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Last Updated: January 2025
I keep hearing and reading that these are unprecedented times, but they are entirely precedented. The world has ended, over and over again, ever since the world began. Horrible things are happening right now as you are reading this. I am not diminishing or excusing them.
And
Plus
Also
This ain’t no damn dress rehearsal, as my father would say. TANDDR, to me, means that it all counts. The audience is here; they are seated, and the lights are up. What are you gonna DO?
The choices we make right now feel extra heavy, fraught with more meaning and risk than there was just a few weeks ago. If you’re overwhelmed, exhausted, and terrified, you aren’t wrong. You aren’t wrong if you’re numb — if it’s all too much, and you just can’t feel it anymore. You aren’t bad to want to run away or hide, to want to scream and fight, to want someone, anyone, to fucking fix this.
We are the adults in the room. Sadly, there are no adultier adults.
Our children, our young people, are looking to us. The even more terrifying truth is that this will not be the last apocalypse they experience. They are watching us to learn how to survive these times and all the others that are coming.
You are setting the precedent right now.
I can’t tell you what is right for your family. This is a lie. I can. Telling people what to do is my very best thing. But I won’t. We all must learn how to turn up the volume on our moral compass, tune into our inner wisdom, and choose for ourselves what our sources will be.
I am listening to my body FIRST before anything else, no matter what. I’ve been using the Visible Tracker app to help manage my Long COVID, and I do not play with my pace points, heart rate, or capacity. I made this decision because I know there will be times when I must push my body. There will be times when I have to bust past every boundary — and I need to start from as healthy a baseline as possible.
I am caring for my heart, mind, and soul. EVERY DAY, there is time for creativity, there is space for joy, and there is room made for my thoughts and my feelings. I do this by listening to audiobooks while I’m knitting or coloring. I do this by going to therapy. I do this by speaking with my friends — not about the shitshow that is the world, but about what they’re reading or the new blend of tea that I found. I do this by putting on music and taking a bath. I do this by spending time with my children doing crafts and discussing all the school gossip. I do this by having movie nights with my husband and making popcorn in bacon grease on the stove (do it because IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE).
I care for my family by ensuring that they are informed, can reach me if they need me, and have what they need. By family, I mean my husband, children, and mother, as well as my people and my children’s people. If you’re family, then you know you are. Trust.
I am caring for my community by prioritizing local news in my consumption. This is where I can have the greatest impact with the least amount of energy/money/time (things that I am consistently low on), and so this is where I focus. I have joined ONE local group.
I’m also running my business, trying to reach as many moms as possible while each platform twists and turns like a funhouse mirror.
That’s what the outside world is doing, isn’t it? Twisting, turning, stealing our focus and hope, and warping our vision. The current administration’s plan is to flood Americans with so much information that we give up — that we can no longer focus or fight. It’s an effective plan.
The more I learn about myself, the more I heal, the more I ground myself in who TF I am, and what TF I know to be true, the more calm I find. In that calm is strength. In that calm is discernment.
I turn inward to steady myself, open my arms wide, and hold onto my people and my community. I turn inward to discover, heal, nurture hope, process anger, and choose action.
I DO NOT turn inward to run away, numb out, or check out. That is not self-care; that isn’t a way to care for anyone at all. That way leads to disconnection, guilt, overwhelm, and the exact type of isolation that makes us easy to exploit.
This is a time for self-discovery, yes. It is a time for self-connection, absolutely. It is a time for strengthening our baselines, our bonds, and our discernment. The funhouse will only get more warped and more dangerous from here. The mirrors will soon twist into portals, and shrapnel will fly out of them. We are at the beginning. Apocalypse isn’t a moment but a measure. You are alive in it. You are living your one precious, beautiful life in it.
How will you live it?
I keep hearing and reading that these are unprecedented times, but they are entirely precedented. The world has ended, over and over again, ever since the world began. Horrible things are happening right now as you are reading this. I am not diminishing or excusing them.
I keep seeing conversation online that start with some form of this question, “What do I say to my daughter about marriage?” These are generally from women with adult or young adult daughters who are dating and in relationships.
And I don’t want to say that it’s too late at that point, because I honestly don’t believe that is true. But I wonder about a few things.
I wish the question was, “I wonder what my daughter thinks and how she feels about marriage?” Do you even know how she defines a healthy relationship, or what she would want out of marriage?
Because really, by the time she’s dating, she has already seen a marriage up close and personal for over a decade. She has lived inside your marriage or your singlehood, or your divorce, separation, etc. Children do not grow separate and apart from all of our other relationships. We know this.
So really, your question is — “What do I want to explain to my daughter about my experience that I haven’t shared before?” And before you do that, stop and think if you’re ready to hear her thoughts on your marriage. Do you want to know her truth as much as you want to share yours?
They got divorced when I was in college, and I thought that was about six or seven years longer than it should have taken, but no one asked me. They both handled it horribly, and I ended up as my mom’s de facto therapist at a time in my life when my own mental health was imploding, so that was fun. My dad and I didn’t talk for a couple of years. It was all-around a great time.
Fast forward a decade and I met Adam in June of 2012. Our son was born in June of 2013. None of that was planned. The entire beginning of our relationship was two people stumbling through a dark maze and getting super lucky that we kept taking the same turns and never let go of each other’s hands.
I had a very serious battle with postpartum depression after our son was born and my father began to pressure me about marriage. He wanted legal protection for me. My sister, a family lawyer, called me — at my dad’s urging — to tell me about all the ways that Adam could use my mental illness to take custody of our baby.
I was extremely ill, and terrified of myself and for myself and my son and Adam, and marriage was the last thing on my mind.
As I got better and our relationship matured even more it felt like we were already married. I didn’t have a ring. We didn’t have paperwork. But we had commitment and bills and a kid and a chore schedule and couple friends and we were saving for college and we had inside jokes and rules about leaving the bathroom door open while you’re using it and…
I got pregnant again. (One day I’ll write about how my uterus laughs at birth control.)This time, we were really intentional about my physical and mental health throughout the pregnancy and birth. We were a united front when setting boundaries and asking for support from our families.
No one brought up marriage again.
We did finally get married when our kids were three and five years old. We signed some paperwork at the DMV and then went for pancakes. We did it because we had moved to a different state and I needed to be on Adam’s health insurance.
They’re nine and eleven years old, now. And while they don’t remember those very early years, we tell them about it. They know that marriage isn’t the marker of our commitment to each other. They see us working at our relationship, talking through issues, supporting and caring for each other, and caring for them as a team.
I have thoughts on the institution of marriage, of course I do. And as my kids get older I will absolutely share those thoughts with them.
And I am conscious that nothing I ever say will hit harder than these years of them growing up inside this relationship I have with their dad. We are both conscious of that. We are co-creating these childhood years with them. And once again we’re stumbling through a maze in the dark, still incredibly lucky to be taking all the same turns and holding on even more tightly to each other’s hands.
By the time my children are old enough to date, I hope that we will have modeled a healthy relationship and I know that we will have kept having discussions about how you treat those you care about and how you expect to be treated by those who say they care about you.
For the mothers out there with grown or young adult children — yes, please have honest conversations with them about your thoughts and feelings on marriage as an institution, and your experience with marriage and with relationships. Please do. Tell them the whole messy truth of it. And be prepared to accept their whole messy truth back.
And for those of us with younger kids, please know that you’re having the conversation every day. You already are. Because the conversation about marriage is a conversation about gender, sex, power, care, labor, love, and money. It is about how we relate to each other and how that changes once we label a relationship.
You’ve been having some version of that conversation since you first met your child.
The marriage conversation.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon.
There is no one behind the altar.
Communities of support are possible — they exist — and they are necessary for both mother and child to claim their full humanity at the same time. This does not mean that both get to do everything they wish, anytime they wish. This means that neither is sacrificing SELF for the other. It means that both mother and child are seen as human beings worthy of care, time, and respect.
So, what would it look like if our society actually valued mothers and mothering as much as we like to pretend that we do on the second Sunday in May? There would be systemic changes at all levels of government. There would be shake-ups in corporate America. Universal paid parental leave, universal health care, possibly a state income for parents — who knows? What I do know for sure is that the changes would be deep, and they would reflect the full humanity of mothers and respect for the work of mothering.
My work is not on a national, state, or even local level. My work is person to person.
So what would it be like if you were respected as a human being AND as a mother; respected by your family, your friends, and by yourself? How would your life change if you were at the center of it?
The truth is that you are the center of your family. You are the sun in their sky. They will revolve around you whether you are healthy or not, whether you are fulfilled in your role as a mother and flourishing, or not. And so your choice comes back to you. How do you want to live? What is it that you believe you deserve?
White supremacist, capitalist patriarchy has lied to you. It has fed you a steady diet of insecurity and binary thinking, but you know better. You know there is more to this, more to motherhood, more to life. You know you were born worthy and that your worth is both intrinsic and immutable. Nothing that has happened to you, and nothing you have done changes that. You. Are. Worthy.
And you know you are the one your children will model their own parenting after. So what is the motherhood journey that you want for your own child(ren)? And if that is what you want from them, then why will you not claim it for yourself?
You can stand in the center of your life. You can stand whole and healed (or in the process of healing) in the center of your family. You can know what it is you want and need. You can communicate those needs clearly to your family and you can have those needs met. You can set boundaries with your family clearly and firmly.
Your job is not to make your children as happy as possible every day. Your job is to raise healthy human beings. Your job is to live your life as wholly as possible.
You get to be honest.
You get to be seen.
You get to be real.
You get to need.
You get to want.
You get to feel.
You get to say no.
You get to choose you.
You get to heal.
These things take work. Change rarely happens all on its own. There must be a choice and there must be a reclamation.
Every mother knows that what we say matters very little, but what we do makes an immediate and lasting impact. We can tell our children about consent all day every day, but when we violate their boundaries or allow them to violate ours, they learn we don’t mean what we say.
I don’t know if my children will become parents. I do know that if they become parents, I want their experience of parenthood to be different from mine. I dream a world for them free of gender restrictions. I dream a world for them with true community and networks of support. I dream a world for them where the generational trauma I have lived with is but a mere story. I dream a parenting journey for them with much less judgment and much more grace.
But there is so little I can control about how their lives will turn out, and even less I can control about the world they will inherit. What I can control is what I do.
I can do my best to heal myself and stand in the center of my family as a whole human being. I can help as many mothers as possible to do the same.
I can teach them to see me, to consider me, to respect me. I can teach them that I will make mistakes, that I will fail, and even as I stumble — I am still worthy. I can show them anger doesn’t need to be feared and boundaries are beautiful. I can teach them consent is essential and they must ask for what they want.
I can tell them all of these things. I can lecture and teach and preach. And I do. I’m a talker and I can’t help it. But I also show them. I show them my humanity every day. I show them my truth and it’s amazing how much and how quickly they are learning.
I don’t give them everything. I don’t lay all of me at their feet. I don’t make them the center of my universe. None of that would be fair to them. Or to me.
From the time our children are conceived or brought into our families, we begin a long, slow journey of separation. It is a push and pull, a dance of hearts and minds and bodies drawing closer and away, closer and away. At times we can feel as if we are one person, as if our whole life is tied up in theirs. It’s never true.
The great and terrible truth is that your life is only ever yours. How will you live it?
It isn’t about perfection. Or sacrifice. It isn’t about judgment. Or competition.
Patriarchy tells us that women can’t form supportive networks and hold them. Capitalism tells us we must live in scarcity and competition, and that abundance comes only with wealth.
We know that isn’t true.
When you stand in the center of your life, when self-care becomes a way of life and not a buzzword, you learn to lean. Not only to let others lean on you, always, and to give and give and give, always, but to lean.
Mothers can save each other. Mothers can help each other heal. Mothers can recognize each other’s humanity and celebrate each other.
Mother-centered motherhood recognizes that the whole mother is needed to anchor the family — fabulous and flawed, all of her is necessary. It is choosing to do the work to heal — even when it takes time and money, even when it means saying no to people who want you to say yes to, even when it means making changes that your family finds uncomfortable at first. It means placing ALL OF YOU in the center of your life and of your family.
It isn’t one choice, but a series of choices every single day. It isn’t a system that tells you what is right and wrong every step of the way, but a respect and that begins in the self and a knowledge of your own worth.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020. I’m sharing it here because it’s still important — in many cases, not nearly enough has changed. I’ve been talking about The Motherload™️ and the humanity of moms for more than a decade now, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be stopping anytime soon.
At the top of a mountain stands a stone altar. To reach the altar you must climb a steep, narrow, and winding path. The path is covered in pebbles and riddled with holes. On one side is a rock wall, slick and high. On the other side is a sheer drop. The climb is terrifying.
The path is full of mothers. Mothers slipping on the stones and tripping in the holes, mothers helping each other up and other mothers pushing through the crowd. Each one carries a sacrifice — a piece of self to lay upon the altar.
“Here are my hopes and dreams,” one mother whispers as she unwinds her hair from her scalp. She lays it upon the altar and begs, “Now that I have given up my hopes and dreams, am I a good mother?”
There is no answer.
Mothers step up offering their limbs, their breasts, their stomachs, their hopes, their joys, their sexuality, their needs. They offer sacrifice after sacrifice and hear only silence.
Another mother steps up, opens her chest and lays her beating heart on the altar. “Here is my truest, deepest self. I relinquish it. Now am I a good mother?” There is only silence as there has always been. The mother sags at the base of the altar, unable to move on without her heart, stuck in this sacrificial pose as other mothers step around her and lay their own offerings down and send their own prayers up.
They believe the silence is proof they have not given enough, or that they have not given correctly.
They never notice there is no one behind the altar.
We don’t want to admit we are living out an abusive cycle of motherhood. Some of us will say that mothering is hard, more of us will agree our own mothers had it hard, but almost no one will look behind the altar and name the emptiness.
We are desperate to be seen as good mothers — to know we’ve gotten it right.Modern motherhood is made up of judgment, competition, and vast quantities of information. We are more plugged in, but less connected. We have so much knowledge at our fingertips but we find less and less grace for each other. More than ever we are convinced there is a right way to mother and we are more insecure than ever about our own journey.
Too many of us walk this road alone, and the isolation is killing us.
Parenting was meant to be a communal act. Humans are primates and primates parent together. When we say, “It takes a village to raise a child,” what we really mean is that no one person can do this alone and stay healthy and raise a healthy child. Yet so few of us live in true community with each other. Our families are either scattered or not supportive, we have neighbors but not communities, and many of our online interactions are filled with judgment and shame.
There’s this idea that there is a perfect mother, a right way to do this. There is more information at our fingertips than ever before about child development and psychology. There is more information about parenting styles and choices. There is more information about physical and mental health options for our families. We are overwhelmed with information, and many mothers lack a true village with which to have conversations where they can seek advice and support. This leaves mothers to carry an ever-expanding emotional, mental, and logistical load alone.
And the stakes are high, maybe the highest you will ever encounter. Add to this the fact that you cannot know if you’ve made the best choice for yourself or your family in the moment. You have to keep making deeply impactful choices daily, striving for an unreachable perfection with no sure roadmap.
Patriarchy has taught us to devalue the caring, nurturing, emotional work of motherhood. Capitalism has taught us to define work as production. White Supremacy has taught us that white women are at once fragile and superior and that women of color are at once unbreakable and inhuman.
And so we learn that these things that exhaust us are not “real work.” We learn we should be grateful for the smallest amounts of help from our partners. We learn to devalue the domestic work that mothers do and to scoff at the idea of mothers needing help with this work, especially mothers of color. This is the base, the DNA from which The Sacrificial Mother springs.
She is the ideal. She is the mother who will finally and absolutely be blessed as THE GOOD MOM. She will be secure in the knowledge that she did everything right and she will live a life free of blame, shame, and disregard.
She is an impossibility, constantly changing but always perfectly correct. She easily adapts to every bit of new information on childrearing, health, and nutrition. She gives the perfect amount to her children, her partner, her friends, and her family. She is the quintessential giving machine.
And because our world is what it is, she is also young, straight, white, cis-gendered, able-bodied, married, educated (but not too), and fully employed (but not career-driven). She volunteers, she crafts, she makes money, she loves sex with her husband only, and her desire level is a perfect fit for his.
The further away you are from this ideal, the more your mothering is judged by society at large and the harder your mothering journey is in general. The particulars will be decided by your own intersections and by those of your mother and your matrilineal line.
It isn’t just us and it isn’t just today. The Sacrificial Mother as we know her now has been shaped by every generation before us, whether they knew that’s what was happening or not. Every stereotype about womanhood plays into this one. Every idea about gender, sexuality, worth, race, about class — they all come together here. She may also wear a face specific to your race and culture. Mothers of color are frequently judged against both a cultural Sacrificial Mother and a white/western Sacrificial Mother.
All around me I see moms praising their own mothers for their sacrifice. I see folks talking about how their mothers gave up everything for them and how their mothers lived for them or through them. The child’s accomplishments became the mother’s because the mother had no dreams left.
We must begin to think more deeply about these norms and whether or not they are healthy. Is it healthy to ask a human being to relinquish all sense of self in service to another? And if that is not truly what we mean, then shouldn’t we stop saying things like:
“My child is my whole life.”
“It isn’t about me anymore, I live for them.”
“Motherhood is sacrifice.”
We see this rhetoric all the time. We tell mothers when they are pregnant or adopting that their lives no longer matter and the point of their life is now that child. We don’t stop to interrogate if that is true or if it is healthy for mother, child, or family.
If your life stops when you have a child and becomes their life, then what is your child living? And does this mean that when your child becomes a parent they must also ransom their lives against the lives of their children? That they must wait and hope and pray that they can pick up a thread of their own existence after their child has moved on from the home?
In this scenario, who ever gets to fully live? Childless people? Fathers?
And what of the child who has all of the hopes and dreams of one or more parent placed on their tiny shoulders? How do they flourish under that weight? How do they learn to be their own whole person?
The idea is that when motherhood begins, personhood stops. Motherhood is seen as binary.
But life is not binary. Life is not either/or. Life is both/and/also. Life is continuous, shifting, changing, and never truly ending.
So, what are the both/and/also versions of motherhood? We see the mother and daughter who graduate college together and their story goes viral on social media. What if instead there was the mother who has her child AND a college experience because she has a community of care around her to support both her and the child? That’s one way the story can be different. But we don’t talk about that because it would require such a deep shift in our current system. The types of communities that lead to the healthiest mothers and children do not flourish in a white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal system because each of those determinants is binary and humans simply aren’t.
Original publish date: 12/30/24
Trigger Warning: Discussion of self-harm
I took a deep breath, leaned my head against the wall of the hallway outside my bedroom, and slowly brought my head back and then forward into the wall once, twice, three times. My husband’s form appeared in my peripheral vision, his hand hovered at my shoulder, his fear and worry touching me before the flesh did.
I didn’t look at him. Couldn’t. Incoherent screaming echoed in my head and if I looked at him, it would come pouring from my mouth. I backed away from the wall so he knew I wouldn’t hurt myself again. It was all the reassurance I could muster.
From downstairs came the voice of my mother reading a story to my son. At 11 he’s probably too old for bedtime stories, but he’ll never tell her that. She’s his Meme and he adores her. Her voice scrapes my nerves raw and makes me want to break things. But he doesn’t know that.
My mother never hit me. Not that she didn’t want to. There were times when I could clearly see the desire written all over her face; violence squishing through her closed fist like Play-Doh.
My grandmother beat my mother. So did my grandfather. They did it as discipline and not with any glee — if that matters. (I want to believe that it does, but wanting doesn’t make it so.)
My mother never set out to break that cycle, but my father was firm on that point. No hitting. No spanking. No raised hands ever. And so there weren’t. It was “just” words. To be honest, I don’t even remember the actual words as much as the screeching, hateful tone. She hated me. Frequently. I cost money she didn’t have, took up time she didn’t have, was an ungrateful shit — and she didn’t know what the fuck was wrong with me. (Oh look! I do remember the words. Yay.) I was six or seven, so I don’t know what was wrong with me either.
I’m 45 now. I know exactly what is wrong with me. I could write you an extremely detailed, annotated list on exactly what is wrong with me and the many and varied theories as to why each specific thing is wrong with me. Mine is not an unexamined life. As I’m writing this the things most wrong with me are: I’m chronically ill, I’m dealing with a contractor who is allergic to organization and planning, both of my children are struggling with anxiety, and my mother is in my house.
I don’t like her. And she’s 80. And I’m an only child. It is what it is.
I don’t know that we break generational curses so much as we wear them down.
Banging my head on the wall felt good. Well, it hurt like hell, but it was a pain that made sense. I’ve always had a deep fear of self-harm, because it seems eminently logical to me. I didn’t stop the banging because it hurt, but because I was scared by how it helped. And I could feel my husband’s worry fill the hallway like smoke. So, I stopped.
Before the banging I was trying to figure out my 8-year-old’s reaction to a question I’d asked her earlier. I won’t give details here because it’s not only my story to tell. Suffice to say, her anxiety reaction is freeze. Mine was always fight. And so I don’t always recognize when her reaction is rooted in anxiety.
I am as mystified at her reaction to me asking her a question as my mother was to my reaction to her screaming. We both have the same thought in the moment - it isn’t anywhere near as “bad” as what I went through, so what could she possibly be freaking out about?
I don’t know that we break generational curses so much as we wear them down. We grow and push ourselves up out of the dirt and the muck, lifting our heads toward the fresh air and stretching out our arms until they burn so we can place our children as high up the hill as possible. And even up in all that fresh air and sunshine, the curse isn’t broken. The healing isn’t complete. And our children will have to climb out of the muck we create and stretch their own children even higher.
This was simpler in myriad ways before my mother was here, in my house. She’ll be here for the next two weeks until her furniture arrives and she can move into her new apartment. And then she’ll be living 10 minutes away from me six years after I moved 1,600 miles away from her.
My children are thrilled. To them, she is a story reader and card game player, hugs and presents and applause. To me she is screeching demand, a never-ending void filled and filling with need. My deepest fear in my darkest moment is that either of my children will ever feel about me the way I feel about her.
I know she’ll say she did the best she could.
She probably did.
I am.
Shit.
“My deepest fear is that either of my children will ever feel about me the way I feel about her.
Original Publish Date: 12/23/24
There are men crawling all over my house, like ants. They are ripping siding off, replacing something called sheathing, and they are constantly finding problems.
*knock knock*
Again?
Yeah, you’d better come take a look.
Damn.
Well…yeah…
That’s how it went yesterday, when they knocked on the door for the third time to show me a problem they’d found. Each problem sinks me a little (let’s be honest, a LOT) more in debt. And each problem makes me feel less safe in my home.
These guys are good. They don’t try to cover anything up. They come and get me and we talk through the options and make a plan. By the time the new siding is up my home will be stronger and safer as well as more beautiful.
The journey though… damn.
And that sounds utterly ridiculous now. But it’s the truth. For years, I kept going to doctors and asking for help, begging for relief, and they would take a billion gallons of blood and run a million tests and tell me that everything was normal.
Looking at those test results now, with the help of my MD from Google University, I see that very many things weren’t normal. They still aren’t. They are, however, in the normal range. Doctors kept peeling back my old siding but not finding anything serious enough to knock on the front door about. Well, until the brain damage.
What are those white spots?
White matter.
I thought it’s supposed to be grey?
It is.
I had been trying to get some type of answers for two years at that point. But this really wasn’t the answer I wanted. Parts of my brain are dead. I’m walking around with death in my head. That’s some hard shit to process. Not that I was doing much walking at the time.
My experience of those symptoms was that life was bearable in my bed, in the cool dark of the basement. Everywhere else, life was something between a teeth-gritting nightmare and completely impossible.
No one had answers to as to what had caused the brain damage. I was given no hope of reversal. One of my doctors suggested that I learn a new skill, something involving hand-eye coordination that I could do from my bed even at low energy. The theory was that creating new neural pathways couldn’t hurt. We made a list — drawing, painting, knitting, crochet, calligraphy, and a few others that I can’t remember. I chose knitting and it quickly became a lifeline.
I couldn’t play with my kids in the snow, but I made them scarves and hats. I couldn’t sit up on the couch and read to them, but I made them blankets in their favorite colors. I couldn’t get out of that damned bed, but I could make something. There was tangible proof that I still existed in the world and that I still had talent, skills, some modicum of power to affect the outside world — it took the form of a sweater.
I don’t remember exactly when it was. My mother-in-law was here. The kids were in school? I think? I do remember waking up and knowing that I had done too much in the days before and that I was about to pay for it. I remember coming to consciousness and being terrified to open my eyes and ‘start’ the day. I wasn’t wrong.
There were times I would push through. Holidays, the kids birthdays, when family was visiting, or when I just got so desperate for my life that I’d force myself to forget the cost. But I always paid. The cost for doing too much — like sitting up at the table for dinner or hanging out on my porch with my in-laws or *gasp* baking a birthday cake for one of my kids — was PAIN. Not pain. Not aches. No. Full body, muscle and bone and nerve PAIN. Amounts of ibuprofen that would make the folks at Motrin blush was the only way that I could manage it. That and screaming into my pillow.
But that day, in the in-between of sleep and wakefulness, I knew that nothing I’d felt before could prepare me for what was coming. I remember that clearly. And then I remember only flashes of the day.
Writhing on the couch and moaning in agony while my mother-in-law got that calmness that comes from utter panic.
Throwing up on the floor in front of the toilet and crying because I just wanted to pass out, but not in my own vomit.
My husband, Adam, on the phone with my doctor.
Adam and his mom trying to figure out if I’d get help faster at an ER or the urgent care.
Both of them supporting me to the car while I tried not to scream so I wouldn’t scare them more.
I can’t describe the pain to you. It was so bad that it wasn’t a feeling, it was a reality. It was my only reality.
I was curled into a ball on the exam table at the urgent care. The doctor who came in was a Black woman, and the relief that I felt in that moment was fucking miraculous. I knew I looked like shit. Hair wild, face puffy and wet with tears and snot, smelling like vomit and panic sweat, wearing pajamas in the middle of the day. If a Black woman is going to ask for pain meds she CANNOT look the way I looked. Not even a white husband by her side can make a doctor look past all that. But she walked in and I suddenly had hope.
She talked mostly to Adam, because I couldn’t talk. I tried to nod or shake my head.
Then we were alone again and I cried.
Then there were shots. Two of them. One was pain medication. One was steroids.
I slept on the 5 minute drive home.
Then I slept more.
Adam woke me to eat and to take a steroid pill. The doctor had written me a five day prescription, and suggested I talk to my doctor about inflammation.
The next morning I danced in my kitchen.
I DANCED IN MY KITCHEN.
Nothing hurt. Not one damn thing on my entire body. No soreness. Not shooting nerve pain. No dull ache. No sharp heat.
NO
PAIN
AT
ALL
I couldn’t stop smiling. And laughing. And showing off what I could do, “Watch me get up out of this chair!” I wanted to take steroids forever and ever. I could have my life back!
My PCP said no. She wanted to put me on an antidepressant.
I was stunned.
What followed was about a month of back-and-forth as I tried to get an answer for why steroids were a bad idea for me. The pain and fatigue returned, and my world shrank again.
Only this time I refused to fucking go quietly. I had tasted life and I wanted mine BACK. I called a pain specialist. I made an appointment. I decided that my life wasn’t going to hurt like that ever, ever again.
Before doctor appointments I always either print out the forms they need from the website, or call and ask them to email the forms to me so that I can walk in with them completed. I also type up a timeline of what’s going on. I keep it as succinct as possible while also trying to answer all of the questions that docs usually have. The brain damage means that I can’t always find the word that I need when I need it, so having things written out helps. This time, it was a total game changer.
The pain specialist walked into the room with the paper I’d written. He asked a few clarifying questions. And then he asked me if I’d been to the Long Covid clinic down in Denver. Just casually. As if it was obvious.As if I hadn’t spent years trying to get any type of answer. As if it wasn’t a fucking sky splitting revelation.
My symptoms started after I got the vaccine, though.
Yes. I see. And they got worse after each subsequent vaccine.
Yes.
And they don’t get better in between?
Uh. No.
Then I doubt you’re having a reaction to the vaccine. This is Long Covid.
But I was trying to do the right thing!
You did. You did do the right thing. For 99% of people. Unfortunately you’re not one of them.
Are you sure this is Long Covid?
Well, I don’t have a test for it. But you have the same symptoms as many of my LC patients. When you hear hoofbeats, think horses.
Well…fuck. Oh! Sorry!
No. That was right.
I typed out the conversation to my husband (who was stuck in a meeting) as soon as the doctor left the room. But I don’t think I’ll ever, ever forget it.
The pain specialist took the time to talk to me seriously about steroids and all their complications, especially for LC patients. But since they had so dramatically helped my pain he said it was worth exploring other anti-inflammatory options. He wrote me a prescription. And he put me in touch with a Physical Therapy center. He reassured me that if this didn’t work, we would try something else and we would keep trying until we found some relief. It wouldn’t be as dramatic as with the steroids, but we were going to get my life back. He supported my decision to find a new PCP.
I will never have the energy level I once had. I will always have brain damage and a weakened immune system. My chronic fatigue, migraine, and pain are all well managed but chronic still means chronic.
And plus also…
This summer, I drove my kids to day camp and picked them up every day. I make dinner 3 nights a week. I take Pilates classes in the mornings. I’m re-planting my garden. I’m rebuilding my business. I’m writing to you.
There’s a moment in the horror movies when the kids are huddled in a house or behind some kind of barricade and the monster or the bad guy is trying to get in. You hear pounding on the door, scraping and ripping — you know the sounds I mean. That is what it sounds like right now in my house.
Ladders thump against the house and there’s a jarring rip and tear as siding is stripped. Eventually, there’s a knock on the door, they found another problem beneath the surface. Our project manager is continually surprised by how well I’m taking these hits.
I don’t love it, of course. But we knew this house was a mess when we called him. It’s WHY we called him. He’s bringing the damage that is there out into the light so that it can be addressed.
After everything I’ve been through I have an affinity for answers.
When you hear hoofbeats, think horses.
Original Publish Date: 12/18/2024
Is anyone “good” at chronic illness? That sounds like a ridiculous goal, and yet…
Before I knew it was long COVID, there were a few good-ish weeks and I gave into the craving for my old life. With my ADHD hyperfocus cape billowing dramatically around me, I created a new website, an income plan, and I wrote an essay to kick it all off.
I then proceeded to crash, HARD, and quickly become unable to deliver anything I’d promised. This was eerily similar to when I first got sick and it triggered all the same shit in me.
I’d let everyone down.
No one would ever believe me, or believe in me, again.
I’d lost my right to respect.
No more billowing cape, instead a tattered shawl of shame. You know, not that I was being dramatic or anything. I couldn’t even face figuring out how to turn off the auto-bill for the community I could no longer moderate. Each month, the unsubscribe notifications and the completed billing on the ones who stayed both filled me with shame. It was a strange sort of self-flagellation.
This pain helped no one. It was a waste. This shame was degenerative. In short, I was a mess.
I admit to feeling a bit like a spoiled asshole when I say how much finally getting a diagnosis helped me to turn things around. There are millions of folks with chronic illnesses who will never get a diagnosis. They’ll never have a name for the monster eating their lives and yet they go on living, many with more audacity and brilliance than I can ever hope to aspire to.
And plus also — my truth is that naming the monster was a turning point for me. Finding a pain specialist and medication was another one.
And then, on July 5, 2023, my dad died. The world was supposed to stop, but it didn’t. Part of me will never forgive the universe for that and I don’t have anything more to say about that loss right now.
In February 2024, I told my closest friends that I wanted to rebuild my business. I wanted to create something that would help sustain and nourish my family, while being sustainable and nourishing to me personally, and offering practical transformation to moms. In short — it has to work for all of us or it doesn’t work at all.
We’ve been in planning mode since then. We’ve been actively creating since June, 2024. No more lone mom on a hill of pain creating from desperation. There’s a team. There’s a plan. Just kidding, there are so very many plans.
Plans for how to help. Plans for when I have flares. Plans for when I have flares right when you need help. Plans for the good days. Plans for the hard times. Plans for when we blow up and get huge and spark a fucking revolution in motherhood. Plans for when we change one mom’s life.
My confession is this: I’ve never had a plan before.
My work has always been driven by need. To be seen, to connect, to pay bills. And look, I’ve still got bills. Being chronically ill is expensive AF. And — this work isn’t driven by need anymore.
Now, the driving force is generosity and a fierce belief that life does not have to hurt like this. And so the plan is to give. I am going to give you more than you pay for and I am going to do it in a way that is sustainable for me.
I wrote to my team that everything we create must be practical, easy to understand, not widely used, transformational, and actionable. Life is hard right now. Motherhood is damn near impossible and I refuse to make any of it harder.
I say all of this to say, I’m back.
Let’s talk anxiety, mental health in general, ADHD in our kids and ourselves. Let’s take action on the sexism festering in our living rooms and the capitalism at our kitchen table. I’ve got so much for you and I can’t wait to share it all with you.
And if you were here before and you’re finding it difficult to trust, that’s OK. We have time. I’m not going anywhere.
I’m back. Again.
It has to work for all of us or it doesn’t work at all.
I recently read an article on Substack about Pilates. Well, not about the actual exercise, or the guy, but about the “Pilates Princess/long and lean” moment that’s happening on social media right now. It was really good, not judging the folks who were getting caught up in the trend. Instead, the author was breaking down where that “long and lean” desire comes from and what it says about us. Of course, I can’t find the article anywhere now (I’ll keep looking and I’ll edit this if I find it because it was GOOD).
One of the points of the article is that you should think about what your fitness goals are and then choose a workout or workouts that align with them. And maybe don’t get all of your fitness info from TikTok.
I read it right before heading out the door to my Pilates class.
I started going to Pilates about two months ago, after about three years in bed. When I say ‘in bed’ I mean that I was in my bed for about 18-23 hours a day, every day, for YEARS. On good days, I could sit at the table for a little while after the kids came home. On bad days, Adam had to help me make it from the bed to the toilet. My fitness goals were to have the stamina to make it up the stairs and hug my kids.
I frequently fell short of that goal.
So I’m not worried about long and lean. I have no thoughts on “muscle mommies vs. pilates princesses” except that the framing and verbiage are bullshit and reek of misogyny. When my new medication made it possible for me to get out of bed and stay out of bed for whole, entire, complete HOURS at a time I felt like a damn super hero.
And I immediately wanted more.
If you knew me in the before times, you’d be forgiven for falling off of your chair and quite literally rolling around of the floor shrieking with laughter while tears fall down your face. It is that preposterous. I never understood folks who enjoyed exercise. I still don’t understand why or how I enjoy exercise. I’m just grudgingly admitting that it’s true.
I go to Pilates. I go a lot (about 5x a week). And I like it.
I like that it’s doable for me. I started going only to the classes centered around gentle stretching. I’d be sore afterward as if I’d done a full workout. Which made sense after three years of absolutely nothing. I’d take hot showers or soak in the bathtub. And it felt good to experience pain that was generative. This pain is because I DID SOMETHING, not simply because I’m getting screwed over by the universe.
But then, one day, I wasn’t sore. (Well, I wasn’t sore beyond my chronic pain.) And I missed that. So I signed up for one of the exercise classes. And I found the sore again. So I kept going. Now I listen to my body and there are three different levels of classes that I mix and match throughout my week.
I like the folks who go to my studio and the folks who teach there. I’m hardly ever the only Black woman and I don’t think I’ve ever been the only woman of color. There are always fat folks in the studio. There are fat instructors. YES, PLURAL. I like the older women with the foul mouths who could probably kick my ass, but instead are super supportive. I like the injured athletes from the local college and the heavily tattooed Muay Thai fighters who are there as part of their PT. I like the first-timers who are all stops and starts and questions and I like that I can answer some of those questions, now.
I really like that what I hear most from my instructors is “you know your body” because yeah, I DO.
I like that they find ways to push us just a little bit farther without ever shaming us.
I like that we all celebrate things like when someone can finally do a roll up after trying for months or the first time I was able to hold a plank for a full minute.
My goal is to keep feeling better, to keep feeling stronger, to (please, please, PLEASE) be able to stay out of that damn bed.* My goal is to make it through one of Alyse’s classes without needing any modifications. My goal is to be able to walk to class from my house, and back, by the end of November. **
I wish that the folks who are getting sucked into the ‘Pilates Princess’ trend could instead find a studio like ours, or a gym, or a group of friends working out in the park, or anything else. I wish for them the feeling of strength and control, camaraderie and calm, support and silliness that I get at my studio.
I haven’t gotten long and lean.
I don’t feel like a princess.
I always walk out feeling better than when I walked in.
That’s goals.
* I DID IT! I walked to class, took class, and I walked home. I felt like such a badass.
** Since I first wrote this I was reinfected with Covid (not at my studio) and I haven’t been to class in over a month. I’m not fully stuck in bed, but I’m there much more than I’d like. And while I miss classes so much I’m also so grateful because I’ve gotten calls and texts from my people encouraging me to take care of myself, not to push, and reminding me that they’re thinking of me.
Living from my bed made me greedy for movement.
No, you’re not the first woman in your lineage to break generational curses. No, you’re not some savior coming to break your daughter out of chains. No, those chains were not forged by her foremothers AND HOW FUCKING DARE YOU. This idea is all over the internet and it’s gotta stop.
The meme is three or four glasses, one filled with dark liquid and the others are empty. The dark liquid is poured from one to another until it gets to the penultimate glass. That glass gets the dark liquid AND fresh, clear water. And the water just keeps coming until all of the dark liquid is washed away and then that clear water is passed down to the final glass.
Sometimes this happens in a sink with a full glass.
I saw one in a snowy field. It was beautiful.
IT’S BULLSHIT.
Those women, the ones who made it possible for you to be alive and go online and dismiss them? They were whole, actual, human beings. They were not receptacles for pain. They were not filters.
They were whole human beings with childhoods and first loves and heartbreak. They had orgasms and diarrhea and night terrors and day dreams. And they dreamed of you — the same way that you love and worry about your children and wonder and wish for your possible grands and greats. You lived for them long before you lived.
You will never, ever convince me that they didn’t heal shit before it got to you. That they didn’t fight for you. That they didn’t try FOR YOU before you were even a glimmer of hope in their hearts.
I come from a long line of badass women on both sides of my family. Women who were enslaved, women who were forced into marriage, women who were disowned by their families and thrown into jail for following their hearts, women who taught themselves how to read, women who taught others how to save and invest, women who broke the curses laid upon them as much as they could.
They were human — and so the fires they passed along to me have sometimes burned. The traumas have come through the ages along with the will to heal. I see women now, mothers proclaiming loudly that they are breaking curses for their daughters and want to ask them WHERE DO YOU THINK THE SPELL COMES FROM?
My mother fucked me up. Deeply. I do not forgive her for many things. And our relationship now is shallow and consists mostly of me doing things for her which she can no longer do for herself at 80 years old.
I do not have to forgive or embrace in order to respect all that she tried to do for me. I can see just how different my childhood was from hers, and hers from her own mothers, and back and back. It’s the same on my father’s side. Each generation trying to do better, each one failing in different ways for different reasons.
I wonder sometimes if we as mothers are so fucking terrified because we know how we treat our own mothers and how we view our foremothers. I know that I have failed my own children and that I will continue to do so. There will be ways that I hurt them that I won’t know about for years.
I also know that I am breaking generational curses. I am healing myself and that healing runs backwards through time and forwards. I know that I am supported in that healing by the sacrifices my mother made, by the dreams my grandmother had, by the prayers my great grandmother chanted, and by all the foremothers whose names I don’t know.
They are the clear liquid and they are the dark. Life is murky like that, no matter what social media wants you to believe.
And women HAVE ALWAYS BEEN FULL AND WHOLE HUMAN BEINGS no matter what this world wants you to believe.
You aren’t special because you’re different from the women who made you. You are special because of the women who made you different.
I am begging you to put the glasses away.
May 2023
After about 16 months in bed, I’d simply watched all the TV there was to watch. Everything I was interested in, anyway. And so I went in search of something. Something soothing. Something hopeful. Something that would help me forget the pain, fatigue, and isolation of chronic illness. Something that would give me hope.
I “met” Monty Don when I found a series called “Big Dreams, Small Spaces” which follows people across the UK as they overhaul their small gardens and turn them into dream spaces. He seemed genuinely kind and watching the transformations was addicting. I wanted to transform like that. I wanted to dig past rubble and dirt and sprout into glorious color.
The Brits are, well, British. So of course there were only five or six episodes a season. I was still sick, still stuck in bed, and there was no transformation on the horizon. This Monty guy seemed like he knew a lot about gardening, so I did a search for his name thinking maybe he’d done another show. Come to find out he is seriously famous in the gardening world. #Oops He hosts a weekly show on BBC called “Gardeners’ World.” I started watching in the hopes that it would fill in the hole “Big Dreams, Small Spaces” had left.
I had no idea it would change my life.
It started with Nigel. Even typing his name makes me smile. Nigel accompanied Monty all around the garden each week. He flopped in exactly the spot Monty was going to plant crocus and tulips. He dropped his tennis balls into freshly dug planting holes. He chased apples that fell from trees. He was a golden retriever with the most expressive face and charming demeanor. I accidentally learned about gardening while following the weekly exploits of Nigel The Very Best Boy.
My husband heard all about Nigel the same way he heard about what my friends’ kids were up to, or what the latest drama on Twitter was. I took videos of the show on my phone and sent it to him via text while he was working. We agreed that tennis balls should absolutely grow tennis ball trees and Nigel should get everything he wanted, always.
At some point, I realized that there were more seasons of the show than there are years in a dog’s life. I did a Google search and learned that Nigel had died in 2020. I sobbed. Then I started watching more closely, more slowly.
And I ordered a few packets of seeds.
Something about knowing Nigel was gone made me want to see something grow.
The only reason we could afford to buy this house is because it’s falling apart. Not unsafe levels of falling apart, but definitely unattractive levels. The moment I stepped into the house I thought two things: 1) I WANT IT and 2) Adam is never going to go for this. By some miracle, he did go for it and I got my house. And the yard. We’re on a corner lot, we’ve got a steep slope, and the backyard is massive. I had dreams of terracing it and adding a swing set and play area for the kids and a fire pit for entertaining. Those plans were put on hold first because we couldn’t afford them, then we had health scares with our daughter, then our son was diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety, then there was this small global pandemic you may have heard of… and then me. I happened.
Pain. Fatigue. Swelling. Fatigue. Dizziness. Fatigue. Migraine. Fatigue.
Brain damage.
My bedroom is in the basement. It’s my cave. There are sliding glass doors leading to the backyard and two big windows to let in light, but I keep them covered with blackout curtains. It’s cool and dark and quiet. The bed is piled high with pillows - some for sleeping, some for sitting up, some for propping up whatever is swollen or most painful. The bedside table is full of prescription bottles, over-the-counter pain meds, stomach meds, supplements, and vitamins. A sick person lives here.
And at first, being a sick person was terrifying. But terror takes energy and I simply didn’t have any. There was doctor after doctor and test after test all while the seasons changed and the kids grew and life moved on. Eventually, I got some answers. Severely weakened immune system. Chronic migraine with full body involvement. Chronic inflammation. Chronic fatigue. (You’re seeing the pattern, right?)
Some things are still a mystery. Two years in and I’m still going to different specialists and tweaking medications and dosages and exercises.
Sometimes the terror spikes. When I think about what would happen to me and the kids if we lost Adam. Or when I think about how short my life expectancy is now. Thankfully my anxiety brings those thoughts to me regularly — and if I’m really lucky, I get to live them out in technicolor dreams at night.
I’ve been grinding my teeth so hard that I cracked one, it got infected, and I got a root canal for Christmas this past year.
In the cave, I don’t have to put on a brave face. I can scream and sob into my pillows. I can hide in the cool dark. I can heal.
Slowly. So slowly. So very slowly that even terror has become boring. I didn’t think that was possible. Gut-clenching fear is just Monday. Nausea-inducing pain is simply Tuesday. Oh, I can’t think today? It must be Thursday. Three days of migraine attacks followed by vertigo, followed by fatigue so total I can barely make it from the bed to the bathroom… eh.
I didn’t give up. I’m still here. But I did stop fighting for a while. I sank deeper into this cave, into this bed, into the dark. And then Nigel planted his tennis ball and I planted some seeds.
The vastness of my backyard is overwhelming. So, I decided to focus on the front yard which meant I had to finally tackle my nemesis, THE BEAST. I’ve hated him from the moment I first saw the house, and for the last six years I’ve fumed, pouted, cursed at, and fought with him. But this year, I finally took action. 2023 is the year I battle The Beast and win.
The Beast is a gargantuan juniper bush that took up nearly HALF of our front yard. About twelve feet from front to back and nearly 17 feet wide, he’s definitely earned his name.
But how was I going to take him down? Ideally, with a credit card. We got a few estimates and it quickly became clear that was NOT an option. I bought a few lottery tickets. And then I bought a mini chainsaw.
Yes, you read that right. A chainsaw. A six-inch, battery-operated chainsaw. It’s small enough for me to use safely and the battery is also small enough that I can’t use it too long. I made a plan — every day in April that it wasn’t raining, I would battle The Beast for no more than 20 minutes. Some days I could only manage 10. For a couple of days, I could only manage a withering stare. For a couple of days, I couldn’t get out of bed.
But I hacked away, little by little, tearing him down. That was outside. Inside was a whole other story.
While I followed the exploits of Nigel and eventually of Nell, Ned, and Patti, I was also soaking in a lot of information about gardening and inspiration for my own garden. While I wielded a mini chainsaw outside, inside I started a mini nursery. Perennials in seed trays and pots are sprouting under grow lights on the counter. Strawberries are in grow bags on the floor. Dahlias are potted up and placed on every windowsill. My tools, soil, liquid feed, and garden notebook are stashed in the corner. Life is inside. Life is growing.
Tomorrow Adam will slay The Beast. I’ve wounded him as much as I can. We’re renting a much larger chainsaw and Adam will slice the final bits down, dig it out a bit, and slice some more. Then we’ll clear out his carcass and I’ll probably do a little dance. The kids will laugh at me and I WILL NOT CARE.
We’ve got plans. We’re turning The Beast’s grave into a no-dig garden; laying cardboard and then layering soil on top, planting my lovely seedlings, sowing some seed directly, and mulching.
This summer I’ll be able to sit on my front porch and soak in the color, the light, the scent, the life. And when I have to be in the cave, I’ll still know it’s all up there, living.
May 2023
I’m writing this because I promised myself I’d write at least once a week, but I’m not sure I actually have anything to say. Not anything you’d care about anyway. And if I don’t know why you should listen, or what I can offer, then why would you even keep reading?
Maybe to see if we both figure it out? Maybe you’ve already gone.
What if everyone is already gone and I’m writing only to myself? What do I have to say to me?
You really should stop staring at that water bottle and pick it up and drink.
OK, that felt pretty good, but did you taste that? Aren’t you worried now???
No, the slight aftertaste in the water is not soap. No, it will not kill you.
And speaking of no, no you cannot get a job right now. You can barely move most days and you have to make plans to think. What job could you possibly get? You know this is capitalist bullshit thinking, so KNOCK IT OFF.
But it’s not only that. I feel like all I do is take from my family. And more than anything, I just want to give something back. That was part of the whole garden plan. I can’t fix things inside the house, but I could at least plant some flowers. Only now my body is betraying me AFUCKINGGAIN and I can’t get the prep work done and I can’t pay for it to get done and the yard looks like a mess and…
Well, now you’re crying out all the water you just drank. Plus anyone still reading this weird version of you talking to yourself is going to be extremely worried about your mental health.
Good. My mental health sucks.
We should not have laughed at that.
We shouldn’t laugh at the vast majority of things we laugh at.
True.
At least I’m not crying anymore. I’m still pissed about the garden though. And I’m exhausted from constantly having to accept less and less and less control over my life. My body, my mind, my time, my capacity. IT IS INFURIATING. Only, I don’t have the energy to sustain the anger.
Maybe if you rest today you’ll be able to do some gardening tomorrow.
Maybe.
It’s worth the chance. I think that’s the point. That it’s still worth the chance. That vision you have in your head of the kids running through the flowers and digging in the dirt — that’s worth the frustration and the pain. The dream you have of sitting on the porch and writing surrounded by color and scent, that’s worth it. Having all your people around you and happy and wrapped in beauty you coaxed from the earth — that’s a great dream.
It’s so far away. And it feels impossible. And hopeless. BUT I WANT IT.
You get to want things. You do not have to earn wanting. You don’t have to earn receiving. You don’t have to earn rest. Or care. Or beauty. YOU KNOW THAT.
I really just miss my life.
I know. It sucks. I’m sorry.
Thanks. So… exactly how weird is it that I just wrote a whole blog post basically talking to myself?
Dad always says talking to yourself is fine. Don’t worry until you start answering yourself.
Oops…
Yeah…
Well, I feel better. So maybe we just don’t tell him.
I’m exhausted from constantly having to accept less and less and less control over my life.
April 2023
I don’t know what to write. I don’t know what to say. There was a plan, of course there was. I always have a plan.
I was going to write about the things I want for Mother’s Day. And I was going to write about what designing and building my garden is teaching me about disability and healing. And I was going to write about how we’re STILL getting self-care wrong on a really fundamental level.
And then the pain…
My teeth hurt. It’s a constant pain level of three or four that spikes to an eight if I try to eat or drink the wrong thing, or I move my mouth the wrong way, or one of the nerves in my mouth gets cranky.
Some of this is because of inflammation that we can’t quite get under control. Some of it is because I’ve had horrid oral hygiene over the last few years. I have a wonderful dentist and we’re working through everything bit by bit. But two years in bed has all kinds of consequences I just never saw coming. Multiple cavities, root canals, crowns, and infections are just a few.
It feels like a cruel trick has been played on me by the universe. I’m recovering some energy, but now I have to use it all on repairing the damage done while I had no energy.
The pain kicks off panic attacks, which lead to migraine attacks, which add to the panic. Then the thoughts come…
I won’t ever get to be the mom I want to be.
I won’t ever get to finish my garden.
I won’t ever get to write that book.
I won’t ever get out of this damn bed.
It won’t ever stop hurting.
I spent yesterday in serious pain and panic. I also made an appointment with my dentist, and one with my doctor, did about five minutes in the garden, took a shower, and spent about an hour with the kids when they came home from school. I needed Adam’s help to do some of those things — but I did them.
Today the pain is a pretty steady four, and it’s all over my body. Everything hurts and my nerves are jagged and raw, but so far there’s no panic.
Tomorrow? I don’t know.
I don’t know when I’ll be able to “mom” more actively.
I don’t know how long it will take me to finish my garden.
I don’t know if or when I’ll be able to write my book.
I don’t know how long I’ll be able to be out of bed today.
I don’t know what my pain level will be.
For someone who loves plans, lists, and structure, this is a special kind of hell. It feels like a punishment. It feels like a very personally designed torture. I am trying to accept everything that I don’t know.
For someone who loves plans, lists, and structure, this is a special kind of hell.
April 2023
Let me explain…
No, there is too much. Let me sum up.
— Inigo Montoya
I’m sitting on my porch in the shade of a sunny spring day writing this. I can’t remember the last time I sat on my porch and wrote. I know it happened. It happened a lot. But I can’t remember that last time. That’s partly because it was around two years ago and partly because I have brain damage that affects my memory.
We’re still not exactly sure what happened, but I’ve basically been in bed for the past two years. I’m not exaggerating. My record is ten hours out of bed two days in a row and it led to weeks in bed with pain and vertigo.
Some days I can think. Some days it feels like a fog has settled in my head. Some days I can move. Some days the air is made of peanut butter and pushing through it to get from the bed to the bathroom requires a nap. Some days there are migraine attacks. Some days I simply can’t concentrate.
I’m seeing all the doctors and taking all the meds and doing all the therapies. You’ll notice that at no point have I asked for any medical advice.
Adam has kept our family running — working full time, taking care of the kids, the house, and me. He makes me laugh even on the worst days, he drives me, he remembers all the things I can’t, and he has my back, always. The jury’s still out, but I’ll probably keep him…
There is damage to my brain and body, yes. But there is also damage to my family, there is damage to my friendships, and there is damage to my relationship with myself.
I’m very much not the same person I was before all of this happened. I’m not the same mom, the same wife, the same friend, sister, or daughter. And although I am fighting like hell to heal and to make the most out of my life, I realize that I’m not trying to come back. There is no back. I can’t reach my old self. She’s on the other side of a chasm I cannot cross.
Today, I turn 44.
I garden now. And I knit. I rarely cook and I miss it. I don’t travel or go to restaurants or drive up into my mountains anymore. I can’t teach or coach right now and I don’t know if I ever will again. Myriad pieces of me have been lost, damaged, and chipped away.
But my words are coming back. Most days I can write — text messages and emails and letters. Today, I can even write this post.
This site is my gift to myself. It’s a space where I can write about all of the things that have happened, and everything I’ve learned and am learning about myself, my own humanity, and my motherhood journey. I closed The Mom Center, but I have created a membership space for us. That’s where most of my energy will go. I’ve missed y’all.
I’ll do emails and Instagram as much as I can. And of course, there will be more posts here.
The old Graeme is lost. It’s time to find out who I am, now. Happy (re)Birthday to me.
The old Graeme is lost. It’s time to find out who I am, now.
July 2021
In millions of households across the country, there are mothers shouldering ridiculous amounts of responsibility.
I’m not talking about single moms, who by definition are primarily responsible for their children.
I’m talking about moms who are in relationships with or are married to the father of their children — and yet are still bearing the burden of responsibility on their own.
We call it “the mental load,” or we talk about how moms need “help” or “more support.” These terms diminish the depth and breadth of the weight of motherhood.
My question is simple: Whose responsibility is it to raise a child?
For hetero couples, the answer is usually mom.
Ask your child to make a list of what are mommy responsibilities and what are daddy responsibilities. You can substitute “jobs” for young children who are lucky enough not to know that r-word yet.
Are you comfortable with the list they give you? Does it reflect your values? Is it what you want for your own children if they decide to become parents in the future?
When we did this exercise with our son for the first time, he was almost four years old. The lists he made were extremely gendered. They were a wake-up call.
As I put together the curriculum for the 2021 cohort of my course, Motherload Liberation, I asked my five-year-old daughter to make the lists. She tilted her head in confusion. When I prompted her again, she came up with things on my list like making jokes and dancing. Adam’s list had playing and reading stories.
I prompted her again and she threw up her hands and told me that she didn’t understand. “Parents take care of kids and everyone takes care of everyone, so your lists is silly, Mommy!”
It took me a moment to really understand her frustration. She honestly doesn’t see a difference in my “job” as her mother and Adam’s “job” as her father. Her lists reflected differences in our personalities and what we like to do with the kids.
It had been my goal ever since that first list my son did five years ago, and it had become a goal Adam and I shared. And we’d done it.
So, what changed over those years?
We did a lot of the exercises that you’ll find in books and magazine articles about couples sharing labor. We divided tasks based on our strengths, our preferences, and our time. We talk — A LOT. We’re flexible.
But we’d tried those things before, and we’d always sunk back into the cycle. You know the cycle — mom blows up or breaks down, dad makes promises, things get better, slow slide back to “normal,” resentment builds, mom blows up — rinse and repeat.
Until we changed the balance of responsibility.
It’s not simply about who is keeping the calendar and who is doing the laundry and who is making the lunches. It’s about who is responsible for ensuring the family is cared for.
WHO. IS. RESPONSIBLE.
It has taken years to reach a new equilibrium of responsibility, to shed the teachings of patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy that would have me operating as a burned-out husk and calling it motherhood.
Adam is 100% committed to the health and growth of our family and is fully responsible for it and to us. I am 100% committed to the health and growth of our family and am also fully responsible for it and to us all.
No more striving for 50/50. I always hated fractions in school, anyway.
Nope — we’re both all in.
No more striving for 50/50. (I always hated fractions in school, anyway.)
June 2021.
I’m no longer doing my best.
I don’t want to be the best wife to Adam or the best mom to our kids.
I have no interest in being the best me I can be.
I don’t want to be the best coach or teacher, the best friend, the best sister, the best daughter.
No more giving my best or trying my best.
I’m done.
This feels like a betrayal of everything I was raised to believe. It feels impossible. And even if it were possible — how could it ever not be completely and utterly wrong?
How will Adam know I love him if I’m not trying my best? Why would he stay with someone who doesn’t want to be the best wife they possibly can?
WHAT KIND OF MOTHER DOESN’T WANT TO BE THE BEST POSSIBLE MOTHER FOR THEIR CHILD?
A shitty one, obviously. How will my children reach any of their goals if I’m not the best mother I can possibly be? Is motherhood really something I want to stop striving at?
Actually, yes.
A few years ago I began a journey to embrace my own humanity, to heal, and come to terms with myself. I wanted to discover who the hell I actually am and what it is I truly want and need in order to thrive. I did this work for myself, first, and also with the conviction that it would benefit my children, family, and community.
It’s been a long journey and I’m realizing it will be a lifelong one. There’s no such thing as fully healed or fully discovered or fully understood — which sucks because the only thing I love more than making lists is checking things off of lists.
I let go of perfection a long time ago and thought I had done something. But it was a cheat because I had never been all that invested in perfection in the first place. I always saw it as impossible and boring and unrewarding. Still, I patted myself on the back for my “growth.”
I replaced perfection with a drive to do what was “best for me” or give my kids what was “best for them” as if by personalizing perfection I changed it into something less impossible. I’ve come to understand that it isn’t. That’s simply perfection by another name.
The idea that your very best could be not good enough is terrifying. How can it possibly not be a judgment on your Self and your worth?
My mother used to tell me she had done the best she could raising me, and it always stopped the conversation in its tracks. What was my pain or my need next to that? How could I ever say her best wasn’t good enough? That it wasn’t what I needed?
Decades later I found myself saying the same thing to my own therapist, “I’m doing the best I can.”
“I’m trying the hardest I know how.”
“I’m giving all I have.”
And yet, I was disconnected — so focused on others valuing and validating my best, my hardest, my everything, that there was nothing generative, nothing healing, and nothing human about my relationships. They were transactional. I gave, strove, pushed myself, and all the while I kept a count in the back of my mind. There was always a tally of appreciation.
Best was a lie I hid behind.
And one day, I wondered, what if I don’t try my best today? What will happen?
If I’m not striving to be the best but am simply listening to myself, my kids, and Adam about what it is each of us need and how we’re feeling — if we’re just stumbling through and fucking it all up and learning and loving each other and no one has a best to hide behind, what then?
If I’m not making the “right” choices or the “best” choices but simply making my choices, then there is no defense if I’m wrong, if I hurt someone. There is no shield. There’s nothing but authenticity and that’s scary as fuck.
If I’m simply a human loving another human and raising humans with him — will that be enough? Will I be enough?
Can I explore my needs? Can I rest? Can I share my thoughts and passions and fears with my family and receive theirs in turn?
If I let go of trying to do what’s best for my family, how will I navigate my life? How will I know I’m not truly and deeply fucking it all up?
I’ve said for years that motherhood is a series of life and death guesses. Sometimes I say things or write things and I understand them or mean them on one level, and then months or years later comes the ah-ha moment when I realize just how true they are.
My choices truly are guesses. I try to make them informed guesses, but in the end, that’s all they are. I can never really and truly know that something was the right thing. Not even after the fact. Because we all keep growing and changing and understanding the events of our lives differently and “in retrospect” is not one fixed point.
I’ve also been saying for years that courage is more important than confidence and I’m now finally beginning to truly embody that I have to admit courage is fucking hard. You cannot be brave without being afraid, and I’m not someone who generally embraces fear. I’m a Black woman. I’m a Black mom. Why would I embrace fear???
But I cannot fully embrace my own humanity without making friends with fear. I cannot “live brave,” as my friend Shannon says, without allowing fear to be a part of my journey.
The truth is I was born worthy, that my worth is both intrinsic and immutable. The truth is that I do not need to strive for best. The truth is there is no one right way or right choice that will keep us safe, secure our future, or bring me the comfort of knowing that in the end everything will be OK.
There is only imperfection, humanity, love, trying. There is only courage and life and death guesses. There is only this complex journey through my life, motherhood, marriage, career.
But there is no best.
There’s no such thing as fully healed or fully discovered or fully understood.
This was originally published on my old blog in June 2021.
I know you’ve seen signs like this, you might even have one on your lawn or hanging in your kitchen. Every family has a set of values they live by — some make it explicit with a family value statement and some are more implicit.
But every family fails to live up to its stated values — a lot.
We fail because we’re human and because we’re living under systems that work in opposition to our values most of the time. And we fail because we aren’t taking intentional action to succeed.
The problems we face are massive, they are legion, and they are deeply complex. Creating sustainable change requires acknowledging when, where, and how we’ve been complicit in the past and it usually requires us losing something in the future — power, money, status, safety.
It’s much more simple to put a sign on the lawn. Or a magnet on the fridge. To buy a t-shirt. Or donate to a cause. It feels good. It feels like we’ve done something and like we’ve shown our children who we are.
And we have, but it’s not necessarily the lesson we actually wanted to teach. You and I both know that our kids don’t listen to what we say. They learn from what we do. And they see where our actions and our words aren’t aligned.
But how do we align our actions with our values in a world that is working against those values?
You can’t. Not perfectly. What you can do is to bring your actions more in line with your values. And what we all must do is be honest with our children about when our actions are not aligned with our values and why.
It starts with defining what is most important to you. What are your values? What are your partner’s values, if you have one? What are your kids’ values? What is it that you, as a family, truly believe?
In everything, we must remember our own humanity. You will not be able to create sustainable change and impact on every single thing on your list. You won’t be able to fully live out every value every day. Perfectionism is bullshit.
So what feels the most out of alignment for you? Or what is allllllllmost there and just needs a nudge? What do you feel most drawn to change right now? It matters much less how you choose, than that you choose something.
Start somewhere. Pick something.
It starts with you.
I taught a workshop on this a few months ago and one of the moms said that caring for and valuing nature was what she wanted to work on. So I asked how that fit into her own life. How does she work with the cycles of nature in her life?
We all want to jump to big things, to stopping deforestation or blocking a pipeline expansion — those huge and necessary things! And if we want these values to be truly sustainable, they have to first become personal. So I suggested she look at her life in terms of seasons and cycles and start there.
Then you add in your immediate family. How do they interact with the natural world? This could be spending more time outside, caring for plants or animals inside, composting, recycling, buying reusable materials, all kinds of things.
Then you move out into your immediate community. What’s happening around you? Are there community gardens, mutual aid groups focused on sustainability, community clean-ups? Are there major polluters in your area? What’s happening in your municipal or state government and who is doing the work to create change? How can you support the people in your area who are being most impacted by climate change and aren’t being heard? How can you amplify their work?
Then you move to the national and global scale. Where can you give your time, money, or work that will move the needle?
You have the most power to change your own actions, to change your own thoughts, to educate yourself. The second ring of power is your immediate family, then your community, and as it moves out your power dissipates.
This doesn’t mean you ignore what’s happening on a large scale, that you don’t pay attention, don’t vote, or protest — that’s not what I’m saying. It means that when you focus on creating sustainable change within yourself and your family first, you’ll be much better able to sustain involvement and create change within your community and on a larger scale.
Sticking with the one example of the nature mom — she may realize that spring and fall are her action seasons, when she has the most energy. She may bring more plants into her home and teach her children to care for them. At the same time she can change her buying habits and learn more about what’s happening in her local area. And when it comes time to make commitments to volunteer, she knows when she can commit and how long she can sustain actions. Summer and winter are for learning, spring and fall are for doing.
In between all of this, life will happen. Things will pull her focus. And, of course, there will be other issues she cares about and will take action on. But this is a value that she can continue to live out in a sustainable way because it fits her beliefs and she has intimately connected it to her life until it becomes, well… natural.
If this all seems simple, that’s because it is. It isn’t, however, easy. Sustainable change never actually is. It requires honesty, learning, asking for help, support from community, and a willingness to fuck it up and to learn when you do.
How do we align our actions with our values in a world that is working against those values?
This was originally published on my old blog in May 2021.
There is no doubt in my mind that we need more than one revolution to create a world that is worthy of our children. Looking around at the world through their eyes sometimes I can see only what’s wrong, what’s broken, what I don’t want for them. I see massive systemic issues that affect us on global, national, regional, and local scales. It’s overwhelming — and yet I have two small people who are looking to me to make things right for them.
And the truth is that I can’t. I cannot fix this world. I cannot save it.
So what can I do?
The place where I have the most power is in our home and so that’s where I use my power first. Adam and I have both been extremely intentional in how we model adulthood for our kids.
We’re honest about our fuckups. We ask each other for help. We share our feelings. We disagree in front of them and we talk things through in front of them. And so our kids already know, at 5 and 8 years old, that adults don’t know everything. Parents aren’t perfect. They know that when you’re struggling, you ask for help. They know that asking for support isn’t weak.
This refusal to chase perfectionism is a direct refutation of capitalism and white supremacy and how they affect who gets support in our country. Our kids are now at an age where we can be even more explicit about that when we talk about larger issues. The groundwork has been laid. If no one has to earn care or rest in our home then why should they have to earn it outside our home?
I won’t lie to them and say that people don’t have to earn those things outside our home, because they do. But what I can do is say and show our children that that is wrong. That there is another way. That supporting and caring for others is a part of being human and that so is needing the support and care of others.
This has grown outwards to become a family project — the paper bag project. The kids decorate paper bags, and we fill them with clean socks, a little cash, a bottle of water, a snack, menstruation products, and painkillers (Tylenol, Motrin, whatever we have at hand). Then those bags go into the car and whenever we see a person who needs a bag, we give them a bag.
It’s a small thing, yes. And it reinforces the idea that all people are people and all people deserve whatever support we can give — in big ways and small ways. It’s not perfect, it doesn’t meet the full need, and still it’s better than being stuck in overwhelm.
This is what I mean by a micro-revolution. A small change in thought that leads to further changes in both thought and action. Sometimes these are conscious choices we make and sometimes they’re thrust upon us by circumstance and the choice is in how we deal with those circumstances.
I have PTSD, depression, and anxiety — and sometimes that leads to panic attacks or depression spirals. My mental illnesses have always manifested physically, so my panic attacks include sweating, dizziness, nausea, and shakes. My depression shows itself as fatigue, full-body aches, and migraines. These are things that I could try and mask and hide from the kids — and in the beginning, I did that. But it didn’t work. Children are far more attuned to their parents than we generally give them credit for.
And so I stopped hiding and started being honest. “Mommy is scared. There isn’t anything to be scared of, but I can’t really stop being scared right now.” They see how Adam reacts to me, how he asks what I need, how he doesn’t judge, how he respects what I say. And they repeat those actions — with me and with others.
When my son was in kindergarten, a classmate got overwhelmed and anxious and was sitting in a corner, crying. He went over and sat next to them and said, “It’s okay. You’re safe. I’ll just sit here with you.” It was exactly what his dad said to me. His teacher was amazed.
In first grade, it was my son who was getting overwhelmed. He couldn’t sit still in class and he’d get scared out of nowhere and hide under the desk or run to the bathroom and hide there. But again, his teacher and counselors were amazed at how sophisticated his language about his feelings was. And they were also shocked that after the crisis passed he would reintegrate into the classroom so easily. He had no shame around his needs, even when he was scared.
We eventually got a diagnosis - anxiety and ADHD - and he started therapy. I’d been going to a “feelings doctor” all of his life, so it didn’t bother him to go to one, too.
There’s so much messaging about what ‘becoming a man’ is and what boys do and don’t do. There are layers of stigma attached to mental illness and neurodivergence, especially in the Black community. I can’t protect him from being exposed to those. But I do know that he has a firm base from which to combat them.
On Fridays, Adam does the laundry. Well, he starts it on Friday and it usually gets finished at some point over the weekend. We all help to fold things and put them away, but it’s his thing. So much so that my daughter announced when she was newly 5 years old that she didn’t want to ever marry a girl because if you marry a girl then you have to wash the clothes. We tried to point out that whoever married her would also be marrying a girl, but that didn’t seem to matter. Pro tip- do not try to use logic on a five-year-old when they have made up their mind.
My little family cannot smash the patriarchy. It’s too big and we’re four people. We can, however, not reinforce gender roles inside our home. We can redefine “normal”. We can spark micro-revolutions.
It happens when I thank Adam for ordering the school supplies in front of the kids. It happens when I tell them I’m tired and am going to lie down. It happens when we ask for our friends’ pronouns and use them. It happens when we admit our mistakes and ask for help. It happens when Adam does the meal planning or when I drive us on long trips. It’s in the books we choose to read with them and the shows we choose to watch with them and the way we talk with them.
I believe in the power of small changes. I believe in the power of moms to create micro-revolutions in our homes. And I believe that if we all choose even one thing we want to change that we can start pebbles rolling that will turn to boulders that can shake the earth.
If your children ever decide to parent, what is the experience of parenting that you want for them? Stop for a moment and think about it, try to visualize it or feel it. Now, the question is, are you modeling that?
In between the way you experience parenting and the way you hope your children experience it are a million micro-revolutions for you to choose.
The space between the world we live in and the world we hope for our children is filled with a billion micro-revolutions for you to choose.
Choose one.
I believe in the power of small changes.
This was originally published on my old blog in May 2021.
We read about the “mental load” of motherhood all the time.
But the labor and care that is rendered invisible and accepted as a mother's responsibility is much more than mental.
It's emotional, when you're managing your own responses while also modeling emotional intelligence for your child. When you're helping them navigate a tantrum or a fight with a friend or fear of a global pandemic — that's emotional labor.
Mothers are also generally the culture keepers of the family, managing holidays and passing down traditions both big and small.
And any mother can tell you how physical it is as well. Cleaning, laundry, rocking, hugs, tucking in small children, and the moment when a child you could almost carry without staggering goes boneless and somehow gains 50 pounds in seconds.
It's financial. Mothers lost or left jobs at a staggering rate during the start of the pandemic. "The Mommy Track" means that mothers are paid less even as men generally make more after becoming fathers. And all this in an economy where women are paid less to begin with.
These experiences never happen one at a time and they aren't discrete — they combine, overlap, and inform each other.
The financial load, the physical, the cultural, the emotional, and the mental — they all add up to the MOTHERLOAD.
Doing the dishes while you’re thinking about whether or not your child needs therapy, flipping through a mental calendar of when you’d even be able to fit that in, and trying to move things around in your household budget to see if it’s even possible while trying to remember what your insurance will cover… oh, and how will you get the time off of work? And you’re trying to figure out how you’ll talk to your child about it all, and feeling guilty because you’ve somehow failed them — that’s a totally different experience than simply doing the dishes.
It takes more energy. It takes more everything. Every action and decision is loaded down with more.
It isn't simply carrying all that more, it's that even when you can acknowledge how much it is and how unfair it is — you still judge yourself for not doing it better.
That's the dirty little secret of motherhood. It's not that you never get a day off, it's that you're not supposed to need one.
Modern mothers are expected to be giving machines, not human beings. We must be child development specialists, administrative assistants, chefs, maids, chauffeurs, coaches, tutors, therapists, and do it all while looking sexy and being grateful for the chance.
Jokes about wine are allowed. Memes about the mean moms in the drop-off line and how we should all be supporting each other are encouraged. Tearful posts of gratitude are applauded.
Pointing out the ways that capitalism, patriarchy, and yes white supremacy underpin these impossible expectations — not so much.
After the years we've all just lived through, the Motherload has been thrown into sharp relief. We aren't hiding anymore.
We won't be silenced.
And we're not carrying this alone.
The Motherload isn’t simply a mental load, and it’s only “invisible labor” because we’ve all been socialized not to acknowledge it.
But when you speak your truth, you create space for others to do the same. More and more moms are speaking the truth about their lives and creating that space. More and more moms are reaching out and creating networks of support for each other, with dads, and with childfree family and community members.
More and more moms are joining the fight for Universal Basic Income, Universal Childcare, and Universal Health Care because we know we need systemic as well as individual support.
The very least we can do is to stop calling it the mental load, to stop calling it invisible labor, and to tell the truth.
The Motherload is real. It’s far too heavy for any person to bear and you are not weak for not being able to bear the unbearable.
It's so much more than the mental load.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2020 and 2021.
It’s already happening.
Parents are being called back into office as schools around the country throw their doors wide open. And the desperation for summer camp options this year is… whew!
Setting aside the MASSIVE safety issues all of this presents, I understand the grab for “normalcy”. This past year has been traumatizing and so many people just want to feel okay even for a fleeting moment.
I get it.
I FEEL IT, TOO.
Andplusalso — it’s bullshit.
Normal is how we got here in the first place. Normal always, ALWAYS left other mothers out. Normal consigned other mothers to the isolation that we’ve all experienced this year.
Disabled mothers, mothers with chronic illnesses and chronic pain, Deaf mothers, and mothers of kiddos in all the categories and more.
Normal is what led to a staggering drop in employment for women over the last year, specifically for Black women and women of color.
Normal is why as soon as “outside” started to open up, mass shootings spiked.
Normal is how kids with IEPs were told over and over again to just hold on, to just wait, as schools went virtual. Normal is how those kids got left behind.
Normal is how millions of mothers and children were trapped with their abusers for the last year even more than they’ve been in the past.
Normal is how even with every state in some form of lockdown cops still found Black men, women, and children to murder.
Normal is how you end up with political ‘activists’ in Cadillac commercials.
NORMAL IS SICK.
NORMAL IS WRONG.
NORMAL IS KILLING US.
Mamas, please hear me. I fully deeply, to the absolute core of my being, understand the driving need for comfort right now. I’m hurting so badly that words will not contain it. And all I want in the world is for someone else to come take responsibility for a moment so that I can rest, so that I can just BE and be safe.
And that impulse, that will not be assuaged with normalcy. We cannot participate in the true American pastime, the immediate erasure of painful experience.
We MUST not forget.
We must find a way (if you haven’t already) to use this pain and anger as fuel for change. I listed out just a few broad-stroke ways that American normalcy has harmed us, but you and I both know there are so many others.
And for each one that seems insurmountable and overwhelming, there are already SO MANY people coming together to create change. I’m asking you now to look for them, to turn toward community and away from normalcy.
Join something (even if it’s just online, yes that counts). Pick something — learn about it, learn about the folks already working in the area, and help them.
Start where you are.
Use what you have.
Do what you can.
— Arthur Ashe
For our children, for ourselves, for us all, we must create a new normal.
Normal is sick.
This was originally published on my old blog in2020.
“How can I help?” was the question that used to spark the very deepest rage in me.
He doesn’t ask me that anymore.
He doesn’t help, either.
Moms have been talking about “the motherload” for years now. It’s the emotional, mental, and physical weight of mothering — all the things mothers just do, mothers just know, mothers just handle and everyone else takes for granted.
The isolation of the pandemic has heightened the pain of carrying the motherload and has also drawn attention to it. Moms who were already breaking had the uncertainty of the pandemic, the days of no school, and then the full weight of online schooling added to their plates.
It’s made national news and spawned viral posts on every platform.
Moms are pushing back, demanding that dads become more equal partners, that they start helping shoulder this load.
“You seem really upset. How can I help?”
It was a genuine question that came from a place of love and concern. And I totally lost my shit.
“I DON’T WANT YOUR HELP. I DON’T NEED A DAMN ASSISTANT!” I screamed at Adam a few years ago and stomped away, sobbing. I’d hit the wall, hard.
We had recently moved from South Carolina to Colorado. We were both working from home, our son was adjusting to kindergarten, our daughter to a new daycare, and all of us to our new lives. I was trying to get us on some type of laundry/cleaning schedule, to get the kids new doctors and dentists, to keep building my business, and to deal with a five year old who suddenly refused to eat anything other than peach yogurt or quesadillas. EVER.
I don’t remember what was happening on that particular day, but I do remember the sock on the stairs. It was one sock. And it had been sitting halfway up our staircase for a few days. I didn’t move it because it was a test — one we both failed.
I was waiting for Adam to see the sock and do something about it. Put it in the laundry basket or find its mate in a drawer.
He’d noticed the sock, but it hadn’t really registered.
I, like most moms, was the CEO of our family. I managed things. I managed people. I steered us. I was responsible for the “company culture” of our household.
I didn’t want an assistant, I wanted a fundamental shift in who is responsible for our household. That sock on the stairs hadn’t registered for him because he didn’t see it as his responsibility to keep our house clean, to keep the drawers of clothes organized, to ensure there were always clean socks available.
He didn’t judge himself in that way.
I was CEO.
Until I quit.
It didn’t happen overnight, but that sock led to a blowup, which led to that fundamental shift in our relationship.
The mental health of our family is his responsibility.
The emotional health of our family is his responsibility.
The physical health of our family is his responsibility.
The education of our children is his responsibility.
The upkeep of our home is his responsibility.
He now judges himself for all of these things. He has taken responsibility for all of these things. It’s not a 50/50 relationship. We’re both 100% in it.
Our five year old who had been shrinking his diet until there were only two options? I didn’t solve that. We both talked to his pediatrician about it, who referred us to a therapist at Children’s Hospital. I made the calls for the initial appointment and got us on the waiting list.
In the meantime, Adam was searching the internet for ideas. He decided to try meal planning with our son in an effort to give him some control and hopefully get him to re-expand his palate. They sat down together on Sundays and would talk through what we’d have for dinner each night and what he’d take to school for lunch. Then they ordered groceries together or made the shopping list.
Adam doesn’t cook. Well, he didn’t before this. But he searched for recipes and he tweaked things so the kids would eat them and he stumbled through and figured it out the way moms do every single day.
I didn’t suggest it. I didn’t ask for help with it. I didn’t even point out the problem.
He saw the problem.
He saw it as his responsibility to solve the problem.
And… he didn’t solve it. Our son has ADHD and anxiety and some sensory sensitivities that aren’t severe enough to be diagnosed, but can trigger both of the diagnoses. But the planning together helped give him a sense of control and comfort long before we had more tools to support him.
It was so simple. But it wasn’t at all easy.
Adam had to shift a massive amount of responsibility onto his shoulders and I had to learn how to let go of control. Both of those are simple concepts — acceptance and release. Yet we’re still practicing them today, three years later.
And when the pandemic hit and we went into lockdown, he came to me to have a conversation about what our workdays would look like with the kids and how we would handle everything. Nothing was assumed. We talked about what we’d ask for from his boss and how we’d cope if the answer was no. He’s the dad on the Zoom call with the kids playing on the floor in the background. He’s the one telling his boss that he can’t schedule a meeting at a certain time because I already have a meeting booked.
He’s the first contact number on the school forms.
He’s the one who schedules and takes our son to his therapy appointments.
He’s the one who does bathtime every night.
He’s still doing the meal planning and grocery shopping each week.
I never wanted help.
I never needed help.
And he no longer offers to help.
And neither do you.
This was originally published on my blog between 2012 and 2020.
I get SO tired of seeing and hearing women tell other women that “balance in motherhood is a myth.”
That is false. Balance is not a myth. It’s possible. You just have to do it right…
@dramberthornton
I mean… OK? But I’m already doing a million other things wrong, so adding one more thing I somehow have to do right just doesn’t help me. But, I know Amber, so I thought there was something I was missing. And it turns out there was. Amber has redefined balance for herself and her motherhood journey.
And while I love that for her, and for every mom that it helps, it doesn’t work for me.
I am a word person. I love words. Writing is how I process and how I discover what I think. This is wonderful, but one of the downsides is that once my brain decides a word means something — that is all it’s ever going to mean. And this can make growth and healing hard — probably much harder than they need to be.
But if you, like me, find the concept of balance impossible, please know you aren’t alone and you aren’t doing anything wrong.
Seesaws balance. Scales balance. Equations balance. People? Relationships? Lives? Not so much.
I’m never going to give my kids a balanced amount of attention. Adam and I are never going to get to a balance in who does what around the house, with the kids, in our relationship. I’m not even striving for a balance between my work and my personal life.
Someone will always need more, some projects will always need more, something will always be a priority. Right now my daughter is super clingy physically and my son needs a lot of verbal redirection and praise. If I worried about how much I’m cuddling her vs. him and tried to balance that, they wouldn’t get what they need.
I’ve talked before about how Adam and I both take days “off” from parenting. Before the pandemic, we’d do this by finding a hotel deal we could afford in our town and one of us would leave the house for a weekend. And for a long time, we tried to keep these days off even. I’d take a weekend one month and he’d go the next. But the truth is that I need more time alone than he does. It isn’t balanced, it just IS. And when I started taking more time away, things got better at home; and he was able to more fully enjoy his time away when he did take it, instead of using it simply to recover.
I don’t want a balanced marriage — I want one where we are both dedicated 100% to fulfilling the needs of our family. I don’t want a balanced life, I want a full and thriving life. Sometimes that means late nights working on a project that will help support my family, sometimes it means concentrated time with my kids, sometimes it means doing deep work in therapy, sometimes it means seducing my husband. It very, very rarely ever comes close to anything that looks like evenness or balance.
When I let go of the ideas of “having it all” and “work/life balance” and “50/50 partnerships,” it opened me up to new ideas of flow, alignment, and cycles. For me, cycles of focus are what works best. My primary responsibility is to care for my physical, mental, and emotional health because no one else can do that. Then my focus cycles through whoever or whatever needs my time, care, and attention then.
This has been especially helpful during the last eight months where we haven’t left the house. As our circumstances and needs have changed, we’ve been able to change with them. Sometimes I’ve needed more support, sometimes it’s one of the kids, sometimes it’s Adam. We talk about how we’re doing, where we’re hurting, what would bring us joy.
There is a running balance sheet in the back of my mind, always. I can tell you who has done more work in the house (Adam) and who has done more emotional labor with the kids (me) and who has slept in more mornings (me) and on and on and on. That’s a remnant from my own mother, who constantly bemoaned how much she gave and how unfair it was that no one was giving to her. She read all those articles in the ‘90s about work/life balance and “how to have it all.” It didn’t work for so many reasons. And because of her experience, I’ve worked hard to let balance go. To center myself in my life so I can give freely and happily to those around me.
Whatever words you use, however you find meaning and purpose and healing and joy in your life, I am here for that. Whatever I can do to help you along your motherhood journey — I have your back 100%.
But, for me, balance is still bullshit.
Life isn't a set of scales.
This was originally published on my old blog in 2020.
Motherhood is harder than it has to be.
Motherhood is more painful than it has to be.
Motherhood is lonelier than it has to be.
Motherhood is more complicated than it has to be.
Motherhood — as we are doing it now — is dehumanizing to those who mother. And that is a tragedy. If we are to change these truths, we must first accept them as truths.
IT IS NOT YOU.
You, the mother, are not broken. You are not weak. You are not unintelligent. You are not lazy. You are not needy. You are not the wrong mother for your child.
The systems around you, the ones you were born into, lie to you constantly. They lie to you when they tell you the mothers who came before you were stronger than we are. They lie to you when they tell you the child(ren) you mother need perfection from you. They lie to you when they tell you you should know all of the hows and whys and be able to be the mother you so desperately want to be without rocking the boat.
If you simply fill your cup, they say, you’d be able to pour forever. BUT CUPS WERE NOT MADE FOR POURING.
If you were more organized, if you read more books, if you took more classes, you’d understand. But understanding and execution are two totally different things.
It is assumed that your pain is noble, that your sacrifice is necessary, that in order to be a good mother you must lose your humanity. Just you. All alone. And if you fail, if you scream, if you break, if you don’t have all the answers, if you don’t break every generational curse, if you cannot somehow do it all and have it all — well, that’s a personal problem. Take a break. Get a drink. Buy something. You’ll be fine.
But the truth is that we cannot do this alone. Self-care cannot save us. We can read all of the books and know all of the answers and still not mother in a way that leads to happy, healthy, thriving families.
BECAUSE WE ARE NOT ISLANDS.
We must have a connection with each other. True, meaningful relationships where we know we can be honest, be vulnerable, give, and receive support. We must be able to learn from each other and fight for each other and care for each other emotionally and materially. We must see each other as human beings and celebrate our own humanity and the humanity of the mothers and children around us.
I believe, I KNOW, this will lead to systemic change. To material change. To deep and lasting change within ourselves, our families, and our communities.
To tell the truth about your experience of motherhood is a radical act. To trust other mothers with that truth and to hold space for their truths is an action and a commitment that will shake the world. To form bonds of connection with other mothers as human beings first, and to lean on those bonds will give us a strength never before seen.
We can do more.
We can be more.
We can hurt less.
We can rest.
We can trust.
We can heal.
We can thrive.
We can rediscover our own humanity, celebrate it with our fellow mothers, and in doing so we can raise children who will turn the world upside down and set it all to rights.
Together.
To tell the truth about your experience of motherhood is a radical act.
This was originally published on my old blog in 2020.
I was nine when Hurricane Hugo hit Charleston. We had just moved to James Island — a tiny island suburb of the city — the summer before the Bronx, so I had no reference point for a hurricane. My mom was originally from Plymouth, MA and so her experience of hurricanes was mostly a party on a very windy beach. My dad was out of town and trying his best to get back to us.
I remember two things with crystal clarity.
The first is the dawning comprehension on my mom’s face that this was not going to be like all those other storms, the ones she’d told me about to calm my fears. Seeing her begin to panic and pretend she wasn’t is the first time I remember feeling totally unsafe.
The second memory is of a meltdown I had over crunchy peanut butter. It was a week after the storm, we still didn’t have power, and the insurance adjuster was walking around our house with my dad while my mom made me a peanut butter sandwich. Or, she tried to. We only had crunchy peanut butter and I would only eat creamy.
Now, you’d think that in the aftermath of a major crisis that had scared the absolute shit out of me, I might have been a little more accommodating. You’d be wrong. I threw an epic fit, a tantrum worthy of any toddler. I don’t remember how my mom reacted. What I remember most is my anger at her and at my dad that they couldn’t just FIX IT.
I wanted them to turn the lights on, to somehow put all the downed trees back up, to set the world right and make everything make sense again. I wanted to feel safe.
Our kids have been living inside an emotional hurricane for months now. And they know we can’t fix it. The curtain has been yanked back, hard, and they see us for the pretend wizards we are. They want to feel safe.
So your 12-year-old may be suddenly demanding that you put their pajamas on for them. Your five-year-old may be having potty accidents. Your nine-year-old may have an epic temper tantrum over peanut butter.
It’s called regression and it’s frustrating as hell.
Moms all across the country are baffled by the sudden de-aging of their kids. As schools start, it seems to be getting worse. For some kids it’s just now sinking in that things are not going to be OK for a very long time. For others, they’re suddenly back around friends but they can’t hug, they can’t touch. The things that used to bring them comfort are now sources of danger.
And you know, it’s no big deal. We can handle this. It’s not like there’s anything else happening in the world that may be stressing any of us out. I’m sure that you, like me, have an unending well of energy and patience from which to draw in order to support your kids through this.
OF COURSE WE DON’T.
The truth is, we’re regressing too. It’s why you’re watching old movies and TV shows over and over. It’s why you’re making comfort foods multiple times a week. It’s why you’re playing music from when you were a teenager. The things that have been huge this summer — like the Verzuz battles on Instagram, or “Babysitters Club” and “Moesha on Netflix” — they’re all about nostalgia and comfort.
Regression is a symptom. Stress is the cause.
So here are a few tips from another mom in the trenches:
I wish I could tell you there’s a magical regression cure, but it isn’t a disease. It’s a sign and a signal. Our choices are to heed it or fight it. I don’t know about you, but I’m fighting too many battles already to take this one on too.
We will get through this. Our kids will get through this. And slowly but surely the regression will fade and our kids will start annoying the crap out of us for completely different reasons. Until then, please remember we’re in this together.
You’ve got their back. I’ve got yours.
It's really, REALLY not you.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
Anger is like air now. I don’t smell it, I don’t feel it, I don’t even realize I’m breathing it in. It’s simply a part of me — like oxygen. At first, it motivated me. I created and supported and wrote and cooked and loved so fiercely. As it settled more deeply into my body, I got sick; panic attacks, migraine attacks, stomach in knots, bowels turned to water.
But now, it simply IS. I don’t notice it until I’m growling at my children or about to throw my phone across the room. This is the person I’ve become, the mother my children have, the wife that Adam loves.
In one week, this will be the person guiding my son’s education.
Our school district is allowing parents to choose whether we send our kids to school or use the online learning platform. Our son will go to second grade from our home, our daughter will go to half-day pre-kindergarten at school… for however long the schools are open. Making those choices for them felt impossible, even though, objectively, my family is extremely privileged.
We don’t have to send our kids to school. Neither of us is in danger of losing our jobs or our home if we don’t leave the house for work. We aren’t living on the edge that so many millions of families across the country are — and it still felt like a life-and-death decision we simply didn’t have enough information to make.
So many of the conversations I see online break things down to their simplest parts or stand at extremes. And I get that: It’s where the clicks, likes, and retweets are. It’s so simple to say schools shouldn’t open or parents should keep their children home or teachers should strike. None of those stances are necessarily wrong.
But the full truth is that our economy doesn’t work without public schools being open. Parents have been breaking these past months as schools and then summer options closed. There’s no support. There’s no leadership. There’s no guidance. And as always happens in a crisis, the people who were already at risk are crushed first. Then, the pain rolls uphill.
In the absence of national leadership, it has fallen to states and districts to decide what happens with schools, what risks are acceptable, and who we’ll sacrifice. In my school district, elementary schools will open fully in-person while middle and high schools work on a hybrid system, and all families have the option of using the online learning platform.
There’s a decision matrix that will be used to determine if and when it is safe for specific schools and/or the district itself to open. That matrix is available on the district website so that parents can track it day by day and see if we’re trending toward closures. And while that is so much more information than many districts across the country are offering, there’s still no plan, no information, nothing available for the parents who will be left completely without childcare if the schools close. If your kid has a complicated individualized education program (IEP) and needs 1:1 instruction to thrive, well, you’re shit out of luck.
After months of isolation within our home, when it came time to decide how my family would approach the school year, Adam’s biggest concern was me. Specifically my mental health. Even with medication and therapy, I have not been OK for months. And while his boss and his team have worked with him so he can care for the kids and for me, this isn’t sustainable. So what happens if I’m struck with another week of debilitating migraine attacks while our seven-year-old is trying to navigate school online and his four-year-old sister is, you know, being four, and Adam has to work?
How do we make it through this school year in the midst of a pandemic while the world is tearing itself apart? How do we protect our kids and ourselves? What’s the best choice for our community? And what about all the families who don’t have the resources we do?
I’ve worked with nearly 3,000 moms as a community creator, coach, and peer mental health supporter and one thing I know about moms is we always assume that we’re the only ones who can’t handle something. We assume that those other moms, the good moms, have things figured out and that we’re the ones who are weak, who are failing, who can’t come through for our kids. It is, and has always been, bullshit. But it’s bullshit that seems somehow baked into the modern American experience of motherhood.
So I decided to ask moms how they are feeling about the coming school year and what their plans are. It turns out no one is comfortable with the choices they’ve made, even when they know it’s the best choice they had.
None of us are OK.
Not one.
I asked four mothers who are also partners or spouses of teachers to speak with me and each one of them said they just couldn’t do it. They are all barely holding on and speaking their fears out loud was something they couldn’t handle. At the time I asked (mid-July), none of them had any guidance from their school districts about whether school would be in-person or online. Two live in Georgia, one in California, and one in Colorado.
I spoke with two moms in Wisconsin:
Jenny’s two daughters go to a Catholic school she is deeply involved in. Class size is small enough for social distancing to happen, but they’re dependent on the school district for buses and no one knows what’s going to happen with that yet. What happens if a kid with a fever arrives by bus? What happens if one of the teachers has a child with a fever? Or if a teacher gets sick? There aren’t enough substitute teachers in the pool already and parents are being asked to volunteer as subs. Both Jenny and her husband are working outside the home and both have some flexibility to stay home if needed. They know they’re in a good position — and the worry is still there.
Rae is a single parent in Milwaukee. Their son attends a Montessori K-8 public school, and when we talked, the biggest issue they were having was the isolation. While other parents at the school were able to get their kids together in small groups over the summer, Rae and their son live across the city from the school and haven’t been able to participate. They’re moving closer to the school and to Rae’s parents in August. So, one problem was solved but schools were also canceled last year just before the initial IEP meeting for Rae’s 10-year-old.
“I’ve waited a year, and then they’re just like, yeah we’re gonna cancel it. So now we have to wait, I don’t even know — however long. And for real, I was in tears,” they said.
For students who already have an IEP, this transition back and forth from in-school to online is hard enough. But at least their parents are supposed to have some recourse with schools and districts, and are supposed to be getting support. For the millions of kids across the country, like Rae’s son, who were in the midst of the process, there’s nothing but more waiting and more questions.
Rae’s plan? To hope their mother will consider retiring a few years early in order to help on the days their son is learning from home. It’s the only way they’ll be able to keep their job.
Susan lives in Berkeley, California, and has a seven-year-old and a 13-year-old, both in public school. Susan and her husband are both college professors so they’re juggling public school and college closures, openings, and online options.
“This is all I think about. I can’t sleep now,” she said. Every mom I spoke with echoed that sentiment.
“Our district has had this really thoughtful process,” Susan explained. “They’ve done town halls, they’ve done specialty town halls — like Spanish-speaking town halls and Black family town halls — my experience of participating and witnessing is it’s been a very thoughtful process. And now this!” she said.
The “this” that Susan is referring to is an extremely vague email that went out to parents the day before we spoke, asking them to choose in-person, hybrid, or online for their students for the year. It wasn’t at all clear if this was an information-gathering survey or if this meant the parents actually choosing an option for the year. So Susan went looking to see what her local teacher’s union had to say. They were against in-person instruction for the first semester of the school year. That’s what decided it for Susan and her family. They’re keeping her kids home for the school year, but she, like every parent I talked to, was worried about what happens to the kids and parents for whom that isn't truly an option.
Amanda lives in Kansas and very few people around her are taking this seriously. Her daughter should be going into first grade in public school this year. Her husband has been working outside the home throughout the pandemic so it’s been up to Amanda to put her real estate work on hold and care for their daughter at home. “Stressed. As. Hell. We are stressed as hell,” she said.
After months of isolation, Amanda made the decision to send her daughter to a summer day camp for both of their mental health. Like many moms she was finding herself yelling, snapping, and just being mean. Her daughter needed people and Amanda needed a break before she broke. But now she’s scared every day that her daughter will get sick or that she and her husband will. “Do I send my kid to school and risk her getting a debilitating illness that could kill her or leave her with long-term problems, or do I destroy what’s left of my career and my mental health and keep her home? That’s the choice coming. Assuming they give us a choice.”
Tara is a mom of two who lives in Ohio. She runs her business from home and her husband has been working from home for the past few months, but they don’t know how long that will last. The family has been very serious about safety because both her daughter and husband have asthma. But her main concern is for her son. While her daughter is an introvert who’d happily do online school and stay in the house forever, her son has been struggling with the isolation. “He is struggling, he’s really struggling right now and he has been struggling since April. If we have to do a whole school year at home… I… I don’t know. So do I send him back and keep her home? But health is paramount for me. So we do online school. But if we do that, how do I get him that interaction he so desperately needs?” she asked.
If that quote seems circular to you, you probably aren’t a mom. This is how the thinking goes, the “what if” spiral. When we spoke, Tara had no plan from her district but her thinking was about balancing the needs of her family with the needs of her community.
“As hard as it’s been these last four months, I still feel like, as somebody who has that privilege of being able to work from home, my husband is home at least through September and I’m home no matter what. I feel like if I don’t send my two children to the schools that’s fewer children in the classroom. So that people who do have to send their kids, it’s not a full 35 kids per class. Maybe it’s 20. And maybe that’s a little bit more manageable for the teachers and the kids. But I don’t know, Graeme, I just don’t know,” she said.
Keisha has a toddler, a first grader, and a background in education. She and her husband live in Maryland and their district has already announced that they’ll be distance learning until at least January. A sample schedule has been released to parents and it leaves Keisha wondering how her six-year-old is going to handle hour-long blocks of online instruction. And how she’s going to manage that and caring for her almost-two-year-old.
At the end of last year, one of the online lessons for her then-kindergartener was an audio essay. Just audio. As he listened to it, she paused multiple times to ensure he was engaged and to ask him questions and help him process the lesson. She was eventually so frustrated by the structure that her husband had to step in. So what happens if the instruction level in first grade is just as inappropriate? As an educator and as a Black mother, Keisha was already supplementing her son’s education. Things are now more complicated. “It’s a weird in-between. If he was in the classroom and he was full time, then I just do what I do at home. But with this, I’m having to supervise and think about how I will supplement.”
Keisha’s worried about all the parents without her education background and the ones who don’t have the flexibility of her schedule. She’s joining another first-grade parent to create a “pod” where they can share the supervision of the kids and is thinking about how they can reach out to a parent who might need that support for their kid, too. Of course, every person you add brings layers of risk, so how many kids can you help?
Jennifer is in Virginia with her two kids and her husband. She recently started working for Chase Bank and that has changed everything for her. They are fully supportive of her working from home, they’ve given extra PTO, and when one of her kids hid her work phone and then forgot where it was, her boss understood that kids are, well… kids. She knows exactly how lucky she is compared to so many other parents and at the same time, she’s struggling. Jenn has anxiety and is in therapy, but managing a mental illness during a pandemic, while stuck in the house with your family for five months — it’s a lot.
Jenn’s school district has announced they are going completely virtual for at least the first nine weeks. They’re considering plans to offer some form of childcare for essential workers and teachers, but there’s nothing concrete yet. It’s the parents who are stepping up for each other. “There’s a big push in our area; people are ‘podding up’ and sharing tutors and nannies and things. And I was surprised, really surprised, that there’s a lot of talk about making sure all kids are included and minding the gap,” she told me. The Parallel Learning and Nanny Cooperative is a Facebook group where local parents can connect with families that may need support and can share resources.
I spoke to moms across the country over a two-week period in July and the later it got, the more moms told me that their districts were going totally virtual. Not one of the moms had heard anything from districts about possible childcare options. No one knew specifics on how IEPs would be handled for their kids. Only one had details about what the online learning platform would look like or how it would operate.
Parents are being asked to make choices without the information we need to make them. And honestly, that’s nothing new. But these choices are coming after months of isolation, fear, and the rage that accompanies watching those in power do very little to avert this disaster. Exhausted does not begin to encompass the depth of what we’re feeling.
For most of us, the science is clear. The safest thing we can do is to keep our children home. After that, there are levels of risk that are up to each family to assess. But what about the emotional and mental risk of keeping them home and isolated? Of sending them back to schools that look radically different than they’re used to? Of… all of this, really.
I spoke with Sharon Kaplow, LCSW, a family therapist in Connecticut, about what parents need to keep in mind during the coming school year when it comes to our mental health — and that of our children. She noted the lack of a plan feeds into our collective anxiety. Things keep changing and there’s nothing for us to hold onto, no anchor in the storm. Her first piece of advice: “Focus on your circle of control. Right now you really need to focus on your little microcosm on the planet, your family.” Determine the acceptable levels of risk for YOU and for YOUR FAMILY. Then you can move outside your little circle.
Stepping out of that bubble can be scary. But Sharon said it’s important to be honest with your kids that the rules for your family and the rules for other families may be different. Maybe someone is OK with playing in the yard, but not playing in their room. That can be hard for children to understand, but they need to know it isn’t personal —- they aren’t being rejected.
We should also all be ready for behavioral regression. Sharon reminds herself and her kids of that. As they begin to engage more with the children around them, she reminds them, “Look, kids are going to forget how to play together. And they might not play fair. They might get upset really easily. You might get upset really easily. Just be ready for that.” And it’s OK, she said, it’s natural. This isn’t yet another thing for us all to freak out about, simply something to be aware of. “We’re out of practice. That’s all it is. Just try to be patient and be kind,” she added.
Last, but definitely not least, Sharon suggests that all families have a disaster recovery plan. “If we go in and something happens, then, of course, we take them out. But also, what is the hospital protocol? What would we do if someone in the family got sick?” she said.
Having a plan can relieve so much anxiety and also help with decision-making. It’s unsustainable for many of us to simply stay in our homes for the next year. We’re going to have to stretch. The important thing is to stretch responsibly and to keep reassessing the risk at the local level. Plan. Stretch. Reassess.
Sharon worked with Sentio Solutions to create an app, The Relief App, where anyone can access mental health support from home. The program includes access to mental health resources and exercises, an app to journal your emotions as well as weekly online 15-minute sessions with qualified coaches who will teach you useful techniques to manage your stress levels during the global crisis. You can check it out right here: https://www.myfeel.co/relief-program
The vast majority of us are simply doing the best we can. And it doesn’t seem like enough. It isn’t enough. We’re all suffering in our own ways, in our own families, and we also know that our neighbors are, too. We’ve been left alone to figure out individual paths through a collective trauma. And that means those with the least resources and capacity will suffer the most.
Across the country, there are so many moms who are struggling to care for the physical, mental, and emotional health of their families while also trying to reach out to others in need. I see them. I see you. I SEE US.
And I can’t stop thinking about how it didn’t have to be this way.
The disgusting truth is that children are going to die. Teachers are going to die. Cafeteria workers, office staff, nurses, janitors, bus drivers, counselors, the list goes on and on. As one mom said, “It’s a menu of death, that’s what we have to choose from now.” As we hear more from those who have recovered from COVID, we’re realizing the word recovery itself has been redefined. Months later some who have recovered are still dealing with massively reduced lung function, heart issues, and more.
So do you send your child to school to spin the wheel of death, disability, or health? Do you keep your child home and try to juggle work and school? Do you leave your job? Do you lose your job?
If you’re a parent making a choice that seems impossible, second-guessing, spiraling, and feeling unsettled even after you’ve set plans in place, please know you aren’t alone. Everyone who is paying attention is feeling like this. It feels wrong because even the best options are horrible and all the plans leave someone behind.
As we move forward I ask only one thing of you: Don’t stay silent. Speak up about your concerns, tell your kids the truth about what is happening, reach out to those you can help, and ask for the help you need. Because the truth is we won’t all make it through this and we owe it to our children, to each other, and to ourselves to not go quietly.
Same story, different states.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
Everyone’s right.
Everyone’s wrong.
And none of us, not a single one of us, are handling this well. We’re definitely not handling it well all the time.
Before this latest global pandemic, it already felt like the world was coming apart at the seams. Most moms were already overwhelmed — the lucky ones treading water in a toxic stew of judgment, capitalism, and patriarchy. The unlucky ones drowning in it.
And then the schools started closing.
My first thought was, “How the hell am I going to homeschool these kids???”
Although I come from a long line of teachers and educators, I knew the classroom was not for me. I don’t have the passion or the temperament. And I knew homeschooling wasn’t a good option for my family. We literally left one state and moved to another because I didn’t trust the school system and couldn’t homeschool.
I say all this to say that I’ve thought about it a lot.
What I’m doing right now, what my husband is doing downstairs with our kids as I type this, what millions of parents around the country are doing at this very moment IS NOT HOMESCHOOLING. And that’s OK. That’s not a valuation on how much learning may be happening in your household — it’s an acknowledgement that words mean things.
Yes, we could be literalists and say any learning happening in your home equals homeschooling. But literalism doesn’t capture meaning — and it definitely doesn’t explain the vitriol happening on social media right now.
There are some homeschooling moms who are PISSED the term is being misapplied. And there are moms who are hurt and angered by their anger. We are all tender and raw right now. As per usual, moms have been given very little guidance or support during these transitions. And yes, I could say parents haven’t — but we all know the vast majority of this burden is falling on mothers.
We didn’t choose this. And now we’re flailing and terrified and overwhelmed — trying to work and care for our kids, and care for our parents, and keep our heads amidst the panic and then you see something on Twitter about how, “You aren’t homeschooling, you’re throwing a packet at your kids” and it feels like a slap in the face.
So are homeschooling moms just some super bitchy, territorial, subset of mothers? No more than any of the rest of us. So why are some of them so freaking angry right now? We all get how hard it is, now. Shouldn’t they be welcoming us, supporting us, advising us?
First of all — A LOT OF THEM ARE. They’re making spreadsheets and blog posts and sharing support all over social media.
Second of all — three weeks ago homeschooling was seen as fringe. We didn’t assume these were moms doing what is best for their children and working their asses off to do it well. We assumed they hate public education, or thought themselves above teachers, that their children weren’t socialized, that they were anti-vaxxers or religious extremists.
Maybe YOU didn’t assume that — but as a community, this is what they’ve been dealing with.
At best, they were ignored. At worst, folks accused them of actively harming their children.
All the while they are researching and creating curriculum, creating educational co-ops, planning field trips, and learning exercises — SO MUCH of homeschooling doesn’t actually happen in the home. And it very, very rarely comes with guidance from a teacher who knows your child like many of us are getting.
So yeah, I can see why they’d be pissed that the folks who mocked and derided them in February are now claiming that “it’s all the same” in March. Should people be more considerate of how we’re all hurting before they post things? Yes, WE should.
Your response that your kid is in your home and doing school so that’s homeschooling is just as much a slap in the face as their “packet” comment originally was. Maybe we could all take a breath and ask, “Why does that hurt you?”, and then listen to each other’s pain instead of assuming?
As for me and my house — we’re not homeschooling. I’m not creating anything. I’m not directing anything. I’m following along with the guidance provided by our teacher and honestly, we’re not even pushing that that hard. My focus is on my children’s emotional and mental health — not their academics.
The truth is none of our children are learning exactly the way they were last month.
And that really, truly is OK.
We’re pandemic schooling — we’re doing the best we can each day with the resources we have. We’re taking as much pressure off as we can and allowing ourselves temper tantrums, terrible days, and couch cuddles. We’re getting outside and running off energy. We’re missing friends. We’re trying to hold our little world together as the outside world spins faster and faster.
Sometimes we lash out. Because we’re human and this shit is HARD.
Sometimes you do, too.
Everyone feels more comfortable with an identifiable enemy.
But moms need each other. We need each other’s grace, understanding, support, and care. We need that now more than ever. We can come through this crisis more splintered than ever or we can come through it as a cadre of moms who are wholly united in defense of our children and their future.
We get to choose.
As per usual, moms have been given very little guidance or support during these transitions.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
"Motherhood is not a sacrifice, but a privilege — one that many of us choose selfishly."
Choose. Selfishly.
...but a privilege…
Assuming that one does, indeed, get to choose to be a mother. And further assuming that one is physically able to have a child and or otherwise able to bring a child into your family. Assuming that this child is wanted and celebrated and the family is overjoyed.
Then —
Mental illness, scarce or nonexistent maternity leave, lower wages if a mother returns to work and lower advancement over the course of a career, higher rates of poverty, unemployment, and abuse — yup, these moms are obviously privileged.
The original article is pushing back on the idea that motherhood = sacrifice and that’s an impulse that I applaud. But this article glosses over or ignores the very real peril that mothers are in in this country.
I’m happy for the author that she gets to enjoy a wonderful vacation with her family and that she derives such joy from those occasions. I completely understand how it feels like a slap in the face to express excitement over an upcoming event with your kids and have others roll their eyes and wonder how you'll “get through it”. There is a deeply problematic culture of martyrdom in the motherhood sphere.
But that culture didn’t come out of nowhere.
The idea that moms are just holding on until wine o’clock and that moms are living for the moment the school bell rings each morning — those aren’t born from some innate need to seem like we’re giving it all up for our kids.
Those come directly from patriarchal messaging that says that we SHOULD be giving everything up for our children. And the way to counter that messaging is not in saying that mothers are privileged to have their children. It’s in saying that mothers are human beings with value, that all people are human beings with value, and that value does not change when or if a person becomes a parent.
Many, many mothers are naive about what awaits them during pregnancy, surrogacy, or adoption. The height of the joys and the depth of the despair truly are things that must be experienced in order to be truly understood. Older mothers can try to share, can give advice, but they won’t know until they KNOW.
What even more of us don’t understand is how the systems that shape our world also affect and infect our experience of motherhood. How deeply capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy are embedded in all of the statistics I shared above. But also how deeply they are embedded in the way we were raised, in the way our partners were raised, in the ways we’re living now, and in how we’re raising our own children.
Motherhood isn’t an identity or a privilege. It’s a series of choices and actions. It’s something we DO, not who we are.
“If we start referring to motherhood as the beautiful, messy privilege that it is, and to tending to our children as the most loving yet selfish thing we do, perhaps we can change the biased language my mother used. Only when we stop talking about motherhood as sacrifice can we start talking about mothers the way that we deserve.”
It sounds good, right? But if motherhood is such a privilege, then why does it feel like THIS?
I wish that it were truly as simple as beautiful and messy. I wish more moms had it that easy — that their lives were just beautiful and messy and not soul-crushing and terrifying. That would be amazing.
I wish that the word dehumanizing didn’t fit much more for so many moms.
I wish more moms didn’t live through days that drove them to numb themselves with wine and call it relaxation each night. I wish things were just beautiful and messy for them.
I wish more moms didn’t stay with partners who were physically, emotionally, and mentally abusive because they can’t afford to leave with their children and refuse to leave without them. I wish them beautiful messy lives.
I wish more moms weren’t going back to work two weeks postpartum because of the work requirements attached to public assistance. I wish them beautiful messy lives.
I wish more moms weren’t raising their husbands while raising their children because patriarchy taught them that their value comes from service. I wish them beautiful messy lives.
I wish beautiful messy lives for all of us.
I wish every mother on the planet could claim that having each child was a selfish act and not one ever forced upon them.
I wish we’d stop erasing the moms who have children only to realize afterward that they very much should not.
I wish we’d stop boiling down the immensely complex lives of human beings, who can never be fully known, and who are infinitely faceted to a syrupy “only then”.
I believe that mothers deserve to get to choose motherhood.
I believe that mothers deserve the very best possible chance to live through birth.
I believe that mothers deserve excellent postpartum care.
I believe that mothers deserve excellent, culturally competent mental health care.
I believe that mothers deserve at least six months of paid maternal leave (whether they gave birth or brought a child into their home through surrogacy or adoption).
I believe that mothers deserve a social safety net that doesn’t pathologize them or dehumanize them.
I believe that all mothers deserve a full commitment to parenting from the partner or father in their child’s life.
I believe that mothers deserve to be able to protect their children by leaving abusive households without fear of death, homelessness, or starvation.
I believe that mothers deserve so much more than being forced into sacrifice by the standards of modern motherhood.
Mothering is as complicated, as awe-inspiring, and as deeply human as the people who do it. It takes more than one essay to get anywhere near the truth of the experience when you’re addressing the needs of more than a very specific subset of moms. I’ve barely scratched the surface here. And I wish that more writers would be mindful of that.
Only when we stop talking of motherhood as any one thing can we start talking about mothers as human beings.
Mothers deserve so much more than being forced into sacrifice by the standards of modern motherhood.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
All my life, I wanted to be a mother.
I mothered my dolls, my stuffed animals, and even my Barbies and Transformers. I thought becoming a mother would complete me, would focus me, would center my world, and make my life make sense. I was looking for healing in the act of caring for another.
I know I’m not alone in this.
The experience of mothering has taught me that I cannot give my all to someone else, to anyone else, not even the small humans I created from my own flesh and blood. They cannot be my world, they have to be their own worlds. They cannot be my reason for living, that is too much for those tiny shoulders to bear.
I have to live for me.
We toss around phrases like “giving 110%” and “giving my all” as if those words don’t have actual meanings. But there is no such thing as 110%, and if I give my all to someone else then how do I survive? How do I possibly thrive?
If I don’t learn about myself, care for myself, grow and change and become more of myself, then how can I expect my children to do it?
How can I expect them to know it’s possible or to internalize it as their birthright?
So no, I don’t give my children my all. I give according to what I have and what they need. And the more work I do on ME, the more I heal, the more I lean and learn, the more I have to give to them. It’s easy to type these words and so much harder to live them.
It means being honest with Adam about my needs, my weaknesses, my failings. It means prioritizing my mental, emotional, and physical health. It means doing that over and over again, choosing me over and over again, when so much of our society and the culture of motherhood tells me to do exactly the opposite.
I spend a ridiculous amount of time facing down my own demons. It’s fucking exhausting. The voice in my head that tells me I’m weak, I’m lazy, that I don’t follow through, that I can’t be counted on, that I never deserved these amazing people who surround me, and that one day they will all turn away from me, disgusted — that voice isn’t going away any time soon.
And yet…
I am a human being. I was born worthy of love, care, time, and attention. I was born worthy of joy. I was born worthy of rest. Of course, I’m also parenting human beings who were born worthy of all of those things. And I’m doing it in partnership with a human being who is worthy of the same.
It’s not a balancing act. There’s rarely a balance or any time when the ledgers come close to adding up. That’s not how life works.
It’s an intricate and complicated juggling act and I’m not alone in it. As I keep balls spinning through the air, there are also those that Adam and I toss back and forth. There are times I back up as he moves forward. There are times when friends, family, doctors, therapists, teachers, and coaches toss balls in or catch them. As our children grow, we’re learning how to teach them to juggle as well.
And sometimes it all comes crashing down. Sometimes there’s a mad scramble to pick up all of the balls that go spinning and bouncing through the corners of our lives. Sometimes we break one, or lose one, and it HURTS.
But I cannot be the world for my children. I cannot stand in the center and keep all of the balls in the air, cut off from everyone but them, responsible for everyone around them.
Ah… that’s a lie. I could.
I refuse to.
Instead, I reach out. And dammit, so many times there has been no one reaching back. So many times the firm grip I thought was support turned into a painful weight. There have been hands I reached for that held knives.
I kept reaching. I keep reaching.
None of us can do this alone, that’s something I know in my bones and in my soul. We, human beings, were not meant to live this life alone and we damn sure were never meant to raise our children alone. But when we center our entire lives on our children, we cut ourselves off from others and we cut ourselves off from our own humanity.
I am a whole human mama. I have dreams, I have a past, I have triumphs and failures, I have fears and joys, secret longings and public proclamations. Many of those have to do with my kids, but not all of them. My children are a huge part of my life, but they can never BE my life.
All of my life I wanted to be a mother.
I defined motherhood as giving and giving and giving and I was sure that in that giving I would receive what I needed.
Now I am a mother. I pour into my children every single day. I give to them in ways they cannot fully comprehend yet. I give to Adam. I give to my friends and family. I give to the moms I work with and build community with.
And I give to me.
I had to step into the center of my life in order to begin to truly heal. I had to embrace my full humanity in order to begin to become the mother I really want to be, the mother my children deserve. I had to figure out how the hell to be enough for myself so I can show them they are enough for themselves, for everyone, always.
They cannot be my reason for living, that’s too much for those tiny shoulders to bear.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
Far too many mothers are silent about our pain. We have been convinced by the world that motherhood is a test of strength, that it’s supposed to hurt, to tear us apart. We’ve bought into the notion that everyone else can handle this, that all the other mothers are doing fine and that we are somehow especially weak, or broken, or wrong.
And so we are silent about our pain.
But every time we speak our truth, we create space for someone else to do the same. We discover that we are not especially weak, broken, or wrong. We find out that this system is breaking all of us — some of us slowly and some of us quickly.
The married mom is silent because she sees how hard the single mom is working.
The single mom is silent because her family is helping her.
The stay-at-home mom is silent because she isn’t bringing money into her household.
The working mom is silent because she should be home more.
And on and on and on it goes.
For every type of mom, for every family configuration, there is always someone struggling more than you. There is always some reason to stay quiet, to not rock the boat.
And when you die, they’ll talk about what a dedicated mother you were and how your children were your whole life. They will shrink your existence down to the care you gave to others and measure your worth by how little you cared for yourself.
Mothers are, after all, perpetual giving machines.
We are not human beings, with wants and needs, with past traumas and current struggles. We are not human beings with desires and dreams. We are not human beings who need support and community. We are not human beings who snap and break and cry and get lost and are terrified and make bad choices and fuck up and stumble and figure it out and feel guilty and crave joy and want pleasure and need laughter and enjoy sex and have fun and love deeply and create connection and breathe and live and are fully, fearfully, wonderfully made.
No.
We are mothers.
We are what our families want and need us to be, whenever and wherever they want or need it. We give and give and give and we do not ask, we do not need. We forget our self. We abandon our self. We ignore our self for so long that eventually we cannot hear that self anymore. And when we die, they say our family was our whole life because they cannot conceive the idea that we could have a life not centered on them.
Until one mother somewhere refuses to be silent about their pain.
When one mother speaks the truth, the world shakes. Sometimes it’s simply a whisper in the darkness: “I want to know who I am,” or “No more.” It spreads like mist coming off a lake. It passes through furtive conversations and text messages, to online groups and social media posts, and eventually to viral articles and the email inboxes of partners, of ex-spouses, of therapists.
And nothing changes.
And everything changes.
Flames are lit, tiny flickering flames of personhood. When we speak our truth, when we are no longer silent about our pain, that is the road that leads to joy. Healing begins when we acknowledge the hurt and reach out to others. I won’t lie to you and say the road after that is easy or smooth, but then the roads we’ve been walking aren’t either. But I will say that once you are no longer silent, once you decide you will never be silenced again and you begin to walk the road of truth, the pain has a purpose.
Our children need all of us. They need us to be our whole selves. They need and deserve mothers who stand in their truth and work to heal.
We deserve that, too.
You deserve that.
Mama, you are worthy. You were born worthy and nothing you have done, nothing that has happened to you since the moment of your birth changes your worth. Your worth is intrinsic and immutable. If you’ve been silent about your pain because you haven’t felt worthy of speaking up, please know I am here and ready to listen.
No matter how long you have been silent.
No matter the reason for your silence.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
There is an experience of motherhood that doesn’t hurt like this. There is a journey through motherhood that isn’t this lonely. There is a community of mothers who are also truth-tellers and are waiting for you to join us.
Speak your truth, mama. The world needs it. Your children need it. You need it.
When one mother speaks the truth, the world shakes.
This was originally published on my blog between 2012 and 2020.
Why are you here?
Are you here to raise your family in partnership with someone you love?
I’m here because I have coached a few thousand moms and I’ve seen a vastly different idea of what partnership and parenting mean to moms and dads. I have questions. These aren’t questions for you to answer to me. I’m not the one who has to live with you.
Honestly, these aren’t questions my dad could have answered — and you could say I turned out fine. But they are questions that Adam can answer without missing a beat and that’s important to both of us. The issue is: Why are you here? Why are you in this relationship, marriage, household? Are you a father or are you a guy who lives with a mother and some kids?
Why is your wife or partner wondering why her husband does nothing to help her?
I don’t need the answers. The mother(s) in your life do. Your children do. You do.
What are the names of the people who care for and/or teach your children? What are the school policies? How long does your kid need to be fever-free before they can go back to school?
Who is your child’s pediatrician? Where are they located? What are their hours? What is their phone number? Does your child like them?
Dentist?
Optometrist?
What are the names of your kid’s two best friends?
What are their parents’ names?
What sizes of clothing and shoes do your kids wear? Where do you usually buy them?
What are your kids worried about right now? What are they excited about? What are they scared of? What do they want most? Who do they love?
WHY ARE YOU HERE? Are you here to raise your child in partnership?
How many times a week does laundry need to be done in your house so that no one runs out of anything?
How long does it take to clean each room in your house?
How does that change when your kid(s) are home/awake?
How often does each room need to be cleaned to keep things generally organized and household stress low?
How do you create a meal plan that takes into account everyone’s nutritional needs, allergies, preferences, what is already in your fridge and pantry, as well as the family budget?
What did your kids eat for lunch today?
What are the steps necessary to get each child from asleep to their first class in school each morning?
What are the values you are actively teaching your child each day?
What is age-appropriate behavior for your child(ren)? Age-appropriate expectations? What milestones should you be looking for next? What do you need to do to support your child in reaching them?
What are you doing to support your child’s emotional and mental health?
What tools do you need to learn in order to parent effectively?
What have you taught your children about how their bodies work?
What have you taught your children about consent?
What have you taught your children about gender, sex, class, and race?
Who are the family members and friends who understand and support your parenting style and choices? Who are the ones who undermine them? What boundaries do you need to set for the health and happiness of your family? Who will push hardest against them?
What is your babysitter’s name? What are they paid? How are they paid? What is their experience and background with children? Who else have they worked for?
What extracurricular activities would be most supportive of your child’s emotional growth right now? Physical growth? What would they most like to do? What supplies would be needed for each? What can fit in the family budget? What can fit into the family schedule?
What OTC medication does your child take for fevers? For colds? For stomach upset?
What activities, shows, foods, and comfort items are most soothing to them when they are sick?
Who gets the call from school or daycare when your child is sick or hurt?
When is the next parent-teacher conference? What are your concerns?
What are your plans for childcare during school breaks?
What are your personal criteria for summer camps/programs for your kid(s)?
WHY ARE YOU HERE?
What would you need to pack for your entire family to go on vacation to someplace cold for four days?
What would be the best time of day for your family to take a trip that involved flying?
What needs to be in your car for a trip lasting more than two hours?
What is your child’s favorite color?
TV show?
Book?
Movie?
Song?
Author?
Musician?
Toy?
WHY ARE YOU HERE?
Parenting is not a spectator sport. And far too many of the mothers I coach tell me how much easier it is when their partners aren’t home, because at least then there is no expectation that this time he’ll do something to lift the load.
If what you bring to your household is a paycheck, then why are you there? You don’t have to live there to support them financially.
Are you coming home, dumping your feelings about your day on your partner, sitting down to a table to eat, and then moving on with your night? YOU JUST MISSED ABOUT A MILLION STEPS, MY DUDE.
And honestly, I’m done. I’m over it. I’ve had it up to here with meeting brilliant, caring, thoughtful mothers who are working to heal their traumas, to give their children happy and healthy childhoods, and who keep running into a brick wall of husbands or partners who think that simply because they are doing more than their dads did they are heroes.
100% more than 5% is only 10%.
Parenting is complicated, exhausting, labor-intensive, logistical, emotional, and mental WORK.
Holding on to your personhood as a mother in today’s world is all of that and more.
So dads, my question stands — WHY ARE YOU HERE? Are you a father or are you a guy who lives in a house with some kids?
If you were Thanos-snapped tomorrow, how much of the daily life of your family would change?
This is not an essay asking you to help with the emotional load. Plenty of mothers have written about emotional labor: guides to how you can help more, about why saying “You should have asked” is bullshit, about how mothers aren’t actually better at this than fathers. It’s even been satirized in McSweeney’s.
I’m not saying you should help.
Help implies that all this is a mother’s job and you’re some kind of assistant.
RAISING THESE CHILDREN, AND EVERY SINGLE THING THAT ENTAILS IS YOUR JOB, DAD.
Knowing all of the answers to all the questions above is your job. Knowing which ones apply to your family and which don’t is your job. Knowing there are so, so many questions I left off the list (and also knowing the answers to them) is your job. And more than knowing — taking action to provide for your family is your job.
I’m not talking about providing financially. You don’t have to be there to do that. What are the things you provide for your family by being there?
Do you provide emotional stability?
Do you provide logistical support?
Do you provide physical labor?
Do you provide love and care?
Or do you provide another person she has to plan for, someone else to remind to go to the doctor, more laundry she has to do, more dishes for her to wash, more presents to choose, buy, wrap, and send to your parents for their birthdays, more schedules to work around, another person to clean up after, more asking and asking and asking to be seen, to be acknowledged, to be partnered?
If my husband doesn’t help me with the children, or when I’m sick, or with anything at all, that means that I am the sole provider of emotional and physical caretaking. Can you see the toll this would take on your wife?
What is it that you actually provide?
Why are you here?
Raising these children, and every single thing that entails, is your job.
This was originally published on my blog between 2012 and 2020.
“You can pay now, or you can pay later,” my therapist says that to me. A LOT. I’m the type of person who sees my needs as inconveniences, and my wants as things I must earn. And so I push, and hustle, and push some more until eventually I break.
Because I’m human and as much as I’d like to, I can’t just push past the things I need without eventually paying for it.
Sound familiar?
And so I’ve been working, for years, simply on noticing the things I need and saying them out loud. Sometimes that’s all the impetus it takes for me to actually fulfill my needs. When you hear yourself saying, “I need to eat lunch” over and over eventually you open the fridge.
That word is so loaded for me. WANT. It’s frivolous. It’s selfish. It’s decadent and wrong and illicit. It’s for other people. It’s for children.
I think it might be my next tattoo.
There are things that moms are supposed to want: for our children to be happy and healthy, to get good grades, to be good friends, and for them to ever, EVER actually listen to a word we say.
But what if I want to sleep in? And not just to sleep in, but to sleep all day? What if I want a day off? What if I want a day off REGULARLY? What if I want rest and peace and soft blankets and dark rooms and quiet music and deep baths?
And candles?
And cake?
And yummy smells?
What if I want to read a book for fun and not to learn anything?
What if I want to have a sleepover with my friends and eat chocolate chip cookie dough and pizza and watch a ridiculous movie and giggle like we haven’t since we were young?
There’s the rub, for me. Wanting is scandalous enough, but wanting something freely, wanting without offering anything in return, wanting without achievement first — that is sacrilege.
I have been in a battle with my hormones ever since I turned forty earlier this year and the progesterone in my system decided to pack up and walk off the job. For me this has meant near-crippling anxiety, daily panic attacks, insomnia, and nightmares. I have a fantastic doctor who has been helping me regulate this, but it’s a process. Most of the time, now, I’m good. But last week was a shit-show.
I had night after night of nightmares, which led to insomnia, which led to panic attacks and highly anxious days. Sunday night was more painful than I can explain here. On Monday morning when I saw how full my calendar was for Tuesday through Saturday, I made a radical decision. I took the day off. Totally and completely off.
I got back in bed. I watched Netflix. I dozed. When the nightmares came back I took a THC/CBD gummy in the hopes that I could sleep through them or just not have them. Every decision I made was in the interest of my own comfort.
As I started to feel better, the guilt and shame crept in. How dare I enjoy any of this? I beat it back by reminding myself that I was doing this today so that I could work for the rest of the week. And then I paused and wondered — what the hell is so wrong with just wanting things?
Yes, I needed to get my sleep back on track and my anxiety under control so that I could work the rest of the week. And also — why did I feel the need to rationalize wanting a break? Why did I have to justify wanting to spend a day in bed with things that make me feel good?
Isn’t is human to want comfort? If so, why does shame lie?
My son is six and he struggles with anxiety. Part of how it manifests is in him hinting about the things he wants instead of asking. I remind him daily, “Ask for what you want, kiddo, just ask”. I remind him that he can’t control whether or not we’ll allow the thing (or give him the thing), but that we always want him to ask.
I never, ever shame him for wanting. So why do I shame myself?
My daughter will be four next month. When she wants something and we say no she’ll reply with, “But pweeeeease! I WANT IT!” — as if the problem lies in us not understanding the depth of her desire. I usually reply with, “I know that you want ________, but my answer is no because ___________”. I know that acknowledging her wants is so important. A few weeks ago she broke down crying because she’s three and can’t understand that simply wanting isn’t enough to change my mind about whether or not it’s safe for her to climb to the top of the refrigerator. I held her while she raged at me and cried and I said, “It’s hard to want things, huh? I’m so sorry it hurts”.
I really should stop making tiny copies of myself.
Or maybe I should offer myself the same compassion and grace I offer them. I give them the things and experiences that they want when I can. I don’t ask them to justify their desires.
My wants and desires are valid no matter how frivolous they may seem.
My wants and desires are valid even if they inconvenience my husband.
My wants and desires are valid even if they cannot be fulfilled now (or ever).
My wants and desires are valid.
I AM ALLOWED TO WANT THINGS.
And so are you.
What the hell is so wrong with just wanting things?
This was originally published on my blog between 2012 and 2020.
Like a lot of kids, I grew up promising myself that I’d do things differently than my parents. And like a lot of kids, I grew up hearing that I would understand their choices when I became a parent. Both of those are true. I understand my parents so much better now and I’m doing things differently.
But this particular story doesn’t begin in my own childhood. It started when I became a mother. I’ve talked before about how traumatic my birth experience was and the PTSD, postpartum depression, and postpartum anxiety that very nearly killed me. Throughout the experience, I felt a deep desire to understand why this was happening to me. I also really needed to tell my story — even as I was living it. I needed to talk about it and to hear others talk about it.
These needs, coupled with an inability to leave my house (thanks anxiety!), led me to the world of online support groups. And those groups led me to a wealth of information that I shared with my family regularly. Blog posts about the 5 things to never say to someone with PPD, links to resources for family members, and eventually even my own writing.
My mother read little to none of the things I shared.
At first, it was just a suspicion. She was trying to be supportive, but she had a habit of making every conversation about her, how hard her journey had been, and how grateful I should be. She said literally every single one of the things on those Top Five Things Not To Say lists. She did the opposite of every piece of advice in the articles. I was baffled. I was hurt. Eventually, I was angry.
When my son was a toddler and I had come through the worst of it I asked her whether she’d ever read anything that I’d sent her. She said she hadn’t because she was terrified that one of the links would say this was her fault.
Something broke in our relationship that day that has never been repaired.
Yes, there is a history of mental illness on my mother’s side of the family. There is also a history of mental illness on my father’s side. Of the ten most-widely accepted risk factors for maternal mental illness, I HAVE SEVEN. The odds were against me from the second I got pregnant.
But because she hadn’t done her own healing work, she was unable to see past her own trauma. I promised myself right then that I would never do that to my kids. I swore to myself that I would take care of my own healing so that if and when they ever needed my help with theirs I could support them.
And now it’s happened.
We don’t have a formal diagnosis yet, but it has become clear that my son is dealing with some serious anxiety. He’s suffering. He’s six years old and in the first grade and this is so deeply wrong and unfair that it fills my entire self with rage, terror, and tears.
His teacher, his school administration, our friends, and our families all have our back. But this is a journey that will largely be walked by our little immediate family. And of the four of us, I’m the one with the most experience of mental illness and therapy. I can help him — but only as much as I’ve helped me.
I won’t lie to any of you and say that I wasn’t up all night last night crying and blaming myself for this. If I hadn’t pushed for a natural birth for so long when we found out I had pre-eclampsia then I wouldn’t have had the Pitocin that went wrong and triggered the emergency c-section that led to the PTSD. If I had gotten help sooner maybe I could have breastfed. Maybe I wouldn’t have spent so many nights sobbing as I held him. Part of me is convinced that his anxiety now stems from the time I screamed at him when he was four months old and I was having a panic attack.
Whether or not any of that is true or carries any weight at all is completely immaterial. My guilt won’t help him through this. My blame and shame will do nothing to bring joy and comfort back into his experience of childhood. Only my healing can help him heal.
So I’m taking the time to cry. I’m letting myself fall apart at night. I’m leaning on Adam and on our amazing circle of friends. And I’ve emailed my therapist to see when I can get back on her schedule regularly again. Because I can’t just find support for my son, I need to be support for my son. And there is no way I can do that alone.
Learning to do things different than our parents.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
In the darkest times of my life, my depression told me that my children would be better off without me. Pain and trauma were all I could bring to them. Those voices came back every time my past or my mental illnesses affected my parenting.
My history of childhood sexual abuse combined with PTSD from a traumatic birth made breastfeeding my son an act of terror instead of bonding. What kind of mother sobs every time she feeds her baby? How could I possibly not be damaging him?
It’s years later and still, the nagging guilt persists.
When anxiety stops me from going to PTA meetings. When depression traps me in bed. When PTSD triggers drag me to the floor shaking and crying. Every time it happens, I’m convinced all over again that I’m breaking something in my children that can never be repaired and that leaving is the greatest act of motherhood I could perform. Even though I’m healing more and more every day, even though there are sometimes years between episodes. The guilt and fear don’t fade.
When I saw this list of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), I’m sure you can tell which one brought me to my knees:
There it was, in black and white. ACEs are serious — they raise the risk for mental, emotional, and physical challenges later on. Everything from teen pregnancy, drug use, to even heart or liver disease can be affected by the number and severity of ACEs in your past.
But that’s not the whole story.
Not only can we prevent Adverse Childhood Experiences from happening to our children and the children close to us, but we can also help prevent ACEs that have already happened from negatively affecting our kids long term. So even though I can’t wave a magic wand and rid myself of my own past traumas or mental illness, I can help ensure that my children don’t suffer for them. And so can you.
If you know me at all, you know that I believe community is EVERYTHING. It was a community of mothers who saved my life when I struggled with postpartum depression and anxiety. It has been my community that has saved me, lifted me, and shown me the light over and over again. My work in the world is literally to help mothers build community with each other. So when I read that having a strong community can help mitigate the risk factors associated with ACEs, I quite literally danced in my living room.
And here’s the thing, you don’t even need a huge network of support. What you need, what your kids need, is to #findyour3. This hashtag refers to three people or community programs that you know you can reach out to. Who can you go to when you’re lost, afraid, or struggling? Where can you feel safe and supported? And most importantly — how can you help your kiddos to find their three?
For me, it’s a group chat with my closest friends, my husband, and my best friend. Those are the three people that I know I can reach out to, day or night. They will listen, they will be honest with me, and they’ll help me get any support that I need.
But last night I sat down with my 6-year-old and talked to him about finding his three. We talked about how sometimes things are scary or make us angry. We also talked about how sometimes there are things that are hard to talk about, and if you can't come to Mommy or Daddy, there are other trusted people who you may be able to talk to. And honestly, that part sucked. I want him to always come to me first. He’s my baby. But I know that’s not realistic. And I need to ensure that as he grows and his world gets more complicated that he has the tools to get all the support he needs. Even if it isn’t from me.
His three are his grandparents on each side (he made me count them as one person) and his teacher from Kindergarten. Even though he’s a big boy in first grade now, he still visits her before school sometimes. The rule is that we will always let him call any of his grandparents and that if he wants to talk to Ms. Harsh, we will always help him do that.
We are very open and honest about my PTSD, depression, and anxiety. The kids know what all the words mean. They know that mommy is okay, that I see a doctor, and that I take medicine. And now they also know that they have even more people that they can talk to — about me, or about anything else in their lives.
These conversations aren’t going to stop. As they get older, I truly hope that they will each have many more than three trusted adults, groups, or places where they can go for shelter from whatever storms come our way. And I know that as their mom I need those, too. So does Adam, but he can write his own post ;)
Who are your three? Who are the three for your kids? Who are you one of three for? Think about the people you wouldn’t be here without. That’s what we can be for each other. That’s the power of community.
I’d love to hear about your three! Who is your circle of support? How are you going to help your kids find their three? Sound off in the comments or use #findyour3 on social media to join in the conversation. Let’s do this, mamas!
You don't have to be.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
This is not a hot take on Beth and Randall’s relationship in “This Is Us.” I’m not in that writer’s room, and I don’t know if their marriage is in trouble or if it was just saved. The truth is that none of us ever know, in those major moments in our lives, whether we have just saved everyone or lit the match that will burn it all down.
This isn’t about that Beth. This is about all the Beths. Because there are SO MANY BETHS and there may be more of Beth in you than you think.
Last week I published an essay that got a huge response. Over 10,000 people have read Stop Grading Your Husband on a Curve and the messages and emails that have poured in since have shown me that so many mothers who married “one of the good ones” are struggling.
There were the Beths who had to stop reading and cry before they could finish.
There were the Beths who felt guilty wanting their husbands to share the load because they are stay-at-home moms.
There were the SO MANY Beths who signed up for the #MyMotherload email challenge, but didn’t follow through with it because they were too scared to face what their lives have become. They were too afraid to face the anger it would unleash.
Fear.
Anger.
Self-doubt.
Resentment.
Guilt.
This isn’t what any of these Beths thought marriage and motherhood would be. This isn’t what they want for their lives. And this isn’t what any of their Randalls want for them either.
We didn’t choose this and the vast majority of us are not doing this on purpose. You started dating, you lived together or got married, the kids came, and life just kept moving. And maybe you talk about politics. You’ve talked about patriarchy and capitalism. You’ve talked about making sure your daughter can play sports if she wants and your son can take dance classes if he wants.
But you don’t talk about how patriarchy and capitalism have taught you what a good relationship is. You don’t talk about the fact that your family life is set up for his convenience. You don’t talk about what the default expectations are. You never chose them. And eventually they start to chafe.
He’s a good guy and a good father, but he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t see. And you don’t even know why you’re angry all the time — just that you are.
A friend of mine posted on Facebook and asked for examples of mental tasks you carry that are invisible to your husband. She got over 60 responses. But we know it’s more than the mental load — it’s emotional and physical, too.
And there is no framework readily available for changing it. There isn’t even one for talking about it. And if you can’t begin the conversation, how can you hope to make meaningful change in your life?
But what we really need is the next step. We need to know what to do to set down the mental load, the emotional, and the physical. How do we help our Randalls to truly see us?
How do we talk to them about what is going on in our marriages in a productive way?
How do we untangle the balls of resentment, confusion, guilt, and anger that are choking so many of us?
How do we steer our relationships from the ruts of patriarchy and capitalism that we’ve fallen into and make actual choices about what we want them to be and how we want them to feel?
That’s where my heart is.
That’s where my work is.
There are so many Beths out there. But no one is writing our lives for us. We get to choose. I hope you’ll choose to join me.
But no one is writing our lives for us. We get to choose.
This was originally published on my blog between 2012 and 2020.
*Note: This essay is written to cis, hetero, married mothers. While others may find this helpful, these are the relationships I know well enough to speak on. This is my lane, I’m staying in it.
I swear if I hear one more mom say that to me I am going to scream. I am going to scream so loudly and for so long that I may permanently lose my voice. Which is fine, because anything I’d have to say after that would just be four letter words.
Forever.
That statement always comes at the end of a story about why she’s exhausted, or running late, or unable to do something, or needs support around an issue. It’s meant to soften the previous statements, to signal to me that she didn’t marry some dude straight out of 1950.
He does the dishes!
He coaches soccer!
He drives the kids to ballet!
He’s one of the good ones!
But… is he, though? And is that all that you need? Or is it possible that being born into, growing up in, and beginning your family in this particular brand of modern American Patriarchy got you convinced that your C+ dude is an A-? Does the mental load of motherhood only belong to you?
If we were all with “the good ones” would there be so many articles about the mental load of motherhood? Wouldn’t it be the mental load of parenthood?
If we were all with “the good ones” would there be so many jokes about how mom packs the entire house and dad packs his socks for family vacations?
Or all those mommy needs wine memes?
Or the resentment and stress that simmers inside so many marriages?
Or the husbands who are so proud of how they help out around the house?
We need to redefine what it means to be “one of the good ones” and stop grading these guys on a curve that we didn’t create. Because you didn’t consciously create this grading system, did you?
You march in the streets with signs that say SMASH THE PATRIARCHY and you have that cute crop top that says EAT THE RICH but do you know how capitalism and patriarchy are playing out inside your marriage and on your motherhood journey?
The idea that what you need is to be more organized, more creative, and that then somehow you’ll be able to handle everything — that’s capitalism. That’s your productivity standing in for your personhood. That’s the human need for community being cast as weakness. Or as we call it here in the US in 2019 — that’s motherhood.
The idea that your husband could help you around the house, help you with dinner, or help you with the kids — that’s patriarchy. It’s his house, his food, and his children — he does not help you with them, he simply cares for them. Caring for your household is not your responsibility simply because you’re a mom. You did not choose that house or those kids by yourself — they are his responsibility, too.
He does the dishes, he remembers the soccer cleats are in the hall closet, he changes diapers, he buys tampons without throwing a fit like a small child — and so he’s one of the good ones? Those are basic responsibilities of an adult parent. That’s C+ work.
Well, the details are going to vary family to family, but here are the basics:
In short, you don’t have a 50/50 relationship, you have a 100/100 relationship where the RESPONSIBILITY is understood to be his and yours. Who ends up doing specific tasks? That’s up to the two of you. In practical terms, it may look like the school having his phone number and email instead of yours. It may look like him syncing his vacation days with the school calendar or being the one who researches and studies for the IEP meetings and takes on the work and worry of that process.
We can challenge capitalism and patriarchy in our own homes.
We can stop being invisible in our own lives.
We must begin to change things right now because we are being watched. The workload of motherhood isn’t just ours to carry.
As a society we’ve set the bar pretty damn low, mama.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
You’ve heard it, you’ve seen the memes; you may have even seen it on a billboard, a napkin, or the cover of a planner: We all have the same 24 hours.
It’s a lie.
It sounds good. It sounds true. And in the most basic sense, distilled of all context and nuance, it is true. There are 24 hours in a day, and if you live through the entire day, you have lived through 24 hours.
Still a lie.
If you lived your 24 hours with depression and I lived mine with anxiety — we did not live the same 24 hours. If you lived yours with a fat bank account and I lived mine with a negative balance — we did not have the same 24 hours. If you lived yours with a chronic illness and I lived mine caring for a loved one with a chronic illness — we did not have the same 24 hours.
And I don’t simply mean our experience of those hours, though of course that varies and has a massive impact on our lives. I’m talking about access to those hours and the ways in which we can use them.
This is about opportunity cost. Generally used in economics, opportunity cost refers to the price of a decision. In order to say yes to one thing, you must turn down others. The roads not taken are the cost of that yes. Even when the decision is the very best one you could make and leads to absolute joy and fulfillment — there is a cost.
The time it takes me to get my children up, fed, clothed, and generally ready for school in the morning is time I no longer have access to. If you are not a parent, or if you are not the parent prepping your kids for school, it is time you have that I don’t.
The time I take to go to therapy. The time it takes me to recover after a panic attack. The time I put into keeping myself healthy and supported so that I don’t have said panic attacks. All of these are hours I don’t get back.
I can never “hustle harder” enough to put more hours on the clock.
Similarly, when I order my groceries online and get them delivered, I’m getting time back. The difference between the time it takes me to order and the time it would have taken me to drive to the store, shop, and return home. But for me, it’s also about the energy I get back. None of the anxiety that comes with being in a crowd of strangers at the store, none of the split focus that accompanies shopping with small children — the net gain for me is huge.
The cost is my own money and someone else’s time.
No, I do not have the same 24 hours as Beyoncé, even though the entirety of the #GirlBoss internet tries to tell me so regularly. In the same way that I gain hours by using Instacart, she gains hours through her staff, through not having the financial worries that I do, and through generally being a billionaire.
I gain hours both through the choices I make and the privileges I have. I lose hours through the choices I make and the oppressive systems under which I live. We’re each at an intersection, a dot on a matrix, and unless you’re standing at the exact same one as I am… we do not have the same 24 hours.
As I come more fully to terms with the way my life and my schedule can best support my mental, physical, and emotional health — and the impact that has on my business — I have had to focus constantly and remind myself that comparison is the thief of joy. I don’t have 24 hours in my day. I don’t have 40 hours in my work week. I cannot simply “hustle harder” — well, not without ending up in a hospital. And when I add up all of the hours spent keeping myself sane and relatively healthy, all of the time and energy and boundaries and hard conversations and reading and talking and learning and therapy and journaling and meal planning and introspection and growth and tears and work that it takes for me to be a little more me every day; I do wonder whether I am worth it. I do wish that I weren’t quite so expensive.
I come at a high cost.
Learning to find joy in paying that cost takes up more of those 24 hours we all have.
I’m working on that.
No, the answer isn't "hustle harder."
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
Work. Life.
They’ll never need the same.
They’ll never weigh the same.
And you will very, very rarely have the energy, time, and attention to give to both sectors of your life equally long enough for there to be any sort of balance.
There’s also no such thing as a 50/50 relationship, but that’s a post for another day.
There will be times when your kid is sick, or your family is going on vacation, or your three-year-old simply refuses to poop on the potty. There will be times your spouse is struggling, or times when you’re in that first flush of infatuation and dating someone. There will be times when your family is funny and fun and where you want to be.
There will be times when your boss is out sick, or is getting pressure from her boss, or when you are the boss. There will be deadlines and budgets. There will be huge clients to impress and overtime that didn’t get entered correctly and a new coworker to be trained and the company is going public and no one seems to understand that you only get paid for eight hours each day.
It’s not actually about balance.
YOU are the center of your life. You simply are. Your life revolves around your body, your heart, your soul. You are the hub of the wheel. And wheels don’t stay balanced with one thing over here and one over there — not if they’re moving as wheels were meant to do.
It’s cyclical. And once you accept that you are the center and you are the one who must hold, it begins to become clear.
Are you rooted, mama? What nourishes you — body, mind, heart, spirit?
Are you connected to your family, to your career, to your calling?
Are you being tended?
Because the world is going to continue to spin you. The road will keep changing from smooth, to gravel, to ruts, sometimes even sheets of ice. Life doesn’t stop and all of those deadlines, bosses, spouses, kids, commitments, illnesses, vacations, wants, needs, pulls, pushes — they are all going to keep rolling around you.
You can try to fix the road. We’re programmed to fix the road.
We optimize our schedules and sync our calendars instead of saying no to things and saying yes to spending time on ourselves. That’s focusing on the road instead of the hub.
YOU are the key.
YOU are the hub.
YOU are the one you need to focus on first because you’re not going to be able to care for anyone else in the way you want to until you’re cared for. And yes, it’s hard. We’re all dealing with differing intersections of oppression, trauma, habit, tradition, culture, and circumstance. We’re complicated and our lives are complex.
That changes nothing.
You’re still the most important person in your life, whether you want to be or not. You’re still the one whose needs must be met if the wheel is to stay on the road.
You can try to deny your place. You can try to be a balance point between work and life (as if work isn’t a part of your life).
You can try to put your child first, or your spouse, or your parent or loved one. But they cannot live your life — only you can do that.
It’s your life. And it’s time for you to claim it.
You’re the most important person in your life, whether you want to be or not.
This was originally published on my blog between 2012 and 2020.
Self-care is creating a life you don’t have to escape from.
- a non introverted parent
People tag me in quotes, memes, and articles about self-care all. the. time. Sometimes I think they’re great, sometimes I roll my eyes. Some are actually harmful. Some are just annoying.
Yes, it would be fabulous to have a life I don’t ever want to walk away from. Except I have children. And I want to keep them… most of the time. I also have a husband I love and want to keep… most of the time. And I have a business I love and want to keep growing… most of the time.
But there are times when I want to say, “A mom is no one.”
There are times when I want to watch Chris Evans and Idris Elba fight over me (preferably in the rain).
There are times when I want everyone to just stop needing me — even if they are paying me.
I’m allowed to want to escape. Escape is healthy. It’s part of being human.
If we didn’t want to escape we’d have no art, no music, no stories, and a lot less creation. And whether my escape is a Netflix marathon, a bath, a book, an album, or a night in a hotel room — it is valid and is part of living a healthy life.
It’s not necessarily a symptom of a problem.
Hey mama, you don’t have to feel guilty about wanting to run away sometimes. Part of being human is wondering about the choices we didn’t make, dreaming about lottery wins or other outrageous changes to our circumstances, and needing a break sometimes.
If you’re looking at a quote, a meme, or some other bit of “inspiration” that makes you feel guilty, not enough, or like you’re somehow screwing this up, then it was probably not meant for you. Inspiration should, you know, inspire.
Self-care is any action you take to care for yourself.
That may mean redesigning your life so that you love it more and more each day. That’s literally what I help moms to do. It may also mean escaping. Creating a life you can regularly take a break from can be part of creating a life that you love.
It’s both/and mamas.
B&th
Inspiration should, you know, inspire.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
I needed it.
I had no idea how much until it happened.
For months now I’ve been taking care of myself as best I can — which is pretty damn good considering this is what I do for a living. I’ve been prioritizing my needs and being more and more honest about where I am and how people can help.
I’ve reached out.
I’ve set boundaries.
I’ve slept.
I’ve given and received comfort.
But last night something different happened — I broke.
One of the ways I care for myself is with regular baths. A few times a week, after the kids are asleep, or even in the middle of the day, I fill the tub with water that is probably way too hot for a normal human and I soak. We have a crappy tub, to be honest. I’m not a small person and it’s never deep enough, but it’s the best I can do.
I bought one of those overflow drain covers to try and get a few more inches of depth. At first they worked, but the suction cups hate my tub for some reason and now they leak. I bought a new one. Same problem. I looked online for something I could plug the hole with and found nothing but people raving about how amazing these drain covers are.
They aren’t.
Last night I was tired in body, and in spirit — tired just all the way through. But I knew I’d just gotten a link to a new moon class by Chani Nicholas and I thought a nice bath while contemplating my place in the universe to her super-soothing voice would be just the trick. I ran the water, I watched the bath bomb fizz and spin, I set up my laptop on the counter, I even had a notebook ready should inspiration strike.
But all I could hear was the water slowly draining away through the cover. The sound reached out to me, crawled under my skin, and lit up every single battle that I’ve fought lately. It laid all my pain bare. The fears, the struggle, the exhaustion, the doubt, the insecurity, the powerlessness that comes with parenting were all somehow wrapped up into that sound.
I tried to move the cover. I took it off and put it back on. Eventually I begged this inanimate object to just please stop. Then I gave up, ripped it off of the tub, and flung it. I got out, wrapped a towel around myself, and sobbed.
Ugly, snot bubble sobs.
Scream until you cough and nearly throw up sobs.
Fall on your knees and rock with a towel shoved up to your face sobs.
I cried while I got dressed. I came downstairs and sat in the quiet for a long time, over an hour, sometimes wiping a tear away and sometimes just sitting. Eventually there were no more tears to shed — they had all come out.
I put on a movie and half watched it while I let my mind just stop. I let myself just be empty. I let myself be done.
This morning my eyes are crusty and swollen. My head is reminding me how much water I lost last night. I feel scooped out and hollow. But what got scooped out was the pain, the rage, the fear, the exhaustion. I needed to cry it all out. I needed to break so that I could let it all go.
I needed the freedom that comes with allowing myself to not be okay. I don’t have to have all the answers. I don’t have to hold it all together. I get to be human, too. I get to fall apart. And nothing will crumble if I let go. Nothing will dissolve in my tears.
I won’t actually cry forever once I start.
Sometimes I need to remember to cry.
Now I need to find a way to plug that drain so I can take a damn bath.
I won’t actually cry forever once I start.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
I was just on the phone with a client who told me that she’s getting a massage today. She gave me all of the reasons that she deserved this indulgence. Every reason was valid, of course. But every single one was unnecessary.
I challenged her to ask the massage therapist about making this a regular thing — monthly, bi-monthly, or even weekly.
“Ask her what the cost would be and then go home and take a look at your budget,” I said.
She replied, “Yeah, but that’s where it starts to feel selfish.”
We’re okay getting the massage when our shoulders are up to our ears and our back is in knots and moving has become painful. We’ve come to regard self-care as something that we do when we’re in crisis. But that’s not how this works.
When I was pregnant my doctor kept having to remind me to take my prenatal vitamins. I hate swallowing pills and those things were massive. Plus I was always nauseous. But she would tell me that the baby is going to take what it needs and it can either take from my overflow or from my bones.
That never stops. Our kids are going to keep taking what they need from us — time, attention, energy, patience — and they can either take from our overflow or from our bones. You have to put enough in that you have enough for you AND for them. It’s the impossible math of motherhood.
Over and over I keep hearing the same thing from moms:
I feel like I break every night.
I’m stretched so thin I swear you can see through me.
I don’t know how I’m going to keep this going.
I’m so tired of yelling.
We are pushing ourselves beyond our breaking points every single day and then marveling when we crack. But it really is simple, you cannot continue to give out more than is coming in. You aren’t weak, you aren’t broken, you aren’t exaggerating, you aren’t somehow a failure.
You’re simply human.
Where do you think the patience is going to come from? The energy? The ability to pay attention? The clear head?
I think we believe that if we just love hard enough it will all simply happen. If we really loved our kids our patience would be endless. If we were good moms we’d have the energy to get everyone through their activities, homework, dinner time, bath/bed routines with a smile on our face.
But love ain’t it, y’all. You have to, YOU HAVE TO pour into yourself what you expect to be able to pour out for them.
The patience comes from a feeling of security — of knowing that you’re on the right track and that things will be okay. So you can be patient with them because you feel secure in your parenting skills. The patience comes from being rested and having a reserve of energy. The patience comes from knowing that when this is over you have somewhere to fall — a friend to call, a parent or sibling to talk to, a spouse or partner to lean on. The patience comes from having a centered heart and mind — from downtime, meditation, therapy, healing.
The energy, the sense of humor, the clear headed decision making, the follow through, the openness — all of those things that we need as mothers come more freely and abundantly when we take care of our selves.
And that requires a way of thinking that puts each of us at the center of our lives. It requires asking, “What do I need right now” and doing our best to give ourselves that — first. It feels backwards and wrong and selfish — at first.
In the middle of my son’s temper tantrum I ask myself, “What do I need right now?” and the answer comes back that I need to know I’m not screwing this all up. And so I take a deep breath and try to give myself some grace. I may literally hug myself. I remind myself that I can do this and that I don’t have to do it alone. Does it make him stop having the tantrum? Nope. Does it give me the patience I need to handle the tantrum like the mother I want to be? Most of the time.
But look, this shit is hard. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that a massage or a therapy session is going to change your life. Or that a self-care practice is going to break down capitalism and patriarchy and suddenly we’ll all be living in a mom-topia.
I’m just going to tell you what my doctor told me. They can take it from your overflow, or they can take it from your bones.
We’ve come to regard self-care as something that we do when we’re in crisis.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
I don’t have dreams for my children.
My mother wanted me to work as a doctor. My father wanted me to work as a journalist. My kids are three and five and people have already started trying to guess what professions they will have as adults.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
The more I think about it, the more confused I am by that question. We pretend we’re asking what job they would like to hold, but we’re not. We are — all of us — so steeped in capitalism that we cannot separate the person from the production. And this programming begins before preschool.
What do you want to be? My kids cannot be anything other than what they are, what we all are — miraculous humans.
What type of work would you like to do? Why the hell does a five-year-old need to be thinking about that?
What are you interested in? What is fun to you? What do you dream about? How would you like to change the world? Now those questions sound like fun. And if I know my kids at all, their answers would probably be hilarious and involve cheese.
I don’t know if my son will be an engineer like his father and grandfather. I don’t know if my daughter will be a dictator at 30 the way she is at three. I don’t think because my son is dramatic I should put him in acting lessons, or because my daughter likes to run around the house I need to get her onto a track.
We’ll discover it all together. We will screw it all up and they’ll get pissed and hurt and I’ll cry and we’ll learn something new and get it right and have a blast and screw it all up again. And one day they’ll walk out of this house, and it will be the very last time they live here. On that day, I hope they are the most them they can be.
So, I guess I do have dreams for my children.
Can you truly dream for another person? Or are those dreams for me?
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
For a long time, I was not OK. I thought I was. I thought every relationship fell apart because of other people. I thought no one understood or saw me clearly. I thought one day someone would finally “get it” and we’d be together forever.
It never occurred to me that the person who didn’t understand me, was me.
My 20s were spent in a haze of depression, anxiety, and bad choices. I was looking for someone to tell me I was good enough, that I was worthy, that everything would be OK. I hurt myself over and over and over.
My 30s have been spent figuring out who I am, what I want and need, and what I have to give. I still make mistakes. I still hurt myself sometimes. But this decade has been about me learning how to heal and what it will mean to thrive.
I’m 39 and thinking about my 40s. I’ve been excited about being 40 for a long, long time. 40 seems to be when Black women bloom, when we stop taking everyone’s shit and go full on auntie and I cannot wait. I want that. Being able to say, “Look child, I am 40 damn years old,” feels like permission from the universe, God, and my ancestors to be fully, wholly ME.
I have 90 days until my birthday. I’m so close to this thing I have wanted for so long. And it feels like that all over my life. We are so close to having our house the way we want it. So close to my business being sustainable and nourishing. So close to so many goals in so many ways that my body and spirit just want to push, PUSH through, and be there already.
But that’s not how time works. So I’m taking this time to build slowly and intentionally. I’m thinking things through. I’m putting my wants and needs center stage and filling myself to overflow. Begin as you mean to go on, a man once said, and so I am. I am creating a foundation for 40 and beyond that will allow me to stand, to grow, to soar through whatever comes my way.
It’s so much work. That’s the part we don’t talk about when we’re sharing those self-care memes. It takes intention. It takes hard conversations. It takes a lot of saying no so that you can say yes. Stepping up and taking the reins of my life has been terrifying and exhausting.
What if I say what I need and want and everyone leaves? Or they hate me? Or I somehow damage my children by needing something more than them? What if I say what I need and want, go get it, and I’m wrong?
What if I say what I need and want, and I get it, and I’m happy? HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO LIVE BEING HAPPY?
It is time to make friends with fear. It’s time for me to be OK being afraid. This life, this both/and life that I’m living has room for fear and joy to coexist. I have room for that. Fear can come sit by me, so can love. Joy can chill here in my living room and sorrow can have a place at my table. Abundance can perch on the roof, watching the sun rise with Hope. Tragedy and Loss can sit on the back porch having a beer and talking about absent friends. Silliness and Fun can dance around Work and Responsibility, teasing them and slowing them down. Creativity and Boredom will probably sneak down into the basement to make out. You know how they are.
I will make room for all of it, for all of them. And I’ll bitch and whine and complain and revel and spin and laugh and giggle about all of it, all of them.
Forty is coming.
And I’m not running from it.
And I’m not running from it.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
“You can’t pour from an empty cup!”
- Every self-care book ever
Excuse me, but who in the hell pours from a cup? Are there no pitchers where you come from? Do you not have gallons of milk or juice? Do you not have coffee or teapots?
I mean, have you ever actually tried to pour from a cup?!? That shit is impossible to do without spilling everywhere.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what they were trying to say. And it’s still bullshit. Because the focus is on you filling yourself up so you can give more. We drink from cups. We hydrate ourselves and nourish ourselves from cups. We take from cups.
And guess what? YOU ARE ALLOWED TO TAKE. You’re a human being and we need things!
But mom culture is so deeply fucked up that we latched onto this phrase and ran with it. And we actually think it’s about caring for ourselves! If the point of filling up the cup is to pour it out to other people, THEN WHY ARE YOU NOT USING A DAMN PITCHER?
Pitchers are larger than cups. They are created to pour out so you can easily direct the flow and volume. They are actually a fantastic analogy to the energy it takes to run a family. Anyone can fill a pitcher, anyone can pour from them, and everyone can have their cup filled by them. Hey mama, guess what — that includes you, too!
Being a member of a family (blood, chosen, or hybrid) should involve an exchange of energy. Each member fills up the pitcher and each member pours from the pitcher. The top of the pitcher is wide to make filling it simple. And the mouth is narrow so we don’t spill as we pour. It’s a fabulous vessel to use to talk to your family about how we can all care for each other.
Some of us will need help in lifting the pitcher, in pouring from it. Some of us will need to be reminded to fill it up, or taught how. And that’s what family is for.
Here’s the thing, mama. Your cup is for you to drink out of. It’s for you to nourish yourself.
I don’t want you to forget to pour into it.
I don’t want you to feel guilty for drinking from it.
I don’t want you to feel guilty going back for seconds or asking someone else to refill the pitcher.
It is not your job to make everyone around you as happy as possible. That is not your calling.
Do you know what your calling actually is? Maybe it’s time to sit down, take a sip, and find out.
Have you ever actually tried to pour from a full cup? That shit is impossible.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
This last year has been so hard on all of us. Things just kept changing for you — daycares and schedules, and even where you lived and who you lived with! And through it all you have been simply amazing. Hilarious, stubborn, brilliant, and aggressively loving.
You run people over when you hug them. It makes me laugh every time.
Everyone exclaims over how blue your eyes are, but they miss that it isn’t the color that makes them beautiful — it’s the way you are lit from within. You carry a light inside you that burns, fiercely, and it shines out of your eyes and in your smile.
I promise to do my very best to never, ever dim that light.
But, I have to ask: Is it possible that we can just skip three? What do you think, kiddo? Please?
No?
OK — I guess we’re doing this then.
I’ve been thinking about you turning three a lot. Worrying. Planning. When your brother turned three, he was possessed by a series of demons that turned my sweet toddler into a raging, rampaging monster. We didn’t have a ton of fun that year.
And you are… well.. slightly more intense than he is.
SO HOW THE HELL ARE WE GOING TO SURVIVE THIS?!?!?
I don’t have a plan, sweetest heart. It seems that every time I make a plan for this family, the universe comes along and stomps all over it anyway, so this time we’re flying without a net. No plan, but I do have some promises to make to you.
I promise to take the absolute best care of myself that I possibly can. I’m going to focus on it. I’m going to feed myself good things and put myself to bed on time. I’m going to give myself warm baths that smell yummy and I’m going to move my body. I’m going to spend time with my friends and time focused on my work.
It isn’t fair to you for me to lay my entire day on your shoulders. You cannot have the power to make or break my day or my mood. That’s too much for a three-year-old to carry. So I’m going to make sure I’m as healthy as I can be — physically, emotionally, and mentally.
I promise to go back to therapy. Yes, we made it through a cross-country move, buying a new house, getting kids into new schools and a new routine, meeting new neighbors, and relocating offices and businesses without me being in therapy, but.you.are.turning.three. You’re going to need all the support I can give you. That means I’m going to need all the support that I can get.
I promise to ask for help. I will not try to do it all. I will not try to prove my strength, capability, or worth to anyone. I will ask early. I will ask often. Your dad, your minions, your teachers, your grandparents, our friends and family all want what is best for you. I will ask them for help. You are worth me squirming a little. You’re worth so much more than that.
I promise to tell the truth. I will tell the truth when people ask me how we are. I will tell the truth when people ask me what we need. I will tell the truth when you and your brother ask me to watch TV. We will not fake it till we make it.
I promise we will have fun! Let’s face it, three is going to suck. But now that we know that, the pressure is off. There’s no reason for us to pretend we have somehow emerged from the “terrible twos” unscathed. You and me, kid, we can relax into the hurricane/tornado/earthquake/wildfire that is about to rip through our lives. Because here’s the thing — it’s going to be hilarious.
You are hilarious. You are already SO strong-willed and you’re smarter than I am, so that’s a problem. You’re sweet and loud and squishy with a steel core. You are the all-singing, all-dancing queen of the preschool and I adore you.
We all do.
I will not ever, ever forget that.
We are going to get through this year together, you and me and your dad and your brother. We’ve got you, kiddo.
Happy Birthday!
(I mean, unless you want to skip straight to four, that’s still totally an option.)
I promise to do my very best to never, ever dim your light.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
There are two sides to every boundary — but you can only control one. This blog is going to help you tackle how to set (healthy) boundaries with family.
That’s the hardest thing to learn and to accept for so many of us — for the ones who need control, for the people-pleasers, for the traumatized, the anxious, and the scared. All we can do is state our boundaries clearly and follow through with holding them. We cannot force anyone on the other side to accept them.
The closer we get to the holidays, the more moms I see on social media bemoaning the upcoming family time. Whether it’s the way your mother-in-law talks to you, or what your uncle talks about — family gatherings can be a minefield. But it does not have to be like that.
You can tell the people around you what you will and will not accept. You can make choices that center the mental, emotional, and physical health of yourself and your family. You are allowed to not suffer through the holidays. Your experience of your life is important.
So, how do you actually set boundaries when it comes to family?
First, you do the work to know where you need them and what you want them to be.
Then you have a few choices to make:
The more clarity and specificity you can bring to the boundary, the easier it will be to set and hold. So this is a time to really drill down and find out what you want, when, and from whom. Then say that!
And get creative. Who do you know that can help you role-play this encounter? Who could help you to write a script? Write out what you’re going to say, practice it, and change it if it doesn’t feel like it is really, truly you. If you have a therapist, counselor, or coach, this is a great thing to ask them to help with!
What is the way you are most comfortable communicating? If your family has a text chain or a group thread on social media, do you want to use that? What medium will enable you to be most clear? Do you need something that will also give you or a family member privacy? Do you need something you will be able to refer back to later? YOU get to make the rules here.
Where are you going to look for support during this? Can you Facetime your best friend while you are writing the email? Can your partner hold your hand while you speak to your family?
This is the part where I’m supposed to tell you that if you follow all of these steps you’ll be confident when it comes time to set the boundary with your family members. But that ‘s bullshit. Your hands may shake. Your voice may shake. You may be sweaty and your stomach may be a knot, or a butterfly, or a knot of butterflies.
It’s not about confidence, it’s about courage. Confidence comes from knowing you can handle something. Confidence comes after you have done something well. Courage is about being afraid and doing it anyway. Standing up is more important than leaning in every time.
Knowing how you will follow through can help give you the courage to take a stand in the first place. So create a plan that will work for you in case your boundary is not received well. Will you walk out? Will you disinvite someone? Will you cancel an event? What will your follow-through be?
Yeah, I know. Setting boundaries can be really hard and can bring up a lot of emotion on all sides. So why even do it? Because on the other side, after the nerves and the explaining and the tension, comes freedom and peace.
If you can’t see boundaries as beautiful things right now, I completely understand. Give yourself time, ask for help, and keep practicing.
Because on the other side of tension is peace.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
Merriam-Webster defines a boundary as something that indicates a fixed limit or extent. It is a dividing line. We all have boundaries — there are things we will not do, things we will not accept, choices we have made about how we live our lives. Last week we talked about how you know where you need boundaries. It’s time to go deeper.
Go on, list them out on a sheet of paper. What are the walls around your life? What do they protect?
When you look at your list, how does it feel? Do you need more? Do you want less?
There is no one right number of boundaries. There is no one healthy way to move through the world.
Your boundaries may change as your circumstances do. When you move out of a particular house, neighborhood, city, or state; when you change jobs or love affairs, your boundaries may shift. As you acknowledge past traumas and work to heal you may need to tighten or loosen your boundaries. You may create new ones around certain subjects or areas of your life. None of that is inherently right or wrong, more or less healthy. So how do you know if they’re working?
There are a few simple questions you can answer to see if your boundaries are working for you, and where you may need to do some repair work.
First, it’s not just you. Mothers are not encouraged to have healthy boundaries with anyone, but especially not with our families. Most of the memes you see, especially around the holidays, show moms who are touched out, exhausted, overwhelmed, and broken while their families are oblivious.
That is NOT going to be you.
Look back over the questions I asked in the first section of this post. Where are the holes? Where are the pain points in your life that are not being addressed by the boundaries you currently have? As you find each one, write out a boundary for it.
Once you have a draft, ask yourself if it answers the “three are” questions in the second section of this post. Tweak it until you have a strong feeling about it, until your gut says, “YES!”
Odds are there is something you want, or something you very much do not want, but you haven’t set a boundary around it because you feel guilty. You don’t tell your children when you’re touched out. You keep silent about not wanting to host holiday dinner this year. You haven’t told your parents your pronouns. You haven’t told your friends you don’t want to come to their party.
Motherhood can be a rickety raft in a sea of shoulds. And during the holidays it’s easy for that raft to be completely swamped by a raging storm of expectations. But if you step off of the raft, you’ll discover the water is only two feet deep.
You can stand. You can walk. You can walk away. Your boundaries will help you stand and keep you steady.
It begins with being honest with yourself about what you want your experience of the holidays to be. Then you must decide that your wants and needs are valid, that you will model the parenthood journey you want your children to walk.
And then it is practice, practice, practice!
Because we all know motherhood is a rickety raft in a sea of shoulds.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
We talk about having healthy boundaries all the time. Parenting books, magazines, and websites are full of tips and tricks for boundary setting. But how do you know when you need to set one?
Merriam-Webster defines a boundary as something that indicates a fixed limit or extent. It is a dividing line. Those of us of a certain age may find it helpful to think of it as, “This is your dance space. This is MY dance space.” Boundaries serve two functions — they keep something out and keep something in.
OK, now that we know what they are — how do we figure out if we need one? Or need a new one? Here are some questions to help you:
These are the types of issues that boundaries can help you address. But in order for this to work, you are going to have to get specific. You are going to have to get really specific about what it is that you want.
When you answered the questions above — how specific were you? How many more layers can you dig down?
“I want a nice family visit” is not specific.
“I want him to stop being passive-aggressive” is better, but is still not as specific as it could be.
“I want my brother to stop commenting on my weight.” BINGO! That is super specific.
And yes, that last example may be small. There may be 1,876,932 other things your brother does during the holidays that drive you straight up the wall. But when you are getting started with boundary setting you want to be clear, specific, and actionable. You want to eliminate the opportunity for pushback as much as possible. “Stop being passive-aggressive about my looks” is a boundary that you can set, sure. But your brother could comment on your plate size “because I’m worried about your health” and even if you restate your boundary clearly, you can see how the conversation could spin quickly.
So we keep it specific and clear.
Did you answer the questions above with negatives or with positives?
“I don’t want to feel like this anymore” (negative) or “I want a happier visit home” (positive).
Boundaries have two sides, but the only side you can control is the one you’re standing on. So what is it that you DO want? Take some time to dig down and see what it is that you want.
How do you want to feel?
What do you want to do?
What experiences do you want to have?
Building your boundaries around what you do want will take care of the don’t. So instead of “I don’t want to feel rushed and stressed out while running everywhere,” you state, “I want time and space to enjoy the season.” When you take these positive statements and get even more specific about them, you’ll have clear needs and be well on your way to setting beautiful boundaries you can hold with grace.
Let’s talk about what you want to keep out and what you want to keep in.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
Trigger warnings are everywhere these days. They’re on Facebook posts, they’re in the opening credits of TV shows, they’re even on college campuses. They’re absolutely everywhere — except where we need them the most: our daily lives.
For moms like me and you, who have lived through trauma and maternal mental illness, triggers can be anywhere, but if we pay attention, they do tend to show up in the same few places.
Some of us have Seasonal Affective Disorder and we dread the coming winter.
Some of us struggle around our children’s birthdays each year.
Some of us have deaths we are still processing.
I hated summer. Every year the weather would warm and the fog would descend. Everything was harder. Everything hurt more. My patience thinned and my resilience disappeared. I’d get a horrible cold every.single.summer.
And each year, as fall returned, I could feel myself coming back to life. There would be one crystal clear crisp day and all of a sudden I could think again! I could process again. I’m more social, I’m more active, and I love being outside. I used to think that fall was the magic. But really it was that summer is a season packed with triggers for me. Until I worked through them, I was a hostage.
Maybe your trigger isn’t an entire season. Maybe it’s a day, a week, a memory, a scent. Maybe you didn’t put all of the pieces together until just now, while you were reading this post. Maybe you’ve known for years.
Living like this is exhausting. It hurts. It hurts us and it hurts our families. None of us would choose this. But is there actually anything we can do about it?
YES.
Mama, I swear to you that it does not have to be like this. We can make simple changes in our lives that will allow us to do so much more than merely survive motherhood. We can create space and freedom where there is fear and stress. We can learn to make peace with the lives that we have and actually (really and truly) begin to let things go.
You don’t have to keep blaming yourself, feeling weak, or getting stuck in ‘shoulds’ after every trigger activates your anxiety, depression, OCD, or PTSD. You don’t have to spend days or even months wondering if you’re getting sick again and feeling like you’re failing at motherhood.
It’s time for us to break out of the trigger/response/guilt loop because that loop is bullshit. It doesn’t help us and it doesn’t help our families. It’s not what we actually want, is it? Do you want to be feeling this way?
You can identify your triggers.
You can learn to minimize them.
You can create a strategy that will support you during and after the event.
And you can model self-care for your children and show them what healing looks like.
This is not the part where I lie to you and tell you I can make it happen in five minutes or that it will be super quick and easy. You know better than that.
We’ve all been through too much for any of us to be less than totally honest. This is going to take work, yes. But it’s never as much or as hard as you think it will be. And you don’t have to do any of it alone.
Healing is possible.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
My therapist keeps graduating me, but...
I graduated from support group, but...
I don't know if this means I need to go back to therapy, but...
I've been living with this for 5 (or 10 or 15) years, when will it end?
This is what I've been hearing from moms in my email, in posts in The Mom Center, in private messages, and on my Facebook posts. We all have some idea that health, and especially mental health, is binary. You're healthy — or you aren't. You need support, or you don't. But humans are simply way more complicated than that.
It is possible to be okay and to be struggling at the same time. We can be healthy and be hurting. We can be healed and yet never be the same as we were. We can be amazing mothers, wives, partners, siblings, friends, bosses, coworkers — PEOPLE — all while struggling with our mental health or while we reach for growth.
I've personally been living with a diagnosis of depression for nearly 20 years now, and with anxiety and PTSD for five. There are days when I sail through life and days when I struggle. I know the things that support my health and I (generally) do a good job of utilizing them. But all around me are folks who want to say that I'm "healed" or that I've graduated from some level of sickness — as if any of this works that way.
I work with moms who are in therapy. I work with moms who have undiagnosed and untreated issues. I work with moms who have graduated from support groups and therapies. I work with moms who have no mental health issues but who are struggling within the bonds of motherhood. I work with all types of moms — ages, races, orientations, and incomes. What I have seen is that healing and growth are like a rainbow painted in watercolor. Each layer or level blends into the one before and the one after. We slide up and down and through them. Some of us cycle, some have seasons, some move in a relatively straight path, some dwell in the margins where the colors bleed together.
But far too often I see people proclaim themselves healthy, and they drop all of the supports they've used. Folks quit medications, stop therapy, leave support groups — they make all kinds of changes without considering how they will replace that support. I'm not saying you necessarily need any of those things forever. I am saying that the things we do to get healthy work for a reason and that in order to keep progressing in our healing we must continue to focus on those needs.
None of us are meant to do this alone — this whole life thing. It seems hard because it is hard. We are complicated — we are messy and beautiful and complex. We need and learn and give, sometimes all at the same time. And we can grow.
The trick (if there is one) is in finding out what helps YOU to live your life in a healing way. What is it that you need to continue to grow? Your needs may change over time, they may be completely different from mine, and society may try to tell you that you're healthy now so you don't actually need them. But I want you to know that your needs are valid and that you are the expert on them.
Please don't stop reaching for growth. Please don't stop healing.
We’re not meant to do this alone.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
Hi, my name is Graeme, and I'm a mom who has panic attacks. I live with generalized anxiety disorder after experiencing postpartum depression and anxiety, and PTSD from a traumatic birth. And I know that I'm not alone. I know that so many of the moms who will read these words will know exactly what I'm talking about.
We're survivors. We've made it through the crisis and come out on the other side. Many of us have turned around to help the mamas behind us — to be the light in the darkness for them. We're moms and partners, friends and lovers, employees and entrepreneurs, and sisters and aunts and and and and... There are so many ways that we give to others and so many of us are doing all of it while still living with mental illness.
About half of the mamas I work with are survivors. And most of those have at least one panic attack a year. Some are healthy in many ways, are doing great, but still have one every few months. Some still have them regularly. And when it comes to PTSD, none of us can know when we will be faced with a trigger that leads to panic or flashbacks. If you're reading this and it sounds familiar, please know that you aren't alone.
Hopefully you — like me — have had the help of a therapist to learn how to move through the anxiety and heal from the panic. Hopefully, you have a community of support around you. You may be on medication, you may have made diet and lifestyle changes — all of these things can be helpful in preventing or lessening attacks.
But if you're still having them — what can you do after an attack?
The last few months, as the world seems to spin out of control faster and faster, I've noticed more and more posts online about panic attacks. Moms are asking specifically how to gather up the tattered threads of their day after having an attack — especially in front of their kids. And my own PTSD has been activated by news stories and videos on social media.
There are times when all of the tools I've learned and all of the work I've done still doesn't stop the panic from mounting. And there are times that the after effects are even worse. For me, and for many of the clients I work with, the 'panic hangover' can linger on for days.
That hangover can include:
These symptoms and more can be hard to shake. And there's always the fear of another attack or a depression spiral. It isn't just the minutes or hours of the actual event — there can be serious recovery time involved.
So how do we heal? How do we make it through the rest of our day after a flashback or a panic attack? Is there any way to speed our way through the 'panic hangover' or to avoid it altogether?
YES.
And you can learn how to do it. Each of us has different symptoms and reactions to panic attacks, so YOU are actually the perfect person to teach yourself to heal from them faster. You're the one who knows what you need. It's just that so many of us see the end of the attack as the point at which we should be 'all good' and we don't give ourselves the time, care, and support that is necessary for true healing.
But focusing on this recovery period is the best thing you can do for yourself. So go back to basics — what is it that you need? Water, food, physical comfort are all necessary, but only you know what you need first. What are the things that help you to feel better that you always forget in the moment? Getting outside, even if all I can manage is to stand outside my door, is helpful. But did I ever remember to do that? Nope!
I started turning things around by making a simple list of the things that helped me after a panic attack or a flashback. Eventually, they became two separate lists because the experiences are so different for me. It was part instruction manual and part menu — I could choose what would help me the most in the moment and remember things that had helped in the past.
Three years ago, I modified my list idea to help a client create a Comfort Kit to help her through her anxiety and panic. We took my lists a step further and filled a shoebox with things that would be most helpful to her. IT WORKED.
What you do after a panic attack matters, too.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
Having children is like living in a surveillance state. They see EVERYTHING. All the time. They watch and watch and watch.
And, of course, they never see the things we want them to see.
How hard we’re trying.
How much we worry.
The joy we take in them.
Instead they always seem to laser focus in on us when we make a mistake, when we break down, when we screw up. They see every cookie we sneak after we’ve told them to wait for dinner. They hear every mean comment we make about our bodies — or anyone else’s. Every time we lose control of our tempers or break a rule or are brought to our knees by this life — their eyes are on us.
We feel the weight of those eyes. We feel the pressure to lead and that can be so heavy — especially when we’re not sure of our own path. Or when we’re exhausted. Or when we’re activated by past traumas. Or when we’re struggling to heal ourselves.
And so we strive for perfection because we think that’s what they need from us. We want so desperately to give our children The Perfect Childhood™ with The Perfect Mother™ that we forget those don’t exist. The trademarks are held by patriarchy and capitalism, not by any mother who has ever parented in the real world.
And what’s more — if your children actually had The Perfect Mother™ (TPM), they would not learn from her all that they learn from you. I’m not kidding. Picture her. Think of all the places you supposedly fall short and are somehow letting your children down.
TPM never yells. Always makes a delicious and nutritious dinner. Does not struggle with her weight. Or mental health. Or emotional health. Doesn’t cry (except for that one perfect tear in reaction to a Mother’s Day card). She creates beautiful, magazine-worthy holidays. Comes to every school function, but does not hover.
And on…
And on…
And on…
I’m sure you could play this game with me all day. But if that mother existed, their children would not be at all ready for the real world. They would be confused by it, overwhelmed by it, and unable to navigate it or to be true partners to others in it.
Our children are watching us. And they are learning from us. They don’t simply learn from our successes, they learn from our mistakes and from our failures.
They learn from our humanity.
Our household is tense right now. We’re putting our house on the market to sell in preparation for a move that will take us halfway across the country. For months our lives have been a mess of contractors, plans, budgets, questions, pressures, fears, and change. The kids are picking up on the stress and pushing boundaries and acting out because they are 2.5 and (almost) five and that’s just how it goes.
And there has been so much yelling lately. So much. They run, I yell, they yell, it sucks. And eventually, the running and playing in the house led to spilling and breaking on a day when I had spent hours cleaning and prepping and I didn’t just yell — I screamed. I screamed and stomped and then I sat and cried. And they stopped and stood and stared at me.
It felt horrible.
It felt like utter failure. What kind of mother does that? They deserved so much better than me.
And that’s where I stopped myself. That’s where I thought NO.
I took a deep breath. I looked them each in the eye and told them I would be OK, that everything would be OK, but that Mommy needed a minute. I got them settled at the table with some juice and a snack and then I walked into the bathroom and shut the door.
Deep breaths.
Wash my face.
Make a decision.
I could lead with my feelings of shame and the judgment of The Perfect Mother™ or I could just be human. I could just be the mom they actually had instead of the mom I wanted them to have (or that I wished I’d had).
And so we all cleaned up together and then we sat on the floor and talked. Well, the two-year-old ran around us and randomly hugged us or tried to tickle us, but my son and I talked. We talked about how many changes are happening and how that can be really hard. We talked about how we’re all tired. We talked about how Mommy messed up and screamed really loud. I asked him what he thought I should do. He said I should apologize and give him a hug and buy him a puppy. He got the apology and the hug.
And then I told him the hardest truth — that I would probably screw up again. I told him that no matter how angry I got, he would always be safe with me. I told him he could always ask for an apology from me and remind me of how we treat each other in this family. I told him we are in this together.
I don’t know if I did the right thing. Parenting is a series of best guesses and the hope for grace. But I know for damn sure that The Perfect Mother™ wouldn’t have done any of that. She would never have screamed in the first place.
And so she would have never needed to make amends. But my kids learned so much that day. They learned that Mommy is human and if you keep pushing her she will break. They learned that even when I do break, they are safe. They learned it’s OK to walk away and pull yourself together when you need to. They learned that we clean up our messes. They learned that we apologize. They learned that our family is a team and we can all hold each other accountable — and hold each other.
I really wish I’d been able to teach these lessons in a different way that day. I’m really proud I’ve been able to teach them in different ways before and since. But I will not beat myself up over my humanity.
I refuse to live under the tyranny of The Perfect Mother.
Nope. I will not beat myself up over my humanity.
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
Hurt people hurt people.
We all know it’s true. As mothers, we want our children to grow up happy and healthy. Many of us want to also end cycles that are abusive, or simply unhealthy. We want better for our children than we, ourselves, had. But how do we break the cycles when they are all we know?
I see mothers reading parenting books, taking classes on child development, and working with parenting coaches. They give and work and worry and strive and try and try and try. I see mothers doing absolutely everything except focusing on their own healing.
But our healing is absolutely necessary. It is necessary for our families to thrive. It is necessary for us to be the mothers we want to be.
Healing people heal people.
I say healing because I don’t know that any of us can ever claim to be fully healed in this world. This world that spills and spews trauma on so many of us each day. This world that can be terrifying. We don’t know what is coming, for us or for our kids. We don’t know what battles we will need to fight or when. So how do we prepare for that? How can we possibly help our families to thrive in the midst of this?
We. Can. Heal.
In the face of a world that tells us to put ourselves last, we can actively focus on our own healing, our comfort, our joy. We can go to therapy. We can feed our bodies well. We can feed our souls. We can move our bodies. We can connect to our networks of support. We can actively seek joy.
We can face our fears, our pain, and our shadow spaces. We can ask others to hold our hand as we walk through the darkness. We can learn how to move through and past our traumas so they don’t replay themselves in our families.
You don’t have to be your mother.
You don’t have to live her life.
What is the experience of motherhood you want for your children? If they become parents, how do you want that to impact them?
What is stopping you from claiming that experience for yourself?
The answer to that question is the key. Our children will do as we do. Consciously or not, we are teaching them how to parent every day. So what are you teaching them?
Are you teaching them that parenting means loss of humanity? That mothers don’t count? That parents give up everything for their children?
Are you teaching them that a parent’s job is to make sure their child is as happy as possible every moment of every day? Or that parents solve every problem? Or that parents are glorified short-order cooks, waiters, and taxi drivers?
Are you teaching them that parenting is giving and giving and giving until you break — then screaming how no one appreciates you — and then giving some more?
Are you teaching them that parents stop their lives and pray there will be something to pick back up once the child is grown?
Are you teaching them to fear anger?
Are you teaching them to be a people-pleaser?
I’m not asking these questions to heap more guilt or judgment on mothers. We get enough of that already. I’m asking to highlight the fact that we are teaching them all the time — whether we notice it or not. So when I say that you focusing on yourself, you working on your own healing, you making yourself a priority is necessary in order for your family to thrive, this is what I mean.
It is worth making financial sacrifices for you to go to therapy. It is worth changing schedules and inconveniencing your family for you to spend time on your healing. It is worth upsetting your children and partner. It is worth upending your family, if that’s what is necessary.
I know, with absolute certainty, that you are worth it.
What is your healing worth to you?
How do we break the cycles when they are all we know?