Motherhood: May 2006 Archives

All of the previous posts are things I have started writing at some time or another in the recent past. They are rambling and icky in some places and not quite what I was trying to say when they were started. When I began writing ages ago I made an agreement with myself that whatever I wrote was for myself and I wouldn't not publish it. So today I have clicked publish on all the posts I have written over the past months with thoughts of Mother's Day in mind. I have chosen and sent my mother a card. Chose a card for Steven's mother. Chose cards for the kids to send to both. I find many of the cards to be too sugar sweet and over the top and therefore it takes ages to find the right card. I have looked through the jumble of past Mother's Day cards from my kids. I have smiled at the struggling spelling, the crayola illustrations, the cutout paper teapots with tea bags stapled in the little pockets, the pressed flowers, the notes and letters. Each one says the same thing. Happy Mother's Day. That is my wish for you. A happy Mother's Day. Updated to add -- The answer to the game show quiz? 3 days. Actually 3 hours shy of 3 days old. Jennifer and Jak are the winners! In all fairness CCAP and Donna are winners too, guessing 2 days because he didn't turn 3 days old until 3 hours later. Send me your snail mail address and I'll send you your prizes, Ladies! :-)

I don't know if I should laugh or be frightened.

When you are standing in front of those long racks of greeting cards designed for Mother's day what are you thinking? Do yo feel obligated to purchase a card? When is a phone call not acceptable in place of a card? Do you find the cards to be too sugary sweet? Do you buy cards only for your mother or do you choose the card(s) for your Mother-In-Law as well? Do you purchase one card and put everyone's name on it or do you buy the grandmother's cards, etc. and send those separate from your own? Do you look forward to receiving cards from your family? Do you feel your husband should give you a card? You are the mother of his children not his mother. How should that work?

When Colby was little there were times when I had no choice but to work. It meant the difference in eating or not. It wasn't until the summer before she started grade school that I was forced to find 'daycare'. My husband at the time was faced with accepting a pay cut or lose his job completely. The difference in pay put us inbetween a rock and a hard place. There was no way I could not work for the summer. It literally meant spending all of the tiny savings we had and still the possibility of not having electricity or going without groceries. For the two and a half months prior to entering grade school I dropped her off at a home daycare. She hated it. She hated the woman providing the care, too. So there I was. My child crying every morning. Me off at work unable to meet her needs. A dwindling checking account. A very depressing time in my life. I did not complain, piss or moan about the situation. I put my butt in gear worked harder, saved more and got us through that tough time. I could have used a few good stiff drinks back then but that meant spending money and spending it on booze would have gotten us nowhere fast. I vowed then that it wasn't worth it at all to live that way. I searched out other ways and never had to depend on a childcare service. I am very traditional. I believe the role of the mother is to raise the children when the father is working to provide. I also believe that role can be reversed at any time. Fathers are as equally important. I am very much in the Dr. Laura Schlessinger school of thought. Having children is a major responsibility. When you choose to have a baby you should realize you are choosing to set aside alot of things for yourself and focusing on the best for your child. Those first few years are so very important to their development. How can an outsider teach your child your morals, ethics, rights from wrongs? Why should the daycare provider be allowed to receive the rewards of the first words and first steps and a million other firsts? Those first years of marriage and parenting were such a struggle. We got through them but honestly I look back and don't know how we did it other than sheer willpower and determination. I am grateful in part to the struggle. There were alot of life lessons learned in those few short years. When Gracie came along I was able to stay at home with her. Those days were the most incredible. Double the pleasure actually. That is also the year I began homeschooling Colby. I was able to devote much more of myself to both of my girls than ever before. When money was tight I took a job substitute teaching and later took a job with the school system that allowed me to bring Gracie with me. As I sit back now I do know at times I toot my horn. I have struggled and sacrificed alot to be a hands on mom. I have managed to raise two exceptional children and it is just as much because of who they are as it is my influence on them. With so many years of growth and experience behind me I see motherhood in an entirely different light with the birth of my son. I know not to take one minute for granted. I dare not forget the total responsibility required of me. Somehow with his birth it seems to be an ever greater sense of responsibility than ever before. I can only reason that with his birth there has come age and maturity and a bit more wisdom. Being a mother is so much more than just being a parent. While it is nice to think that having a father is as good as having a mother I can tell you it is not. A mother is far different than a father the same as mothering is so completely different from parenting. If you have yet so see those difference you need to give yourself more time in the role of both. There are huge differences. It is similar to being a first time mom and the light going on and seeing how silly it is to think pets can be like children. Oh, I love to see that light go on and it isn't anything that can be explained except by the experience. My parents divorced when I was a small child. A few years later my father died. I have no idea what it is like to be the daughter of a father. It is an experience I crave. Seeing women like my grandmother and my mother-in-law crave the experience of being a daughter of a mother is heartbreaking. Both of these strong wonderful women and mothers lost their own mother in early childhood. The loss is one that is painful beyond anything I can being to explain nor fully comprehend. With Mother's Day coming up it is really hitting me in the softest spots of my heart of all the mother's and mothering that is being missed out on. I think of the children I know (and don't know) who have lost their mother and wonder what they think and feel in the midst of days like this Sunday? I ache for the women who have lost their children and wonder if the day is a day of celebration or one they blot out. While we are celebrating how many of us stop and give a moment of comfort to those who might be longing/hurting/suffering on Mother's Day?

This is probably going to cost me alot of readers. And that is okay. This is my journal. This is where I write what I think and feel. Alot of this is past due to be said. So I am saying it. Sometimes the truth hurts. In August of 1986 I got pregnant for the very first time. I was excited yet somewhat afraid. I anticipated the birth of this baby inside me wondering how on earth I was going to raise another human being. Through those months of preparing for the birth, decorating the nursery, choosing a name, I found the answer to the question. When the time came I let the baby lead me. I let her show me what she needed and wanted for first few days and weeks. As I learned my natural instincts took over. Maybe it is because I was exposed to babies throughout my growing up years. Maybe it is because all I ever wanted to be was a momma with lots of little babies. Maybe it is because this is who I am supposed to be. Maybe it is because I am stubborn and don't like to be told what to do. Those could be the answer. The question is: Why do so many woman seem to need books, magazines, articles and websites to be able to raise their children? And with that question I want to know why is that women who seem to want to write the books, magazines, articles and websites also give off an aire that they don't raise their children well and often seem to neglect their child while they perfect their craft of writing about parenting? I also want to know what in the hell gives some of these women with babies and no experience whatsoever in the toddler, young childhood, tween, teen and early adulthood stages the idea that they have advice we all need? They know shit about shit and just blow their own horn in some attempt to draw attention in the "look at me, look at me" toddler fashion. It pisses me off, heh, truthfully it makes me fucking angry, that these women think they have something to tell me (and many of you) when I (we) have been there, done that, bought the t-shirt and watched the damn thing become riddled with holes from old age. There seems to be some huge intellectual cult of women out there who are mothers and need a book to figure out how to parent their child. Let me tell you something if you need a book to tell you how to parent how do you expect to mother your child? Mothering and parenting are two different things. I am not saying I know everything. If I did I would be qualified to write the book. I am not saying my way is the perfect way. Believe me perfection is not mainstream here. The way I was raised was that when you had a baby you bucked up, buckled down and did right by your child. You set limits and bounderies and you had some common sense about what to expect and how to handle the pit falls. You grew up and took full responsibility for yourself and the child. Putting the child's needs far above your own. We women can have it all. But at some point there is an expense to be paid in some area. No one has declared that to be whole and fulfilled you must have it all. Some mothers have to work and that is a situation where I do not consider it as 'having it all'. For those who choose to work and let others raise their children simply because they need to be 'fulfilled' you make me hang my head in shame. Going to work and leaving your baby with a daycare or a sitter or a nanny is the easy way out. Staying home and taking responsiblity for the life that has been given for your care is the tougher, harder, more challenging road. When you have the choice to stay home and you choose to leave home and to work and then write about the anxiety of leaving your child all day, to put it simply, you are nothing but a selfish bitch and you don't deserve to have that child waiting for you to return. My heart breaks for all the women who have no choice and have to go to a job everyday to be able to provide for their family. If this were a perfect world and I was the billionaire I wished I were this is where being the quiet benefactor would be so rewarding. People qualified to give advice are women like Bonnie (12 babies), my ex mother-in-law (God rest her soul) (9 babies), my grandmother (6 Babies) and so many more. So suddenly what makes pill popping, nervous breakdown waiting to happen, first time mothers, mothers to small children with no experience with older children, dysfunctional, whining, never satisfified, complainers, etc, etc, etc, the icon of knowledge that the upcoming generation of young mothers is supposed to hold up as an example? This internet thing is a strange yet fascinating place. (It is no secret I met my husband through this media.) The women who should be garnering fame and glory (not to mention $$) go ignored and overlooked by all of the powers that be. If the current 'icons' are the only example my daughters had to follow I would hang my head in shame. I am thinking I must be the oddity in this here life. I have a daughter who will be 19 next week. She has never been in trouble. She has never done anything to make me ashamed of her. She has both feet planted firmly on solid ground. Her head is filled with dreams and plans for a sweet life. She doesn't want to conquer the world but she has the skills and the intelligence to do so if she wanted to. Being a mother is important to her. I know she will be an awesome momma. I have an 8 year old daughter who even now is determined to conquer the world. I have to keep a slightly tighter reign on her. She is strong and smart and funny. She knows the limits and bounds and has never crossed them. She has a guilt streak a mile wide and it will eat her alive if she doesn't do right by those with less than she has. I have an 11 year old step-daughter. I have set the bar and the example in a life where there was no example for mothering and being allowed to enjoy being female. I have had to reteach alot of thinking and very bad child rearing that put a tabu palor on being a girl. She is a child who is learning to celebrate being female and enjoying all of the possibilties that being a woman means. I was a surrogate mother. I carried an embryo to full term. I gave birth to a baby boy who is absolutly amazing. I love him dearly but I am not his mother. I have never had the instinct to mother him. Never. His mother is my best friend. She has never tried to withhold him from me. I have never tried to take him from her. It was the most incredible experience of my life. One which I think has had major influence on my ability to love unconditionally. 3 months shy of 20 years of being a parent I have a 3 month old son. A beautiful boy who is so sweet and so good. Having a baby I the house hasn't stopped all normal functioning. Life goes on and he comes with the flow - meals are cooked, laundry is washed, floors are swept, grass is cut, internet is surfed, websites are launched, among a million other things and he has learned to cope with them all. I am hoping and praying and planning for another pregnancy this summer. I want to do it all again. I am battling with the knowledge that having one more baby will not satisfy this urge in me. One more will never be enough. I know if I have another I will still always want one more. I don't need advice. I don't need someone to pat me on the back. I don't need a pat on the head either that is for dogs. I understand many woman do need advice and want advice. Those that do I sincerely beg them to look to older woman who have had much experience and loads of common sense. The rockstar bloggers who are now the icons for modern motherhood and parenting are setting up a lot of young women for major pitfalls and emotional troubles in this life. Motherhood is to be revered. It is the hardest job and the biggest responsiblity a woman will ever undertake. Doing it well takes a lot of effort. We each have to find our on way down the path but it is not a path we take alone. It is not a path that has never been traveled before we take our trip down it. It is a path that can be lined with sweet scented flowers and a lots of thorny branches. To set an example, to do this thing every day with grace requires respect. Respect for yourself and your child. Protecting their dignity and setting a moral example. To all the young woman who may run across this peice please take a tiny bit of advice before leaving here. Show respect for your children. Show respect for yourself. Leave your footprints each day knowing you have done so with dignity. You must protect the dignity of your children. Don't use a blog to gain some sense of the 15 minutes of fame by selling your children's dignity for a few laughs and full comments box. I am just rambling here. Hitting and missing many targets along the way of these thoughts and emotions that are swirling in my head. There are several points that probably need clarification. Leave your thoughts in the comments area and I'll reply to them. ******* The answer to the game show quiz? 3 days. Actually 3 hours shy of 3 days old. Jennifer and Jak are the winners! In all fairness since Donna is a winner too. She guessed 2 days. She is correct because he didn't turn 3 days until 3 hours later. Send me your snail mail address and I'll send you your prizes, Ladies! :-)

This comment was left Thursday in regards to this post.

I don't see anything wrong with a 5 year old child still wanting to be breastfed! I also don't see why you all are making such a BIG FUSS about a 5 year old ( or older) still in diapers! I really believe that you all should get your act together and not worry about older children wearing diapers or still breastfeeding!!. Whenever the child is ready to stop breastfeeding I'm sure that He / She will let their mother know! ( Same applies to wearing diapers!) Steve McPhail

Steve, Steve, Steve. Poor, poor, Steve. Who mcFailed you as a child? You have left me to believe in these few short sentences that your mother should have eaten you at birth while your bones were still soft saving us all a lot of trouble these many years later. Raising a child comes with it obligations and responsibility that in no way should be taken lightly. Sadly there are people who do take it lightly. There are those people who have no notion of what being a parent requires. They bring forth the fruit if their loins and leave it for the rest of society to deal with. Being a parent should require that one have a bit of common sense to go along with it but sadly it doesn't and therefore we have people that spout off and have no idea what garbage and assery just spewed forth from their finger tips due to a misfiring of neurons. Notwithstanding the notion you may have the ability to breastfeed your child as you could be a member of the African Aka tribe of pygmies somehow I am doubting that right now. When you grow a set of mammary glands that produces lactational goodness to sustain a growing baby then you can have a say so in this arena. I can write a bunch of sentences here about teeth and eating and weaning. I can address lengthy paragraphs to the liberal lactators and their nazi-nurser counterparts but I know it will do no good whatsoever and will only serve to fill my comments and email inbox with crap I won’t read or respond to. I will simply suggest this to you, Steve - Walk into any elementary school and take a good close look at the Kindergarten and first grade children. Do any of them look like they would benefit in any way whatsoever to be still breastfeeding? Take a closer look at those children and tell me you want to be the one who has to wipe the hind ends of those whose mother's and father's were too lazy to take the time to teach that child how to use a toilet and to clean himself. Oh, wait! You can't! Children who cannot use the toilet and clean themselves can't go to school because they haven't been given the training needed to enter a more independent society setting. This leads right back to a little bit of common sense. Too much of a good thing makes it a not so good thing in the end. Please do not fill my comments with the diatribe of litany pertaining to the emotional comfort of breastfeeding your older child. It is all bullshit and a problem YOU have with not letting your child be more independent of you at an earlier age. Wean your babies. Potty train your toddlers. Let them have some dignity and independence. Amen.