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By Mama Paloma, 18/07/2012 22:10

This is a tough post for me to write for a couple of reasons. The subject matter is sensitive and the situation in question has been really, really difficult for me.

It’s every parent’s nightmare…that your kid tells you that someone did something to them. You know the kind of ‘something’ I mean. In my case, it wasn’t so bad. My kid told me that another kid had introduced him to, ahem, age-inappropriate information and activity. My kid, in a very preschool manner, told me initially by acting out with me, suggesting I do to him what he was asked to do to another child. My twenty-plus years of dealing with these kinds of disclosures (had to do my first suspected child abuse report over 20 years ago while a volunteer in college), knowledge of child development, and experience helping children who have been through sexual abuse served me well. I think I’ve done okay and my kid will be okay.

But this situation has me thinking about  how damn hard it is for adults to deal with these kinds of situations on behalf of kids. This has been the worst part of the whole thing for me. In the ONE situation in my WHOLE LIFE where I should be able to just be the mom – just look after my child, just fall apart when he’s asleep and a friend is near – I have had to be an advocate, an educator, and a scapegoat.

His awesome preschool that I have loved for many reasons has flat out refused to take responsibility. Their response to my clearly articulated concerns has been to state 1) what happened was ‘nothing out of the ordinary’ (trust me, it was) and 2) that it didn’t happen.

The fact is, it did happen. My kid spontaneously described at least four interactions with two different children in three specific locations. What happened wasn’t ‘ordinary’ behavior for 4 and 5 year olds. The things that were done and said are things that a kid does and says when an adult has done and said them to the kid, or when another child who has been abused acts out with that kid. Do I know where it started? No. Do I know that it started somewhere? Yes.

Somewhere is patient zero, the child who was abused.

And this school that is otherwise so loving, so protective, so encouraging to little minds, would prefer to put their collective heads in the sand than deal with that reality. It has been made clear to me that I am the problem and that they don’t want other parents at the school to know that anything really happened.

Adult fear is understandable but can not be a reason for ignoring a problem. Kids who have been acted out with, like my son, are primed for future abuse and for acting out with other kids, perpetuating and expanding the circle of vulnerability. I can’t participate in that.

So, my son is going elsewhere and we are getting professional help to try to ensure that this stops here. There may be other ramifications for the school’s choice but I can’t control that.

Which brings me to my thought number two – what I can do. Which is why I am writing about this, my experience. Like I said, my kid is going to be okay. I have handled things remarkably well, if I do say so myself.

And I am a wreck. My eyes are constantly red and irritated from fatigue but I haven’t slept before midnight without Benadryl (hard core drug for me) in over three weeks. I get heartburn (heartburn? didn’t realize what it was for a few days…never have it) whenever I think/talk/write about it (excuse me while I get a Pepto). Mostly, I am sad. Sad, and scared. Even though I know I have done things right, that what happened was relatively minor (I have plenty of perspective on that), I worry that this will be somehow significant in his schema. I am grieving my inability to keep him protected from the seediness of the world for a little longer.

And I am mad. Mad at whatever adult started this string of acting out with some kid out there. Mad at the school for responding so poorly. Mad at our twisted up culture that links sex and shame so tidily and deeply and keeps parents and kids silent about their experiences.

It makes me appreciate how hard this is for other parents who don’t have the benefit of years of training and experience, of seeing the effects of unattended abuse and the benefits of appropriate action. Other parents who had their own weird experiences and don’t want to mess up their kids with their own ‘issues’ and so believe a school administrator when they finally get up the nerve to say something and hear “Oh, that’s normal.” Parents who are so scared to see/hear what their kid is trying to show/tell them that they hope it will just go away, that their kid will forget.

And so I am committed: to making our communities safer for kids, to expanding the circle of support for parents.

But first I am going to go about making sure my kid is all right, that he gets to learn about his body and sexuality in safe and enjoyable ways, at the times that are right for him.

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By Mama Paloma, 08/04/2012 09:42

I posted last night’s essay, rather impulsively, without waiting, at 12:30am. The first thought I had on waking this morning was this:

Redemption isn’t about receiving love, it’s about giving love.

What? The other half of my brain responded. But that’s backwards.

As I pondered it more, this idea began to make more sense to me. I reflected again on the piece I read last night about the “penal-substitution theory of atonement.” The author proposes that Jesus didn’t die to balance some kind of cosmic account. He didn’t “pay our price” because that would mean God didn’t really forgive but just transferred our balance to someone else who paid. He died because he lived out his practice. Gently, relentlessly, he spoke over and over of God’s unbelievable love and forgiveness. This was so threatening to the powers that be that he was killed. He lived his practice of love even though it killed him.

Whether you believe that accounts of Jesus are literally true or not (for the record, I don’t really know and this doesn’t bother me), the Jesus of  Biblical stories was indeed the perfect role model of love. He redeemed through his love. I consider myself a Christian (though others won’t because of that last parenthetical comment) because I endeavor to follow that example of living from love. (And am supported in this by Buddhist and Taoist teaching and meditation, especially, as they give practical direction on reigning in the ‘ego’ that so often gets in the way of that radical kind of love.)

Still, somewhere in my rational, Western mind, redemption has been sort of separate from love. Love is great and all but people need to be accountable.

This has been a major barrier in sorting things out with the-one-I-am-having-such-a-hard-time-loving. I realized that have demanded in a number of ways that he be accountable for his actions as a precondition for my continuing to show loving-kindess towards him. I can pray for his happiness and well being but I still, somewhere deep down, want him to pay.

I have been looking at the other person as being the one in need of redemption and forgiveness. He’s the one who did wrong, right?

Right?

I get heaps of support for this. Righteous anger and disappointment are reflected by all who care for my son and I. And, indeed, I want justice, I want consequences, I want him to know that he has wronged us and suffer for it.

Of course that’s right.

Except for this. As I realized this morning, all evidence to the contrary, I am actually not in a position to judge him–his motivations, intentions, or worthiness. My practice is acting and living out of love and equanimity. It’s what I aim for, continually move toward and back to.

The situation, as it stands, where I stand, is that I am the one in need of redemption. I have stepped off of my path of love and into the murky, dangerous realm of the cosmic balance sheet. I am mired in the muck, tangled up in the twining roots of trees that choke out the sun and hide all manner of creepy crawly things that bite.

I have felt stuck here for a long time.

What struck me this morning is that release from this stuckness – a practical and spiritual redemption – is readily available.

All I am required to do is to return to the path of kindness, gentleness, compassion, equanimity, and love regardless of the other’s actions.

Because, truly, that’s what Jesus did. He showed the way, loving even those who couldn’t see their worth and worthiness. Holding to the truth of the-Love-greater-than-we-can-imagine-or-understand even when it meant his execution and still not being held down by this – which is why we have Easter, right? – somehow rising up from destruction to live on eternally as The Inspiration to love.

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By Mama Paloma, 08/04/2012 00:20

Today, a friend (and writer in her own right)  posted a piece from Huffington Post entitled “Is God Angry at You?” In it, the author challenges the dominant Christian interpretation of Easter – what is referred to as the ”penal-substitution theory of atonement” – which I won’t go into here other than to say that I really enjoyed the writer’s critique of this taken-for-granted-in-many-circles understanding of God.

And it got me thinking about forgiveness.

Years ago, I wrote about saying prayers with my son. He was a tiny baby then, but this act had taken on some significance for me. Each night, as a part of our ritual, I would say “Please be with Addison’s daddy, wherever he is, keep him safe, and give him everything he needs to be happy.” You see, (and to save you the trouble of reading back for that bit of our story), this guy had dropped off the face of the earth about half-way through my pregnancy and we hadn’t heard from him since.

About three months after baby-daddy went AWOL, I was reading an Anne Lamott book in which the protagonist was facing betrayal and decided that she didn’t want bitterness to consume her – so she started praying for the betrayer. This resonated so strongly with me that I started doing the same. Every time he came to mind, every time someone else made a disparaging comment about his character or intentions, every time I thought of the pain my son would likely experience in his dad’s absence, I repeated this mantra. Well, maybe not every time, but many times, as I caught myself falling into  bitterness – mine or another’s – this little prayer pulled me back from the edge.

After a while, it got to be less hard. With the baby, it was easy, because I could imagine that his dad being happy would likely create the most possibilities for him. When the guy finally called, around the time AJ was two, there was space in my mind and heart to not turn him away from knowing his son.

But then it got real. He hadn’t become a different person. He was still dishonest and manipulative.  And now he’s done it again. After a year and a half of regular correspondence, calls, and some visits, he’s dropped off the face of the earth.

And I am pissed.

It’s one thing to mess with me…and another to mess with your child. It’s heartbreaking to be told, several times a day, “I need my daddy” or “I want my daddy” and know it’s so true and know there is nothing you can do about it.

I am pissed and I am becoming bitter. I want to punish like the God of the penal-substitution theory only I don’t want a substitute. I want retribution because it must be, or maybe it is about substitution…I want him to feel the pain that our son is feeling and going to feel in the future.

Fucker.

And, at the same time, I feel the pull of my heart – the truer, better part of myself that knows what I really want – back to that place of that simple yet profound prayer.

It was easier when he wasn’t real, when I knew nothing about him. When I could imagine he’d never actually come back.

It was easier before I had spent four plus years trying to sort out some reasonable child support situation without going to court, going further and further into debt in an effort to preserve my son’s connection only to come to this place where I can accidentally notice that he is getting along quite well, thank you, with a new life and lots of partying that somehow keeps him from bothering to call or even text his four-year-old kid who remembers that the last time they talked was his birthday two months ago.

It was easier then.

It’s more important now.

For my son, for this guy I have to fight not to despise and wish ill on. For me. I have to do it. I have to keep forgiving and wishing well and holding his safety and happiness in my heart and mind. I have to forgive myself for letting him in and exposing my child to this heartache. I have to let this forgiveness and well wishing peel back my grip on the need for justice and retribution so that I can take steps forward without entirely justifiable  malice.

I have to, as someone in the Twittersphere so eloquently put it today, speak for my anger, but not from my anger. I must speak from love.

Fuck.

Perhaps those who pray can pray for me on that one…”Give her everything she needs to be loving.”

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By Mama Paloma, 01/04/2012 22:01

It’s a feeling I know well, the weekend creeping to a close. So many things undone – laundry, housework, my son’s lunch for the morning. The week looms large.

And I just don’t have it in me.

It’s something I have been noticing for a while. This spent-ness. This fatigue that doesn’t seem to be abated by the self-care I fit in between the child and the paid work and the (very dominant) unpaid work and the halfhearted attempts to get out there and meet someone to share this crazy, wonderful life with.

I have been trying to figure out how I can live with more balance, more enjoyment, and build up some kind of reserve.

And I can’t figure it out. Time and again, my well is dry and I stare into its depths, parched and longing.

I have failed.

At least for tonight. Tonight, I am going to end the effort, head to bed, and let tomorrow come without trying to figure it all out.

Maybe it will rain.

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By Mama Paloma, 20/02/2012 22:43

I am a girl with one or three too many things on her plate. Nah, that’s not the right metaphor. It’s really more like I am a girl making her way across a sea of responsibilities, hopes and dreams, projects, parenting, dilemmas, and opportunities.

Some days, like today, the swells are high and threaten to swamp my little ship.

Because I have been working way to much and way too hard lately, have been struggling health-wise–never quite getting over that cold, and because my one resolution for 2012 was to have more down time, I had planned to take the day off, with my son whose preschool was closed for President’s Day, and putter around. His little room has been needing some attention and it seemed like a good time to do a little shopping, a little organizing, and a lot of playing.

You can tell, of course, that I don’t shop often. I had no idea that IKEA would be a mob scene at 9:30 on a Monday morning. I had thought that we would go, have a little breakfast and AJ would gleefully play in their ‘ball pit’ (his term) while I picked up a couple of things and we’d be home before noon, having done the week’s grocery shopping as well. I’d get his room organized and then do some work while he napped.

I had no idea that they serve breakfast for free on Monday mornings and, given the holiday, entire families would be lined up to snag this deal. But we hadn’t eaten and had nothing else to do so we stood in line and got our complimentary 99 cent portion of eggs and potatoes. Seriously. Several hundred people spent about a half hour in line waiting for what they likely wouldn’t choose to pay under a dollar for the rest of the time.

But I digress. Suffice it to say, we didn’t get home until 2 in the afternoon and were both fried from the over-stimulation of the crowds and florescent lighting. By this time, I was pretty stressed.

Among the extra bits on my plate this week is a photo book that was meant to be done by someone else but that needs to be final by the end of this week (to be printed for events in March) so, if it’s going to happen, I am going to do it. I am actually excited about doing it but it will require a certain amount of focus and today was meant to be a day I could do that. As our day wore on, about fifteen other things that I really need to do tomorrow also cropped up in my mind.

The swell built, each wave of anxiety topping the one before. How should I lay the book out? What if I can’t get the fonts right? When will I go through my rolodex and personally invite people to that event? When will I make sure my health insurance went through? Can’t forget to sort out the emergency contact card and extra booster seat for AJ’s new babysitter. How am I going to double my practice as I need to? I couldn’t think of what to do next or how to do it. I became short with AJ. I realized that this day off was feeling pretty out of control.

So, I changed tactics.

Shutting out the fear inspired by storm in my head, I focused on one thing. I put together the small IKEA shelf/bin thingy I had picked up for AJ’s room (only having to take apart and re-do it in two places), sorted through his toys, and put it all back together. This took the rest of the day and evening, with AJ watching that penguin surfing movie yet another time while I soldiered on. But, rather than becoming more anxious about everything else I wasn’t doing, I became more calm. Like meditation, the focus of sorting and cleaning and purging and organizing allowed the rest of my mind to clear.

After a while, I noticed little breezes of ideas flitting through here and there. By the time AJ finally went to bed, my plan of action (and there will be action!) for tomorrow was clear and in place.

And, while I can’t say that all of it will get done, what is done will be done with more grace and clarity than it would have had I not taken the afternoon to ride out my storm.

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By Mama Paloma, 14/02/2012 00:05

January 2012

So, usually, when I tell a story here, there is some conclusion to be drawn, some lesson I learned. This is not one of those stories. This is a more typical parent experience, I think…when your kid says or does something that leaves you shaking your head and you feel like you should be able to draw some lofty conclusion but all you can think is “Shit, he’s only three and already working me this way. What are the teen years going to be like? I need a drink.”  

I never intended to nurse my kid until he was four. Like most American moms these days, I had gotten the information about how nursing at least the first year has some pretty amazing health benefits. I had listened to/read about moms who are still breastfeeding their seven year olds. I thought a year or year and a half seemed good, seven a bit much. From the start, nursing came super easy for AJ and I. The day after he was born a lactation consultant came in to help me, took one look and said, “Well, he knows what he’s doing, you’re going to be fine.”

He did nurse for the first year. Exclusively. It was not the first time I felt the gaze of those who feel entitled to assess another person’s (particularly a single mom’s)  parenting. Other people would suggest different foods and try to get him to eat, even after I explained my own efforts to entice him. I could tell they thought this exclusive breastfeeding thing  was  about my need to be the most attached granola mom EVER. Eventually, he did start eating and is a ‘good eater.’

And he still wants to nurse.. He calls it ‘having babas.’ He asks for babas at night and in the morning, mostly, and when he’s upset.  Honestly, this has more to do with my general laziness than any parenting philosophy. I knew it would be work to cut him off and then I’d lose the one thing that can always calm him down.

I hoped, as with the food, he’d just get to the point of being ‘ready’ and lose interest but that wasn’t happening.. In the months leading up to his birthday yesterday, I told him that we wouldn’t be having babas after he turned four. This wasn’t an easy concept for him. One day, he was having a total meltdown. “I need babas,” he cried, “because I can’t calm down.” As he nursed, I wondered aloud about what I might do, after he turned four, to help him calm down, since he wouldn’t be having babas any more.

“Well,” he said, “when I am four, I will still have babas. When I am a big boy, like (paused to think), maybe ten or twelve, then I’ll just stop.” He made a definitive gesture when he said the word ‘stop,’ like a smoker swearing they’ll go cold turkey right after the New Year’s party.

“Oh, honey,” I replied, “the thing is, when you turn four, you are not going to have babas any more.”

“No, mommy,” he said, “because, especially for boys, if they don’t connect, they are going to have bigger problems.”

———————————————————–

February 13

So, tonight was a rough night. Actually, the past week has been rough. For several reasons, I am re-working my entire childcare setup. Addison’s birthday brought an ever-more acute awareness of his dad not being present (a topic for another day).. He has also been testing limits and getting very upset when I, say, turn off the movie. And then, there’s the babas.

When it came time for bed,  he was  sobbing about a movie-related conflict, then about not having babas to calm down,”I just want to go back and not have my birthday and stay little. I don’t want my body to grow. I want to be a baby.” I held him and talked with him and let him cry. I talked about how hard it can be when things change but how they usually end up all right.. I told him I am happy that he is growing and learning because that means that he is healthy and no matter how much he grows how he will still be my baby. I stroked his hair, rubbed his feet and talked about how things like that might help him calm down the way babas have. Finally, he began to relax. I extricated myself from his fierce little embrace, kissed his forehead, and whispered, “I love you so, so much, sweetheart.”

“Thanks, mom,” he whispered back and fell asleep.

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By Mama Paloma, 02/01/2012 14:21

This year is starting off with a sigh. While I want to feel inspired, motivated, optimistic, I  am actually more on the tired and discouraged side of the spectrum. I have reflected, envisioned, sought support, worked my ass off, meditated–the works–and I just seem to be stuck in this place of almost-there.

I had hoped to clear a number of things from my plate in 2011. Have some resolution (and regular, agreed-upon child support) with AJ’s dad, have my nonprofit work sustainable and compensated, have something to show for the first four decades of my life. I even planned some special things…a trip for my birthday, a mini-vacation to end the year. In spite of my best efforts, it’s all fizzled, or just failed to progress. Nothing is horrible, but nothing is great either.

I have tried so hard. I am ready for great. I need a little bit right now.

But instead, at this moment, I am sitting in my living room with a half-undressed tree that may spontaneously combust at any moment, ornament boxes piled around, suitcase unpacked, my son methodically taking receipts and such I have put in a bag for shredding out of said bag and spreading them around the rest of the mess.

I want to fight this feeling…to push through and clean up and put on a shiny smile. Today, though, it seems important somehow to sit here in it, to acknowledge the shit I  stand up to each and every day–the effort of holding at bay the chaos and the loss and the fatigue and the loneliness that lurk, waiting to wash over and swamp my little life raft. So, for this moment, I am letting it be.

I know it won’t look so bleak tomorrow. I will wake up and get up and do what needs to be done to inch my life forward. I will find meaning and inspiration and humor and joy again. But, right now, it’s all pretty pathetic and lame and sad and it’s real and it’s really OK.

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By Mama Paloma, 10/10/2011 15:18

It’s been a while, huh? I keep coming up with things I want to write about, but can’t find the time. Right now, I have 21 minutes, in a coffee shop, before I need to go pick up my son. This weekend, I missed two key work/life events…and still made it to three.

There is just too much to do and not enough time.

Was talking with a client about this today. She’s got more to do than she possibly can and is having trouble prioritizing…and the holidays aren’t even here yet. She is hoping to preemptively set up her holidays in a way that won’t have her losing her mind.

I suggested she list everything going on/coming up.

Then divide that into three lists:

1. Have to do (feed the kids, get work done, some sleep)
2. Want to do (sustaining social activities,  down time, time with children, more sleep)
3. All the stuff that’s there for reasons other than 1. or 2. (I was invited and said yes without thinking, I feel I should, what will people think of me if I don’t?)

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By Mama Paloma, 09/09/2011 07:19

Was inspired to track down and re-post this after reading Kaileen Elise’s post on RootsofShe.com today. Enjoy.

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By Mama Paloma, 20/04/2011 23:18

“Mom,” AJ called from his bed tonight, “you forgot to put on my band-aid!” The previous Spiderman bandage had floated off in the bath, leaving a chagrined little boy’s elbow, skinned several days ago, woefully exposed. Indeed, I had neglected to replace it in our bedtime routine and so I went in and applied a new one–Buzz Lightyear this time, we keep several boxes on hand–and he fell happily to sleep.

These are the routines of motherhood. The soothing of wounds, the protecting of skin and bone and life.

————————

This morning, I came out of a meeting to a text message from a friend. “‘Restrepo’ Director Tim Heatherington Killed in Libya I’m so sorry…”

As I said to another friend later, this is news that is shocking but not surprising. Like many people who posted blogs and articles today, I first met Tim in Liberia, West Africa where he had stayed on with one other journalist behind rebel lines while the rest of the world pulled out. He was committed to covering the experiences of those affected by war and that very often took him right into the thick of it. Within hours of his death, Tim had been eulogized many times over by bloggers and the big guns–the New York Times, Human Rights Watch, CNN. A quick Google search will get you all the background you want on the guy. I particularly appreciated Parting Glance: Tim Hetherington and a number of posts by people who knew him well, all of whom echoed my experience of Tim as a singularly sincere, compassionate, and intelligent person who put his life on the line to bring the rest of the world stories that would otherwise go untold. His recent film Diary (2010) was, frankly, a bit hard to watch as many of the images of Liberia were familiar as was the dissonance of living with one foot in that world while carrying on a life at ‘home.’

But this is a blog about being a mom. It’s about the hopes and realities and schemes and dilemmas of this journey.

Today, I found myself thinking about Tim’s mother. I have never met her, don’t even know her name. If his character is any representation she is almost certainly a truly decent and lovely person. Tim was British, so I imagine she will be outwardly stoic and private about her grief. I am 99% sure she will never see this. I am not entirely sure that, if she did read it, she wouldn’t find it overly presumptuous and American in tone.

Recently, Tina Fey’s “A Prayer for a Daughter” made the rounds and, in my head, I have been composing my own “Prayer for a Son” since. With her trademark frankness and wit, Fey asks “First, Lord: No tattoos…” and goes on a few lines later to say, “When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer.”

That line in particular struck me. When I was pregnant, someone repeated a quote that goes something like “to be a mother is to have your heart walking outside your body in the world.” It seemed schmaltzy and a bit over-dramatic. Certainly,  I would have better “boundaries” with my child.

Of course, all mothers understand that I just didn’t know yet the sensation of having your whole being driven to protect and nurture, even at your own expense, while at the same time having to release your baby into the world by inches. Attaching and letting go, all the time, in ways big and small is the impossibly unfair mandate of motherhood. Selfish as it is, it kills me to think that my little one, for whom I willingly cut hot dogs lengthwise and apply way too many band-aids will one day be faced with such decisions. And I don’t get to be there. I don’t get to say.

Recently, AJ has expressed a fair bit of ambivalence about growing up. He goes back and forth between wanting to be a “big boy” and wanting to be “the baby.” In his more vulnerable moments, he refers to himself that way–”the baby is scared and needs his mama.” I reassure him frequently, saying, “even when you are a big man, you’ll still be my baby.” I know that the day is coming, all too soon, when hearing that will make him roll his eyes and say “Mother.” I also know that it will still be true…always…until the day I die.

If I were honest, my prayer might include something like:

“..and please, for the love of all that is holy, help him to want to be a computer programmer or teacher or something else safe but definitely not a humanitarian worker or war correspondent or soldier or fireman.”

Already, I pray in vain. Little AJ’s commitment to the firefighting profession was voiced as soon as he could verbalize and hasn’t wavered since.

When it is time, I will try. I will try to have faith and be supportive and encourage my little bird to spread his wings and fly. I will try not to harangue and plead and be petulant. AJ’s father is currently running around doing extremely dangerous work in a country I have promised not to name, soldier to the core. I have also traveled to more than one place on the US State Department’s list of places a girl should not be traveling to and also worked in an unstable post-conflict zone. Our mothers have had to live with those decisions, the worry and letting go that they require. Tim’s mother had to make some peace with his choices and now has to live with the loss of her baby.

As I said before, I am almost certain that Tim’s mother won’t read this. But other mothers will. Perhaps, if you do, you can take a moment to think of this woman, bound to us all by the fact that she is a mother and she is living what we all quietly dread.  I hope that, somehow, in this darkest of nights, Tim’s mother perhaps can feel in some small way a bit of comfort in the presence of the other mothers around the world who, just by being mothers, can begin to touch the edges of her loss and are sending her in whatever unknowable way possible whatever unknowable thing it is that she needs to get through to morning.

Update: I was able to attend a memorial for Tim on May 24 in New York City. At the reception afterwards, I spoke with Tim’s mum and dad at some length. They were gracious and, at the same time, open about the depth of their loss. Please continue to keep them in your thoughts and prayers.