Tag: parenting

What I Will Tell My Kids by Jen

IMG_20131102_182049

The first time I told the story of my severe postpartum anxiety, I had to think about what I was doing.

Telling my story out loud, on the internet, where it would live forever. Where someday, my kids will see it. That was scary, so I almost didn’t tell it all.

I was going to leave out the part about seeing a demon hallucination because Good Lord, I don’t want my kids to read this someday and think I was crazy.

I was going to leave out the part where my husband couldn’t figure out a way to take care of me, because he is such a good man and I don’t want his name to be bad at the village gates.

I was going to leave out the part where my family doctor and pediatrician both told me that I should really just try to calm down, take a bath and drink some chamomile tea, because they were good doctors really, even though they dropped the ball on this one.

I think the instinct to sugarcoat is legitimate and for lots of reasons. Maybe I wasn’t ready to handle the whole truth of the thing. Maybe I felt that if I gave them less attention, I could strip those days of their power over me.

My biggest fear was that my kids would not understand my story when they were 12 or 15 or 25. That they would think I didn’t want them, or couldn’t handle them. Or that I was unhappy with them. I never want them to see a story in the news like this one and wonder “Did you ever want to do that?”

The answer is no, but I hesitate to give it, because I know it’s not that easy. The honest answer is more like no, but…I understand how a choice like that can be made and how it can even look like the greatest act of love in the eyes and heart of a sick mom.

Ultimately, I decided to tell the whole truth. I did it for right now, because there are still too many women who stand in front of doctors and husbands and mothers and friends who just don’t know how to help them.

Not because they are bad doctors or husbands or mothers or friends. But because we still don’t have enough support systems out there, enough classes, enough hotlines. We still see mental health as a very personal issue and we look away.

We look away.

So I also did it for years from now, when I will tell my kids this:

I went through a bad time, caused by all the crazy hormones running through my body. I didn’t sleep for days. Your dad was just starting a new job and he thought I was a really, really strong mama and that I would pull myself out of it. And he couldn’t miss his first week of work. He took me to the doctor who told me that I just needed to relax. He took me and Annie to the pediatrician who told me take a bath and drink some tea. He trusted them to know what to do.

I finally did get help, but not before some really scary things happened.

During that time, I never stopped loving you. I never stopped wanting you. In fact, hugs from you were the only thing that made me feel better. When I thought about leaving, I was taking you with me.

There was never a moment when I didn’t want to be with you.

Lots of mamas get sick like this. And it happens in different ways. Some mamas look like they didn’t want their babies, but we can never know what a sick mama is thinking. What she needs, more than anything, is love. Love and help. Don’t judge her. Help her.

Even though it was hard, the best things came from me telling my story. It helped all the mamas who knew me to be more aware of themselves and their mama friends. It helped more than a few mamas get the help they needed. Until we do better with organized outreach for sick mamas, this is what we have, telling our truth and spreading it one mama at a time.

So that if you or someone you love ever feel this way after having a baby, people will know what to do.

And remember…It’s not your fault. You will be ok.

If you or someone you know is struggling with pre- or postpartum depression or anxiety

  • If you need immediate help, please call the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
  • If you are looking for pregnancy or postpartum support and local resources, please call or email us:

May is Maternal Mental Health Awareness Month. In honor of Dana and me and all the mamas who have recovered, please don’t just look at the new babies. Look at the new mamas. Are they ok?

PSI Maternal Mental Health Awareness Month Blog Hop

In Favor of Opting Out

 

IMG_9267

Do you know about this Common Core testing?

Do you really know?

I listened to two third grade teachers explain tonight that there are TWENTY 45 minute blocks of testing. TWENTY. For third graders. All on a computer, reading text and answering questions about the text while scrolling through and trying to keep track of where they are. And then having to read two pieces of text and then write a 2-3 paragraph essay where they CITE from the two pieces of text. Typing on a computer, while scrolling back and forth.

Can you do that???

Let me tell you what we will learn from this type of testing.

We will learn that if we’re going to test third graders on computers, we had better spend more time teaching them how to use a computer. Some schools have already started assigning 40 minutes of keyboard homework a week.

Don’t look now, but what happens if a student doesn’t have a lap top at home?

And we’ll learn that we need to make sure the directions are written at grade level and aren’t so long that the kids have to scroll through them.

That’s right–directions so long that they don’t fit in the screen and require third graders to scroll. Rule number one in the blogging world is to keep your posts short enough that people don’t have to scroll. So they don’t, you know, LOSE INTEREST. And that’s for grown-ups.

And also that the text pieces need to be grade level texts.

You might think that would be a given.  But then, copyrights cost money, and things aren’t public domain until they are 100 years old. I learned this lesson when I asked why on earth we were testing 11th graders with Thoreau. Thoreau. “Because he’s free”.  And those are the kind of solid, research based answers upon which  these tests are built.

And also that if a third grader has to navigate six feet of scrolling screen to read two pieces of text, then type a two paragraph essay in which they are required to cite the afore-mentioned texts–at some point a lot of them will say the third grade version of “F*ck it” (which for some of them will be “F*ck it” and really, who can blame them)–and just hit “Enter”.

We will not learn what the child actually knows or how effective their teacher is in the classroom.

Elementary schools are producing children who excel at one thing: reading directions.  You think I’m exaggerating? Watch this: in the Fall, the school districts will make teachers sit down with their data and try to figure out how they can be more “effective”. Teachers aren’t stupid, they know that too many Americans believe that low test scores equal shoddy teachers who drink coffee and read the Sports page while their students run amuck. So they will generate action plans that look something like this: Spend more time on keyboarding. Practice scrolling. Familiarize students with academic direction language. Practice these skills every six weeks and re-evaluate.

I do not believe in conspiracy theories. The Bad Guys In Washington are not purposefully trying to create a whole generation of worker bees.

But they are creating a whole generation of worker bees. Standardized testing was a nice dream. In practice it has been a disaster that will require decades of recovery in the US.

Maybe you are a college educated stay at home parent who has time to fill in the gaps of your child’s education. Maybe you can afford private school, which looks nothing like this.

But if you aren’t and you can’t, then what?

There’s only one thing to do: opt out. Not because the test can hurt your child.

Because the test is hurting the quality of your child’s education. That’s a BIG and DANGEROUS difference.

 

Only One Birth Plan That Matters

IMG_20131102_182049

April 2015 is C-Section Awareness Month. 

There are a lot of moms out there who think that a c-section is a cop out, or cheating.

In birthing classes, teachers talk about all the things moms can do to avoid c-sections. Women telling delivery room war stories often insert things like “Well, there was no way I was having a c-section!” right before they get to the part where they rallied and delivered.

As if c-section moms didn’t try hard enough. Couldn’t handle the pain. Didn’t love their babies enough to push them out the way God intended.

Or worse, that c-section moms are control freaks who need to fit their births into their busy schedules, appearing at the appointed time with perfectly coiffed hair and fresh manicures, attended by doctors who have tee times later.

Dana and I have five c-sections between us, but we agree, it’s the first one that leaves the biggest scar.

My water broke at 36 weeks, so my labor started off with a clang. From six pm to midnight, I went from 1 cm to 7 cm before I asked for an epidural. At 3 am I was fully dilated with a contraction pattern the nurse said she had never seen before—it was a constant up and down on the monitor with no break. I pushed for three hours, but I don’t remember much because the epidural dropped my blood pressure so low that I could not stop puking.

One moment is crystal clear: I heard the nurse say “Call her doctor” and I knew that wasn’t good. I opened my eyes and saw my mom and Shea look at each other across my belly. For the first time,  I realized my mom was still there. We had decided to do it alone, but later Shea told me that it was so scary he was glad she was there.

Then the baby’s heart rate started to drop, and he hadn’t moved at all from the place where he’d been for three hours. Later he would come out with a giant bruise around one eye, swollen and puffy from where he’d been slammed against my pelvic bone again and again while I pushed.

Our birth plan was simple: Everybody lives. So when the OB told us it was time for a c-section, we said yes. My mom, a former Lamaze instructor who had three unmedicated births, stood outside the door praying we would say yes.

A week later, after I’d had time to process the delivery a bit, I asked my mom what would have happened 100 years ago, if I had labored in some dim room in a Victorian house, attended by her and the town doctor.

“Would Gabriel have died?” I asked.

“Yes” she answered.

“Would I have died?”

“Probably.”

And not only that. There would be no Kate or Annie, my second and third c-sections.

There would be no Mazie, whose heart rate dropped off the table during Dana’s delivery, and maybe no Dana. No Violet.

No Jack and Noah. Brixton or Kennedy. Bella or Diego. Gino, Dean and Darren. Wyatt, Avery or Trey. Nick. Eleanor or Emma. Samantha. Marley or Koa. Jason. Quinn. Nicholl and Jennifer. Austin, Christian, Alec, Craig, Alijah, Colbe, Aubrey or Clare.

Maybe you think that list makes the point that c-sections are too prevalent.

I think it tells a different story.

The story of moms who labored, at first in hope and then in fear. Who understand how quickly a moment of life can be overshadowed by a threat of death. Who thank God often that they became mothers in this century and not in any other.

Because facts tell us that the historical level of maternal mortality during childbirth has hovered at 1 in 100. It’s estimated that at some points in the 1800s, 40% of women died in childbirth. The number in the US dropped to 11 in 100,000 in 2009. Many things have contributed to that drop, among them c-sections.

Dana and I think the shaming of c-section moms needs to stop. Both of us are peaceful about how our beautiful children came to be here, but there are women who struggle with the events that led to their c-sections, who suffer post-traumatic stress over their difficult deliveries.

When we tell them they are less than the mom who delivered “naturally”, we hurt all of motherhood.

And we give a lie to the truth that there is only one birth plan that matters: Everybody lives.

A Big Plate of Elephant

IMG_20131102_182049

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

My two oldest chickens are fighting the way brothers and sisters fight.

It’s exhausting.

Last week, we capped off Spring Break with a trip in our trailer, which is roughly one-twelfth the size of our house.

So here I am at the start of Holy Week, not feeling very holy. At one point, after whining “Gabe hit me” over and over, Kate asked why I was ignoring her.

It’s because I had lost the ability to form a sentence without the F-word in it.

I want to believe this is normal behavior, part of growing up, but I have some personal knowledge of brothers and sisters who grew up to not like each other much. I wish I knew the magical words to make them love each other.

“You better love your sister or I am going to make you the sorriest 9 year old in this campground!!!!”—just trust me that these are not the magical words.

So now we’re trying this:

Your job is to make your sister smile.

Not twist her up into a screaming banshee who tries to pull every hair out of your head over a fork.

Your job is to make your brother smile.

Not bribe your little sister to tell him that she doesn’t love him anymore.

Is it working?

If by working you mean I have now said it enough that if I died tomorrow they would put it on my tombstone in all caps and with twelve exclamation points? Then yes.

By any other measure, ish.

But there’s a thing we all have to remember. Building a family is like eating an elephant. It doesn’t happen overnight. It doesn’t even happen in a year, or a decade. It takes a lifetime, maybe generations. It means that even when we’ve had enough, we have to stay at the table and help.

I hope that right now you are cruising through some yummy, easy piece of your elephant that pairs well with red wine.

But if your piece looks more like mine right now, bony and full of gristle, I want to remind you that you aren’t alone. EVERY FAMILY hits rough patches. ALL PARENTS look over at what’s left of the elephant and wonder how they’ll ever get it done, or why they chose to eat this elephant in the first place.It happens to EVERYONE.

The key is to keep eating.

Dinner of Champions

Paula and I lived together all through our 20s. One of our apartments was a two bedroom, one bathroom on the bottom floor of a two story building built in a mid-century style. Big, wide floor to ceiling windows in the living room and light green tile in the kitchen. We called it the cave because it was always cool and dark in that place, even in the height of summer. Of course, we were two blocks from the beach, so that helped some.

About six months after we moved in, a newly divorced young mom with two small kids moved into the apartment next to us. The kids were small, probably 2 and 4 years old. Their names were Landon and Maddy. Every day when they came home, Landon would look through the window and wave. Sometimes one of us would say “Hi, Bud” and then he’d holler to us about his picture or his game or whatever.

One night, Paula was standing in the front of the window eating from a bowl when Landon came home.

“What are you eating?” he asked her.

“Cereal.”

“You’re eating cereal for dinner?????”

He went running into his house, yelling for his mom. A big pause. Then the door opened and he stuck his head out.

“MY MOM SAYS YOU CAN’T EAT CEREAL FOR DINNER!!!” he yelled. Then he slammed the door.

Catholic kids know better. We can eat cereal for dinner. It happens all the time, like Fridays in Lent. Pancakes. Waffles. Egg sandwiches. And cereal.

Just no bacon.

And waffles are a MUCH better option then that other Catholic Friday stand-by: tuna casserole.

(My mom is screaming right now “But you LOVED tuna casserole when you were a baby!!!” Fine. But then I grew some taste buds. Just sayin’).

I use the Better Homes New Cookbook recipe for waffles, minus the cooking oil and sugar:

1 3⁄4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1⁄4 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 3⁄4 cups milk

Of course, I add the same secret ingredients as my Super Secret Saturday Pancakes: vanilla and cinnamon (we eyeball it).

Gabriel shook off my waffles the other night and had cereal and yogurt instead. Of course, I made sure Paula saw this picture. She said “Cereal: the breakfast, lunch & DINNER of champions!”

IMG_20150323_175539

Breakfast: It’s what’s for dinner.