Ask Moxie

Forgive my silence...

Some stuff is happening and I just can't seem to wrap my head around the normal questions right now. Nothing bad, and I'll tell you when I can.

In the meantime, how about an etiquette question that you can answer for me:

There are only four kids in my apartment building and two of them are mine. (There are around 45 units total, most of them one-bedrooms.) We've never had trick or treating in the building, even when we had a few more kids, so my kids have always just done one of the community kids' costume parades and trick-or-treated in friends' buildings.

In most buildings in Manhattan, the tenants' association or co-op board puts up a sign-up sheet a week ahead of time for people to sign up if they want to hand out candy, and then tells them to put a sign on their door, so kids know which doors to knock on and which ones to leave alone.

In the past few years we've had a big influx of new people into our building. Last year, after Halloween, one of them expressed sadness that she hadn't gotten to see my kids' costumes or give them candy.

Is it going to seem totally rude and/or avaricious to put up a note on the building bulletin board (we have no tenants' association) asking if anyone wants to hand out candy? It wouldn't have occurred to me except that this woman wanted to last year.

Q&A: husband not into pregnancy yet

Maria B. writes:

"I am pregnant for the first time.  I am married to a great guy and am totally in love with him.  I am ready to have a baby, and he's warming up and very supportive.  It was my idea to start trying, and I got pregnant right away which was a little overwhelming.  My concern comes here.  My husband isn't yet excited as this is still abstract and he hasn't really been around babies a lot.  It's early as well, I'm 16 weeks.  I'm ok with this, he's ok with this.  When I tell people I'm pregnant, they usually press me for details about how excited my husband is.  He is not telling his friends/co-workers because it makes him uncomfortable.  I feel a little bit lost about how I can best support him right now.  We have had conversations so he knows I'm not pushing him to feel more than he does right now.  But I feel like he needs me to do more.  Any ideas?"

Well, I figured I'd check with my Roundtable of Dad Advisers, aka the guys I work with. I'd say these guys are about as diverse as a group of all-white, college-educated, middle class New Yorkers can be. Seriously, though, for the most part I'd say they're at least as involved as the average, and a few of them are incredibly hands-on.

To a man, they all said that there's basically no way a guy can conceptualize of a pregnancy or a baby being real until they hear or see the heartbeat, and it's probably not going to seem truly real until they see your belly growing or realize that the profile in the sonogram looks like a person's face and not just a blob.

I wanted to see if it was just Americans that felt that way, so I checked with a Canadian friend, who said that for him it was really when his wife's belly started getting huge. Before that it was intellectual, but the radical change in her body started to make it real for him.

It seems to me that people who expect a male partner to be really excited about things before there's anything tangible (for him) to be excited about have some unrealistic expectations. It's not that there's anything wrong or outlying about your husband. It's just that women tend to live in a baby-worshipping world in which we get excited even passing the pregnancy test aisle in the drugstore. So we forget that men are living in a parallel world in which they aren't thinking much about a baby until they see the whites of the baby's eyes. <insert your own poopsplosion joke here>

Let's also not forget that there are some men who just don't do that well with infants. (That certainly doesn't mean that they get off the hook for doing baby care. At the very least they need to be doing everything--cooking, laundry, cleaning--if the mother's the one doing all the feeding and night waking.) But some guys just don't seem to connect so much with kids in the baby stage as they do with toddlers and older kids. So even if your husband still doesn't seem that excited when the baby's six weeks old, it doesn't mean he won't eventually be completely smitten by the baby and end up being a wonderful dad. It may just be that he does his best work playing horsey or throwing balls or showing the kid how to code or teaching your adult child to mix a mean margarita. If it's OK for moms to do the baby stage without really liking it (and it is OK), then it's fine for dads. As long as they're completing the required tasks, they don't have to love it.

So I would say not to worry about it. If people ask you about how he's feeling, just make a joke like, "Oh, he says he won't believe it's real until the baby poops on his pants." Everyone will laugh and you can start talking about which breast pump you're going to buy, or whether you like the new Winnie the Pooh or the old one, and how you secretly hope someone gets you one of those butt cakes they always have on CakeWrecks.com for your shower even though you know they're frightening.

It will become real for him at some point. And if it doesn't, you can always get him a baby carrot jockey cake to try to scare it into him.

Confirmation or denial? Men? Women who talked about it with your partners (male or female)? And I'd be really interested in knowing what the experience is for female partners of pregnant women. How far along was your partner before you started feeling like it was real?

Q&A: that unbelievably annoying spitting stage

Michelle writes:

"We are flummoxed by my 10 month old’s food-spitting.  It is actually pretty cute…the minute we present him with ANY type of food (baby puree, toast, fruit chunks, even the “puffs” he usually loves) he starts blowing raspberries.  The only problem is that, apart from drinking bottles, he hasn’t had a single bite of any food in several days.  He doesn’t seem in pain, so I don’t *think* he is teething or suffering from a throat infection or something.  Rather, he seems playful or even triumphant about it.  But here’s my question- isn’t 10 months too young for the toddler-style testing?  Is this something babies do when they are leaping forward in other ways?  He is also about to start walking and struggles/fusses a lot in any position other than standing.  Is he basically trying to talk, and I can diffuse some of this behavior by doing baby sign language- which honestly feels a little silly to me?  Is he just destined to reject food and become one of those really picky eaters who only eats fruit roll-ups and peanut butter?"

First of all, I need to put my foot down and insist that no one diss the baby signs. Baby signs have the power, so you can think they're silly all you want, but once you see them in action you'll change your tune. And when your 9-month-old can tell you "more," "all done," "milk," "sleep," and a few other things, you'll be happy you did them.

Now, on to the question. Michelle labeled this a "lighter" question, but I get a version of this at least every month, and some of the parents are truly upset about it. I think it's hard for some parents to see their children testing boundaries and exerting their will so soon. When you've been used to a cuddly, compliant baby and suddenly you have this creature who just won't stop doing something that seems so counter-productive, it can throw you for a loop.

I also think that some parents react with a distress or rage about spitting that's out of proportion to the actual even because it hits something in them. If you were punished or harshly dealt with about eating and food and table manners when you were a baby and toddler, then your child stepping out of line (so to speak) is going to trigger those really anxious, rage-filled feelings in you. If you recognize yourself in that description, good! Now that you know what's going on, you can use those feelings to tell you what you need healing from. It's a good opportunity to give yourself what you didn't get when you were a child.

Now, as for why Michelle's baby (and yours) are doing this spitting thing: Michelle pretty much hit everything. It is too early for toddler testing, but it's right on time for older-baby testing (which no one wants to tell you about for fear that you'd say you were going out for a gallon of milk but you'd never come back). There's a 46-week developmental spurt, and I think part of it is that, but really I just have known so many many kids (both of my own included) who've started to really want to just do what they wanted and now! when they were 10 or 11 months old. 

Add in the physical stuff, and yeah, you've got a would-be tyrant with little ability to make his desires known and a very limited ability to go where he wants to go. You'd be cranky, too, in that situation, and would do whatever you could to piss off The Man

So, seriously, try the sign language (at the Michigan State free ASL dictionary or the Signing Time DVDs), and don't get too upset about the spitting, because it's just a result of frustration on his part plus exploration and being able to do something that feels cool.

Oh, and some of us would be happy if our kids ate both fruit roll-ups *and* peanut butter. Sigh.

Cast your vote in the comments for the most annoying baby/toddler behavior that isn't an actual problem but makes/made you nuts.

Q&A: Playground "rules" from other parents

Molly writes:

"What's the right way to handle playground "rules" set by other people?  Sometimes when we're at the playground some other parent will say to their kid "no swinging on your stomach" or "no going down the slide backwards" or "no shouting" or "no jumping in puddles" or some other perplexing rule that I never thought of, and then their kids (no dummies) say "But he's doing it!"--meaning mine.

I totally, totally get how this makes their life difficult but 1) I don't get the rule itself, I never thought of it, and I don't see why it matters and 2) I don't really want to mess with my kid's head by saying, Oh OK, this random adult made a new rule, let's follow it.  (I'm not letting him throw dirt or woodchips, I'm not letting him mow down other kids, I'm not letting him hog all the pails & spades or anything that would CLEARLY be rude/dangerous, at least to me. )

What's the social contract say on this?  I missed that chapter.  Can we have separate playgrounds for the intense parents and us lazy parents?"

You know, I think one of the big challenges of parenting is establishing your own policies and sticking to them in the midst of social pressure from other parents (and society at large). Parents of older kids can probably confirm that this gets more and more difficult as the kids get older. Violent video games, violent movies, Bratz, hoochie clothes for tweener girls--it seems like there are a lot of things that we're going to have to work hard to maintain a stance against.

So think of this time of dealing with other people's rules on the playground as little baby steps of preparation for telling your child that, no, she can't go to Cancun alone with her friends for spring break because they're only 14.

The parents I know have always operated under the assumption that you can make whatever rules you want for your own kids, but you can't make rules for other people's kids (assuming the other kids aren't hurting yours), and that enforcing your rules is your own business. Add you can't resent other people for having their own rules.

So that means that you have a perfect right to bring grapes as a snack for your kids, but you can't get angry at another mom for bringing Oreos. You can let your kid run around with shoes off at the playground, and even if I think it's stupid of you, I can't resent you for doing it, even if it causes me extra trouble to keep my kids in their shoes*. I can casually mention the recent cases of kids who've had their feet burned by the asphalt on the playground, but only to help you out, not to tell you you have to parent the way I do.

And, the other responsibility is being able to explain to your kids that "they do things their way and we do things our way" without saying or implying the words "irresponsible," "lazy," "helicopter," "controlling," or "dumbass."

So, basically, you make the policies for your kids, and other people make the ones for theirs, and you don't have to go by theirs and they don't have to go by yours. The stuff you're dealing with now at the playground is small potatoes compared to the stuff that'll come up later, so use this time as practice for helping your kids separate your family from what "everyone else" is doing and making that process explicit. That way later on they'll be less tempted to jump off the bridge when their friends are.

* A tip for that is to get water shoes and call them the "special playground shoes" and hype them as a cool thing they get to wear instead of that they have to wear. This won't work forever, but it will buy you a summer or three.

Raising white men in America

I mentioned in passing yesterday that I think there's a special responsibility when you're raising white boys to be men in America. (Maybe in other countries, too, but I can only speak to America as here and Mexico are the only places I've ever lived.) A couple people asked in the comments and by email for me to expound on my thoughts.

As with everything, I'm not an expert. But when my first child came out and was a boy, I started thinking about what my job was in raising him. I'd been prepared to raise a strong girl, but hadn't put as much thought into how to raise a truly strong boy. Once I started thinking about that, it occurred to me that I also had the responsibility to raise a child who was going to have some understanding of race and ethinitcity in America and wasn't going to take undue advantage of the system.

The first part of this is raising kids who are happy with who they are, who know what makes them special, and who are willing to work hard but also know their own areas of competence. If you really know who you are, then you don't need to think less of anyone else. You all have seen it on the internet--the people who attack (obviously or passively) are the ones who aren't sure about themselves.

With the next step, I have a huge advantage. We live in New York City, so we bump into (literally) people of all races and ethnicities all day long every day. We ride the subway and bus, and interact with people wherever we are. When you have the chance to see people who look different from you and from each other, it's easy to show your kids that people are people. Knowing people of other ethnicities is the best way to lessen interpersonal racism, because you know they are people, not just  categories.

I'm not sure how I'd work it if I lived in a place in which there wasn't as much opportunity for one-on-one interaction with people who didn't look like my kids. I grew up in a neighborhood that was overwhelmingly white but my parents had a variety of friends from different backgrounds. And they had the idea that we should know about more places and people than just the ones on our street. That openness informed the way they chose books and toys and TV shows for us to watch and helped us navigate things later on.

I think the bigger challenge than helping your kids avoid interpersonal racism is dealing with institutional racism. In my opinion, institutional racism is far more evil and hard to fight. The biggest problem is that, for white people at least, it's invisible. It just looks like The Way It Is, and unless someone talks about it with you, it can be hard to understand that the status quo isn't necessarily fair or just, and is putting some people in a position of superiority to others. Then once you know that, it's even harder to figure out what you can do not to reinforce that system.

So, what's the best way to smoke something out? Talk about it. And talk and talk and talk. In an age-appropriate way, of course, but when you see any kind of bias going on, talk about it with your kids. This election cycle is a bonus of teachable moments if your kids are 5 or older. (Both on women's history and on race and ethnicity in America.) The news (at least here in NYC) is also an unfortunate object lesson if you're willing to talk about why a kid with a candy bar gets shot for being in the "wrong" neighborhood.

I sometimes worry about saying the wrong thing. But then I think, as long as I'm keeping my eyes open and listening to what's going on and helping my kids learn to distinguish appearances from reality, whatever we say is part of the process. It's not like you can just swallow a Don't Be Part Of The Problem pill and everything's fixed. Human beings are born to make classifications and divisions, and unpacking that takes a long time and a willingness to keep up the conversation even when it's not happy.

I learned a heck of a lot about institutional racism from reading blogs of people who write a lot about race (some of them are about transracial adoption):

Anti-Racist Parent

American Family (and her entire blogroll)

WOC PhD

Dawn

Peter's Cross Station

If you start with any one of these blogs and start reading and following links, you will read some important stuff by some thoughtful people. And if you're white like me and my kids, you will probably read somethings that make you feel uncomfortable at best. That's part of the process. You need to know. So do your kids. I know they have more practical suggestions than I do, but then, I'm still trying to find a path through it myself.

Thoughts?

Q&A: special needs child

Katie writes:

"I have a 3-year-old son with autism and figure at least some of your readers have experience with special needs. My boy was diagnosed as having moderate autism just before he turned 2, and I am so proud of how far he has come. (I could write a whole separate e-mail about all of the therapies and interventions he has endured.) He is very verbal now and, though he is in a special preschool class, I believe he will be mainstreamed into a regular classroom by elementary school and be almost indistinguishable from his typical peers.

My dilemma is whether I should ever tell him about his autism. He hears me speak of it often now; I have no qualms about telling someone he is on the spectrum, partly because it explains some of his behaviors that new friends may find odd, and partly because I am so proud of all the progress he has made. But he is getting closer to the age when he will really pick up on what I'm saying when I speak to others about him.

I don't want to completely ignore it or act as if it never happened or make it into this big secretive talk--"Son, let's sit down for an important talk about something terrible about you." It is a part of who he is, a part of his past and present. I guess what I'm looking for is wisdom from others who may have gone through this before. Do I stop mentioning it so much? Do I wait for him to ask me something down the road? Do I phase out the word "autism" as his symptoms show up less and less?"

Hmm. On the one hand, I feel like he's going to know there's something different about him. On the other hand, you don't want him to grow up thinking there's something less about him. So how do you balance the two--acknowledging that he's got some things that are different about him but also letting him know that he's great the way he is?

I wrote that first parapgrah three weeks ago, and have been sitting on this post ever since, trying to figure out what to write. The fact is, I don't know what it's like to have a special needs child. It would be disingenuous of me to talk about it, I think, because I've never had the experience of parenting a child who isn't always going to be received easily by the world. (I definitely think I have a special responsibility in raising two white men in America, but that's a different post.)

I'd love to hear from moms and dads of kids who don't fit neatly into the boxes that we expect kids to fit into. Not just kids who have autism, but kids who have any other kind of developmental issue, kids who have chronic illnesses, kids who look different.

How do you manage their "issues" (treatments, therapies, medical inteventions, etc.) while still loving and respecting them as people? How do you straddle the line between living your experience as the parent of a special needs child and honoring their experience as a special needs person? What if the "special need" is something that isn't recognized by the larger world (like being a highly sensitive or spirited person)?

Please talk about it. If you want to link to other supportive areas of the internet, please do. (If you type in the http:// before the www part of the address it'll automatically hyperlink so people can just click through your comment.)

Q&A: Controlling Toddler Meltdowns?

Sarah writes:

"I discovered a few days ago that if I yell, sternly, ENOUGH!!!, when my 18-month old starts spiraling into a tantrum, he stops, stunned by my loud and stern voice, and returns to a calm state.  On the weekend, he was about to meltdown in his stroller, and I yelled ENOUGH and it stopped him dead in his tracks, I have to admit I was quite pleased. Today he started to melt down because I wanted him to stop playing with something that was dangerous and so I yelled ENOUGH again, and again, it worked.  But today instead of being pleased I started to wonder if I was scaring him into submission, or "training" him like one might train a dog.  I have no idea how to deal with tantrums.  I have read your posts and I understand that it's ok to comfort an 18-month old through the tantrum without giving into their "want".  But if I can stop it before it becomes full-blown, isn't that preferable?  Or, am I using old tactics that we've learned since are harmful to a child's self-esteem? 

This is part of a broader issue, which is that I just want my boy to be happy, and I know my husband feels I am on the verge of spoiling him by rarely saying no to him.  Do (good) parents yell at toddlers, as I've started to do to halt bad behaviour, or is that a total no-go?  I feel at a total loss."

I'm going to say that this is not a good thing. On the one hand, it is kind of just a distraction method, right? You've shocked him into being quiet. But really what's happening is that you're yelling at him to get him to stop yelling.

I absolutely appreciate the urge that made you yell ENOUGH! in the first place. And I think we've all been there with the kneejerk, instinct-level reactions (your preschooler smacks you and you reflexively smack him back, your elementary schooler calls you a name and you respond with "it takes one to know one!", etc.) because none of us are perfect and it's just human nature to react when you feel attacked, even by a little kid. However, the goal is that you make discipline policies that are well-thought-out and are going to help your kid (and yourself, too) learn mastery of themselves and increase connection with you.

So, as a policy, yelling is a no-go, because it's just punitive (and is experienced as violence, for sure). It's not teaching anyone anything good--it's teaching your kid to be afraid of you and it's teaching you that brute force is the way to run the situation with your child. And in the long-term it's not helping you guys individually or as a pair.

Honestly, I'm really starting to feel like toddler tantrums are just another developmental blip for us to ride out, like the 4-month sleep regression or that stage when they only want to eat things they can feed themselves. I think tantruming, on a kid-by-kid basis, is "normal" behavior and no matter what we do it's going to pass. And maybe for some kids there's something simple you can do to get them to stop having tantrums or to get them through that stage faster, but not for all. Which means that you try some stuff, but not with the goal of finding The Cure, just with the goal of helping you all deal with it in a way that honors all of you as people.

The bigger thing I think you need to look at is how you and your husband are approaching discipline. At all ages, but especially at this age, it's about setting boundaries, not about getting kids to obey. (I really hate that word obey.) When kids obey, they're doing it because they fear punishment, not because they're making the choice themselves. I think we can all (or most of us) agree that the goal is to raise adults who have an internal sense of right and wrong and the power to make good decisions for themselves and others.

This young toddler age isn't about having them make good choices, because their ability to actually choose and then carry out an action is limited, and when they get an urge it's super-hard for them not to do it. But it is about getting them used to boundaries, and that they aren't going to be allowed to do certain things (like hurting a pet, running into the street, sticking forks in electrical outlets, etc.), that they are going to have to do certain other things (like brushing their teeth, having their diapers changed, etc.). Another aspect of boundaries is learning that they will be loved, that no one is going to hit them or yell at them (which is why kids who are abused have problems with boundaries later), that their opinion matters, that they're part of a community.

So it sounds like your husband sees setting boundaries as "saying no to him," while saying no sounds too punitive to you. So maybe sit down together and talk about setting boundaries and how you want to do that. Three great references to get your head around the concepts of setting boundaries are Haim Ginott's Between Parent and Child, Lawrence Cohen's Playful Parenting, and Faber and Mazlish's How To Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk. (If you can only get one, get the Ginott.)

For practical, minute-by-minute tips on boundaries and dealing with tantrums at this young toddler and preschooler age, I don't know anyone else better than Sharon Silver. I'm hoping she'll drop in and comment on this post. (OK, I just clicked over to her site to find the URL to link, and started laughing because her current headline is "Stop Reacting - Start Responding - We'll Show You How. Do you find yourself yelling at your toddler or preschooler because you're frustrated and you don't know what else to do?" Ha! So yeah, let's hope she drops in.)

Q&A: Chopped liver?

Meggimoo writes:

"My 2-1/2 year-old son adores my husband. I'm happy about that. I'm ok with taking the back seat since the 1st year of his life he only wanted me (and my breasts). But for the past 6 months, and with no end in sight, it's not just that he prefers my husband. He actively does not want me to have anything to do with him if my DH is within 500 feet. I can't put him to bed, I can't sing him songs at night, I can't change his clothes, ad infinitum. Of course, I still do these things when necessary, but they're met with the utmost protest. If my DH is not around, my DS will grudgingly allow me to be in his presence

I'm trying to be mature about this (ahem) and not feel hurt. That works most of the time. But sometimes I just wonder when/if this stage will end. Is this it? Am I just not going to be a preferred member of his posse forever more? I had always heard that boys adored their mothers. Has anyone out there gone through this and come out the other end? Did their sons (or daughters) begin to gravitate toward them again? I guess I'm just thrown by the suddenness of how this all occured. I feel like the new wife my DH just married, trying to win over his toddler. But, hello! I pushed you out with no drugs, dammit. (Hmm, I'm beginning to sound like MY mother.)

<sigh> 

So you know it's normal, but it still hurts. I remember it vividly, and it hurt me, too. Heck, it still hurts now when they see their dad and run off to him and leave me hanging. (Of course that may also have something to do with the inherent weirdness of our co-parenting in a completely different--and probably healthier--way than we did while we were still together.)

And it really feels like you spent so much of your life giving and giving and giving and now he doesn't want anything to do with you. It would be one thing if he was ready to go out of the nest completely, but the switching alliances to his dad while you're still there just stings.

Two thoughts (and then I'm leaving for the airport):

1. I think it's a biological thing. At this age, many mothers are having another child, so it makes total sense for the child to be programmed to prefer the dad at this point, so the mother can focus on the new baby. Even though there's no new baby, his developmental stuff is still going on as programmed. Maybe you could get a cat, or take up a new hobby to keep yourself busy until he comes out of this phase.

2. It does change. At some point in the future he'll want you again, and may even tell your husband, "No, I want Mom!" and refuse to let anyone else touch him.

I don't want to miss my flight, so I'll turn this over to the readers. Anyone else feels just hurt and insulted by this phase? When did it end?

Getting along with your parents as an adult, part 5: Four ideas about parenting your kids better than you were parented

1. Parenting in reaction to the way your parents interacted with you means their failure still controls you.

It's tempting to look at the things your parents did that hurt you and vow to do the opposite. But when you do that, it means your parents are dictating the way you parent your own kids. So they (and the things they did or didn't do that hurt you) are still controlling you.

One of the running themes I've noticed is parents who didn't seem to see who their kids were or what they really needed. Parenting the opposite from the way your parents did puts you in prime position to do this to your own kids, because you're not focusing on your kids as individuals--you're reparenting yourself instead. My mom laughed about this when I was maybe 6 or 7 and we were at the shoe store. She wanted me to get black patent Mary Janes, but I wanted the brown lace-ups. Finally I broke down and wailed, "Mo-om, I don't want the fancy shoes!"  My mom stopped, thought, and realized that when she was that age, she'd always wanted the fancy shoes, but her mother had always made her get the sensible shoes (she already had 2 or 3 younger siblings by that point, so the shoes had to last). So she was forcing me to get the fancy shoes because those were the shoes she'd always wished she'd gotten but could never have.

That's obviously a trivial example, but it does show how you can do this stuff without even thinking about it. But once you do think about it, and expose it, you're not held hostage by it anymore.

Instead, by identifying and releasing what happened to you, you're saying "This wasn't healthy." Then you can calmly figure out what is healthy and start there with your own kids.

2. Giving your children what you didn't get from your parents won't make up for what you didn't get and it won't make it OK. But it's better than repeating the cycle, and it gives you a good relationship with your kids.

If your parents aren't capable of it, you will never get what you need/ed from them. There isn't anything you can do about that. Let yourself grieve/rage/sob.

Even being the best parent you can possibly be won't bring back what you lost from your parents. But at least you know you're not doing to your kids what was done to you. And you're also creating the connection, space, and boundaries necessary for a healthy relationship and closeness with them for the rest of their lives (even though they'll eventually leave you physically).


3. There is no such thing as perfection. But you can do better than your parents did. And you'll hope your kids do better than you did.

My mom is not a perfect mother. From her point of view, she yelled too much. (She pretty much did. Although sometimes we deserved it.) She had other imperfections, too. But she parented me better than her own mother parented her, and my grandmother parented my mom exponentially (truly miraculously) better than her own parents parented her.

That's what's supposed to happen. It is absolutely not possible for you to parent your children perfectly. No matter what you do, they're going to be screwed up somehow. But if you can do better than your own parents did, you're honoring your children. (Those of us with parents who are pretty healthy have probably already heard them say some version of "I know you'll do a better job with your kids than I did with you" and mean it.)

So good news for those of you who got a truly raw deal--you have plenty of room to make some huge mistakes and still have your kids come out of it saying "I have no idea how my mom was such a great mom, especially considering how she was raised."

4. You have the ability to get a reality check.

Something our parents, isolated in their houses and apartments, never had. The internet is here so we can talk to each other and say things like "I freaked out on my toddler in the middle of the night and am afraid I've ruined everything" and there will be people there to tell you to apologize to her and start again in the morning. Or, conversely, to let you know that it's not a realistic expectation that your 4-month-old be able to entertain himself for an hour at a time.

A friend of mine grew up with a mother who never quite recovered from her divorce and was quite bitter about it. My friend said she wanted a healthy marriage and family, so when she was in high school she started spending time at the homes of friends with together parents and happy home lives. And she paid attention to everything and filed it away. She knew she was going to need to see it modeled if she wanted to replicate it. Super-smart cookie, my friend. She knew the danger of being stuck in a feedback loop with only yourself, so she started building a file of reality checks for herself long before she needed them.

Ok, what am I forgetting?

Getting along with your parents as an adult, part 4: More on expectations and hurt

Sorry for the late posting today--I've got a nasty head cold and fell asleep last night when the kids did. I had the amazing realization this morning that I can actually take cold medicine, though, as I'm not nursing anymore. I'm about to pop some cold meds for the first time since 2001 (Last time I was neither pregnant nor nursing). Woo-hoo!

Anyway, I should have predicted that we'd need 5 days instead of just 4 to deal with this topic. I'm not sure we're done with the parents part yet and are ready to go to implications for parenting our own kid. At least I'm not. So I'm going to hit some of the topics that came up yesterday. Then tomorrow (a Saturday post!) I'll put up my thoughts on parenting your own kids. I'll leave that up all weekend, and post something kind of short and light weight on Monday so we can still chew on it.

Yesterday enu and hedra were saying that they don't use the word "owe" in terms parents and adult children. While i absolutely see their point, I disagree and definitely use the word "owe" to talk about the relationship in the parent-to-child direction. For me, the bottom line is always going to be that the parent chose (inasmuch as there was an actual choice possible) to have and raise the child. No child ever chooses to be born or who its parents are. Which means there's automatically a huge imbalance, and that sets up an obligation on the part of the parent to provide certain things for the child. Respect, food, shelter, love, clothes, education, socialization, and cultural values are what I think the absolute basics are.

Now, what you owe your kids when they're adults completely varies, depending on the culture you're raised in, but also on how you parented when your kids were younger. There are some families in which kids are expected to leave the house when they're 18. That may sound harsh to some people. But if the parents in those families taught the children how to financially support themselves so that by the time they were 18 they were able to leave without falling into poverty, then the system completely works. (Some of the most resourceful people I know were lovingly kicked out at 18, but they were also raised to be independent thinkers who land on their feet too often for it to be luck.)

If, however, you do nothing to prep your kids for the world and kick them out at age 18, then IMO you're not fulfilling your responsibilities as a parent. (remember a few years ago when the media was all over the "boomerang generation" of 20-somethings who were living with their parents? It wasn't the logistics that bugged people--it was that the adult kids either weren't technically equipped to live alone or were lacking the drive to separate that bugged people.)

So again with the paradox--the more completely your parents fulfilled their responsibilities when you were young, the less they "owe" you as an adult. Or at least the less difficult personally it is to provide what they owe you.

But, and this is a big but (oh, yeah!), if the parent doesn't have good emotional reserves when the kids need them, it's really hard for them to give it to the kids. I've experienced this myself over the last few years. There was a time in which the only thing I had going for me was my kids (and this blog) and I could put all my focus on them, but it wasn't the focus of a healthy person with good self-esteem. It was the pure and complete love of a broken person. And then when I made the move to get out, I just felt so free! It was like everything was technicolor. I was giddy all the time. And I started figuring out all these things about myself, who I am, what I like, what I want from life. And I realized that it would be really easy to lose that intense connection to my kids if I went with the urge to flip myself inside out to start rebuilding my life. But I was so lucky in that I've never associated my children with the misery of my life. So I was able to keep that connection while also stretching out to find my new life.

I think women who maybe were ambivalent about having kids in the first place and who had fewer choices than I do and don't analyze everything that comes down the pike the way my mom trained me to and who felt like the kids were part of the Great Sadness, well, I think it feels to them like a choice between themselves and their kids.

But let's move on to knowing why the behavior is there and setting boundaries and still being so, so hurt by it. I absolutely love what Sharon Silver said in this comment:

"Dealing with parents, now that you are a parent, may mean that you have to share:

• I am adult and I need my boundaries to be acknowledged and respected.
• I know this may/will hurt you, but I can’t be near you if you choose to treat my children in a way that is not in alignment with the way I am raising them.
• I need a break from you while I feel my feelings about this and the moment I am clear about my feelings I will share them with you.
• My choices and behavior have nothing to do with you, even if it makes you feel like I’m making you wrong in some way.

And if your choice to draw a boundary results in them rejecting you for a while, know this:
• All you’re doing is taking responsibility for your choices, words and actions, it is YOUR life now.
• Realize they are responsible for their choices, words and actions too, even if they don’t know or take that responsibility.
The choices people make speak volumes about them. Their choices are THEIR statements about a situation and you can’t change it even if you want to."

Notice that none of what she said means that it doesn't hurt you anymore. There's a big gaping mom-sized wound some of you are carrying around. Or dad-sized wound. I will never be "over" my dad's illness (lifelong clinical depression that he's never really been able to get on top of despite oodles of meds) and how that's affected our relationship. It still makes me cry sometimes, and wish I could fix everything for him and us and myself as a kid and him as a kid and just all of it.

But knowing that you're giving yourself what your parents owe you by caring enough for yourself (and your kids!) to draw some boundaries, even when the hurt is still there like a rock in your shoe, well, that's more than many people ever get to. And, it means that you get to spare your kids this same hurt.

Hey--the cold meds are working! But now I'm crying again about my dad. Please keep talking. Am I full of it? Does anyone have a step-by-step plan for moving through the pain? Do you feel lucky to have your parents? (I do.) Why are all the smartest, most sensitive people on the internet commenting on my site? Who needs a brownie right now?