To the mother of that screaming infant in Target,

Mea Culpa

The other day, I was browsing the clearance section of the toy department at Target, because it's August and they're moving out last year's toys at 70% off to make room for this years Christmas fare, when I heard the blood curdling scream of your baby. Not the communicative crying that can be solved with a bottle or a diaper change, but the scream of last resort precisely honed by nature to cause every woman in the vicinity to respond with an adrenaline surge. Forced into action by my DNA, I searched until I found your child and determined that he was with you, being taken care of, and not about to become lion chow.

Your red faced infant had not ceased his caterwauling, and you struggled to appease him while determinedly shopping on. I thought to my self, "Shut that child up woman! Why are you here with him?" Then immediately felt sorry for my reaction because...I have been you. That's right. I have been the bedraggled mother dragging a screaming infant through a store. How could I have forgotten so quickly?

During my 'decade of childbearing' as I call it, I was either pregnant or breast feeding, with a mere six months at a time between the cessation of the latter and the commencement of the next former. For that decade I lived in a haze of sleep deprivation and hormone induced short term memory loss. There were moments of unprecedented bliss. Moments, I knew, would never be surpassed. But it was mostly a lot of misplaced urine and fecal matter, and tests of physical and mental endurance that have inoculated me against the idea of "I can't" for the rest of my life. If you survive parenting four children through to age seven, you know there is nothing else out there in the world that you can't do.

At age seven it gets a lot better. If you're lucky, you're not washing wet bed sheets every day anymore. The children can get themselves ready for school each morning and bed each night, and they can at least pull their own weight as part of the family. They don't need someone especially taking care of them every second anymore. When they ask for a drink of water you can tell them to get it themselves, and they won't flood the kitchen.

My youngest is seven now. My brain is no longer fuzzy. As I chastised myself for my uncharitable thoughts toward you, I fully realized the purpose of that hormone induced short term memory loss. When people tell you to enjoy those younger years because they'll be over too soon, it's because of that memory loss. When a woman snuggles up to her husband and whispers, "don't you think we need one more baby?" it's because of that memory loss. When you look at some other parent with a misbehaving tyke, and think they ought to just take care of that situation so the rest of the world doesn't have to hear it, it's because of that memory loss. You'll appreciate that memory loss someday.

Yes, there are moments that will be the greatest natural highs of your entire life, but those moments are pitiful compensation for long crushing lows that seem to move in slow motion, when you're forced to take a screaming infant with you to Target because you're out of teething tablets, or diapers, or food for the rest of your family. I'm sorry young momma. It's my fault I forgot. I'm sure you've got a good reason to be out with that bawling monstrosity. No one would do it for any purpose shy of desperation. I'm not sad those years are behind me. You'll get through this too.


*** This post was featured in the Redwood Empire Mensa Bulletin, Nov. 2013 edition.

The "S" Word

What do you do about the "S" word?

I've shocked a few mothers over the years who happened to be sitting nearby when one of my children came to complain, "Mom, (other child) called me stupid!" Or ugly, or bossy, or fill in the meanie comment here.

The most common response I've seen from other parents is a full on intervention in the children's activity, complete with forced apologies and a banning of the "S" word. We don't have any banned words in my house. We have large vocabularies and when we have a problem with something they say, ask our children if they know what a given word means and if it's really the word they want to use.

So, how do I respond that shocks other mothers? I ask the child flatly, "Is it true?"

The child, after coming to a startled halt in their oncoming whine fest, almost always responds, "No."

If it's not true, then why are you listening to someone who clearly doesn't know what they're talking about? One of life's most important lessons is that you can't change other people, you can only change how you respond to them. I want my children to think critically about what they hear, about themselves and about the world in general. Rather than responding to criticism and rejection by acting out against the other person, I want them to be able to brush it off quickly with the truth. This is also an opportunity to practice empathy. Why do they think the person called them that?

Every now and then, a child will think about it and answer, "Yes."

Why does the child think it's true? What should they do about it? Do they need to change something about themselves, or accept it as part of their identity and be at peace with it. This is a great opportunity to learn how to process and grow through criticism.

Someone else's true accusation is not always something we should be ashamed of. I've been called "princess" in a derogatory way, but I don't have any problem with being a princess. My definition of princess is someone who is influential, responsible, and confident. Because I know who I am, accusations against my identity cannot stick to me.

This is a vital life skill. Even though my maternal instinct to intervene and protect my children is as great as any mother's, I force myself to be detached because I'm holding on to a long term view of life for them. Whenever possible, I avoid intervening in the arguments of children. Instead, I try to give kids the tools to handle conflict on their own, then send them back into the fray.

Residual Self-Image

I loved the part in "The Matrix" where Neo is being trained, and his residual self-image is explained. I especially love that term, "residual self-image." Having four daughters, I'm often caught by articles about body image and self-esteem. They're everywhere. And I just don't get it. There are so many ways to be beautiful. Why are so many woman carrying around such terrible residual self-images?

I'm always a little surprised when I see myself in a mirror because I'm not as stunning as I feel just walking around. My residual self-image is perhaps a bit out of touch with reality at this point. I'm still thirty flirty and fine in my mind. I guess I never registered any of the negative input out there. I still love my Barbies, but never thought I ought to look like them. I see skinny models and think they look like bony refugees. It's perhaps one of the few body types that aren't beautiful to me.

A woman is never more beautiful, in my opinion, than when she's growing with child. I love that modern maternity fashion is celebrating the shape instead of trying to hide it. Even the post-partum body is beautiful as it transitions into the softer curves of a fertility goddess. It's a shape that drives men crazy on a subconscious level, scientifically demonstrated to be more attractive to them than a bikini model figure. Don't women know this?

Why am I so out of touch with this apparently huge problem?!? In my ignorance, I seem to be raising daughters who are just as self-confident about their bodies as I am. Thank goodness for that. But how? And is there something useful I can contribute to women and girls who struggle with this issue?

Many feminists seem to think the problem begins with fairy tales, in which pretty girls are always good and ugly girls are always bad. This makes no sense to me either. When I read fairy tales, I saw that good girls grew beautiful, and bad girls made themselves ugly. This was affirmed by my life experiences, in which persons with a mean disposition quickly lost their beauty to foul facial expressions, and a kind heart could always be seen shining beautifully, even in unconventional faces.

There also seems to be some confusion between the terms beautiful and attractive. If you struggle to understand the difference, go to an art exhibit. A book won't do. You have to view art in person. Look deeply at each piece. Learn something about the artist. Observe how works that are not initially beautiful to you can still draw you in. They're still attractive. Then watch as a work that attracted you can become more beautiful as you learn about it and respond to it. Attraction is much more complex, much more open ended. Attraction does not require beauty. And it carries far more potential. Beauty is entirely subjective, an ever changing ideal that exists moment by moment in the eye of the beholder. The only way to feel beautiful all the time is to be your own beholder, to subject yourself to no opinion but your own. But you can be attractive without beauty.

Fortunately, we are wired to be attracted to the faces that surround us in infancy. Usually, these are faces that resemble our own. Thus, for every variant genetic group, there are others out there who are wired to find us beautiful, and vice versa. This is why people tend to end up marrying within their own racial group, unless they grew up in a more diverse extended family or community. We all know there are numerous exceptions, but the overall data still supports this. If you're judging your face and figure against someone outside of your group, you're denying the beauty that is in your variation. You're saying that something about your genetic/racial identity is inferior to someone else's. Your community should bitch-slap you for that. You're a beautiful representation of them, and you have every right to stand proudly next to the beauties of other groups. The genetic diversity of the human species is stunning in its scope. To say that one collection of DNA data points is the ideal of beauty for all is utterly ridiculous.

Facial symmetry has received a lot of attention recently as an arbitrary definer of beauty. But while the data suggests more symmetry is initially more attractive, other data suggests that after a certain point it becomes repulsive. Not that we don't want to look at it, but we don't trust it to lead to a stable loving relationship. Being a little off kilter adds interest to a face. It makes it easier to connect with. To be comfortable with. Magazines are filled with perfect faces, because we are attracted to them in an obvious way. Artists like to work with awkward ones, because they are attractive in a more complex way. Whichever you have can be attractive, but both are spoiled by expressions of discontent and judgement.

When it comes to our reproductive imperatives, youth will always be more attractive. We can never return to our youth, but we can sure accelerate aging with an obsession over beauty treatments. Beaty treatments and products are not tested or approved by any governing body. When I've observed a beautiful older woman, she's always had a simple skin care routine, minimal makeup, and a tendency to be content with her life. The latter being the key. Stress ages you prematurely, so the last thing you want to stress about is looking older. With age comes maturity, education, experience, and a host of other attractions that will keep you in good company if you acquire them.

The one aspect of beauty and attraction that we have the most control over is our health. I can carry thirty extra pounds fairly discreetly, but I know that I would feel and look better if I got rid of that extra weight. I have a skin condition that can easily be covered by makeup, but makeup irritates it and makes it worse. I choose to wear it only for important occasions and accept the skin I'm in the rest of the time. There are treatments that could clear it up for a time, but they're expensive, and not a priority over things like braces for the kids. We can eat better, exercise more, and treat our bodies better, and we should. Not to look like someone else's ideal of beauty, but to be the healthiest we can be, because healthy is always a beauty improvement. If you're not there, like me with my extra 30 lbs., don't ever just accept it. Do something. Even if you fail, making an effort is attractive. Wouldn't you rather be with someone who is trying? If you keep trying new activities, and new ways to track your calories, you'll eventually find something that works for you. There's not one system and one workout that works for everyone. We're too diverse.

That's why I insist that there are many ways to be beautiful. As many as there are women. If anyone has told you otherwise, they lied to you. If you believe them, you lose your most attractive quality, your confidence. You give up all your control and let yourself become what they said of you. Do you want to be what some liar said you are?

The truth is, people who can't see the beauty in others have a problem with their perceptions. The truth is, you can become more beautiful without changing anything external about yourself. The truth is, your residual self-image is more important than how you actually look on the outside. The truth is, when you see the beauty in yourself and others, you will naturally become more beautiful. Your confidence, and the value you place on your health and well-being will begin to change the way you appear to those around you. The truth is, when you broaden your idea of beauty and attractiveness you will begin to see value, in people and in the world, that you never knew existed before. The truth is, the more you see value in the diversity of the world, the more favorably you will see yourself, as you possess many valuable diverse characteristics too.

I feel like I'm stating the obvious here, but clearly there are many women who struggle with these truths. That's ok. You struggle because you know there's something wrong with what you've been believing about yourself. If something here affirms you, keep it close and remind yourself every day. If something in your mind or heart denies your innate potential for beauty, call it out as a lie and declare the opposite over yourself until it becomes the truth. You have to change the inside first, then the outside follows.

Bonus: How do you confront a lie?

My oldest daughter has always been a fashionista. Her crazy style got her ostracized by the three "popular" girls in elementary school. One day she came to me crying because her best friend had informed her that she wasn't popular because these girls didn't like her. She wisely insisted that this was a lie and I needed to intervene with her friend.

I asked her friend what it meant to be popular. She responded that "most everybody liked you." I asked her if everybody liked the three girls who were called "popular." She told me that nobody liked these girls. I asked her how many people liked my daughter. She answered that pretty much everybody did except those three girls, just a lot of them were afraid to deny the girls and be my daughter's friends. I asked how many people she thought liked her. She said, pretty much most people. So, I asked her who were the more popular girls at school. She figured out that my daughter and she was.

The issue was settled, and I like to think that moment had a strong impact on the self-confident young woman my daughter's friend has become. She has never cowed to a bully since. Sometimes we need help to see the truth, but once we do, it has the power to change our whole lives.

*** This post was featured in the Redwood Empire Mensa Bulletin, Sept. 2013 edition. 

Writing Naked

Sometimes I cringe as I write. Shhhh...don't tell. The thoughts are flowing freely from the creative part of my brain, when suddenly the analytical part kicks a boulder right into the middle of the stream. "You don't want people to know about that!" it screams.

Our brains can wear a lovely cloak of silence that hides every bare naked thought, or we can peel back the cloak, expressing things that connect us with friends, or strangers, in a deep vulnerable emotional and intellectual intimacy. Penetrating through the niceties that cover the surface, bypassing the distraction techniques of the face, written words lay bare our truest selves for inspection. A nakedness that can never be recovered. A word spoken may be forgot. A word written lives forever. Like the porno shots of a young struggling actress may haunt her long after she obtains an Oscar, so the blog prattle of a young author may haunt her even as she holds a Pulitzer.

If I don't post often, or promote extensively, it's because I'm still uncomfortable being intellectually naked in public. There's no photoshopping over ignorance and I'm at least smart enough to know that I don't know everything.

Life as Art

I've been ruminating about the arts lately. About the diversity of definitions people ascribe to the word art. How it's valued or devalued. How it affects business and how business affects it. About its worth in terms that have nothing to do with money. How it impacts us as observers, and as creators.

In more personal terms, how I express myself creatively. What I want to express. How I think my work is perceived. How off I may be in that analysis. What I consider art. What I am willing to offer in exchange for it. What I am willing to sacrifice in the creation of it.

My twenties were spent pregnant, breast feeding, or recovering. Five pregnancies and four children later, I'd lost sight of my identity. I'd matured in many ways. But I'd lost sight of my creativity. I felt like I'd literally lost my mind on occasion. Now, midway through my thirties, I've discovered I'm returning to my teenage self. My self confidence is much higher. My life is much different. But my mind is much the same. And I am still highly creative. I'm picking up parts of me I set aside to bear children. I'm becoming myself again.

In those days I dreamed dreams far greater than I had the ability to attain. Today, I have far more and better developed skills. In those days I was dependent on others for information and education. Today, I know how to educate myself. I know how to pursue information and understand it. In those days I felt helpless, trudging from day to day, wondering what would come of my life. Today, I am actively cultivating skills that will allow me to accomplish what I dream of doing.

I am writing. I am painting. I am parenting. There are many creative outlets for my agile mind to pursue. The possibilities excite me. But all the external work, all the things I may produce, are seasonal. They belong to a brief space of time. They will be completed and placed in the hands of others. I've become okay with that. I don't need to hold on to my creations anymore, like a kindergartner that must see her work on the fridge to feel validated.

One day, my kids will leave home. I'll probably pack up the essentials, give the kids everything else, rent the house out, and travel the world with my husband. And I'll create. I'll write. I'll paint. I'll parent. And I'll let go of each creation in turn. I'll continue to learn and be affected by the world, and I'll have an effect on it as well.

When I leave it, friends will gather to evaluate the impact of my life. They will speak of worth in terms that have nothing to do with money. How I impacted them as observers and as partners. They will determine if my life was a finished or unfinished work, abstract or representational. A lawyer will inform my family of its monetary value. What they will get in exchange for giving me up. It will not be adequate. It never is for an art lover.

I am passionate about the things I create, and my life is my greatest work of art. This ruminating has gone on long enough. I'm going to get back to living it now.

Juvenile Grief and "The Lone Ranger"

"The Lone Ranger" isn't just an old television show in my house. It's my oldest daughter's "THING". More specifically, her "thing" she shared with her Grandpa Andy while he was dying. While she was between the ages of 4 and 6 we lived with my husband's parents. We were there to help care for his dad while he slowly died of pancreatic cancer. Having grandchildren close certainly prolonged and improved his life, but as parents we worried about whether his gain would come at too high a cost for our children. We did the best we could to help her process the experience, but with a child so young, and right on the cusp of having conscious memories, how can you be certain? Ten years later, a rumor circulated through Hollywood that they were going to make a new Lone Ranger movie. We were about to find out how well we had dealt with our daughter's juvenile grief.

If you're not familiar with it, pancreatic cancer in its final stages is still incurable, and inoperable, and patients are usually given a six month maximum life expectancy. That six months is usually spent wracked with pain and heavily medicated. Living with a person who has this disease is not easy. Not only are you always aware that they will die soon, but you have to watch them endure the kind of pain that, at times they think no one is listening, leaves them begging God to let them go. Into this situation we brought three children. Thankfully, the younger two were too young to remember.

From the beginning, I stayed home with the kids days while my mother in law and husband went to work. This way she could keep their medical benefits and I could keep an eye on him. He probably thought he had a lazy daughter in law, but I deliberately stayed in bed most mornings, listening as he started the day with her and made her French toast. She was always up with the sun and he could never sleep for the pain. My interference wasn't wanted, but I paid close attention so I could conveniently wake up just as he was getting worn out and short tempered with her.

He watched all her shows with her and nearly killed himself more quickly by doing the "Barbie Dance Workout Video" with her. He showed her all thirty something of his five favorite westerns and then moved on to his five favorite samurai movies. At some point he found a complete box set of "The Lone Ranger" television series and they watched them together over and over again. Before the show would start, she brought out a fringed vest from her dress up clothes and dressed grandpa up as Tonto so he could play with her. They passed so many days this way that I lost track of them. She was the Lone Ranger and Grandpa was her Tonto. He played the guitar, so we picked up a child size guitar at a garage sale that she could learn to strum with him. It all played in to their imaginary world. A place they escaped to together.

For two years she was Grandpa's girl. She held his hand when he was hurting and sang to make him feel better. He taught her his confidential recipe for french toast. We didn't keep his sickness or pending death a secret. We just tried to do our loving while we still could. Some moments were harder than others. With so many heavy drugs in the house, we repeatedly taught our kids the importance of not taking medicine without parent approval. When the oldest found one of his dropped pills, she gave it up right away, but he fell apart, knowing it could have killed her by accident.

Hospice came in shortly after that and their services made a world of difference, as the physical demands of caring for him increased. He expressed the same concern we did about how she would handle his death. When that day came, we redirected her grief into loving on Grandma because they were both sad together. They talked about the good things they both remembered and what she could do at his memorial service. In the end she strummed her guitar and sang a song they both loved, with a hitch in her voice and not a dry eye in the building. We all spent a lot of time talking about how he wasn't in pain anymore and how he wanted us to celebrate his passing. The most awkward part of the process was explaining the box in which his ashes were placed. She couldn't believe her big Grandpa fit in that little box.

Children are amazingly resilient. She seemed to move on, choosing to remember the good things and be happy. Ten years passed when the Hollywood rumor mill spit out the new Lone Ranger gossip. My fourteen year old daughter got as excited about it as everyone else's fourteen year olds get about the latest boy band. She watched every episode of the original series again, twice, in preparation. Critical reviews meant nothing. She dressed up in her fringed costume vest...the same one grandpa used to wear, put her long hair in two braids with feather accents, and showed up at the theater with more enthusiasm than she had for the last "Twilight" movie.

To say I was nervous would be putting it mildly. She still tears up when she hears the song that was played during the video portion of Grandpa's Memorial Service. She asked me never to play it again, but it's popular so it turns up at random intervals out in the world. How would she react when this movie finally started?

Exactly like a teenage girl at a "Twilight" opening. It was the best most awesome movie ever!!! She truly had processed all her grief and only held on to the good memories she shared with Grandpa. Who cares what anybody else thought of it or how many "Rotten Tomatoes" it got? She felt only excitement and satisfaction to the core of her being. Sure, it's a little weird for a fourteen year old girl to be so crazy about "The Lone Ranger," but our eccentricities are sometimes the best things about us. They come out of our most intense and defining experiences and they add to our character and identity. That time was the most difficult two years of my life, but now I think I can say we did alright as parents.

A recent headline read "Disney to lose $200 million on Lone Ranger."  I prefer to think Disney just gave a $200 million gift to my daughter. Thank you Mr. Depp & Co.

One (1) Lying Teenager: Check

My fourteen year old daughter is lying to me, and it makes me happy.

Just like walking and talking, the ability to conceive of lying is an important developmental milestone. I'll never forget the moment my second child figured it out. No matter where she was or what she was doing I could always shout, "Where's my E----" and she'd answer, "She's right here!" This was helpful because, as with most toddlers, silence usually meant she was getting into trouble. The day I called for her and she responded with "She's right he......" followed by dead silence, I knew she figured it out. She was two or three and doing something she knew was wrong. I didn't get mad. To be honest, I was relieved. My first child still hadn't figured it out.

My own memory of childhood is that adults focused on teaching the importance of telling the truth, so there couldn't possibly be any importance to having the ability to lie. But like every function of the human brain, the capacity to lie, and ultimately understand deception, serves a very important purpose. From not saying anything at all (when you don't have anything nice to say), to recognizing the exaggerated claims of advertisers, to keeping your personal drama out of the workplace no matter how many people ask, "How are you?" gradients of truth and lies are important to the maintenance of healthy social boundaries. Yes, they can also be dangerous and destructive, but knowing the difference, and the subtleties between bare naked truth and outright lie, is something we learn through experimenting with both, usually in early childhood.

It's funny when a three year old publicly asks why Aunt Sue has a beard. We try to hide our chuckles and then explain why they shouldn't do that. It's not funny when an eight year old, who never understood that, is spending the night at her cousin's house and decides to ask Aunt Sue directly. Every one of us can recall the first time a much longed for toy was finally obtained, and the disappointment we felt when it failed to meet the promises of its advertisements. What if our brains never made the connection between our disappointment and deceptive advertising? How would it be for us as adults if we believed everything we saw or read? How awful does it feel to be called gullible, to be taken advantage of?

As a developmental milestone it's also very revealing about what capacity for social interaction a child is prepared for. These gradations of lying are complex. We communicate with our whole bodies, therefore understanding physical cues is as necessary a facet of this skill as having the verbal capacity to construct a falsehood. You can see a child's social awareness develop by watching the progression of their capacity to lie and/or detect the lies of others.

I never would have thought much about this subject if it hadn't been among the first signs that my oldest daughter had some developmental asymmetries. As much as I wanted to protect her innocence, the sweetness of a child who believed the best about everyone, this lack of understanding about lies caused her quite a few problems. Again and again I would walk her through the process of breaking down what someone was saying about her, or to her, determining whether it was true or not (usually not), then determining what the truth really was. There were so many times when I had to slowly explain why the thing she wanted wasn't going to be everything she believed it to be. So many times I cringed and hoped people would be understanding as she talked about anything and everything that was on her mind with out any self censoring. As uncomfortable as this process was, it was also very revealing to me, to have to deliberately acknowledge how much these little deceptions impact our daily lives.

When she was about eleven, she got into watching a television show called "Lie to Me." The show is based loosely on the practice of an actual doctor who studies the science of deception and uses this knowledge to detect lies in various criminal and business investigation situations. It helped her understand why and how people lie and she was fascinated by this foreign (to her) concept. As an older child, conscious of the process of dissecting deceptions, moving toward this developmental milestone was quite different for her than it is for a young child, who will likely tell their first lie before they're old enough to have their first conscious memory.

It is interesting for me to observe as a parent. She's fourteen now, and yesterday she got caught telling a whopper. The kind of lie a five year old knows they'll get caught in. As I dealt out the obligatory punishment, inwardly I breathed a sigh of relief. No matter how late their developmental milestones may come, that they come is something parents of developmentally delayed/asymmetrical children are hugely grateful for. That we can move on to the next stage, regardless of charts and averages, is a blessing. Even if that stage is my teenager lying to me.