeth. He’ll lose face.

He puts the scooter on the ice. Scoots.

“It’s not slippery enough to be fun,” he tells me. Drops it. And goes off to join The Posse.

We pass another couple on the last block home. This time, I have a quick, secret psychic conversation with the girl:

Her: Is it hard?

Me: Fuck, yeah. But so worth it.

When The Possee’s split up, and four-sevenths goes home with Fishtank Mom, they are all exhausted. And not-a-little tired of each other. But next time–next time, they’ll gel together again. Feel the wind, the speed. Be the pack. Fight, fracture, learn. Is it hard? Fuck, yeah. But so worth it.

Photo from the newspaper “Nogales Herald” dated July 20, 1922 showing an American posse after capturing the Mexican bandits Manuel Martinez and Placidio Silvas (middle of back row) who killed or wounded five people at or around Ruby, Arizona in 1921 and 1922. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

♥

And a thank you to the fabulous Tatu from Wonderland By Tatu for including Nothing By The Book in the shininess of the Sunshine Award. As you may have noticed, I truly suck at passing these on adequately. Not out of any better-than-thouness, truly, just out of… what shall we call it… laziness.Pure laziness. But thank you muchly, Tatu, you made me all smiley and sunny on a hard day. Here’s the link to the last one of these that I’ve paid back “properly,” which includes some irrelevant facts about myself and some of my favourite bloggers.

Posted in At Least Mildly Sappy, Longer Essays
Tagged attachment parenting the older child, Boys, Chaos, large families, lessons from large families, Lord of the Flies, movement
28 Comments

March 26, 2013

It’s 4:30 a.m.: do you know where your children are?

You know this Calvin & Hobbes comic panel, of course you do―it’s a cultural meme embedded on all of our memories: Calvin, climbing out of his bedroo
m window and racing over to a payphone. Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep, he dials. And, the punchine:

“Dad? It’s 3 a.m. in the morning. Do you know where I am?”

Flora loves this strip, and she reads and quotes this over and over again.

“Mom, you know I’m going to do this to you one day, right?” she says.

And stupidly, tears circle in my eyes, and I say, “Oh, baby. You’ll do worse. Much worse.” And she stares at me confused, because, after all, what we are sharing here is a joke, and I’m ruining it. But I finish it.

“You WON’T call me at 3 a.m. And I WON’T know where you are.”

She doesn’t get it, of course, nor, at age eight, should she. But this night, tonight―it is 4:30 a.m. and I know exactly where my children are. The elder two are asleep in their beds, and if I still my head and eliminate the creaking noises of the house, I hear their breathing.

The 3.5 year old is sitting on my head.

We’re in a prolonged “phasing out the nap” stage with the Ender, which on this day manifests itself by the boy not napping at all―and then crashing for the day at 6:45 p.m. I do the math as he falls asleep and figure if I’m lucky, very very lucky, he’ll sleep until 5 a.m.

When you’re the parent of a toddler-preschooler, 5 a.m. is almost morning. You can wake up for the day at 5 a.m. It sucks ass, and it means it’s a four-pot (coffee, ladies gentlemen, coffee) day. But you can do it.

Ender wakes up at 4:15 a.m. What a difference 45 minutes makes…

By 4:30 a.m., I give up trying to get him back to sleep. And I give up playing co-sleeping parents’ roulette. If you share your bed with the kids at least some of the time, you know what I’m talking about―which of you can take more of the rolling and poking and singing? Who’s going to break first and get up with the little dude? Neither of you is sleeping―but at least you’re both horizontal… and that’s almost like sleep…

I break. I take the Ender downstairs. Change his soaked night-time diaper. Wrap him up in blankets and give him milk, oranges, avocado and an iPad. Kiss him.

“I don’t want to be alone here!” he wails.

And were he child number one, his mother would sigh, and curl up on the couch beside him, and fade in and out of sleep for the next three hours, with Pinky-Doodle-Doo or another Nickleodeon-show blaring in the background, and the Ender occasionally asking for snacks, hugs, the moon.

But he is child number three, and I have two other children who’ll need me conscious when they wake up, plus plans for the day that require at least some of my brain to be working. So:

“You’re not alone. Mama and Daddy are right upstairs. I will leave the stairwell light on, and if you want to come back to bed, you climb up the stairs and very, very quietly climb into bed. Flora will be down very very soon, and then you won’t be alone down here.”

He acedes for he must. And I think―it’s 4:30 a.m., and I know where all my children are, and this is good. It doesn’t feel good, mind you, at this particular moment… and I look at the Ender, and I wonder if, when it’s 4:30 a.m., and I won’t know where he is, whether I will be able to sleep?

Probably not.

Sigh.

Maybe I’ll become a little more hardass over time.

♠

It’s 5:27 a.m., and I know where all my children are. One of them is sitting on my head, singing, “Maaaaay-peeee-niis! My! Penis!” Quite quietly, actually, but still.

Sean loses the co-sleeping parents’ roulette. “Get off your Mom!” he howls, because he’s a good Daddy (and good Daddies, have I mentioned, are so hot?). And he drags the dudling, protesting and howling back, back downstairs.

When sleep comes, I dream that I don’t know where my children are at 4:30 a.m.

Sigh.

But when I wake up at 8:30 a.m., there is a tousled little redhead tucked under my arm, snoring the way only three-year-olds can snore.

I forgive him everything, instantly.

(Photo credit (Sleep): Sean MacEntee)

Posted in At Least Mildly Sappy, Longer Essays
Tagged Bedtime, Calvin & Hobbes, do you know where your children are, skipping nap, Sleep
13 Comments

March 12, 2013

A room of her own? Earplugs. I’ll settle for earplugs

I didn’t turn on the radio; that was my first mistake–should have let CBC Radio One fill the void of noise, or the latest BBC Horrible Histories CD. But even though it was only 10 a.m., I had had my fill of noise, and so while we drove through the snow-covered streets, I didn’t turn on the radio.

And so. First, Cinder:

“Um-ta-um-ta-um-ta-um-ta…”

To the beat of some YouTube video… I bet you know the one. I don’t, because I’m a negligent parent, and no longer supervise my 10 year-old when he youtubes (look, I made a verb. Take that Oxford Dic). And Flora joins in:

“Moist. Moist. Moist. Moist. Moist.”

If you watch How I Met Your Mother, bet you can name the episode. Yes, my eight-year-old watches How I Met Your Mother. On Netflix. Unsupervised. And while I’d love to claim that this experience will ensure she will never date a man like Barney… I have to confess, she’s got a thing for his pecs. And I suspect she thinks she might be able to reform him. Sigh.

“Um-ta-um-ta-um-ta-um-ta…”

“Moist. Moist. Moist. Moist. Moist.”

And now, enter Ender.

“Fox in Socks! Fox in Socks! Foooooooox! Iiiiiiiiin! Sooooooooocks!”

Dr. Seuss? I hate you. And I particularly hate you in this car, and if this goes on much longer, I will hate you on a star, and I will hate you here and there…

Cinder’s chants morphs into:

“I’ve got the moves like Biscuit, I’ve got the moves like Biscuit, I’ve got the mooooooves like Biscuit.”

(If you’ve got a Minecrafter in the house, you’ll get the double-reference; if not, don’t worry. But yes, this version is just as annoying as the original.)

Flora morphs How I Met Your Mother and Dr. Seuss and starts chanting:

“Box. Box. Box. Box. Box. Box. Box.”

Ender starts free-forming:

“This is my song and I am singing! I am singing! AS! LOUD! AS! I! CAN!”

And me? Well, it’s been 10.5 years of sometimes-screaming children and 3.5 years of three of them howling in the car at the same time. I’ve got coping strategies. The best one, frankly, is noise-cancelling earphones (earplugs will do in a pinch). But I ain’t got them one me right now, so instead, I leave only a small fraction of self driving the car–just enough not to break any major laws or rear-end any bad drivers. The rest… the rest is in a bathtub. Gloriously alone. In a gloriously silent bathroom. Underwater… disassociating…

The cacophony continues. I’m now not just in a gloriously silent bathroom, but in a gloriously silent hotel room. Oh God. Yes. Please. Silence envelopes me, surrounds me. The outside is snowy and quiet. The inside–can’t even hear the central heating. The phone’s unplugged.

“I’ve got the moves like Biscuit, I’ve got the moves like Biscuit, I’ve got the mooooooves like Biscuit.”

“Box. Box. Box. Box. Box. Box. Box.”

“This is my song and I am singing! I am singing! AS! LOUD! AS! I! CAN!”

Silence. Oh yes. It’s a beautiful thing.

I try not to resent the happiness my children–most children–take in creating cacophony. If it’s noise of happiness and joy, I can usually ride it out. Feel fantasy water fill my ears; disappear into my head. But sometimes… oh, the real thing is the only thing that will do. Silence. All around me.

“Mom?”

Flora breaks with the noise. We’re parked in front of our destination.

“Mom? You have that horrible creepy look on your face, like you’re not here. Mom? Mom?”

“Sorry, babe. Just thinking.”

Liar. I’m not thinking. I’m just listening to… silence.

I’ve been away wallowing in silence–just me and my laptop and no Internet, in the mountains–for a glorious interlude and thus a bad citizen of the blogosphere. While catching up is impossible–I’ll be around more this week so if you’re a new visitor and commentator, I will pop by your cyberplace soon. Unless I get swallowed up by silence again. It was… glorious. Simply glorious. I’m jonesing for it already…

Posted in At Least Mildly Sappy, Longer Essays
35 Comments

March 5, 2013

“Boy, you sure have your hands full”: the rebuttal

This isn’t what I usually write, or how I usually write. It’s actually a really great example, from the point of view of a professional writer, of why you shouldn’t write when you’re all het up—or why you shouldn’t press “send” right after you’ve written something that had you all het up. Think on it a bit. Emotional angst makes for great drama—it rarely makes for great writing in the moment. Too much confusion, cloudiness… self-absorption.

What the professional writer in me wants to do is to file this under “bad drafts,” come back to it three or four months hence when I don’t remember the incident that fired it, take the nugget of insight from it (generally found in the second-to-last one-sentence paragraph), and build a proper essay around it.

My inner child wants to publish it as is, because she’s wilful and has poor impulse control and it’s her blog, goddamit, and she’ll write what she wants.

The wilful inner child takes charge, grabs the lead and starts to write this:

I was rude to you the other day, I realize, and the soft, peace-making, acquiescing part of me wants to apologize. It’s not nice to be rude to people and I should have made some effort, taken the high road, etc. Etc. Especially as you weren’t malicious—nor rude to me, particularly. I was just tired of mediating with the world, and you were just… stupid, I think is the word I’m looking for.

The adult within asserts a little and starts to edit a little:

Damn, this apology is not going well. Stupid’s unfair. You may have been a perfectly intelligent, thinking person under most circumstances. With a flaw, perhaps: the desire to talk to strangers about the first thing that occurred to you. There’s probably nothing wrong with that trait. Probably helps you make friends in new places. You just had the bad fortune to select the wrong mother at the wrong time to talk at. I’m sorry.

There, that’s a better shot at an apology. And now, the inner child and its super-ego start to compromise and work together… They write this:

I suppose before I go any further, I should recap what you said—and what I did. So there I was in the library on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, with my three kids. The seven-and-a-half-year-old (“I’m actually closer to eight, now, Mom, shouldn’t you say that?”) was checking out our stack of books at the self-check out. The ten-year-old was amusing the not-quite-three-year-old (“Amusing? Well, that’s one way of putting it, Mom.”). And I was lounging against the wall between them, occasionally toning down the volume on the amusement, and occasionally helping my checker-outer when the machine didn’t read the book codes properly. Last book went through the check out. I divided the books between four sets of arms, and said, “To the car, dudes.”

Arms full of books, the kids ran joyfully—and noisily—to the door. I followed more slowly.

And, somewhere from the periphery of my vision, you let out a (well-meaning) chuckle, and said, “Well, that’s what your day off looks like, doesn’t it.”

I half-turned my head to ascertain that you were talking at me, and then I said…

Nothing.

I tried to offer one of those smiles of acknowledgement, but I suspect it didn’t come out genuine, because I didn’t particularly feel like smiling. I thought what you said was really silly—and I didn’t feel like offering any of the conventional responses you expected. What would they have been, anyway? What were you looking for? “That’s the way the cookie crumbles?” perhaps? Or “Good thing we love them?” Or something else that would validate your assumptions that a) this was my day “off”, b) that I’d rather be doing something else, c) that spending a Sunday afternoon at the library with my kids was somehow hard? I’d had a really tough, exhausting week, and this Sunday afternoon was, frankly, one of the week’s jewels, one of those moments in time that underscore just how good my life is. I wasn’t frazzled or ticked or yelling at the children (that was Thursday afternoon, but you weren’t there… wonder what you would have said then? “That’s what your day on looks like?”). My children were by no one’s compass behaving inappropriately or in a demanding, taxing manner (though by Zeus’ third testicle, on Tuesday they did). What the hell were you commenting on?

And as all this flew through my head at lightening speed, the fully rational part of me also knew I was completely over-reacting, because it had been a tough week and because I was tired and my defences were down, and you did not mean to be in any way rude, —you were just a friendly stranger trying to make conversation, and you said the first thing that came into your mind. So I tried to force that smile to be a little less fake, but I still said…

Nothing.

You were a few steps behind me in the parking lot as we both walked to our cars. My children had raced ahead to mine. They opened the doors, and loaded themselves up into the card. You caught up to me. And said:

“My daughter’s thinking of having a third, but looking at you, I don’t know—boy, it’s a lot of work.”

And I turned my head again, and looked at you, and said…

Nothing.

But I gave you The Look. I know I gave you The Look, because you took two steps back, and then almost ran to your car without half-a-backward glance at me. It’s possible I made you cry. I’ve never seen The Look on my own face, but I’ve bequeathed it to all three of my children, and I’ve seen it there, and it’s a pretty terrifying thing; it’s a “You’re too stupid to live, and you should leave my sight before I do something about it” kind of look, and apparently it frequently creeps onto my face during business meetings, and my colleagues, as well as the people who have the misfortune of being interviewed by me live and repeatedly, live in terror of me one day turning The Look on them (and my husband and children treat it as a sign of my undying, clearly unconditional love that no matter what they’ve done or said, I’ve never turned The Look on them… yet).

Anyway. I gave you The Look. You skedaddled. I got into the car.

“Can we put one of the new books on tape in?” the 10-year-old asked me, as the seven-year-old finished buckling up her little brother in his car seat. The books were piled around them.

“Sure,” I said. I started the car. He put the CD in.

As we drove home, I tried to parse what it was that you had done that ticked me off so.

“Well, that’s what your day off looks like, doesn’t it.”

“My daughter’s thinking of having a third, but looking at you, I don’t know—boy, it’s a lot of work.”

Two sentences. Kindly meant, really. What’s ticking me off here? Is it that you interfered in a moment I was having with my children. Sunday afternoon. At the library. The four of us. Chilling. Not performing for you, or awaiting your commentary.

Mothers today live essentially in constant defensive mode from verbal assaults—er, commentary—from well-meaning strangers.

This mother’s tired of it, and is done responding to it. See me in the park or the grocery store with my kids? Whether we’re in a moment of bliss or a moment of strife, it’s our moment, and it’s none of your business. The only two acceptable comments from a stranger to a mother (or father) in a public place are:

a. What a beautiful family you have.

and, its more effusive variant,

b. How lucky you are to have such a lovely family.

Feel compelled to say something else? Shut up.

Was that it? The above rant notwithstanding, no, not really. A little—it sure didn’t help—but not really. It wasn’t even that your comments were so completely… inaccurate. I mean, there are plenty of times when I’m out in public with the brood when it does look like hard work. Like the time I had to get Cinder to sit on Ender at the deli while I paid so that I wouldn’t have to buy $200 worth of broken jars of imported honey and olives. Or the time… well, anyway. There are times. This wasn’t one of them.

But even if it was—here’s what really got me—even if it was. Even if it looked like hard work. You vocalized the thing that I’m convinced will be the reason Western society collapses:

You think if something’s a lot of work, it’s not worth doing.

Is having three children hard work? A lot of work? Having any children? Yes. It requires effort. But everything worthwhile does. My work requires effort. Living in my community requires effort. Maintaining relationships and lines of communication. Eating well. Learning a language. Unlearning bad habits. Cleaning house. Gardening. Fixing your car. Making supper. Some days, getting out of bed in the morning.

It all requires effort. And it’s all worth doing.

If I didn’t do things that were hard work, I’d… I don’t know. Sit on my ass watching bad tv because it was too hard to find the lost remote and too hard to get off the couch? Watch life and opportunity and everything pass me by because it was too much work to seize the moment, make the change, do the thing I wanted to do?

My fingers pause over the keyboard. I’m not sure how to end this rant, which isn’t quite going where it started out heading. Then Ender putters in. He’s carrying a giant, giant rock. Into the kitchen—which means, he must have lugged it in from the garden, up the two flights of stairs.

“This hard work,” he says, with an oof, as he plops down for a rest beside me. “This hard work for a little me.” And I look at him in awe, because what’s the first thing that I was going to say in response to this amazing feat of toddler strength? I think it probably was going to be, “Then why did you do it?”

Ender gives another oof. “This hard work for a little me.” He looks with pride at the stone. “Me did it.”

You did it, dude. And that’s that.

Inner Child Art –Rescued! (Photo credit: Urban Woodswalker)

Post-script: So. The writer in me sat on this draft long enough that my seven-and-a-half year-old is now eight and change. But the inner child still wants to share it with you more or less in its original form. And she still has poor impulse control. Plus, her super-ego is rather tired this week.

♥

Blogger love: I got the nicest cyber ego stroke from one of my absolute favourite daddy bloggers, @PapaAngst last week, in his post Balsa Wood Forever, and you should wander over to meet him if you don’t know him already. Actually calling him a daddy blogger does not do him justice: He’s a daddy and a blogger, but what he is, on line, is a story-crafter and talented writer. Who knows how to work his inner child just right.

Posted in At Least Mildly Sappy, Longer Essays
Tagged comments from strangers, is having children hard work, papa angst, The Look, Third Babies
38 Comments

January 30, 2013

Kids’ birthday parties: how to do it without stress and angst

Flora is hosting a birthday party sleep-over extravaganza for 12 little girls. They’re about to descend on the house in, oh, 45 minutes. I’m sitting on the couch, legs up, drinking coffee (yes, it’s laced), eating chocolate, and chilling by writing this post.

Here’s why.

The little girls are coming to have fun, eat hot dogs, cake and pop-corn, watch a movie, and snuggle in sleeping bags on my living room floor to celebrate Flora’s eighth birthday and their special relationship with her.

They are not coming to inspect the cleanliness and order of my house.

They are not coming to do a 45-minute craft that requires three days of pre-planning and pre-cutting.

They are not coming to enjoy themed hors d’oeuvres or a fancy meal.

They are coming to play and love Flora.

And so, I chill.

Our day, in preparation for the party, looks like this:

Each of us spends the morning doing our usual chill thing. Cinder and Flora play Minecraft. Ender destroys the living room (aka plays Lego, trains, straws and connectors and strews poppy seeds and bread crumbs everywhere). Sean reads a book. I hang with friends on Facebook and catch up on the blogosphere and poke around on Twitter. We eat breakfast. Chill some more.

Post-shower, as a nod to the sensitivities of little girls, I give the bathroom a pretty thorough clean and instruct Cinder not to pee for the remainder of the day. I back off when he threatens to pee off the balcony instead.

The day unfolds as a lazy Saturday should (Sean and I hide upstairs for a while to, um, “talk,” because you know, that won’t happen at night). After we eat lunch, I give the kitchen a fairly thoroughly clean—wash all the dishes and put them away, sweep the floor (I don’t even thinking about mopping it, because I will have 14 kids eating ice cream cake, chips and pop-corn in the house all day).

At about 2:30, Sean takes Flora and Ender on the crucial pre-party errands—to pick up the cake (outsource what you suck at and don’t enjoy is one of my life maxims) and a new pack of markers and cardboard masks that Flora decides she needs to have for the party.

As soon as they leave, I nap. Oh, yes. A delicious twenty-minute, no-three-year-old in the house nap.

Then, finally, I spring into action. With Cinder’s help, I de-Ender the living room (trains, Lego and straws-and-connectors into their bins. Big sweep of the floor, thoroughly covered with all manner of crap. Rejig of the furniture to create the “camp-out” space Flora wants.

I leave Cinder in charge of putting up the streamers (Flora asked him to do it, “because you’re so good at it, Brother!”), and go to prep the entry way.

Here’s what I don’t do: I don’t take away our five pairs of snow pants, snow suits, mitts, gloves, boots etc. etc. etc. I just make sure all of our shoes are on the shelf, so there’s plenty of room for 12 additional little pairs of boots, and there’s a space to deposit 12 coats and mitts. I do sweep—entry ways are foul things, are they not?—and I do briefly ponder mopping—it really needs it—but then I come to my senses. Each of those little girls will be wearing snow boots covered in snow and mud, and will take them off in the entry way and drip crud all over. Let it be, let it be. I clean after. (Maybe.)

And I’m pretty much done. I go up to the kitchen, and put the requisite bowl of chips on the table (I do fancy out and plop a table cloth under it—this ensures I don’t have to thoroughly scrape the kitchen table that triples as craft-table and science lab). Add a plate of carrots, pears, and oranges. A cutting board with cheese. Put the hot dogs, buns, and ketchup beside the stove.

Pour myself a cup of coffee… and go put my feet up.

It’s going to be a pretty crazy, intense night. I will have to facilitate, redirect, soothe. Keep the Ender amused and non-destructive. Ensure everyone feels welcome, included, safe and loved.

I’m not going to set myself up for stress and failure by exhausting myself before it comes.

I’m not throwing this party to impress Flora’s parents’ friends—or Flora’s friends.

I’m throwing this party because I love Flora and it’s what she wants.

And her friends, they are all coming only to play and love and celebrate Flora.

And so, I chill.

Although… with guests due to arrive in 10 minutes, I should probably go put on some pants.

xoxo

“Jane”

(January 12, 2013, 4:45 p.m.)

(Photo credit via Zemanta: jessica wilson {jek in the box})

P.S. I’m hopping at You Know It Happens At Your House Too’s Don’t Be a Bloghole Hop over the next few days. Link up with me!

Posted in Longer Essays
Tagged birthday parties, low stress, Organization, simplicity
14 Comments

The naked truth about working from home, the real post

I’m in the shower when the phone rings, and I hear it through the water and the door, and I know who it is even before Cinder hollers, “Mom! It’s for you!” Shampoo in my hair and my eyes, I’m leaping out of the shower and out of the bathroom without turning off the water—where the fuck is the towel?–and skidding into the combination Lego room/Sean’s office that holds the only upstairs telephone.

“Hello, “Jane” speaking,” I say crisply, sharply. Out of breath? No way, not me–the phone voice kicks in ASAP. My well-trained eldest son—the ire of the mother for misbehaving on the telephone is legendary—hangs off the receiver. On the other end of the line is a VP of a blue chip Bay Street company (like a Canadian Wall Street, but less sexy and exciting) I’ve been stalking for a few days, and I need to talk to him today. He’s in an airport—“Houston? And how’s the weather?—he’s got five minutes, what do I need? I speak quickly and cut to the chase: this, that, and, above all, a comment on that mess. The door of the room creaks open, and my daughter comes in. She sees the phone at my ear and mouths, “Mom? Why are you naked?” I mouth back, “Towel! Paper! Pen!” I cast a desperate look around the room—full of Lego and an assortment of my husband’s crap, including a printer, why the fuck is there no paper here? Or pencils? How can there be no writing implements in the bloody office?

The VP’s already talking and I see, gloriously, buried under all the Lego, a purple marker. This is how the professionals do it, boys and girls—I grab that marker and… I move to start writing on the wall, but the two-year-old comes in, and I have a brief second thought. I make desperate hand motions at my seven-year-old, and—she’s well-trained in this this too—she immediately says, “Ender? Want to watch a show on the i-Pad?”

But their exit is too slow–they’re still in the room and I start to scribble. With the purple market. Not on the wall. On my leg. I start at the thigh and work my way down, to the ankle and instep, contort myself, and write on the inner leg. Then the other one… The VP’s a gold mine. He gives me exactly what I need, and I’m transcribing every word.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” I sing as I hang off. And become aware that

a. I’m naked in my kids play room

b. my legs totally covered with purple marker

c. the purple marker is a horrible, kid-friendly, washable piece of shit

d. the water from my hair is dripping onto my legs and smearing! Smearing my interview transcript!

“My laptop!” I scream, and Cinder bounds up the stairs with the lap top. “Um, and a towel!” I add. I’ve been anticipated: Flora’s in with the towel. I grab the towel, the laptop. Scrunch my hair with the towel before tossing it over my shoulders and torso. And I start to transcribe. From the top of the leg—never before am I so grateful for the remnants of the baby weight that give some heft to the thigh—down, up the inside. Down the other one.

And yeah. I got this, that, and the comment on that mess in particular. Fucking score. My heart beat slows down. I’m going to meet deadline, and the story’s going to kick ass.

What you need to know:

a. It’s not supposed to be like that.

b. It’s like that much too often.

c. If you can’t handle life throwing that at you with regular irregularity, you shouldn’t even think about working from home with children underfoot.

I’ve worked as a freelance writer since 2000, and I’ve popped out babies in 2002, 2005 and 2009. They’ve all grown up in this: I managed three weeks off after Cinder, four days after Flora (I went into labour actually in the middle of an interview, and had to cancel another ), and with Ender, I blocked off a luxurious two-and-a-half months off… sabotaged about four weeks in by a favourite client.

What I mean when I say I’m a freelance writer: I churn out five-to-ten-thousand+ words a month for a variety on business publications and clients (my real life business portfolio here for the serious-minded in the crowd).

What you really want to know: what this means time-wise and brain-wise and child-wise. The time commitment is erratic: I’d say at least two hours a day spent in just keeping on top of having the work—that is, emailing back and forth with editors and key contacts, keeping on top of what’s happening, clearing up questions and details on what I’ve filed etc.—and anywhere from 12-40 hours a week in research-interview-writing mode. My target weekly work rate is 20-25 hours (12-low-effort-maintance, 8-12 high-effort research-interview-writing hours). Less than that, and I’m setting myself up for a hellish 40+ week down the line. (My target earn rate, by the way, is the equivalent of a full-time job within that 20-25 hours. But that’s a topic for another post…). Once or twice a year, I actively invite a hellish week or two because of a particular project, client, or painful state of the bank account.

I used to get the “How on earth do you do that with a toddler and a baby?” comment all the time; now I get the, “How the heck do you manage that with homeschooling?” And everyone who asks it is looking, if they’re honest with themselves, for a magic bullet. They’re looking for that instruction sheet, that secret, that has them visualizing me sitting at a desk typing away—or on the telephone conducting an interview—while my children quietly and peacefully play at my feet.

No such thing. How do I work from home with children underfoot?

The short, and really honest, answer is—in ideal circumstances, I don’t. My most productive and efficient output happens when another adult is in charge of them. My husband—my mother—a neighbour—a friend—a paid babysitter. That childcare and that focused time don’t happen spontaneously. I plan the hell out of my work weeks and work days. I schedule interviews for the days when the kids are planning to spend a day with Grandma. I swap child-care with my film-maker husband. I pay for it when I must. In a four-hour block of child-free time, I get two-days worth of work done. Perhaps more. On the days my mother takes the kids for a long 8-10+ hour day, I am so uber-productive my brain and fingers (and sometimes throat) hurt at the end of it.

That low-maintenance work—checking email, social media, initial research, screwing around on the Internet and calling it research—these are things I can do with kids underfoot, during the littlest one’s naps, while the older two are really engaged with something. These are things I can do in spurts, things that don’t require me to enter the flow or to fully focus. Telephone interviews? I never plan to do these without another adult in the house or the kids (under sevens anyway) out of the house. Writing? There are things I can write in spits and spurts, off-the-top-of-my head, and in 45 minutes after I put the kids to bed. A 5,000 word feature on the history of the Canada-US Softwood Lumber Trade Dispute? Or an analysis of what’s really at stake when it comes to the proposed oil sands pipelines? I need focused time and space to produce that, and I prefer not to sacrifice sleep for that.

Sleep-deprived writers produce second-rate drivel. (Unless they’re in the flow on the novel. That’s different. Right?)

So. In my ideal world, working from home still requires an investment—financial, or otherwise, in child care. But life is rarely ideal. No matter how well I plan, every story and every project has its share of surprises. A cancelled interview—spontaneously rescheduled just as the toddler needs to go down for a nap or the baby needs to nurse. An editor’s demand for a last-minute rewrite, due yesterday. A client’s panic attack requiring me to pull an all-nighter—or to rely on the house’s assortment of electronic devices to babysit the children while I pound away at the keyboard. A last minute “I shouldn’t take this story, but oh-my-god-I-get-to-fly-to-Montreal-to-interview-the-prime-minister!” assignment. And havoc reigns.

Planning allows me to ride out the havoc. The irregular regularity of the havoc trains the children. They know a deadline must be met. They learn by age four how to behave when Mommy’s on the phone (she doesn’t push it too much: tries to keep those unplanned interviews to under 15 minutes).

(Sorry, until age four—no guarantees. A DVD might buy you 15 minutes. Or it might not. The good news: with my almost-8 year-old and 10 year-old, I can handle whatever havoc hits with them taking it in stride. I now only have to outsource the three-year-old on the days when I have to write, write, write—or spend the day glued to the telephone. And increasingly, I can outsource the three-year-old to his siblings. Not for an entire workday—but for a decent stretch of time. So yes, it gets much, much easier as the kids get older. But when they’re little? It’s tough.)

And that, friends, is the naked truth about working from home with children in your life. Possible, rewarding, the only way I want to work.

But it’s work. It requires planning. It throws you curveballs. It don’t look like that sepia-postcard dream you’ve got rolling in the back of your mind in which you write an award-winning article effortlessly while a perfectly balanced and delicious meal is already simmering on the stove and the toddler is at your feet playing with dinky cars for two hours. It’ll have to racing out of the shower naked with shampoo in your hair at least once in your life, and teaching your children swear words nobody at the playground knows yet.

Think you can do it? Of course you can. Right?

More like this: The naked truth about working from home, the teaser

This post is being recycled as part of A Mother Life Hum Day Hook Up #33:

The most recent Nothing By The Book post is How we teach children to lie, without realizing it.

If it’s your first time here, I’d love to connect, in all the usual ways:

Follow me on Twitter: Follow @nothingbtbook

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Send me a personal email to nothingbythebook@gmail.com

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(Split personality alert: If you are interested in my business writer alter-ego, you can find her portfolio at Calgary Business Writer and on Twitter Follow @paddleink.)

Thanks for visiting!

xoxo

“Jane”

Posted in Longer Essays
Tagged WAHM, working from home, working from home with children
47 Comments

December 14, 2012

Merry Christmas, from Mythbusters and Cinder

This is really hilarious, but also a little offensive, so if you’ve got bad language sensitivity, click delete / next now. It’s a story from August 6, 2009, when Cinder was about seven, and it’s our Christmas gift to you.

We were on a crazy Mythbusters marathon, and Cinder and Flora’s absolute favourite episode, which they watched over and over again, was the Holiday Special, in which the Mythbusters test, among other things, the variety of products that are supposed to keep yer X-Mas tree greener, fresher, and needle-full longer.

Remember the episode? They put the trees in a bleach solution, spray one with hairspray, etc etc and one of them gets a “little blue pill” added to its water.

The little blue pill is Viagra, but they don’t say so. The announcer introduces it as the little blue pill, and then one of the Mythbusters does a “well, how do I describe this, people are probably watching this with their kids—Santa’s little helper?” and make a big deal out of it.

Anyway—the first time I watched the episode with me kinder, I said without much reflection, “Viagra? They must mean Viagra?” the kids asked what’s Viagra, I said, a little blue pill, apparently not being in a mood to discuss erectile dysfunction with a 7 year old and a 4 year old, and the episode continued.

Having committed the episode to memory over repeated viewings, Cinder at one point starts telling me what the bleach did to the tree (bad things), what the hairspray (pretty good, actually) and other stuff. I, having only watched parts of the show but once, have no real recollection.

“But you know what the best preservative of all was?” he asks.

“What?”

“The little fuck pill.”

“?????”

“You know—the little fuck pill.”

Words I did not expect to come out of MY seven year old’s mouth, ever—yet a strangely appropriate moniker for Viagra. And I’m naturally curious where and by whom he heard Viagra thus described (and am wondering if that’s something that came out of Sean or my mouth at some point? Cause it sounds like something we might say… but would we be so obtuse as to say it in front of the children? Well… maybe…)

“Where… what…” I start to phrase the question.

“You called it another name, remember? It sounded like Vinegar?”

“Viagra.”

“Yeah, Viagra. But on the show, they said, the little blue pill, and they wouldn’t say the name of it, because kids could be watching, remember?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, so I figured it was probably called the fuck pill. Because that’s the word grown-ups never want kids to hear.”

“Oh…”

“But you know how I know it? Fuck?”

“Well…”

“Cause that’s what you and Daddy say whenever you break something.”

Merry Christmas,

Jane

who breaks a lot of glasses

Photo (More Broken Glass) by autowitch

More like this: Want to hear all the swear words I know? and Why parents swear

Posted in Longer Essays, Those Conversations
Tagged Swearing, Those Conversations
5 Comments

December 12, 2012

Keeping them close, letting them roam: what to do when children start to push geo-boundaries

Each year as they’ve grown out of the sling-and-stroller phase, and particularly after hitting age five, my children have moved to enlarge their physical world. Their physical boundaries.

In a word, they’ve started to roam. Further and further away from my watchful, paranoid eyes.

And letting them do this has… sometimes been easy and natural, an obvious evolution. And sometimes, the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.

I believe that if our relationships with our children are anchored in co-respect and co-trust, and that if a core practice of our parenting is listening to our children and being attuned to their needs, wants, challenges and all that as they grown—and, by extension, by talking to our children about our needs, wants, challenges and concerns and expecting them to listen to us with as much care and attention as we listen to them—then this is an easier field to navigate.

Easier. But not easy.

Cinder and Flora are in the process of expanding the scope of their ranges quite a bit this summer (2009)—not just in terms of the “territory” of the neighbourhood that they feel comfortable in roaming, but in the sorts of things they want to do, the people they want to spend time with.

An example of something easy: Cinder rides his bike in loops around the Common area, and we’re all cool with that, no major discussions of any sort necessary. (Last year, he wasn’t interested in doing that, and if he had, I would have had palpitations!)

An example of something harder: he’s also wandering off the Common and onto the wild hill that abuts it—and his little sister wants to be in tow. That’s pushing a boundary that I’m not comfortable with. I’m not sure if I’d be okay if it was just the seven year old wandering off—the five year old definitely cannot, so neither may. And so we talk about it, and find compromises and solutions:

I’ll sit at the playground bench and watch them—or be within ear shot of them.

Or, they go with a group of kids that includes at least one or two much older kids with a brain and a credit of trust with me…

Or, I put away the computer, the laundry and the supper preparations, and go with them, perhaps hand in hand, perhaps some distance away.

The mid-way point between constant hovering / the type of over-protectiveness that essentially impedes the experience of life and the full development of independent personality and hands-off parenting that borders on (or is) neglect is a type of indirect or unobtrusive oversight. I don’t feel comfortable in letting my children walk the four city blocks to the nearest off-Common playground–because they would be walking a totally empty street, with no one walking down it, no one peeking out a window, no one to hear or see anything if they got hurt or spooked.

But, I feel comfortable having them play on the Common for hours on end, because at any given time, there is a parent, older sibling or cranky octogenerian either passing by, peeking out a window, hanging out on the balcony—and always within the distance of a holler away!

We live in a very community-minded, “we live here because we want to live in a real community” kind of place, and I know that affects my thinking and practices in this area hugely. Would I leave my children alone and unsupervised in a suburban six-foot fenced backyard? I dunno… probably less likely to feel comfortable doing that than letting them roam the unfenced, abutting on a public bike path, Common area.

Another factor that affects my level of comfort with how far they roam is that I know the parents of the children my children are hanging out with. In some cases, the parents are close friends and I trust their children almost as fully as I trust my own. In other cases, I may not know the parents that well—or particularly like them or their parenting!—but I still have a community relationship with them that ensures that 1) if I speak to their children about their behaviour—or their responsibility towards the other children in the community—they will listen to me, at least in the moment and 2) if I have a larger concern, I have an existing relationship with the parents so it’s quite easy to raise the concern with them and with other parents and to address it as a community. Ditto if my children are not behaving responsibility: there are adults around who will call them on it—and who will appraise me of the situation.

What’s your level of comfort? How do you deal with your children’s boundaries? How do you keep them close… and how far do you let them roam… and what factors are critical in determining that for you?

Adapted from May 19, 2009, Unschooling Canada

Posted in Longer Essays
Tagged attachment parenting the older child, free range children, pushing boundaries
1 Comment

December 2, 2012

How focused attention, freely given, changes everything

I found this fun post I wrote when Ender was eight months old when I was struggling to explain the difference between offering attention freely versus diffused attention. I don’t achieve this very well, because this was when my brain was still leaking out through my nipples. But, there’s a valuable insight in there of what freely offered, fully focused attention is… and a hands-on demonstration of the sort of diffused attention our children and our lives usually get:

June 21, 2010. My eight month old–who’s just discovered crawling!–is giving me a hands-on demonstration of just unbabyproofed our house is, so of course I deal with this by sitting down for a moment and writing…

I find there’s a huge difference between offering attention freely, with full focus on the child, and giving diffuse or temporary attention. Most of the time, diffuse attention is great: the kids are there, doing their thing, the adults are there, doing their thing, the two intersect for a while, go their own way… but at some point–at different points of the day, at different points of life stages–children (and spouses! and friends! and grandparents, gosh-darn-it, them needy grandparents!) really crave focused, concentrated attention, and if it’s freely offered–given before it’s asked for–all the better.

My beautiful Flora, 5.6 going on 117, had [writing interrupted to change poopy bum, notice bum had washed the kitchen floor and himself with dog’s water dish, clean up water―hey, now I don’t have to mop the kitchen floor until the next mishap! what was I blathering on about before?] has been going through a rough couple of weeks. Sensitive always, she was uber-sensitive. People looked at her sideways and she burst into tears. [Crap forgot to put a new diaper on and the baby is now playing in his pee, hold on, break to wipe up pee] She was essentially waking up teetering on the edge of a breakdown. [oh, hell, the baby is trying to climb up the stairs… no, he’s backed off ]

Apart from being 5.5, a few disruptive things happening in her life, including chaos from the above mentioned 8 month old [gah, he’s back on the stairs…. ok safe], her best friends’ being sick and away, and her mother not well and not all there. There were so many things that I couldn’t do anything about… but I could do this:

I started sitting down and playing pets and Heart dolls with her. For what seemed like hours–but on the day on which I clocked it (because I’m that sort of anal retentive person), added up to a mere 45 minutes. It made all the difference. It gave her an anchor that was missing before.

OK, he’s determined to climb those stairs today I am done…

2012. I’m so glad I found and re-read this post now, because I needed a reminder that beautiful, sensitive Flora needs this freely offered, focused attention so much more than either of her brothers right now. Ender’s fully satisfied to be destroying the house somewhere in my wake; Cinder grabs a quick cuddle and a book reading when he needs to recharge (although I do see him shifting more and more into needing more one-on-one Dad time). Flora needs one-on-one Mama time a lot. She asks for Girls’ Days Out. Girls’ Movie Nights. “Just a Girls’ Hour Out, Mom?”

This is really hard to do when you have three kids. There are only so many nights, only so many days. But I need to make a concentrated effort to give Flora this time, this focused attention, because it anchors her. Fills her up. In Flora’s ideal world, she and I would have a weekly night out. I would love to give this to her―and one day, one day soon, I will. Maybe we’ll take an art class together. Or Spanish. Right now, I can’t give her that weekly night or that schedule. But I can do this:

Flora! I’m going to the library. Ender’s sleeping and Cinder’s going to stay with Daddy. Want to come?

I do this all the time now. Take her with me when I go to my physio training. We have 30 minutes in the car there and 30 minutes back to talk; she has 30 minutes of brother-free chill time while I go through my torture session. Ask her if she wants to run pick up milk from the market with me. Run to the drug store. She almost always says yes.

Now, these opportunities don’t arise, frankly, that often. I have three kids. I work, as does their dad. Most of the time, I’m taking all three of them to the library and the grocery store. But when the opportunities arise―when Cinder wants to stay and home and play Minecraft, when Ender is sleeping, when both boys are engaged with Daddy, when the stars align―I grab my Flora and we run.

I also try to grab her at home when the boys are occupied, and I notice that she’s lost. And I sit with her while she organizes her pets. Or takes me through her art. Or just tells me silly things, important things, weird things. When she wanders into the kitchen when I’m massacring vegetables, I know that she might be looking for a snack―or Mommy-time. I pull her into chopping or stirring with me. And listen.

I don’t do this, let me be clear, very well or naturally. My attention most of the time is diffused―between all three kids, the freakin’ dog who won’t stop peeing in the basement, the house-that-ever-teeters-on-the-edge-of-descending-into-utter-pigdom, the latest three writing projects that are all due yesterday, the committee meeting, the really interesting discussion happening on my Facebook, and the less-interesting professional one I’ve got going on LinkedIn.

But I try. And I know when I’ve done it well or consistently, because I have a much happier, more anchored Flora.

Photos (Crawling Baby Earthenware Olmec Culture 1200-900 BCE Mexico) by mharrsch and (FLORA) by adafruit

Posted in Longer Essays, unAdvice Toolbox
Tagged attachment parenting the older child, giving attention, one-on-one time
11 Comments

November 28, 2012

When kids exclude

I am the mother of two social butterflies super-concerned with the sentiments and feelings of others and of one child with limited EQ and social awareness. Over the last few years, I’ve seen both Cinder and Flora (if you’ve been reading Nothing By The Book, you know which is which) in social situations with other children where either one or the other—or both of them—have been excluded from a game by other children—or have done the excluding themselves, either actively or by aligning with the actively excluding party.

(As a writer, I need to pause here and apologize for that last sentence. Horrid. I hope none of my editors ever read it. If you are an aspiring writer, take note: this is what happens when you try to talk in generalities instead of being specific. Back to the topic at hand.)

A gang of some two dozen neighbourhood children roams our Common area throughout the summer, and every summer we parents witness and try to mitigate some sort of “ditching,” “cliquing,” “I don’t want to play with Jack,” “Patti and Hayley won’t let us play with them!” drama. And every year, on one of my homeschooling or parenting lists, someone brings up the question of “What to do when other children won’t play with mine” or “What to do when my children exclude others.

After years of struggling with this, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s way easier to articulate an over-arching philosophy/principle for this than to react rationally and consistently to specific situations… especially if, in those situations, it’s one or the other of YOUR kids who appears to be unkind and un-inclusive… Frankly, it’s much easier if they’re the victim of such a thing. Then you can get all righteously indignant! When they’re the ones saying “I don’t want to play with you,” it’s a whole different set of reactions, isn’t it?

Here’s where my thinking on this idea is right now: I don’t always feel like “playing” with all of my friends. You know? If I invite Emma over for coffee, and she shows up with Laura—or Laura invites herself—and I had my heart set on a tete-a-tete… I won’t be happy. By extension, if Laura and Emma planned a thing, I’m not entitled to crash it/join it just cause I happen to hear about it or see them departing. When we do a Mom’s Night In (or Out), we don’t want a husband to crash it. It’s not a parents/couples night. Ditto when my partner and his buddies go to the shooting range—it’s a testosterone, crazy thing close friends are doing together, and no one’s wife, girlfriend, child – or acquaintance outside that close circle—is welcome, invited or wanted.

(To my know-me-in-real-life readers who are having a hard time picturing Sean holding a gun: He’s ever gone to the shooting range once. But it was the best example I could think of. A wife or casual acquaintance could get away with crashing a movie night or bowling, right? Maybe? Back to the point:)

So if we as adults can set those limits on our sociability—hopefully politely, kindly and respectfully, at least most of the time—surely reasonable for our children to do the same? The difference, I think, is that we need to help our children learn how to articulate those limits and preferences in an… appropriate? considerate? way… and also, to help them figure out how to respond to having those preference communicated to them by others without getting angry, pissy and defensive.

(In fairness to children, we’ve all encountered adults who still suck at both respecting/hearing such messages and communicating them, and sulk if they’re not invited to this or that event, or, worse, use invitation/uninvitation as a social weapon. Especially in this social media world.)

The summer of 2009 was the first that Cinder and Flora started choosing to spend a chunk of their playtime apart from each other, with other friends—often, but not always of the same gender—and it’s required some new learning on my part. When my older boy is building Lego with a friend, and my girl is feeling left out—and tempted to wreck their game because she can’t figure out how to be part of it?—the onus is on me, not to get THEM to include her, but to get ME off my ass and engage HER in something else. And when she and her friends are spinning tales about unicorns at tea parties, and my boy, thinking it’s a stupid game, wants to chuck missiles at them, same thing—I’ve got to gather him up, read a book, set up a science experiment, watch him do stuff on the chin up bar, etc.

This is a hard issue. If you have insight to share, I’d love to hear it. I’m really at a point here were I think there can be no hard and fast rule here. Sometimes, the “you can’t play with us” is meant to be nasty and hurtful and then we react in a very different way than when its intent is more benign. Sometimes the child—or the adult—hears “you can’t play with us” when it wasn’t said or intended. Sometimes, the parent hears or sees something the children aren’t aware of—or the children are reacting to an undercurrent the parent doesn’t see.

And sometimes, a quick, “Let’s think of a way that we can tweak the game so that everyone can play” is all that’s needed.

First two photos, uncredited, from Wikipedia; last photo (The Pigeon and The Unicorn by gordon2208)

Note. The original draft of this post was written on August 23, 2009, in context of a discussion on Unschooling Canada. I’ve modified considerably here… but even with the revisions, as I re-read it, I’m thinking of filing it under “least helpful post ever.” But that’s the nature of the issue, I think. No easy answers. Unless you’ve got one? Do you?

Posted in Longer Essays
Tagged attachment parenting the older child, exclusion, inclusion
15 Comments

November 21, 2012

The naked truth about working from home, the teaser

I’ve been trying to articulate a really helpful “this is what working from home really looks like” post—again by request—but the working is getting in the way of writing. So in the meantime, I’ve found this post from Life’s Archives, February 28, 2008. Pre-Ender, so life was in some ways less complicated… but also pre-10-year-old in the house. Still, it’s a good glimpse at some of the challenges. The real, more helpful post will come. Promise. Soon.

I work from home, my desk in the middle of our living room-library-playroom-toy room, and my work involves a lot of phone time with interviewees, clients, editors and the like. My son loves answering the telephone now, and is a great answering service. “Cinder speaking. Yes she is. May I tell her who is calling?” OR (“Sorry, she can’t come to the telephone right now. She’s doing something really important. (Like, you know, playing Lego and stuff).” (It’s an awesome reality check for Bay Street types. Almost as good as the time I ‘wore’ my baby to a bunch of interviews and she threw up on an investment banker’s Armani suit.)

My three year old has just started trying to beat him to the punch. Unfortunately, she picks up the receiver, hollers, “Flora speaking!” and then, most of the time, hangs up… then tells me it is a telemarketer. Often it is. Sometimes, it isn’t.

On one of my recent phone tag days, the phone rang while I was in the bowels of the basement changing loads of laundry, and the three year old answered. When I came back to my desk, I had an email from the chairman of a very blue chip Toronto firm, whom I had been anxious to talk to all day, that read something like this:

“Umm… I just tried calling you… I think… but… umm… a small
child answered the phone and yelled at me. Umm… Call me if you still want to talk.”

We had a great interview afterward. He told me about the time his three year old fed some of his closing documents into the garburator.

2012. The more life changes… it’s the same chairman. Different three year old. I call him at 10:30 a.m. after I’ve sold the children for the day to the Grandma. He calls me back at 5:47, as they’re all filtering into the house. Seven year-old Flora grabs the phone. “Flora speaking,” she says. Listens carefully. “Hold on a minute,” she says. “Mom! It’s for you!” she says, and hands me the telephone as Cinder hands me the Ender, who dozed off on the car ride home and is waking up unhappy.

“Now a good time?” the chairman asks me. I’ve been waiting for this call all day. Ender snivels into my shoulder. Cinder, I can tell, is starving. Flora desperately needs to talk.

“My kids have just come home, and the three year old woke up from a nap and needs Mom cuddles,” I tell him. “I can call you back in half-an-hour–or tomorrow morning?”

“Go cuddle your babies,” he says. “We’ll talk in the a.m.”

I ❤ him.

November 14, 2012

Surviving 3.5 and 5.5: a cheat sheet

In the spirit of the Orange Rhino “No Yelling” Challenge:

If you’ve been reading me for a while—and if you know me in real life—then you know I’m usually this “pee in the driveway if you want” kind of parent. Just a leetle on this side of permissive, you could say. But I hope you’ve also noticed that Saint Jane also, ya’ know, loses it with her children—yells, gets irritated, frustrated, wants to run away…

And, to date, never more so than at three-and-a-half and five-and-a-half. Cinder and Flora, at both of those ages, drove me to the very edge of sanity and made me mine for immense reservoirs of patience within myself I didn’t know I had. And despite those, I still yelled and snapped. But without them, I would have snapped ever so much more…

As Ender, who has been simultaneously my easiest baby and my most frustrating child (paradoxes are what makes life interesting, right?), starts the path towards three-and-a-half, I thought I should remind myself of a few strategies that saw me through it the first two times. The cheat sheet strategy was an absolute lifesaver with Cinder—and as I dug it up out of old journals, I wish I had put it into action when Flora was struggling through Sensitive Seven… I think I might still, because I suspect Sensitive Seven might become Extra-Sensitive Eight—and I hope it sees me through Ender’s crazy 3.5 with some sanity intact. Without further ado, here it is.

The premise is this: a certain level of crazy on the kids’ part is normal at this stage. I can’t control it. What I can control is my own behaviour and my own reactions. To that end:

I made a three column cheat sheet that looked like this:

1. When Cinder says/does…[thing that drives me crazy]

2. DO NOT SAY [in small print my knee-jerk, channeling the worst of my angry-inner-voice response]

3. SAY or DO THIS [desired response in big letters]

and taped it to the fridge, because somehow, most of the unstellar performance on my part occurred in the kitchen. Upon reflection, I should have had another copy by the front door, because that would be conflict spot number two.

With Ender, I might put this sheet up in the bathroom as well. And maybe have another one in the car…

So…

1. When Ender yanks Flora’s hair / tries to destroy her art work

2. DO NOT SAY Stop it you little monster!

3. DO SAY: Ow, that hurts! AND Take Ender away and redirect him to something.

Because most of the time we all know WHAT we WANT to say or do, right? The problem is remembering that ideal in the frustration of the moment.

Related life hack: It also helps me at times like this to remind myself of my long-term parenting and living goals are and how most daily irritants don’t really impact them. Writing them down somewhere on the cheat sheet might be helpful—I might try that this time ‘round. You know, something like, “What’s really important to me is a peaceful, respectful house. Not a clean house.” Or “I want my children to be confident, strong willed-adults. That means I do not get instant obedience now.”

And… persevere, with a smile when possible.

Unrelated life hack: It’s not even that I’m an introvert; some days, I’m an outright misantrope. Here’s a an interesting post on Finding Balance as an Introverted Parent, by Vanessa Pruitt, from Natural Family Today. Now, I’m not a great fan of looking for balance myself (I prefer to seek harmony), but although Pruitt uses the “B” word, she writes about useful strategies.

Posted in Longer Essays, unAdvice Toolbox
Tagged Attachment Parenting, attachment parenting the older child, Discipline, gentle discipline
8 Comments

November 9, 2012

What children mean when they say “I’m bored”

I feel like I ought to apologize for a string of didactic posts. Just remember as you read–I’m no expert. I’m a mom thinking out loud… this is my point of view. What’s yours?

“What do I say when my children say ‘I’m bored?’”
or
“Help! They keep on saying they’re bored! In this house? With all this stuff?”

Is this something you hear a lot? I’ve recently unearthed an exchange on this topic that had been a life-changer for me and I was lucky enough to encounter it just as my kids were starting to talk. So it means that I hardly ever hear “I’m bored.” It doesn’t mean they don’t say it, though… Paradox? Not really. Read on.

It’s a pretty simple reframing, really. When you hear “I’m bored,” do not treat it not as a synonym for “entertain me!” or “find me something to do.” Instead, think of it as a child’s attempt to communicate to the obtuse parent in simple words the child hopes the parent will understand a very complex feeling.

The conventional advice on “I’m bored” tends to be to present the child with a list of tasks, ranging from fun (“Do you want to go swimming?”) to unpleasant (“You’re bored? Here’s a list of household chores to do. Which one are you doing first?”). People who dispense the latter form of advice swear by it, saying that if they do it for a while, they never hear “I’m bored” again. Of course they don’t. They’ve “trained” the child not to say it. But the feelings that prompt that statement probably remain, and the child is left to cope with them on her own, for better or for worse, and generally, in those tender years, for the worse.

Remember how I said I don’t hear “I’m bored,” even though they say it? That’s because when I hear “I’m bored” I run the little translator, and instead I hear:

“I’m out of sorts, I have these weird, unsettled feelings, I’m not happy, but I don’t know why, I can’t settle down to anything, Help!”

When I hear this, instead of “I’m bored,” I realize it requires a totally different response.

There are other code phrases my children―and perhaps yours―may use instead of “I’m bored.” In our house, it’s often “I don’t know what to do,” or “I’m lonely” (in a house full of people, with a backyard generally full of kids!) and the like.

My response to all of these phrases is generally some variation on detaching myself from whatever I’m working on and attaching myself to them―focusing on them fully. I might ask them to come sit with me, have a cuddle, talk nonsense for a while, and see if I can help them figure out what’s going on. Often, I don’t need to do much figuring: they just need a bit of that reconnect time to ground and move on.

I resist the urge to become a calendar coordinator and offer them ideas for things they could do. That is not what they are asking for.

Sometimes, they can’t settle no matter how much cuddling or listening I give, and they can’t sort or articulate what’s going on. That’s when I do become an activities coordinator, but an autocratic one. I don’t offer a list of choices. I unilaterally implement a change of scenery. “Let’s go for ice cream.” “Let’s go check out the garden.” Or, two birds with one stone: “Help me get supper going, and then we’ll read.” Or, “Let’s go to Banff,” if I’m feeling extra adventurous and able to do a whole day trip! And we go.

Try it the next time you hear “I’m bored.” Activate that little translator, and hear:

“I’m out of sorts, I have these weird, unsettled feelings, I’m not happy, but I don’t know why, I can’t settle down to anything, Help!”

And watch your response change.

Posted in Longer Essays, unAdvice Toolbox
Tagged Attachment Parenting, attachment parenting the older child, I'm bored
14 Comments

October 31, 2012

Picky eaters: how can he know he doesn’t like it until he takes a bite?

Never, ever take advice from me on potty training. Or weaning. Or cleaning house. (But if you ever want to feel better about the chaos in your house, come see my kitchen when I’m on deadline. Last week, I was ankle-deep in stuff. Stuff=shredded egg cartons that Ender destroyed with a cheese knife while I tried to get the last paragraph for a profile of a leadership transition at an oil sands company nailed down just right.) But if you want, you can take advice from me about food. I’ve raised three garburators—by which I mean not children who eat junk food, but children whom no one can ever call picky eaters. They’ll eat anything.

But, wait. There’s a caveat. Not anything all of the time. Taste buds change, see, and sometimes kids don’t have the taste buds—or have taste buds that are just too sensitive—for the food we’re offering them.

One of the things we’ve always talked about as Cinder and then Flora didn’t like something / didn’t want to try something was that “taste buds change.” (Interlude: yes, it’s possible to know you won’t like something without tasting it. I will not eat steak tartare. You cannot make me. I will not taste it. I extend the same right of total refusal to my children. If they think it looks and smells gross, that’s enough. One day, they might think differently. Until they do, I will not force them. Back to tasting change buds… er, changing taste buds:) So when my eldest went off broccoli, when I’d make broccoli, I’d ask him if his broccoli taste buds changed yet–and he’d sniff it or look at it, and say no. And then one day he said, yes, but only in soup.

It’s easiest to relate to this if you’re recently gone through a taste bud shift yourself. During my Ender pregnancy, I totally went off broccoli too–formerly one of my absolutely favourite, could eat it every day vegetables. It’s been years, and those taste buds haven’t come back yet. I seem to forget this every week and order broccoli… and then look at it wilt in our fridge through the week, taking it out every couple of days to
look at it with disgust, (I don’t have to taste it to know I don’t want it) until, finally, I put it out of its misery and puree it into a soup my children devour while I watch them and eat something else… or, if I’m too lazy to fix myself a second lunch, drown my bowl of broccoli soup with hot sauce so I can’t taste its foul cruciferousness.

Mmmm, hot sauce…

Point: when introducing children to food—offer. Put on the table. Eat it yourself. Make it again. Ask if they’d like to try it. Ask if their taste buds for [X] have come yet. But never, ever force. Not even one bite.

Unless, of course, you’re willing to reciprocate? When Jocelyn is making a yummy mud pie with dirt and worms and beetle carcases, would you need to take a bite to be able to assert that you don’t like it?

Unfair comparison, I know. Switch mud pie for something you haven’t liked forever and ever. Shrimp? Egg? Sushi? Tripe? Would you have a bite if I offered it to you?

Don’t expect more of your little ones when it comes to food than you would of yourself. That, I think, is fair.

What do you think?

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Nothing By The Book

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Category Archives: Longer Essays

“Please don’t give my daughter an eating disorder. But you will. You will…”

The Authoritative New Parents’ Guide to Sex After Children, Redux

They tell you “It gets easier.” They lie

Secret to raising healthy eaters: don’t feed your kids crap; don’t force “good for you food” down their gullets

Emotional Eight

unLessons from the Posse

It’s 4:30 a.m.: do you know where your children are?

A room of her own? Earplugs. I’ll settle for earplugs

“Boy, you sure have your hands full”: the rebuttal

Kids’ birthday parties: how to do it without stress and angst

The naked truth about working from home, the real post

Merry Christmas, from Mythbusters and Cinder

Keeping them close, letting them roam: what to do when children start to push geo-boundaries

How focused attention, freely given, changes everything

When kids exclude

The naked truth about working from home, the teaser

Surviving 3.5 and 5.5: a cheat sheet

What children mean when they say “I’m bored”

Picky eaters: how can he know he doesn’t like it until he takes a bite?

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