Permission to Live

The way I am

2012-01-30T13:31:00.000-06:00

There is a story about my grandma’s oldest sister that Ilove. It goes like this. She was expecting the young man she was seeing to showup any minute for their date. Her sisters spotted him coming up the road andran to warn her “Hurry up Viola!” They yelled. “Go straighten up, comb yourhair! Roscoe is almost here!” To which my great aunt replied calmly, “If hedoesn’t like me the way I am, he doesn’t like me at all.” Apparently he didlike her exactly the way she was, because they later got married and hadseveral children together.

The thing that has always fascinated me about this story, isthat she knew who she was, and she was not afraid to be that person. Incontrast, I have always hated who I was. I thought of my personality traits assin, and I hated myself for them. My creative daydreaming side? Laziness and awaste of time. The bangle bracelets I wanted to wear? Immodest. The combatboots I liked? Stupid and unladylike. My thirst for knowledge and autonomousthought? Rebellion and arrogance.

I spent so much time hating myself and trying as hard as Icould to change myself into the godly, quiet and meek woman I believed I wassupposed to be. And I was so very bad at it. It was a lose-lose situation. If I wasn't being the woman I was “supposed” to be, I felt worried and sad that Iwas displeasing God and following my own inclinations. If I was doing my utmostto fit the box I was “supposed” to fit in, then I felt depressed andemotionally dead.

The last few years have been an ongoing discovery of myself.Figuring out who I am and learning to be OK with me even if I don’t fit themodel I idolized for so long. I’ve mentioned before that I feel that this song“Bring me to Life” accurately describes how incredible that has been. I trulyfeel as if I have been coming to life, from a half-existence I had before.

So who am I? On the surface, I still largely look the verysame as I always have. I’m pretty sure that some of what annoys me aboutpeople, is when they assume things about me based on who I was and to themnothing has visibly changed. I am still a wife and stay at home mom, unless you are around me a lot, or get into a deep discussion with me, you may not realize the internal journeyI’ve been on. But I feel the difference. And when I doubt myself, all I have todo is look at pictures or videos of myself from a few years ago in comparisonto more recent ones. The quiet awkward serious girl who tried to avoid thecamera and refused to say much on video has slowly been replaced by a morevibrant noisy woman who smiles and even laughs on video.

Shedding that shame, and learning to replace thatself-hatred with love, has made me more capable of showing love to my children,even when they show evidence of their mother’s personality traits I oncebelieved were sinful. I am not evil and wrong, and neither are my children. I’mnot sure I can even describe how healing that realization has been.

When I first started this process, I felt like I had no ideawho I really was. I was a very negative person, and my first tendency was toexplain away any ideas or desires I had until I had convinced myself thatwasn’t what I truly wanted. This was pretty effective at keeping me from doing muchof anything that I wanted to do. I kept my head down, and followed someone else’slead.

To counter thatinstinct, I’ve developed a set of questions to ask myself when I am beingnegative, defeatist and shutting down.

1. Am I shutting down this idea because I was told it waswrong? Do I still believe all these bad things will happen as a result of methinking this thought or trying this action?

2. Am I shutting down this idea because I believe that Iwill fail at it? Is this my low self-confidence telling me that I will do sobadly that it would be worthless to try? Is that really true?

3. Am I shutting down this idea because deep down I actuallydon’t want to do it, but I am doubting myself and feeling guilty because Ithink I am supposed to do this or think this way?

These questions have helped me learn to trust my ideas andinstincts again. And slowly I’ve begun to have interests again. I remember thedeep urges to create things, make things beautiful. As I’ve let go of theperfectionist ideal, I’ve been more able to embrace my messy creative side,letting the laundry wait a little longer as I let go as I learn to writesomething without ridiculing every word I place on paper. I’m still trying toget to the point of being able to knit something to completion without unravellingevery row after I deem it unworthy. I am starting to have the confidence toknow that it is OK for me to have thoughts and ideas of my own. I no longerhave to bite my tongue and look at the floor.

What’s more, I have people in my life who actually want tohear what I have to say. And the people who don’t want to see or hear me, don’thave too. I do not have to live my life to please them, be who they want me tobe. Because guess who has to look in the mirror everyday and face Melissa? Me.I’m the one who has to live with myself and the life I am living. And afteryears of avoiding the camera or even looking in the mirror, now for the firsttime, I can.

Now, for the first time, I feel beautiful. I feel free. Ifeel real.

In shedding the plastic shell of who I was molded to be andlearning to be present and engaged. I can let myself get messy. I can let goand dance or roll on the floor with my kids. I can drop my insecurities and getpassionate with my lover. I can let my hair blow crazily in the wind, insteadof rolling up the window. I am free to make mistakes and make amends for thosemistakes. I can face life with arms open, and embrace change as it comes.

It is when I ampresent, when I am most honest with myself and others, that I feel ALIVE andbeautiful.

And that is when I can remember that whether I speak ofacquaintances or friends, or even of a God.

If I am not liked the way I am,

I am not truly liked at all.

Dreams of Defiance

2012-01-17T12:31:00.000-06:00

I can hear them in the next room. Dad yanks at his arm,yelling at him and threatening to spank him if he doesn’t do... something? I’mnot even sure what he’s in trouble for this time. I cower in the next room,wanting to do something, wanting to save him. I hear the slaps, he starts tocry, Dad shoves him away. Holding my breath, hoping and praying for it to end,maybe if I squeeze myself small enough into this dark corner behind thebookcase... I could just disappear.

*************************

I stuff more dirty clothes into the wash machine, refusingto look out the window at the dreary sunless day. My sister comes in, long hairpulled back in a pony tail, wearing a long tan skirt and her favourite bluecollared polo shirt. She looks tired. “We need to get to that family roombefore Dad gets home” she says. I nod, turning the knobs on the washer. “I haveto start dinner, do you think you can get a sister to help you?” She shrugs, “Ithink so, she’s been super emotional today, but I’ll try.” Part of me wishes Mom was up to handle this, but she’s been in bed for days now.

****************************

“Get over here, you have to be spanked for talking to melike that.” My stomach tightens. I can’t do it, not again. I run into thebathroom and lock the door. I look at the bathroom sink and remember how manytimes I’ve leaned over that sink, skirts lifted, thighs clenched, waiting formy mom to land the blows on my leg, willing myself not to make a sound.

I hate this room.

“If you don’t come out of there it’s just going to be worsefor you later” her voice comes through the door. There is a roaring in my ears.I fight the urge to yell that I’m sorry, and undo the lock and just get it overwith. It doesn’t matter how many times I submit, how hard I try, this is onlygoing to continue, day in-day out. Howcan I live like this?

This needs to end. I have to get out of here. This time, I’mnot going to roll over and play dead. This time, I’m going to do somethingabout this. This time, I’m going to tell someone.

I head to the window, I know how to remove the screen, maybeI can get to a neighbours and use their phone... To call someone. Call who? Idon’t know... the police? My grandparents? I move to the window and fumble withthe latch, I can hardly believe I’m doing this.

And then I woke up, drenched in sweat, heart beating wildly.It took my several minutes longer to realize that my lover is sleepingpeacefully on one side of the bed, my youngest baby on the other,

and I’m inthe middle, safe.

*******************************

I haven’t lived withmy parents for years. But since I moved away, I’ve lived some of those old memoriesin dreams again and again. Sometimes I am a young child in my dream, sometimesa teen. Sometimes I am an adult somehow transported back in time and living inmy parents home as the child I no longer am.

The one common factorin all of these dreams, is that I never stand up. I let them hurt me, I watchthem hurt my siblings, or (in the worst of my dreams) I watch them spank orbelittle my own children,

and I never do anything.

Inside, I am always screaming, shrieking, raging, but on theoutside I am calm, and submissive. I always feel completely helpless in thesenightmares. As if I can do nothing to stop whatever is happening. Despite confronting my parents as an adult inreal life, and beginning to experience some healing,

I am always powerless inmy dreams.

I had this dream early last December, but it took me a fewweeks to realize what was different about it.

This marks the first time a dream involving my parents includedanything but my complete obedience to them. I didn’t quite stand up to them inmy dream, but I was leaving the situation with plans to make it change.

I know it’s just a dream, but it feels like a huge step forme.

Gentle Parenting Tools: Apology

2012-01-10T13:15:00.000-06:00

Early last year we got home after a church service, I was huge and pregnant, and tired, and feeling fried after so much religious talk. The kids were whining, and 4 year old Ms Action and 3 year old Ms Drama started fighting about something. I yelled over my shoulder at them to stop it as I waddled into the bathroom to pee. The fight continued, and as I came out of the bathroom I saw Ms Drama slap her sister. Old instincts kicked in on top of frustration, and without thinking I grabbed her arm and smacked her hand saying “don’t hit your sister!”.

Her mouth dropped open in shock and she screamed. I doubt she cognitively remembers being spanked, so it may be the first time in her memory that I hit her. I stormed away into the kitchen and left her crying in the hall. About a half hour later when I had cooled down, I was explaining to my husband how I felt crappy because I had broken my non-spanking stance and smacked Ms Drama. He replied “why don’t you apologize to her?” I thought of the usual excuses, but after a moment I went over to where she was watching a cartoon with her sisters and sat down next to her and said “I’m sorry I hit you, hitting hurts, hitting is not OK.” She suddenly transformed from sullen and reserved, to smiling shyly and giving me a strangle hug.

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I used to tell myself that my kids didn’t deserve to be apologized too. If they had been behaving in the first place I never would have done anything that I needed to apologize for. Plus they were really young anyways right? They would forget whatever had happened within a few minutes, so my apologizing would just remind them of that conflict. I also think my aversion to apologizing was related to how my parents forced us to apologize for whatever they decided we had done wrong, sometimes apologizing was the only way to appease them, even if you hadn’t done anything. Coupled with this, my parents rarely if ever apologized to their children, and never admitted wrong. Children were always the wrong ones, being an adult gave you the privilege of always being right.

As I’ve started to realize just powerful a heartfelt apology is, I found myself wanting to kick my pride to the corner and give my children the gift of admitting wrong. And it has changed everything about how we relate. So many bad days have been stopped in their tracks by a simple apology. I have made mistakes, and I’m sure that I will continue to do so. Being an adult does not mean you are always right, like I believed as a child.

Obviously, if I were to keep doing whatever I am apologizing for again and again, my apology would be ineffective. One’s actions speak as loud, or louder than one’s words. But, I’ve found that when I apologize for something I am far more likely to hold myself to it and do the work to make sure it doesn’t continue to happen, and that change is a priority to me.

In my reading on this topic, I came across the book “The Power of the Apology” by Beverly Engel, and I really liked the way she summed up the elements of a meaningful apology.

Regret

A statement of regret for having caused harm or pain. This is where empathy for the other persons experience comes in. Putting yourself in the shoes of the person you have harmed and feeling sorrow for the pain you caused.

Responsibility

An acknowledgement and acceptance of responsibility for your actions. This means no blaming or excuses. This includes “I’m sorry... but”.

Remedy

A statement of willingness to take action to remedy the situation. Either not repeating the action or doing the real work involved in eliminating/remedying the problem.

********************

A little over a year ago (6 years after getting married and moving out of my parents house) I sent a letter to my parents confronting them about the abuse in my childhood for the first time. Since then I have received some my first apologies ever from them, but most of the time they rung rather hallow. Both parents had progressed to the point where they could express regret for certain things, but that was where the apology halted. I heard a lot of excuses of why they had treated me the way they did, as if they were trying to justify their actions. And there was no effort to change anything. In many ways they treated my siblings who were still at home in the same ways as they always had, and there were no promises to go to counselling or even read a book an start to educate themselves on childrearing or abuse. I had to learn how to break those chains in my own life whether they would acknowledge them or not.

This last autumn was the first time I slowly started to notice something different, my parents started reading books that their children asked them to read, and slowly, some things around my parent’s house started to change. This began to give me some hope that maybe they really were willing to learn and that life could end up being better for some of my younger siblings. A few weeks back I had a long phone call with my mom and she was chatting about one of the changes happening over there, I was surprised to hear about it, and said as much. She acted as if I shouldn't be surprised and started to go down the usual route of excuses and insisting she did not remember the restrictions I remembered from my childhood, I explained a few of my memories and she was quiet for a moment, and then she said “Yeah, I do remember that. We were such terrible parents then.” I have already begun the journey of forgiveness, so I was surprised by the feeling of relief when my mom said those words. My mom didn’t even realize it, but she had just given me a gift, she had acknowledged the harm, and accepted responsibility for the first time. The apology she had been trying to give for the last year had just come full circle.

An apology doesn’t mean that everything is magically fixed. It doesn’t change the negative experiences of my childhood. An apology doesn’t mean that I can magically feel happy fuzzy feelings whenever I happen to think of my parents, and it doesn’t mean that my parents have changed every harmful behaviour they do.

But here are some of the things that a genuine heartfelt apology CAN do.

Apologizing shows respect.

Apologizing shows that you are capable of taking responsibility for your own actions.

Apologizing shows that you care about the other person’s feelings and can reassure them that you are no longer a threat.

Apologizing to your children teaches them how to do all of the above. I do not force my children to apologize, I teach them respect for others and how to take responsibility for their actions. A genuine apology is better than a forced apology, a reflex one, or an apology expecting a certain result.

“Love and cruelty are mutually exclusive. No one ever slaps a child out of love but rather because in similar situations, when one was defenceless, one was slapped and then compelled to interpret it as a sign of love. This inner confusion prevailed for thirty or forty years and is passed on to one’s own child. That’s all. To purvey this confusion to the child as truth leas to new confusions that although examined in detail by experts, are still confusions. I on the other hand, one can admit one’s errors to the child and apologize for a lack of self-control, no confusions are created.

If a mother can make it clear to a child that at that particular moment when she slapped him her love for him deserted her and she was dominated by other feelings that had nothing to do with the child, the child can keep a clear head, feel respected, and not be disoriented in his relationship to his mother,. While it is true that love for a child cannot be commanded, each if us is free to decide to refrain from hypocrisy.”

Banished Knowledge by Alice Miller Page 35

When a parent refuses to apologize for failing to respect their child, and for causing them harm, they are perpetuating this myth that disrespect and abuse are OK. Or even worse, that are just a part of love. While every person has feelings and will react to things badly at times, I never want my child to feel that they do not deserve respect and care. Someday when they are making choices of companions and friends, I want them to choose to be around people who respect them, and can admit when they are wrong. I don't want my child to dismiss a person’s violence or mistreatment of them to be just a part of love.

Apology can have that much power.

Here is a link to a great article on what to do when you’ve crossed the boundaries of respect with your child,

and you want make it right.

I've been asked for specific ideas and scenarios illustrating gentle discipline techniques, and that prompted the birth of my ongoing series on Gentle Parenting Tools where I will try to do just that. Stick around to hear about my process of trial and error as I continue to figure out what it means to be a gentle positive leader, and be sure to share your own breakthroughs and ideas and questions!

As I face 2012

2012-01-03T14:24:00.000-06:00

Found via Pinterest

2011 feels like a long year that went by really fast.

So much happened last year, and some of it was scary. I spent several months feeling my faith slip through my fingers even as I tried to hang on by my fingernails, and I finally stopped struggling and allowed myself to think about life without all the answers. This was a anonymous blog where I felt safe to ask scary questions and process thoughts, and this year my blog was discovered and now I am no longer completely anonymous, this meant that my faith struggle and questions were exposed to people I had not previously felt safe to share fully with, and that has had mixed results. Some people accepting me regardless, and some becoming very angry and feeling betrayed.

Many good things happened too. My depression faded into the background, I found myself for the first time in a long time having more good days than bad days. I had my precious Baby Boy in May, and I can hardly believe he is already 8 months old and crawling at light speed. His birth was so peaceful, and in the months following I had mild ups and downs instead of the crippling Post Partum depression I had experienced with previous births. I started to feel confident for the first time in our choice to not spank our children, and I found new books and ideas on gentle discipline. I finally began counselling, and started un-wrapping the onion of my dormant soul.

In my end of the year post last year, I said that if I was to describe 2010 in one word, it would have to be “change”.

For 2011, the word that feels most fitting is “discovery”.

Several blogs I follow have talked in this last week about having a word to inspire them for this year. I've seen this idea before, and have never been able to pick just one word, but the choices of others always get me thinking. The beautiful ladies at Emerging Mummy and The Sacred Life have named their year “Fearless” and “Unafraid”.

Looking into the year of 2012, I do not feel courageous. I do not feel brave. I most definitely feel afraid. Afraid of what? Sometimes I hardly know. Perhaps it’s the unknown, or the changes that could happen during this year. I like security, I like feeling like I know what will happen today, tomorrow and the next day. So having a whole year worth of days yet to be lived stretching out in front of me is daunting. And again, I have to face the fact that I do not know what each day brings, and again come to the realization that I cannot control anyone but myself.

And instead of being anxious, or frustrated, because of the unknown of this year, I find myself wanting to let go. To let go and embrace life with open arms as it comes my way. Accept myself and my circumstances, whatever they may be. Embrace my children fully for exactly who they are. Accept the known and the unknown. To live life as who I am and let go of the things I cannot change. Accept others where they are at, whether they can offer me acceptance or not.

In accepting, I can respect. In respecting, I can love.

So my word for 2012?

Acceptance.

Turn a bad day around

2011-12-23T09:37:00.000-06:00

When it is one of those days, where nothing I planned to do ever happened, and kids were needy or the house was messy, or sleep was lacking the night before, it is so tempting for me to just throw in the towel. My perfectionism kicks in and I give up. I tell myself the day is going so badly, why even try? Nothing I do is going to make a difference.

This mentality has usually led to me contributing to the problem, as if I want to make sure the day that was going badly, ends badly. It’s like I’m driving along a road, in a hurry to get where I need to be, and I pass a sign that says “Dead End” and I shrug and say, that can’t be right, and keep going. Then I see another sign “Warning: Cliff Ahead”, this pisses me off because this is the route I planned on using, there is no way there is a cliff. When I see the sign that says “Turn back now!” I just floor it, and then find myself broken and bleeding in a ravine at the bottom of the cliff. And usually by then my pride is so wounded by how stupid I’d been, I refuse to call for help.

Lately I’ve been realizing that I have the power to see the signs and turn around. There is nothing compelling me to make a bad day worse. So these are some of the tools that help me stay on the road, when I remember to use them.

#1 “Hit Pause”- So when I see that first “Dead End” sign (although around here it usually looks more like a toddler who didn’t sleep last night, or a grumpy preschooler who doesn’t want to get with the program) I can hit pause. I can stop and think about where we are headed, I can even turn around and choose a different route. I can hit pause and take a deep breath or even a mommy time out if I need it. There is nothing that obligates me to pound my head against the wall to try and force something that is not going to happen. I am the one driving my car, so I get to choose when to hit the brakes. I can be OK with the fact that a child isn’t co-operating and seek to determine the need or feeling behind the conflict instead of ignoring all the signs and driving off the cliff. I can hit pause at any time, even if I have already ignored several signs, even if I am at the edge of the cliff.

#2 “Just be”- I can relax and take my time. This is supposed to be a scenic route, not a race. I can have the mindfulness to enjoy whatever moment I am living right now, instead of being preoccupied with today’s destination, or tomorrow’s moment. Maybe that means that I’m not going to get to the laundry today. Maybe today won’t be everything I imagined it could be, but maybe it will be better. Either way, I can experience my day and my relationships best by letting go and living in the now.

#3 “Enough”- I can let today be enough. Seriously, it is OK if we have a simple meal instead of a grand one. It’s OK if I can’t afford to get someone the gift I really wanted to get them. Maybe we won’t have enough time to decorate the entire house in one day, maybe I won’t be able to have that heartfelt conversation I was hoping for. That doesn’t mean that today was not enough, that I am not enough. Honestly, I think this is one of that hardest ones for me to remember. It is still hard for me to believe that I am enough, but accepting myself and others for who we are, and accepting the day as it comes, is a powerful asset in turning a not so great day around.

#4 “Connect”- One thing that helps me remember to just be, and always seems to help a bad day get better, is connection. Connecting with the people I love, nurturing the relationships in my life. Maybe it’s just a hug. Or stopping everything to read a book or have cookies and milk together. Maybe it’s snuggling under the same blanket and watching a movie with my Hunnie, or lighting a candle again and again so my two year old can blow it out over and over. Whatever it is, caring for myself and the people close to me always helps the day get a little better and reminds me what really matters.

#5 “Ask for help”- This is important. This is what helps me remember that it is never too late. Even if I am already at the bottom of the cliff, it is never to late to admit I am overwhelmed and need some help. I am not invincible, and I don't need to be. Honest communication about my needs helps. Maybe someone can reassure me that everything is going to be fine, that my efforts were noticed, maybe someone can just watch my kids for long enough for me to take a shower. And even if there is nothing anyone can do to help me achieve my goals, I’ve found talking about it helps me recognize what I was trying to achieve, re-evaluate what is reasonable, and start again. It is OK that I am not able to do it all, it is OK to ask for help.

What are some strategies that help you turn a bad day around?

But now I WANT to be here

2011-12-16T15:22:00.001-06:00

There was a dark corner in the living room where the dark heavy book case was. I used to squeeze myself between the bookcase and the wall. Here, curled up in the dark, I dreamed of running away. Sometimes I wished I never had to come out of my little corner, maybe if I squeezed myself small enough, I could disappear, just evaporate into the darkness somehow. Either way, I was sure no one would miss me. They might not even notice I was gone, except when they started to fall behind in housework.

I thought about death so much that I didn’t realize that wasn’t normal. Didn’t everyone wish they had never been born? Didn’t everyone think that the world would be a better place if they didn’t exist?

Maybe not.

Maybe God wasn’t as displeased with everyone else as he was with me. I was so sinful it was pointless to try and redeem myself. I couldn’t look in the mirror, I was too ugly and worthless.

Sometimes I held a bottle of pills from the medicine cabinet and thought about swallowing a bunch of them. Or maybe jumping off of some high place like a highway overpass would be a quicker way to go. I read a news story of two teenage girls who committed suicide by hiding inside garbage bags on the railroad tracks. They died when the train ran over them.

I wished that I could be as brave as them.

I wrote a will in my journal. Bequeathing all my toys and books to my little siblings and cousins. I told myself that the will was just for fun, but deep down I wanted them to know I had loved them if I wasn’t around to tell them anymore.

More than once, I tied a plastic bag over my head, and sat with my chest heaving as the air in the bag ran out. A strange thrill would rush through me as my vision started to go black...

But I couldn’t go through with it. I always ripped the bag apart before I passed out.

When I got my driver’s licence I fought the desire for death again. Every time I approached a long curve in the highway, I would look to see if a truck was coming the opposite way. Staring at the Semi coming towards me, I gripped the steering wheel with both hands, fighting with my mind. It would be so easy to let the car drift into the lane of oncoming traffic. A quick swerve into a two-ton truck would be sure to end it right? It was a relief to park the car when I arrived at my destination.

The depression didn’t magically end when I got married, I had the husband and children I had always wanted, that I had been told I was created for, but the urges still surfaced sometimes. Post-Partum depression hit pretty hard, even though I refused to admit it. I would find myself in the kitchen staring at the knife block, how hard could it be? Wouldn’t my husband and my baby girls be better off without me?

I found myself struggling with bizarre and terrifying thoughts of harming my new baby, something I could not rationally imagine ever doing to my beautiful children. I didn’t want to acknowledge where the nightmares and depression were coming from.

I told myself what I had told myself for years. I was bad. I was sinful. I wasn’t praying enough, reading my bible enough, seeking god enough. These thoughts, this depression, was all my own doing.

Two years ago I started unwrapping the onion for the first time. Digging through the past, the self-hatred, the anger, the messages that told me I was worthless.

Now instead of dark weeks and months with the random good day thrown in here and there, I have weeks and months of good days, with a random down day thrown in here and there. Now I am learning what it means to love life. I know what unconditional love is. Sometimes when I walk past a mirror, I actually look, and I no longer hate everything I see. This past spring was the first time I had a baby and didn’t have massive Post-Partum Depression. Even on my down days, that grip of death is gone.

I’ve begun the journey of healing.

Sometimes I still feel vaguely surprised when I drive past a semi and no longer feel any urge to end it all,

that feeling was there for so long.

I feel like the last two years has been an incredible journey from darkness to light. And in a time of year when suicide and depression spikes, I just want to put it out there that it does get better.

If you are feeling alone, if you are feeling like there is no point to life, if you are struggling with thoughts of ending it all. Just know that pushing through is worth it.

Get help.

Talk with Someone.

You are worth it.

Suicide Warning Signs

Hopeline

International Suicide Prevention Directory

Suicide Prevention Lifeline

"Real" Faith

2011-12-10T19:31:00.001-06:00

I’ve been told more than once now, that my current lack of belief/ faith indicates that I never really believed in the first place. This baffles me.

What about my life before agnosticism illustrates non-belief?

Is it the skirts I wore? Or the way I obeyed my parents and sought to please them? Do the worn out binding and highlighted pages of my Old King James Bible I received when I was eight years old reveal my lack of faith? Is it all the bible verses and hymns that I have memorized and stored in my head to this day? Is it how I filled my journals with prayers for redemption and anointing of the holy spirit, how I wrote about my sins and begged for forgiveness? Or maybe the prayer journal I kept especially for my future husband, before I ever met him. That is a sure clear indicator of godlessness.

Is it how I kept myself a virgin until marriage? Never even holding hands or kissing until I was with my future husband? Maybe my lack of true Christianity is revealed in my efforts to be a submissive wife to my husband, how I read book after evangelical book to try and discover what it was he wanted me to do (until the day I gave up on that and just asked him instead) surely those things show the true evil in my heart.

Oh wait, I bet it’s how I parented my kids, how I held my first baby and swore I would never spank her, and then I read all the Christian parenting books that I could get my hands on, including the ones I grew up with, and found that if I truly loved God, and I really wanted my kids to be Christians, I would HAVE to spank them, there was no other way. So I did, because I wanted them to know the God I was sure that I knew. That must be where people are seeing how I wasn’t truly a believer.

I forgot, what about all the times I told other people how to live? Like, how they shouldn’t have sex before marriage, or how they shouldn’t use birth control. That’s sure a tell-tale sign of lack of faith, you know, when you try to spread it around and convert other people.

How could I have done all those things, read the Bible every day for years on end, prayed to know God’s will before I did anything... if I was only pretending that entire time? Could I really have spent that much effort, refused to get the help I needed and cried that many tears... if it was only a game to me? Even my early blog posts show my understanding of God at that time, how much I wanted to know who He was and how to relate to Him. How can anyone who knew me then, claim that I was just pretending to be a Christian?

How does one even answer a statement like this?

This line of thinking only ever works after the fact, something people of faith throw at those whose faith has changed. If I was never really a Christian, then what exactly makes one a Christian? And if you are someone who believes that a person who loses their faith never really believed in the first place, than how can you be sure that you have understood and believed Christianity correctly?

Everyday is Forever

2011-11-30T13:25:00.002-06:00

Smoke had filled the kitchen before I figured out where it was coming from. I had thrown the oven mitt on top of the stove, and then accidentally turned on the burner underneath it instead of the burner under the pot on the back of the stove. The hot electric rings had burned themselves into the non-flammable mitt, and the blackened edges of the material glowed.

I turned on the fan over the stove and tossed the smouldering mitt out the back door and went on with the day. About half an hour later I peeked at the mitt and found that it had continued to burn, right down through the non-flammable layers and into our wooden deck. I filled an old ice cream bucket with water and doused the whole thing, but it was a little late. The deck now has a burnt area the size of my fist. I thought that was the end of it, we hadn’t made a big deal of the incident, I explained the danger of fire to the kids who were asking about the smoke, and we put the fire out. No screaming, jumping up and down or telling tales of doom.

But my 4 year old wouldn’t stop talking about it.

At first Ms Action just re-told the story of the kitchen fire again and again. “That glove was burning mom? Your glove was burning? And then there was a fire on the porch! But you could put it out, so it was OK. But if the fire was too big for you to put out we have to call the fire truck! And we go out of the house and wait until the fire gets put out." I let her tell the story, acknowledged her points and chatting about it. I thought after the excitement died down she would move on to something else, but several hours later she was still talking about the fire. The repetitive process of her talking about fire and me affirming her feelings was starting to be somewhat irritating and I was starting to wonder why this had been so upsetting for her, when suddenly her story changed.

“Mom.” She stopped and thought for a minute.

"One time, when I was little, my baby sister fell into a fire and she got really really hurt.”

I was puzzled at first, what was she talking about? None of our kids have ever fallen into a fire, or got any kind of substantial burn. I reassured her that no one had gotten burned, and that mom and dad were always there to watch out for all of our children to make sure that they didn’t get hurt by a fire. She shook her head and repeated intensely, “No, when I was little, my little sister fell into a fire and burned her hands!” Memory flooded my brain and I wondered if I knew what she was talking about, my own little brother was the same age as Ms Action, and one time on a family camping trip he had fallen into the fire pit and badly burned his hands. But that had happened over 3 years ago, Ms Action would have been about 18 months old. She had been standing right next to my brother when it happened, but how could she remember that?

I asked her if she remembered when her little uncle got burned, and she started to cry. She told me that it was scary that he had gotten so hurt, and something about how his hands had to be bandaged and he couldn’t play. I could still hardly believe she was talking about something that had happened when she was so young, but relieved that we were finally putting our finger on what was bothering her about the fire incident that afternoon. We snuggled on the couch and talked about how scary it is when someone gets hurt, and how there are Drs to help people who get burned. I reassured her again that her mom and dad are here to help her stay safe, and that we would take care of her if she ever did get hurt.

She told me that she was afraid that when she went to bed she was going to have a bad dream about fire, so we talked about dreams, and how even though they are scary they are not real. I reassured her that if she did have a scary dream and woke up I would be right there to hug her. Eventually she hit on the idea that if she was having a scary dream, she could change the dream into a nice dream or a silly dream instead, and she felt better. She went to bed easily that night and never woke up from bad dreams.

The conversation that had started with the small kitchen fire early that afternoon, had ended shortly before bedtime. For most of the afternoon I was doubting myself, did she really need these feelings recognized? I stopped myself again and again as I instinctively wanted to tell her that a big fire will never happen to us, and that she needed to forget about the fire and do something else. I worried that I was making it worse by letting the conversation continue for so long. But in the end, validating her emotions paid off when we got to the root of the fear, and then resolved the nightmare issue.

It still shocks me that she remembers something from such an early point in her life, it just goes to show how much early childhood matters. And it makes me wonder. Does she remember having her hand smacked again and again and again when she was 10 months old and kept going back to empty the garbage can. Does she remember when she was 14 months old and I hit her legs every time she stood up in her crib to “train” her to go down for her nap? Like this moment from almost two years ago, when she remembered what the spanking spoon had been used for, these thoughts bring tears to my eyes. How could I have treated my own babies this way?

But this also gives me hope. How many things happening today will she carry with her for the rest of her life? Her life, her memories, are being shaped right now. The hugs and snuggles, making messy treats together in the kitchen, all of us waiting breathlessly to start our Advent calendar and then for St Nicholas Day, these are the moments that make her memories. Every time I stop myself from yelling, is a moment that shapes my children. Every time I manage to keep my frustration at bay in the middle of the night and gently tuck that restless baby back into bed, that is a moment that shapes my children. Each moment is an opportunity to shape their knowledge that they are worthy of love, worthy of respect, worthy of my time. And that in turn, shapes their understanding that others are worthy of their love and respect.

My efforts are worth it! Your efforts are worth it!

I love this post from Emerging Mummy where she talks about how we are always all of our ages, because I know this is true of myself. Inside, I am still the trusting toddler, the excited preschooler, the explorative creative grade-schooler, and the depressed wistful teen.

Every day is the rest of my life, every day is the rest of theirs.

I have the chance today, to love them forever.

Snow, Peace, and Giving Thanks

2011-11-25T13:12:00.000-06:00

Even though we live in Canada right now, we have still enjoyed taking some time off and celebrating American Thanksgiving each year we've been here. This year my Hunnie made the Turkey and mashed potatoes and I made the Apple Crumble Pie and Pumpkin Pie. Everything was delicious and I think we have enough leftovers to make through the weekend! The days at our house have been peaceful and simple lately. Finding and making new recipes, picking up toys and washing dishes, reading books and watching movies.

We had our first snow of the year,

and everyone trooped outside to "help" shovel.

Time goes by so quickly, it seems only yesterday that we had these outside our door..

And now those same flowers are asleep under a layer of snow.

Holiday Traditions have only gotten more enjoyable as the kids get old enough to participate. This year we each made one of these adorable gumdrop turkeys.

And then ate them.

Throughout out this last week we each added a paper leave to our thankful tree each day,

and it got pretty full!

We used a different shape and color for each person's leaves, and simply asked the kids "what makes them happy" and wrote it down for them (we had to guess for the babies) and then we talked about how these are things we are grateful for.

We had quite a variety of things we were thankful for. Here is what was written on our leaves, if you look closely I think you can see each person's love language shining through.

Melissa: Foot rubs from my Hunnie, Photos, Wrestling on the floor, Play, Books, Traditions, Freedom.

My Hunnie: Our children, Naps, New Jacket, Supportive family members, Fun new hobbies, My sweetheart, Vacation.

4 yr old Ms Action: Unicorns, Rainbows, Toys, Decorations, Blankie, Castles, My bed.

3 yr old Ms Drama: Making cookies, Hugs from my parents, Candy, Nighttime when we sleep, Going to the store, Princesses, Lipstick.

2 yr old Ms Pooky: Cheese, Boinga's (her word for frogs), Blankie, Movies, Books (this one we used twice on accident, she really loves her books!), Candy.

6 month old Baby Boy: Full tummy, Bouncy, Sisters, Blankie, Toys, Sleeping, Going Places. (We really should have added 'thumb' to this list now that I think about it, he is always sucking his thumb.)

It was so much fun putting it together and hearing what our kids are thankful for, and a good reminder that the things we are grateful for or the "things that make us happy" usually have nothing to do with buying things at the store or trying to please other people. I plan on continuing this discussion even when it is not Thanksgiving.

So, a peaceful happy Thanksgiving, a relaxed weekend coming up, and then some fun plans for St Nicholas Day. What have you all been up to?

Babies, Duggars and Me

2011-11-12T11:40:00.000-06:00

The command to be fruitful and multiply was mentioned frequently in our marriage ceremony and reception. But it didn’t really need to be, we both knew what we believed. One of the questions we had discussed during our courtship was our commitment to never use birth control.

Read any Quiverfull publication, and you will see a heavy emphasis on how children are “blessings”. The Above Rubies magazine is filled with stories of giving up birth control and the subsequent blessing showered on families who choose to leave their fertility to God. The magazine has even run several stories where “the mother’s life was saved” against all odds by yet one more risky pregnancy. This mentality is against birth control of any kind, including fertility awareness or natural family planning. I no longer have my copy of “Be fruitful and multiply” by Nancy Campbell, but the book clearly taught that abstaining during fertile times is considered abnormal to the woman’s natural sexual desires as well as a refusal to trust God.

My husband and I were Quiverfull “lite” in a way, because we were never comfortable with being 100% against natural family planning. We felt that if the mother’s health was in danger for some reason, or if there were other very serious concerns then it would be acceptable to use natural spacing methods to prevent conception. But we never intended to use any of them, children were a blessing from God, why would we ever turn down a blessing? We firmly believed that this was God’s plan for families, and He would provide whatever money or resources were needed to care for our (sure to be) large family.

The Duggars recently announced that they are pregnant again, and the TV reporter made a mistake in her interview that I see echoed again and again across the internet. She asked if they had “planned” to have another baby. Listen to Michelle’s reply:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

She explains how she is older, and that this is their largest gap ever, and they were starting to wonder if Josie might be their last. Wondering, not because they couldn’t decide if they should “try” for another child, wondering because they did not know if or when she would get pregnant. The Duggar’s do not use birth control. The Duggar’s are Quiverfull.

The Duggar’s do not see having a large family as a fun choice that people who love kids can make, they see it as a call from God. A challenge to have enough faith to trust God with your fertility, even if it means many more children than you can parent, even if it means losing your life.

Watch this clip here:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Matt Lauer asks if the children are inclined to have large families themselves. Every one of them says yes. He asks if any of the children would like to have a small family, no one raises their hand. What no one seems to get, is that this is not a real question the Duggar kids. Having no children, or a small amount of children doesn’t make sense to them. They have been taught that leaving your fertility up to God is the only right way to have a family, even if one of them doesn’t want a large amount of children, if they want to serve God, they have NO choice. Even in the case of infertility, a small number of children or no children would be seen as sad, and possibly a rejection from God.

Quiverfull theology teaches that couples are to have as many children as God grants them, and raise them up in the lord. The parents give themselves up for their children, because they are blessings from God. This sounds very honourable and self-sacrificing, but I feel that this theology creates a very narcissistic understanding of the family.

The emphasis on losing yourself in God and raising generations of godly children for the sake of the kingdom creates parents who have no identity but their children. The family is seen as a group entity, and instead of seeing children as individuals, parents see their children as extensions of themselves. Parents become highly reactive and protective of even a grown child asserting a difference of opinion because the parents sense of self is being threatened.

I feel this is especially true of the mother. A Quiverfull mother’s sense of self is contingent on children because she has no other reason for existing. She has given up everything to birth, raise and homeschool her many many children. Most of the time these women have no individual interests or pursuits, many sacrifice their physical health as well.

I was raised Quiverfull and my understanding of my purpose in life was to have as many children as I could. I was trained for it, my interests were limited to encourage it. After we started moving out of the Quiverfull worldview, I thought that perhaps instead of the 16 or more children it looked like we were physically capable of producing, we would have a more modest sized family of 8 or 9 children spaced with natural family planning. As time went on, I thought that we would maybe reach a certain number of children even before then and then it would “feel right” and we would know that we were done.

The Duggar announcement triggered me in ways I wasn’t expecting. On the one hand I feel relieved that I no longer have to live Michelle’s life, being pregnant and giving birth over and over while my older girls raise my other children. But I found myself re-living that old understanding of my calling as a woman. What if I really am supposed to have as many children as physically possible. What if I am rejecting incredible blessings in my life in exchange for a life that I was told was meaningless in comparison to bearing children? The idea of being without a baby terrifies me. I have never done anything besides take care of kids. I grew up surrounded by people who had vasectomies reversed and always looked at that artificial five year gap in their family and wondered who could have been born there if only they had trusted their fertility to God. Preventing children was understood as selfish, living proof that one cared more about money and themselves and “the world” than the value of life and God’s will.

I no longer feel that quiverfull convictions are a healthy reason to have a large family, but the old theology has done it’s work. I have trouble seeing anything that I could do or explore as having value. I cannot wrap my mind around being “done” having kids. I can’t shake the feeling that without continuing to have kids, I basically don’t exist. I sometimes feel like I will never be able to rid myself of the crippling guilt connected with my fertility.

My value being tied to my capacity to reproduce was drilled into me. Like Libby Anne wrote in a recent post: “How many children do you want”

“When I look forward and see a life with only two children, I see emptiness. I see space and time that feels like it needs filling. When I realize that they would both be out of the house before I was fifty, I see decades of blank. Why? Because I still have trouble picturing what I would do with my life without ten children to care for and raise. I still have trouble picturing how I would fill all that empty time, or those empty rooms. I still feel like I would be living in a void, rejecting a "blessing" I could be receiving if only I had six, eight, or ten children. And yes, I feel selfish for wanting only a few kids.”

And yet, I wonder what it would be like to raise my own children differently than I was forced to raise my siblings. Why repeat the same patterns? I have four wonderful children, many people never have that many. I want to be able to engage fully as a parent, and not just manage the crowd like I did as a teen. I don’t want to miss my children’s growing up because I was too sick and exhausted from constant pregnancy to be with them. Growing up I felt that babies were special, almost sinless little people, precious and able to love unconditionally. As babies became toddlers you could see the first elements of their “sin nature” and their rebellion against God only grew the older they got. Now I wonder what it would be like to enjoy my kids at every age, and embrace them for who they are.

I wonder what it would be like to have the time and resources to visit my grown children even if they live some distance away, and be there for them as they start their families instead of still being consumed with little ones of my own. I wonder what it would be like to have free time, time to study and learn and explore whatever I like. It would be a life I’ve never experienced.

I was told how valuable children are, and that meant you should have as many as possible. But I wonder if that’s really true. Someone can believe that pearls are valuable and whether they have one pearl or twenty-five, it doesn’t make each individual pearl more valuable. Just because something has incredible worth doesn’t mean I should acquire and hoard as many as possible. Plenty of people are happy with just one precious piece of jewellery, that they love and wear every day, and they don’t spend any time worrying and obsessing about how they can get more.

In the end I am haunted by a question from my good friend (and mother of 4 young children herself),

“Which would you rather regret,

the children you didn’t have? Or the child you did?”

A new partnership

2011-11-08T10:30:00.002-06:00

Recently my husband and I ended up fighting on and off all weekend about (of all things!) housework. The argument went something like this:

He said: The house is so messy right now.

I heard: You are falling down on the job.

He meant: I'm so f***ing tired right now.

I said: So you wish we were back in the patriarchal model and everything were sparkling when you walked in the door?

He heard: So you're are a misogynist pig?

I meant: I am just so f***ing tired.

Re-phrase and repeat for several hours of nitpicking each other.

We hadn’t really fought in months, but after a long trip, and a flurry of church activities and a few illnesses thrown in for good measure, we were both exhausted. That type of tiredness that sticks around even after a full nights sleep.

It’s funny how the old tapes com rushing back whenever we clash over housework. If he even mentions that something is messy, I feel instantly insecure and angry at myself for not keeping up with it. We both have old phrases and ways of talking about things that trigger the old gender roles and resentment. I get defensive, he gets angry. I get angry, he gets hurt. And instantly I doubt myself, what if I’m wrong and all the old beliefs are true. To keep our home calm and strife free, maybe I really am supposed to keep the whole home up and running, rooms clean, laundry kept up, meals planned and on time. Then my husband could come home and be free from stress, able to relax and put up his feet after a long hard day of work. Except... then I remember that those teachings were wrong. When we adhered to the patriarchal roles we fought more than ever, and I was even more tired.

Truth is, we are doing so much better now than we were then. We have had very little practice seeing each other as true equals, we’ve only been at this for the last 2 years, and it’s been a lot of trial and error along the way. Sometimes I get so frustrated with myself for repeating old patterns, falling back into old beliefs and self-hatred. I get so fed up with the now. Sometimes it feels like this is never going to get easier, like I am going to be fighting guilt over allowing my husband to help around the house for the rest of my life.

But, I know that isn’t true. We have been getting better at this. My husband changes diapers now, and he’s learning how to do laundry. I’m getting better at asking for help when I need it, instead of shaming myself into doing it all. I get up with the babies all night long, but then he wakes up with them in the morning at dawn and I sleep an extra hour. Our communication skills continue to improve. And sometimes it seems like we need to fight a little just to re-assert our mutual goal of being equals.

Sometimes at the end of a long day I still find myself apologizing that I am behind on the laundry and I’ve left the baking pans on the counter for almost a week now. And then my husband reminds me that caring for the home is both of our responsibility. We both work during the day, he goes to his office and I care for our 4 children. And then at the end of the day we have family time and we tackle the house together. The housework is both of our responsibility, if I can get some of it done during the day, great! If not, that’s OK too.

When we eliminated the artificial gender role blueprints from our family, we had to figure out what worked for us for the first time. It was so scary to drop all the ideas about marriage that we understood as mandatory for a good relationship. Even though those ideas weren’t really working for us, what if abandoning them meant our marriage couldn’t last? But we’ve more than lasted, we’ve thrived. It's meant that he has to be accepting on the days he comes home to a disaster, and I have to be OK with him accidentally throwing my bra in the dryer.We work as a team, (an imperfect team, but a team) juggling kids and housework together. He is just as capable a parent as I am, and somehow all the housework gets done, even if sometimes we catch up on the weekends. Now we have communication instead of expectation, and that makes all the difference.

Choosing Respect

2011-11-04T12:06:00.000-05:00

I don’t really watch Dancing with the Stars, in fact, we just got rid of our cable last month. But I noticed that this particular season there was a flurry of news stories everywhere about one of the new contestants on this seasons show, and the comments on these news stories are shocking to me.

The raging controversy was over the participation of Chaz Bono, a female to male transgendered person. Chaz lasted six rounds of dancing before receiving the dreaded combo of lowest scores and lowest number of votes and had to leave. But while he was a contestant, I saw an endless stream of news articles on this topic. Many of them complained about Mr Bono’s weight (size discrimination is a whole other problem) or debated if he really qualifies as a star. But the main point of most of these posts, articles and comments has been hatred for the fact that he is a transsexual, many of them angry that Chaz is living as male, debating the state of his genitals, making crude jokes about his sexual orientation or performance.

Here is one example of the type of "new" stories I’ve been seeing on this topic. The Fox News website, (which ironically claims to be “fair and balanced”) Hosts this article which outright mocks Chaz, making light of his medical condition and struggle, and then exhorts readers to keep their children from watching the show, lest they catch the condition from Chaz.

This sort of hate-speech baffles me and angers me. No person would ever make the choice to feel the way Chaz does. No one sits down and tries to come up with ways to be more hated by society. In his wrestling with this condition, Chaz has made the decision to live more closely in line with how his gender feels to him and that is his choice, no one else’s. No one watching TV is affected by what medication Chaz takes or what clothing he puts on in the morning. And the people close to him may be able to relate better to Chaz now that he is caring for his condition: much as anyone who faithfully takes their blood pressure medication or anti-depressant meds is better able to be the spouse, parent, friend and employee they want to be. Transgendered persons are just as human as the rest of us, and in fact there are more of them then you think. Chaz just has the misfortune of being from a well-known family, most transgendered people are anonymous to most of the world.

Regardless of one’s beliefs on whether or not people should use medical intervention to aid in their struggle as a transsexual, I completely fail to see how spewing hate and anger and judgement does anything productive or helpful. After the writer of the Fox article mocks and degrades Chaz Bono, he goes on to say that Chaz should be treated with dignity, as if this writer even knows the meaning of the word! He talks about how every other step should be taken before acquiescing to surgical options.

Don’t you think that any person wrestling with gender dysphoria would try anything and everything to deal with their condition before opting to become a member of one of the most hated groups in America? I find it disgusting that this Dr who has never treated Chaz, goes on and on about how he would treat his condition if only Chaz had come to him. He even sounds somewhat offended that Chaz didn't ask him for his opinion!

And warning people to not allow their children to watch the show? Why? Because watching a couple dance could cause your child to question their gender identity? How does that make any sense? There have been gay contestants on the show, does that mean that kids start questioning their sexuality after watching a gay contestant dance? Or what about an overweight contestant, maybe a child could be tempted to become obese! All the contestants wear clothing when they dance, a child wouldn’t see anything different watching chaz dance than they would seeing anyone else dance. Either watch the show or don’t watch it, but don’t make this a “moral” position.

Supposedly the writer of this article is a “fair and balanced” dissenting “empathic” person. He is wrong. He is hateful, not empathic. He is not fair or balanced, he is judgemental and presumptive.

Here is another link . This article describes the relationship between a Catholic Nun and a Transexual woman. No judgement here, no alienation or proclamation on what she should have done. Instead there is acceptance, love, encouragement and support.

There is so much emphasis in both the religious and secular community on how GLBTQ people "choose" to live. What will you choose when faced with someone who experiences life differently than you do, someone who believes or acts differently than you do?

Does an opinion matter more than our common humanity?

A story of a Pumpkin

2011-10-31T11:57:00.000-05:00

We’d been married for several months when our first Halloween rolled around. At the Seminary apartments we lived in, we shared a porch with another young couple who were finishing their religious studies that year, and one day our neighbours put a Jack-o-lantern outside their door.

We got home from wherever we had been that evening, and there it was, grinning wickedly between our door and theirs. My religious soul was offended, how could someone studying to be in the ministry be dabbling in such a occultist celebration? And the smiling pumpkin sitting on our shared porch could make people think that we celebrated this evil day as well, inviting trick-or –treaters to our house.

And so, I strode up the steps to our door (long modest skirts swirling around me) and I turned the pumpkin so the carved features were now facing their side of the porch. Now no one would think that we approved of this sort of thing. My husband and I smiled, we didn’t want any evil spirits haunting our home, surely this couple would get the hint and get rid of the jack-o-lantern.

But the next day when I walked outside, the pumpkin had been turned back, facing out towards the street again. So I turned it around again, so that it looked like a regular pumpkin. Just your average fall decor here! None of that “Halloween” stuff at this house! This continued for several days. We turned the pumpkin, and they would turn it back. We moved the pumpkin to their side of the porch, they moved it back to the center. It was starting to get frustrating, evidently they were not catching the hint.

One day when I walked out on my porch, I noticed the pumpkin had a piece of paper taped to it. It said simply, “Do not touch the pumpkin.” We were not deterred in the least! This was our porch too! So my husband drafted a note in reply, explaining the alleged “pagan and therefore satanic” origins of Halloween (or as it should properly be called “Sahmain”) and we were not interested in inviting evil spirits into our home, so we did not appreciate them putting their pumpkin so close to our door. We left the note lying on top of the pumpkin, and the next day the evil jack-o-lantern had been moved to the other side of the porch. Victory!

Six years later, we have a Jack-o-lantern sitting on our porch.

This didn’t happen overnight. Back then Halloween was a very scary night for our fundamentalist Christian souls. It was the high holy day for witches and devils, and participating in that sort of “satan worship” would only lead to bad things. For several years we left the house on Halloween night, or at least pulled the shades and refused to open the door. Only two years ago I answered the doorbell and explained to an adorable little pirate and his mommy that we did not celebrate Halloween. But last year was different.

We had started asking lots of questions about everything, so naturally we questioned our position on Halloween too. What were we really afraid of? Were we afraid of the little kids in cute costumes? Was a large gourd with a face carved into it really that fearful? Were we afraid of Evil Spirits? Actually, not really anymore. In questioning God, I started to doubt the existence of Satan as an actual being, and either way I had stopped experiencing my “spiritual” panic attacks. So we decided that it was OK to give out candy to trick-or-treaters.

I don’t think I will ever be on board with how some have emphasized gore and horror on Halloween. I see no reason to celebrate some of the worst elements of humanity. But I now understand Halloween as a silly, spooky day, where kids get to have treats and exercise their creativity in putting together a costume. Halloween is just one more opportunity for custom, traditions, and family togetherness.

So yes, we have a pumpkin on our porch, and a bowl of candy ready to give away, and a very excited Pirate, Princess and Fairy to take out for our first ever Trick-or-Treat. And if someone answers the door and says “we don’t celebrate Halloween” I think I’ll just smile and nod and say “been there, done that.”

Writer's Block

2011-10-27T15:35:00.000-05:00

I feel like I’ve been staring at a blank page for weeks. Words all jumbled together in my head, unable to organize into anything coherent.

Dozens of times I’ve sat down to open the multiple posts that are almost finished. The one on body image, the gentle parenting posts, another post on gender roles. My post on how quiverfull theology is narcissistic, the one on suicide, the post on style and embracing who I am.

I write a few sentences, and stop.

I think about all the drama surrounding the discovery of my blog. People who have read my blog and now think they know me, people who haven’t read any of it but have heard about my blog and now think they know me. As if my blog is somehow the sum of my entire life’s experience, or details every interaction with every person I know. It’s uncomfortable knowing that anything I write will be scrutinized. I think I seriously underestimated the anger my blog would cause, and overestimated my strength to be vulnerable. I’ve been called bitter and hateful and a liar. I’ve been told that I am never to write about certain people again, even though I hardly mentioned them to begin with. It makes me wonder what the reaction will be when my parents find this blog.

Part of me wants to crawl back into my shell, surely I can pretend to be who everyone wants me to be. Wouldn’t it be easier to just be quiet and compliant? Then again, I never was very good at lying. If anyone ever asks me questions straight out, I always answer as truthfully as I can. It’s just no one ever really bothered to ask me about myself, except my husband and my sister. Sometimes I wish I had never blogged at all, then I wouldn’t have people who feel betrayed by me because they don’t really know me that well. I wouldn’t have people acting as though anything they say can and will be used against them on my blog. I could go back to being the fairly quiet person that everyone was OK with, instead of someone who has issues with many Christian teachings and different opinions than the people I’m related too. But I don’t really want that. I would rather be who I am with the flaws and opinions and ideas and beliefs and experiences I have.

It’s too exhausting to be anyone else.

But it has still been hard to write. It’s been hard to write, knowing that people are waiting to find fault.

When I am stressed, I tend to write or cook. And since I haven’t been writing as much, I’ve been in my kitchen more. So we’ve baked pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting, zucchini-carrot bread with cranberries in it and chocolate-chocolate chip cookies. I made lemon and garlic salmon, and herbed roasted potato's. I roasted a Turkey with BBQ spices and then made a soup from the leftovers. We made curried rice, meatloaf and honey roasted butternut squash.

We pile the dishes in the sink. The house smells delicious, the kitchen is a disaster.

The kids lick the beaters and I sit down in front of the computer and stare at the blank screen, my fingers on the keys. I’ve always written whatever is bursting out of me, and I know that’s where I have to start. So I wrote this, letting out all the jumbled thoughts in my head. And now I’m hitting publish, and I’m betting the writer’s block will be gone.

Parenting Resources

2011-10-20T15:21:00.000-05:00

So yes, I want to write. I have about a dozen half written pieces, including some that are almost complete. I just haven't been able to pull it together. Baby Boy has cut two teeth and the girls have been rather stir-crazy being in the house as the weather has gotten colder. We have been cleaning the house and baking cookies and zuchinni bread, reading books, dealing with emotional ups and downs and playing with ideas for the Holiday's.

I've really been hoping to finish my next Gentle Parenting Tools installment, but since I haven't gotten to it yet, I figured that I would share the wealth of information that I've discovered and learned from.

As you can see, I've added two pages the top of my blog. "Books along the Journey" is a list of books that have impacted me, and "Parenting Websites" is a list of blogs, websites and facebook pages that have been encouraging me as I've changed. I hope to continue to add to these when I find new resources. And of course I still have the book reviews I've posted here on the blog, and I've linked some info in my discipline posts as well. Enjoy! I hope to be back with a real post soon.

P.S. Just as a service announcement (and full disclosure of just how computer illiterate I am), did you know that if you right click on a link you can select "open in a new tab" or "open in a new window"? This recent discovery has changed how I use the Internet! No more clicking on links and subsequently back paging to try to finish the article I was reading. :)

Letters to my Dad

2011-10-12T16:41:00.002-05:00

Recently in a box of old journals, I found a draft of a letter I wrote to my Dad. After I made a few spelling and handwriting mistakes I had written out a polished copy to give to him, and apparently I saved the original. It’s a letter I wrote for Father’s day 6 years ago, the month before I got married. I was about to turn 20. It’s painful to read in some ways, because it was written when I was still trying so hard to be the daughter they wanted me to be.

It’s like reading something from another world. I address him as “Daddy”, and tell him what a strong leader he has been in my life, and express concern that it may be hard for me to “switch loyalties” to my husband because I am so used to having my life guided by my father. Then I assure him that he will “not be losing me as a daughter. Even though you will no longer be the head of my life, no one could ever fill your place in my heart, I will always need your love, and I will love you forever.” I tell him that he is not going to lose everything that he has worked so hard for, and thank him for being so firm with me and for not giving up on moulding me into the woman he always knew I could become. Then I add that I hope he can see a glimmer of the future woman I would be. I thank him for teaching me that a woman’s place is in the home, and for never hesitating or wavering on his decision to not let me go to college. I sum up by thanking him for teaching me how to live, and express my hope that he will continue to instruct me. I end by saying that he is everything I could have ever wished for in a father.

Some of it actually makes me feel nauseous to read it now. The “leading” “moulding” and “teaching” that I talk about throughout the letter, were more like commanding, controlling and brainwashing. I believed everything he told me, and I tried so hard to measure up to his standards. I tried and tried to achieve the status of adult equal, but never could. Now I realize that our theology made that impossible. He is not everything I could have wished for in a father. I wish that my dad hadn’t hit me or belittled me. I wish that he hadn’t used shame and manipulation to control me. I wish that he had accepted me as the person I am, and encouraged me to achieve my goals, instead of telling me who I had to be and making my dreams feel impossible to achieve.

However, despite the failings of my old letter, some things are still true. I am still thankful for my Dad. I love my Dad, and I will continue to love him. When I wrote that old letter, I think I was still trying to convince myself that sacrificing my personality and dreams to be the daughter they wanted was worth it. I really wanted it all to make sense. Now, 6 years later, I have the eyes to see what I actually enjoyed about my Dad. So I wrote a new letter.

Dear Dad,

I have a lot of memories of you as my Dad, and as I am now a parent myself I realize more than ever just how tired you were then. I remember you working long hours and then coming home late in the evening and lying on the floor while we climbed all over you, or falling asleep on the couch in the middle of a conversation. Despite different times where you were working to start your own business or remodel a house, you somehow found time to talk with me as I was growing up, sometimes late into the evening, or while you worked in your office. I’ll always be grateful for that time.

I don’t really remember you saying you loved me, I understand that you had problems with it. But I do remember your big hugs, I loved them. I remember one time waking up just as you were tucking me back into bed as I had fallen asleep partially hanging off of my bed, I snuggled into your arms and then you tucked me into my blankets again. For days afterwards I tried to fall asleep in awkward positions so I could re-create that moment.

Thank you for passing on your love of music. I still greatly appreciate all the Classical and Instrumental CDs that you bought, and I will probably always enjoy songs that have a distinct tune and understandable lyrics. You filled my childhood home with pretty music, and I still enjoy it today.

Thanks for the family movie nights where all of us spread blankets on the floor and ate hot buttered popcorn. I’ll always remember how you were willing to pause the movie and answer any questions we had. Thanks for cleaning up puke. I remember those long nights where we all had the flu, and mom was busy with the baby, and you would pace from room to room, rinsing buckets and changing sheets, and reminding us all to drink water.

I remember eating snacks with you. You love grapes and Ritz crackers with spreadable cheese, oreos with milk, and clausen (only clausen!) pickles. Those pickles are still my favourite. I loved how you would buy us ice cream from the ice cream truck out of the blue every once in a while. The best was when it was the end of the season and you would buy a couple boxes of left-over boxes of ice cream bars while they were on clearance. Those were so yummy.

Thank you for being gentle with my mom. I have good memories of you and mom together. You kissing mom in the hall, you waiting in the car until mom was ready to go, you buying flowers for mom after the birth of each baby and sometimes for no reason at all. The only time I ever saw you come close to crying was when your eyes got moist as you spoke of a dream where mom had died. Despite some of the crippling theology that our family adhered to at times, your love for your wife showed.

Thank you for working so hard. I remember that many mornings you were already up and working when I woke up. You have very high standards for your work, and yourself. I know that you’ve often felt depressed that you did not reach those standards. Don’t be. It’s OK if you are not perfect, none of us are. Thank you for telling recently that you have always loved me, even when you weren’t that good at showing it. That means a lot to me. I will always think of you as a very strong person, someone who struggles to communicate emotion, but at the same time lives your feelings on your sleeve.

I love you so much,

Your Daughter Melissa

Am I an Atheist?

2011-10-04T17:49:00.006-05:00

I haven’t had a moment where I’ve decided I don’t believe inGod, a “conversion” to some otherposition. My faith questions and doubts have been a journey that I’ve reflected here on my blog in severalposts. But after my post on spiritualizing the night, I got several commentsand emails asking when I had become an atheist. I am still thinking about thisquestion, because I don’t really know the answer. I’m not even sure I am anAtheist.

When does one become an Atheist? Does it happen when you don’tfeel a spiritual connection with God? Is it when you start to disagree with stuffin the bible? Are you an Atheist when you associate with other Atheists? Or onlywhen you declare yourself one? I don’tknow.

I grew up with a God. And I still like the idea of a God, but I have no feeling of knowingone or trust that one of the religions out there has God figured out. And I’mnot “pretending” to have faith just in case there is a God, a sort of fake ittill I make it endeavour. Besides, if there is a God, he wouldn’t be fooled bymy pretending anyways.

I am a Pastor’s wife,so I attend two church services every Sunday, as well as a bible study and churchevents during the week. I do not feel a need to “convert” people, I have no wayof knowing who is “right” anyways. My husband knows where I’m at, and he is OKwith it. He has heard me, debated with me, and loved me through all of this. I had someone comment that they are sorryfor my husband’s church, I’m not sure why. No one at church knows that I have serious doubts. I understand that itwould be inappropriate for me to debate questions of faith with people in ourchurch. They are good sweet people and I don’t wish my questions and doubts onany of them. That is part of why I started this blog, as a place I couldwrestle openly with my faith questions and get interaction from people whofreely choose to read them.

Recently I received an email that said that if I truly was aPastor’s wife who did not know Jesus in a personal way, then I was a hypocritewho needed to stop “playing church”. I’m not sure why this is the case. Am Itruly the only one who sits through a church service and wonders if it is alltrue? Is every single other person in church a solid believer filled with faithand religious experiences to prove it? What does “playing church” even mean? I know that onmy part I go to church with an open heart every single Sunday. I read, I sing,I listen, I hope. Hope for what? I hardly know, just that something willhappen, that perhaps all of my faith will come flooding back?

I also received a comment asking if I would pray on mydeathbed. I’ve thought about that too. We pray a prayer of thanksbefore meals, and a prayer for peace before bed. In the moment of silence before the church service I pray the same prayer for my husband that I have always prayed, "May his words be your words and not his own," so I still pray. I don’t know if I would prayon my deathbed. At this point in my life I probably would. Many times prayer has been a source of anxietyin my life, so I think I would still gravitate towards prayers I’ve found healingor calming in the past. This question reminds me of a story I remember hearingfrom someone about her ex-catholic mother who despite being a protestant formany years, found herself praying along an invisible rosary while waiting inthe hospital to hear if her son would survive a traffic accident. I wonder if Iwould be like that.

My thought processinvolving God has changed in the last few months. I’ll try to explain how I currentlyunderstand the existence of God.

Option 1: There is no God. If God does not exist, then I amworrying and trying to have faith in something I can’t understand for noreason, there is no God to please.

Option 2: There is a God, but God is a non-personal entitywho does not care about humanity. God is a being that set the world in motion,but does not intervene or care about it. In this case, again, I am worryingover nothing, God is not waiting for me to come up with the right words orformula. God does not care.

Option 3: There is a God, and that God loves unconditionallyand cares about humanity. In this case,God will be patient with my faults. If God truly loves unconditionally then Godwill even understand if I can never really get my faith together in this life.Unconditional love means just that, love without conditions.

Option 4: There is a God, and this God has rules and lawsabout how you must live or what you must believe. God’s love is conditional. Ifthis is God, I could be in trouble. This scenario means that I somehow have todecide which religion has the correct interpretation of God, and then do mybest to please that God and live my life the way God wants me to. For a longtime, fear of this God kept me scrambling. I had to figure out how to bewhatever it was God wanted. I was afraid of going to Hell. Recently, I’ve cometo the point of feeling that if God’s love is so conditional that God will sendpeople to hell for not following the right formula, than I really don’t want tospend an eternity in heaven with that God. That heaven sounds like Hell to me.

So if option #4 is God, I would basically get to choosebetween two hells. The Hell God will send me to if I am not right, or the Hellin which I will spend an eternity with a God who (despite his very conditionallove) decided I was acceptable. Iwrestled and wrestled with this idea. I get love being conditional in somesense. After all, if I was in a relationship where we had agreed to beexclusive, and that person ignored that agreement and cheated on me, I couldunderstand ending that relationship. ButI would not send that person to eternal torment, just a parting of ways wouldbe sufficient. And despite what so manyChristians seem to claim, I never had that direct line to God. I was kept in aconstant state of guessing and hoping that I was doing the right thing for aGod that I’m not even sure exists.

And that was when I realized that there was a third Hell,and I was living in it here on earth. Despite all my growth as a person and as a parent, I was still stuck inthis one-way relationship with a perfectionistic God that I wasn’t entirely surewas not a figment of my imagination. And so I stepped off the hamster wheel. Igave myself permission to take a break from finding the answer for the whole God thing. I wasn’t hit by lightning and the worlddidn’t stop spinning. I didn’t have a sudden urge to steal, rape or kill. Istopped having nightmares about God, I stopped worrying about how and what Iwas going to teach my kids about God, I stopped worrying about where I washeaded if an afterlife exists, and I started living the life I am currentlyin.

I’m not even sure when this happened, I can’t point to anexact moment. I can’t claim to have figured out the answer to the God question,I honestly don’t know. But for the first time I am OK with not knowing. I even feel OK if I never figure it out. I still read religious blogs and havereligious friends that I value highly. I also read atheist blogs and haveatheist friends that I value highly. So does all of this make me an Atheist? Idon’t know.

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I would like to add, that (as much as I enjoy your company)if you are reading my blog because you feel personally responsible for mysalvation, if you feel stressed or upset after reading my posts, if you arewounded by my very raw and open thoughts about faith and life, then please don’tread my blog. Unfriend me, unfollow me, I will understand. I blog about topics otherthan my faith dilemma, and I welcome anyand all comments, thoughts, questions and suggestions along my journey, but Iam not seeking to be a source of pain or stress for people of faith.

Gentle Parenting Tools: Parental Self-care

2011-09-26T14:24:00.000-05:00

Since I started out married life and motherhood in a very unhealthy pattern of doing it all and never taking the time to care for myself, I take parental self-care seriously. This is still a huge area of struggle for me. Despite my writing about taking care of health needs, making space in your life for doing the things you like, and spending time and money on yourself, I often feel guilty when I do those things.

That said, I am miles ahead of where I was! I actually buy the supplements I need, I am going to a counsellor regularly, I don’t feel guilty for taking time to shower anymore, and despite long wakeful nights with restless babies I’ve managed to snatch an extra hour of sleep in the morning since my husband has begun to get up with the kids when they wake up early.

And I am a better parent. When I feel good, when I care for myself, when I give myself an outlet for all the creativity that gets bottled up in my brain, I am a better parent. As I have started to learn how to love myself, I am better able to love others. In learning how to have compassion for myself, I am better able to have compassion for others. In learning how to respect myself, I am better able to respect others. And this includes my children.

And so I want to write again about a different aspect of this critical Gentle Parenting Tool, Parental Self Care.

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“As I have repeatedly stressed, it is not the trauma itself that is the source of illness but the unconscious, repressed, hopeless despair over not being allowed to give expression to what one has suffered and the fact that one in not allowed to show and is unable to experience feelings of rage, anger, humiliation, despair, helplessness, and sadness. This causes many people to commit suicide because life no longer seems worth living if they are totally unable to live out all these strong feelings that are part of their true self.” Alice Miller –For Your Own Good p.259

Until two years ago, I insisted that I had an ideal childhood. I refused to see the pain and anger I had bottled up inside over inflicted wounds and denied opportunity. I felt that if I acknowledged I had been hurt, I would be betraying my parents. I was not ready to say they were wrong. And so I passed on my pain to my kids. I had every intention of being a good parent, I loved my babies and I wanted them to have an amazing life. But as I look back at those first few years, I was living in a haze of depression. I struggled to connect with my kids, I was angry, I was tired. I punished my very small children for little infractions and misunderstandings. I tried so hard to explain away all the confusion in my head.

I see the same pattern in my parents. They loved their kids. They wanted to be good parents. I know for a fact that my Dad wanted to be a better father than his dad. Even though my Dad has never talked about his childhood experience other than to say that it was “fine”, there were some changes that he took seriously. For example: My Grandfather swears like the sailor he was once upon a time, but I have little recollection of my father swearing. One time, while Dad was playing a video game and lost, a swear word slipped out, and then the game was put away for awhile. While my Grandpa yells quite often, I rarely remember my Dad truly raising his voice. I believe that my Dad was trying to change those behaviours because he knows the damage they did to him as a child, and yet he refuses to actually feel those feelings. In fact he insists that he doesn’t have any feelings. My Dad prided himself on the fact that he was never “angry”. I can only imagine that he must have meant that he rarely lost control of his actions? Because the rage lurking under his grim exterior was very obvious to all of us kids. He rarely expressed it openly, but his intense mood swings, sarcasm and perfectionism were all huge indicators.

My dad wanted to be better than his dad, but in the end he was only able to change some surface behaviours, never getting to the core of the problem. The same issues manifested in his own parenting, just differently. I believe this is because he refuses to recognize his own pain and anger. It’s all part of the denial game, if we don’t talk about it, that makes it better. If we refuse to acknowledge it, then it never happened. But it did happen. Whether my dad wants to admit it or not, his childhood hurt.

I remember my grandpa whipping of his belt when he got angry with us grandkids. It was terrifying. He never caught me, but how many times did he catch the little boy who was my dad?

My grandpa loves to tell the story of when my Dad (as a young child) did not take out the garbage. When my Dad went to bed that night he found the garbage bag ripped open and spread out in his bed as punishment. Another story I’ve heard from my Grandpa over and over, is the time my dad grew his hair a bit longer when he was in 8th grade, the ends of his hair were over his ears and starting to brush his collar and my grandpa told him to get it cut before his school pictures were taken that year. When Dad came home with the school pictures, (uncut hair and all) my grandpa flew into a rage and picked up my Dad by his hair and threw him across the room. Then he ripped up the pictures and threw them in the garbage, it's the only school year missing from my dad’s childhood album.

If these are the parenting moments that my Grandpa brags about, what are the moments that he is ashamed of? I may never know, because my Dad won’t acknowledge any of it.

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Emotional self-care, which may involve digging into your story, and feeling denied emotions for the first time may be scary. I know it was for me, and I tried as hard as I could to pretend that abuse in my background had never happened, or at the very least that none of it mattered. I told myself that I deserved it. I told myself that talking about it meant I was a wimp and a whiner. I told myself it could have been worse. I told myself that I needed to forgive and move on. And as long as I did those things, I crippled myself as a person, and I crippled myself as a parent. Experiencing the pain, and hurt and anger and sadness, and working through it, is healing me. I am finally free to be the parent I want to be. It is hard work to open your heart and feel all of that pain, but it is worth it.

“Genuine forgiveness does not deny the anger but faces it head-on. If I can feel outrage at the injustice I have suffered, can recognize my persecution as such, and can acknowledge and hate my persecutor for what he or she has done, only then will the way to forgiveness be open to me. Only if the history of abuse in earliest childhood can be uncovered will the repressed anger, rage, and hatred cease to be perpetuated. Instead, they will be transformed into sorrow and pain at the fact that things had to be that way. As a result of this pain, they will give way to genuine understanding, the understanding of an adult who has now gained insight into his or her parent’s childhood and finally liberated from his own hatred, can experience genuine , mature sympathy. Such forgiveness cannot be coerced by rules and commandments; it is experienced as a form of grace and appears spontaneously when a repressed (because forbidden) hatred no longer poisons the soul.

The sun does not need to be told to shine. When the clouds part, it simply shines. But it would be a mistake to say that the clouds are not in the way if they are indeed there. If an adult has been fortunate enough to get back to the sources of the specific injustice he suffered in his childhood and experience it on a conscious level, then in time he will realize on his own – preferably without the aid of any pedagogical or religious exhortations- that in most cases his parents did not torment of abuse him for their own pleasure or out of sheer strength and vitality but because they could not help it, since they were once victims themselves and thus believed in traditional methods of child-rearing.” Alice Miller - For Your Own Good p. 248

I've been asked for specific ideas and scenarios illustrating gentle discipline techniques, and that prompted the birth of my ongoing series on Gentle Parenting Tools where I will try to do just that. Stick around to hear about my process of trial and error as I continue to figure out what it means to be a gentle positive leader, and be sure to share your own breakthroughs and ideas and questions!

Quick Takes #36: Home Alone Edition

2011-09-23T11:07:00.000-05:00

My computer was running more and more slowly. Then I started getting weird messages about how my hard drive was gone (but it wasn't). And finally my computer started shutting itself down and/or redirecting me to random cooking and decorating websites when I was online. So I knew that I had to give up on my attempts to self-medicate and just bring it in for repairs. (I've since found out that this probably relates to a spam email I accidentally opened way back when, apparently they really do give your computer viruses.) Of course this also happened to be the week that my husband was gone on business, and the kids and I all got colds and couldn't go anywhere. So I was at home for an entire week with no contact with the outside world. (Well, except for the sister who answered my phone call and let me talk for a hour and a half, I love you sis!) It's pretty wild stuff living without a computer, so I thought I'd write about my week without one. : )

You read more books.

I am always reading several library books at once, but this week I finished them all in record time. I finished 4 1/2 large books, including "For Your Own Good" by Alice Miller which I highly recommend.

(My evenings without computer were mostly spent reading, TV is just that boring for me. Except that show on how elephants, dolphins, puppies develop in the womb, that was fascinating.)

Time crawls.

Seriously, without the World Wide Web (or at least your latest writing project) to distract you time literally crawls. For example. I had just spent an eternity playing the kids new favorite make-believe game, the one where they all pretend to be babies and I am the mommy. They roll around on the floor, and cry, and crawl stiffly into things and "get hurt" and suck on their thumbs and talk in baby talk and generally just make a spectacle of themselves. And I am the mommy who runs around and takes care of all of them, reading them baby books, comforting "hurt" babies, and making a big deal of the "fact" that they are all "my little babies". I was about to lose my sanity, so I told them that I needed to make dinner (figuring it was at least 4:30 PM by now) and told them to all go play a different game. I walked into the kitchen and found that it was only 1:50 PM. IT WASN'T EVEN 2 O'CLOCK YET!

You think your house will be cleaner.

So I had several hours added to my day that are usually spent writing or reading or chatting on my computer. This meant the controlled chaos at my house would be conquered. I would have enough time on my hands to make my house look like those Home and Garden ads my diseased computer had redirected me to.

So I cleaned. I scrubbed the bathroom, I picked up all the toys and organized them, I swept the house and washed all the dishes (on second thought, this is probably stuff that most people have under control, but not me.) I even spent several hours in our laundry room/family closet sorting, purging, putting away summer clothing and taking out winter clothing. And when the kids wanted to paint, we went out and finger painted poster board on the driveway to preserve my pristine kitchen. I was sure this was the beginning of a new era.

Your house won't be cleaner.

So yeah, no such luck. It seems one room will still get trashed while you are busy cleaning another room. Dishes and laundry are still as phenomenally boring as ever, so why do them more than is necessary to live decently? And by the end of my computer less week, I was huddled on the couch engrossed in a book and I let the kids go wild in the my kitchen. Where they pulled out every pot and pan, and filled each of them toys, stuffed animals, potholders, popsicle sticks and stickers. So we are back to controlled chaos.

You live more in the moment.

Probably the coolest thing I learned this week. I found that I am more capable of closing my book than closing my computer. Maybe it's the concrete nature of words on a page, but when my kids bombarded me with requests for snacks or games, I was able to stick in a bookmark and address their needs right away. I spent more uninterrupted sessions just sitting with them, hearing them, tickling them and reading books with them. Bedtime was more relaxed for some reason.

There was no email to get back to. No half-written essay fighting to get out of my brain. No great blog post to comment on quickly before it was old news.

This has reminded me that there are far too many times that I will say "just a minute" and then let that minute stretch in 15 or 20 minutes spent finishing whatever I was doing on my computer before I get up and engage with my family. And I really liked the freedom of being able to stop. right. now. So I am challenging myself to be able to close my computer when I need to, and since commenting on blog posts seems to be the worst culprit, that may mean a bit less commenting from me. I'm willing to miss key moments online if that means being there for key moments in real life.

You miss everyone.

I missed you! I missed posting, I missed all your thoughtful comments and encouragement, I missed laughing on facebook and getting emails, and reading your thought-provoking blogs. And when I appeared on facebook last night some of you said that you missed me, and that made me smile. : ) I am glad to be back!! You guys are a great part of my community!

Head over to Conversion Diary to read more Quick Takes or share your own.

On Life, Love, and Joy

2011-09-13T13:30:00.002-05:00

We went to the grocery store as a family. My husband had the older 2 kids in his cart, and I had the 2 year old in mine and the baby in the sling. It always fun wandering through the store. We split up to go grab different items, and meet up in the middle of aisles to re-group and check items off the list. We each end up adding a special treat of some kind of our cart, and we usually forget to pick up something we needed. We often stop by at the crab tank, not because we eat crab, just to hear the delighted shrieks of our kids as they watch the “cwab bugs” skitter around the tank.

We always run through the bakery and pick up a free cookie before we head to the check-out line. Since I am obsessive about the order of the items on the conveyor belt, I usually spend some time putting all the heavy items into one cart, and all the produce, chips and bread into the other. Then we put everything on the counter, pay, and spend time bagging the groceries (something I am equally obsessive about).

While waiting in line, Ms Action looked up at the vaulted ceiling and said “How did a strawberry get up there?” Ms Drama looked up and bounced excitedly “A strawberry! Look mom, a strawberry!” she pointed up. The check out girl looked puzzled, and we both looked up and saw that they were pointing at a lone helium balloon, trapped against the ceiling. It was shaped like a strawberry. The older girls interest moved on, but my 2 year old stayed focused.

She stared at the ceiling in awe, pointing at the balloon and whispering “stwawbewwy” to herself. “Mom! Mom! Wook at the stwawbewwy!” She yelled delightedly again and again. Everyone around us was smiling by now. Clearly Ms Pooky’s entire day was being made by this special balloon. A smile nearly split her face open as she hung her head back as far as it would go, staring at the strawberry with gleaming eyes.

We finished bagging the groceries, and it was time to go. As we pushed the carts towards the door, Ms Pooky leaned out of the cart, waving and saying goodbye to her beloved strawberry. Then she blew a kiss and said “See you later!”.

And my heart ached.

She was gorgeous, and so completely happy beyond her wildest dreams because of a simple balloon.

How much longer will her life be this simple?

How fast she will grow and change into a child, a teen and then an adult.

How many times will she get hurt?

How many times will her heart be broken?

How much longer can I keep her just like this?

As we drove home, I was somewhat melancholy. I continued to think about how fast life goes. How fast we lose that childhood wonder to the serious worries and problems of the adult world.

We waited at a stop light and suddenly a huge bright red motorcycle pulled alongside us, music blaring. I looked over and had to smile. There was a little middle aged man perched on the motorcycle, black helmet, white moustache, leather jacket. And he was dancing. J. Lo blared from his motorcycle stereo, and the little man bounced up and down singing along with the music “If you’re an animal then tear up the floor, break a sweat on the floor, on the floor.” He patted his handle bars and moved his double chin up and down “Don’t stop keep it movin’ put your drinks up!” The light changed, and just as the radio blasted “Dance the night away” he vroomed off, speeding quickly ahead of the near bye cars.

And he was adorable.

He was made as happy by his red motorcycle as my baby had been by a red balloon. Do we ever really grow out of that ability to be in awe of the goodness of life? I hope to hang onto that happiness, and pass it on to my toddlers, as they grow into children, and then teenagers. Until they are adorable middle aged people who dance to J Lo, and on into old age. I know I’ll be in awe of them and in love with them through all the stages. And I hope that they will be able to live in awe of life, and in love with living.

Because we’re never too old for joy.

Why I Blog

2011-09-09T22:45:00.001-05:00

Sorry about the unannounced shutdown. As those of you that follow me on facebook and Twitter already know, my blog got discovered by someone I knew in real life, and it was already spreading.

I knew it was bound to happen at some point, it’s kind of hard to disguise some of the unique features my story. I had no game plan on what to do if my blog was discovered, so when I got the news that people from back home could be reading I immediately locked Permission to Live to give myself some time to think.

In many ways it was frustrating to know my anonymity was gone, this has been a safe place for me to organize my thoughts and process my issues for almost 2 years now. Part of me was tempted to shut my blog down for good, and maybe open up a new anonymous blog somewhere to start over. But the more I thought about it, The more I leaned towards sticking it out here despite the flack. I would hate to lose the friends I’ve gained through blogging. And I am not ashamed to have friends and family read what I’ve written. Everything I have written is true. I’ve sought to be very honest about my faith journey, my parenting breakthroughs, and my healing from the past. I have really tried to tell my story, not anyone else’s. And when that story has included someone else, I have kept them anonymous, and tried to stick to only what I would be willing to say to their face, often talking about what I had already said to them.

And so, I decided that I am ready to be the true authentic person that I have been developing here on my blog, even if people who may wish that I kept quiet, are reading. I realize that means that I could get negative feedback, and so I want to summarize once more the purpose of my blog.

This is my own little place to think and process stuff. I have found a voice through writing here.

I write about the little ins and outs of life, but I also write about more controversial topics, such as my journey from Punitive to Gentle parenting and how I was impacted by the Quiverfull and Patriarchal mentality I grew up in as well as my growth out of that mentality. And sometimes my writing has included stories from my childhood as well as my adult life. I have never meant this blog to be a expose of my parents faults, I have written honestly about my experiences growing up, but I have also written honestly about my own shortcomings.

I find it ironic when I get input from readers and other people within the Christian home school community on how my parents were so extreme. The comment will often go something like this. “Wow, you’re parents were crazy. They spanked to hard and to long. I always limit myself to 5-10 swats with a switch, I would never use a spoon like your parents did.” Or “It’s so silly that your parents didn’t allow you to go to college, I encourage my girls to go to college as long as they understand that they will have to find contentment in their god-given role as submissive wife and homeschooling mother someday.”

Yes, my parents were extreme, still are in some ways. But these comments come from people who are also extreme in almost any society, even if they can feel “liberal” in comparison to the people they surround themselves with. I’ve written about this sort of denial before, it’s easier to see oneself as balanced when one compares themselves to someone slightly more extreme than they are.

We all struggle with balance. I know I struggle to find balance in my own life. I don’t write about my experiences with punitive parenting so that everyone who is slightly less violent in their own parenting can pat themselves on the back. I don’t write about the inequality between the sexes in the patriarch movement so that anyone who merely pushes wifely submission instead of female submission can feel good about themselves. We should all be uncomfortable. I write to challenge myself to re-evaluate my own balance. I write to challenge anyone who is brave enough to travel that road with me.

*No blogger should feel pressured to be more open than they are. In my particular situation, I have no reason to fear any major retaliation, and even if I did these family and friends live over 1000 miles away. I merely lose my privacy and risk some superficial conflict. Many bloggers are not so lucky.

Spiritualizing the Night

2011-08-31T11:07:00.002-05:00

I’ve talked before about how night time parenting is a particularly hard challenge for me. It seems no matter how long I do it, I will never quite get used to snapping out of deep sleep and being able to be a nice person right away. But recently I’ve noticed a change in my patience levels during these night time escapades.

I have 2 high needs babies in a row. Ms Drama and Ms Pooky are the sort of babies who have always been restless sleepers, and often need to be comforted by mom. If they had a rough day, if they didn’t eat well, if they aren’t feeling too good, etc. Chances are they will wake up at least once during the night.

Back when I was a full-blown Christian, I used to believe that I needed to rely on God for everything. God had the answers for every situation, no matter how trivial. The whole point of life was to try and honour and glorify God in every situation. So waking in the middle of the night? Another opportunity to bring glory to God.

When one of the babies would wake up, first I would pray for them, rebuking Satan and any nightmares he might have sent to my child. I would pace the floor with the baby, rock them, give snacks or nurse, and when they could not settle down, my frustration level would rise. I’ve gotten better at keeping it under control since I quit spanking and forced myself to approach parenting more gently, but inside I would still be seething.

So I would pray to God, “God please give this child peace, so they can go back to sleep. Please give me patience so that I don’t lose it.” And I would get even more frustrated. Where the heck was God? This kid wasn’t relaxing at all, in fact they were getting even worse! Why wasn’t God at least granting me some level of peace so I could survive through this night. Maybe I wasn’t praying the right way, or maybe I didn’t have enough faith. Maybe God was displeased with me and refused to listen to someone he wasn’t happy with. Wait a minute, why did I have the gall to think that my sleep patterns mattered to God? People are starving and dying all over the world, how dare I ask for sleep! I was a sick spoiled woman and I deserved to be ignored! All my uncertainty about God would start to boil to the surface, and I would end up angrier than ever. Even after the baby went back to bed, I would be unable to relax enough to find sleep again. And if I did, it would be just in time to be woken up again with a different (or perhaps the same) baby. Sometimes I would fall into a fitful sleep, but all the God questions swirling in my head would turn into nightmares.

I still hate waking up at night, and I still have babies who wake me up regularly (I was up 3 times with a toddler last night, in addition to nursing my angelic 3 month old) but something has changed. I am no longer looking to a God to do my job. I had this baby, and my baby needs me. If there is no Satan attacking me, and no God ignoring me, then all I’ve got is me. My baby isn’t a spiritual test. My sleepless night is not an opportunity to glorify God. If there is no God who is going to magically calm my restless baby, then I am all this baby has. My baby has needs that are just as real as my own. Right now they look to me to fill those needs, and teach them how to fill their own needs. And eventually this baby will sleep through the night, and they won’t need me to wake up with them anymore. When they finally settle down, I can go back to my own bed and fall asleep, instead of being consumed with worries about my belief or lack of belief in God. Even my nightmares about God have diminished.

Since I’ve given myself a break from trying to believe in God, I am a better night time parent.

I'm linking up with Amber at Making the Moments Count. Today she is talking about nightime parenting.

You never know who is listening

2011-08-25T14:37:00.004-05:00

Family was up visiting, and we had some church members over for coffee after church. During the conversation someone happened to mention the conservative parliament member that had just been elected in our area. They spoke of their hopes that this politician would be able to fight back against the gay marriage laws in the country of Canada, and then added that he doubted it would be able to happen, because "the press always accuses people of being homophobic" when they take unpopular religious stances on marriage.

This is a typical conversation in my social circles. It doesn’t really bother me, people have differing political opinions that they feel strongly about. So this person feels that gay marriage is not morally allowed by their religion, many religious people feel that way. It may frustrate me when people combine religion and politics, but I understand that they are not personally attacking the LGBTQ community, it just sincerely a part of their beliefs. And while those beliefs are discriminating, they usually aren’t advocating old testament law or anything. This person is well-respected in our church, middle-aged with a solid marriage, five grown children and a good business. Their have always gone out of their way to make us feel welcome here in this church, inviting us over to spend holidays with his family, and bringing us meals and gifts after babies were born. This person is generous, has a great sense of humor and I’ve liked them since we moved here. But that night at our house after church, my perspective of this person's ability to accept people was changed, because after the political reference, the conversation got even worse.

“How do you handle the whole homosexual thing Pastor?” They laughed, “ I know you can’t just say ‘You’re a sick disgusting pervert’ even though that’s what I really think. How can you tell homosexuals they are wrong without getting flagged for hate speech.”

I couldn’t hear my Father-in-Law’s response over the heartbeat thudding in my ears. I was glad that no one was looking at me, because I could feel my ears burning, and I was fighting back nausea. How could they say something like that? If they knew that their pastor’s wife is sexually attracted to both sexes, would they think that I am a sick mentally twisted person who is “wrong”? Would they try to get my husband fired from church office? Or would they just never invite us to their home again? If they met my sister who dresses and acts in a non-gender conforming way would he treat her like a “disgusting pervert” in the assumption that she is a lesbian and therefore somehow deserves to be treated poorly? I left the room and poked around the kitchen for a moment to hide my tears. Oh how desperately I wanted to say something, to throw another opinion out there to make them think a little bit about how they were treating an entire group of people.

But I was not brave enough, it did not feel safe to vulnerable.

I grew up hearing how gay people chose to be gay, how they had a special type of demon that was particularly horrible. I asked my dad about same-sex attraction when I was 18 (never daring to mention that I was asking for myself) and he told me that the only true bisexuals were pagan witches. He had no idea that it was a real issue for me, and by inadvertently condemning me, he shut down the opportunity for connection and instruction. Obviously I never talked to him about that topic again.

I guess part of me had hoped that attitude was just my crazy separatist family. But here was a mainstream, church going, nice Christian, who was spouting the same hateful stuff my family always had, having no idea who was sitting right across the room from them.

This got me thinking about how often we shut down communication through judgement.

Harming and attacking people without even knowing what we are doing.

How many times have I been an uncomfortable witness to someone ranting about physical health. “How can anyone go to Mc Donalds when they look like that! If I was that fat I would just stay at home until I got a handle on my life.” or “It’s so sad to see people ruining their lives by being gluttonous. I hate when women act like being pregnant is an excuse to eat anything they want.” or "She'd be so pretty if she just got some self-control and lost a little weight."

I guess they think it’s safe to talk about it because they don’t see anyone they consider fat in the room. Have they ever thought that there might be a person within earshot (perhaps even their own daughter?) who struggles with an eating disorder? All she ever sees when she looks in the mirror is a huge fat body. Do you think she will struggle to enjoy eating her hamburger at the church picnic that afternoon, sure that someone is watching her and judging. Do you think that she will vomit it all up later out of guilt? Do you think she’ll go home that night and stand in front of the mirror crying over her “gluttony”? Do you think she will ever feel safe to talk about her struggles with body image when she already knows what they think about “fat” people.

How many times have I heard people say outright that it is sinful to not have your finances in order. “How can people be so careless and get into debt? God tells us to be good stewards of our money!” or “Have you noticed the Johnson’s new car? There is no way they can afford that, they must be in debt up to their ears!” Never knowing the young couple they are commiserating with has been feeling overwhelmed with budgeting problems. Do you think that couple will feel brave enough to get help in managing their finances? What about the person behind them who is buried in debt from a gambling addiction. Do you think they are going to admit their problem any time soon? Or the kid that just got a gift of a car from his grandma, do you think he’ll be able to enjoy his grandma’s generosity now that he has to worry about people speculating on how he can afford it?

Or as this vivid blog post describes, how many young girls have felt pressured into getting abortions, just to spare themselves the judgement from people whose opinion they are already well acquainted with? So much judgement, so many opinions, often with no real understanding that the people they are criticizing are among them, around them, often completely anonymous.

If you have a strong opinion on something, reconsider if and how you say anything.

Because you never know who may be listening.

Why I wish I had gone to College

2011-08-24T11:11:00.003-05:00

Every morning, I get up and make breakfast for the family. We have potty breaks and diaper changes all around, and I negotiate outfits with toddlers. When everyone is dressed, I try to change out of my pajamas too. I spend the day corralling kids, nursing babies, reading them books and occasionally pulling out a messy project for them to try. I do the laundry and wash the dishes (most days anyways). I might read a book of my own in little snatches throughout the day, and if I’m lucky I might get a shot at a shower when my husband is home to watch the little kids.

Sounds like the life of any stay-at-home-mom, right? Except I’ve been doing it for 16 years, and I’m only in my mid-twenties.

Before my life as a wife and mother, I was a stay-at-home daughter. As part of the Quiverfull / Patriarchy movement, my parents believed that my place as a female was to be a keeper-at-home, a “helpmeet” for my husband, and a homeschooling mother to many children. To best prepare me for this God-ordained role, I started helping out at home from an early age. By the time I was in my early teens there was no aspect of child-care or housework I was not capable of.

While my parent didn’t subscribe to any one group, they were heavily influenced by organizations like ATI/IBLP and Vision Forum. My Dad got "Patriarch" and "Quit you like men" magazines. My mom got "Above Rubies" and "Gentle Spirit" and I read them both. We got the Vision Forum Catalog every month, and purchased many of their materials. I remember my mom being sad that they could not afford to buy more. I read the entire Elsie Dinsmore series, and Mildred Keith series. I read books on parent guided courtship and male headship authority. And I read books on “beautiful,” “authentic” girlhood. All of these books taught that the world was a very dangerous place for a woman. God had designed her to be at home, creating a peaceful haven for her husband and children. The books said that any girl who left her father’s protection and went out into the world to get an education or job would end up sad and alone, because she was not living the life God willed for her.

God wanted us to dare to live differently. His plan for women involved getting back to the family principles the home was founded on. Girls needed to be brought up knowing instinctively how to care for babies and keep house. They needed to be taught to be quiet, submissive, and modest and pure. The only way to do this, was to keep separate from the world. So my parent homeschooled and kept me from doing much of anything outside of our family circle, so that I would never get used to experiences outside the home, and I would learn to be content in my homemaking role.

It sounded so romantic when I was ages 10-13. I was going to be amazing someday! My husband was going to be pleased that I was so good at caring for children and keeping house. I was practicing submission to my father, taking it very seriously whenever he pointed out some behaviour of mine that “would infuriate my husband someday.” He knew what God wanted, and what men wanted. If I wanted to be successful and happy someday, I had to start by pleasing my Daddy.

I put my whole self into my role as a stay-at-home daughter. I loved studying, but I couldn’t keep up with my self-taught high school materials and get all of my work done, so I gradually fell further and further behind. But school wasn’t as important as pleasing God. Sometimes I wished that I had the chance to study more than just cooking, cleaning and sewing, and I did ask my parents if I could take some classes while living at home, but I was reminded that it would only be a waste of time and money to go to college when none of that education would apply in the home. A college atmosphere could take my focus off the Lord, and fill my head with thoughts of career and rebellion. After some begging on my part, Dad said he would permit me to take a few online courses from a very conservative school if I insisted, but it was clear that this was not what he felt was wise. He also said that I had to finish all my high school material first, and that my school work could in no way interfere with my household duties. I was so overwhelmed at the thought of trying to keep both my father and a school happy, that I gave up on the idea of further education.

After a parent guided and approved courtship, I got married. I had never done anything outside of the home, so I was a stay-at-home wife for that first year and a half as we struggled to make it on our own. Money was very tight, and I often wondered what it would be like if I had the qualifications to get a decent job and let my husband focus on his graduate studies. But the shame my husband and I had over gender roles was overwhelming. We believed that work was part of Adams curse, and if a husband was lazy enough to make his wife get a job, she would now be burdened with both her own curse of childbearing and the curse of Adam as well. So I piddled around the empty apartment. I cleaned, watched TV and did some crafts, and tried to care for my exhausted husband the few hours he was around after school and work.

Money was so tight at one point that I actually went out and asked if the fast food place was hiring, I felt like I was shoplifting or something as I drove home with the job application. After filling in my name and address, I literally had nothing else to put on my resume. I had no schools to list, no work experience outside the home, and it felt silly to write “stay-at-home mom” in the career box, since I had no children. I had miscarried my first 2 pregnancies, and I was so afraid that I would never be able to have children. My role as a woman would be severely constricted if I did not have children. Other than caring for them, the only other thing I was free to do would be to help my husband in his work, and that was limited since I could not write sermons for him. I remember crying, and praying to God again and again to give me children. We hadn’t even been married a year, but I was a failure as a woman and wife. I had tried to do everything right, but somehow I must have disappointed God, since he was not blessing my womb. I felt like such a burden on my husband, if only I was able to take some of the work off his shoulders by earning some money. Instead I was stuck cleaning the already clean house and cooking my husband meals that he ate when he got home late at night.

Finally, our third pregnancy was viable, and baby Ms. Action was born. Ms. Drama arrived 14 months later. I was busy now, taking care of the home and the babies. But instead of feeling excitement to be a mom, I found myself on autopilot. I loved my husband and my children, but I had been doing the same thing for so long. I had no idea who I was or what I liked. My parents had taught me that being an individual and being a mom are incompatible. Being a wife and mother, and doing pretty much anything else, could not work together in their minds. So I was raised to be a machine, my mind was not important, it was what my body could do that counted. I was objectified. Exactly what Vision Forum claimed they were fighting against.

I believed the “Beautiful Girlhood” spiel. I did it everything the “right way”. I stayed at home, I submitted to my father, I skipped college, I prepared to be my husband’s helpmeet, and I regret it. I had years of my life go by where I was little more than an indentured servant to my parents. My husband and I were forced into thousands of dollars of debt working for an abusive employer that we could have thumbed our nose at if I had been able to get a job. While I was without the commitments of marriage and children, I could have easily gained an education that could have served me and my husband well in early marriage. All those years living as a quiet submissive housekeeper, I could have been discovering interests, and developing as a person.

I wish that my parents could have seen my potential and honoured my dreams and goals enough to encourage me to develop them for myself. Instead they saw how I could serve them, and kept me from growing up as long as they could, setting my starting point far behind the average woman out there. I wish that I had been able to live my life in natural stages of childhood, adulthood, and motherhood. I have so much more peace in my current life as a stay at home mom now that I realize it’s not going to last forever like I was told it would. In the meantime I am finding that I’m not as helpless or ignorant as always believed. I’m hoping to get an education someday. It won’t be as easy now as it could have been then, but I have to start somewhere. My husband and I work as a partnership now, and my hope is that someday we will be able to equally share the work needed to support us, as well as time with our children. I’m learning what it means to have a dream, and I’m a better person for it. Sometimes I am still frustrated that given all the twists and turns life can have, my husband got stuck with someone who is basically another dependent. Financially, I am unable to offer much more than encouragement and maybe a night-shift minimum wage job. I have my parents to thank for that.

This post was written on request for and will be cross-posted at ReThinking Vision Forum, a resource blog for people thinking about or recovering from the fallacies of Vision Forum's guide for "Godly" Family Living

Kiddie antics and quotes

2011-08-23T15:31:00.002-05:00

It's been a while since I updated on the cute and silly stuff

my kids have been saying and doing, so here you go.

3 month old Baby Boy recently started rolling over from back to tummy, hasn't figured out the whole tummy to back part yet, and he still tends to get his arm stuck underneath him when rolling, which infuriates him. He is very strong, and scared me recently by pulling a pillow across the bed towards him during nap time. (Pillows are now kept far away from him when sleeping!) He is also very vocal. He talks and talks when you encourage him a bit, he even talks while nursing (which makes for some milky bubbly conversations). I have no idea what he's rambling about, but it must be something nice because he never stops smiling. I think he is the smiliest baby I’ve ever had. He will get upset when I’m out of his line of vision and the minute I come over and say hi to him he is beaming ear to ear.

Almost 2 year old Ms Pooky's vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds. Whenever she is upset, or doesn't want to do something, she will pout and say “don’t like that game!" When passing the lama’s at the zoo she pointed and said “Look! 3 lamas!” which surprised me since I didn't know that she knew what they were called. She is still nursing (she calls it "umdoo") and this is the longest I have ever nursed any of my babies. It has been challenging in some ways, because I often feel very touched out, but it's mostly been going very well. All of my children have pretended to nurse their stuffed animals and dolls, but this is the first time I've seen a child pretend that the animals and dollies are nursing each other. It's pretty entertaining to overhear the toy cow and horse from the barn requesting "umdoo" from the stuffed tiger.

Recently, 3 year old Ms Drama and I were reading a Richard Scarry book and she seemed very interested in the “peanut car” that a mouse was driving. As we read the book, she kept going back to that page again and again to look at the picture of the mouse driving the peanut. Finally she asked me with a puzzled look, “A peanut? Like boys and daddies have? How can you have a peanut car?” And that was when I remembered that she pronounces "Penis" as "Peanut". She also has an incredible memory. While we were at the zoo, we realized that her sippy cup missing. As we were searching through the diaper bag and stroller, she informed us that she had left it at the butterfly house. We were sceptical since it had been a good half hour since we'd left the butterfly house. But sure enough, there it was sitting on a bench.

From the lips of 4 year old Ms Action:

“I went to Kenya where there are lots of plants and animals and tape, and I got some big tape there.” (Not sure where she go this one. I don't recall talking about Kenya, or tape for that matter.)

“Goliath killed Jesus. But it was OK because Jesus came back to life and then he told Goliath not to hurt people anymore." (I wish honey.)

"Soon I will be big enough for school! I will go to school and learn about unicorns and princesses. And maybe the teacher will have stickers, I hope she will have stickers. And maybe there will be toys too. And sometimes I will get to be first, and sometimes I won’t get to be first, but that’s OK, because other people will get to be first instead." (She came up with that all on her own. Really makes me hope that her kindergarten teacher is friendly.)

"Mom, a long time ago, like 25 years ago, I had a different mommy. And she was very tall, and she had a beautiful dress... and a carrot." (I'm pretty short, and I hardly ever wear dresses. But I do love carrots, so that that sounds OK.)

Anything cute or silly going on at your house recently?

The Decision that Changed my Life

2011-08-17T13:22:00.000-05:00

We were at a park with our kids. I watched a young mom play in the sprinkler area with her incredibly chubby baby girl. The mom became engrossed in her conversation with another mom, and baby waddled off by herself and reached for the sprinkler, giggling at the feeling of the water against her hand. After a moment, she wandered away from the sprinkler area and down the hill toward the jungle gym. The mother looked up and called to her baby, but baby didn’t even look back, she was intent on reaching the colourful play structure. Mom laughed and excused herself from the conversation and trotted after her baby, catching up with her easily. I felt myself involuntarily tensing, but there were no barked commands, she did not smack the baby’s thigh to reinforce her authority. Instead the mother squatted down to the baby’s height and smiled as she said “come on honey, let’s go back to the water.” The baby smiled and patted her mom’s face, and then turned back toward the jungle gym. The mom waited a moment, and then reached out her hand and said “want to climb up the hill?” Baby smiled and grabbed her mother’s hand and they walked up the hill to the sprinklers together. No violence or coercion, just gentle encouragement and connection.

********************

Two years ago, I stopped spanking. It was never supposed to be that big of a deal. Initially, I thought that I was just taking a little break to re-strategize. I never expected that choice to change my life.

As I struggled to parent multiple toddlers without my usual crutch of physical discipline, I had to face my own issues for the first time. I had to acknowledge my depression, my anger, my loneliness. I started to understand that my children were not pitted against me, and I began to have compassion towards them, and compassion towards myself. I have come to realize that most of the “bad” behaviour from my children (and indeed even myself) was the result of an underlying need or feeling, not a “rebellious spirit” or a “wilful antagonism”.

Since this process has made me a better parent and a happier person, I am passionate about spreading information on gentle parenting and the damaging effects of spanking. And since this quote was too large to share as a face book status, I’m posting it here.

“In modern books on child-rearing the authors carefully mask their emphasis on the importance of gaining control over the child. Over the years a sophisticated repertory of arguments was developed to prove the necessity of corporal punishment for the child’s own good. In the eighteenth century, however, one still spoke freely of “usurping authority” of “faithful subjects” etc., and this language reveals the sad truth, which unfortunately still holds today. For the parents’ motives are the same today as they were then: in beating their children, they are struggling to regain the power they once lost to their own parents. For the first time they see the vulnerability of their own earliest years, which they are unable to recall, reflected in their children. Only now, when someone weaker than they is involved, do they finally fight back, often quite fiercely. There are countless rationalizations, still used today, to justify their behaviour. Although parents always mistreat their children for psychological reasons i.e. because of their own needs, there is a basic assumption in our society that this treatment is good for children. Last but not least, the pains that are taken to defend this line of reasoning betray its dubious nature. The arguments used contradict every psychological insight we have gained, yet they are passed on from generation to generation.

There must be an explanation for this that has deep emotional roots in all in us. It is unlikely that someone could proclaim “truths” that are counter to physical laws for very long (for example, that it is healthy for children to run around in bathing suits in the winter and fur coats in the summer) without appearing ridiculous. But it is perfectly normal to speak of the necessity of striking and humiliating children and robbing them of their autonomy, at the same time using such high sounding words as chastising, upbringing, and guiding onto the right path.”

From Alice Miller’s “For your own Good” Page 16.

*******************

When I wrote on this topic last august, I talked about how my kids and I were different after a year of non-spanking. And earlier this year I talked about how I believe that spanking affects trust in the parent-child relationship. I have shared books and websites that have helped along the way, and I’ve begun explaining some of the new ideas I have found helpful in parenting starting with my posts on Mutual Respect and Recognizing Feelings. I am hoping to get back to my series on Gentle Parenting Tools very soon. The titles I have been working on so far are Communication, Rules Rituals and Routines, Parenting in Public, Connection and Needs, Relax and Re-Group, and Parental Self-care. If there is a particular one you would like to see sooner than later, let me know in the comments, and if there are additional topics you would like to see addressed let me know and I will do my best.

The Rights of a Child: Part 2

2011-08-15T16:18:00.002-05:00

After writing my rant last night, I’ve been thinking that this post may deserve more clarification.

Several months ago, my mom was spouting off against the government and Child Protective Services in a phone conversation, saying that they should never have a right to "break up families" and I pointed out that while some families need to be separated, most of the time the family is just helped and educated, not split up. I recalled a certain time in our family when I feel that Child Protective Services would have been helpful. She acknowledged that there had been a problem, but maintained that she would have listened to a church member or neighbour if they had confronted her. I reminded her that we were not attending church at that time of our life, and that I had begged her to make the abuse stop the day it was happening and she had not listened to me. She replied that the reason she did not listen to me was because I was only a child, if an adult had intervened, she would have done something. I gave up on the discussion at that point, but 2 weeks later my mom sent me some information from “the parents rights amendment”. She’s sent stuff like this to me before, but it brought out the frustration anew. Why are these parents so afraid of government recognizing that children have rights?

Because deep down, they know that they are doing something wrong.

I grew up in a family that does not believe that children have rights. Children are the property of their parents, heart mind body and soul. They basically have the same rights as slaves used to in the south. These conservative homeschooling parents control every aspect of their child’s life. They decide what their children are allowed to be interested in, how they will spend their time, what clothes they must wear, if and what they will be educated in, and whether or not they will be given health care. Some in the patriarchy home school movement, do not believe that they should educate their daughters beyond the 8th grade, because they will be stay-at-home moms someday, and therefore have no reason to be educated.

I used to believe it all. I was terrified of the government as a child. My parents told us that if people saw us outside during school hours, we would get taken away and put in foster homes where they would make us go to school. I remember crawling underneath the windows in the front of the house, because I was afraid someone outside would see me and call the police. One time a family friend knocked at the door during school hours, and my sister ran to open it. I heard the commotion from the other end of the house and ran in the kitchen screaming “don’t open the door!!” and when I rounded the corner and realized that the door was already open and there were no policemen waiting to take us away, I shrank away in embarrassment. I remember being outside and hearing the screams of a sister being spanked for what seemed like an eternity, and besides that usual sick feeling in my stomach for what she was going through, my main worry was that since the window was open, someone might hear and call the police. One time when I was babysitting my siblings, a chair got knocked over and broke the dining room window. I cried, and yelled at all the kids that now someone would see the broken window and think that dad was a drunk who beat us, and they would call the police.

When I actually read the UN convention for The Rights of the Child a year ago, I cried. There were people who actually believed that children are fully human? That they have the same rights to health, happiness and opportunity that adults have? I read in print for the first time the rights I want my children to have, including the rights I never had as a child.

People may argue that the UN rights of the child is redundant. We know that kids need to be protected, that’s obvious, right? But the USA can still use improvement. I found out later that a neighbour had heard my sister screaming that day, but they didn’t call the police, they thought it was funny. There are still people today who can see a broken bleeding child, and accept the parents’ explanation that they were a brat and “deserved it”.

I still have a hard time even today, believing that children don’t deserve to be hit and mistreated. I saw it with unseeing eyes every day in my home growing up. When my sister recently shared a childhood memory of "discipline" that became abuse, I was physically shaking thinking about what had happened to her. I had a vague memories jumbling around in my head. Is it possible that my sister had tried to confide in me when I was a teenager, and I'd done nothing to help her? I don't know. Regardless of whether I knew what had happened that particular time or not, I know what my response would have been. “You shouldn’t have been rebellious, you should have been obedient, you should have done what you were told and then this never would have happened to you.” I would have said those things, because I truly believed that children deserved to be treated badly. I believed that we had no rights. I told myself that I was the problem, I was the bad one, and so were my siblings.

Parents are allowed wide discretion on whether or not to bring their child to the doctor or to use homeopathic remedies instead of standard medicine. When my baby brother was a year old, he got pneumonia and was very very sick for over a month. I remember being scared at the amount of weight he was losing, and redoubled my prayers for him since dad would not allow mom to take the baby to the Doctor. My mother was forbidden from chiropractic care for her back problems, because it could involve a man (other than my father) seeing and touching her body. Sometimes the denial of medical care can result in permanent disfigurement, or even death. What if this 11 year old girl with undiagnosed diabetes in Wisconsin had know that she had a right to medical care? Maybe she could have gone for help as her health declined, instead of relying on the prayer of her Pentecostal family as she died. Maybe someone in her family could have called 911 sooner, if they only had known what help was available, and what rights children have. But no, they trusted in the family and their interpretation of God, and the girl died. Her story is not the only one.

The United States is the only western country in the world which still allows corporal punishment in the public schools of 20 states. And unlike countries that put limits on age and amount of physical punishment allowed, parents in America are allowed to physically punish their child with a belt, paddle, (or other impliments) however they feel like as long as there is no permanent disfigurement or death. We have a long way to go in recognizing the rights of a child. And instead of working to protect children in abusive homes, Michael Farris wants to amend the constitution to make it even harder for these children to gain safety from their parents.

The Rights of a Child

2011-08-14T21:48:00.003-05:00

The following is one of my few rants I’ve allowed myself on this blog. But don’t take my word for it, watch the fear-mongering preview yourself, and be sure to read the UN convention as well.

Cue the scary music, flashy lighting, and sobbing parents...
Michael Farris is at it again. Can you believe that our government doesn’t provide exclusive rights in the constitution for parents to control every single aspect of their child’s life? Even worse (Dun... Dun... Dun...) the USA might decide to sign the UN conventions rights of a child at any time, and then Christians probably won’t even be allowed to be parents anymore. (Never mind that every other country in the world has agreed to this form, with the exception of Somalia who doesn’t have any government to sign it.)

This evil document, actually argues that children have the right to not be punished harshly, and we all know that means that pretty soon we won’t even be allowed to punish our children at all. If American Christians don’t stand up and fight for their parental rights and keep their government from signing such a form, pretty soon we won’t even be allowed to raise our children within our religion. (I’m not sure how Farris explains away articles 14 and 30, which directly state that children have the right to be raised within the culture and religion of their family.)

In this exciting new documentary, Michael Farris and his cohorts illustrate vividly (with the usual bad Christian acting) the evils that can happen when children actually have rights.

Your children may be read children’s stories in school that depict a family consisting of something other than Mom, Dad and 2.1 children. Gasp! Can you believe that they are reading anything that might illustrate the reality of over 50% of families in the world today? There is no way you can repair the immense damage done by a book read in Grade school (You know, by like talking to your child or explaining your beliefs and values as well as respect for others) because once a child hears a children’s book like this, nothing you say will ever influence them again. Watch this terrifying preview, and you will see how if you as an angry parent rush to the school and rage threateningly at the butch female principal, you will be dragged to a police car while the school officials watch sinisterly from the window.

In this preview, you will see the scary courtroom proceedings of a teen aged son who dared to disagree with his parents’ church attendance habits. You will watch as the gavel falls and the judge declares that the son must only attend church a measly once a week. You will see the shock on the parents faces, as they refuse to believe that they actually have to discuss anything with their child, or ever compromise in any way. They are the parents after all, don’t they have exclusive rights to dictate every aspect of their child’s life? Because of their apparent lack of communication and negotiation skills, they let this go all the way to court, hoping that someone else could force their teen aged son do exactly what they told him to do, only to have the judge mete out a compromise? How dare anyone defy their ultimate authority?

The UN rights of a child is so dangerous to families (particularly American families apparently, since the rest of the world seems to still function despite having ratified this treaty) that is not enough to just keep our government from signing this evil document that argues that children have the right to an education and should not be subject to child labor, we must add an amendment to our constitution to insure that American parents will always be able to “control and direct their child’s upbringing”. Heaven forbid anyone can ever step in to confront the almighty parent, father always knows best after all. If we ignore these dire circumstances, pretty soon "every parenting decision will have to go through the filter of the UN". (What? You are going to potty train your 3 year old? Better get it screened by the UN first.)

Act now! Because not only does this evil treaty put the rights of every parent at risk, it also puts children in danger of being “exploited and abused”. Because saying that children have the right to clean water and should not be forced to be a child soldier is just taking advantage of them. And never mind that 81% of child abuse is inflicted by the child's parents, that’s just what big bad government wants you to believe, so that they can get away with their wicked scheme of exploiting the entirety of the world’s children through bureaucracy. We have to “protect children by empowering parents” because if we just pretend hard enough that abusive parents don’t exist, they will all just go away.

And of course, they are asking for money, big surprise there.

Click here to read Part 2.

Thank You

2011-07-27T12:43:00.000-05:00

A photo a blog reader sent me, of the "hands holding me up in prayer"

I started this blog over a year ago. I had moved to a new country, and just had my third baby, and I was lonely. I never thought it would be anything much. Just a place to maybe chat with some people and maybe make a few friends, but it turned into much more than that.

After a few months, I re-discovered my love of writing, something I had believed I wasn’t able to do. And over as time went on, as I continued to write, I suddenly began tapping into feelings that I hadn’t allowed myself to feel. A visit down to see family last summer cracked open the dam, and my little mommy blog turned into something different, as I began writing about the big dilemma’s in my life. My background, my depression, my relationships and faith.

And I was blown away by your support and encouragement.

Writing tends to be a sort of free therapy for me. Sometimes nothing makes sense until I sit down and sort it out “on paper”. I write whatever is on my heart, whatever is bursting out of my mind. My writing moods have a life of their own. I will post a series of posts on Atheism and then a series of posts on God. I write a couple parenting posts and then my blog seems to revolve around abuse for a while. I may post every day for a time, and then when life gets crazy, slow down to once a week. I’m grateful that you all put up with me during the down cycles, listening to me ramble about depression or doubts.

So this is a thank you post for all of you.

I have received thousands of comments on this blog. Comments that have encouraged discovery, confirmed suspicions, and slowly increased my confidence. I’ve received hundreds of emails, with prayers, thoughts, book suggestions. Many of you have shared some of your story with me, giving me a glimpse into your life, and giving me hope in mine.

One reader sent me books that helped her through the early years of exhaustion in motherhood.

Another sent me a “Hug from God”.

This blog was the first place outside of my marriage where I was not afraid to be me. I’ve been doing much of the raw hard work figuring out who I am (instead of who I was told I had to be) right here. And that authenticity has been spilling into the rest of my life as well. Thank you for holding my hand. All of your emails, comments, and friendships have just shouted the message I needed to hear most,

“you are not alone!”

I’m heading out for a trip to visit family (and introduce them to Baby Boy) so I will be away from the computer more often than not. I probably won’t have time to post for a week or two, but I will check in on facebook or email here and there. I have so many half written blog posts I am dying to finish. But those pieces on Gentle Parenting Tools, further thoughts on motherhood, faith and self-discovery, and my upcoming series on how I left the fundamentalist/quiverfull/patriarchal mindset will just have to wait until I get back. Now I think I'm going to go review all of the great comments and advice you guys gave me last time I was nervous about a trip to visit family. :)

Boys and Girls aren't different, they're just individuals

2011-07-20T15:28:00.001-05:00

This is a topic close to my heart, and I’ve been thinking about it and planning a post for some time. So when I saw this post today, I was prompted to finally put together my thoughts.

Calah argues that men and women are different, and that men are largely persecuted for being men. I agreed with her point on how men are mocked in the media today, but I pretty much disagreed with everything in her post. Aside from the fact that women are mocked in the media as well, (Haven't you seen those stay-at-home moms in the commercials who magically have it all together because they bought air freshener? Or the woman in the weight loss commercial bemoaning the fact that she "used to be pretty" and now she can't even leave her house now because she is a size 12? Gender discrimination against both sexes is alive and well) I would argue that these shows are largely mocking the stereotyped roles that men are “supposed” to fill, not the men themselves. Is it frustrating that the stereotypes are mocked? Yes, because some people may truly fit into those stereotypes and it is not right for them to be made fun of.

But it is more frustrating that those stereotypes exist in the first place.

Somehow society has become convinced that there is a right way and a wrong way to be the sex you are. Boys are told to toughen up and quit crying, girls are showered with messages about how their value is tied to their beauty (as defined by the surrounding culture). These are just a few examples of the stereotypes that have been around for some time in the western world. While men are still largely stuck in the role created for them, recently there has been some effort to fight back on behalf of women. But instead of seeing this as a good thing, and doing the rest of the work to debunk these stereotypes, many people see this as a major step back.

I was raised in a home that strongly believed in gender roles, and enforced it with their children. I was told constantly that I was not smart enough as a female to be interested in “that”, and I should pick something better suited to my gender’s abilities. I was reminded that I was too emotional as a girl to make that decision, better to leave it to the male leader in my life who had the inborn talent for making good choices. We were told constantly, Girls are different than Boys! My parents were out to raise men and women the way they were “supposed” to be. If only everyone thought as we did, and trained their boys to be strong leaders and good providers, and shaped their women to be quiet, submissive homeschooling stay at home moms, then everything that was “wrong” with the world would be righted. There would be no more marital strife, no more gays or lesbians, no more unemployment, no more abortion. Everyone would know their role and be happy working in it. (Looking back it sounds a lot like communism to me.)

People risk life and limb to immigrate (sometimes even illegally) to make it into a country where they can have a job, an education, freedom of religion. I grew up in one of those countries, but I was denied all of those freedoms. Sometimes it is still hard for me to believe that I actually have them.

My interests were shaped to be stereotypical, and I was able to adjust fairly well. I funnelled my creativity into cooking, and sewing. I gave up on higher education because as my parents told me over and over, it wasn’t necessary for my role in life and could in fact even be detrimental since having interests other than the home would only make me discontent in my “god-given role”. Other siblings were not so well off. A sister close in age to me hated cooking and crafts. She was interested in being active, and loved sports. She begged to be allowed to participate in soccer or basketball teams, but my parents were determined to make her conform into the stereotypical girl. So she was not allowed to cut her hair, she had to wear dresses like the rest of us girls, she was not allowed to join a sport, and had to keep plugging away at cooking and cleaning. She did not fit the mold. She was not the stereotypical girl she was “supposed” to be. My parents were so convinced that boys and girls were very very different, that they refused to see that their own daughter had other gifts and interests. Several years after I left home, another one of my sisters joined a marital arts class as an older teen. My parents were upset. They threatened to cancel her member ship over and over. They complained about how this would only teach her to be confident and aggressive like a man, and argued that she was wasting money learning a skill that could never be used during her upcoming life as a pregnant mom of many children. And this type of thing didn’t just effect the women in this mindset, the boys are trapped too. My brother loves to cook, but he has been “gently” steered towards other things that would be more lucrative in order to support the large family and stay at home wife that my parents are sure he will have one day. My husband remembers being made fun of and shamed when he expressed interests that were not gender-conforming. He remembers being sad as a ten year old when it dawned on him that he would never be able to be at home with his kids, and would probably be working very long hours away from them every day.

And this isn’t even getting into the messages about sexuality. Of course we girls knew that all men were just interested in us for our bodies, so we had to cover them up as much as possible, as well as avoid spending time with men. The boys got this too. My husband remembers his parents framing every conversation he ever had with a girl (after he turned 14 or so) as a possible romantic interest. He learned to doubt himself and question his own motives in having friends or even chit chat after church.

After we got married, we both lived in our determined roles for several years. Being who we were told we had to be. And it was a huge burden on both of us. I was exhausted from having exclusive care of the children and the house. I was bored with the housekeeping routine. The depression I thought would disappear after leaving my parents home lingered. My capacity for thought and research was stifled by the role I had been tailored for. My husband was working long hours. And when he was home, he was often playing computer games. He had no idea how to relate to our kids, his understanding of fatherhood was highly influenced by the surroundings and education of the patriarchal homeschooling world, his example was the hardworking provider his own dad had been. His capacity for nurture and connection was stifled by the role our culture tailored for him.

It took several years for us to ditch the gender role “utopia” and start the learning process to just be who we are, instead of who we were “supposed to be”.

I’ve come to believe that most of the “gender differences” we are conditioned to see, are merely personality, and have nothing to do with the sex of that person. Yes, maybe the argument can be made that possibly the “active, hands on, critical thinker” personality surfaces more often in males than in females, and the “nurturing, gentle, compassionate” personality is perhaps more common in women. But even there I wonder if a large proportion of that is conditioning and not proof of gender differences. Programming is hard to shake, and if you are told your entire life, by family, teachers, books, media and religious leaders that you are a certain way, it is hard to be brave enough to say anything to the contrary.

Once I started to shake the old messages of what women are “created to be”, I started to discover that I was not as dumb or helpless as I was conditioned to be. Women are not genetically more nurturing or gentle or loving. We all have the capacity to be a loving compassionate person, and the more compassion we have been shown, the more likely we are to pass it on. Both men and women have the capacity to be incredible parents, no one sex has the monopoly on parenting abilities. Girls are not always dainty and pretty, my girls have farting contests and make endless poop jokes and break toys sometimes. Depending on their personality they can take injury in stride, or they may need hugs and kisses to make it better. Men are not all hopelessly unable to share emotions, I’ve watched my husband change from gruff and bossy, to gentle and encouraging. Almost everything that my dad told me about men, was wrong.

I’ve found my ability to see and understand the personalities of my children has gone way up once I stopped reading books on the "differences" between boys and girls. And my connection with my husband has improved substantially once I threw out all those Christian books on marriage and the “battle of the sexes” and just noticed and accepted him for who he was.

Women are just as capable if deep thought, long term goals and decision making as men. Men are just as capable of affection, housekeeping and appreciation of beauty as women. Every person should be free to pursue their interests and be whoever they are, whether that is a Dr, stay-at-home parent, or truck driver. After all, if these gender differences were that stark and obvious, why are there so many books on how to treat boys and girls differently? Why do we need so much coaching on the differences between the genders if we are supposedly born that way? If girls and boys are genetically designed to be very different from one another why do we spend so much time and effort trying to create the right environment for them to become “real” men and “real” women. Once upon a time, we punished left-handed children until they wrote the “correct” way, with their right hand. How often is the gender divide an attempt to do the same thing?

We each have our own set of gifts, interests and abilities. Every personality is unique and different, and much of that will have nothing to do with the sex of that person. Why can’t we accept and love each person for who they are, instead of comparing them to a false exaggeration of what they are.

Never thought I'd be here

2011-07-16T11:29:00.001-05:00

This week was Vacation Bible School at our church, And since Ms Action is old enough to attend this year, I spent every morning at church helping out the volunteers.

We’ve gone to the final program each year as the Pastor’s family, and I’ve always had mixed feelings. I wasn’t allowed to participate in those types of programs as a child, the songs were considered ungodly by my parents, and they certainly couldn’t allow someone else to teach me anything about God. So watching those programs always reminded me of my determination to be part of community for my children’s sake.

This year was different. This year I am having a hard time believing in God at all. So going to the program each morning was painful. I want to believe that there is a higher power who loves us and watches out for us. But I am just finding it less and less plausible. So much of life seems random, not controlled by an all powerful being like I always thought. Religion is feeling more and more like the addiction that got me through the darkest days in my teens, not a reality. (I say addiction because God never spoke to me or anything, but the ritual of praying, crying and reading pages of my bible every day made me hope that I would be good enough for Him and my parents.) I have too many questions about God, the bible, religion and theology to list, and so far no satisfying answers.

It was hard for me to go to VBS every morning, and hear all the little kids singing praise songs and watching them do crafts and bible study. Seeing their excitement made me want to warn them not to get their hopes up, even though I’m glad that they were able to have fun and be a part of something.

The words to the songs were frustrating.

“God loves you, God is watching over you, he has great plans for you.”

(But some of you will die before becoming adults, some of you will have abusive parents or abusive spouses someday. And if you don’t follow God the “right” way according to whichever of the myriads of churches out there is right, then he is sending you to an eternal torture chamber because you displeased him.)

“No greater gift than God’s great love, for his children every one, not a gift that we can earn

so much more than we deserve.”

(Really? No greater gift? His love is only for those who are doing what he wants, but it’s a gift that we can’t earn at the same time? And of course, it’s so much more than we deserve, because all you little 4 and 5 year old are desperately wicked and depraved and only out to cause evil and destruction.)

I just don’t really believe it all anymore. We are only supposed to talk about God as this wonderful beautiful loving being, but there are countless things in the bible that directly contradict that.

I can’t explain the origin of the universe, or the purpose of life, and I think that religion makes some attempt to do that. But I just don’t fully buy it anymore.

I am still open to believing in a God.

Some days I am still afraid that I am displeasing God. But I’m pretty sure that if he is there, and what most religions teach about him is true, then I am not going to be enough for him anyways. Some days I feel very sad that there might not be some magical after-life where we will all be together again, but on the other hand, that thought makes me that much more determined to live this life well. Determined to love my kids and be the best person I can be in this life, because it may be all I ever have.

And in some way, I feel a sense of relief. I don’t have to question every thought and action if God isn’t watching. That burden to “save” my children from hell doesn’t have to be feared anymore, I can love my children freely, whoever they grow up to be. Maybe if there is no God, then there are no evil spirits to be feared, no scary invisible beings attacking me and trying to gain power over me. There are just humans, some of which may be evil.

In some ways it’s freeing to drop all the chains of religion. And yet this morning when I saw my 4 year old singing these words in the kitchen (complete with the hand motions she was too shy to do at VBS),

“I have a maker, he formed my heart, before even time began my life was in his hands.

He knows my name, he knows my every thought.

He sees each tear that falls, and hears me when I call.”

I felt the tears come to my eyes.

Because sometimes I still want that to be true.

Anniversary Musings

2011-07-12T20:16:00.000-05:00

My husband and I have an abnormal story. And now that I look back, I realize that getting married with intense parental pressure and control after being in a relationship for a total of 2 ½ months (including courtship and engagement) gave us a pretty rocky start.

Six years later we still love each other, and I’ve often wondered how on earth we managed to grow together through all the changes in our life!? I think it helped that we are from similar backgrounds, we are close in age and both became disillusioned with fundamentalism at around the same time. I also think that because we literally had never lived our own lives at all, (we had always been under parental control) we sort of grew up together after we got married.

Lately, as my husband and I have chatted about ideas that have helped our relationship grow, I thought I’d share them for our Anniversary week. So here are some of the “Rules of engagement” that have shaped our first 6 years.

#1 No sharing fights with family or friends.

We explicitly outlined this rule shortly after we were married. Both of us come from very controlling families, and we could sense that sharing marital conflict or asking for marital advice would be dangerous. The few times that our families got wind of disagreements between the two of us (real, or completely imagined by them) we got a range of “advice”. Depending on my parents opinion of whatever the issue was, I was told either to submit and let him lead, or (if they didn’t like his position) that I didn’t have to just do whatever my husband said to (which made no sense coming from them, since that was pretty much all they had ever taught me about marriage.) My husband’s family, would advise my husband to keep things from me and “make the decision on his own, because he was the man of the house.” In reality, they just knew how to control him better than they knew how to control me (the new member of the family) and they liked to eliminate me as a barrier so they could get him to do whatever they thought was best.

Looking back, the decision not to share our fights with them was probably one of the best we have ever made. Sometimes it was very tempting to go get the pat on the back from a good friend or family member, and be told that you are right, and that your spouse will have to come around. But by eliminating those biased advice sources, we were forced to deal with each other and actually work things out.

(That being said, sometimes a third party can be very helpful. But we’ve tried to go with someone as unbiased as possible, such as a counsellor.)

#2 No dirty fighting.

We fight. No dirty fighting means no getting physical, no name calling, and no using the words “always” or “never”. Nowadays, disagreements are usually small, and we work them out fairly quickly. Those really big duels that last all day only happen once or twice a year. But early on in our marriage, this rule was essential, since the big fights happened like every week. We were horrible at communicating when we got married. Both of us had endless expectations and unspoken rules and dysfunction coming out of our family systems. And both of us have the tendency to shut down and give up on working it out when we feel like we aren’t being heard. Making the choice to fight things out was very important in our marriage, because it forced us to communicate. Without those hours of fighting early in marriage, I’m not sure we would be where we are today. Learning how to communicate our needs and feelings and problems has been crucial for our relationship, we can even communicate without fighting now! (Yay!) Dirty fighting would have only hindered this learning process. We made the rule against fighting dirty, because we had been modeled passive aggressive manipulation by our parents, and we wanted to learn how to communicate without that.

#3 Sex is not a weapon.

This means no kicking your spouse out of bed when you don’t like them. Yes, there are always those times when one of us would love to get busy but the other is sick, or too tired to make it happen. But this rule means that having a fight that day doesn’t qualify as a good reason to avoid each other.

Sometimes at the end of a long ordeal, everything would feel so hopeless. We still disagreed just as much as ever, there seemed to be no resolution or solution. But even if we were failing miserably to connect on every other issue, we could still have sex. No, it didn’t fix all the problems, or make them go away. But it was a way we could connect even when our words failed us. Is it easy to connect physically when you are having emotional conflict? No. Is it strange to interrupt an intense argument that is going nowhere with “well, I don’t like you, but why don’t we go have sex?” Yes. But it is worth it to try and fumble through the awkwardness and make an effort, rather than let this resource be locked away until some distant day in the future when we are on the same page. (Plus if you’ve never had sex while really really emotional, take it from me, you might just be missing something.)

#4 Talk, talk, talk.

I’m pretty sure this is the reason we are still married. We talk. A lot. About everything. (And I do mean everything.) When I hear about couples having a weekly date night to reconnect, I honestly don’t know how they do it. In our marriage so far, we’ve spent hours every day talking. Whether it’s hashing out some issue while sharing a meal, calling our spouse on the phone to chat about how our day is going, sending each other emails, or talking long hours into the night instead of going to sleep. Those weeks that talking doesn’t happen as consistently, are usually the ones where we end up talking (literally) all day long on Saturday. We are each other’s closest confidant and friend. We tell each other everything, even the really touchy stuff, and that really boring stuff. And yes, that means I have to listen when he expounds on population statistics or dreams about traveling around the world in a jeep. And he has to listen to me ramble about blog friends and rant about religion. We talk about our beliefs, questions, dreams, ideas, family problems in our homes of origin, childrearing, religion, relationship, sex and money. He is the only one who really knows everything about me and vise versa.

#5 Don’t make fun of each other

Now I’m not talking about a good natured little jab in private about something we are both on the same page about. I mean belittling my spouse’s fears or dreams, or poking at their insecurities. Even in areas we totally disagree on. If you finally get up enough courage to reveal something close to your heart, and the person you are telling laughs at you, can you really feel safe to share with them again? If you tell your impossible dream and the response is just confirmation that you will never be able to achieve it, that message is very hard to shake. Since we know our spouse’s soft spots, using them against them would be fighting dirty, which is against the rules over here. Avoiding this type of behaviour can include eliminating those digs about weight or appearance as well as beliefs and doubts, and whatever else your spouse is sensitive about. It also means avoiding putting your spouse down in front of others (those kinds of wounds last a long time) and being subtle or passive aggressive doesn’t make it OK either. Open, encouraging communication is a much better option.

So there you have it.

Do we agree on everything? No.

Do we make hasty statements and judgments and assumptions? Yes.

Do we have the same dreams and ideas? Sometimes.

Do we love each other? Yes.

What are the ideas and “rules of engagement” that have helped you in your relationship?

Guilt, fear and parenting choices.

2011-07-06T10:36:00.003-05:00

Once upon a time, I had to stop reading “Biblical parenting” books and websites after I made the decision to quit spanking. If I read them, I would become frightened, and wonder if I was failing my children. With almost 2 years of gentle parenting under my belt, I have reached the confidence level where I can handle reading about other types of discipline. But now I find myself filled with anxiety and pain over homeschooling.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the concept. I’m glad that families choose to homeschool. Some of the gentle parenting blogs I follow also homeschool, and I’ve had a lot of fun reading about cool projects or ideas related to homeschooling.

But when I come across blog posts that argue strongly for homeschooling, I feel overwhelmed and depressed. Will my kids ever have time to play? Will they hate reading because they are in school? What if the education they get in school is sub par, maybe I can give them a better education that I got as a homeschooled kid. I read posts about bullying, or kids being trapped and bored day after day, and I feel guilty.

I remember the old messages engrained from childhood, "homeschooling is ALWAYS the best choice for children" "People who don't homeschool don't love their children enough" People who send their kids to school are being selfish" "Someday when you are a mom, you will understand why we made the choice to protect you from school"

I’ve never even been to school, I’ve only ever been told it’s evil, how can I consider sending my kids there?

And yet, I know myself. I have 4 little kids right in a row, I am very busy caring for their needs, and learning how to be the parent I want to be. I get hit with waves of depression and I have lots of memories related to homeschooling. It makes me feel panicky to even imagine teaching my children at home day after day. As an introvert, I have this tendency to shut down and hide when I am depressed or overwhelmed, so most of our homeschooling days would probably involve me hiding in a closet. Not exactly a great learning environment for children.

Homeschooling is not a good choice for me right now.

If that changes in the future, that can happen in the future.

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My experience as a child, (coming from a background where it was better to inflict pain on your children than to allow them to make mistakes,) has given me an urge to prevent my children from ever feeling pain. Surely I can protect them from ever being hurt, and that includes school!

Recently, I’ve realized that I don’t have to do that. I cannot prevent them from being hurt by life, sometimes life hurts. (-Awesomely helpful article!) I can be there for them. I can be that safe place that they know they can always come to and be accepted and loved and comforted. I can teach them how to care for themselves and give themselves the comfort that will sustain them through the tough times in life. But I don’t have to keep them from ever having to face discomfort or disappointment. I don’t have to protect them from school. I can be their encouragement and support as they learn new things from a new teacher. I can be their advocate when they face a bully or struggle with a certain teacher. Being an involved, loving and supportive parent who does not inflict pain, doesn’t mean that I must prevent my children from experiencing anything painful.

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Since I know that I am making the right choice for me, I've had to limit my reading of books and articles that argue aggressively for homeschooling. I don’t mind reading posts from parents on why they love homeschooling. But just like I used to doubt my choice of gentle discipline in those early months, I get barraged with feelings of guilt and shame whenever I read about why I should homeschool my child.

I’ve also found it very helpful to read stories of people who have made the choice to send their child to school, especially if they used to homeschool. I feel a huge sense of relief to know that these people’s children are not languishing in the school system. So I thought I’d share a few of those links here, in case anyone else has the same doubts and fears that I do and could use some encouragement.

A Christian mom explain why they chose not to homeschool.

A Homeschool Mom decides to send her kids to school.

This mom explains beautifully the way fear can control our lives and our choices in unhealthy ways, including school choices.

This mom talks about how choosing not to homeschool changed her world for good.

This is a moving story of one moms choice to send her kids to public school.

Another post on Homeschool burnout.

Thoughts on using homeschooling to shelter kids.

A well thought out post on school choice.

Another Christian mom explains why she does not homeschool.

Here is a book I am hoping to get soon.

Do you have any books or articles that have encouraged you lately? Please share them in the comments!

Saturday Evening Post #16

2011-07-02T22:46:00.000-05:00

Every month Elizabeth Esther invites us to share the latest and greatest from our blogs.

I always have a hard time picking what to share, but I decided on my "What God Wants" post, called Unraveling the Wizard.

I like it because I talk about one of the ways I've learned to not be afraid when people from my past are insisting they know how God wants me to live my life. I used to let that fear control me, so I was definetely in need of some healthy tools!

Head over to Elizabeth's blog to discover other blogs, and maybe share your own.

Unraveling the Wizard

2011-06-30T14:55:00.002-05:00

A while back I was talking to a sister on the phone and she related this story to me.

She was hanging out at my parent’s house and Mom and our 14 year old sister had just come home from shopping. They were relating how the trip had gone well and our sister had found a nice bathing suit and then while they were in line the person behind them offered the use of a 20% off coupon that they were not intending to use. Then my Mom added that God had sent the coupon because our sister had “made the right choice” and picked a “modest” bathing suit.

The sister relating this story to me could not understand why she had reacted so strongly to what my Mom said. She was instantly angry, almost to the point of nausea. “I could see being irritated by Mom claiming that God was rewarding her for picking a modest bathing suit, but why did it make me so angry!”

It made sense to me.

My sister and I (and all of the rest of our siblings) have been raised to believe that following God meant doing everything our parents said. We were told over and over that the only way to be happy was if we were completely obedient and submissive to the God-granted authority my Dad possessed. Dad, as the male leader of the home represented God to us, as long as we remained obedient, we were under God’s care, which meant we were promised health, good marriages, happy children etc. If we rebelled and disobeyed, we were without spiritual protection, and would be unhappy and live broken lives. We would be living outside the bounds of “What God Wanted”, and therefore unable to be blessed by Him.

I remember one time when my Dad was ranting about my “selfishness” and “laziness” in keeping up with the housework, he gave me an ultimatum, asking if I wanted “to serve God or yourself”. I was 15, and wanted to please both God and my Dad, so of course I answered “God”. But curious, I then asked him what would say if I had said I wanted to serve myself. His answer was “find another place to live”. If I wasn’t willing to do “What God Wanted”, then I was not worthy to live in his house.

This topic came up endlessly. If we wore a shirt without sleeves, we were displeasing God. If we listened to Christian radio, we were rebelling against God. If we didn’t obey instantly and without question, we were not following God’s plan. But in reality, my parents were just using “God” to justify everything that they wanted. There is a big difference in saying “Wow, a 20% of coupon, what a gift from God!” and saying “God sent me this gift because I made such and such a choice.” My mom wanted my sister to dress a certain way, so she praised her for her choice in bathing suits, by claiming that God was happy about it and was sending her money to prove it.

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I’ve continued to see this mentality in Christians outside of my family.

God seems to be the proxy for emotions that no one wants to deal with. People don’t want to claim the thought or feeling as their own, so they assign it to God. They want to move to a new area, so they decide that it must be “What God Wants”. They are changing careers because it is “What God Wants”. They homeschool, or send their children to private school because that is “What God Wants”.

Why is it so hard to just admit that it is actually what you want?

A more painful aspect of this, is watching people agonize over a decision because they don’t know “What God Wants.” They love someone, but does God want them to marry this person? They are exhausted and burnt out, but what if God wants them to have another baby? They can’t decide which college to attend, because who knows “What God Wants”?

And the worst form of this, is when (much like my parents) someone tells another person “What God Wants” for their life. This turns into “God Wants You to...” They can’t be content just believing that God communicates his will for their lives directly to them, they have to take it one step further and insist that God tells them his will for everyone else’s lives as well.

This God talk (God Wants, God told me, God’s Will, God’s Plan...) is all nonsense. Nobody has a direct line to God. No one knows exactly what he wants. We can read the Bible, and pray, and subscribe to churches that do their best to interpret God’s will to be. But no one really knows 100%. No one is completely unbiased.

In the end, we each have to make our decisions based on what is best for us in relation to our community and world, leaving everyone else to their own decisions, hoping that if there is a God, he’ll be merciful despite our mistakes.

One of the final scenes from “The Wizard of OZ” is a great illustration of this type of God talk.

Dorothy has finally completed her Quest to make it to the Wizard, and she stands looking up at the impressive large face and listening to the booming voice of Oz. When suddenly, Toto starts pulling on a sheet in the corner of the room, and behind it is a little man fiddling with a control panel. “Oz” bellows from the projection screen “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!!” But of course upon further investigation, the man behind the curtain turns out to be the brain behind the “Wizard of Oz”. Not so impressive after all, just a little guy with a projector and a microphone, trying to tell everyone else what to do.

So the next time someone tries to tell you that they know exactly “What God Wants” for your life, and you stand there listening to the booming voice and looking at the large projection, just remember that behind the curtain, it isn’t God at all, it’s just that person pretending to be God.

Not so scary now is it.

Lies we tell ourselves about abuse

2011-06-27T23:41:00.000-05:00

We want to think the best of people. We want to tell ourselves that we were loved and cared for. We want to be “normal” and “OK”. So we find ways to excuse what was done to us. We find ways to explain what happened. If we can avoid dealing with it, maybe we won’t hurt anymore. Here are some of the lies I was telling myself about my past.

1. Abuse only happens when parents don’t love their kids.

“My parents love me. So there is no way they could have been abusive. Right?”

This is not true. People often do very harmful things with great intentions. Even if something was not meant to deliberately hurt you, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t damaging. Here is one simple example from my childhood of unintentional harm done by well meaning parents.

I don’t think that my parents sat down one day and came up with a plan for how to give their daughters insecurities about body image. But the action they took in forcing extreme modesty, my Mom comparing our bodies to hers and being paranoid about how much food we ate and how much we weighed, and even withholding food if we were being “gluttonous”, my Dad’s criticism of our bodies as well as his refusal to ever say anything positive about how we looked because he didn’t want to “puff us up”, all took their toll. Even if something was not planned to deliberately harm, it can still hurt.

Tradition and Ignorance

Abuse can be disguised when everyone else is doing it. Virtually everyone will recognize that female circumcision is abusive, that is why it is illegal in the western world. But in the areas of the world where it happens, this is a traditional practice, approved by parents who love their children. Centuries of foot binding in China was gradually phased out as the culture realized how damaging it was. Just because something is done in ignorance does not mean that it is not abusive. What is heartbreaking is when people live in a society where the information about a practice being harmful is widely available and distributed, but still continue to do it anyway.

2. I’ve dealt with it.

Oh how many times I’ve wanted to tell myself that I’m done dealing with it. That I am fixed now. I’ve figured it all out. That I’ve arrived. And every time I am proven wrong when another buried memory emerges, or I slip back into old patterns and have to fight my way out of depression. Again.

“Dealing with it” is a journey, not a destination.

It’s so tempting to stop working things out when it gets rough. Especially when lies about God get dragged into the process. “As a Christian you’re supposed to “forgive and forget.” But forgiveness (much like “dealing with it”) is a journey, not a one-time event. And forget isn’t even part of the equation. Do the memories fade? In a way they do. Not in that you don’t remember anymore, but that they slowly lose their control over you. But can I “forget” everything and pretend as though my parents raised me in a way they didn’t? No I can’t. My parents were who they were, they are who they are, they did what they did. Nothing is going to make that go away, nothing is going to reshape those memories. My relationship with my parents can never start over with a blank slate, but it can continue to grow and change as time goes on.

In a way, living with abuse in your background is kind of like living with an addiction in your past. An alcoholic can stop abusing alcohol, but they will probably never be able to drink recreationally. A cutter can put away the knife, but the scars don’t disappear. Nothing you do can make the abuse in your past disappear as though it never happened. But you can change how it affects your life!

3. I was never hurt (or) It wasn’t that bad.

Denial was a coping mechanism I had honed to an art. I buried memories. I explained abuse away when I could, and took the blame for it when I couldn’t explain it away. (If I had been smarter, better behaved, godlier etc. etc. Then they wouldn’t have done that to me.) If I could pretend it hadn’t happened, I could still believe that I was not broken, that I had nothing to work through, nothing to grieve. Opening the door to the truth was scary, because it risked crumbling the entire delusion I had built for myself.

Denial takes on many forms. It can look kind of like being a murderer in court, trying to convince the judge to let you off because you only killed one person, “At least I wasn’t a serial killer!” you protest. "I killed the guy with a gun, it’s not like I went after him with an axe!” The fact is, you are still a murderer, and you still have to deal with the repercussions of that.

Another example of this is sort of like the Pharisees’ prayer in the Bible where he prays, thanking God that he doesn’t have all the sins of other people all while completely ignoring his own sins. In this denial, you might say “I thank God that I wasn’t like those homeless children, at least I HAD parents. At least I am alive! I could have been one of those children who got killed by their parents, so I have it pretty good. I should be grateful.” You keep busy telling yourself what didn’t happen to you, so that you never have to face what actually did happen to you.

I kept telling myself that my parents had done the best they could, and that it was really my fault that I hadn’t been a better child. My parents tried, but did they really do their best? In refusing to deal with their own issues, they perpetuated them onto their children. Instead of recognizing and working through their own pain and anger over where they had come from, they justified their faults and their abusive behaviour. My parents were not concerned with what was best for me, or my siblings. They were concerned with what was best for them. What they felt was best for “God”, and what was best for the image of godliness they were trying to project. My parents did their best to make themselves look good, they did their best to make me into the daughter they wanted me to be. They did not accept me for who I was, or love me regardless of how I performed. They did not do what was best for me.

Sometimes when you mention past abuse, the abuser or other people in their life will say things like “That was a long time ago” or “Things are different now” or “Things have changed.” This can even be a lie that people tell themselves to avoid dealing with the effects of past abuse in their life.

While people do have the power to change and that is wonderful, the fact that things are different now does not mean that there were not issues in the past that need to be addressed. Just because something happened along time ago doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Saying “Things have changed” serves to distract from doing real work in the present to correct past wrongs by claiming that everything has already been resolved. No apologies are needed, reform has already happened according to this logic. Often times, “things have changed” serves to recast the victim of abuse as the bitter party who cannot “move on.” But usually only extremely tiny or superficial changes were made, or even none at all. When this is the case, tossing the “things are better now” card means this discussion is over. The abuser is really claiming (quite preposterously), “I have already without ever taking the time to understand what went wrong, resolved every problem related that abuse. This is true because I say so not because I have made any real effort to substantiate change.”

If you are telling yourself that “things are better now” means that the situation is resolved; you are buying just one more form of denial that distracts you from really finding healing from past abuse. Actual change would be something both parties can see and experience. It would be something lived out through tangible effort and work such as therapy, issuing genuine apologies, joining recovery support groups, and real public change in behaviour.

What are some of the lies you’ve heard about abuse?

Dreams and Memories

2011-06-24T23:51:00.000-05:00

I have a small treasure box. I bought myself while on a trip with my grandparents. Besides my journals and my teddy bear, it holds pretty much everything I considered special to me from childhood.

Some of it is just memories. I have the collar from the dog I loved. And a feather from one of the chickens we had on the farmette we lived on for 2 years. I loved living there, that was when we still went to church, participated in a homeschool co-op, and I was free to be a kid.

I have the memory cards from both of my grandpa's funerals. And a shell from one of the bullets fired in the twenty-one gun salute at my the funeral of my grandpa who was in the Korean war.

But some of it has different meaning.

I have a scrap of paper with a bible verse:

Philippians 2:3-4 "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others."

I don't remember where got the paper, I think from a ladies bible meeting my mom went to. I do remember why I kept it. I wanted it to remind me not to be "prideful" and to always think of others instead of myself. I saved it to keep myself from having selfish ambitions like getting an education, or having interests outside of the home.

I have the two thank you notes I received as a child. (You never know how much those things mean to someone, especially when one is very rarely thanked.)

I have a sand dollar my grandma gave to me, and the ticket for the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier, from when my grandparents brought me there.

I have the stub of my plane ticket from when I was allowed to go to journalism camp. I have the ticket to the public school play my pen pal was in. I have the stub from the first of few the movies I was allowed to go to without my parents.

In short, I kept evidence of pretty much everything I was ever allowed to participate in outside of the home.

I have a small candle inside a tin (it fits in the palm of my hand) that I won as a prize for getting my short story published in a child's nature magazine. I was so thrilled to be published. I remember I won a pencil as well, but I gave it away to the neighbor girl who I desperately wanted to be friends with.

I have jewelry.

A Navajo bracelet my grandma gave to me, that I was ashamed to admit I liked. My favorite leather bracelet from when I was 6, I loved it and wore it every day until it would no longer snap around my wrist. The necklace I loved as a young teen but felt foolish for wearing. The bracelet with little coins, each with one of the ten commandments engraved on it. My dad said it was to flashy to wear. Most jewelry wasn't considered modest, so I rarely wore it, just once in a while while I was in my bedroom.

And I have this cover of a TV guide that I saved from when I was 16. I'm not sure why I saved it, I remember I thought she was beautiful, and I wished I could look like her.

I have a little handwritten note that I wrote for my mom when I was twelve. I remember I wrote it because I wanted her to be happy and pleased with me.

" What I want to be: By Me"

"I love cooking, baking, writing, reading, taking care of hurt people and cleaning things. And sewing and crafts. I want to be a mother with lots of children to love and take care of. And a husband to help, respect and love. I want to be a servant of the Lord always. I want to love God with all my heart, soul, and mind all my life. I want to trust my life in the Lord's care. This is what I want to be when I grow up, a keeper at home that has a beautiful soul."

It was all I was allowed to be, and I was already figuring that out by twelve years old.

It's funny the memories that come back looking through a little box or treasures saved from childhood.

PS. Thank you so much for all of your wonderful comments and encouragement on the "Fun Mom" post. I would love to respond to all the comments, but I don't have the time or energy lately. Just know that they are greatly appreciated, and that anyone who has struggled with feeling like a good enough mom should read through them. :)

The Fun Mom

2011-06-21T14:37:00.001-05:00

I can cook for 20 people without breaking a sweat. I can do 6 loads of laundry in one day. I can bathe 4 children at the same time. I can change a mean diaper.

I'm good at managing the controlled chaos that is parenting, after all I’ve been doing this sort of thing for most of my life. Keeping the physical needs of our household met is pretty basic. Not that our house in immaculate (far from it) or I feel 100% confident in my abilities as a housekeeper (still working on that), but keeping the house running doesn’t scare me.

Babies don’t scare me either. I can nurse a baby, rock them and sing to them, snuggle them and bathe them, and wake up in the middle of the night with them. I know that Baby Boy feels safe and loved, and that's all that a baby needs.

My one year old is pretty basic too. She loves snuggling, giggling when I tickle her toes, wants to read the same book 20,000 times, and loves pretending to be different animals. At the end of the day, I am confident that my one year old got snuggled and loved sufficiently.

But it’s a different story when it comes to my pre-schoolers. I’m not sure if it’s because I am an introvert, or because I’m hormonal. Maybe it’s because I have so many old lies in my head about my personality, or maybe it’s because I don’t have as much practice with that age as I do with babies. But I doubt myself every minute, and I feel lost trying to relate to them. At the end of the day, I find myself wondering if I hugged my 4 year old that day? Was I overly serious? Are my kids going to remember me as the quiet boring mom who fed them and wiped their bums, but didn’t really engage on any other level? I've always wanted to be the "fun Mom", but I don't think I'm that much fun to be with.

Don’t get me wrong, my 4 year old is amazingly conversational and imaginative. My 3 year old is cute and engaging and determined. But I feel clumsy and stupid when I try to do something with them.

My 3 year old often climbs up next to me and hands me a stuffed animal. “Make him talk Mom!” She demands. So I will try, I pick up the unicorn and make him say something incredibly boring about his purple mane. And then I get panicky. I can’t think of anything else to say! What does a unicorn talk about anyways? So the unicorn will make some sort of excuse and then stop talking.

If the baby is asleep, I will try to make an appearance in the backyard where the rest of the kids are playing. My 4 year old always gets so excited when I come outside. “Did you come out to play with us Mom?” I nod and sit down on the porch and wonder what to do. The monologue starts in my head. “Man, I can’t think of a single thing to do with them. They are all looking at me! Why am I still so fat and slow, I had the baby 6 weeks ago already? If only I had the energy and drive to play soccer or tag with them. Maybe I should just go in the house and let them play, they are way more imaginative than I am, I am just a damper on their ability to play.”

I will force myself to dump the blocks out on the floor and play with them, but I find myself looking at the clock again and again. “It’s only been 3 minutes? How can I be this bored already? Omygod I suck so bad at this! I can’t even manage to play with my kids for an hour straight? What is wrong with me?”

I try to remember what memories I have of my mom playing with us kids. But honestly, my mom didn’t do all that much with us besides physical care and schoolwork. As a kid I cooked and cleaned on my own and she would check my work. My mom rarely came outside at all. My good day-to-day memories of my mom involve her playing with my hair while we talked in the evenings sometimes. There was the time when I was 6 and I got to stay up late a few nights in a row and read “The Courage of Sarah Noble” with her. When I was about 12 we did a short bible study together after the other kids went to bed. I have good memories of Christmas and birthdays too. And I remember my mom allowed me to keep my little junk collection that meant so much to me.

I want my kids to know me, but sometimes I hardly feel as though I know myself. I want to enjoy being with them, but I don’t know how to just “be.” I want them to have more than just the special occasion memories. I want them to remember more than just a serious quiet mama who worked behind the scenes to keep things running. My old standby is baking with them. When I am baking I am confident, I don’t second guess myself or feel like I’m faking it. I love baking, and I love doing it with them. I can read with them too, the book is a great prop to hide my insecurities behind. But I would love to branch out, ditch the perfectionism, and add to my repertoire of ideas to be authentically present with my kids.

How do you engage and spend time with your kids? What are your favourite memories of your mom?

Are you Happy?

2011-06-18T13:03:00.001-05:00

“Are you happy mom?” says my four year old. She’s been asking me this question almost every day lately, and it scares me.

It’s not that I’m super unhappy. The weather has been beautiful. I’ve been reading poetry with my girls, and baking cookies and muffins together. We went to the zoo yesterday, and had so much fun looking at all the brand new spring baby animals everywhere.

But since the birth of Baby Boy, I’ve been a bit more anxious then usual. I’ve had too many nights where I struggle to fall asleep even though I am desperately tired. And too many days where I have a hard time coming up with a reason to take care of myself.

I’ve smiled. I’ve fed my children all their meals and snacks. I’ve given hugs and snuggles. But I’ve also had days where I wanted to disappear into the closet and shut the door. Or moments when I couldn’t keep back the tears.

Old lies creep into my head.

Ugly and fat and awkward. Failure and worthlessness. Stupid. Never good enough.

And it scares me. This last year has been the happiest of my life, but that doesn’t completely drown out the memory of the months of Post Partum Depression after Ms Pooky’s birth.

Is it just the normal mood swings and hormonal fluctuation after birth? Or is Post Partum Depression setting in? Is Ms Action asking if I am happy because she is worried that I am not? Are my emotions already affecting her? What is this year going to bring? What is tomorrow going to bring? What is today going to bring?

Quick Takes #35: Websites I waste time on

2011-06-17T17:12:00.002-05:00

I'm linking this post up with Conversion Diary's "7 Quick Takes". Head over there to read more Quick Takes and maybe share some of your own.

If you are like me, you sometimes waste time on the Internet. Sometimes it's when I'm up in the middle of the night with a wide awake baby and I need something mindless and funny to keep myself from ripping my hair out. Sometimes it's when I am down, and need a reminder that I am not alone, my story is not the only one. Sometimes I just have a moment while waiting for something to upload. Whatever the reason is, I have moments where I like to waste time on the Internet.

Of course their are the old stand-by's like Facebook or Twitter. But sometime I am too tired or emotionally depleted for human interaction (even electronic interaction! proving I am a incurable introvert). So that is how I ended up with a favorites folder with mindless websites.

Awkward Family Photos

This is a website where people submit strange family photos along with funny captions or explanations. It's fun to see just how wrong photography can go, and that other people struggle to get that perfect family picture as well. Plus some of the stories are just weird.

Cake Wrecks

This website is a collection of cakes gone wrong, along with snarky commentary. Some of these cakes are weird, some unrecognizable, and some are just downright wrong. It's fun to check out around each holiday when they publish a selection related to that particular day, but it's entertaining anytime.

Passive Aggressive Notes

This site has sometimes hysterical sometimes disturbing notes submitted by readers, who in turn received them from family members, roommates or neighbors, or simply saw them around and thought to snap a picture. (Some of these notes contain language.)

Damn You Auto Correct!

I do not own a Cellphone, which may be why I find this website incredibly funny. Some of the words that the phones have auto corrected, fit into the context perfectly (even though incorrectly) which is hysterical to me.

(This website also includes language)

Random Websites

These aren't always designed to be funny, but they are still interesting. Stuff No One Told Me (but I learned anyway) is a collection of cartoon drawings (some include language) about life. Dear Young Me is a website where people submit their one sentence of advice they would give to themselves in a previous time. Post Secret is a project where people send in their anonymous secret on a decorated Post Card, and the website selects some to publish every Sunday. (Some of the Post Cards contain language or nudity)

On a more serious note

Here are a few blogs that I go to when I need to remember that I am not alone, and that it could have been worse. Violence Unsilenced is a website of stories submitted about abusive relationships. (Caution, some of these stories can be quite graphic) My Family Secrets is a place where stories about family secrets are published anonymously.

Food

And because baking is like free therapy for me, I am always interested in new recipes to try and change. One of my favorites is All Recipes.com I can find tons of recipes, along with reviews of each one. I can look up any ingredient or category and find dozens of ideas to work with (yes, I hardly ever make a recipe exactly as written.)

Have fun checking them out! And leave me the link for any websites you waste time on in the comments. :)

My Peaceful Birth

2011-06-10T11:46:00.001-05:00

Having been blessed with relatively uncomplicated births so far, I chose home birth again this time. I am not saying it is the right choice for everyone, but it was a great option for me. Once again we really enjoyed the great Midwife care we received here in Canada.

Once again, my storytelling can be quite long-winded. And yes, this story contains accounts of body fluids and bodily functions, so if anything like that makes you uncomfortable, proceed with caution.

The last few weeks of this pregnancy, my hands and feet were swollen, something that had never really happened to me before. So my wedding ring didn’t fit my finger and my feet hurt All. The. Time. I was getting tired of being pregnant, but still just a little bit nervous about how I would handle labor this time. 4 days before my due date, we went to the zoo. Where I waddled around forever and had no results. 3 days before my due date, we walked a mile into town, and a mile back, and nothing happened.

My due date dawned rainy and blah, and I was down. This baby was NEVER coming. The day dragged, I was so tired that I kept falling asleep on the couch sitting up, and I let the kids totally trash the house. I felt crampy all day, and was so emotional that I snapped at the kids several times and even burst into tears once or twice. I managed to make dinner, and when we sat down to eat, I was able to fit a whole serving of food inside for once. Just as I finished eating, (around 6:45 PM) I had a contraction. I moved to sit on the couch and got another one. They were fairly short, but they were the “real” kind. They were 6-8 minutes apart. At first I didn’t think it was the real thing, I had never had labor start at night before. My husband was pretty sure this was it, so he put on a cartoon for the kids and began picking up the disaster of a house.

By 7:15, they were coming consistently 5 minutes apart and I was pretty sure this was it. So we began wondering whether or not we should put the kids to bed, or call the church lady who had agreed to take them during the day and see if she was comfortable taking them for the night. Since we were not to confidant in their ability to go to sleep during an event like this, we decided on an overnight trip. At 7:30 I called my midwife and told her to come on over and then called the church family and told them the situation and she was more than willing to take them overnight, I told her to take her time coming over, since I had nothing ready. All this time my husband was still trying to get control of the disaster (seriously, you have no idea how messy the house was, and it had just been cleaned 2 days before!) so I began throwing some pajama’s, blankies and favourite stuffed animals into a box.

I stopped to breath through the contractions, and made a few stops in the bathroom with diarrhea. I was also feeling a ton of pressure on my bladder, so it felt like I needed to pee constantly, when in reality there was never more than a few drops there. I sat on the couch and talked with the girls for a bit, explaining that they were going to stay with the church family for the night, and the girls got all excited remembering how much fun they had at their house a few weeks before when we had gotten together. I felt at ease sending them for the night, they would be together, I trusted this couple, and their 4 school aged kids are sweet and love having “little sisters” for the day.

My midwife arrived at 8:30, around the same time as the church family. My husband bundled the kids outside and helped switch 3 car seats into the families van (later we discovered the sippy cups and blankies sitting on the counter, apparently they slept just fine without them), and I chatted with the midwife as she brought in her things. At 8:45 I was 100% effaced and 5 cm dilated, confirming that I was indeed in labour. My midwife also noticed that there seemed to be a lot of water between the babies head and the cervix, so much in fact, that the babies head wasn’t even engaged in the pelvis. The bulging bag could explain why I was feeling so much pressure on my bladder. I felt so much better just taking off my yoga pants, the waistband had been pressing to tightly onto my bladder! So I abandoned them, and wondered around the house in my shirt and underwear, finishing off my first bottle of Gatorade and opening my second one.

My husband began filling the pool (he never got around to getting the connector for the hose, so he was holding it in place under the faucet) I wanted to be near him, so I mostly hung out in the kitchen. I fretted a bit about how I had eaten an entire meal, since I was sure to throw it up during transition.We wondered if the baby would be born before midnight. I remember asking my husband if he felt like we were ready for this, but mostly I just felt peaceful and relaxed. My midwife had called her partner, telling her to be on standby since I was in early labour, but about 15 minutes later when she noticed that I was leaning forward to put my hands on the counter and rolling my hips through each contraction, she called her back and told her to head on over.

By 9:30 my contractions were 3-5 minutes apart, I was still feeling incredible pressure on my bladder, but I had given up on trying to pee. I was still walking and talking in between contractions, and asked my husband to place his hand on my lower back when ever a contraction hit. The second midwife arrived, and by 9:45, I was starting to feel a bit shaky, and after hearing me moan a little at the height of one contraction, my husband suggested that I get into the pool, since it was almost full. I said I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get in unless I was far enough that my labour wouldn’t stall, and my midwife said that since I was past 4 cm, I should have no problems there. So I changed into the shirt that I have worn for every birth so far, and slipped into the pool close to 10 o'clock.

The pressure on my bladder felt better, and so did my lower back. I half sat half knelt, and called to my husband that the water coming from the hose was cold, so he turned it off and put a few pots on the stove to boil, and came in the bedroom to sit with me. My contractions were still about 3 minutes apart, and I was moaning a little through them, while breathing. I was burping alot, and I was sure that I was going to throw up for like 3 contractions in a row, but nothing happened. I told my husband that the contractions were starting to feel a little bit “pushy”, but that there was no way that was right, because I hadn’t even thrown up, so I couldn’t have gone through transition yet.

The word “push” was all he needed to hear, so he called the midwife into the bedroom and told her what I had just said. She told me it would probably be awhile yet, since my water hadn’t broken. I was reminding her that so far my water has never broken until my babies are practically crowning, and right as the words were out of my mouth, my next contraction hit, and my water broke at 10:10. I was shocked, I hadn’t even vomited yet. I hadn’t reached the transition “I can’t do this anymore” feeling. The midwife called her partner into the room, and we all kind of laughed a little about how we had just been talking about waiting for the water to break. There was a ton of amniotic fluid, it was still gushing even after the contraction was over!

About a minute later I had what I think was 3 contractions right in a row, to me it felt like one really long contraction with 3 peaks. I was having so much pressure that I felt as though I couldn’t sit anymore and I moved into a squatting position. In between peaks, I was panting and asking why it was so intense all of a sudden? My midwife reminded me that typically the first couple contractions after the water breaks are much stronger. During the peaks I got that familiar feeling of being unable to NOT push, so I pushed through each one. I had about a minute of rest, and then the next contraction hit and I put my hand against the swelling perineum. My midwife asked if I could feel the head. I replied that I could feel “something” (Which she told me later kind of freaked her out, since that made her wonder if the baby could somehow be breech). I was unsure of what was going on, I could feel something coming out, but it felt slick and slippery, not like the hairy skin of a head. I was kind of freaked out for a moment wondering if my body was losing an organ or something, but it turned out that the baby still had the amniotic sack over his head, and that was why his head was so slick. At the end of that contraction I changed position and leaned back against the side of the pool and my husband gasped “Oh, there’s the head!” I guess he hadn’t realized that I had been pushing out the head with that last contraction. The next contraction hit what felt like seconds later and the rest of the baby slipped out and into the water at 10:17. I reached down and pulled him up against my chest, hardly able to believe that he was out already, and suspecting that he was a boy based on my glimpse of what looked like more than just a cord between his legs. My husband double checked and made the official “It’s a boy” announcement!

We just sat there for a few minutes, laughing and hardly able to believe it was all ready over. Baby Boy looked around and squeaked once or twice, but then settled against me and looked back into my eyes. Amniotic fluid was still gushing into the pool, and strangely enough, no blood at all. The pool still looked completely clean. After like 10 minutes I was feeling uncomfortable sitting and wanted to change position. I suggested giving the baby to my husband so that I could get out, but then the midwife reminded me that we had not cut the cord yet, which made us all giggle again. The cord was still pulsing, so we left it and they helped me get out of the pool and lay down on the bed with the baby. I nursed him for a bit, while the midwife checked to see if there was any tearing. I was completely tear free! The cord finally stopped pulsing almost half an hour after the birth so we cut it and then since the placenta hadn’t made it’s appearance yet, my midwife asked if I minded getting a small shot of pitocin. I moved into the bathroom and after the pitocin and a couple of squats later, the midwife’s partner suggested I try coughing and then the placenta finally came out, followed by a couple of large clots (the first blood we had seen this entire birth). The cord was very long and quite knobby and lumpy, much weirder looking than my other baby’s. But everything was done now, so I moved back to the bed with the baby and nursed him some more and held him skin to skin to help regulate his temperature.

So, Baby Boy was born at 10:17 PM on a Tuesday night, after 3 ½ hours of labour. He was 9 pounds 4 ounces, 21 inches long, 14 ½ inch head. He has a little bit of dark hair that sticks up, and grayish eyes that look like they are going to be hazel like mine. He has dramatic eyebrows and adorable little feet. My milk was coming in by Thursday afternoon which made him very content. This was our first birth where we recovered all by ourselves (since none of our family came out) and I must say I was proud of how well we did. In fact I didn’t overdo it at all until my in-laws came up to visit 2+ weeks later. For all my nervousness about how I would handle childbirth this time, this was my best birth ever.

A Mama's Journey

2011-06-07T11:42:00.003-05:00

I recently found an old list of “important goals” that I wanted to achieve in parenting. The list was titled Baby Boot Camp and it included weaning my kids off their pacifier and bottle, teaching them to come immediately when called, potty training my oldest, teaching them to stop whatever they were doing when I told them to, and training them to sit still through a church service.

At the time I wrote this list, my children were aged two and one. About six months after I made that list, when I was 8 months pregnant with our third, tired and overwhelmed and struggling with depression again, I realized that I was an abusive parent.

******************************

It was the evening of a long day, my husband was gone at a council meeting. I was tired and my 2 year old daughter had disappeared into the basement where she wasn’t supposed to go again. I yelled from the top of the stairs for her to come up, and there was no response. I yelled again, threatening a spanking if she didn’t come right NOW. She came, but very slowly, taking her own sweet time, even though I yelled at her to hurry up. By the time she got to the top of the stairs I was fed up. She had disobeyed in going down the stairs in the first place, and she had failed to come the first time I called her. I grabbed her by the arm and smacked her bottom two or three times with the wooden spoon like I always did when she was being “rebellious”. But this time I moved her clothing over to the side. I wanted it to hurt her more, so that she would get the message and come right away next time. The minute I hit her bare skin, the red welt appeared. I dropped the spoon. I felt as if I was going to throw up. It wasn’t the first time I had hit her with the spoon, I had begun to use it several months before when smacking with my hand was no longer effective. I had left the imprint of my hand on her thigh before, but the marks always faded quickly, and I had never left bruises, so I told myself I had never gone “to far”. But this time it was different. How could I be turning into this person, someone who wanted to hurt my baby?

I pushed my sobbing little girl away from me (afraid of hurting her more than I already had) and curled up on the couch and cried. My worst fears were being realized. I was treating my kids in the ways that I had sworn I would never repeat. That night when my husband got home, I told him that I needed to take a break from spanking for awhile, to try and figure out where I was going wrong. To my surprise, he was completely supportive and even suggested that we could stop spanking entirely. And so began a journey. A journey of discovering my children for the first time. A journey of discovering myself for the first time.

Looking back with what I know now, I never would have had children so soon after I got married. I was burnt out from parenting siblings for most of my life. I was ignorant of all of the anger I had bottled up deep inside, and I was depressed. As I’ve started to be honest with myself these last two years, letting myself remember for the first time, I was so afraid. Afraid that it was too late. Afraid that my kids were doomed to the same abuse that I had lived with. Afraid, that my kids would hate me someday.

If I am honest, I am still afraid sometimes. I’m afraid that I will not heal everything in time, that my kids will grow up and still have suffered from my ignorance. In a way I am grateful that the choice to be a mom was kind of made for me, because if I was waiting to feel fearless, I would put it off forever, and never be able to experience the beauty my children bring to the world.

Four weeks ago, as I pulled our brand new baby into my arms, my husband announced that we had a baby boy. And I was suddenly overwhelmed by emotion. I held my baby knowing that he would never be hit by his parents, that he would be treated gently and with respect. He will be free to be whoever he is, and not shamed into being whatever his parents want him to be.

I held him knowing that as a boy, he would not experience less affection than our girls, he would get just as many hugs and kisses and snuggles. I held him knowing that he will never have to live up to some false expectation of what it means to be “a man”. He won’t be bullied and mocked into being “tough”, he won’t be automatically blamed and punished in the name of “respecting women” every time he gets into a fight with a sister.

It was in that moment that hope was born, and I realized that I am doing it. I am a good mom. I am a gentle mom who loves, and never stops seeking to grow. So why am I still haunted by memories of spanking my small children? Why does my heart sink when I watch home videos from several years ago and see how unaware I was of my disrespect towards my children?

As I’ve continued the hard work of healing, I’ve realized that I will never parent the way I was parented. And I know that I will not ever lose my drive to apologize for and seek to change whatever mistakes I make. Those things give me hope that my children will experience a better childhood than I did.

But I regret those wasted months and years where I didn’t know my children. I know I am different now, but that can't change my actions then. How could I have missed what I see now? How could I have hurt my babies when I loved them so much even then? How can I be sure that I am taking advantage of every moment, as time slips by all too quickly and my babies grow up right in front of me?

Linking this post up at "Things I Can't Say". Head over there to "Pour your Heart Out."

Saturday Evening Post #15

2011-06-03T22:42:00.000-05:00

Every month Elizabeth Esther invites us to share the latest and greatest from our blogs.

This month I am sharing "I am not my parents" my post about a breakthrough I've had recently.

I was initially afraid to post it, but was overwhelmed by the support from my readers.

Head over to Elizabeth Esther and share something of your own, and discover other blogs.

Researching Sexual Abuse Prevention

2011-06-02T15:44:00.001-05:00

A few months ago, the girls and I were sitting in the car waiting for my husband. A fire truck went by, sirens blaring and Ms Action piped up from the back seat. “Mom! Mom! That fire truck is going to a fire! They will put out the fire so we can be safe.” We talked about fires for a bit, and then the car was silent for a moment.

She piped up again. “We need to keep our bodies safe too. My body is MY body, and nobody can touch my private parts.” I’d started this discussion a few months before and we had read the books and talked about it here and there. Now she was bringing it up on her own, unprompted. “You are right.” I responded. “No one can touch your private parts because they belong to you.” She thought for a minute. “If anyone tries to touch my bum, then I can say “No! That is MY body. You can’t touch it." And then I should tell mom or dad.” I was surprised by how well she was articulating this, she is only 4 and we hadn’t talked about this incessantly, only a few times. But she was remembering a lot of what we had covered. Since she was interested in talking about it, we spent a few minutes discussing how she can always say no if someone is touching her in a private place or just in a way she doesn’t like, even if it is someone she knows very well, like a friend or an uncle or aunt. And then the conversation moved on to other topics.

Talking about Sexual Abuse with your children can be scary and very awkward for parents. Many parents try to avoid it entirely by hoping that if they can control enough of their child’s environment they will protect their child from any abuse. But no amount of sheltering your child can prevent them from encountering issues that we would rather our children never have to deal with. Protecting my children is very important to me, but I am also a strong believer in preparing and equipping my children to deal with possibly abusive situations they may encounter. I’ve done some research as I’ve attempted to begin this process with my children, and I thought I’d share some of the information I’ve pulled together.

Here are some of the common mistakes made in this very important discussion.

Delaying the conversation because the child is “too young”:
10 is too old to start this discussion, 6 is too old. In many cases sexual abuse starts BEFORE age 4. Obviously, be age appropriate. But PLEASE start talking about it!

Referring to sexual abuse as a “yucky” touch:
Sexual touch may make a child feel uncomfortable, but depending on their comfort level with the abuser and how well the abuser has “groomed” them or prepared them, sexual touch could feel commonplace or even pleasurable. Defining sexual abuse solely as a “yucky touch” can be very confusing to children.

Referring to potential sexual abusers as “strangers”:
While stranger danger is important for children to understand, the fact is that 68% of sexually abused children are abused in their own home (or the home of a relative) by family members. And many others are abused by people they know well, such as friends, babysitters and clergy members. Only a very small percentage of children are abused by someone they do not know.

Not getting specific about body parts and scenarios of abuse:
Many parents are very vague when it comes to talking about private areas of the body. I realize that this may be uncomfortable, but children need to know what the parts are called, and where they are on their body. Referring to “private parts” without explaining what those parts are is not helpful. Even the cop out of “parts that are covered by your bathing suit” is not sufficient. How can your child explain to you that someone asked them to touch a body part that they don’t have a name for? Many parents never go through specific scenarios, or talk through what an abuser might say to their child. An abuser could use persuasion, threats, or even bribery. The parent could teach their child not to let someone touch their private areas, but what if the abuser never tries to do that? What if the abuser only tries to get the child to touch them? Specific scenarios should be part of this process.

As a parent, you should know what sexual abuse is. There are some great websites out there that seek to educate parents on this important issue, as well as other resources for families already dealing with the repercussions of abuse.

American Humane Association

Give your children words to use, and practice how to say them. My 4 year old and 3 year old already know how to say “This is my body, don’t touch it.” Dulce de Leche explains it well in this post.

There are books out there that can open the door for this conversation. But many of them are vague and insufficient. A good book needs to clear up specific body parts, make it clear that an abuser could be anyone (including someone in your family), be clear that your child should never do anything that makes them feel uncomfortable, but also emphasis that private parts are private and never for sharing. Other issues to address are someone talking about sex or showing your child sexual materials, someone asking to see your child’s private parts or exposing their own, someone touching your child’s private parts or asking them to touch the abusers, or even someone wanting to take pictures of your child’s body. Games that involve taking off clothing are not OK, clothes should stay on.

Discussions should also contain reassurance that it is never the child’s fault, that it is always safe to tell, and if someone doesn’t believe them to keep telling until someone does.

These are some of the best children’s books I’ve found so far:

My body belongs to me

Those are my private parts!

I said No! A kid-to-kid guide to keeping your private parts private

My body is private

Read the books, talk it through. Then talk about it when it comes up, or bring it up again periodically yourself. This doesn’t have to be as scary as it sounds. Be matter of fact, kids don’t get scared unless you present it that way. It’s part of all the safety talks we have, such as what to do if there is a fire, what to do if you see baby playing with something sharp or why crossing the street can be dangerous. If your child is older and you are starting this type of conversation for the first time, be sure to ask if anyone has ever abused them or tried too. It is very important that you believe what they tell you, even if they don’t tell you right away. Children often feel very ashamed and blame themselves for whatever happened, so it may take time for them to reveal if they were abused. They need to know that you are a safe person for them to talk too.

Children need to know that they are worthy of respect, if anyone doesn’t respect the boundaries they set in place, they need to tell someone they trust because that is never OK. I feel that spanking can be detrimental to this process, because children learn that people can violate their boundaries and cause them pain if they are bigger, stronger or “in charge”. I want my children to understand that no one ever has the right to hurt them or treat them in a way that makes them uncomfortable. I want them to know that they always have a say in how they are treated and that they shouldn’t trust someone who hurts them.

What are some of the ways you approach this topic with your children? What are some of your favourite resources?

Quick Takes #34: New Baby Conversations

2011-05-27T10:09:00.000-05:00

Ms Action: Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom!!!

Me: Yes?

Ms Action: I want to hold the baby.

Ms Drama: No! Me wants to hold the Baby!

Me: You can hold him when she's done.

3 Seconds go by...

Ms Drama: Is it my turn now?

Ms Pooky: No! No! Baby! (Patting her own lap)

During every diaper change for the first week or so...

Ms Drama: (Gasp!) His bum is broken!

Me: No Honey, he is a boy, and boys have different private parts than girls do.

Ms Drama: That is poop on his bum?

Ms Action: No that's not poop. Boys just have "Peanuts" in their bums.

Me: Um, I think you mean that a boy has a Penis.

Ms Action: Yeah, boys have a "peeeee-nis" on their butts.

Ms Drama: (Patting my belly) Your belly is getting smaller and smaller.

Ms Action: That's because the baby isn't in their anymore. He was big and strong and he came out to meet us.

Ms Drama: (Thinking about this) You have another baby in there?

Me: No, there was just our baby, and he came out.

Ms Action: But your belly button is still broken! (Meaning it is still popped out.)

Ms Pooky has always been very attached to nursing before bedtime, and I didn't have the heart to cut her off. Now with a new supply of milk she is more interested than ever and has even come up with a name for it. We'll see how this new adventure goes.

Ms Pooky: Um-do. (Her newly minted name for nursing.)

Me: Just a minute.

Ms Pooky: Baby. (Pointing at Baby) Daddy. (Pointing at Daddy)

Me: I can give the baby to Daddy in a minute. Daddy is getting a snack for you guys, don't you want some strawberries?

Ms Pooky: No! No like that! Ummmm- Doooooo!

Naked Baby Doll: I am the Mommy, and this (little people person) is my baby.

Slightly Larger Naked Baby Doll: I am the Daddy, and this (Boots the Monkey) is my little girl.

Mommy Doll: Well, my baby is poopy. And I can't change him because I am too short. (To clarify, despite being rather short I cannot remember using this particular excuse to get out of changing a diaper.)

Daddy Doll: OK. My little girl will get a diaper. (The Boots doll dances over happily to acquire the imaginary diaper)

The Daddy changes the diaper with much commentary from everyone involved.

Ms Action farts loudly.

Mommy Doll: Oh dear! I farted. Excuse me!

Daddy Doll: Well, (Not to be outdone!) I pooped. In my pants!

Mommy Doll: (Giggling) You can't do that, we don't have diapers big enough for Daddies!

Me: I LOVE being a mom! Things could not be going better with this transition to 4 babies. I'm so happy I shouldn't even be allowed to write about parenting right now.

Husband: Good for you.

And hour later after Ms Drama shrieked because she wanted 2 cookies, and stuffed her toothbrush into the sink drain where despite my best efforts it has remained stuck. Ms Action through a fit because her pajama's were inside out and she couldn't get them on easily. Ms Pooky dropped on the floor and screamed because she wanted a different toothpaste. I left the rest of the bedtime routine to my husband and stomped into the kitchen in tears and began clearing the floor so I could sweep. My husband came in and took over, reminding me not to over-do it

Husband: Are you upset about the floor being messy or the kids acting up?

Me: (Wailing) That was the worst bedtime ever! They don't even like me!

Husband: (Smiling) What happened to "I shouldn't even be allowed to write about parenting"?

Me: (Sniff) I'm going to go nurse the baby, at least I have one kid that still likes me.

I will be mostly away from the computer for a few days since my Husband's family is arriving today for a visit. I am mostly not freaking out, which is good. But my Mother-In- Law is a clean freak who washed her sheets twice during the 4 day period they visited last time, so I am trying to clean up the house, despite myself.

This has been a part of 7 Quick Takes over at Conversion Diary. Hop over there to read more Quick Takes and maybe share some of your own.

The Pastor's wife

2011-05-23T19:47:00.000-05:00

I am the Pastor’s wife.

I’ve seen him stress about preaching a sermon that just wouldn’t come together smoothly that week, and then heard his surprise after the Sunday service when someone thanks him for such a powerful message.

I’ve seen him pour his heart and soul into a message, only to have it fall flat on Sunday morning. Or worse, be misunderstood by people who only ever hear their own agenda in anything that others say.

I know when he is preaching his message to himself. And I know when he is having a hard time believing what he is preaching. He is never unorthodox, but some weeks it is a struggle to believe it all.

I am the Pastor’s wife.

I know when he makes it through a council meeting and arrives home relaxed. I know when he comes home and paces in the living room, for hours into the night.

I get to see him renewed in his faith after Pastoral visit where he was able to encourage someone who recently lost a spouse or a child.

I see when he comes home frustrated from a visit with a concerned congregation member who insists that he is not preaching enough on sin and condemnation and hellfire.

I am the Pastor’s wife.

I know when he was up multiple times on Saturday night to help me with a puking baby, and still has to manage to get behind the pulpit and try to say something coherent.

I know when he spent his week washing the dishes and ordering pizza when there was no dinner, and rubbing the feet of his overly pregnant wife every night.

I know when the entire day before was spent fighting and crying over things that cannot be changed.

I am the Pastor’s wife.

I’m the one who forgets to dry clean his suits, and sometimes makes him arrive at church later than he’d like to be. I’m the one who smoothes his hair, ties his tie and tucks his mike into his pocket on Sunday morning. I’m the one who holds his hand while we sing praise songs together, and sits alone while he goes up to preach. I’m the one who kisses him in the car on the way home.

I’m the one who knows that he is just as human as anyone else. I’m the only one who knows how high he flies and how hard he falls, and loves him more than you’ll ever know.

I am the Pastor’s wife.

I Am Not My Parents

2011-05-20T11:23:00.007-05:00

This post has been finished for weeks, but for some reason I haven't felt brave enough to post it. I can't find anything else to tweak, so here I am closing my eyes and hitting publish.

When I first started differentiating from my family, I was mostly angry with my dad, because I saw him as the enforcer of the ideas that promoted abuse in my home growing up. I remembered all the mind games and excesses, the hurtful statements and the spiritual manipulation. I felt like my mom was perhaps just an innocent bystander who was not strong enough to separate herself from his agenda.

As I worked through a lot of the pain from my dad, I started to see both of my parents as victims in a way, victims of their own past as well as victims of the theology they subscribed too. They wanted to raise us in love, but their past as well as their beliefs were crippling them, and I was afraid.

I was afraid that the theology I was raised with would taint my own child rearing. Afraid that the abuse in my past would get passed on to my own children. That despite all of my efforts, I would hurt my own children the same way my parents hurt me.

Recently a few things have happened to change this. First I talked with a sister who shared a time that my Dad had completely lost it and treated her in a way that would be classified as abusive by pretty much anyone, even the people who followed the strict religious ideas we did. There was no way I could attempt to explain this abuse away as “discipline”, this was plainly and simply abusive. The sort of thing that my parents preached against, but perpetuated in their own home.

I was an extremely docile compliant submissive kid. I was to afraid of displeasing my parents to act out. I wanted to please them so badly, that I would do or say anything they wanted me too. Because of that I largely slid under the radar of the worst of my dads physical abuse and I tried to explain the abuse away as religious ideas of how to discipline. I always felt responsible for the ways my parents abused me, it was my own fault for not performing adequately. I also felt responsible when my siblings were abused. A good example of this is when one of my little sisters was being spanked for having potty training accidents again and again. Bruises started to collect on her legs, and I felt awful for her. I convinced my mom to let me take over her training and cleanup, and the whole project was handed over to me. Through parenting my sister I was able to protect her from further abuse. I felt so burdened for all of my siblings, and I still do.

After talking with my sister, I realized that I have still been trying to rationalize my parents’ abuses. Trying to find any excuse to explain it away, convince myself that they really were wonderful parents who were just misled by their beliefs. In actuality they were using classic techniques to cover their abuse. Their religious beliefs helped them to hide from their deficiencies. The abuse wasn’t exclusively because they subscribed to certain religious ideas, the religious ideas were an extension of their abuse! Through the religious ideas they could chalk up the abuse as the fault of their children. If the kids weren’t so sinful and disobedient, the house would be a calm and peaceful place.

The other big breakthrough happened the same week. A good friend mentioned that her abusive mother would always tell her that “someday when she was an adult and a parent, she would understand why she did what she did”. My friend had always believed that the only reason things seemed bad to her was her own lack of understanding. Now as a parent of several young children herself, she still cannot justify the ways her mother abused her.

Wow! I have been doing the same exact thing. My mom has been telling me since childhood that “I don’t understand” and that I would someday when I was a mother. After I became a mother, she changed it to “someday I would understand, when I had older children, or as many children as she did.”

Supposedly, there was no way I could grasp what really happened until I was “older”. I have been told over and over that everything I remember is seen through my own “filter” and therefore flawed. Or told “You were just a child, so you don’t really know what was going on, you can’t remember accurately”, they have even tried to tell me that being depressed or having food allergies has clouded my perception of things that happened in my teens, they protest that it was “never that bad.” In recent months my mom has gone down a new track of insisting that because she has “changed”, none of the stuff in the past really happened. If she supposedly wouldn’t do it today, there is no way she did it then.

I realized that I’ve been believing her,
living in fear of the day when I would suddenly “understand” and transform into an abusive parent,
just like them.

I am a mom now. (Whether my mom wants to acknowledge that or not.) I would never stand by and allow my husband to “discipline” my children the way my mom supported my Dad’s behaviour. As a mom, I would never say to my daughter “I hope we never have another child as disobedient and rebellious as you”. I would never punish my child for being tired or sad. I would never have spanked my teenagers, and I no longer spank my children at all. I will never expect the level of compliance and perfection they expected from me at such a young age. My mom was very used to playing "Good Cop" to my dad's "Bad Cop", and she wants to roll all the blame onto my dad, but in reality she was just as much a part of it as he was.

All this time, I thought the abuse was really because I was such a “bad” child, and that I would understand the way they treated me when I had difficult children of my own. But now I realize that I was a pretty dang good kid, and even if I hadn’t been, I was just that, A KID. No matter how difficult the child or the circumstances, there was no justifiable reason for them to treat me and my siblings the way they did. I thought the abuse stemmed from their religious beliefs, but the abuse would have existed outside of religion. They used their beliefs to justify their abuse. As a parent myself, I would sooner reject my religious beliefs than abuse my children the way my parents abused me.

When I confronted my parents about the abuse of the past, they tried to cover it up and explain it away just like they always have. Once again assigning the blame to my faulty actions, assuring me that I remember it incorrectly, and reminding me that I don’t “understand”. They did not acknowledge that they were wrong, they did not promise to get counselling or anger management classes. They told me that they were sorry “I felt that way”, told me that I was closed-minded to anything that wasn’t “my opinion” and continued to try and justify their behaviour. My Dad will not talk about any of it, and my Mom (in shame over past behaviour) continues to try to change the past and get me to “move on” (which is code for pretend it never happened and never mention about anything like it again). They don't understand the freedom that comes from admitting wrong and working through what caused the problem in the first place.

I have been living in fear of the day that I would gain the certain amount of children, or a child with a “difficult” temperament and then I would become an abusive parent who “understood” where my parents were coming from. For the first time I realize, I do not have to be afraid. What my parents did was abuse, nothing can excuse that. Not religious beliefs, not difficult children, not an older more experienced perspective.

I am not going to become my parents, because I have already recognized the abuse for what it is, and I am determined not to repeat it. I’m not afraid to apologize when I’ve hurt someone. I am doing the work to deal with my past and the issues it has caused me, so that I don’t pass that legacy on to my own children.

I don’t have the power to change the past,

but I can change the future.

It is enough to be Free

2011-05-18T13:33:00.000-05:00

There are dirty diapers on the floor, rolled up and waiting for someone to notice them and move them to the overly stuffed garbage can. Kids books are piled all over the couch along with two half-eaten bananas. There are french fries under the table and paper plates all over the counter. Somehow children’s clothing is scattered across the entire room again, along with small piles of sand and the random rock or two that fell out of their clothing when they stripped it off. A few withered dandelions lay on the rug. My body is still foreign to me, old curves and new ones, stretched muscles and skin with nothing inside to fill it out anymore.

But....

The sun is out. The trees are just starting to open their leaves. There is a slight breeze. I can get off the couch without heaving now, and finish a meal without nausea or heartburn. My hip pain is gone. The kids are fed and playing happily together in the sandbox. The wash machine is running. The radio is playing quietly. Almost all the dishes in the kitchen are clean. The cookie jar is full of homemade cookies (because I’d much rather bake than pick up clutter, and aren’t cookies more important anyways?) and everyone has enough clean clothing for tomorrow.

And...

There is a sleeping one week old baby on my chest. His legs are curled up under him, and he’s completely relaxed against me. I can hear him breathing, feel his little heart beating against mine. I can smell that new born baby smell, and his milk breath. I can kiss his soft fuzzy head whenever I want to.

His tiny hand clutches my shirt. His lip twitches and then he smiles.

I have no where better to be, and no expectation to do better at what I am doing today.

I am free.

Post Partum Lawn Care Observations.

2011-05-17T21:12:00.001-05:00

In our neighbourhood, we are surrounded by people who take lawn care more seriously than we do. Lawn care for my husband involves putting on sturdy shoes or boots and locking the kids in the house (all part of his paranoia about lawn mowers abilities to cut off limbs) and then cutting the grass with our push mower. He is usually done in about 20 minutes (our lawn isn’t very big) and he repeats the process about once a week.

Five days after baby boy’s birth, I spent the day resting on the couch (while my husband made his token appearance at church) and watching our neighbour across the street care for his lawn. His process was dramatically different.

Around ten in the morning, he came outside with his push mower and after circling his small square lawn twice, he stopped mowing to empty the bag of grass from the mower into a bright orange waste bag. His wife came outside with the baby in her lap and sat on the porch talking to a neighbour. The man continued cutting his grass in an intricate pattern shaped around the places where he had removed trees the year before. (He had also had the stumps professionally ground out, so I’m not sure why he wasn’t comfortable with mowing over the slightly rougher grass patches, but he seemed determined to avoid them.) He stopped to talk with the neighbour as well, and had a drink with him on the porch. His wife went indoors.

He finished mowing, bagging the grass as he went. Then to my surprise he got out a rake and spent a good hour raking his already bare yard. He managed to scrape together some dried straw like stuff out from under the grass. (I found my perfectionist side fascinated by the raking, wondering what I would discover lurking under my lawn if I just spent the time and effort to rake it) He left the dried scraps lying there, and walked back to his garage. He came back with a lengthy extension cord which he stretched out on his driveway. His wife brought the baby back outside in the stroller, and he spent a few moments talking with the baby.

Then he got out a weed wacker, and attached it to the extension cord. He walked around his yard waved the weed wacker at a few (apparently invisible) blades of grass. His wife came back outside and began weeding the flower bed in front of the window.

He pulled out some more orange bags and began bagging up the grass he’d raked up. At this point 4 hours had gone by, I was sure that he was done with his lawn care by now. But no, after bagging the last of the scraps, he went over to the rougher looking patch of grass, (where the tree stump had once been) and started raking out dirt and wood chips leftover from the stump grinding. After a while he went to his garage and came back with a spade and started digging.

He encountered a root, and walked across to his neighbours house and after coming back with an axe, he carefully hacked out the root and then went back to digging. He called his wife over and had her hold the waste bag open while he filled it with the dirt he had dug out of the hole. The baby began crying and his wife left to take her indoors. He continued filling bags with dirt until he had 4 bags full. Then he dragged all the bags to his garage, and put away all his tools, and got his wife and kid into his car and drove off to eat out for dinner.

He had just spent 6 straight hours doing lawn care, and that was just the front yard. What makes someone spend that much time, in the sun, working on their yard? Are my husband and I just lazy in our approach? Is this guy a perfectionist? Is he OCD? Did he come from a family with a big emphasis on yard work? Does he have an exceptional hatred of wood chips being mixed into his dirt? (Although if I compare him to his next door neighbour, who was vacuuming his driveway (seriously, don’t ask), maybe he is completely normal and just loves working on his yard?)

(And just so you know, I wasn’t just sitting on my couch for 6 hours watching his every move. We had lunch, I changed diapers, my midwife came to check on the baby and me, I tickled my kids and listened to them have a 45 minute discussion about poop. But I figured none of that would be very interesting to blog about.)

Anyways, my neighbour’s yard looks nice, though I wonder what’s going to happen this coming weekend now that I notice he has a few dandelions, and the other ground up stump has remained unexcavated.

Baby is Here!

2011-05-12T21:14:00.000-05:00

Our baby BOY arrived healthy and strong on his due date, (the evening of May the 10th) after 3 1/2 hours of labour.

Everything went smoothly and we are recovering nicely.

The big sisters are super excited and convinced that the baby is going to be up and crawling and playing with toys momentarily.

Thank you so much for all your thoughts and prayers! Of course there will be more details to follow.

I may post a few pre-written thoughts over the next week or so if I get some down time.

Saturday Evening Post #14

2011-05-07T09:34:00.001-05:00

Hop over to Elizabeth Esther's blog to read the latest and greatest of some new bloggers,

and maybe share one of your own.

I wrote a lot this month. I started my series on Gentle Parenting, and I finally finished my Courtship Series.

I decided on sharing my post "All in the Perspective".

Is there really a whole person in there?

2011-05-06T21:28:00.001-05:00

Sometimes I can’t believe I’m about to have a baby.

Don’t get me wrong, I am HUGE right now. Due to go into labour at any moment really. My hips hurt, my pelvic bone hurts, my lower back hurts. I’m hungry, but can’t fit much more than a snack inside my squeezed stomach at the moment. I have heartburn. I can’t sleep at night and I’m tired during the day.

So I understand that I am nine months pregnant, and that means I’ll be having a baby shortly. But most days, it just seems like I will be pregnant forever. Haven’t I always had a hard time pulling myself off of the couch? Haven’t I always had to pee like every hour? You mean there was a time that my stomach didn’t do strange contortions? A time I didn’t get to gently push back against a small foot stretched out tight beneath my skin?

Is this baby really going to come out? Am I really going to meet a whole new person? Who will this little person be? (I hope they know their name when they come out, because we still haven’t made a firm decision ourselves.) Am I really going to labour and give birth again? That day looms ahead in my mind, with a strange mixture of anticipation and dread.

Memories of pain and childbirth fade, but not that much. The moments of fear in the early part of labour, realizing that this is for real and wondering how it will go. Losing the fear and getting down to the business of breathing and trying to relax clenched muscles. Feeling overwhelmed by the intensity and frequency and just wanting it to be over. The incredible pressure as the baby moves down. And that moment of empowerment and relief when there is suddenly one more person in the room, and you pull your baby into your arms.

The memories are all there. Sometimes vague, sometimes overwhelming. And soon I will experience it all again.

Am I ready?

Ready for my body to do what sounds impossible?

Ready to look into the eyes of a brand new human being?

Is anyone ever really ready for a miracle?