From London, England

Dearest Clara,

All the festivities for the Queen’s Jubilee this week have me thinking of London lately, and for as often as I have to go there, I can’t believe this week didn’t coincide with a trip! How grand everything must have been---but then again, sometimes these things are best viewed on TV where you can appreciate all of the details from a distance.

I always delight in a work trip to London---there seems to always be something to discover while preserving the very best of the classics.  It’s a nice mix of being exposed to the newest delights the world as a whole has to offer---I think there is no more global city right now---and being comforted by the tried and true.  Here’s what I’ve picked up over my trips there:

• Look twice before crossing – some might call it driving on the wrong side of the road, but cars and bicycles and busses and who knows what else come at me from any direction in London.  There’s a reason why “Look Left/Look Right” are printed on the road as a reminder.  And always look twice.
• Invest in a really good trench coat – it’s one of the most iconic pieces that is both functional and stylish and you’ll need both in London . . . and Paris . . . and New York . . . and almost everywhere else.  Assuming you don’t leave yours in the airport like your mother does, then a good trench coat will last you for years through jeans and dresses and suits.
• Mind the gap – it’s a little bit like looking twice before crossing in London.  These small perils of surprise always hit you when you’re least expecting it---take care to notice situations in life that need a little extra caution in your step. 
• Make time for the grandest hotels – My grandmother always had a passion for visiting grand hotels.  She would get dressed up and visit the lobby just to soak it all in.  When we were younger, staying in them was out of the question but she still wanted to be part of the experience.  Now that I’m older, I understand why she did that, and I do it too.  Sometimes we splurge and stay at nice hotels around the world, but in London, the grandest hotels offer the grandest settings for a glass of champagne.  Bubbles fit best here.  Take the time to appreciate the institutions that put care into the details that have survived nearly hundreds of years---hopefully you’ll come with me sometimes, and one day, hopefully you’ll come with your own children.  Those hotels will still be there.
• Everyone can use a little pomp and circumstance – If there is a gala or a jubilee or a wedding, no one stands on ceremony quite like the United Kingdom.  There is something to be said for the ability to motivate that many people with unifying occasions.  Sometimes, adding some ceremony and grandeur to an occasion really do make them more memorable---when something is really important, at least to you, it’s okay to enjoy the celebrations around it.

All my love,

Mom

I Never Wanted To Be A Mother

By Chris Babinec Oh, Hell no! Not me. I didn’t think it was a bad choice, of course. As a feminist, I believed a woman should be able to do and be whatever she wanted to be. So, if a woman wanted to become a mother, good for her. Not good for me.

I just never got excited about babies. I never wanted to hold them, rock them, and take care of them. I never smelled that “baby smell” others would swoon over. I didn’t dream of staying home, cooking nutritious meals, wiping butts, listening to crying and whining. I didn’t need someone to look up to me, tell me they love me or call me Mommy. And, I never wanted all the trappings I thought being a mother would bring: a long-term partner, a permanent abode, and an interruption in my timeline of conquering the world.

Nope, for me, there would be adventure! Travel! Exotic foods, exotic lands, exotic jobs! And, of course, I would be a champion for women and children across the world. I would become a feminist icon. I would start my own non-profit. I would devote my life to helping others in need. I would try to live like my hero: Wonder Woman. Maybe I would run for office someday.

Above all, I would do what I wanted, when I wanted, how I wanted and nobody would get to tell me any different, especially not a man and certainly not children. I would be my own woman. Independent, free, yet devoted to our common humanity. I would, with effort, figure out how to balance my interests in, and devote my time to: women’s rights, civil rights, human rights, environmental concerns, animal rights, children’s rights, alleviation of poverty, cessation of war, and the list goes on and on. I would do everything, be everything I wanted to be. Maybe I would learn some humility along the way, but if not, so what, men get to think big, dream big, act big---why shouldn’t I?

To a large degree, I have already accomplished many of my goals. I have traveled and I have adventured. I have eaten exotic foods and been to new and interesting places. I’ve met incredibly interesting people and had many partners. I’ve tested my limits. I’ve tossed off the shackles of fear more times than I can remember. And, to a large degree, I have devoted my life and career to helping others.

Of course, the strangest thing happened. When I was about 30, I realized nearly all my life, I had been working with children.  Even as a youth, I was a peer leader, a voracious volunteer for many causes that helped other youth.  As I grew older, I found my niche working with teens, and not the Up With People, kind. The gang banging kind. The rough and tumble kids, the homeless youth, the sexually exploited minors/child prostitutes, the disenfranchised, angry, conduct-disordered kid who would just as soon spit on you and rob you, as give you the time of day. I love these kids. Since I was about 21, helping these kids has been my passion and my work.

These kids, as it turned out, were as outraged as I was at the state of the world. They were justifiably angry at the lives they had been handed. While they couldn’t acknowledge it or express it in appropriate ways, the anger seemed to drive their behavior. And, I get anger. I mean I really get it. It’s another reason I never thought I’d be a mother. I thought the outrage I possessed, the unbridled passion, the “you can kiss my ass” attitude might not be good for children.

These kids I worked with often didn’t have mothers. Or, sometimes their mothers were doing the best they could, but due to oppression, patriarchy, institutionalized discrimination, or due to substance abuse, mental health disorders and other complicating factors of our lives and culture, the mothers just couldn’t give these kids what they needed or wanted. Without knowing what was happening, without planning it, wanting it, thinking about it, or feeling any particular way about it, I began mothering.

It started in little ways. I would go to work, ask the kids about home, school and homework. I’d try to get the homeless kids and their families’ food, school, shelter. I would help the kids develop internal and external resources. I’d ask about friends, life goals, and try and inspire and motivate the kids to achieve their dreams, no matter what the obstacles seemed to be.

Then my mothering instinct became stronger. I started to realize how few children have the supports they need to achieve even basic goals. I noticed the threats to these children’s lives---not the boogeyman kinds of threats---the kids already knew how to defend against those. I mean, the threat of indifference, the threat of being objectified and commodified. The threat of being powerless, invisible, of having no voice and no means to advocate for themselves.

Then I really became a mother. A full-on, I will kick you ass if you hurt my babies kind of mother. I became a clinical therapist and trauma specialist so I could help those children who have suffered the worst humanity has to offer. I remain strong to bear witness to the pain and suffering these children can barely express. I talk about my work so others know how dreadfully children are treated in this world; not all children of course, but so, so many.

When people ask me, “How can you do that work?  It sounds so depressing!” Like a mother, I ask them, how could I not? If not me, who? That outrage inside me, that anger I thought might not be great for kids, is the fire that fuels my service, my advocacy and my ability to stand up for those in need. It’s exactly what kids need.

Now, at 39, I have a 3-year-old girl of my own and a baby boy on the way. My daughter’s smile, laugh, story-telling, empathy and grace give me an overwhelming, intoxicating sense of joy, peace and balance I never knew I missed. I have known the pleasure of pregnancy, birthing, and breastfeeding. I have learned some balance in parenting different ages and stages of development. I still do not need my children to look up to me, tell me they love me or call me mommy, but it’s delightful when it happens.

And, of course, the only way I am able to sustain my strength to do the work that I do is because I have a devoted, feminist husband who equally shares the load, a long-term partner I can’t imagine ever living without. A man who inspires me. A man who teaches our daughter every day that men are not always oppressors, that sometimes a man is just the person you need to do the critical work of your calling. And, that fathers are equally important as mothers.

So, while I may not be conquering the world in quite the fashion I imagined I would, and there are still so many places I want to go, things I want to see, fears I want to face, I wouldn’t trade my life or my experiences for anything. I love my life and I cherish motherhood. I never wanted to be a “mother”, but it’s because I alone limited the meaning of that word.

From Orlando, Florida...

Dearest Clara,

Normally my work takes me to big cities for small amounts of time, and it's always so hard to leave you behind.  So when the opportunity came to speak at a work conference in Florida, I thought it would be a nice change of pace.  In fact, I even thought I would run a little experiment this time around and bring you on the trip, along with our nanny so that we could get a chance to do something new together.  The work hours were still there of course, but being able to take you to the pool in the evenings, and on long strolls around the Magic Kingdom property are something I'll never forget.  I know we won't have the opportunity to travel this way very often, so I enjoyed every minute.

Sometimes when I travel for work, the destinations seems elusive---how much can you really learn about a place between the airport, the hotel and your work site?  But with you, we did go out and about at least a little bit, and you made me see things that I probably wouldn't have otherwise noticed at all.  When your father asked how Disney was, I said it was funny to me. Everyone is happy, everything is clean, and everything almost struck me as artificial, like a utopia.  And he astutely asked me, "isn't that why people go there?".  And he's right. People come to Disney for the magical experience and for a chance to have a glimpse of life where everything is in its most perfect form.  The street isn't dirty . . . the waitress isn't rude . . . the Boardwalk is just as you remember it from the pictures.  All the characters that you know and love from your imagination could actually pop up at any moment, and everything in your imagination suddenly becomes real.  When I thought about it that way, I realized it was a gift to have a bit of that magic, especially with you.  So with that in mind, here are a few of the things that I learned from our trip that I hope you remember:

• Wear sunscreen . . . lots of it.  You probably don't need me to tell you that you have your mother's skin.  And that means sunburns and that Florida sun stops for no one! Wear it, put on more than you think you need, and put it on more often than you think you need.  You'll thank me one day.
• And wear a hat too . . . See above.  I know you don't like it, please just wear it.  I promise one day you will think hats are cool.
• You can never have too many swimsuits. Specifically, swimsuit bottoms.  If there's one thing that drives me crazy during vacation days, it's having a wet swimsuit on or having to put a wet swimsuit back on a different day. One of the best luxuries of vacation is having a nice dry suit to put on every time you need it, even if you're just about to jump into the water.  Keep an eye out for end of season sales and stock up---you'll be glad you have extra.
• It's nice to believe in magic. Part of being a child is believing in magic and in the power of your imagination.  Part of being an adult is appreciating those that still do.  Real life gives us plenty of opportunities to see just how real it can be, so protect that part of your world that is full of wonder, happiness, awe and possibility.

All my love,

Mom

family is universal...

A portrait series on the families of the Omo River Valley in Ethiopia by Brookelyn Photography.

Memories of Freedom

I am the product of small towns. As a fourth grader, in Vincennes, Indiana, I rode my bicycle to school every day. Vincennes is a flat town of under twenty thousand residents and I lived in a neighborhood that was a straightforward grid. I rode three blocks down Twelfth Street and two blocks over on Wabash Avenue. This was fully allowed by the school; it was a K-6 school and bike riding was permitted when students were in fourth grade or above. I loved it. At the time I had a Huffy “Desert Rose” bicycle, which featured a fuchsia color scheme that was all the rage in 1988. There were bike racks at the school and I would ride there in the morning, chain my bike to the rack using my neon orange combination lock, and at the end of the day retrieve it to ride home. I have no idea what, if any, doubts my parents had about allowing this. I do know that I remember the experience with remarkable, visceral fondness.

One day, while riding home, I was knocked off my bike by an older (probably sixth grade) boy on his bike. It was an isolated incident of totally random meanness. I told my parents about it, and, if memory serves, my father went to talk to his parents. While I remember this incident, the sort of thing many parents might fear happening, it is but a blip in the experience of being allowed to ride my bike to school.

I was reminded of this when I read an article in Bicycling Magazine about a controversy in Saratoga Springs, NY.  In spite of rising obesity rates, and environmental concerns, many schools prohibit students from riding bikes because of safety and liability concerns. The article reported that “one British study found that over the course of four generations, the distance that eight-year-old children in one family (the Thomases of Sheffield, England) were allowed to roam from home had shrunk from 6 miles (for great-grandfather George in 1926) to one mile (for grandfather Jack in 1950) to half a mile (for mother Vicky in 1979) to 300 yards (for son Ed in 2007).”

I read the article weeks ago and I keep returning to that statistic. Many of my fondest memories from my childhood involve “exploring” with friends, either on bikes or on foot. When my family moved to Bethany, West Virginia, in 1989, I found myself in a college town with no traffic lights, no gas station, virtually no traffic, and a coterie of fellow professors’ kids with whom to ramble around. Summer often involved four or five of us in the woods, finding crayfish in the creek, or playing an elaborate version of nighttime hide and seek we called “flashlight war.” I remember distinctly the day we decided to “ride our bikes to Pennsylvania,” and while it was only a three-mile ride, the thrill of crossing a state line all by ourselves has never left me.

How do I provide my son with these experiences? Is it possible in 2012, to give kids this sort of freedom? Are such idyllic experiences only feasible in small towns? As a parent, I feel like every decision we make about our son’s welfare is complicated and fraught. “Does the store have organic bananas today? Is he too heavy to use his jumper any more? The weather is cool and humid – does he need a sweatshirt?”  This isn’t even beginning to touch the big issues that cause rifts among even the best of friends like the never-ending debates over breastfeeding, co-sleeping, and so on.

I remember one day when I was probably about twelve years old. I went out into the woods that framed our yard in West Virginia. I was by myself. I probably was never more than a thousand yards or so from my house. I had no cell phone, no GPS. I went wandering, and I stumbled upon two trees that had grown towards each other creating an arch of sorts. I stood, mouth agape, astounded by the way these two trees framed an area of wildflowers just beyond. Romantically, and tapping into my inner Anne Shirley, I dubbed it “the gateway to beauty.” It was a remarkable sight, and I believed (and in a way still do believe) that I was the only person who had ever seen it.  I went back days later and couldn’t find it again, but the memory lingers ethereally and has for twenty years.

Is there space for that sort of moment in a world where kids aren’t left alone “outside” very often? Even though I was really very close to my house, I felt like I was on another planet. Would I still have felt that way with an iPhone in my pocket?

I want my son to have these experiences, but I realize that these memories were not hyper-orchestrated by my parents. They bought me a bike, they let me ride it, they trusted me to come home again, and they trusted the environment enough to let me go. I hope I will be able to do the same for my son, even though the culture has shifted.

From Bologna, Italy . . .

Dearest Clara,

Believe it or not, your mother was young once.  Well, I'd like to think that she's still young . . . but in returning from my 10th year reunion of graduate school in Bologna, I realize that the years are going much more quickly now, especially since your arrival.  If I had to pick the most care-free year of my life, apart from maybe my preschool years, it would be the year I spent here a decade ago.

Bologna is a gorgeous town---enough history to give it gravitas, enough decadence to make it fun. But our year had its dark moments as well.  Only a few weeks after we arrived, the twin towers fell in New York, which not only cemented us as a class, but redefined the subject matter  of international relations that we were in that very place to learn.  Ten years later, the bond of that experience is still holding us all together, mostly in a positive way. I enjoyed seeing my classmates so much---many things (and many people) hadn't changed a bit.  One day you'll see what a gift it is to be given a few moments back from a time you remember fondly.

Bologna is one of the great gastronomical capitals of Italy, and many of the products you probably take for granted like balsamic vinegar, parma ham, and parmesan cheese, come from places just around the corner.  Eating and life, like politics, are taken very seriously there, so unsurprisingly, I walked away with a lot of lessons that related to those very activities.

• The most charming places frequently aren't the most known - there is no better example than Bologna itself of this.  While Venice, Florence and Rome all have their merit, often you'll find them so packed with people that you can barely see what you came to see.  In Bologna, you'll find a handful of tourists at a maximum, but yet, the food, the art, and the architecture are some of the best.  And a short car ride will bring you to some of the most charming towns you'll even know from that region.  Take the time to find authentic pockets in your travels, they are world-class because the world doesn't yet know about them.

• Good products don't need to be complicated - when you have something good . . . really good . . . like fresh mozzarella, or fresh pasta that was made with quality ingredients and great care, you don't need to do much to it to keep it really tasty.  Sometimes, it's best to enjoy things for what they're meant to be.  Simple isn't always boring.

• Always own a beautiful pair of walking shoes appropriate for cobblestones - this is true for just about anywhere in Europe where you'll be on your feet (which is just about everywhere in Europe) but this seems to come up the most in Italy because there is such a core belief that even the functional has to be beautiful.  Good walking shoes don't mean ugly, utilitarian things that you just throw on your feet.  Comfort can be beautiful, but it takes a long time to find.

• Pumpkin, sage, and butter go together - This combination is a staple in this part of Italy.  And it always works.  Remember this when you're stuck for ideas during Thanksgiving season.

• Appreciate the art of the aperitivo - This is a beautiful tradition all over Italy, but in Bologna, they up the ante of the pre-dinner cocktail with their  little bites and morsels that go above and beyond (although truth be told, I find Venice does this pretty well too).  The whole notion of the aperitivo is to slow down and appreciate what's in front of you and to enjoy good company, even if sometimes it's just your own.  And if you're already in the business of all this enjoyment, remember that sometimes it's worth paying for the view.  Even if it means a little extra.

• When in doubt, choose prosecco - Whether it's an aperitivo or a cocktail hour or anything else, if you're in doubt on what to ask for, you can always count on local bubbly as a safe bet.  Nearly everyone will have it, it's light, it lends itself to slower savoring, and it's just the right balance between cost, a nod to your host country,  and worldliness.  You'll find that you will have your own favorite go-to's eventually, but I think every lady hesitates about what to order at some point.  Just keep that in your back pocket.

Our next reunion in Bologna will be five years from now---I know it will be here before I know it.  Seems like it would be the perfect time to have you join me--- I hope your kindergarten class will be able to spare you for the trip!

All my love,

Mom

Eating for Two

When I first found out that I was having a daughter, back in July of last year, I was awash with joy.  I had secretly hoped for a girl, although I certainly gave everyone the standard answer, “Of course, we don’t care about the sex, we just want a healthy baby!”  I mean, who doesn’t just want a healthy baby?  Obviously.  Naturally.  Oh wait, ME.  I WANTED A GIRL.  I wanted a healthy GIRL.  And a healthy girl is what we have so far. Like many parents, I am constantly assessing the things that are within my capacity to keep her that way---both physically and mentally.   As a woman and a clinician, I feel I have a distinct responsibility (somehow greater than my husband) for safeguarding our daughter’s mental health.

The recent Time Magazine cover of a young mother breastfeeding her 3-year-old child piqued my interest for perhaps different reasons than most.  Lately, I have been obsessing about the next developmental phase for our baby daughter---transitioning from exclusively breastfeeding to feeding her solids.  The fact is . . . I am daunted by the prospect of actual food entering into our relationship.

Breastfeeding has had its own set of challenges and possibly deserves a separate column.  But there has been some comfort in the ancient, simple ritual of my body producing the perfect meal and my daughter eating it happily.  To a large extent, I don’t have any say in the quality or quantity of my milk and breastfeeding takes on no emotional life, save the sweetly mutual opportunity to reconnect throughout the day.  Meanwhile, like so many women, my dynamic with food---the kind you select and prepare---has always been rather fraught.

Feeding a child seems like a truly basic function of parenting and clearly it is.  And yet it has me tied in knots.  Let’s set aside the fact that I don’t really cook, never really have, not even for myself and certainly not for my husband.  Dinner in our household is like parallel play at preschool---we each enter the kitchen and put together our own separate meals, side-by-side.  Sometimes we share a task: for example, together we will cut up vegetables that we will each use in separate salads.  My fortes are (not surprisingly) salad, pasta and translating the stunningly complicated and heavily accented descriptions of the sushi specials for my husband.  This is all very tragic and boring and I know this even as I write it. But there are larger issues at work here.  Ultimately, I will learn to cobble together meals to nourish a child and/or rely on a bevy of spectacular delivery options in the wonderland that is New York City.  My paramount concern is that I want to raise a daughter who is not neurotic about food and her body.

In an ideal world, I would like to feed my daughter without tainting her experience of eating with my own food ghosts.  I recognize the exquisitely delicate balance it requires to bring up a child - particularly a girl - with healthy attitudes toward food.  The experts caution that parents should maintain a neutral, positive approach to eating, offer a wide variety of nutritious options, not to label certain foods as “good” or “bad” and never use food as a reward or a punishment.  Of utmost importance, specifically in terms of the mother-daughter dyad…check your own fixations about food and your body at the door.  Children as young as two years old are watching their mothers (and popular culture at large) for cues about gender socialization and how to feel in their own skin.  This is a lot of pressure for a new mother who has battled weight issues and body acceptance, essentially always.

I grew up in a Southern California beach town in the 1980’s, which tells you two things right off the bat: I was immersed in a culture of excess and I was expected to be in a bathing suit on a daily basis.  My first bikini was at age 4 or 5 and it was an orange, terry cloth triangle top with bamboo ring connectors.  I was first told by a friend’s mother not to order lemonade because the sugar in it would make me fat in 3^rd grade.  As far as I knew, several of the mothers in my life ate nothing but Alba ’77 shakes for at least two decades.  In Junior High School, a friend taught me about a weight management technique: chewing food “just to get the taste” and then promptly spitting it out.  By High School, I was experimenting with eating nothing but air-popped popcorn and an apple for lunch.  Incidentally, high school lunch took place on the quad, where the Senior boys would sit holding up numbers written on notebook paper, “rating” girls as they walked past.   And so on.  Although it was a different time and place, I am keenly aware of the pitfalls awaiting my tender infant.

Since embarking on an adult life of intensive self-exploration and cultivating health, I have come to terms with the fact that I may never shake the critical voice in my head entirely.  While I would like to achieve perfect liberty, it is not out of the question that I will be 95 years old and still pause, experiencing a lightning flash of self-loathing before reaching for a cookie.  But I will persist in swimming upstream against it.  And now I will do this for my daughter, as well as myself.

My plan, therefore, is first and foremost to buy some kind of steamer?  Or something?  I understand squash, gourds, yams and the like might be first on the menu for our tiny gourmand.  Oh, and avocado, too, which seems infinitely easier to “cook.”  Second, I will commit to meal times being low-key, joyful and inviting experiences, free of gravity and judgment.  Third, even though she is only a few months old, I will not allow her to see me frowning in the mirror, muttering about my soft bits or hear me talk about foods that I “should” or “shouldn’t” be eating.  This will be my auspicious start.

Learning to Garden

My tomatoes are growing. This is climactic because I have never been a gardener. As a child I avoided dirt, and the first time I planted a flower I was more distracted by the black under my nails than the task at hand. Back when I lived in a city it wasn’t even a choice. People didn’t ask me what herbs and vegetables I was planting for spring, and no one offered advice on pruning my hydrangeas. And I was ok with that. I was ok with not having a yard filled with green grass. I loved my little apartment like a home. And then two things happened. I left the city and I got pregnant, almost at the same time actually. And suddenly I was expected to grow things; to put time and effort into cultivating something. I had never put time or effort into anything but myself before that, and even then, some days there was minimal effort.

Immediately after giving birth to him, I tried to recall what it had actually felt like. I would close my eyes and rely on my sense memory. Was it really so painful I screamed for a C-section even when I had been so vehemently against one? The human brain is an amazing thing. I tried to remember the actual pains of contractions. Someone told me before I gave birth that it was like the worst period cramps you could ever imagine. But it was so much more painful even than that. It was a knife, cutting cleanly through my stomach, until I felt it within every inch of my body; the opposite of an orgasm. The knife came every ten minutes . . . every five minutes . . . two minutes . . . every thirty seconds. I was sick, violently ill and throwing up every few minutes. My fluids were extremely low; I was put on an IV, had an epidural, had Pitocin. It took a whole room of assistants and my midwife to bring this baby into the world. A whole room, like a whole village. And he came, and I loved, and didn’t sleep, and cultivated. Or tried to at least.

One of the most important things about gardening is remembering to water the plants. This should be an easy one, but if you are too busy or too selfish, it’s not. For a year of our marriage our grass was brown. Who knew this was a big deal? There was always some issue with the sprinkler system. One head was broken, then another. We gave up communicating about it; it became a stick in the wheels of our marriage. I would say the second most important thing about gardening is knowing when you’ve made a mistake and have to pull up the roots and start over.

We decided to leave Seattle in the fall. It was chilly and sprinkling rain. We didn’t own a car, but I was determined to live the city lifestyle I missed about Chicago. And so we piled the baby and most of his belongings into the stroller and began to trudge up Queen Anne hill. We walked, and sweated, even in the misty fall rain. No one tells you how tall those hills are, practically vertical. As we alternated pushing the stroller, we fought. We argued about who kept hitting the bump in the road and causing Charley to screech in alarm. We argued about why we couldn’t afford a car, and whose fault that was. We dissected every aspect of our life and our marriage on the way up that hill, and when we reached the top, we realized we didn’t like any of it. It was a long way down, and a long way back to Florida, 3, 206 miles to be exact. But we knew when to leave and start over.

I thought of that the first time I planted basil and it died. I had been too busy with everything else to water it, and the leaves were brown and curling. But, determined to be the gardener wife, I let it sit on the windowsill. Leaving it there didn’t mean it got any better. I pulled up its roots too.

Each spring I get a little better. Last year I planted lantana. I dug and I dug, they flourished, but only for a season, for I had bought the wrong variety. I looked around the yard and everything else was dead too. That was the beginning of the year of brown grass. But now, we are better. We don’t argue about the grass, or who chose to move to Seattle. We let it all go. And slowly our garden is growing, thriving. After such a struggle, I feel like Charley when I see the juicy red tomatoes sprouting---wonder and amazement. It wasn’t always that easy for me.

I Know a Lot of Mothers

I know a lot of mothers. I have a mother. I am a mother. I have watched my sister and many friends become mothers. I work with mothers. As a pediatric nurse practitioner, I have worked with teen mothers in New York City’s foster care system. I have worked with mothers on the Upper East Side. I have worked with Noe Valley moms in San Francisco. I have worked with mothers in as many family constructs as are imaginable. I can’t avoid mothers! The privilege to meet and talk with hundreds of mothers has afforded me an intimate glimpse into 21st century motherhood, and I see the emotional stress it creates. I was asked recently by a mother if she had done irreparable damage to her son. Her son was having significant constipation despite her best and plentiful efforts, and its root cause certainly wasn’t her fault. In my experience constipation is rarely a permanent state, so even though it was not solved at that moment, it didn’t mean it couldn’t change tomorrow. Yet, while it was happening, she felt like she had really done harm, and she blamed herself for not being able to find the one key solution to solving her son’s distress. Her sentiments are ones I hear a lot: a fear that our mothering attempts aren’t good enough and potentially so egregious that they’re permanently damaging.

Like so many other aspects of our modern lives there is a message of fear being driven into the minds of our new mothers. Despite the dramatic accomplishments of 21st century women---earning the majority of higher education degrees in this country, becoming household breadwinners, and having the ultimate freedom to dress as we like, say what we feel and choose our marital partners---I still see a lot of women who were clearly confident and successful in their lives before having children subsequently become crippled by the multitude of decisions required for motherhood. Where does this fear come from?

I suspect some of this fear to trust our instincts begins during pregnancy when the process of labor looms ahead, making many women become anxious about the pain of childbirth. It’s why 84% of first-time mothers choose to have an epidural, many before even experiencing the first twinges of contractions. Or maybe it’s when women are selecting items for their baby registry, and they begin to feel materially unprepared to care for their new infant being inundated with the marketing of “essential” baby gear and products. They’re told they can’t just bring a baby home without places ready to put the baby, soothe the baby, carry the baby, bathe the baby, feed the baby, stroll the baby. The message that the baby-gear marketing gives to new mothers is that they are unequipped. Or perhaps it’s that the experience of motherhood has become overly intellectualized to the point that we can’t trust our instincts. We read competing books theorizing about how to parent (be a tiger mom or a Zen momma), how to feed, how to sleep train, how to create the perfect high achiever, all while not landing them in therapy. Or perhaps it’s that we really do live in a toxic world and even have a toxic womb and the number of chemicals, pollutants, and pesticides in our food, water and environment make raising children a terrifying endeavor.

Despite the fears and new stresses that becoming a mother puts on women, the majority of women I encounter face the challenges and do their best to navigate their way through the bumpy and unpredictable path of motherhood. I think we women, good at being task-driven and achievement-oriented, quickly realize the gravity of our new role that first time we hold our new baby in our arms. Unlike our iphones, this new tiny being didn’t come with a manual. Instead, we must decipher the needs and adapt to the powerful rhythms of our new baby that is distinct from any other.

It is true that being a mother may be the most important job we have in this life, but even if we feel insecure, we can still find personal joys in its challenges. We need not get bogged down with piling guilt on ourselves or comparing ourselves to how other mothers express motherhood. Just as we quickly learn that our baby is unique, we too, must get comfortable with creating our own style of motherhood. I love to encourage families to create their own family culture--expressed through the spices they use to cook to the way they spend their Saturday mornings. Creating family customs and routines that are personal help to build confidence and make motherhood fun.

I work fulltime so I find that the time I have with my daughter, Eloise, is really just book-ended during the week. Mornings are always rushed for us as I focus to get her ready so that my husband can take her to daycare. I try to make the rushed process fun--we might read a book while getting dressed or we make up silly songs while mixing her oatmeal “mommy stirs the water, Ella stirs the milk.” In the evenings we’re less rushed, but we still need to get a lot done in a short time. Still I try to make more time for play and cuddles. I discovered when Eloise was six months old that I could make her giggle and since then I try to do one thing every day to hear that adorable, pure laughter. Our latest game involves us pretending to chew bubblegum then popping each other’s imaginary bubbles that ends in hysteria. We get our cuddles in during the bedtime routine--three books with daddy and me and two songs just the two of us. I know I can’t be present for Eloise all day/every day, but in the time I do have with her, I try to be mindful to keep those sacred two hours each evening Eloise-focused. And of course each day that is a challenge as she’s two and meltdowns are plentiful!

The parenting decisions we make will certainly impact our children, but which ones and to what degree is unknown. The decisions that matter most are the simple ones that don't require monetary means or social status. In the long term it really doesn't matter if you have the fanciest stroller, read the latest how-to-train your baby book, or bought the current new fangled baby gear. What matters most are not things that need to be acquired but things we already possess. In our harried 21st Century lives, time with our children may be limited, but in the time we do have it's so important to do our best to be truly present, find ways to be playful, nurture with physical touch, and encourage their curiosity. Take heart in knowing that most of what our kids take away from our mothering is out of our command. Our children will grow and develop into themselves in spite of us. We are certainly going to make mistakes, ones that we can’t even anticipate yet, but why not have fun doing it? Let's roll up our sleeves, dig in and get our hands messy, and just do our best!

Emily Novak Waight is a pediatric nurse practitioner in San Francisco. She has worked with families in New York and San Francisco across a range of cultures and backgrounds. She lives with her husband and daughter, and loves to run, hike, and enjoy sunny days on her deck with her family. 

Mom Space

I am a mom. But I occupy a funny space in the world of moms. My wife, Lauren, gave birth to our son in June 2011, mere hours after same-sex marriage was approved by our state legislature here in New York, legitimizing our Canadian marriage just in time for the two of us to become three. For all of her pregnancy, I was there. For doctor’s appointments, doula hiring, birthing classes, and of course the birth itself, I never left her side. For some of these things, my compatriots were dads. At the special buffet room in the hospital for new parents, I joined dads filling up plates to bring to the new mothers. At the birthing classes, I tried swaddling the baby doll at the same time as all the dads. In many of these situations, it didn’t feel odd at all. I was the parent-not-giving-birth, along with many others. So what if I was the only woman in that little group?

When we came home from the hospital, though, it felt different. The world of parenting media is clearly demarcated. There are “mommy blogs” and “dad blogs.” Parenting magazines may aim to reach all parents, but their content is clearly aimed toward mothers, ignoring the prospect that a father might want to spend time reading about being a parent. At the beginning of our son’s life, most of the decisions we were making on a regular basis circled around breastfeeding, and I often felt helpless as my wife and son struggled to find their groove, but also strangely empathetic in a distinctly feminine way.

There was some commiserating I could do with other dads, but the general tone of their observations had a certain masculinity with which I couldn’t keep up.  I didn’t have to go back to work immediately like many dads I know. After Lauren’s parental leave was over, I took mine (grateful to my employer for being flexible about when I took my leave, and for treating me like the equal parent I am). I spent close to three months as the primary caregiver during the day, often tooling around the mall or local parks wearing Hank in a carrier, proud as a peacock, but also feeling like I was masquerading as a mom. Being a mom felt simultaneously deeply natural and deeply odd. What was I to do with all I had heard from moms talking about the transcendence of giving birth? What was I to do with all of talk about the bonding that breastfeeding brings? Dads presumably can’t fully understand these things either, but I have never felt like dad, not for one second.

At times it felt like a performance of sorts, as though I were performing motherhood rather than inhabiting it. I do not feel this way at all about parenthood, I have felt like a parent from the second I knew the baby was coming. I prepared for it intellectually and emotionally, and I have embraced the responsibility, joy, and challenges as fully as anyone. Yet, as Mother’s Day approached, I felt a strange sensation. Lauren and I approach parenting as an equal enterprise, from being up together in the middle of the night, to coming up with elaborate schedules to share housework as best we can. Nonetheless, her role as the mom who was pregnant, gave birth, and nurses our son is so preternaturally maternal, on a day like Mother’s Day, it’s hard to know how best to carve out space for who I am as a parent.

After spending a lovely Mother’s Day having brunch, going to a park, and playing in the sunshine, I realized: she is Mommy, and I am Mama. As our son nears his first birthday, I am doing my best to reject the constraints of nomenclature and simply be Mama, and all that means. Mama is usually the first one to hear when Hank wakes up, and Mama feeds Hank dinner, and Mama and Hank watch baseball together. It is in these moments that terminology is wholly irrelevant, and family just is.

From Vienna, Austria

Dearest Clara,

As the days are growing warmer and longer, it seems like summer is just around the corner.  I'm not sure where nearly a year has gone since we moved back to Washington, but I still find myself telling people that we just moved back from Vienna.  When we first returned, that statement came with a heavy heart and we've missed our life there enormously.  How could we not? Vienna was a tremendous time for us - all in all, nearly three years.  It's where your father and I learned to live as a married couple; it's where we launched on a million different adventures; and more importantly, it's where we embarked on our biggest adventure yet when you were born.  If for no other reason than that one, we'll always be connected to that very special city.

When I first found out we were moving to Vienna, I'll admit that I wasn't exactly enthusiastic.  I said it would be sleepy and slow . . . I said it would be boring and old-fashioned . . . I said I didn't speak German.  I've had to eat all those words - except for that I still don't really speak German.  But Vienna turned out to be such a grand dame of Europe, comforting in its own nostalgia.  It is a city where historic institutions are still living institutions, where what is old is being made new again simply for the fact that it is part of daily life.  As I found, it's a perfect place for people who like to get lost in memories---people like me.  Here are a few of the things for you to take away from Vienna:

• Every lady should know how to waltz - Dancing in Vienna is a little bit like drinking coffee in Vienna---everybody does it.  And if you don't do it when you arrive, you will definitely be doing it before you leave.  The balls are the most beautiful I've seen, with full orchestras and sweeping gowns.  The Viennese will say that they are probably not like they used to be, but for me they are like they will never be anywhere else.  Immediately, you notice that anyone Austrian seems to know what they're doing---the dance floor is orderly and elegant, swirling to the beat of the music.  Learning to waltz - 1,2,3 . . . 1,2,3 . . . is a basic skill that will follow you through life as you attend awkward school events, then weddings of family, then your own wedding, and finally, the weddings of your own children and grandchildren.  Even when the music is modern, these traditional steps won't fail you.

• Sunday (or some day) is a day of rest - Our first day in Vienna was a Sunday.  I remember because we quickly found out that everything is closed on Sunday.  Apart from museums and a few central cafes, there are nearly no commercial transactions on Sundays.  At first, we were panicked.  What about shopping? What about groceries? What about Target runs? We learned to adjust our schedules and to love the fact that for one day a week, we were protected from having to do the commercial grind that so often consumed our weekends.  We had the day to rest . . . to enjoy the outdoors . . . to sit over endless coffees in cafes and read the paper cover to cover . . . to enjoy a field trip . . . to work on photography . . . to see exhibits . . . to see a performance . . . it turns out there is so much to be discovered when you have one day all to yourself.  And it makes Monday that much easier.

• The beauty of the holidays are the traditions that go with them - Vienna loves Christmas . . . and New Year's . . . and Easter . . . and Summer Festivals . . . and a whole calendar of festivities.  And each one comes with it own set of traditions and markets and foods and libations.  Take care to notice people's tradition's for holidays---part of what makes holidays so special are the rituals that we build for them in anticipation.  Don't rush right to the big finale, take the time to enjoy each step in preparation.

• Always make time for live music - Is there anything more beautiful than the sound of a live orchestra? They are getting rarer in many places, but Vienna is not one of them.  But it's not just home to orchestras---Vienna has smaller groups and ensembles and it seems, music students and aficionados at every turn.  So much music came from Vienna that maybe it just sounds a bit better there.  Live music is a wonderful thing---when you hear it, even if by a street musician on the corner, take at least a moment to appreciate it.  Someone is playing so that someone else can hear.

• Enjoy the arts at whatever level you can afford them - Try to make time for enjoying live art of any kind.  Some of the world's most beautiful stages and museums were in Vienna and we enjoyed many performances: sometimes saving for special seats to be front and center, and sometimes, from high up in rafters for just a few euros.  Dress as if you have the most expensive ticket---people spend lifetimes learning their craft well enough to perform on these stages and have their work hung on these walls.  Being dressed appropriately is respectful of that.  And always try to have enough for a glass of bubbly at the bar during intermission.

I think to the end of my days I won't be able to hear about Vienna without my heart skipping a beat, at least a little bit.  Almost like an old flame that you never quite extinguished.  We'll be headed back this summer, and the notion that we would get one more last hurrah in this city that was our home for those three fantastic years has gotten us through this past one.  I know it won't be the same, but the beauty of Vienna is that it doesn't really ever change all that much.  Now that's a comforting thought to be enjoyed over a piece of Sacher torte, isn't it?

All my love,

Mom

Family Equality and the Legacy of the Struggle

The issue of marriage equality is one that's been in the news a lot lately, and therefore at the forefront of my mind. Obama's proclamation that same-sex marriage should be allowed, and then his discussion of his administration's refusal to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is a giant leap forward for both the social view of marriage equality and hopefully for the continuing fight to legalize same-sex marriage. There are two issues at the core of the marriage equality issue that stand out to me at this juncture. The first is that I believe "marriage equality" is a misnomer. The issue is not about who can have a wedding; the issue is the right to family stability. The second is that while fighting on a state-by-state level may be necessary at this point in the grand scheme of things, the legacy of the battle should be a federal law that prohibits states from putting the rights of their citizens up for popular vote. While allowing same-sex couples to marry is framed as a marriage equality issue, it goes well beyond that. This is a family equality issue. There are over 900,000 same-sex couples in this country. I want to give you a statistic about how tall they would all be if we stacked them on top of each other, but that feels degrading and I don't know how tall they all are anyway. In 30 states, these couples are systematically denied rights that heterosexual couples enjoy, like hospital visitation rights, social security benefits, immigration rights, health insurance under their partners' plans, family leave to care for their partners, and rights to partners' pensions in the case of their death. I'm lucky to have found someone to whom I want to be married (and continue to want to be married, nearly 5 years after the fact) who is the opposite gender.

When I said "I do," I really meant for better and for worse so long as we both shall live. I meant that I wanted to become a family with him. Clearly, the most compelling reason for so closely intertwining my life with my husband's is that when it is time to do so, I get to delegate "the talk" with our kids to him, not so much because I don't want to do it, but because I want to laugh at him while he does it. A close second is growing old with him, and building a life with him without worrying about the structural soundness of that life if something should happen to one of us.

Happily ever after aside, I married my husband because heaven forbid anything happens to him, I want to be able to sit in his hospital room outside of visiting hours to hold his hand and whisper to him about our first date and the bike ride we took through the Vietnamese countryside on our honeymoon and about the time that he accidentally left me dead flowers for Mother's Day, but I forgave him because he spent the next fifty years showing me just how important it was to make it right. If it comes to this, I want to have the right to make the decision about when it's time to let go, and then I want to lie with him in his bed and stroke his hair (or his bald head—after all, I promised to love him no matter what) and reassure him that it will all be okay until he is gone and I am alone. And he wants the same from me, and will do the same for me, because we are two grown-ups and we love each other enough to laugh at the other person talking to an awkward teenager about condoms and responsibility and STDs.

Marriage to me, as to most people, is not about the wedding (though weddings are awesome and I cry at every single one I go to), or even about just the two people getting married. It's about the chance to start a family, to blend families, and the security of knowing that if anything happens to me or to my husband, my family, both nuclear and extended, will remain intact. If our kids are still young enough to be living at home (i.e. under 30) if something happens to one of us, marriage is our insurance that their lives will remain as stable as possible amidst the chaos of loss. Because we all know how hard it is to place a 26-year-old Humanities major in an adoptive family.

While publicly declaring our devotion to each other is important, the stability and rights that our marriage affords our family are more important. I would love my husband if we weren't married; however, I would not have hospital visitation rights, health insurance, the ability to take leave to take care of him if something happens to him, or rights to his pension to provide for our daughter if he dies. And let's not even start with the "different nomenclature for different types of families" thing, because that's just dumb. Seriously, what is the logical and legal basis there? If we're sure enough about our relationships (or our chances of being able to cash in on our wedding for our reality TV show) to get married, our relationships should all be called the same thing in the eyes of the government.

At its core, marriage equality is a civil rights issue. This week has opened discussions about whether same-sex marriage should be an issue left to states, or whether it is a federal issue. My strong conviction that marriage equality needs to be a federal issue stems from my discomfort with states putting the civil rights of a minority up for voter referendum. In each of the 28 states that have put initiatives on the ballot to amend their state's constitution as defining marriage as between a man and a woman, voters have approved the amendment. Regardless of what your view of marriage is, think about the consequences of this precedent. If you are doing something of which a majority does not approve, and you are not a suspect class (i.e. a racial or religious group) under the fourteenth amendment, your rights can be put to the whims and passions of voters in your state. Aziz Ansari has a particularly compelling point on this issue:

By default, everything that the president touches is going to be polarizing; I don't begrudge him hedging his first statements. Working incrementally to change the culture in order to change the politics is the least inflammatory move for Obama to make at this juncture. But this doesn't mean that the rest of us can't work at both state and federal levels to ensure that the rights extended to heterosexual families are also extended to LGBT families. While some argue that anti-miscegenation laws are not a viable parallel for the same-sex marriage debate, the Supreme Court ruling (Loving vs. Virginia) states:

Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law.

At the heart of the aforementioned Fourteenth Amendment, in case you haven't caught up on the episodes of Schoolhouse Rock that you have stored on your DVR, is the Equal Protection Clause, stating that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." If this isn't relevant, I don't know what is. Marriage is a basic civil right, and under our constitution, we all have equal protection of the law (though sexual orientation is not yet one of the categories of people granted special protection under this amendment). Legislating against same-sex marriage at the state level denies to gay and lesbian families the fundamental rights afforded to straight families. Even more abhorrent is states opening marriage rights to a popular vote. Opening a vote on the rights of a minority to an impassioned majority goes against what our country stands for. Isn't it about time that we set a federal precedent that states should not be allowed to open to referendum the rights of their citizens? This is the crux of why marriage equity is, and must continue to be, a federal issue.

Granted, a federal ruling like Loving may be some years off, as only 17 states had laws on the books opposing interracial marriage when the Loving decision came down. I can see that leaving same-sex marriage to the states (while working to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act) is a powerful incremental tool for change. Public opinion of the issue is changing and continues to change---even Obama calls this a generational issue---and it is tempting to work state-by-state and hope that all states will come to their senses. But let's face it. Those last states aren't going to tip without a push from the federal government. Further, I fundamentally believe that states should be prohibited from putting the civil rights of their citizens up for a vote.* This is why I refuse to believe that pushing for same-sex marriage state-by-state is the end push. After all, legislation is about evolution---evolution of thoughts, ideas, and policy. It is about putting into writing and into law our fundamental beliefs of what is fair, what is right, and what rights and responsibilities we have as citizens of our towns, states, and country.

As a secular and democratic nation, we have built into our governmental structure a tremendous power to evolve, and to plan for evolution. At this juncture in time, we as a nation have an opportunity to decree that no minority should have their civil rights decided by the vote of a majority. This could be the legacy of the movement for marriage equity. There will no doubt be social issues that come to the forefront of American policy in the next 10, 20, 50 years and beyond. When we have seen that leaving civil rights up to state referenda nearly always leaves states on the wrong side of history (see: school integration & women's suffrage), why would we continue to let this be an option? We may not all agree on policy, but we should all be able to agree that this egregious practice needs to stop. A federal ban on civil rights referenda would be a fitting legacy for the marriage equality movement, strengthening our democracy and protecting all families' rights from the whims and passions of the majority.

*If you want to see an exceedingly handsome man who saves people from burning buildings make essentially the same point, you can watch this:

The Early Days

 I never failed to love him. I never faltered, but I was terrified from the outset. His small fingers scared me, they seemed so breakable, so fragile, like tiny twigs. When I fed him he was a bird under my wing, cooing until he fell asleep again. The nurses were rough with him, and would turn his ragdoll body over onto his stomach to burp him, his neck around their large fists. Could you hold a baby like that? Like you were about to choke it? Apparently you could, because he always burped and let out a little sigh of relief.

I can remember the early days at the hospital, with its long quiet hallways and soft colors. With the cherubic nurses and scratchy sheets. It felt easy there. I have no bad memories of the hospital.  It wasn’t the most ornate hospital. I don’t even think we had a TV in our room, or if we did, we didn’t watch it. I don’t recall fluorescent lighting, just the soft blue light that came in through the large picture window we had in our room. I believe it overlooked the courtyard, it was lovely, but I was too in love to even notice. We have a picture of me dancing with him the day he was born, and imagine, I felt well enough to dance! 8 pounds, 9 ounces and I felt like dancing, it was like a dream. I had wanted so badly to meet him for so long. Pregnancy had been a sickness, an illness for nine months. The day he arrived, I felt like I could conquer the world. In a mess of humanity and blood and tears and vomit, I delivered him. Or did he deliver me?

The hospital was quiet. I could hear no other women screaming in pain, no babies crying, just silence. There were five nurses and two mothers, a wonderful ratio. In retrospect, I don’t know why I was in such a rush to leave the wonderful arms there. It felt comfortable, like we could handle anything. When we had to change his diaper for the first time and the black tar of meconium was there, we just pressed a little red button and a nurse arrived to do it for us. That first night, he slept in the nursery, and even the next night, when he awoke in the night I just held him and brought him into bed with me. There was no fear.

The great fear started the moment we left the hospital. It arrived in the form of the overly sunny day (his sensitive skin!), the other (many) reckless drivers, even the small bump in the road. Anything could hurt him! He was delicate! Don’t touch him with your germ filled hands! Those first few weeks I was scared to take him out of the car seat carrier when we were out and about. He just seemed so frail and the concrete so hard. But we did leave the hospital; we had to begin our new life as a family. And it was that first night home the fear really set in, inching under our skin. How could they allow us to just bring him home like that? Didn’t they know we had no idea what we were doing? His breathing was so quiet I was constantly terrified it had stopped. Just up and stopped, that I would lean over the crib, and there would be a little doll, not moving. I could picture it so well. That was the scary part. Little did I know this is the curse of a mother, the clarity with which you can picture horrible things happening to your child. For months afterwards, every time I went over the causeway bridge I could picture our car breaking through the barricade and soaring into the water. It was only a few feet away. All I had to do was let go. In the midst of life, we are in death.

The Beginning

To write this piece I inevitably have to go back some years and take a look at my former self. It’s like talking about a completely different person. You know when you get together with friends, have a few drinks, and reminisce on what you did and what you were like in high school? Well my story . . . my story generally blows most people's out of the water. Now, I know there are many who have more dramatic tales than mine. The stuff that happens in some people’s lives no Hollywood screen writer could ever make up. However, what I think makes mine a good one is that I came out a well-adjusted, fully-functioning, professional member of society. It could easily have gone another way. I first started thinking about suicide when I was 10 or 11. It blows my mind to write that sentence. I come from a large loving family; I wasn’t abused by my parents; nothing extraordinarily tragic happened to me; nor was there a single event that precipitated my depression. But just like some people don’t produce enough insulin and have diabetes, I have an irregulation with serotonin and suffer from depression. And it happened when I was very young.

My depression took me and my family on quite the journey of drugs, in-patient psych wards, and reckless behavior. Most nights were a real struggle not to harm myself. And of all those countless nights where I stayed up crying and wishing it would end, there were only 3 times in the span of 7 years where I gave up on all the things that usually held me back and said “Fuck it. No more.” And each time I was always saved. I recall years later my psychologist telling me that out of all the patients he’d seen throughout the years, he thought I would be one of the few to actually kill myself.

It was a struggle to keep it together. At one point, for a brief span, I was going to individual drug therapy, group drug therapy, family drug therapy, NA meetings, and seeing my individual psychologist…every week. To say the least my dance card was booked! However, counseling, the right medication, and a large helping of my parent’s unequivocal devotion to keeping my butt on this earth were huge factors of me being here today.

But there was something else.

My middle sister by 4 years had done a program while in high school where she volunteered as a health educator for the summer in South America. She did it a few times and eventually had a significant role in leadership. By the time I was old enough to consider it my parents were well familiar with the organization. Also, at that stage I had made progress with my emotional stability and general behavior, so more trust was established.

So when I was 17 for 2 months myself and another girl worked in a remote village of 800 Zapoteca Indians in Southern Mexico. Our project was to do health education and build latrines. I worked long hours doing manual labor in a skirt. I ate beans, rice, and hot coffee with virtually every meal. I slept on a cot in the post office because the families were too poor to take on two more people in any individual home. I had immersed myself in a completely different language, culture, and comfort zone, and I thrived on it.

I can remember the exact moment when I knew this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Dusk was approaching and I sat on the hard packed mud ruins of stairs leading down to the remains of what used to be someone’s adobe home. As I sat there watching rain clouds gather over the mountain valley, I knew I would never try to take my life again. My struggle with depression hadn’t ended but I would never again have a hand in my own demise.

(To be continued...)

[image by Jenny Huang via flickr]

Happy Mother's Day (to the whole damn village)

The conversation might begin with concerns about whether motherhood and feminism are incompatible (I mean if the newspaper of record positions motherhood and feminism on opposite ends of a spectrum, where does that leave all the mothers who happen to think women are full human beings). Maybe it turns to a question about what the “Mommy Wars” actually entail.  We’re all busy, is it that we missed the latest reality show? Are there actual weapons involved? Other than the condescension and self-righteousness we’re told we wield like daggers, of course. There may even be some mutterings about whether it's healthy for motherhood to be elevated to such an exalted status. After all, not everyone dragged into the conversation is in fact a mother and no one wants to be left out of a debate that makes the cover of Time. The problem is this is a fictional debate that serves no one well. When parenting is a battlefield, it’s difficult to use each other as resources and learn from one another’s stories. When we’re told to be on the lookout for other mothers who are judging us, it’s easy to miss all the people who are supporting us in our endeavors to strengthen our families and our communities. And when mothers are put into a special box, we lose the other parts of our identity that make us complete and well-rounded individuals.

It’s not a matter of mothers versus other mothers (this Babble piece rocks that point). We’re all doing our best with the resources and opportunities at our disposal. And it’s also not a matter of mothers versus non-mothers. In a thoughtful essay on why she hates mother’s day, Anne Lamott takes issue with the idea that mothers are somehow superior beings.  Mothering isn’t an individual experience; it isn’t even a purely female experience.

The mothering that helps my children thrive on a daily basis comes from their father, their aunt who lives next door, a phenomenal nanny, a family friend who is practically a part of our family, my dear friend and business partner, and numerous grandparents, not to mention the various teachers, doctors, etc who play significant roles in my children’s health and development. That list would grow exponentially if my husband and I added all the individuals who mothered us throughout a lifetime of experiences.

On this coming Mother’s Day, I’m going to spend less time thinking about mothers and more time thinking about mothering. I’ll still write thoughtful notes to my mom, my stepmom, my mother-in-law, and my grandmas, but I’ll also do my best to thank the other mothers in my life—the best friends, the family members, and the mentors—who mothered me into the person I am today.

There’s no war here; there are enough thank yous, kind words, and lessons to spread around.

Erin Loechner: Stories I've Only Told My Mom

If you didn't already know the incredibly talented and just plain sparkly Erin Loechner from Design for Mankind, then maybe you recognize her from her HGTV home renovation column, or maybe it's from her brand new site Design for Minikind (it's just as smart and stylish as Design for Mankind, but for littles and their parents).  In any case, Erin is one of those people who exudes warmth and positivity.  She's also incredible at supporting people in becoming their best selves (case in point: resource parties), a mission we can fully get behind here at the Equals Project. In honor of Mother's Day, and mentoring, and the bravery it takes to claim the path that's right for you, Erin is letting us share this piece she wrote for Stories I've Only Told My Mom.  If you are a mom, you have a mom, or you've ever sought wisdom other women's stories, we highly recommend you download this beautiful anthology, edited by Sarah Bryden-Brown.

Stories I've Only Told My Mom by Erin Loechner

Dear Mom,

It was Tuesday and I think I was 7. I know it was Tuesday because I was wearing my day-of-the-week underwear and we both know how dutifully I relied on my unmentionables to celebrate the passage of days.

I don’t know that I was 7 for sure. They didn’t make undergarments for that sort of thing.

I told you I wanted to be a receptionist when I grew up. I had seen a classified listing for a receptionist in the newspaper that afternoon while we snacked on Little Debbie’s Zebra Cakes (my favorite) and Walnuts Brownies (yours). I’m not sure where my sisters were -- probably playing basketball at the neighbor’s house like normal children. I liked to read newspapers and eat treats littered with high fructose corn syrup, watching you grade your students’ English essays and circle typos with a red Papermate.

You peered over your Sally Jesse Raphael style glasses and smiled. “A receptionist for whom?” you asked.

It hadn’t occurred to me that this mattered. I would be typing, talking on the phone and greeting people daily. I would be The Gatekeeper Of The Office. The Hostess Of The Lobby. The Fixer Of The Fax Machine.  Every day. And I would get paid for it! $17,000 dollars. Every year. What else mattered?

“Who you work for always matters,” you answered as you corrected a 4th grader’s misspelling of the word “tomahawk.”

Do you remember saying that, Mom?

It changed my life.

I did, eventually, as you know, become a receptionist for a high profile music executive in Los Angeles. I was paid much more than $17,000 a year and was, indeed, The Gatekeeper Of The Office. But after four months of collating concert paperwork and babysitting Sharon Osbourne’s countless canines, I remembered your words.

“Who you work for always matters.”

I quit that day, Mom. Somewhere between papercuts and expense reports, I knew I wanted to live my life with integrity and do work that mattered, for someone who mattered.

Someone like myself.

Since that day, I’ve had many odd jobs as I attempted to supplement an income that could support the life I wanted to live --- inspiring creative artists, designers and writers to pursue their dreams.

As you inspired me to pursue mine.

And along the way, I never accepted a job from someone that I didn’t believe in, and in doing so, created a professional life of integrity. Your words of wisdom on that Tuesday have shaped the way I present myself as a business owner, entrepreneur and writer.

I am now, proudly, The Gatekeeper Of Encouragement. The Hostess Of My Life. The Fixer Of Un-Inspired Souls.

Thank you, Mom.

p.s. Want to know a secret? I made exactly $17,000 working for myself. Dollar for dollar.

p.p.s. I loved every Tuesday of it.

From Washington, DC...

Lessons for Clara is a weekly series of posts intended for the author’s daughter based on her travels and observations, showing that we really are shaped by the places we go, the people we meet, and the experiences we have.

Dearest Clara,

We’re going on 6 months in our new home.  I say new but it’s not really.  We lived here for years before embarking on our adventures in diplomatic living but this assignment has brought us back to Washington, DC – headquarters, capitol city, and home.

In some ways, we feel just as much fish out of water as we would in any other country – we’ve been away for a while and we’ve forgotten all the things that go with living here in the US: the pace is faster, everything feels bigger, and there seems to be more of just about everything.

We’re only here for two years and soon this will be just another assignment, so I’m hoping that you take the following lessons from Washington with you:

• The freedom to say just about anything is a privilege… I always hope that you’ll know the ability to say freely what is on your mind, regardless of topic. That’s not always the case for many people still.  In fact, if all of your grandparents hadn’t left in pursuit of that, we would have turned out very differently. This is one of the most valuable rights we have and it came right here from Washington.  Be mindful of what a gift this is.
• …but just because you can say anything, doesn’t mean that you should.   Speak your mind, but don’t do it in a way that can be hurtful to others, speak in a way that is informed, polite, and constructive.  Speak loudly if you need to, but don’t speak rudely.  If you’re going to make a statement, ask yourself, is this going to move the dial forward on something that is truly important to me?
• Participate in the democratic political process; it will be what you make it.  We’re right in the middle of an election year and the ads are rolling, the pundits are talking, and sometimes, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the process.  I know it will be tempting to think sometimes that one voice doesn’t matter, but I assure you it does.  Much like the freedom to say anything, being able to participate in the political process is a valuable right and gift that others have worked hard for and one of the things that make this country so unique.  Do not take it for granted.
• Reach across the aisle.  There are often two opposing sides to every issue, but one look at Washington will show you that if you want to get things done, complete projects, and make progress, often in life you’ll have to reach out to the other side and compromise.  Hear others out - they are approaching something from another point of view.  Find your common ground and start from there.  It’s easy give up at an impasse, but it’s more rewarding to find solutions that benefit both sides.
• A twinset and pearls are always appropriate – This is a conventional town but conventional can have its advantages.  It’s predictable, and when you’re not sure if you want to stand out, go with the basics that always work.  Pearls earrings will always be acceptable and show good taste, and a twinset…well, you’ll always have a sweater to keep you warm.

With all my love,

Mom

The Art and Science of Becoming a Mother

Last year, at 37 years old, I underwent fertility treatments. After three failed rounds of intra-uterine insemination, my husband and I got incredibly lucky with a single, successful course of in-vitro fertilization.  Our treasure of a baby daughter, Isadora Rose, was born on 12/28/2011. Motherhood fits me like a glove and is something I have wanted from my first memories of childhood.   I used to mother every living thing and inanimate object in my midst.  I once ruined my coveted Babar and Celeste dolls after having coated their trunks in Chapstick “in case they got dry lips.”  I even sustained a macerated bottom lip when my brother’s pet turtle clamped on to my mouth…you see, I had dropped him while trying to feed him and leaned in to kiss his little face in apology.  You get the idea.

So it might surprise you that at age 22, I had an abortion.  My circumstances at the time were likely similar to many middle-class women who make that choice.  I was fresh out of college, living with two friends in Berkeley, CA.  I had one of my first highly challenging social work jobs on the way to graduate school.  I was also still occasionally sleeping with my ex-boyfriend from college.  In my personal life, unlike my educational and professional trajectory, I was vulnerable and I was in more than a bit of denial.  I had a rocky road with this ex that included a brief engagement and at least two breakups.  And then it happened – I got pregnant.

Reflecting back on who I was at 22 unearths many complicated feelings.  I vacillate between feeling a tremendous amount of compassion for who I was then and being harshly critical of a young woman with all the advantages to know better.   Mostly, I want to tell my younger self to hang in there until the next decade when things would get infinitely less awful.

Despite my lifelong desire to have a child, I knew that at that moment, I was in no position to do so.  I was not emotionally or financially ready.  I did not have a reliable partner.  I had dreams of furthering my education and becoming a clinical social worker.  Of course, I had more resources at my disposal than most, but I understood that this was not the time for me to become a mother.   Still, it was not remotely an easy decision to end the pregnancy.  Growing up in a socially and politically liberal family (in which I could count on support no matter which way I chose) served to bolster my confidence, but it did not take the weight off my shoulders.

As I carefully considered my options, the reality of my situation crystallized.  I asked myself the tough questions – Could a person who had been careless about birth control really be trusted to raise a child?  Could a person who still had to borrow a portion of the rent from her parents support a family?  Could a person who struggled to disentangle from an utterly inappropriate relationship be a model for a child?   Ultimately, I decided the instrumentals were workable – I could secure another job, I could garner additional financial support, I could move home, etc. – but where I was in my emotional development made the kind of parenting I always had in mind a long-shot.

As a person who had long fantasized about bringing a child into this world, with all the attendant joys and responsibilities, I wanted to offer a baby nothing short of every opportunity.  At 22, decent parenting was certainly within my grasp (in fact I had known many fantastic young, single mothers), but excellent parenting was not…I simply wasn’t there yet.  This is to say nothing of what having a child would mean for my own educational and professional prospects.

The debate in this country about reproductive freedom is almost always oversimplified.  Being pro-choice does not mean being cavalier about abortion.  Even though abortion was the right choice for me, it is diminishing to imagine I took the decision lightly.  In fact, I had the luxury of considering all angles and being intentional about my choice.  So many women, because of socio-economic, religious or cultural constraints do not have the same control over their lives.

And here is the truth about my life after the abortion: The ex in question responded negatively to the pregnancy and essentially disappeared, confirming my assessment of having an unreliable partner.  I applied and was accepted to my graduate school of choice.  I went on to establish a successful social work career, albeit one in which I would have struggled mightily to provide for a child.  And I continued to make huge mistakes in relationships until I was finally ready, at age 34, to be with the right person and to nurture a marriage.

When I discovered that I would require fertility treatments to become pregnant all those years later, I was understandably baffled and immediately reflected back to that “missed opportunity” at age 22.  For the first time since, I engaged in magical thinking about the abortion: ‘I squandered my one chance at having a baby.’  In my lowest moment, I even wondered if I “deserved” another chance at a child – maybe somehow I was being punished.  Mercifully, it all worked out as it should and with the full capacities of an adult woman with a career, relationship security and the emotional stability requisite for parenting, I had a child.

I have experienced painful challenges on both ends of the procreative spectrum.  The choice to have an abortion was gut wrenching, particularly in light of my lifelong desire to become a mother.  Later, the choice to undergo fertility treatments was heartbreaking and the process grueling.  It can be argued that these were the two most critical decisions of my life.  I am grateful that the power to make them ultimately rested in my hands.

Mother's Day for an Infertile Woman

Mother's Day is very much celebrated at the church I attend in Brooklyn.  On those Sundays, a couple of people from the congregation are usually asked to speak on the subject of Motherhood.  Last year, I was asked to speak.  At the time, I don't think the person asking me realized that I had been infertile for 7 years.  I am glad he didn't know, as he may never have asked me otherwise.  My heart was just pounding out of my chest when I received that phone call because I was so grateful I would have the privilege to speak on a subject that is so near and dear to my heart.  I accepted the assignment immediately.

Here's some of what I shared with that congregation.  I couldn't hold back the tears on this one. They were tears of gratitude.  They came before I even said the first word at the pulpit.  I just felt so grateful that day to see how far I had come and to be able to share with everyone what motherhood has meant to me…….

Mother’s Day

May 8, 2011

I am happy to be able to speak on Mother's Day - one reason is I can stand and tell each one of you women how much I love you and admire you for all that you do.

Also, I'm just personally happy that I could feel so at peace with speaking on Mother's Day…even though I am not yet a mother.  You should know that feeling this peace is a miracle to me.  There were years when I did not enjoy this day and didn't even want to be near this building on Mother's Day as it was too sad for me to be around so many mothers when I couldn't be one myself.  But, because of the human ability to transform & overcome our trials and become something more than we are, I am not the same woman that I was back then.  I’m grateful that I can now celebrate this day, not because I am a mother, but because of what the desire for motherhood has done to my life.

Just like all of you moms who want to be the best you can be for your children, I do too.  And I’ve had a long time to think about what it means to be a good mother and to be a good influence.

I’ve come to realize learning to face our trials with strength is one of the greatest things I could ever learn in my quest to be a good mother.  Because if I couldn’t overcome my own trials, how on earth would I be able to teach my own children how to face theirs?

Overcoming trials is no easy feat.  But doing so is a gift to the world.  It’s a gift to your spouse, your children (born or unborn) and really, all humanity.  It allows you to live with more character & strength.  It allows you to be free of the toxicity & negativity & pain that you normally might send into the world.

Prior to figuring this out, there were a few other sources of great sadness in my life.  In addition to the infertility, my former husband had been suffering for many years with some mental difficulties, a situation that brought lots of anguish and uncertainty into our home & marriage.  At the time, I was barely getting by.  I was reacting to my circumstances with insecurity, fear & loss of hope.  But I began to realize that I was choosing to react that way – my pain wasn’t just a result of my unfortunate circumstances, it was a result of how I chose to react to my circumstances.  In the face of criticism, I was letting harsh words ruin my soul & self-worth.  In the face of an uncertain marriage, I was letting thoughts of losing my husband & being alone fill me with tremendous insecurity & fear.  In the face of infertility, I was letting the fear of not being able to conceive bring me feelings of inadequacy.  In the face of a life that was not what I had envisioned for myself, I felt a loss of purpose.  I looked at other mothers’ lives with envy.  And I wondered how I could ever have meaning or purpose in my life if I didn’t have a husband and a family.  For years, these reactions compounded and affected me so greatly that I no longer was living with peace & happiness.  I did not even have the strength nor the energy to help or think about others around me, because I thought my plate was already “so full” and I was already spread so thin because of my own unfortunate circumstances.

BUT, I was blessed to have a wake-up call.  Someone pointed out to me that if this was the way I chose to live my life, I would be teaching my children to live this way as well.  Once my eyes became open to the revolutionary idea that I had a choice in how I reacted to my circumstances, my long-time desire to be a good mother kicked in full force and I deliberately began practicing reacting to things in a more positive way.  And I mean it when I say I practiced!  I would actually look for little opportunities in my life where I could try to make changes & put this new way of life to the test.

And so, as I practiced, I worked to transform my usual fear and negative thoughts by surrendering my natural self/ego.  I didn’t always know how to do this.  But I realized it meant that my deepest thoughts and feelings & emotions of my heart needed to be turned around and fully aligned with a greater purpose – for me, it was surrendering to oneness with God.  That meant giving up the tendency to be full of fear, frustration, anger, selfishness, pride, judgment, doubt, or worry in my day-to-day experiences and instead – and surrendering fully & completely to the attributes of love, patience, faith, kindness, forgiveness, hope & charity.  Even in those awful moments!  Even in the face of infertility and divorce!  It is a huge sacrifice for most of us to surrender and to give up our natural selves.  Even though this was a hard to do, love for my unborn children literally fueled it gave it power and made it possible.  This turned out to be the greatest offering of love I have ever experienced.  This choice to live my life motivated by love has transformed my life more than any other decision I’ve ever made.  There is no force more powerful than love.

It didn’t come as naturally in the beginning, but little by little, I began conquering all that I had before me.  If there was a reason for me to be deeply offended & hurt, I remained still and took no offense as the offender simply clearly was not at peace, which is a sad place to be in.  If there was a reason for me to be angry, I responded with compassion for the pain someone else was in.  If there was a reason for me to be impatient, I remained hopeful and calm and whole.  If there was a reason for me to blame, I had compassion for another's state of life and forgave with no conditions, as I knew I would be fine, either way.  If there was a reason to feel hopeless about my future & the loss of my marriage, I trusted that trials of this life could be for my greater good and that adversity was necessary to build true character.  If there was a reason to feel insecure or humiliated by eventually being rejected by my husband or being newly divorced & single in New York City, I believed that it was my divine right to be full self worth and that I could face my single life with confidence.  If there was a reason to judge, I had sympathy for another’s weaknesses.  And if there was a reason to feel sorry for myself & my circumstances, instead I actually felt grateful for the privilege of learning from this mortal experience, no matter how grim my life seemed.  This time of my life was amazing and sanctifying.  My existence had changed.  And today I celebrate why this process began – it was because I wanted to be a good mother.

(Photo above taken by photographer Chris Lindsay in my home, 4 years ago.  At the time this photo was taken, I was just barely learning how to become completely at peace with my infertility & years of a hurtful marriage.  I love having this photo as a reminder of that pivotal & beautiful time in my life.  My first marriage ended unexpectedly maybe a month after this photo was taken.  I am now remarried to the most wonderful man ever, though we have not yet been able to have children - but we feel good things are in store.)

K's maternity

[gallery link="file"] One photographer captures another's pregnancy through the lens of their friendship.