Friday, October 25, 2013

Shabbat Shalom

It's Friday. Shabbat tonight. I'm going to bake a challah today. Even though we are down to one packet of yeast and my mother's recipe calls for one and and half. No idea how I'm going to work that, but a bit of kitchen magic will somehow find its way. As it does. Though we are down to one baking sheet (lost one in the move) and I definitely need at least two for this, and many other cooking endeavors.

I haven't done this for awhile. Can you tell?  I started baking challah on a semi-regular basis seven years ago, and like many things, my baking endeavors ebb and flow over the months and years. A couple of months ago, though, the hubs and I started an unspoken tradition of Friday night fancier dinners for the festival of Shabbat. Though we aren't terribly Jewish by tradition, we are Jewish by family and that is enough for our Jewish pride to wax and wane over the seasons.

Though we walk a tightrope of means, we manage to have a bit nicer dinner every Friday and it's been nice for all of us. We do eat together most every night as a family, and a whole article could be written on that stress and joy-- but it may be the cornerstone of our family togetherness of late. Since DH is a teacher, staying late to attend meetings, talk with parents, do prep work for the next day and other feats of heroism, the older ones stay in after care til late. Then hubs picks them all up and brings everyone home to the table around 5, give or take an hour or two, each night of the week.

The 18 month old baby and I are alone most of the day, which mostly consists of the continual preparation and cleanup of food, wiping of bottoms, changing of clothes, and displays of adorableness (mainly by my daughter), with a fair amount of talking, singing, and washing up in the process. Not to mention time online for mommy and baby... Oy vey! And okay, some picking up, cleaning, organizing, laundry, vacuuming and cooking thrown in for good measure. Occasionally we we take a walk with the stroller (dro dro, my daughter says). And I've been meaning to take her to the park. There are two lots nearby- I really have no excuse-- except that if she falls asleep on our walk I am thrilled. And tired by then from our excursion. And none to eager to stay out longer waiting for her to wake. Waking her from a nap to play, while I advocate much time spent outdoors in fresh air running around for LOs, would be anathema. So we go home. Sometimes my daughter wakes in our apartment, with no idea she'd been enjoying the fresh outdoors for so long.

Oh yes, I forgot the 10,000 times a day she nurses. We do that too. Right now, she's enjoying being naked, clambering on and off my lap, nursing now and then in awkward positions, then running to grab a doll, a teapot and cup from the play kitchen, a ball from brother's toy bin. She takes off, within 5 minutes, any clothes I dare to dress her in. Her favorite toys seem to be a staple remover, a pencil, a computer cleaning cloth, and any other hazards she can seize from the desk. It's so fun to take all the business cards out of the box and throw them all over the floor. Mommy loves picking them all up again! Today she draws with broken beeswax crayons on looseleaf, on desk drawer (ha ha!) on important papers that she can reach when mommy's not looking.

Dinner plans for tonight include BBQ beef ribs (haven't had those in ages, but serendipity found them at the farmer's market last week) butternut squash, salad, perhaps brown rice. And, let's hope, a nice wine.. But if all else fails, challah will make it to the table. It's been months but I'm determined.

Today we are going, Lord willing and the creek don't rise (as my mother is fond of saying), to bake a challah. I say come hell or high water, dang it, if I do nothing else and the wet sheets sit in the dryer all day and I forget about them, we are going to have challah tonight. If you don't hold a few family traditions sacred, what else have you? L'chaim!

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Only a Mother


Argh! Okay, now I've got my dander up. Didn't mean to, but it happened. But I recognize that's mostly not because of any specific incidence of ignorance but is instead cumulative. Since last week, or last month or last year... it's been growing. I read a blog post by a man lauding his SAHM wife-- he was very supportive, and for the first time in a long while I too felt vindicated, validated, and all that good stuff. Which is very important for any human being to feel. And yes, SAHMs are completely human. We have that right. But in response to the man's article were many many responses by "working mothers" stating in various derogatory ways that they did everything a SAHM does and more, that they do it all with one hand tied behind their back, while hopping on one leg, while spinning in a circle while working 30-40-50 hour week? Why did they make it sound like they somehow are knitting with organic wool in one hand, cooking elaborate organic meals from scratch with the other, gardening with one toe, having time with their DH if there is one, while somehow spending 24 hours a day with their kids-- artsing and crafting and outings and adventures--all the while of course juggling a full time job or career? No, you can't. It can't be done. I know because I've tried. You would have to be superhuman, and "working moms" too, are only human. And SAHMs are as human as you are.

Why does it feel then, that so often there is a pervasive sense that we are less than? I am a SAHM. I am also Ojibway Native American by heritage and it's as my mother says, the white man has done what he's done because "Well after all, Indians are not even human!" And it's true. In order to justify their own acts, the violence, enslavement, imprisonment, the slow or swift murder of millions of indigenous peoples, the white man placated his own cognitive dissonance in this mental/emotional and literal dehumanization of those who breathed walked thought felt hoped dreamed rejoiced and despaired birthed and died and suffered just as he did. And at his hands.  And this holocaust is far from unique. And it's far from over.

I have done it both ways. That is how I know it can't be done. When my oldest was a toddler I went to school part time, and then full time and then worked full time while finishing school, as well as doing required volunteer hours and supervision to meet the criteria of a licensing body as well as my Master's program. Did I mention I was a single mother for much of that time?  Then I was also in a courtship with the man who would become my new husband a few years later. And was I able, in this time, to meet my daughter's needs? To be somehow, magically, with her spending quality time while simultaneously in class? At work? Pulling long hours doing research? Doing volunteer time to make requirements? Or when I was home writing long papers late into the night or studying? No. Hell no. But it's not that I didn't try my damndest to make it work. Something suffered. That something was my daughter. And me. Most importantly: the relationship between us. There is an aphorism that states a person can only do 3 things really well. Maybe there is more truth than poetry to that. Maybe we should listen.

Of course I tried my hardest to be there for her. To race during a quick break between classes and work to pick her up from school. To take her on trips to the museum (there was one walking distance from my house). Or the park. And to a certain extent I was. But I was also absent. Missing her, whole days, nights, weekends, months it seems, escaped us. Years. I still remember the time she was 3 til the time she was 6 as an insubstantial blur. I still feel the ache that I've missed that time time to be there for her, when she truly needed me, her only mother. My only daughter. That time is gone forever. But there is time for regret.

Because of the demands of my program, and job, there were whole days I did not see her until picking her up late at night from my parents or sister (I was lucky they could watch her sometimes). I was late so often picking her up from preschool or kindergarten it was a travesty. So embarrassed, the last one to leave. I'd apologize profusely each time. Yet I could not afford aftercare fees. Her teacher was nice enough sometimes to look the other way. I found it so painful trying to mete time for a new relationship against the needs to spend (barely) adequate time with my daughter, that we ended up spending more time as a threesome than I felt was right, in the event something were to go sour, she was already getting so attached. Already starting to him 'daddy'. This sobriquet, the bestowal of which I greeted with both hope and trepidation, proved premonitory, but not before the heartbreak I feared had first come to pass: we split up for a year while the man traveled overseas to fulfill his own longtime dream. The time between his leaving and our eventual reunion was one of the hardest I've bourn. Not merely the sorrow of my own heart, but the longing for that 'daddy' for my girl was the pain only a mother knows, but cannot by will alone provide. I could write an entire essay on that mother's journey, the tension of procuring a father for one's child, no matter how in love you are, the pushpull of allowing a relationship into the mother's let alone children's lives (and of course, in a way they are one and the same for single mothers aren't they?). But I won't say more here.

Was my house clean? Not near enough. Did I cook from scratch? Occasionally. Mostly I bought hopeful, organic things that lay wasting on the shelf, and too many ready made or easy make meals. She ate more meals with other members of immediate or extended family than me. She became an extremely picky eater. I remember coaxing bites of pancakes (with  syrup!) into her some weekend mornings. What parent has to encourage, coax, insist her child eat dinosaur shaped organic chicken nuggets for pity's sake. She spent nights away from me. Did I mention my job entailed working nightshift a few times a week at least for months on end? Dayshift too. The year I finished school my program had upped to FT, working full time, while my ex-boyfriend/future husband sailed overseas and my daughter was in Kindergarten was a craze of neverending busy-ness. I recall being so frazzled, underslept and miserable by the end of that time. Then i graduated, he returned, we re-connected, we eventually got engaged, I was still working, and feeling strangely adrift from my daughter in ways I can't describe. What had happened to us? I had been practicing "attachment parenting" with her since before her birth (natural birth with midwife in hopsital in case you're wondering.  Hey if my mother could, so could I. Not to mention my great grandmother and everyone up there in the woods with her-- they didn't have epidurals!) Babywearing, cosleeping, EBF, you name it. I think it helped our bond, honestly, that I had done those things from the start. Who knows without that, how damaging the later effects of my growing absence wold have had on our diminishing bond? 

Near the end of this, my then fiance, daughter and me got a place together, he and I were both working outside the home and I was still finishing volunteer hours for licensing requirements. Did I mention I was pregnant for about six months of this time?

I was stressed to the max, the breaking point. there were complications in the pregnancy, in the relationship. Luckily things worked out within a few months, we were married and I had my second baby, naturally, at home. And there I stayed. 

Since then we have two more children. That's three children in seven years. Three times I have tried to proceed with doctoral work and three times 'failed'. Or you might say, backed off because I recognized the train of hecticity that awaited me and my children should I board it. I have been there for my babies as no other human can be there. No daycare on earth can be there on the level of need that exists for them as babies and young children. That's what I do. I'm 'only' their mother. And I'm their only mother.

It's not that I don't have the guilt for being there for my babies. It's there. Society, friends, family sends the message  everyday. It's powerful. Oppressive. Never ending. And I hate it. However, I must continue to do what is right for my family. all me stubborn if you wish. Call me stupid if you must. Call me lazy if that makes you feel better. Just call me a stay home mother. I have done the research and there's no denying it.  Not only as a laymom.  But I'm fortunate enough to have a degree in clinical psychology.  All the most recent, stringent, and lucid findings on healthy attachment. It's there if you just look. And there's no denying it.

You see, if you work away from home, if you school, if you just spend hours a day away from your kids then you aren't there for them during that time. I know. I've done it. You aren't simultaneously at a job and being with your child are you? You aren't in class and with your precious little ones. Sure we can imagine a few scenarios for argument, but for most people that's impossible. You can't be in two places at once. Can you? Even the time we spend multitasking, (though society applauds it) it is becoming evident, actually hinders our effectiveness as people. You see, I've done it, I've tried to do it all, and I've failed miserably. Heck, even as a SAHM, on a good day, I don't spend 10 hours in the kitchen baking and cooking elaborate meals from scratch anymore. A baby ago, I used to sometimes.  Even if I did, I could not simultaneously help my oldest with her homework, read my son a story, give my first grader a bath, vacuum the house, be online at MDC, play a game, nurse the baby, scrub the toilet,  calm a meltdown, wash everyone's hands, set the table, do an art project, talk with my husband, grocery shop,  change the baby, freak out about finances, hear my daughter's poem, sneak a snack, organize the desk, listen to my second daughter's fears, pay some bills,  drive an errand, wash the dishes... while tap dancing, and standing on my head.  Not even a SAHM can do all those things in a day. Even if we could, we can't do them all together. Even if can do all those things we still burn out. When is there time to ourselves? We are human we can't do too much or we suffer. We can't do everything at once. We can try but something's gotta give. Something will lose out. What pays the price? Usually the relationship. Spouses. Parent-child.

Strange because to most of us, in our lives, the relationship is the most important, the most precious thing to our survival and to our hearts, and  to our well being. Yet under stress, it's the first to bend. Sometimes break. Don't they?

Of course we can argue, we all need money. Without money, we cannot survive in this society. We need it to have a roof over our head, feed our families, have a car, pay the bills that never end. And that's just the minimum. Isn't it? What about life insurance, vacation, savings, college for children (ha these days), unforeseen emergencies, and all the 'stuff'? Comforts, luxuries. The argument can be made.

Funny, we often hear the "working mother" argument that they do what they do to provide. I'm not arguing against it. You do what you do to provide for their family. Maybe you're a single mom. I've been there. I most often though hear the statement that 'if you're lucky enough to afford to stay home, then..." or "for most of us it's not an option..." Really? Its good to be up on the latest research. Last winter there was an article in Psychology Today that described how the majority of SAHMs are actually working class. The researchers expected to find more lower income families with moms working outside the home but the majority of "working mothers" they found were actually from upper-middle income (usually white) families. Perhaps they have been told or raised from a young age to expect to have "it all" and do what they do to provide or uphold a lifestyle choice, to hold to an impossible double standard for women. Wouldn't be the first time. Believing that they can do it all and do it well... Maybe they can. But they can't do it all at the same time, let alone simultaneously, and well.

A job isn't going to cut you any slack, you must be there to earn your way. You must do what you are paid to do and do it well or lose the job.  If you are in school you must keep up with the program or fail. But to what standard do we hold the halls of motherhood? Who will see us falter? If we fall on occasion, if occasions grow to become norms, if our interactions bear the strain, if our whole parenting style crumbles, and we watch as our dreams and very ideal for motherhood washes away before our helpless eyes. Who will be there to witness the betrayal of our own hearts except our children? And perhaps a spouse? And maybe then we will say "this isn't what I wanted for my kids. This isn't how I thought it would be. This isn't who I am." Something isn't right. But we have somehow gotten to this unfamiliar shore. And we feel powerless to stop it. Or to change. We don't know how to do anything differently now. And who will hold us accountable to the relationship if it suffers in the balance?

Do I have regrets about being a SAHM? Well it does suck barely making ends meet. It's not the lifestyle, or the stress, that I want for my family. I have been with my babies/toddlers/ now grade schoolers and one in junior high(!) nearly 24/7 for the past 7 years. Did I mention we were homeschooling for some of that time? I still have a distant hope or dream of finishing a PhD in my field. That would give me real earning power. And help our financial situation. It would take years and doing to make that happen still. There are a few jobs or services I could do in the meantime, in which the pay is meager, and are not ultimately my goal or my career passion. Whenever DH and I have done the numbers for me to work any of these 'entry level' interest jobs it just does not add up for daycare. Even if I wanted to put my 18 month old in daycare. Which is not okay with me. Still I wonder if I could just forge ahead with school and/or work outside the home again, put my heart in a box somehow, leave my baby crying for me, to do what I need to do to to get ahead with my career path. I can feel the ache of holding my heart's breath, trying not to feel too much, as I do what society tells me is "right". Do something tangible. Make my mark. Earn my livelihood. Become real, in the eyes of the world.

Because words don't exist for what we do, sometimes it's easy for us to believe we aren't doing anything. Reinforced by the eyes of the world, to believe we are selfish, we are lazy, we are incompetent, we are takers, we are losers, we are 'lucky'. Because the world lauds busy-ness we also learn to believe that to be fully human is to be busy. We are anxious if we aren't doing something all the time. We are also taught that to be busy means constantly doing something. I know loads of SAHMs who are constantly busy. And yet they are also, sometimes not doing something. We can be busy to the point of exhaustion, busy in both senses of the term. Doing and not doing. So busy we lose track of ourselves. And feel guilty for needing a break from all this-- not doing.  It's hard to explain unless you've done it. And people who aren't doing it say, I don't get it. Yes we have gotten the memo from the world. That we are not enough. Not doing enough. Not earning enough. Not busy enough. Not real enough. Maybe even... not really human?

There is a danger in this thinking. We have seen it the world over, many times, and nothing has changed, as the genocides of the world continue and violence against women rises unchecked. 

But I am human. I'm a mother. Every human on earth rises from a mother, was born from a mother's body, depends on their mother for food, shelter, comfort, touch, love, presence, nurturing, mental/emotional flourishing. Our very survival as humans depends on countless mothers. And who will be there for the children, if not their mothers? What message does that send to their psyches, that they are not enough worth our own time, energy, involvement, care? That we would put them in the care of others first. That they are not worthy of our attention. That they are not enough. Society already gives that message from every angle. I don't want to perpetuate that message as their mother. I give them what I strive to be the best of presents, though it is at times quiet, loud, happy, sad, it is far from perfect, it is timeless: my presence. I want their first hymn on earth to be a song of constant love.