the mother i thought i'd be

A few days ago a girl asked me if i was the mother i thought i'd be. I couldn't answer. I suppose, in general, i am. I am mostly present, let nature do its thing without intervening much, and am creative about how we communicate.

But to answer that question is difficult because mostly i couldn't have accounted for all the decisions i had to make, or all the situations i had to think through. I've been thinking about how to parent since i was a little girl, and many of the situations i've imagined still lie ahead. But certainly i could never imagine all the things that are to happen and how i'd respond!

And i have much to learn about psychology and emotional development and social interactions.

I have daydreamed about sustainable harmonious living since I was a child dreaming of green pastures. As I aged it began to take on new meanings. I often though about dropping put of civilization somehow, somewhere, but the idea only had partial appeal and left me wanting. At times, sustainability came to mean cutting back on meat, partially or altogether. It also came to mean Not buying a car and taking public transportation even though it takes twice as long and requires bus And metro.

But sustainability surprisingly even came to mean living with my parents! The choice was between finding roommates in berkeley, receiving welfare until I was ready to separate from my newly born to go to school or get paid conventionally... Or move out of the bay area to the suburbs of dc and live with my folks in their new oversized home and have the freedom to do what I love (gardening) and be with my babe in his first years. Sustainable, because living with family and sharing resources naturally (without spreadsheets or post-it notes) is more conscious than pushing through the other choice. But living with parents after five years of freedom and distance was daunting. Its easy to say our problems are most deeply rooted in our issues with our parents. A yogi also said "if you think you are enlightened go spend a week with your parents." so living with them?!

Sustainability inadvertently came to also mean working through old issues. For the last hundred hears, families have gotten smaller, more nuclear, more dispersed globally, and individuals tend to live removed from the older generations, isolated in a city hub of peers who have also left their families elsewhere. I am not saying that is the Wrong Choice. People don't always think about sustainability, and even so, it's possible to be relatively sustainably conscious. In fact, I think the city structure has great potential for sustainability. But my point was going towards how in the last century the structure of life ha changes dramatically from a system that was in place doe thousands of years. I don't know why, exactly... Maybe it's because the need was gone (and now for my personal situation it reappeared to grant me this perspective).

Ok my initial Point is a no-go. There are millions of people, and each situation calls for a best solution, and I was trying to come up with a generalizeble theory on sustainability and connecting it to family affairs.

But what I can say for certain is that, in terms of sustainability, community is paramount, whether it's a community of three or hundreds, whether it's a household, a commune, a neighborhood, or a city. The individuation of civilization has been a step away from harmonious sustainability. The cooperative mentality is paramount to sustainability, above competition. Drive for improvement must not disappear but competition against individuals could be left out of it, in place of cooperative co creation.

What does this have to do with unconventional mothering? No idea. Co op nurseries? Just a general mindset I guess.

I just felt like writing. My son is smiling in his sleep. Very sweet.

men are sons, too

since having a son, my relationship with men has changed dramatically. I accept my child for who he is, completely. And this compassion has extended to all other men. With women it comes more naturally. i don't expect perfection from them. but with men i had a tendency to shun their weakness and expect more of them, and it wasn't really... fair.

now i can be a loving, nurturing presence for men in my life without judging them negatively and unfairly for the inevitable character traits that could be deemed as imperfections. but on a certain level, i can see that everyone is perfect as is, all is well as is.

self acceptance and acceptance of others go hand-in-hand. the more we forgive ourselves the more we accept others, and vice versa... the more we accept others, the more we forgive ourselves and are freed from any sort of guilt or lack of feeling worthy of anything...

Time out

Today in the playground a nanny gave a twin a time out. She counted to three, and he backed off right after, testing her resolve. It was strong, she pulled him off the gym and held him in a hug for a one minute time out while he cried and screamed and she explained what was going on.

I'm sure he'll grow up to be fine and untraumatized by the event, but i disagree with time-out. Its an unnatural consequence.

I have noticed parents and babysitters and caregivers exercising power over children in subtle ways. "no" and currently i am seeing it arise within myself as my 'toddler' (officially, soon) explores the space around him, in public, freely. I find creative ways to distract him from the "no" situation, until we can go through the process of Reason together.

I like to think of mother-dogs, or wolves, how they raise their young. They generally allow their pups to play together, no matter how rough it is, and the pups work it out naturally amongst themselves. The mother pup will correct aberrant behavior with a quick, easy growl or a nip in the butt, and that will be that. There's certainly no "time out" or lengthy explanations of reasoning, and the pups grow up fine.

I know humans are more complex than dogs, but... is a 3 year old? hehe but seriously... When does reason really kick in? And what sort of reason can you honestly give for 'time out?'

One negative potential side effect of time-out is a distaste for authority figures. It seems to me that this is the first case of authrotiy ruling over the less capable, smaller humans. She literally pulled him off the gym, as he grabbed on to the bars, and against his will was taken away. Like i said, he'll probably grow up to be fine, but i love to 'over'analyze and be an optimal mother down to the most subtle aspects of it all.

I only get one chance at raising this little one, and i hate to call him the 'first trial experiment" like so many first children have jokingly been called.

but thats another story for another day.

Presence... fluctuations... re-connecting.

Oh dear, i have always heard 'children make you present' and aint it the truth!? But now, my son is almost a year old, which means he's trying to walk. He has evolved from a blob into a vegetable into a rehabilitating old man learning to walk. Talk about presence! He's learning to talk and communicate, too, so there's an extra interaction that i'm being tuned into.

I think this is about the age ("toddler") where most parents start getting stressed. I got stressed a few days ago (and was tapping on my issues) and fears around chasing a toddler around, teaching him boundaries while allowing him freedom. He was crawling around whole foods and i found myself unsure of what was socially acceptable. ("out of control!")

But since then, I've also evolved and... the difficult part is really to re-connect over and over again. We're together LITERALLY 24/7!! Sometimes i leave him to go to the bathroom or to do my own thing while he does his own thing, but we're still together. And when that happens in any relationship, its of utmost importance to really laugh and cry together when the need arises!

He's been frustrated, hitting his head on various objects and clamping his fingers in various drawers, and just in general, not being able to fully move and communicate as he feels he needs to. So i find myself balancing between "ignoring" him, or rather, not responding wholly to his vocalizations, and then responding and getting it out. I mean, i can't ACTUALLY be eye-to-eye with him 24/7. Its impossible and i would go nuts and lose touch with the adult world (which is boring and largely un-magical, but nevertheless important ground to keep my feet on.)

Some connections are deeper than others and depend entirely upon my own ability. Sure, sometimes when i'm wanting to connect in a certain way, he's more interested in something else, but I'd say that i'm distracted by tiredness or 'needing to do something' more than he's distracted by fascinating objects.

Some moments are truly profound communicative moments, beyond superficialities, really deeply emotional and wise to the core. Other times, its a physical connection, a massage, or a healing touch received from the child on my sore back or a belly massage making up for the 9 months of expansion and resettlements. Sometimes its a kiss, or a bite on the nose, or a face-to-face wet connection that comes about so organically it is easy to see how kissing really evolved.

Well... i don't know what the point of this post was, but there it is.

poop and acupuncture

Yeap, i'm writing about poop. *sigh*

It was some time ago that i googled pooping, constipation, and baby, to see if i should expect regular bowel movements. The consensus was to 'not worry about it.' So i didn't. But a little later i thought about it more intuitively, and realized that I prefer a regular poop and know i am in balance when i'm regularly pooping. So why should it be different for a new person? Ah~ another case of my health standard being diminished for a pre-verbal human! shame on me.

So last night i pressed my fingers around his belly button, in meridian points that are effective for relieving constipation. This morning he gave a good, healthy, cathartic poop.

This is on my list of 'things i could/should be doing.' Preventive care is like that. You forget to do it until something is out of balance.

Unwanted projections upon my baby

I have no control over what associations others have with my child. For example, strangers have often said he is 'serious' when he won't smile at them, an attribution to his character and personality that hasn't actually formed yet, being put there My mom has said "oh its the first time in a while (sashiburi) that he is in a good mood!" which is not only untrue, but creates a story that he is a bad tempered baby.

My mothers case is one of her remembering what she wants to remember. The strangers case is a case of trying to feel better for not receiving a smile from a baby. Both create a story about a child who has no way of defending himself or the way he is perceived (yet).

I just hope that as he grows up, these projections won't become self fulfilling prophecies.

Like i said, i have no control over what associations people will come up with. Is there anything i can do to protect him from unwanted prophecies? I can counteract it by saying what i see. Building awareness in other people doesn't work because it just makes me seem defensive ("it is STANDARD for him to be in good humor! Its his default setting.") But i do see merit in counteracting the negative prophecies with positive characteristics.

On the second day of his birth, my doula asked me 'whats he like'? And i had no idea. Now 9 months later, i have a vague idea, but when i think of the solidity of a childs personality, i still really have no idea. Maybe when he's a child, i'll have no idea based on the difference from child to adulthood, what he'll be like as an adult. I think this unknowingness is a good thing, keeping me open to variation and not getting stuck in what i 'think' he's like. I know what he's like rihgt now. He's curious and occupying himslef with objects from my bag of baby toiletries and miscellaneous items. But what more can i know than what he is showing me at this very moment? All else is memory, and memory can fail, as shown by the example of my mothers memory of his moods.

Once again, a reminder to be present... now he's banging my deodarant together with his thermometer and laughing excitedly. And now he's twisting the deo-bottle from side to side, presumably exploring the weight discrepancy from the top and the bottom... but maybe just exercising his wrist. who knows.