Labor of Love

My Spirited Child

Once, on a trip to Mexico, I was caught in a powerful undertow on a secluded beach.  I was only about 15 feet from shore but there was a steep drop-off and when I swam out, I was sucked under.   At first, I was completely disoriented—I couldn’t tell sea from sky.  But despite the circumstances, I remained eerily calm. I figured out that I was traveling in circles.   When I reached the surface, I’d take a large swallow of air—just enough oxygen to keep me alive until I resurfaced again.  After 7 or 8 cycles, I could tell that the strength of the current varied from cycle to cycle.  I waited for it’s power to wane and then broke free and swam back to shore.  The undertow had snatched my bikini top so I lay on the sand topless and breathless, feeling vulnerable and exposed.  I vowed to never to forget the lesson I learned from that current—nothing has absolute hold over us.  There is always an opening…we can always find a way out.

Last week was a horrible week.  I normally juggle a wide variety of tasks related to work, self and home but last week’s load felt substantially heavier.  My daughter spent most of the week hitting her classmates. If that wasn’t horrible enough, she began to take aim at her gentle teachers.  I also happened to be in the midst of renegotiating her preschool schedule and fees for the fall—and her behavior significantly reduced my bargaining power.  All week long, I tried every parenting tool in the book but nothing seemed to work.  I felt like I was swimming out past the drop off.

Little children swing wildly from angelic to demonic behavior as they test boundaries and learn how to be in the world.  In the best cases, parents remain calm.  They gently nudge their child towards a peaceful path.  But this week, I did the opposite.  As I neared Ayla’s school at pick-up time, I could feel my jaw clench and my shoulders tense.  Rather than looking for an opening—a way out of our predicament—I was preparing for battle.  Refusing to back down to a 2-year old usually carries disastrous consequences.  Ayla had her first preschool tantrum that day.  A small crowd bore witness to our battle of wills.   Now I was at the mercy of the undertow.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, my daughter began stealing from our local coop and running outside to eat her bootlegged candy.  She’d kick and scream if I tried to bring her back into the store to pay and apologize.  I’d race back and forth between the cash register and the front door—holding up the line and apologizing to everyone—while bagging groceries and trying to keep track of my daughter.  Even after a stern reprimand about stealing, she did it a second time that week.  I was so angry that I seized up inside—and gave myself over to the current.

Life ebbs and flows.  There are tough weeks and there are gentle weeks.  I know that.  I really do.   But sometimes we get stuck.  Life pulls us under and we can’t find a way out.  For the rest of the week, I felt like I was gasping for breath.  My life felt like it was too much to bear—the endless work of fundraising, travel, emails and meetings for the Reciprocity Foundation—alongside my personal responsibilities as travel planner, soothsayer, chef, cleaner, librarian, bath-wallah and play-date organizer in our family.  Every night, I’d sit on my meditation cushion, wanting everything to get better.  And every morning, it got a little worse.

Thich Nhat Hanh writes about the importance of not being at war with ourselves.  We can’t force happiness when we’re angry, or force emptiness when our minds are racing.  Instead, he suggests shining the light of awareness on our situation.  Light illuminates dark—and light and dark merge into a state of lightness, a place where we are able to see again. 

And so, I returned to my meditation cushion on Thursday night and shined a light into my angry, tense self.  The first light was a memory of giving birth to my daughter.  She was spirited from the first moment we met—bursting with energy and strength.  She’s the sort of person who tries to kick down a door before turning the handle.  But she’s also fiercely loyal and loving and cute as a button.  The memory inspired my anger and my love to merge into something new: A clear awareness of the challenge of raising my child, with the confidence that I have the right mix of strength and softness for the job.

Then I remembered the undertow.  I remembered that we are only given challenges that we can meet.  There was a way out.  If I breathed deeply at every opportunity, and waited for an opening, it would come.  I could be free.

Parenting is spiritual practice--better than yoga or anything else I've tried.  And as the challenges get harder, so do the rewards.  Last night, I tucked myself into my daughter’s bed, kissing her hair, her forehead and feeling the warmth of her breath on my cheek.  I had been caught in an undertow again—but this time, the reward for breaking free was better than resting on a sandy beach.  I held my daughter’s body close to my own and felt washed clean by our love.

From Parent to Person

I started this blog shortly after giving birth to my daughter Ayla.  I decided on a mommy blog because, well, there was nothing else on my mind post-partum.  But last summer, the winds shifted in my life and suddenly I felt the urge to expand my view of myself, from parent to person, and mother to woman.

Yes, parenting is an endlessly fascinating aspect of being alive.  And true, there is no end to the challenges confronted by parents and their children.   But now when I look at the title of my blog—Labor of Love—I think about the work I need to do for and to myself, as an individual, rather than solely in the context of raising a child.

There were a few telltale signs that I was ripe for change.  First, I ceased being interested in parenting books—this was a surprise since I had been a bit of a Jean Leidloff-Barbara Coloroso-Penelope Leach junkie since pregnancy.  But last May, I went cold turkey.  When I plucked a book off the shelf for a late night read, the titles that stood out were about women (Elizabeth Lesser’s Broken Open), death (A Memoir of Living & Dying by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross) and spirit (Michael Newton’s past life page-turner, Journey of Souls).   I read voraciously through the summer and fall. When I dragged myself out of bed in the morning to be confronted with a parenting crisis—groggy from my late night reading sessions—I trusted my intuition to guide me to the right solution.  And most of the time, my parenting didn’t seem to suffer from the lack of constant research and discussion. And if it did, I was willing to live with my own shortcomings.

Another sign was my sizeable thirst to be reunited with life again.  Of course children are about as alive as a human being can get, but most grown adults are not satiated by a steady diet of child’s play.  I felt the urge to get out of the house more often—to dialogue, to teach, to hear live music, to watch documentaries, and to attend conferences where I could learn and grow. I found these excursions energizing and entertaining.  I began to wonder about my purpose in the world again.  I spent many nights thinking deeply about my gifts—outside of potty training and family scheduling—and began to crave my work as a writer and teacher again.

And then, during a recent Ladies night, we broached the topic of adolescence.  Not ours, but the prospect of our children growing up and seeing us as we are, through teen-aged eyes.  There is no parenting book that can save you if you’ve dedicated 16 years of your life to your children at the expense of yourself.  If your kids want to know how to be in the world, and you can only point to your own unrealized potential as a human being, a parenting book won't save you. 

At some point in the future, our children will judge us not just by how we parented but also by how we lived.  They will learn how to make the right choices only if we build strong relationships, do work that we love, and are part of communities that reflect our beliefs.  Our parenting must shift from the blocking-and-tackling work of changing diapers and preventing playground meltdowns to living fully, and sharing the process of how we do so with our children. 

And so, this winter, I decided that I needed to start "laboring with love" for myself.  If I engage in the hard work of learning to love myself and nurture my gifts—and I let Ayla see and participate in my life—I will be loving and parenting her, too.  I won't give up on hugs and play and swim classes, but I want to strike the right balance between focusing on her life and on mine.  In my view, children thrive when they are raised by parents who are whole people, and whose everyday life reflects the richness of what it means to be alive.

 

Help Me!

Parenthood is an inordinately challenging task.  There is never enough time to check off everything on “the list,” to read every article worth reading and to carve out enough time to reflect on it all.  No matter how efficient I am, I am constantly bumping up against my personal boundaries as a parent.  I just can’t do it all.

For much of 2009, I conducted thousands of mini efficiency experiments.  I wanted to answer the question: If I do things differently, can I get it all done?  The results were uniformly disappointing: the answer was “no.” (No. NO! )  Then, one quiet morning when Ayla mercifully slept past 6 a.m., the answer came to me.  I simply had to learn how to ask for help.  Not just the “Can you pick up some berries for Ayla?” or “Can you drop off the rug at the cleaners?” sort of help.  I was ready to ask for more, sustained help.

Several years ago, when I was still living in New York City, my therapist repeated the oxygen mask instructions recounted on an airplane: “Put on your mask first, before helping to put one on your child.”  Her message: You can’t help anyone unless you help yourself first.  And so, the first thing I did was to ring up a life coach who had coached me intermittently over the years. 

I’m not quite sure how to name what we do for an hour every week—it’s one part therapy, one part career coaching and two parts intuitive listening (I extol, she listens, and actually remembers everything I’ve said).  She sees patterns that I can’t—she encourages me to uncover my true intentions and to take risks as I try to advance my career, and build stronger connections amongst my community of friends and colleagues.  It’s hard work what we do—and some weeks I’m exhausted from trying to live out my best and highest intentions every day—but I still can’t help but feel excited when the phone rings at 11 a.m. on Thursdays, and I hear her voice, asking me how I am.

One of my goals is to learn to ask for more help and support—even though I fear that it will make me seem weak or needy.  Through coaching I realized that the only way to figure out whether my fears are valid is to live differently--until I have  answered the question: Is it really so awful  to depend on others?

A few weeks ago I asked two friends to take care of Ayla on a Sunday morning so that I could have some uninterrupted time for reflection and spiritual practice.  I was nervous about asking—but my friends eagerly agreed to help, and committed to do so as often as I wished.  Their warm response made me wonder why I hadn’t asked earlier.  Why couldn’t I see how many people would have delighted at the opportunity to help a friend—even if I couldn’t return the favor?

That Sunday morning was one of the best I’d had in years.  I packed Ayla off and then returned to the apartment, and sat quietly as an unusually warm winter sun bathed me in it’s light.  I breathed deeply.  When my mind grew crowded with worries, or fears, I prayed—tentatively—for help.  Then I breathed some more.  And instead of carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, they rolled down my back, past my toes and seeped into the earth.   This esoteric practice just naturally happened—without any thought or planning.  With every breath, my load lightened a little more, and then some, until I felt the way I imagined Ayla feels everyday—quietly confident that she will be loved and fed, disciplined and bathed, tickled and engaged, everyday. 

The message of the past six weeks seems to be that I’m not alone (nor have I been, nor will I ever be).  Whatever problems I have will be resolved, and not by my hand alone.  I wish I had known last year, or last decade, that asking for help is one of the greatest sources of strength.  Instead of feeling small or weak, I feel supported and stable.  This, I think, is just one more paradox of life.  What we think will diminish us, only increases our power.

Finding Religion

A few months ago, my daughter Ayla and her little friend were busy exploring a pumpkin farm when the topic of Halloween arose amongst the parents.   One mother explained that she was in limbo—unsure of whether to celebrate Halloween in their family.  She intuitively felt that if she said “yes” to Halloween, then it would be hard to refuse Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and so on.  “What will I teach my son to believe in?” she wondered aloud.  “And if I’m not teaching him to rally around a cast of pseudo-religious, imaginary characters, what can I offer instead?” [She was raised in neither a religious nor a spiritual family.]

This question would haunt me for many months after the ghouls and zombies disappeared from my neighborhood.  I knew that if I pried off the lid to this Pandora’s Box I would be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of unanswered questions about my own faith, and my personal struggle to find a spiritual home.

In my childhood, practicing religion was a means to access a community of other new immigrants, with similar life experiences.  We all gathered in the same place every Friday evening, fumbled through the complicated prayers we were supposed to recite and breathed a collective sigh of relief when the service was over and we could socialize.  My parents alternately boasted about the kids and exchanged gossip with their friends—but the net effect was that they felt a part of something bigger than themselves.  On the way home, they often criticized religious doctrine and anyone who professed to actually believe in it.  But that didn’t stop them from coming back week after week.

Having a spiritual community also freed us to celebrate other quasi-religious holidays.  My parents didn’t try to resist Santa or the Tooth Fairy because they felt secure that Santa was no match for everything we did and gained from our faith community.  For most of my childhood, I attended Friday night service along with Saturday morning religious classes, evening rehearsals for dance performances and impromptu after-school gatherings.  Our faith community kept me busy, focused, and out of trouble.   Santa merely kept me amused for a day or two.

But after I grew up and moved out, I decided that my parents’ religious choices were rife with compromises that I couldn’t accept.  I wanted to find a faith in which I liked more than the social hour.  I wanted to believe in the precepts, savor the time for prayer and meditation, and do more than gossip after the service.  In my twenties, I floated through ashrams and progressive Christian churches and then settled into the Quaker community in New York City. I loved sitting inside the silent, beautiful Friendship House north of Union Square; being able to sit quietly and reflect on your week was an indulgence that few New Yorkers could afford.  But during the social hour I felt like a misfit—I was so different from the other Quakers.  Instead of the easy conversation my parents enjoyed after service, I found myself gulping down a cup of tea and slipping out the door before anyone could ask who I was.

After that, I entered a spiritual desert of sorts.  Giving birth and raising Ayla quenched my thirst for faith.  Between my work with homeless youth and my life as a mother, I found a rich spiritual home, at home.  But around the time when local shops were mounting Halloween displays, I entered into a conflict with an intimate friend and my thirst grew yet again. 

Normally, I side-step or deflect conflict because I’ve learned that even when you win a fight, you wind up losing more than you gain.  But in this particular case, I took the bait that was dangled in front of me. I felt that I had been treated unjustly; I believed that it was important to fight this fight. The conflict was post-modern, that is to say, we fought primarily via email and voicemail.  Every week for the past year, I’ve turned on my computer to find an angry or threatening email in my Inbox.  I would read the message, reflect on it for a few minutes or a few days and then respond in kind, that is, with a degree of anger commensurate with what I received.  I won some concessions, lost others and many, many months later, I’m not sure that I’ve gained anything at all. 

What has been most disheartening is that I lost sight of some of my hard-earned values in the process of fighting: It obscured my ability to see the goodness in my opponent.  I also conveniently forgot all about the redemptive power of forgiveness.  I erroneously decided that I was justified in my anger and allowed it to take a huge toll on my serenity.  And I completely disregarded my belief that it is not my job to bring justice upon another person, no matter how badly they behaved. 

For almost a year, whenever I said this person’s name, I recalled only the horrible, hurtful things he had done.  I left no room for him to do or say anything positive.  When you close the door on another person, you also block your own escape route.  Just as Santa was appearing in store windows this fall, I realized that I was trapped in this conflict and that there was no easy way out.

When you’re backed into a corner, you lose your freedom of movement but you also gain some perspective.  You cannot help but see your life from a new angle when you’re scrunched up in the corner, sitting helplessly on the floor.  When I peered out at my life, I saw many good things—a strong network of family and friends, a meaningful job, a healthy home environment. But there were a few missing pieces—one of which was the connection to a spiritual community. 

Just last week I realized that I’ve been craving a space in which to explore my core values—which revolve around the primacy of love, forgiveness and service—with a community of like-minded individuals.  I wonder whether I would have fought as long and as hard had I been part of a spiritual community; perhaps I would have realized the futility of the fight or been inspired to find other ways for dealing with this conflict. 

However imperfect, my parents did have a place to go every Friday night in which they were subtly reminded of what matters most.  No matter how good my intentions, I simply forget to dialogue about spirituality at the dinner table and the topic perpetually takes a backseat to the day's headlines in conversation with family and friends.  Instead of trying to do it on my own, I feel ready to join a community that convenes people for the purpose of deepening their faith, even if it involves making some compromises along the way. Not just for me, but to help Ayla explore the great mysteries, and universal truths, of life.

Although I haven’t made a decision about “which one” and “how often”, I feel oddly reassured, as though my load has already become lighter.  Last night, as I was nursing Ayla to sleep, I felt goosebumps rise and spread across my flesh, and a few seconds later I realized that I was ready to forgive my friend, and myself, for all the hurtful things we’ve said and done.

In the past week, minor ideas and feelings that I've had for years just came together, like a flock of birds finding each other in the sky and silently becoming an entity capable of surviving the long flight south. Now I am ready to forgive, heal and move on with my life.  As I look back on the past week, I wonder if it is the result of trying to live an honest and examined life--or perhaps it is even simpler...perhaps it is just a matter of having faith. 

Discipline, Love, and then Repeat

In recent weeks, I noticed a distinct shift in my daughter’s behavior.   She began to push back on well-established boundaries in our relationship.   Yesterday, she calmly fed herself breakfast, lunch and dinner; today, she won’t eat unless I put each morsel in her mouth and demand that she chew and swallow.  Yesterday, she wore a diaper; today she tears them off.  Yesterday, she said loving things to me; today she shouts “Go away” and seems to enjoy the hurt expression on my face.

My first reaction was awe (okay, maybe my first reaction was indignation, but awe did follow).  How could my 20-month old fearlessly challenge me—the bigger and stronger person(ality) in our relationship? And later, a new question arose:  How dare she just change the rules, without giving me fair notice?  But just as David found the courage to battle Goliath, and so too did Ayla.  And what choice did I have?  Either I could fight, or flee.

The plethora of parenting books means that parents are more educated than ever about the psychology and developmental stages of their children.  For example, we know that children are often aggressive when frustrated, rather than being inherently violent.  But I quickly realized that understanding your child’s behavior is entirely separate from modifying it.   I could spend hours getting to the root cause of her behavioral shifts.  Or I could do something about it.  I know many parents who have found sophisticated reasons for fleeing—parents who prefer to explain the why’s of their child’s behavior rather than getting their hands dirty trying to change it. 

After Ayla began to challenge me, I realized that it was not authentic for me to flee, nor would it be a good (short or long) term decision for Ayla.  Ayla is naturally independent, self-directed and fearless.  When children know how to assert themselves, their parents ought to teach them when and how to take a step back.  Besides, if I didn’t step in, Ayla would soon run the house, and my life.

So when my toddler began spitting out half-chewed mouthfuls of food, I acted decisively.  I spoke in a loud but calm voice and said, “We do not spit out food in our house.”  Then I proceeded to methodically shovel the half-chewed bits of food back into her mouth, until it was all gone.  She could tell by my eyes and my body language that I was serious, and that her behavior would not be tolerated.  Afterwards, I was sure to express love--to send the message that she wasn't bad and that my love for her was unconditional.

It was my first major lesson in disciplining my child—a word that seemed so simple and straightforward until I had to enact it.  Now the words feels like a fancy word for something much more crude.  Is discipline anything other than engaging in a power struggle with your child, and deciding which battles you will win, and which you will concede?

Although I tried to engage my mind in the process, I learned that disciplining was much more instinctive than cerebral.  Rather than calling forth directives from “Unconditional Parenting,” and “Becoming the Parent You Want to Be,” I found myself making decisions based on my extensive database of life experience.  There was no clear or succinct theory to describe what I considered acceptable and unacceptable.  Every woman knows the difference between flirtation and sexual harassment, and precisely when that line is crossed.  Similarly, I just know that it is (messy but) reasonable for Ayla to touch every object on my bedside table but that she mustn’t dump out the contents of her lunch bag.  I know these things not because my brain tells me the answer but by reading the sensations in my heart and gut.

Another surprise was the sheer volume of repetition involved in setting boundaries. Instead of languishing after her early defeat, my daughter rallied. She spit her food out at least ten times before she decided to stop; and even then, she occasionally decides to try her little trick again.  In other matters she is absolutely indefatigable; she won’t stop pushing the buttons on my laptop, no matter how many times I say no, or redirect her, or give her different choices.  As you may recall, David didn’t attack Goliath directly; he won by changing the game.  Ayla’s strength is her persistence.  Even if she doesn’t know it yet, eventually she’ll catch me at a moment of weakness and will get her way.  And then what? Will we have to start all over again?

I also learned that I have only two parenting styles in my repertoire—Calm (aka “well-rested”) parenting and Irritable/Short-Fused (aka “not well rested”) parenting.  Learning how to convert the latter into the former is the hardest part of all.  Where and how do I find the resources to speak firmly and calmly when I’m tired, frustrated or simply having a bad day?  This feels like the greatest personal challenge for me in the coming years. How can I both follow my instincts and control my emotions?

I know that this new phase in our household is inevitable and that it too will pass. I console myself with this thought on my bad days, even though I secretly know that it will be decades before Ayla stops pushing my boundaries—and my buttons.  I will have to “Discipline, Love, and then Repeat” ad nauseam, until Ayla finally learns how to successfully negotiate what she needs from the world. 

For now, I’ve taken to my bed each afternoon for a nap.  Because what I’ve also learned is that even a tough cookie like Goliath gets tired, and that sometimes he just needs to lie down…

The Anniversary Post--Labor of Love Just Turned One!

Roughly a year ago today, I launched my blog, Labor of Love.  One of Ayla’s caregivers—who herself had blogged and was “in-the-know” (whereas I knew almost nothing about blogging except that it was popular and happened on the Internet)—pointed me in the direction of mommy blogs I ought to read before starting.  I wanted to understand the medium and how good bloggers developed a loyal following.

Early on, I had plenty of misconceptions about blogging.  I thought people could still earn a living doing it (most can’t and won’t) and I thought it would be easier for readers to find me (there are literally millions of blogs; you have to work really hard at putting yourself out there).  Stylistically, I thought it was safer to write the way good bloggers did and cover issues that attracted mass audiences (Wrong! In my opinion, great blogs are personal and impassioned). 

And then, after a lengthy R&D phase, I tossed almost everything I had learned into the Trash Bin.  When I read through posts I had written with the goal of becoming a top blogger, I found my words dry and purposeless.  Why bother writing unless I had something real to say?  Why add another voice to the blogosphere if I was just mimicking what had worked instead of pushing the medium in new directions?

Shortly thereafter, I deleted all of my earlier posts and started writing from the heart, with absolutely no intention of earning a living or building an audience.  Writing Labor of Love was part-catharsis (I feel called to write and am off kilter when I don’t) and part-offering (I wanted my daughter Ayla to understand her profound impact on my life; I planned to have the posts bound one day and give them to her to read).  I started blogging a couple of times a week and then settled into a new rhythm of writing longer posts, less frequently. 

Gradually (and unexpectedly), I developed a theme.  I began blogging about the link between music and parenting.  I love music and was so often moved by the soundtrack to my life as a parent.  There were so many songs, lyrics and melodies that comforted me in those early weeks and months.  Music helped me loosen the grasp on my old life and enter the flow of my new life as a mother. I wanted my blog to pay homage to the extraordinary musicians who made it feel good and right to shift my focus from “out there in the world” to the “here and now.”  Music inspired me to find joy in my child, home, neighborhood and local community.

A few months into Labor of Love, my daughter Ayla began to sleep less and explore more and suddenly I didn’t have the time to write and research music.  Given the choice, I felt like I had to give up music; I simply didn’t have enough time to do justice to both. 

In the next phase of the blog, I dabbled in writing about neuroscience, spirituality and a variety of other micro-interests of mine and then inadvertently found myself writing consistently about one of my core beliefs—that children are our best teachers and that our progress as human beings depends more on our ability to learn than our ability to teach.  In many respects, this is how I define life and parenting and spirituality.  It’s all the same thing to me.  I’ve learned more from the homeless youth (whom I’m supposed to be helping) at the Reciprocity Foundation than I have from my formal education; and my infant child has amplified my life learning-curve tenfold—I can barely keep up with all the growth that Ayla inspires in my life. 

Other things have changed too.  On the advice of a friend who works in the media business, I added advertising to my site (via Google Ads).  She insisted that they would legitimize my blog and impress magazine editors at publications where I had hoped to pitch stories.  Last time I checked my account, I had amassed $0.01 in ad revenue.  I was secretly pleased that people were reading my words instead of getting distracted by an ad for organic diapers or nursing bras. 

In the beginning, I spent a few hours writing and another few hours seeding conversations at various parenting hubs on the Internet (Motherlode, Babble, Working Mother, Facebook, Twitter, Digg).  Then I settled on one or two places to post my writing (Motherlode, Intent, Facebook) and trusted that people would find my blog at the right time in their lives.  So far this approach seems to be working; one year later, I’ve had nearly 15,000 readers for my 61 posts.  I’ve received about 90 official comments, but many more of you email me personally to let me know what you like, and don’t.

I’m not sure how long I’ll keep this up.  Maybe one day the book publishing industry will rebound and I’ll start writing in long-form again.  Maybe I’ll run out of things to say next week.  Or maybe this will continue to be the most satisfying writing I’ve ever done and I’ll never, ever want to give it up.

The strange thing about my one-year anniversary is that I finally get it.  I understand why blogging has such mass appeal.  As a blog reader, I love that citizen journalism enables me to connect with the few (or many) who share my precise state of mind at any given time.  I never have to feel strange or alone or freakish anymore; a few clicks on Google and I can see that hundreds or thousands share my sentiments or experience.  I know it sounds trite but the Internet, and the blogosphere in particular, is awesome.

As a writer, I have never felt more connected to my readers, which makes for the most satisfying writing.  I love the immediate gratification of receiving comments in the minutes and hours after each post.  I love hearing how the blog has affected you, how it helped or healed, or if I enabled a perspective shift that was ripe in your life.  The comments I receive from you often move me to tears—sometimes, reading your words is more powerful than writing mine. 

And so, a year into this experiment, I want more than anything to say Thank You.  I am so grateful for this connection that I share with all of you.  Thank you for encouraging me to write honestly and for reading my posts (even the crap ones!)  Thank you for talking openly with me about your lives as parents and inspiring new posts.  Thank you for helping me finally achieve what I had always hoped for—the ability to do what I love (writing, parenting) and to feel loved for it.   After so much searching and striving in my career and personal life, it is nice to feel good about being here, now, with all of you.   Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Fear & Love

A couple of weeks ago, a small tragedy hit our community.  An acquaintance of mine lost her son; baby Nolan choked to death on a piece of apple at the zoo.  As I read her short note detailing his death, it slowly dawned on me that my father was taking Ayla to the zoo that day and that in Ayla’s bag, I had packed apple slices.  I know I should have been racked with grief for my friend’s loss, but instead I grabbed the phone trying to decide whether to tell my father to come home, and whether to insist that he toss the apples out of the car window.

Fear is a strange emotion, and one of our most common.  We literally live in fear all the time.  Before we cross the road, take a bite of food, or step out of the tub, our brains are assessing the risk of death and deciding whether we ought to stop in our tracks or forge ahead.  And even if you weren’t very afraid as an adult, having a child supplies new intimacy with fear.  I used to jaywalk in New York City, unafraid of speeding taxis and SUVs with New Jersey plates.  They’ll stop in time, I’d assure myself.  And they did, every day, for six years.   But now that I have a child, I don’t jaywalk.  When I’m in New York City, I hold Ayla to my chest while crossing the street.  Even at small intersections, I’m waving to cars and taxis to slow down, so that Ayla and I can safely pass. 

As it turned out, I did call my father that morning.  And although I didn’t insist that he bring Ayla home, I did forbid him from feeding her apples…ever.  But it was another moment in which to reflect on the questions:  “How much fear is enough?”  and “Should I be more or less afraid for my child’s life?”

My Child, My Teacher

There are moments in books and movies when a small gesture reveals a profound insight about a character.  They might decide to go barefoot, or refuse to board a bus, or turn their face upward to taste the rain.  After consuming enough literature and films, we learn that these moments matter and that the author is helping to reveal a character’s deepest self with these gestures. Recently, I was reminded that those moments aren’t limited to fiction, nor to adults.  My 1-year old daughter Ayla taught me that lesson last week when I found her asleep in the bathtub.  Let me explain.

Since Ayla is now sleeping in her own (door-less) room, she is prone to wake up in the wee hours and wander around the apartment or into my bed.  Last week, Ayla woke up and stumbled into the bathroom.  I’m not sure exactly what transpired but my best guess is that she accidentally closed the bathroom door and couldn’t reach the handle.  She was stuck.

While most babies would scream out in her situation—knowing that their light-sleeping parents would quickly come to the rescue—Ayla stayed put.  She didn’t cry or scream out. Instead, she navigated around the bathroom by the dim glow of the night-light.  She gathered a few towels.  She found a pair of my leggings.  Then she got into the tub and somehow fashioned a small bed out of them.  Finally, she put herself to sleep.

She had just turned one—only a few days before this happened. 

The next morning, unable to get out of her tiny bed, she called out to me and I came running into her room.  When I didn’t find her there, my heart started pounding, loud and fierce.  Then I checked the bathroom and found her standing up in the bathtub.  It took a second to register the salient details of the scene: Her towel-and-legging bed, the scratch on her nose (from the faucet?), her well-rested countenance. There wasn’t a trace of injury—no bruises or bleeding.

I quickly grabbed Ayla and pulled her close.  I scanned her face and body to make sure she wasn’t hurt.   Within seconds she was cooing and laughing—she was her usual, happy self.

Over the next 24 hours, the significance of Ayla’s bathtub adventure unraveled itself from the knot of worry that had formed in my belly.  I had to remind myself that I didn’t sleep through Ayla’s cries—we are too deeply connected for that to happen.  The truth of the matter was that Ayla didn’t call out for me.  Her instinct told her not to panic.  Her gut reaction was to convert a less-than-ideal situation into something agreeable.  She was creative.  She improvised.  She relied on her body and her intuition to guide her to safety.  A 1-year old infant did all of this in the middle of the night. 

In the days since I found Ayla in the bathtub, I keep the bathroom door locked at night.  But more importantly, I see Ayla in a different light.  She is no longer just a baby in my eyes.  I see her as a human being with a formidable character.  She is a tremendous problem solver.  She has the even-handedness of a surgeon.  She is a wise soul.

Last week, I learned that I admire and respect my tiny daughter.  I’m not sure that I, even today, would have handled a similar situation with such grace.  But perhaps the biggest revelation was that it was time to  reassess my relationship with Ayla.  I have evolved so much as a person as a result of giving birth and becoming a mother.  But it’s not just the situation of parenthood that is spurring my growth.  I’m finally ready to look into my daughter’s eyes and see her as more than my child, but also as my teacher. 

And if this is what she can teach me at the one-year mark, I can’t begin to imagine what she'll teach me in my lifetime.  

Saying "Yes" to the Recession

I was born in Canada—the land of snow.  And though I grew up skiing, playing and snowshoeing in piles of it, it has taken decades for me to say “yes” to wintertime.  When the first northerly winds blow into town each fall, inspiring me to cook stews and sleep later, I resist.  

“No!” I shout out to the heavens.  “I don’t want to slow down. I don’t want to be cold.  I don’t want to spend more time inside.”

But we all know that there is a season for everything.  The earth needs time to lay fallow—to gather strength for the burst of life in spring.  And since the earth cannot resist orbiting around the sun, winter is inevitable.  If we say “no” to winter, we will only make it harder on ourselves.  

This past year, I tried to apply that logic to recessionary times—I wanted to frame the downturn as an economic “recess,” or timeout.  I wondered if we collectively needed time to step back from our careers, investment portfolios and consumption to assess what we really value and how much we really need to live happily.  

As a child, I have only fond memories of recessionary times.  In the early eighties, our family was forced to downsize our lifestyle—we lost much of our income so  we moved to a smaller house and radically cut our spending.  But from a child’s perspective, the recession meant my father worked fewer hours and spent more time at home.  What a gift! It also was a time when we played creatively because we didn’t have piles of new toys.  We spent less time talking about money or buying goods at the mall and focused on play, spirituality and gardening.  All in all, I enjoyed our family’s “recess” from the hustle and bustle of new immigrant life.

So when our economy began its downslide last April, and I lost about 50% of my income and investments, I teetered on the precipice of despair.  I wanted to shout, “no.”  I wanted to find a way to get more work and have more money.  But gazing upon my daughter, I decided to say “yes” to the recession. 

I’ve taken a mental break from a handful of projects. I spend less time shopping and more time sharing what I’ve got.  I forego restaurant meals for tea-dates at friends’ homes.   Most important of all, hours I might have spent working are now dedicated to playing with my daughter.  Because more than anything else, I want my daughter to remember the recession of 2008/9, as one of the best times in our lives.

Chronic (Parent) Stress Disorder

This week's theme on "Labor of Love" is related to the stress of parenthood.  And I wanted to share a bit of news from the world of neuroscience that I thought was relevant to all parents.

Biologically speaking, our stress hormones were designed to set off alarm bells during intermittent but dangerous episodes in our lives.  You all know the term, Fight or Flight.  Stressful episodes for most of human existence have been separated by days or weeks.  But that's not so anymore.

In a ironic twist of fate, human existence has become safer and more predictable, and yet our stress hormones are triggered more often now than at any time in our species' history.  Chronic stress disorders are a post-modern invention.  When we experience stress nearly every waking hour, our stress hormones begin a pattern of consistent firing.  This strange state of existence is called Chronic Stress Disorder.  Most commonly, it leads to Burn-Out.

I had always considered Burn-Out to be a disease of corporate executives, Olympic athletes, gamblers or used-car salesmen.  Parenting didn't seem like a risk factor for CSD.  That is, until I became one.

For the first nine months of my daughter's life, I was stressed out.  I was filled with fear about whether she was too hot or too cold, too tired or over-sleeping, whether she would fall out of bed or stay in bed in die of SIDS.  I worried about whether I was a good mother.  Whether I was the right mother for her.  I worried whether my breast-milk was nutritious and tasty enough (I tasted it but had no basis for comparison).  If all that worry wasn't enough, I'd then stay up nights trying to figure out a solution to any or all of my worries.

Just after returning from our family vacation in December, I woke up one morning feeling good.  I mean, I felt really good.  Like my old self.  I kept wondering what was different, and finally I realized that for the first time in almost a year, I didn't wake up afraid.  I had made peace with the fact that my child was going to be fine...or not.  Either way, it wasn't for me to decide.  It was excruciating to give up the illusion that I'm in total control of my child's fate, but I did. 

When did you shake your Chronic Parent Stress Disorder? What was the trigger for feeling like yourself again? I think we need to share on this topic.  Because our bodies, and our minds, are simply not equipped to live in constant fear for our child's lives.