Call of the wild

Book, recommended (particularly for those of us who are currently in a season of “little years” that may leave us short on sleep, reading time, coherent thoughts, temper…)

A dear person gave me this deceptively little book, and I am so glad that she did. Though some of its self-contained chapters don’t quite reach two pages, each one has exponential potential for unpacking through prayer, self-examination, and action (at least for those of us who are in need of a perspective check, which describes me approximately every other minute or so).

I skimmed it once, quickly, and it’s still all whooshing around in the churn. I plan to read it again, slowly now, to work at getting some of the cream to come together, solidify.

I needed to read a book about the “little years” again. I know that I’m still a total amateur in this parenting thing; I don’t even have a kid in the double digits yet. But after having been at it for such a seemingly long time (B.C. is but a lazy, hazy memory), a creeping frustration was beginning to darken my days—the feeling that I should surely have somehow moved beyond the “little years” by now, or at least should have become more breezily adept at coping with the daily fatigues of the preschool-toddler-infant set. I’ve got bigger fish in need of frying now; why am I still wiping bottoms and teaching people the alphabet and pretending to be patient while a two-year-old works to put on her own shoes? True: I don’t feel the weight of every decision anywhere near as heavily as I did when I had only two littles. But neither do I feel like an old pro at things like potty training and toddler discipline and babies who cry in the middle of the night. I just feel...old, and tired, and frankly sometimes just tired of it all. In short, I needed a good kick in the pants, which this book cheerfully provided. Thank you, Rachel Jankovic!

Perhaps I’ll have more to say about the book as I reread, but for the moment, I’ll leave you with an image that instantly and helpfully crystallized some of my recent musings. Jankovic uses it to describe what she calls “growth spurts” (those times when you feel like you’ve just gotten a handle on things, and then, seemingly overnight, the kids all show up with entirely new variations on crazy). The image is also quite apt for household adjustment whenever a new baby arrives:

“You know those pain scales at the hospital, where they rate your pain from one to ten? Well, pretend that you are screaming, “Thirteen, thirteen! Fifteen!” What that should tell you is that it is time to restart the whole thing, stop screaming, and just accept that this is now the new ‘one.’ Start over, and accept the new ‘normal.’ I promise that this little mental change will actually change how you feel, and by extension how your children feel. Growing is, after all, what God wants them [and us!] to do.”

So if you’re screaming “fifteen!”, or tired, or overwhelmed (Jankovic offers a helpfully convicting perspective on the “o-word” too), you just might want to spend a few minutes a day with this book, which helpfully smacked me back toward the Book whose perspective should frame my every moment.

Babies need their moms. Duh.

I drafted this post a couple months ago and just came across it again. I’ll add the happy ending at the, um, end. 

Here is some of the weirdest and possibly worst parenting advice I’ve ever heard:

Get out and do something like eating at a restaurant, just you and your husband, soon after the baby is born. Do not take the baby with you! You must go without the baby! You must do this in the first few weeks of the baby’s life!

I’ve come across this in a number of places, even in parenting stuff that is otherwise refreshingly solid. (Most recently, I recall reading it in a Dr. Kevin Leman resource. I know he was trying to make some point or other about preventing, in effect, childolatry, but still. Sheesh.)

When my BabyOne was in his first week of postnatal life, grandparents came to visit, and we left Baby in their care so that we could go out, just the two of us…because I desperately needed to make a quick run through Target* to find a skirt that would fit me for Dad’s graduation, ordination, and installation, all of which were scheduled for the subsequent six weeks. Honestly, if I hadn’t thought it would be totally and offensively rude to my in-laws, we would have taken Baby with us. Dashing in and out of the dressing room, I was nail-bitingly, hand-wringingly, borderline hyperventilatingly anxious for the entire hour and a half that Baby was out of my reach. There’s no way that I would have left him, even in the care of doting and capable grandparents, for a frivolous or unnecessary outing.

This is not because I was some kind of superior mother,** but rather because I was neither physically nor emotionally equipped or inclined to leave my newborn at that point. And really, why should I have been?

So I was thinking about this again because there’s this thing coming up at church. It’s a thing that it would be kinda awkward for me to skip. It’s a thing that occurs over evening/bedtime hours. It’s a really good thing, and I would like to go and do my part, except that I have this baby who’s just exactly the wrong age. He’ll be four and a half months old at the time of the thing—too little (by his own standards) to be on a reliable bedtime routine; and too old to be socially acceptable at a fancyish thing that’s just for grownups. Also, he likes to nurse before going to bed, and often in fact will not go to bed without nursing and/or rocking. He likes me, and I like him. He is my baby, and I am his mom. That is what babies and moms do.

Unfortunately, it seems that very few babies nowadays get to do what babies do, to the point that most folks have forgotten what it is that babies and moms do. My baby is the second-last in the half-dozen crop at our church this year, and my baby is the only one who is not regularly left in the care of others—daytime, night time, feeding time, any time.*** Somehow, as I (pushing a stroller and/or wearing an Ergo) frequently encounter other new moms tripping lightly and baby-lessly about town, I doubt that the parenting advice our culture really needs is to get out of the house, without the baby, as soon as possible after the baby is born.

Most of the other moms who had babies this year will be at this event too, but I can guarantee you that I’ll be the only one showing up with my baby. So instead of looking like the normal one, who’s just fulfilling the biologically obvious aspects of her vocation of motherhood, I’m going (once again) to be the weird one. (I’m not at all against leaving my baby with grandparents for such an occasion—but bedtime is tricky; biological grandmas are hundreds of miles away; church grandmas will all be at the event; and if I’m lucky I’ll be able to find 2-3 teens who can be bribed to wrangle the older kids to bed. And I have no idea if my baby would take a bottle, anyway.)

All this rambling is merely to say: Babies need their moms. And moms, in less obvious but equally significant ways, need their babies. Going out with your husband can be a good thing. And at a certain point, even running to the grocery store without the baby(ies) can be a sanity saver. Bigtime. But don’t ever let anyone, be it guru, in-law, or every other mom at church, make you feel guilty for having a baby who needs you (and a you who needs your baby).

  *This was of course before Target was Totally Evil ;P

**(And I fully realize that my first-time-postpartum-self should not be considered normative for any woman, not even for my own subsequent-times-postpartum selves.)

***I am in no way passing judgment on anyone’s particular situation. I know that sometimes it becomes necessary for Baby to be cared for by someone other than his mother. It is sad that our world has lost our way to the extent that this sometimes becomes (or seems) necessary to many who would wish it otherwise, and that this seems Normal to so many.

Happy Ending: I went, and I was indeed the only one with a baby. Baby behaved, charmed everyone at my table, and fell asleep in my arms without me even having to sneak off to nurse him. Nice older lady found me afterward in the back where I’d gotten up to walk Baby to sleep, and she gushed kindly about how nice it was to see a mom with her baby. And I learned another lesson about how wonderful and supportive the people in this church family are. Even if they do think I’m weird :D. (More credit to them!)     

Why is it that when I say "unmedicated" in my head it always sounds like "unmitigated"?

Funny article here, and it got me thinking about the time my doctor hustled into a prenatal checkup late. "I'm sorry to keep you waiting," she said. "I was at a delivery. First time mom, no drugs. She did it." "Oh, good for her," I said without thinking. But what did I mean by that? I did NOT mean that this newly delivered mother had achieved something better than she would have if there had been drugs involved. I do not believe that load of purest bull at all. What I meant was that I was glad that she knew. She knew she could do it. That was what she wanted: to know.

Childbirth is something one is either physically able to do or not, and a mother finds out into which category she falls when her child (each child, individually) is born. The unmedicated childbirth question is not who can and who can't (although we now usually have the luxury of providing some alternative to death or horrible maiming to those who fall into the "can't" category). The question some women want answered is, "If I'm someone who can, can I do it without asking for help?" It is not a question of physical strength but of will. It is a game of chicken, and as such it has a large component of silliness, and sometimes foolhardiness. It is as silly as being a strongman or climbing Mount Everest or running a marathon. Everyone knows those tasks are undertaken not in the service of humanity, but as a challenge to the one who undertakes them. Most of us are content never to make the effort. Those who are physically unable to do so would be unreasonable to think less of themselves for their physical incapacity.

The strongman or the Everest aspirant or the marathon trainer is certainly to be respected for his strength of will and the painful discipline to which it drives him. But at the same time, any of these trainers who cannot also laugh at himself a little and see that his goal has no inherent value is a bit uncentered. The lifter or climber or runner who becomes a bore on the topic is no stranger to any of us, and for those of us who must keep running in birth circles, the childbirth bore is every bit as familiar.

Perhaps the hippies will forgive me for pointing out that homebirth is a bit cheaty on this front. ;) At home, one can't ask for an epidural, or at least, one can't get it. One increases her chances of "succeeding" by eliminating the possibility that she could get any real help. A runner can always quit a marathon, and that is what makes it so hard. This is the only reason unmedicated childbirth has become a big deal (although making a virtue out of the hobby is a cherished and profitable endeavor). When there was no possibility of getting real help, it was no unique accomplishment to deliver a child without it. Now that there is, some women have proven that "the urge to perform feats of strength for no good reason is deeply embedded" not only "in the male psyche." 

So when a pregnant lady seeks to answer the question, "If I'm someone who can, can I do it without asking for help?" she faces another question also: "If I can do it without asking for help, can I maintain my perspective, recognize the accomplishment for exactly what it is and isn't, and not become as insufferable as my friend who's training for a marathon?"

Groan.

PS--some of my best friends are training for marathons.

When we seek relief

Of all the freedoms the mother of very young children surrenders, perhaps the most emptying is the freedom to grieve. A baby's smile must be returned. A toddler's manic, violent adoration must be reciprocated. They cannot understand another's sadness. A mother cannot close her door and bawl out her sorrow, scream at it or sleep it away. Is mourning selfish? Is even this another avarice of which she must be purged? Grief denied; who could imagine such a thing?

My cloudy crystal ball

(Nothing profound. Just pep-talking myself a bit.)

I know that if it is granted unto me to live into my seventh decade of life, I will look back on these days, and I will think that every messy and exhausting and overwhelming moment was Totally Worth It. There will even be some things about these days that I will miss (a nostalgia that will, God willing, be more than adequately sated by means of the time I spend helping out with my grandchildren). I know this, because all the septuagenarians I’ve ever met can’t be wrong.

 (The tricky part, of course, is that I can’t see quite how I’m going to get from here to there…)

Also, if I make it to 70, I will in all likelihood smile with nostalgic empathy at the moms wrestling their toddlers in the pew, and I will talk crazy-talk to young mothers; i.e., “Enjoy them while you can! They don’t stay little long! It really does go fast!” I know that I will say these things, because all the septuagenarians I’ve met, even the most sensible ones, talk like that.

I just pray that I will be granted the grace to become my favorite kind of septuagenarian: the kind whose nostalgia is realistic enough to recall, even amid fond reminiscing, “I was just so tired all the time;” and “It was hard and I sometimes wondered how I’d make it through.” The kind who inquires with true empathy about Baby’s sleeping habits, who volunteers to be a warm body between the more volatile elements in your pew, who drops off chicken soup when everybody’s dragging around with a cold. What a precious, precious resource: a woman who has been there and done that, who has not forgotten that the investment required to make eternal treasures is heavy, and who is willing to continue investing herself after her intial tour of duty is done.  

(And I still totally respect the octogenarian who once told me, “I wouldn’t trade those years for a million dollars. And I wouldn’t give a dime to go back.”)

Failure

Recently several women have described themselves to me as failures. One was unable to breastfeed one of her children. One was unable to deliver her first child in the usual way, and followed the experience with an unsuccessful VBAC attempt. Another was unable to conceive a child at all.

Nothing has demonstrated to me more effectively my own impotence than my apparent success at each of these tasks. Boob Hell I survived, but my laughably excessive reflections on it leave me nothing but bewildered as to how I did so. The births of my children have revealed to me only a body beyond my control and a mind and heart full of weakness and sin. I cannot imagine using the verb phrase "I conceived." How could I claim agency for an event I did not even know was happening? It is inelegant, but I always say, "I got pregnant." That sounds more like the truth: that someone else was the effective force. If I have succeeded as a nursing mother, as a laboring mother, as a bio-mother, I have not succeeded as a person, for each of these successes has crashed out of me in an avalanche of resistance, resentment, fear, anger, and ungratefulness.

Maybe it is easy for me as someone who has nominally succeeded in these tasks, listed above in order of decreasing "controlability," to downplay their importance. I don't even exactly mean to do that, because the tasks are important. But their importance is not in some measurement they may grant of the person who accomplishes them. The important thing is that the baby gets fed. The important thing is that the baby gets born with minimal damage to mother and child (and when a C-section is the least damaging way for that to happen, my stomach is too weak to ponder the alternative). The important thing is that a woman receive what God would give her, whatever that is or isn't. The important thing is that a woman who is given the gift of motherhood make a good faith effort to do what is best for her child. At this she will fail, for goodness and faith are not natural to her.

All this failure notwithstanding, we must still be cautious. Success, real or apparent, is a dangerous gift, for it always tempts to pride, the chief of sins.

Another miraculous crisis

[Ramblings of a recently postpartum mind trying to make sense of the experience. Skip unless you’re into L&D details.]

Typing up my latest birth story, I noticed something really odd: if read by an objective third party, it might not sound like such a bad deal. I mean, from an outsider’s view, the main post-water-breaking action could be boiled down to three ginormous contractions that made me wish desperately for instant death (but that were spaced far enough for me to fall asleep (!) in between), fifteen or twenty more minutes of unrelenting, excruciating back pain, 2.5 pushes, and---Baby!

Wow, what a lot of women wouldn’t give for that, huh? Although the doctor, in a post-action review, described this L&D as somewhat “surreal” even from her end of the proceedings, she still seemed inclined to classify it as not such a bad deal, considering. In my mind, however, this L&D looms large and terrifying. Go through that again, ever? I can’t even begin to mentally broach the edges of that thought without reaching for a paper bag to breathe into.

In fact, I think I was more nervous heading into this L&D than any of the preceding ones (possibly excepting the first). What gives? Am I the only one who’s actually losing confidence as she goes along? Shouldn’t the fact that babies and I have come out all right on the other side five times now make me ever more assured?

The pain is not fun. I dread the pain, but I can deal with pain, especially pain that I know is finite and productive. And there are drugs to deal with the pain (though unfortunately it seems I’m becoming less and less likely a candidate for such interventions, should I be inclined to request them).    

The uncertainty is unsettling, to say the least. Does anyone really have “textbook” labors, going to the hospital when regular contractions are 5 minutes apart, proceeding smoothly through transition, etc.? I kind of doubt it, but I’d settle for my own stories resembling each other, at least. Deliveries #2 and #3 were somewhat semblant, but that’s about it. Well, at least I can count on the fact that the doctor will have to break my water every time, either as an overdue induction, or to get things progressing in a labor that’s already underway. Oh, except for the time that my water spontaneously broke first, and then nothing else happened until they started the pit drip. Oh yeah, and the time that it actually broke on its own mid-labor.

Well, at least I know that my babies are always late, or else reasonably close to due date. Oh, except for the one that was two weeks early.

Well, at least I know that my babies come pretty fast once it’s pushing time. Oh, except for the time I spent 45 (drug-free) excruciating minutes pushing to turn a large-headed misrotated baby.

Well, at least I’ll always know for sure when it’s time to head to the hospital. Oh, except for the time I showed up for a scheduled checkup kind of thinking things were getting going, and amused and alarmed the doctor by being at 8 cm already.

See what I mean? There’s just not even a hint of a pattern to go by here.

Well, at least I know that the babies always come out OK, with no hint of delivery-related complications. Oh, except for the time a baby swallowed a bunch of amniotic fluid that I think he’s still working out years later ;P. Oh yeah, and that time a few weeks ago when I delivered a purple baby with an almost-triple nuchal cord.

And there, I think, is where the real terror comes in. Those babies were safely delivered. And statistically speaking, and as my own personal statistics have borne out, I am much more likely to lose a baby in the first trimester than in the delivery room. But—what if there hadn’t been enough slack in the cord? What if his head had still been rotated the wrong way like it was when then doctor first checked? What if I had run out of strength to push him out fast enough so that the little bit of “fetal distress” became an unbearable amount of distress? (The fastest our little hospital can pull off an emergency C-section is probably an hour.) What if? What if?  

My delivery room stories have all had happy endings. But I know that not every story does, and I ache for those who have endured a harsher turn of plot. In the delivery room, as a mother pants and struggles through what should be the most natural and fulfilling of roles for her, the bearing of new life, the words of the curse echo loud.

In the delivery room, these present sufferings, this eager longing, bear down sharply. The cursed crisis of the delivery room under which we groan is at once both intensely personal and weighted with the collective universal pain of our foremothers, indeed of all creation.We labor under the weight of the weary world: small wonder that we should groan!

In the delivery room, as the world condenses to another miraculous crisis, Eden is mere memory too distant to be anything but mockery, and the New Earth gleams just beyond the far horizon, promised rather than perceived. Between paradises, we labor by faith and not by sight. We must fight back the vivid uncertainty of What Ifs with the unseen but Realer than real, sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.

The curse is visible. The pain is tangible. The What Ifs, not just of pregnancy and delivery, but of the entirety of the child’s future life, are overwhelming. But hope that is seen is not hope. And lest we forget, Eve was called, in sure and certain hope, mother of all the living--after the Fall.

The What Ifs can be terrifying—but they cannot have the last word. As my overanxious brain would do well to remember, the last word has already been spoken. The plot of every life is watered by tears—for some a trickle; others a torrent. But take heart, o my timid soul: the Ending is happy beyond measure, its luster all the more brilliant for the gloss of each precious tear shed.     

It's not OK, but that's OK

I’ve felt very loose-endish lately. Waiting on a baby, especially when your last baby was early and you’re already in that territory, can do that to a body. Anyway. I insomniacally picked up a book from a pile that had recently arrived at our address (you all know about AbeBooks, right?), muttering to my longsuffering husband about the appropriateness of its subtitle: “Weary? Can’t get it right? Struggling to make life work?” Now that I’m all of 30some pages into Larry Crabb’s The Pressure’s Off, I’m not exactly positioned to write a review or a recommendation, but those introductory pages did help with the muttering a bit ;O.

(Aside: Crabb has a penchant for Capitalized Phrases, but I find myself mostly willing to construe it as idiosyncratic rather than annoying.)

Here’s how Crabb defines the main problem he’s addressing in this book:

Most evangelicals properly reject the teachings commonly known as the prosperity gospel or the health-and-wealth gospel….But sometimes we smuggle our own version of that idea into our understanding of the Christian life. Though we deplore the idea that health and wealth are available on demand, we like the idea that legitimate blessings are given to those who meet the requirements. The Bible says so….(Deut. 29:9)…We want the good life. We may define it more spiritually…..But we still maintain that the good life of legitimate blessings is a worthy goal and one that may be reached by living a faithful life of obedience to biblical principles.

Crabb refers to this more subtle sinkhole as the Law of Linearity (if I do A, then B will follow). We find ourselves trying to follow Biblical principles in order to obtain the Better Life of Blessings, when what we really should be pursuing is the New and Living Way, the Better Hope (Hebrews 7:18-19) of intimacy with God no matter our life’s circumstances. (You see what I mean about the Capitalized Phrases.)

This Law of Linearity thing is a potentially ruinous guilt trap for Christian parents, who are well drilled in the Biblical proverbials of parenting (train up a child in the way he should go, and all that). One of the most simultaneously frustrating and freeing realizations about parenting is that beyond a certain point (which varies with each child’s personality and age), we have little to no control over our children’s actions, particularly in public. This becomes exponentially more true with each additional child, and with, shall we say, certain children.

 Because you can only get so far with a whistle.

 

How quickly I fall into the despairing cycle: It’s not working. Why can’t I get everything, or even anything, going in the right direction? What am I doing wrong? It’s! Not! Working! I have wasted too many moments second-guessing.  But…after all, if I’m doing A like the Christian parenting books say, then shouldn’t B be happening, at least some of the time?

No. B does not necessarily follow even the most diligent A-ing. There is some value in (some) parenting books. Appropriate A-ing should be pursued. But! When B does not follow, the cry of a mother’s heart should not be (or should not primarily be) for the Better Life: “Why, Lord? What am I doing wrong? Show me how to make it work!” Plead rather for the Better Hope: “Please, Lord. With this gift of your very life’s blood, pour into me the strength to continue pouring myself out. Enlarge my heart, that the life-giving transfusion may not be wasted through selfishly narrowed arteries. Teach me to live daily the difference of that cleansing flood, the difference between hard and hopeless, invisible to all but the eyes of faith. God grant me eyes of faith!”

                                 

Things might not seem to be working right now. Truly, why would we expect them to? And where better to learn to desire the Giver above the gifts, than in the place where the gifts are stripped away? And in the time when crutches are knocked out, replaced with cross?  

Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.

Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

This magic moment

One of those threats that gets made about not staying home with kids (for those who have the luxury of making that decision) is about all the magical moments that end up being given over to someone else. The hired hands of the world are getting the first smiles and first steps while the mothers are doing exactly what I do all day except that they do it for strangers.

But the magic argument would not convince me. I'm not a person to get terribly excited about milestones or moments. What I find much more compelling is the grunt work argument. Although I wouldn't be thrilled about the joy of my baby's first smile falling to a hired hand (to whatever extent that might bring joy to a hired hand), I like much less the idea that someone else is doing the filthy work my own choices have generated. I think that the least pleasant tasks which are included in the care of children are most particularly and appropriately mine. It weirds me out to imagine some other person rummaging around in my children's diapers and underwear all day. It's not that I think everyone else in the world is a pervert, it's just that diaper rummaging is really personal and really gross. Is it possible to pay someone enough for changing a dirty diaper? I don't think so. If some fair price could be put on it, I'm sure it wouldn't begin to fit my budget.

Whether it is a good and generous heart or a needy mercenary who is willing to take on these endless, icky, and ungratifying tasks, that willingness does not negate my responsibility. If my kid pukes on someone, I think it should be on me. If my kid's nose is runny, I think I should wipe it. If my kid is spreading a rash, I think I should itch. I'll likely get some magic thrown in too, but that is a gracious benefit. The gross stuff is what I really owe it to the world to do myself, because no one else should have to.

Just give it to anyone! Absolutely anyone!

Hey, I'm an American

A recurring theme in this blog, or maybe just in my head: the many and various ways that motherhood, particularly the seemingly perpetual motherhood of young children, is so very, wrenchingly, good for the soul. Our American*-steeped psyches, being as they’re also sin-sick, get to thinking that those individual rights we treasure so dearly apply universally and in family life. We do so love our rights.

And I am as slow and as sin-steeped as they come. For me, at least, it took the continual demands of motherhood to understand that looking not only to my own interests, but also to the interestsof others, might mean doing so on a schedule other than my own—not just sometimes, but every day.  Or that counting others as more significant than myself might require actual (gasp!) sacrifice! And that those others might be diaper-clad, with an astonishing amount of tyranny packed into a ridiculous stature, relentless, and thankless.

As Rebekah pointed out awhile back, there’s nothing like motherhood to make a body realize that even introversion, for instance, is a privilege, not a right.

I was just thinking of a few other privileges that I formerly assumed to be in the category of unalienable rights, e.g.:

The right to determine how a day should start. I love a peaceful morning; a new beginning; an orderly commencement of the day’s tasks. Realizing that I had to awaken with, and likely immediately feed, whichever little ‘un(s) woke at whatsoever time, was an adjustment. I got kind of used to that. I harbored no illusions about, for instance, my chances of meditating over a devotional book with an uninterrupted cup of tea to the sweet chorus of morning birds. And yet I used to think that I was at least entitled to some semblance of order in the waking and breakfast process—especially if I worked hard enough to earn a little law and order in the way things went down. As it turns out, I have a kid who wakes up like he’s been shot from a cannon into britches full of fire ants. And his morning just won’t feel complete till he’s dragged his siblings through the anthill too. So. Farewell to my “right” to order the day’s beginning and the breakfast table as I please. (Heck, I can’t even get them all to EAT the same thing for breakfast…) 

 What, your breakfast table doesn't look like this either? (Kids obviously sold separately too...)

Also: the right to three uninterrupted minutes to deal with necessary matters of personal health and hygiene. No need to elaborate here, eh?

Suffice to say that the battle I must wage against my desire to have my rights is a daily one, and the list could go on and on. And on. But I will end it here with a small pang in my heart and a tiny wistful sigh, as I remember the days in which it seemed to me that the opportunity to enjoy a piece of chocolate at whatsoever moment it pleased me was indeed as unalienable a right as if it had been John Hancocked all those 236 years ago.

*America is great. I love this country. Happy Fourth, everyone! I’m just noting that, like any other culture, America’s has its own particularly soul-endangering notions and tendencies.

Teach your children well

It's OK to make arbitrary rules

Actually, they’re not even arbitrary, if they serve to defend your sanity. What makes them seem arbitrary is how different they are for each mother, each household. And what’s important is not to let misplaced guilt (fed by your children) con you into breaking them (and perhaps breaking you in the process).

Here’s what I’m talking about: I once heard a mom say that she absolutely will not, never, no never, not under any circumstances, allow Play-Doh in her house. All Play-Dohing must take place outside (this in a climate that renders outdoor Play-Dohing impossible for about half the year).

This might have surprised or perhaps even appalled me back before I had kids, or back when I had just one or two. But I found myself nodding in respect as she mentioned her household nonnegotiable. For you see, while Play-Doh is legal in our house, glitter is not. Glitter glue, glitter paint—yes, yes, fine. Bring them on. We love them. Loose glitter—never, no never, not under any circumstances.

Let it be anathema!

When I first instituted the no-glitter rule, I had these ridiculous feelings of guilt. Maybe my children would be forever warped because I didn’t let them do projects with glitter! Maybe glitter crafts serve a deep psychological need, and my stubborn refusal to allow glitter-play will top the long list of mother-failings they someday discuss with their shrink! I almost caved a few times, but I’ve stood firm for a couple years now, and I am so glad. And so much saner for it.

There’s only so much (and for most of us, it’s really not much) in life that a mother can truly control. Craft materials are one of them. So if you find yourself gnashing your teeth for weeks over the insidious trail of glitter spread throughout the entire house by just one little project—do something about it. And harbor no regrets.  

Play-Doh. Glitter. Innocuous enough in themselves, but enough to drive otherwise reasonable (if I may be so bold) mothers to the brink. I’m sure I’ve got other “arbitrary” rules, but I’ve gotten so much better about not feeling guilty about them that I can’t even think of any offhand. I’d love to hear, though, whether anyone else has found peace of mind by banishing from their children’s lives certain substances or activities that are generally considered to be the stuff of which happy childhoods are made. :D

Having it all

There is a way to have it all, even for "you can't have it all"ers. That way is to marry late. I can name without much thought a number of smart girls who, not having been given a husband early, found ways to keep themselves busy and solvent and in the process made good names for themselves in their lines of work. Many of them are able to keep up that work after marriage since they established themselves in it beforehand. I wonder if they know how many of us are sitting in our houses feeling really jealous.

If they did, I think a lot of them would come and give us a hard kick.  Many of them sat in their houses at the end of countless workdays knowing every bit of that jealousy. Although I didn't have to live with it long, spouse anxiety is not a good feeling. Everybody wants that question answered. I'm not even going to talk about loneliness; the mention suffices. Though I may envy the lady who now has the husband and kids AND the name recognition and credentials and therefore public respect and earning potential I never will, I would not sacrifice one hour with the husband God gave me for any of that. It is better for me to tend his hearth than to be known and successful in the market. Our length of days together has also meant a family so big we can barely fit ourselves and our picnic into the car.

I like the idea of having it all. But I like my husband, like, so much more (and picnics too). So let's not be jealous, because they're really nice girls and they've earned what they have now. That's how their lives went and this is how my life went and haven't we all wasted enough of our lives wanting things that aren't ours? How much worse is it to mope about something we don't have that we know we don't really want?

". . . and last of all, behold! the mustard pot, which he had been sitting on without knowing it . . . ."

Laetare. Mom's orders.

I, for all practical purposes, do not have a mother church. The church where I grew up is no longer a place where I can go on Easter to sing "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" with each verse rising a half-step to a thundering, golden finale of impossible height. It breaks my heart, for there is a sense in which there is no church like one's home church. I want that glorious Easter back. It's not just that I personally can't get there. It doesn't exist.

That's not good, but it has helped me understand the obvious fact that part of growing up is being able to leave Mom. I have to be able to love someone else's pie if I'm ever going to be happy eating pie again. Is my stubborn insistence that only my mom can make a good pie worth never enjoying ANY pie? Of course I will always love my own dear Mom's own dear pie, but she would be the first to tell me I was an idiot to mope every time someone else's dear mom put a piece of pie in front of me. The truth is, lots of moms are really good at making pie. Mom would also be completely disgusted with me if I didn't know it was beyond rude to mope if someone is kind enough to make a pie and give me a piece, even if it's not the world's best pie.

So as I approach another Laetare feeling a bit orphanish, I am glad that the place that was my mother church was not really my mother. I haven't even had my real mother's pie yet. One parish is not the Church. One building is not Jerusalem. One hymn is not the Song. One pastor is not the Shepherd. Each little Easter, wherever I happen to be for it, brings me closer in every way to the big one. God grant me the grace to receive what I am given, however modest, with thanks and rejoicing.

Everybody else, too

Once I was outside in the cold with two little people hurrying as well as I could toward our house, and I ran into a crazy person, Wanda. Wanda started talking, and she kept it up. She had so much to tell me! And after that, she had other things to tell me. Which reminded her of another thing she wanted to tell me!

I was cold. The babies were cold. Surely, Wanda was cold! But there were so many things to tell me.

As I pondered all this coldness and all these things which I was being told, a thought flashed in my mind: God made Wanda. He made her and he loves her. He loves it that she's crazy and has a million things to tell someone with two babies on the sidewalk on a cold day. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to hug Wanda because God made her and loves her. It was so great, and also so cold.






(Her name wasn't really Wanda, but I get distracted by quotation marks and asterisks and stuff.)

For real.

We took our kids on an overnight to a little cabin by the woods and--I am not kidding or looking on the bright side or fake internet lifewashing--it was awesome. Everybody was good the whole time, even and most amazingly, me. Everybody had fun the whole time. It was like having six kids was the coolest thing ever.

I just wanted to tell you. For us, it has gotten easier. It has felt like such a long time getting here. Most of the time it is still hard and not awesome and it feels like someone is always in trouble and we're always yelling and we're always behind and I'm always disappointing everybody. But sometimes, it feels like we're getting there and we're making it and it's going to turn out OK. Ad astra per aspera, friends.

"Thin and separate. There should be two."

One piece of advice I got from a seasoned mom when I was just starting out was that it wasn't worth the energy and grief to worry about how irreparably scraggly I looked all the time. Instead, she counseled, I should pick one small thing about my appearance that was always well controlled. Hers was her nails. Even when she had a toddler and infant twins, she worked hard to make that sure her nails were done to her liking all the time.

I am very low maintenance in terms of personal grooming, which you know if you've seen me, but this still struck me as good advice. Nails aren't a huge concern to me, but eyebrows are. Or, more accurately, eyebrow is. Maintaining my eyebrow (hereinafter  "eyebrows") is not just a matter of personal dignity, but public courtesy. I have pallid skin and dark hair which is committed to concentrating its growth efforts just behind my glasses. If there were an eyebrow subsidiary to Locks of Love, I'd be their star donor. To give my eyebrows free rein is simply antisocial. So whenever I've got a crew in the bath, I clean the bathroom and then get those caterpillars under control. Voila! I've taken time for my appearance like an actual woman and made the world a better place.

Find a thing, girls. If it can help even a trainwreck of feminine aspect like me, it will surely be of value to you.

It just doesn't work for all of us.

Fakest thou until makest thou

Every time we add a new one, I am afflicted for a while with a subliminal panic. It's the same feeling I remember from stepping up to speak in front of a big room jammed with people, or being handed a test on which the only English words are "translate" and "parse." If it could talk, it would say, "Oh no. I can't do this! HELP HELP HELP!"

How many babies do we have now? How can I possibly keep track of them all? HELP HELP HELP!

But the task is at hand. Start the speech; I know what I have to say. Answer the easiest question; then do the one before and the one after. Settle this one down, pull that one up, ask the next to bring me the book, start reading like nothing has changed. They'll never know. Ignore the panic as well as I can, and before long my part will be just like last time when the room was small and nearly empty, or when the questions were about the alphabet. But--if I nail it--there will be more laughter and clapping, and more satisfaction in a hard-earned good performance.

(And as we all know, the only way to nail it is to crash 9000 times during practice. :P )

The silent epidemic

(Names have been changed to protect privacy.)

"At first I just thought it was because he was a baby," remembers Rebecca. "He did the stupidest stuff. He poked himself with forks and ate cakes of soap. These weren't one-time things. I mean, how many cakes of soap does somebody have to eat before they realize it's completely disgusting?"

But Rebecca's son didn't outgrow these lapses in intelligence. Although he gave up on eating soap and injuring himself with pointy utensils, he developed new idiotic habits. He chewed his toenails. He looked deep into Rebecca's eyes and then wiped his mouth on his shirt. He asked her to look for his "lost" pajamas in the same drawer where he'd hidden fossilized Easter candy. "Finally, I knew," Rebecca says. "My kid was stupid."

Childhood stupidity isn't a fun topic. No one wants to admit that her son or daughter is stupid. The evidence is embarrassing, and stupidity is a stigmatized condition in our society. It's also hard not to assign blame--can child stupidity really be an accident? But the problem is more widespread than anyone wants to admit. It's not rare or isolated, and parents need to know that they are not alone in dealing with stupid kids.

Becky, a mother of three, confesses to being horrified when she realized all of her kids were stupid. "They were SO DUMB," she says. "I was terrified all the time that other people would find out. They would leave their shoes right next to the shoe organizer instead of putting them inside. They put clean shirts in the laundry and dirty shirts back in their drawers. They used my hand lotion even though I'd explained to them 75 times that I could smell it on them when they did it and they'd get in trouble. I was afraid to go out in public. There was no way I could hide how stupid they were."

Becky was also afraid to tell her doctor about her suspicions. As it turned out, she didn't have to. Her kids acted stupid everywhere, and the doctor's office was no exception. But although it was obvious the doctor had noticed how dumb Becky's kids were, he didn't have a suggestion, a prescription, or even a visible reaction. "At that point, I really didn't know what to do," she says. "My six-year-old licks her shoes in front of a medical professional and everybody acts like nothing is happening? I felt so alone."

Finally, Becky confided in a friend. "The floodgates just burst," she remembers. "My friend told me that she busted her kids for trying to make strawberry milk with ketchup three times in one week, and they had a spitting contest off the balcony while she was cleaning the floor below, and her baby consumed something so vile that she wouldn't even tell me what it was. It almost sounded like her kids were as dumb as mine."

"The key to living with childhood stupidity is having realistic expectations," says Dr. Timbo Blogworthy, a father of seven and leading researcher in the field of childhood stupidity. "If you have a dumb kid, you have to know that your kid is going to do dumb things all the time and there's nothing you can do about it. Sure, tell him what's going to happen today and practice how he should act. But don't expect it to go right, because with a stupid kid it just won't. That's the nature of stupidity. Your life is going to stink until your kid gets less stupid or moves out. What the **** is oozing out of my Aldens?"

Rebecca, like Becky, has also found comfort in camaraderie. "After my sister had a baby, she called me with a lot of questions. One of the first questions she had was, 'If he has to nurse to live, why can't he nurse?' I knew exactly what to tell her. It's hard to hear, but childhood stupidity is a lot easier to live with when you know you're not the only one."

For infant and childhood stupidity support in your area, talk to the first parent you see.