Freedom from Fear: The Myth of Safety and How to Talk with Our Kids about It

We woke up yesterday morning to the news of another mass shooting.  I know many friends and fellow parents who feel at a loss and also outraged as to how to explain this world of violence, hate, and death to their kids (not to mention to understand it themselves).   Anyone who knows me, including my clients, knows that I would never presume to tell you how to respond or feel, but I am going to give you my perspective on how I think we become helpers and not hurters and how we can empower our kids, and hopefully reduce their fears.

I think we need to consider that we are the ones that are mistaken about the world.  What I mean is this - throughout history - every ancient religion, including Judeo-Christianity, explains our human experience through myth.  And every culture has a myth about the entrance of bad stuff into the world.  Whether it's Adam and Eve or Pandora or Australian Aboriginese, the people who came before us were given stories about the plague of death, evil, violence, hate and greed on humanity.  There may be caveats of hope, but mostly the stories affirm that bad things are abundant.  

Yet, we live in a relatively luxurious time now.   Many of us grew up in a place where death and disease seemed far away and murder and violence seemed like someone else's problem.   We have forgotten the stories that informed the many generations of people who came before us.  

Working in hospice I grew to have a different perspective.  I've known many, many people who have died.  When I began writing about my work in hospice, I tried to estimate how many patients I had from January 2004 through May 2010  and I figured it was around 1000.  And of course, like all of us, people I love have also died.  Loss and suffering did not seem far away.  So in terms of both physical and emotional safety, I've probably have to un-myth myself more than many people.  I even have a psychologist friend who says, "I don't even like to think about your job."  

We know loss and all it's causes are frightening for us, but other layers of fear and anxiety are added when we consider (or are forced to) talk with our kids about them.  And there's a lot to talk about:  School shootings and intruder drills and climate change and natural disaster.  Divorce and cancer and addiction.  Bullies and racism and rape. 

We long to protect our children from fear, to create their little world and maintain it for as long as possible - where everything is safe and kind and fair.  So when it comes to talking with our kids about the scary things in life, many times we don't know what to say. 

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When my daughter was three years old, a dear family friend was dying in the hospital after a long illness and I wanted to say goodbye.  I knew that he did not have long and it was important to see him.  My son was at preschool, but I did not have anyone available to take care of her.  I took her to the hospital with me.

I remember taking the elevator to his room.  I held her in my arms and I said, "We are going to see my friend, who is very sick and doesn't have long to live.  He will look strange.  There are special machines helping him breathe and the machines are noisy.  He is very skinny.  He will not be able to talk.  We will have to be very quiet and we won't stay very long, but I want to  say 'goodbye' to him."

Almost 10 years later, my daughter doesn't remember anything of this.  I know many parents may not have made this choice, and I myself felt a bit uncertain.

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Both the desire to live in a world with a freedom from fear and create that space for not only our kids, but future generations is a beautiful and generous human urge, but I suspect we accidentally create more fear when we protect our kids too much or for too long.  Like my daughter going with me to see my dying friend, we seem to cope better, be less afraid, and have a greater sense of our own autonomy, when we have information, or we make sure our myths have a healthy dose of truth.

I included a painting by Norman Rockwell from the 1940s, called Freedom from Fear at the beginning of this post.  He paints an alluring picture of what Freedom from Fear might look like - he was part of creating an American myth.  And as I mentionted earlier, myths are influential and living stories that shape much - from our countries to our families.  Think about the family you came from or the family you have created - there is a story or a myth you've been a part of forming or buying into.  You might have the big, chaotic family where everyone is welcome and it's always a mess.  You might be in the party family.  You might be shy to admit it, but when forced, you have the perfect family where everyone is attractive and high achieving.  You might be from the do-gooder family or the farm family or the camping family.

Myths are an important part of identity, but my first thought about cultivating resilience is to combine myth with a little Midwester Matter of Fact-ness .  It's quite unpoetic, but part of the family myth I perpetuate in my home is "Shit happens."  Really, what I want my kids to know is the Truth as I see it...Things don't always go our way.  Sometimes we have good luck and sometimes we have bad luck.  Sometimes things aren't fair, but we keep trying anyway. 

The problem with certain kinds of myths is that they are very dramatic and they don't allow room for change and variation (which, as the Buddhists will tell us is the one things we can count on in life).  So, the way I tell stories, including discuss the news, in my family is pretty mundane and matter of fact.  The words I use are calm.  Here are some underlying messages in the way I give information to my kids:

While bad things can happen, mostly good things happen.  When bad things happen, you can choose how to respond to that.  You can choose what kind of person you want to be.  Adults have struggles and are imperfect.  We ask for help when problems seem too big.  We help other people when we have extra to give. How things look on the outside is not always how they are on the inside. I have found that God strengthens me in hard times.

I don't rage about Donald Trump, even though I believe the tone and tenor he sets for our country are extremely damaging and perhaps dangerous.  I don't 'go off' about gun control, even though I believe strongly that we need more common sense gun laws.

Please don't get the impression that I am the picture of calm. Weirdly, the little things can throw me in a tizzy.   A kid falling off his bike on the way to school or the dog getting diarrhea can elicit tears from me at times.  And when people in my life die,  I've really cried about that in places where my kids have seen and heard.  As parents, we don't need to show NO emotion, but the story that might empower our kids is to hear us articulate  the difference between anxiety and truth or grief and self-pity.

Part of our job as parents is to keep figuring out who we really are (rather than perpetuate a myth) and reflecting to our kids who they are and who they are growing into. 

As life happens and we respond, our stories and myths about ourselves may grow and change, and if we are open to it, that will strengthen our foundation.

I think about a man I know whose wife cheated on him.  He said, "I always thought I was the kind of person that if my wife cheated on me, that would be IT.  I wouldn't try to reconcile.  But I did try to reconcile until it became clear that the marriage was really over for her."  He went on to say, "I always thought I was the kind of person who would be strong in a very bad situation.  And I was very strong.  I didn't let this throw me into depression or self-doubt.  It's good to know that I am strong in the ways I always thought I was."

For this man, as for so many of us, having awful experiences in life, gives us new insights that strengthen our foundation as a person, because we find out A)  I can endure and thrive after a really hard thing and B) I have evidence of how I respond under duress.   One part of our deep fears is the unconscious thought, "I don't think I could handle x, y, or z."  A silver lining at times, of surviving hard times is an increased confidence, a deep knowing -  "I can handle things." 

In a way, we really don't want NO bad luck or misfortune ever to come into our kids' lives.  Well, in some kind of ideal utopia, then yes, we want no misfortune for our children - but in the real world we live in - the one where Pandora's Box is open, some misfortune can help them test and know WHO THEY ARE.  This sense of inner strength and fortitude will not keep them from fear, but will be a foundation to respond to and thrive after frightening times, because it is based on experience, not myth.

If we are really LIVING our lives, there is no safety.  The reason for this, is that when we really live, we LOVE.  We love people, we love animals, we love this beautiful planet.  When we are open to love and loving, the great danger and truth is that sometimes we will lose.  But we keep loving anyway.   That is not a myth.  Love is the truth that does not erase fear, but is the balm and the strength and the promise to our children.

1) You Are Doing a Good Job as a Parent 2) And, How to Talk with Your Kids about Sad Stuff

Driving my kids to and from various camps in rural Missouri the past couple of weeks, I've been grateful for two advances in technology - Google Maps and deodorant.  I think about both of those things frequently on these camp drives, and it brings me a sense of peace.

One thing I'm not grateful for is the proliferation of advice on parenting that just seems to snowball in the years since I've been writing this blog.  With every parenting question, you can find 50 different articles with nuances of advice and so much of it just makes parents more afraid, walking on eggshells, insecure that they have totally f****ed up their child/ren already.  Today, I am writing with anti-advice 'thoughts' (for lack of a better word) and I'm hopeful that if you follow my blog, you will forgive me as I am being kind of hypocritical because I just complained about parenting advice online.  Oh well.

The reason I'm thinking of it more intently right now, is that personally, I've been confronted with a few sad, worrisome, and even tragic situations in my community in the past couple of weeks - children and adults I know who are directly dealing with death, disease, grief and violence.  I've been asked by several parents - "how do I/we talk to our kids about this?"

Here is what I've come to believe about 'saying it right' to our children:

1) If you are worried about saying it right, you are probably not going to say anything to your kids that is damaging.  You are already consciously, intentionally putting the emotional needs of your child/ren as a high priority.  Please don't be so anxious about yourself.  You are a loving parent and you're going to do a good job.  No matter what 'advice' I give after this...(you might ignore the rest, in fact)...this is what I want you to know - if you are worried about doing the right thing and consciously trying to do well by your kids during a crisis, you are a good parent.

2) Kids do not understand the broad implications of words like Cancer or Divorce or Hospital.  They don't have the range of life experience to instantly know that Divorce can mean living with new people like stepparents and stepsiblings and divided Christmas holidays.  They don't know that Cancer can mean dad getting treatments that make him nauseated or lose his hair or that he might not be able to coach baseball.  They don't have the thunderous realization that any change means months of uncertainty and change of routine.  They don't know what it means to have to make a 'new normal.' This general understanding creates great fear in adults, but our kids can be more in the moment (the way we know we are supposed to be, if we listen to our yoga teacher).

It's ok to answer questions that we know the answers to and it's also ok to say "I don't know yet."  Or "when I know the answer, I will tell you" or "I am not ready to talk about that yet."

3)  Kids will remember feelings we convey more than exact words.  When my ex and I first separated, my youngest was in first grade.  The very night she learned of it, she cried at the dinner table and asked me, "Are you and Dad going to get divorced?"  "I don't know," I answered. "But I do know that no matter what happens, we are going to be ok."  When I think about my lowest, most frightened moments, what I've longed for is someone to tell me "it's all going to be ok."   I try to honestly convey that tension to my kids - "hey - I don't know all the answers, but I do know that hard times enter all our lives and hard times also pass."

4)  It's ok to show your sad and scared and angry feelings to your kids, but don't lay them on your kids to fix.   You can say, "I am sad today.  I'm so glad I have grandma to talk to."  Or, "I am worried today, but I know tomorrow will be a better day."  You can cry in front of your kids,

5)  You can make mistakes and then give your kids the great gift of modeling to them that you own up to it.   All you have to say is, "I've been thinking about it and I don't think I said, x, y, or z in the way I wanted to."  Or, "I just want to check in with you about when we talked about X - I wondered if I wasn't a good listener. I am sorry."

Our culture seems to have idealized childhood somehow - to be imparting to us parents that we are supposed to keep our kids in an idealized bubble of childhood that is all and always baseball and apple pie and playdates where everyone gets along.  Yet, we are doomed to fail if this is the unconscious standard we hold ourselves to.  Even if bad things don't 'happen' from the outside, our kids deal with inside struggles too - ADHD, anxiety, not making a team, being left out.

In my work, I ponder with people about 'why do bad things happen?'  I notice, in particular this can be a disheartening question for people who believe in a loving God - how and why could a loving God allow bad things to happen?

I believe in God (as I've said, I don't care if people call God God or Nature or Love or Energy...or whatever...to me, it's not important).  I know and believe there is a great, loving Mystery that is way beyond my human understanding.  One thing I can understand about that Mystery is what it is to be a loving parent.  To me, a Loving Parent embodies some part of that Mystery.

In one way, as loving parents, we wish we could prevent our children from ever having to know or feel any pain in life - anything bad or scary or cruel.  But, then we would protect our children from Life itself.  It would be no good.  We would control our children and they would not ever be truly free; they would never truly live.

We are parents and we can't protect our children from everything.  We shouldn't.  We can be there - imperfectly.  Not saying it 'right', but doing it right... because we do what we do with love.

New Year's parenting resolutions - a February update

This past year, late December.  My husband and I are driving the kids to one of the myriad of holiday activities the week of Christmas.  Usually the kids beg to listen to one of the pop stations and we relent, despite the fact that I always hear about accomplished musicians and artists who fondly recall their parents who made them listen to GOOD music when they were kids and the kids love it and turn out to be bohemian and interesting and creative and make beautiful contributions to the world but now my kids are listening to Taylor Swift and they'll probably never do beautiful things and it's all my fault...oh, am I rambling?  Ok, that's another blog. 

Anyway, on this occasion the parents (my husband and I) are 'winning' and we are all listening to NPR.  The story http://www.npr.org/2012/12/24/167977418/the-power-to-trade-naughty-habits-for-nice-ones is about Changing Habits and is mostly an interview with Charles Duhigg, who's book The Power of Habit:  Why we do what we do in life and business, was published last year.   We're all pretty into the interview and the call-in portion of the show, when we are particularly riveted by a man who calls in and says, "I was addicted to anger.  I didn't realize it until a therapist suggested I take a 30 day challenge to not react in anger.  I took that challenge and it changed my life."

I'm going to do that,  I say to my family. As a mom, I have a very long fuse.  When I get to the end of my fuse, I am at the end.  I am a yeller.  I never like when I yell.  I don't like it because I don't feel good about my parenting in those moments, even if the yelling is merited.  I've written about this before a little here - I think it's confusing for my kids because I'm nurturing nurturing nurturing and then all of a sudden, it's like, "Where did this crazy lady with the veins popping out of her neck come from?!?!"   I am not addicted to anger, but I certainly think yelling is a habit of mine. 

So, I tell the kids. I'm not going to react in anger with you guys for 30 days.  The reason for this is that it is HABIT CHANGING.  According to the book, which I am now reading, most of our behaviors are not decisions, but are habits.  Habits are often created because there is a perceived reward, i.e.  I yell and my kids (supposedly) settle down and behave.  I put the keys in the ignition of my car and shift into drive because the reward is that my car will go.   For some people it's chocolate, for some people it's a cigarettes, for some people it's calling their ex-girlfriend when they know they shouldn't - it's a habit with a perceived reward - the perceived reward is that I feel temporarily better, even if in the long run I feel worse.

Ok, so how did I do?  I  did it!  I did not yell at my kids for 30 days.  One day, my youngest walked in on me, hands clasped at my chest and eyes to the heavens.  "What are you doing, Mom?" she asked.  "I am praying for patience."  I said.  I had to pray for patience many times.  Since my 30 days, I have yelled twice.  So, this month, I am averaging a one yell a week.  I am still working on this change of habit, but I will tell you a couple things I noticed.  My kids were into it!  One was doubtful of my ability to follow through and one was encouraging the whole way, but they were into it.  I also think they took it seriously when they misbehaved and I was redirecting them.  They took it more seriously than when I yell.  Kids are so attuned to what is fair and just, I sometimes wonder if when we yell, we lose the justice upper hand.  In general, I think my reward is that when I don't yell, I live a life that has more integrity - I am practicing what I preach, not just out there in the world as a therapist, but practicing it in the nitty gritty of my everyday life.  I say I believe in and want to help make a more peaceful world.  This is where it starts.

So, maybe you have a 30 day challenge you'd like to give yourself.  Tell someone else about it so they can help you be accountable.  Check out the book The Power of Habit if you want - it's good and science-y, if you like that kind of thing.  And then take the challenge.  It's just 30 days.  Who knows what might happen?

updates from 2011: parenting, mindfulness and The Dude

I like to be accountable. 
I have the audacity to offer thoughts and ideas about life, emotional health, and spiritual growth, so I think I better be accountable.  I decided to take a few ideas I pondered in the past year and see how I'm doing with them.

Today I want to look at Mindful Parenting.

In Feb. 2011 I wrote about me having a conniption fit ignited by getting my kids ready for school and  trying to get out the door in the morning, on top of hundreds of repeat plays of Les Miz on the CD player.  At that time,  the song Bad Moon Rising happened to come up on 103.3 and it was like getting a bucket of groovy water thrown over my head and I was able to put life in perspective and realize that with a little mindful planning and less rushing for me and the kids, we could all have a happier morning. 

In essence, I suggested that we could all be more mindful parents.  So how did I do with this?  Better!  I think I made vast improvements, and here's what I did different, and I think I can summarize it in three words:  I gave up. 

Yes, I think I gave up a little this year.  I admitted defeat in some aspects of parenting. 

It's not as bad as it sounds...let me explain.  I grew up with a pretty traditional parenting style - authoritarian.  Not like beat your butt authoritarian, but "I'm the adult and you do it because I say you will do it" authoritarian.   Without setting out to have an existential battle, I ended out this way because of my not really realizing that my own parenting style is, essentially not that.  I wanted it to be that.  It worked for me as a kid!  But, I am too goofy a person and too much of a touchy-feely social worker to truly make that work.  I've spanked my kids a total of 3 times and I tried for a 4th, but I started giggling, looking at my son's tushy trying to run away from me. 

I also realized that the tension between these two parts of me - the voice that said, 'Katy, you should discipline like your mom and dad, this is what they expect or because you see so and so parenting that way" and the voice that said,  "Katy, you can do it a different way and it's still legitimate"- that tension was making me kind of unhappy, not to mention confusing my kids.  It made me think of that old comedy video, Bill Cosby, Himself.  As a parent, I think of the clip, where he says, "My wife was a beautiful woman until we had children and now her face is permanently like this" and he makes this totally strained face with veins popping out of the neck.  I am pretty sure I looked like that a lot of the time and all of a sudden it dawned on me that I didn't have to be like that.

So I gave up.  Even my mom noticed.  Our whole extended family went on vacation this year and my kids were acting up and I was talking to them very calmly away from the dinner table.  I returned to the  dinner table, looked over at my mom and said, "I've given up."  She said, "Yes, you have." 

But, it's actually working better.  Our household is more humorous, less angry, and I think my kids are 'getting it" better.  Maybe because they are not getting mixed messages from me about expectations and what will happen when they are in trouble.  Maybe because they are getting older, too.

I still get mad, of course. But now, I think about it more...I slow down.  I even yelled, "Dammit - I'm tired of this!" the other day, but ( this is true!) I thought, 'hmmm...saying dammit will really get the little buggers attention'.  My kids think rough words and cussing are like cardinal sins, so it's totally eye-popping for them for me to cuss.  Also, it gave me a little humor too, dammit. 

So, that's an update on mindful parenting from my end...somebody said that nothing dies harder than a bad idea, and I feel like we have some ideas about our parenting or what parents are supposed to be and it's okay to let them go.

the flipside of the corrections: our legacy as children

When I wrote the other week about 'the Corrections' and raising kids, I knew I'd get a good amount of feedback from readers and friends, because I think we are all fairly comfortable talking and thinking about what parts of parenting challenge us. 

As I've thought more about the parents-eye view, I've become reflective on another aspect of family life.  Maybe it's the end of the year, a feeling of wrapping things up, of looking back and looking ahead.  It definitely has something to do with writing this blog, which challenges me to use my own experience to connect with other people - many of whom I know, and some I don't. 

So, in this spirit, I'd like to talk about what I guess is the flipside, or even just another side of what we get from our parents.  'Corrections' parenting is a way we, as adults, might define ourselves AGAINST something.  It's a way some of us might like to show, 'I'm doing it different.'  But it's hard to know ourselves fully when we only are certain of what we are not (or what we don't want to be).  

Writing this blog has brought into relief for me a way of knowing who I am in relation to where and who I came from.  My parents.  I am a parent now, but I am also somebodies' kid.  In my writing about emotional and mental health, I find myself often thinking not just about what I might do differently than my parents (both in child-rearing and otherwise) I also think about where I might be similar to them. 

These parallels and connections with my parents, in some ways, surprise me.  My parents separated within 6 months of my graduating from college and moving halfway across the country.  Within another 18 months, they'd divorced. This was a tough thing for all my family, but I'd say one part that made it tough for me was that, in many ways, I'd defined myself by my family.  To my mind, my family was strong, stable, loving, sturdy.  My friends all loved to hang out at my house when we were teenagers.  My parents were firm, but kind.  The doors to our home were open and there was always a hot meal and a laugh.  We did things together, we were affectionate, we didn't often scream and yell.  So, the turmoil was sudden and surprising to my brain, which was barely out of adolescence.  My folks' divorce, for a time, negated much of the good stuff I thought I'd grown up with.  Suddenly, I questioned my own history.  Was it a lie?  If my memory and experience wasn't true, what in the world was?

I've spent some serious emotional and mental energy working that out over the years.

Here's what I've come to:  I like the person I am and... I came from somewhere.  I came from my parents, who for a time came together and taught me some good stuff - be responsible for your community, freedom is worth fighting for, be of service when and where you can,  listen to music (who doesn't feel better when they listen to "Oldies"?!)  From my mom in particular, I inherited values of tradition, being humble, a sense of family history, a sense of and love of the Divine.  From my dad I inherited intellectual curiousity, the desire to challenge and be challenged, a sense of rebellion and adventure.

I appreciate this legacy.  I love my folks.  And though I try really hard not to curse in this blog, one of my mental health mantras is (and I mean this with no irony or angry undertone) "shit happens."  In fact, that might be a whole other blog.

The point is, we are made of many parts, influences, and life experience.  Some stuff I probably came up with on my own (isn't that very American - to be self-created in many ways?).  But, I hope, as we all get ready to probably spend some time with our parents, if they are living, over the holidays, I hope it might be helpful to think about the legacy of their influence.   To extend graciousness and love - for them, and by extension for ourselves.

I heard a piece on NPR just after Thanksgiving about decorating the White House for the holidays.  Apparently, you can nominate yourself or someone else to have the opportunity to help with this tradition.  This year, along with many others, an elderly immigrant man was nominated by his son and they were both chosen for this honor.  The older man spoke of his son in his radio interview - "I just pray that he has a good life." 

Who could say it better than that - whether you're a parent or a kid? 

the corrections, or LESS extreme parenting

I just watched about 3/4 of Lisa Ling's Our America - Extreme Parenting.  It reminded me a little of my take away from Jonathon Franzen's book, The Corrections:  as parents we often try to 'correct' for how we perceive our folks messed up with us.  At some point along our developmental path, we become determined not to make the same mistakes they made. 

In fact, this is the premise of a new TV show, called I Hate My Teenage Daughter on Fox.  It's about two moms who had been bullied as young teens, but who 'parented' their own girls into becoming just the types of girls who tortured them when they were younger.  Ugh. Sounds awful.  

Anyway - for better or for worse, much of the reputation of psychotherapy is that it will lead clients to eventually blame their parents for something.  For example, if your parents were very lax about education and expectations regarding grades, you might grow up to think, "they didn't push me hard enough.  I wasn't challenged enough.  I'm not going to make that mistake with my kids.  My kids will be challenged to meet high expectation set by me.  They will be successful.  They will reach their potential."  Or maybe you had a parent who really favored one of your siblings.  You might think, "I will be totally fair with my kids.  Each will be offered the same opportunities as the other.  They will get the same number of hugs.  They will have equal chores.  No one will feel slighted."

Maybe it sounds crazy, but I've made a connection between this approach to raising children and some of what I learned working in hospice:  we have less control than we think.  Case in point - I remember the sisters in my neighborhood growing up who weren't allowed to watch TV and always had to eat the crusts of their bread.  They didn't turn out much different than the rest of us as far as I know.  Conversely,  I know another good friend of mine who was raised in a pretty lax household compared to mine (Beatles poster on the dining room wall - Gasp!)  and he went to undergraduate and grad school in the Ivy League. 

I'm not saying there is a direct correlation.  I am saying there is NOT a direct correlation.  Our kids are born with many innate traits, which we can support and love and nurture.  I've also read and wrote a little about the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a book that was published about a year ago.  The author, a mom/professor, advocates the "Chinese Way" of raising children.  Very structured and disciplined.  She goes on to say one daughter was able to bend to this discipline and another rebelled against it. 

What I'd like to propose is that if we have some aspect of raising our kids that we are really digging in our heels on, like anything, it's good to look at it a little closer to make sure we're really doing what we want to do.  It's worth looking at whether we are seeing the child in front of us, or seeing our own selves as a kid.  If we're seeing only ourselves and the hurt we felt, it might be that we are trying to get our own needs met through our kids.  Talk about needing therapy later. 

In raising our children, I am in no way advocating an all laissez-faire approach all the time.  I'm just saying that in raising children, like in all things, we usually have more choices than we think and less control than we imagine. 

did Ma Ingalls ever have any fun?

Like many people, when my first child was born, it took me a very short while to figure out that my life had drastically changed.  I remember a big realization while doing dishes:  Dishes have to be done.  Oh yes, and laundry must be done.  And folded.  Also, things must be clean in the house.  Also, more dishes must be done and put away and more laundry needs washing and folding.  No more procrastinating.  No more blowing off chores to watch Oprah.  No more getting a cold and lying on the couch all evening.  Here's more or less what I began telling myself:  It all depends on me.  Everything seemed to suddenly become very serious, with serious consequences.

So, you might think this is weird, but I made up a game for myself to stay motivated.  I thought, "Katy, you're in Pioneer Times now.  All your chores and tasks are as necessary to our family's survival as anything Ma Ingalls ever did."  Banish from your mind, "I'm just too tired."  Maybe that's not SO weird - I know another mom who used to pretend it was WWII and her husband was a soldier on the European Front. 

As I've mentioned, I love imagination as a tool for coping.  Frankly, for me, being a mom to infants was a time I needed both imagination and coping.  This  internal game of pretend worked okay as my kids were toddlers, too.

But, I think it backfired in a couple ways.  Actually, I think we all give ourselves certain messages and/or create certain thoughts during times of stress or periods of our lives and these thoughts don't serve us well later.  I work with a lot of women and I see that many of us spend time trying to overcome the following thoughts:  1)  If I don't do it, no one will.  2) I can't rest or relax because it will appear that I am not taking what I do seriously. 

This eventually leads to bigger problems - not thoughts exactly, but a way behaviours are manifest - I don't know how to have fun, I don't know what gives me pleasure, and finally, the things I do to cope are pleasurable in the short run, but unhealthy in the long run. 

As I've been getting my thoughts together for this post, I heard Toni Bernhard, the author of a book, How to Be Sick, talking on Morning Edition - she has some kind of long term illness that keeps her often at home and more often than she'd like, in bed.  She's found comfort in a Buddhist meditation practice (more info at http://www.npr.org/2011/01/31/132675079/learning-to-live-a-full-life-with-chronic-illness) and quoted a Buddhist saying, "If you don't have compassion for yourself, your compassion is incomplete." 

I love it!  One way to have compassion for yourself is to say nicer things to yourself and allow yourself to enjoy life.

Sometimes I begin  to remind myself of George Costanza from Seinfeld - there's a great episode in which, as usual, he's having difficulties at work - if I'm remembering right, he has a job, but isn't sure what he's supposed to be doing exactly.  He discovers that if he just walks around looking harried, worried, sighing, and moves at a quick pace, everyone thinks he's the hardest working guy around.

Okay, could this sometimes be me?

Let's be honest.  I'm not living on the prairie in the 1800s.  These days, I'm working on telling myself different things, things like:  It's okay to ask for help.  It's okay if the house doesn't look perfect when the babysitter comes over.  It's okay to watch Oprah's 25th Year: Behind the Scenes in a two to three hour marathon.  Why not?  It's okay to enjoy the little things in life.  And it's probably okay to take myself less seriously, too.

parenting, mindfulness, and the Dude

Here is what my morning was like.  Let me say this first:  I'm not proud. 

I got up at 5:20 to check email and write.  This is what I do every morning.  My husband, who'd been out of town for 6 days got in last night at midnight.  I'd slept okay, but a couple of bad dreams.  I got ready to go to the gym at 6:15.  Before I could go, the dog needed to go out, my daughter needed to go to the bathroom and help dressing her doll and she wanted to chat a bit.  I remembered that I should set the alarm for my husband so that he would get up and get the kids going for school.  I got home from the gym at 7:25.  I made two kids' lunches, showered and dressed, helped my kids pick out clothes and get dressed.  I drove my son and the neighbor children to school.  It was 8:40 when I got home from that, because the traffic was bad.  My daughter is due at school at 9.  I wasn't going to make that, I knew, but I figured 9:10.  I am generally punctual, so it stresses me to be late, but I've given in to the 10 minutes late to pre-school thing.  We're almost ready to go, but my daughter starts being tempermental.  I start being tempermental.  I can't find her mittens or papers for her school.  Now I'm really mad and not acting like a very nice mom.  When I get mad, I tend to stomp around and yell.  I look in the basement for her mittens and find that a cat pooped on the carpet.  I am about to blow my top.  I've switched into quiet seething mode.  We get in the car and there's been a wreck and two lanes are closed on the highway.  I know I'm supposed to think about inner peace and mindfulness and gratitude.  Unfortunately, curse words are what I'm thinking of.  Also, my daugher wants to listen to Les Miserables, the musical, which we have listened to EVERY DAY for 3 weeks.  I say, "let's listen to something else for a song or two."  It must be the electric anger behind the quiet tone of my voice:  she agrees.  The song that comes on:  Bad Moon Rising by CCR. 

This was the game changer.  I get a weird amount of pleasure from that song.  My husband loves the movie "The Big Lebowski," a movie that is kind of a stoner classic, but also promotes the awesomeness of CCR.  I'm just not that mellow of a person, but I wish I was, so I have a hard time connecting with the Dude.  The one part of him that I do connect with is his love of Creedence Clearwater Revival.  I take this as a sign of hope, a sign of balance.  Maybe I could do with a little more Dude influence on my life. 

I don't mean not caring or smoking pot or blowing off responsibility, but maybe a clarifying of priorities and choices.  Today, Bad Moon Rising made me laugh at myself and think about what I could do to alleviate this pattern in my morning, a pattern of stress that comes out directed at my kids and at myself. The solutions seem simple: get up a little earlier, make lunches the night before, have them pick out clothes the night before, make sure all supplies are ready to go the night before. It's not brain surgery. I'll also be a more pleasant mother and person for it.

There's been a lot of coverage of a new book about motherhood recently - Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, by Amy Chua. (here's a review... http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/books/20book.html?_r=1). I haven't read the book, but I've heard a number of interviews with her - her premise is that the American/Western style of parenting that focuses so much on self-esteem can be to the determent of our kids.  She says Asian parents tend to approach parenting from a stance that "my kids are strong, they can take it".  It being 3 hours a day of piano practice or criticism for poorly made Mother's Day cards, etc.  She also says that this style of parenting worked very well for her oldest child (and for her self), but not for her youngest.  She had to change her approach slightly with the youngest child because by adolescence, they were growing estranged.

It takes a lot of creativity and humility to change the game plan. To feel unhappy about something - parenting in particular is what I'm thinking of today - and change what you're doing.  I think this is what is one of the things that is meant by mindfulness - not that you have a state of inner peace, free of turbulence, but that you remain open to all your choices and trying something new doesn't seem like defeat.

So, I vow to be a nicer mom in the morning by being a mom that plans ahead, a mom that realizes that time limits me as it limits us all, to not blame my kids for being kids when I am the one running late. 

Also, maybe I need to download some CCR to my ipod.