My Son’s Dress

Posted on April 18, 2019 by CNF • Posted in Featured Blog Posts, General, Slider Content •

By Jocelyn Wiener

The gender stuff I breezed through with my daughter feels surprisingly fraught with my son.

“I want the yellow dress,” begs the weeping, shrieking pile of two-year-old boy that lies crumpled at my bare feet.

Still in my pajamas, I dig through my son’s overstuffed dresser, scrambling to locate the pale cotton frock he has appropriated from his 4-year-old sister.

“How about a striped one, instead?” I offer.

“NO!”

“Your special firetruck PJs?”

“NOOOOOO!!!!”

For my son, his desire for the dress is profoundly logical: He needs it to twirl.

Specifically, he needs it to twirl at preschool.

Now, against the backdrop of screaming toddler, my progressively minded, almost-40-year-old adult self does battle with the awkwardly dressed, frequently teased fourth grader she carries within.

The idealist in me wants to encourage my son’s self-expression, to embrace gender fluidity, to send him out into the world wearing (almost) anything he damn well pleases. We live in Oakland, a city where people regularly announce their pronouns. I am proud of that. But fourth grade me well remembers the casual cruelty of other children. What, she whispers, will they do to my little boy?

And so, even as I tear up the house in search of the dress, a small, fearful part of me hopes I won’t find it. Even though he’s worn it a dozen times at home, even though he looks adorable in it, this tiny voice hopes my son might instead venture into the world wearing something featuring dogs or monsters or sharks or trains. I feel ashamed of this voice. But there it is.

Eventually, I give up on the dresser, and begin sifting through a basket of clean laundry we have yet to fold. (Okay, multiple baskets. They’re a fixture in our home).

Somewhere within one of them lies that faded yellow dress with an empire waist, a hand-me-down from a cousin that my daughter wore regularly until berries stained the chest slightly purple. After that, it lived on a shelf until my curly-headed two-year-old discovered it—and fell in love.

I did not anticipate this particular challenge the morning my husband and I stared at a little white blob swimming in a sea of black.

“See that little line?” the ultrasound technician pointed at the screen. “It’s a boy.”

I looked at my husband – recognizing in his face the surprise I felt. I’d intuited a girl.

A son? We wondered aloud, as we walked to the parking garage. How were we going to raise a son? How would we protect him from the macho, sports-worshipping, emotion-repressing influences that pervade our culture?

My husband is decidedly – delightfully – not macho or sports-worshipping or emotion-repressing. He is everything I might hope for in a male role model for a little boy–kind, communicative, creative and fun. The first time he came home to meet my family, he baked brownies. My father and brothers found this perplexing.

I, on the other hand, seem to have unwittingly absorbed some of our culture’s expectations that boys be made of snips and snails and puppy dogs’ tails. Growing up, my three younger brothers dedicated hours each day to sports, video games and wrestling matches on the living room floor. By six, I swore off dolls, voicing concerns that they were instruments of oppression of my sex. I wore my hair short and refused dresses. Strangers often assumed I was a fourth son.

Maybe because of this, as a new mother the first time around, I found it easy to dress my little daughter in clothes from the boy’s section –especially given the pink everything of the girl clothes on offer. I laughed off comments from strangers who suggested my big, bald baby girl would be a linebacker someday. Who cared?

But with a son on the way, the gender stuff I’d breezed through with my daughter felt surprisingly fraught. In our culture, masculinity is still conflated with strength, femininity with weakness. It’s distressing and infuriating and totally bogus. But, try as I might to ignore it, it’s there.

As I prepared for my son’s arrival, I found myself sitting on the living room floor surrounded by bins of my daughter’s outgrown clothes, trying to figure out which were too feminine for a baby boy. As if baby boys cared about such things. Every time I kept a pink item, it felt subversive.

Our son arrived five days late – a hefty 9 pounds, 4 ounces who looked like my father. At his two-day-old appointment, our pediatrician commented that the baby had a “very masculine presence.” My husband and I laughed awkwardly. Later that day, as the lab tech drew blood from his tiny heel, she started chatting with us about football. We learned then that we’d unintentionally named our child after the 49ers quarterback. This was back when Colin Kaepernick was a rising star, but before he became famous for kneeling in protest during the national anthem. My husband and I hadn’t heard of him. My brothers shook their heads.

As our son grew from baby to toddler to preschooler, we were acutely aware of all the ways we, as parents, might fail him. Several recent studies have shown that parents tend to speak more to their infant daughters, share their feelings more with their preschool daughters and, in the case of dads, sing and smile more at their daughters. I try to be cognizant of that, smothering my son with kisses and asking him about his feelings. I’ve broached the subject of gender identity, but we haven’t gotten too far yet:

“Are you a boy or a girl?” I asked the other day.

A wry smile stole onto his face.

“A girl.”

“Is your sister a boy or a girl?”

“A boy.”

“What am I?”

“A wolf.”

“What is Daddy?”

“A bear.”

“What is Papi?”

“A troublemaker.”

Much of the time, my son seems to identify as a dog, crawling around on all fours, barking, whimpering and licking people. I like it when he’s a dog, because he’s always nice to his sister in those moments. During dog hours, he holds her hand and nuzzles up against her while she pets him. During non-dog hours, he sometimes resorts to hitting and pushing. Even so, his big sister is his dearest friend and playmate. If she opts to wear a dress, he wants one, too.

But not just any dress.

Finally, I spot it, the faded yellow fabric peeking out from beneath the towels and T-shirts. Does my inner fourth grader urge me to leave it there, to coax my son into a shark-monster-train outfit instead? If she does, I shove the thought away.

I want my child to wear what he wants to wear. I also want him to stop crying.

I fish the dress out of the laundry basket and slide it over his tear-stained cheeks. The wailing ceases. We briefly do battle over his diaper. The dress, I am informed, twirls better with no diaper. I draw my line in the sand.

We are already late to preschool. We are pretty much always late, but this morning is shaping up to be extra late. I grab the kids’ lunches, and off we go, two small people in dresses, one grown person in sweatpants, tromping down the front steps toward school.

Do the neighbors notice? the inner fourth grader wonders. Would they care? Would it matter if they did?

I look at my little boy – a baby doggy for the moment – holding his sister’s hand as we prepare to cross the street. No, I decide. It wouldn’t matter at all.

A few minutes later, we knock on the preschool’s wooden gate.

The teacher who opens it greets my children with a smile. He says nothing about the dress.

A few older girls look at my son strangely. Later, over crackers and apple slices, they’ll ask his big sister why he’s wearing a dress.

“Because he likes it,” she’ll say. The explanation will suffice. Perhaps, some day, I can feel similarly unconcerned about such things.

As I turn to leave, I pause at the gate. I watch my little boy proudly show his outfit to another teacher.

“Do you want to see me twirl?” he asks her. The question is rhetorical.

Tears well in my eyes as I see a toothy grin spread across that little face. He stretches out his arms, lifts his chin skyward, and twirls and twirls and twirls and twirls. The yellow dress billows around him.

Jocelyn Wiener is an Oakland-based journalist who writes about health, mental health care, poverty, children’s issues, and her kids. Her website is www.jocelynwiener.com

Brain, Child (& Brain, Teen) are moving

Posted on January 29, 2019 by CNF • Posted in General, Highlights, Slider Content • Tagged creative nonfiction, news • Leave a comment

Dear Friend of Brain, Child,

I’m writing today with some exciting news. After six years of editing and publishing Brain, Child and Brain, Teen I am pleased to announce that both magazines are now under the Creative Nonfiction umbrella.

This is an exciting opportunity for the Brain, Child brands to continue to make an impact within an esteemed literary organization. I’m also pleased to announce that I’ve joined Creative Nonfiction’s Editorial Advisory Board.

The Creative Nonfiction Foundation inspires and supports writers of true stories by providing publishing venues and educational opportunities for a diverse range of creative nonfiction writing and writers–and is most notable for the long-running and always excellent quarterly magazine, Creative Nonfiction.

The CNF team has already begun the process of transferring the Brain, Child website to their server (I apologize for the recent downtime of this site), and the magazines’ archives will be available on Creative Nonfiction’s website in the near future.

More exciting news and information about what this acquisition means for writers, readers, and fans of both Brain, Child and Creative Nonfiction will be forthcoming this spring.

To stay up to date, please sign up for Creative Nonfiction’s email list.

As always, thank you for your support of Brain, Child. It’s been my honor.

Marcelle Soviero
Editor-in-Chief

P.S. If you have any questions, please direct them to the folks at Creative Nonfiction (information@creativenonfiction.org).

The Healing Words of My Holocaust-Surviving Grandmother

Posted on September 13, 2018 by CNF • Posted in General, Highlights • Leave a comment

By Estelle Erasmus

“I luff you, because you’re sveet like a piece of chocolate,” my Grandma Genia crooned in her thick, Yiddish accent, handing me a hunk of a Hershey bar. No exotic fare like Godiva for Grandma—she eschewed exports, even though she herself was one.

Grandma had suffered bitterness in her life. When the Nazis first invaded Poland, my grandfather wanted to stay and fight. She convinced him to take their family—including baby, Miriam, my mother and flee. Escaping into the forest, they made their way to Russia. Their siblings and cousins couldn’t get out, and perished in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. After the war, they lived in Israel and emigrated to the United States when my mother was fifteen years old. She married my father, after meeting at a college dance.

Grandma was dramatic. She wore her blonde hair in a bouffant and, despite her meager income as a dressmaker, and my grandfather’s as a tailor, donned a mink stole when dining out in Brooklyn, where they landed after the war. Though they were referred to by the derogatory term “Greeners”, (new to the country) I thought of them as “Redders”. Red for the searing anger my grandfather displayed when he refused to accept reparation (he called it “blood money”) for losing his family in the Holocaust. Red for the beautiful lace dress Grandma made, that I wore to prevent a “Kenahora” (evil eye) from jealous people. Red for their fervent Zionism.

Perhaps because she had thwarted death, Grandma treated life like an adventure. I rode horsey on her back for hours. After I threw Jell-O on the wall in the midst of a toddler tantrum, Grandma celebrated as if I were a budding Picasso. At a Bat Mitzvah, she joined me on the floor, scooping up chocolates showered from a piñata, even though the Holocaust had long since transformed her into an avowed atheist.

“Family is de only ting dat matters,” she would say.

She confiscated bags of clothes her neighbors had marked to donate to charity without shame. In her mind, my family was the charity. I remember Grandma bent over her humming sewing machine, thumb protector on, needles in mouth. Hours later, after lifting a hemline, replacing plastic buttons with jeweled ones, shortening or removing sleeves, she had created fashion alchemy, transforming discards into couture.

Though I wore her creations until my mid-twenties, when she and Grandpa moved to Florida, her words had also created something far less tangible—my romantic destiny. “You haf to marry a Jew,” she told me when I started dating, and throughout my teen years regaled me with nightmare scenarios about distant relatives (I didn’t know and had never met) who were beaten by their non-Jewish, alcohol swilling husbands. It was a fate neither of us wished me to have. In addition to my “Greener” grandparents, my father’s parents were Orthodox Jewish, and my parents were Conservative Jews, so I faced strong cultural pressure to marry someone Jewish.

I tried hard to stay within the status quo—exhausting the limited supply of able-bodied men from the local temple, and on JDate, but my romances either fizzled or ended in heartbreak.

I dared not step out of my religion. My legacy was having my future marital life forcefully imprinted on me like the not-so-temporary tattoos marking the skin of the Jews who survived the Nazi’s concentration camps.

I met Werner in my forties and he was an unholy trifecta. He wasn’t Jewish, was the son of an Evangelist former preacher, and was visiting from New Zealand on a work visa. But he captivated me with his stoic, practical nature, so different than my own dramatic personality, and the way he took care of me, by acting as my gentle alarm clock, watching that I didn’t trip on curbs, booking sumptuous dinners on date nights, and remembering that I liked chai lattes during Starbuck runs. Though I didn’t cook, he did and we fell in love over slabs of steaks, cooked to my preference, medium well, paired with a bottle of Cabernet.

Despite my parents’ fears, nine months after we met we moved in together. Over the next year, Werner demonstrated his love for me, his professional ambition, and most important— how much he embraced my Judaism by participating in my cultural rituals. I loved seeing his patrician features framed by a yarmulke at the myriad bar mitzvahs and Shabbat dinners he attended with me, and adored watching him discover and devour my mom’s Hanukkah latkes.

With a nod to tradition, a year later, he asked for my dad’s blessing—and received it—before proposing.

We married but struggled with infertility. When I finally got pregnant I was nauseous all the time and wracked with fears of miscarriage.

“Kotvenu b’sefer he-hayyim” inscribe us in the Book of Life,” I prayed in temple on Rosh Hashanah.

Since I had married a non-Jew, would my Jewish prayers be answered, or would I be punished and lose my child? What would Grandma have thought of my betrayal? Would she have said the mourner’s kaddish for me over my choices?

Then, through my tears, I saw the prayer book (Siddur) I held, had a dedication in it from my mother to the memory of my grandmother. I forgot that my mother had given that commemoration. It was a sign. I let out the breath I didn’t even remember holding, closed my eyes and imagined Grandma’s voice telling me “family is de only ting dat matters,” and knew in my heart it would be ok. Grandma Genia’s love had left a permanent hug on my soul—and that of my unborn child.

When my daughter was born, while my parents beamed from the bema, we gave her the Hebrew name, Gavira ( ‘powerful ruler’) to honor the woman who had fled a war-torn country to save her family, which ultimately gave me the freedom to choose mine.

Author’s Note: Nine years later, my strong marriage and my smart, joyful daughter—who we are raising Jewish— are a living testament to Grandma’s prescient words.

Estelle Erasmus is a widely-published writing coach, journalist, and former magazine editor-in-chief. She is an adjunct instructor for NYU, teaches personal essay writing and pitching for Writer’s Digest and can be found on Twitter and Instagram. Her website offers publishing advice and editor interviews.

Photo courtesy of Estelle Erasmus

Mirrors on Fire

Posted on August 8, 2018 by CNF • Posted in General, Highlights, Slider Content • Leave a comment

By Guita Sazan

It is not winter. Yet, the cruel icy winds are blowing in the burn unit of the army (artesh) hospital where I volunteer as a nurse’s aide. Mr. Azaree was not in his room when I arrived in the morning. The odors of his infected, scorched body, hydrogen peroxide, and antiseptics still saturated the room. Azaree, a sweet and whimsical 21-year old soldier was the victim of mustard gas. He had sustained third degree burns over 70% of his body. Blisters covered his inner lungs too. The scabs on his legs had to be shaved, scrubbed, and washed everyday. He cried, screeched, and begged to be left alone. The cleaning kept the deadly infections at bay. But his condition had deteriorated over the past few days. I run to the head nurse, “Was Azaree moved to the Intensive Care Unit?” The red pen continued gliding on her clipboard. She didn’t look up. “He died last night and joined the Army of Martyrs.”

I am nineteen. I assist in cleaning and dressing the wounds of young boys who have sustained horrific burns. Burns caused by chemical warfare that the Iraqi army used in its war with Iran. Initiated by Iraq in 1980 and lasting until 1988, the war left an estimated half a million dead and hundreds of thousands wounded and homeless.

Azaree with his mischievous brown eyes was a favorite of mine. I had to leave my shift early today. I wanted to be alone with my wounded soul. Stepping out of the hospital, I put the black chador over my head that was already covered with a big white scarf. The five kilometers walk home under the chador let my tears run in a private space.

The cloaking of the entire female body for modesty, hejab (covering), became mandatory for women of every faith in the Islamic Republic of Iran within one year after the revolution of 1979. Minority Jewish, Christian, Baha’i, Zoroastrian, and secular Muslim women reluctantly covered their heads loosely with colorful, thin scarfs. Often they were harassed by the “Ethical Sisters,” a band of radical Muslim women wearing thick, black chadors who policed neighborhoods in their white vans. Typically, the Ethical Sisters launched demeaning verbal attacks at women who revealed a lock of hair, wore bright colored scarves, red lipstick, or tight-fitting attire. They declared, “This country is no longer tolerating whores like you, shamelessly seducing our pious brothers who give up their lives for Islam.”

To the radical believers of Islam and those faithful to the revolution, the proper covering of the female body from head to toe with a long dress and a headscarf was a basic step in declaring the modesty and sanctity of women. Putting a black chador over an already covered body perfected the hejab.

I felt at home under the black chador. There my body found her solace and safety. Sheltered from the dirty, ravenous gazes of swaggering adolescent boys and vicious older men. The depth of black shamed them all. No color has a power or presence above and beyond black.

I held the conviction that my body and all its earthly desires were nothing but a shroud to my soul. Its delicate skin, voluptuous flesh, and citrus tang trap my celestial being. Faith is the ultimate color to wrap my existence.

Ten steps to the front gate, my feet palpitations pound the downhill street. As I arrive at our house, my eyes habitually scan the street, hoping no one is watching me. The swift sound of pulling the chador off my head shreds the stillness of the afternoon.

Wrapping the chador around my right arm, in a flash I stuff it in my ragged book bag. I feared my parents, siblings, or the Jewish neighbors might catch a glimpse of my black chador.

Turning the cold iron key twice, the gate clicks open. The courtyard is layered with fallen leaves. All resting in their majestic death. It is not winter yet, but its scent has brushed over the leaves of autumn. As I walk into the courtyard, the crisp air and whiffs of kerosene fill my nostrils.

I walk through the courtyard towards the flight of stairs that takes me to the first floor flat where we live. Again, the smell of Kerosene! Its smell always made me feel nauseated. Though we had central heating in our new home, my mom brought out the kerosene heater in the fall to warm up the living room. It is not winter yet. It is too early to take out that heater.

As I walk up the stairs the stink becomes stronger. Up several more steps, its pungency is now getting into my eyes. The air reeks with a heavy odor. I struggle to breathe. An accidental spill? I wonder as I rush up the half dark staircase.

When I get closer to the entrance of our flat, long sighs and soft weeps mix with the stench of the kerosene-saturated air. Feeling dizzy and nauseous, my blurry eyes freeze.

Mahman (Mom) is sitting on her knees by the flat’s door next to a red kerosene container. Her disheveled hair and blue housedress are soaked in the oily substance. She is squeezing a box of matches in her palm.

Her body is rocking back and forth. Her cheeks are covered with tears that have made tiny roads on her Kerosene covered face. “Khoda (God) take me, burn away this shame, Khoda let me die.”

She slaps her thighs over and over with an open hand. The flesh on her thigh is redder than her bloodshot eyes. “Let the (atash) fire bring peace to me.”

I kneel next to her, stuttering.“Mahman (Mom) what are you doing?!” I pull the matches out of her tight grip. Her shaking hand reaches to grab the matches out of my fist. I hold tighter. I know far too well how in an instance her kerosene soaked body can incinerate. The images of the Army hospital flood my mind .

“Mahman jaan (dear Mom) don’t (nakon), please nakon.” My jaw is now frozen.

“How can I witness my Jewish daughter praying like Muslims? Wearing a black chador? Making pilgrimage to Qom with radical Muslims? What is next? Marriage to an Ayatollah? I want to burn to death!”

I embrace her, kiss her head. The smelly oil soaks my lips and sticks on my tongue. But the unbearable disgust is the roaring guilt in my head.

“Mahman BeBakhsh, forgive me. I am Jewish, at heart, forever.”

“Then take this goh (shit) chador off your head! All our Jewish neighbors ask me – who is this Muslim woman in the black chador who comes to the house everyday?!”

Her fist lands on her head, hard . “What do I tell them? My child is a Muslim fundamentalist?!”

“Tell them I have chosen a meaningful life of service to humanity.”

“Stop with the empty slogans!” She is wailing, “You are setting this family on fire!”

“I wear the chador because I want to be allowed to teach in school, work in the orphanage, and tend to wounded soldiers. Only the people who follow the rules of the new Islamic Iran can do these things.”

“Your Baba (dad) barley survived a heart attack when you disappeared for three days. These Muslims will eventually force you to marry a Muslim boy. Then we will lose you forever!”

“I will never get married to a Muslim ever. I promise you with all my soul.”

Flames have now engulfed my soul. Who will burn and get buried? My Baba’s heart, my Mahman’s flesh, or my “Divine calling” to save destitute beings?

Mahman has calmed down and I bring her to the shower. The heat and intensity of shower stream compete with the tears we both shed and the pain that has seared us.

Author’s note: Mahman’s unwavering love and tenacious efforts to save me from radical Islam never ceased. She studied behavioral psychology and hypnosis, she turned to Zen and Hindu practices to change and cleanse my “distorted beliefs.” In her way she managed to burn her influence deep into my existence and all that my unconscious mind revealed to me decades later.

Guita Sazan is a Clinical psychologist, 22 years in private practice. She lives in Stamford, Connecticut with her husband and three children. She has written and given talks about Iranian Jewish Immigrant woman living in the United States.

Driftwoods Have Eyes

Posted on May 12, 2018 by CNF • Posted in General, Highlights, Slider Content • Leave a comment

By Anne Ney

The Gullah say driftwoods have eyes.

I hear this on the TV from the kitchen sink where I am rinsing vomit from the emesis basin. David hears it from the couch where he shivers, nauseous and pale beneath an afghan, recovering from his latest round of chemo. We are alone, as we often are, mother and child in this island of a house at the end of the dirt road.

The television offers us another view of the world; today, Gullah-Gullah Island tells us driftwoods have eyes.

The show’s co-hosts, Ron and Natalie, banter in a Low Country cadence characteristic of their African-American community, rooted on the islands between Savannah and Charleston. These sea islands, like those where the Gullah originate, were settled by Ron and Natalie’s ancestors, enslaved West Africans brought to the Carolinas to coax indigo, cotton, and rice from the sea island marsh.

As they chat I try to imagine the anguish those Africans felt: proud freemen who were abducted, beaten, and chained into ships for the long middle passage. In the Americas they were often torn from those whom they loved.

But the Gullah had a saving grace. The Gullah, knowledgeable in sea marsh ecology, could make the island soil sing. And so their culture remained intact: isolated by waters, woven in a common tongue, and told in stories carried from the other side of the sea. Stories that were passed down like faith: one says driftwoods have eyes.

I dry the basin and my hands. My gaze drifts out the sink window onto the overgrown, February-sodden land. Our front yard, such as it is, ends at the wire fence this side of red-dirt road. Across the road, the swamp grows thick with scrub-oak and cypress. Loblolly and longleaf pines tower around the house.

Inside the wire fence is a Southern bayberry I pruned into a tree for David to climb, before his balance deteriorated and the brain tumor was discovered. I turn from the wintry gloom, round the kitchen corner, and study David listening to the Gullah story. Every day I worry that he will die. Every day I assure him that he is fine.

He is absorbed. His mouth purses in that serious way he has. His hands twitch as Ron turns the driftwood over for inspection. I think of all the times David and I have beach-combed, utterly ignorant of driftwood eyes. I wonder what those eyes see. What they have seen.

On the screen, Natalie’s box-braided hair peeks from her bright headscarf. Her brown eyes and skin glow against the canary-yellow cloth. Ron’s smile is as wide as the sea.

The driftwood’s bark has long since abandoned the heartwood, soaked clean by river and tide to expose its essence. Ron brushes powdery sand from the branch, bleached naked by sun and salt. He considers the driftwood’s beginnings. Maybe it came from Saint Helena, fallen from a live oak hammock where the long branches stretch toward the horizon.

Maybe it was wrested from a Low Country riverbank overhung with sweetgum, palmetto, pawpaw, and bay. It might have been lighting-struck or twisted off in a summer hurricane sweeping up the coast. Maybe it drifted from Africa.

Wherever it came from, it is a testament to its history. Its shape suggests its species, habit, and the conditions of its growth. Its scars and ragged ends hint at its demise. I think of Kahlil Gibran’s words, “For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.”

Ron challenges Natalie to find the driftwood’s eyes. She exaggerates a frown and says she cannot see an eye in this wood he has plucked from Gullah-Gullah Beach. He chuckles warmly and enjoins her to look for the eye!

David tilts his head and scrunches his brow. His blue eyes bore into the screen.

In a moment Natalie exclaims, “I see it here! I see de eye!”

She points to a depression in the wood. David grins like a jack-o-lantern; his adult incisors erupt unevenly through his gums. His head is symmetrical and smooth. He sits up and says, “Mom! That driftwood has an eye!” The afghan slips to the floor as he leans and points. “See?”

A shiver runs down my back; the sun-bleached wood looks too much like a bone. I think about dead pirates buried along this coast where Blackbeard roamed. Do the dead also have eyes?

I cross the room and sit next to David on the sagging blue couch. I enfold his thin body in my arms and tuck his warm, bald, head under my chin. Natalie produces another piece of driftwood and hands it to Ron. He turns it this way and that; scrutinizes it from all angles. He says the eyes can be difficult to see. They may hide in plain sight but they are there: on bleached oaken arms, skinned cypress knees, amputated mangrove toeholds.

David fingers his cheek and studies the staticky picture. Natalie demonstrates the strategy of looking askance to find the eyes. Ron says she should look from a different angle, or soften her gaze to make them appear. But never give up. All driftwoods have eyes. David shouts, “I see it! I see the eye!”

Natalie finds it, too. Then Afro-pop music begins and Binyah-Binyah Polliwog, the Island’s human-sized peeper-frog, Ron, and Natalie dance and sing the closing song. I grab the remote and turn down the volume. David gives me an earnest, eager look. “Mom. Driftwoods have eyes,” he says. I kiss his bald head, run my fingers lightly down his cheek, and listen as he retells the story.

I wonder if the eyes exist in living trees: within the bayberry, swamp oaks, and pines that both isolate and contain us. Are they watching us now? Have they seen us splashing in the river as they slide quietly by on their way to the coast? Or do they only mind us after coming to rest long after riding the longshore currents that nudge the sea islands north, grain by sandy grain.

David finishes his story then says gravely, “Mom, we have to go to the beach.”

But it is February. The morning rain has given way to winter’s orange-tinted evening sky. In any case his blood counts are too low for us to venture into the world of germs. I say we’ll put it on The List in my cheerful matter-of-fact voice. “That way we’ll definitely know we’re going to go. But it’s dark now and Dad’s on his way home and what will he eat for dinner if we’re at the beach?”

David agrees to put it on the list then returns to the Gullah-Gullah sign-off. He never questions how or where I track these things to be accomplished. In fact, The List exists only in my heart as a running tally of possibilities. It is a hedge against forgetting, should he die, the shape that his hopes and dream once assumed.

Gullah-Gullah dissolves into the Nick Jr. afternoon lineup. I return to the kitchen to start dinner. Beyond the window, sunset rays pierce the scrub-oak branches across the road and silhouette David’s deserted bayberry tree. I think of Robert Frost’s Swinger of Birches with its boy who is

too far from town to learn baseball,

Whose only play was what he found himself,

Summer or winter, and could play alone.

***

I try to picture David climbing farther up his modest tree than he has ever gone, up to where the branches are thin and flexible, up to where his tree can bear no more weight. Would the tree set him down again?

Or would his weight break the branch, send him tumbling into the earth, and cast the severed wooden limb into the swamp to be carried to the Ash Branch, into the Ogeechee, and out to sea. I calculate the river’s slow winding across the coastal plain, and the speed of the ocean current that flows around the sea islands before rejoining the Gulf Stream to circle the globe.

The limb would lose its leaves first. Smaller twigs would catch on river snags and snap from the main branch. The bark, now an extraneous skin, would slacken before floating away. Once the branch reached the ocean it would age into a whitened bone. It might drift for months, even years, before coming home to Savannah. It would surely have eyes by then.

The surf would entrain it and carry it toward the land, up the beach face, and into the wrack line where a boy might find it as he searches for a castle parapet, or a pirate sword, or an anchor to hold his kite string while he jumps waves. I imagine the driftwood’s expectant eyes, twinkling as the boy approaches its weathered knob of a body.

Would time and tide have erased the memory of its difficult middle passage, between the time it lived and the time it came to rest on that sea island beach? Would it remember how the boy had swung out too far and snapped it from a tree beside a wire fence across the road from a swamp?

***

At bedtime David wants a story. I choose Caveman Dave, a gift from my mother who likes the book because the protagonist has her grandson’s name, blue eyes, and blonde hair that I promise will grow back when the chemo’s done. I read to him in my growly cave-mom voice. “Caveman Dave lives in a cave. He’s not afraid. He’s very brave!”

David scowls and declares that he is not brave. Maybe he believes that cancer follows bravery instead of the other way around. That if he denies the first, the other will disappear on its own. Blue Bunny nestles under his arm. The lump beneath his Ninja Turtle jammie top betrays the permanent IV line, neatly coiled, bandaged and double-taped to his skin just above his heart.

“You have courage.” I remind him that courage means you face something even if — especially if — you know how badly it’s going to hurt.

Satisfied with this explanation, he leans back on his pillow and laces his fingers behind his head, a characteristic pose that belies his tender age. I think of the long scar, from the crown of his skull to his neck, raggedly crosshatched where sutures held the incision together until it healed. He gazes at the ceiling while Caveman Dave tussles with dinosaurs.

When the story is finished, David asks for his Guatemalan worry people, another gift from his grandmother. I find their house, a pill-bottle-size basket, and shake them into his small hands. Each one is no taller than my thumbnail. One by one he brings them to his lips and whispers his worries into their minuscule ears. We tuck them under his pillow where they will carry out their midnight task of whisking his cares away.

Night after night the worry people perform their magic. This, I think, is the power of story.

We snuggle until he is warm and drowsy. I kiss him goodnight and say that as soon as his counts are up we’ll go to the beach.

***

The drive to Tybee Island is a long hour through black-stalked cotton fields, acres of greening soy, and Savannah’s historic squares. From there we parallel the river for miles, crossing sinuous back channels and wide salt marshes that glint in the vernal sun. Water in these parts is restless. It empties the land, recycles the tides, and slowly transforms islands.

The beach is windy and cold. Surf jostles the shore where only ten months ago David played Tonka trucks, lazed in wide, warm tide pools, and built Batman sand castles. Today, white sea foam tumbles up the beach. I tell David it looks like snow, an item on The List. We stomp a few fluffy balls as they rush toward the dunes. He quickly loses energy.

But he has a mission and will not leave empty-handed. He picks up then discards unnecessary things: sea glass, broken shells, sun-bleached sand dollars, and ghost crab molts. When he finds what he is looking for he grins, turns, and catches my eye.

***

I will still have it twenty-five years later although the day David collects the driftwood I cannot know that. I cannot know that he will, in fact, die. I cannot know that one day the driftwood will sit in my office with other ghosts that my swinger of birches will leave behind. I cannot know that eyes will silently watch from the battered wood he now holds in his hands.

***

I had turned my attention away and was studying the horizon: for coming weather, or a sign that he was going to be okay, or affirmation that what is true — tumors, chemo, the way death hovers all around — is less important than how we frame our circumstances.

David brought me the driftwood and said I should turn it around, look at it sideways, soften my gaze, and let the eyes appear. At first I could not see them. He did immediately, of course, as though to emphasize they belonged to him. I remember how pleased he was in that moment of recognizance.

He exclaimed with great imperative, “Look Mom! Look at the eyes!”

***

I miss him still.

I miss telling him stories: that courage outshines bravado. That love transcends impossible odds. Stories to manage frightening days and worry people to banish those same fears at night. But his driftwood remains.

In life it became bent as though weighted at the thin, leafy end. It is cracked and pocked and freckled with bone-white barnacles. Its eyes sit higher than either its snout or long tail, which support the head from both ends. The snout is scarred where twigs were torn away. The tail was broken clean from the tree it once graced. Before he died, David pirate-patched one of its eyes with a purple plastic ring-pop scavenged from the wrack. Later, I tucked blue jay feathers behind its eyes, to give it ears. It has a roguish, carefree look.

The driftwood hovers on the shelf, just over my shoulder, in company with the stories that belong to us all. Stories to bear hearts over rivers and sounds. Stories to cross the most daunting of seas. Stories like faith; one is that driftwoods have eyes.

Anne Visser Ney is a U.S. Coast Guard veteran and writer whose work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Creative Nonfiction, Ruminate, and The Crab Orchard Review. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Whiting Award. She has taught high and college science and currently teaches writing through Milspeak Foundation and Keep Saint Pete Lit. She holds an MS and BS in Biology from Georgia Southern University and an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Adoption Support Is Hard to Find

Posted on January 8, 2017 by CNF • Posted in Featured Content, General, Highlights, Slider Content • Tagged adoption, Jenna Hatfield, loss, motherhood, open adoption, parenting, support groups • Leave a comment

By Jenna Hatfield

I feel hopeful the next decade will teach us all valuable lessons about support, community, adoption, love, fear, trust, and truth.

Just over two years ago, I quit adoption.

I pulled down my award-winning adoption blog. I removed myself from all online forums and listservs. I unfollowed certain adoption people on Twitter and unfriended them on Facebook, keeping only my daughter’s mother and those who held rank in other categories in my life. I even cold turkey stopped attending an in-person adoption support group, which I had been helpful in creating and sustaining.

I walked away without looking back. If we’re speaking in adopto-speak, you could say I “closed” my adoption world.

And I’m better for it.

I so badly wanted to be understood in those early days after placing my daughter. I wanted to talk to people who knew the deep hole ripped within my being. I didn’t want to explain the loss to people who had no clue; I wanted the silent understanding that comes with having been there, done that.

I turned to online groups first, my inner introvert and the area in which I live not leaving me other options. I wasn’t welcome in any support groups for birth parents as I maintained an open adoption with my daughter’s family; their losses as birth parents in closed adoptions were more real than mine. At one point, a woman took pictures of my daughter and placed anti-adoption rhetoric on them.

But those with deep hurt, caused by adoption and its years of secrecy, its problems with ethics, and life-long loss associated with relinquishment weren’t the only ones who didn’t like my presence in their online groups. Adoptive parents didn’t like the way I shared the realities of my loss; should openness heal those wounds? They called me bitter and angry when I questioned unethical laws. Instead of offering solace when I grieved the loss of my daughter in my life, they lashed out and told me to quit complaining; I chose this, after all.

We talk so much about the mommy-wars, about breastfeeding versus bottle-feeding, but no one was talking about the parent-on-parent hate so prevalent in the adoption world. No one wanted to discuss how to fix the problem as nobody wanted to own up to their own participation in the hate. I needed support to make sense of the challenges I faced in open adoption, but I couldn’t find any. I knew many parents who gave up long before I did, their adoption relationships paying the price.

I shared less and less of my adoption-related life online, instead choosing to help local women start a face-to-face support group for birth parents. My hopes of being heard and, most importantly, respected soon shattered on the floor of a coffee house basement when another mother yelled at me and stormed out for sharing my truth.

My truth isn’t always to understand, of course. Sometimes I’m thrilled when my daughter’s family includes me in her life, when she texts me to ask me a question, or when the sons I am now parenting delight over a visit. Other times I struggle with the overwhelming reality of loss, most often when my younger, parented children express their own feelings of grieving her lack of daily presence in our lives. I present an odd mixture of truth to the adoption world, one that doesn’t fit a mold.

A few months later, I quit everything.

I don’t fancy myself a quitter, but a human being can only stand so much hatred, so much blame-game, so much time in fight or flight mode. At some point, it has to be acceptable for a person to say, “This is enough.” And so I said, “This is enough.”

I turned inward, sharing and seeking comfort in only those closest to me. I turned to those trusted few each time her birthday month rolled around; I struggle the most around her birthday. I found a new therapist who also helped me understand some of the bigger picture of my adoption journey. Together we focus on what I need at any given time rather than engaging in a combative back-and-forth as to who has it worse. I’ve also learned to share more with my husband; I thought by not sharing how I felt, I protected him. Instead, I isolated both of us from bigger healing.

In the past few months, I’ve been writing about adoption again, gently sticking my toe into the water. For the most part, the tentative return feels a bit like the first ocean swim after a winter spent indoors. I’m struggling a bit, but I remember how to do this. I’ve already felt some of the hatred in anonymous comments and not-so-anonymous questioning of my exit and return. But I’ve also felt the warmth of love from friends, family, and strangers alike.

The warmth of the larger community, even beyond just those specifically touched by adoption, is what drew me in over a decade ago. People wanting to connect with people, to meet others in their space, to say, “You are not alone;” these things will always matter the most to me.

As I find my footing again in what I share online about adoption and how it touches me and affects my family, I feel grateful for the lessons I learned before, the space I gave myself, and for the open arms of the online community. I feel hopeful the next decade will teach us all valuable lessons about support, community, adoption, love, fear, trust, and truth.

For now, I’ll wade in a little deeper, but maybe only to my ankles.

Jenna Hatfield lives in Ohio with her husband, two sons, and crazy dog. A writer, editor, marathon runner, and birth mother involved in a fully open adoption, she somehow also manages to blog at http://stopdropandblog.com.

Photo by Scott Boruchov

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A Mother’s Garden

Posted on August 2, 2016 by CNF • Posted in Blog, Brain, Child, Featured Blog Posts, General, Slider Content • Tagged faith, garden, mother-daughter, Sarah Bousquet, summer • Leave a comment

By Sarah Bousquet

My mother looks up from beneath the brim of her straw hat, her hands patting the dirt around a new tomato plant. “Remember, we come from pioneers,” she says. “It’s in our blood.”

I don’t feel much like a pioneer as I dig into the dirt with my 2-year-old’s plastic shovel. I can’t seem to find the trowel anywhere. I’ve been shoveling and hauling dirt in the wheelbarrow, smoothing the area around the garden so a fence can be staked.

“Imagine growing all your own food? Imagine if that was all your family had to live on for the year?” She’s splitting the basil and plotting it out between the marigolds.

I shake my head. “I think we’d be malnourished.”

For a minute I try and imagine it, growing all the food we’d need to survive, and the staggering amount of work it would require. I’ve barely managed to get one garden bed planted, and wouldn’t have, if not for my mother.

I’d planned ahead and thought I had it so together. Years ago, long before I became a mother, I’d successfully grown a garden, even pickling my own cucumbers and cabbage. Somehow I’d forgotten about all the work.

In the Spring my husband broke down the old garden beds, and together we cleared away the dirt. For a while the wood beams laid stacked under the crabapple tree and my daughter would balance her way across them, finding the spots that bounced. We bought packets of of seeds, from arugula to pumpkin to habaneros. I had good intentions to make starters. Then the rain came and didn’t let up for a month.

Eventually my husband built a new garden bed from cedar planks. We had three yards of soil dumped in the driveway, which took many wheelbarrow hauls to relocate. I bought a few tomato plants and my daughter plucked off all the leaves. A woodchuck made his appearance, and I declared we would need a fence around the garden. My husband sighed, his enthusiasm for the project waning. By then we were well into June and I wondered if it was too late to begin planting.

That weekend my mother surprised me with boxes of plants, tomatoes and fennel, peppers and herbs, straw mulch and bamboo stakes.

“I didn’t have a garden when you and your sister were small,” she said. “It was too much work.” This is how my mom dispenses wisdom, in warm rays of commiseration and perspective.

I am surprised I need all this help. After two and a half years of motherhood, I still need tending.

In the months before I gave birth, a friend shared that old wisdom: when a baby is born, a mother too is born. Though I’d imagined what that meant, I couldn’t know how it would feel. Until I pushed through to the other side like a new green shoot.

At the birth center, my midwife gave firm, direct orders. Someone would need to go to our home and change the bed linens, tidy up, prepare a meal. After 48 hours of labor, I couldn’t recall how we’d left things. Maybe there was still a bathtub full of water. My mother listened carefully to the midwife’s instructions and left to make preparations for our return home.

In the blur of days that followed, sleepless and fragile, lying in bed with my newborn, I was consumed by the tasks of holding, changing, and breastfeeding, staring rapt at her new pink form. My mother’s presence drifted in and out, like warm sun, like gentle rain, giving what was needed. She would bring one-pot meals, chicken and tomatoes or hamburger stews with potatoes and beans, nourishing and simple, meant to show me, soon you’ll be doing this again too.

While I rested, she would undress my jaundiced infant and stand by the window, holding her up to the pale winter light. When I breastfed, she would say, “You nurse her like she’s your second baby. You’re a natural.” I felt a new version of myself, my mother-self, taking root, growing sturdy and determined.

Out in the garden, I water the plants while my daughter runs through the spray sending a misty rainbow into the air. She wanders with her shovel, digging in the dirt, her wet dress becoming caked with mud. As I round the raised bed with the hose, I notice the first green pepper hiding in plain sight, ready for picking.

I hold the stalk while my daughter plucks the pepper, biting into it like an apple, then offering me a bite. It’s mild and crisp, warm from sunshine, an altogether different taste from a store-bought pepper. We even eat the small stem and soft, white seeds. A butterfly hovers over a marigold and flutters away. Eggplant leaves sway.

That evening I call my mother to report our first tiny harvest. The garden is thriving with the exception of one stunted tomato plant. The others have grown taller than me, yellow flowers transforming to fruit.

“Remember, it’s an experiment,” she says. “You can see what does well and then decide what to add next year.” My mother’s words seem to be about something larger, and always reminding, in our perpetual state of becoming, if conditions are favorable and the weather kind, good things are likely to grow.

Sarah Bousquet is Brain Child’s 2016 New Voice of the Year. She lives in coastal Connecticut with her husband, daughter and two cats. She is currently at work on a memoir. She blogs daily truths at https://onebluesail.com. Follow her on Twitter @sarah_bousquet.

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Opinion: Our Right to Buy Cookies

Posted on July 28, 2016 by CNF • Posted in Blog, Brain, Child, Featured Blog Posts, General, Slider Content • Tagged African American, chocolate chip cookies, Jeanine DeHoney, policy, welfare • Leave a comment

By Jeanine DeHoney

As a mother who once received food stamps for a short period of time, I shopped for healthy food items for my family but still treated my children to chocolate chip cookies.

Chocolate chip cookies. When my children were little I hate to admit it was my saving grace. For those harrowing days when they just felt like falling out in the middle of a store, to get them to put their other shoe on so we wouldn’t be late for a doctor’s appointment, and just doggone it because I wanted to see their smile and chocolate chip cookies had that effect on them. Maybe it would help if I told you they brushed their teeth at least four times a day. But really that’s not my point.

I was sitting at my computer desk one evening, finishing a story I was working on and listening to the news when the newscaster mentioned that a bill was being introduced by Republican State Representative Rick Brattin, that would prohibit a recipient of SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) from using the funds for “Cookies, chips, energy drinks, soft drinks, seafood or steak.”

Digging a bit deeper on the internet, I read that Representative Brattin stated in The Daily Signal; a multimedia news organization that covers policy and political news, as well as commentary and analysis; “that his intention was to make sure that those in need have access to healthy food in a fiscally responsible way. He stated that the United States is “the most obese nation on the planet,” and his bill encourages a return to “healthy basics, just like the first lady’s healthy school lunch initiative, for which she was heralded.”

When my children were young and my husband was in the Army, we struggled financially on his income. We often relied on the care packages of my parents and in-laws to get us through the end of the month and when I couldn’t find a job, eventually we applied for food stamps, which neither myself or my husband wanted to do.

Growing up, I remember my father getting laid off one year. The odd jobs he got covered our rent but not much more and my mother who refused to get on public assistance would take my sister and I to a food pantry to get a block of cheese that would fix a months’ worth of grilled cheese sandwiches and powdered milk for our morning cereal. Although I’d beg my mother to take a different route so the neighborhood children wouldn’t see me holding that bag most knew where it came from, she’d refuse and tell me to walk with my head up.

When I was alone though, walking to the bus stop for school or playing in the park, I’d be teased mercilessly about eating, “Welfare cheese.” I vowed I’d never put my children through that if I had a choice.

When my husband and I applied for food stamps I had to get rid of that painful memory of those childhood jokes by children who didn’t know any better. I also had to remove that veil of shame I felt from receiving them.

I was not surprised but was angered over how judgmental not just of me but of my children people were when they saw me using food stamps. I overheard nasty comments from supermarket customers standing behind me at the checkout register. Some people even proclaimed themselves overseer of my grocery cart, seeing whether there were things in it that were on the “You don’t have a right to buy that on government assistance list,” even if it was a package of chocolate chip cookies.

Receiving food stamps was short lived for my husband and I but for many mothers and families whose circumstances are even more dire than ours; who may be living in a shelter after leaving an abusive relationship, who are trying to get back on their feet after losing a job, a spouse, etc., I can’t help but breathe dragon fire when I hear that someone thinks the majority of mothers, who most likely nurtured their babies with healthy foods from the moment of conception, needed to be monitored by the food police just because they received supplemental nutrition assistance. It makes me livid thinking that although there are definite health disparities among different ethnic and economic groups that there is a sanction of people who feel we’d choose junk food to sustain our children’s diet.

And for those who’d make that choice, isn’t education and nutrition initiatives worthier than a House Bill telling them what they don’t have the right to purchase? Do they recognize that even minorities want to buy organically but often it’s like searching for a needle in a haystack when it comes to finding organic products in our neighborhoods? Did they google to see that the nearest Farmer’s Market where we can buy a bounty of colorful and nutritious garden-fresh vegetables and fruits requires us to do commuter backflips to get to and the thought of doing it with a busy bee toddler is just overwhelming? Do they know that we wish we had a natural food co-op we could frequent so that our children could eat foods organically grown, produced with minimal processing and little to no preservatives or additives and some super mothers are starting a grass roots food co-op of their own?

Social welfare programs have always been a hot point in politics. The debate, both political and private, will continue far beyond this political season. As a mother who has been on food stamps, I will always combat the public shaming of other mothers who are walking in my shoes.

Let’s shame poverty and the fact that their children have to go to bed hungry, not them. They have the right to buy steak, seafood, even an energy drink if they choose to. And they definitely have the right as a mother to buy their child chocolate chip cookies like I did, even the ones that aren’t organic and gluten free.

Jeanine DeHoney has been published in Chicken Soup for the African American Woman’s Soul, Literary Mama, Mutha Magazine, The Mom Egg, Wow: Woman on Writing- The Muffin’s Friday Speak-out, Scary Mommy.com and Parent co., and in several other blogs, anthologies and magazines.

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Womanhood

Posted on May 6, 2016 by CNF • Posted in Articles Page, From The Archives, General • Tagged adoption, birth mother, breast cancer, family, loss, motherhood, mothers, Stephanie Andersen, womanhood • Leave a comment

By Stephanie Andersen

“It’s still snowing out there,” she said.

Mom and I were tucked under her blue comforter on her bed late one afternoon, staring out the window into the backyard. The snow had settled on the pine branches, and the windows shook a little in the November wind. I pushed my head into the space between her arm and breast, tracing the hardness of the catheter buried under her skin. She was holding a tiny portrait of a young Victorian woman with big brown eyes, soft curly hair, and pursed lips.

“This is how I imagine you’ll look when you grow up,” she told me.

I stared at the face of the woman and tried to imagine myself as her. She seemed gentle, her hands folded neatly in her lap, her eyes shy and hopeful, her breasts round and high. I was only nine years old, and it was the first time in my life I ever seriously considered the possibility of becoming something other than the child I was.

Mom had found the lump in her breast five years earlier, and the doctors had told her she had only three months to live. She told the doctors, “Go to hell,” then started her treatment. She’d changed her diet, exercised, meditated, repeated positive affirmations, lost her hair, burnt her skin with radiation, and begged God to save her life. She had a little girl to take care of.

She had lived six years longer than the doctors expected, but when they told her they would have to remove her breast, my mother refused. She told my father that she was sure losing a breast would take something from her that she wasn’t prepared to lose.

I had not yet developed breasts. All I knew of womanhood was the shape of my mother’s body, the way she fit around me in her bed, the way she smelled of St. Ives lotion, of baby powder, and of ginger. I had no interest in attaining any of this for myself. I loved the simplicity of my own body, my ability to run barefoot and shirtless in my own backyard. I was thankful that I did not bleed from my private parts and have to leave diapers drenched with blood in the bathroom garbage. My father and I were free, untangled by the chains of what kept my mother from throwing off her shirt and jumping into the lake at the park with us.

I didn’t want to be a woman. I didn’t want my mother’s body. Strength was freedom, and a woman’s body was weak and stifling.

One morning, I woke up with a sharp pain in my chest. I ran to my mother.

“I have a bump on my chest,” I told her. “And it hurts.”

She smiled. “You’re getting your breasts,” she said, rubbing her fingers gently over the tiny bump. “You’re becoming a woman.”

I backed away from her. “It’s breast cancer, isn’t it?” I asked. “It must be.”

For several weeks, my mother argued with me, explaining that I was not dying, just growing up. But I could not be convinced until she took me to a doctor for a thorough examination.

“I don’t want breasts,” I told my mother. “My life is over.”

“No, Stephanie. Your life is just beginning. You’re going to be a woman. And that is a magical, wonderful thing. You’ll see.”

“Breasts stink,” I told my mother after school a week later. “And so does womanhood.” Then I stomped into my bedroom and slammed the door.

Two months before my twelfth birthday, I stood over her, studying her lifeless body. She lay stiffly on a hospital bed in our den. I raised her cold hand and tried to memorize how her fingers felt between mine. Above her on the wall hung a picture of us, me as an infant in her lap, my two sisters flanking us, Mom’s hands wrapped tightly around my waist. It was only then that I realized why my mother stared so intently at the picture of that Victorian woman. It was the only image of me as a woman that she would ever see. And as this realization crept through my thoughts, I suddenly felt a new desire that I had never known before. I wanted to find out what it was about a woman’s body that my mother sacrificed her life for. I wanted to understand what I had been missing.

* * *

I was finishing my junior year of high school when I made that happen.

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror one afternoon, watching my boyfriend’s white ejaculate drip from my abdomen. I was supposed to be studying for the history final. My boyfriend was still in my bedroom. As I studied how the sperm appeared against my tan, summer skin, I imagined what it looked like under a microscope. It wasn’t that I didn’t know it was wrong: I was too young, and I was certainly not considering the other party involved. But I wondered if I were capable of growing and swelling like other girls I had seen at school.

In the late nineties, in upstate New York, teenage pregnancy was no longer a surprise. My hometown, a small suburb just outside of Binghamton, was home to at least five pregnant adolescents in 1997, and they were not the first of their kind. These girls came late to school, flaunting growing bellies and exciting plans for their very own apartments. Two-bedroom, two-bath. They let us all touch their stretching skin. They said things like, “Only two more months,” “We think it’s a boy,” and “I don’t have to take gym anymore.” They were separate from the rest of us, more grown up, more in touch with the future, more interesting, and far more sexual. I watched them as they waddled down our high school hallways with heavy book bags, heavy bodies, and severe looks of determination. I found myself eager to know what it felt like to be watched and touched, to be mysterious, and to have such unavoidable purpose. These girls were at once scorned and cherished. They were our future and our failure. They were not ready but going ahead with it. They were dismal and exciting statistics. They were pregnant.

The longer I stood in front of the mirror, the more honest it all seemed. I was built for it. I needed it. I told myself that in the end nothing I did would matter to anyone else. It was my body, my choice, my wish.

* * *

Ten years and six hundred miles later, I hold a cell phone to my ear and listen to a fourth-grader tell her sixth knock-knock joke in three minutes.

“Knock, knock,” she says.

“Who’s there?” I ask.

She giggles. “Egg.”

“Egg who?” I say.

“Egg knock’s my favorite drink, too.” Then she laughs uncontrollably, squealing and hiccupping into the phone.

It’s difficult to fake a laugh. But I giggle nervously, tell her it was “a good one,” knowing that she had made it up on her own and is proud.

“What did the picture say to the wall?” she says, not ready to quit yet.

I pause for a moment as if to think about it. Then I admit, “I don’t know.”

“I’ve got you covered.” She squeals again with delight, hiccups twice, sighs, and continues laughing.

Elianna lives in upstate New York, just outside my hometown. She hiccups if she laughs too hard. She likes to read; she loves to draw. She takes gymnastics but accidentally kicked her instructor last week at practice. She’s tall for her age, almost five feet now, and embarrassed by it. She always has a good report card and likes to impress her teachers. She enjoys jumping on the trampoline in her backyard, swimming at the YMCA, shopping for clothes at The Limited and Old Navy, and listening to music, mostly Hilary Duff; she loves going to yard sales and has been begging her parents to let her start taking piano lessons.

When she heard there were people in the world without hair, she grew hers out, cut it off, and donated it. Her favorite color is blue. She watches Survivor every Thursday night at eight o’clock. She loves having her nails done, being an older sister, and staying up past her bedtime. She doesn’t like bras or mean people. When she grows up, she wants to be an artist.

This is the first time we have ever spoken directly to one another on the phone, but she has a picture of me in her bedroom she stares at, brings to school for show-and-tell, and sleeps with. She has never met me, but Elianna, the girl on the other end of the phone, is my daughter.

What I want to say to her: None of this is your fault. It was never you. I want to smell you, your head, your hands, your toes. I want to know what your hair feels like between my fingers. I want to see the way your thighs turn into your calves and your calves into your ankles. I want to find out, for myself, if your big toe is shorter than your second toe. I want to know the direction in which your arm hair grows.

I dream about you, wake up in the middle of the night worried that you are sick, sad, angry, or afraid. I want to crawl in bed next to you, wrap myself around you, finally feeling the shape our bodies make together. I want to feed you, cook the food myself, make you strong and healthy. I want to help you learn how to read, write, paint. I want to read you my favorite stories, the ones my mother read me. I want to walk through a mall with you, help you try on clothes, tell you how beautiful you look in blue.

I want to know the people you know. I want the pain in my breasts and abdomen to go away when I hear your voice and see your picture. Forgive me. Let me kiss your face, your arms, your ears, your fingers. Your jokes, as much as I love you, are really not that funny.

What comes out: “Very clever, Eli. Very clever.”

Before we hang up, she tells me good-night and that she loves me.

I tell her, “Sweet dreams.”

I’m back in my apartment in North Carolina, under this blue comforter. I cannot complain about much here. I have just earned a master’s degree. I work at a community college, teaching freshman English. I rent a nice little apartment outside the city on the third floor of a brand new building, behind an almost-finished Wal-Mart. I have a large friendly group whom I am lucky to call my friends. There’s no boyfriend, but this doesn’t bother me. I run through the routine, wake up every morning early, walk my dog.

Life is normal enough. I am free and strong, a product of my father’s firm encouragement to be an independent woman. “Women are no different than men,” he always said. “Women can do everything a man can do. Don’t ever sell yourself short.”

The only signs of weakness are the colorful stretch marks on my breasts, the grip I still have on the phone long after she’s hung up, and the picture of my daughter hung on the wall over my bed.

* * *

A baby. I would make it work. “No,” my father said. “It will ruin your life.”

“I can do it,” I begged.

“Not in my house.” He ran his fingers through his beard and flipped through his mail. “I won’t be a part of it. If you have this child, you will never know what it means to be independent, to be successful, to accomplish all that you’re capable of. If you choose this path, you choose a life I can’t support. Find another place to live.”

No problem. I would find a place to live. A charity organization. A family who would give me a home, tell me it was okay to be a mother.

At first, inventing myself as a teenaged mother-to-be was exciting. I collected baby clothes, pacifiers, bottles, and bonnets. My charity family gave me a tiny room in their basement. At night, as I lay alone in the dark staring up through the windows into the flower bed outside, I had no doubt that I was becoming who I was meant to become.

As my breasts and abdomen grew, I became thrilled with the changes, finally feeling like I was being given the opportunity to be a real woman. School no longer seemed important. Homework seemed petty. College seemed like a fantasy. In the waking hours of the morning, I would get up out of bed, my bladder full again, tip-toe up the stairs, and stare in the mirror. In my reflection, I searched for a change in my face, something familiar, any sign of the mother I planned to become. But my face never seemed to change. My growing breasts and the bulge in my abdomen grew on their own, separate from my eyes. I’d crawl back into bed and run my fingers over my stomach, feeling my daughter kick my hands through my skin, and ask her to have patience with me.

I wanted to keep that baby just as naturally and vehemently as I wanted my mother to live. And I tried for seven long months to find a way to do it. But 1997 was a difficult year. Clinton reformed welfare, making it impossible for anyone under the age of eighteen to receive aid, and I couldn’t find a way to keep a stable job, finish high school, and care for a baby all at once without at least a little help from the father, who was unwilling to admit to his parents that he even had a girlfriend.

At seven months pregnant, it became clear to me that there was no hope. I couldn’t do it. It had all been a fantasy I couldn’t live up to. I was no mother. In fact, I was little more than an irresponsible teenager with a penchant for the dramatic. I had no job and no future.

Worse, I found myself desperate for reprieve. I wanted out of the martyrdom. I didn’t want to wake up in the middle of the night for anyone, much less for a child I had nothing to offer.

And one night, as I collapsed in the corner of my borrowed basement room, I knew in the most horrible sincerity that I was unwilling to give up my freedom and security for my womanhood. I didn’t want it badly enough. And when the realization came, I wanted to empty myself of my miracle as quickly as possible, renewing myself to the state of freedom, loneliness, and asexuality to which I’d become accustomed.

I would do what my father had told me and do everything my mother hadn’t. I would graduate high school. I would go to college, pay my own bills, travel, and live a long, successful life.

“I’m so proud of you,” Dad said, his eyes red with weepy gratitude.

“This was a hard decision to make but a very strong one.” I was still living in my basement room, but when the pregnancy was over, Dad promised, when life was back to normal, he said, I could return home.

“I want to be strong,” I told him. “And successful.”

“I know you will be,” he said. And I believed him.

* * *

Angel and her husband, Matt, had been trying to have a baby for eleven years. Every month, for all of those years, she had hoped she was pregnant, picked out a name, constructed themes for the nursery, and imagined the baby’s face. And every month, when the blood came, another imaginary child died. She had long since lost count of all the faces that might have been.

A friend of hers mentioned a pregnant teenager with whom her daughter went to school. She tried not to get her hopes up. It took me a while to work up the courage to dial her phone number.

“I can’t do this,” I told Angel over the phone. “I’ve decided to go to college. I just can’t do this alone.” I listened to her cry, in what I would later find out was relief, for several moments. Part of me hoped she would tell me she would adopt both of us, the baby and me. I wanted to tell her how desperately I wanted to keep my baby, but I just needed her to help me. I wanted to explain what it was like to feel a human being growing inside me for so many months, to learn what sounds made her sleep, to learn exactly the way I needed to walk in order to lull her. I wanted her to know that what I was saying was dangerous for me.

“Can I meet you somewhere?” she finally asked.

“Okay.”

We chose McDonald’s on Main Street.

Angel became a mother there, when I nodded my head across the table from her, licking the ice cream cone she and her husband bought for me. I said they could have my baby.

It would be Angel who held Elianna minutes after she was born. It was Angel who held her when she first cried and learned the motions of her body and the difference between hungry and wet. It was this other woman—whom I met by accident when I doubted my ability to be faithful to my own instincts—who watched my child grow from a seven-pound, eight-ounce infant into this nine-year-old girl who tells knock-knock jokes and giggles until she hiccups. It was never me.

Because of this, I cannot complain now if Angel, this other mother, chooses to explain the adoption in such simple terms as, “You grew in Stephanie’s belly but in Mommy’s heart.” I can’t blame this woman for waiting so long to let my daughter communicate with me. I can’t tell my daughter that her jokes are not funny or that it is the hope of one day meeting her that keeps me waking up in the morning and trying to be successful, impressive, and strong.

Friends ask, “How do you talk to your daughter on the phone so casually?”

And I respond. “How do I not?”

Since they brought my daughter to their home for the first time, this couple has repeated my name in her ear like a mantra, wanting to “do the right thing.” They want for her to be aware of her heritage and proud to be adopted. My daughter’s only questions have been whether or not I love her and why I gave her away. “Of course she loves you,” her parents tell her. “Stephanie was just so young.” But Eli repeats the same questions, seemingly waiting for a truth she’s sure she has not yet heard.

When her parents first told her she could speak with me, she decided it wasn’t time. Instead, she listened over the speakerphone while her mother spoke to me. When she did this, I tried to adjust my voice and attempted to comfort her with my words, even if I was only telling Angel about the weather in North Carolina. Sometimes I would hear her giggle in the background or whisper something to her mother. But she wasn’t going to talk directly to me, not for six more months.

“Eli’s doing really well in school,” Angel would say.

“Oh, wow,” I responded, trying to express a pride recognizable in my voice. “That is so wonderful.”

I heard a tiny giggle in the background.

“Stephanie’s proud of me,” she told her mother later.

“Yes,” Angel said. “She’d be proud of you no matter what you did.”

Angel always calls and tells me the whole conversation later, all the questions Eli asks about me. She reports that my daughter, her daughter, is making me a glazed plate for Christmas with my name and my dog’s name printed across the front in child’s handwriting and swirls of purple and blue along the edges.

It was my sister’s idea to create a website for Elianna. It may have been illegal for a nine-year-old to have her own MySpace profile, but it wasn’t illegal for a birth family to create a profile titled “We Love Elianna.” With a few keystrokes, my sister made a profile that displayed several pictures of all of us, even my mother. There were pictures of me as a baby, of my sister and me carving a pumpkin when we were children, of my father, of Elianna on her first day of fourth grade, of Elianna when she was a baby, of Elianna when she was still inside me. I e-mailed Angel the password, and we waited.

Three months later, I received a message from Elianna over MySpace. DEAR STEPHANIE, I AM JUST STARTING TO TYPING. WRITE ME BACK PLEASE! I WOULD LIKE TO MEET YOU VERY MUCH.WELL I HAVE TO GO. BY LOVE. ELIANNA

“At Olive Garden,” Angel told me later. Apparently Eli imagined a girls’ lunch with the three of us at the same restaurant where I had celebrated her first birthday, one candle stuck in a scoop of ice cream, my father and I wondering how to celebrate without the birthday girl.

“Does she mean it?” I asked Angel.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess we’ll see.”

“Why now?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Angel said. “I asked her, and she said she wanted to know what your favorite color was. And she really wants to meet Daisy.”

Daisy is my Jack Russell terrier. Eli refers to her as the “birth dog.” I paused. “Will she ask me why I did it? Why I gave her…”

“I don’t think so.”

“What will I say to her?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Tell her what your favorite color is.”

“When?” I asked.

“Are you coming home for the holidays?”

I haven’t been home for Christmas in three years. In fact, I rarely go back to New York for any reason. I opt for distraction—grad school, affairs with married men, short-term love affairs with strangers, menial social melodrama, heavy drinking, various jobs I latch onto and pour myself into, my writing. Now I dial my sister’s number and tell her I’ll be home in a month for the holiday.

She says, “Okay,” but I can tell she doesn’t believe me.

“Elianna said she wants to meet me,” I say.

She’s silent for a minute.

I think about the last time I went home. I can’t remember whose idea it was to spy on my daughter. We had never driven by Elianna’s house before. We hadn’t expected her to be climbing out of a minivan in her driveway, her face so much like mine, with moving legs, with a real mouth, a living, breathing little girl. I slammed on my brakes and fumbled for my sunglasses. My sister slid down in her seat, thinking, like me, that Eli would look up and somehow recognize our car, maybe from the North Carolina plates. We pulled our car behind the tree across the street and watched her for a minute while she waited for her mother to unload the van. I held my sister’s hand, surprised at how much we were shaking.

“That’s your baby,” my sister said, shaking her head. “That’s her.”

I knew she was waiting for me to do something remarkable, to become the lioness confronted with her stolen cub. She stared at me, watching the way my face trembled. Maybe she hoped these long years had been enough to awaken the mother inside me. But after Eli disappeared into her house, I shifted the car into reverse and drove away up the hill.

My sister has often tried to stir my maternal instincts. There have been days I cry in her arms and tell her how much I regret it all. And she’ll call an attorney, tell me to get creative, get angry, claim duress, anything. Just get my daughter back. But I’ve never tried. And I know I never will.

“Are you ready for that?” she asks now.

“I don’t know,” I say.

* * *

“You’re not ready for this,” my boyfriend, Elianna’s father, told me ten years ago, the night before I would promise my child to another couple. “You’re not ready to be a mother.” And then I was hitting him. I punched him for all the decisions in the world I felt I had no control over. I clawed at his chest for my dead mother and the baby I couldn’t find the will to keep. I screamed because I couldn’t remember my mother’s face, I would never see my daughter’s, and I couldn’t find my own. He let me go on like that for several minutes as the snow fell against the windshield and melted into water.

There wasn’t anybody who wanted to help me be a mother. But there was a world of people who wanted to help me go to college. And slowly, this became my answer. I constructed a new truth out of what I decided the rest of the world expected of me. I learned that most everyone would respond delightfully to my change of heart. Teachers gave me extra time on my assignments; my father bragged about me in church; my boyfriend thanked me with wet eyes, told me he loved me, and that he would marry me one day.

Over and over, for years to come, all I had to say was that I gave a daughter up for adoption, and people would do everything but bow at my feet, chanting the popular “what a selfless, brave decision to make.” This gave me identity. I was the teenager who gave her daughter up for adoption. But the only image I had of the life I was choosing was the word my father repeated to me over and over throughout my childhood: college. And now that I had no choice, it sounded so good.

I waited, but no matter how many times I recited my mantra—”I’m going to college. I can’t be a mother”—my hand still found its way to her and I still spoke to her. I knew then that my instincts to care for the baby would not disappear when she did.

* * *

It’s been three days since Eli wrote to tell me she wants to meet. I tell myself that nothing—no lunch at Olive Garden, no knock-knock jokes—will ever make me her mother.

In the small box in the corner of my bedroom, I keep two ultrasound photos secretly tucked away, the two I once hid from myself just in case one day I needed to remind myself the pregnancy actually happened, that Eli was not a dream. I take them out occasionally and stare at them. I keep her second-grade picture sitting on the antique end table my mother left me in her will.

A year ago, Eli sent me a box for my birthday, a collection of her things she thought I needed to have. Inside, there are leopard print pillows, blue sandals, necklaces, pictures she drew in school, photographs of her swimming, lotions, Beanie Babies, and a letter that she wrote, explaining the little details of her life. I keep the box in another corner, sit next to it some- times. I smell the little pillows, hold the earrings in my hands, study the letter. Once I took out the sandals and tried them on. They fit perfectly.

Eli’s need to show me who she is doesn’t surprise me. These years with- out my mother and daughter have brought me no happy endings or clear answers, but I have realized that my inability to become the Victorian woman in the portrait is not tragic. My mother did not show me that picture to assign me an identity to live up to. That picture was for her. She would never know how my face would evolve as I grew older. This woman I have become, nothing like that portrait, with all of my regrets, with my two diplomas hung on my wall, with an absent daughter, is a woman my mother will never know.

My daughter and are I left to struggle through this strange distance from each other, memorizing pictures of each other, unable to put the pictures away. When asked whether or not I regret my decision to give my daughter up for adoption, I answer honestly. Yes. Going to college has never made up for the nagging regret. I can still smell the milk that leaked from my breasts for a week after she was born. The smell of those leopard pillows is still more comforting than any freedom or success I have earned. But what I’m left with is not a gift I take for granted. I have my daughter’s face next to me as I sleep. It changes in every new photo, her eyes like my mother’s, like mine, but with their own nuances, unexpected, miraculous.

* * *

Elianna was born on March 7, 1997, at seven o’clock. She was seven pounds, eight ounces. Lucky seven baby. As I pushed her out, I begged the doctor to not let anyone take her from me, but my words were dismissed as nothing more than the emotional roller coaster of a seventeen-year-old girl in labor. My father stood over me and covered my eyes as she slipped from between my legs. I heard her gurgle for a second, and then she was gone.

I saw her only once before I left the hospital for good. Angel’s husband passed her off to Angel who brought her into the hall for me.

“Do you want to hold her?” she asked.

I looked down at the baby. I waited for something in my mind to click. I waited for whatever it was inside me that might have become a mother to react, but nothing happened as I clung to the IV stand I had wheeled along with me. It was over.

“No,” I whispered.

“Is there anything you want to say to her?” Angel asked.

I thought about it for a second. But only one thing came to mind.

“Yeah,” I said, “I guess there is.” I reached into the blanket and found Eli’s hand. She wrapped her finger around one of mine as I cleared my throat. “Go to college,” I said. Then I pulled my finger from her grip, turned around, and walked away.

* * *

I won’t meet my daughter this Christmas. She’ll change her mind, lose the courage, send her mother in her place. I’ll have lunch with her mother alone. I’ll offer Angel a picture of Daisy and me along with a wrapped gift to give to Elianna. It will be a necklace that splits into two halves. Angel will sit across the table from me, run her fingers over my hand, and tell me Eli has my fingers.

“Are you okay?” I’ll ask her, watching the way her eyes well up at the sight of me. I understand that I am a reminder that Eli will never have her eyes, her fingers, or her lips. She will never be able to know what it felt like to carry her daughter to term in her own uterus. And she will watch me remove the necklace from the box myself. I will keep one half, and Eli will keep the other. I’ll never take off my half. I’ll run my fingers over the charm while I am at work, driving in the car, grocery shopping, or staring out my apartment window into the Wal-Mart parking lot.

“I’m dealing with it,” she’ll say. She will return home to my daughter, maybe brush the hair off her forehead, feed her dinner, and tell her what it was like to have lunch with Stephanie, the birth mother.

Back in North Carolina, I will continue to occasionally stand in front of the mirror naked, staring at the scars on my breasts and at the ever changing slope of my abdomen (which has never shrunk back to its original size). It reminds me that there’s a part of me that’s missing.

One night, to my surprise, my nine-year-old daughter will call with an unusual question. “Do you have big boobs?” she’ll ask.

“Elianna’s getting her breasts,” Angel will say in the background. “And she’s not happy. She has to wear a bra.”

I’ll laugh and tell Eli that mine aren’t so big, that there’s nothing to worry about.

“Okay,” she’ll say, sighing.

“I know how you feel,” I’ll tell her, picturing her standing there, staring hopelessly down at her swelling chest. “I didn’t want to get boobs, either.”

And after a small silence, she’ll clear her throat. “Well,” she’ll say. “Your boobs look big in your picture.”

We’ll laugh, and she’ll hiccup, both of us remaining somewhat damaged and slightly delighted.

“I don’t think she’ll ever take this necklace off,” Angel giggles in the background.

And I’ll be thankful, with the phone held tight to my ear, for my own breasts, for the shape of my body, and even for this regret.

Author’s Note: Birthmotherhood has followed me like a grinning ghost into an existence I thought would be empty of my daughter. I am a mother who is both without her daughter and full of her. I have both abandoned her and taken her with me. This essay was a grueling process of discovery and redemption.

Stephanie Andersen teaches college writing in Reading, Pennsylvania.

Brain, Child (Winter 2008)

Our Birthday Blog Series

Posted on February 26, 2016 by CNF • Posted in General • Tagged birthdays, candy schulman, celebrations, Kelly Burch, motherhood, Rudri Patel, Stacey Gill, Stephanie Sprenger, Susan Currie • Leave a comment

Happy Birthday Baby

By Candy Schulman

This year felt empty, her absence just another reminder that she was no longer our baby, hadn’t been for a long time.

Celebrating Their Birthday

By Kelly Burch

My father was my sadness, and my daughter was my light.

The Cakes That Bind Us

By Susan Currie

I remember the first birthday I put on for my step-daughter. It started with a cake.

Do You Invite The Whole Class To Your Kids’ Birthday Parties?

By Rudri Patel and Stacey Gill

Since the age of four, I’ve invited all of her classmates to her birthday parties, instead of handpicking just a few, because I am sensitive to the need for young girls and boys to feel included.

Your party, your terms. No one has the right to dictate whom you can or can’t invite to your own kid’s birthday party.

The First Disappointment

By Stephanie Sprenger

I’m not sure if she actually said it, or if it was just what I was thinking: It was the worst birthday party ever.

Join the Great Debate

Posted on February 23, 2016 by CNF • Posted in General • Tagged #braindebate, debate, special occassions, the great debate, twitter party • Leave a comment

Children’s birthday parties aren’t always easy to plan, especially the guest list. Do you invite the whole class or not?

Please join us on Thursday, February 24, 2016 at 1:00 EST on Twitter to discuss the issue. Please remember to use the hashtag #braindebate. We look forward to hearing your views.

One attendee with win our Great Debate Bundle – Five print issues of Brain, Child with 5 debates.

Do We Want To Raise “Tough Guys”?

Posted on February 15, 2016 by CNF • Posted in Blog, Featured Blog Posts, General • Tagged Aileen Jones-Monahan, children and childhood, family, gay and lesbian families, LGBT, motherhood, parenting • Leave a comment

By Aileen Jones-Monahan

I wondered if part of my fear of the “tough guy” son came from a fear of this very disapproval—that a “tough guy” son, when he got old enough to really think it over, would be mad about having two moms.

The first time my son put on a tutu, he was almost four. We stopped in at a coffee shop, and while I lingered at the counter to rifle through the sugar packets, Matthew wandered over to check out the bin of gnawed-up kid’s books. The tutu was in a heap next to two sparkly pink shoes, as if shucked in a hurry. Matthew’s eyes lit up. He’d seen little girls in tutus zipping around the playground, but hadn’t mustered the nerve to ask for a turn. Now he hastened to pull the tutu up over his jeans, looking down at himself in delight.

A part of me instantly relaxed. And I realize it was because I don’t find a child in a tutu the tiniest bit alarming. What I find alarming, is a child jabbing a plastic sword into another kid’s fleshy belly, shouting “Die! Die! Die!” Or a teenager lost in the folds of a dingy sweatshirt, only the tip of his oily nose visible when he slumps past you on his way to his den in the basement. Maybe tough guys in general.

But when my partner and I were trying to get pregnant, I didn’t think about a full grown man—a potential “tough guy”—living in my house. I thought about, I don’t know, pajama bottoms with little ducks on them.

But now the kid is real. If he draws a picture of half a bloody antelope—because the other part has already been eaten—we hang it up. If he grows up to play that game at the kitchen table where you jab a switchblade between your fingers super-fast, then I’ll have marks in my table. And maybe part of a finger. The point is, we’re stuck with him. And I hope he turns out to be gentle.

Sometimes I wonder—quietly, to myself—if not having a father in the house is the magic needed to avoid “the tough guy.” Maybe, because we spend so much time building fairy houses in the woods behind our house, it will never occur to my child to stomp up the stairs, yell at me to mind my own business, and kick his little brother. It’s not going to be from me that he gets the idea to plot the purchase of a motorcycle.

But then I think of my brother, and the hole he punched through his bedroom wall, and how he certainly didn’t “get” this from my father, who wasn’t even there, and I realize I’m not on the right track.

I sit down by the bookshelf, take a sip of my coffee, and settle my foot on my knee. “Does the tutu make you magic?” I ask, leaning forward, my face alight with wonder.

“Nope,” Matthew says. “It just makes me fancy.” He flounces up the sides and grins.

I allow myself, for a moment, to fantasize that he will always be this way. A little boy sitting on the carpet brushing the mane of his plastic horse, humming to himself, sounded nice. If no one ever told him ponies were supposed to be dinosaur meat, maybe he’d never figure it out.

But what was I trying to do here? Raise a wimp? At a birthday party earlier in the summer, Matthew had been quietly swinging on a tire swing when three boys his age came up and started spinning him. It didn’t seem mean-spirited, exactly, but when he started calling “Mommy! Mommy! Help me!” like a child being lifted off from the ground in the talons of a dragon, the boys tightened their circle—a little hungrily, I thought—and it occurred to me that maybe this was why parents tried to toughen their kids up. What would have happened next if I hadn’t been there to pull him off?

In my cousin’s family, she is the one who meets her son’s eyes in the rearview mirror and snaps “Stop crying,” and it is her husband who catches her sleeve and says, “Can you be more gentle?” It is good for me to remember the two of them. Because I think it is this very gender-expectation switcheroo that gives me the answer I’m looking for. Or, makes me understand that I’ve been asking the wrong question. I want to be thoughtful about how much aggressive behavior I expose my son to, not how much maleness.

Because of course there is my friend Debbie, who is married to a woman and cheers her son on when he torments snakes in the yard. We don’t play at their house anymore.

I set my empty coffee cup on the floor by my chair and watch Matthew plop down on a bean bag chair, the tutu bunched up around his tiny waist. “Do you want to make those felt finger puppets when we get home?” I ask. He sits up to grab one of the sparkly shoes and struggles to fit his foot under the strap. “Yeah.”

We recently found a book in the library with color illustrations of outfits worn by Victorian women, and we’d agreed it would be cool to glue together little puppets, so we could make them do things.

When we got home, Matthew ran upstairs to get the library book, and I pulled the art bin down onto the rug so we could get to work.

“This lady is going to sit and write some poetry later,” Matthew explained, rubbing his glue stick along the hem of the skirt he’d made, so he could press on a little strip of lace.

“Neat!” I exclaimed, feeling somewhat smug. If snake torture was in our future, it wasn’t here yet.

But as I watched him carefully trim the yarn glued to the puppet’s head, holding her at arm’s length to see that her hair was even on both sides, I caught my breath—because I suddenly realized I was enjoying this for an altogether different reason, and I instantly felt ashamed of myself. If Matthew kept this up: kept wearing tutus and making his dolls exclaim “These flowers smell wonderful!” then he would be…a bit of a gender variant. Just like dear old Mommy, who never giggled coyly when the boys talked about bikinis or minded holding frogs. We’d be up to the same tricks, and he could never turn to me as a teenager and say, “You’re not normal.” He couldn’t decide it was selfish of me to marry a woman, or wish I’d been straight, so he could have had both a mom and a dad.

I wondered then if part of my fear of the “tough guy” son came from a fear of this very disapproval—maybe it seemed more likely to me that a “tough guy” son, when he got old enough to really think it over, would be mad about having two moms.

It’s not that I’m worried he’ll conclude not having a Dad failed to teach him something—shaving? Modulating a deep voice? No, what I worry is that he’ll get it all wrong and decide that I kept an entire person from him—a person who would have loved him, and knelt down to look in his eye, and explained things to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. Growing up thinking your mom knowingly kept such an important person out of your life—a person that kids all around you are running to catch up with—is awful to consider. Because of course that’s not what happened—he got that whole person, his other mom has been there every day of his life, kneeling down and looking him in the eye. He got his two parents, and I consider that lucky. I hope he will too. And I hope that when he’s a man, he’s not too much of a tough guy to hang out with his mother.

Aileen Jones-Monahan lives with her family in Western Massachusetts. For weeks now she’s been allowing her children to do things she herself was never permitted to do: take bed pillows into the backyard, plug-in extension cords, and draw on each other’s arms with “body markers” before school. Everybody seems fine.

Photo: gettyimages.com

Author Q & A: Joshua Gamson

Posted on January 28, 2016 by CNF • Posted in General • Tagged author Q & A, Joshua Gamson, judgment, Modern Families, Modern Families: Stories of Extraordinary Journeys to Kinship, parenthood, reproductive technology • Leave a comment

We asked our Facebook fans to present questions we could ask Joshua Gamson, author of Modern Families: Stories of Extraordinary Journeys to Kinship. Here are his wonderful responses.

1. Since you write about your daughters have you decided at what age you will allow them to read your book?

We’ve talked about that some, since our older daughter (currently 10) wanted to read it right away. The content is adult enough that I think we’ll probably hold off until the kids are teenagers, and even then I suspect I’ll want to read it along with them, so we can discuss and answer any questions along that might come up along the way. That said, they know many of the basic facts of their own creation stories, and other details we will fill in for them in age-appropriate ways when they ask.

2. In Modern Families you describe different ways that families procreate (adoption, IVF, surrogacy, etc.). Do you find a lot of judgment in this world (for instance, between the groups or even domestic vs. international adoption)?

I have not observed a whole lot of judgment within the assisted reproduction scene. It sometimes takes a while for straight couples pursuing fertility assistance, and staff of fertility institutes and the like, to make sense of non-heterosexual people in their midst—the latter are confronting the logistical task of coordinating the various bodies but not the disappointment and sometimes even desperation that many straight people face when they are having trouble conceiving, and those are very different experiences. We’re all on the same roller coaster of trying to conceive a child, though, and that’s a big thing to have in common.

This is not to say that these alternative family-making worlds are devoid of judgments and social ranking. For instance, as I write about in the book, there’s a lot of class-inflected judgment of both egg donors and gestational surrogates by many agencies and also some intended parents: donors with higher education and certain physical characteristics more valued than others, and gestational surrogates stereotyped, as one fertility doctor put it to journalist Liza Mundy, as “not typical donor caliber as far as looks, physical features, or education.”

There’s another not uncommon tension within the adoption world, which I touch upon in another chapter, between people using or advocating open adoption (more common now in domestic adoption) of those using closed adoption (still common in international adoption); that can also involve judgment of others. Still, in the adoption world it appears much more common to find people supporting one another than criticizing each other’s family-making process. Most of the critical judgment, I think, comes from outside of these scenes rather than within them.

3. What do you see as the next frontier in reproductive technology?

The technological side isn’t really my field of expertise (though you can peruse research and news at places like the American Society for Reproductive Medicine), but it seems likely that the next big step is in uterus transplants. If this becomes technologically possible (the first live birth after uterus transplantation was in Sweden in 2014, and doctors are working on that in the U.S. now), that would mean that a woman without a functioning uterus might be able to carry and give birth to a baby. This also means that it is not entirely impossible to imagine that a male-bodied person could become pregnant—still very remote, and medically very complex and elaborate, involving pelvic reconstruction and the creation of a vagina, but at least imaginable. And for transgender women, born with male anatomy and seeking to change that to match their female gender identity, pregnancy would become at least theoretically possible. (Male pregnancy already sometimes happens, when transgender men become pregnant after transitioning to male from the female gender assigned to them at birth.) It sounds very sci-fi, but then so did “test tube babies,” gestational surrogacy, and embryo freezing when they first became technologically possible—and the same sorts of big ethical questions that emerged with each earlier advance in reproductive technology will have to be confronted with new ones.

Top 10 Books for Parent-Child Book Clubs with Tweens and Teens

Posted on January 18, 2016 by CNF • Posted in Book Reviews, General, Highlights, Slider Content, Top Ten Lists • Tagged Armstrong Sperry, Caroline Mackler, Deborah Ellis, Jay Asher, Jerry Spinelli, Libba Bray, Lois Lowry, Lori Day, Molly Beth Griffin, Paul Fleischman • Leave a comment

By Lori Day

As the author of a book about mother-daughter book clubs, and as a parent who often read books with my daughter at home, I cannot speak highly enough about the transformative power of literature. My favorite part of sharing books with my daughter is having a discussion that begins with some aspect of the plot or the characters, and then watching it shift seamlessly to a discussion about something similar that is going on in her own life. Whether during our book club meetings or in private historically these were conversations that might otherwise have never arisen. In those magical moments, the awkwardness and resistance that often prevent kids from talking directly to their parents about things that really matter just melted away thanks to the distance a “fictional” story presented.

Sharing books with my child helped me understand her world and opened up crucial lines of communication when she was in elementary school—lines that remained open throughout her tween and teen years, and to this very day. The benefits of connection and exploration of identity accrue to parents and children of all genders and gender identities, whether they are in a book club with other parents and children or whether they simply read books along with their kids at home.

The books I chose for this list touch upon some of the universal experiences of coming of age, and provide plentiful conversation starters for parents on the difficult issues kids are navigating in today’s society.

Wonder by R.J. Palacio (ages 8+)Talking points: Disability and empathy

Auggie Pullman, Wonder‘s protagonist, was born with a facial deformity that has prevented him from going to a mainstream school. But come 5th grade, he no longer wants to be homeschooled and desperately wishes to be treated like an ordinary kid, so he enters his local public school. The book begins from Auggie’s perspective, but soon pivots to include the points of view of other important people in his life.

This book is about bullying, but it is also about much more. It is about kindness and hope and the trials and tribulations of friendship under extraordinary circumstances. As Auggie’s family and friends wrestle with how to deal with his difference in an empathetic and accepting way, Auggie himself rises above his disability through a series of big and small moments so authentic to the journey of any child who must suffer inevitable wounds and derive strength from their remaining scars.

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly (ages 8+) Talking points: Female leadership and egalitarian gender roles

In the scorching summer of 1899, in a small Texas town outside of Austin, eleven-year-old Calpurnia Tate is growing up in a well-to-do family as the only daughter sandwiched between three older brothers and three younger ones. As the Tate family rings in the new century, Calpurnia wrestles with what it means to be a girl in this era, and how to reconcile her mother’s aspirations for her to be a housewife with her own aspirations to be a scientist. Her close relationship with her grandfather is central to the book.

Set against a backdrop of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, the story focuses on Calpurnia’s “evolution” into a budding young female naturalist who resents the gendered demands placed upon her to sew and cook and prepare for a domestic life she views as boring and monotonous compared to the excitement of studying nature and biology.

The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis (ages 10+) Talking points: War and religious extremism

Eleven-year-old Parvana, like other girls and women in Kabul, is not allowed to go to school, go shopping, or even play outside since the Taliban has taken control of Afghanistan. She spends most of her time indoors, stuck in her family’s one-room home. When Taliban militants take her father away, Parvana must cut off her hair and pose as a boy in order to support her family.

Like many girls and women oppressed by the Taliban’s regime, Parvana actually comes from an educated family. The changes instituted under Sharia Law dismantle the rights and quality of life females experienced before the Taliban gained control. Although now dressing in a chador (veil), Parvana’s feelings about the repressive Muslim regime she now struggles against are always clear.

This is must-read literature for American children who have grown up during the war in Afghanistan and are curious about the lives of the people there, especially the plight of females.

Seedfolksby Paul Fleischman (ages 10+) Talking points: Poverty, social struggle, and the need for human connection

In this short, spare, beautifully written series of vignettes, a blighted vacant lot is transformed into a community garden and brings together the surrounding group of neighbors who are strangers to one another. The neglected patch of ground begins to come to life under the care of one young girl and then becomes a magnet for a dozen others who live nearby, each contributing a different planting. Each vignette is told by a different voice—young, old, male, female, Korean, Haitian, Hispanic—all living tough lives in need of something that speaks to their hearts and gives them hope.

This is a very moving book that describes multicultural, hardscrabble urban life in a socioeconomically disadvantaged environment. It will help you talk to your children about what it is to struggle with the basics of surviving when you have limited resources, and the resilience that can arise in those circumstances when people come together around a common cause.

The Giver by Lois Lowry (ages 12+) Talking points: Individuality, adversity and resilience

This is a haunting story about a futuristic society where life is rigidly structured and contentment comes at the cost of conformity. Parents all have exactly two children—one son and one daughter. Children are medicated so as not to develop romantic interests and at twelve they are assigned a career that has been chosen for them by the Elders. Anyone who is disabled or old is “released” for the benefit of all.

The story centers on twelve-year-old Jonas, a model child whose life assignment is to become the Receiver of Memory. He is both burdened and enriched by the memories that are passed down to him during his training and he comes to see the hypocrisy of his community that has sacrificed creativity and individuality for order and predictability.

Parents who read The Giver with their kids will be able to discuss what it would be like to live without disease or pain or crime or wars, and whether such a utopia is actually in some ways dystopian, because without challenges and adversity and failures, we are not fully human.

The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler (ages 12+) Talking points: Social media and platonic boy/girl friendships

Who remembers those CD-ROMs you’d get in the mail from AOL in the mid-’90s, giving you 100 free hours of this new thing called the Internet? This is the setting for The Future of Us, featuring two best-friend protagonists, Emma and Josh.

When Emma logs on to AOL for the first time, she somehow stumbles through a
wormhole to the future, where she discovers something called Facebook and has no idea what status update, poke, or friend request mean.

She soon realizes she can glimpse her own future as a thirty-one-year-old woman, as well as the futures of her high school friends. Soon, the teenagers start to understand “ripples”—the things they say and do in daily life that have observable effects on what they see in their future lives on Facebook. Josh sees a happily married adult version of himself, while Emma sees an adulthood she is desperate to change. Along the way, Josh and Emma realize that it is better to live in the present, especially because the future they decide they want is with each other.

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli (ages 12+) Talking points: Bullying, individuality, and fitting in socially

Stargirl is one of my favorite books for tweens and young teens. It is as eccentric and enchanting as its protagonist, Susan “Stargirl” Caraway, whose unconventional life and worldview are at first mesmerizing to her classmates, but eventually backfire on her after she tries to conform, betraying her true self. There seems to be an element of magical realism in this book, although I’ve never heard or read anyone else express this same observation. The character of Stargirl is perhaps a metaphor for the inner tension all adolescents feel to some extent between going along with the crowd and daring to be unique.

This book addresses many important issues like individuality, bullying, bravery, diversity and acceptance. I’ve never read a book with a stronger message of nonconformity and staying true to who you are than Stargirl.

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray (ages 12+) Talking points: Bullying, the beauty ideal and self-actualization

Part Lord of the Flies, part America’s Next Top Model, and part Gilligan’s Island, Libba Bray’s fast-paced, tongue-in-cheek send-up of American girl culture, reality TV, and a beauty industry run amok is some of the smartest social commentary I’ve ever read in the YA Lit genre. Fifty contestants in the Miss Teen Dream Pageant are in a plane crash and find themselves surviving, Lost-style, on a desert island without make-up or cameras, and also without food, water, or shelter.

Their surreal adventures as they cope with their own human foibles without hairspray or the Internet are actually an interesting counterpoint to the descent into savagery seen among the boys in Lord of the Flies. For these beauty-obsessed “mean girls,” being cut off from civilization gives them the freedom from societal pressures to actually find themselves, and to come of age in a remote location where their appearance can no longer be the core of who they are.

Call It Courage by Armstrong Sperry (ages 12+) Talking points: Pressure on boys to prove bravery, and what it means to be a man

Written in 1941 and set in Polynesia, Call It Courage remains popular to this day. Fifteen-year-old Mafatu has had a crippling fear of the ocean ever since his mother drowned when he was a young child. His father is the chief of an island of seafaring people where courage is measured by a man’s ability to conquer the sea. Mafatu has had to endure teasing and ridicule his entire life. At 15, he can take it no longer, and sets out on a solitary journey by canoe in order to win the respect of his community. More important than that, he goes off on a quest to find courage within himself.

As coming-of-age stories go, this one is classic, especially for boys. Girl-oriented books like Island of the Blue Dolphins and Julie of the Wolves are classic survival stories starring brave girls who triumph in harsh circumstances. Parents who read Call It Courage with their kids can talk about what society expects of boys and girls as they “come of age,” how those things are similar or different, and how things are evolving.

Silhouette of a Sparrow by Molly Beth Griffin (ages 12+) Talking points: LGBT relationships; issues of racial, gender, and socioeconomic justice

In this beautifully written historical novel set in Prohibition-era Minnesota, sixteen-year-old Garnet must go live with snobby relatives at a lakeside resort for the summer to escape a polio epidemic in her hometown. It is to be her last hurrah—a summer of fun before her final year of high school, after which she is to get married and settle into being a housewife. Garnet has a passion for bird watching and dreams of one day going to college and becoming an ornithologist, despite her mother’s more traditional plans for her. When Garnet gets a summer job in a hat shop, she meets the beautiful flapper Isabella, and they fall in love and begin a secret relationship.

When the author, Molly Beth Griffin, was asked in an interview why she chose to write a lesbian coming-of-age story, she explained that most books about LGBT teens focus on their “coming out” stories, but that this should not be the only type of book out there. The relationship between Garnet and Isabella involves many of the same joys and challenges of teenage love experienced by heterosexual couples, and she wanted to show that. The book also revolves around many important and interesting social and historical facts beyond the sexual orientation of the main characters; it delves into issues of racial and gender inequality, as well as the economic dynamics of the Gilded Age that led to the Great Depression.

Lori Day is an educational psychologist, consultant and parenting coach with Lori Day Consulting in Newburyport, MA. She is the author of Her Next Chapter: How Mother-Daughter Book Clubs Can Help Girls Navigate Malicious Media, Risky Relationships, Girl Gossip, and So Much More, and speaks on the topic of raising confident girls in a disempowering marketing and media culture.

<header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/co-parenting-at-the-holidays-its-the-most-wonderful-and-complicated-time-of-the-year/" title="Permalink to Co-Parenting at the Holidays: It’s the Most Wonderful, and Complicated, Time of the Year" rel="bookmark"><img width="500" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/latest-500x170.png" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Co-Parenting at the Holidays: It’s the Most Wonderful, and Complicated, Time of the Year" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Co-Parenting at the Holidays: It’s the Most Wonderful, and Complicated, Time of the Year" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/co-parenting-at-the-holidays-its-the-most-wonderful-and-complicated-time-of-the-year/" title="Permalink to Co-Parenting at the Holidays: It’s the Most Wonderful, and Complicated, Time of the Year" rel="bookmark">Co-Parenting at the Holidays: It’s the Most Wonderful, and Complicated, Time of the Year</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/co-parenting-at-the-holidays-its-the-most-wonderful-and-complicated-time-of-the-year/" title="6:08 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-12-21T06:08:42-05:00" pubdate>December 21, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/co-parenting/" rel="tag">co-parenting</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/divorce/" rel="tag">divorce</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/shannon-younger/" rel="tag">Shannon Younger</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/vproud-tv/" rel="tag">VProud.tv</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/co-parenting-at-the-holidays-its-the-most-wonderful-and-complicated-time-of-the-year/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-24865" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/latest-300x168.png" alt="latest" width="300" height="168" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/latest-300x168.png 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/latest-100x56.png 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/latest-232x130.png 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/latest.png 500w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />By Shannan Younger I stayed in an irretrievably broken marriage longer than I should have in part because I hated the idea of sharing my amazing daughter, and the idea of spending the holidays without her terrified me. The thought of not seeing her face light up with wonder on Christmas morning seemed like too much, until, of course, everything else felt like too much. That moment came when my four-year-old said something silly that gave me the giggles. She ran to the phone and called my parents. “I just made my mommy laugh, and that never happens!” she proudly announced. It was then that I realized just how much I was failing at my job of modeling how to be a happy adult woman for my daughter. I was finally able to do the emotional math and see that my sadness at sharing her was no longer greater than the sadness of raising such a bright light of a little girl in an unhappy home with unhappy parents. She deserves a mother who laughs, at least on occasion, and I needed to make the necessary changes to allow us both to be happy. The fact that this epiphany happened in the middle of an intense summer heat wave probably helped make a holiday without my sweet girl seem distant, and bearable. But as the temperatures dropped and winter approached, my dread of spending holidays without her grew. I had no idea how to be without her. This struck me as odd, given that when I first found out I was pregnant at the age of 25, the idea of being a mother with a child was foreign to me. The life-changing news came as a complete shock on a frigid December day and for the next few weeks it felt like I couldn’t walk two city blocks without encountering a nativity scene. Instead of feeling comfort and joy at the coming holiday, I felt panicked, unprepared, and inadequate. I had no idea how to be a mother, let alone be like the Virgin Mary, who always appeared so peaceful and serene. I was neither. Five years later, I was full of angst and uncertainty again, but this time at the thought of not mothering my child. Yes, I would of course still be my child’s mother, but not in the way I had been the prior holidays. When a child is absent, the act of mothering is different, and in fact unnecessary. Someone else would give my child gifts, fix her food, tuck the covers around her body that was exhausted by a full day of celebrating, all without me. I loved all of those tasks, and most of all I loved making sure she knew I loved her. So, I did all that before saying goodbye to her. And I still do, years later. She’s very tolerant of some extra hugs prior to her departure with her dad now that she’s a teenager. That first holiday season was difficult, but we made it through, and I’ve even gotten a bit better at it. Some years I am more successful than others. As soon as I think I have figured out this coparenting thing, the situation changes. Each year is different, and has its own curveballs. Perhaps the most memorable one came a few years into co-parenting when the phone rang one Christmas night. “Is Santa real?” my then seven year-old daughter demanded to know in her most no nonsense voice. “Uh . . . Why do you ask?”” I pulled out my go-to, not-so-stellar yet sometimes revealing maternal response. “Because Mr. West at dinner said that his granddaughter still believed in Santa and he thought that was really silly,” she said. The Wests were family friends of my former in-laws who had apparently joined them for Christmas dinner. She continued, “When he said that, everyone paused and then very slowly turned and they all looked at me. I think they were all staring at me because I still believe.” “Did Dad tell you to call me?” I asked, stalling for time and wondering what the party line was here in a situation happening an hour away from my current location. “Nope. Nobody knows I’m in here calling you,” she said. “Great,” I thought to myself. “What do you believe? I need to know,” she asked in a voice laced with desperation. I indicated to my soon-to-be fiancée and his parents were waiting for me to rejoin them that I was going to need a few moments. I proceeded to have a heart to heart with my daughter about how not everyone believes the same thing, which is okay. I told her that I believe in love and giving and magic, all things for which Santa stands, and so yes, I believe in Santa and while it’s true that he gets some help from parents around the world, I see evidence of his existence every single year, sometimes when I least expect it. I left it up to her and said that what matters most is what she believes deep down in her heart. Ideally, we would have had this conversation when I had the ability to look into her deep blue eyes and wrap my arms around her, but that was the circumstance. My heart broke that I could not do so, but we got through it. And sometimes co-parenting is about getting through it as best you can. Author’s Note: I’m very grateful that VProud.tv talks about the challenges of co-parenting during the holiday season. Millions of Moms and Dads will be sharing their children this holiday season; knowing we are not alone and hearing how others navigate the waters is helpful and comforting. I love the tips on co-parenting through the holidays in<a href="https://vproud.tv/conversation/3673/coparenting-through-the-holidays-can-be-hard-af-do-you-have-any-tried-and-tested-tips-that-actually-work"> this video</a>, and most of all, I appreciate how VProud has initiated the conversation about this important parenting challenge. Shannan Younger is a recovering attorney living in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and teen daughter. She blogs at<a href="http://www.momfactually.com"> Mom Factually</a>, ChicagoNow’s<a href="http://www.chicagonow.com/tween-us/"> Between Us Parents</a> and as part of the Chicago Parent Blogger Network. Her writing has appeared on the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop, Mamalode, Scary Mommy, Club Mid, BonBon Break, and In the Powder Room, and her essays have been included in two anthologies by The HerStories Project. She is also freelance writer for regional magazines. Shannan was in the 2013 cast of Listen to Your Mother, despite the fact that her daughter often fails to do so. You can find her on<a href="https://www.facebook.com/BetweenUsParents"> Facebook</a> and<a href="https://twitter.com/momfactually"> Twitter</a>. This is a sponsored post in partnership with <a href="https://vproud.tv/">Vproud.tv.</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-24578" class="post-24578 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-antonia-malchik tag-baby-names tag-baby-naming tag-debate tag-december-issue tag-dina-relles tag-perspectives"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/did-you-choose-traditional-names-for-your-children/" title="Permalink to Did You Choose Traditional Names For Your Children?" rel="bookmark"><img width="507" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/182841316-1-507x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Did You Choose Traditional Names For Your Children?" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Did You Choose Traditional Names For Your Children?" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/did-you-choose-traditional-names-for-your-children/" title="Permalink to Did You Choose Traditional Names For Your Children?" rel="bookmark">Did You Choose Traditional Names For Your Children?</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/did-you-choose-traditional-names-for-your-children/" title="6:59 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-12-16T18:59:44-05:00" pubdate>December 16, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/antonia-malchik/" rel="tag">Antonia Malchik</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/baby-names/" rel="tag">baby names</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/baby-naming/" rel="tag">baby naming</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/debate/" rel="tag">debate</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/december-issue/" rel="tag">December Issue</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/dina-relles/" rel="tag">Dina Relles</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/perspectives/" rel="tag">perspectives</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/did-you-choose-traditional-names-for-your-children/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-24807" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/182841316-1.jpg" alt="Baby Names" width="638" height="425" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/182841316-1.jpg 507w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/182841316-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/182841316-1-100x67.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/182841316-1-232x155.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/182841316-1-500x333.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 638px) 100vw, 638px" /> NO I Gave My Children Uncommon Names By Dina Relles I could tell she didn’t like the name the moment she first heard it. “Ai-ven,” she rolled the strange syllables around in her mouth with exaggerated effort. As if she said them slowly enough, maybe they would change. My mother had never heard the name before, of course, because we’d made it up. I was walking home from work one evening, pregnant with our firstborn, when some combination of letters on a real estate sign overhead made me think of it—Aiven, a variation on Aiden, a name that hovered high on our list, but which was, at the time, soaring in popularity. We thought perhaps it sounded “Hebrew enough” to pass muster with our Jewish families and, with its rhythmic “v” and “n” sounds, would be hard to hate. I never want to be what people expect. Not Dina, the rabbi’s daughter with the biblical name and the Eastern European ancestry. I came from a community where that was everyone else’s story too. I longed to be different. I have a cartilage piercing! I’m agnostic! I wear black nail polish! My name alone doesn’t shout these things; it takes effort to undermine automatic assumptions. As a teen, I secretly hoped, upon first meeting, that people might infer my name derives from the Greek, “Constantina,” or maybe Italian. There was even a stretch, at age eight or so, when I sought to change it to Dana. I dutifully labeled the inside covers of all my books with my new signature, wishing I could somehow rewrite my own story. So much of where we’re going is in response to where we’ve been. No, my son would not be David or Joshua, Jonathan or Michael. Think of it at the top of a resume. Call it down the street from your front porch. People advise all sorts of tried-and-true methods to ensure you choose a passable name for your child. But I preferred to picture my son lying late night on his bedroom floor, as I once did, wondering why he’s named what he is—what it means, for his past, his future, and most of all, for himself—how he can make it his own. By choosing a distinct name, one we expected no one else to have, my husband and I sought to say to our son, “Don’t be afraid to be different. Don’t conform! Challenge everything.” From first breath to first impression, he couldn’t complacently fall back on a prepackaged standard. He would not be the fifth Ben in his class or “Jonathan R.” but one-of-a-kind, as if his name has its own story to tell. The name for our second son, Parker, was inspired by our deep love of the outdoors, of brisk fall days spent playing in a park with our firstborn, of the park in downtown Manhattan where my husband and I had our first date and then, many months later, got engaged. Our wedding invitation bears this Simon and Garfunkel quote: Can you imagine us years from today, sharing a park bench, quietly? Our third son, Gray, came along, and we loved both the aesthetic, as well as the meaning his name conveys: the ambiguity and tender uncertainty of our existence—the sentiment that nothing is black and white. By this point, we welcomed the secular slant, embraced the element of the unexpected, the idiosyncrasy of the monikers we bestowed on our offspring. I no longer minded the requisite shrugs my parents would deliver along with news of their latest grandson’s name. My sons have Hebrew names, rest assured, for use at appropriate times—Hebrew School or Jewish camp or when called to the Torah. These are often linked to a lost loved one, connecting our children to their ancestors, their rich history, to all that came before. They are there, ready to serve, but tucked away. We wanted their heritage to be but one marker of who they are, and not one worn on their sleeve. I was 20 weeks pregnant with my second child when the sonogram revealed it would be another boy. I circulated the news to immediate family, and, while the shock of the baby’s sex was still settling, my father responded with an email I’ll never forget: “It’s going to be a…wonderful baby, a blessing, another grandchild, the next step in your family, the discoverer of the cure to cancer, a child who will bring you no end of life and love, and…a boy!” Each of my sons is many things. No one characteristic or trait defines any of them—not his name or sex, his love of math or his fierce fastball, or the tiny freckle just above his knee. Now, as I agonize over what to name my fourth child, I wonder about how we imbue such significance into this one word—a single string of letters in what will become a larger story. As with so much of parenting, with the name we give a child, we aim to make our mark, from day one. But the trajectory that follows is not ours to control in the same way: it is inevitably a peculiar blend of a fixed past and an evolving personality. Where they go has yet to be seen, but the fact remains: a name is the first message we impart to our children, one they will carry with them for life. With the names we chose, we hoped to say: Take nothing for granted. Make no assumptions. Treat everything as worth a double take, a second thought. You are unlike anyone who came before or anyone who will follow. Tread deliberately on this path that is yours alone. Dina L. Relles is a writer with essays in The Atlantic, STIR Journal, Full Grown People, The Manifest-Station, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. She is a blog editor at Literary Mama and is currently at work on her first book, a memoir. She can be found at www.dinarelles.com or @DinaLRelles. YES I Gave My Children Traditional Names By Antonia Malchik I was sitting at the lunch table in fifth grade when I decided that if I ever had a daughter I’d name her something normal. I grew up mainly in two different towns in Montana. In the first, all my friends had names I coveted: Katie, Stacy, Tiffany, Angie. Their names were pretty, and, importantly for an early 1980s childhood, normal. My name was not. I was named “Antonia” for Willa Cather’s novel My Ãntonia, “Louise” after my maternal grandmother, and “Evgenia” after my father’s cousin who still lived in the Soviet Union where my father had grown up. All of which got shortened to the decidedly unmusical and definitely not normal “Nia.” By the time I finally had kids of my own I’d mellowed on the “normal” bit but realized instead what I wanted was for them to have names that connected to their heritage, names that had meaning for our family beyond my own personal preferences. As I became an adult I learned to appreciate what I couldn’t as a child, that names can be like ancestral histories we carry with us. Now, I’ve learned to value my connection to my grandmother and my father’s family and one of my mother’s favorite books, even if I was stuck with “Nia-peeah-diarrhea” for many of my formative years. These names give me a place in far-flung communities I’m always longing to know better. When I was in high school we moved to a very different town full of ex-hippies, where I don’t think I met a single Tiffany or Stacy. Most of my friends had names I’d never heard before and likely never will again—Zabyn, one of my favorite people, or Koan, my then-boyfriend. It later seemed to me that to give a child a name intentionally stripped of ancestry was to weigh them down with a different class of expectations. We expect you to buck the system, these names said, to be more individual, more thoughtful, more counter-culture even than you might wish. By the time I had my first child eight years ago this trend had become convention and then passé. How many children do I know now who are named after spices or yoga positions? Most of my friends these days name their children after plants or food or Eastern philosophical concepts, thinking that doing so will give their children a blank slate of personality to fill instead of burdening them with the past. I understand the temptation. But the thought of giving my children names without history felt empty. What was the point of naming my daughter, say, “Alice,” simply because my husband liked it? “Alice” is lovely but had no meaning for us. Why not connect her to our family histories, with all their pride and struggle and stories of people gone before? Humans are so often rootless these days, following jobs and loves and desires without always becoming grounded in a culture or community. Why not carry at least one thing from our pasts, the stories that created us? My daughter is named for my father, Aleksandra for Aleksandr, spelled to reflect the Russian pronunciation that is intrinsic to who he is. Like my own name, it pops up throughout history and literature, connected to characters good and bad, and with a rich enough history that she can create her own meaning out of it more easily than if I’d named her after my favorite tree. My son, John, carries the English version of my husband’s Scottish name, reflecting in a single note his English heritage and my English in-laws’ love of Scotland. Sometimes it seems like children with non-traditional names are burdened more heavily with their parents’ personalities and hopes than third-generation Harvard-bound Exeter alumni. Our kids will always feel the breath of our expectation, no matter how hard we try not to burden them. I don’t want mine to feel a demand at the outset that they push against societal norms, that they be as completely individual and unique as possible. They already are unique. Giving them a name that has history and roots and meaning connects them to a community that they may never need or be aware of, but that will always be there to brace them when they feel weak and to hold them up when they feel downtrodden. And they can own and come into their names more easily with traditional rather than newly minted monikers. Instead of their parents creating their names—and therefore meanings—for them, they can take these centuries-old names and turn them into anything they like. There is almost no identity my son can’t form within the name John. If I’d named him Acer, to choose a name at random, he’d be trapped within its uniqueness. It’s hard to be conventional with an untraditional name, assuming one wished to, but with a traditional one you can do almost anything you want. The truth is, I’m privileged to have names like John and Aleksandra, and middle names like Elizabeth and Henry, behind my children, privileged to have ancestry that gives them a level of freedom from birth, one many don’t enjoy, to decide who they want to be as they grow up and unlink themselves from their parents. And perhaps my expectation that they take that privilege and use it to make the world a better place is enough pressure, without an expectation that they be decisively counter-culture from the get-go. I don’t believe in throwing off the past. Transmuting it, deepening it, shifting our understanding of it, yes. Walking away from it completely, no. We can no more shuck our ancestry than we can the DNA we were born with, and that includes the names that have come before ours. Antonia Malchik writes about education, environment, parenting, and identity for a variety of publications. She can be reached through www.antoniamalchik.com. </div> </article> <article id="post-24756" class="post-24756 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-brothers tag-christmas tag-holidays tag-marie-anderson tag-siblings tag-step-families"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/what-good-moms-do/" title="Permalink to What Good Moms Do" rel="bookmark"><img width="556" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Decorating-The-Christmas-Tree-Family-Pose-556x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="What Good Moms Do" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="What Good Moms Do" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/what-good-moms-do/" title="Permalink to What Good Moms Do" rel="bookmark">What Good Moms Do</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/what-good-moms-do/" title="11:16 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-12-16T11:16:18-05:00" pubdate>December 16, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/brothers/" rel="tag">brothers</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/christmas/" rel="tag">Christmas</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/holidays/" rel="tag">holidays</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/marie-anderson/" rel="tag">Marie Anderson</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/siblings/" rel="tag">siblings</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/step-families/" rel="tag">step families</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/what-good-moms-do/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-24763" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Decorating-The-Christmas-Tree-Family-Pose.jpg" alt="Decorating The Christmas Tree - Family Pose" width="556" height="525" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Decorating-The-Christmas-Tree-Family-Pose.jpg 556w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Decorating-The-Christmas-Tree-Family-Pose-300x283.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Decorating-The-Christmas-Tree-Family-Pose-100x94.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Decorating-The-Christmas-Tree-Family-Pose-232x219.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Decorating-The-Christmas-Tree-Family-Pose-500x472.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 556px) 100vw, 556px" /> By Marie Anderson Griff and Gannon tiptoed to the sparkling Christmas tree in their dad’s family room. Behind the tree, early morning darkness pressed against the floor-to-ceiling windows. The boys crouched in front of the tree. Ganny reached for the largest present. It was wrapped in a pattern of Santa heads. Across the heads, someone had printed in black ink: To Griffin and Gannon, Love from Dad, Francesca, and Baby Guinevere. “You can’t open it yet,” Griff said. He shivered. The size and shape of the present reminded him of his sister’s coffin. She’d been born too early, on Christmas Day five years ago. Ganny, of course, wouldn’t remember. He’d only been two years old. Ganny frowned. “One present for us? Where’s the stuff from Santa?”Griff shrugged. Ten years old, he knew Santa was fake. But Ganny was only seven. Their dad should’ve put Santa gifts under the tree. He wondered if their dad was even home. He’d left for work right after their mother had dropped them off early yesterday morning, and he’d still been gone when they went to bed last night. Behind them, the floor creaked. Ganny froze. “Santa! Is it Santa? I can’t look!” The boys turned around. But it wasn’t Santa who filled the doorway to the family room. “You’re up early,” Francesca said. Their stepmother shuffled into the room. Her green eyes bulged out at them over a cup the size of a softball. A big white bow, lumpy as cauliflower, sprouted from her dirt-black hair. Griff hated cauliflower. “Good morning,” he said. “Merry Christmas.” “Merry Christmas, Griffin.” Francesca looked at Ganny. “Merry Christmas, Gannon.” “Back at ya,” Ganny said. Griff bit his tongue – a trick his mother had taught him – so he wouldn’t laugh. Francesca shook her head and sighed. Griff watched her waddle to the rocking chair. She still looked fat, he thought, even though her baby had been born a long time ago, right after Halloween. He watched her sink heavily into the rocker and slurp from her cup. Ganny laughed. “You got spit up all over your mouth!” Griff bit his tongue again. The foam from her drink coated her fat lips, and it did look like spit up. He let himself smile. “Shush,” Francesca said as Ganny continued to laugh. “You’ll wake your sister. And your dad.” She wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her robe and looked at the clock on the fireplace mantel. “Thirty more minutes, and then it will be OK to wake Guinevere. Schedules are very important to babies. Not even Christmas should interfere. Your sister needs her sleep. Your dad, too.” “Half-sister,” Ganny muttered, too quietly for Francesca to hear. “Mmm,” Francesca said, rocking and sipping. This cappuccino is blissful, just blissful. You know, boys, it was my mommy who sent me the cappuccino machine for Christmas this year. She can’t wait to meet your baby sister.” “You’re too old to say mommy,” Ganny said. Francesca’s face turned red. “Ganny!” Griff pinched his brother’s arm. They’d promised their mother that they’d be polite while they stayed at their dad’s. “She’s not too old at all!” Then, before he could stop himself, he blurted what he’d heard their mother say. “She’s closer in age to me than she is to Dad!” The red on Francesca’s face spilled to her neck. “Is your mommy coming today?” Griff asked. Asking questions, he knew, was a good way to distract grownups from getting mad. “No! She’s not!” Francesca’s thick black eyebrows plunged practically to her nose. “And I said mommy because you boys are still at the mommy age. I was using a kid word because I’m talking to kids!” She sipped her drink. Her face returned to its normal milky color. Goose bumps pricked Griff’s arms. He didn’t think she would yell again, but with grownups, it was hard to know. At least since his parents’ divorce, the yelling had mostly stopped. And he didn’t really mind Francesca so much. He’d hated That Other One, the one his dad had almost married before Francesca. That One had been prettier than Francesca, but she’d almost killed Ganny. Ganny had been rushed to the hospital after eating the white powder he’d found in her purse. “The little shit shouldn’t have been digging in my purse!” That One had yelled. “You don’t bring your little shit into my house when my boys are here!” their dad had yelled back. “My mother,” Francesca was saying, “volunteers with Global Samaritans, and she spends Christmas with poor families. She’s been so busy helping the poor families in Guatemala that she hasn’t had a chance to meet your sister yet.” “Half-sister,” Ganny muttered, a little louder this time. “Stop punching buttons, you idiot,” Griff whispered. Francesca sighed. “However, when I was your age, boys, my mother always spent Christmas with me. Because that’s what good moms do.” Griff had nothing to say to that. Even Ganny stayed silent. A few days ago, their parents had argued about their mom working again on Christmas. Griff had listened on the extension. It had something to do with Grace. His dad had said the f-word, and his mom had cried. “My mother,” Francesca was saying, “helped me make most of those ornaments on the tree. When your sister’s older, I’ll teach her how to make ornaments like my mother taught me. And that window?” She pointed to a stained glass window over the couch. “My mother and I worked on that together when I was about your age, Griffin. We won first prize for it at our club’s art fair. Your dad had it installed last month. It’s what I wanted for Christmas, having it put up in our family room. I like looking at it when I rock your sister.” “It’s very nice, Griff said, though he hadn’t noticed the stained glass window until now. “Where’s the stuff Santa brung?” Ganny asked. Francesca stopped rocking. She cleared her throat. “You’re going to love what’s in that big present under the tree. It came all the way from Italy! I looked through a lot of catalogs and on-line sites before I found the perfect gift for you boys.” “But where’s the stuff Santa brung?” Ganny asked. Francesca looked at Griff. “Your dad said you boys knew.” Griff bit his lip. He was in fourth grade. Of course, he knew. “Knew what?” Ganny asked. Francesca coughed. “Well.” She looked at Griff. Red splotched her cheeks like a rash. “Santa’s bringing stuff to our real house,” Griff said. “Not here, because that wouldn’t be fair to kids who only have one house.” “That’s right!” Francesca smiled at Griff. He looked away without smiling back. “I wanna’ go home now!” Ganny shouted. Francesca flinched and shushed. “Mom’s not even home, you idiot,” Griff said. “She’s working a double shift at the hospital, remember?” “You’re the idiot!” Ganny yelled. “Boys! Stop!” Francesca pressed her hands over her palpitating heart. “No name calling! Doesn’t your mother teach you better?” She rubbed her left eye to calm the eyelid’s twitching. Off saving the world, their mother was, big shot emergency room doctor, too busy to take care of business in her own backyard. Foisting her kids on Francesca, a new mother with a borderline colicky baby. Lily had sent nothing when Guinevere was born, not even a card. Nothing to acknowledge that her sons now had a sister. Of course it was sad that Lily’s own daughter had been born too early. But really, Lily had pushed for a third child for the wrong reason: to try to heal an ailing marriage, is how Gary had once explained it to Francesca. Francesca knew how dumb that was. Francesca hadn’t been enough to save her parents’ marriage. They’d divorced when she was two years old. Francesca still had the note – in her jewelry box – that her mother had tucked into the gift she’d given Francesca for her 16th birthday: Pregnancy may land a man, but a child won’t keep him. The gift was a box of birth control pills. It was a hard truth Francesca would impart to her own daughter when the time came. Good mothers told hard truths. And a good mother would have sent a gift for her sons’ new baby sister. Francesca’s mother had sent a $500 gift card from Nordstrom. It was in Francesca’s jewelry box. She and her mother would shop Nordstrom together for baby clothes. Her mother had promised a visit in spring. Francesca felt tears prick her eyes. Spring was so far away. She felt a surge of sympathy for her stepsons. Of course they wanted their mom. “I wanna go home now!” Ganny yelled. He scrambled behind the tree. “Get him out from there!” Francesca cried. The sympathy she’d been feeling exploded into irritation. “He’ll tip the tree!” Francesca gasped as Griff went after his brother. “Boys! Careful!” Gary padded into the room, yawning and rubbing his bald head. “Hey, what’s all this splendid commotion?” he asked, just as the tree began to shudder. He rushed to steady it, and the boys tumbled out. “Merry Christmas, boys!” Gary shouted. “Shush!” Griff and Francesca warned simultaneously. “Yeah, shush up, Dad!” Ganny shrieked. From upstairs, baby’s cries exploded. “Oh!” Francesca shivered. Tears welled. Gary patted her shoulder. “Aw, Kitten,” he said. “I’ll go do the diaper and bottle business. You just relax. Get yourself another coffee.” Francesca looked at the clock on the mantel. “OK, but she’s not due for a bottle for another fifteen minutes. So could you just change her? And be sure to use the cloth diapers, OK?” She looked at the boys. Gannon’s nose was dripping, and his eyes were wet. “Wipe your nose, Gannon,” she said. He ignored her, and looked at Gary. “Can I help you, Daddy?” “No!” Francesca said. “Just stay put, boys.” “Wipe your nose, sport,” Gary said. “Stay put, OK?” “Please,” Francesca said to the boys. “Wait. Until. We’re. All. Ready.” By the time everyone was ready, the tree, though still lit, no longer sparkled. Sunlight blazed through the windows behind the tree, spotlighting dust motes which swirled like nervous bugs in the beams of light. The tree no longer looked magical, Francesca thought. Just desperate, like an old woman wearing too much makeup. Like she found herself looking every time she glanced in a mirror. She felt worn out. Old. She was old. A quarter of a century. Something icy filled her throat. Guinevere’s little body, blessedly still for the moment, warmed her lap, but every other part of Francesca felt cold. She shivered. Was she getting sick? “Smile, Kitten!” Gary was pointing the camera at her. She smiled. Ganny pulled the big package from under the tree. “It’s heavy!” he exclaimed. Griff tried to lift it. It was heavy! Excitement tickled his stomach. The boys tore off the ribbons and wrapping. They stared at the present: a black suitcase on wheels. “Wipe off those frowns, guys, and open it up,” Gary said. “I’m sure you’ll love whatever’s inside.” They unzipped the case, flipped back the top. Inside were two rows of shiny balls, red ones and blue ones, each about the size of a baseball, and one smaller white ball. The letters GGG were painted on each colored ball. Their last name was painted on the white ball. Ganny tried to lift the hard clear plastic which covered the balls, but thick staples held it fast. “What the heck?” he said. The boys looked at their dad, who was scratching his head. “It’s a bocce ball set,” Francesca said. “The three Gs on the colored balls are for Griffin, Gannon, and Guinevere. The small white ball is called the pallino.” “Thank you,” Griff said. “It’s very nice.” He thought of Grace, his real baby sister. Even though she was dead, he decided the third G would be for Grace. “Dad, can you get the plastic off?” Ganny asked. “Oh, Gary,” Francesca said. “I think we should leave that for when they get back to their own home. I’d hate for any of the balls to get misplaced here.” “But we got nothing to play with now!” Ganny shrieked. “Well,” Gary said. “Maybe we can—.” “Boys,” Francesca interrupted. “This is an authentic set. Hand-polished in Italy. The balls are solid cherry, so they’re not to be left out when you’re not using them. You’ll have fun playing with it in your yard this summer. Gary, maybe you can suggest to Lily that she get a little bocce court put in for them.” “I wanna’ play with it now!” Ganny whined. Francesca shook her head. “It’s an outside game. And you don’t know the rules yet.” “Dad!” Ganny cried. “So what are we gonna’ do now?” Gary shrugged. “It’s an outside game, sport.” “And we gotta’ get ready for church anyway,” Griff said. Francesca smiled at Griff. He looked away without smiling back. After church, Francesca served dinner. Miraculously, Guinevere slept. The boys pushed their eggplant lasagna around on their plates and ignored the peas. “I want tacos,” Ganny said. Francesca frowned. “Well, in this house, we don’t eat anything with eyes.” “Well, these peas look like your eyes.” Ganny shoved a spoonful into his mouth. “Gross!” He spat the peas back on his plate. Griff felt his stomach twist. He watched Francesca’s hands clench into fists on either side of her plate. She looked at his dad. “Gannon!” His dad shook his head. “That was rude, sport. Apologize to your stepmother.” Griff could tell Ganny was biting his tongue. Please don’t stick it out, he thought. “Sorry,” Ganny mumbled. He coughed. “Stepmother.” Francesca’s mouth trembled. Griff shoved a chunk of the eggplant lasagna into his mouth and forced himself to swallow it. “Tastes great!” he exclaimed. Francesca’s wet eyes landed on him. A smile dented her face. He looked down at his plate. For a moment, no one spoke. “I’ve got rounds to make pretty soon,” their dad said. “And the surgical res asked if I could cover for him because of some family emergency.” Francesca sighed. “I should probably nap while Guinevere is down.” Again her wet green eyes landed on Griff. “We can just watch TV ’til Mom comes to get us,” Griff said. After their dad left for the hospital, Griff packed his and Ganny’s duffel bags and put them by the front door. Francesca wheeled the bocce set next to their bags. “OK, guys. The TV is all yours. Just keep the door to the family room closed, so then the TV won’t wake your sister, but keep the sound low, OK?” “Half-sister,” Ganny muttered. Francesca handed a cell phone to Griff. Your dad asked your mom to call when she gets here. I don’t want her ringing the doorbell and waking me or your sister.” “Half-sister,” Ganny said loudly, but Francesca had already left the room. They watched a Sponge Bob cartoon for a while. They sat on the floor close to the TV. At home, they each had a bean bag chair for watching TV. Their dad had promised he’d have bean bag chairs for them here, too. But there were no bean bag chairs. “I’m bored,” Ganny said. He went to the front door and wheeled the bocce set back into the family room. He took a fork from the dining room hutch and used it to pry off the staples, bending one of the prongs. Griff slid the ruined fork under the couch. For a while, they rolled the balls around the room. “This is boring,” Ganny said. They began pitching balls to each other. A red ball slammed into photos on top of the piano. Wedding photos toppled into baby photos. A wild pitch just missed the TV screen. Ganny raced to field a high pop up. He crashed into an end table. A lamp fell. Griff zoomed for a line drive. He tripped over the rocking chair and fell into the tree. The tree shuddered and tipped. Ornaments fell. They propped the tree against the glass wall. Griff jumped on the couch to catch a high fly ball just as the cell phone in his pocket rang. Distracted, he missed the ball. It slammed into the stained glass window over the couch. He heard a crack. “Hi Mom,” Griff said into the phone. “We’re ready. We just have to pick up some stuff. We’ll be right out.” The door to the family room banged open. Francesca’s eyes swept over the room. They froze on the stained glass window behind Griff’s head. “You cracked it?” Her voice shook. Ganny ran and squeezed himself into the little space between the propped tree and the glass wall. Griff looked at the stained glass window. The crack was thin and curved like a spider’s leg. He jumped off the couch. “We’re sorry!” he said. “We’ll pick everything up.” His muscles tensed, waiting for Francesca to explode. For a moment, all Griff could hear was his own breath and the clock ticking on the fireplace mantel. Then, her mouth opened. But all that came out was a whisper. “My mom and I won first prize for that window.” She hunched her shoulders and began lifting photos off the floor. Ganny emerged from behind the tree. The brothers looked at each other. They began working in silence, righting the lamp, pillows, returning bocce balls to the case. When Francesca tried to right the tree, the boys helped. The three of them managed to restore it back to its upright position. Ganny stepped on an ornament on the floor, crunching it underfoot. From Francesca came a soft sound, like a kitten’s mewl. Outside a car horn blared. “That’s Mom!” Griff exclaimed. “She’ll wake the baby!” And sure enough, Guinevere began to shriek. Francesca shuddered. She flung back her head, gripped her hair between both hands, and howled. Griff stumbled back. Ganny covered his ears. “Stop stop stop!” he cried. The baby’s shrieks burned through the room. Francesca screamed, “Shut up, Guinevere! Just! Shut! Up!” She collapsed into the rocking chair. Tears spilled. “I can’t do this. I’m so tired. So cold.” She bowed her head and began to rock, violently, back and forth. Guinevere continued to cry, piercing, shuddering sobs. Griff whispered to Ganny and left the room, closing the door behind him. The baby continued to cry. Francesca closed her eyes and covered her ears. After a while, Francesca realized the baby’s cries were easing. Suddenly, as though someone had turned off a radio, the cries stopped. Francesca opened her eyes. She watched Gannon. He was picking ornaments off the floor and putting them back on the tree. He wasn’t doing it right. He was adding too many ornaments to the same low branches. “Gannon?” He looked at the tree. “I didn’t mean those peas looked like your eyes. They just look like eyes is what I meant. Anyone’s eyes. Should I get you blanket?” “What?” “Are you still cold? Should I get you a blanket?” The door to the family room opened. Griff stood in the doorway. His mother, Lily, stood behind him. She was cradling Guinevere like a football in one arm, and propping a bottle in the baby’s mouth with her other hand. On Guinevere’s head was knitted pink hat Francesca didn’t recognize. Francesca had knitted most of Guinevere’s hats, sweaters and socks too. “She’s beautiful,” Lily said. “And what a marvelous set of lungs!” She stepped into the room. Francesca stared at the hat. Nothing went on her daughter that Francesca didn’t first wash. “Griff told me they’d made a mess in here,” Lily said. “And cracked your beautiful window. I’ll get it fixed. Anyway, I thought the least I could do now was get Guinevere changed and fed for you. I found bottles in your fridge. I warmed one.” “She wasn’t due for a bottle yet,” Francesca said. “I’m trying to keep her on a schedule.” Lily nodded. She eased the bottle from Guinevere’s mouth and handed it to Griff. “She drank it all!” Griff exclaimed. Lily lifted Guinevere to her shoulder and patted her back. A loud burp from the baby made the boys laugh. Despite her anger, Francesca smiled. Then she frowned. “That hat? Where’d it come from?” Lily stepped closer. “I didn’t know if it would fit. But it fits perfectly. I knitted it . . .a while ago.” Francesca felt dizzy. Had Lily knit the hat for her own baby girl? A sudden insight, sharp and painful, clicked inside her: Guinevere only existed because Grace did not. “The hat, I’d thought I’d never finish it. There are heart shapes knit into the hat, and you had to follow the pattern perfectly to make the hearts. I kept making mistakes and had to start over.” “In knitting, there’s no such thing as mistakes,” Francesca heard herself say. “That’s what my mother always said when I’d drop a stitch or purl when I should have knitted. A mistake, she’d say, is just the way a knitter personalizes her work.” Lily nodded. “That’s a good philosophy. I wish I’d applied it to my own parenting when Griff was born. I was so by the book with him, I was driving myself crazy. Then when Ganny came along, I was too tired and overwhelmed to even remember schedules and rules.” Francesca felt blood heat her face. What was Lily implying? That Francesca was too by the book? “But,” Lily continued, “I’ve got a rule-follower and a rule-breaker. So maybe I reaped what I sowed.” Francesca looked at the boys who were now sitting on the floor near the TV. The rule follower. The rule breaker. Which one would her daughter be? Which one was ultimately better to be? Which one would Grace have been? Lily lowered her face to the baby nestled in her arms. She breathed deeply. “I’d forgotten how good a baby smells.” Francesca stood. The rocker nudged her knees, pushing her a step toward Lily. Lily looked tired. Purple stained the pouches under her eyes. Her brown hair looked dusty. But Guinevere, nestled against Lily, was gloriously quiet, content. “Would you like a cup of coffee?” Francesca heard herself ask Lily. “Maybe some cappuccino?” While Lily rocked the baby, Francesca made cappuccino. She popped a big bowl of popcorn. She led the boys to the basement and let them bring up the two bean bag chairs Gary had bought without even asking her first. The boys sat in the bean bag chairs and watched Nickelodeon, the sound low, the popcorn between them on the floor. Francesca lay under a comforter on the couch. From half-opened eyes, she watched Lily rock Guinevere. She watched Lily’s fingers trace the heart shapes on Guinevere’s hat. The hat was adorable. Maybe she’d ask Lily for the pattern. Francesca felt her stomach tighten. Was it Grace’s hat? Had Grace ever worn it? Oh! The three Gs on the bocce balls. What an idiot she was. An insensitive idiot. Well, she would tell the boys that the third G was for both their sisters. She looked at the boys cradled in the bean bag chairs. The chairs clashed with the décor, but Francesca had to admit that with the boys sitting in them, the chairs somehow looked right. Griff suddenly turned and looked at her. She smiled, and when, this time, shockingly, he actually smiled back, she felt something bright and fierce sweep through her, swift, soft bristles scrubbing her clean. Was it gladness? Grace? The evening pressed darker and darker against the windows behind the tree. The lights on the tree began to pop out. Brighter and brighter they glowed, so that, even after Francesca closed her eyes, she could feel their heat warming her skin. Marie Anderson is a mother of three in La Grange, IL. During the school year, she helps supervise (and “entertain”) 500 grade school children during their lunch recess. She is the founder/facilitator of her local library’s writing group, now in its 7th robust year. Her fiction and essays have appeared in numerous publications. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/december-2015-issue/"> RETURN TO THE DECEMBER ISSUE </a>   </div> </article> <article id="post-24445" class="post-24445 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-book-review tag-changing-bodies tag-coming-of-age tag-december-2015-issue tag-hilary-levey-friedman tag-puberty"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/book-review-becoming-an-adolescent/" title="Permalink to Book Review: Are Our Kids Maturing Faster?" rel="bookmark"><img width="568" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/The-New-Puberty-568x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Book Review: Are Our Kids Maturing Faster?" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Book Review: Are Our Kids Maturing Faster?" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/book-review-becoming-an-adolescent/" title="Permalink to Book Review: Are Our Kids Maturing Faster?" rel="bookmark">Book Review: Are Our Kids Maturing Faster?</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/book-review-becoming-an-adolescent/" title="9:11 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-12-15T09:11:01-05:00" pubdate>December 15, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/book-review/" rel="tag">book review</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/changing-bodies/" rel="tag">changing bodies</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/coming-of-age/" rel="tag">coming of age</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/december-2015-issue/" rel="tag">December 2015 Issue</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/hilary-levey-friedman/" rel="tag">Hilary Levey Friedman</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/puberty/" rel="tag">puberty</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/book-review-becoming-an-adolescent/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-24717" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/The-New-Puberty-248x300.jpg" alt="The New Puberty" width="248" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/The-New-Puberty-248x300.jpg 248w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/The-New-Puberty-100x121.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/The-New-Puberty-232x281.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/The-New-Puberty-500x606.jpg 500w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/The-New-Puberty.jpg 568w" sizes="(max-width: 248px) 100vw, 248px" />By Hilary Levey Friedman Louise Greenspan and Julianna Deardorff’s The New Puberty: How to Navigate Early Development in Today’s Girls Robie H. Harris and Michael Emberley’s It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health Joyce T. McFadden’s Your Daughter’s Bedroom: Insights for Raising Confident Women Jonathan Zimmerman’s Too Hot to Handle: A Global History of Sex Education Few things in life fill people—adults and children alike—with as much trepidation as puberty. And while the contours of puberty are unchanged, the age at which it occurs and the implications of that have in fact shifted. So how can we prepare our children, and ourselves, to handle these bodily and life changes with grace? Four books help show us the way, all with a different focus but in the service of helping adolescents develop a healthy relationship with their own bodies and with others. Jonathan Zimmerman’s academic study of the history of sex education gives us a sweeping big picture view of how we got here, Louise Greenspan and Julianna Deardorff’s The New Puberty not only breaks down what happens biologically but what may or may not have influenced young girls’ biology in more recent times, Joyce McFadden’s Your Daughter’s Bedroom describes the potential long-term implications of not properly addressing puberty with your daughter, and Robie Harris and Michael Emberly’s It’s Perfectly Normal provide a guide you can have your children read so you can have an open discussion together. It’s Perfectly Normal first appeared in 1994. Since then it has appeared in 35 different languages and in 2014 its 20th anniversary edition appeared with updates on gender identity, sexting, and social media use. Both Your Daughter’s Bedroom and The New Puberty identify It’s Perfectly Normal as one of the best books to use when teaching your children about puberty (boys and girls alike). When you look at the 100-page book it is easy to see why; it tackles sometimes uncomfortable topics with directness and humor thanks to the beautiful watercolor illustrations, especially the Bird and the Bee who appear on every page. While the authors say the book is appropriate for ages 10 and up, it could also be used for children as young as 8, especially because the best time to talk about changes is before they start occurring. According to Greenspan and Deardorff, pubertal changes are in fact happening earlier than ever before. But not across the board—and it is one of the major strengths of this book that the authors give lots of detail and measured caveats without resorting to attention-grabbing headlines. The New Puberty explains that puberty is a process much more like a long hallway than a single doorway. What hasn’t changed is that puberty in girls typically starts with breast development, then armpit and pubic hair, often acne, followed by a growth spurt, and at last menstruation. The authors explain that, “Girls today tend to experience breast budding at a much earlier age than girls in the 1970s, but they don’t necessarily get their first period that much sooner than their 1970 counterparts.” Why does this matter? Greenspan and Deardorff explain, “For girls, puberty is unique. It not only foments a complex array of emotional issues but also heralds the development of visual cues of sexuality (e.g. breasts, wider hips) to a degree that boys just don’t experience.” For these reasons the book focuses on females, though advice offered in The New Puberty about how to build emotional closeness and develop healthy habits can be applied equally as well to boys. Because of changes in the timing of puberty—to which Greenspan and Deardorff carefully show cannot be attributed to any one change but rather a combination of hormone mimickers in the environment, stress, fat, race and ethnicity, and still other factors (one of the best chapters in the book is Chapter 3, “Nature versus Nurture: An In-Depth Look at Puberty Prompters”)—they argue sex education should start earlier than ever. They offer reassurance in The New Puberty that, “Although you may feel like it’s all happening too fast, maturation is actually a slow process, so there’s time to develop this conversation in a way that feels natural to both of you.” But when breast buds begin developing at age 8 for many girls today, should sex ed really wait until middle or even high school? Jonathan Zimmerman in his new book, Too Hot to Handle, shows how sex ed has been handled differently across the world and in different time periods. When sex education began the United States was one of the leaders, mainly because of its early investment in public education and secondary schools. Though today it lags behind many countries, especially ones like Sweden, which became the first nation in the world to make sex education required in all public schools in 1956. Venereal disease has been a driving force behind increased sex ed (note it often goes by different names to make it more palatable, such as population education, social hygiene, human relations, or marriage and family education), like during World War II in the 1940s and in the 1990s following the HIV epidemic. But what has always stifled good sexual education remains true across borders and time: parental resistance, religious objections, and poor teacher preparation. Four topics in particular are seen as taboo: abortion, contraception, homosexuality, and masturbation. Masturbation is one of the more surprising focuses of Joyce McFadden’s Your Daughter’s Bedroom. McFadden, a psychoanalyst, decided to conduct an online survey in 2005 called the Women’s Realities Study. One of the most interesting results of that survey is that the topics women most want to talk about, but don’t always, include masturbation, menstruation, and women’s relationships with their mothers. In fact, McFadden argues, the beginning of menstruation is often the start of distance between mothers and daughters. She wants to enable mothers to feel more comfortable with their own sexuality so that they can pass on that confidence to their daughters. In her own words, “Your Daughter’s Bedroom, is the first book to address the psychological and emotional elements of the sexuality of both mothers and daughters. It offers mothers outward and inward prescriptions for change, because it’s intended to encourage mothers to be introspective and reflect on our own sexuality while learning how to give our daughters the ability to live more comfortably with theirs.” In talking about It’s Perfectly Normal, McFadden points out that lots of mother’s today give their daughters books about menstruation. However, they just give the books and don’t often have conversations about the contents and answer questions that inevitably arise. So not only does sexual education need to improve in schools, so too does it at home. In order to raise girls, and boys, who are comfortable with their bodies they must receive proper education, support, and guidance from all of the adults in their lives. By being open, honest, and loving about puberty we can raise children who know more about themselves and how to be healthy as they grow and develop over the life course, influencing future generations along the way. Hilary Levey Friedman is the Book Review Editor at Brain, Child and the author of Playing to Win: Raising Children in a Competitive Culture. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/december-2015-issue/">RETURN TO DECEMBER ISSUE</a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1623365988/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1623365988&linkCode=as2&tag=brainchildm02-20&linkId=DXDYLCG7Z6FRB4SM" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Buy The New Puberty: How to Navigate Early Development in Today’s Girls</a><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=brainchildm02-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1623365988" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /> </div> </article> <article id="post-24294" class="post-24294 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-by-mariah-mottley tag-december-2015-issue tag-humor tag-motherwit"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/to-do/" title="Permalink to To Do" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Dec-15-Motherwit-ART-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="To Do" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="To Do" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/to-do/" title="Permalink to To Do" rel="bookmark">To Do</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/to-do/" title="8:56 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-12-15T08:56:13-05:00" pubdate>December 15, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/by-mariah-mottley/" rel="tag">By Mariah Mottley</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/december-2015-issue/" rel="tag">December 2015 Issue</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/humor/" rel="tag">humor</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/motherwit/" rel="tag">motherwit</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/to-do/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-24296" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Dec-15-Motherwit-ART-286x300.jpg" alt="Dec 15 Motherwit ART" width="286" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Dec-15-Motherwit-ART-286x300.jpg 286w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Dec-15-Motherwit-ART-975x1024.jpg 975w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Dec-15-Motherwit-ART-100x105.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Dec-15-Motherwit-ART-232x244.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Dec-15-Motherwit-ART-500x525.jpg 500w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Dec-15-Motherwit-ART.jpg 1104w" sizes="(max-width: 286px) 100vw, 286px" />By Mariah Mottley TO DO: 8:11 AM Call the pediatrician to tell her about the worm your husband found in the baby’s diaper. Be sure and spell it out so you don’t have to actually say it. She will ask if it was alive, and how big it was. “uh, the W-O-R-M was about as big, as I don’t know, a piece of linguine? Are you going to want it? Because we saved it. I have it right here. I’m happy to drop it off. I was going to be in town anyway and-” Stop talking because you sound insane. Baby worming appointment set for 10:15. 8:44 AM Confirm the address of the lady you found on craigslist to make a fleece coat for your goat, make a copy of the “Well Tempered Hoof” the academic paper you are going to mail to your old farrier along with $15 gift card at Dunkin’ Donuts along with the news that we won’t be needing his services anymore. Check to make sure that preschool daughter Billie is wearing an appropriate outfit and tell her it is time to get ready to go. Change the baby’s diaper, trying not to look at his anus, in case there is a large worm glaring back at you. Double bag wormy diaper in a second ziplock bag and add to the pile of outgoing mail and reusable grocery bags you will be taking to the car with you. Make sure everyone has coats, socks, and shoes on, with a hat and gloves for preschooler. 9:12 AM Drop Billie off at preschool but pretend to be on time and that circle time has not started. Drop eldest daughter, Bela, who slept in, off at elementary school. List ‘bad temper’ as reason for her late arrival. Arm yourself for viewing of the W-O-R-M at doctor’s office with latte ala Dunkin Donuts. It won’t help. 10:34 AM Your baby, who is arguably no longer a baby but a little person who walks and talks and apparently, eats dirt, is diagnosed with roundworms. How disgusting. Try not to sound neurotic and self-involved. Fail. Ask panicked questions about life cycle and obsessively nibble your nails until the kindly nurse practitioner mentions twice that she has emailed the prescription to the pharmacy and stands up. “He is a gem,” she says, about the wonderful baby, who, not a baby at all, is pushing around an oxygen tank and clonking it into things. He does not seem concerned at all about the army of worms he may have wriggling inside his bottom. You can barely finish your coffee for thinking about it, however. As the nurse is leaving, grab her sleeve. “If we give him the pills, won’t more come out?” “We do want them out,” she says, and gives a little wave. 11:22 AM Call your husband from car. Inform him that your baby has been diagnosed with roundworms, and that you are obese. You shouldn’t have, but you got on the scale at the office. There was a BMI chart in the bathroom. It seemed like a victimless crime at the time, but now it turns out that your husband is the victim. The baby has roundworms from eating dirt, or eating vegetables that were grown in the dirt, and his wife is obese. 11:29 AM Call the goat coat lady. Find her house, pick up the goat coat. It is lovely. 12:04 PM Pick Billie up at preschool, and by all means DO NOT squish her Christmas sculpture, or her Christmas tree with the glitter glue on it. Say no when she tells you to buy her gum at the pharmacy. 12:24 PM Try and act normal in front of the ridiculously hot pharmacist. Maybe he doesn’t know that the prescription is for worms. He totally knows. Ask if you should give the medication with food. Laugh inappropriately loudly and suggest you could always hide the tablet in peanut butter ‘like we do with the dogs’. Stare at the counter in horror. Back home, cross your fingers and change the baby’s diaper. Beg him to wait to poop until his father gets home. 2:45 Pick Bela up from elementary school. Do not shout at her first grade teacher that the baby has roundworms and that you are obese. Put everyone into the car and drive home, where you will serve Goldfish crackers and sliced apples with cheese before you try the coat on the goat. It will be too big. Originally from Manhattan, Mariah Plumlee lives in the Finger Lakes Region of New York. She is author of The Great Burn, a memoir about modern marriage, rural living, and kid-having. She can be found @MissesPlum and at her blog, www.theplumlots.com. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/december-2015-issue/">RETURN TO DECEMBER ISSUE</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-24499" class="post-24499 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-adoption tag-annika-paradise tag-december-2015-issue"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/found-in-translation/" title="Permalink to Found in Translation" rel="bookmark"><img width="480" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/IMG_4325-480x170.jpeg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Found in Translation" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Found in Translation" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/found-in-translation/" title="Permalink to Found in Translation" rel="bookmark">Found in Translation</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/found-in-translation/" title="8:30 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-12-15T08:30:44-05:00" pubdate>December 15, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/adoption/" rel="tag">adoption</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/annika-paradise/" rel="tag">Annika Paradise</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/december-2015-issue/" rel="tag">December 2015 Issue</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/found-in-translation/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-24501" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/IMG_4325.jpeg" alt="IMG_4325" width="668" height="891" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/IMG_4325.jpeg 480w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/IMG_4325-225x300.jpeg 225w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/IMG_4325-98x130.jpeg 98w" sizes="(max-width: 668px) 100vw, 668px" /> By Annika Paradise Slowly, small clusters of adults anxiously enter the room: one or two Caucasians with one Chinese translator. They hold teddy bears, dolls, backpacks full of presents, cameras, sugared rice crackers and the required gift, wrapped in red paper, for the government official. The room is decorated in red, black and white…symbolically. Some translate from Chinese to Swedish, Chinese to Spanish, or Chinese to English making stilted small talk to bridge the tenuous silence. Beyond language there is a palpable bond between the adults. This is it. This is the moment we have been waiting for three to five years. There are four doors separating the waiting room from the children and their nannies behind. Each door is closed with a red, blue and black curtain, so that as we walk by, we can catch glimpses of the children. Is that her? No, that one is definitely her! My husband Will soon stands by one curtain and is making silly faces to the children behind. An official quickly comes to tell him that he must sit with the others waiting. Within the hour, each person will leave this room forever changed. I grew up in Silicon Valley before it was Silicon Valley. Palo Alto was still a funky college town. Moms in my world stayed home with their kids, made their own granola and Ken Kesey was our famous neighbor. There was the bookmobile, picnics under oak trees, trips to Tahoe and fights with my sister, but always there was an impending call from Dr. Goodkind, my mother’s oncologist. Unlike other kids in my world, I don’t remember a childhood that was separate from sickness. My mother was diagnosed with cancer when I was three, went through chemo, remission, chemo, surgery, more surgery and eventually died from a brain tumor when I was eight. We did hospice in 1978 (before the hospice movement made it common) and she never slept away from our home with the final tumor. My well-meaning brownie troop leaders and my mom’s friends looked at me with pity, referred to our family as a “tragedy” and didn’t let my friends come to her funeral because their children weren’t ready for something so sad. When you grow up with that mantle, the upside is you’re ready for anything, especially when it comes thirty years later in the form of a beautiful Chinese 3-year-old. *** As the first children emerge in the arms of their caregivers, an official takes the paperwork and says the child’s name in a loud declaration to the room as if announcing the next debutante into high society. Many of us have only seen photos that were taken six or more months before. Some wonder if they will recognize their child from the photos. As the proclamations begin, there are the sounds of great screams as the children clutch onto all they have known, a sudden cacophony of life’s abrupt shift. It’s like we are all in the delivery room together witnessing one another’s very private birth. Some are physically pulled from their Chinese nannies as they reach and scramble toward their old life, not making eye contact with this new big white lady. They whimper, eyes wide. The babies are soon silenced with a toy, a sugar cookie or by exhaustion. The older ones – some as old as five or six -who more fully understand, train their eyes on the door from which they came. They come around more slowly but are also soon entranced with their gifts and sweets. We wait and wait for our daughter’s name to be announced but there is a discrepancy with the spelling of her name on one of the forms. It needs to be corrected before we can meet, as if spelling can derail the seismic changes that are happening in our lives. How much does a child understand in these moments? There is the one level of understanding but there is another magical level that can soften the blow. I knew my mother was dying on one level but on another I thought that the scientists at Stanford were monitoring how a girl responds to so much sadness. I steeled myself thinking that I was being watched. In my magical world there was no way my mother could actually die. So I was surprised when she actually did die one Saturday during cartoons. I ran to her bed, saw my beautiful mother turned greenish with white lips. I cried, then remembered the scientists and felt surprised that they would really take it this far. I wouldn’t give them what they wanted. I hid to cry, then made up some massive fantasy of my mother being kept in Eastern Europe while I was still being studied. If I could create such fantasies, what was my new daughter thinking and feeling? What was her fantasy world creating to soften her reality? Mao Xin Feng, at almost 3, is the last child to emerge from the curtained waiting room. Each hair is meticulously arranged. Her lips parted, eyes wide as she looks out into the room of screaming children and parents. The crying room is slowly reaching its crescendo. Her expression is “speechless” and would literally remain speechless for most of the next 72 hours. She is accompanied by her nanny and a proud representative from the orphanage. I don’t remember walking toward her but I do remember reaching out for her. As she is lifted into my arms, she does not cling to her escorts but her body stiffly remains in the gesture of hugging her nanny, unsure of her next gesture. Her body was stiff in my arms, her rapidly beating heart, her breath on my neck, and I feel surprised that she weighs obviously less than my son who is exactly one year younger than she. Slowly, as our translator made small talk between the 5 adults, Xin Feng’s body starts to relax in quick jolts; her heart slows. After ten minutes of hugging and slow rocking, her small hands begin to hold on to me. Her nannies are beaming and telling her that she is so lucky to have her own mommy and daddy; that she needs to listen to us and be good; and come back to visit one day. How many times have these women delivered away these children they have raised? Are they conflicted inside? Unlike the diligent nurses who inspect the car seat before we left the hospital with our biological newborns, we brought Lucy Xinfeng Paradise home from the Guangdong Welfare Office in a hailed cab, without a working seat belt, and held her on our laps through the Guangzhou traffic. The entirety of our two weeks in China is taken up with the required half days of government office visits and the other half is free time. When we walk around the area by our hotel, our son Kai and Lucy in a double-wide stroller, they start to bond. Kai’s white-blonde curls contrast with Lucy’s black bob. Chinese people want to pose with the stroller and take photos, saying “very good!” and giving me two thumbs up. Do they like the blonde boy, the siblings, or the fact that we are obviously adopting? I’ll never know. Kai and Lucy clink sippy cups as if to say “cheers”, share cookies and play peek-a-boo. Lucy has never owned more than one lovie and one change of clothes. She is enamored with this sippy cup, sleeps with the sippy cup, wants Kai’s sippy cup and seems to understand, if not verbally, the concept of “mine!” Two doors down from the hotel is “Lucy’s Restaurant” with both American and Chinese food. On the menu is a special section for Chinese kids’ menu – most tables have one or more Chinese children with nervously doting Western parents. The waiter tells me that Chinese girls like “egg flower soup” and he’s right. On our second night together, Lucy wants a toy from Kai as we wait for our food. Kai is reluctant and Lucy gives him a strong right hook to the eye. Will grabs Kai and says loudly to Lucy, “Hey, you can’t hit my kid!” All 20 pounds of her looks blankly back to him. After a few minutes, I remind Will, “Lucy’s your kid now too.” I used to lie with my newborns on my chest; let them sleep so I could stare and bond; hearts finding their synch. Instinctively, I did this with Lucy too. Her feet would do a kind of running motion which pushed her into a nuzzle on my neck. She was so intuitive about finding a way to bond. Her first words were “mommy,” “water,” “potty,” “ladybug,” and “where’s mommy?” In the days and weeks after my own mother died, I would sleepwalk down into the study and fall asleep on the floor, lying as if her hospital bed were still there. My father would wake me, pick me up and hold me before taking me back up to my own room. My subconscious mind has been, for years, also asking, “where’s Mommy?” Now the adult in me has the privilege of weaving the answer. Somewhere over the Pacific, we cuddle, trying to get comfortable laying across our seats. We point back and forth smiling and saying together, “Xin Feng”, then, “Mommy”. I used the colloquial with her nickname, “Ai Feng” to which she decidedly says, “may-o, Ai Feng!” She instead points to herself and says, “LUCY!” and from that day onward, I call her Lucy. When Lucy is home for just a few days, jetlag still intense, language still being learned, we start to realize that the honeymoon is over. Lucy sits and sits with her cheeks stuffed with food at the counter. She is obviously full so we try to take her plate away and urge her to come play. She screams with terror. We read that this is common with children who always had limited food. So up she stays with squirrel cheeks bunkered against my encouraging smiles. Finally I realize that if I gave her crackers in a baggie, if she can hold some food, then she will leave her plate to do something else. Her one hand white-knuckles the zip-lock while she draws with the other. Her tantrums are extreme. If I could give them a voice, they would say, where am I? Where are all my old friends? I want white rice and sugar cookies. I want you to understand my Cantonese dialect…now! What the fuck is going on here!? Has her magical thinking hit a roadblock? The tantrums are thrashing, banging objects and screaming. I physically restrain her a few times so that she won’t hurt herself or others. I am yelled at. I am yelled at again. And then yelled at some more. As much as I am her anchor, I am also being held responsible for the extreme change in her life. How do you tell a child that this new life will be better for them in the long run, that she will come to love us, that we can provide a nice life for her, and that our food and dogs won’t be so scary once some time passes. And that I already love her. The screaming and anger are relentless; I want to help her, but I also want to scream back at her. Hands shaking, rage rising I need to walk out the door. I am ashamed at my lack of patience and the fire that is stirred within me. I am the nice one; I’ve never had anger issues. Where has this rage been buried? I had no idea the extent of my limitations until those moments. I close the door and leave my daughter alone to scream it out. After her intense loss and pain in her short life, what kind of person am I, to walk away from her? I am walking away both to protect myself and because I’m surprised to meet a girl in me who wants to yell too. Summer has come to Boulder, Colorado when we return home from China in June 2010. My two biological children are in the garden, barefoot finding the irises, peonies and helping weed the vegetable garden. Lucy screams from the doorway. She will not step down onto the dirt without being carried or wearing shoes. She cries when the tall grass touches her arms, cries when any dirt gets onto her clothes. As we look through the photos from the orphanage, we realize that her world had been paved. The playground was cement, the courtyard tiled and as we know she had never left the orphanage, we conclude that she has probably never touched grass in her life. Not only is she tormented by lack of control in her life, in culture shock and learning a new language, she is also meeting the natural world for the first time. In the months of yelling, screaming and PTSD in the house, Lorna and Kai spend more time with a babysitter than ever before or since. I feel guilty for how little emotional reserves are left for them and how insignificant their needs are on my day-to-day triage. It’s only when five year-old Lorna cries that she misses her mommy that I doubt this crazy path we have chosen. But when I overhear Lorna telling a friend that she is now part-Chinese, I wonder what her trip to China and the integration of her sister into her life has imprinted onto her own identity. I hope that maybe all this chaos has shown her that messy is OK and families are more about love and commitment than biology. Back before we left for China, I read volumes about the possible issues with toddler adoption and my anxiety went through the roof. As Melanie, our 22 year-old baby sitter, said to me in the spring of 2010, “don’t we all have attachment issues, Annika?” She was so right: if you put either Will or myself into the literature’s matrix of whose history would cause attachment issues, we’d both be off the charts. Perhaps saying yes to Lucy was saying yes to all of us who have had rough start. And really, I’ve learned of myself that I had something to prove: that none of us is broken by our early circumstances. Even me. In June of 2011, back from China a year, we visit my mother in law in the Boston area when we decide to do the typical tourist Duck Boat tour. In these tours, WWII amphibious vehicles give a historical tour of both downtown Boston and Boston Harbor. The historical facts bore the kids, but the crazy vehicle is exciting for all, especially after 45 minutes when we finally drive right into the Charles River and start the boat part of the tour. The driver then stands up and turns to face the hundred or so passengers. He asks if there are any volunteers who want to drive the boat. Lucy’s hand shoots up and, before being chosen, starts marching up the aisle. This is the Lucy who has shown up in our family ever since: jump in with two feet, even before knowing all the details, especially if it means steering your own ship. Days pass without obvious change but only as the years pass do I look back and see that we are all new people. Lucy tantrums over the first day that is cold enough to warrant long underwear; instead of being irritated over the tantrum and being late for school, I smile that this is a really normal thing to scream about. I hate long underwear too. Instantly, I’m aware it’s been a really long time since she screamed about something. I wonder if the summer of screaming ever really happened or was it just some kind of weird dream. Today, in March 2015, Will and I come to Lucy’s 1st grade parent – teacher conference. The teacher has mostly glowing reports. Lucy is a favorite playmate of her peers: enthusiastic, attentive and confident. Lucy is one of her brightest students and she lays out all the ways that she will give her extra challenges so that our gifted and talented girl will not be bored. I want to cry thinking how far Lucy has come, but try to remain composed. I want to tell her that she learned English equal to her peers after being with us for just three months – of course she is smart. Her teacher does mention, as “an opportunity for growth”, that Lucy lashed out to another student who touched her things. I remember the right hook she gave to her younger brother, how she clutched the zip-lock of crackers in her early days, her obsession with her first sippy cup. In this moment, I see that the scars, although faint, are still fading. Author’s Note: This essay is the honest answer to the oft-repeated question, “what was it like to adopt a three year-old?” Usually I just give a one word answer, like “great”, but this is what I would really say if I were being honest. Lucy is my hero. Annika Powell Paradise lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband, three children, 5 chickens, 2 ducks and a pug. When she is not mothering, she writes poetry, essays and is currently working on a YA historical fiction novel. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/december-2015-issue/">RETURN TO THE DECEMBER ISSUE</a>           </div> </article> <article id="post-24568" class="post-24568 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-december-2015 tag-magazine tag-monthly-issue"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/december-2015-issue/" title="Permalink to December 2015 Issue" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Dec-2015-Cover-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="December 2015 Issue" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="December 2015 Issue" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/december-2015-issue/" title="Permalink to December 2015 Issue" rel="bookmark">December 2015 Issue</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/december-2015-issue/" title="7:44 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-12-07T07:44:02-05:00" pubdate>December 7, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/december-2015/" rel="tag">December 2015</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/magazine/" rel="tag">magazine</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/monthly-issue/" rel="tag">monthly issue</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/december-2015-issue/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-24722" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Dec-2015-Cover-1024x998.jpg" alt="Dec 2015 Cover" width="640" height="624" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Dec-2015-Cover-1024x998.jpg 1024w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Dec-2015-Cover-300x292.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Dec-2015-Cover-768x748.jpg 768w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Dec-2015-Cover-100x97.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Dec-2015-Cover-232x226.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Dec-2015-Cover-500x487.jpg 500w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Dec-2015-Cover.jpg 1162w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" />Illustration by<a href="http://www.cathynichols.com"> Cathy Nichols</a> <h1 style="text-align: center;"></h1> <h1 style="text-align: center;">Table of Contents</h1>   <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/the-real-mother/">Essay: The Real Mother</a> By Teri Carter I’ve barely been at this stepmother thing six months, but I’ve already learned an important lesson: there is always someone to remind me who I am not. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/a-drowning/">Essay: A Drowning</a> By Alisa A. Gaston-Linn Illustrated by Ruth Sora Lee It is not my dogs who are in danger. I am the one sinking to the lower-density stratifying waters, the upper surface trying to freeze while I am trying to prevent the hardening. There is something wrong with me. I feel it through the tips of my nerves, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/found-in-translation/">Essay: Found in Translation</a> By Annika Paradise Summer has come to Boulder, Colorado when we return home from China in June 2010. My two biological children are in the garden, barefoot finding the irises, peonies and helping weed the vegetable garden. Lucy screams from the doorway. She cries when the tall grass touches her arms, cries when any dirt gets onto her clothes. As we look through the photos from the orphanage, we realize that her world had been paved. The playground was cement, the courtyard tiled a…we conclude that she has probably never touched grass in her life. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/miles/">Essay: Explorers</a> By Alicia Rebecca Myers Because pregnancy requires the ultimate relinquishing of control, because I had suffered three early miscarriages, it made sense, this need to wrangle my labor into the Platonic ideal of labor. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/what-good-moms-do/">Fiction: What Good Moms Do</a> By Marie Anderson “My mother,” Francesca was saying, “helped me make most of those ornaments on the tree. When your sister’s older, I’ll teach her how to make ornaments like my mother taught me. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/did-you-choose-traditional-names-for-your-children/">Debate: Did You Choose Traditional Names For Your Children?</a> NO I Gave My Children Uncommon Names, By Dina Relles YES I Gave My Children Traditional Names, By Antonia Malchik <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/to-do/">Motherwit: To Do</a> 12:24 PM Try and act normal in front of the ridiculously hot pharmacist. Maybe he doesn’t know that the prescription is for worms. He totally knows. Ask if you should give the medication with food. Laugh inappropriately loudly and suggest you could always hide the tablet in peanut butter ‘like we do with the dogs’. Stare at the counter in horror. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/12/book-review-becoming-an-adolescent/">Book Review: On Becoming an Adolescent</a> So how can we prepare our children, and ourselves, to handle these bodily and life changes with grace? Four books help show us the way, all with a different focus but in the service of helping adolescents develop a healthy relationship with their own bodies and with others.   Illustration: <a href="http://www.cathynichols.com">Cathy Nichols</a> Cathy began her career as a young artist in Venice, CA where her heartfelt encaustic work showed on Abbot Kinney Blvd. and charmed collectors such as Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson. After moving to New York in 2005, Cathy continued to exhibit her work Cathy currently lives in the artsy, mountain town of Asheville, North Carolina, where she paints her colorful “stories in wax” to a soundtrack of her boyfriend’s music and children’s voices. </div> </article> <article id="post-24163" class="post-24163 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-general"> <header class="entry-header"> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/11/author-qa-jenna-von-oy/" title="Permalink to Author Q&A: Jenna von Oy" rel="bookmark">Author Q&A: Jenna von Oy</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/11/author-qa-jenna-von-oy/" title="4:32 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-11-15T16:32:12-05:00" pubdate>November 15, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/11/author-qa-jenna-von-oy/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Situation-Momedy-First-Time-Laughing-Pregnancy/dp/160542658X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1447622882&sr=8-1&keywords=situation+momedy"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-24170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Situation-Momedy-Author-Photo-240x300.jpg" alt="Situation Momedy Author Photo" width="240" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Situation-Momedy-Author-Photo-240x300.jpg 240w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Situation-Momedy-Author-Photo-819x1024.jpg 819w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Situation-Momedy-Author-Photo-100x125.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Situation-Momedy-Author-Photo-232x290.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Situation-Momedy-Author-Photo-500x625.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px" /></a>A Conversation with Jenna von Oy, Author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Situation-Momedy-First-Time-Laughing-Pregnancy/dp/160542658X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1447622882&sr=8-1&keywords=situation+momedy">Situation Momedy</a>. What inspired you to write Situation Momedy? After a few 3 a.m. Google-search binges about colic, and attempting to pack my first daughter’s diaper bag with enough stuff to survive Antarctica, I decided I needed to inject my motherhood experience with a little more comedy and a little less neurosis. I figured if I needed a reminder to laugh my way through the challenges of being a new parent, perhaps my mommy peers would appreciate a more lighthearted approach to the learning curve too What’s one thing about motherhood that’s taken you by surprise? I’m more willing to roll with the punches than I expected to be. For example, I just had to rearrange a business trip to Los Angeles when my youngest daughter got sick the morning of our flight. Obviously, her health and well-being came first, and I gladly altered the trip schedule to give her ample time to get better. I’m not saying I wasn’t frantically scrambling to rearrange meetings and babysitters and accommodations, but it was no big deal relative to getting my baby healthy! My pre-mommy self would have been flipping out over the unexpected change of plans. The younger me would probably still be hyperventilating into a paper bag, God bless her. That said, I definitely still have my moments. The i-dotter, t-crosser, OCD micromanager in me still has to be reminded, for example, to take a deep breath and stop twitching every time my three-year-old asserts her independence by refusing the clothing I’ve laid out for her to wear to school. What’s one piece of advice you’d give your best friend who’s expecting? Only one piece? That’s a tall order! I would encourage her to trust her own instincts and feel empowered by them. I would also let her know that not everything pertaining to parenting has to be learned before a baby is born; nor can it be. Motherhood will forever be a work in progress. The education continues and changes as it goes, and memorizing every page of What to Expect When You’re Expecting doesn’t necessarily equate to practical application! Leading with love, rather than the notion of “perfection,” is what it’s all about; everything else eventually falls into place. I might also mention the importance of letting herself off the hook. As moms, sometimes it’s easy to convince ourselves we should be able to handle everything life throws at us, and that’s not always feasible or fair. There are parenting moments that make you feel like your head will explode, moments that make you wonder if you know what you’re getting yourself into, and moments that make you question everything you thought you knew about motherhood to begin with. But there are also instances when you’ll surprise yourself by possessing more inner strength than you’ve given yourself credit for. We need to trust our instincts, be gentler on ourselves, and let the love shine through! What’s one piece of advice you’d give that friend’s significant other? Ask not what your wife can do for you but what you can do for your wife. (John F. Kennedy was close with his version, but I promise your pregnant wife will prefer mine!) As I say in my book, “There’s only so much you can do to assist during these nine (technically ten) months of maternity mayhem. Try to be as composed as possible and get used to asking the all-important question, ‘What can I do to help?’ This is really an expectant mom’s favorite thing to hear. And if your wife is anything like me, she loves giving you her input! If you consistently ask that question of us, we don’t feel like we have to ask more of you than you want to give, and that’s a beautiful thing.” I have a whole chapter for new dads in my book; fathers deserve a little laughter too! How do you recharge? I lock myself in the bathroom with a bottle of wine and pray my kids don’t find me. Sorry…was that out loud? As with most authors, I’m a true lover of books; reading is my escape. It should be noted, however, that I’m also a lover of sleep. Any morning my kids let me sleep past 8:00 is better than a day at the spa. Though I have to admit the spa sounds pretty good right now too. Quick-fire Q&A: Favorite hobby? Kitchen dance parties with my daughters—sometimes they even let me listen to someone other than Taylor Swift. What makes you laugh? My three-year-old using grown-up, multisyllabic words like she invented them. Favorite place to write? At my desk (which is organized chaos), accompanied by a glass of wine. Coffee or tea? Coffee, coffee, and more coffee. Junk food: sweet or salty? Salty. Unless I’m pregnant—then no baked good within a five-mile radius is safe. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Situation-Momedy-First-Time-Laughing-Pregnancy/dp/160542658X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1447622882&sr=8-1&keywords=situation+momedy"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-24166" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Situation-Momedy-Cover-200x300.jpg" alt="Situation Momedy Cover" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Situation-Momedy-Cover-200x300.jpg 200w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Situation-Momedy-Cover-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Situation-Momedy-Cover-87x130.jpg 87w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Situation-Momedy-Cover-433x650.jpg 433w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Situation-Momedy-Cover.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /></a><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Situation-Momedy-First-Time-Laughing-Pregnancy/dp/160542658X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1447622882&sr=8-1&keywords=situation+momedy">Buy the book</a>     </div> </article> <article id="post-24143" class="post-24143 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-general"> <header class="entry-header"> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/11/editors-letter-3/" title="Permalink to Editor’s Letter" rel="bookmark">Editor’s Letter</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/11/editors-letter-3/" title="2:38 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-11-14T14:38:24-05:00" pubdate>November 14, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/11/editors-letter-3/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <div> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-23940" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/image005.jpg" alt="image005" width="720" height="101" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/image005.jpg 720w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/image005-300x42.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/image005-100x14.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/image005-232x33.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/image005-500x70.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px" /> </div> <div></div>   <div></div> <div>It happens that Brain, Child announced our partnership with Stars of Hope last Thursday.</div> <div></div> <div>In honor of our 15th anniversary, Brain, Child: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers, has partnered with Stars of HOPE® to help families “pay it forward.” We are excited to have all the Moms in our Brain, Child community join our growing movement where you and your children can paint inspirational words, messages, and designs on wooden Stars that will be displayed in communities impacted by tragedy all over the world. Your family’s Stars of HOPE will serve as beacons of hope and compassion for all to see.</div> <div></div> Our hearts are with the people of France. We are with you. <div> To learn more, please look at our <a href="http://newyorksaysthankyou.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/StarsofHOPEFamilyGuide.pdf">family guidebook</a> To order your Stars of HOPE, please <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/stars-of-hope-box-of-hope/">click here</a>. </div>     </div> </article> <article id="post-23937" class="post-23937 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-editors-letter tag-marcelle-soviero tag-november-2015 tag-stars-of-hope"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/11/editors-letter-2/" title="Permalink to Editor’s Letter" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/IMG_00006007-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Editor’s Letter" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Editor’s Letter" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/11/editors-letter-2/" title="Permalink to Editor’s Letter" rel="bookmark">Editor’s Letter</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/11/editors-letter-2/" title="6:44 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-11-03T06:44:58-05:00" pubdate>November 3, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/editors-letter/" rel="tag">editor's letter</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/marcelle-soviero/" rel="tag">Marcelle Soviero</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/november-2015/" rel="tag">November 2015</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/stars-of-hope/" rel="tag">Stars of Hope</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/11/editors-letter-2/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-24150" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/IMG_00006007-300x300.jpg" alt="IMG_00006007" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/IMG_00006007-300x300.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/IMG_00006007-150x150.jpg 150w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/IMG_00006007-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/IMG_00006007-100x100.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/IMG_00006007-232x232.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/IMG_00006007-500x500.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Brain, Child: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers has partnered with Stars of HOPE® to help families “pay it forward.” With the Stars of HOPE Box of HOPE parents and their children can make a difference right from home.   Our hearts are with the people of France. Lets make the world a better place. <div>   To learn how you can give hope, please look at our <a href="http://newyorksaysthankyou.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/StarsofHOPEFamilyGuide.pdf">family guidebook</a>   </div> </div> </article> <article id="post-23860" class="post-23860 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-general"> <header class="entry-header"> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/11/author-qa-laura-h-choate/" title="Permalink to Author Q&A: Laura H. Choate" rel="bookmark">Author Q&A: Laura H. Choate</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/11/author-qa-laura-h-choate/" title="6:10 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-11-02T06:10:59-05:00" pubdate>November 2, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/11/author-qa-laura-h-choate/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-23861" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Swimming-Upsream-Laura-Choate-214x300.jpg" alt="Swimming Upsream Laura Choate" width="214" height="300" />We posed some question for Laura about her new book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Swimming-Upstream-Parenting-Resilience-Culture/dp/0199391130/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446462678&sr=1-1&keywords=swimming+upstream">Swimming Upstream</a>. Here is what she had to say. What sparked your interest in writing the book; was there a pivotal moment that set something off in you? In 2013 I had just finished a book, Adolescent Girls in Distress: a Guide to Mental Health Prevention and Treatment (Springer Press), and it was geared to counselors so that they could better understand cultural influences directed towards girls, girls’ development and mental health, and how to treat comment mental health problems in girls. After it was published I had a lightbulb moment when I realized that while counselors need these types of resources, it is parents who are in need of information about today’s culture, how it can affect their daughters, and about what they can do to help their daughters stay resilient in the face of cultural influences. So I decided to write a new book specifically geared towards parents, and that’s how this book came to be. What was hardest part of writing the book? The hardest part was learning how to write for a new audience: parents. I have spent my entire career writing for academic journals geared towards mental health professionals. My last three books were written for mental health professionals to guide their work with girls, but since this book is directed to parents, I had to develop a new style of writing, using a lot less academic jargon. Instead I provide summaries of research with easy-to-understand applications, use personal examples, and include self-awareness exercises. After I got the hang of it, it was very freeing to write in a more personal, less academic style. What was the greatest challenge in bringing Swimming Upstream to market? Oxford University Press handled everything for me. Once I submitted the initial book prospectus to them, my editor handled the entire process, including sending the manuscript out to external reviewers, providing me with feedback, working with me on a deadline, assigning a copyeditor, working with me in selecting a cover, and developing a marketing plan. Now I am working closely with their public relations team to get the word out about the book. They handled everything so I could keep my focus on writing the book. Explain the toxic culture that you describe in your book, and why it proves especially toxic to young women/girls? First, I am a parent of two children, a son and a preteen daughter, and I have long been alarmed by the messages that current culture aims towards girls. I look around and am concerned at current trends—the pressure for girls to look hot and sexy at a young age, to get as much attention as possible both on-line and in real life, and the unrelenting pressure for them to be highly accomplished in school and in their extracurricular activities. This is a lot of pressure for girls to manage, and it can be damaging to girls’ development and mental health. Some girls push themselves too hard to achieve and meet these expectations, while others girl up and stop trying altogether. It is no wonder that some girls begin to struggle in early adolescence. Such pressure and change can create a ripe environment for serious mental disorders like depression, anxiety, eating disorders, substance abuse, and self-injury, all of which are on the rise in today’s girls. What do you want readers to take away after reading Swimming Upstream? One takeaway is that parents will learn that they have more choices than they have realized. Maybe they haven’t taken the time to stop and reflect on current cultural trends, their parenting values, what they want for their daughter’s futures. The book provides a space for parents to begin to have these conversations. I also hope they learn many practical parenting strategies for helping their daughters develop positive body image, healthy relationships, a balanced perspective on academics and accomplishments, and active problem solving and coping skills. Another take away that permeates the book is unconditional love. Our daughters need to know that they are accepted and truly loved just for who they are, not who the culture expects them to be, not based on how they look, and not based on their performance. If they know we accept them fully, they won’t have to seek out validation from other people who might not have their best interests at heart the way we do. We have to let our daughters know that we love them, we like them, we approve of them just for who they are. This is a resounding theme throughout the book. How do you balance motherhood and writing? I am so fortunate because as a professor, I am paid to write and to teach. I am also fortunate now because currently both of my children are in school from 7:45-3. This has not always been the case during their younger years so I am very appreciative of the 7 hours of time I have each day to get my writing done. When in the middle of writing a book I am very disciplined with my time during the day while my children are at school so essentially when I am not teaching or doing committee work, I am alone and I am writing. Whether it is alone in my office at LSU, a cubby in the library, or alone in my home, I force myself to clear my calendar to have long stretches for writing. When I am at home, I try to ignore all of the housework and other things I could be doing, I just stay focused on getting as much done as possible before the kids come home. I don’t ever write once my kids get home from school because I am committed to being there for them in the afternoons and evenings. Because of this commitment, I have to make the most of every moment during the day. This has meant saying no to many opportunities over the years, but it is important to me to be present for my kids in the afternoons and evenings. What is your advice to mother-writers? My advice is to remember that life has its seasons. When my children were infants (they were born 2 years apart) I stayed home with them as much as possible. I had no long stretches of time to write, I just grabbed the moments when I could. I tried to stay as prepared as possible so that when the moments came I could take full advantage of them. I remember when my son was a baby he would sleep in the car but then wake up as soon as I tried to take him out of the carseat and bring him inside for a proper nap. So when he fell asleep in the car, there were many times that I pulled into a parking lot and pulled out my laptop to write for an hour while he slept, knowing that the peace would end as soon as I got home. But I learned early on that it was unfair to me and especially to my children to try to write and also take care of them at the same time. This caused me to be frustrated with them if they cried or interrupted me, and I was never productive anyway. I tried my best to be fully present as a mother when I was with them. To be fully “on” as a parent and then to be fully “on” as a writer and teacher when I had childcare or when they were asleep. It was not easy! Now that they are 10 and 12, it is much easier for me to find time to write while they are at home or at school. So my advice would be to stay patient during seasons of life when mothering requires more of your physical presence; this season only lasts for a few years and it is over quickly; try to enjoy each season as it comes to you. Read an excerpt from <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/11/swimming-upstream/">Swimming Upstream</a>.   <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-23857" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Swimming-Upstream-Cover-199x300.jpg" alt="Swimming Upstream Cover" width="199" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Swimming-Upstream-Cover-199x300.jpg 199w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Swimming-Upstream-Cover-681x1024.jpg 681w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Swimming-Upstream-Cover-86x130.jpg 86w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Swimming-Upstream-Cover-432x650.jpg 432w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Swimming-Upstream-Cover.jpg 997w" sizes="(max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px" /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Swimming-Upstream-Parenting-Resilience-Culture/dp/0199391130/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446462678&sr=1-1&keywords=swimming+upstream">Buy the book</a> A guide to help parents teach their daughters to resist negative cultural messages. Never before have adolescent girls faced so many confusing and contradictory expectations. From a young age, popular culture teaches girls that their worth is based on their appearance, their ability to gain attention, and an ever-increasing accrual of accomplishments. With such unattainable standards, it is no wonder that many girls experience stress, self-doubt, and even mental health problems. Girls struggle to develop an authentic sense of self, even as they attempt to meet a set of impossible cultural expectations. Many parents feel helpless against the onslaught of negative influences targeting their daughters, but in Swimming Upstream: Parenting Girls for Resilience in a Toxic Culture, Laura Choate offers a message of reassurance. This book provides parents with a set of straightforward tools they can use to help their daughters navigate the trials and demands of contemporary girlhood. Choate draws upon years of research and counseling literature to teach parents how to instill the power of resilience in their daughters, including developing a positive body image, maintaining healthy relationships with friends and romantic partners, and navigating high-pressure academic environments. Based on cutting-edge research, this book contains the strategies that parents need to prepare their daughters with the life skills they need to resist destructive cultural influences. Though the journey through modern girlhood may be complicated – and even treacherous – this guide offers a user-friendly way for parents to help their daughters thrive in the midst of the negative pressures of modern culture. Practical and engaging, Swimming Upstream is a must-read for parents of girls of all ages.   </div> </article> <article id="post-23855" class="post-23855 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-book-reviews category-featured-books category-general category-highlights"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/11/swimming-upstream/" title="Permalink to Book Excerpt: Swimming Upstream" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Swimming-Upstream-Cover-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Book Excerpt: Swimming Upstream" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Book Excerpt: Swimming Upstream" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/11/swimming-upstream/" title="Permalink to Book Excerpt: Swimming Upstream" rel="bookmark">Book Excerpt: Swimming Upstream</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/11/swimming-upstream/" title="6:00 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-11-02T06:00:51-05:00" pubdate>November 2, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/book-reviews/" rel="category tag">Book Reviews</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/featured-books/" rel="category tag">Featured Books</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/highlights/" rel="category tag">Highlights</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/11/swimming-upstream/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-23857" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Swimming-Upstream-Cover-199x300.jpg" alt="Swimming Upstream Cover" width="199" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Swimming-Upstream-Cover-199x300.jpg 199w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Swimming-Upstream-Cover-681x1024.jpg 681w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Swimming-Upstream-Cover-86x130.jpg 86w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Swimming-Upstream-Cover-432x650.jpg 432w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Swimming-Upstream-Cover.jpg 997w" sizes="(max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px" />This is an excerpt from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Swimming-Upstream-Parenting-Resilience-Culture/dp/0199391130/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446462678&sr=1-1&keywords=swimming+upstream">Swimming Upstream: Parenting Girls for Resilience in a Toxic Culture</a> by Laura H. Choate. GIRLS ‘ CRUSHES AND ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS Okay, steel yourself: I have talked about the complex world of girls’ friendships; now it is time to dive into even deeper waters—their romantic relationships. It is normal for girls to be driven toward romantic relationships starting in early adolescence. Remember, as reviewed in Chapter Two, part of this need for a relationship stems from an awakening physiological drive for relational closeness. Does this mean that she is biologically driven toward romance craziness? In a way, yes. But if biology is what lights the match, it is cultural, media-driven messages that fuel the spark that then causes a wildfire. Cultural pressures are quite strong in this life dimension: Consider the fact that girls regularly receive the following messages: (1) romantic relationships should take precedence over friendships, (2) other girls are competitors in the serious game of finding a romantic partner, and (3) most important of all, your success and worth as a person is tied up in finding and keeping a romantic relationship. If she buys in to these cultural messages, a romantic interest can supersede her priorities in all other areas, including her friends, interests, and personal goals. How ironic that when girls need true, supportive friendships the most, they often drop their friends at the first sign of male or female attention. Sadly, girls become distrustful of other girls who might potentially “steal” a boyfriend or girlfriend. Being “in a relationship” becomes intertwined with self-worth; it is a status symbol that is seen as worth almost any sacrifice.It should be acknowledged from the outset that although all girls receive cultural pressures about prioritizing romantic relationships and most are starting to explore their emerging sexual identities during this developmental period, their experiences in this area are not at all uniform. Although many girls are drawn to heterosexual relationships, others are questioning and exploring their identities as individuals who might be lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. I certainly do not want to ignore their particular concerns and challenges. Although specific parenting strategies for girls who are exploring same-sex romantic attraction is beyond the scope of this chapter, some recommended readings to help you and your daughter are included at the end of this book. Because cultural messages primarily revolve around the importance of girls’ success in seeking and maintaining attention from a romantic partner (whether male or female), many of the issues discussed throughout this chapter apply regardless of a girl’s sexual orientation. For ease of discussion, though, I will sometimes use the term “boyfriend” or use a male pronoun in referring to a romantic interest while remaining aware that it does not apply in every case. If a girl soaks in the cultural pressure that she must be in a relationship, it follows that she might compromise her beliefs and values in order to stay in that relationship. If she is looking to others for approval, trying to grasp a sense of being affirmed and valued, she will be vulnerable in the relationship and will have trouble saying no to the person who is providing that affirmation. As an obvious example and one that many parents fear is that in order to maintain their relationships, some girls engage in sexual activity only because they believe that their partner will break up with them if they say no. Many girls say that they regret their first sexual experience and report that they had sex only because they didn’t want to upset their boyfriends (saying things like “I didn’t want my boyfriend to be mad at me”). Others have sex in order to try to obtain a relationship in the first place, mistakenly believing that this will make the other person like them. A girl may be so in need of validation that she would rather accept brief sexual attention rather than feel alone, empty, and unworthy of acceptance. Unfortunately the very feelings she is trying to avoid are only intensified when the sexual encounter does not bring her the lasting acceptance she craves. A Word About Sexting These concepts and statistics help us better understand a current phenomenon sweeping through middle and high schools today: sexting. In a recent national study, 22 percent of middle-schoolers (yes, that is ages 12 to 14) admitted to sexting. If you are like me, at first thought it is hard to imagine why a girl in middle school would send someone a partially nude picture of herself via cell phone, knowing that it would likely be shared with others around the school (and even the world) within a matter of seconds. After reading these paragraphs, however, you grasp the context in which this happens. For example, Whitney has a boyfriend and feels that she has finally obtained the approval and status she was searching for, but then he asks her to send some pictures. She doesn’t want to, but he threatens to go find another girl who is willing and promises that he won’t show the pictures to anyone else. She wants to please him, to make sure he likes her. And so she sends the pictures. Other girls sext in order to get others’ attention in the first place. They believe it is the price they have to pay in order to get the attention they are seeking. We know that if a girl is unable to say no to sexting, she is also less likely to say no in real life, and surveys of students bear this out. Studies of middle school students who sext found that these students were four to seven times more likely to be sexually active (this includes kissing, having oral sex, or sexual intercourse) than those who did not participate in sex- ting. In particular, girls who sext are more likely to have multiple sexual partners and to use illicit substances. Heavy cell phone use is also related to sexting and sexual activity: those students who text 100 or times per day are more likely to have sent or received a sext and to be sexually active than those who text less frequently.34 Again, this is happening regularly in the world of middle-schoolers. The numbers are even higher for high school students. To be able to swim upstream, your daughter clearly needs your support and guidance in this area; consider the resilience strategies that follow. What to Do: Resilience Strategies for Healthy, Romantic Relationships Love, approve, validate. As discussed extensively in Chapter Four, it is vitally important for your daughter to feel loved and accepted just for who she is. W hen she believes that she has your approval, she won’t feel desperate to seek out others’ validation to prove that she has value. She will not need the validation that comes from romantic attention or from having a boyfriend (or girlfriend) in order to feel good about herself. She won’t be as vulnerable to losing herself in a romantic relationship. Dad, you are the model. A girl’s relationship with her father is generally the first one she has with a male, and it sets the standard for how she will expect to be treated by boys and men (or any romantic interest) in the future. First, observe your interactions with the women in your life; your daughter is watching you, her father, to see how you treat women and especially how you interact with her mother. Next, consider your current relationship with your daughter. She wants to have a special relationship with you, one in which she knows she has your approval. She needs to hear you say you love her, but she also needs to see it through your actions. She feels valued when you spend time with her. This occurs when you clear your calendar to take her on a father-daughter outing, when you hug her and show her affection, when you listen to her problems, when she knows without a doubt that you are on her side and that you are her biggest fan. When she feels that you love and like her, she will feel less need to frantically search for validation from other males. Make space for conversation. The stereotype of having “the talk” with our adolescents is one of mumbling, awkwardness, and relief when it is over. In reality, what our daughters need is not a one-time lecture about relationships, sexuality, and sexual pressures but an open atmosphere of trust characterized by ongoing conversation. Madeline Levine writes that we as parents are responsible for being the sex educators of our children, for “if we don’t discuss the most critical issues our kids will face—new bodies, sexual choices, intimacy—then the information is likely to come from their equally confused peers.” Therefore, as uncomfortable as it may feel, you have to deal with reality: Your daughter will be faced with sexual pressures, and probably a lot sooner than you think. Rather than ignore it and wishing it would go away, you need to clarify certain issues for yourself: What are your expectations and standards in this regard? What are your values? (Revisit the list you created in Chapter Four). Second, once you are clear on where you stand, you need to communicate your values to your daughter in multiple conversations and over time. You should communicate your expectations in a clear manner, but you also don’t want to become too dogmatic so that your daughter will be reluctant to ever approach you with questions. Instead, she needs to know that you want her to come to you when she is confused or feeling pressured; she won’t do this if she fears that you will demean or punish her in some way. As Kathy Masarie recommends, be an askable parent; demonstrate that you are open to questions. Your goal should be to make your daughter feel comfortable in coming to you when she is actually facing a dilemma or decision. Some parents mistakenly believe that talking about sexuality and relationships will encourage their daughters to actually engage in sexual activity. Instead, research shows that girls who have had ongoing conversations about sexuality and dealing with sexual pressures are more resilient and make better choices than other girls when actually faced with pressures in these areas. This is because they have information, they know how to assert their boundaries, and they are able to make informed decisions grounded in their parents’ belief systems. Establish rules for dating. As already stated, decide in advance how old your daughter should be in order to be allowed to go on group dates and then one-to-one dates (see Box 6.8). Many experts recommend the age of 16 as a safe age to begin one-to-one dating. They also recommend that you should have a rule against dating someone who is more than one school grade above or below her. In this way she is more likely to be on an equal footing psychologically and mentally with her romantic interest when inevitable sexual pressures do arise. Meg Meeker—pediatrician, parenting expert, and author of the blog “Family Matters”—claims that teen dating should be discouraged until the later years of high school. Read <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/11/author-qa-laura-h-choate/">Brain, Child’s Q&A with Laura H. Choate.</a> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-23857" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Swimming-Upstream-Cover-199x300.jpg" alt="Swimming Upstream Cover" width="199" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Swimming-Upstream-Cover-199x300.jpg 199w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Swimming-Upstream-Cover-681x1024.jpg 681w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Swimming-Upstream-Cover-86x130.jpg 86w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Swimming-Upstream-Cover-432x650.jpg 432w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Swimming-Upstream-Cover.jpg 997w" sizes="(max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px" /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Swimming-Upstream-Parenting-Resilience-Culture/dp/0199391130/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446462678&sr=1-1&keywords=swimming+upstream">Buy the Book</a> A guide to help parents teach their daughters to resist negative cultural messages. Never before have adolescent girls faced so many confusing and contradictory expectations. From a young age, popular culture teaches girls that their worth is based on their appearance, their ability to gain attention, and an ever-increasing accrual of accomplishments. With such unattainable standards, it is no wonder that many girls experience stress, self-doubt, and even mental health problems. Girls struggle to develop an authentic sense of self, even as they attempt to meet a set of impossible cultural expectations. Many parents feel helpless against the onslaught of negative influences targeting their daughters, but in Swimming Upstream: Parenting Girls for Resilience in a Toxic Culture, Laura Choate offers a message of reassurance. This book provides parents with a set of straightforward tools they can use to help their daughters navigate the trials and demands of contemporary girlhood. Choate draws upon years of research and counseling literature to teach parents how to instill the power of resilience in their daughters, including developing a positive body image, maintaining healthy relationships with friends and romantic partners, and navigating high-pressure academic environments. Based on cutting-edge research, this book contains the strategies that parents need to prepare their daughters with the life skills they need to resist destructive cultural influences. Though the journey through modern girlhood may be complicated – and even treacherous – this guide offers a user-friendly way for parents to help their daughters thrive in the midst of the negative pressures of modern culture. Practical and engaging, Swimming Upstream is a must-read for parents of girls of all ages. SWIMMING UPSTREAM: Parenting Girls for Resilience in a Toxic Culture by Laura H. Choate with permission from Oxford University Press, Inc. Copyright © 2016 by Oxford University Press. </div> </article> <article id="post-23799" class="post-23799 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-children tag-motherwit tag-preschool tag-stories"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/motherwit-story-time/" title="Permalink to Motherwit: Story Time" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Nov-15-Moterwit-Art-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Motherwit: Story Time" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Motherwit: Story Time" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/motherwit-story-time/" title="Permalink to Motherwit: Story Time" rel="bookmark">Motherwit: Story Time</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/motherwit-story-time/" title="3:49 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-10-29T15:49:54-04:00" pubdate>October 29, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/children/" rel="tag">children</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/motherwit/" rel="tag">motherwit</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/preschool/" rel="tag">preschool</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/stories/" rel="tag">stories</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/motherwit-story-time/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-23923" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Nov-15-Moterwit-Art-1024x649.jpg" alt="Nov 15 Moterwit Art" width="640" height="406" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Nov-15-Moterwit-Art-1024x649.jpg 1024w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Nov-15-Moterwit-Art-300x190.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Nov-15-Moterwit-Art-100x63.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Nov-15-Moterwit-Art-232x147.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Nov-15-Moterwit-Art-500x317.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /> By Elizabeth Johnson Scene: Large room with toys in the lower level of a library. Moms, nannies, and one dad sit on square cushions arranged in a circle on the floor; approximately 25 two-year-olds play, talk, stare, point, jump, run, trip, cry, and generally display the full spectrum of toddler behavior. Kate: C’mon, Gwen, we’re blocking the stairs. Don’t you want to go in? Gwen: No. Kate: But you told me earlier this morning that you wanted to come to story time, remember? Gwen: Remember? Kate: So let’s go in and say hi to our friends. (Gwen sits down on stairs). Kate: We’re here for you, sweetie, not for me. (muttering to herself as she surveys the room) Definitely not here for me. Definitely not my idea of fun. More like my idea of hell. Gwen: Mama, what’s your idea of hell? Kate: What? Stop listening so closely! Would you rather go home now? Gwen: Would you rather go in now? (Kate and Gwen descend the remaining steps into the room. A mom stacking blocks with her son waves to them). Kate: Gwen, say hi to Julie and Zack! Julie: Zack, say hi to Kate and Gwen! (Zack and Gwen look sideways at one another. Zack gets into a downward-facing dog pose. Gwen sticks her finger up her nose). Julie: It’s so good for them to have this chance to socialize. Kate: Absolutely. (winces as Gwen picks up a bracelet of bells from the floor and jingles it in her face) And think how great it will be when they’re in preschool and they have even more opportunities to socialize. We might not even have to do this kind of thing anymore! Julie: Um, I don’t know what you mean? Kate: Ha ha ha, nothing! Julie: Zack and I love story time. Kate: Absolutely. Love it. Julie: This time when they’re young just goes by so fast. Kate: So fast. I know. Julie: Have you guys started trying for another one yet? Kate: I don’t know, sometimes I think one is all I can handle. (Julie stares at her). Kate: Ha ha ha! Julie: Ha ha ha! Gwen: (pointing) Mama, what’s he doing? (Julie and Kate turn and see that Zack has approached a group of boys who are stacking cushions into a tower. Zack picks up a cushion and chucks it, hitting one boy in the face. The boy starts to cry. Julie jumps up, apologizes to the boy’s nanny, and drags Zack away). Julie: We don’t throw things when we can hit other people! Gwen: He hit that boy. Julie: It was an accident. Gwen: It was not an accident. Kate: (hastily) She’s in this phase where she likes to say the opposite of whatever you say. Julie: Oh. How cute. Gwen: How not cute. (Librarian appears and counts the number of children. There are now 40. She looks at the ceiling and appears to say a quick prayer). Librarian: It’s really wonderful that so many of you could join us today. (No one hears her). Librarian: (louder) This program is designed for fewer children so we’ll all have to be on our best behavior! (A little girl runs into the wall and begins screaming). Librarian: (shouting and waving her arms) Over here! Everyone come sit in a circle! (The adults corral the children and get most of them sitting within a few minutes. The librarian begins reading a book. It’s difficult to hear her over the ongoing noise. Those kids not physically restrained by an adult soon begin wandering around the room. One girl starts singing The Itsy Bitsy Spider). Librarian: (stops reading) Is this working? They seem a little restless. Gwen: It’s not working. Librarian: (closing book) How about we dance instead? (Librarian turns on a CD. Music plays and a cheerful song instructs the children to engage in a variety of movements). Kate: Can you flap like a bird? Gwen: No. (Song plays: Reach for the sky!). Gwen: I don’t want to do it. Julie: (dancing energetically) This is so fun! Kate: Absolutely! (muttering) I could really use a drink. Gwen: Mama, what do you use a drink? Kate: I just said I need a drink of water! Do you want to keep dancing or do you want to go home and make lunch? You probably want to keep dancing. Gwen: I want to go home and make lunch. Kate: Well, if that’s what you want! Wave good-bye to Zack and Julie! Gwen: Wave hello to Zack and Julie. Julie: Are you sneaking out? Kate: We’re sneaking out! Julie: See you next week? Kate: Sure! I’ll probably be crazy enough to come back. (Julie stares at her). Kate: Ha ha ha! Julie: Ha ha ha! Elizabeth Johnson is a freelance writer and mother of a three-year-old. She writes on parenting topics and for the children’s market.   <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/november-2015-issue/">Back to November 2015 Issue</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-23641" class="post-23641 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-friendship tag-mother tag-new-mother tag-poetry tag-pregnancy tag-sarah-layden tag-ultrasound"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/connect/" title="Permalink to Connect" rel="bookmark"><img width="220" height="166" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/220px-CRL_Crown_rump_lengh_12_weeks_ecografia_Dr._Wolfgang_Moroder.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Connect" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Connect" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/220px-CRL_Crown_rump_lengh_12_weeks_ecografia_Dr._Wolfgang_Moroder.jpg 220w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/220px-CRL_Crown_rump_lengh_12_weeks_ecografia_Dr._Wolfgang_Moroder-100x75.jpg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 220px) 100vw, 220px" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/connect/" title="Permalink to Connect" rel="bookmark">Connect</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/connect/" title="3:36 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-10-29T15:36:50-04:00" pubdate>October 29, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/friendship/" rel="tag">friendship</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/mother/" rel="tag">mother</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/new-mother/" rel="tag">new mother</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/poetry/" rel="tag">poetry</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/pregnancy/" rel="tag">pregnancy</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/sarah-layden/" rel="tag">sarah layden</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/ultrasound/" rel="tag">ultrasound</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/connect/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-23792 aligncenter" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/220px-CRL_Crown_rump_lengh_12_weeks_ecografia_Dr._Wolfgang_Moroder.jpg" alt="220px-CRL_Crown_rump_lengh_12_weeks_ecografia_Dr._Wolfgang_Moroder" width="335" height="253" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/220px-CRL_Crown_rump_lengh_12_weeks_ecografia_Dr._Wolfgang_Moroder.jpg 220w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/220px-CRL_Crown_rump_lengh_12_weeks_ecografia_Dr._Wolfgang_Moroder-100x75.jpg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 335px) 100vw, 335px" /> By Sarah Layden My brain is a box of wires. Some connect to appropriate portals, some fray at both ends. I sort the tenth tragic email update from a friend to the folder marked Baby. I begin to reply but draw a blank, I type a few words then backspace the screen clean. My own souvenir ultrasound picture is taped to the monitor, little ghost in the machine. Some machines work better than others. Mine was broken, then fixed. Now this me-chine provides sugar and fuel and god knows what else, fuel I needed but expelled last night, a great heaving, & I had the presence of mind to clip back my hair. They say puking while pregnant is a good sign. It feels like being poisoned but it’s a good sign. Best not to think of the emails left unanswered, the failings of friendship stretched thin by grief. This is a moment of being unwired, unhinged, unconnected to anything but flesh, to a baby technically connected to me. I am the host, the server, and the plug only works one way. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/november-2015-issue/">Back to November 2015 Issue</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-23786" class="post-23786 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-backtalk tag-parenting-quotes tag-quotes-about-parenting"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/backtalk-your-favorite-parenting-quotes/" title="Permalink to Backtalk: Your Favorite Parenting Quotes" rel="bookmark"><img width="148" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/DEPT_backtalk-1.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Backtalk: Your Favorite Parenting Quotes" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Backtalk: Your Favorite Parenting Quotes" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/DEPT_backtalk-1.jpg 831w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/DEPT_backtalk-1-261x300.jpg 261w" sizes="(max-width: 148px) 100vw, 148px" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/backtalk-your-favorite-parenting-quotes/" title="Permalink to Backtalk: Your Favorite Parenting Quotes" rel="bookmark">Backtalk: Your Favorite Parenting Quotes</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/backtalk-your-favorite-parenting-quotes/" title="3:33 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-10-29T15:33:53-04:00" pubdate>October 29, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/backtalk/" rel="tag">backtalk</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/parenting-quotes/" rel="tag">parenting quotes</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/quotes-about-parenting/" rel="tag">quotes about parenting</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/backtalk-your-favorite-parenting-quotes/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-6972" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/DEPT_backtalk-1-261x300.jpg" alt="DEPT_backtalk-1" width="261" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/DEPT_backtalk-1-261x300.jpg 261w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/DEPT_backtalk-1.jpg 831w" sizes="(max-width: 261px) 100vw, 261px" />We asked our readers for favorite parenting quotes – these are their answers. “The days are long but the years are short” – A. Suduiko “‘It’s a phase.” — my mom. – E. Wise “‘Don’t let yourself become so concerned with raising a good kid that you forget you already have one.” – Glennon Melton – A. Stroud Brown “The best thing you could give to your child is a gift of your precious time by being with your child and ready to listen…” – J. Hider “Cleaning the house while you have children is like brushing your teeth while eating oreos'” – K. Cichucki Ceballos “What you teach your child, you teach your child’s child.” – C. Pridham “Patience and calm firm communication can build a peaceful healthy relationship with well mannered children.” – A.S. Santos “What’s the best way to find something? Clean up” – J. Petroff Smith “Childhood is not a race.” – K. Head Amos “Making the decision to have a child – it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” – Elizabeth Stone – D. Poli “Your toddler doesn’t want to annoy you.” -Janet Lansbury I don’t know who said it but: “One of the kindest things you can say to a toddler is ‘you don’t have to hurry, we have time.” – A. von Novak “Don’t be worried that they don’t listen to you. Worry that they observe you all the time.” – S. Swaroop “There’s only one perfect child in the world and every mother has it.” – O. Mecking I forget the quote or who said it but basically, the general idea of it is that the goal and the curse of motherhood is to always be pushing your child toward independence and further away from you, while desperately desiring nothing more than to pull them close. It’s a battle of gradual heartache and fulfillment. – E. Albano “It’s easier to build strong children than to repair broken adults.'” – R. Kaiman “Prepare your child for the road, not the road for your child.” – M. Funez Pretty much anything Alfie Kohn says.- C. Rembish Reid “‘…Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.'” – J. Hampton “‘Every child deserves a champion: an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection and insists they become the best they can possibly be.” -Rita Pierson, Educator – L. Domino Jones “Give them roots so they can grow wings. Tomorrow’s another day. CIO = cuddle it out. WIO = wait it out.” – S. Blanchard “Don’t prepare the path for the child, prepare the child for the path.'” – C. Krost “‘I am a mom; I see clearly that while I’ve been teaching them, they have been my reason to learn.'” – T. Shelton “You can’t walk gingerly. You have to step in and say I am gong to love you robustly, and we are going to get to the end of this!'” – L. Louise “Pick your battles.” True when they’re toddlers, true when they’re teenagers. – S. Ruckh Franzosa Louisa May Alcott — “I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.'” – K. Nash “Children close their ears to advice but Open their eyes to example.” – A. Bouthillier “Do as I say not as I do… Lol” – G. Gremaux “Sleep is for the weak” – D. Gordon “Let them be little.” – J. Gassaway My daughter actually told me yesterday this was a quote her teacher used in class and she chuckled when she told the teacher she hears that all the time from me.– “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over…and expecting a different result… – C. Vreeland “This too shall pass…'” – L. Brooking ‘If you’re not yelling, you’re doing something wrong.” -Mark Ruffalo – C. Kent “These are not the glamour years.” – L. Lawrence “‘It’s relentless” – me.- E. Savela “Best of times, worst of times.” – R. Rock Tots Briggs “Is that poop or chocolate?!” – N. Proctor-Fajen “Don’t blink” – J. Lane “You’re not managing an inconvenience. You’re raising a human being.” – I. Rourke “There’s no way to be a perfect parent but there are a million ways to be a good one.'” – G. Young “You’re happy to see them come, you’re happy to see them go.'” – N. Babilonia Prunés “‘Will this really matter in 5 years? 10?'” – P. Stinson Sorry no citation, but years ago I heard “Deciding to have children is like deciding to have a bowling alley installed in your brain.” This has always resonated with me. – K. Kolb Peterson “Children close their ears to advice, but open their eyes to example.” – M. Aria “‘Deep within me there is a well of peacefulness which nothing can disturb.” ~ Mommy Mantras – S. Campbell “You’re not a cruise director, you don’t have to keep them entertained all the time.” – my mom – A. Avey “Fake it ’til you make it.” – B. Eaton “Children will grow up in spite of their parents, not because of them.” – B. Hartwig Beck   <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/november-2015-issue/">Back to November 2015 Issue</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-23679" class="post-23679 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-beth-malone tag-heart-fractal"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/author-qa-beth-malone/" title="Permalink to Author Q&A: Beth Malone" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/headshot-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Author Q&A: Beth Malone" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Author Q&A: Beth Malone" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/author-qa-beth-malone/" title="Permalink to Author Q&A: Beth Malone" rel="bookmark">Author Q&A: Beth Malone</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/author-qa-beth-malone/" title="2:52 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-10-29T14:52:57-04:00" pubdate>October 29, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/beth-malone/" rel="tag">Beth Malone</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/heart-fractal/" rel="tag">Heart Fractal</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/author-qa-beth-malone/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-23769" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/headshot-214x300.jpg" alt="headshot" width="214" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/headshot-214x300.jpg 214w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/headshot-731x1024.jpg 731w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/headshot-93x130.jpg 93w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/headshot-464x650.jpg 464w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/headshot.jpg 1333w" sizes="(max-width: 214px) 100vw, 214px" />Beth Malone is the author of Heart Fractal, which appeared in our November 2015 issue. We spoke with her about writing and motherhood. What inspired you to write this essay? I opened the essay where I first conceived of it—at the science museum, watching my children climb into the darkened, life-size model of a whale heart while I waited outside. I thought: What a tremendous metaphor for one aspect of my relationship to them. I wanted to explore the complexity of that feeling—the need to have them close, the necessity of letting them go. What was the greatest challenge in writing it? I wanted to push myself in this piece, to explore new territory in writing. I needed to take risks because I was exploring new emotional territory as well, and if the writing didn’t stretch me as much as the topic did, I would have felt like the essay failed. I received some feedback from one terrific writer/friend who encouraged me to explore science and math as a mode of writing. I thought a lot about creating a form for the essay that would mirror the mathematical form of a fractal (with patterns repeating into infinity). I also thought about language that would meld the poetic with the scientific. From there, the whole thing opened up and eventually became what I wanted it to be. How do your children inform your writing? That’s a difficult question, because for me, writing really springs out of who I am and how I perceive the world. I’m not sure I can, on the spot, give a succinct answer to exactly how my children have changed my identity or my view on the world. Perhaps that’s a subject for another essay. How do you balance writing and motherhood? As well as I can! I write while my youngest naps and my oldest entertains herself; thank goodness she is so independent, and an introvert! I’m also very lucky to have an incredibly supportive partner who takes my writing seriously both in word and deed. He’s cleaning the kitchen this very moment to give me space for work after the kids’ bedtime. The fact of the matter, though, is that I have two preschoolers who are home with me all day. Even though my family is cooperative, I don’t have as much time as I would like to write. I’m not willing to sacrifice my own basic needs (such as sleep) in order to accomplish more, so I’m not as prolific as I’d like right now. But I know what a short window I have with small children at home, and I’ll never be able to repeat it. I have said that I wouldn’t give up these days with my children for a million dollars and a Pulitzer, and I really mean that. So for now, I just do what I can professionally, and enjoy parks and Playdoh for most hours of the day. Do you share any of your writing with your children (if they are old enough of course) My oldest just turned four, so they are mostly too young. Though I did recently read my daughter the first draft of an essay about how I saw her change on our summer camping trip. She seemed to think it was pretty cool. </div> </article> <article id="post-23766" class="post-23766 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-longreads tag-beth-malone"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/heart-fractal/" title="Permalink to Heart Fractal" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/heart_fractal_by_ekamanganese-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Heart Fractal" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Heart Fractal" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/heart-fractal/" title="Permalink to Heart Fractal" rel="bookmark">Heart Fractal</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/heart-fractal/" title="2:50 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-10-29T14:50:28-04:00" pubdate>October 29, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/longreads/" rel="tag">#longreads</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/beth-malone/" rel="tag">Beth Malone</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/heart-fractal/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-23775" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/heart_fractal_by_ekamanganese-300x233.jpg" alt="heart_fractal_by_ekamanganese" width="652" height="506" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/heart_fractal_by_ekamanganese-300x233.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/heart_fractal_by_ekamanganese-100x78.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/heart_fractal_by_ekamanganese-232x180.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/heart_fractal_by_ekamanganese-500x388.jpg 500w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/heart_fractal_by_ekamanganese.jpg 900w" sizes="(max-width: 652px) 100vw, 652px" />By Beth Malone Aortic Disruption: Beneath the Wave The heart of a blue whale weighs approximately two thousand pounds. Its walls are as thick as sofa cushions and contract six times a minute; imagine the crashing tidal wave of blood. A person could climb through an artery and crouch inside one chamber, knees pulled to chest, and watch the valves wrench open and slam closed. The beat of a blue whale’s heart hammers so loudly you can hear it from two miles away. At the science museum, the aorta peels away and allows entry into the heart’s life-size model; my daughters climb inside on hands and knees. I watch the soles of their feet disappear. Around me, blue light glows, dappling the carpet, and ocean sounds trickle and rush. The room is dark, warm, womblike. I could stand and peer into those broken arteries, graft my body into each darkened door, searching. Trying to catch a glimpse of them inside those secret rooms, to watch their passage between chambers, to urge them out. Something strains in my own chest: I always want them close, I always want to follow behind, I want to be present in every dark place, and I want to swallow their bright burning mysteries. But I hold back. Like a woman in training, I let them leave my sight. I let them tear away. The heart is a muscle made to open and to close, to fill and to empty, again, again. Only a fist clenches on to what it holds. But the heart, the heart, the enduring heart—as long as it is working, it holds on, and it lets go. Atrial Flutter: A Secret Passed The technician waves her magic wand, sliding it through the cold jelly beneath my belly button. Moments pass but she can’t find the heartbeat, only a horrible rushing noise, like wind in a lonely plain, and I imagine the wind inside of myself, ricocheting. She stands, sashays out, away, and someone reaches an icy hand into my chest and seizes my heart, plunging it into deep ocean. The weight and darkness close so heavily around me I can’t even reach for my phone. I lie cold, naked beneath the translucent paper sheet with my hands crossed over my belly as though in prayer. Her heart began beating before she had fingers, before she could open her eyes, before she could hear my voice. But mine is the heart that supplied her, sustained her, and now beats like a bird against its cage. The door creaks open, the wheels of the ultrasound rattle, the voice of the doctor floats, distant and tinned. A few moments later, I see it: my baby’s heart, tiny as a mouse’s eye, a drop of dew, a BB bullet—and beating. Onscreen the valves of her heart flutter, flower petals beneath deep water. It sings its own song, like a secret passed behind cupped hands. In my ears there is a rushing, a swirling, the cresting of a wave over and over again, the crashing and catching of my breath. She remains an elusive child. I often catch her hiding in plain sight. Edema: Crashing Hospital. They tell you how bad it will hurt, this business of separation. So far, I only know of one way to mother, and that is to rev my heart’s engine, burn the beats faster. Feed her from myself, inside myself, give and give and give. But she outgrows my capacity with her ravenous needs. I need to relinquish her to the sustenance of her own heart. I know, but I don’t want to let her go. So one part of me contracts nearly every minute for 10 hours. My muscles scream for air. My heart slams and sends blood, but there’s too much, I’m sending too much, and there’s no way to relieve it. The vessels leak, shriek, burst. Instead of thinning and dilating, I swell, blood rushing in so that my cervix won’t—can’t—spiral open. Take a key and lock her up lock her up lock her up. I’m ferocious and unyielding, my body a pulled knot, a clenched fist. The truth is that—left on my own in this state—I’d die, she’d die, before I could give her up. I’m drowning; I’m crashing. I’m underwater, underwater, and all the voices are muffled except for my own screaming. Still when I fight to the surface between contractions, I can only gasp to ask about her heart, her heart, her beating heart. “It’s strong,” they say. “It’s strong.” Heart Murmur: Beneath My Palms She’s a year old, but I still rock her to sleep each night. She is my youngest, and there are things I can’t let go of. The need to press her electric chest against my own. I breathe the sweet shampoo scent of her neck; the smell fills my lungs, where my blood picks it up and carries it into my heart. Motherhood made my heart larger: Of this, they don’t typically tell you the accompanying complications. That when the doors of your heart dilate (to accommodate), afterward you cannot make them fully close. The blood flows into the chamber, the valve cannot shut, the blood rushes backward. The blood and the scent of baby shampoo stays in your heart; we call it a murmur. We mean: It holds on, and it will not let go. Her blonde head nuzzles on my chest. I shut my teeth and open my lips. I imitate the noise I heard in the doctor’s office, that secret sound only she and I know from memory, the song of her own beating heart. My baby squirms and turns and can’t seem to settle. I put a hand on her back and paint circles with my palm. Finally she reaches one hand, pulls at my neckline until she finds my skin. With one hand pressed against my heart, she promptly drops to sleep. Skipped Beat: Breath Catching Four days have passed. Today she won’t let me rock her down. She puts both hands against my chest, arches her back, throws back her head—and with both hands, pushes me away. Angina: Rushing “Tell me all your secrets,” I murmur. So greedy. Motherhood has made me ravenous. I’ve been with her all day, watched her wobbly arabesques across the living room, read her stories that made her giggle, wrapped her in teary hugs when a finger was pinched. She wants both of my eyes fixed on her all the time; she wants me to cling hard to every word she speaks. My heart stretches wider, burns through its beats, gives and gives and gives. Still my heart is hungry, made to empty—then to fill. The harder it works, the more it needs to be fed. Without enough oxygen, the outpouring heart will seize in vise-like pain, an enormous weight settled onto the breast. The more I give, the more I want. I want every impression, the feelings she can decipher and those she can’t, I want her last sleepy thoughts before she drifts into sleep, and when she wakes I want the details of her dreams. I want to crawl on hands and knees inside her heart and let the rushing of blood knock me to my knees. Her eyes are closed, her lips slightly parted, her breath coming in peaceful waves. Anemia: Kicking At dawn’s golden-grey light, a daughter whispers, “Mama, Mama. Mom.” I open my eyes. Her head is on the pillow, inches away, her apple blossom lips and her cheeks round as ripe peaches. I tug corners of twisted blankets and pull her under, draping an arm over her belly, burying my nose in her hair. I press my lips to her neck so I can feel her pulse, the patter of her heart. She’ll never remember the time I supplied this beating by my own. Biology’s first trick is to make mother and child at first inseparable, one tethered to the other. At detection of this dependence, the mother’s heart slams and sends more blood. Blurring boundaries between us, cruel deception. After she was born, inside my body there was a bruise from where she’d torn away. Inside, blood pooled. My oxygen circled, drained away. Nothing could staunch the wound. I’d rise from the bed and fall to my knees. It was weeks before I could stand and hold her at the same time. I’d lay in bed with her on my chest. Any time I lost contact with her skin, my heart would lurch. She twists beneath the sheets, and her heel thuds against my hip. “Mama,” she says, “let go of me, and I’ll hold on to you. We’re all tangled up.” So I let go. Cardiomyopathy: Beneath the Wave I cannot follow them—not into the heart. No matter how tightly I hold their hands or how gently I stroke their hair or how swiftly I run when I hear them cry, I cannot drop to my knees and crawl after them. Nor can I keep them locked up tight inside my own heart, inside the raucous rooms where the force of beating bruises and oxygen drains away. Given a chance, I’d grip them there in iron, keep them forever safe and for myself, their armor and prison made one. I wish I could. Instead I wrench the rooms open and give them free passage, in and out as they please. This is the sound of splitting, the gunshot-crack of cleaving. There are a dozen diagnoses and there is only one: broken heart, broken heart, irreparable broken heart. I wait. Come back to me, my lips are blue; I’m made to empty and to fill. Out of the heart of the whale they climb. I’m on my knees; I open my arms. They half-run, half-fall into my embrace, and then I can close my arms around them. I wrap one hand around each ribcage and hold my breath. I can feel something kicking beneath my palms, a rushing, breath catching, a crashing, a secret passed, and again I’m breathless beneath the wave. I feel a voice tickling my ear. “It’s beating,” she whispers, and we hold on to the wonder. Author’s Note: The word “fractal” comes from the Latin root “fract,” which means “broken.” A fractal is a never-ending pattern made from an ongoing feedback loop. I wanted the repeating themes of the essay to read like what is, for me, the feedback loop of mother-love: ferocity, giving, hunger, and–true to the essay’s name–heartbreak. Read our <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/author-qa-beth-malone/">Q&A with Beth Malone</a> About the Author: Beth Malone’s nature column, “The Wild Things,” appears in Literary Mama. Her essays have appeared or are forthcoming in a variety of regional and national magazines. Find more at <a href="http://www.bethmalonewrites.com/p/essays.html">http://www.bethmalonewrites.com</a> Artwork: Heart Fractal by <a href="http://ekamanganese.deviantart.com/art/Heart-Fractal-87505078">ekamanganese</a>   <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/november-2015-issue/">Return to the November 2015 Issue</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-23584" class="post-23584 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-november-2015-issue"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/november-2015-issue/" title="Permalink to November 2015 Issue" rel="bookmark"><img width="432" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Nov-2015-Cover-432x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="November 2015 Issue" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="November 2015 Issue" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/november-2015-issue/" title="Permalink to November 2015 Issue" rel="bookmark">November 2015 Issue</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/november-2015-issue/" title="2:24 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-10-29T14:24:04-04:00" pubdate>October 29, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/november-2015-issue/" rel="tag">November 2015 Issue</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/november-2015-issue/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-23587 size-full" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Nov-2015-Cover-.jpg" alt="Nov 2015 Cover" width="1122" height="1352" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Nov-2015-Cover-.jpg 1122w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Nov-2015-Cover--249x300.jpg 249w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Nov-2015-Cover--850x1024.jpg 850w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Nov-2015-Cover--100x120.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Nov-2015-Cover--232x280.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Nov-2015-Cover--500x602.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 1122px) 100vw, 1122px" /> Zachary Zane and Camera by <a href="http://www.ruthsoralee.com">Ruth Sora Lee</a> from 4, 962, 571, written by Trevor Eissler. Editor’s Letter: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/11/editors-letter-2/">We Have an Announcement</a> Essay: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/the-intertidal-zone/">The Intertidal Zone</a> by Jessica Johnson Pregnancy plunged me into my own biology and made me long to escape by gazing, to locate the relevant biology outside a detached self. Some women crave the experience of growing a baby, but I was not one of them. Essay: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/heart-fractal/">Heart Fractal</a> by Beth Malone The technician waves her magic wand, sliding it through the cold jelly beneath my belly button. Moments pass but she can’t find the heartbeat, only a horrible rushing noise, like wind in a lonely plain, and I imagine the wind inside of myself, ricocheting. Essay: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/my-childhood-home/">My Childhood Home</a> by Christine Juneau As we got older, our mother fell into the habit of communicating her grievances with us by leaving long handwritten notes taped to our door, the bathroom mirror, or on one of our beds. She would work herself into a slow boil over some minor infraction while we were at school and sit down with a sheet of loose leaf paper and really let us have it. Fiction: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/the-art-of-celebrating-nothing/">The Art of Celebrating Nothing </a>By Laura Distelheim And there he is, as if on cue, toddling through the doorway with a yellow plastic hard hat placed backwards on his dark curls and a Cookie Monster sticker plastered to one cheek, and his beloved copy of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom clutched in both his hands. “Mama read?” he asks… Motherwit: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/motherwit-story-time/">Story Time</a> by Elizabeth Johnson Scene: Large room with toys in the lower level of a library. Moms, nannies, and one dad sit on square cushions arranged in a circle on the floor; approximately 25 two-year-olds play, talk, stare, point, jump, run, trip, cry, and generally display the full spectrum of toddler behavior. Backtalk: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/backtalk-your-favorite-parenting-quotes/">Your Favorite Parenting Quotes</a> “‘Don’t let yourself become so concerned with raising a good kid that you forget you already have one.” – A. Stroud Brown Poem: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/connect/">Connect</a> by Sarah Layden Author Q&A: Brain, Child writers in this issue share thoughts about their writing — <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/author-qa-jessica-johnson/">Jessica Johnson</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/author-qa-beth-malone/">Beth Malone</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/author-qa-laura-d/">Laura Distelheim</a> About our cover artist: <a href="http://www.ruthsoralee.com">Ruth Sora Lee</a> has been drawing portraits on napkins since she was a little girl. She and Brain, Child go way back in 2006 where she received one of her first illustration jobs (thank you!). Since then, she has taught art to elementary students for five wonderful years and became a mother. She lives in southern CA, but often reminisces about living in seasonal RI where she attended RISD and met her husband. </div> </article> <article id="post-23643" class="post-23643 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-intertidal-zone tag-jessica-johnson tag-motherhood tag-mothers tag-writing"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/author-qa-jessica-johnson/" title="Permalink to Author Q&A: Jessica Johnson" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/bw-headshot-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Author Q&A: Jessica Johnson" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Author Q&A: Jessica Johnson" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/author-qa-jessica-johnson/" title="Permalink to Author Q&A: Jessica Johnson" rel="bookmark">Author Q&A: Jessica Johnson</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/author-qa-jessica-johnson/" title="2:20 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-10-29T14:20:37-04:00" pubdate>October 29, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/intertidal-zone/" rel="tag">Intertidal Zone</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/jessica-johnson/" rel="tag">Jessica Johnson</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/motherhood/" rel="tag">motherhood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/mothers/" rel="tag">mothers</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/writing/" rel="tag">writing</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/author-qa-jessica-johnson/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-23759" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/bw-headshot-219x300.jpg" alt="bw headshot" width="219" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/bw-headshot-219x300.jpg 219w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/bw-headshot-746x1024.jpg 746w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/bw-headshot-95x130.jpg 95w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/bw-headshot-474x650.jpg 474w" sizes="(max-width: 219px) 100vw, 219px" /></a>Jessica Johnson is the author of the essay <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/the-intertidal-zone/">The Intertidal Zone</a><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/the-intertidal-zone/">.</a> We spoke with her about writing and motherhood. Here is her story: What inspired you to write this essay? When I started this essay, I had just started teaching creative nonfiction, and as I helped my students think about the structures of their essays, I got ideas about how I might write about my experience at the Newport aquarium. That moment in Newport seemed tied to many other parts of my life, but in order to write it, I needed to get an idea about how to structure this multifaceted story. What was the greatest challenge in writing it? I had trouble figuring out where to start and where to end, and I wrote many, many drafts. How do your children inform your writing? I’m enchanted by my children. They’re like a big ball of light and love in my consciousness. On the other hand, when I take a more detached view, my children—their developmental phases, their ways of seeing the world, the surreal aspect of being around them—are fascinating objects of study, full of unexpected insights. I write about them and the experience of raising them, but even when I’m not writing about them, the imperative of love and care hopefully permeates my writing. How do you balance writing and motherhood? Most of my writing friends now have small children, and we talk about this question all the time. One of them recently said, “All I can do is get up early.” That seems about right to me. Do you share any of your writing with your children (if they are old enough of course) My oldest child is four, and I have never shared my writing with her, but I often imagine her grown-up self as my true audience. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/november-2015-issue/">Back to November 2015 Issue</a>   </div> </article> <article id="post-23722" class="post-23722 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/author-qa-laura-d/" title="Permalink to Author Q&A: Laura Distelheim" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Laura-Distelheim1-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Author Q&A: Laura Distelheim" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Author Q&A: Laura Distelheim" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/author-qa-laura-d/" title="Permalink to Author Q&A: Laura Distelheim" rel="bookmark">Author Q&A: Laura Distelheim</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/author-qa-laura-d/" title="7:11 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-10-29T07:11:13-04:00" pubdate>October 29, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/author-qa-laura-d/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> Laura Distelheim is the author of The Art of Celebrating Nothing, which appeared in our November 2015 Issue. We spoke with her about writing and motherhood. <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-23726" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Laura-Distelheim1-177x300.jpg" alt="Laura Distelheim" width="177" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Laura-Distelheim1-177x300.jpg 177w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Laura-Distelheim1-603x1024.jpg 603w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Laura-Distelheim1-77x130.jpg 77w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Laura-Distelheim1-383x650.jpg 383w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Laura-Distelheim1.jpg 858w" sizes="(max-width: 177px) 100vw, 177px" /> What was your inspiration for writing this story? This story was inspired by an actual day in my suburban community when a rumor of immigration raids in the area led many employees to stay home from work. I found myself thinking about the impact of their sudden absence upon the lives of people who had grown accustomed to their daily presence, and that led me to think about the jolt that a phone call like the one Nikki received from Fabiola would have given a woman like her. Envisioning the aftermath of that phone call offered me the opportunity to explore two themes that are close to my heart. The first is how easy it is, amidst the deluge of life’s daily details, to lose sight of what matters most to us in this world. And the second is how rapidly the differences between people of wildly diverse backgrounds and circumstances pale in comparison to all that they have in common when they’re dealing with those very things that matter most, such as the welfare of their children. What was the greatest challenge in writing it? I didn’t want to appear to be judging Nikki for having become caught up in the swirl of her life’s daily demands. While I believe that it’s important to take the time to step back and see the big picture, I also understand how easy it is to be swallowed up by life’s minutiae. And furthermore, I don’t believe that all that minutiae is meaningless. I think there’s poetry and purpose in the car pools and grocery store runs and committee meetings and school recitals from which a family’s life is knit, so my greatest challenge was to take care not to be as hard on Nikki as she is on herself. How do your children inform your writing? I don’t have children of my own, but I have many children in my life whom I love as if they were my own, and every time I spend time with them, I come away enriched by their innate wisdom and their gift for living in the moment and their openhearted approach to this world. Children have often served as the inspiration for my essays and stories, and they populate the pages of almost all my work. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/the-art-of-celebrating-nothing/">Read the Art of Celebrating Nothing</a>   </div> </article> <article id="post-23677" class="post-23677 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-general"> <header class="entry-header"> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/excerpt-unlocking-parental-intelligence-2/" title="Permalink to Excerpt: Unlocking Parental Intelligence" rel="bookmark">Excerpt: Unlocking Parental Intelligence</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/excerpt-unlocking-parental-intelligence-2/" title="12:27 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-10-27T12:27:56-04:00" pubdate>October 27, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/excerpt-unlocking-parental-intelligence-2/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> Unlocking Parental Intelligence Foreword During the time when I started reading Unlocking Parental Intelligence, my thirteen-year-old son began shutting himself in his room, and if/when he came out, he never let go of his grip on his phone. Family dinners were tense, as we had to coax him out of his bedroom and insist on “no phone at the table.” This went on for months, and all the while, I told myself he was “just being a teen.” But I knew it was more than that. I felt pressured; I could not sleep. In the wee hours, I asked myself as I had a thousand times before, Why was my son doing these things? Then I read Unlocking Parental Intelligence, in which Dr. Hollman writes, “All parents wonder why their children do the things they do.” Aha! I was not alone. But more than that, Dr. Hollman, with kindness and candor, explained what I could do to find out the answer to that question. She had an actionable, five-step plan that would facilitate conversation with my son. I put Dr. Hollman’s plan into practice. I self-reflected, and I searched for the meaning behind my son’s behavior. I considered his verbal and nonverbal clues and took into account my own motivations. Using this book as a blueprint, I developed a way in which to be more empathic with my son. And then I spoke to him. My assumptions about his underlying behavior were correct—something else was wrong; there was a bigger reason why he was closing himself off in his room and texting tirelessly. Unbeknownst to me, he had been asked out by a girl, had failed a math test, and was worried about his forthcoming cello recital and travel baseball tryouts. (Since he was a dedicated math student, cellist, and baseball player, I hadn’t anticipated his anxiety, nor had I any idea there might be a girl in the picture since my older son did not date until he was sixteen). As a result of our discussions, I stopped doubting my intuition and instead was lifted and empowered by Dr. Hollman’s rhetorical question: Who else knows a child as well as a parent does? My son and I benefited from Dr. Hollman’s intelligent approach—from her patience (you can do the steps in any order; you can go back and try again) and her perspective (one of open-mindedness). In the end, our relationship has improved, and we have a new way to communicate. Written in a clear narrative format, Dr. Hollman explains the power of understanding ourselves and our pasts in order to understand our assumptions, our reactions, and most of all, our children. As I read the compelling personal stories gleaned from her thirty years as a psychoanalyst and psychotherapist, I fell into a place where I had never been as a parent—a place where I saw the challenges I was having with my son as an opportunity, a moment of ripe possibility to grow closer to my son. This transformation was a clarification as well as a source of joy—and relief. As an editor of Brain, Child Magazine, I have read hundreds of articles and dozens of books about parenting. As my own five children have grown, I have amassed a huge collection of such books; many have great advice, but Unlocking Parental Intelligence combines research, experience, and case studies into actionable steps that will make a difference for the conscientious parent. Further, parents who use Parental Intelligence will affect future generations of children who become parents. The five steps of Parental Intelligence become a way of life for families. Parental Intelligence gives children who want to be leaders the foundation they need to relate to a broad spectrum of people around the world because they have a grounding in relating and communicating with others that began early in their upbringing and is now a part of who they are. No other parenting book offers such wisdom for so many generations to come. With this wonderful book, after eighteen years of mothering, I learned to trust my instincts, find meaning in my son’s behavior, and, perhaps most importantly, better understand my own actions, principles, and parenting philosophy. Additionally, my son now has the opportunity, when he becomes an adult and even a parent, to continue to carry out the philosophy of Parental Intelligence by knowing how to look for meaning behind people’s actions and by finding ways to communicate effectively with his own voice.   Marcelle Soviero Editor-in-Chief Brain, Child: The Magazine for Thinking Parents   </div> </article> <article id="post-23539" class="post-23539 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-father-daughter tag-fiction tag-orli-van-mourik tag-pen-parentis"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/fiction-waushakum-pond/" title="Permalink to Fiction: Waushakum Pond" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/father-n-daughter_fishing-passion-1024x576-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Fiction: Waushakum Pond" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Fiction: Waushakum Pond" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/fiction-waushakum-pond/" title="Permalink to Fiction: Waushakum Pond" rel="bookmark">Fiction: Waushakum Pond</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/fiction-waushakum-pond/" title="7:38 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-10-26T07:38:44-04:00" pubdate>October 26, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/father-daughter/" rel="tag">father daughter</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/fiction/" rel="tag">fiction</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/orli-van-mourik/" rel="tag">Orli Van Mourik</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/pen-parentis/" rel="tag">Pen Parentis</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/fiction-waushakum-pond/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-23634" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/father-n-daughter_fishing-passion-1024x576-1024x576.jpg" alt="father-n-daughter_fishing-passion-1024x576" width="640" height="360" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/father-n-daughter_fishing-passion-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/father-n-daughter_fishing-passion-1024x576-300x169.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/father-n-daughter_fishing-passion-1024x576-100x56.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/father-n-daughter_fishing-passion-1024x576-232x131.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/father-n-daughter_fishing-passion-1024x576-500x281.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" />By Orli Van Mourik When Mona was little, Archie used to take her fishing. It felt like the trips had been going on since Mona was old enough for waders, but it was possible that they started in the fall of 1957 during those first few months when they both still woke up every morning to the shock of her mother’s absence. Mona couldn’t remember ever crying for Eve, but she did remember those chilly mornings when the house still felt abandoned—all traces of her mother gone apart from a few framed photos and a lingering smell in the hall closet. Saturday mornings were the hardest. Normally Eve would have been bustling around in her ratty bathrobe, whipping up a batch of leathery buckwheat pancakes while humming along to the radio. The lack of her was so acute in those moments that neither of them could bear to stay indoors and Archie would go fetch his red metal lunch pail from the garage and pack it full of liverwurst sandwiches and Nila wafers. He’d send Mona upstairs to get dressed while he brewed up a thermos of coffee and then they’d set off for Massachusetts in the old wagon, leaving the cat to fend for herself overnight. There are plenty of fish in Connecticut—lakes and rivers chock full of them—but for Archie fishing was an activity reserved for the place he came from: Middlesex County. There was nothing particularly special about Waushakum Pond. It was bordered by the same hemlocks and spindly spruce trees as any other pond in rural Massachusetts and the swampy fields of wild rye surrounding it were alive with same croaking frogs. The only thing distinguishing it from any other pond was that it was where Archie’s father Leonard had taught him how to skate when he was a boy and the first place he’d ever managed to snag a bass on his line. To Mona, it seemed clear that the pond was Archie’s natural habitat. When they were there she could see that he was a creature of the woods: built strong to withstand tough winters, with careful hands that could thread an arrow or tie a knot in a line without fumbling. His movements, which appeared fussy and painstaking in normal life, seemed in perfect tempo with the pond. Had anyone asked, Mona would have told them that she and her father were close—and, in many ways they were. Years of living together had taught them to anticipate each other. If they sat down to dinner, the salt arrived at her elbow before she’d had a chance to open her mouth. And she knew to keep to her room on those nights when she smelled cigar smoke coming from the den. She pressed his shirts every Tuesday and hung them on his doorknob and he made sure that her bicycle tires never went flat. But Archie’s mind had always been a locked box. No matter how Mona tried to read him, she was never sure quite what he was feeling and when she guessed wrong he made her feel it. He did not suffer fools gladly, so she endeavored not to be one. But when they were at the pond, there was no need for guesswork. The pond was a leveling force. It brought Archie out of his mind and into himself. As soon as they arrived, he settled into a silence so complete that when Mona wasn’t facing him, she’d sometimes worry he’d stopped breathing. In the week it took Mona to work out how to tell Archie the news, only one thing was clear to her: it would have to be at Waushakum Pond. But it had been so long since they’d gone there that it took her days to work up the nerve to ask him. When she finally did, he hesitated, and she saw from the pained looked on his face the reason for her own hesitation. It was one thing to stay overnight with your ten-year-old daughter at some fleabag motel. It was another to go with your seventeen-year-old. As soon as she suggested it, Mona pictured them trading places at the room’s yellowing washbasin before retiring to neighboring twin beds. The thought made her squirm. “Why don’t we take a drive instead,” Archie said. And, like that, Waushakum Pond vanished from view taking with it all of Mona’s courage. They decided to go visit the Glass House in New Canaan. Instead of piling into the wagon, they took her father’s new MG. Mona wore a scarf around her head to keep her hair from whipping around in the wind and felt alternately silly and glamorous, a gawky Grace Kelly. In her mind, she had pictured them chatting on the way up and then eventually settling into a companionable silence that left room for what she had to tell him. In reality, the wind was so fierce they barely spoke and when they did, they were stilted and formal with one another. After forty minutes, they arrived at the spot on the map. It took them forever to find the entrance and once they did Mona was horrified to see a chain strung across it. They both got out of the car and walked close enough to read the sign hanging off it that read, “Shut.” Archie turned to look at her, “What should we do?” She shrugged and nodded toward the car. None of this was turning out as she’d expected. She couldn’t imagine telling him now. They got back in the car. “It’s an strange thing building a house out of glass and then walling it off from the world,” Archie said, contemplative. “I don’t even know why I brought you here. Your mother liked Glass. I’ve never cared much for him.” “Did she?” Mona said. Archie nodded. “What else did she like?” “She liked Bogart movies and Quaker quilts—a hodgepodge of things. I never could keep track. She had eclectic tastes.” “I don’t remember,” Mona said. “I don’t expect you would,” he said, and then, after a long silence, “She was a good mother.” Mona nodded. “She wanted you to be happy,” Archie said. “I’ve tried to do that.” “You have,” Mona agreed. “Is everything okay, Scottie?” Archie said, suddenly searching. “I thought this class would help, but Boorish-Barney-the-professor seems to have made things worse.” “Please don’t call him that,” she said. Something in her voice made him turn toward her. “Archie,” she said, realizing there would be no better time. “I’m having a baby.” Her father’s face went white as the sky behind it; it was like all the youth bled out of him in an instant. “I don’t understand.” “I know.” He placed his hands on the wheel to stop them from shaking. “How could this happen? Did you let that boy Chad—?” “—No!” Mona shook her head. “Nothing like that.” “Who then?” he demanded. Mona was aware that, in that moment, she held Archie’s heart in her hands. She cupped it gingerly, terrified of crushing it. Maybe it wasn’t too late not to tell him. Maybe she could take it all back. “Barney,” she said finally. His face fell. “Barney.” “Yes.” Archie slammed his hands against the wheel so hard it made the small car shudder. “How could you?” he said, and Mona said nothing. She knew that outside of Waushakum Pond there was no way he’d ever accept the real answer: love. Orli Van Mourik writes fiction and nonfiction and holds a Master’s in Journalism from NYU. Her work has appeared in Psychology Today, The Brooklyn Rail and Brooklyn Based, among other outlets. She teaches fiction for the Sackett Street Workshop and is working on her first novel. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters. This story was the winner of The 2015 Annual Pen Parentis Writing Fellowship, which promotes the creation of new work by writers who are also parents. <a href="mailto:http://www.penparentis.org">Pen Parentis</a> is a literary nonprofit organization that provides resources to writers to keep them on a creative track once they start a family. </div> </article> <article id="post-23556" class="post-23556 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/our-cultural-diversity-blog-series/" title="Permalink to Our Cultural Diversity Blog Series" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/kites-flying-pics-1024X768-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Our Cultural Diversity Blog Series" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Our Cultural Diversity Blog Series" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/our-cultural-diversity-blog-series/" title="Permalink to Our Cultural Diversity Blog Series" rel="bookmark">Our Cultural Diversity Blog Series</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/our-cultural-diversity-blog-series/" title="2:35 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-10-23T14:35:44-04:00" pubdate>October 23, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/our-cultural-diversity-blog-series/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-23557" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/meangirl1-150x150.jpg" alt="meangirl" width="150" height="150" /><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/why-im-proud-to-be-the-mom-of-the-mean-girl-a-cultural-essay/">Why I’m Proud to Be The Mom of The Mean Girl: A Cultural Essay</a> By Chantal Panozzo As an American woman who has always struggled with passivity and has also observed other American women with similar issues, especially in the workplace, I like the way my daughter confidently stands up for herself and I don’t want her to be sorry for it.     <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-23558" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Screen-Shot-2015-10-13-at-3.21.29-PM-1024x8981-150x150.png" alt="Screen-Shot-2015-10-13-at-3.21.29-PM-1024x898" width="150" height="150" /><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/just-supporting-a-detail-that-my-son-is-of-mixed-race/">Just Supporting a Detail That My Son is of Mixed-Race</a> By Wendy Kennar The fact that my son is of mixed-race, that my husband and I have had an inter-racial marriage now for sixteen years isn’t worth noting. Our skin colors are mere details not defining characteristics of who we are as individuals and as a family.     <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-23256" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Screen-Shot-2015-10-15-at-5.01.56-PM-150x150.png" alt="Screen Shot 2015-10-15 at 5.01.56 PM" width="150" height="150" /><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/just-one-box-to-define-my-child/">Just One Box to Define My Child</a> By Michelle Robin La My kids have told me they feel lucky to be unique, belonging to two cultures. At other times, they’ve said, “I don’t want to be half. I want to be one or the other.”     <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-23269" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/kites-flying-pics-1024X768-150x150.jpg" alt="kites-flying-pics-1024X768" width="150" height="150" /><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/pure-nepali/">Pure Nepali</a> By Elizabeth Enslin Speaking in our private, mixed language had been hard but precious–perhaps the most intimate time we would ever have aside from pregnancy and breastfeeding. <div></div> <h1> </h1> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-23542" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Ba-Nana-2-150x150.jpg" alt="Ba & Nana 2" width="150" height="150" /><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/the-wasp-vs-the-guju/">The WASP vs. The Guju</a> By Malena Hougen Patel As I worked up some crocodile tears, we peeked out of the kitchen to scope the scene. What we saw made us pause. </div> </article> <article id="post-23181" class="post-23181 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-general tag-child-based-friendships tag-christine-juneau tag-dawn-s-davies tag-elizabeth-richardson-rau tag-friendship tag-juli-fraga tag-karen-dempsey tag-sarah-kilch-gaffney tag-stephanie-sprenger"> <header class="entry-header"> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/our-friendship-blog-series/" title="Permalink to Our Friendship Blog Series" rel="bookmark">Our Friendship Blog Series</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/our-friendship-blog-series/" title="4:19 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-10-12T16:19:00-04:00" pubdate>October 12, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/child-based-friendships/" rel="tag">child-based friendships</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/christine-juneau/" rel="tag">Christine Juneau</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/dawn-s-davies/" rel="tag">Dawn S. Davies</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/elizabeth-richardson-rau/" rel="tag">Elizabeth Richardson Rau</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/friendship/" rel="tag">friendship</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/juli-fraga/" rel="tag">Juli Fraga</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/karen-dempsey/" rel="tag">Karen Dempsey</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/sarah-kilch-gaffney/" rel="tag">Sarah Kilch Gaffney</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/stephanie-sprenger/" rel="tag">Stephanie Sprenger</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/our-friendship-blog-series/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-22764" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Friends2-w-gray-1020x1024.jpg" alt="Friends2 w gray" width="640" height="643" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Friends2-w-gray-1020x1024.jpg 1020w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Friends2-w-gray-150x150.jpg 150w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Friends2-w-gray-300x300.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Friends2-w-gray-100x100.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Friends2-w-gray-232x233.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Friends2-w-gray-500x502.jpg 500w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Friends2-w-gray.jpg 1369w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-22676" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/2014-07-29-14.11.27-150x150.jpg" alt="2014-07-29 14.11.27" width="150" height="150" /> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/on-friendship/">On Friendship</a> By Sarah Kilch Gaffney They are so much of why you are back on your feet, of how you are able to continue moving through life.       <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-22732" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/5243266852-150x150.jpg" alt="524326685" width="150" height="150" /> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/one-of-the-girls/">One of the Girls</a> By Dawn S. Davies I appreciate the importance of friendship, but I’ve not been the kind of woman who has a posse of besties who meet on Thursday nights for cocktails.       <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-22804" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/dreamstime_s_42748978-150x150.jpg" alt="dreamstime_s_42748978" width="150" height="150" /> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-single-moms-club/">The Rise and Fall of the Single Moms Club</a> By Stephanie Sprenger I struggle to shake off the unrealistic notion that all friendships I form during adulthood should be “forever friendships.”       <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-22818" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/photo-1428992858642-0908d119bd3e-150x150.jpeg" alt="photo-1428992858642-0908d119bd3e" width="150" height="150" /> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/perfectly-imperfect/">Perfectly Imperfect</a> By Elizabeth Richardson Rau Best friends often don’t come in the prettiest packages. The true friends I have made are like me, willing to show dents, battle wounds and flaws.       <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-22755" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/dreamstime_s_40811824-150x150.jpg" alt="dreamstime_s_40811824" width="150" height="150" /> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/the-girl-from-anthropologie/">The Girl From Anthropologie</a> By Juli Fraga Like many childhood relationships, my friendship with Abby had simply run its course.       <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-22827" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Friends-pic-150x150.jpg" alt="Friends pic" width="150" height="150" /><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/10-thoughts-on-being-a-mom-friend/">Ten Thoughts on Being a Mom Friend</a> By Karen Dempsey Friendships can be temporary and still rich and authentic. When it stops working, whatever the reason, give yourself and your (now-fading) friend a break. It’s part of life. Move on – and remember what you gave to each other while it worked.     Illustration by <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/christine-juneau/">Christine Juneau</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-23069" class="post-23069 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-general"> <header class="entry-header"> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/author-qa-dr-laurie-hollman/" title="Permalink to Author Q&A: Dr. Laurie Hollman" rel="bookmark">Author Q&A: Dr. Laurie Hollman</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/author-qa-dr-laurie-hollman/" title="1:58 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-10-05T13:58:47-04:00" pubdate>October 5, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/author-qa-dr-laurie-hollman/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-23164" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/head-shot-3-256x300.jpg" alt="head shot 3" width="256" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/head-shot-3-256x300.jpg 256w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/head-shot-3-100x117.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/head-shot-3-232x272.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/head-shot-3.jpg 327w" sizes="(max-width: 256px) 100vw, 256px" />Laurie Hollman, PhD, is the author of <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/excerpt-unlocking-parental-intelligence/">Unlocking Parental Intelligence</a> What was your inspiration for writing Unlocking Parental Intelligence? It’s hard to write in the past tense about being “inspired” because even though the book is finished and published, I continue to be inspired to write about unlocking Parental Intelligence. My inspiration has had and continues to have three ongoing sources for which I am grateful—the children and parents I treat in my clinical practice, my children, and my grandchildren. Furthermore, I’m fortunate to be able to continue to write about parenting and Parental Intelligence for Huffington Post, so I can keep on reaching more and more parents and receive their feedback and questions. I’m still inspired! As my three decades of psychoanalytic practice and research progressed during the years of my clinical work, I incorporated the voices of so many mothers and fathers who came to me at different stages in their parenting careers. They were questioning what to do to salvage their parent-child relationships, asking how to put their children back on a reasonable course, and wondering how to find meaning in their family life. Feeling thankful to those parents for telling me how unlocking their Parental Intelligence benefited their families, I was compelled to narrow Parental Intelligence into five accessible steps for others to read and grow from. Just today a patient told me about intending to buy three copies of my book—one for her daughter who just had a baby, one for her daughter-in-law with her six-year-old grandson, and one for herself. She said to me that her favorite word now is “unlocking” because these ideas have helped her to unlock all the resources from inside her to live a fulfilling life. My children were raised with the precepts of Parental Intelligence. It was natural for me to want to understand their minds—their thoughts, feelings, intentions, and imaginings. It brought me close to them as they grew. Early on we began to learn from each other as I tried to guide them to think for themselves about making good judgments and choices. It’s amazing how wonderful it is to share trust and love with your children. I hadn’t coined the term, Parental Intelligence, when I was a young mother, but I was practicing it nonetheless. Today I have the good fortune to have two empathic, industrious sons with wonderful senses of humor who enjoy learning, creating, and relating well with others in their own individual ways. They have been and surely are an inspiration for my writing. At the conclusion to my acknowledgments for the book I also thank the future generation who inspire me. I write: “I can’t conclude without thanking the future generation: my loving grandsons Zander, age seven, and Eddie, age four. Hearing their remarkable use of language at such young ages and watching their vibrant youthfulness has always inspired me to keep on writing. When they confide in me their personal thoughts and wishes, I am reminded of the essence of Parental Intelligence; the close bonds it brings between parent and child, grandparent and grandchild. What were some of the most surprising aspects of your years of practice and research? It’s surprising when a child you treated at age four comes back at twenty-nine to resume treatment. A little munchkin who was filled with worries shows up 6’4″ tall to share his conflicts about this dramatically different stage of life. I find I remember his worries long forgotten by him that have been transformed and changed by his early treatment and his life experiences. This is the joy of having been trained to work with infants, children, adolescents, and adults. I see the life span evolve. One of my great surprises was a call on Thanksgiving from a mother of a patient I had first seen as a teenager. Now a young adult he was wondering if I should be invited to his wedding! This was a boy who resisted school, withdrew from socializing, and initially challenged all my attempts to help. How validating it was to be considered a guest at his wedding. One of my biggest surprises was when I was doing research on nine-year-old girls and discovered serendipitously that they all had fantasies of being kidnapped. This led to my fortunate ability to contribute original research findings about this age group that hopefully led other clinicians to help many nine-year-old girls with these fears. How did your own experience as a parent inform your writing? As mentioned above, I’ve learned a great deal from my children because fortunately we had and have the kind of relationship where they openly articulate their thoughts and ideas. A specific example is when I learned from my younger son when he was a self-reflective teen how grade school kids find teachers so powerful. He was an excellent student, the kind of kid you never had to prompt to do his homework, and earned his A’s without too much effort, yet he reminded me that children see adults with a kind of power they may not have been deserved or earned. As parents we need to keep that in mind. It’s great to expect our children to reach and stretch and expend a good amount of effort as they learn, but it should be in an atmosphere of pleasurable learning for its own sake. At home, I know that was clear because my husband and I enjoy learning like it’s a hobby! But, in school, sometimes test performance overshadows the joy of learning. The knowledge my son passed on to me informed my understanding of how parents and teachers could exert too much power without understanding they were doing so or its effects on sensitive growing minds. I surely hope my book orients parents not to wield power, but to use the new parenting mindset that behavior has meaning and is a form of communication. Whether it’s a temper tantrum, a messy room, hitting, fidgeting with poor concentration, or hiding out in your teenage room—to name some examples I look at in my book—even the most difficult behaviors have meaning and can be a catalyst to change. If parents take on this perspective they won’t misuse the power they have over young children. If parents show they care by careful listening there will be less push-back from teenagers because they will feel loved. What message would you like the reader to take away after reading your book? I want parents to first ask, “What does it mean?” not “What do I do?” when they are faced with puzzling behaviors. They should know that external behavior has internal meaning. I want parents to think of themselves as “meaning makers” who don’t underestimate all they know about their child even when they have self-doubts. Parental Intelligence helps them harness what they know so they can grow as parents. That will lead to the following: <ol> <li>The parent will take away a new style of parenting life that will sustain them through happy and distressing times with their children through all stages of child development.</li> <li>“Bad” behavior will no longer be part of a parent’s view of how their children act. Instead, behaviors or actions will be understood as requests for communication and understanding when words can’t be found or don’t suffice.</li> <li>With this focus, the overarching meanings behind child behavior will be unmasked leading to effective problem solving and deep, sustained parent-child bonds.</li> <li>In addition, as I reveal through portraits of parents applying the principles of Parental Intelligence, I want parents to be inspired by up-to-date research. For example, they will learn:</li> </ol> <ul> <li>how stress is transmitted from the intrauterine environment to the infant</li> <li>how babies’ bodies’ mime adult language</li> <li>how children with Asperger Syndrome communicate</li> <li>how parents decide whether to choose what I call “the new wave of scheduled socialization” for elementary school age children</li> <li>how current research describes the impact of fathers’ involvement on their children.</li> </ul> By the end of the book, if not before, I’d like parents to take away the set of tools needed to help understand their children’s behavior and in turn become more effective parents. Parenting will feel more pleasurable, inspiring, and gratifying. Their children will be grateful, thinking, capable, and loving. What was the toughest part of the writing process? I love words! I revel in finding the right word to express what I’m feeling and thinking. I remember working hard to try to hone my knowledge into five accessible steps for parents to gain Parental Intelligence. Sounds like a contradiction, but I playfully struggled with the right wording by writing lists of options until I felt I could succinctly name each step: Stepping Back, Self-Reflecting, Understanding Your Child’s Mind, Understanding Your Child’s Development, and Problem Solving. Then describing each step with examples that parents would actually be struggling with became important to me. I wanted to be talking with my reader through my writing as I was in my mind. Once the five steps were in place, one of the favorite but difficult parts of writing this book became writing Part II: Stories of Parental Intelligence in Practice. Writing short stories was new for me. I’d read about how fiction writers live with their characters and I began to feel that way. It was so much more fun than writing up formal case presentations of someone in treatment as I was accustomed to in my practice. I remember finishing a chapter about a little boy who drew a picture that led his father to finally understand what he was going through. I was drained—I felt so much for this boy who felt he was a “bad, bad” child when he was so sensitive and wonderful. I wanted my readers to really get to know the parents and children I was writing about and to care about them. I recall loving it when an editor read a story in the book and put comments of endearment or surprise in the margins. To bring my readers into the lives of these people, to get to know them, identify with them, and then naturally learn Parental Intelligence rather than feel like it was an intellectual exercise was the task. Sometimes, it took me to the edge of my facility with words to describe the interactions between the characters and even write their dialogue so it would sound real. I hope my readers find themselves interrupting their reading to rest the book on their laps just to muse about the characters, to let their minds wander into their own lives with their children. In that way, I hope they get to know themselves and their children better and better—loving them even more. I know this isn’t true for many, but writing became relaxing for me. I guess I would “get into the zone.” This experience led me to write to parents through Moms Magazine and Huffington Post. It was a shift from writing scholarly works for psychoanalytic journals and books to writing for the popular press, but I find it both challenging and exciting. The book gave me the opportunity to write about what I knew very well and felt very deeply and now I can continue to do that. I still jump up at random moments when I’m doing something else and an idea or phrase pops in my mind that I quickly jot down to be elaborated on later. For me personally, this has grown into where writing has become central to my life. (Here’s a recent link to a Huffington Post article: “<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/laurie-hollman-phd/can-we-change-how-we-pare_b_8125404.html">Can We Change How We Parent? Unlocking Parental Intelligence</a>“) What books have had the greatest influence on you? This is a tough question because I read widely. So I’ll narrow my answer to some of the books that influenced my writing of Unlocking Parental Intelligence because then you’ll see my range. Two books by the linguist, Stephen Pinker were particularly influential. I swallowed whole The Stuff of Thought, particularly his great chapter, The Metaphor Metaphor. I loved this because parents unwittingly use metaphors in their minds for their kids’ behaviors. Is a messy room a cyclone, a hurricane, a disaster, or a disorganized mind? How you construe it affects how you understand it and react. I also read his recent book, The Sense of Style. Only he could write about grammar with a sense of humor. He’s a brilliant, reasoning writer who helped me quite a bit with writing questions I had. While thinking about understanding parents and children’s minds, I read Marco Iacoboni’s book on mirror neurons, Mirroring People, which addresses the biology of empathy. There’s a lot of controversy about this theory, but I find it fascinating. At the same time, to sharpen my ability to write short stories, I read many. I enjoyed two anthologies by Lorrie Moore, Like Life and Birds of America. Exquisite writing, insightful, touching, and of course beautifully written, these books got me into the space I wanted to be to frame my characters and their life experiences. Two very different psychoanalytic books that I re-found as I was writing were Mentalization edited by Fredric N. Busch, Ph.D. and Talking to Babies: Healing with Words on a Maternity Ward by Myriam Szejer, Md. Mentalization is a psychoanalytic term that is rather complex speaking to the capacity for self-reflection and self-observation—thinking about thinking. It extends beyond intellectual understanding though leading to an understanding of one’s feelings and how the mind the works. Actually related but written in an entirely different style is Myriam Szejer’s book where she talks directly to an infant about the baby’s mother’s depression which led to the baby’s suffering. Szejer dares to talk to preverbal little ones recognizing their mental state of mind. Truly innovative therapeutic work, and I was very proud to receive her endorsement of my book. Unusual for a parenting book, I address the politics of parenting. To assist me in writing Part III: The Future of Parental Intelligence, I read among others E. J. Dionne’s Our Divided Political Heart. My epithet for the last chapter is: “When children’s voices are heard, leaders are born.” My younger son contributed to the last chapter with his millennial voice. I’ll let him speak for himself: “America seems to be in a period of political dogma, a place where certitude is more important than nuance and understanding.” This certainty “is masqueraded as strength, but it really comes out of ignorance and fear. I think you can argue that parents fighting with a child, letting their ego get involved, are doing so out of fear of the unknown, unconsciously using a survival reflex, defending themselves unnecessarily. The only thing that can combat fear is knowledge: knowing there’s a technique to deal with understanding what’s happening in someone else’s mind. And that technique is Parental intelligence. If Parental Intelligence were taught, if people were encouraged to understand one another before reflexively trying to defend themselves, if trying to empathize and know others’ minds was seen as a strength, we’d live in a more compassionate, if not more efficient, society.” How do you balance motherhood and writing? Oh Marcelle, I think you can see from what I’ve written that writing is an extension of motherhood for me. For years I went to school and worked while I mothered. My kids were accustomed to us being students at the same time. You can see above my younger son is a wonderful writer and periodically when he is around and I’m writing, I stop and ask him to straighten out a sentence for me. He has such a facility with language and sentence structure; it’s great. My older son, as well, created sentences about fatherhood for me. As we’d discuss fatherhood, I’d find myself grabbing a paper and pen to write his thoughts down with his particular language and emphasis before they could get lost. He created the phrasing to the first sentence below that I included in my introduction: “In today’s society, there is a broad array of roles that mothers and fathers take on as they participate in parenting. These varied roles are readily adapted to family life as parents use their Parental Intelligence.” Mothering while writing and doing psychotherapy allowed me to set my own pace. These occupations afforded me the luxury of creating the schedule I needed to keep mothering in mind. My office has always been physically a part of my home, so when I took work breaks, I could periodically run in the other sections of the house and check on things. I couldn’t spend time commuting. My practice calendar was always organized around my kids. I remember when I never worked past five o’clock and just referred people out who couldn’t fit in my time frame, so I could have dinner and spend evenings with my children. It wasn’t only about being a “good enough” mother for them. I didn’t want to miss out on sending my kids off to school or being there when they got home. I used to drive my high school kids to school, believe it or not, just to have more time with them. As they got older, I worked longer hours but always had their needs in mind. Even with grandchildren, I still feel the need to stop what I’m doing when their around. I’m back to planning my vacations around school schedules, so I can see them when they’re off from school. I’ve heard other women say that at the end of the day, when the kids grow up, you have your career. But I don’t see it that way. At the end of the day, when the kids grow up, I still have my kids. My career is obviously important to me, but I’m always a mother first—it’s the most important and rewarding job. I hope the parents who read my book can get the chance to feel that way if they don’t yet. Laurie Hollman, Ph.D. is a psychoanalyst with specialized clinical training in infant-parent, child, adolescent, and adult psychotherapy. She has been on the faculties of New York University and the Society for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, among others. She has written extensively on parenting for various publications, including the Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, The International Journal of Infant Observation, The Inner World of the Mother, Newsday’s Parents & Children Magazine, Long Island Parent, and her popular column, PARENTAL INTELLIGENCE, at Moms Magazine. She also writes blogs for Huffington Post. She and her husband are the proud parents of two spirited, loving adult sons. Read an excerpt frorm <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/excerpt-unlocking-parental-intelligence/">Unlocking Parental Intelligence</a>. <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft wp-image-23072 size-medium" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Unlocking-Parental-Intelligence-200x300.jpg" alt="Unlocking Parental Intelligence" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Unlocking-Parental-Intelligence-200x300.jpg 200w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Unlocking-Parental-Intelligence-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Unlocking-Parental-Intelligence-87x130.jpg 87w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Unlocking-Parental-Intelligence-433x650.jpg 433w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Unlocking-Parental-Intelligence.jpg 1800w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Parental-Intelligence-Finding-Behavior/dp/1942934041/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1444066715&sr=8-1&keywords=unlocking+parental+intelligence">Buy the Book </a> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Unlocking-Parental-Intelligence-Finding-Behavior/dp/1942934041/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1444070073&sr=1-1&keywords=unlocking+parental+intelligence">Amazon</a> <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/unlocking-parental-intelligence-laurie-hollman/1121706945?ean=9781942934042">Barnes & Noble</a> <a href="http://familius.com/unlocking-parental-intelligence">Familius</a>     </div> </article> <article id="post-22937" class="post-22937 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-blog category-general tag-7-an-experimental-mutiny-against-excess tag-book-review tag-christina-krost tag-excess tag-family tag-jen-hatmaker tag-possessions"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/7-an-experimental-mutiny-against-excess-a-book-review/" title="Permalink to 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess: A Book Review" rel="bookmark"><img width="181" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/7-cover-art-181x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess: A Book Review" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess: A Book Review" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/7-an-experimental-mutiny-against-excess-a-book-review/" title="Permalink to 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess: A Book Review" rel="bookmark">7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess: A Book Review</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/7-an-experimental-mutiny-against-excess-a-book-review/" title="7:42 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-10-02T07:42:04-04:00" pubdate>October 2, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/blog/" rel="category tag">Blog</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/7-an-experimental-mutiny-against-excess/" rel="tag">7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/book-review/" rel="tag">book review</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/christina-krost/" rel="tag">Christina Krost</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/excess/" rel="tag">excess</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/family/" rel="tag">family</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/jen-hatmaker/" rel="tag">Jen Hatmaker</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/possessions/" rel="tag">possessions</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/7-an-experimental-mutiny-against-excess-a-book-review/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> By Christina Krost <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-22940" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/7-cover-art.jpg" alt="7 cover art" width="181" height="279" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/7-cover-art.jpg 181w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/7-cover-art-84x130.jpg 84w" sizes="(max-width: 181px) 100vw, 181px" />I am sitting on the floor trying to reconcile fifth- and first-grade school supply lists with things we already have on hand when my daughters wandered in to inspect my neat piles. “Isn’t that my stuff from last year?” Yes, I kept those blunt-tip scissors. “Why can’t we just get all new stuff like everyone else?” Because that three-ring binder and pencil box can be embellished with patterned duct tape. And so begins a typical battle in the war I’m waging against excess. It’s true that we can afford all new school supplies, but does that mean we must buy everything new, every year? Of course we all want the best for our kids, but does it always have to cost us? This is the basic premise of Jen Hatmaker’s book 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess. Hatmaker, her family, and “The Council,” a group of close friends and advisors, embarked on a seven-month experiment against waste in their households. Hatmaker chose seven areas in which to reduce: food, clothes, possessions, media, waste, spending, and stress. She focused on each area with her family of seven for an entire month. Hatmaker, a pastor’s wife, writer, and speaker, journals her struggles and successes giving up what we would consider common American comforts while working through her desire to follow religious teachings about possessions. For example, during the food month she and her family chose seven foods to eat: chicken, eggs, whole-wheat bread, sweet potatoes, spinach, avocados, and apples. During the clothing month she chose and wore only seven articles of clothing. She gave away much of what remained in her closet. The possessions month went the same way–she gave away seven items each day. The media month shut down seven screens including TV, gaming, Facebook, Twitter, and radio. Cell phone use was limited to emergencies and the Internet was only used when necessary for jobs or schoolwork. The family learned to recycle, compost, and garden during waste month. They drove only one car and bought only local or thrifted goods. Spending month had them funnel their money to only seven vendors—a gas station, farmer’s market, online bill pay and Target. During stress month they kept one night a week as a “sabbath” to recharge as a family. Though Jen Hatmaker is an author and was likely paid in advance to turn her experiment into a book, her purpose was to see what would happen to her heart, her family, and her close friends by living with less. No one died from lack of anything. In fact, the family started truly living. How? Hatmaker’s family began living with purpose. Instead of falling victim to the affliction of immediate gratification, they started watching their dollars carefully and intentionally. They saved more and gave more away. They found that their basic needs could be met with far less than originally thought. They waited before making purchases to see if after a month they still needed it or simply forgot about it. They stopped being slaves to stuff. As they stopped consuming they started reducing their impact on the Earth, but increased the impact they were making in their community. 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess is written by someone raised in a Christian tradition. I would have liked to read more about how other faith traditions handle consumption or prosperity theology. I am certain we have much to learn from each other and that much common ground exist between us. It’s been a few years since the Hatmaker experiment with excess, and I’m curious if all the lessons stuck. In my work with an Earth care non-profit, I see this happen frequently: people are inspired to make real change after presented with information about smart energy and climate change or sustainable food and land use, but a few months later they’ve slid back into old routines. But in the end, Maya Angelou’s famous words ring true: “I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.” I sent my kids off to school this year with old backpacks and lunchboxes, reused pencil cases, binders, scissors and folders. We bought new crayons and markers because, well, I’m not a monster. We purchased tree-free bamboo tissues and paper towels for the classrooms. I spent slightly less than usual, but I feel slightly more in control of our consumption. And that’s an excess I can live with. Christina Krost is teacher, mother, and United Methodist pastor’s wife who works for an Earth care non-profit. She lives with her husband and three young daughters in rural central Illinois and blogs at thekrostfamily.blogspot.com. </div> </article> <article id="post-23040" class="post-23040 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-general"> <header class="entry-header"> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/or-qa-jody-keisner/" title="Permalink to Author Q&A: Jody Keisner" rel="bookmark">Author Q&A: Jody Keisner</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/or-qa-jody-keisner/" title="2:21 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-10-01T14:21:45-04:00" pubdate>October 1, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/or-qa-jody-keisner/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-23041" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Jody-Portrait-Pink-Background-225x300.jpg" alt="Jody Portrait Pink Background" width="225" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Jody-Portrait-Pink-Background-225x300.jpg 225w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Jody-Portrait-Pink-Background-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Jody-Portrait-Pink-Background-98x130.jpg 98w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Jody-Portrait-Pink-Background-488x650.jpg 488w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Jody-Portrait-Pink-Background.jpg 1224w" sizes="(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" />Jody Keisner is the author of the essay Fisheye View, which appeared in our October 20915 issue. We connected with her about the writing process. Here are her answers. What inspired you to write this essay? The absurdity of the situation I found myself in: driving in the snow, panicky, with a bag of fish on my lap and my daughter in the backseat wondering what was going on. I wanted to explore why keeping those fish alive mattered so much to my sense of well-being. What was the greatest challenge in writing it? I did quite a bit of research for this essay, mostly by foot: I made several visits to two pet stores during the process so that I could get my fish-facts straight and accurately describe the various species. How do your children inform your writing? Even if I’m not writing directly about her, Lily is there, at the periphery (or center) of every essay that I write these days. It sounds cliche, but I look at the world differently because of her. Things scare, delight, fascinate, inform, and surprise me now in ways that, perhaps, they did when I was a child but that I’ve since forgotten. She helps me to remember. Recently, during a drive, she asked me if we were looking at sound-waves through our car windows. Were we? Were there ripples or vibrations visible to the naked eye? I’m re-seeing and re-thinking the world because of her. How do you balance writing and motherhood/fatherhood? I don’t! Often when I’m engaged in writing, I’m thinking about parenting. And vice versa. The great thing about parenting is that it forces you to root in the very moment that you’re standing in. This is also the hard thing about parenting, at least for me. I don’t have time to linger on emotions or contemplate when Lily wants me to be fully present. So instead I write notes everywhere–the back of a bill lying on the kitchen table, a scrap of paper Lily has colored on, in a book on my nightstand. Do you share any of your writing with your children (if they are old enough of course) Lily is four years-old, so I haven’t shared my writing with her. I do think, however, that I have to be careful to write my story and not hers. Of course she’ll be in my writing because she’s smack dab in the middle of my hours, my days, and my heart. But I anticipate that she’ll want to tell her own story someday. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/october-2015-issue/">Return to the October 2015 Issue</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-23011" class="post-23011 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-editors-letter tag-marcelle-soviero tag-special-offer tag-subscribers-only"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/editors-letter/" title="Permalink to Editor’s Letter" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Marclle-Headshot-1-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Editor’s Letter" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Editor’s Letter" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/editors-letter/" title="Permalink to Editor’s Letter" rel="bookmark">Editor’s Letter</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/editors-letter/" title="4:06 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-09-30T16:06:34-04:00" pubdate>September 30, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/editors-letter/" rel="tag">editor's letter</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/marcelle-soviero/" rel="tag">Marcelle Soviero</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/special-offer/" rel="tag">special offer</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/subscribers-only/" rel="tag">subscribers only</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/editors-letter/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <h1><a href="https://brainchildmag.com"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft wp-image-22221 size-medium" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Marclle-Headshot-1-200x300.jpg" alt="Marclle Headshot 1" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Marclle-Headshot-1-200x300.jpg 200w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Marclle-Headshot-1-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Marclle-Headshot-1-87x130.jpg 87w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Marclle-Headshot-1-433x650.jpg 433w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /></a>How Are We Doing?</h1>   I’m going to turn the editor’s letter around this month. Instead of me giving you an update, I’d love to get an update from you. Really, how are we doing? As you know, Brain, Child moved to its monthly online format in September. Our subscribers now receive our magazine in a monthly online format. We’d love to know what you think – what you’d like to see more of — or less? Please send them to me at <a href="mailto:Marcelle@brainchildmag.com">Marcelle@brainchildmag.com</a>. I thank you in advance for your feedback and for your support of Brain, Child. Marcelle     Enjoy This Month’s Exclusive Subscriber Offer Our New Mama Bundle is for all the new moms out there — or new moms you know. The bundle includes four print issues of Brain, Child plus Brain, Child’s Book <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/shop/this-is-childhood-book-journal/">This is Childhood</a> and my book <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/shop/an-iridescent-life-essays-on-motherhood/">An Iridescent Life: Essays on Motherhood </a>for $20 instead of $45. While supplies last – Offer ends on Monday 10/05/15<a href="https://brainchildmag.com/shop/new-mama-bundle/">. Order now</a>. Need a little Brain, Child between issues? <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/subscribe-to-posts/">Click here</a> to sign up for our weekly newsletter.   <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/october-2015-issue/">Back to the October 2015 Issue</a>   </div> </article> <article id="post-23000" class="post-23000 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-humor tag-motherwit tag-sue-sanders"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/motherwit-child-psychology-101/" title="Permalink to Motherwit: Child Psychology 101" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Dictionary-photo-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Motherwit: Child Psychology 101" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Motherwit: Child Psychology 101" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/motherwit-child-psychology-101/" title="Permalink to Motherwit: Child Psychology 101" rel="bookmark">Motherwit: Child Psychology 101</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/motherwit-child-psychology-101/" title="1:53 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-09-30T13:53:09-04:00" pubdate>September 30, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/humor/" rel="tag">humor</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/motherwit/" rel="tag">motherwit</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/sue-sanders/" rel="tag">Sue Sanders</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/motherwit-child-psychology-101/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-23006" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Dictionary-photo-1024x683.jpg" alt="Dictionary photo" width="640" height="427" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Dictionary-photo-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Dictionary-photo-300x200.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Dictionary-photo-100x67.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Dictionary-photo-232x155.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Dictionary-photo-500x333.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /> By Sue Sanders Parenthood introduces us to a rich new vocabulary. To help make better sense of it all, here is a glossary of psychological terms for parenting: abnormal – the state of a parent’s stomach before spending years helpfully polishing off a finicky toddler’s dinner. adolescence see antisocial behavior anal-retentive – at a bathroom stop on a long family trip, the three-year-old firmly declares that she doesn’t have to go, that she won’t go and that no one can make her. In the car, twenty minutes later she becomes anal-expulsive. And there isn’t a change of clothes. antisocial behavior see adolescence closure – realizing lazy Sunday mornings, filled with nothing but New York Times reading and coffee drinking are over for good. collective unconscious – what parents fall into at night after a hard day of child wrangling and a night of companionate love. confirmation bias – what religious grandparents accuse new parent of when told that, no, family will not have child baptized, confirmed, or attend church. (see also conversion disorder) countertransference – what a parent needs to do when the grocery clerk puts out her light and slaps a “closed” sign on her lane after parent has taken out of the cart a week’s worth of groceries, some of which have been carefully selected by three-year-old who is beginning to show signs of divergent thinking. denial – when parent is certain he/she will have enough money saved to send child to college in three years. depressive realism – what life sometimes seems when parent has had little/no sleep because infant wanted to play all night and parent now has an entire day of meetings. ego – what toddler boldly announces (usually followed by the simple, declarative demand: “Now!”) as soon as parents enter the children’s concert they’ve just spent $50 on. Parents just want child to cut id out. explicit memory – what thirteen-year-old shows no signs of when reminded tonight was the night that her grandparents are coming over for dinner and she promised to stay and be social, but she’s already made plans with her friends. (see recovered memory, retroactive amnesia, selective attention) gender role – delicious with cheese and mayo. hierarchy of needs – there is no hierarchy, all needs are equal: everyone needs something at the exact same time. hindsight bias – what a parent feel when he/she sees it in the mirror so he/she decides yet again to start running. (see denial, negative afterimage, procrastination) inferiority complex – develops when visiting new mom friend who has written three books, has a beautiful, organized house, and clean laundry put away. For a mother with i.c. reality is vastly different. (see also depressive realism) long-term memory – forgot about it. libido – forgot about it. motivated forgetting – something sixteen-year-olds excel at. nervous system – often first located when parent gazes into infant’s eyes and realizes he/she don’t know what he/she is doing.(see night terrors, panic attack) observer bias – when total strangers tell mother to put socks on that baby, his feet are cold, what are you? a total idiot? Often cause of defiant disorder in new mothers. paradoxical sleep – before parenthood, one slept during the night. psychobabble – when a shrink’s child is beginning to speak. recall – call again and again for preschool packets; why the redial button was invented. (see reflex) rooting reflex – the “hooray!” a mother feels when she finally sees her infant latch on for the first time. secondary sex characteristics – unimportant when exhausted parents have forgotten what their primary ones are. self absorption – to get psyche-d about really good diapers. sex roles – vowed never fall into before had a child. (see short term memory) Skinner Box – at times, it actually sounds pretty good. stranger anxiety – what many parents feel when seeing another adult approach their child. working memory – although it seems as if it’s often on strike, it comes roaring back when a parent looks at their sleeping child and their unconditional response is unconditional love. Sue Sanders’ essays have been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Brain, Child, Real Simple, Islands, Parents, the Rumpus and others. She’s the author of the parenting memoir, Mom, I’m Not a Kid Anymore. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/october-2015-issue/">Return to the October 2015 Issue</a>         </div> </article> <article id="post-22995" class="post-22995 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-general tag-childhood tag-laura-lassor tag-summer tag-time"> <header class="entry-header"> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/lessons/" title="Permalink to Lessons" rel="bookmark">Lessons</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/lessons/" title="1:30 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-09-30T13:30:38-04:00" pubdate>September 30, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/childhood/" rel="tag">childhood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/laura-lassor/" rel="tag">Laura Lassor</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/summer/" rel="tag">summer</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/time/" rel="tag">time</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/lessons/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> By Laura Lassor I’m driving to swimming lessons. Late afternoon, summer. When I think of it now, everything slows and the sun drips like syrup. The windows are down, the day whooshing against our skin. My son wants to know so many things. He tries,”You stopped growing, Mom. So you aren’t getting older anymore.” We’ve just passed the iron fence of the cemetery. He is five and knows and doesn’t know what is sunk below rolling lawn, gracious rows of etched stone. My voice corrects him: “No, I am getting older,” but now we are curving past the lake, where sails sway red and yellow, and if time could stretch it might be here, in the shallows where kids’ slick heads bob among the boats like shiny toys strewn. Next he asks me, “What’s invisible?” I say oxygen. He says carbon dioxide. I say love. He says germs. The cars flow like rainwater. There is so much to explain. I talk about microscopes, the difference between invisible and too-small-to-see. He is happy. He trusts in a machine or a medicine for everything. Then we’re at the pool, and he’s immersed, shivering. His small limbs won’t surrender to his idea that he’ll float. He kicks, coughs, and behind goggles half-filled with water, he finds me. I am on my folding chair, looking back. There are so many ways we are helpless. There are so many afternoons like this invisibly nudging us forward. Laura Lassor is a lawyer, writer and improvisational parent living in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her husband Joel and her two sons, Clark and David. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/october-2015-issue/">Return to the October 2015 Issue</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-22825" class="post-22825 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-children tag-daughters tag-motherhood tag-mothers tag-mothers-and-daughters tag-new-mom tag-rage tag-rebecca-lbahy tag-regret tag-toddler tag-toddlers tag-young-children"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/what-no-one-ever-told-you-2/" title="Permalink to What No One Ever Told you" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Little-Playing-with-House-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="What No One Ever Told you" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="What No One Ever Told you" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/what-no-one-ever-told-you-2/" title="Permalink to What No One Ever Told you" rel="bookmark">What No One Ever Told you</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/what-no-one-ever-told-you-2/" title="12:46 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-09-29T12:46:08-04:00" pubdate>September 29, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/children/" rel="tag">children</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/daughters/" rel="tag">daughters</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/motherhood/" rel="tag">motherhood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/mothers/" rel="tag">mothers</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/mothers-and-daughters/" rel="tag">mothers and daughters</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/new-mom/" rel="tag">new mom</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/rage/" rel="tag">rage</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/rebecca-lbahy/" rel="tag">Rebecca L'Bahy</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/regret/" rel="tag">regret</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/toddler/" rel="tag">toddler</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/toddlers/" rel="tag">toddlers</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/young-children/" rel="tag">young children</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/what-no-one-ever-told-you-2/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-22964" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Little-Playing-with-House-1024x683.jpg" alt="Little Playing with House" width="640" height="427" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Little-Playing-with-House-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Little-Playing-with-House-300x200.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Little-Playing-with-House-100x67.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Little-Playing-with-House-232x155.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Little-Playing-with-House-500x333.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /> Rebecca L’Bahy Sometimes you feel a rage build up in you and it is only 7 a.m. You are feeding the dogs, the cats, making waffles, making coffee, making lunches, barking orders: Brush your teeth. Brush your hair. Get your shoes. Get your backpack. We’re late, we’re late, we’re late. You are so close to what you have been waiting for – three kids in school full-time. Your own brain-space. You sit and stare at a wall. There is a bird in your throat, a rock in your ribs. You avoid the kitchen. Sometimes the whole house. Drive around in your mini-van unsure where to go or what to do. Something is missing from your day. From your life. You should, you should…but you don’t. Then 2:30 comes too soon and your six-year-old wants to play house. How about a board game, you suggest. With a board game there is no pretending, there is a beginning and an end. She starts to cry. She wants to play house. Why won’t you ever play house? You yell something at her, something mean. She cries harder. You are her first love and you have broken her heart so you let her: the Disney channel, candy, salamanders in the living room. In the quiet, guilt. Look at her! Do you even see her? How she watches TV upside down in a headstand, her hair spilling out on the couch, her arms vulnerable as spindly tree branches? It isn’t until later, after the final push through dinner, and clean up, and the bedtime routine, after you collapse exhausted into her bed to cuddle that you see her: that hair, those arms, her tiny baby teeth. You were there when they came in. You were there when she chipped one on the driveway, and you will be there when they fall out one by one. You have always been there, even while you were thinking What if. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/october-2015-issue/">Return to the October 2015 Issue</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-22866" class="post-22866 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-childhood tag-fiction tag-mai-wang"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/author-qa-mai-wang/" title="Permalink to Author Q&A: Mai Wang" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Mai-Headshot-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Author Q&A: Mai Wang" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Author Q&A: Mai Wang" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/author-qa-mai-wang/" title="Permalink to Author Q&A: Mai Wang" rel="bookmark">Author Q&A: Mai Wang</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/author-qa-mai-wang/" title="11:48 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-09-29T11:48:41-04:00" pubdate>September 29, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/childhood/" rel="tag">childhood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/fiction/" rel="tag">fiction</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/mai-wang/" rel="tag">Mai Wang</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/author-qa-mai-wang/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-22867" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Mai-Headshot-300x200.jpg" alt="Mai Headshot" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Mai-Headshot-300x200.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Mai-Headshot-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Mai-Headshot-100x67.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Mai-Headshot-232x154.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Mai-Headshot-500x333.jpg 500w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Mai-Headshot.jpg 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Mai Wang is the author of the story of The Night Mr. Li Won Jeopardy, which appeared in our October 2015 issue. We connected with her about the writing process. Here are her responses. What inspired you to write The Night Mr. Li Won Jeopardy? I was born in Beijing and moved to Miami when I was a child, where I grew up in a Chinese community. Potluck dinners and late-night poker games were frequent occurrences as people tried to create a “big family” to replace the ones they had lost. Naturally, my childhood provided me the material for this story, though the characters and plot are semi-fictionalized. I wanted to capture both the lively group dynamic of immigrant life and the hidden loneliness of the individual immigrant experience through a young girl’s perspective. What was the greatest challenge in writing it? Reimagining parts of my childhood proved to be an immensely difficult task–first, I had to remember how certain foods tasted, how people dressed, and how they spoke to each other. Next, I had to transform those sensory impressions into a legible storyline. Also, since the story is semi-autobiographical, I worried about revealing too much about my own family and our vulnerabilities. But finally I decided to go ahead and risk publication. How do you balance writing and your other commitments? I’m currently pursuing my PhD in English at Stanford, where I am in the fortunate position of being able to structure most of my own time. I try to write in the mornings before classes. Every day, I wake up feeling incredibly privileged to be able to read, write, and think with no constraints on my intellectual or personal freedom. Despite the struggles that my family went through, I know that we ultimately made the right decision by moving to the US. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/october-2015-issue/">Return to the October 2015 Issue</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-22863" class="post-22863 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-bear-country tag-bj-hollars tag-grief"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/author-qa-bj-hollars/" title="Permalink to Author Q&A: BJ Hollars" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Hollars_Author_Photo-1-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Author Q&A: BJ Hollars" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Author Q&A: BJ Hollars" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/author-qa-bj-hollars/" title="Permalink to Author Q&A: BJ Hollars" rel="bookmark">Author Q&A: BJ Hollars</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/author-qa-bj-hollars/" title="11:47 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-09-29T11:47:59-04:00" pubdate>September 29, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/bear-country/" rel="tag">Bear Country</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/bj-hollars/" rel="tag">BJ Hollars</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/grief/" rel="tag">grief</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/author-qa-bj-hollars/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-22864" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Hollars_Author_Photo-1-300x300.jpg" alt="Hollars_Author_Photo (1)" width="300" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Hollars_Author_Photo-1-300x300.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Hollars_Author_Photo-1-150x150.jpg 150w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Hollars_Author_Photo-1-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Hollars_Author_Photo-1-100x100.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Hollars_Author_Photo-1-232x232.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Hollars_Author_Photo-1-500x500.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />BJ Hollars is the author of Bear Country, which appeared in our October 2015 issue. We connected with him about the writing process. Here are his responses. What inspired you to write Bear Country? I wanted my children to remember what they are likely too young to remember now. What was the greatest challenge in writing it? Writing this essay was a means to stare directly into grief. The challenge, for me, was figuring out where the emotions ended and the story began. It was hard to know which moments in this essay were important to my family, and which moments might resonate with a wider audience. How do your children inform your writing? They are the people I write for, and often, the people I write about. My primary motivation for writing is to provide them a few glimpses into some of the more poignant moments in our lives. The downside, of course, is that when too much time is spend preserving poignant moments, there is less time to make those moments. How do you balance writing and fatherhood? This is no easy answer. As I write this in my basement, I can hear my children’s feet pattering just above. A better father would leap from the computer and run upstairs to join them. And yet, the work must also get done. The balance, I think, comes from waking earlier than they do, and staying up later. Those are the moments when the best works occurs—the moments when you’re sure you’re not missing anything more important. Do you share any of your writing with your children (if they are old enough of course) Sometimes I try, but they’d much rather me read a Berenstain Bears book. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/october-2015-issue/">Return to the October 2015 Issue</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-22873" class="post-22873 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-liz-rognes tag-qa"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/author-qa-liz-rognes/" title="Permalink to Author Q&A: Liz Rognes" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Liz-Rognes-Headshot-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Author Q&A: Liz Rognes" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Author Q&A: Liz Rognes" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/author-qa-liz-rognes/" title="Permalink to Author Q&A: Liz Rognes" rel="bookmark">Author Q&A: Liz Rognes</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/author-qa-liz-rognes/" title="11:46 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-09-29T11:46:58-04:00" pubdate>September 29, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/liz-rognes/" rel="tag">Liz Rognes</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/qa/" rel="tag">Q&A</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/author-qa-liz-rognes/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-22874" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Liz-Rognes-Headshot-200x300.jpg" alt="Liz Rognes Headshot" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Liz-Rognes-Headshot-200x300.jpg 200w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Liz-Rognes-Headshot-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Liz-Rognes-Headshot-87x130.jpg 87w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Liz-Rognes-Headshot-433x650.jpg 433w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />Liz Rognes is the author of Cities of My Body, which appeared in our October 2015 issue. We connected with her about the writing process. Here are her responses. What inspired you to write this essay? I was pregnant while I wrote the essay. Pregnancy felt like such a powerful transition space for me. My son’s due date was right around the ten-year anniversary of what I consider to be the beginning of my recovery. I had great gratitude for my body, and I was keenly aware of the stories and struggles that my body had endured. I think, too, that writing this essay felt like embracing a space of questioning and change—not only the literal space of pregnancy, but also the space of what I call recovery. How do your children inform your writing? The writing I’m doing now is definitely informed by who I am now. I can’t write about my past without looking through the lens of this current moment. On the one hand, it helps me to find and articulate insight, but, on the other hand, the lens of now can be complicating when I’m writing about my past. For example, I identify as queer, but in the current moment, my life looks like a snapshot of heteronormativity: I have a male partner and a biological son. We bought a house. I’m working on some essays about sexuality, and my lens of now is a different lens than the one I might have looked through five years ago or ten years ago. It’s not a lens that is any better or worse; it’s just different. It’s the same for motherhood. I can’t write about the history of my body without knowing what my body has done for my son. I can’t write about my own childhood or my mother without an awareness of my own role in my son’s childhood. So the answer, I guess, is that my son doesn’t necessarily inform the content of my writing in an explicit way (unless I’m writing about him); motherhood, though, alters the lens through which I look. How do you balance writing and motherhood? Well, I don’t get to write every day. I also work full-time teaching English Composition. I’m also a musician. I schedule time for writing, and I do it. I take on a limited number of projects, and I (usually) meet deadlines. When I’m lucky, I can find the time and money to pay for a babysitter so I can write. I use naptime. I write on the bus. When I have a burst of inspiration or a bout of insomnia, I write in the middle of the night. But I try to give myself some flexibility, and I’m lucky to have a partner who values and respects my creative space. His mother lives nearby, too, and she is an incredible support for us, who gives us both space for work and creativity. Do you share any of your writing with your children (if they are old enough of course) My son is a year-and-a-half, but I’m open to sharing my writing with my son (if he’s interested) when he’s older. I don’t want my past or the content of my writing to be a secret from my son. I want him to know that I’ve struggled but that I’ve survived. I want him to know that it’s okay to make mistakes, and that there is no shame in telling stories about those mistakes. I also look forward to sharing some of my favorite writers and essays and poetry with him as he grows up. I want him to hear many different kinds of stories from and about women—not just me. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/october-2015-issue/">Return to the October 2015 Issue</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-22793" class="post-22793 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-body tag-body-image tag-drugs tag-growing-up tag-liz-rognes tag-pregnancy tag-teens"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/cities-of-my-body/" title="Permalink to Cities of My Body" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Silouette-of-Womans-Body-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Cities of My Body" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Cities of My Body" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/cities-of-my-body/" title="Permalink to Cities of My Body" rel="bookmark">Cities of My Body</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/cities-of-my-body/" title="11:37 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-09-29T11:37:41-04:00" pubdate>September 29, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/body/" rel="tag">body</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/body-image/" rel="tag">body image</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/drugs/" rel="tag">drugs</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/growing-up/" rel="tag">growing up</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/liz-rognes/" rel="tag">Liz Rognes</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/pregnancy/" rel="tag">pregnancy</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/teens/" rel="tag">teens</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/cities-of-my-body/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-large wp-image-22933" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Silouette-of-Womans-Body-641x1024.jpg" alt="Silouette of Woman's Body" width="640" height="1022" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Silouette-of-Womans-Body-641x1024.jpg 641w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Silouette-of-Womans-Body-188x300.jpg 188w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Silouette-of-Womans-Body-81x130.jpg 81w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Silouette-of-Womans-Body-407x650.jpg 407w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Silouette-of-Womans-Body.jpg 1768w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" />By Liz Rognes With her long, perfectly manicured fingers, the checkout girl methodically lifts each item out of my shopping basket. She scans a box of almond milk, a package of pasta, then the container of prenatal vitamins. I shift my weight from one leg to another. I’m barely showing, but if you look closely, you can already tell. I’m sixteen weeks pregnant with my first baby. This was not something I thought would come easily. My body, now generally a place of health and reliability, has in the past been the site of rampant destruction. My doctor had said subclinical infertility. My slow thyroid and elevated hormone levels worried her. She had said it could take many months, maybe years, to get pregnant. She had said she could refer me to a specialist. But it happened faster than we had expected. Jason and I were shocked and elated when one home pregnancy test after another appeared with a plus sign, only weeks after the appointment with my doctor. I had worked so hard to prepare myself for disappointment, for the reality of subclinical infertility, that I did not believe the results. I took three, four, five, and then six pregnancy tests over the course of a few days, and all came back with the same unbelievable message. There will be a baby. I will be a mother. I am short with a short torso, and there’s nowhere for this expanding uterus to go but out. I’m proud of this, and I wear my growing belly like a marker of glowing wellness and peace and love and all of that motherhood mythos, but standing there on the other side of the checkout counter, I am swept with insecurity. I do not feel like a mother. I am not glowing. *** I know little about the woman who scans my groceries, but I know more about her than I know of the other cashiers. Only months ago, before I became pregnant, before I quit coming to the grocery store because of morning sickness, I stood behind the checkout girl, partial stranger, partial familiar face, in the garage of a house I’d never before seen, after bar close, with a slew of skinny, tattooed men circling the cold room and line after line of cocaine appearing on a workbench.   When she finishes unloading and scanning my basket, she asks, “Paper, plastic, or reusable?” She does not make eye contact. I realize that we’re pretending not to know each other. *** Six months earlier, Jason and I walked into a party after bar close, on the heels of a magnetic, fast-talking British musician who now lived in Spokane. We had recognized him from his moment of fame; his band had a hit song in the eighties. He was not the kind of person we usually hung around, but something about him was alluring; Jason and I were both inexplicably swept up with him and his exaggerated manner. We joked that his arrogance was endearing. He didn’t give a fuck about what people thought, and we were nothing like him.   <blockquote> <h2 style="text-align: center;">When she finishes unloading and scanning my basket, she asks, “Paper, plastic, or reusable?” She does not make eye contact. I realize that we’re pretending not to know each other.</h2> </blockquote>   We were bookish, responsible, rule-followers; Jason was a librarian, and I was an English teacher. When I did get pregnant, my own mother joked that our baby would inevitably be a nerd. “Nerd plus nerd equals nerd,” she said, smiling. She meant this lovingly; we were creative, but we went to bed early. The musician, on the other hand, was tall in stature and presence, and he commanded the attention of everyone in the room. We were seduced by his fame. And ever since we had begun talking about trying for a baby, even before my visit to the doctor, I had started to feel a little impulsive, like there was a limit to this moment in my life as I knew it. I felt myself yearning for spontaneity. So when the musician invited us to the bar for a drink that night, we went. When he invited us to the after party, we went. We were somewhat star-struck, and, despite a slew of signs indicating the opposite, were convinced that there could be something positive, or at least productive, about this friendship. At the bar, his girlfriend leaned into me and she whispered in my ear, “It’s a hard party, if you know what I mean.” I looked her in the eye. I knew exactly what she meant. *** Ten years ago, I signed in to the last of many rehab centers I had been to. I’d hallucinated my way through hospital detox a handful of times, blood pressure exploding in my ears and the sick expulsion of poisons pouring out of my mouth and pores. Then, I was a young twenty-two years old, with the face of a girl of about eighteen. I was small, with big eyes and a quiet demeanor that convinced people I wasn’t trouble. I got away with almost everything—drugs, constant drunkenness, promiscuity, hanging around with a rough crowd, finding myself in rooms with guns and coked out drug dealers—and the outside world likely pinned me for a brooding teenager, not a girl mixed up with the kind of stuff I was doing. Even when I started accruing consequences, I managed to maintain a certain naÃ¯veté. I’d been drinking and drugging like that for only a year or two, and I was simultaneously heavily medicated on antidepressant drugs and a pharmacy of other pills that were supposed to help with my anxiety and bulimia. The cocktail of drugs, combined with the heavy drinking, took a quick, serious toll on my liver. I was confused when I started experiencing withdrawals from alcohol, telling myself that was crazy—I was only twenty-two, after all. That was the kind of thing that happened to old men who’d been drinking for decades, not to promising Midwestern farmer’s daughters who went to fancy women’s colleges like me. I kept the extent of the chemical dependency a secret. Most of the time, I didn’t care that I was a mess. I didn’t want to take care of myself, and a future of motherhood—the possibility of one day being responsible for someone else—was not even a consideration. My body was a burden that I wanted to escape. *** At the party, the checkout girl was drunk and high already, and she walked right over to me, announcing to the people around her that I was her grocery store customer. This was not how I wanted to be identified. Normally, in this mostly sober adult life I have crafted in the past decade or so, I think of myself as a woman who no longer takes unnecessary risks, a woman who eats kale and root vegetables, who wears a seatbelt and a sunhat, who cares about whether or not there are laureth sulfates in her shampoo or fluoride in her toothpaste. After years of therapy and hard work crafting a more or less healthy lifestyle, I am no longer the woman who shows up at after parties to do lines of cocaine with strange men on workbenches in cold garages. I have learned how to take care of this body and how to quiet my anxiety. I have learned how to reach out, how to ask for help, how to be accountable and to maintain relationships. I wanted to bring a baby into this place of steadiness, to enter motherhood with the firm footing of ten years away from the chaos of my past. But on that night, I didn’t want to be the careful, healthy woman I had worked so hard to become, I didn’t want to think about motherhood, and I did not want any reminders about who I was, now. The truth is, I was feeling itchy, and I had been for a while. The musician’s arrogance and gestures, his constant phone calls and quick disappearances were familiar to me, and while I didn’t tell Jason about the old cravings swirling around in the back in of my mind, I intuited that hanging around this fast-talking man with a palpable residue of aging fame could eventually lead to something like this. The musician’s cues represented something I had put away, and the nearness of it was intoxicating. When I walked into the party and saw the woman who nearly always scanned my groceries, I was jolted. She made me think of the natural foods store, of my chosen lifestyle of health and sobriety and intention. That night, I didn’t want any reminders of what my life was outside of that party. *** “Sixty-three forty-nine,” the checkout girl says. I pull out my credit card and run it through the swiper, even though I know it won’t work. The strip has been busted for weeks. I try again. It doesn’t work. After the third try, I have to hand my credit card to her so she can manually enter the numbers. I watch her hold my card, and I can’t help but think about her long, skinny fingers holding onto a different credit card on a different night while organizing the white powder into neat, short lines, before turning to me and saying, one hand by her nostril, head tipped back, leaving the last line for me: “All yours, sweetie.” *** I’ve been buying groceries at this overpriced natural foods store since I moved to Spokane four years ago. Even while I was a broke grad student and then a broke adjunct instructor at a community college, I would count my quarters, trudge through the snow from a few blocks away, and buy onions and garlic and potatoes to make hearty soup that would last me for a week. The boiling potatoes curled steam across the windows of my tiny, cold second floor apartment. Buying groceries has nearly always been a knotted task for me. As a kid, I hardly entered a grocery store because my mom would drop my siblings and me off at my grandma’s house across the street in our little farm town while she went in to shop. I had no idea where our food came from, immediately or long-term, even though we lived smack on a farm in the middle of Iowa, with hundreds of acres of corn and soybeans surrounding us. I was sensitive to the cultural messages about femininity and thinness that permeated the strange mix of culture of rural farming and mainstream media of the late eighties and nineties. And as the eldest child in a homogenous culture, I was a perfectionist. I developed an eating disorder in my pre-teen years, and my relationship to food was severely stunted. Grocery stores became terrifying and overwhelming places where the thing that I most feared and most coveted lived. I loved food, and I hated it. As a teenager and then as an early twenty-something, I cycled through bouts of severe restriction and uncontrolled devouring of food. Adding drugs and alcohol to the mix, I was completely unable to find a middle ground or to even recognize that a middle ground could be possible. *** After the party, we didn’t get home until the sun was beginning to slowly lighten the sky behind our house. In our domestic life together, we had never stayed out until sunrise. I had been offered the last line of cocaine at the party. I would have done more, but that’s all there was. I kept thinking of it as “only one line,” but after ten years of complete abstinence from hard drugs, one line and the guilt that sank into me nearly immediately afterward was enough to keep me awake. The late spring sun uncovered the valley below our bedroom window pine by pine, and I felt the old shame of addiction begin to crawl through the synapses of my brain. We invited our dog onto our bed as an apology for leaving him alone all night. My head spun. Jason knew that I had done a line, but he did not see it, nor had he done any cocaine. In fact, he had never done cocaine. He had hardly smoked pot in his life, and I loved this about him. Once, I had been knitting a foot for a stuffed animal, and without the body attached, it kind of had the shape of a pipe. Jason asked why I was knitting a bong, and I burst out laughing, completely in love with him. I found his lack of expertise about drug paraphernalia extremely endearing. This man was the person I wanted to spend my life with. He was funny, smart, and sweet, and he cared deeply for people. A library member had threatened him once; the man had slammed the desk and screamed at Jason until he called the police to remove him. The library had to exclude the man for a year. Instead of being angry that he had been threatened, Jason said, “I just hope he has another safe place to go.” I could see in my partner a man who was sincerely motivated by his heart, who was patient and thoughtful and empathetic; he would be a wonderful father. I began to cry softly, afraid that my choice to do a line of blow had jeopardized this life I had with him—this beautiful distance from the darkness of drug use, this life of books and mornings and dog walks, this life of music and love and happiness. My past and my present were polar opposites, two cities that could not be any more different or further apart, but that night they had appeared in the same room. Two versions of me had inhabited my body. I curled into Jason’s arms and listened to him comfort me. He said it would be okay, that one line of coke didn’t mean the end of the world, that we could sleep for a few hours and wake up and go about our day. We could still start trying to get pregnant, like we had planned. Even after the party, he believed I could one day be a good mother. He was soothing and loving, and I was not sure that I believed him.   <blockquote> <h2 style="text-align: center;">After the party, we didn’t get home until the sun was beginning to slowly lighten the sky behind our house. In our domestic life together, we had never stayed out until sunrise.</h2>  </blockquote> We managed to sleep for a few hours, and when Jason’s alarm went off, the sun was beating through our bedroom window and I could hear the sounds of cars climbing the hill, people going places, doing normal things, like this were any other day. Birds chattered loudly. Jason hit snooze and closed his eyes again. The dog, a happy, rowdy Rhodesian Ridgeback mix, yawned and stretched, rolling onto his back, his giant red paws extended into the air, exuding the musky sweet smell of sleeping dog. I felt my love for these two creatures surround me, thick and tangible. The truth is that for weeks afterward, I would feel the itchiness. I would try to talk Jason in to calling the musician. I would say things like, “I only got to do one line at that party—I should have a real last hoorah.” If we were going to try to get pregnant; this could be my last chance. I would say these things with a smile on my face, as though it were no big deal. I half-joked about buying an eight ball, just for fun, but then I had to define “eight ball” to Jason, and my two worlds knocked heads. My past and the possibility of relapse loomed over us, a storm waiting to break. But it wasn’t what I really wanted; I wanted the stability that we had created, I wanted this partner who loved me, I wanted to become a mother. *** His alarm went off again—the opening riff to one of his favorite songs, on repeat. He opened his eyes and looked over to see me watching him. He smiled a sleepy greeting. “Good morning, baby,” he said. “How are you feeling?” I felt awful. My head was pounding, but I knew that I couldn’t just stay in bed. “I’m coming with you,” I said. *** Jason’s job is pretty straightforward: he manages a library, helping people access information. He goes to the same place every morning, works more or less the same hours every day, and he has reliable income and responsibility. But once in a while he gets assigned something like driving the district library van in a small-town parade on a Saturday. So the morning after I sniffed my first line of blow in ten years off a dirty workbench, I climbed into the passenger seat of a loud, bumpy van with the library logo painted on the sides and rode along to a tiny town on the edge of the Washington Palouse, surrounded by wheat fields and rolling sky to hand out library pencils to the kids who lined the single street. It was the kind of day that is not supposed to exist when you’re trying to wallow in the shame of your past. Even though it was still spring, it was stunningly summer-like, the sun filling the street and warming the backs of the horses and local equestrians who proudly showcased their riding gear in the parade. People were giddy with the weather and the atmosphere of celebration. There were craft vendors, tractors, a high school marching band, and a man with a microphone from a shoddy P.A. system in the center of the five-block parade route, his voice crackling with static and pride as he announced each float and organization as it went by. “And here’s the library. Everyone loves the library!” he said cheerfully, as we slowly drove past. I waved out the window at rows of grinning children and adults, and library staff in screen-printed T-shirts walked to the curb to hand pencils to excited kids. Everyone cheered. I smiled, but I was holding back tears of gratitude. This is my life now, I thought. This: libraries and sunshine and happy children, not last night. *** Once, while I was living in a halfway house, the house manager told us about a dream she had in which she had relapsed. She had been sober for many years, and the dream had disturbed her. But she said that she was grateful for the dream because it reminded her about how horrible her addiction had been. It reminded her the life she had now was her chosen life, the life she truly wanted. I have relapsed before, moments that initiated dramatic falls, landing me deeply in old habits. I worried that this time would not be any different. That one line of cocaine could be a sentence: that I would have no choice but to succumb to the old patterns. *** My card finally goes through, and the checkout girl prints the receipt. She has bagged my groceries, and she smiles at me. “Have a nice day,” she says. I lift the bags, one in each hand. We make eye contact. I thank her, and I take the groceries. I leave the store with my food and prenatal vitamins. I walk across the parking lot to my car parked in the crisp late fall air that smells like ponderosa pine and wood smoke and I tell myself that it’s going to be okay. This is my life now, and I am lucky. This body has surprised me; it has been through destruction and healing more times than seems reasonable or possible or fair. I am lucky to live in this chosen city, in this place where my days are filled with meaningful work and love and songs and mornings when I wake tucked into Jason’s arm. But my body is more than a chosen city—it is many cities, all of them imperfect and strange and beautiful. Its geography is informed by the proximity and relationships between dots on the map, and I need all of these cities to appreciate the span and breadth of terrain. Doing one line of cocaine was a stupid, momentary decision, but it didn’t mean that I had to relinquish the life that I have chosen. Even the ugliest, darkest parts of a city see sunlight, and to live without acknowledging that those dark corners exist isn’t realistic or even fair. That line was not a sentence, but it did offer me a chance to reaffirm my commitment to the life I have now. The health and stability I have worked so hard for is not perfect, and it is not indestructible, but it is a place that, given the choice, I want to live. I open the trunk to my car and set the bags inside, and then I pause, stunned. A new landscape is forming in this imperfect, strange, beautiful city: I feel the unmistakable tiny flutter of a baby moving in my belly. Author’s Note: The months leading up to the birth of my son were some of the most exciting and reflective months of my life. Pregnancy was this surreal occasion, where I was literally carrying pieces of my past and my future within the boundaries of my body. This essay was a way for me to grapple with that bridge between the “two cities” of my past and present/future, and especially to consider the lingering shame that I still carried. But that past, with all of its darkness and healing, is a part of who I am today. I am the mother I am partly because of that past, which has taught me about recovery and empathy. My son is now a healthy, happy, toddling, singing, and chattering 14-month old. Liz Rognes is a writer, musician, and teacher who lives in Spokane, Washington with her rock ‘n’roll librarian and their son.   </div> </article> <article id="post-22786" class="post-22786 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-daughters tag-fiction tag-games tag-mai-wang tag-parenting"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/the-night-mr-li-won-jeopardy/" title="Permalink to The Night Mr. Li Won Jeopardy" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Poker-Chips-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="The Night Mr. Li Won Jeopardy" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="The Night Mr. Li Won Jeopardy" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/the-night-mr-li-won-jeopardy/" title="Permalink to The Night Mr. Li Won Jeopardy" rel="bookmark">The Night Mr. Li Won Jeopardy</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/the-night-mr-li-won-jeopardy/" title="11:23 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-09-29T11:23:59-04:00" pubdate>September 29, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/daughters/" rel="tag">daughters</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/fiction/" rel="tag">fiction</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/games/" rel="tag">games</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/mai-wang/" rel="tag">Mai Wang</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/parenting/" rel="tag">parenting</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/the-night-mr-li-won-jeopardy/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22927" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/The-new-Chinese-style-modern-Chinese-palace-lantern-carving-ornate-chandeliers-sheepskin-lamp-lights-work-lights-copy.jpg" alt="The-new-Chinese-style-modern-Chinese-palace-lantern-carving-ornate-chandeliers-sheepskin-lamp-lights-work-lights copy" width="750" height="750" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/The-new-Chinese-style-modern-Chinese-palace-lantern-carving-ornate-chandeliers-sheepskin-lamp-lights-work-lights-copy.jpg 750w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/The-new-Chinese-style-modern-Chinese-palace-lantern-carving-ornate-chandeliers-sheepskin-lamp-lights-work-lights-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/The-new-Chinese-style-modern-Chinese-palace-lantern-carving-ornate-chandeliers-sheepskin-lamp-lights-work-lights-copy-300x300.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/The-new-Chinese-style-modern-Chinese-palace-lantern-carving-ornate-chandeliers-sheepskin-lamp-lights-work-lights-copy-100x100.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/The-new-Chinese-style-modern-Chinese-palace-lantern-carving-ornate-chandeliers-sheepskin-lamp-lights-work-lights-copy-232x232.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/The-new-Chinese-style-modern-Chinese-palace-lantern-carving-ornate-chandeliers-sheepskin-lamp-lights-work-lights-copy-500x500.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px" />By Mai Wang Jing Jing was lying on the couch when she heard the scream. Mama had invited some friends over for Sunday night poker, and Jing Jing was stuck at home listening to the adults fight between the highs and lows of their game. Now Jing Jing pressed her hands to her ears. The scream sounded a bit like a wolf’s howl, one of the American wolves Mama always warned her about. Better stay inside, Mama liked to say in Chinese, in this country animals eat the kids who play outside. Jing Jing looked over at the adults and almost rolled off the couch. It was her mother who had screamed. Now the other adults sat with their cards lying face down on the table and their cups full of cooling tea. Their eyes were all fixed on the Year of the Tiger calendar hanging from the wall. Her mother threw her cards on the table, and that’s when Jing Jing knew she had lost the round. Mama noticed her and glared. “Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?” she asked. Jing Jing’s 10 pm curfew hadn’t changed for years, even though she had just turned twelve. Luckily, Mama was more forgetful on poker nights. “It’s too loud, Mama,” Jing Jing said. Her mother could be scary, but nowhere as scary as her father got when he was in a bad mood. “I can hear it through the wall.” Every Sunday, Jing Jing used the same excuse to stay on the couch instead of going to the bedroom where her father was asleep. She hated poker, but what she hated more was the cramped bed she shared with her parents. She slept in a dip between their two pillows, and every night she tried to edge away from her father’s side. When her father slept he made loud whale sounds through his nose—they were even worse, Jing Jing thought, than the sound of his farts. On Sunday nights, her father went to bed early in order to get away from her mother’s guests. If he wanted to see so many Chinese people, he always complained, he could just go back to Beijing. Jing Jing wondered if all the men there were as noisy as her father, but she knew that asking him would earn her a kick in the butt or a slap in the face. Jing Jing almost giggled at the way Mama looked now, as if someone had forced her to drink a bottle of dark rice vinegar. Mama was already gathering the cards and clearing the teacups off the table. She poured the remains of one teacup into another, and when the cups clinked together they made an angry sound. The way she was rushing, no one would ever guess it was her night off—she could have been back at Imperial Garden working the lunch crowd. “Can’t play with someone watching me all the time,” Mama mumbled as she stacked the teacups in a tower. “Jing Jing, maybe your bad luck is infecting me tonight.” The last thing Jing Jing wanted to hear was how she had ruined the game. Ever since Jing Jing chipped her tooth on a radiator at the age of three, Mama had been convinced that bad luck haunted her footsteps. None of the lucky amulets that Mama forced upon her—the red silk string, the fake gold rabbit, the jade lion—could stop Jing Jing from tripping on the stairs or skinning her knee on the sidewalk. “Don’t blame me, Mama,” Jing Jing protested. “I haven’t done anything bad.” She got up from the couch, filled with the sudden urge to gaze up at her mother’s sweaty face. Without the makeup Mama wears to work, Jing Jing realized, she looks a lot older. Jing Jing made her way over to the table, where the adults were sitting in a circle of her mother’s mismatched garage sale chairs. “Let Jing Jing stay. She’s not bothering us,” Auntie Su said. Looking at Auntie Su up close made Jing Jing feel funny. Auntie Su was much younger than her mother. She was wearing a pair of frayed jean shorts and a tight t-shirt that spelled out the word “Baby” in glittery letters and revealed a strip of her stomach. If Auntie Su were a student at Jing Jing’s school, she would get detention for violating the dress code. “Come on, it’s still early, and I’m playing well,” Auntie Su insisted. “Game’s over,” Mama said, shaking her head. Maybe Mama was mad about losing the round to Auntie Su, but no one seemed to notice. The women made no move to pick up their purses, and the men were still ashing their cigarettes into a chipped bowl. “I might as well tell everyone while you’re still here,” Mama said. She paused and started fanning herself with a card. The small breeze she created stirred the stray hairs framing her face. Some part of her was always moving, even when she was standing still. “Boss says I have to work the Sunday dinner shift starting next week,” Mama announced. “No more poker night for me.” “Wait a minute. What are we going to do on Sundays?” Auntie Su said. “Without you, Mrs. Zhao, there’s no game.” Mama shrugged and returned the cards to their cardboard box. “At least this way I can earn back the money I lost to you tonight,” she told Auntie Su. “That’s pocket change,” Auntie Su said. “Come on, sit down and we’ll play one more round. You might win it all back.” “No can do, it’s closing time,” Mama joked in English, repeating the favorite line she gave to customers who arrived a minute too late at Imperial Garden and demanded a table. She yawned as she looked at her guests. “I feel like an old grandma,” Mama said, switching to Chinese. “Why did you all let me play for so long?” The Chinese residents of the Big Yard called Mama “Lucky Hands” because she drew the winning hand in their late night poker games week after week. Mama always encouraged her guests to stay until they could barely tell a jack from an ace. She liked to keep them hostage with pleas of “one more round” until the watermelon seeds were gone and the tea was cold. She didn’t let them go until she had won enough coins to pay for a week’s worth of laundry tokens and Fantasy 5 lottery tickets. Tonight, though, Mama’s full house had been beaten out by Auntie Su’s straight flush in the last round. The adults tallied the score as they gathered their belongings. It was the first time Mama had lost a poker game since anyone could remember, and Jing Jing heard the adults whisper that her luck had run out. They were all traitors, Jing Jing decided, and Auntie Su was the worst one of all. Suddenly it occurred to Jing Jing that Auntie Su might have cheated. Jing Jing stared at Auntie Su to see if she could find out the truth. Auntie Su had come to America to become an engineer, though she didn’t look like one. She was the only woman Jing Jing knew who wore mascara and red lipstick every time she left home. Jing Jing had listened to her mother gossip about Auntie Su over the phone, how all the bachelors in the Big Yard wished she didn’t have a husband back in China so they could marry her instead. “Makes you want to be her age again, doesn’t it?” Mama had joked. Still, Jing Jing thought, her mother was much prettier if you took Auntie Su’s ugly perm into account. Jing Jing circled around the table and stopped next to Auntie Su. “How much money did you win?” she whispered in Auntie Su’s ear. Auntie Su counted her stacks of quarters one by one. “$20.75,” she said. “Not bad for my first time winning.” “Wow!” Jing Jing said. “That’s a lot.” Unlike her friends at school, Jing Jing didn’t get an allowance. Twenty dollars and seventy-five cents was more money than she had ever handled at one time. “Do you know what you want to buy with your money?” Jing Jing asked. “Maybe I should deposit them in the bank,” Auntie Su said. “What do you think?” Jing Jing didn’t answer Auntie Su. She wondered how much money her parents had in their bank account. She had seen them fight often enough to know it couldn’t be much. Mama kept a cash box under the bed to store her tips, and Baba had taken money from it to buy a TV from the pawnshop down the street. To this day, Mama still refuses to watch the TV. “Your father has yet to earn back the money he wasted on that thing,” she told Jing Jing. Mama was still in the kitchen rinsing the last of the teacups clean. Jing Jing was ready to join her when the bedroom door opened. Baba stood in the doorway without his glasses on. Sleep had shrunk his eyes into small red beads, and he wore a thin undershirt covered with old stains. Jing Jing wished she could grab his moth-eaten robe from the bathroom and throw it over his shoulders. Auntie Su was re-counting her coins and didn’t notice Jing Jing’s father. The other adults waved to him, but no one asked him to join them. Everyone knew he didn’t like guests and never played cards. Now he noticed Jing Jing hovering by the table and glared. “Don’t you have school tomorrow?” he said. “School just ended, Baba,” she said. “I already told you it’s summer break.” “In China, kids never talk back to their elders,” he replied. “Everyone knows that.” His eyes scanned the room. “Isn’t that right, Mrs. Su?” Auntie Su glanced up from her quarters. “Yes, that’s true,” she said. Baba cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders. His hands fell down to his sides, and he kept standing there and staring at Auntie Su even once she turned her attention back to her coins. An absentminded look grew on his face. It was the same look he had when he was watching a TV show he really enjoyed. Jing Jing was relieved when Baba returned to the bedroom. She vowed not to tell Mama that he had appeared in his underwear in front of all the guests. Her parents were already arguing too much these days. Late at night, after they thought she was asleep, they would hiss back and forth about the prospects of a job—any job—for her father. He was always promising that a new job was right around the corner, but nothing ever seemed to turn up. Mama told Jing Jing that Baba had been a big, important professor back in Beijing—that was why she had married him in the first place—but now she couldn’t rely on him to earn a single cent. Her father blamed his poor English as the reason he had dropped out of his PhD program. Her mother called it an excuse, and Jing Jing secretly agreed. If he could watch people talking in English on TV, then he could learn how to read, write, and speak it too. <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22929" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Poker-Chips.jpg" alt="Poker Chips" width="2737" height="1825" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Poker-Chips.jpg 2737w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Poker-Chips-300x200.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Poker-Chips-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Poker-Chips-100x67.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Poker-Chips-232x155.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Poker-Chips-500x333.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 2737px) 100vw, 2737px" /> Now Auntie Su was staring at the spot in front of the closed door where Baba had stood. There was a filmy look clouding the strange woman’s face. For some reason her eyes made Jing Jing think of a cold, dead fish. That night seemed to go on forever. By the time the other guests were gone, Jing Jing was half asleep on the couch, and Auntie Su was sitting alone at the table. Jing Jing wondered why she did not go home when she only lived four doors down in Unit 1C. The buzz of voices had been replaced by the static of running water. Finally, Mama emerged from the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel. Auntie Su got up and apologized for staying so late. “Don’t be so polite,” Mama said. “Won’t you keep us company for a little longer?” “I should get going,” Auntie Su said. “But I was admiring what a nice apartment you have. Such a big TV.” Auntie Su laughed. “And you have the best poker table in the Big Yard. So round and sturdy. I wish you wouldn’t cancel the games.” Mama had selected the wooden table from a garage sale in Kendall Lake. If they couldn’t live in a nice neighborhood, she often said, at least they could buy rich people’s old furniture. Baba only asked why they had to keep other people’s junk. “I was wondering if we could still play poker here on Sunday nights,” Auntie Su said. “No trouble for you, of course. I can be the hostess and clean up the mess afterwards. Your husband will appreciate that, I bet.” “My husband never notices when I clean up,” Mama said. “So I doubt he’ll care if anyone else does it.” “He’s like all men,” Auntie Su said. “But I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if we kept meeting here. I mean, I’m not suggesting that you owe us anything.” The smile on Mama’s face trembled. Saving face was even more important to her than saving money. “You can’t have your games here,” Jing Jing started to tell Mrs. Su, but she stopped talking when Mama gave her a look. “Now that you mention it,” Mama said in her best hostess voice. “I don’t see why you can’t meet here without me.” Mrs. Su clasped her hands together and thanked Mama. “Jing Jing here will help you clear off the table. Isn’t that right, Jing Jing?” Mama asked. Jing Jing wanted to whimper, but for her mother’s sake she remained silent. After Auntie Su left, Jing Jing lay in bed between her parents and thought of all the things she could buy with twenty dollars and seventy-five cents. Finally, she decided she would get twenty Fantasy 5 tickets from the nice Cuban man who ran the corner convenience store. He would sell them to her as long she told him they were for Mama. You had a better chance of winning the Fantasy 5 lottery, Mama always said, because they only picked five numbers instead of six. Sure, the jackpot was smaller than the regular lottery, but who needed millions anyway? Fifty or a hundred thousand dollars would pay their rent for years, even if Baba continued to do nothing. Whenever Jing Jing heard her mother’s complaints she felt guilty, as if she was the one who should be working to make money. If she ever won the lottery, Jing Jing decided, she wouldn’t just pay the rent—she would take her family out of the Big Yard. Of course, the Big Yard wasn’t its real name. In English, their complex was called the Villas of Dadeland, though that name was also a lie. Villas, she had learned in school, were supposed to be Spanish mansions, not old apartment buildings covered in peeling paint. Ever since her family moved from China, they had occupied a one-bedroom on the bottom floor of Building A. Jing Jing wanted to move out and buy an enormous house in Kendall Lake where she would have a top-floor room all to herself. Baba was snoring even louder than usual. Jing Jing fidgeted, and the rustle of the blanket caused Mama to turn over. “What are you doing?” Mama whispered. “Baba is too loud,” Jing Jing said. “I can’t fall asleep.” Mama stroked her hair. Jing Jing forgot to be mad about her agreement with Auntie Su. “I thought I had an unbeatable hand tonight,” Mama whispered. “I haven’t played so badly in years.” “Don’t worry,” Jing Jing said. “Auntie Su probably switched her cards with yours when you weren’t looking.” “She wouldn’t do that,” her mother said. “She’s pushy, but she’s not a cheater. It’s just too bad all the luck went to her and not me.” Mama sighed and turned away. Jing Jing wondered if she had said something wrong, but before she could ask Mama had fallen asleep. The next morning, Jing Jing woke up to the sound of her parents fighting in the living room. “What kind of woman invites her friends to come over and play cards when she’s at work?” Baba asked. “A woman like me,” Mama said. “And if you don’t want to be here, you can leave.” Jing Jing jumped out of bed and cracked the door open. The bowls of rice porridge on the table had gone untouched. Her parents stopped talking when they saw her. “Why are you standing there?” Mama said. “Come eat.” Jing Jing shook her head and closed the door again. She wasn’t feeling hungry. At work, Mama carried plates of sesame chicken and deluxe pu-pu platters to the American people who ate at Imperial Garden. When a customer was mean and asked for no-salt, no-oil in a dish, she delighted in the fact that they were ordering Fake Chinese Food without knowing it. “We save the good stuff for ourselves,” she liked to tell Jing Jing as she slipped her an almond cookie or a sesame ball she’d smuggled home. The stolen treats were one of the few perks of her job. The day after losing to Auntie Su, Mama came home late after a double shift. “That stinky boss,” she said as she shut the door. “He’s going to work us to death.” She sat down in a saggy wicker chair and untucked her crumpled white uniform shirt. She had a dozen shirts like it hanging in the closet, and all of them needed mending. This one was missing several buttons. “Was it busy tonight, Mama?” Jing Jing said. The dining room of Imperial Garden was an exciting place to Jing Jing. It had a tank full of goldfish and a fat Buddha statue. Lots of rich-looking people sat in booths drinking watered-down tea. Her mother had taken her to work on summer afternoons when she was little, but now Jing Jing was too big to play in the restaurant. That day, she had stayed at home with Baba. “Yes, it was busy,” Mama said. “I made good tips. See?” Mama pulled out a wad of dollar bills from her purse and unfolded them to reveal a brand new Fantasy 5 ticket. “I couldn’t help it,” she whispered. “What did you feed Jing Jing for dinner?” Mama asked Baba. Baba didn’t reply. He kept his eyes on the TV. Every night, he watched game shows and played along with the contestants. He was learning English on a schedule of his own, he said, no teachers required. He liked Wheel of Fortune and The Price is Right, but Jeopardy was his favorite. Baba leaned forward as Alex Trebek asked for the name of an exotic sports car for $200. Mama shook her head. “Do you want me to cook something?” she asked Jing Jing. “No,” Jing Jing said. She was about to explain that she was full when Mama noticed the plate of white buns on the table. “What’s this?” Mama asked. Jing Jing couldn’t answer. She had suddenly lost her voice. Mama repeated her question loudly, and Baba looked up as a commercial break began. “Oh, that?” he said as if seeing the buns for the first time. “Mrs. Su dropped those off. These buns are one of her specialties. You could stand to take a few cooking lessons from her.” To Jing Jing’s surprise, Mama smiled and reached for a bun. “That woman knew it was her turn to pay me back,” Mama said. When Sunday came around again, the sound of the vacuum woke Jing Jing up. She went into the living room to find Mama pointing the nozzle at the space beneath the couch. “Go get me a wet rag from the kitchen,” Mama said when she saw Jing Jing. “I have to be at work in an hour.” When Jing Jing returned with the rag, Mama set down the vacuum and started wiping the table. “Remember to be good tonight,” she said. “Don’t give Auntie Su a hard time, okay?” Jing Jing nodded, but she was crossing her fingers behind her back. After Mama left for work, Jing Jing waited for the adults to arrive. She didn’t want to be alone with Baba anymore. He wasn’t acting like himself. His hair was slicked down and parted to the side. He had stationed himself in front of the TV, and he got up and went to the bathroom to check his reflection every few minutes. Someone finally knocked around dinnertime. “I’ll get it!” Jing Jing yelled, but Baba was already in the hallway. He opened the door to reveal Auntie Su. She was wearing a pink halter dress that made her look like a sick flamingo and carrying a stack of Tupperware. “I thought I’d come over a little early,” Auntie Su said. “I wanted to see if you guys cared to try some of my other dishes. How did you like those buns, Jing Jing?” Jing Jing shrugged. They’d been delicious, but she wasn’t about to admit it. “Mr. Li, you didn’t let Jing Jing try my sweet bean buns?” Auntie Su said. She hit Baba on the shoulder, and for a second Jing Jing thought he would get mad. Instead, Baba laughed and rubbed his belly. “I wanted to eat them all. My wife lets me go hungry these days.” “Is that so? You do look thin.” Auntie Su pretended to examine his belly. “I’ll make sure both of you eat well tonight.” She smiled at Baba, and he smiled back. Jing Jing couldn’t remember the last time she had seen him so happy. Auntie Su set the containers on the table and lifted their lids. Jing Jing walked over and peeked at them. There was sweet lotus root cooked with vinegar, pork ribs covered with black bean sauce, and a whole fish steamed with scallions and ginger. Auntie Su must have spent all her poker winnings on the ingredients. “Eat up,” Auntie Su told Jing Jing. “Your father seems to like my cooking well enough.” The steam rising from the food made Jing Jing’s mouth water, but she didn’t want to eat in front of Auntie Su. “Not right now,” Jing Jing said. “Maybe later.” “Don’t worry about her,” Baba told Auntie Su as he grabbed a spare rib. “My daughter is too picky for her own good. I’m glad you like to play poker.” “Only when I win. But be honest,” she said as she laid her hand on Baba’s arm. “I know you don’t want the game here tonight.” “Nonsense,” her father replied as he chewed. “I’m glad you’re here.” Jing Jing suspected he was telling the truth. He seemed to like Auntie Su a lot, but Jing Jing didn’t know why she felt upset. Baba kept chewing as he turned to Jing Jing. “Go find the cards,” he said. “I think your mother keeps them in the kitchen drawer.” When Jing Jing came back with the deck of cards, she found Auntie Su replacing the lids on the containers. “Your father said he was full,” Auntie Su said. “And since you’re not hungry, I thought I’d take the leftovers home.” That night the guests trickled in as Auntie Su’s leftovers cooled in the fridge. For the first time, Jing Jing took a seat at the table, and no one shooed her away. Baba also remained in the room. His presence kept everyone else silent. He was watching TV again, and his eyes would occasionally wander over to the game. Halfway through the first round, Jing Jing saw Baba exchange a long glance with Auntie Su. What was going on between them? “Can I play too?” Jing Jing asked. “You’re too young to gamble,” Auntie Su said as she glanced away from Baba. “Besides, you have to learn the rules first.” Jing Jing wanted to say that she knew the rules better than Auntie Su. She scanned the faces gathered around the table. Uncle Cai laid down two queens. Auntie Chen selected a nine, ten, and jack of diamonds from her deck. Next, it was Auntie Su’s turn to reveal her hand. “Three of a kind!” Auntie Su shrieked as she laid three aces on the table. “Beat that,” she added. If Mama were here, Jing Jing thought, she’d be peeling oranges and refilling everyone’s teacups, but Auntie Su was too busy bragging to bother. Jing Jing looked over at the couch to see if Baba was paying attention. She was relieved to find him watching Jeopardy. Alex Trebek announced that the category was Famous Buildings. This 183 foot tall building was originally planned to stand vertically. Baba looked stumped, but the contestant beeped long before the time ran out. What is the Leaning Tower of Pisa? That is correct, said Alex Trebek. Back at the table, the game was dragging on. When her three aces won, Auntie Su had the chance to take another turn. “You guys are no fun tonight,” Auntie Su said as she picked up three new cards. Then she grinned. “Straight flush!” Auntie Su announced. “I have my good luck charm here with me tonight.” She reached across the table and pinched Jing Jing’s cheek. “Isn’t that right, Jing Jing?” Jing Jing twisted away before Auntie Su could pinch her again. Why couldn’t this woman just leave her alone? Jing Jing looked back at the TV. Famous Buildings was going for $200. This New York skyscraper was the tallest building in the world until it was surpassed one year after its completion in 1930. Her father remained silent. What is the Chrysler Building? the contestant fired back. That is correct, said Alex Trebek. Meanwhile, the poker game had stalled. Though everyone else still had a full hand of cards, all the quarters were already stacked in front of Auntie Su. “That’s it,” Auntie Su announced. She didn’t seem so happy about her straight flush anymore. “There’s no point in playing another round. I guess I’m the winner for tonight.” Everyone nodded and threw down their cards. They looked relieved that the game was over. “Well, let’s clean up,” Auntie Su said. Now she looked annoyed. “Jing Jing will tell us where everything is supposed to go.” As Jing Jing helped Auntie Su collect the cards, she snuck looks at the Jeopardy game. Famous Buildings remained the category of choice until the $500 answer was the only one left. This site once saw the violent removal of Chinese emperor Pu-yi. “What is the Great Wall?” the contestant said. “Go pi!” Baba cursed. Jing Jing thought that a “dog fart” sounded much worse in Chinese than in English. “What. Is. Forbidden. City!” The correct answer is: What is the Forbidden City? said Alex Trebek. Baba’s moan made everyone turn around and stare. “Did you see that?” Baba asked. He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. “These people are so stupid. I should be the one on TV. I just won. Can you believe it?” Jing Jing didn’t tell Baba that you had to get more than one question right to win Jeopardy. She knew he wouldn’t have listened. When no one answered his question, Baba looked around the room. His eyes finally rested on Auntie Su. He stood up from the couch and walked over to the table. Auntie Su was sweeping the quarters into her purse, but she stopped when he grabbed her wrist. “Did you hear what I said?” Baba said. “I just won.” Jing Jing decided she wouldn’t tell Mama too much about tonight’s game. Auntie Su let Baba hold onto her wrist for a minute, then loosened herself from his grip. “Well, I guess we both won tonight,” Auntie Su said. She shut her purse and began walking towards the front door. “Too bad we’re still not rich.” Jing Jing stayed up late that night waiting for the Fantasy 5 drawing to be broadcast live on TV. The guests were gone, and Baba was already asleep. Mama wasn’t home yet, and Jing Jing didn’t have the latest lottery ticket in hand, but she knew what numbers her mother always played. The winning numbers just might be a match. She could see it now: the look of surprise on Mama’s face when she gave her the slip of paper with those lucky numbers. How happy Mama would be when they were receiving the giant check on TV. Right before the 11 o’clock news, the drawing began. Jing Jing scooted closer to the TV and turned up the volume. On screen, an American man who looked a lot like Alex Trebek stood behind a glass case where a lot of painted balls were bouncing. “Welcome to tonight’s Fantasy 5 drawing,” the man said. He turned a giant key that made the balls move up and down even faster. “And the winning numbers are…” Jing Jing crossed her fingers. She watched as the balls began to slow down and reveal their numbers. Any second now her luck was going to turn around. Tonight was going to be the night. About the Author: Mai Wang is a writer currently pursuing her PhD in English at Stanford. This is her first published story. Her nonfiction has been featured in publications such as The Billfold, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Upstreet Magazine. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/october-2015-issue/">Return to the October Issue</a>   </div> </article> <article id="post-22776" class="post-22776 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-general tag-advice tag-backtalk tag-new-moms"> <header class="entry-header"> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/backtalk/" title="Permalink to BackTalk" rel="bookmark">BackTalk</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/backtalk/" title="11:18 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-09-29T11:18:12-04:00" pubdate>September 29, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/advice/" rel="tag">advice</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/backtalk/" rel="tag">backtalk</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/new-moms/" rel="tag">new moms</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/backtalk/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-22778" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/th.jpg" alt="th" width="240" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/th.jpg 240w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/th-100x125.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/th-232x290.jpg 232w" sizes="(max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px" />What Is the One Thing You Would Have Done Differently as a New Mom? Each month we ask our readers a question… these are their answers… Forgiven myself for making mistakes and not having all the answers. If I could go back to my daughter’s first few years, I would stop trying to do it all and just enjoy the moments more. I miss the moments.- A. Macedo Asked for help and accepted help. Now I have three kids and people aren’t knocking on my door to help like they did with a newborn! – A. Connors Given myself a break and allowed more time for self care. Being a mom does not mean you have to be a martyr. I think teaching realistic balance is the best thing we can model for our kids, but also the hardest. – C. Krist Slept with my babies and not listened to anyone but my gut for parenting advice. – T. Scott As a stay-at-home mom, I would have introduced a babysitter into the routine earlier on, so that my kid would naturally have gotten used to being looked after—not to mention being put to bed—by somebody other than me! – Lauren Apfel, Brain, Child’s Debate Editor Bought only one type of socks. – M. Darlene Stay home longer, jobs can wait a year. – P. Medrano Written a little something about myself or my baby every day. – S. Preston I tried to do EVERYTHING myself. It was hard to ask for help. As a result, I was sleep-deprived and had shot nerves (with a bit of anxiety/short temper thrown in). I miss those first six months like crazy, and often feel as though I could have done things differently. – S. Farmer Put my kids in the crib earlier than I did. – D. Balan I should have napped every single time my husband told me to nap. – Hilary Levey Friedman, Brain, Child‘s Book Review Editor I don’t know how I would do it but I would do bedtime differently (my children, currently six and nine, still do not go to bed, instead they creep into the bedroom at night to kick me in the head.) – H. Fletcher Chilled out a little more. – T. Driscoll Stayed home more. – M. Hope Not attempted to go back to work – D. Fine Researched vaccines on my own before administration. – E. Bowdin Relaxed. Not taken myself too seriously. – A. Strazza I would have slept when my baby slept and been awake with the baby and hired someone to clean house for the first three weeks and told all visitors to go away and make an appointment – A. Ling Worry less. – E. Tompkins I would have had even more parties, to this day my now teenage children remember all their themed birthday parties — rainbow, flowers, pirates — and I loved every minute of the planning and playing. – Marcelle Soviero, Brain, Child’s Editor-in-Chief. I would never have registered for – let alone tried to consistently use – the shopping cart insert. Too much effort, plus some germs are good! – Hilary Levey Friedman, Brain, Child‘s Book Review Editor Spent more time reading to and singing to my babies. Held them longer, played with them more. Not worried about messes and dirty clothes. Let their friends come over more (I’m an introvert and only child, and didn’t feel comfortable with people in the house). – D. Page Insisted people take lots of photos of me and my child. – T. Guerra Skip the parenting books for the first two years. – S. Pilman If I could do it all over, I wouldn’t have fussed so much about our kids wanting to sleep in our bed. – R. Johnson Gave up on breastfeeding. It was never going to happen and I wasted so much time and emotional energy stressing about it. – K. Morgan Learned to let others (spouse/mom) hold my babies more. – L. Jury Trusted my instincts and ignored a lot of “advice.” – C. Vechio Hold, hold, hold, and talk and sing and dance. — M. Holden Nothing. I did the best I could with what I knew and what I had. – L. McBride Take better care of myself. – A. Miley Said “no visitors” in the hospital – B. Ardel Delivered anywhere but where I did.- L. Mercantile Napped when they napped. – K. Oates <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/october-2015-issue/">Return to the October 2015 Issue</a>   </div> </article> <article id="post-22780" class="post-22780 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-general tag-bj-hollars tag-father-son tag-loss tag-mother-in-law tag-mourning tag-parenting"> <header class="entry-header"> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/bear-country/" title="Permalink to Bear Country" rel="bookmark">Bear Country</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/bear-country/" title="11:13 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-09-29T11:13:45-04:00" pubdate>September 29, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/bj-hollars/" rel="tag">BJ Hollars</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/father-son/" rel="tag">father son</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/loss/" rel="tag">loss</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/mother-in-law/" rel="tag">mother-in-law</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/mourning/" rel="tag">mourning</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/parenting/" rel="tag">parenting</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/bear-country/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-22784" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/BJ_Henry_Bears1-1024x682.jpg" alt="BJ_Henry_Bears1" width="640" height="426" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/BJ_Henry_Bears1-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/BJ_Henry_Bears1-300x200.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/BJ_Henry_Bears1-100x67.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/BJ_Henry_Bears1-232x155.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/BJ_Henry_Bears1-500x333.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /> By BJ Hollars One night as I wandered my empty house, I took to the typewriter in my basement to compose my first and last letter to my mother-in-law. “Just a brief note to wish you well,” I typed, “as you begin the next round of challenges that lay ahead.” The “challenges” had a name, but I didn’t want to burden her with the language the doctor’s used. I doled out platitudes and promises instead, the kinds of things no one ever expects anyone to make good on. I began by mentioning future visits, future plans, the activities we would one day do. Next, I thanked her for the birdfeeder she’d gotten me for Christmas, told her I’d come to calling it Caryl’s Bird Sanctuary (even though my most dedicated visitors were squirrels). It was a difficult letter to write, mainly because while those near to her in Indiana knew she was dying, from my vantage point 500 miles away in Wisconsin, all I knew was that she was still alive. *** From her place on the front lines my wife kept me abreast of the situation, though the news she shared was always bad news, and the bad news just got worse. “She’s still here,” my wife whispered one night from her place in her childhood bedroom. “She’s like 20 feet away from me right now, but…it’s like she’s already gone.” It was all the motivation I needed to return to my typewriter, hopeful that in my second attempt I’d muster the courage to move beyond filler and type what I’d never said aloud. “Thank you,” I wrote, “for raising your daughter. I see parts of you in all the best parts of her.” My words weren’t much, but they were all I had to convey to her what I felt she most needed to hear: that her legacy would live on in her progeny, and that her job—now done—had been done well. They were a small kindness, one I offered because I feared I wouldn’t have another chance; but also because the words allowed me to be there without being there, thereby sparing me the worst of it. The typewriter offered no backspace, no correction fluid, no way for me to grow shy and take it back. As I wrapped up that second draft, my wife called yet again. “We’re trying to move her downstairs,” she whispered. “But she doesn’t want to go. She knows once she does, she’ll never come upstairs again.” I said nothing. “I mean, we’ll have to move her tomorrow regardless,” my wife continued. “Which means this is the last night she and my dad will ever sleep in that bed together.” I folded the letter and stuffed it into the envelope. *** A week or so prior, our lives had been quite different. I was in my office at the university prepping for classes when I received the text from my wife who was home with the kids. bad news, she wrote—no further explanation required. For a few days we’d been awaiting Caryl’s test results, and though she’d already beaten back cancer twice, we feared the odds would be against her on a third bout. I picked up the phone, asked my wife what exactly her mother had said. “That it’s not good,” my wife repeated. “That there are tumors all over her body.” “Like…benign?” “No. Not like benign.” An interminable silence, followed by my wife’s voice: “Go to class,” she directed. “You have to teach.” Five minutes later I entered a classroom. “Good afternoon,” I said. “Today we’ll learn about academic register.” *** Today we’ll learn about stage IV pancreatic cancer. Which, as I soon learned myself, is the cancer and the stage you want the least. It’s the one that leaves little room for treatment, and even less room for a son-in-law’s assurances that everything will be okay. Because statistically speaking, if you are diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer, only 6% of you will be okay. The rest of you will not be. Pancreatic is often considered to be one of the deadliest cancers, not because it claims the most lives, but because the lives it claims it claims quickly, generally within the first year and often much sooner than that. Caryl was proof. She was diagnosed on January 28 and died 17 days later. Hours after receiving my wife’s text message, I walked home in the cold in perfect silence—up a hill, across a bridge, and finally, onto my street. I passed the elementary school, the outdoor ice-skating rink, then slipped inside my house. I worked my way down the dark hall—bypassing the dog and my infant daughter, Ellie, until arriving at my three-year-old son Henry’s room. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I noticed my wife’s silhouette alongside him, her body filling in the space where his Berenstain Bears books weren’t.   <blockquote> <h2 style="text-align: center;">It was all the motivation I needed to return to my typewriter, hopeful that in my second attempt I’d muster the courage to move beyond filler and type what I’d never said aloud.</h2> </blockquote>   “Hey,” I whispered. “You up?” We met at the kitchen table moments later, opening wide the bottle of emergency wine and retrieving a pair of glasses. Our conversation toggled between stunned silence and logistics, the latter involving who needed whom where and when. The answer was obvious: my wife’s mother needed her daughter and grandchildren there and preferably now. I sat helpless at that table as my language skills reverted to a Neanderthal state: “So…this is bad news,” I said, repeating the text message. My wife reached once more for the wine. *** On Valentine’s Day, just days after my family’s most recent return home to Wisconsin, my wife was woken by a phone call from her father. “You’d better start driving,” he said, “if you want to say goodbye.” Later, I’d learn the facts surrounding that phone call. How throughout the night Caryl had repeatedly tried to pull herself up from the bed, her anxiety growing along with her fitfulness. This went on for much of the night, prompting my father-in-law to sleep with his feet propped on the edge of her bed, a cautionary measure to ensure he’d wake if she did. There is a name for it—terminal restlessness—but none of us knew that then. All we knew was what the nurse had told my father-in-law: that it was time to rally the troops. My wife and daughter made up the first wave, while Henry and I stayed behind to perform all Berenstain Bear-related duties. By which I mean we distracted ourselves in the books’ colored pages, taking refuge in a wonderland of tree houses, talking bears, and problems that always resolved by the last page. There was a tidiness to their narratives, an inevitable answer, and no matter what the problem (a dentist’s visit, a messy room), the Bear family always endured. Throughout that day, Henry and I took one trip after another down that sunny dirt road deep into Bear Country. We were momentarily bachelors, and since there was no one to tell us enough was enough, we overindulged in the saccharine tales. Henry sat rapt on my lap until the books ran out, at which point we drove to the library for more. Since it was Valentine’s Day, we celebrated with a post-library visit to the record store. There, we searched for records to make us feel good, his small hands flipping expertly through the dollar bins, a perfect imitation of me. Eventually, he settled on a Broadway production of Peter Pan, while, I—after much deliberation—snagged a Stevie Nicks’ solo album. My wife called as I walked our loot toward the register. “Hey,” I said. “How’s it going?” “Okay,” she said. “I guess my mom’s been asleep all day. They don’t think she’s going to wake up again.” I steadied myself by placing a hand in Henry’s curly hair. “What are you guys doing?” she asked. I told her about the record store, about our adventures deep into Bear Country. “Sounds pretty cooooooool,” she said, her voice offering me a flash of our lives before the night of the emergency wine. “Well, I better go. It’s super windy out here. I love you.” “Happy Valentine’s,” I said. *** Last Thanksgiving my wife’s family piled into cars to purchase an obscenely large Christmas tree from the lot just a few blocks away. “This is our last one, Beej,” said my father-in-law as he slipped on shoes and cap. “One last real, live tree.” For the decade I’d known them, my in-laws had never wavered in their commitment to the real, live tree. Year after year, my father-in-law was burdened with the work that it entailed: hauling it into the living room, screwing it into the stand, then rigging a network of wires to the wall to ensure that it stayed upright. For those of us who simply enjoyed its pine-scented yuletide cheer, there was no question that the work was surely worth it. Though I imagine this answer wasn’t so obvious to the man charged with carrying it out. The rest of my in-laws were out the door when I realized my mother-in-law wasn’t among them. She had never been one to miss anything, least of all a family tradition. “I’ll stay back with Ellie,” I called to my wife, nodding to our dozing daughter snoring in my arms. She nodded, and as I watched the headlights from those cars fade into the night, Ellie and I made our way upstairs to Caryl’s room. She was huddled in her chair, her space heater just inches from her legs as she stared into the glow of her iPad. “How’s Dr. Sleep?” I asked, nodding to the Stephen King book stationed at her bedside. “Oh…it’s fine,” she shrugged. “I don’t know how much I like it.” I nodded, continued on with the small talk. We chatted for twenty minutes or so until the family returned with their tree. “Well,” I sighed, starting toward the stairs, “I guess we better go check on the damage.” She didn’t follow me. That was the moment I knew she was sick; that it wasn’t “our” last tree, but hers. <blockquote> <h2 style="text-align: center;">***</h2>   <h2 style="text-align: center;">Throughout the evening, my eyes focused not on the screen, but on my son’s fascination with those bears. I wanted to remember him that way: riveted, and not yet burdened by our burdens.</h2>  </blockquote> While driving home from the grocery store on Valentine’s night, my wife called to inform me of her mother’s death. “She’s gone,” she said. “It’s over.” Stunned, I parked the car in the drive and then proceeded to preheat the oven. Henry and I had spent the last half an hour or so ranking pizzas in the frozen food aisle, and given the extreme care he’d put into his selection, I felt I could hardly deny him his reward. I stuffed Henry with supreme pizza, then had him wash it down with a 16-ounce can of peach iced-tea. Comfort food, I told myself, even if he didn’t yet know he needed it. That night, Henry and I ventured even deeper into Bear Country, watching a marathon’s worth of Berenstain Bears TV episodes from the DVD we’d checked out at the library that day. We crowded into bed and wrapped the blankets tight around us, then watched as Too Tall and his gang peer-pressured Brother Bear into stealing a watermelon from Farmer Ben’s field. Throughout much of the evening, my eyes focused not on the screen, but on my son’s fascination with those bears. I wanted to remember him that way: riveted, and not yet burdened by our burdens. Later that night, once the TV was muted and Henry was fast asleep, my wife would recount the details of her mother’s death. How she, her dad, and her siblings had gathered for dinner around the living room bed, when, in the midst of their taco salad, she faded. My wife stood to grab a napkin, glanced at the bed, asked: “Why isn’t Mom breathing?” Life continued: calls were made and dishes placed in the drying rack. An hour or so later, after the counter had been wiped of Doritos’ dust, the hospice nurse arrived to confirm what was already known. Meanwhile, back in Bear Country, I guided Henry through his nightly prayers. “…if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” “Amen,” I said. “Amen,” he said. Then one of us fell asleep. *** In the week’s that followed, grief’s pressure points hit hard and fast and often. One day my wife diced an onion and began to cry, not for the usual onion-dicing reasons, but because her mother had simply loved onions. Another day she stared at the toenail clippers and was overcome with the memory of clipping her mother’s nails the week before her death. Today, while driving, my wife asked: “Do you want to know the saddest thing?” “Not really.” “She just renewed her passport.” *** There was a time before the cancer—or between the cancers—when everything was fine. It’s hard to remember that now, even though we have the pictures to prove it. All those photos of all those smiles; we had no reason not to. At the funeral home, these pictures scrolled past on several screens, giving family and friends a place to rest their eyes. The pictures had no chronology. There was young Caryl alongside old Caryl alongside Caryl and her kids. There was happy-go-lucky Caryl alongside first-bout-of-cancer Caryl alongside Caryl in the front porch family photo. I’m in that one, too, smiling with a newborn on my lap. Seven months after that photo was snapped, my wife asked her mother if her life had gone as she’d hoped. “Sure,” her mother replied from her deathbed, “up until now.” *** I won’t say much about the funeral, except that I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a front row seat reserved for anything. I didn’t want it, and thanks to Ellie’s wailing, I didn’t even need it. Two days later—after the house was filled with flowers and the ashes were placed on the shelf—my entire family was brought down by the flu. My children puked in unison, my wife following soon after. For a while, I was our only hope, and in an effort to give my wife a rest, I transported the sick kids to my parent’s house just a few miles away. That’s when I, too, became sick. My mom helped out the best she could, but Ellie would have nothing to do with her. She insisted I hold her continuously—no exceptions—which meant I soon found myself cradling my daughter in my left arm while wrapping my right arm around the toilet rim. As my body heaved its insides out, it was all I could do to hold tight to her. I trembled, wiped away my spit, tried hard to block out the smell of stomach acid. Ellie watched curiously, gave me a grin, then gripped my arm as I gagged awhile longer. Eventually, my mom swooped in to snag my daughter. “Don’t worry,” she shouted over Ellie’s wails, ” it’ll be fine.” She was right; it would be fine for me. I still had my mom. *** For weeks, Henry and I sought solace in every Berenstain Bear book we could find, scanning the library’s shelves again and again, hoping for something new. And while we indeed learned a lot about cleaning messy rooms and visiting dentists, those bears remained mum on the subject of dead mother-in-laws. Surely the solace we sought resided somewhere down that sunny dirt road deep in Bear Country. But despite our best efforts, Henry and I could never quite find that road, that country. Instead, we took refuge in the only country we had. The terrain was rough, the route unmapped, but we walked every step of it together. Author’s Note: The week before Caryl died, Henry and I walked into the living room where her bed had been moved. “Grandma, how was your day?” he asked. “Good,” she told him, glancing at me “I received a nice letter in the mail.” Later, I’d find that letter folded on her bedside table. No one’s spoken of it since. BJ is the author of several books, including the forthcoming From The Mouths of Dogs: What Our Pets Teach Us About Life, Death, and Being Human and a collection of essays, This Is Only A Test. He is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/october-2015-issue/">Return to the October 2015 Issue</a>   </div> </article> <article id="post-22788" class="post-22788 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-fish tag-jody-keisner tag-mother-daughter"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/fisheye-view-2/" title="Permalink to Fisheye View" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/dreamstime_l_16843751-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Fisheye View" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Fisheye View" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/fisheye-view-2/" title="Permalink to Fisheye View" rel="bookmark">Fisheye View</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/fisheye-view-2/" title="11:08 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-09-29T11:08:27-04:00" pubdate>September 29, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/fish/" rel="tag">fish</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/jody-keisner/" rel="tag">Jody Keisner</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/mother-daughter/" rel="tag">mother-daughter</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/fisheye-view-2/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-22878" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/dreamstime_l_16843751-1024x683.jpg" alt="dreamstime_l_16843751" width="640" height="427" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/dreamstime_l_16843751-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/dreamstime_l_16843751-300x200.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/dreamstime_l_16843751-100x67.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/dreamstime_l_16843751-232x155.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/dreamstime_l_16843751-500x333.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" />By Jody Keisner On my lap is a small plastic bag filled with water. Three neon tetra fish dart around inside, their six eyes glowing like cat’s eyes in the dark car. The fish can’t be well, not after the mistakes I’ve made. Yesterday I consulted an aquarist, trying to undo the harm I’d done, and she referred to the fish as “babies.” This word has done me in. Not my almost four-year-old daughter, Lily, saying the neon tetras’ blue iridescent stripes are like butterfly wings. Or her seeing in the half-moon betta’s fringed blue- and red-tipped tail a parade float. Not the time I saw her tapping on the fish tank, asking, “How do you swim? Is your tail like my arm?” Not these small moments of magic that happen when she observes her world in the most unadulterated way. But this word: babies. Last night the first snow of the season fell in eastern Nebraska, and while the sleet has been cleared, outside the car it’s ten degrees. Will the fish freeze once we’re out of the car? Brake lights turn bright red in front of me, and when I ease up on the gas pedal and press the brake, the plastic bag slips from my lap and lands on the seat between my legs. What if I slam my legs shut? I used to worry about dropping Lily down the stairs when she was a baby. Now I worry about smashing fish with my thighs. I have baby fish in a plastic bag of water between my legs. “What did you say, Mama?” Lily asks from the back seat. I can’t see her eyes in the rear-view mirror, but I feel her looking at me—the familiarity of cars after sundown. “The fish are worrying me,” I say. “Why?” she says. Where to begin? *** The fish were my idea. Weeks before, Lily had asked me for a dog while staring through our glass patio door at the dachshund chasing squirrels in our neighbor’s backyard. But my husband Jon’s allergy to dander precludes Lily from having a childhood like mine: we had seven cats, six dogs, three rabbits, two hamsters and a duck. Most of our animals slept on smelly blankets in our heated garage, but—oh! the delight!—they spent their days at my side, me and my menagerie running through our neighbor’s farmland in search of a squirrel, a sunset, a snail. I desperately wanted Lily to have a pet. Caring for a pet would help her learn, I believed, patience and kindness. I didn’t vocalize it, but I also wished for Lily to learn about loss, to understand and accept that dying was part of living, and maybe to learn so in a safe way, like when she studied the ant-riddled cicadas dying on sidewalks this past summer. I knew she would learn about loss in a not-so-safe way soon enough, as all children do. Jon, Lily, and I went to the pet store one weekend afternoon anticipating the selection of our new betta—”Hardy fish,” said Lily’s preschool teacher, who kept one in a bowl in her classroom—but once there, we followed the lead of the young, ponytailed fish enthusiast who suggested we choose a few more. “They’re easy,” she assured us, and so we added three tetra fish to another plastic bag. At home, I rinsed the three-gallon tank in the bathtub as instructed, then added (also rinsed) gravel, silk plants (plastic plants would shred the betta’s tail), a decorative bridge (something to hide under), a filter, light, de-chlorinated water and good bacteria. The betta and three tetras watched me from the two separate bags of water propped against the side of the tub. Lily watched me, too, a little, but mostly she played with the plastic orca whale she had found in the tub. “Bubble, bubble, bubble, pop,” she sang. Jon moved the tank from the bathroom to the top of Lily’s dresser. After adjusting the fish to the temperature of the water by lowering their bags into the tank and letting them bob for a while, we set them free. Jon and I knelt in front of the tank; Lily used her blue step stool. She named them: the half-moon betta was Freddy, and the three neon tetras, Hans, Anna, and Elsa (yes, from Frozen). The tetras swam together in schooling formation, first heading in one direction, and then turning in unison. Like underwater dancers. Like underwater dancers with butterfly wings. The betta hid behind a silk leaf, flaring its regal tails and fin. Lily blew the four of them a kiss before climbing under her covers. Good night new friends, I thought. As sunlight snaked in through the slats of her blinds the next morning, Lily dropped a tropical fish flake through the small opening at the top of the tank. The betta was resting on a silk leaf, hardly visible; the three neon tetras were no longer swimming together, instead separated from each other by silk plants and the betta, but did that matter? The food was caught in the current created by the filter, eventually floating to the gravel at the bottom, untouched. “Maybe they don’t like their food,” Lily said. “I don’t like eggs.” “Maybe,” I said, though I didn’t know what else to feed them. Why weren’t the tetras schooling? And why did the betta’s fins look so droopy? “Do you like your new home?” Lily asked the fish. I looked at the fish tank before I realized that she meant her room. Could they see her walls, the pink and green borders? The birds Jon had drawn, then painted by hand? Her toys, a tangled nest of furry limbs and glass eyes? Did they “like” all this pink or was their range of color limited, like a dog’s? Lily was asking questions I hadn’t thought of, already a more attentive fish owner than me. I wondered what else I hadn’t thought of. I never kept fish as pets, but growing up, I had cared for plenty of animals. While my family gave them food and shelter (and the occasional bath with the garden hose), we mostly let them roam free. My parents didn’t worry about their safety and neither did I. Perhaps as a result, most of them died unexpectedly and in ways that seemed more suited to the Wild West then the 1980s. A dog shot by a half-blind farmer. A cat infected by a parasite found in cow pies. A hamster flattened under a wheel. In some ways, my parents’ philosophy of caring for animals extended to their philosophy of child rearing. My younger sister and I tumbled out of our house most mornings and did what we pleased. We were allowed to cross streets by ourselves and play unchaperoned at parks. We didn’t wear seat belts or fret over strangers. I eventually learned about stranger-danger and the necessity of seat belts, but still, as a new mother, it was a shock for me to learn that the world held so many dangers. I felt ill-prepared for them all, and so I fretted. But now I was prepared, wasn’t I? I could keep these fish alive, right? After I dropped Lily off at preschool, I found an online forum for tropical fish lovers. How far can a betta see? I typed. A member replied immediately: They have superb eyesight but can only see a couple of feet in front of them, if that far. They would see Lily practicing basic ballet moves for them, then, inches from the fish tank but would not see her yanking books from her closet shelves. Curious, I asked about our tank set-up. Three gallons is too small for ANY living thing! Their organs don‘t grow properly—called stunting—and they die, one reply read. Bettas are the most mistreated domesticated fish, read another reply. Neon tetras must be kept with at least five others to feel safe and secure, wrote another. Were our fish insecure? Did they sense danger? Feel stress? A three-gallon tank is good only as a temporary fish hospital but your little guy won‘t be happy in it for long. A fish hospital? What could possibly happen in our tank that I would need a fish hospital? Was it really that bad in our tank? And perhaps more importantly, what did a happy fish look like? My questions were beginning to feel familiar (and slightly alarming), though I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. I took Lily into another pet store a few days later. She trailed behind me and then stopped at a terrarium, where a bearded dragon appeared to be waving. It stood on a rock, moving one spiky leg—or was it an arm?—in the air in a circular motion. While Lily spoke to the lizard, standing close to the glass, I waited for the resident aquarist. “I’m PETA radical about fish,” she said by way of introduction, adjusting the hemp bracelets on her wrist. I confessed my errors—our tank was too small, we had too few tetras, the fish were hardly eating—and her eyes grew wide. We would need a larger tank right away, she said, at least a five-gallon tank for the betta and a ten-gallon tank for the tetras if they were to have room to swim in groups. Three neon tetras weren’t enough for the fish to feel secure. Six would be better. None of them would survive a nitrous cycle. (What was that?) Tropical fish needed no less than 75-degree water to remain healthy. (The thermostat in our house was only set to 67 degrees.) “The tetras will grow a little over one inch. The ones you have are just babies,” the aquarist added. The word startled me. “Babies?” “The technical name is fry,” she said. “Fish fry reminds me of Friday nights at the Eagles Club during Lent. All those fried catfish,” I joked. “I’m a lapsed Catholic.” “I’m a vegetarian.” <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-22879" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/dreamstime_l_51270871-1024x786.jpg" alt="dreamstime_l_51270871" width="640" height="491" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/dreamstime_l_51270871-1024x786.jpg 1024w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/dreamstime_l_51270871-300x230.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/dreamstime_l_51270871-100x77.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/dreamstime_l_51270871-232x178.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/dreamstime_l_51270871-500x384.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /> I studied the fish in the aquariums around me: the black- and yellow-striped body of the veil angelfish, the eager waving tail of the red wag platy and the chubby tummies of the balloon belly mollies. When I placed my fingertip on the aquarium of the telescope eye goldfish, they gathered around it, yellow- and orange-colored fins and heads waving back and forth. I stared at the large, perfectly round eyes, stubby pectoral fins and puckered, pouty mouths and saw, suddenly, the features of young children. Instead of goldfish, it was as if Lily’s preschool classmates were clamoring around me, sticky fingers and hands touching my legs. Baby fish. Baby people. What was the water temperature in the tank? What were we supposed to set the thermostat at when Lily was a baby? How could I tell if the fish were happy? How could I tell if the baby was happy? I remembered, standing there in front of the aquarium, the helplessness I used to feel when Lily was an infant, both of us crying during those twilight hours that Jon, trying to lighten the mood, called “the witching hours.” While Jon was at work, I would come undone with fear and love, occasionally sitting in the bathroom to sob through my anxiety, morbidly imagining what would happen if I slept through Lily’s nighttime cries or drew her bathwater too hot. I suddenly felt like a new mother again, afraid that someone—or something—would be harmed because of my wrong choices, all the things a mother doesn’t intuit about caregiving but must learn. The fish were the first living things we had brought into our home, under our care, since the winter day almost four years earlier we had brought Lily home. The feeling of new-mother anxiety rushed back at me; I inhaled sharply. I couldn’t bear to let anything die in her room: plant, fish, or other. Especially the other.   <h2 style="text-align: center;">I remembered, standing there in front of the aquarium, the helplessness I used to feel when Lily was an infant, both of us crying during those twilight hours that Jon, trying to lighten the mood, called “the witching hours.”</h2>   I wasn’t prepared to set-up a ten-gallon tank before taking some measurements, so we left the store with only a tank thermometer. At home, conditions in the fish tank looked worse. The tetras hid behind the silk foliage; the betta rested on a silk leaf, inactive. None had eaten any of the food we’d offered, and I was beginning to see that the small tank I had plopped the tetras into was the equivalent of asking an adult to swim laps in a kiddie pool. The new thermometer in the tank read 70 degrees, several degrees too cold for tropical fish. One forum user said our fish would be miserable in this temperature, like how it felt when, on a dare, I had cannonballed into a lake in April. I studied the inhospitable tank. I didn’t want to return the tetras to the pet store; I had begun to secretly refer to them as The Pips and the betta as Gladys Knight. I couldn’t separate the band. But what if Lily found one or two floating at the top of the tank? What, exactly, would that teach her about thriving in her mother’s care? The closest pet store was already closed for the evening, so I slept on it and went to work the next day. “We’re taking the tetras back to the pet store,” I announced that night. If the tetras couldn’t thrive in our tank, then I wanted them to thrive elsewhere. Jon thought I was overthinking—the tetras were $1.50 a piece and just fish!—but I wasn’t overthinking, just over-feeling. Lily shrugged, apparently unfazed by the thought that Hans, Anna and Elsa wouldn’t be swimming in her room anymore. *** And that’s how I ended up in this strange situation, the kind of situation that seems more and more likely once you become a mother. I have baby fish in a plastic bag between my legs. Becoming a mother opens you up to the world, all of it, good, bad, and long-snouted, in tender and sometimes astonishing ways. You feel not just the large injustices of poverty, child abuse, disease, war and hunger, but also the small injustices that fill a normal day, like a male cardinal flapping his crimson wings from a fence and frantically chirping while the neighborhood cat pins his orange-crested mate to the ground, and you arrive just a few hurried footsteps too late to stop it. We make it inside the pet store without any tetra deaths and I find an employee, a young man, to help us. “What happens to the fish that you don’t sell, the ones who are no longer babies?” I ask him. I visualize the tetras being dangled before the open mouth of the bearded dragon. “I adopt some of them. We advertise the rest on fish forums.” We watch him return The Pips to a tank filled with fry, and then Lily and I select another tank, this one a five-gallon. We buy a heater, too, and some dried blood worms, a treat for Freddy, the smallest carnivore in our home. At home, I finally see what a happy fish looks like. In his new tank, Freddy swims slowly from side to side. He spreads his fins. He watches us watching him. Reading stories to Lily that evening, I sneak peeks at him, alive-o! I did it. Me. I have kept him alive. I kept Lily alive, too, through her first winter, when I was afraid that I might not be able to, when I understood that loving her so wholly exposed me to the possibility of losing her, and losing myself, too. Lily the infant was like Freddy the fish: two delicate bodies surviving in ecosystems balanced by another—by a mother. Author‘s Note: Since writing this essay, we have added a mystery snail to our tank. Lily watches as it eats algae off the glass with its tiny O-shaped mouth. Both it and the fish provide plenty of learning opportunities for our family, especially—and surprisingly—for me. Becoming a mother has awakened in me a contemplation of many living things (except spiders). Jody Keisner’s most recent work appears or is forthcoming in Brevity, Hunger Mountain, River Teeth‘s Beautiful Things, and New Writing: The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing. This is her second contribution to Brain, Child. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/october-2015-issue/">Return to the October 2015 Issue</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-22906" class="post-22906 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-author-qa tag-jill-christman tag-mother-writers tag-writing-motherhood"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/22906/" title="Permalink to Author Q&A: Jill Christman" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/smiley_color_crop-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Author Q&A: Jill Christman" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Author Q&A: Jill Christman" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/22906/" title="Permalink to Author Q&A: Jill Christman" rel="bookmark">Author Q&A: Jill Christman</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/22906/" title="2:15 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-09-28T14:15:27-04:00" pubdate>September 28, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/author-qa/" rel="tag">Author Q&A</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/jill-christman/" rel="tag">Jill Christman</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/mother-writers/" rel="tag">mother writers</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/writing-motherhood/" rel="tag">writing motherhood</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/22906/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-22907" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/smiley_color_crop-233x300.jpg" alt="smiley_color_crop" width="233" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/smiley_color_crop-233x300.jpg 233w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/smiley_color_crop-796x1024.jpg 796w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/smiley_color_crop-100x130.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/smiley_color_crop-232x298.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/smiley_color_crop-500x643.jpg 500w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/smiley_color_crop.jpg 1041w" sizes="(max-width: 233px) 100vw, 233px" />JIll Christman is the author of the essay Leading the Children out of Town, which appeared in our October 2015 issue. We connected with her about the writing process. Here are her answers. What inspired you to write this essay? The interaction with the running-loose baby, his silent father, and my own non-judgmental mother that day in the street wouldn’t let me go. Images from that afternoon persisted in spinning through my mind, so I took a hint, and wrote down everything I could remember, but I still couldn’t figure out why that moment nagged me or what felt so complicated. That’s where most of my essays begin: with something I can’t figure out. What was the greatest challenge in writing it? This essay took years to finish—in and out of the proverbial drawer—primarily because I couldn’t put my pencil on what the essay was about. Now that I know the baby-alone-in-the-street scene was fluting me toward the dark cave of my own childhood abuse, I realize why this essay was such a challenge: it was leading me to a place I didn’t want to go—not so much the abuse itself, but my mother’s failure to protect me. As I say in the essay, I have long forgiven my mother, but being a mother has forced me to reconsider many of the questions I thought I’d put to bed. How do your children inform your writing? I teach and write literary nonfiction of all kinds, and while having children has indeed affected the way I write, I would argue that rather than being an obstacle to writing, my children—and by extension, all children—are the reason I write. Here is a question I ask of my students and their writing, over and over, day after day: What’s at stake in this essay? Why does it matter? For me, the urgency behind nearly everything I write can be traced back to the kids, the world we will leave them, and the preparation we are giving them to make their own journeys. My mother once sewed a wall hanging with this beautiful line by an unknown author embroidered into the cloth: Children are the message we send to a future we will never see. When I parent, and when I write, I look hard toward that future message. In a recent presentation, I was speaking to MFA students about our necessity as writers to stay engaged with the world around us, the absolute imperative to really look. I showed a slide of my then five-year-old son, Henry, in that easy squat position of small children, poking his finger along the waterline at the beach. Think about the last time you saw a child arrive on a beach. Or in the woods. Or the edge of his own backyard. What did he do? Children drop to their knees, I told my students. That’s what I want you to do when you write. I want you to go out into the world and drop to your knees. How do you balance writing and motherhood/fatherhood? On a pragmatic level, having children has changed my writing habits. I don’t waste time, because there is no time to waste. I no longer require the smooth expanse of clean desk, the perfect cup of tea, and a matching set of impeccably sharpened pencils. I schedule time to write and I stick with that schedule. If I can grab an extra moment, I take that, too—even in the days when I had to balance my notebook on the head of a nursing baby, or now, when I steal a few minutes during tennis or tap class. (And, yes, sometimes I take on nursing or dance as my subjects, as well as my opportunity. This is my motto: love the one you’re with. And I do.) As a mother and a teacher, I already have two full-time jobs before I sit down to write, but writing is the only way I know how to live in this world—with my children and for my children. My job as a writer is to pay attention to our complicated world—as my children do—and to interpret that world on the page, to make some sense of it all by locating patterns and connections through my work with scene, character, metaphor, image, and language. Do you share any of your writing with your children (if they are old enough of course) I’ve thought a lot about the question of writing my children, and in fact, published a whole essay on the subject’—”Chewing Band-Aids: One Memoirists Take on Telling the Truth”—in Joy Castro’s fantastic edited collection <a href="https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Family-Trouble,675750.aspx">Family Trouble: Memoirists on the Hazards and Rewards of Revealing Family</a> (University of Nebraska Press, 2013). The answer to your specific question is absolutely yes—I let both my children (eleven and seven) read my work (in fact, they often help)—but I don’t let them read everything. Yet. The bigger question you’re asking here might be answered by a quotation from “Chewing Band-Aids”: This might be the most important thing I know to be true: secrets help no one. Maybe it’s because I’m a survivor of sexual abuse and I know the danger of a well-kept secret. I saw how the secrets of my childhood mutated, dividing and growing into malignant cells of shame and isolation, multiplying until I had the choice to cut them out or be consumed. Writing Darkroom [my first memoir] was healing for me, and to a lesser degree for my entire family. I’m finished with secrets, and I know my determination to live in the light of full exposure has led me not only to the writing of nonfiction, but to my children themselves. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/october-2015-issue/">Return to the October 2015 Issue</a>     </div> </article> <article id="post-22791" class="post-22791 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-jill-christman tag-leading-the-children-out-of-town tag-pied-piper"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/leading-the-children-out-of-town/" title="Permalink to Leading the Children out of Town" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Child-silhouette-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Leading the Children out of Town" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Leading the Children out of Town" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/leading-the-children-out-of-town/" title="Permalink to Leading the Children out of Town" rel="bookmark">Leading the Children out of Town</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/leading-the-children-out-of-town/" title="12:11 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-09-28T12:11:04-04:00" pubdate>September 28, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/jill-christman/" rel="tag">Jill Christman</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/leading-the-children-out-of-town/" rel="tag">Leading the Children out of Town</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/pied-piper/" rel="tag">Pied Piper</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/leading-the-children-out-of-town/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-22971" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Child-silhouette-1024x768.jpg" alt="Child silhouette" width="640" height="480" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Child-silhouette-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Child-silhouette-300x225.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Child-silhouette-100x75.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Child-silhouette-232x174.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Child-silhouette-500x375.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" />By Jill Christman When, lo, as they reached the mountain-side, A wondrous portal opened wide, As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed; And the Piper advanced and the children followed, And when all were in to the very last, The door in the mountain-side shut fast. ~ The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning On a bluff above Lake Roosevelt, the streets in my mother’s tiny northeastern Washington town are named after apples—Rome Beauty, Northern Spy, Delicious, and so on. One summer afternoon, we tucked my one-year old daughter, Ella, into her stroller and headed out for a walk. A quarter mile down the road we passed a yard containing a ride-on toy and a car seat cast by the driveway like a beetle on its back. The house looked like a place where a child used to live, but then a kid Ella’s age, maybe a tad younger, tumbled out across the stubbly grass wearing gray fleece pajamas and filthy socks. I stopped the stroller, resisting the urge to block this sweet-faced boy from touching my shiny daughter with his grubby hands. He veered to the left, grabbed his rolling toy with both hands and careened down the sidewalk and into the road. If this kid had been a dog, I would have, at this point, started to look around for his owner. The house he must have run out of was set far back from the road, maybe thirty yards or so, and the curtains were drawn tight. Gape-mouthed, my mother and I stared at the tumbling baby in the road. He couldn’t keep up with the spinning blue wheels and every six feet or so he tripped on the black scraps of sock dangling at the end of his toes and skidded forward onto his face, but he never cried. “Be-bee,” Ella commented, pointing. “Be-bee.” “Yup,” I said. “That’s a baby alright. A little baby playing in the street.” We stood there for a while, prepared to run into the street and stop oncoming traffic—Marcus boasts a population of just 160 people, but there is some traffic, often teenagers in giant trucks—but no caretaker emerged. The baby made another run at the blue-wheeled toy and lost it again. Again, no tears. We waited. Ten minutes passed. My mother is quick to defend “different methods,” like the parents I’d criticized when they pulled up next to our parked car at the laundromat with a toddler and an infant strapped into the back seat, windows rolled up without a crack, both of them smoking. In fact, the smoke was so thick I didn’t even see the babies until the two adults opened their doors, crushed out their cigarettes and walked, both of them, into the laundromat. “Maybe she needed to get her laundry and she knew it would be easier if the kids waited in the car,” my mother said later. “Mom,” I had countered, “there were two adults. One of them could have stayed in the car. They were babies.“ “Well-ll,” my mother said, with toe-curling inflection, and ended the conversation. We let it rest with a difference of opinion. But this time, even my mother was stymied. Here was a toddler, a barely toddling toddler, playing alone in the street. We weren’t sure what to do. I suggested we stroll ever so slowly up and down the sidewalk, watching for cars, of course, and always keeping the wordless, running kid close. The baby pushed along behind us with his toy, eyeing Ella. What I wanted to do was march up to the house with the baby in my arms and bang on the door: “Hello? Is this your baby? We found him running in the street. We didn’t want him to get hit by a car. . .” At this point, the baby had been alone—or, rather, with us, the strange strolling ladies and their own well-padded baby—for fifteen minutes. Then a man with scraggly hair, glasses, and a flannel shirt appeared. He loped out of the house, scowling, and scooped up the kid without a word to us. This is when I surprised myself. What should I have done? What would you have done? Should I have yelled? You irresponsible freak! You let your kid, your baby, play alone in the street? But I didn’t. The moment was so uncomfortable, so weird, a kind of joke came out of my mouth, an excuse for this poor excuse of a father. I laughed, I laughed, and I said, “I guess we were kind of like the Pied Piper, leading the children out of town!” The man didn’t answer. He didn’t make eye contact. Instead, he swung around and strode back to the house with the kid hanging in his arms like a load of firewood. Maybe he didn’t hear me. Maybe he was ashamed. Maybe he didn’t know who the fuck the crazy lady with the fancy stroller was talking about. The Pied friggin’ Piper? What the hell. Ella lunged forward to get a better look at the disappearing pair and I checked the five-point safety harness—again—not sure whether to feel responsible, self-righteous, or sad. Pushing Ella away, I thought about the way I care for my daughter, locking locks and buckling buckles, and how different it is from the way kids are raised where I come from—the way I was raised. For reasons I can’t quite pin down, this disconnect pisses me off. Is it because in the hormonal flush of my own cautious parenting I reject this laissez faire approach as nothing short of neglect? Maybe. Or is it because the last I will see of this baby boy—ever—are his feet disappearing into the dark house before the door slams shut, those blackened socks swinging from the end of his toes like storm-beaten pirate flags. I know what can happen when kids are left behind, and this knowledge wounds like a cutlass to the heart. I remember my first Halloween on the mountain when I was a thirteen. A trio of men in the holiday spirit piled hay bales and about ten of us kids in the bed of a pickup and bounced us around the mountain to trick-or-treat caramel apples and homemade hot chocolate from far-flung homesteads; when the beer cans of our escorts were empty, they tossed them in the back with the kids and the hay. It was a blast. Back then, I owned a thick-coated quarter horse named Moona and rode bareback to school on frigid winter days. In the summer, she carried me down to the river, hooves clicking on the shale-covered slopes, and we spent long days alone with the other teenagers and their horses. Sometimes I took Moona right into the river and clung to her mane, laughing and scared, when she started to swim and the current pushed my thighs up and away from her heaving muscles. We mountain kids fended for ourselves, and maybe we’re better people for it. Self-sufficient, my mother says. Full of character. Resourceful. Trust me: these are not parenting strategies I recommend. It’s amazing you survived, my mother says defensively, and I snort in derisive agreement. And yet, most of us did survive. Just like most of the kids on my middle-class street in Muncie, Indiana survive. “You think you’re better than they are,” my husband says, calling me out. Do I? Do I tell my Pied Piper story because it makes me feel superior, more confident in the parenting decisions I make every day? Okay, so I fed my kid a hotdog (cut into teeny tiny pieces) for lunch two days in a row, or I plunked her down in front of an extra thirty minutes of Sesame Street so I could finish grading a stack of papers. Probably not ideal choices, and yet I can direct attention to this let-the-toddler-play-in-the-street man, and say: Look. Look at him. That’s bad, right? Goodie for me. Mother of the year. The man was long gone before I knew what I wanted to tell him, so I would have told my mother instead but she would have said I was exaggerating as usual, being over sensitive, and I didn’t need the denigration, the rejection of my rejection. Why am I so intolerant? So judgmental? I said nothing. After the silent man disappeared into the house with the dirty baby, I gripped the padded bar of Ella’s stroller and we walked on. There was nothing to see once the door slammed shut. We turned on Minter, and then strolled down Jonathan. In the park in the middle of town, ravens complained to us from the tops of the Douglas firs and chipmunks scattered like tossed pennies into wild rose bushes. Ella was asleep before we reached Rome Beauty, and home. In truth, I had nothing more ready to say to the man or my mother. “You know,” I could have shouted, “in the original Pied Piper, the villagers never saw their children again. They never came out of the cave. They followed him in and they never came out.” The Pied Piper wasn’t the playful, musical clown our cleaned-up editions might suggest. Folklorists date the story’s roots as far back as the 13th Century and the core tale casts the colorfully dressed Pied Piper as a rat-catcher. In many versions, the Piper leads the rats down to the river where they drown, but the villagers renege on his full payment and the Piper returns for the children in retaliation. Sometimes the children are drowned, sometimes led into the cave to be either held captive or killed.   <blockquote> <h2>Trust me: these are not parenting strategies I recommend. It’s amazing you survived, my mother says defensively, and I snort in derisive agreement. And yet, most of us did survive. Just like most of the kids on my middle-class street in Muncie, Indiana survive.</h2>  </blockquote> The Pied Piper narrative was constructed to explain something, to use storytelling to find meaning; in this case, a large population of children disappeared in Hamelin, Germany. Nobody knows why. A natural disaster (landslide?), famine, or plague may have wiped them out, and here, the Piper is a figure of death—all fluting metaphor. Or perhaps he is a remaking of a real person, a character who led a kind of Children’s Crusade and took the young ones away in a mass emigration. In my research, I find a linguistic note with the unsettling information that some psychologists have a term to describe the capacity of some pedophiles to relate with and seduce children: the Pied Piper effect. This gives me the chills. The reckless freedoms of my own childhood came too soon, and I know this is why part of me is still mad. As usual, I’m afraid, the story of the careless flannel-shirted man with my Pied Piper framing is really a story about my mother. Not because she was there with me when we found the unsupervised baby, but because she did not always protect me when I was a kid. I have long forgiven her. I may also have come to understand why she did what she did when she was raising my brother and me—mostly alone: money was tight, she needed to work, and there was nothing left over for a babysitter even if she’d thought such a precaution was necessary. After all, wasn’t my brother around if I wanted something cooked in the oven? It was a different time, she tells me. We weren’t so aware. I know it’s bad form to throw this bomb from the margins near the end of the essay, and I didn’t set out to mention it, but here it is: before we moved to the mountain in Washington when I was thirteen, I was sexually abused by a neighbor, starting when I was just six or seven. I have healed. I can love and be loved. As a teenager, I was pretty messed up, but now I am better—mostly. My daughter Ella, the baby in this story, just turned seven. I look at her perfect forty-eight pound body, stretched out in sleep, lightly concealed by thin white ballerina pajamas dotted with tiny pink hearts, and I can’t imagine. The horror. Ella is the reason I keep returning to the story of the running child. She is so beautiful. When I tiptoe into her room at night to check on her and see her sleeping in the crack of light that shines out of her closet to help her feel safe at night—she has never liked complete darkness—her innocence stops my breath. The Pied Piper story, in the end, reminds me of the girl in me who never made it out of the cave. She’s back there still. When she was set loose in the street in her dirty socks, no well-meaning strangers happened upon her to block the random chance of an approaching truck. Her mother is at work, she’s on the top bunk of her bed, and there’s a much older boy slipping his rough hands under the covers to touch her. She doesn’t speak. He does what he will do and she keeps their shared secret. Rejecting the tyranny of silence, I have told the story of this abuse. The secret is out. My mother knows and she is sorry. She is terribly, terribly sorry. She laments that she cannot go back and change this scene. What would I have my mother do? I guess I want her to agree with me about the babies left alone in the smoky car at the laundromat. I want her to point a judgmental finger at the flannel-shirted father of the baby in the street. I don’t want her to accept these displays of neglect as different methods. I need her to join me in my righteous anger. But that’s not the kind of woman my mother is, and anyway, maybe there’s nothing to be done. Maybe this is something my mother and I live with between us, with my anger rising up unbidden and randomly, like a sharp thistle in the garden of our deep affection. I guess that’s okay. And maybe the girl in the cave is not so much a whole girl, but a ghost girl, a simulacrum still gritting her angry teeth. Maybe I can’t scoop the girl I was out of the dark cave with all her living parts any more than my mother can make that trip back in time to save her before it’s too late, but I can let her and all the children like her know that I remember. I can use her story to protect my own sweet Ella and others I find along the way who might need someone big to stand between them and danger, and maybe, if I keep telling and telling, I can use her story to pry open the side of that sealed-up mountainside, releasing the lost children into the light. Author’s Note: I write nonfiction to figure out what I don’t know or can’t see. Working with language, scene, and character, I try to locate patterns and make connections that might help me figure something out. The genesis of this essay was in fact the first scene: the dirty-socked baby playing in the street. I wrote down this bizarre interaction that very day because I was so upset and worried, but for years, I had nothing to say in the essay beyond the generally accepted opinion that we shouldn’t let our babies play alone in the street. As my own daughter grew up, shifting into a new kind of vulnerability, I started pulling on the thread of the strange and creepy Pied Piper tale (I really had alluded to the Piper in that moment on the street—but why?) and I ended up—seven years later—writing an essay about the dangers of my own childhood. I didn’t intend to go back to the cave, but the story led me there. Jill Christman is the author of Darkroom: A Family Exposure (AWP Award Series in Creative Nonfiction winner), Borrowed Babies: Apprenticing for Motherhood (Shebooks 2014), and essays in magazines and journals such as Brevity, Fourth Genre, Literary Mama, Oprah Magazine, & River Teeth. She teaches creative nonfiction writing in Ashland University’s low-residency MFA program and at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, where she lives with her husband, writer Mark Neely. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/october-2015-issue/">Return to the October 2015 Issue</a>   </div> </article> <article id="post-22883" class="post-22883 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-2305 tag-bj-hollars tag-jill-christman tag-jody-keisner tag-liz-rognes tag-mai-wang tag-monthly-issue tag-october tag-table-of-contents"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/october-2015-issue/" title="Permalink to October 2015 Issue" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Oct-15-Cover-FINAL-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="October 2015 Issue" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="October 2015 Issue" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/october-2015-issue/" title="Permalink to October 2015 Issue" rel="bookmark">October 2015 Issue</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/october-2015-issue/" title="9:57 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-09-28T09:57:38-04:00" pubdate>September 28, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/2015/" rel="tag">2015</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/bj-hollars/" rel="tag">BJ Hollars</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/jill-christman/" rel="tag">Jill Christman</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/jody-keisner/" rel="tag">Jody Keisner</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/liz-rognes/" rel="tag">Liz Rognes</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/mai-wang/" rel="tag">Mai Wang</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/monthly-issue/" rel="tag">monthly issue</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/october/" rel="tag">October</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/table-of-contents/" rel="tag">Table of Contents</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/october-2015-issue/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <h1><a href="https://brainchildmag.com"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-22884 size-large" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Oct-15-Cover-FINAL-819x1024.jpg" alt="Oct 15 Cover FINAL" width="640" height="800" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Oct-15-Cover-FINAL-819x1024.jpg 819w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Oct-15-Cover-FINAL-240x300.jpg 240w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Oct-15-Cover-FINAL-100x125.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Oct-15-Cover-FINAL-232x290.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Oct-15-Cover-FINAL-500x625.jpg 500w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Oct-15-Cover-FINAL.jpg 960w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /></a></h1> <a href="https://www.etsy.com/shop/MandalayArthouse?ref=l2-shopheader-name">Rebecca Muscat</a> The Autumn Tree, My Mother & I, 2014.   <h1 style="text-align: center;">Table of Contents</h1>   Editor’s Letter: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/editors-letter/">How Are We Doing?</a> Essay: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/cities-of-my-body/">Cities of My Body</a>, by Liz Rognes I began to cry softly, afraid that my choice to do a line of blow had jeopardized this life I had with him—this beautiful distance from the darkness of drug use, this life of books and mornings and dog walks, this life of music and love and happiness. My past and my present were polar opposites, two cities that could not be any more different or further apart, but that night they had appeared in the same room. Two versions of me had inhabited my body. Essay: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/leading-the-children-out-of-town/">Leading the Children out of Town</a>, by Jill Christman This is when I surprised myself. What should I have done? What would you have done? Should I have yelled? You irresponsible freak! You let your kid, your baby, play alone in the street? But I didn’t. The moment was so uncomfortable, so weird, a kind of joke came out of my mouth, an excuse for this poor excuse of a father. I laughed, I laughed, and I said, “I guess we were kind of like the Pied Piper, leading the children out of town!” Essay: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/fisheye-view-2/">Fisheye View,</a> by Jody Keisner The fish were the first living things we had brought into our home, under our care, since the winter day almost four years earlier we had brought Lily home. The feeling of new-mother anxiety rushed back at me; I inhaled sharply. I couldn’t bear to let anything die in her room: plant, fish, or other. Especially the other. Essay: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/bear-country/">Bear Country</a>, by BJ Hollars I worked my way down the dark hall—bypassing the dog and my infant daughter, Ellie, until arriving at my three-year-old son Henry’s room. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I noticed my wife’s silhouette alongside him, her body filling in the space where his Berenstain Bears books weren’t. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/backtalk/">Backtalk</a>: Our readers answer the question: If you could do it again, what would you tell your new mother self? “Skip the parenting books for the first two years.” – S. Pilman Fiction: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/the-night-mr-li-won-jeopardy/">The Night Mr. Li Won Jeopardy</a> by Mai Wang The Chinese residents of the Big Yard called Mama “Lucky Hands” because she drew the winning hand in their late night poker games week after week. Poetry: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/what-no-one-ever-told-you-2/">What No One Ever Told You</a> by Rebecca L’Bahy There is a bird in your throat, a rock in your ribs. Poetry: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/lessons/">Lessons</a> by Laura Lassor Motherwit: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/motherwit-child-psychology-101/">Child Psychology 101</a> by Sue Sanders Author Q&A: Brain, Child writers <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/22906/">Jill Christman</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/author-qa-liz-rognes/">Liz Rognes</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/author-qa-bj-hollars/">BJ Hollars</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/10/or-qa-jody-keisner/">Jody Keisner,</a> and <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/author-qa-mai-wang/">Mai Wang, </a>discuss writing and parenthood.   </div> </article> <article id="post-22763" class="post-22763 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/friendship/" title="Permalink to On Friendship" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Friends2-w-gray-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="On Friendship" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="On Friendship" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/friendship/" title="Permalink to On Friendship" rel="bookmark">On Friendship</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/friendship/" title="1:36 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-09-22T13:36:40-04:00" pubdate>September 22, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/friendship/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-22764" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Friends2-w-gray-1020x1024.jpg" alt="Friends2 w gray" width="640" height="643" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Friends2-w-gray-1020x1024.jpg 1020w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Friends2-w-gray-150x150.jpg 150w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Friends2-w-gray-300x300.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Friends2-w-gray-100x100.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Friends2-w-gray-232x233.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Friends2-w-gray-500x502.jpg 500w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Friends2-w-gray.jpg 1369w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /> Join us all this week for our friendship blog series. Where women get real about the joys and challenges of friendship.     </div> </article> <article id="post-22599" class="post-22599 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-brainteen tag-advice tag-college tag-katie-santa-maria tag-parenting-teens"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/top-10-tips-for-parents-of-college-students/" title="Permalink to Top 10 Tips for Parents of College Students" rel="bookmark"><img width="548" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/55962348-548x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Top 10 Tips for Parents of College Students" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Top 10 Tips for Parents of College Students" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/top-10-tips-for-parents-of-college-students/" title="Permalink to Top 10 Tips for Parents of College Students" rel="bookmark">Top 10 Tips for Parents of College Students</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/top-10-tips-for-parents-of-college-students/" title="5:09 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-09-08T17:09:53-04:00" pubdate>September 8, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/brainteen/" rel="tag">#brainteen</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/advice/" rel="tag">advice</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/college/" rel="tag">college</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/katie-santa-maria/" rel="tag">Katie Santa-Maria</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/parenting-teens/" rel="tag">parenting teens</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/top-10-tips-for-parents-of-college-students/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> By Katie Santa-Maria <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-22604" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/55962348.jpg" alt="55962348" width="640" height="364" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/55962348.jpg 548w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/55962348-300x171.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/55962348-100x57.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/55962348-232x132.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/55962348-500x285.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /> 1. Put Down The Phone: It’s hard to adjust to being apart from your child, but trying to communicate with them at all hours of the day will only push them away. They are busy. Setting aside a specific time each week to talk is a good idea and won’t overwhelm them. 2. Don’t Drop By Unannounced: The last thing you want is to surprise your child at school only to have it be the busiest weekend of the semester, and to walk into a room full of garbage and empty alcohol bottles. Instead, simply give them a heads up so they can clean up, and plan ahead to ensure they get some quality time with you. 3. Send Care Packages: What college student doesn’t love receiving free food and goodies in the mail? Aim to send care packages once a semester and for every holiday. Get creative! 4. Meet Their College Friends: Getting to know the people your child is spending time with at school is a great way to help parents feel more at ease about them being on their own. These new friends will quickly become your child’s second family. Meet them when you visit. Take them to dinner. 5. Trust Them With Their Academics: This isn’t high school anymore — the days of phone calls from teachers reporting on grades are long gone. You need to accept this. Trust that your child can manage on their own without their parents constantly checking up on their schoolwork. 6. Discuss Finances Before You Drop Them Off: College students will find a way to spend every penny in their bank account. Come up with an allowance beforehand and stick to it. 7. Plan Trips Home In Advance: Especially if your child is a plane ride away. Most colleges have similar breaks, so book tickets early to avoid being forced to spend $600 in order to get them home for Thanksgiving. 8. Subscribe Them To Your Town’s Newspaper: Leaving your child with a connection to their hometown is a great way to ease the transition to a new and unfamiliar setting. 9. Book Hotels For Visiting Weekends EARLY: You would be shocked at how early the hotels near the campus book up. Don’t be the parents that have to stay over an hour away from the school on parents weekend — be on top of this. 10. Take a Deep Breath: Try your best not to worry yourself to death — you have given your child everything they need to have a successful college experience. Trust that you have raised them right. Katie Santa-Maria is a Junior at Elon University and a summer intern at Brain, Child. Photo: gettyimages.com </div> </article> <article id="post-22564" class="post-22564 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-alice-callahan-phd tag-author-qa tag-the-science-of-mom"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/author-qa-alice-callahan-phd/" title="Permalink to Author Q&A: Alice Callahan, PhD" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Science-of-mom-Callahan_Alice_Headshot-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Author Q&A: Alice Callahan, PhD" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Author Q&A: Alice Callahan, PhD" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/author-qa-alice-callahan-phd/" title="Permalink to Author Q&A: Alice Callahan, PhD" rel="bookmark">Author Q&A: Alice Callahan, PhD</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/author-qa-alice-callahan-phd/" title="4:35 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-09-06T16:35:06-04:00" pubdate>September 6, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/alice-callahan-phd/" rel="tag">Alice Callahan PhD</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/author-qa/" rel="tag">Author Q&A</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/the-science-of-mom/" rel="tag">The Science of Mom</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/author-qa-alice-callahan-phd/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/science-mom"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-22565" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Science-of-mom-Callahan_Alice_Headshot-300x200.jpg" alt="Science of mom Callahan_Alice_Headshot" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Science-of-mom-Callahan_Alice_Headshot-300x200.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Science-of-mom-Callahan_Alice_Headshot-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Science-of-mom-Callahan_Alice_Headshot-100x67.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Science-of-mom-Callahan_Alice_Headshot-232x155.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Science-of-mom-Callahan_Alice_Headshot-500x333.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a>What was your inspiration for writing The Science of Mom? There were really two stages of inspiration. The first stage was starting the blog, and the second was writing the book. I started my blog, also called <a href="http://scienceofmom.com/">Science of Mom</a>, when my first child was around 9 months old. I had devoted the last decade of my life to scientific research, but after my daughter was born, I decided not to go back to the lab, at least for the time being. I wanted to spend more time with her, and I’d always thought about trying to be some kind of writer. The thing was, I couldn’t stop thinking about science. As a new mom, I had lots and lots of questions about how to best care for my baby, and as a scientist, I knew that science could help me answer them. I started digging into the research literature while my daughter napped. I started the blog in part as a place to put the neat things I was learning, but also because I was feeling isolated in new motherhood, having just left the workplace and moved to a new town. Once I started blogging, I was thrilled to find a community of parents who were equally as curious as I was. They read my posts and commented to share their experiences and ask more questions. They made me realize that there were other parents who did not simply want to be told how to care for a baby without also understanding why. They weren’t interested in promoting one or the other philosophy or the parenting debates that invariably put someone else down. They – like me – were interested in how science could help us to better understand our babies and how to care for them. I knew that I could put my scientific training to good use by tackling some of these questions in book format, and I was excited to have to opportunity to grow my craft of writing through this project. What was the most surprising aspect of your research? I was surprised at how difficult it was to find neat and tidy answers to some of my questions, even after reading hundreds of studies. Is it safe to bedshare with my baby? When should I start offering her solid foods? What can I do to prevent food allergies? What are the benefits of breastfeeding, and how big are they? Questions like these are actually controversial among researchers, and the science is still evolving. The science is fascinating, and we can learn a lot from it, but it also has limitations. And really, it shouldn’t surprise us that there may not be one right or best way to care for a baby, given how different babies and parents can be. There were other questions where the evidence is much stronger and more certain. For example, vaccinating your baby, getting the vitamin K shot, and laying her on her back for sleep – these are all clearly evidence-based choices. Seeing where the science is strong and where it is still uncertain can help parents be confident in some choices and feel comfortable following their gut for others. How did your own experience as a parent inform your writing? While I was writing the book, my daughter was two and three years old, and parenting brought new challenges on a daily basis. This reminded me that we’re all learning as we go, and we’re bound to make some mistakes or do whatever we need to in order to get by sometimes. We’re almost always too hard on ourselves, and sometimes others, when we talk about parenting. That’s why I think compassion and empathy are essential ingredients to writing about it, and I wanted my book to show that, even while it was focused on science. What message would you like the reader to take away after reading your book? I hope that readers understand the big picture of how science works and how to find answers to their own questions as their children grow. Science can’t give us a tidy instruction manual for how to raise kids, but it can help us sort facts from fiction in parenting advice, especially when we’re looking for information online. It can help us to stay curious and open-minded, seeking knowledge and asking more questions, which is exactly the same attitude about life that I hope to pass on to my kids. What was the toughest part of the writing process? During the 18 months that I was writing this book, I had three miscarriages. The first was just a month after I signed the book contract, and the grief brought me to my knees. The next two grew my despair and made me want another baby even more. It was one of the toughest periods of motherhood for me. It was a struggle to show up at my desk every day to work on a book about babies when I wasn’t sure I would ever have another one. On the other hand, I was glad to throw myself into the work, and it was good that I had a major project to focus on. I know this experience also made me a more careful and compassionate narrator in the book. The fourth pregnancy stuck, and the book was due right at the end of the first trimester. I had to work through a little nausea and fatigue to finish the book, but the nice thing about a looming deadline is that it makes time go faster! What books have had the greatest influence on you? In the year or so before I started writing my book, I read several that showed me that science writing could be accessible and could help us be better parents. Among these were NurtureShock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, The Panic Virus by Seth Mnookin, and Coming to Term by Jon Cohen. Equally important for understanding parenting, I think, are books that make us question our assumptions and shine a light on the importance of cultural influences and individual experience. Books that did this for me were Our Babies, Ourselves by Meredith Small, Bringing Up Bébé by Pamela Druckerman, and Bottled Up by Suzanne Barston. How do you balance motherhood and writing? Oh, this is a constant struggle for me. Writing this book was more work and took longer than I thought it would. I quickly realized that I wouldn’t be able to meet my deadline if I just wrote in little increments of naptimes, and if I tried to work late at night, I wouldn’t be able to get enough sleep. Making real time to write meant compromising time with my daughter more than I intended. But in a way, I think it was good for me to commit to writing the book and prioritize writing. It meant that my husband and daughter grew closer, and my daughter saw me working hard at something that was important to me. Finding enough time to write has gotten harder since the birth of my son, now 8 months old, but I think I’m getting better at making space for it. The beauty is that, as an introvert, writing is also my best way to reenergize and restore myself. I don’t crave pedicures or shopping. My favorite “me time” is a couple of hours at a coffee shop to write. When I can find that balance, writing and motherhood are a perfect pair for me. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/excerpt-the-science-of-mom/">Read an excerpt form The Science of Mom.</a> <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/science-mom">BUY THE BOOK</a> <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/science-mom"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-22562" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Scince-of-Mom-Cover-150x150.jpg" alt="Scince of Mom Cover" width="150" height="150" /></a> </div> </article> <article id="post-22338" class="post-22338 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-amy-yelin tag-author-qa tag-family tag-sandwich-generation"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/author-interview-amy-yelin/" title="Permalink to Author Interview: Amy Yelin" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/IMG_04501-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Author Interview: Amy Yelin" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Author Interview: Amy Yelin" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/author-interview-amy-yelin/" title="Permalink to Author Interview: Amy Yelin" rel="bookmark">Author Interview: Amy Yelin</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/author-interview-amy-yelin/" title="8:28 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-09-01T08:28:17-04:00" pubdate>September 1, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/amy-yelin/" rel="tag">Amy Yelin</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/author-qa/" rel="tag">Author Q&A</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/family/" rel="tag">family</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/sandwich-generation/" rel="tag">sandwich generation</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/09/author-interview-amy-yelin/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-22371" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/IMG_04501-300x227.jpg" alt="IMG_0450" width="300" height="227" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/IMG_04501-300x227.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/IMG_04501-100x76.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/IMG_04501-232x175.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/IMG_04501-500x378.jpg 500w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/IMG_04501.jpg 731w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Amy Yelin is the author of this month’s feature story about raising our children while also caring for our parents. Here is what she had to say about writing this feature story. What was the most surprising piece of research you found while writing the article? I was blown away by the predicted number of aging baby boomers expected by the year 2029: 61.3 million people! I must also thought the phrase “silver tsunami” was kind of brilliant. What interested you most about this topic? I had a personal interest in this topic because I am one of the sandwiched…although I didn’t really realize it until I started writing. The opportunity to research and write this piece came to me only shortly after my visit with my father in March, and after I’d spent time writing about a local assisted living facility for a freelance client. The universe apparently wanted me to focus on the sandwich generation and elder care. I was really interested in both the history of “the sandwich,” which Stephanie Coontz kindly shared, and Carol Abaya’s advice, particularly her advice not to move your elderly parent. That was new to me, and reassuring because I’ve often felt badly that I don’t live closer to my father. Also: discovering Caring Across Generations and learning about the work they are doing, which I think is just brilliant. And hopeful. What was the most challenging part of writing the article? I think it was synthesizing so much information: the research, with my story, with the interviews, both the families and the experts. Connecting all the dots–which I find both challenging and, when it eventually works, satisfying. If you were able to include more information what would you have added? Perhaps more resources for people who are living in the sandwich. Writing the story it became clear how confusing and overwhelming navigating the current system can be. And perhaps advice on how to have “the conversation” with your elderly parent(s)– about their wishes for end of life care, and whether they have the proper documents in place. It can be a really difficult conversation to have. I admit I have yet to approach the topic with my own father. What do you want the reader to take away after reading this feature? I hope readers find something to connect with–something that makes them feel better about their own situation, and to know they are not alone. One piece of advice I really love came from Stephanie Coontz who said that despite how hard the situation is for those of us who are sandwiched, in reality this is a positive development because we are doing much more for our families than people did in the past. That we can take a little solace in this. How do you balance motherhood and writing? It’s pretty challenging. Because it’s not just just motherhood and writing–it’s motherhood, writing and making a living. I recognized before kids how much joy writing brings me, so I find ways to do it, no matter what. Sometimes I run away, to writing conferences; last summer I went to to the Vermont Studio Center for two whole weeks! This was thanks to a fellowship from the Sustainable Arts Foundation, which offers money and fellowships for writing residencies to parents who have kids under age 18. Mostly it’s a crazy juggling act. I’m most prolific when I commit to getting up early in the morning and writing. I really need the quiet. And I’ve gotten better at not beating myself up when I’m not writing much. I know i’ll get back to it. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/september-2015-issue/">Return to the September 2015 Issue</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-22412" class="post-22412 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/letter-from-the-editor-new-beginnings/" title="Permalink to Editor’s Letter: New Beginnings" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Marclle-Headshot-1-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Editor’s Letter: New Beginnings" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Editor’s Letter: New Beginnings" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/letter-from-the-editor-new-beginnings/" title="Permalink to Editor’s Letter: New Beginnings" rel="bookmark">Editor’s Letter: New Beginnings</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/letter-from-the-editor-new-beginnings/" title="12:27 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-08-31T12:27:16-04:00" pubdate>August 31, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/letter-from-the-editor-new-beginnings/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-22221" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Marclle-Headshot-1-200x300.jpg" alt="Marclle Headshot 1" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Marclle-Headshot-1-200x300.jpg 200w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Marclle-Headshot-1-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Marclle-Headshot-1-87x130.jpg 87w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Marclle-Headshot-1-433x650.jpg 433w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />September is a time of new beginnings—backpacks stuffed with wide-lined notebooks, sharpened pencils and thick books—And here at Brain, Child we also begin anew with our <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/letter-to-our-subscribers/">first ever monthly issue.</a> We’ve had a busy summer updating Brain, Child to a monthly format, and we are excited to be able to share additional essays, stories, feature articles, poetry, debates and book reviews over the course of the coming year. Since 2000, it has been our tradition and <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/about/mission-statement/">our mission</a> to celebrate the joys and challenges of motherhood through the best writing available. Brain, Child essays and stories have won numerous <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/brain-child-awards/">awards </a>over the years and we continue to pave the way for thoughtful reading about motherhood that encourages connection, invokes discussion, and has the power to change lives. Our inaugural September 2015 issue includes Amy Yelin’s investigative feature story that provides a look into the Sandwich Generation—those of us who are taking care of our children as well as aging parents. Sara Tickanen’s brave narrative takes us through the journey of surviving a stillbirth and Dorothy Rice wrestles with what she missed while raising her young son and struggling to work full time. In fiction our narrator explores the feelings of disappointing a child, and the fear of letting go of our children as they grow. Enjoy the issue, and stay tuned as we move forward over the next few months. I’m so glad you are with us. —Marcelle Marcelle Soviero Editor-in-Chief Brain, Child: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers marcelle@brainchildmag.com <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/september-2015-issue/">Return to the September 2015 Issue</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-22271" class="post-22271 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-debatem-homework tag-middle-school tag-sarah-rudell-beach tag-school tag-stephanie-sprenge"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/debate-should-children-have-homework-in-elementary-school/" title="Permalink to Debate: Should Children Have Homework In Elementary School?" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/WO-Debate-Art-No--664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Debate: Should Children Have Homework In Elementary School?" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Debate: Should Children Have Homework In Elementary School?" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/debate-should-children-have-homework-in-elementary-school/" title="Permalink to Debate: Should Children Have Homework In Elementary School?" rel="bookmark">Debate: Should Children Have Homework In Elementary School?</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/debate-should-children-have-homework-in-elementary-school/" title="3:19 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-08-30T15:19:20-04:00" pubdate>August 30, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/debatem-homework/" rel="tag">debatem homework</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/middle-school/" rel="tag">Middle School</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/sarah-rudell-beach/" rel="tag">Sarah Rudell Beach</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/school/" rel="tag">school</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/stephanie-sprenge/" rel="tag">Stephanie Sprenge</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/debate-should-children-have-homework-in-elementary-school/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <h2><a href="https://brainchildmag.com"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-22440" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/WO-Debate-Art-No--275x300.jpg" alt="WO Debate Art No" width="275" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/WO-Debate-Art-No--275x300.jpg 275w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/WO-Debate-Art-No--100x109.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/WO-Debate-Art-No--232x253.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/WO-Debate-Art-No--500x545.jpg 500w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/WO-Debate-Art-No-.jpg 764w" sizes="(max-width: 275px) 100vw, 275px" /></a>No!</h2> By Stephanie Sprenger My family recently experienced an unusually relaxed, harmonious week. I’d like to attribute the shift to a stellar parenting course or to the fact that we’d all taken up meditation, but the reason was more sobering—my third grader had a significantly reduced homework load. Instead of the usual bundle of language exercises, reading log, and daily math worksheets, she was responsible for less than half of that. The difference was impossible to ignore. Since my daughter started kindergarten, daily homework has been a part of our lives and, unfortunately, both she and I have come to dread it. While we enjoy the accountability of filling out a reading log (as we both love reading books), and we have fun with the occasional school project, the daily worksheets are time-consuming at best and stressful at worst. When math worksheets were introduced in first grade, I was horrified at the amount of time I spent sitting at the kitchen table after school with an emotional six-year-old. Often, homework ended with both of us in tears and me uncorking my bottle of Cabernet, because, let’s face it, homework time had clearly become the new Happy Hour. “That’s not the right way to do it!” my tearful daughter shouted. “You have to build a math mountain first!” This kind of language barrier is one of my primary complaints about regular math homework. More daunting than the reality of a two-parent working home and not enough hours in the day, many of us simply don’t understand our children’s assignments. I have no doubt that today’s method of instruction is superior, despite the droves of angry parents protesting the “new math” and forming irate Facebook communities. But that doesn’t change my inability to grasp the techniques. Where we live, parents do not receive a comprehensive tutorial or webinar instructing them how to “make a ten” or avoid the outdated “carry the one” terminology. And my daughter can’t explain it either, which leads me to believe she shouldn’t be bringing it home. Parents in our culture receive mixed messages about how we are to approach childhood; we exchange sentimental quips about how fast it goes and how we should savor every minute, and in the next breath we prematurely push our children to be responsible, work-driven mini-adults. When do they get to just be kids? With the metamorphosis of extracurricular activities into high-pressured endeavors, our children already enjoy far less unstructured time than their parents did. If they are supposed to be involved in competitive sports, foreign languages, musical instruments, and religious or philanthropic organizations, where is the time for family meals, relaxing with a good book, and roaming freely with their neighborhood friends? Current research does not support a strong enough correlation between homework and academic success to make it worth the headache. When I consider the fact that my own daughter—who is a very competent reader and a good student—experiences anxiety about homework, I wonder what it must be like for others who have reading difficulties or special needs. Regardless of individual learning style and aptitude, there is too much pressure to excel, too soon. Perhaps children would feel more motivated and proud to complete occasional assignments and larger projects; homework could become more of a “grown-up” novelty rather than a constant source of resentment. There are better ways to teach children responsibility and work ethic than daily homework in elementary school—they have their teen years to learn how to both pace and push themselves academically. It is more important at this age to develop a positive association with learning and school. Children put in five full days a week at school, which is plenty of time for them to learn the academic skills they need. What they need after school, just like adults, is time to unwind. The insidious emphasis on perfectionism, discipline, and performance that homework reinforces has created a lack of balance, which is pushing many families to their breaking point. These are not values I wish to impress upon my children. At their age, I would much rather they embrace a slower pace that allows them to enjoy their lives. Stephanie Sprenger is a writer, music therapist, and mother of two girls. She is co-editor at The HerStories Project and blogs at stephaniesprenger.com. <h2 style="text-align: center;">***</h2> <h2>YES!</h2> By Sarah Rudell Beach When my daughter, now a second-grader, started Kindergarten, she rushed into the house one day after school and gleefully exclaimed, “Mommy, I have homework!” She proudly showed me her assignment, sat down to work, and felt so grownup. When I explain a homework assignment to my tenth-graders, I don’t get quite the same reaction. Somewhere between Kindergarten and high school, homework seems to have lost its luster. But even so, the parents of these same students tell me that their children excitedly share stories about Henry VIII or the French Revolution with them after completing their nightly reading. Children – from bubbly kindergarteners to slacking seniors – want to learn. And we all know they need to learn. Direct instruction and supervised practice of newly acquired skills in the classroom is an indispensable component of their education. Continued practice at home is a valuable opportunity to reinforce and extend their learning. Homework, within appropriate guidelines, is a worthwhile practice even for elementary students. When it is not assigned simply to fill time (the dreaded “busy work”) and when students are able to complete it reasonably quickly—kids need downtime after school as well—homework can provide many benefits. It gets parents involved. I’m on Facebook enough to see how parents struggle with understanding Common Core homework—I’ve had my own humbling moments of being unable to help my daughter with her second-grade math. But it is not about us teaching the math to them. It is about knowing what they are learning and what they are struggling with, and learning with them. When our children get stuck, we are not going to have every answer for them, whether the issue is a new way to do addition or how to deal with not getting invited to a friend’s birthday party. What we can provide is our supportive presence and gentle advice: “Maybe you can talk to your teacher tomorrow and ask her to explain this problem to you.” Research indicates that parental involvement and support is a crucial factor in children’s academic success. Signing those homework logs and checking off the math assignments allows us to stay informed of our children’s progress and, most importantly, lets our children know we value their education and their achievements. It supports learning. Cognitive psychologists speak of a phenomenon known as the “spacing effect.” This well-documented concept means that learning is more durable, and less prone to being forgotten, if it is distributed, with several practice sessions spaced out over time. This is fancy-talk for the idea that “cramming” doesn’t work. High-quality homework helps students distribute their learning – they learn a new concept at school, practice with their teacher, and then move on to another subject, eat lunch, go out for recess, and then go to art class. Later that day, perhaps after dinner, they return to the concept, and practice it again. This act of retrieving the memory of the day’s lesson and reapplying the skills learned reinforces their new knowledge. When the teacher references it again in class the next day, their learning resurfaces more quickly. It informs teachers of student progress. Homework is a core element of formative assessment, which informs us about progress toward a learning target. The homework that is returned the next day provides a teacher with valuable feedback—where does this student struggle when she needs to do this skill on her own? Quality homework supports more personalized learning. This is also why it is so important that children complete their homework assignments themselves. It develops healthy habits. In addition to the knowledge and skills acquired, nightly homework helps children develop disciplined habits and routines. By the time they are in middle school, and certainly high school, students will have several classes’ worth of homework to balance. By starting our children with small amounts of homework—generally 10 minutes per night per grade—we help them develop the discipline they will need as they progress in their education. It’s the discipline we all need in order to set aside time for the important work that needs to be done each day. Whether homework is met with joy or eye-rolling (and whether that’s from the kids or the parents), if it is of high quality, used to formatively assess student progress, and assigned in moderation, it is a valuable component of a child’s elementary school education. Sarah Rudell Beach is a high school teacher, writer, and a mother of two. She is a contributing author to The HerStories Project and Sunshine After the Storm and blogs at leftbrainbuddha.com. <h2 style="text-align: center;">***</h2> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/september-2015-issue/">Return to the September 2015 Issue</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-22358" class="post-22358 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-conflict tag-jennifer-freed tag-poetry tag-teen tag-tween"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/how-to-love-your-teenage-daughter/" title="Permalink to How to Love Your Teenage Daughter" rel="bookmark"><img width="500" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/path-500x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="How to Love Your Teenage Daughter" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="How to Love Your Teenage Daughter" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/how-to-love-your-teenage-daughter/" title="Permalink to How to Love Your Teenage Daughter" rel="bookmark">How to Love Your Teenage Daughter</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/how-to-love-your-teenage-daughter/" title="3:15 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-08-30T15:15:15-04:00" pubdate>August 30, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/conflict/" rel="tag">conflict</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/jennifer-freed/" rel="tag">Jennifer Freed</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/poetry/" rel="tag">poetry</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/teen/" rel="tag">Teen</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/tween/" rel="tag">tween</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/how-to-love-your-teenage-daughter/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-22360 alignleft" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/path.jpg" alt="path" width="500" height="375" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/path.jpg 500w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/path-300x225.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/path-100x75.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/path-232x174.jpg 232w" sizes="(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px" />                           By Jennifer L. Freed Start early, while she is still too young to pull back from your touch. Teach her the language of your eyes, your arms, your wordless hand brushing along her hair as she slips past you in the morning bustle of the kitchen. Kiss her with the breath of onions. Close your eyes, if you need to, while she leaps. Hold your tongue. Bite it, if necessary. Cut her food for her, if necessary. Know that it may be necessary, even though her teeth are strong. Let her try on your clothes. Let her wear them for an hour, or a day, then shrug them off with a disdainful gaze. Tell her why they suit you, and that they did not always. Tell her you once tried to make a fairy’s home of forest moss and garden flowers, and tell her that you failed. Look her in the eyes. Apologize. Get two pairs of work gloves, two shovels. Ask her where to build a mountain. Ask her to help. When you are tired, climb the mountain with her. Destroy it with her. Get the shovels, and build with her again. Give her a Swiss Army knife, and sturdy shoes, an ocean stone to fit into the center of her fisted palm. These will serve her when she leaves you. Know that she will leave you. Know that your job is to teach her how, and to want her to stay. <h2 style="text-align: left;">***</h2> Jennifer L. Freed’s poems have appeared in Poetry East, Literary Mama, The Worcester Review, The Christian Science Monitor and others. Her first chapbook, These Hands Still Holding, (Finishing Line Press, 2014) was a finalist in the 2013 New Women’s Voices contest. photo: the winding road | http://matthewwills.com <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/september-2015-issue/">Return to the September 2015 Issue</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-22362" class="post-22362 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-disney tag-fiction tag-frozen tag-hannah-thurman tag-mother-daughter tag-tween"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/fiction-losing-hart/" title="Permalink to Fiction: Losing Hart" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/sing-Hart-ART-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Fiction: Losing Hart" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Fiction: Losing Hart" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/fiction-losing-hart/" title="Permalink to Fiction: Losing Hart" rel="bookmark">Fiction: Losing Hart</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/fiction-losing-hart/" title="3:11 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-08-30T15:11:58-04:00" pubdate>August 30, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/disney/" rel="tag">Disney</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/fiction/" rel="tag">fiction</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/frozen/" rel="tag">Frozen</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/hannah-thurman/" rel="tag">Hannah Thurman</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/mother-daughter/" rel="tag">mother-daughter</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/tween/" rel="tag">tween</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/fiction-losing-hart/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-22364" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/sing-Hart-ART-1024x670.jpg" alt="sing Hart ART" width="640" height="419" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/sing-Hart-ART-1024x670.jpg 1024w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/sing-Hart-ART-300x196.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/sing-Hart-ART-100x65.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/sing-Hart-ART-232x152.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/sing-Hart-ART-500x327.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /> By Hannah Thurman When Brenden calls the hotel, a waiter brings Kelly the phone on a Mickey Mouse platter. She and Hart are alone in the restaurant, drinking orange juice out of champagne flutes. It’s not quite five in the morning but it’s already hot. Across the lobby, automatic doors open every few minutes to let in monorail trains, and in with them comes the humid Orlando air. “Is everything okay?” she asks her ex-husband. “Why didn’t you call my cell?” “You didn’t pick up,” he says. “And this is important.” “Sorry,” she says. “I couldn’t hear it buzz.” Brenden’s usually even tone sounds a little rushed. “Hey, can I talk to Hart?” “What about?” “I’d rather tell her first.” Kelly hands the receiver to her daughter without saying goodbye. “It’s Daddy.” Hart takes the phone. “Hi! Yeah, I remember. That’s great. Wow. Yeah, probably. Okay, I’ll tell her. Bye.” She presses a button on the phone and sets it down on the table. “Daddy says he e-mailed my portfolio to the art teacher at Phillips. She really liked it. She said if I decide to go there, I can go straight into seventh-grade drawing.” “That’s really great,” Kelly says. “It was nice of your father to get up so early to tell you.” But to her, the timing seems calculated. Hart has lived in DC with her for the past four years, but at the end of fifth grade, Brenden got her an interview at a private middle school near his house in Fairfax. Just to see, he’d said. But since she’d gotten in, he’d lobbied hard, sending Hart video clips of the ecology club, skiing field trips, and a remarkable rendition of Anything Goes. Now this. But she wasn’t going to give up without a fight. She couldn’t compete with Phillips’s appeal on academic grounds—Hart had gotten none of her charter picks and would otherwise have to attend Kennedy, the underfunded, overcrowded public school nearby—so she had arranged this trip. She knew it was a low blow, the kind of one-upsmanship they’d promised to avoid. But if Hart chose Phillips, she was left with weekends and holidays and Hart was still so young. She squeezes Hart’s arm. “You ready to go see Elsa? Do you need anything from the room?” “Nope.” Hart slides off the seat and pulls a pair of white, wrist-length gloves from the back pocket of her shorts. “Got it.” She tugs on the gloves and flicks a crumb off her chair. “Let’s go.” Kelly can’t resist. “Don’t you mean let it go?” she says. “Mom,” Hart says, “Please don’t embarrass me.” She shakes her head as she walks up the carpeted steps towards the monorail. Kelly’s tempted to start singing, or repeat the joke louder, but then remembers the mission at hand: show Hart how fun things can be if she chooses to stay with her. So she puts her hands in her pockets and follows her daughter silently a few paces behind. The sea-foam green train that comes is empty, but two mothers get in at the stop for the next hotel. Their daughters are younger than Hart, seven or eight, and are both wearing blue polyester princess dresses. One of the mothers waves at Hart. “I love your gloves, honey. They’re just like Elsa’s.” She slurps at her drink, a beige-colored coffee topped with a mountain of foam and drizzled chocolate. Kelly smiles tersely. Five days a week, she lobbies for a nonprofit that promotes conservation and healthy eating. Disney seems diametrically opposed to both of these aims, and Kelly imagines the Florida landfills are packed with coffee cups like this one, ripped princess dresses, and discarded mouse hats. Hart examines her gloves. “Thank you,” she says after a moment. “They don’t sell them at the Disney store so I bought them online. They’re for people who bite their fingernails. I don’t bite my fingernails though; they’re just a costume.” The two women cackle. “She’s too stinking funny,” one says. Kelly tries not to groan. The women are wearing little gold crosses on top of their pastel t-shirts. Homeschoolers, probably. Religious nuts. She puts her arm around Hart. “So do you think we’re here early enough?” she says. One of the women yawns. “Our bellhop told us some moms left before four. But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.” The monorail slows into a nearly empty station. Another woman gets on, carrying a sleeping girl wearing a snowflake nightgown. “Oh, my lord,” the two moms say, turning away from Kelly and Hart. “What an angel. An absolute angel.” When they’re not looking, Kelly whispers in Hart’s ear. “Take off your gloves, sweetie. I’m gonna need you to use your powers to freeze their vocal chords.” Hart rolls her eyes. “Mom,” she says again. “I’m only joking,” Kelly says. “I know.” Hart turns to look out the window and Kelly folds her own hands in her lap. She suspects Hart frequently pretends to be Elsa, the Disney princess who can conjure snow from her fingertips and freeze water with a touch. But whenever Kelly mentions the playacting, Hart scoffs. Pretend is for babies and she’s almost eleven. She likes Frozen because it has good music and because she wants to be an animator when she grows up. But she still wears the gloves almost everywhere they go, and Kelly wonders who Hart would encase in ice if she could. <blockquote> <h2 style="text-align: center;">When they’re not looking, Kelly whispers, “Take off your gloves, sweetie. I’m gonna need you to use your powers to freeze their vocal chords.”</h2> </blockquote>   The monorail glides around a bend and the park appears, bright as a cartoon. Rollercoaster tracks loop behind the castle, which stands uninterrupted against the pale sky. Kelly checks her phone. It’s 5:27. The park won’t open for two and a half hours, but there’s already a line forming against the front gate. The monorail slows. The doors hiss open and they spring through them, past the rows of stanchions ready for the morning rush, then down the concrete steps to the park entrance. Their footfalls echo across the wide expanse and for a moment, it feels as if they are the only people left in a deserted world. They slow down at the ticket-takers and present their purple wristbands. “All right, you can go,” the ticket taker says and they run the last few steps towards the line. The line is less of a line and more of a mass of people, almost all female, pressing towards the enormous gold gates. Kelly and Hart take a spot between an Asian woman with twin girls and a bored-looking teenager in track shoes. When he looks away, Hart whispers in Kelly’s ear that he must be a runner. Apparently some parents have been paying locals to wait in line for them. Once Kelly heard about this, the whole activity seemed even more revolting. Rich, lazy people will always find a way to come out ahead. Hart asks for Kelly’s phone to look up Frozen facts. There’s an almost unending supply of them online, and through Hart’s recitation, Kelly has learned that Elsa has been the most popular Disney attraction for over sixteen weeks. “Did you know Elsa is the first Disney princess not to be a teenager?” Hart says, twisting her thumb out of the glove so she can scroll down the screen. “She’s 21. And she’s only the second princess to have magical powers.” “What about Cinderella?” Kelly asks. “No, that was all the fairy godmother, remember?” “Oh yeah.” While Kelly doesn’t mind Elsa as a character, she’s disheartened by Hart’s sudden obsession with princesses. They seem for the most part vapid and anti-feminist. “Elsa was originally going to have spiky hair. The first time they wrote the movie, she was going to be the villain,” Hart says. One of the girls in front of them, a chubby redhead who looks like she’s about nine, says, “That’s not true. Elsa’s always been good!” Hart sighs. “In the final version, she’s good. But when they were writing it, the authors were thinking about making her evil. They rewrote it four times.” The girl crosses her arms. “You’re wrong. Elsa’s good. That’s why she’s my favorite.” Hart addresses her with a patient tone. “She’s my favorite too, but it says so right here on Buzzfeed.” “I’m not allowed to go to that site. It’s for the devil. You’re going to Hell.” Kelly taps the girl’s mom on the shoulder. She is broad and permed and engrossed in something large-print on her Kindle. “Excuse me,” Kelly says. “Your daughter just told mine she was going to Hell.” The woman yawns and does not cover her mouth. “I said probably,” Devil girl says. “Settle down, Kasey,” the woman says. “Could you please get her to apologize?” Kelly says. “That hurts my daughter’s feelings.” “No, it doesn’t,” Hart says. “Looks like it doesn’t,” Devil girl’s mother says, turning away. “Of course it did,” Kelly says. “Now I’d love it if you could ask your kid to say she’s sorry.” “Mom,” Hart says. “Stop it, please.” Kelly grits her teeth and backs away. These people are exactly why she hates Disneyworld. The mom probably eats meat three times a day, drives an SUV, and votes a straight Republican ticket if she votes at all. They’re the sorts of people she imagines send their kids to school at Phillips, although this woman looks like she’s spent about a semester’s tuition on Coach products alone. Kelly is counting the linked C’s on her massive purse when Hart taps her on the arm. “You have a text from dad,” she says, handing her the phone. “I didn’t read it.” “Thanks, sweetie.” Kelly takes the phone from her and opens the message. Dear Kelly, it begins. For a VP of software, Brenden’s never mastered the etiquette of texting. I hope you are having a good time at Disney. It would be great if you could confirm if Hart wants to go to Phillips TODAY. If we want to lock in that art class, they need an answer tonight. There’s other people on the waiting list. I’ll call you later this evening. Hope you are having a great time. Brenden. “What’s he say?” Hart says. Kelly pauses. “He says he wants us to have a great time.” “That’s a long text,” Hart says, but Kelly quickly deletes it. “Is daddy going to meet us at the airport? If so, you should see his new car. It has a talking GPS and last time I asked it to find my butt.” She imitates the Siri voice. “I’m sorry, I can’t locate ‘my butt’ nearby.” Kelly smiles. “Maybe. Do you like it better than riding the metro?” “The metro smells,” Hart says and Kelly looks away. When Hart was younger, she used to love riding trains. She’d always beg Kelly to be allowed to yell up at the arched ceiling of the stations, giggling when she heard her own voice echo back to her. It makes Kelly’s stomach sink to discover she can’t remember when Hart stopped doing this. A few feet away, a man in a striped shirt is selling a tray full of drinks with purple straws. Kelly’s eager to switch the subject, so she waves to him. “You want a drink?” she asks Hart. “Really?” Hart says. Kelly hands the man a twenty. He gives her back four ones—the waste!—and an enormous plastic cup printed with hologrammed snowflakes. Kelly takes a sip before handing it to her daughter. The lemonade is the consistency of a slurpie and twice as sweet. Kelly rarely lets Hart have anything this processed, but she hands the cup to Hart anyway. “Thank you!” Hart says, wrapping both gloved hands around it. “Oh my gosh, this is so good.” She giggles. “They should call it Frozen-frozen lemonade!” Kelly laughs, feeling the anxiety subsiding. She checks the time. Just one more hour. She does not reply to Brenden’s text and puts her phone back in her pocket. The sun rises higher over the castle and everyone begins to sweat, the air smelling like coconut sunscreen. More people arrive by the minute, and it’s clear they’re not Frozen folk, just families who want to be in and out before noon. Most of them have children in jogging strollers. Kelly remembers when Hart was that small and it doesn’t seem like so long ago, like the year before last, but that’s not true, Hart’s almost a teenager. A few more years and she’ll be gone for good. She watches her daughter suck frozen lemonade through the thick straw, and promises herself once again that she’ll do whatever it takes. “Good lemonade?” she asks. “Yeah,” Hart says. Kelly is about to ask if she wants a snack, maybe they sell Elsa enchiladas or snowmen-shaped cinnamon rolls, but a hush falls over the crowd and she turns to see what everyone’s looking at. Staff members in Mickey Mouse ears have begun making their way to the gate. Remember, no pushing, they say. Remember, no pushing. Despite their warnings, the crowd begins pressing towards the gate, condensing into a solid mass of bodies. Sweaty arms keep brushing up against Kelly and she pulls Hart in front of her. “Are you okay?” Kelly says. “Yeah,” Hart says, “Can I have your phone again?” Kelly has to elbow someone just to reach into her pocket. She hands the phone back to Hart. It’s 7:45, 7:47, 7:50. The little girl next to them begins to cry. When her mother picks her up and wades back through the crowd, Kelly can breathe for just a moment, then people step forward to fill the space and she’s surrounded again. Her heart rattles. She feels like a cow bound for slaughter. She squeezes Hart’s shoulders until Hart tells her to stop. “Are you okay?” Kelly asks. “I’m fine,” Hart says. “Are you okay?” Kelly has never liked crowds and the hot thick air reminds her of a story she heard once about a woman who fell down a stream-filled manhole. When paramedics pulled her out, her skin was loose and red like a cooked lobster’s. But they’re so close. She stands on her tiptoes to suck in a breath of untainted air. A countdown starts echoing through the crowd. It grows louder and faster as people chant: 51, 50, 49. “You ready?” Kelly asks Hart. Hart doesn’t turn around but nods, clapping her gloved hands to the beat of the numbers. 35, 34, 33. Kelly spots Devil girl a few feet away. She and her mother are both wearing hard plastic sandals. She hopes they get blisters. She wonders if Devil girl will cry when they aren’t first in line. Thinking about that calms her down a little. 11, 10, 9, 8. The gates begin to open, swinging inward on a grooved track. The staff members back into the park and move out of the way, smiles stretched across their faces. 4, 3, 2— The first people begin running through the gates and the crowd lurches ahead. Kelly grabs Hart’s gloved hand and springs forward onto the pavement. The sun is hot already and Kelly feels sweat run down her neck as she and Hart race past the silent gift shops and empty green lawns. She does not look behind her, but she can hear the rumble of feet and wheels as everyone makes a beeline for the castle. Elsa’s appearance will take place on the left side stage, tucked into a stony alcove called “the chamber.” Hart’s fingers feel hot through the gloves. A 20-something sprints past them, and Kelly feels a stab of jealousy. One more person in front of them. She pulls them both forward, purse flopping against her side. The cobblestones end and they jog onto the painted asphalt that surrounds the castle, racing towards a flag that says “front of line.” An arrow points towards a roped-off area surrounded on two sides by artificial rocks. The sun reflects off the high castle windows, splashing Kelly with flashes of light and heat. Her mouth feels sticky from the lemonade. With one last push, Hart and Kelly careen towards the flag. Only a handful of people stand there already, and they all look like they’re saving places for someone else—most have already gotten out cell phones, breathlessly saying they’ve made it. “We made it!” Kelly says. She looks behind her as the line grows and grows. She can’t spot Devil girl or her mother anywhere. “Awesome job,” she says to Hart. Hart nods, sucking deeply at her lemonade. “Those people in the back are going to be waiting for hours.” “I believe it,” Kelly says. “Hey, do you think it’s the same actor who plays her all day?” She pauses. “Um—” Hart shrugs. “I know she’s not real-real.” <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-22387" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/images-21.jpg" alt="images-2" width="517" height="387" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/images-21.jpg 259w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/images-21-100x75.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/images-21-232x174.jpg 232w" sizes="(max-width: 517px) 100vw, 517px" /> Kelly wants to ask her what real-real means. Are there levels of realness that Hart believes in, stacking Santa versus angels versus the onstage persona of Taylor Swift? But it seems like a silly question and anyway they’re now distracted by the arrival of children who’ve come to replace the runners in front of them. “Cheaters,” she whispers at Hart but just as she says that, a woman pushes up a girl in a wheelchair. “Okay, not her,” she says but Hart doesn’t smile. She’s got her eyes trained on the stage, where two men are setting up a cushioned throne and a microphone. They disappear into a door in the rock and Hart leans forward. “Oh my gosh,” she whispers. The door reopens and out walks a tall, pale woman in a sequined dress. Her white-blonde hair is thick, twisted into a complicated braid laced with tiny sparkling things. She steps out onto the platform and Hart’s eyes grow big. “Good morning,” Elsa says. “It is truly a magical day!” She clasps her hands. Kelly sees she is not wearing gloves, but that makes sense. She’s Elsa from the end of the movie, after she’s accepted her powers and stepped into her rightful role as queen. “My sister Anna told me I was here to meet my subjects, but she must’ve been mistaken. You aren’t subjects at all—you’re… princesses!” Children begin to shriek. The girl in the wheelchair in front of them claps so hard she has to bend over. “Thank you all so much for coming,” Elsa says. “I can’t wait to meet each and every one of you.” Then she replaces the microphone and sits down on the snowflake throne. Kelly fans herself with her hand. Her cheeks feel hot and she can’t stop staring at the stage. Elsa’s skin is flawless, her mouth painted with perfect lines of red. When she blinks, her eyelashes actually sparkle. “She’s so beautiful,” Kelly says, taking Hart’s hand. Hart grins and grins. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. I want them to take two pictures. One with just me, then one with you and me. Wait, three pictures and we can do one with a gap so we can Photoshop in daddy.” Even this mention of Brenden doesn’t slow Kelly down. The excitement has overtaken her. She feels more centered than she does after hours of yoga. It’s embarrassing and silly but she doesn’t care. They’re about to meet a princess. She stares at Elsa’s white wrists, wondering if wearing sunscreen every day would make her skin half as soft. There must be some kind of laser that will peel off her epidermis until only princess skin remains. She’s imagining what a machine that does that would look like when she hears a familiar voice. “God bless you,” it says. “You’re an angel.” She turns around. Devil girl and her mother are squeezing into line behind them, and Kelly sees the woman they’ve cut folding a wad of bills into her wallet. “Whoa,” Kelly says. “What are you doing?” The mother smiles. “That’s none of your business.” “You just paid that woman to get in line. That’s not fair.” “Calm down,” the mother says. “We’re all going to the same place.” “Yeah,” Kelly says. “But some of us got here first because we’re in shape.” She’s furious that they’re going to have to share space with these morons, that they’re ruining her moment with Elsa. <blockquote> <h2 style="text-align: center;"></h2> <h2 style="text-align: center;">Hart grins and grins. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. I want them to take two pictures. One with just me, then one with you and me. Wait, three pictures and we can do one with a gap so we can Photoshop in daddy.”</h2> </blockquote>   Hart tugs at Kelly’s arm. “Mom,” she says. “What do you mean, ‘in shape’?” Devil girl’s mother moves towards Kelly. She is wearing rose-scented perfume that does not cover up the sour smell of sweat. “I think it was pretty clear,” Kelly says. The mother lurches towards her but Kelly steps away. The line has begun to move so the disruption goes unoticed, everyone shuffling forward in fits and starts. Out of the corner of her eye, Kelly can see the first little girls approaching the throne. Hart looks from Elsa to Kelly. “Don’t do anything, mom.” The woman nods sharply towards Hart. “Looks like your daughter could teach you some manners.” Kelly turns away to keep from slapping her. “Almost there,” she says. They are now right behind the photographer. Elsa poses with three little girls wearing matching pink baseball caps. Her dark eyes sparkle. “Are you excited?” Kelly asks Hart, pushing them both as far forward as possible, away from the odious pair behind them. They are now second in line, watching the girl in the wheelchair roll ahead. Kelly and Hart both watch as Elsa bends down to hug her. “Looks like you’ve brought your own throne,” Elsa says. “She’s perfect,” Hart breathes, but then Kelly hears a thick laugh. She whirls around and Devil girl’s mother is rolling her eyes. “She’s perfect,” Devil girl mocks. “No,” Hart says but before she can say anything else, Kelly snatches the cup of lemonade out of her hand. It’s heavy, still half full, and she yanks the lid off with one jerk. The girl in the wheelchair begins wheeling away and it’s their turn, they should be moving towards the throne but she’s struck, paralyzed by anger and the power she holds in the cup in her hand. Devil girl and her mother grin wide, flat suburban grins. Kelly cocks her arm back and hurls the contents of the cup into their pudgy faces. Their reaction is immediate. Both lunge forward, clawing at Hart and Kelly with dripping fingers. The children around them shriek. Devil girl’s mother lets out a string of growling curses, flinging glops of frozen lemonade off her red face. Blood pounds through Kelly’s hands as she throws herself towards them. The rest of the line moves back. Elsa gets out of the throne, moving quickly towards the back of the stage, then disappears through a metal door. Kelly sees the sparkling edge of her dress flash once, then it’s gone. She feels a tight grip on her arm. A man in a security jacket and mouse ears pulls her out of the line. “Stay out! Stay out!” Devil girl’s mom shrieks but then another man appears and marches her away in the same direction. Hart and the other girl pause for a moment, faces white, then follow their mothers as they walk past the line and back towards the park entrance. The guards do not speak. They lead the group down the Disney main street and out towards a plain door in the back of one of the pink buildings. Devil girl is crying loud sobs and in spite of all of this, Kelly wants to kick her. The guards pull them down a long gray hallway and turn at the end into what looks like a small conference room. Nothing is rounded, nothing is pastel. The only sign that they’re still in the park is faint Muzak coming through the walls, which is playing the theme from Beauty and the Beast. “Why don’t you take a seat,” one of the guards says. The four slide into high-backed rolling chairs. The air feels very cold. Kelly looks at Hart. Hart looks away. “We know waiting in line can be stressful, but your behavior out there was inappropriate,” the first one says. “When you push and shove, you set a bad example for your families and for the park.” “Excuse me,” Devil girl’s mother says. “We were just minding our own business. This lady poured her drink on me.” Kelly snorts. “You were mocking us. You insulted my daughter.” “Jeez, mom.” Hart puts her face in her hands. Her gloves are stained yellow from the lemonade. “I didn’t care what she was saying.” “See?” Devil girl’s mother says. “Now please, let me and my kid back in that line.” She starts to stand up but one of the guards holds up a hand. “I’m sorry,” he says. “But we have a zero tolerance policy for these kinds of incidents. You’re all banned from all Disney parks for the rest of the calendar year.” “We’re going to need your wristbands,” the other guard says, pulling out a pair of long-handled scissors. Devil girl’s mother sputters. “Are you crazy?” she keeps saying. “Do you know what we paid for this?” “What about Epcot?” Kelly asks as the guard snips the band from her wrist. He shakes his head. “You could do Seaworld, or Universal Studios. I’m sorry, I hate-hate doing this.” Kelly wonders if hate-hate is the same as real-real. The guard’s face is sad and young, he’s probably closer to Hart’s age than to her own. She begins to feel a weight crushing down on her shoulders, back and neck. She has ruined everything. “Sweetheart,” she says to Hart but Hart gets up. Kelly follows her to the door. “Wait,” the nice guard says and they both turn. He walks towards them. “Yes?” Kelly says. “What is it?” “I need to escort you out.” He puts a hand on Hart’s shoulder. “Come on,” he says. “I’ll drop you off at the monorail entrance.” Behind them, Kelly hears the other mother start to cry. “I want a refund,” she says. “It isn’t fair.” The monorail back to the hotel is empty and cold. Sugar from the lemonade glues Kelly to her seat. Her throat is tight. “Hart,” she says again. “I’m so sorry.” Hart flops her gloves back and forth in her hands. “I’ll pay someone to wait tomorrow,” Kelly says. “We’ll put up your hair and they won’t recognize you, you can just find the runner and I’ll give you the money. I’ll buy you a new wristband.” Hart shrugs. “And today we can still go to Seaworld. Don’t you want to see a killer whale show?” Hart finally speaks. “You always say it’s cruel to keep them in those tanks.” Kelly pauses. “They’re already in there, how much more can it matter?” Hart frowns at her. “I’m tired,” she says. “I don’t want to go anywhere.” The monorail zips along in silence. It stops at the first hotel but they’re going the wrong way so no one gets on. “Well,” Kelly says. “Since we’re not seeing Elsa, I may as well tell you, your dad wants you to decide about Phillips today. That art class sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it?” “No,” Hart says. “It doesn’t.” Kelly blinks. “What?” “Daddy’s going to be mad but I don’t care. All my friends are going to Kennedy. And Phillips has to wear those stupid uniforms. And they don’t have dances. It’s retarded.” Kelly unsticks herself from her seat and turns to face her daughter. She’s never heard Hart say that word. Or express any interest in dances. I should feel happy, she thinks. This is what I wanted. “So you want to stay with me?” Kelly says. “You want to keep living in DC?” Hart shrugs. “I want to go to Kennedy.” “Wow,” Kelly says. “Wow.” She slides closer to Hart. “I’m so sorry about today,” she says again. “I was a little stressed out. I was worried you were going to leave me.” Hart doesn’t say anything. She scratches at her cheek. Kelly puts an arm around her. “I’ll make this up to you,” she says. “I promise.” The doors open and Hart stands up. “It’s okay,” Hart says. “I don’t care. Frozen is for babies.” They step down the carpeted steps of the hotel. Everything smells like chlorine and maple syrup. The doors close behind them and Kelly turns to see if they’ve left anything on the train. Through the wide, clean widows she sees Hart’s gloves on the seat, one folded over the other. She looks down and sees Hart staring too, but her daughter doesn’t say anything and with a whoosh like magic, the train doors close and the monorail begins to move away. <h2 style="text-align: center;">***</h2> Hannah Thurman is a writer living in Brooklyn, NY. Her stories have been published in The Michigan Quarterly Review, The Brooklyn Rail, The Lifted Brow, and others. She is currently working on a collection of short stories that take place in and around airports. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/september-2015-issue/">Return to the September 2015 Issue</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-22405" class="post-22405 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-allergies tag-asthmatic-attackes tag-cdc tag-charlotte-oldham tag-chronic-allergies tag-no-nuts tag-peanuts"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/nutshell-oh-nuts/" title="Permalink to Nutshell: Oh, Nuts" rel="bookmark"><img width="253" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/images-5-253x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Nutshell: Oh, Nuts" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Nutshell: Oh, Nuts" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/nutshell-oh-nuts/" title="Permalink to Nutshell: Oh, Nuts" rel="bookmark">Nutshell: Oh, Nuts</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/nutshell-oh-nuts/" title="2:55 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-08-30T14:55:03-04:00" pubdate>August 30, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/allergies/" rel="tag">allergies</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/asthmatic-attackes/" rel="tag">asthmatic attackes</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/cdc/" rel="tag">CDC</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/charlotte-oldham/" rel="tag">Charlotte Oldham</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/chronic-allergies/" rel="tag">chronic allergies</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/no-nuts/" rel="tag">no nuts</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/peanuts/" rel="tag">peanuts</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/nutshell-oh-nuts/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-22408 alignleft" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/images-5.jpg" alt="images-5" width="253" height="199" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/images-5.jpg 253w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/images-5-100x79.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/images-5-232x182.jpg 232w" sizes="(max-width: 253px) 100vw, 253px" />By Charlene Oldham Teachers can find ready-made signs on the internet that proclaim to kids, parents and passersby that a classroom is nut free. And it’s common practice for some schools to distribute handouts suggesting allergy-safe snacks along with school supply lists. The precautions have become a modern necessity for many given that more than 5 percent of children in the United States suffer from food allergies, a figure that has climbed from 3.4 percent since the late 1990s according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Experts say a number of factors could be contributing to the rapid increase, including the fact American kids’ immune systems aren’t exposed to as many allergens early in life. “The simple answer is that we don’t definitively know why food allergy among children has risen at such a dramatic rate,” says Dr. James R. Baker Jr., chief executive of Food Allergy Research & Education. “What we can say, however, is that there is some general agreement in the scientific community that the rise could be attributed to a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Certainly, in countries without the level of food hygiene we have in the U.S., there are much lower rates of food allergy.” The good news is that innovative treatments and a growing body of research now suggests avoidance won’t always be the only way to deal with food allergies, meaning peanut butter and jelly could eventually make a cafeteria comeback. While experts say kids with allergies should still avoid foods that have caused bad reactions in the past, doing the opposite has proven promising for some patients participating in controlled research of oral immunotherapy (OIT). OIT involves giving children increasingly higher doses of the food they are allergic toward to gradually retrain their immune systems to tolerate it without an adverse reaction. Researchers at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center are conducting several studies related to OIT and are even working to develop a “peanut vaccine” for allergies that is derived from peanut proteins. “I think there’s a lot of interesting work happening right now. I’m excited to hear more about the study of Chinese herbs and immunotherapy, the studies of the immunotherapy patch and studies using combinations of immunotherapy with other medications,” says Dr. Corinne Keet, an assistant professor of pediatrics who specializes in the areas of allergies and immunology at Johns Hopkins. Keet cautions that parents whose children have diagnosed food allergies shouldn’t view immunotherapy as a cure, or even an accessible treatment option, for every kid, though. “I think that immunotherapy for food allergy is becoming more widely used, and more and more parents are looking for it,” she says. “However, I think that it’s very premature for it to be used in widespread clinical practice now. In our hands and others, the rates of adverse reactions are high for a disease of this kind. I’m not convinced that oral immunotherapy, as is currently being practiced, is safer than avoiding the food.” But for babies who aren’t at increased risk for food allergies – because they have conditions including eczema or a sibling with food allergies, for example – a growing number of medical professionals are recommending parents introduce eggs, dairy products and nut products like peanut butter right along with other age-appropriate table foods. It’s advice that runs contrary to longstanding guidelines from organizations including the American Academy of Pediatrics, which recommended avoiding certain foods until babies were older, or even until they were toddlers. Educational material from the AAP now states that, “many pediatricians recommend against giving eggs and fish in the first year of life because of allergic reactions, but there is no evidence that introducing these nutrient-dense foods after 4 to 6 months of age determines whether your baby will be allergic to them.” In fact, the results of a study published earlier this year in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that feeding infants as young as 4 to 11 months foods containing peanuts could help protect them from eventually developing peanut allergies. “The recent LEAP [Learning Early About Peanut Allergy] study, which randomized babies to early peanut exposure versus later peanut exposure, showed a clear benefit to early peanut exposure. We think, but don’t know, that this may be the case for other potentially allergenic foods, like eggs,” says Keet, who recommends parents talk to their doctors to evaluate individual infants’ risk factors. “In general, introduction of these allergens with other table foods is what I advise. “ Turns out, the advice may save babies from developing allergies to those PB&J they’ll encounter later in life. <h2 style="text-align: center;">***</h2> Charlene Oldham is a St. Louis-based freelancer and teacher. She blogs about writing and life at www.charleneoldham.com. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/september-2015-issue/">Return to the September 2015 Issue</a>   </div> </article> <article id="post-22211" class="post-22211 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-brain-child-the-magazine-for-thinking-mothers tag-essays tag-fiction tag-magazine tag-mothering tag-poetry tag-september-2015-issue"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/september-2015-issue/" title="Permalink to September 2015 Issue" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/SEPT-15-Cover-2-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="September 2015 Issue" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="September 2015 Issue" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/september-2015-issue/" title="Permalink to September 2015 Issue" rel="bookmark">September 2015 Issue</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/september-2015-issue/" title="2:53 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-08-30T14:53:38-04:00" pubdate>August 30, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/brain-child-the-magazine-for-thinking-mothers/" rel="tag">Brain Child: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/essays/" rel="tag">essays</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/fiction/" rel="tag">fiction</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/magazine/" rel="tag">magazine</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/mothering/" rel="tag">mothering</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/poetry/" rel="tag">poetry</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/september-2015-issue/" rel="tag">September 2015 Issue</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/september-2015-issue/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22428" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/SEPT-15-Cover-2.jpg" alt="SEPT 15 Cover 2" width="938" height="653" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/SEPT-15-Cover-2.jpg 938w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/SEPT-15-Cover-2-300x209.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/SEPT-15-Cover-2-100x70.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/SEPT-15-Cover-2-232x162.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/SEPT-15-Cover-2-500x348.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 938px) 100vw, 938px" /></a> <h1 style="text-align: center;"></h1> <h1 style="text-align: center;">Table of Contents</h1>   Editor’s Letter: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/letter-from-the-editor-new-beginnings/">New Beginnings </a>   Essay: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/when-we-were-two/">When We Were Two</a> by Dorothy Rice There’s no reliving those days when the clock stopped at midnight and I left my kids, now as old as I was then, to the care of others, while I pounded out analyses for legislation long forgotten or superseded, flew through the capitol’s hallowed halls as if I owned the place, bantered and bartered with a cast of characters who thought no more of me than I did of them. It was the price I believed I had to pay to get ahead.   Essay: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/brownies/">Pieces of Him</a> by Sara Tickanen The nurse was still talking, but I hadn’t heard a word. “The pill that they put inside of you is basically telling your body that it’s time to go into labor. Your water should probably break soon, but if it doesn’t they will break it manually. Things will progress like normal labor… Our son was dead, but I still had to go through labor.   Feature: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/postcards-from-the-sandwiched/">Postcards from the Sandwiched </a>by Amy Yelin I’ve been spending the last two years both helping my parents move out of their house while helping my exceedingly anxious 18-year-old daughter get her brain around that she’s going to college. We went to look at schools and she had a panic attack. It’s been a tough process. And I feel like I’m constantly bouncing from one anxiety-ridden thing to another.   Fiction: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/fiction-losing-hart/">Losing Hart</a> by Hannah Thurman “Did you know Elsa is the first Disney princess not to be a teenager?” Hart says, twisting her thumb out of the glove so she can scroll down the screen. “She’s 21. And she’s only the second princess to have magical powers.”   Debate: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/debate-should-children-have-homework-in-elementary-school/">Should Kids Have Homework in Elementary School?</a> NO! By Stephanie Sprenger YES! By Sarah Rudell Beach   Nutshell: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/nutshell-oh-nuts/">Oh, Nuts</a> by Charlene Oldham The simple answer is that we don’t definitively know why food allergy among children has risen at such a dramatic rate.   Poetry: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/in-the-absence-of-my-son/">In the Absence of My Son</a>, By Christine Poreba   Poetry: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/how-to-love-your-teenage-daughter/">How to Love Your Teenage Daughter</a> by Jennifer L. Freed   Poetry: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/the-photograph-2/">The Photograph</a> by Laura Snell   Motherwit: <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/motherwit-warts-all/">Warts & All </a>by Sharon Trumpy   <h2 style="text-align: center;">***</h2> Cover art: By <a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop/GroovyLuLuArt?ref=hdr_shop_menu">LuLu Blaquiere</a> “The symbolism of elephants is magnificent and strong. I wanted to depict the special relationship between mother and child through this symbolism.” </div> </article> <article id="post-22246" class="post-22246 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-christine-poreba tag-loss tag-mother-son tag-mothering tag-poetry"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/in-the-absence-of-my-son/" title="Permalink to In the Absence of My Son" rel="bookmark"><img width="286" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/images-6-286x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="In the Absence of My Son" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="In the Absence of My Son" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/in-the-absence-of-my-son/" title="Permalink to In the Absence of My Son" rel="bookmark">In the Absence of My Son</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/in-the-absence-of-my-son/" title="2:51 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-08-30T14:51:48-04:00" pubdate>August 30, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/christine-poreba/" rel="tag">Christine Poreba</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/loss/" rel="tag">loss</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/mother-son/" rel="tag">mother son</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/mothering/" rel="tag">mothering</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/poetry/" rel="tag">poetry</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/in-the-absence-of-my-son/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-22420 alignleft" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/images-6.jpg" alt="images-6" width="611" height="376" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/images-6.jpg 286w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/images-6-100x62.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/images-6-232x143.jpg 232w" sizes="(max-width: 611px) 100vw, 611px" />By Christine Poreba   <blockquote>A white fluff drops onto my arm</blockquote> and a wind from inside the wall of me <blockquote>almost pushes me over—</blockquote>   <blockquote>because the errant milky puff reminds me</blockquote> of “danaliah,” which my son loves for me to pick for him <blockquote>on walks, so he can blow and blow the seed pods off.</blockquote>   <blockquote>But what has dropped on me</blockquote> is not a dandelion and my son is not here and the wind <blockquote>soon carries the mystery gossamer away and I am left</blockquote>   <blockquote>to go back to my room to study his drawing,</blockquote> bold circles dashed in waxy streaks. In my solitude, <blockquote>the world seems to be moving in slow motion,</blockquote>   <blockquote>nobody else to determine what comes next.</blockquote> The quiet is too quiet but then I can’t get enough, <blockquote>but my arms are bearing a wilderness.</blockquote>   <blockquote>Our goodbye was saved by his being two</blockquote> and not yet bearing the weight of the knowledge of time, <blockquote>making this hug and kiss goodbye for him no different</blockquote>   <blockquote>from any other. I, on the other hand,</blockquote> went out on the porch and wept, leaning over the railing <blockquote>to wait for one more glimpse of him</blockquote>   <blockquote>over the mountain with his grandparents,</blockquote> on their way to pay homage to “the broken boat” <blockquote>he’d been telling everyone about the whole vacation.</blockquote>   <blockquote>Every time we walked up close, there was no</blockquote> avoiding the fact that the boat was really a charred stack of logs, remains of a ski lodge burned down last winter.   But the illusion for him never seemed broken. And why shouldn’t one thing become so easily another? <blockquote>The old ski lift, then, a seat from a Ferris wheel.</blockquote>   <blockquote>Which I can almost see turning as I wake this morning</blockquote> to a room of gorgeous light, to acres of silence, an ache but also a dream <blockquote>of unsharpened pencils being sharpened.</blockquote>   Christine Poreba lives in Tallahassee, Florida with her husband John and their now three-year-old son Lewis. Her first book of poetry, Rough Knowledge, will be coming out from Anhinga Press this fall. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/september-2015-issue/">Return to the September 2015 Issue</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-22228" class="post-22228 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-girls tag-growing-up tag-maura-snell tag-mothers-and-daughters tag-poetry tag-time-passing"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/the-photograph-2/" title="Permalink to The Photograph" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/SEPT-15-The-photograph-ART-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="The Photograph" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="The Photograph" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/the-photograph-2/" title="Permalink to The Photograph" rel="bookmark">The Photograph</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/the-photograph-2/" title="2:48 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-08-30T14:48:05-04:00" pubdate>August 30, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/girls/" rel="tag">girls</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/growing-up/" rel="tag">growing up</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/maura-snell/" rel="tag">Maura Snell</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/mothers-and-daughters/" rel="tag">mothers and daughters</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/poetry/" rel="tag">poetry</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/time-passing/" rel="tag">time passing</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/the-photograph-2/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-22230" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/SEPT-15-The-photograph-ART-1024x683.jpg" alt="SEPT 15 The photograph ART" width="640" height="427" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/SEPT-15-The-photograph-ART-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/SEPT-15-The-photograph-ART-300x200.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/SEPT-15-The-photograph-ART-100x67.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/SEPT-15-The-photograph-ART-232x155.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/SEPT-15-The-photograph-ART-500x333.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /> By Maura Snell Hey, you, in your tutu, tulle-decked and plump with the pots of geraniums leaf-licked and blooming about you. Hey, you, there, squat on the cement step, fingers wrapped in fists, bare toes wiggling, where did you go little girl? You surged, opening the way a new bud might when placed in water and sunlight in a fast-frame unfurling. Will you remember me when I’m dust? I can feel how the concrete must have made your bare skin itch, the leotard, thin against your tiny bottom pressed down into rough cement, already a eulogy. You’ve disappeared into gawk and glasses. But sometimes, when you’re not looking, I squint at you and can still see in your profile that baby girl, gazing up at me as she squats among the geraniums. <h2>***</h2> photograph: Werner Images <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/september-2015-issue/">Return to the September 2015 Issue</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-22249" class="post-22249 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-benjamin-chaud tag-chronicle-books tag-the-bears-surprise"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/author-qa-benjamin-chaud/" title="Permalink to Author Q&A: Benjamin Chaud" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/9781452140285-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Author Q&A: Benjamin Chaud" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Author Q&A: Benjamin Chaud" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/author-qa-benjamin-chaud/" title="Permalink to Author Q&A: Benjamin Chaud" rel="bookmark">Author Q&A: Benjamin Chaud</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/author-qa-benjamin-chaud/" title="5:31 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-08-25T17:31:07-04:00" pubdate>August 25, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/benjamin-chaud/" rel="tag">Benjamin Chaud</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/chronicle-books/" rel="tag">Chronicle Books</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/the-bears-surprise/" rel="tag">The Bear's Surprise</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/author-qa-benjamin-chaud/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-22251" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Benjamin-Chaud.jpg" alt="Benjamin Chaud" width="640" height="480" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Benjamin-Chaud.jpg 640w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Benjamin-Chaud-300x225.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Benjamin-Chaud-100x75.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Benjamin-Chaud-232x174.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Benjamin-Chaud-500x375.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /> Benjamin Chaud is the author and illustrator of The Bear’s Song, The Bear’s Sea Escape and The Bear’s Surprise What inspired you to write this book? I had a second child. I wrote the first book, The Bear’s Song, when I had my first child, and that had been a creative way to explore how I felt as a new father. In The Bear’s Surprise, I wanted to capture what it was like to be a new dad again, and what it would be like for a young child to welcome a new family member. What was the biggest challenge in writing this book? The biggest challenge was continuing the series without being repetitive. I also needed to have the courage, yet again, to create so much detail on such large pages. I added cut-outs this time to bring in a new dimension, and to introduce a new way to read. This feature introduces a new visual game since there are passages between the pages. We follow Little Bear in his journey this time, not Papa Bear. What do you want a young reader to take away after reading The Bear’s Surprise? Pleasure. I want readers to enjoy the story and the experience of sharing it with an adult. This book touches on feeling alone, growing up, and what it means to be a big brother, as well as part of a family. As the illustrator as well as the writer, do you see the pictures in your head all at once while you are writing or do you create different illustrations many times and see what works? Do the pictures or the story come first? The idea comes first. For The Bear’s Surprise, it was the idea of a new character—the little brother—and the cut-outs. I think about the story next. I draw all of the book’s moments, and I try to see how they might best be structured—how one page leads to another. Then I spend a lot of time looking for details—little parallel stories—and I try to fit everything into the picture as if it were a puzzle. It’s great fun—when it works. Then, I go back to make sure that the story holds together. Of course, I finalize the drawings and add color. What do you love best about writing for children? I like writing for children but also for adults. I want adults to take pleasure in reading the books, too. And, because I’m an adult, I always try to have fun while working. I like to build a world in my books that speaks of serious things lightly, and of light things seriously. This approach gives me the most creative freedom. What are your plans for your next book? My next book for Chronicle Books is a continuation of the character’s adventures in I Didn’t Do My Homework Because… and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to School… This time, he travels the world on his summer vacation. There are a lot of fun, catastrophic situations, and there are also echoes of adventure books I read when I was younger, like Jules Verne, as well as Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, and One Thousand and One Nights. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/excerpt-the-bears-surprise/">Read an excerpt from </a>The Bear’s Surprise   <a href="http://budurl.com/BearssBrainC">BUY THE BOOK</a> <a href="http://budurl.com/BearssBrainC"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft wp-image-22323" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/BMP-Bears-Surprise-Cover-2-202x300.jpg" alt="BearsSurprise_JKT_1G.indd" width="182" height="270" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/BMP-Bears-Surprise-Cover-2-202x300.jpg 202w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/BMP-Bears-Surprise-Cover-2-688x1024.jpg 688w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/BMP-Bears-Surprise-Cover-2-87x130.jpg 87w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/BMP-Bears-Surprise-Cover-2-437x650.jpg 437w" sizes="(max-width: 182px) 100vw, 182px" /></a><a href="http://www.chroniclebooks.com/titles/the-bear-s-song.html"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft wp-image-22280" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/9781452114248-199x300.jpg" alt="9781452114248" width="183" height="276" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/9781452114248-199x300.jpg 199w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/9781452114248-681x1024.jpg 681w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/9781452114248-86x130.jpg 86w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/9781452114248-432x650.jpg 432w" sizes="(max-width: 183px) 100vw, 183px" /></a><a href="http://www.chroniclebooks.com/titles/bear-s-sea-escape.html"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft wp-image-22279" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Bears-Sea-Escape_FC_LoRes-205x300.jpg" alt="Bear's Sea Escape_FC_LoRes" width="186" height="272" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Bears-Sea-Escape_FC_LoRes-205x300.jpg 205w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Bears-Sea-Escape_FC_LoRes-89x130.jpg 89w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Bears-Sea-Escape_FC_LoRes-443x650.jpg 443w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Bears-Sea-Escape_FC_LoRes.jpg 545w" sizes="(max-width: 186px) 100vw, 186px" /></a> </div> </article> <article id="post-20662" class="post-20662 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general category-slider-content"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/happy-15th-birthday-brain-child/" title="Permalink to Let’s Celebrate! 15 Issues for $50" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/15logo-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Let’s Celebrate! 15 Issues for $50" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Let’s Celebrate! 15 Issues for $50" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/happy-15th-birthday-brain-child/" title="Permalink to Let’s Celebrate! 15 Issues for $50" rel="bookmark">Let’s Celebrate! 15 Issues for $50</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/happy-15th-birthday-brain-child/" title="6:30 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-08-03T06:30:42-04:00" pubdate>August 3, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/slider-content/" rel="category tag">Slider Content</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/08/happy-15th-birthday-brain-child/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-20585" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/15logo-262x300.jpg" alt="15logo" width="262" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/15logo-262x300.jpg 262w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/15logo-895x1024.jpg 895w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/15logo-100x114.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/15logo-232x265.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/15logo-500x572.jpg 500w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/15logo.jpg 1227w" sizes="(max-width: 262px) 100vw, 262px" /> 2015 marks Brain, Child’s 15th birthday – Through September 15th we are offering 15 back issues for $50.00 including shipping. <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/shop/birthday-celebration-pack/">Click here to buy.</a>         </div> </article> <article id="post-21556" class="post-21556 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-blog category-featured-blog-posts category-general tag-children-and-childhood tag-family tag-jennifer-berney tag-lgbt tag-motherhood tag-parenting tag-same-sex-marriage"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/explaining-gay-marriage-to-the-boy-with-two-moms/" title="Permalink to Explaining Gay Marriage to the Boy with Two Moms" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/square-wedding-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Explaining Gay Marriage to the Boy with Two Moms" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Explaining Gay Marriage to the Boy with Two Moms" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/explaining-gay-marriage-to-the-boy-with-two-moms/" title="Permalink to Explaining Gay Marriage to the Boy with Two Moms" rel="bookmark">Explaining Gay Marriage to the Boy with Two Moms</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/explaining-gay-marriage-to-the-boy-with-two-moms/" title="7:28 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-06-29T07:28:08-04:00" pubdate>June 29, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/blog/" rel="category tag">Blog</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/featured-blog-posts/" rel="category tag">Featured Blog Posts</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/children-and-childhood/" rel="tag">children and childhood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/family/" rel="tag">family</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/jennifer-berney/" rel="tag">Jennifer Berney</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/lgbt/" rel="tag">LGBT</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/motherhood/" rel="tag">motherhood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/parenting/" rel="tag">parenting</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/same-sex-marriage/" rel="tag">same sex marriage</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/explaining-gay-marriage-to-the-boy-with-two-moms/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> By Jennifer Berney <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-21564" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/square-wedding-1024x1024.jpg" alt="square wedding" width="640" height="640" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/square-wedding-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/square-wedding-150x150.jpg 150w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/square-wedding-300x300.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/square-wedding-100x100.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/square-wedding-232x232.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/square-wedding-500x500.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /> “Ralph says that boys can’t marry boys,” my son said to me as I drove him home from preschool. Ralph, who sported a buzz cut and freckles, was a longtime friend of my son’s. More than once I’d heard him voicing his mother’s opinions to an audience of four-year-olds, like the time he explained that babies took too much work and cost too much money. He delivered this news as I held my newborn infant. “Well Ralph is confused,” I replied, glancing in the rearview mirror. “He’s not confused; he’s wrong,” my son corrected. It was July of 2013, just months after our own state had voted to allow same-sex marriages, and weeks after the Defense of Marriage Act was repealed. If Ralph or his sources hadn’t yet woken up to the reality of gay marriage in our state, they weren’t alone. I, too, hesitated to believe it. For straight people, a wedding was usually an event confined to a single day. But for my partner and me the process of getting married had been ongoing, continual, endless. Were we finally, really real? When Kellie and I exchanged vows in 2003, there was nothing legal about our wedding. Neither of us dreamed we’d live to see the end of DOMA or—even more surprisingly—marriage equality in all fifty states, but that didn’t stop us from wanting to declare our love. And so, on a Sunday in August, we gathered friends and family in a circle on a friend’s green lawn. Our friend Queen, who wore a blue dress and red lipstick, opened the ceremony by informing our friends that they were a part of this commitment too. “By standing here today,” she told them, “you agree to be available to Kellie and Jenn, three months from now, ten years from now, anytime their marriage needs support.” In that moment, more than any other, I reckoned with what it meant to be married: it was more than a private promise between myself and my partner; it was an intention declared, witnessed, and affirmed by those who loved us. Still, it felt significant that this affirmation did not extend into the world at large. On paper, as far as any lawyer was concerned, Kellie and I were simply roommates. I didn’t want this to matter, but it did. Any time I referred to my marriage, I was tempted to use air quotes. Four years later, our state passed a bill allowing State Registered Domestic Partnerships to same-sex couples. It was a compromise of sorts, an option that was like marriage but with the most unromantic possible name. The legal rights that SRDPs conferred were significant: if Kellie landed in the hospital I could visit her; I could now get health insurance through Kellie’s employer. But there were also limitations: we couldn’t file our taxes jointly; I still couldn’t use the word “married” in the legal sense, and when we welcomed our first son into the world the following year, we’d have to spend over ten thousand dollars in legal fees to add Kellie’s name to the birth certificate. Some of our friends who registered for SRDP status treated it like a wedding. They dressed up and threw grand parties. But Kellie and I were tentative. Hadn’t we already done the thing that mattered? When we went to the courthouse we treated it like an errand. Afterwards we went out for a glass of wine, but weren’t sure what to toast—bureaucracy? Separate-but-not-quite-equal rights? I was seven months pregnant with our second child when our state passed a bill allowing same-sex marriages. I’d spent my pregnancy rooting for this bill for reasons that were largely practical. If the bill passed, and if Kellie and I could wed before the baby arrived, we could easily (and cheaply) add her name to the birth certificate. Instead of hiring a lawyer, we could simply fill out a few forms. What I thought was our final act of marriage took place on our living room couch on January 6, 2013. Some friends were disappointed that we weren’t having a big party. “But we had our real wedding ten years ago,” I told them. “Remember? You were there.” Our friend Queen, who married us initially sat between us, and we re-read the vows we’d exchanged nearly a decade before. Two close friends had come to bear witness. They brought flowers and chocolate, and sat cross-legged on our floor. The baby, who would arrive two weeks later, turned and kicked me from the inside. Our first son was four and he kept interrupting. “Can’t we build a puzzle?” he kept asking our friends. “Can we watch a movie?” Ten minutes later, we all crouched around the coffee table to sign the marriage license. In doing so, we finally completed the ceremony we’d begun ten years earlier. Or at least I thought we were finished. Two and a half years later, on a Friday I would open my computer to see that the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/equalitync/photos/pb.50013609338.-2207520000.1435423771./10153397606489339/?type=1&theater">equal marriage map</a> had gone green, that the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/27/us/supreme-court-same-sex-marriage.html?_r=0">Supreme Court had declared marriage equality a constitutional right</a>. My breath would catch in my throat. I would try to call out to Kellie in the next room to share the news but discover that I was speechless. Our marriage would now be recognized in every U.S. state. In the car that day, as I merged on the freeway, I continued to explain why Ralph might think that “boys can’t marry other boys.” “There are still lots of places where men can’t marry men, and women can’t marry women. Some people just like to make rules about things that don’t matter.” My son remained quiet, and I assumed he’d lost interest. “Don’t you remember our wedding?” I asked him. “You were there. It was right before your brother was born.” I thought that he might find some small joy in this, but instead a note of distress entered his voice. “You mean you weren’t married when I was born?” “It’s complicated,” I told him. I kept talking on and on, trying to explain the logistics. But instead I should have told him what I, too, most needed to hear: It’s okay. It’s real. All of it. Our marriage, our family, our love. Jennifer Berney is a Brain, Child contributing blogger. Her essays have also appeared in The New York Times Motherlode, the Brevity blog, and Mutha. She is currently working on a memoir that chronicles her years-long quest to conceive a child. You can connect with her on <a href="https://twitter.com/JennBerney">Twitter</a>, or on her personal blog, <a href="http://goodnightalready.com/">Goodnight Already.</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-21526" class="post-21526 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-blog category-featured-blog-posts category-general tag-emotions tag-feelings tag-inside-out tag-karen-dempsey tag-motherhood tag-parenting"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/how-kids-see-inside-out-and-how-they-might-not/" title="Permalink to How Kids See Inside Out (and How They Might Not)" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/IMG_2526-001-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="How Kids See Inside Out (and How They Might Not)" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="How Kids See Inside Out (and How They Might Not)" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/how-kids-see-inside-out-and-how-they-might-not/" title="Permalink to How Kids See Inside Out (and How They Might Not)" rel="bookmark">How Kids See Inside Out (and How They Might Not)</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/how-kids-see-inside-out-and-how-they-might-not/" title="6:54 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-06-26T06:54:34-04:00" pubdate>June 26, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/karen-dempsey/" title="View all posts by Karen Dempsey" rel="author">Karen Dempsey</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/blog/" rel="category tag">Blog</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/featured-blog-posts/" rel="category tag">Featured Blog Posts</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/emotions/" rel="tag">emotions</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/feelings/" rel="tag">feelings</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/inside-out/" rel="tag">Inside Out</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/karen-dempsey/" rel="tag">Karen Dempsey</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/motherhood/" rel="tag">motherhood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/parenting/" rel="tag">parenting</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/how-kids-see-inside-out-and-how-they-might-not/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-21528" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/IMG_2526-001-1024x768.jpg" alt="IMG_2526-001" width="640" height="480" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/IMG_2526-001-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/IMG_2526-001-300x225.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/IMG_2526-001-100x75.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/IMG_2526-001-232x174.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/IMG_2526-001-500x375.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /> Perhaps those abstract lessons of Inside Out are more important to a different audience — parents.   For months, I’d looked forward to seeing Pixar’s Inside Out with my daughter, Liddy. Amy Poehler and Mindy Kaling turning feelings into characters! Characters we could understand and laugh at and talk about! When you’re the parent of a nine-year-old girl who is caught up in the fierce turmoil of third-grade life, that is no small thing. Plus, you know, popcorn and Reese’s Pieces. I brought Liddy and her friend Charlotte, and we loaded up on snacks and settled into our seats just as the previews were wrapping up. The movie is a quick ninety minutes, and none of us even took a bathroom break. We were enthralled. We all loved it as much as I’d hoped, and when it ended the girls talked, rapid-fire, about the antics of Joy, Fear, Anger, Sadness, and Disgust. Even if you haven’t seen the movie, you may have heard by now (spoilers ahead) that Amy Poehler’s Joy works hard to keep the other emotions in check as they all pilot the day-to-day life of an eleven-year-old girl named Riley. Sadness (voiced by Phyllis Smith of The Office) proves especially challenging in this regard as Riley faces a big move, family stress and friendship challenges. But in the end, Sadness proves her worth. Joy learns, the hard way, the lesson so many of us are still working on. Sadness is a part of life. Efforts to banish her, distract her or leave her in the past, no matter how creative, just won’t work. And it turns out Riley needs Sadness as much as she needs Joy, in order to get the help and support of the people who love her. Allowing space for Sadness means she doesn’t have to go it alone. So what did Liddy and her friend make of all this? When I asked them how those battles between emotions worked out for Riley, and how they might play out in real lives, like theirs, they looked at each other and kind of shrugged. “I’ve never really thought of little feeling-creatures in your head controlling you,” Liddy said, with a hesitant smile. She looked like she was afraid to disappoint me. “But let’s say we did think about them that way,” I said. “Like, Fear, for example. I can think of times in my life when Fear is around, you know, making his list of worst-case-scenarios like he did to Riley in the movie.” “Um. That’s just … weird,” the girls said, laughing. Later, when Liddy said that Mindy Kaling’s Disgust was her favorite character, I tried to make the connection once more. I wondered aloud if she could remember a time she felt Disgust working in her own life, thinking she might mention something about her brother burping or stealing a gulp from her water bottle. “Mom,” she said — gently, as if to suggest I was still missing the point. “It really just feels like characters in a movie.” I shared this anecdote with a child psychiatrist I know, who laughed and said that it all sounded exactly right. She reminded me that, even heading into adolescence, kids are very concrete thinkers. They simply want to fall in love with characters and soak up a good story. “But is there some way parents could talk with their kids about the movie, that might help them make those connections?” “I think you can just let her enjoy the story for what it is,” she smiled. She helped me see that perhaps those abstract lessons of Inside Out are more important to a different audience — parents. Because maybe, for some of us (cough cough), it’s not our kids who need to work on accepting their Sadnesses. It’s us. </div> </article> <article id="post-21531" class="post-21531 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-affordable-care-act tag-family-leave tag-health-insurance tag-maternal-mortality tag-motherhood tag-pregnancy tag-valerie-young"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/policy-update-june-26-2015/" title="Permalink to Policy Update: June 26, 2015" rel="bookmark"><img width="507" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/86463578-507x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Policy Update: June 26, 2015" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Policy Update: June 26, 2015" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/policy-update-june-26-2015/" title="Permalink to Policy Update: June 26, 2015" rel="bookmark">Policy Update: June 26, 2015</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/policy-update-june-26-2015/" title="6:47 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-06-26T06:47:37-04:00" pubdate>June 26, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/affordable-care-act/" rel="tag">Affordable Care Act</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/family-leave/" rel="tag">family leave</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/health-insurance/" rel="tag">health insurance</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/maternal-mortality/" rel="tag">maternal mortality</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/motherhood/" rel="tag">motherhood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/pregnancy/" rel="tag">pregnancy</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/valerie-young/" rel="tag">Valerie Young</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/policy-update-june-26-2015/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-21536" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/86463578.jpg" alt="86463578" width="600" height="400" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/86463578.jpg 507w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/86463578-300x200.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/86463578-100x67.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/86463578-232x155.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/86463578-500x333.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /> A quick look back at events this week impacting women and families, from Valerie Young, a public policy analyst with <a href="http://www.mom-mentum.org/blog/category/woman-in-washington/">Mom-mentum</a>. Dozens of members of Congress, 44 to be exact, have sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell asking for specific guidance regarding <a href="https://bonamici.house.gov/sites/bonamici.house.gov/files/Letter%20to%20Secretary%20Burwell.pdf">the obligations of health insurers to cover lactation services and supplies</a>. Recent reports issued by the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) reveal numerous occasions of insurance companies not following the relevant law, contained in the Affordable Care Act, or being unaware of the law’s requirements. Kudos to the NWLC for bringing this issue to light, and kudos to the legislators who are trying to address it. Motherhood can be dangerous to your health. Maternal mortality rates are much higher in the US than in similarly wealthy nations, and amazingly they are increasing. “It turns out that here in America women are dying or nearly dying during pregnancy and childbirth at rates more than double those of 25 years ago. In fact, we rank 64th in the world in maternal mortality, and an estimated<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-naveen-rao/fatherhood-and-maternal-h_b_7616394.html?utm_hp_ref=impact&ir=Impact"> 60,000 women suffer life-threatening emergencies (called “near misses”) </a>every year,” according to the Huffington Post. Clearly motherhood is not the health priority that it should be in this country. New York State has passed a law to allow pregnant women to sign up for health insurance to cover the birth, which is not typically allowed. “Currently, if you become pregnant, want to carry the pregnancy to term but are uninsured, you’re out of luck where coverage is concerned until the baby is born. That’s because becoming pregnant is not a qualifying life event under Obamacare, though “changes in family size,” such as divorce, marriage, or having a baby, are included” <a href="http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/06/22/new-york-legislators-pass-pregnancy-friendly-health-insurance-law/?&utm_medium=email&utm_source=reality&utm_content=29+-+New+York+Legislators+Pass+PregnancyFrien&utm_campaign=daily-enews-6-23-2015&source=daily-enews-6-23-2015">reports RH Reality Check</a>. Prenatal care and delivery set some families back financially for years, and can cause bankruptcy, if a family doesn’t have insurance coverage. Could paid maternity and paternity leave really happen in the US? Yes, but it’s not because legislators have suddenly woken up or voters have become insistent. According to the New York Times, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/22/upshot/a-federal-policy-on-paid-leave-suddenly-seems-plausible.html?emc=edit_tnt_20150622&nlid=34229966&tntemail0=y&_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0">help for the middle class and competing for workers may be moving the needle.</a> “Long a pet Democratic cause that seemed hopelessly far-fetched, paid leave suddenly seems less so. With pay for most workers still growing sluggishly — as it has been for most of the last 15 years — political leaders are searching for policies that can lift middle-class living standards. Companies, for their part, are becoming more aggressive in trying to retain workers as the unemployment rate has fallen below 6 percent.” Something sure needs to change. This headline says it all: <a href="http://www.attn.com/stories/1873/america-worst-family-leave-policies-world">America Has the Worst Family Leave Policies Of Any Developed Country</a>. Not a surprising conclusion, because the US has no nationally guaranteed statutory program, as workers in most every other country do.” America is at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to family leave policies, <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/12/12/among-38-nations-u-s-is-the-holdout-when-it-comes-to-offering-paid-parental-leave/">according to findings</a> from a Pew Research Center report. Of 38 nations, including Mexico, America ranks dead last for weeks of paid leave and protected leave.” As in, zero. Follow Valerie on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Your-WoMan-in-Washington/135695273166707?fref=ts">Facebook (Your (Wo)Man in Washington) </a>and Twitter (@WomanInDC) and find her on the blog at <a href="http://www.mom-mentum.org/blog/category/woman-in-washington/">Mom-mentum</a>. Photo: gettyimages </div> </article> <article id="post-21484" class="post-21484 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-blog category-general tag-all-in tag-book-review tag-family tag-family-balance tag-fathers tag-hilary-levey-friedman tag-josh-levs tag-paid-family-leave tag-parenthood tag-parenting tag-working-dads tag-working-parents"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/all-in-a-book-review/" title="Permalink to All In: A Book Review" rel="bookmark"><img width="298" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/All-In-Cover-Art-298x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="All In: A Book Review" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="All In: A Book Review" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/all-in-a-book-review/" title="Permalink to All In: A Book Review" rel="bookmark">All In: A Book Review</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/all-in-a-book-review/" title="11:25 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-06-25T11:25:16-04:00" pubdate>June 25, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/blog/" rel="category tag">Blog</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/all-in/" rel="tag">All In</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/book-review/" rel="tag">book review</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/family/" rel="tag">family</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/family-balance/" rel="tag">family balance</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/fathers/" rel="tag">fathers</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/hilary-levey-friedman/" rel="tag">Hilary Levey Friedman</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/josh-levs/" rel="tag">Josh Levs</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/paid-family-leave/" rel="tag">paid family leave</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/parenthood/" rel="tag">parenthood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/parenting/" rel="tag">parenting</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/working-dads/" rel="tag">working dads</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/working-parents/" rel="tag">working parents</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/all-in-a-book-review/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> By Hilary Levey Friedman <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-21487" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/All-In-Cover-Art-199x300.jpg" alt="All In Cover Art" width="199" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/All-In-Cover-Art-199x300.jpg 199w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/All-In-Cover-Art-86x130.jpg 86w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/All-In-Cover-Art.jpg 298w" sizes="(max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px" />By now you’ve almost certainly heard of Lean In. Josh Levs is hoping you will see similarities between his recently released All In and Sheryl Sandberg’s bestseller. The similarities go beyond the titles. Both books deal with changing the challenging culture for working parents. While All In and Lean In emphasize that work/family balance is an issue for both sexes, the former concentrates on men and the latter on women. Levs writes from experience as a devoted father of three who also covers family and fatherhood for CNN. In 2013, around the birth of his third child, he asked CNN’s parent company, Time Warner, about his benefits. Specifically Levs wanted to take the ten paid weeks new parents have as an option. But he discovered that those ten weeks apply to biological mothers, adoptive mothers, and adoptive fathers—but apparently not to biological fathers. After speaking with Human Resources, and even the CEO, Benefits ultimately denied his appeal of this policy. Levs consulted lawyers and took his fight public, using his own personal media bully pulpit to get the word out. While in the end he went back to work without the ten paid weeks, Levs came to be seen, and see himself, as a leader in the active fathers’ movement of the 21st century. All In: How Our Work-First Culture Fails Dads, Families, and Businesses—And How We Can Fix It Together is the culmination of his research, reporting, and ruminations on this issue. Levs brings together and discusses the most up-to-date research on fatherhood while also proposing practical and policy solutions. In the Introduction he makes it clear that this isn’t “just” a problem for fathers or mothers: “Overall parents in the United States are working hard and doing their best. It’s the era of all-in parenting. And, by and large, neither gender is letting the other down.” Levs believes that poor family leave policies discriminate against both men and women by taking choices away. All In isn’t only about paid family leave, but it is a big part of the book, and its strongest. In Part I he discusses the legal components of the Family and Medical Leave Act, business implications, and tax policy. For instance, from this I learned that many employers use disability insurance to pay birth moms. While Levs started this project seeking support for paternity leave he didn’t have strong feelings about paid family leave, but after everything he has learned he now believes that paid family-leave law would make a significant difference. Another strength of All In is its focus on popular culture. Unlike others who write on this issue Levs devotes a whole section of his book to “Fixing Pop Culture,” explaining, “Any time I’ve interviewed fathers over the years, frustration about portrayals of dads in pop culture has gotten them fired up above all else.” The discussion here focuses on advertising snafus by companies like Huggies, the TV show Friday Night Lights, and mom’s-only groups. Levs also tries to move beyond the upper-middle and middle class parenting experience (incidentally one of the criticisms of Sandberg’s Lean In is the focus on affluent families) to include a variety of families and family structures. He writes about fathers in prison, military dads, widowers, and he strives to include stories of poor fathers and black fathers as well. While his aim is admirable, at times these sections of the book strike a false note, especially in contrast to other portions where Levs is writing more from personal experience so his voice is stronger and more authoritative. All In is definitely a book with a specific message and every page is meant to remind us of that message—that millions of (working) dads want to spend more time with their kids but in some way society is boxing them in. Levs sometimes present alternative viewpoints or explanations but it’s clear by the length of those sections that they are not the main focus. All In will most definitely appeal to those sympathetic to its argument, but I’m unfortunately not convinced it will change others’ minds (and I say unfortunately because my own husband is an involved father and I know how much that means to our household). Levs’ goal is to start a movement much like Sheryl Sandberg. While the impact of All In may not be as deep, the book will give you something to think about and some facts to share with others whether you are all in or just leaning in to working parenthood. Hilary Levey Friedman, PhD is the Book Review Editor at Brain, Child and the author of Playing to Win: Raising Children in a Competitive Culture. She teaches in the Department of American Studies at Brown University. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062349619/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0062349619&linkCode=as2&tag=brainchildm02-20&linkId=RMC3PD72QLAWSQYA" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Buy All In: How Our Work-First Culture Fails Dads, Families, and Businesses–And How We Can Fix It Together</a><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=brainchildm02-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0062349619" alt="" width="1" height="1" border="0" /> </div> </article> <article id="post-21516" class="post-21516 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-blog category-general tag-anxiety tag-dyslexia tag-emotions tag-family tag-motherhood tag-nancy-schatz-alton tag-parenting tag-school-concert"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/the-girl-who-sings-in-tune/" title="Permalink to The Girl Who Sings In Tune" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/photo-1429637119272-20043840c013-664x170.jpeg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="The Girl Who Sings In Tune" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="The Girl Who Sings In Tune" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/the-girl-who-sings-in-tune/" title="Permalink to The Girl Who Sings In Tune" rel="bookmark">The Girl Who Sings In Tune</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/the-girl-who-sings-in-tune/" title="7:41 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-06-25T07:41:11-04:00" pubdate>June 25, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/blog/" rel="category tag">Blog</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/anxiety/" rel="tag">anxiety</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/dyslexia/" rel="tag">dyslexia</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/emotions/" rel="tag">emotions</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/family/" rel="tag">family</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/motherhood/" rel="tag">motherhood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/nancy-schatz-alton/" rel="tag">Nancy Schatz Alton</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/parenting/" rel="tag">parenting</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/school-concert/" rel="tag">school concert</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/the-girl-who-sings-in-tune/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> By Nancy Schatz Alton <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-21523" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/photo-1429637119272-20043840c013-1024x683.jpeg" alt="photo-1429637119272-20043840c013" width="640" height="427" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/photo-1429637119272-20043840c013-1024x683.jpeg 1024w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/photo-1429637119272-20043840c013-300x200.jpeg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/photo-1429637119272-20043840c013-100x67.jpeg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/photo-1429637119272-20043840c013-232x155.jpeg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/photo-1429637119272-20043840c013-500x333.jpeg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /> Last night my family skipped the spring music concert at school. For years, we have secretly dreamed of skipping this event. My ten-year-old has always had stage fright. It’s hard watching Annie look like she’s about to fall off the risers and throw up her dinner as she stands there—wide eyed and unblinking—staring down something we all can’t see. People tell me these concerts are important. Showing up for what scares Annie may be powerful and life changing—an affirmation of our bravery. These events can also suck, like the time when all the lights from the clicking and filming iPhone and iPads and i-what-the-hell-is-anyone-actually-living-in-the-moment-here made my Annie turn her entire body sideways and remain silent. That concert was during the year she repeated kindergarten due to her dyslexia. It kills me that my girl not only faces learning difficulties all day at school, but she is also filled with angst at an evening program that could show off one of her gifts. Because even though my girl has anxiety, singing is actually one of her favorite activities. She’s always sung in tune and memorized songs within one or two listens. She sings for fun, by herself, in her room, where she thinks no one is listening. So, yes, I gave a big sigh when my mom asked me, “Is Annie going to be graded on the concert tonight?” Since I didn’t have the energy to face a potential hard evening, I’ll take an F for the family team. But no, she’s not graded on this. I’m not graded on being human either. I’m not graded on my wish to relax instead of helping Annie pick out something appropriate to wear when she’s most comfortable in sweats. I’m not graded on my waffling between going and not going and asking Annie for her opinion before deciding we’ll stay home and enjoy homemade pizza instead of facing our fears. Annie didn’t give me an F because she popped out of a day dream after dinner to ask me if the concert had happened yet. “The concert is over, Annie,” I said. “It is?” she asked. Then she started to cry. She climbed onto my lap and we talked about how I had just heard her sing at her biggest performance success yet. She takes voice lessons from our neighbor, who hosted an intimate spring event in her living room. Just two rows of chairs made a small arch around the baby grand piano. Annie went first. She walked up front and turned to the audience. She moved her eyes from left to right, sweeping the room as her head came along for the ride. And then she burst into tears. Her teacher didn’t treat it like a big deal. “Oh, OK, Annie, take a moment. There’s Kleenex in the back of the room,” she said. “And while you do that, we are all going to start singing your warm-up exercises. You can join in when you are ready. And when you sing, you can face me at the piano.” I asked Annie how I could help while holding her close. “To make it not happen. To not sing,” she said through tears. “Let’s just calm down,” I said. But I sounded anything but calm. My insides clenched as I worried about whether or not she was going to sing. I turned my head away from Annie to the owner of the deep voice next to me. This grandfather held the room’s lowest notes with joy, his whole face beaming with helpfulness and song. His voice during the warm-up exercises began to buoy me. As my body began to relax, Annie quietly joined in. I couldn’t sing a note, but Annie could and did. And when the warm-ups ended, Annie walked to the piano. She placed herself with her side to the audience and faced her voice teacher’s back. “Annie, I’m going to play a short warm-up, and then you’ll begin,” said her voice teacher. The teacher played the first notes of “Belle’s Reprise” on the piano and Annie began to sing. “I want to venture in the great white somewhere. I want it more than I can tell. For once, it might be grand to have someone understand I want so much more than they’ve got planned.” And there I was, my heart aching at all it took to get right here, with Annie sharing her gift with everyone in the room. Just past the ache was the soaring joy. I never imagined this moment when I watched Annie suffering on those school risers. Back there I couldn’t fathom Annie would actually show off her talent in a tiny living room three doors down from our house. When I used to see her scared up onstage, all I felt was my fear. I saw how different she was from the kids singing with joy and posing for cameras. Why couldn’t I have that kid? As she sang “Belle’s Reprise,” I could see her walking in the wilderness, voice lifted in song as she took in nature, her life on her terms, not mine. After such a performance, I couldn’t fathom going back to a spring concert to watch a possibly quaking Annie standing on the risers. She gave up her spot in a group solo last week. When I sounded disappointed about her not wanting to sing the group solo, Annie’s teacher told me, “We are proud of Annie for knowing exactly what she wants. She has years ahead of her to use her singing voice the way she wants to use it.” “Mom, I don’t want to do the group solo.” “Mom, I don’t want to do the jumpathon.” “Mom, all that noise gave me a headache.” “Mom, I don’t want to go to the birthday party with all the girls from my class. It will be too loud.” Mom, see me, love me, accept me. Last night we finished reading a book together about a sixth grade girl that has dyslexia when we should have been at the concert. We read it because my girl has dyslexia and many of the strange side effects that kids with learning differences have. It’s not strange in this world to have parents reply, “My kid can’t jump rope either. Does yours ride a bike? Mine doesn’t.” So I work every day to accept my girl the way the girl in the book we read is finally accepted by her classmates as they all realize she isn’t stupid, she simply has dyslexia. I smiled so big as my girl jumped off the couch and did an impromptu dance for me when the girl in the book realized she was smart despite her dyslexia. My girl, I see her so much clearer in our living room than when she’s up on those risers so far away from me. Front and center, singing for only me, she’s all herself. Seattleite Nancy Schatz Alton is the co-author of The Healthy Back Book and is a regular contributor to <a href="http://parentmap.com/">ParentMap.com</a>. Read her blog at <a href="http://withinthewords.com/">withinthewords.com</a>. </div> </article> <article id="post-21502" class="post-21502 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-blog category-featured-blog-posts category-general tag-francie-arenson-dickman tag-motherhood tag-mothering tag-mothering-twins tag-parenthood tag-raising-twins tag-teens tag-twins"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/the-unfine-art-of-raising-twins/" title="Permalink to The Unfine Art of Raising Twins" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unfinearttwins-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="The Unfine Art of Raising Twins" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="The Unfine Art of Raising Twins" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/the-unfine-art-of-raising-twins/" title="Permalink to The Unfine Art of Raising Twins" rel="bookmark">The Unfine Art of Raising Twins</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/the-unfine-art-of-raising-twins/" title="8:33 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-06-24T08:33:17-04:00" pubdate>June 24, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/blog/" rel="category tag">Blog</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/featured-blog-posts/" rel="category tag">Featured Blog Posts</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/francie-arenson-dickman/" rel="tag">Francie Arenson Dickman</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/motherhood/" rel="tag">motherhood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/mothering/" rel="tag">mothering</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/mothering-twins/" rel="tag">mothering twins</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/parenthood/" rel="tag">parenthood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/raising-twins/" rel="tag">raising twins</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/teens/" rel="tag">teens</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/twins/" rel="tag">twins</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/the-unfine-art-of-raising-twins/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> By Francie Arenson Dickman <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-21506" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unfinearttwins-1024x777.jpg" alt="unfinearttwins" width="640" height="486" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unfinearttwins-1024x777.jpg 1024w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unfinearttwins-300x228.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unfinearttwins-100x76.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unfinearttwins-232x176.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unfinearttwins-500x379.jpg 500w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/unfinearttwins.jpg 1822w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /> Twins, I learned quickly, doesn’t mean double. It doesn’t even mean alike.   The last weekend of every May, I stock up on tickets and Exederin and brace myself for the two-day storm of overlapping dance recitals. We bounce between auditoriums in different cities to see shows that are worlds apart. From the beautiful world of Russian ballet, with numbers called Waltz of the Hours and music by Tchaikovsky to the underworld of hip hop, a dark and dirty counter-culture where they do dances called Haters to music by Wiz Khalifa. “You can’t call this dancing,” says my father, my 84-year-old tap-dancing, Vaudeville performing, Gershwin loving father. He convulses in his seat as my daughter convulses on stage. But dancing it is. I am used to it by now, not just the gyrations but the dancing between extremes, the whiplash of raising twin girls, the parenting of equals who occupy separate spaces. It’s not what I expected but after 13 years I have my dance down as much as they have theirs’. My father, not so much. “Can’t you get her to go to dance class with her sister?” my father hollers as Lady Gaga belts out Born this Way—a concept he obviously doesn’t buy. Like I do every year, I shake my head. “No.” They started out going together, my daughters did. Back when they were both dancing in my belly while I was consuming sausages and books with deceptive titles, titles akin to the numbers in the ballet recital, like The Joy of Twins. I can tell you now that any book on raising twins worth its baby weight in gold would have been called something more hip-hop, like Load Up on Your Lorazapam, Ladies, and Hunker Down for the Ride. Because there is no ballet in raising twins. It’s an art that’s imprecise and anything but pretty. According to the books, I was to make a concerted effort to help my twins develop their own identities. At the time, this made sense. Who wouldn’t want her own identity? So, instead of buying two stuffed bunnies, I bought one stuffed bunny and one stuffed pig. One pink onsie, another purple—coordinated combinations, similar enough to mark them as a duo, but distinct enough to allow people tell them apart. Then they were born. One with blond hair and blue eyes. The other with brown hair and brown eyes. Different enough in appearance to suspect confusion in the fertility lab. Different enough in being to suspect that different colored onsies wouldn’t be needed to establish my daughters’ separate identities. Twins, I learned quickly, doesn’t mean double. It doesn’t even mean alike. As infants, twins meant one baby with colic, another with a constant smile. One who loved the stuffed pig, the other who wanted nothing to do with stuffed animals at all. In preschool, twins meant one who jumped out of the car without looking back, the other who had to be pried out of her seat in hysterics. In grade school it meant one who loved to read, another who wouldn’t. And now, twins means one who headsprings in high tops, the other who echappe’s in this white long gown, the kind of costume, my father told me during the ballet portion on the day, both of his granddaughters should be wearing. “Not according to the books,” I might have told him but again, I didn’t need to go by the book because the hip-hop daughter did it herself. “Not on your life,” she told my father. “I’d never wear that. It’s not me.” The question I would have liked to have asked her but didn’t because I’m sure no one—neither my daughter nor the books—has the answer is: why not? Is the dress not her because it’s just not her or is the dress not her because it is her sister? To the extent that Twin A is influenced by Twin B (and vice versa), how far will my girls go to seek out their own identities? And why did the books instruct me to go out of my way to make sure it happens when, at least in my house, it seemed to happen on its own? I never organized separate playdates or outings with grandparents like I was instructed to do. I was too busy running in opposite directions, first at the park and now to the recitals, to organize anything. For my sanity, I had to ditch the script and move to the beat of my children’s respective and very different drums. My father would benefit from doing the same. “You can’t compare what the two of them are doing,” he continues to grumble. “No, you can’t,” I tell him. And, according to conventional wisdom—which went out the window at my daughters’ one-week weigh-ins—you shouldn’t. Comparing twins is a Cardinal sin. But c’mon, who among us mothers of multiples has not, at the annual doctors visit, analyzed (at least to ourselves) one child’s height against the other’s? Certain traits are begging for it. The oldest. The tallest. The bigger foot. The thicker hair. Or, dare I admit, the better grades. That’s called keepin’ it real, the book might say if it was written by Wiz Khalifa, with the added footnote to compare and contrast all you want, mamas, but know it won’t mean anything because, from the physical to the personal, traits of twins, especially teen-aged ones, are constantly in motion. For a time, the ballet dancer loved to talk, the hip hopper was quiet. Now, it’s the other way around. Just as I was ready to award the neatest room prize to the hip hopper, I found a rotten pizza beneath her nightstand. They are, like all people, too fluid to peg down. In fact, the only constant I’ve observed (one which the books should have mentioned because it is a bright spot in an otherwise muddled world) is that my kids rarely occupy the same space in emotion or opinion, at the same time. We have few five alarm fires because they figured out long ago, maybe even in utero, that when one is in the dog house, it’s the other’s time to shine. The book of all books, the Oxford English Dictionary, assigns several definitions to the word twin. The first definition reads: One of two children or animals born at the same birth. The second definition is: A person or a thing exactly like another. In many ways, it seems my girls fall under the first definition—children who simply share a birth date. Yet, they also share recital dates. And clothes, friends, teachers, and the grandfather from whom they got their dancing genes. So maybe my twins sit somewhere in the middle on the twinness scale. A scale which slides from day to day. Up and down, back and forth, and I move too, as they do. Francie Arenson Dickman is a contributing blogger to Brain, Child. Her essays have also appeared in The Examined Life, A University of Iowa Literary Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, and Literary Mama. She lives outside of Chicago with her husband and twin daughters and is currently completing her first novel. </div> </article> <article id="post-21508" class="post-21508 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-blog category-general tag-biracial tag-biracial-mother tag-melanie-rock tag-motherhood tag-parenthood tag-single-parenthood tag-summer tag-summer-camp"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/summers-up-to-nature/" title="Permalink to Summers Up To Nature" rel="bookmark"><img width="507" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/111052890-507x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Summers Up To Nature" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Summers Up To Nature" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/summers-up-to-nature/" title="Permalink to Summers Up To Nature" rel="bookmark">Summers Up To Nature</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/summers-up-to-nature/" title="7:37 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-06-23T07:37:20-04:00" pubdate>June 23, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/blog/" rel="category tag">Blog</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/biracial/" rel="tag">biracial</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/biracial-mother/" rel="tag">biracial mother</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/melanie-rock/" rel="tag">Melanie Rock</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/motherhood/" rel="tag">motherhood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/parenthood/" rel="tag">parenthood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/single-parenthood/" rel="tag">single-parenthood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/summer/" rel="tag">summer</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/summer-camp/" rel="tag">summer camp</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/summers-up-to-nature/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> By Melanie Rock <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-21510" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/111052890.jpg" alt="111052890" width="600" height="400" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/111052890.jpg 507w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/111052890-300x200.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/111052890-100x67.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/111052890-232x155.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/111052890-500x333.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /> What I remember is my lost, brown self, in a sea of white shirts praying over shiny, puffy, braided loaves of bread.   “You’ll love sleep-away camp. I promise,” my mother said. “There’s not enough to do around here once school’s over. I’ll be teaching the first month of summer session. You’ll have a much better time in the country. Trust me. It’ll be fine.” I don’t recall the anxiety I must have had, knowing I would be separated from my mother for four weeks. I don’t remember feeling unloved or rejected. But at five years old, I’m sure I had some serious reservations about going to sleep-away camp. My mother grew up in the country, on an anarchist commune outside of Peekskill, New York. Raised among radical intellectuals, artists, and activists in a rustic atmosphere, the natural world was the backdrop of her rich childhood memories. It was important to her that she get her urban child “up to nature” whenever possible. So it was decided: the summer I was to turn six, I would be spared a month of babysitter days stuck in our Bronx apartment. My mother chose a Jewish Y camp in the Adirondaks for my first sleep-away adventure, which didn’t strike me as strange, because I knew that we were technically Jewish. My mother was brought up by a Jewish family, after her own Jewish mother died very young. According to Jewish law, the maternal bloodline makes us Jewish. But I didn’t think of us as really Jewish. We were atheists. At home and at school, I was taught to respect all religious traditions with equal weight, without subscribing to any one in particular. It didn’t occur to me that camp would be any different. I trusted my mother’s plan. But she had read the brochure. The one that described the weekly Shabbat services. As instructed, we packed “four nice white shirts” along with the shorts, halter tops, bathing suits and towels, underpants, and ankle socks with my name tags sewn in, and shipped them ahead in an old trunk. At camp, everything got shoved into cubbies except the white shirts, which were hung on hangers in the bunk closet. And everyone noticed that my shirts were too fancy. My mother and I had failed to grasp the conservative formality of “nice white shirts.” Unlike the plain shirts the other girls brought, mine had lace bits and pearly buttons, which stood out along with the rest of me. I was one of the youngest kids at camp. And one of the very few black ones. A couple of dark-skinned girls stayed in much older bunks, way out of my reach. Surrounded by friends their own age, they seemed unaffected by the fact that their beaded braids and dark complexions made them different. On that first Friday night, those older black girls knew what to do for Shabbat. They seemed right at home. I watched and wondered, while I fumbled through the pre-dinner service in my nice white shirt. Four weeks of Fridays, with the unfamiliar rituals of challah bread and candles, and prayers to God in a foreign tongue. I mumbled along, hoping no one would single me out to light the candles or break the bread. I was sure they all noticed: I was that new little black girl who obviously isn’t Jewish. I don’t recall any specific unkindness or mistreatment. And I don’t remember having made any friends there, either. What I remember is my lost, brown self, in a sea of white shirts, in the soft glow of candlelight, praying over shiny, puffy, braided loaves of bread. And that lonely feeling of wanting to fit in and not knowing how to shed the Outsider skin. I was afraid to tell my mother. She had her own outsider stories. I was haunted by the thought of her growing up without her mother. And the hardships of her Depression-era childhood, living with a foster family while her father labored in the city. She was ostracized in high school, labeled “dirty Jew” and “Communist”—names that meant she didn’t belong. She got teary when she shared those memories with me. So I pretended the Shabbat services at camp were no big deal. But she must have recognized my ambivalence about the place. She readily accepted my suggestion that we try something different the following year, and we rented a bungalow in the Catskills and spent our days together. The next summer, we discovered (and I went to) Blueberry Cove Camp, a small, artsy, back-to-nature summer camp in Maine. It was the ideal respite from the noise of the city and the structured school year. Blueberry Cove became my summertime home away from home, filled with friends from all over, who came back year after year, like I did. We ran around barefoot, embraced our mandatory farm chores, and swam in the frigid waters of the north Atlantic. We connected with the earth, and the animals, and developed a common empathy for the natural world and each other. Our differences didn’t matter there. My mother, confident that I was happy and secure, was able to spend her summers traveling, or teaching part-time if she so chose. Summertime offered her a break from the stress of single-parenthood. And I got Maine. Shoeless, godless, and free. As the biracial mother of two brown girls, Melanie Rock writes about identity, race, and multiculturalism from a parenting perspective as well as her own childhood memories. Raised in New York City, she now lives and works in the Lower Hudson Valley. Photo: gettyimages.com </div> </article> <article id="post-21399" class="post-21399 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-blog category-featured-blog-posts category-general tag-books tag-children-and-childhood tag-lauren-apfel tag-motherhood tag-reading"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/evolution-of-a-reader/" title="Permalink to Evolution of a Reader" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/evolutionofareader-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Evolution of a Reader" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Evolution of a Reader" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/evolution-of-a-reader/" title="Permalink to Evolution of a Reader" rel="bookmark">Evolution of a Reader</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/evolution-of-a-reader/" title="7:23 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-06-22T07:23:27-04:00" pubdate>June 22, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/lauren-apfel/" title="View all posts by Lauren Apfel" rel="author">Lauren Apfel</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/blog/" rel="category tag">Blog</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/featured-blog-posts/" rel="category tag">Featured Blog Posts</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/books/" rel="tag">books</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/children-and-childhood/" rel="tag">children and childhood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/lauren-apfel/" rel="tag">Lauren Apfel</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/motherhood/" rel="tag">motherhood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/reading/" rel="tag">reading</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/evolution-of-a-reader/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-21465" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/evolutionofareader-1024x768.jpg" alt="evolutionofareader" width="640" height="480" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/evolutionofareader-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/evolutionofareader-300x225.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/evolutionofareader-100x75.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/evolutionofareader-232x174.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/evolutionofareader-500x375.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /> You start when he is two months old, you know it is important. All the experts say so, all the articles. Read to them, read to them incessantly. Do it early, the earlier the better. He seems like an alert baby, this one, wide-eyed and curious. The way he bats at his toys, the way he tracks your movements with a searching, soulful expression. Maybe all babies are like this, you aren’t sure. He is your first. You project onto him constantly—thoughts, feelings, skills—as if projecting will make it so. Your mother sat with him when he was one week old, just home from the hospital, a sliver of a thing, and read him Pat the Bunny in that special sing-song voice you remember well from your own childhood. “Judy can pat the bunny,” she said, as your son stared into the middle distance, head lolling. “Now YOU pat the bunny.” She took the baby’s starfish hand, the nails still peeling from the wetness of the womb, and rubbed it purposefully against the fluffy bunny. And you couldn’t tell if it was ridiculous or adorable to be reading to a baby so new. All the same, a couple of months later, you decide it is time to begin. Every night, every night without fail. Your husband gives the baby a bath, and then you coo at him, a steady stream of chatter as you stuff limbs into a sleepsuit covered with teddybears or rockets or stripes. You prop him up against you on the bed and read two books. Always two. Sometimes Brown Bear, Brown Bear. Sometimes Here Are My Hands. Sometimes you channel your mother and read Pat the Bunny with just the right intonations. You take it for granted that your son sits still at this age, that he tolerates the books without crying, when what he really wants is his milk. None of your other children will be so patient. By the time he is one, he can pat the bunny on his own. He seems to understand you now, he has words himself, a bevy of animal sounds and an assortment of other babbles that mean something, finally. The floodgates of communication have opened; reading has become blissfully interactive. Your son loves books. You tell your family, your friends, anybody who will listen: “He loves books!” This makes you proud, as if it is evidence of an impressive feat of parenting or genetics. But of course he loves books, the shelves are lined with them, the house is strewn with them. Reading is your go-to childcare activity. Over the next couple of years, your son becomes oddly interested in history. Or maybe it’s not so odd because you and your husband are both academics with a flair for the past. The chunky board books give way to early readers, to thinner pages telling tales of the Romans, the Greeks. But the Egyptians are his favorite. He loves the concept of mummies, he traces the Sphinxes with his still-dimpled finger. He becomes obsessed with Darth Vader, how Anakin Skywalker changed from good to evil. You read him endless books about it. He becomes obsessed with Jesus, even though you are Jewish, and you read him endless books about that too. At some point, it is clear he is ready to read himself, but you don’t want to push it. Your instinct is that this process, this magical process, should happen organically. You talk about the alphabet with a concerted nonchalance, calling the letters by their phonetic names, because you are in the UK and this is how it’s done. M is not “em,” it is “mmmm,” as if the letter itself is edible, is utterly delicious. Your son is getting the gist of it, it’s a game to him. You, however, are newly overwhelmed by the mischievousness of the English language. Its absurd rules feel, all of a sudden, like inhospitable guests. So many exceptions, so many outliers. He can read “hat,” but how do you explain “hate”? You breathe a sigh of relief when he starts school, that children go to school earlier where you live, and that you can pass off the task of explicating the idiosyncrasies of language to a trained professional. Your son comes home excited about the magic E, the way it makes the sound of the preceding vowel change, poof, just like that, and you think to yourself: thank god. He reads to you happily now, always out loud, in that halting, robotic voice most kids have at the beginning. When punctuation is optional, when the concept of “reading with expression” is a peak in the distance. And then it happens. He starts to read fluidly and in his head to boot. It opens up a new world for him, an inner world. But it closes a door for you. His reading is a personal thing now, a private thing, he wants it that way. He is somewhere between six and seven, you can’t quite remember. You remember, though, that he read the whole series of Diary of a Wimpy Kid in quick succession, which left you considering what exactly he understood of the middle school dynamics. He is at that awkward age where his technical skill surpasses his emotional maturity and you are not quite sure what books to choose for him. He likes to read, but he likes other things too. You can’t tell yet if he loves it, if he drinks in the words like you do, if reading is going to be that balm for what ails him, though you recall you weren’t a particularly keen reader at this stage either. He doesn’t seem to read to get tangled in the story, to step outside of himself. His penchant is for nonfiction still, for facts, for science. He pores over statistics in his football magazines. He studies up on Minecraft. Just when you wonder if he will ever get the taste for fiction, he discovers The Hunger Games. He returns from the bookstore, clutching the first in the series, and he can barely stop to say hello as he marches up the stairs to crack into it. He becomes, almost overnight, what people call an “avid” reader. He devours young adult sci-fi, the more dystopian the better, while you fleetingly deliberate if the subject matter is too old for him. He asks to read The Fault in Our Stars. You hold him off. He asks to read It by Stephen King. You hold him off again. He picks up the books on your night table and inspects the blurbs; Station Eleven catches his eye. For the first time, you borrow one of his books and you actually enjoy it. Your son is nine, closer to ten. You lie on your bed together, it is late afternoon. He stretches out on one side, and you are on the other side, the only sound between you is the pages turning. You reach across and take his hand. He squeezes back, not meeting your eyes, so engrossed is he in the story. You watch him for a second, resting your own book on your lap. He is long limbs and angular features, but just for a moment you get a flash of the baby he used to be, and it is Pat the Bunny in his pudgy hands all over again. </div> </article> <article id="post-21480" class="post-21480 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-articles-page category-from-the-archives category-general tag-b-e-pinkham tag-birthday-party tag-kids-party tag-magician tag-motherhood"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/before-your-very-eyes/" title="Permalink to Before Your Very Eyes" rel="bookmark"><img width="476" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Screen-Shot-2015-06-21-at-8.52.41-PM-476x170.png" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Before Your Very Eyes" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Before Your Very Eyes" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/before-your-very-eyes/" title="Permalink to Before Your Very Eyes" rel="bookmark">Before Your Very Eyes</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/before-your-very-eyes/" title="8:55 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-06-21T20:55:18-04:00" pubdate>June 21, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/articles-page/" rel="category tag">Articles Page</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/from-the-archives/" rel="category tag">From The Archives</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/b-e-pinkham/" rel="tag">B. E. Pinkham</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/birthday-party/" rel="tag">birthday party</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/kids-party/" rel="tag">kids party</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/magician/" rel="tag">magician</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/motherhood/" rel="tag">motherhood</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/before-your-very-eyes/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> By B. E. Pinkham <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-21482" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Screen-Shot-2015-06-21-at-8.52.41-PM-221x300.png" alt="Screen Shot 2015-06-21 at 8.52.41 PM" width="221" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Screen-Shot-2015-06-21-at-8.52.41-PM-221x300.png 221w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Screen-Shot-2015-06-21-at-8.52.41-PM-96x130.png 96w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Screen-Shot-2015-06-21-at-8.52.41-PM.png 476w" sizes="(max-width: 221px) 100vw, 221px" />A few weeks before the party, Robin’s mother Maria had said to me, “You know how I picked him? He had the biggest ad of all the magicians in Chicago Parent. I just thought that had to mean something. Is that stupid or what?” “No. I don’t think so,” I’d said, thinking that that’s exactly what I would have done. Robin, the birthday girl, had chosen magic as the party’s theme. My daughter Eve and most of the other kids were still decorating their purple hats with star and moon stickers when Randy the Magician arrived. He was tall and normal-looking; he had a performer’s presence, already comfortable as we watched him getting ready to work. He opened a bag and started to blow up long thin balloons. “Hi,” he said to a little blonde girl nearby. “I’m Randy. What’s your name?” “Andrea,” she said as she smiled and wriggled her legs. “Oh, okay.” He leaned over her with his hands on his knees. “What’s your first name?” She blinked at him and kept smiling. Randy kept smiling, too. “Come on. What’s your first name?” A few of the adults, including me, chuckled. Andrea blinked again, still smiling, but her eyes were starting to scan the sidelines. She looked into the air, then down at her shoes. She knew to stay silent because, even if she didn’t get the joke, she got that she shouldn’t ask for an explanation. Welcome to: Surrealism for Preschoolers. Randy said, “Oh, it’s okay” and waved at her. She turned and wandered off. While Randy was making his pile of balloon animals, he repeated the What’s-your-first-name thing three or four times, always with similar results. It was a bright day, cold and windy outside, and the view from the party room on the fortieth floor of Maria’s Edgewater high rise was brilliant. I could see past downtown Chicago to the smokestacks of Gary. I walked over to the north windows where Camille’s dad and Imaan’s dad were talking. “Look! You can see the BahÃ¡’Ã Temple,” I said to them. I’ve never been good at starting conversations. But they turned and looked and, for the next blessed three or four minutes, we talked not about our children and their education, but about the visible landmarks and the sudden staggering proliferation of high-rise condos in Evanston. Randy put on his magician’s robe. Maria herded the kids and got them to sit on the floor in front of Randy while he reminded all the parents to be quiet. After he’d done a few tricks, he tried his first-name thing once more. “What’s your name?” he said, pointing at a boy in the middle of the audience. “Zachary.” “What’s your first name?” Zach pushed his shoulders back and smiled. “Zachary is my first name!” Zach is six. The adults applauded and he took a bow. Like all magic shows, Randy’s had two parts: the illusions and the patter. He had the equipment and the skill for the illusions. Objects showed up under empty cups, were pulled out of the birthday girl’s ear, and jumped, invisibly, from hat to pocket. For the patter he did cartoon character voices, made rude sounds, and mixed in age-appropriate potty jokes with some serious health and safety reminders. Hey kids, it’s fun to be a little naughty for a laugh but let’s still show that we’re really all good boys and girls. I’m a real grown-up. I know the limits, and I can show you how to take it right to the edge. Welcome to: Middle-Class Values Indoctrination for Preschoolers. I was sitting off to the side of the show. Bob—Robin’s dad and the writer of Randy’s paycheck for the afternoon—was leaning back in his chair directly opposite Randy, with his arms crossed over his chest and his legs straight out and crossed at the ankles. He was not laughing or smiling. Randy, always smiling, said to Bob, “You know, you’ll have much more fun if you lower your expectations.” “I already have,” Bob said, nodding slowly. His very slightly amused expression could easily be mistaken for an attitude of skeptical appraisal or possibly for an it’s-just-a-kids’-show sort of cynicism. Or even for sleep deprivation. Randy dropped his chin toward his chest. “Oh. Kay,” he said, keeping his eyes on Bob’s face. He looked like he was thinking, There goes my hope for a tip here today. Welcome to: Non-Verbal Communication Dysfunction for Adults. I wished that Bob had smiled for the guy. I would have hated to see an ego collapse at a kids’ magic show. Now, I felt like I had to laugh a little more emphatically to reassure Randy. I frequently find myself laughing and applauding for the benefit of the performers (and not so much for my own pleasure) because I believe it’s my duty as an audience member to give them their “E” for effort. It’s my show for them. I have acquired this very Midwestern attitude since moving here. Back in New York, where critical judgment takes priority over big-hearted validation, standing ovations were given only if one could not possibly contain one’s excitement. Out here, it seems we sometimes give out standing O’s to show our gratitude to the performers who have not left us to live on one of the coasts. Or because—like their families—we’re proud of them just for getting the job. Midwesterners make good audiences. The kids were laughing. The other adults also were chuckling on cue, but Randy kept checking on Bob. Bob was still in the same pose. Looking at him now, you might think that he was even less satisfied with his worker than he was before. Brave and reckless, Randy tried again. “You know, if you lower your expectations you’ll have much more fun,” he said, this time louder and with more feeling. “I already have and I’m having a fine time,” Bob replied, also louder and with a tiny bit more feeling. There was way too much dramatic tension in the room for me. I was trying to think of a new line for Randy, so I barely noticed when he looked at me and pointed. “Would you come up here and help me?” he said. Wasn’t I already helping? I walked toward him hoping he’d do it—maybe he’d ask me for my first name. “What’s your name?” he said. “Ellen.” “Where are you from originally, Ellen?” I guess he knew better than to try the what’s-your-first-name thing on a grownup. “New York.” “New Yawk, huh?” “Yes,” I said. (Note to non-New Yorkers: Do not say that.) “What part?” “Long Island.” What’s my face doing? I’m not used to this talking with everyone looking at me. What if I get the answers wrong? Where do my hands go? But then, I breathe. I’m cool. “So do you want to go back there, or do you like Chicago?” “Chicago’s just wonderful. We love Chicago,” I said as images flashed through my head: the drive to New York and back on Route 80, some brutally ugly little house we might have to live in there, the inevitable daily crawl on the Long Island Expressway. None of it seemed even slightly appealing; it never has. Then flip, flip, flip in my mind through all the places we’ve lived here, plus a selection of pleasant memories of the city and the lake. That’s right! We love Chicago. I was just checking my answer. I wanted to be sure I’d told the truth. “So, Ellen, what do you do?” He wants me to say it? Say what? At-home mom? That’s what I’m supposed to say. But he wants me to come out and say it? There’s got to be a better way for me to answer that question, but I don’t think that it would make sense without the soundtrack and visuals. I’d need flashbacks to represent all the resonance his question inspires in me. Each day of my life is complicated with memories of my own childhood; with small reminders of movies, novels, and songs I’ve loved; and with impressions of my mother’s life and my beliefs about the lives of my sisters and friends. Could Randy have any idea about all that? I mean, did he even see The Hours? Maybe not. Maybe I could say that, while my children are at school, I spend as much time as I can attempting to give some order to the chaos of my life (past and present) by writing these little narrative things about said chaos. The rest of the time I fulfill my duties by keeping the house hold stocked with peanut butter, milk, and paper towels; by keeping clean clothes available (even though I deeply, childishly resent it); and by maintaining a full and fully met schedule of activities for the above-mentioned children. Also, I believe that I have, so far, managed to keep them healthy, safe, and clean—and I have, so far, kept their intellectual, spiritual, and emotional needs reasonably well attended to without causing them undue psychological trauma. And I have never even once forgotten to pick one of them up from school. I’d like that noted. And, also, one of them has autism—but I can’t just announce that, can I? And I really like my husband; that’s no small thing, either. But I couldn’t say all that. I knew I should just come out and say that I’m writing a book—or trying to write a book. No, be definite: Writing a book. It sounds more rational. “Absolutely nothing.” I said. “I have two kids.” And right there I realized that that is my problem and that it’s always been my problem. Rather than even try to verbalize a rational answer to a big stupid question, I will say something dry and ironic to make my own private joke on myself. If you lower your expectations you’ll have much more fun. If you don’t know me and don’t know how my internal and external life teeters on the brink of anarchy and how much I’ve come to like it that way, then you can’t understand how deeply amusing that answer was to me. Few people know that I always stand off and point at the truth from a distance. Because why bother when the slippery mess can’t be nailed down any way? Everyone’s life resists encapsulation, sound-biting, simple narration, spin doctoring, and even Oprah. Let’s, instead, explore the differences, in the field of self-expression, between uselessness and purposelessness, shall we? Welcome to: Post-Structuralism for Mommies. Then Randy picked up a long wooden box. Its blue-green paint was scuffed up from traveling in the magician’s case. I let him put my arm inside. He slid two metal plates through it, just below my elbow. I wanted to be a good assistant, so I winced as the plates hit the bottoms of their slots. It was just a little wince; I was subtle. Then he bent the two halves of the box away from each other. One half contained my lower arm, the other my upper arm. It didn’t hurt, but I furrowed my brow slightly to suggest that it did. The kids gasped and giggled. Randy put the halves back together and took out the plates. He took my arm out of the box. Everyone applauded. I looked over my shoulder at Eve in the front row. She wasn’t smiling like the other kids. I went back to my seat. Soon the show was over and Randy handed out the balloon animals. Eve, holding her pink balloon puppy, came over to me with her lower lip pushed out and her eyebrows knit together. She reached for my magical arm. “See? It’s okay. It didn’t get hurt,” I said. She touched it and hugged it while looking me in the face so I could see her expression. She even snuffled up nonexistent tears. Then she leaned into my chest. “Mommy, I didn’t like that.” “It was all pretend, honey. Nothing ever really happened to my arm, and it didn’t hurt. Okay?” “Okay,” she said. She hugged me again and then went back to swatting her friends with her puppy. She’s just that kind of a girl: capable of expressing herself honestly while putting on a good show for her audience. Author’s Note: I started to write this story the day after the party, but something was missing, so I left it alone. A month later, at a Cubs game, I became fascinated by the behavior of four young guys seated in front of my friend and me. They were putting on a great bad boy act for right fielder Sammy Sosa, heckling him every time the ball came within a hundred feet of him, but they skillfully omitted all profanity and anything more than mildly insulting. Sosa, of course, tried to ignore them, but eventually he gave them a noncommittal nod. The hecklers congratulated themselves with high fives and “Yes! Sammy gives us the nod!” then went right back to their tirade. Obviously, I don’t go to games often, but they got me thinking about when and how those cultural rules are learned. B.E. Pinkham lives with her husband and children in Chicago. Brain, Child (Winter 2005) </div> </article> <article id="post-21451" class="post-21451 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-blog category-featured-blog-posts category-general tag-brainteen tag-m-m-de-voe tag-motherhood tag-mothering-teens tag-parenting tag-parenting-teens tag-raising-teenagers tag-teens"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/chicken-little/" title="Permalink to Chicken Little" rel="bookmark"><img width="520" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/98471812-520x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Chicken Little" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Chicken Little" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/chicken-little/" title="Permalink to Chicken Little" rel="bookmark">Chicken Little</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/chicken-little/" title="9:50 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-06-19T09:50:50-04:00" pubdate>June 19, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/blog/" rel="category tag">Blog</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/featured-blog-posts/" rel="category tag">Featured Blog Posts</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/brainteen/" rel="tag">#brainteen</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/m-m-de-voe/" rel="tag">M. M. De Voe</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/motherhood/" rel="tag">motherhood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/mothering-teens/" rel="tag">mothering teens</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/parenting/" rel="tag">parenting</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/parenting-teens/" rel="tag">parenting teens</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/raising-teenagers/" rel="tag">raising teenagers</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/teens/" rel="tag">teens</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/chicken-little/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> By M. M. De Voe <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-21454" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/98471812.jpg" alt="98471812" width="600" height="380" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/98471812.jpg 520w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/98471812-300x190.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/98471812-100x63.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/98471812-232x147.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/98471812-500x316.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /> My son turns thirteen in two weeks. Over the last year, I have been watching him develop; watched him outgrow me (no small feat: I’m 5’7″), watched his tastes mature from cartoons to anime. I have been congratulating myself for raising such a fine example of humanity—the kid shows manners towards adults, he offers to help at school when there’s need, he is sincerely pleased when his little sister presents him with a glittery sticker she thinks he will like. Oh, I’ve done well, I tell myself over a cup of chamomile tea. He’s going to be a great teen. Mothers like me are the reason the phrase “don’t count your chickens before they are hatched” remains in the lexicon. Last night, an hour past his bedtime, almost-13 looks me blankly in the eye and lets me know he has a huge project due tomorrow which is 90% of his math grade. “But it’s nothing,” he shrugs. “I only have to get a 45 to pass the class. “ Pass the class? What about maintaining a B+ average? “Don’t need to anymore. Just need to pass. The planning and stuff on this is 25 points and then there’s the design, that’s another 25 so that’s enough. I don’t have to do any math.” “You just did more math in your head than it would take to finish the project! You can’t sabotage yourself like this.” “Mom, relax. Why are you trying to stress me out?” What? I cemented him in front of a laptop until the project was done. With the math. He laughed when he saw the clock. It was well after midnight. “Guess I really did pull an all-nighter.” Why is this funny? I sent him to bed, with the caution that it would be hard for him to wake up in the morning but school was short and he could nap in the afternoon. “Whatever, Mom. You worry too much.” This may be true. In the morning, I went to wake him, expecting a struggle. What I did not expect was the complete immobility of a hairy man-leg. I spoke gently, bracing for the typical grousing, and was surprised when the leg kicked out with the full force developed during a semester running track. “Get away from me unless you want to die. I’m not kidding.” Uh. What? I let the kid snooze three minutes then tickled the leg with a (long) feather. The feather was kicked out of my hand. “I said, get away!” Teenager. There was a teenager in my son’s bed. I tried rapping on the wood bed frame in a very annoying manner. “Hey. School.” “I don’t care. It’s my life! Leave me alone!” What was going on? Where was the eye-rolling, groaning tween who eventually did what had to be done? Who was this vicious teenager in my son’s bed? I visited the monster a few more times, each time expressing more urgency. My insistence only made him angrier. He threw a pillow, hard. It missed me and hit a lamp. He didn’t care. Finally, it was time to go. Not time to get up, but time to leave the house if he wanted to make it to school by the first bell. I sprayed him with a fine mist of water. It was like waking a dragon. “What?! Get out! I told you to go away! I will hurt you!” “You have school,” I interrupted. “Get up. Get ready. Get going. Do not be late. It’s on you. I’m leaving to take your sister to school.” I stalked away but froze just past the doorway. “Uh. And also: Have a good day.” Never has a conquering knight felt less potent. That evening I got the robo-call informing me that my son had been late for school. A note was required to explain his tardiness. My pen hovered over paper. What could I say? My son became a teen overnight and I can’t control him? That would be the truth. Three cups of chamomile and no calm was forthcoming. Then I got an email reminding us of the dress code for his induction into the National Junior Honor Society, and the tea kicked in. Things will go as they go. We dress up for the good times and keep the spray bottle around for the rest. It’s not easy to get to adulthood, just as it’s not easy to be the adult. But we will do it. M.M. Devoe is a NYC-based author whose fiction has won or been shortlisted for 23 literary prizes. She is anthologized alongside Joyce Carol Oates and Margaret Atwood, and has been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Pen Parentis and is a Columbia University Writing Fellow and MFA. Find her at www.mmdevoe.com and Twitter @mmdevoe. </div> </article> <article id="post-21456" class="post-21456 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-breastfeeding tag-equality tag-policy tag-valerie-young"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/policy-update-june-19-2015/" title="Permalink to Policy Update: June 19, 2015" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Policy-Report-ART-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Policy Update: June 19, 2015" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Policy Update: June 19, 2015" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/policy-update-june-19-2015/" title="Permalink to Policy Update: June 19, 2015" rel="bookmark">Policy Update: June 19, 2015</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/policy-update-june-19-2015/" title="9:08 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-06-19T09:08:22-04:00" pubdate>June 19, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/breastfeeding/" rel="tag">breastfeeding</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/equality/" rel="tag">equality</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/policy/" rel="tag">policy</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/valerie-young/" rel="tag">Valerie Young</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/policy-update-june-19-2015/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-21459" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Policy-Report-ART-1024x678.jpg" alt="Policy Report ART" width="640" height="424" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Policy-Report-ART-1024x678.jpg 1024w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Policy-Report-ART-300x199.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Policy-Report-ART-100x66.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Policy-Report-ART-232x154.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Policy-Report-ART-500x331.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" />A quick look back at events this week impacting women and families, from Valerie Young, a public policy analyst with <a href="http://www.mom-mentum.org/blog/category/woman-in-washington/">Mom-mentum</a>. Significant news this week – and all of it is good!* Oregon is the latest state to pass a paid sick leave bill! The new law requires businesses with 10 or more employees to give 1 hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked to their employees, to a max of 40 hours, or 5 days, per year. The bill also prohibits retaliation or discrimination against a worker who uses the sick leave. The bill also clarifies that employers have to provide, within reason, private spaces for women to breastfeed, and may not discriminate against women who choose to do so at work. <a href="http://prospect.org/article/oregons-bill-paid-sick-leave-gains-momentum">Now there are 4 states with paid sick leave – California, Connecticut, and Massachusetts recently passed their own bills.</a> The national bill, titled the Healthy Families Act, continues to languish in Congress. New York has had state laws protecting breastfeeding mothers for years. But so few mothers knew about them, employers frequently didn’t comply. To remedy that, the state legislature has passed the “<a href="http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2015/06/8570271/legislature-passes-new-protections-breastfeeding">Breastfeeding Mothers Bill of Rights,” </a>to be posted in health care facilities, nurseries, and post-delivery rooms in hospitals. It clearly states that all mothers have the right to take breaks for breastfeeding or pumping milk at work. Additionally, employers have to provide appropriate spaces for breastfeeding, and may not take action against women who do so. Pennsylvania’s Governor wants to use a new way to bring down the rate of incarceration – making preschool available to thousands more children. Fighting crime doesn’t usually involve early education, but the Governor cites a stack of data showing that there is a <a href="http://articles.philly.com/2015-05-28/news/62725112_1_wolf-house-republicans-spending-plan">strong link between preschool and completing high school, a smaller chance of being arrested and going to prison.</a> Based on a projected return on investment of $26,000 per child enrolled, researchers estimate a savings to the state of over $350 million. *Wait – I lied! It’s not ALL good. Here’s a downer – women are still a minority in all state legislatures around the country. In fact, there were more women in Nebraska’s assembly 20 years ago than there are now. Why should this be, you ask? One expert says “… that women are expected to do more and be more to meet the same goals as men.” Yet the benefits of having women at the table are known. Different voices, different perspectives, lead to better policies for everyone, according to this article in the <a href="http://columbustelegram.com/banner-press/news/women-still-minority-in-state-legislatures/article_abe0dfcd-0040-53a0-bcc5-04e0365ab775.html">Columbus Telegram</a>. And it has a cool map, so you can find out the percentage of women in your state’s leadership. Follow Valerie on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Your-WoMan-in-Washington/135695273166707?fref=ts">Facebook (Your (Wo)Man in Washington) </a>and Twitter (@WomanInDC) and find her on the blog at <a href="http://www.mom-mentum.org/blog/category/woman-in-washington/">Mom-mentum</a>.   Photo: © <a title="Robhainer" href="http://www.dreamstime.com/robhainer_info">Robhainer</a> | Dreamstime.com   </div> </article> <article id="post-21432" class="post-21432 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-blog category-general tag-childhood tag-family tag-fatherhood tag-fathers tag-parenting tag-vivian-maguire"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/gifts-from-my-father/" title="Permalink to Gifts From My Father" rel="bookmark"><img width="583" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/gifts-from-my-father-583x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Gifts From My Father" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Gifts From My Father" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/gifts-from-my-father/" title="Permalink to Gifts From My Father" rel="bookmark">Gifts From My Father</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/gifts-from-my-father/" title="7:39 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-06-18T07:39:18-04:00" pubdate>June 18, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/blog/" rel="category tag">Blog</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/childhood/" rel="tag">childhood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/family/" rel="tag">family</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/fatherhood/" rel="tag">fatherhood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/fathers/" rel="tag">fathers</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/parenting/" rel="tag">parenting</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/vivian-maguire/" rel="tag">Vivian Maguire</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/gifts-from-my-father/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> By Vivian Maguire <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-21438" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/gifts-from-my-father.jpg" alt="gifts from my father" width="583" height="442" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/gifts-from-my-father.jpg 583w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/gifts-from-my-father-300x227.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/gifts-from-my-father-100x76.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/gifts-from-my-father-232x176.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/gifts-from-my-father-500x379.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 583px) 100vw, 583px" /> I didn’t grow up poor, but my father did. When he told us stories about his childhood, I almost felt as though they had happened to me. There was the time his father had found a magnetic screen at the city junkyard. He brought it home, and pressed it against the family television. The television flashed over from white, black, and grey images to glaring red, yellow, green, and blue vertical stripes across the glass. For the first time on their living room TV, they saw a rainbow. “Cambie el canal! Change the channel!” my father and his siblings yelled, believing that he had turned their black and white television into a color TV with his magic screen. “No, no, no!” my grandfather said, laughing, “No puedo! This is all it does!” One afternoon, at the park, his mother had forgotten their lunches. They were so far from home, she had had to buy hamburgers at a nearby stand. “The best thing we had ever eaten,” said my father, as he recalled how he, his three brothers, and his three sisters had chewed through the sandwiches of fried beef, mustard, pickles, tomatoes, and greasy lettuce on grilled bread. “When my mother got the bill,” he always paused, “it was for five dollars. She sat down and cried.” I would listen to this story and try to picture my grandmother, sobbing in the playground, with her seven thin children trying to console her, the taste of peppered meat still on their tongues. My father did not tell these stories as fond recollections; the memories were integral to who he was, and why he worked as hard as he did. Growing up, I would not know poverty and hunger as my father did, but he still wanted me to understand it. When we were out running errands or stopping somewhere to eat, my father would always hand me a few dollar bills to hand to a homeless person. “Why don’t you do it,” I would whine. “I’m afraid,” I would say when he pressed me. “So you’re not going to give them anything, because you’re afraid?” he would reply. I thought he was forcing me to give money to the poor because it made him uneasy. It took years for me to realize, that he was teaching me to see them. He wanted me to be uncomfortable, because he didn’t ever want me to ever be okay with just walking by people on the street, not if I had something to give. My father found other ways to teach us too. When he bought us presents, he never gave us quite what we had asked for. My father always bought us toys that were close to what we wanted. For my sixth birthday, I had asked my father for a battery-powered car. I pictured myself in my pink, plastic convertible, with all of my friends watching me cruise down the block with matching pink sunglasses on my head, like Barbie. When my birthday came, I didn’t see a pink convertible. Instead, there was a brand new white scooter. “It’s not a pink car,” I told my father. “Those things are too slow mi reyna,” replied my father. “You’ll be able to keep up with your brothers on this. Get on, try it,” he urged. I set my foot on the flat base and pushed; it was fast. I thrilled and then laughed at the speed, the convertible forgotten. Another time, I asked my dad for the Pogo Ball I had seen on television. My father bought me a pogo stick—an almost even trade, except that I almost broke my neck several times trying to balance on it long enough to even attempt a jump. Still, I enjoyed playing with it, until like my other toys, it was forgotten. But one time my child-desire was nearly unshakable when I saw the Julie doll on television. In the eighties, she was a doll unlike any other that could sense when it was cold outside, her mouth moved when she spoke, she could respond to questions, and knew when she was being moved to another room. “Are we going to get the Julie doll?” I asked my dad as we walked down the aisle at Toys R’Us. “I found something even better,” said my father, and my stomach fell. I recognized those words. My father had other plans for me, and I would not get the doll I had been pining after. I had been thinking all morning of questions I would ask her, and now I knew that Julie and I would never speak to each other. When we walked out of the store, I clung to the doll my father had bought me. She wasn’t Julie. She was Pamela. Her mouth didn’t move, she didn’t know that it was warm and balmy outside, she had no clue that we had left the store, and she only spoke when you pushed on certain parts of her body. “I see you!” Pamela said accusingly when I pressed on her blue, plastic eye. When we returned home, I hugged my new doll to my chest. I took her to my room and laid her on my pillow. “I see you!” she said, as I pressed on her face, abdomen, and any other parts of her body that would elicit a response. “Muah!” her lips smacked as I pushed my palm onto her mouth. “Hee hee hee!” she giggled as my small fingers explored her belly. “I love you,” Pamela sighed when I pushed my hand onto her chest. I love you too, Pamela, I thought as I pulled her into a loving embrace. Being a child, I couldn’t help but believe that I would be hurting my doll’s feelings if I didn’t return her affection. I squeezed her to my body and whispered, “I love you, I love you,” until I began to believe it. Over the years, I would receive many gifts from my father that would fall short of my expectations, but like the scooter, the pogo stick, and the doll, I would learn to love my father’s gifts more because of who they came from. Of course, I did not realize at the time that my father was teaching me a lesson that would extend into my adult life. Though I would be disappointed when events in my life did not turn out the way I planned, I would learn how to enjoy myself anyway, and to be thankful for the gifts I received, regardless of the form they came in. Like the gifts my father gave me, my life would not look anything like what I had wanted for myself, not even close. But, when I thought about it, I would see that what I had was even better. Vivian Maguire is an English teacher, a writer, and a parent. She lives with her husband Randy, and their two daughters, Amelie and Penelope, in El Paso, TX. She writes about parenting and teaching on her blog, <a href="http://storymother.wordpress.com/">storymother.wordpress.com</a>. </div> </article> <article id="post-21409" class="post-21409 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-blog category-featured-blog-posts category-general tag-donor tag-family tag-fathers-day tag-fathers tag-jennifer-berney tag-parenthood tag-two-mothers"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/what-a-father-is-and-isnt/" title="Permalink to What a Father Is, and Isn’t" rel="bookmark"><img width="414" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/165068400-414x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="What a Father Is, and Isn’t" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="What a Father Is, and Isn’t" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/what-a-father-is-and-isnt/" title="Permalink to What a Father Is, and Isn’t" rel="bookmark">What a Father Is, and Isn’t</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/what-a-father-is-and-isnt/" title="7:51 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-06-17T07:51:53-04:00" pubdate>June 17, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/blog/" rel="category tag">Blog</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/featured-blog-posts/" rel="category tag">Featured Blog Posts</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/donor/" rel="tag">donor</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/family/" rel="tag">family</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/fathers-day/" rel="tag">Father's Day</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/fathers/" rel="tag">fathers</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/jennifer-berney/" rel="tag">Jennifer Berney</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/parenthood/" rel="tag">parenthood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/two-mothers/" rel="tag">two mothers</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/what-a-father-is-and-isnt/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> By Jennifer Berney <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-21411" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/165068400.jpg" alt="165068400" width="550" height="550" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/165068400.jpg 414w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/165068400-150x150.jpg 150w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/165068400-300x300.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/165068400-100x100.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/165068400-232x232.jpg 232w" sizes="(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px" /> My children have two mothers, two dogs, fifteen chickens, and zero fathers. That is the accurate headcount in our household.   When acquaintances are feeling bold, they sometimes ask about the father of my sons. “Do they have the same father?” they might ask in a whisper, or, “Is the father someone you know?” My children have two mothers, two dogs, fifteen chickens, and zero fathers. That is the accurate headcount in our household. There is no father living out of state, or just out of sight, no one whom they will one day call “Dad.” Instead, they have a donor, which is a different thing entirely. Fathers, as we all know, take countless forms. Your father might be the person who bore witness on the day you were born. He might have stayed through a long hard labor with one hand on your mother. He might have cut the cord when you came out. Or perhaps your father was banished to the waiting room, where he tapped his foot and checked his watch. Or he might not have been there at all. He might have been overseas waiting for a letter, a phone call, an email. He might have been off at the bar or away on business. If it matters where he was, whether he was there or he wasn’t, whether he was hopeful or anxious or indifferent, he’s a father. Your father might be the person who taught you how to ride a bike, who trailed behind you steadying the seat, who let go without saying a word and let you glide down a gentle slope. He might be the one who wiped the gravel from your skinned knee and spread a layer of bacitracin over the wound. Or he might have been the one who yelled out in annoyance every time you fell and cried. “Toughen up,” he might have said. “It’s easy.” Maybe your father was the one who came home from the store with a box of cookies and didn’t care if they disappeared before he ate one. Or maybe he was the one who had a stash of licorice that no one was allowed to touch. Maybe your father was a greeting card father, a #1 Dad who liked fishing and golf, who’d happily unwrap a box of cigars or a tie every year on his birthday. Or maybe your father hated sports and was hard to shop for because he only liked the things he liked, and these were not the things you gave him. Maybe your father took over when your mother needed a break, or when she left. Maybe he was up to the task of making breakfast, wrapping presents, walking you to the park in a wagon, or maybe you just carried on as if you were alone. Maybe your father was the only one you had. Maybe you had two. Maybe you’ve got gay dads, or step-dads or granddads who took over the role. Our fathers leave us with internal landscapes. Even the best fathers may leave us with little ruts and gullies that mark the places we’ve been hurt. A father who leaves and never returns or a tyrannical father might leave a chasm. And then there are smooth swimmable lakes created by consistent paternal love. We measure our fathers by how often they show up, and what they offer when they do. But an absent father and a sperm donor have little in common. We measure a donor mostly by what he offers before a child is conceived. Do the sperm swim towards the egg? Do they reach it? And in the aftermath of conception, once a baby is born, we measure a donor by how well he honors his agreement. Perhaps he is nameless and will always be so, or perhaps he agrees to release his name and number once the child turns eighteen. Or perhaps he participates from a meaningful distance in the role of family friend or uncle. In a donor’s case this distance, this absence, is love. If you ask my older son about his father, he will quickly correct you. “I have two moms,” he clarifies, and I note that so far he frames his family in positives; he accounts for what he has not what he’s missing. And so I worry that it’s confusing to him when people ask me about his donor, but use the word father instead. I know what they mean of course, but if I answer without correcting them what will my son think? That he has a father after all—a potential parent who has left him? That is not the case, I want to whisper in his ear; no one has abandoned you. You have one mother who bore you, and another who welcomed you, and a donor who was generous enough to help bring you into the world, and who honored our agreement that he would be a friend and not a father. This is why when people ask in hushed tones about my children’s father, I try to be consistent. “Oh, you mean his donor?” I answer brightly, trying to chase the shadows into light. Jennifer Berney is a Brain, Child contributing blogger. Her essays have also appeared in The New York Times Motherlode, the Brevity blog, and Mutha. She is currently working on a memoir that chronicles her years-long quest to conceive a child. You can connect with her on <a href="https://twitter.com/JennBerney">Twitter</a>, or on her personal blog, <a href="http://goodnightalready.com/">Goodnight Already.</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-21414" class="post-21414 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-articles-page category-from-the-archives category-general tag-alcoholism tag-cancer tag-family tag-loss tag-motherhood tag-mothering tag-mothers tag-nervous-breakdown tag-stephanie-farrell"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/there-when-i-need-you/" title="Permalink to There When I Need You" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Screen-Shot-2015-06-16-at-8.59.26-PM-664x170.png" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="There When I Need You" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="There When I Need You" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/there-when-i-need-you/" title="Permalink to There When I Need You" rel="bookmark">There When I Need You</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/there-when-i-need-you/" title="9:01 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-06-16T21:01:30-04:00" pubdate>June 16, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/articles-page/" rel="category tag">Articles Page</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/from-the-archives/" rel="category tag">From The Archives</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/alcoholism/" rel="tag">alcoholism</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/cancer/" rel="tag">cancer</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/family/" rel="tag">family</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/loss/" rel="tag">loss</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/motherhood/" rel="tag">motherhood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/mothering/" rel="tag">mothering</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/mothers/" rel="tag">mothers</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/nervous-breakdown/" rel="tag">nervous breakdown</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/stephanie-farrell/" rel="tag">Stephanie Farrell</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/there-when-i-need-you/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> By Stephanie Farrell <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-21417" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Screen-Shot-2015-06-16-at-8.59.26-PM-300x187.png" alt="Screen Shot 2015-06-16 at 8.59.26 PM" width="300" height="187" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Screen-Shot-2015-06-16-at-8.59.26-PM-300x187.png 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Screen-Shot-2015-06-16-at-8.59.26-PM-100x62.png 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Screen-Shot-2015-06-16-at-8.59.26-PM-232x145.png 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Screen-Shot-2015-06-16-at-8.59.26-PM-500x312.png 500w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Screen-Shot-2015-06-16-at-8.59.26-PM.png 734w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />My mom often joked that the second baby should be called “the nervous breakdown baby.” I’d have found this funnier if I hadn’t been her second baby and if she hadn’t subsequently had a nervous breakdown. Now, with two children of my own, my stepfather reminded me that I am the same age she was when she was hospitalized. It was a gentle nudge, his way of telling me not to take on too much, but it made me feel like my biology has faulty wiring. Now on those days when I feel isolated or exhausted, I picture an old kitchen timer, ticking louder and faster right before the buzzer goes off. Time’s up—this is all you can take, no more. In the years before her breakdown, Mom put on a fabulous act. She was Supermom. She set up a preschool in our garage and taught all the neighborhood kids. She taught us how to bake cookies, make collages, and collect bugs. She would make up stories about Mrs. Carter, a little old woman in tennis shoes who secretly rode a motorcycle. Much like the fictional character Mrs. Pollifax, created by Dorothy Gilman more than a decade later, Mrs. Carter was often hired by the CIA for international adventures. Mrs. Carter, much like my mom, led a double life. Every morning Mom would say that she needed to put on her face. She meant her make-up; she’d rarely stray out of the house without it. But my mom put on a face all the time, a happy face that belied what lurked inside. She wore it to Garden Club and League of Women Voters and to Little League games and to my Brownie meetings. She wore it with her neighbors. She wore it with most of her friends. Underneath the face, she was hurting. Despite her joke, I know that we didn’t cause her nervous breakdown (okay, I say that only after a few years of therapy myself), but we probably hastened its arrival. My mom’s mom, who wore a capable-Mormon-mother-of-six face, became a closet alcoholic. Grandma was recovering from her own childhood; she’d had to raise her siblings in poverty when she was just a kid herself. At her best, she could make a mean lemon meringue pie while at the same time assisting my grandpa, a doctor, with his patient on her kitchen table. At her worst, she said horrible, not-to-be-repeated things to my mother. Since they weren’t to be repeated, my mom didn’t repeat them. She didn’t speak of them. She didn’t laugh at them. She just stuffed them down and put on her face and carried on. I have learned a lot from my mom. One of the things I learned is that you can be in a great deal of despair and still get up and put cereal on the table and change a dirty diaper. You can take the kids to Monroe Falls every day in the summer, teach them to swim, and laugh at their antics even though you secretly long to die. You can sing silly songs to them, read stories, and comb their long hair, being gentle because it’s so tangled. And you can act like everything is okay and fool most of the people most of the time. But not your kids. I knew my mom was sad. I knew it at an early age. It was my job in the family to cheer her up, keep her happy, and do what I could do so that on the rare occasions when my dad was home, everything was fine. If that meant keeping my sister quiet, I would distract her. If it meant bringing my dad slippers and his newspaper, I fetched. I was my mom’s cleaning helper. I also became the entertainer, remembering ?funny stories to share? with her. I also know that each ?of us has a breaking?point. When my mother ?reached hers, she finally got ?help. Though kids can add? pressure to a stressful life,? they are also a tether to ?remain on this side of the? grass. She felt the tug of us even ?when she was in a locked ward making brown-glazed piggybanks and pink crocheted slippers. When she got out, her face wasn’t so firmly on. She would allow cracks to be seen. She would say she was sad. She told us that for years she had tried to be perfect and that it was a mistake—we are not perfect. My mother taught me a profound lesson. You are allowed to get help, but don’t wait until you desperately need it. I am determined not to follow her lead into the hospital, to sedatives and group therapy with permanent locked-ward residents. So in my own recovery process, I have learned to shed more of the face, to be out there with my feelings. I also find tremendous comfort in my faith. As a Christian, I easily acknowledge my imperfections and rely on God’s grace. I also like the promise that God is not going to give us more than we can handle. (To which my brother likes to quip, “God must sure think a lot of us.”) When I became a mom five years ago, my mom drove out from her home in Ohio to South Jersey as soon as I went into labor. Our son, Daniel, was born while she was en route. She stopped by the hospital at the tail end of her drive. I looked at his tiny little feet next to my big feet and then over at my mom. “You’ve known me since my feet were this small,” I told her. I was filled with love; I got it for the very first time how intensely a mother can love a child, and I realized that this is how much she cared for me. She was full of nervous energy that visit and my house seemed to be her best outlet. She scrubbed the bathtub, made the laundry room sink sparkle, polished the wood floors, and swept the driveway. I think she rearranged my cupboards, too. I haven’t been able to find my small bowls since. Three years later she flew out again, this time not to celebrate a birth but to join me in grieving. I had had two miscarriages in a row. The first one knocked me off my feet. I was at fourteen weeks and the doctor couldn’t find a heartbeat, so he ordered an ultrasound. The screen showed an empty womb, the baby almost disintegrated. I was heavy with grief and sobbed for days like I had never cried before. But the doctor told me that what had happened was very rare: I could have done nothing to prevent it, and there was just a one percent chance of its happening again. Five months later, I learned something about percentages. I had “vu jÃ dé”— it’s like “déjÃ vu” except it has all happened to you before, just a little differently. The second time, I was eleven weeks, at a regular check-up, and again no heartbeat. I stood in a doorway at the doctor’s office, just where I’d stood before, while they called to order the ultrasound. If it happens again, I told him, I’m going to fall apart. Someone is going to have to come and pick up the pieces. This time there was a fully formed baby, but it was no longer alive. My mom came to pick up the pieces. She was again there for me, but not in the way I expected. Daniel was then two and a half and ready to be potty-trained, she declared. I said, Knock yourself out. And I meant it. Potty-training was the last thing in the world I cared about. Really, I didn’t care about anything, not eating, not sleeping, not anything. It was the first time in my life when I couldn’t make any kind of decision. And there my mom was having this incredible bonding experience with my son, the trips to the bathroom a special adventure for the two of them. After three days, the job was finished. Daniel was dry through naps and at night. I am still amazed at this, but at the time, I wanted to yell, I am the one who needs help. Every now and then she would show up on the screened-in porch where I planted myself early in the morning and stayed parked all day. She’d let me cry for a minute or two and then would leave again. After a week, I started to make meals. “I put those dishes in the sideboard, not there,” I told her. “Hey, we recycle!” I’d say, pulling a two-liter bottle out of the trash can. She smiled at my irritation, happy to see that I was beginning to engage in life. Many months later my husband and I somehow summoned the desire to try again, and this time everything went fine. Our daughter, Emily, arrived with lots of hair and bright blue eyes. My mom was thrilled. She loaded her car down in pink packages for her first granddaughter and made the drive out. Yet again, I sat on the porch, this time content to nurse and read and drink lemonade. Mom’s nervous energy returned and this time she attacked my yard. She weeded, mulched, and planted. Perennials and rhododendrons appeared along our side fence, orange hibiscus along the back fence, impatiens and lilies in front of the house. Despite previous experience, I expected her to take care of my postpartum needs: meals, diaper changes, etc. But again, she just gave me space, this time to bond with my baby on the porch, every day transforming the view of the yard from its state of neglect. Now I could look up from my book and enjoy the view rather than think, “Oh, I should really take care of that” before turning back to my novel. (I rarely let anything get in the way of a good book, especially not housework or weeding.) On her last morning with us she gave me a pedicure on the porch, gently massaging my still-swollen ankles. With cotton balls between my toes, I cried as I watched her car pull out of my driveway. How could I take care of both of these kids and this house and do all that I am supposed to do? I was overwhelmed, mostly by sleep deprivation and by the feeling that my son had become possessed. Why else would he choose this time to pee in our closets and write on the walls? It was a crisp fall morning a few months later when my mom called to tell me that she had cancer. The Big C. Not cancer—no one in our family has cancer, I thought. Emotional breakdowns, depression, drunk and disorderly conduct, this we understand. Nothing some rehab or Prozac couldn’t cure. Cancer is a whole different planet, one our family has never visited. My mom had always joked that she didn’t have a moderate bone in her body; she went overboard in whatever it was. Well, this time was no different. It wasn’t a little lump to be removed. It was Stage IV uterine cancer. It was my turn to pack up the car and drive to her. I made four trips over the next four months, a total of forty hours in the car with my two kids in tow. We drove through thunderstorms, hail storms, a blizzard, and fog. I wondered whether I really knew my mom. I had this desperate need to capture her. I was panicked with a deep nagging fear that her good days were over, that I was going to watch as she slid into a period of illness that she wouldn’t recover from, that she would die. As I was driving I realized that even though she was not there for me the way I thought I needed her to be, she was there for me. When I got to Ohio, I embraced the opportunity to mother her, for she had taught me how to do it. When she was determinedly positive, I smiled with her even though I didn’t share her optimism. I drove her to chemotherapy in Cleveland, twice through blizzards. We stopped for coffee and bagels on the way, fortifying ourselves. We had always talked about making a quilt together. With no time to waste, we worked on a quilt wall-hanging while we watched the I.V. drip, drip, drip into the hole in her chest for six hours. She didn’t look like a cancer patient at first. “I always wanted to be a blonde,” she said when she first showed me the wig she’d picked out. She had a head shaving party, inviting her friends to a day at the salon. Later, when her head got itchy at a chemo session, she shed the wig with a smile. “Guess I am having a no-hair day,” she said. Her starkly bald head, more than anything else, made the cancer real. During the winter of her cancer, we cried together only once. I caught her on the Monday after chemo, when the effects were worst. She was honest about how terrible she felt. I blurted out how much I hated this, hated all of it, that I still needed her and that she absolutely was not allowed to die yet. Not yet, I am not ready. I don’t think I will ever be ready. But maybe when you’re in your nineties and I’m in my sixties, we can talk about it. We cried together on the phone, my handset getting all wet. I was in the kitchen, leaning over my counter, looking out at a gray winter day. She was in her king-sized bed, confined to it for the next few days by the chemo that had wiped her out. Normally, she was distracted from the pain by the birds who visited her wooden balcony. But that day we didn’t have to talk about the birds and I didn’t have to tell her funny stories about my kids that I had saved up or about how happy I was to have organized my linen closet. I could just say, it stinks. The whole thing. Winter, living far apart, being positive, feeling sick, cancer, death. Months later, when she had made it through chemo, the strongest stuff they can give you, the kill-ya-to-cure- ya strength, she said, “Just thank God that He has cured me of cancer.” But here’s the problem: you never really know if you are cured from cancer. When you’re on the toxic stuff, nothing is growing. So after she was done with chemo, we were in wait-and-see mode. Her face was back on, adamantly positive. I was a little kid again, knowing that everything was not all right but not allowed to talk about it. I really wanted to call my mom this morning. There’s a terrible time in the morning when I linger between sleep and alertness—it can be a good fifteen minutes before I remember that she is dead. Our winter of cancer was followed by a spring of false hope. Then on my daughter’s first birthday, right before we cut the cake, she called to tell me that she was in the hospital. The cancer was back and she was terminal. Our last month together was surreal. It was as if every morning she walked toward her grave, eyes wide open, but upon getting there, she found herself still standing. No? Not today? she’d ask politely. Well, okay, then. There was no more pretending. During that month, she talked about her hopes for us, and she shared how painful it was when her mom died. She gave me tips on finding mom-substitutes. The week before she died, my mom checked into the presidential suite at the spa. It was there that I saw her for the last time. She treated me and her two sisters to pedicures and manicures, facials and massages. The next day I brought the kids there for a swim in the pool. When we were done, we said goodbye, and she and my aunts climbed into the hot tub. I tried to do our funny goodbye schtick—you say goodbye, walk away, then come back and say goodbye again. But she had already turned after my first goodbye; she was laughing with her sisters and didn’t hear me. I stood there in the hallway, holding my kids’ hands, looking at her. It was as if her trial with cancer had crystallized her, like a fire burning away all but the core. What endured was her strong, joyful spirit, determined to live a full life to the very end. I left, knowing I had just seen my mom for the last time, but I smiled at the kids. In the car, I put on their favorite Sesame Street tape and cranked up the volume so they wouldn’t hear me weeping. In some way that I can’t fully put my finger on, it feels significant that my mom died just after my daughter was born. When I talked to my ob-gyn about my own risks for cancer—and told him, wasn’t it crazy, but I might want to have another child—he assured me that it wasn’t. The alpha and the omega, he said. The alpha and the omega. Author’s Note: Since writing this essay, my father’s been physically and mentally ill and I’ve had two more miscarriages. What are you doing to take care of yourself? my mom would ask. I’d tell her that when I can find the words, I pray or write. When the words won’t come, I quilt. I just finished a quilt for my daughter Emily (now two), that is made from her outgrown sleepers and my mom’s flannel nightgowns. It felt like a tangible way to recognize my role in connecting these two generations. Stephanie Farrell lives in Vineland, New Jersey, with her husband, Peter, and their two children. She does freelance work for her regional newspaper. This was her first essay published in a magazine. Brain, Child (Winter 2005) </div> </article> <article id="post-21369" class="post-21369 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-blog category-featured-blog-posts category-general tag-adrienne-jones tag-anxiety tag-children-and-childhood tag-motherhood tag-outpatient-surgery tag-parenting"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/terrified-when-anxious-kids-face-surgery/" title="Permalink to Terrified: When Anxious Kids Face Surgery" rel="bookmark"><img width="478" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/114857439-478x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Terrified: When Anxious Kids Face Surgery" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Terrified: When Anxious Kids Face Surgery" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/terrified-when-anxious-kids-face-surgery/" title="Permalink to Terrified: When Anxious Kids Face Surgery" rel="bookmark">Terrified: When Anxious Kids Face Surgery</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/terrified-when-anxious-kids-face-surgery/" title="10:46 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-06-15T10:46:00-04:00" pubdate>June 15, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/adrienne-jones/" title="View all posts by Adrienne Jones" rel="author">Adrienne Jones</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/blog/" rel="category tag">Blog</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/featured-blog-posts/" rel="category tag">Featured Blog Posts</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/adrienne-jones/" rel="tag">Adrienne Jones</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/anxiety/" rel="tag">anxiety</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/children-and-childhood/" rel="tag">children and childhood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/motherhood/" rel="tag">motherhood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/outpatient-surgery/" rel="tag">outpatient surgery</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/parenting/" rel="tag">parenting</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/terrified-when-anxious-kids-face-surgery/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-21372" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/114857439.jpg" alt="114857439" width="600" height="451" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/114857439.jpg 478w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/114857439-300x225.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/114857439-100x75.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/114857439-232x174.jpg 232w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /> He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t throwing a tantrum. He was in a state of life-or-death terror.   How terrified is a child who needs to control all things that happen to his body, when he finds out that he is going to a hospital and given medicine to make him go to sleep so deeply that he won’t wake up no matter what happens, and that while he sleeps a doctor will prop his mouth open and do surgery on half of his teeth? How much more afraid is that child when he finds out that neither his mom nor his dad will be in the room with him and that he will be there, unconscious and helpless, in a room full of strangers? I’ll tell you how terrified: that child will be approximately as afraid as is possible. That child will turn pale and clammy, vomit repeatedly, succumb to a migraine, and stay awake most of the night screaming and begging his parents not to make him go. His fear will spiral so far out of control he’ll require two nebulizer treatments to ease the asthma attack caused by his fear, but he’ll have to pause those breathing treatments to run to the bathroom because his guts will be in revolt. When I called ahead to the outpatient surgery center a few days before my son Carter, seven-years-old at the time, was scheduled to have his teeth fixed, I asked to speak to one of the prep room nurses. After I made sure she would be there the morning we were coming, I told her, “Carter has extreme anxiety disorder. He’s probably going to need a dose of Versed as soon as we get there. You’ll know him when you see him; he’s a little guy for his age with red hair. He’ll probably be screaming his face off.” The nurse replied, “All kids are afraid of surgery, you know.” I gritted my teeth. I did not say, no shit, you wizard. I said, “Yes, I know. I have three older children who have none of these issues, but Carter really will be more afraid than most kids.” “Don’t you worry, Mrs. Jones. We can handle him. We’re used to dealing with scared kids.” Unwilling to argue, I thanked her and hung up. When I recounted the exchange to my husband he said, “Hey, you never know. Maybe the nurse will turn out to be the first person he’s ever met who can talk him out of being afraid.” We laughed, bitterly. How many people have assumed they could force our son to pull himself together? We arrived at the hospital and by the time we walked through the doors of the surgery center I was soaked with sweat. Moving Carter from the car, across the parking lot, though the hospital’s main lobby (with its throng of staring people), down several corridors, and into the surgical waiting area had been a workout no gym could provide. He kicked, bit, spat, flailed, and most of all, he screamed. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t throwing a tantrum. He was in a state of life-or-death terror. I’m sure that if we could have measured his stress hormones, the levels would have been comparable to a person who’s been run up a tree by a grizzly bear, only to find that grizzly bears can climb. We entered the prep area and the nurse I’d spoken to the week before came right over to us. “He needs a dose of Versed right away,” I panted. “Oh, I don’t know about that. Let’s see,” and she took Carter from me, who, in his flailing, caught her ear with a fist and knocked off her glasses. She put his feet on the ground, knelt, grabbed his shoulders, and gave them a little shake. She put on a super serious, I-don’t-take-this-kind-of-shit-from-kids-like-you voice and said, “You stop that right now, young man. We won’t have any of that here.” I was half hysterical by this time, frantic for someone to give my son some medicine to ease his panic, but also disgusted by this know-it-all-nurse (did she think that I don’t also possess a fierce, I-don’t-take-this-kind-of-shit voice?) and eager to watch her roll out everything in her bag of tricks before she finally had to admit I was right. I knew she’d get bruised, maybe even bloodied, in the process, and that every other patient in the prep area would be disturbed, but what were my options, really? She had the key to the med cart, not me, so I asked which bay was ours and I went to sit down in the chair by the gurney. The nurse wrestled a still screaming Carter onto the gurney and told him to take off his clothes. When she let go of him to get a gown, he scrambled off the bed and bolted for the door. I let her bring him back, but his red face, covered in snot and tears, foiled my resolve to let her handle this her own way and when he grabbed for me I hissed at her, “Give him some Versed. Now.” She wouldn’t. I assume she had her identity wound up in this process, something like I am a nurse who is very, very good with kids and I can always make them calm down before surgery because she was tenacious. He had torn the sheets off the gurney, bolted for the door three times, pulled the nurse’s hair, and bruised us both, but it wasn’t until he bit her that she sighed and went for the Versed. She came back with the syringe of pink liquid and said, “This is a big dose. He’ll be asleep in ten minutes and then you can relax until it’s time for him to go back.” I cracked up, and loudly. I couldn’t help it, since I was on the ragged edge myself after a nearly sleepless night and the horrors of watching my child in so much pain for hours. “That won’t put him to sleep,” I said. “Oh, it’ll definitely put him to sleep. I’ve never had a child who didn’t doze off with this dose of Versed.” “Then you’ve never given it to a child who was quite this afraid.” “Well,” said the nurse, “We’ll just see. I’ll be back in ten minutes.” She returned in ten minutes to find my son wide awake, though much calmer. He let me help him out of his clothes and into the gown. He was willing to wear the cap to cover his hair as long as his teddy bear and I each wore one, so I tucked my hair into one and he even smiled a little. When the anesthesiologist came to insert his IV, he had to give Carter a little more Versed because he panicked at the sight of the catheter. “Wow,” said the anesthesiologist, “with this dose, he’s had the max safe dose for his weight. He was the one screaming out here earlier? I can’t believe he’s still awake.” “He has severe anxiety disorder,” I said. “That Versed has to compete with a huge quantity of stress hormones and nature is always more powerful than medicine.” “No kidding,” said the anesthesiologist. “If he has to come in again, you should call ahead and let us know about his anxiety disorder. We could meet you at the door with some medicine to calm him down.” </div> </article> <article id="post-21321" class="post-21321 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-blog category-featured-blog-posts category-general tag-amanda-rose-adams tag-economics-and-parenting tag-family tag-family-finances tag-money tag-parenthood tag-parenting tag-ron-lieber tag-the-opposite-of-spoiled"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/the-opposite-of-spoiled-a-q-a-with-ron-lieber/" title="Permalink to The Opposite of Spoiled: A Q & A With Ron Lieber" rel="bookmark"><img width="441" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/OppositeSpoiled-hc-c-441x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="The Opposite of Spoiled: A Q & A With Ron Lieber" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="The Opposite of Spoiled: A Q & A With Ron Lieber" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/the-opposite-of-spoiled-a-q-a-with-ron-lieber/" title="Permalink to The Opposite of Spoiled: A Q & A With Ron Lieber" rel="bookmark">The Opposite of Spoiled: A Q & A With Ron Lieber</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/the-opposite-of-spoiled-a-q-a-with-ron-lieber/" title="8:53 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-06-12T08:53:48-04:00" pubdate>June 12, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/blog/" rel="category tag">Blog</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/featured-blog-posts/" rel="category tag">Featured Blog Posts</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/amanda-rose-adams/" rel="tag">Amanda Rose Adams</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/economics-and-parenting/" rel="tag">economics and parenting</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/family/" rel="tag">family</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/family-finances/" rel="tag">family finances</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/money/" rel="tag">money</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/parenthood/" rel="tag">parenthood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/parenting/" rel="tag">parenting</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/ron-lieber/" rel="tag">Ron Lieber</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/the-opposite-of-spoiled/" rel="tag">The Opposite of Spoiled</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/the-opposite-of-spoiled-a-q-a-with-ron-lieber/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> By Amanda Rose Adams <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-21326" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/OppositeSpoiled-hc-c-199x300.jpg" alt="OppositeSpoiled hc c" width="199" height="300" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/OppositeSpoiled-hc-c-199x300.jpg 199w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/OppositeSpoiled-hc-c-86x130.jpg 86w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/OppositeSpoiled-hc-c-430x650.jpg 430w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/OppositeSpoiled-hc-c.jpg 441w" sizes="(max-width: 199px) 100vw, 199px" />Ron Lieber, personal finance columnist for The New York Times and father has written a bestselling book that tackles the difficult issue of how to teach the values and meaning of money to our children with insight, kindness, and humor. Below, Mr. Lieber answers questions about his book, The Opposite of Spoiled, and the values we teach our kids about money. Q: You were inspired by real-life parents and tested many of the concepts in your book while writing it, but were you already committed to any of these practices before you decided to write about them, and if so which ones did you bring to the table with your own family? Lieber: The idea for this book arrived not long after I became a parent for the first time, so I didn’t have much in the way of philosophy underlying any of my writing on parenting at that point. But there were a few things that became a part of this project almost instinctually. One was honesty with kids about money. Not full disclosure, but a no-lying rule, especially for children who are 8 years old or so and up. While there may be some circumstances where delaying the truth or avoiding it may be best for some children, most of us will be lucky enough that we won’t find ourselves in them most of the time. Plus, they can tell when we lie, or they find out later. And if it becomes clear that we’re not good sources for accurate information about important things, like money and sex and drugs, they’ll turn to others (or the internet) for advice and counsel. That’s not something we want. When I was in high school, my mother was pretty blunt with me about the reality of our financial situation. While that wasn’t always fun, in retrospect, I’m glad I knew exactly what kind of odds we faced for getting me into and through college without racking up too much debt. She also took me along for a meeting with a financial aid counselor when I was in high school, which <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/26/your-money/paying-for-college-and-learning-a-lesson-for-life.html?_r=0">had a lasting impact</a>. Money is a source of power, but it’s also mysterious. So of course our children <a href="http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/06/with-children-talking-money-means-talking-values/">are going to have lots of questions</a> about it. We should be as honest as we can, even if it means promising the truth (<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/01/your-money/why-you-should-tell-your-kids-how-much-you-make.html">say, about our salaries</a>) on some later day years in the future when they’re more ready for it. Q: What I came away with after reading your book is that money is a powerful tool to express who we are. Were you as open with your daughter about money before you started writing the book as you are now? Lieber: Thanks for saying “a” powerful tool and not “the most powerful tool” or the “best” or “only” tool. It’s none of those last three things, though it might be the most underrated and least used or understood parenting tool to imprint good values on our children. We should talk about money more often, but not all the time. Make it a focus, not a fetish. Think about it this way: What we spend and where says a lot about what we care about and ultimately what we stand for. If looking at the credit or debit card statement each month is unpleasant, then we’re probably spending on the wrong things or in the wrong quantities. This is not a hidden argument for more thrift by the way; sometimes spending more on the things that matter most is the surest route to happiness, as long as we can do it without going into debt. The money we give away, by the way, says a lot too. When <a href="http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/06/letting-the-kids-in-on-the-charitable-giving-conversation/">we told our daughter</a> how we divided our charitable budget, the conversation was revelatory for all of us. We do it every year now. Q: Do you have any advice for where to start, and if families are late to start the discussion about money and finances how they can catch up? Lieber: First, before you start talking, consider your own shame, in all the forms in which it may manifest itself. Some people have shame about what they do have, especially if they inherited it. They’re ashamed of not having to work, and they feel idle and unaccomplished. Others are ashamed of how they’ve made their money. Still more feel shame about having more than anyone else and don’t want anyone to know. Then there is shame in having less, perhaps because of a job loss. Or there is shame in a path not taken, a career that feels like a dead end or is not glamorous. There may be shame in having been tricked or swindled in a way that is costly or shame in big mistakes that have led to the need for a move to a smaller residence or some other large disruption. Talking about these feelings is as good of a way as any to start the conversation with a spouse about how to start a conversation with a child or children. Spouses who grew up in different social classes may well have very different ideas about how to approach the topic. If you don’t have a spouse, try confiding in a sibling or close friend. Ask other parents what their kids ask and how they answer. Many parents also feel shame in not knowing enough about money to teach their kids or talk to them about it, or they’re ashamed of their own habits around money. But teaching and talking out loud with children, especially older ones, is as good of a way to shape yourself up and get over it as any. You’re a role model, they’re watching your every move now anyway, and they probably have taken in way more than you think about how you spend and what that says. Might as well talk about it. Q: When researching for your book, what did you notice about parental partnerships and different approaches to money, and how that influences the kids? How involved is your wife in the money messages that you bring to parenting your child? Lieber: The most important thing here is not to fight about money with your spouse (or ex-spouse) in front of your kids. When I talk to adults about the topic, so many of them have intense memories of loud fights over money when they were growing up and having been led to believe that money is a source of stress and strain first and foremost. It’s those recollections that often lead those grownups to not talk about money at all, for fear of repeating the same patterns with their own spouse. Q: A lot of parents are co-parenting with a former partner, how do you think separate households can collaborate to give kids a consistent message? This wasn’t a focus of the book, but when a child could have as many as four parents and twice as many grandparents through remarriage, how can they all begin to balance those influences, which is probably trickier than the influence of the media? Lieber: The fact is, many times they cannot give kids a consistent message. Ex-spouses are sometimes not on speaking terms, and even if they are, they don’t agree about money and 1,000 other things. One spouse may have more money than another or is willing to spend more (or go into debt) to show the kids a good time or lavish them with toys or experiences to make up for whatever pain and distance exists in the family relationships. This is a hard thing for the parent with less (or who chooses to buy or do less) to explain. Kids will demand an explanation, and I do believe they are entitled to one. This is confusing, after all, and it’s their job to figure out how the world (and their world) works. But it can be extremely difficult to explain your choices without disparaging your former spouse. Try to avoid doing that anyway if you possibly can. Explain that you’ve simply chosen to make different choices. Lay out your budget. If you’re choosing not to spend more, even if you could afford to, remind your children that it is your job to set limits so that the kids will know how to do the same thing for themselves when they get older. Give them some power or control over whatever budget you do have if you can, and let them make some choices for themselves about tradeoffs. Q: What kinds of financial details do you think are appropriate to withhold from kids of particular ages, and when do you think those details should be shared, if ever? Lieber: I don’t think we should tell kids how much money we make until they are ready. Most aren’t ready (having practiced with money themselves for a decade, having learned about all of the household bills, having proven they are discrete) until they are at least 16 or so. To me it makes sense not to voluntarily offer up information to children that we think will cause them anxiety. But I also believe in the no-lying rule. Q: Your entire book spoke to me about family trust. Parents who trust their children to treat private information with respect, and children who trust their parents because they know that nothing is off-limits when it comes to conversation and learning. Would you agree that the unspoiled child is one who is given the gifts of trust and respect, and if so, how can parents continue to build these attributes? Lieber: Agreed. Most younger kids are not ready to keep private information private and we shouldn’t test them unless we don’t mind certain things getting out. When kids ask for it, remind them that childhood (and their teenager years especially) are partly a years-long discretion test that parents are conducting. Are they keeping their friends’ information to themselves, or getting in trouble for spreading gossip? Are they reading their siblings’ journals or tattling on them inappropriately? Is other family information leaking out somehow? If so, let them know that they have flunked this part of the test. Until they can pass, they don’t get to discuss the household income or net worth, which is private information. One other useful tactic to try with teens as they approach readiness, especially those from families who have more money than average: Remind them that the information really doesn’t have much use outside of their house. Their friends probably aren’t going to ask about your family’s income, and if your kids share the information anyway, they’ll sound like braggarts and jerks. No kid wants to flunk their parents’ discretion tests but they definitely don’t want to flunk their friends’ jerk tests.   Amanda Rose Adams is contributing blogger for Brain, Child, the author of Heart Warriors, A Family Faces Congenital Heart Disease, and her work has been featured in the New York Times Motherlode Blog, The American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Bioethics and various literary journals. You can follow her on Twitter @amandaroseadams or visit her blog at <a href="http://www.amandaroseadams.com/" target="_blank">www.amandaroseadams.com</a>. </div> </article> <article id="post-21359" class="post-21359 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-general tag-paid-leave tag-valerie-young tag-working-moms"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/policy-update-june-12-2015/" title="Permalink to Policy Update: June 12, 2015" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Pregnant-mom-at-work-ART-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Policy Update: June 12, 2015" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Policy Update: June 12, 2015" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/policy-update-june-12-2015/" title="Permalink to Policy Update: June 12, 2015" rel="bookmark">Policy Update: June 12, 2015</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/policy-update-june-12-2015/" title="8:39 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-06-12T08:39:28-04:00" pubdate>June 12, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/paid-leave/" rel="tag">paid leave</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/valerie-young/" rel="tag">Valerie Young</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/working-moms/" rel="tag">working moms</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/policy-update-june-12-2015/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-21362" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Pregnant-mom-at-work-ART-300x203.jpg" alt="Pregnant mom at work ART" width="300" height="203" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Pregnant-mom-at-work-ART-300x203.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Pregnant-mom-at-work-ART-1024x693.jpg 1024w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Pregnant-mom-at-work-ART-100x68.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Pregnant-mom-at-work-ART-232x157.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Pregnant-mom-at-work-ART-500x338.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />A quick look back at events this week impacting women and families, from Valerie Young, a public policy analyst with <a href="http://www.mom-mentum.org/blog/category/woman-in-washington/">Mom-mentum</a>. More incremental progress on the paid leave front this week. Billionaire businessman Richard Branson has decided to grant some employees one year of paid parental leave. It will be available to both mothers and fathers at Virgin Management in London and Geneva, about 140 employees altogether. Branson cites his experience as a father and grandfather, as well as business productivity, as reasons for his decision, according to The Washington Post. “As a father and now a granddad to three wonderful grandchildren, I know how magical the first year of a child’s life is but also how much hard work it takes.” Amen, brother! For those of us in the US, however, the outlook remains bleak. Observes <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/09/richard-branson-paternity_n_7544746.html">HuffPo</a>, “That said, the United States, as the only developed country with no guaranteed paid parental leave for mothers or fathers, <a href="http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-02-03/obama-s-missed-opportunity-on-parental-leave">has a long way</a> to go.” <a href="http://www.familyforwardoregon.org/2015/06/sick-days-update-oregon-senate-passes-bill-on-to-the-house/">Oregon has moved its paid sick days bill</a> through the state Senate on a 17 – 13 vote along party lines. If it survives the House, it will provide 5 annual paid sick days to workplaces of 10 or more employees. Oregon could be the fourth state with paid sick days policy, behind California, Connecticut and Massachusetts. Two cities in Oregon, Portland and Eugene, have already instituted paid sick days programs. Currently, it is estimated that about half the private sector workforce and 80% of low income workers don’t have even a single paid sick day. <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Business/chipotle-offer-part-time-workers-paid-vacation-sick/story?id=31619921">Chipotle announced plans</a> to increase benefits to all workers, even part-timers, starting July 1. Paid sick days, paid vacation, and tuition reimbursement will be served up to its 53,000+ employees. The Healthy Families Act, which would institute paid sick days nationwide, is stalled in the US Congress, so some states and businesses are moving forward alone. The benefits to public health when food service employees can avoid spreading infectious diseases by staying home may not be obvious to our elected leaders. But it’s clearly good business. Child care allows parents to go to work. High quality, affordable child care is a two generation economic stimulus program. In the long term, it sets kids up for maximal academic achievement and the development of soft skills, like resilience, sharing, cooperation and grit. In the short-term, parents can focus on work when they know their children are safe and in developmentally appropriate environments. But in the US, child care is treated like a personal problem rather than a basic minimum labor standard. <a href="http://www.edcentral.org/child-care-block/">In some states, some low income families get some help from state programs</a>, according to this article from the New America Foundation. And to wrap up and head us into the weekend, let’s remember that the double standard is alive and well! “Researchers found when a female employee clocks out before the work-culturally acceptable time, her colleagues are more likely to think: She’s probably off to pick up her kids. If a male employee checks out early, they may think: He’s off to meet clients” says the Washington Post in <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/10/why-women-are-judged-far-more-harshly-than-men-for-leaving-work-early/">Why women are judged far more harshly than men for leaving work early</a>. Please make sure to check out my post for Brain Child Magazine on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/whats-a-mother-worth-2/">What’s A Mother Worth?</a> and let me know what YOU think in the comments. Thanks! Follow Valerie on Facebook (Your (Wo)Man in Washington) and Twitter (@WomanInDC) and find her on the blog at Mom-mentum.   Photo: DopledPhoto: Dreamstime.com – Pregnant Mother Working In Home Office With Son Photo </div> </article> <article id="post-21340" class="post-21340 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-blog category-featured-blog-posts category-general tag-economic-benefits tag-economics-and-parenting tag-family tag-family-and-medical-insurance-leave-act tag-medical-leave tag-paid-family-leave tag-susan-buttenwieser"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/paid-family-leave-an-elusive-option-for-many-u-s-workers/" title="Permalink to Paid Family Leave: An Elusive Option for Many U.S. Workers" rel="bookmark"><img width="483" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/130874531-483x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Paid Family Leave: An Elusive Option for Many U.S. Workers" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Paid Family Leave: An Elusive Option for Many U.S. Workers" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/paid-family-leave-an-elusive-option-for-many-u-s-workers/" title="Permalink to Paid Family Leave: An Elusive Option for Many U.S. Workers" rel="bookmark">Paid Family Leave: An Elusive Option for Many U.S. Workers</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/paid-family-leave-an-elusive-option-for-many-u-s-workers/" title="7:53 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-06-08T07:53:58-04:00" pubdate>June 8, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/blog/" rel="category tag">Blog</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/featured-blog-posts/" rel="category tag">Featured Blog Posts</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/economic-benefits/" rel="tag">economic benefits</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/economics-and-parenting/" rel="tag">economics and parenting</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/family/" rel="tag">family</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/family-and-medical-insurance-leave-act/" rel="tag">Family And Medical Insurance Leave Act</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/medical-leave/" rel="tag">medical leave</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/paid-family-leave/" rel="tag">paid family leave</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/susan-buttenwieser/" rel="tag">Susan Buttenwieser</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/paid-family-leave-an-elusive-option-for-many-u-s-workers/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> By Susan Buttenwieser <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-21344" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/130874531-300x220.jpg" alt="130874531" width="300" height="220" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/130874531-300x220.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/130874531-100x73.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/130874531-232x171.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/130874531.jpg 483w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />The United States is one of only three countries in the world without a paid maternity leave law. The other two? Papua New Guinea and Oman. Workers in many other countries can also count on receiving paid paternity leave, elder care benefits and generous paid sick leave. Meanwhile, the only federal legislation that American workers have is the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which allows employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to look after a newborn or a sick relative without losing their job. The law applies only to companies with 50 or more employees, and then if an employee has worked for a certain amount of time. Although the FMLA provides important job protections, many workers simply can’t afford to utilize it, leaving parents and caregivers with stark choices. <a href="http://www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/work-family/fmla/dol-fmla-survey-key-findings-2012.pdf">According to the National Partnership for Women & Families</a>, nearly half of workers who were eligible for leave but didn’t take it, cited lack of pay as the reason. Six in ten workers who took partially paid or unpaid leave reported difficulty making ends meet; half of these workers were forced to cut their leaves short due to financial constraints. However, the tide may be starting to turn. Three states now guarantee paid family and medical leave—California, New Jersey and Rhode Island, and a similar law is set to go into effect in Washington State, possibly later this year. Additionally, studies of these programs have shown that they have been beneficial not only to employees, but to their workplaces as well. Various pieces of legislation are either being passed or introduced in cities and states across the country as well as on the federal level, with the Family And Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act being reintroduced in March. Rachel Lyons, senior government affairs manager at the <a href="http://www.nationalpartnership.org">National Partnership for Women & Families</a>, shared her thoughts on this important issue. Q: There seems to be momentum around paid family leave right now. Do you think there is a shift in thinking on this issue? RL: There is unprecedented momentum around paid leave right now, and a number of factors have contributed to what we see as a watershed moment for the policy’s future in this country. Women now make up nearly half of the workforce and are primary breadwinners in 40 percent of households with children. Women are also still their families’ primary caregivers, so they are disproportionately impacted by conflicts between work and family caused by the nation’s lack of family friendly workplace policies. There is also a powerful and growing body of evidence from existing paid leave programs and employer policies showing that paid leave benefits workers, their families, businesses and the economy. In particular, the success of paid family leave programs in California, New Jersey and Rhode Island demonstrate that. People are struggling to manage work and family, and an overwhelming majority of voters (81 percent) want lawmakers to consider new laws that would help, like paid family and medical leave. They also say they are more likely to vote for someone who supports paid leave. So, in many ways, the issue has become unavoidable for our elected officials. And some are stepping up to help advance the policy. The Obama administration just launched a new tour to highlight the issue, and the President has urged Congress to take action. The administration also dedicated and proposed funding to help states advance paid leave policies. And members of Congress recently reintroduced the Family And Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act, which would establish a national paid family and medical leave insurance program. The National Partnership leads a coalition of several hundred organizations that is pushing for the FAMILY Act.   Q: On the flip side, why is it taking the U.S. so long to catch up with the rest of the world? Why have we been unable to have these benefits sooner? RL: In many ways, our culture is very individualistic and the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality is pervasive. But we also can’t ignore the strong influence that business and business interests play in our politics and policy landscape. There’s a longstanding misconception that what’s good for workers is bad for business, and in the case of paid family and medical leave—like so many other basic labor protections—that’s simply not true. But, no matter why the nation has fallen so far behind, the country’s failure to guarantee paid leave hurts working families and our global competitiveness. When women don’t have access to paid leave, it is more difficult for them to remain in the workforce. In fact, women’s workforce participation, which climbed substantially in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s, has stagnated relative to other developed countries.   Q: Studies have shown economic benefits when workplaces have adopted paid family leave. What are the other benefits, the ones that may be less tangible or easily quantifiable? RL: Overall, paid leave strengthens the economic security of working people and their families. It provides income stability to families with new children, encourages workforce attachment, promotes families’ financial independence and safeguards workers’ income and retirement security. It can also promote men’s involvement in the care of a child—men who take two or more weeks off after the birth of a child are more involved than fathers who take no leave in the direct care of their child nine months later. Paid leave contributes to improved newborn and child health because newborns whose mothers take leave are more likely to be breastfed, receive medical check-ups and get critical immunizations. Seriously ill children also recover faster when cared for by their parents, and paid leave helps make that possible. It also allows ill or injured adults to get critical care and take needed recovery time, and it enables caregivers to help ill parents, spouses and children fulfill treatment plans and avoid complications and hospital readmissions. Paid leave reduces worker replacements and improves worker loyalty. It saves the government and taxpayers money through reduced health care costs, reduced reliance on public assistance, more people staying in their jobs and paying taxes, and increased earnings and savings over time.   Q: What would implementing family leave on a federal level mean to the average American? RL: It would mean that tens of millions of workers and their families could rest easier knowing they are no longer one illness, injury or birth away from financial devastation. It would be a giant leap toward the family friendly America we have long wanted and needed. Right now, just 13 percent of the workforce has paid family leave through their employers, and less than 40 percent has personal medical leave. That means that, when illness strikes or babies are born, the majority of workers in this country have to choose between their health or the health of their families and their jobs. And the negative effects ripple throughout our communities and society. A national paid family and medical leave program like the one the Family And Medical Insurance Leave Act would create is a smart, affordable and tested way to ensure that working people in this country can take time to address their own serious health conditions and care for their loved ones without sacrificing their economic security. It’s a common sense policy that would bring our nation’s workplace policies in line with the rest of the word. A confluence of factors has gotten us to a moment as a nation when we are primed for progress on paid leave. This is a unique and unprecedented moment. Now, it’s time for lawmakers to make the most of it. Susan Buttenwieser’s writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and appeared in the Brooklyn Rail, Teachers & Writers magazine and other publications. She teaches creative writing in New York City public schools and with incarcerated women. Photo: gettyimages </div> </article> <article id="post-21247" class="post-21247 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-articles-page category-from-the-archives category-general tag-amie-klempnauer-miller tag-anxiety tag-maternal-anxiety tag-maternal-worry tag-motherhood tag-parenthood tag-worry"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/new-day-neurosis/" title="Permalink to New Day, Neurosis" rel="bookmark"><img width="506" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/200352457-001-506x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="New Day, Neurosis" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="New Day, Neurosis" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/new-day-neurosis/" title="Permalink to New Day, Neurosis" rel="bookmark">New Day, Neurosis</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/new-day-neurosis/" title="1:51 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-06-06T13:51:34-04:00" pubdate>June 6, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/articles-page/" rel="category tag">Articles Page</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/from-the-archives/" rel="category tag">From The Archives</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/amie-klempnauer-miller/" rel="tag">Amie Klempnauer Miller</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/anxiety/" rel="tag">anxiety</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/maternal-anxiety/" rel="tag">maternal anxiety</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/maternal-worry/" rel="tag">maternal worry</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/motherhood/" rel="tag">motherhood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/parenthood/" rel="tag">parenthood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/worry/" rel="tag">worry</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/new-day-neurosis/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> By Amie Klempnauer Miller <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-21305" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/200352457-001-300x201.jpg" alt="200352457-001" width="300" height="201" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/200352457-001-300x201.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/200352457-001-100x67.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/200352457-001-232x155.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/200352457-001-500x335.jpg 500w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/200352457-001.jpg 506w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />I am obsessed with excrement. I call the nurse, even though it is Sunday, to ask how concerned I should be if we have not had a soiled diaper in thirty-six hours. Wets, yes. Stools, no. Our daughter, Hannah, now just two-and-a-half weeks old, has been a slow starter in this arena. The nurse is reassuring, suggesting that Hannah might just be a “reluctant pooper.” She advises me to give the baby a sitz bath, to kind of warm things up down there. If that doesn’t work, she says, try a little anal sphincter stimulation with a rectal thermometer. If that doesn’t work, try half of a glycerin suppository. If that doesn’t work, good Lord. And so we begin. Jane, my partner and Hannah’s birth mom, pours a bowl of warm water and we dip our baby’s little bottom in it. She screeches and urinates. Nothing else. We put a little KY jelly on the rectal thermometer and give the anal stimulation a go. I cannot believe we are doing this. We are lesbians, for god’s sake. The only lesbians I have ever known who thought about anal stimulation were the women who always scared me when we lived in New York. Still no stool, so we decide to give up for a while. Jane carries Hannah into the living room where she slumps down into the oversized blue armchair, the baby lying in her arms. Hannah is feeling mellow, now that we are not dipping her in bowls of water and coming at her with gooey probes. She begins to root around Jane’s chest where she knows hidden food awaits. Her mouth hangs open, like a baby robin groping for a worm. Jane pulls her shirt up with a look of resignation. The fatigue of new parenthood is setting in like a slow, looming storm front. The adrenaline of the first two weeks has dripped away. Hannah sucks for ten minutes or so and then falls blissfully into sleep. Jane sets Hannah—gently, gently—into her carrier and tucks a pink-checked flannel blanket around her legs. We go into the kitchen to make lunch. “Why did we do this?” Jane asks. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” I mutter. It’s surprising how quickly you wear down. Some things are not as bad as I expected: We get more sleep than many people, since our baby sleeps for one four-hour stretch each night. Before Hannah was born, I stocked the freezer with lasagna and soup and meatballs, so our diets haven’t been limited to take-out and toast. But the worry of new parenthood is far worse than I anticipated. The anxiety is intense. Hannah rasps and gurgles in the night and I leap out of bed to make sure she is still breathing. Her umbilical cord is seeping a little: Does that mean something is wrong? She spits up and I have no way of knowing what is normal and what is too much. If she soaks half of her bib, is that too much? Are three spit-ups okay, but six too many? Is this gastroesophageal reflux? Or is it just infancy? I dread the evening because I know that the anxiety always gets worse after dark. With dusk comes fear. I tell myself that I needn’t be so worried. We have a support network, Hannah has checked out well at all of her doctor’s visits, and we have access to a twenty-four-hour nurse line. But at night, worries become obsessions and remote possibilities become impending certainties. I wait each night for the dawn. Jane and I feast on each other’s anxieties. One of us worries about something, anything, reasonable or not (but best if it contains a kernel of possibility, a morsel of fact), and plants the seed in the other’s head. It takes root. It grows. We offer half-hearted reassurances: “I was just reading about encopresis, which is really terrible, but it usually doesn’t occur until later. She probably won’t develop it.” Meanwhile, each of us knows that the fear is growing, that the assurances are not heartfelt. And just as we know this, we know that we are feeding our own neuroses. And just as we know that, we become less and less able to do anything about it. We each withdraw, pulling back behind our own veil of worry. “I think she’s fine,” I say. “But of course, we can call the doctor. Do you want to?” (You’re It.) “No. I don’t think we need to call. What’s she doing? Is she all right?” (Now you.) “She’s okay. I just wish she would have a stool. I can’t believe it’s been thirty-six hours.” (Your turn.) “Why’s she crying again? Should we call the doctor?” (Back to you.) “I don’t know. Maybe. What do you think?” And on it goes. My cousin, mother of two miraculously grown children, calls to check in. I tell her the Saga of the Stool. Stephanie suggests that we bicycle Hannah’s legs (already doing that), hold her vertically (gravity), and try not to worry (hopeless). As we are talking, Hannah begins to screech. Jane waves at me and says that she thinks it’s time for the suppository. I get off the phone. Jane carries Hannah into the nursery and puts her on the changing table. The glycerin suppositories, made for children, look impossibly enormous. I take one from the bottle and cut it down by two-thirds. We are ready. Jane removes the diaper and almost whoops. There is a poo. Not a huge one, but not a smudge. We are thrilled. I put the suppository back into the bottle, we clean Hannah up, and we go back into the living room, grinning giddily. I am so pleased that I call Stephanie to report. “The eagle has landed,” I say. She’s as excited as I am. This must be the bond that holds parents together: shared excitement over basic bodily functions that are otherwise not discussed in polite company. “That’s wonderful,” she says, and I know she means it. “Things are moving.” We sink into the sofa, Jane cradling Hannah. I am exhausted. I feel like I’m in boot camp, but at least we have had a victory. We have made it another day. A week later, we are convinced that Hannah has cystic fibrosis. The beauty of this anxiety is that it has some degree of rational basis. After Jane became pregnant, we learned that she carries the most common genetic mutation that causes the disease. We immediately confirmed that our sperm bank screens all of its donors for the thirty most common mutations and does not accept anyone who tests positive. But still, we worry. I scrutinize the entry on cystic fibrosis in the Boston Children’s Hospital Guide to Your Child’s Health and Development—which we own—and learn that symptoms include wheezing, coughing, and digestive problems. Every time Hannah wheezes, snorts, grunts, gasps, or spits up, all of which she does with regularity, I am convinced that it is confirmation of chronic illness. We learn that the initial test for cystic fibrosis is a sweat test. The doctor collects a little sweat from the child and measures the saline content. An elevated salt level can signal a positive result. I stay up at night and feel my heart clench when Hannah snorts. Jane admits that she has secretly been licking the back of Hannah’s neck to taste for salt. By the time Hannah is ten weeks old, we’ve let go of our cystic fibrosis worries. Now we think she might be deaf. She doesn’t turn her head at our voices and she doesn’t startle at loud sounds. I try to test her hearing by ringing the doorbell. No response. I snap my fingers. No response. Jane and I begin sneaking up on the poor child and clapping behind her head. No response. We remind each other that she does seem to listen to music and calm down when the bathroom fan is running. But these could be anomalies. Clap. Nothing. I begin searching the Internet for resources on hearing impairments. I should know better by now. I quickly find the suggestion that parents try to test their child’s hearing by clapping behind the baby’s head. We remind ourselves that she had a hearing test in the hospital and passed it just fine. But the tech was busy that day, I think. What if they just did a social promotion? Jane calls the pediatric clinic. A doctor calls back and says that the hospital test is ninety-nine percent accurate, but there is some concern that she isn’t startling. I scurry back onto the Internet. Jane and I make a pact to stop trying to startle Hannah, at least until after her next doctor’s appointment, which is in a week. I think about doing it anyway when Jane goes to the grocery store, but I resist. At eleven weeks, Jane takes Hannah to the doctor for a check-up. Everything looks good. The doctor isn’t concerned about her hearing or the startling lack of startling. She reassures Jane. Hannah gets weighed and measured, her growth noted and compared to other babies her age. At two weeks, she was below the fiftieth percentile in overall weight and now, at eleven pounds, three ounces, she is in the seventy-fifth percentile. Excellent. Her torso is exceedingly long; she has grown to twenty-four inches in total body length, putting her in the ninety-fifth percentile. But her head, which was in the ninetieth percentile for circumference, is now in the fiftieth percentile. It grew, but at a slower pace than the rest of her body. “Do you think her head isn’t growing fast enough?” Jane asks me that evening. She knows better than this. She understands statistics and the fallacy of percentiles, especially when it comes to diagnosing normality. “Do we have a pinhead baby?” I imagine Hannah all grown up: a giant torso with a head the size of a Vidalia onion. Our little Onion Head. “I think,” Jane says one day when the baby is peacefully asleep in her bouncy seat, “that I have been assuming that something is wrong with Hannah rather than expecting her to be all right.” I have also been constantly worried that there is something grave, something dreadful that has eluded the doctors, that is lurking behind the diaper pail, hiding under the crib, waiting to snatch our baby away. Some of this is a product of reading too many articles and watching too much television. We have heard the stories about sudden deaths, freak viruses, and bizarre conditions that go undetected. It feels threatening to trust her to be healthy, as though we might be blindsided if we do not remain diligently on guard. I suppose our neurosis is normal, although I sometimes wonder if it would help to have a husband in the house who would say, “Oh, she’s fine” and turn on the Packers game. I have made a lifelong art of worrying and I’m not about to stop now. Still, I do realize that I need to let go of at least a little of it before our pediatrician refuses to see us anymore. It’s a thin line between fear and love, a line that has become perforated since Hannah’s birth. The two passions intermingle, and anxiety courses through my heart. Is it possible to love a child wholeheartedly but without fear? Or does the magnitude of our vulnerability as parents demand that we stand on guard against all dangers, real and imagined? I lie in bed at night and watch the clock, counting the hours until dawn. Author’s Note: Jane and I are still worriers, but our fears lessened somewhat after Hannah really did get sick with a couple of nasty viruses, one of which landed her in the hospital. While we were there, one of the nurses noticed how willful Hannah is, even when hooked up to an I.V. “You’re strong,” she said several times to Hannah. “That’s going to serve you well.” Hannah is strong, as it turns out, and Jane and I are beginning to let ourselves trust her to recover when she gets sick and trust ourselves to give her what she needs to grow and thrive. And, we’re happy to report, her head is a perfectly normal size. Amie Klempnauer Miller is the author of She Looks Just Like You (a Memoir of Nonbiological Lesbian) Motherhood (Beacon Press, 2010). She lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with her wife Jane and daughter Hannah. </div> </article> <article id="post-21167" class="post-21167 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-blog category-featured-blog-posts category-general tag-humor tag-leslie-barnard tag-motherhood tag-parenting tag-quiz"> <header class="entry-header"> <div class="entry-thumbnail"> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/quiz-alert-are-you-a-terrible-mother/" title="Permalink to Quiz Alert: Are You A Terrible Mother?" rel="bookmark"><img width="664" height="170" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Terrible-Mother-Quiz-2-664x170.jpg" class="customboxfrt-blog-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="Quiz Alert: Are You A Terrible Mother?" decoding="async" loading="lazy" title="Quiz Alert: Are You A Terrible Mother?" /></a> </div> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/quiz-alert-are-you-a-terrible-mother/" title="Permalink to Quiz Alert: Are You A Terrible Mother?" rel="bookmark">Quiz Alert: Are You A Terrible Mother?</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/quiz-alert-are-you-a-terrible-mother/" title="6:56 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-06-05T06:56:04-04:00" pubdate>June 5, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/blog/" rel="category tag">Blog</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/featured-blog-posts/" rel="category tag">Featured Blog Posts</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/humor/" rel="tag">humor</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/leslie-barnard/" rel="tag">Leslie Barnard</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/motherhood/" rel="tag">motherhood</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/parenting/" rel="tag">parenting</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/quiz/" rel="tag">quiz</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/quiz-alert-are-you-a-terrible-mother/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> By Leslie Barnard <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-21263" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Terrible-Mother-Quiz-2.jpg" alt="Terrible Mother Quiz 2" width="600" height="585" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Terrible-Mother-Quiz-2.jpg 762w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Terrible-Mother-Quiz-2-300x293.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Terrible-Mother-Quiz-2-100x98.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Terrible-Mother-Quiz-2-232x226.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Terrible-Mother-Quiz-2-500x488.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" /> As a mother, you often find yourself feeling guilty and conflicted. You are constantly given unsolicited parenting advice from grandparents, friends, acquaintances and even complete strangers. But are you really a terrible mother? Take this quiz to find out.   1. Do you plan to breastfeed your child until he or she self-weans? If so, you are a terrible mother. The co-dependence you are fostering will prevent your child from maturing into a healthy, independent individual and make it impossible for him or her to form satisfactory relationships throughout his or her life. 2. Do you plan to give your baby formula, exclusively or supplementally? If so, you are a terrible mother. Breast is best. It rhymes, so it’s obviously true. Formula is worse than rat poison. 3. Do you plan to go back to work when your child is still an infant? If so, you are a terrible mother. Children need a mother who is with them 24/7, who meets all their needs immediately and sacrifices everything for them. 4. Do you plan to stay home with your children? If so, you are a terrible mother. Children need a mother they can look up to, one who embraces feminist values and contributes to the family financially. 5. Do you co-sleep with your child? If so, you are a terrible mother. Your child will never be able to go to sleep without you and will not be able to attend college because co-sleeping with parents in the dorms is generally frowned upon. 6. Do you require your child to sleep in a crib in a separate room? If so, you are a terrible mother. You have literally put your child behind bars. Those who grow accustomed to this arbitrary isolation will later be drawn into a criminal lifestyle, subconsciously seeking incarceration as a way of “going home.” 7. Do you plan to wait for your child to potty train him or herself when he or she is ready? If so, you are a terrible mother. Your child will never, ever initiate potty training on his or her own. At best, he or she will learn to squat in the woods while other kids laugh uproariously and poke him or her with sharp sticks. 8. Do you plan to raise a “diaper-free” baby, using elimination communication to anticipate your infant’s toileting needs? If so, you are a terrible mother. You will not be able to successfully intuit when your infant wants to pee or poop, so you will be peed on and pooped on regularly. Your hair and hands and face will smell like poop. Even after you shower. This experience will make you even more incapable of dealing with your emotions, and you will cry all the time, which will permanently scar your child. Additionally, your child will find your efforts to cue defecation by making grunting sounds both invasive and humiliating, and yet, ironically, he or she will continue to require you to provide these cues well into adulthood. 9. Do you stay close to your toddler at all times, making sure to keep him or her safe? If so, you are a terrible mother. Your child will never learn to self-regulate or solve problems on his or her own. 10. Do you encourage your toddler to play independently? If so, you are a terrible mother. Your child could climb up on the countertop and eat a box of detergent or set him or herself on fire, all while you recklessly diddle away the time wiping gobs of hummus off the floor. 11. Do you let your child eat birthday cake? If so, you are a terrible mother. You are teaching your child that sugar and fat are the only means through which to recognize and celebrate meaningful milestones. Your child’s teeth will rot out of his or her head, and he or she will struggle with obesity for the rest of his or her life. 12. Do you make your child banana-cinnamon muffins as an alternative to birthday cake? If so, you are a terrible mother. Your child is going to be ostracized by his or her peers, who will turn their noses up at this so-called birthday “treat.” In addition, your child will rebel in his or her teens by stealing twelve boxes of Sour Patch Kids from the nearest convenience store and stuffing his or her face until he or she barfs up a pile of neon blue goo. Give yourself 1 point for each YES answer. That total is your TERRIBLE MOTHER score. If it is above 3, you are an ESPECIALLY TERRIBLE MOTHER. Congratulations! Leslie Barnard is a fiction writer, essayist and mother of two based in Portland, Oregon. Her work has appeared in Best New American Voices 2010 and Briar Cliff Review, among others. Illustration by <a href="http://www.christinejuneau.com/">Christine Juneau</a> </div> </article> <article id="post-21281" class="post-21281 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-general tag-brestfeeding tag-policy tag-valerie-young"> <header class="entry-header"> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/policy-update-june-5-2015/" title="Permalink to Policy Update: June 5, 2015" rel="bookmark">Policy Update: June 5, 2015</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/policy-update-june-5-2015/" title="6:05 am" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-06-05T06:05:24-04:00" pubdate>June 5, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/brestfeeding/" rel="tag">brestfeeding</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/policy/" rel="tag">policy</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/valerie-young/" rel="tag">Valerie Young</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/policy-update-june-5-2015/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-21285" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/0529pregnancy-300x175.jpg" alt="0529pregnancy" width="300" height="175" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/0529pregnancy-300x175.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/0529pregnancy-100x58.jpg 100w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/0529pregnancy-232x136.jpg 232w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/0529pregnancy-500x292.jpg 500w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/0529pregnancy.jpg 945w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />A quick look back at events this week impacting women and families, from Valerie Young, a public policy analyst with <a href="http://www.mom-mentum.org/blog/category/woman-in-washington/">Mom-mentum</a>. I’ve just come back from a gala luncheon downtown of women’s advocates and funders. US Secretary of Labor Tom Perez gave the keynote speech, framing paid family leave as an economic imperative and essential element of national growth and prosperity. He told about meeting a school bus driver with no paid maternity leave. After her Caesarean, she went right back to driving the bus, strapping the infant in a car seat behind her, for fear of losing her job and the income her family needed. “There is something wrong with this country” Secretary Perez said, when millions of working moms and dads have no paid family leave. He is on to something. Newsweek published an article this week, <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/why-are-young-moms-becoming-rarer-337286">Why Are Young Moms Becoming Rarer</a>? Obviously the trend is the result of multiple causes, but there are two that get my attention. First, it’s becoming widely known that the US seriously lags other countries in pro-family policies like paid family leave, earned sick days, and quality affordable child care. Second, as women go further in educational attainment, they are carrying heavier student loans, which push marriage and homeownership further into the future. Whatever the reason, it’s beyond question that having children later means having fewer of them, and that trend will affect everybody. I simply cannot remember a time when breastfeeding so consistently popped up in the news. The <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/01/airport-lactation-stations-breastfeeding_n_7236678.html">Huffington Post</a> has picked up the breastfeeding-in-airports story, which you saw first right here in last week’s mothernews summary. Hundreds of comments and thousands of “likes” have followed. the HuffPo piece. Then a story about <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/robstott/this-cafe-had-the-perfect-response-when-a-man-complained-abo#.vu5D9NKed">a man complaining about a woman breastfeeding at a café in Australia</a> becomes world news, with stories generally lauding the café manager who asked the complainer to leave. Maybe a mother-friendly world really is around the corner… The Economist has a reputation for providing very serious analysis of very business-oriented news. That’s why eyebrows were raising all over when a recent issue included the following title: <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/international/21651203-men-have-long-been-discouraged-playing-equal-role-home-last-starting?fsrc=scn/">“A Father’s Place -Men have long been discouraged from playing an equal role at home. That is at last starting to change.”</a> It’s a summary of what governments all over the world are doing to remove the gender-normed attitudes around child care, how public policy can encourage equality of opportunity at work, and how children are better served by having both parents really involved in the first months. And another women’s glossy magazine picks up women’s rights content this week. ELLE published <a href="http://www.elle.com/culture/news/a28638/for-the-price-of-your-morning-latte-you-can-put-more-women-in-office/">For the Price of Your Morning Latte, You Can Put More Women in Office, </a>addressing the pervasive practice of women donating to charities while men donate to political campaigns. Women-operated super PACs, like Women Lead and Emily’s List, are looking for the $5 donor as much as the $500 or $5000 donor. “Every dollar is meaningful… It’s about more than just the money. The fact is that people are participating. We need to have more women participating—whether they’re writing checks or voting or running for office or supporting other women running for office. Every little bit matters.” Follow Valerie on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Your-WoMan-in-Washington/135695273166707?fref=ts">Facebook (Your (Wo)Man in Washington) </a>and Twitter (@WomanInDC) and find her on the blog at <a href="http://www.mom-mentum.org/blog/category/woman-in-washington/">Mom-mentum</a>. Photo: Newsweek </div> </article> <article id="post-1109" class="post-1109 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-general tag-cynthia-eller tag-dr-sears tag-parenting-book tag-perfect-parenting tag-reality"> <header class="entry-header"> <h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/why-i-hate-dr-sears/" title="Permalink to Why I Hate Dr. Sears" rel="bookmark">Why I Hate Dr. Sears</a></h1> <div class="entry-meta"> Posted on <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/why-i-hate-dr-sears/" title="12:41 pm" rel="bookmark"><time class="entry-date" datetime="2015-06-04T12:41:33-04:00" pubdate>June 4, 2015</time></a> by <a class="url fn n" href="https://brainchildmag.com/author/admin/" title="View all posts by CNF" rel="author">CNF</a> Posted in <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/category/general/" rel="category tag">General</a> Tagged <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/cynthia-eller/" rel="tag">Cynthia Eller</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/dr-sears/" rel="tag">Dr. Sears</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/parenting-book/" rel="tag">Parenting book</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/perfect-parenting/" rel="tag">perfect parenting</a>, <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/tag/reality/" rel="tag">reality</a> <a href="https://brainchildmag.com/2015/06/why-i-hate-dr-sears/#respond">Leave a comment</a> </div> </header> <div class="entry-content"> By Cynthia Eller <img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1111" src="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ellerart-300x232.jpg" alt="ellerart" width="300" height="232" srcset="https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ellerart-300x232.jpg 300w, https://brainchildmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ellerart.jpg 360w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />The other day I was talking to a friend of mine who works in consumer marketing. “What’s new in the corporate world this week?” I asked. Like tales from an exotic land far, far away (though it is only across the Hudson River), stories of her work world fascinate me. “We just signed this famous pediatrician to work on a project with us,” she answered. “Oh yeah?” I asked. “Who?” “Dr. Sears,” she said. “Like the department store. He wrote a book, a Dr. Spock sort of thing. It’s just called The Baby Book. Have you ever heard of him?” “Heard of him?!” I shrieked. “Dr. William Sears? Satan’s evil spawn?” “Wow,” my friend said. “He seemed like a regular kind of guy.” I didn’t hate Dr. Sears the first time I encountered him either. I picked up The Baby Book within days of delivering my first child in 1994, and like the good student I’ve always been, I carved out time in my newly fraught schedule to study up on parenting. Why, out of all the advice books on the shelf, did I pick up Dr. Sears’s? Was it the subtitle–“Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby From Birth to Age Two”? Did I think I was getting some kind of bargain, a 689-page exhaustive treatment of all important matters pertaining to my child’s first two years for only $21.95? Who knows? I confess, I was not in a particularly good frame of mind at the time. I had a lot of stitches in sensitive places. I had witnessed my body–a more or less well-known quantity by then–inflate into a laughable caricature of itself, and then deflate in an odd, erratic way. I had been shaken loose from my moorings. But I read The Baby Book. And in my sleep-deprived brain, I came to the conviction that Dr. Sears was right about everything–even though I would have preferred it if he weren’t–and that if I really loved my child as much as I was certain I did, I would quit my job and sell my husband’s camera equipment so I could invest in more nursing bras, since I’d be needing them for some years to come. Through Dr. Sears’s eyes, I could see that my frequent desire to escape from my screaming infant meant that I was insufficiently bonded with her. That was a horrible thought. But I also knew the cure prescribed by Dr. Sears: ask those around me to lift some of the burdens of cooking and laundry from my sagging shoulders, so I could spend more time breastfeeding and sleeping with the baby. Then undoubtedly I would begin to love her the way nature intended me to: sublimely, unfailingly, with all my other interests in life falling away like dandruff to leave only the single pure desire to give my daughter everything she needed, everything she wanted, everything that every baby should have. Oh, I wasn’t completely taken in. I figured out within the first couple of chapters that Dr. Sears’s whole family-bed-sleeping-exclusive-breastfeeding-non-working-mother thing was a little extreme, and that his occasional nods to diversity (“do what works for your family”) were probably inserted at the insistence of his editor. I never took him to be any counterpart to beloved Dr. Benjamin Spock, who assured a generation of mothers that they were doing just fine, that babies were resilient. The Baby Book is crammed wall-to-wall with anecdotes from Dr. Sears’s own parenting, with additional italicized comments from his wife Martha. Many of Dr. Sears’s anecdotes–and Martha’s too–take the general form of “I used to think this, like everyone else . . . maybe even like you . . . but then, suddenly, I understood that no, that was wrong, and this was right.” In other words, his was the voice of the convert. I’m a religious studies professor, so I can tell you with some authority that converts can be a real piece of work. At last count, Dr. Sears, whose website calls him “America’s pediatrician” (apparently the title is up for grabs; T. Berry Brazelton goes by the same moniker), and Nurse Martha have eight children. As Dr. Sears tells it, they reared their first three children by the old-school book: feed them when they cry, pop them back in their cribs, and leave them in other people’s care while you continue with your careers. They were torn, of course, like all working parents, struggling to find the right balance. But it wasn’t until the arrival of their fourth child, Hayden, their “high-needs” child, that they saw the light. (Martha saw it first.) Children need more than this, deserve more than this. In fact, it is every child’s birthright to sleep nestled between their parents for a couple of years, firmly latched onto a maternal nipple whenever he or she wants. You say this interferes with other tasks like doing the grocery shopping, loading the dishwasher, using the toilet? Your problem, not theirs. The needs of a baby are large, and they are their own justification. Luckily, this problem of grocery-shopping and dishwasher-loading and toilet-using is easily remedied. For only twenty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents, you can purchase the “Dr. Sears Original Babysling”: a few yards of fabric which, when artfully slung over your shoulder, will permit you to hang your infant around your neck whenever you have to get up out of the family bed. This is, quite literally, “attachment parenting.” Dr. Sears covers a lot of territory in The Baby Book, but from chapter one he dives into the main task at hand: to build a case for attachment parenting. He does this in many ways, but most often he appeals to Nature. It is natural, he says, for children to be breastfed, carried, cuddled, and slept with for the first couple of years of their lives. How does Dr. Sears know that this is what Nature intends for children? Is this something they taught him in medical school? No. He knows this is the “natural” way to parent because it is what indigenous tribal people the world over do. Indeed, Dr. Sears dates his epiphany about “babywearing” to an international parenting conference at which he and Martha interviewed two women from Zambia. These women were carrying their infants in slings. (Dr. Sears reports that the slings “matched their native dress.” How colorful!) Dr. Sears and Martha were impressed with how “content” the babies were, and how “attentive” their mothers were to them. As Dr. Sears explains, “women in their culture don’t have the benefits of books and studies about mothering hormones.” Yet they have something more important to offer those of us staggering under the weight of lengthy tomes and scientific statistics: their firsthand experience of parenting in harmony with Nature. What does natural parenting look like? Oh, I’m sure you’ve heard the stories: women in Asia or Africa or Australia who carry their children close to their bodies all day, breastfeeding them every twenty minutes or so. These women intuitively know when their baby is about to eliminate, the story goes, and they pluck the baby out of the sling to do its business in a tidy, efficient manner. Most impressively, their babies never cry. Oh, they may fuss a bit now and again, but they never resort to real bawling, because they never have to. Mom is perpetually in sync with them and their needs. Intra-uterine bliss gracefully gives way to extra-uterine bliss as they are carried and nursed kangaroo-style for many months after their ejection into the world of the breathing. Only gradually, on baby’s own schedule, do adventures like eating solid food and walking begin. There’s only one problem with this Sears-styled utopia: it doesn’t exist. I’ve read a lot of ethnographies of tribal people and I can tell you that the whole babies-who-don’t-cry thing just isn’t true. Some anthropologists visiting some tribal groups say that the babies in these groups don’t cry. But as often as not, somewhere later in their monograph they’ll make a passing reference to a screaming baby keeping the whole village up all night. (Seems they’ve bought into the same myths the rest of us have, and try not to let the evidence get in their way.) Besides, most anthropologists who report on parenting among tribal peoples have spent a year or maybe two with a group of people in a small village whose population rarely numbers over a hundred. Do you think it just might be possible that during the year they visited, all three new babies in the village happened to be mellow, easy-going sorts? Such things do happen. Maybe if the anthropologist visited in a different year, when a couple of colicky babies came along, it would be a whole different story. Other anthropologists never make such extravagant claims about tearless infants. For example, in Women of the Forest, Yolanda and Robert Murphy note that the MundurucÅ“ of South America parent as though they all had their own personal dog-eared copy of Dr. Sears’s The Baby Book by their side. They breastfeed on demand, rarely wean their babies before the age of three, carry them all day in slings and sleep with them all night. And their babies cry–a lot. The Murphys report that these children “do not have happy dispositions, and there is a heavy frequency of chronic crying and emotional upsets.” Whether babies cry in every culture or only some, the underlying premise that all peoples who haven’t been smeared with the taint of Western industrial-capitalist-consumerist values parent their children in the same “natural” way is absurd. Glance through A World of Babies (edited by Judy S. Deloache and Alma Gottleib), in which anthropologists imaginatively construct childcare manuals for seven different cultures. The Beng of the Ivory Coast give their babies twice daily enemas (perhaps to compensate for the lack of Pampers? so they won’t have to know exactly when to snatch baby out of the sling?). They swear that these enemas are necessary for the baby’s health, and that parents should not be prevented from performing them by their baby’s screams of anguish. The Balinese start their babies on mashed bananas and rice cereal the first day of their lives. They are certain that colostrum is indigestible, and the baby needs to eat something before the mother’s milk comes in. The Trobriand Islanders, immortalized in the 1920s in a watershed ethnography by anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, are often viewed as the archetypal blissed-out, natural-and-free, half-naked human-animals luxuriating in a South Seas paradise. Yet they wean their babies around their first birthday, careless of the World Health Organization’s advice that mother’s milk is the perfect nutrition for babies up until at least age two. They accomplish this by sending mom away on a surprise (to the baby) vacation for a week or so, leaving the baby to dad’s tender ministrations. (What would Dr. Sears say about that?) So the notion that all tribal peoples parent in the same “natural” way is untrue. It’s also insulting. It suggests that “they,” unlike “us,” lack intelligence and initiative; that they act out of animal instinct and do not, as we do, create complex and unique cultures; that they are somehow closer to the apes than we are. As a scholar, I consider this kind of worshipful but patronizing attitude toward indigenous peoples a serious error in the interpretation and analysis of human culture. As a parent, I resent having to measure my civilized, bookish, awkward approach to mothering against the supposedly effortless, natural perfection of “simpler” women the world over . . . especially when these “simpler” and more “natural” women don’t actually exist. Wherever you find people mothering children, it is as complicated and culturally-bound as mothering is here at home. The natural mother, as such, is only an invention of Western “civilized” sensibilities. Dr. Sears has eagerly adopted the natural mother in order to more effectively market the type of parenting that he’s singled out as his favorite. And this, really, is what annoys me about Dr. Sears. He doesn’t sell his “original babysling” as just one solution among many to the problem of caring for a pre-ambulatory child while attending to the tasks of daily life. (And how original can a couple of yards of fabric be, anyway, when it’s purportedly been de rigeur human infant care equipment for “untold eons”?) No, he is selling it as the equipment for the form of parenting that anyone who truly loves her children will adopt. Wear your baby enough, The Baby Book suggests, and you will morph into a mom like Karen, one of the many mothers Dr. Sears writes about approvingly (or was that paternally?). Karen had a career. She was a “perfectionist” who “was used to doing everything right.” As Dr. Sears explains, Karen carried that attitude over into parenting, “and wanted to do everything right for her baby” (unlike the rest of us?). So Karen wore her baby in a sling, and as a result became so bonded to baby Jane that she couldn’t go back to that career of hers–it would require her to “separate” from the baby. Instead she found a new sort of job, one where she could work and wear her baby. “Babywearing,” Dr. Sears concludes, “provides the circumstance that strengthens the bond, and because the bond is strengthened the mother seeks out a life-style that allows the babywearing bond to continue–another example of how babywearing does something good for the mother, for the baby, and for society.” Every other way of parenting apart from “attachment parenting,” Dr. Sears implies, is sloppy seconds. A compromise. Or, more to the point, a travesty. What can be said about parents who choose to go against Nature? You have to pity them, I guess. And their poor children. In my opinion, it is a cruel thing to tell a new mother that babies who are mothered “naturally” (read: correctly) never cry. It turns your baby’s every whimper into an indictment of your naturalness and adequacy as a mother. Baby is not “securely attached”; baby has not “bonded” to his or her “primary caregiver” (that’s supposed to be you, if you have any maternal feeling at all, and if you don’t, why did you have the baby?). That’s quite a lot to read into “waaah, waaah.” The last time I checked, “waaah, waaah” is an inarticulate expression that could be translated in many ways, only one of which is “Bad mommy! Bad mommy!” Probably if I’d picked up a copy of The Baby Book before I got pregnant, I would have either decided that Dr. Sears was some kind of patriarchal-backlash, woman-hating fanatic, or I would have realized on the spot that yes, he was right, and therefore a person like me had no business having children. When I actually read The Baby Book, the conclusion I drew was the second one, but by then it was too late: I’d already had the baby. So I figured that either I could do my beloved child irreparable emotional harm, or I could become someone different, the sort of person who could be a good parent. So what if the person Dr. Sears wanted me to become bore no relation to the former me? So what if she took the feminist revolution I was deeply committed to a few thousand years backward? Was I going to let my daughter, my infinitely precious daughter, be the victim of my fancy-pants politics? Certainly not. And so I became a morose, reluctant advocate of the theory of “attachment parenting.” Not because it appealed to me, not because it was the way I wanted to parent, but because it was the way I thought I should parent. With my tiny, helpless daughter lying in my arms, “should” seemed to be the only relevant consideration. It took many months, but I got over my attachment to attachment parenting. I renamed The Baby Book “How to Be a Perfect Mother and Why You’ll Never Be One.” I considered the radical act of just throwing the book away. But actually, Dr. Sears is a darned good pediatrician, and the section on infant illnesses is one of the most informative and reassuring you’ll find out there. In the end, my husband decided that The Baby Book should live in our garage in an undisclosed location. If I wanted Dr. Sears’s wisdom on teething or ear infections, he told me, he could consult the index, read the key sections, and report back to me. I would never be tempted to thumb through the other pages that lay waiting to suck me back into a bottomless shame spiral. Many fans of The Baby Book claim an ability to take Dr. Sears with a grain of salt, following his advice when it suits them and ignoring it when it doesn’t. I lacked this talent, or maybe the confidence. Dr. Sears presented a babies-and-parents-and-the-whole-universe perspective, and I bought it, the whole package. Why? It’s not so hard to figure out: Sears and all the other self-styled baby experts catch us at a weak moment, when we are so exhausted and unsure of ourselves, and so deliriously in love with our demanding babies. This is why Dr. Sears is not simply annoying, but actually dangerous: because he speaks with the voice of false authority to the uncertain and fearful; that is, to new mothers. I remember a friend of mine saying that after she had her first child, she avoided the company of other new mothers because she felt like they were all judging her. Her husband, who thought she should get out more, told her she was being paranoid. Nonsense, I told her. Of course they were all judging her! Probably more harshly than she even imagined, and for reasons that border on the freakishly insignificant, like what brand of clothes the baby was wearing, how many blankets were tucked around him on a cold day, or whether or not he was permitted a pacifier. In my experience anyway, first-time motherhood is a one-way ticket back to high school. You remember high school . . . that place where there were one or two ways to be cool and five thousand ways to be a loser, and no one hesitated to tell you to which group you belonged? Honestly, I have no objection to people sleeping with their babies or carrying them in slings. I have done both these things. I would do them again. I breastfed my infants too (only for four or five months apiece; but some of my best friends are long-time lactators, I swear, and I applaud them on their choice). And I don’t really hate Dr. Sears. I’m sure he’s a well-intentioned man doing the best he can with his profitable baby-care and parenting-propaganda industry. Whoever Dr. Sears’s relatives are, I don’t actually suppose that Satan is among them. I would just appreciate it if he–and everyone else who ventures to publicly voice their opinions about parenting–would underline the point that there is more than one way to be a good parent, and that there always has been. That Nature is not dictating a single “natural” way of doing things. Want to stay at home with your kids? Then do it. Do it because you want to and because you can. Want to leave your kids with someone else while you go work, or play, or follow out your own interests? Then do it. Do it because you want to and because you can. If you don’t have a choice, do what you must out of necessity, and know that love, real love, matters more than time or money either one, as generations of children from many classes and cultures can attest. But when you have a choice, don’t choose to do what you’d rather not do out of a sense of beleaguered duty. Don’t suffer on your children’s account. Chances are, they will never thank you for it. Love them, enjoy them, let them see who you are (who you already are, not the Stepford Mom you think you need to be). Given enough time, they will become whoever they will be. Author’s Note: My children are now ages eight and two. On good days, I believe everything I have written here, and pat myself on the back for making such excellent, life-affirming choices for myself, my children, and our family. On bad days, I wonder if my toddler’s tantrums aren’t due to her psyche-scarring experiences in full-time daycare, and mercilessly second-guess all those same choices. My children are a delight and a blessing, and being a mother is really, really hard. About the Author: Cynthis Eller is a professor of religious studies and women’s studies at Montclair State University in New Jersey. Her next book, Am I a Woman? A Skeptic’s Guide to Gender, will be published by Beacon Press in August 2003. Art by Penny Van Horn </div> </article> <article id="post-21267" class="post-21267 post type-post status-publish forma