My mornings used to be my own. I used to have a few hours to myself between the time I awakened and the time M woke up. Not any more. Though I don't mind, most days, because I wake up to a smiling baby boy. When he sees me looking at him he lights up with a big toothless grin. Sometimes he even coos. It's impossible to mind waking up to that :)
Little Man seems to be done with his growth spurt and I'm able to keep up with him milk supply-wise. I haven't needed to supplement with formula for a couple of weeks, and I've actually been able to freeze about 3 ounces of breastmilk a day. He is looking more and more like his father now, and he's
growing into his (my) nose. In addition to inheriting my nose and feet,
he seems to have gotten my light-sensitive eyes, poor thing.
He handled being passed around to a dozen different people pretty well at the party this weekend. M and I both were concerned that he might be overwhelmed by all the attention and handling, but he seemed to enjoy it. We might have an extrovert on our hands, instead of an introvert, like us. The jury is still out on handedness. I hope Little Man is a lefty like us just so it is easier for us to teach him to write and whatnot. I remember how difficult things were for me given that my parents were both right handed. M actually does a lot of things right-handed because that was the only way he could learn from right-handers, whereas my paternal grandfather was a leftie and taught me how to hold my pencil and fork, etc, and my mother fought the schools to keep me left-handed. My father's family has a strong left-handed streak, and a lot of people in the older generations stammer when they speak as a result of being 'thwarted' and forced to become right-handed, my father included.
Yesterday a friend of mine from Portland had a layover at SFO so I got a chance to see her and her daughter. We talked about the need to find a woman friend or two with infants to provide support and commiseration -- and my somewhat misogynistic tendencies. My misogyny is surprising to people who know that I attended a women's college and have dated women -- until I clarify. I don't dislike women -- I dislike the lowest-common denominator level that so many women sink to. Having gone to college with over 3000 brilliant women, I know what women can be -- and it annoys me no end to see what women resign themselves to being. I'm just not good at relating to a lot of the concerns that occupy so many women: I'm not into appearances, so swapping stories on clothes shopping, makeup and hair styling flat out bore me. I'm not a wanter. I despise shopping in general and conspicuous consumption in particular. I prefer simplicity and an uncluttered life. I'd rather have a meaningful conversation about what's going on in the world than gossip about movie stars and neighbors. And I don't play the woman-games -- I don't do the passive-aggressive competitor-co-dependent friendships most women seem to perpetuate with each other. I'm animus-dominant, and while I've definitely given my anima room to grow this past decade, I accept that I'm always going to prefer the company of men or masculine-minded women. Thus, finding women I can connect with is difficult enough without adding criteria like new-mom and over-Forty. But I'm not giving up :)
On this 'unintentional mother' blog I've mostly avoided mentioning the things that occupy my thoughts that seem unrelated to the topic. But politics and the environment and technology impact today and tomorrow -- they impact the world my son will inherit. M and I are looking at buying an electric car and putting solar panels up on the house. We're trying to reduce the amount of waste we produce by reducing consumption. We're following the breakthroughs in battery technology and alternative energy. And medicine. It would be lovely if my son came of age in an era in which a cancer diagnosis was not a tragedy, and diseases like malaria and cholera are no longer endemic to Third World. I have hopes that we'll revolutionize education so that young people will be able to learn and retain what they need to in order to take over for the technology priesthood and further the interests of humanity by evolving their thinking. I have hopes, but there are days when the omens and portents point to a dark future and a dying planet, and even my eternal optimism and sunny nature are no match for it. I have a dread that one day that my son will tell me he wishes he'd never been born into such a mess of a world. So I'm doing what I can to make it a better place, bit by bit, neighbor by neighbor, street by street. I'm Being Love, but I know I can try harder. I know I have to. There is too much at stake.
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label environment. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Saturday, July 28, 2012
He's a charmer
Little Man is really developing a sunny personality. He's almost always smiling and cooing when he's awake. I'm finding him more interesting now that he's more interactive. Newborns are time-intensive, but monotonous, to care for. He seems to respond well to strangers -- and strangers to him. We were at Home Depot at 6am yesterday (what else is open at 6am?) scouting out plants (I picked up an arabian jasmine and a kaffir lily, both in bloom) and I was surprised by how many men were charmed by him.
In a couple of hours Little Man will be meeting his great aunties on his father's side of the family. M is looking forward to showing them the house and all the work we've done on it the past year. Hopefully they'll be able to see past the patches of messiness here and there. I didn't get a chance to tackle the floors like I wanted to -- I spent most of my free time the past two days cleaning up a mess the older cat made on the hardwood floor in the office. Grr. Any way, M is certain The Aunts are going to fall in love with Little Man. It will be interesting to see how it all goes.
Still no go on the nursing front. I've given up. We picked up a double-breast pump on Craig's List and I'm feeding him breastmilk via bottle. I do miss the way breastfeeding feels -- it's incredibly intimate and pleasurable and an amazing bonding experience.
Now that I'm pretty much recovered from childbirth (I still haves some lingering stiffness in the pelvic region) I'm feeling restless. When I'm not exhausted, that is :) There are things I want to do, and with the baby, they're just not an option anymore. No more writer's groups, Ruby Tuesday geek girl meetups, college alumnae meetings, photography expeditions, or visits to the gym. Not during the day, anyway. Little Man is still too young to leave with his father for more than 30 minutes or so. He seems to have this radar that wakes him up when I leave the house without him, and then he gets a little agitated when The Mama doesn't appear. When he's a little older, I'll have to look for meaningful social opportunities that involve other mothers and infants/toddlers -- something that is rather outside my experience. As an unintentional mother, I've never found babies all that interesting, and I confess that the conversations between my previously childless self and parents of young children were only marginally more interesting than their little kids. I'm definitely feeling the pressure of a paradigm shift.
In the meantime, I've been exploring the neighborhood on foot with an eye for future activities. There is a Shaolin Cultural Center a few blocks away that teaches a few of the forms of wushu (Chinese martial arts) as well as Mandarin language and culture. They offer classes for kids starting at age 4. There is also a kuk sool won school here in town, and the Buddhist temple nearby offers tai chi, hula, and bon odori dance practice. I also found out they have a Cub Scouts troop there, but given the recent decision by the organization to formally exclude gay boys and leaders, I doubt the Little Man will be a member. I've also found a Safari Run playland a few blocks away, in addition to the Junior Gym and the Kumon learning center over on B Street. The Martin Luther King Center offers lots of family activities, including swimming classes in the summer, and there are lots of parks in walking distance. All-in-all, this is a good neighborhood to raise a family in. That wasn't what I had in mind when I first noticed the house for sale -- I was more interested in walkability / proximity to Downtown and cultural diversity -- but it is going to work out well since I'm not going to be car-dependent and trapped in the suburbs.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Cloth Diapers
I am learning about the benefits and drawbacks of cloth diapers.
In addition to the environmental benefits (primarily less landfill and fewer trees), using cloth diapers is frugal. Disposable diapers cost $.30 to $.40 each, so I'm throwing $2 to $3 away each day (if I factor in the cost of doing the laundry, which I'm over-estimating at $1 a day). It also cuts down on the garbage service costs. I was about ready to step up to a larger garbage bin (we're using the smallest one) because a week's worth of disposable diapers (70 to 100) takes up a lot of room, when I decided that Little Man was now big enough to fit into the stash of cloth diapers I'd picked up from an acquaintance (about $400 worth of pre-fold diapers, diaper covers, all-in-ones, and miscellaneous paraphernalia for $50).
The first time I diapered him in the cloth diapers, I did it wrong, and the clothes along his back got wet. So I went online and found this cloth diaper video from Susan at MamasLoveAtHome.com and realized that I hadn't folded the diaper over in the back so the cotton wicked the urine up where it came into contact with his onesie. Silly me.
Using cloth diapers requires a bit more forethought. Instead of everything going into the garbage pail, nothing does, really. The diaper and it's paraphernalia needs to be sorted. There is a flushable insert to catch the poop-paste (looks like a fabric softener sheet), and the baby wipes are flushable, too, so they go into the toilet. Then there is the cloth diaper, and the diaper cover/wrap. Most of the time the diaper cover can be re-used, so I have little hooks above the changing table and I hang the just-worn one there to air-out. The soiled cloth diaper (in this case Indian cotton pre-fold) goes into a washable diaper bag designed to hold soiled diapers, which I'm washing every other day.
Once washed, I try to put pre-fold diapers with the liner already on it into the diaper wrap and stack them just above the diaper changing station to make things as easy as possible. Sometimes I just don't get around to being that organized, and I'll pull them directly from the laundry basket. Little Man is very active/alert for a 5-week old.
Of course, when out and about, disposable diapers are preferred, though I've recently learned that there are disposable-diaper type bio-degradable inserts (made by Grovia, gDiapers, and flip) designed to be used with diaper wraps for people who want the convenience of disposable diapers combined with the environmental friendliness of cloth diapers, for about the same price as conventional disposable diapers. I might give them a try--it should be easier than having to buy disposables in the baby's size and worry about him out-growing them before they're all used.
The only major drawback is teaching M how to do the cloth diapers. Fortunately, I've got all-in-ones for him to use, so no need to fuss with the pre-folds.
In addition to the environmental benefits (primarily less landfill and fewer trees), using cloth diapers is frugal. Disposable diapers cost $.30 to $.40 each, so I'm throwing $2 to $3 away each day (if I factor in the cost of doing the laundry, which I'm over-estimating at $1 a day). It also cuts down on the garbage service costs. I was about ready to step up to a larger garbage bin (we're using the smallest one) because a week's worth of disposable diapers (70 to 100) takes up a lot of room, when I decided that Little Man was now big enough to fit into the stash of cloth diapers I'd picked up from an acquaintance (about $400 worth of pre-fold diapers, diaper covers, all-in-ones, and miscellaneous paraphernalia for $50).
The first time I diapered him in the cloth diapers, I did it wrong, and the clothes along his back got wet. So I went online and found this cloth diaper video from Susan at MamasLoveAtHome.com and realized that I hadn't folded the diaper over in the back so the cotton wicked the urine up where it came into contact with his onesie. Silly me.
Using cloth diapers requires a bit more forethought. Instead of everything going into the garbage pail, nothing does, really. The diaper and it's paraphernalia needs to be sorted. There is a flushable insert to catch the poop-paste (looks like a fabric softener sheet), and the baby wipes are flushable, too, so they go into the toilet. Then there is the cloth diaper, and the diaper cover/wrap. Most of the time the diaper cover can be re-used, so I have little hooks above the changing table and I hang the just-worn one there to air-out. The soiled cloth diaper (in this case Indian cotton pre-fold) goes into a washable diaper bag designed to hold soiled diapers, which I'm washing every other day.
Once washed, I try to put pre-fold diapers with the liner already on it into the diaper wrap and stack them just above the diaper changing station to make things as easy as possible. Sometimes I just don't get around to being that organized, and I'll pull them directly from the laundry basket. Little Man is very active/alert for a 5-week old.
Of course, when out and about, disposable diapers are preferred, though I've recently learned that there are disposable-diaper type bio-degradable inserts (made by Grovia, gDiapers, and flip) designed to be used with diaper wraps for people who want the convenience of disposable diapers combined with the environmental friendliness of cloth diapers, for about the same price as conventional disposable diapers. I might give them a try--it should be easier than having to buy disposables in the baby's size and worry about him out-growing them before they're all used.
The only major drawback is teaching M how to do the cloth diapers. Fortunately, I've got all-in-ones for him to use, so no need to fuss with the pre-folds.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Climate Change and Christians as Stewards of the Earth
I grew up a native Californian Reagan Conservative with strong fundamentalist Christian values. At the same time, the terrible air quality, acid rains, and pollution which spawned the 1970s Green Movements were embedded in my childhood memories. I can remember the dirty brown smog in the LA basin rolling by, entirely obscuring the mountain ranges for months at a time. When I came of age in the 1980's, acid-rain and pollution were waning thanks to regulation, but the Cold War was still raging. Things were so bad that I took perverse comfort in living in proximity to both an air force base and a nuclear power
plant because I knew that if there was a nuclear war I'd likely die
early so I wouldn't have to live in the hellish aftermath.
It was the documentary film "Broken Rainbow", which launched me from complacency into activism. The forced relocation of Navajo Indians for the purposes of making the land accessible to mining activities, the visuals of children playing in uranium tailings, the high rates of cancer, and the knowledge that our treatment of the Navajo people had been models for Nazi concentration camps inflamed me. I learned about the pollution along the Mississippi River corridor, of watersheds so compromised that poor mothers were nursing babies with toxic breastmilk. I worked with inner-city children who grew up in extreme poverty and drug abuse and sexual abuse. It was the death of one of "my kids," the mistaken-identity shooting of a bright young single mother who had still managed to finish high school and college and climb out of the ghetto that broke me and ended my activism for nearly a decade.
The re-election of George W Bush and the marked failure of compassionate conservatism to address the very real needs of the American people brought me back to activism. In despair over the national political scene, I sought community and responsibility on the local level. And I found it. I also found myself. I discovered that I could maintain a balance between advocating for others and caring for myself. I felt called to become an ordained minister, and to pick up the sex-education efforts I'd put down years earlier. I wrote extensively. I joined a community that focused on heart-centered connection and intimacy. I cared for the dying and the living as my family entered a period of one catastrophic illness after another, and then I took a much-needed break to rest and determine what I wanted to do next in my life.
I care passionately about the world I live in. The Snowmass Wilderness and the Big Sur coastline were my backyard when I was a child, and I experienced God through joy in His Creation. I was taught to love God and the works of God, and to love my fellow man as Jesus loved me. As such, I've tried to help people in need, especially children and the elderly, I've tried to be environmentally responsible, and I've tried to make a contribution to each community I've been a part of.
Now that I'm bringing a child into the world, everything feels different, like everything I've done isn't enough. It's still globally encompassing, but more personal somehow. I evaluate the-world-as-it-is and I find myself despairing over the-world-as-it-will-be when my son comes of age. I feel frustrated and angry that we've been such poor custodians of this planet, and that so many people feel justified in ignoring the cumulative consequences of our actions. The dominant ethos of America appears to be one grounded in Greed and Apocalyptic Vision: God set Man in dominion over the world, so exploit it for all it's worth. Then God will take care of what is left -- with Fire.
But does the command in Genesis 1:28 to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it really give humanity license to recklessly exploit the planet? I think not. Genesis Chapter 2 describes God's creation of the garden of Eden, and His placement of Man in the Garden to dress it and to keep it (Genesis 2:15). What does "dress it and keep it" mean? Cultivate it and care for it. God put Man into the Garden of Eden to be it's caretaker, it's master gardener.
Now, After Adam and Eve's fall from Grace, God was pretty upset. He basically said cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life (Genesis 3:17). This would seem to set mankind up in an adversarial role with our environment. No longer would the ground readily sustain us, we'd have to work hard to find and grow food -- we'd have to work harder at subduing the planet. But what people seem to forget is that if God initially gave us dominion over the earth, the earth is still His. Even after granting Adam and Eve stewardship of the earth, even as he created the Garden of Eden for Adam to care for, He retained ultimate authority and ownership -- as demonstrated by His choice to curse it so we'd have to work hard in order to survive. (Jeremiah 27:5 I by my great power and outstretched arm made the earth, land and animals that are on the earth. And I can give them to whom I please.)
I can't help but feel that this was a test of sorts, a God-given opportunity for mankind to prove ourselves worthy of the role he'd given us as sovereigns and caretakers of the earth. I can't help but feel that we are once again failing in our charge.
The Bible tells us that even as humanity slipped into sin and depravity, and so lost our connection with God and Creation that God felt it necessary to wipe the works of Man from the face of the earth, God found one man, Noah, and charged him with building an ark to save not only those who kept faith with God, but also the creatures of the earth. We'd slipped so far from our sacred beginnings that God wanted to cleanse the earth of our taint, but not of His Creations. Once again, he reminded us of our responsibility as stewards of this planet. Even so, we continue to fail in those responsibilities, and have for thousands of years:
So I'd like to ask all the Christians out there, and indeed, all people who believe that the world was created by God, to think before they snicker or roll their eyes at those darned environmentalists who warn of the dire consequences of our current way of living on the earth. They could be the Noah's of our era, and if we ignore them, who is to say that they aren't prophesying the destruction of the world by fire (2 Peter 3:7. But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men)?
And if we willfully ignore their warnings because of inconvenience or political or ideological differences, and continue to be poor stewards of the earth, what world are we leaving to our children, and to the creatures of this planet, and how will God judge us when that time comes?
I feel it is time for those who consider themselves righteous or godly or God's Chosen to embrace the mantle of environmental stewardship. It is time for everyone to love what God has created, to dress it and to keep it as God charged us to do, and to stop wasting time on judging others when we should be loving them as Jesus also charged us to do. I think that we should unite to protect and preserve this planet all of us live on, because, really, if we fail in this, who can be smugly assured of their place in Heaven if everything does go to hell?
It was the documentary film "Broken Rainbow", which launched me from complacency into activism. The forced relocation of Navajo Indians for the purposes of making the land accessible to mining activities, the visuals of children playing in uranium tailings, the high rates of cancer, and the knowledge that our treatment of the Navajo people had been models for Nazi concentration camps inflamed me. I learned about the pollution along the Mississippi River corridor, of watersheds so compromised that poor mothers were nursing babies with toxic breastmilk. I worked with inner-city children who grew up in extreme poverty and drug abuse and sexual abuse. It was the death of one of "my kids," the mistaken-identity shooting of a bright young single mother who had still managed to finish high school and college and climb out of the ghetto that broke me and ended my activism for nearly a decade.
The re-election of George W Bush and the marked failure of compassionate conservatism to address the very real needs of the American people brought me back to activism. In despair over the national political scene, I sought community and responsibility on the local level. And I found it. I also found myself. I discovered that I could maintain a balance between advocating for others and caring for myself. I felt called to become an ordained minister, and to pick up the sex-education efforts I'd put down years earlier. I wrote extensively. I joined a community that focused on heart-centered connection and intimacy. I cared for the dying and the living as my family entered a period of one catastrophic illness after another, and then I took a much-needed break to rest and determine what I wanted to do next in my life.
I care passionately about the world I live in. The Snowmass Wilderness and the Big Sur coastline were my backyard when I was a child, and I experienced God through joy in His Creation. I was taught to love God and the works of God, and to love my fellow man as Jesus loved me. As such, I've tried to help people in need, especially children and the elderly, I've tried to be environmentally responsible, and I've tried to make a contribution to each community I've been a part of.
Now that I'm bringing a child into the world, everything feels different, like everything I've done isn't enough. It's still globally encompassing, but more personal somehow. I evaluate the-world-as-it-is and I find myself despairing over the-world-as-it-will-be when my son comes of age. I feel frustrated and angry that we've been such poor custodians of this planet, and that so many people feel justified in ignoring the cumulative consequences of our actions. The dominant ethos of America appears to be one grounded in Greed and Apocalyptic Vision: God set Man in dominion over the world, so exploit it for all it's worth. Then God will take care of what is left -- with Fire.
But does the command in Genesis 1:28 to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it really give humanity license to recklessly exploit the planet? I think not. Genesis Chapter 2 describes God's creation of the garden of Eden, and His placement of Man in the Garden to dress it and to keep it (Genesis 2:15). What does "dress it and keep it" mean? Cultivate it and care for it. God put Man into the Garden of Eden to be it's caretaker, it's master gardener.
Now, After Adam and Eve's fall from Grace, God was pretty upset. He basically said cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life (Genesis 3:17). This would seem to set mankind up in an adversarial role with our environment. No longer would the ground readily sustain us, we'd have to work hard to find and grow food -- we'd have to work harder at subduing the planet. But what people seem to forget is that if God initially gave us dominion over the earth, the earth is still His. Even after granting Adam and Eve stewardship of the earth, even as he created the Garden of Eden for Adam to care for, He retained ultimate authority and ownership -- as demonstrated by His choice to curse it so we'd have to work hard in order to survive. (Jeremiah 27:5 I by my great power and outstretched arm made the earth, land and animals that are on the earth. And I can give them to whom I please.)
I can't help but feel that this was a test of sorts, a God-given opportunity for mankind to prove ourselves worthy of the role he'd given us as sovereigns and caretakers of the earth. I can't help but feel that we are once again failing in our charge.
The Bible tells us that even as humanity slipped into sin and depravity, and so lost our connection with God and Creation that God felt it necessary to wipe the works of Man from the face of the earth, God found one man, Noah, and charged him with building an ark to save not only those who kept faith with God, but also the creatures of the earth. We'd slipped so far from our sacred beginnings that God wanted to cleanse the earth of our taint, but not of His Creations. Once again, he reminded us of our responsibility as stewards of this planet. Even so, we continue to fail in those responsibilities, and have for thousands of years:
Leviticus 25:23-24. The land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants. Throughout the country that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land.When public figures like politicians and ministers say that catastrophic global climate change can't happen no matter what Man does because The Bible says the world will always be here -- they miss an important point. The Bible doesn't say Man will always be in the world, nor does it say that our way of life will always be sustained. We've gotten so caught up in serving up heaping helpings of the earth's resources that we've lost sight of he fact that the world doesn't exist to serve us. God created Man to serve as caretakers of Creation, to love it and take joy it as God Himself does.
Jeremiah 2:7. I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and rich produce. But you came and defiled my land and you made my inheritance detestable.
Luke 16:2,10,13. And He called him and said to him, "What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward. He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous in much. You cannot serve both God and mammon.
James 5:5. You have lived luxuriously on the earth and led a life of wanton pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.
So I'd like to ask all the Christians out there, and indeed, all people who believe that the world was created by God, to think before they snicker or roll their eyes at those darned environmentalists who warn of the dire consequences of our current way of living on the earth. They could be the Noah's of our era, and if we ignore them, who is to say that they aren't prophesying the destruction of the world by fire (2 Peter 3:7. But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men)?
And if we willfully ignore their warnings because of inconvenience or political or ideological differences, and continue to be poor stewards of the earth, what world are we leaving to our children, and to the creatures of this planet, and how will God judge us when that time comes?
I feel it is time for those who consider themselves righteous or godly or God's Chosen to embrace the mantle of environmental stewardship. It is time for everyone to love what God has created, to dress it and to keep it as God charged us to do, and to stop wasting time on judging others when we should be loving them as Jesus also charged us to do. I think that we should unite to protect and preserve this planet all of us live on, because, really, if we fail in this, who can be smugly assured of their place in Heaven if everything does go to hell?
Friday, April 6, 2012
Introvert or Extravert, which will he be?
What makes human beings introverted or extraverted, I wonder? I've read statistics that 25% of people are introverts and I find myself pondering about what type of personality my child will have. Some say that people are born with that trait, others, that it is forms in childhood. The heritability of introversion and extraversion appears to be polygenic, much like intelligence, and I find myself wondering if this child of two introverts will be introverted as well.
The baby's father is extremely introverted. He was shy and contemplative as a child, and while not really shy anymore, he's a thoughtful, almost reclusive, adult. He has a big, beautiful mind, one that fascinates me, and he's constantly feeding it. He prefers his own company and that of a few good friends, and often cannot wait to get back home, even if it is only from a day at the office. Being social is a big stretch for him, and usually requires not only recovery time, but prep-time. He will turn down social engagements well over 90% of the time if they are sprung on him last-minute. He's not even interested in internet-based socializing, even though he's worked in the internet-realm for over a decade. To him, things like internet messaging are tools for achieving an end-goal, rather than a way to keep in touch with people -- he has an analytical, transactional view of social exchange. He can enjoy social interactions while they are happening, but rarely misses relationships much when they are inactive. In fact, with him and some other introverts I know, a relationship doesn’t really exist when it is inactive.
I am either an outgoing introvert, or an introverted extravert. It is difficult to say. I score nearly 50/50 on the Myers-Briggs tests, with a slight edge given to 'E'. Reports from adults who knew me as a child state that I was a solemn child, but I could also be quite talkative. I recall being a bookworm -- I preferred my own company or the company of books to social interaction, unless I was interacting with adults. Adults were interesting. I had few friends, mainly because I had little in common with children my age -- I lived on a completely different plane, mentally and emotionally, from my peers. As an adult, people who know me socially sometimes argue with me if I claim to be an introvert. I can be quite social as long as I have time to prepare and meet my minimum required amount of me-time. I have a handful of deep, intimate friendships and a wide circle of more casual friends. I am uncomfortable being the center of attention and feel anxious speaking to groups -- for example, the thought of a baby shower makes me nervous. I've had to learn how to actively maintain relationships with people I don't interact with on a daily basis, because most of my friends are introverts as well, and their internal lives are so rich they don't notice when relationships go dormant.
In many ways, life is easier for extraverts (or extroverts, as some people like to spell it). In our American culture, people tend to think there is something wrong with a person who is quiet rather than social, and introverted children are invariably given a hard time at school. But introverted children tend to be better behaved and self-entertaining than their extraverted counterparts. I worked with kids for years, and I can't say I have a favorite personality type. I expect that which ever trait our son exhibits, we'll be fine with it. I'm just hoping that if he does end up being an introvert I can teach him how to be social while still respecting his inner needs for solitude and social down-time. If I learned how, so can he. I hope.
The baby's father is extremely introverted. He was shy and contemplative as a child, and while not really shy anymore, he's a thoughtful, almost reclusive, adult. He has a big, beautiful mind, one that fascinates me, and he's constantly feeding it. He prefers his own company and that of a few good friends, and often cannot wait to get back home, even if it is only from a day at the office. Being social is a big stretch for him, and usually requires not only recovery time, but prep-time. He will turn down social engagements well over 90% of the time if they are sprung on him last-minute. He's not even interested in internet-based socializing, even though he's worked in the internet-realm for over a decade. To him, things like internet messaging are tools for achieving an end-goal, rather than a way to keep in touch with people -- he has an analytical, transactional view of social exchange. He can enjoy social interactions while they are happening, but rarely misses relationships much when they are inactive. In fact, with him and some other introverts I know, a relationship doesn’t really exist when it is inactive.
I am either an outgoing introvert, or an introverted extravert. It is difficult to say. I score nearly 50/50 on the Myers-Briggs tests, with a slight edge given to 'E'. Reports from adults who knew me as a child state that I was a solemn child, but I could also be quite talkative. I recall being a bookworm -- I preferred my own company or the company of books to social interaction, unless I was interacting with adults. Adults were interesting. I had few friends, mainly because I had little in common with children my age -- I lived on a completely different plane, mentally and emotionally, from my peers. As an adult, people who know me socially sometimes argue with me if I claim to be an introvert. I can be quite social as long as I have time to prepare and meet my minimum required amount of me-time. I have a handful of deep, intimate friendships and a wide circle of more casual friends. I am uncomfortable being the center of attention and feel anxious speaking to groups -- for example, the thought of a baby shower makes me nervous. I've had to learn how to actively maintain relationships with people I don't interact with on a daily basis, because most of my friends are introverts as well, and their internal lives are so rich they don't notice when relationships go dormant.
In many ways, life is easier for extraverts (or extroverts, as some people like to spell it). In our American culture, people tend to think there is something wrong with a person who is quiet rather than social, and introverted children are invariably given a hard time at school. But introverted children tend to be better behaved and self-entertaining than their extraverted counterparts. I worked with kids for years, and I can't say I have a favorite personality type. I expect that which ever trait our son exhibits, we'll be fine with it. I'm just hoping that if he does end up being an introvert I can teach him how to be social while still respecting his inner needs for solitude and social down-time. If I learned how, so can he. I hope.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Mothering
I hobbled through life for many years as an emotional cripple. I loved with everything I was capable of, and sometimes it was enough. And sometimes it was not. But in those days, it was the best I could do. And in those days, I was aware of my emotional disability, and I was grateful that I could not have children.
In my early 30's everything changed. I wanted to grow. I wanted to become more fully me. I just didn't know how. Well, that isn't quite right. I knew that in order to effect meaningful change in my life, I needed to develop new, adult coping mechanisms. I just didn't know how to do that. I looked to the people in my life to learn how and made a very poor choice, landing myself in a same-sex relationship with a friend-turned-lover that was both physically and emotionally abusive.
And within months for embarking on that relationship, people I loved started dying. Four people in two years: my grandmother, my mother, my mother-figure, and a good friend. I went from an emotional cripple to an emotional quadraplegic. I couldn't cope. I understood the grieving process intellectually, but didn't know how to walk the path. Paralyzed, I huddled in on myself for a couple of years waiting for something, anything to change. And then it did. The woman I was involved with finally realized what I'd known after 6 months into our relationship, and broke things off.
Within two months I was in therapy. Something in me found the resolve to seek professional help. I wanted to understand myself, understand why I'd chosen an abusive relationship with a woman when I'd never tolerated anything of the sort from a man. And I wanted those adult coping mechanisms, damnit!
Therapy was the hardest thing I've ever done. It was 18 months of shoveling shit out of the barn in my head. Many times I wanted to quit, but I didn't, because I knew that if I stopped, I'd never start up again. It was just that painful.
But oh so worth it.
When I went in to my first appointment I told my therapist that I wanted help developing new coping mechanisms for today and tomorrow, and that I didn't want to revisit things deep in the past. I was very adamant about that. I was also very wrong.
In order to develop adult coping mechanisms, I needed to recognize the genesis of the ones that weren't working for me. And in order to determine why I'd chosen to remain in an abusive relationship with a woman, I needed to understand my relationship with my mother and how it shaped me, emotionally.
For years I'd blamed my being an emotional cripple on my father, a Viet Nam Vet whom I'd never liked even as a toddler, and who was physically, mentally and emotionally abusive all through my childhood. And while, certainly, his style of "fathering" was damaging, it was my mother's "mothering" skills, or lack thereof, which shaped my emotional landscape.
My mother was adopted. It's something she never got over, that very fundamental abandonment, and the onotological angst (Who am I? Why am I?) haunted her. She was herself an emotional cripple. She wanted closeness but feared it. She pulled with one hand and pushed with the other. She married to get away from her evangelical parents, and children were an accidental by-product of that choice. She didn't want children, and she didn't want motherhood. She hated keeping house and by the time I was five I was doing dishes and laundry, dressing my younger sisters, changing diapers, etc. I feared her temper. I kicked her once and she told me if I did it again, she'd break my leg. I believed her. She actually chased after me with a bullwhip once. When I was injured, I was afraid to go to her for care, because she was so impersonal and rough. But she had a wonderful voice and she told good stories and sometimes she was warm and loving. My best memories are of her playing with my hair.
She and my father fought, often violently, and after really bad fights one of them would disappear for a few days. But one day -- one day she went away and didn't come back.
And that was what crippled me.
See, children don't understand the world, but as children, we do try, and we make the best sense of it we can. In the absence of explanations that make sense to us, we connect the dots and come to our own conclusions. We make up our own meanings, our own stories, and we live inside them.
From a child's perspective, a mother is someone who loves you always, no matter what, and will always be there. From a child's perspective, when Mommy leaves you, it's because there is something wrong with you. When my mother left, my sisters and I made it mean that we were unlovable and unworthy -- that there was something wrong with us, something so wrong that even Mommy couldn't stand to be our mother. We internalized it and forgot the story we'd made up. We lived it.
And I took up the mantle of mothering. I thought that it was my fault that my sisters didn't have a mother anymore, so I took it on, as best I could. As best as any nine-year-old could. My father re-married and I took on my step-sisters, too, since their mother, like my father, was all too eager to offload parenting responsibilities so they could go play.
I became an enabler, a rescuer, a fixer. I became controlling and manipulative. I craved peace and harmony, and to my young eyes, the familiar, the status quo, was the closest I could come to that. I developed skills and coping mechanisms designed to perpetuate those conditions. It was a comfortable, if miserable existence. In therapy, I learned to call it what it was, neurosis. Jung said that neurosis is "the suffering of the soul which has not discovered its meaning" and that pretty much says it all.
So in the course of therapy, I discovered the story I'd made up about the little girl who was unworthy of her mother's love, and I learned to comfort my inner child and nurture her (instead of everyone else). I let go of my strangle-hold on my old ways of being and opened up to learning new tools and ways of being. I worked out my mommy-issues and my daddy-issues and took ownership of my life, my relationships, my emotions, thoughts, and attitudes. I fully inhabit me.
I'm emotionally and psychologically adult now. I am capable of loving and being loved without building barriers to protect myself from fears of loss and abandonment. I've buried three more family members in as many years and come through those experiences feeling enriched, and at times, transformed.
My biggest challenge so far has been dealing with my youngest sister, whose mental illness and refusal to accept the help and care she needs had challenged the limits of my ability to cope. Today she's in an institutional setting, the enforced structure of which seems to be giving her the basis she needs to examine and rebuild her life.
I'm facing a new challenge soon, the challenge of mothering my son, and I feel confident that I am up to it. Finally, at 44, I think I'm grown-up enough to be a good parent, to raise a child without fear of perpetuating the emotional and psychological issues that have plagued my family. And what a tremendous feeling it is!
In my early 30's everything changed. I wanted to grow. I wanted to become more fully me. I just didn't know how. Well, that isn't quite right. I knew that in order to effect meaningful change in my life, I needed to develop new, adult coping mechanisms. I just didn't know how to do that. I looked to the people in my life to learn how and made a very poor choice, landing myself in a same-sex relationship with a friend-turned-lover that was both physically and emotionally abusive.
And within months for embarking on that relationship, people I loved started dying. Four people in two years: my grandmother, my mother, my mother-figure, and a good friend. I went from an emotional cripple to an emotional quadraplegic. I couldn't cope. I understood the grieving process intellectually, but didn't know how to walk the path. Paralyzed, I huddled in on myself for a couple of years waiting for something, anything to change. And then it did. The woman I was involved with finally realized what I'd known after 6 months into our relationship, and broke things off.
Within two months I was in therapy. Something in me found the resolve to seek professional help. I wanted to understand myself, understand why I'd chosen an abusive relationship with a woman when I'd never tolerated anything of the sort from a man. And I wanted those adult coping mechanisms, damnit!
Therapy was the hardest thing I've ever done. It was 18 months of shoveling shit out of the barn in my head. Many times I wanted to quit, but I didn't, because I knew that if I stopped, I'd never start up again. It was just that painful.
But oh so worth it.
When I went in to my first appointment I told my therapist that I wanted help developing new coping mechanisms for today and tomorrow, and that I didn't want to revisit things deep in the past. I was very adamant about that. I was also very wrong.
In order to develop adult coping mechanisms, I needed to recognize the genesis of the ones that weren't working for me. And in order to determine why I'd chosen to remain in an abusive relationship with a woman, I needed to understand my relationship with my mother and how it shaped me, emotionally.
For years I'd blamed my being an emotional cripple on my father, a Viet Nam Vet whom I'd never liked even as a toddler, and who was physically, mentally and emotionally abusive all through my childhood. And while, certainly, his style of "fathering" was damaging, it was my mother's "mothering" skills, or lack thereof, which shaped my emotional landscape.
My mother was adopted. It's something she never got over, that very fundamental abandonment, and the onotological angst (Who am I? Why am I?) haunted her. She was herself an emotional cripple. She wanted closeness but feared it. She pulled with one hand and pushed with the other. She married to get away from her evangelical parents, and children were an accidental by-product of that choice. She didn't want children, and she didn't want motherhood. She hated keeping house and by the time I was five I was doing dishes and laundry, dressing my younger sisters, changing diapers, etc. I feared her temper. I kicked her once and she told me if I did it again, she'd break my leg. I believed her. She actually chased after me with a bullwhip once. When I was injured, I was afraid to go to her for care, because she was so impersonal and rough. But she had a wonderful voice and she told good stories and sometimes she was warm and loving. My best memories are of her playing with my hair.
She and my father fought, often violently, and after really bad fights one of them would disappear for a few days. But one day -- one day she went away and didn't come back.
And that was what crippled me.
See, children don't understand the world, but as children, we do try, and we make the best sense of it we can. In the absence of explanations that make sense to us, we connect the dots and come to our own conclusions. We make up our own meanings, our own stories, and we live inside them.
From a child's perspective, a mother is someone who loves you always, no matter what, and will always be there. From a child's perspective, when Mommy leaves you, it's because there is something wrong with you. When my mother left, my sisters and I made it mean that we were unlovable and unworthy -- that there was something wrong with us, something so wrong that even Mommy couldn't stand to be our mother. We internalized it and forgot the story we'd made up. We lived it.
And I took up the mantle of mothering. I thought that it was my fault that my sisters didn't have a mother anymore, so I took it on, as best I could. As best as any nine-year-old could. My father re-married and I took on my step-sisters, too, since their mother, like my father, was all too eager to offload parenting responsibilities so they could go play.
I became an enabler, a rescuer, a fixer. I became controlling and manipulative. I craved peace and harmony, and to my young eyes, the familiar, the status quo, was the closest I could come to that. I developed skills and coping mechanisms designed to perpetuate those conditions. It was a comfortable, if miserable existence. In therapy, I learned to call it what it was, neurosis. Jung said that neurosis is "the suffering of the soul which has not discovered its meaning" and that pretty much says it all.
So in the course of therapy, I discovered the story I'd made up about the little girl who was unworthy of her mother's love, and I learned to comfort my inner child and nurture her (instead of everyone else). I let go of my strangle-hold on my old ways of being and opened up to learning new tools and ways of being. I worked out my mommy-issues and my daddy-issues and took ownership of my life, my relationships, my emotions, thoughts, and attitudes. I fully inhabit me.
I'm emotionally and psychologically adult now. I am capable of loving and being loved without building barriers to protect myself from fears of loss and abandonment. I've buried three more family members in as many years and come through those experiences feeling enriched, and at times, transformed.
My biggest challenge so far has been dealing with my youngest sister, whose mental illness and refusal to accept the help and care she needs had challenged the limits of my ability to cope. Today she's in an institutional setting, the enforced structure of which seems to be giving her the basis she needs to examine and rebuild her life.
I'm facing a new challenge soon, the challenge of mothering my son, and I feel confident that I am up to it. Finally, at 44, I think I'm grown-up enough to be a good parent, to raise a child without fear of perpetuating the emotional and psychological issues that have plagued my family. And what a tremendous feeling it is!
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Letter #2 to my unborn son
Darling boy,
We are in week 26 of our journey together, the start of the third trimester, and you will arrive in 12 to 13 weeks. For silly reasons of my own I am hoping that you arrive after May 20th, though that may change as you grow larger and the rigors of pregnancy take their toll.
In the past three weeks my body has changed significantly. I definitely have a belly now, and I notice it most when I'm out for a walk. I have to ask your father to slow down now, because when I try to keep up with him I get a cramp :) As each day goes by I am able to exert myself less without cramps or aches. I notice it most when I'm working in the garden. Even with tools I'm having to take things easy, and I can't assume that I'll be able to do as much from one day to the next. I'm staying as active as I can without risking our safety.
Most days it feels like Spring, which is good, because I'm not feeling as chilled as I was just a few weeks ago. The primroses I planted last year are re-blooming, and the red cyclamen are still growing strong. They are the same color of red as the front door. I've noticed that the wisteria has dozens of flower buds that seem to be swelling a little bit every day. The jasmine are really growing, and the scented rose is leafing out. The plum tree in back is just starting to show it's white blossoms, and in a few weeks, so will the peach tree. The lemon verbena is putting out some leaves now. I'd feared it died in last month's unusual chill. I love the lemon smell and once it is strong again, I'll transplant it into the same flower bed as the rosemary and lavender bushes. I've also got a bird-of-paradise plant to put in between the bottle-brush tree and the mandarin tree at the edge of the patio. In a few years it's orange and red and blue flowers will tie-in the colors of the two trees, and fill the space between them with beautiful foliage. I hope you'll inherit my love of plants, and help me in the garden as you grow.
Hopefully by the end of February the work at the front of the house will be done. We're putting in irrigation and replacing the 60 year old lawn. When that work is done I'll be planting hostas, ferns and astilbe in the flowerbed under the living room windows, and the weeping cherry blossom trees will be planted at the yard's edge, near the sidewalk. In late March your grandfather on your father's side will be coming to stay for a bit, and we'll work on the side yard together. The gravel that was put in by the previous owners is black with sharp edges--pretty enough, but it's not safe for you--and we'll replace it with pavers, thus extending the patio area into a space that will be cool and shady on warm summer afternoons.
Sleeping is becoming more of a challenge, which isn't unexpected. It's a struggle to sleep on my side. I'm constantly waking up on my back with tingly nerve feelings in my legs. I am grateful for the tempurpedic bed, because otherwise I'd be sore and sleepless most of the time.
I'm trying not to obsess too much about the world you're being born into, and I'm trying not to let the sadness, anger, and despair I sometimes feel stick around for too long. I know that the biochemical soup you're swimming in can be affected by my stress, and thus affects you.
The world is in a sorry state, though. Carbon dioxide emissions have jumped tremendously, beyond the worst-case scenarios of many scientists. The oceans are acidifying because of carbon dioxide build-up, and the glaciers and polar ice are melting far more rapidly than predicted. When the rest of the world appears to be in agreement that we all need to limit CO2 emissions and wean off oil, the US, dominated as it is by oil-company-interests and lobbyists, seems determined to believe that we're the smart ones and the rest of the world has been suckered by a hoax (roll eyes). Here in the States we've picked up the pace of natural gas extraction using techniques called "fracking", techniques that pump millions of gallons of water and chemicals into the ground to liberate the gas. The problem is, it's polluting ground-water, and drinking water is already in short supply world-wide. How terribly short-sighted of us.
Southern Europe is in a financial crises, and seeing as Italy accounts for nearly 20% of the GDP for the EU, it cannot be allowed to fail. However, the corrupt politicians and even more corrupt mafia are making people extremely reluctant to co-operate with austerity measures. Greece is on fire, literally. The people of Greece are protesting the way the world banks and the European Union are handling that nation's debt crisis -- a problem created with the help of Goldman Sachs, who helped Greece's politicians conceal it's debts so it could get into the EU in the first place.
I'm not sure what the Internet is going to look like for you when you're old enough to use it. Powerful lobbies are at work to make it easier to monetize media traffic and invade people's privacy in the name of copyright and IP protection. Between that and the increasing amount of money that corporations are pouring into PACs which influence the political landscape, I half-fear that Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash will be far more prophetic than any of us will like. Will you come into adulthood living in a corporate enclave in a corporate town policed by corporate security in an America in which the line between the haves and have-nots is sharply delineated? Or will you grow up in Canada, your father's homeland, because we had to flee the insanity here in the US? I don't know, but more and more it is looking like it may be a necessary option.
Everywhere in the world there is ideological oppression of one sort or another. Right now in the US women's rights are being targeted by politicians on the Right, hoping somehow to invigorate their conservative Christian base to get out and vote in November. The Republicans are having their primaries and caucuses right now, and it looks like less than 5% of eligible voters are actually showing up at the polls. I think all the negative super-PAC ads and attacks are alienating all voters, regardless of party. And I'm not sure this is accidental. It is in corporate interests to keep voter participation to a minimum. It is easier to control for a smaller electorate than a large, active one. It costs them less money to buy votes and politicians that way, and they've a much better chance of making sure things go their way.
Currently we're embroiled in a health care debate over whether or not employers should be required to provide health insurance that covers prescription contraceptives. The argument is it violates the freedom of religion in this country. The irony is that the Founding Fathers weren't concerned with preserving religious freedom from government interference. They were concerned about keeping religion OUT of government. Most of them were Deists, and most of them were appalled by the control that the various religious sects exerted over their congregations, cities, counties, and even states. The Christians of a couple of hundred years ago were not shy about running people out of town if they weren't of the same denomination, and weren't shy about trying to expand theocracy, which the Founding Fathers considered antithetical to their Enlightenment-Period beliefs and values. But most Americans are woefully ignorant of what happened yesterday, never mind what happened 200 or 300 years ago. Most are sheeple who are willing to believe what someone else spoon-feeds them, as long as it is dressed up to suit their ideological bent. It's sad, and discouraging, and frankly, disgusting.
But for all that, I am hopeful. I'm looking for ways to make the world a better place for you. I'm working on developing community in our neighborhood. I'm planting fruits and vegetables on our property and helping in Rachel's community garden. I'm looking at ways to develop and expand the Green Economy. I envision a world in which people live in harmony with the planet. A world in which every person lives a sustainable lifestyle and every company does business in a sustainable way. I believe it is possible for humanity to leap toward a new level of consciousness that unites, rather than divides us. If I didn't think it was possible to turn the tide of the world toward such things, I could not bring you into it. I hope when the time comes that you're self-aware and world-aware that you won't hate the older generations for what we've done, and what we've failed to do. I hope, I really hope, to make this a better world for you.
Love,
Mom
We are in week 26 of our journey together, the start of the third trimester, and you will arrive in 12 to 13 weeks. For silly reasons of my own I am hoping that you arrive after May 20th, though that may change as you grow larger and the rigors of pregnancy take their toll.
In the past three weeks my body has changed significantly. I definitely have a belly now, and I notice it most when I'm out for a walk. I have to ask your father to slow down now, because when I try to keep up with him I get a cramp :) As each day goes by I am able to exert myself less without cramps or aches. I notice it most when I'm working in the garden. Even with tools I'm having to take things easy, and I can't assume that I'll be able to do as much from one day to the next. I'm staying as active as I can without risking our safety.
Most days it feels like Spring, which is good, because I'm not feeling as chilled as I was just a few weeks ago. The primroses I planted last year are re-blooming, and the red cyclamen are still growing strong. They are the same color of red as the front door. I've noticed that the wisteria has dozens of flower buds that seem to be swelling a little bit every day. The jasmine are really growing, and the scented rose is leafing out. The plum tree in back is just starting to show it's white blossoms, and in a few weeks, so will the peach tree. The lemon verbena is putting out some leaves now. I'd feared it died in last month's unusual chill. I love the lemon smell and once it is strong again, I'll transplant it into the same flower bed as the rosemary and lavender bushes. I've also got a bird-of-paradise plant to put in between the bottle-brush tree and the mandarin tree at the edge of the patio. In a few years it's orange and red and blue flowers will tie-in the colors of the two trees, and fill the space between them with beautiful foliage. I hope you'll inherit my love of plants, and help me in the garden as you grow.
Hopefully by the end of February the work at the front of the house will be done. We're putting in irrigation and replacing the 60 year old lawn. When that work is done I'll be planting hostas, ferns and astilbe in the flowerbed under the living room windows, and the weeping cherry blossom trees will be planted at the yard's edge, near the sidewalk. In late March your grandfather on your father's side will be coming to stay for a bit, and we'll work on the side yard together. The gravel that was put in by the previous owners is black with sharp edges--pretty enough, but it's not safe for you--and we'll replace it with pavers, thus extending the patio area into a space that will be cool and shady on warm summer afternoons.
Sleeping is becoming more of a challenge, which isn't unexpected. It's a struggle to sleep on my side. I'm constantly waking up on my back with tingly nerve feelings in my legs. I am grateful for the tempurpedic bed, because otherwise I'd be sore and sleepless most of the time.
I'm trying not to obsess too much about the world you're being born into, and I'm trying not to let the sadness, anger, and despair I sometimes feel stick around for too long. I know that the biochemical soup you're swimming in can be affected by my stress, and thus affects you.
The world is in a sorry state, though. Carbon dioxide emissions have jumped tremendously, beyond the worst-case scenarios of many scientists. The oceans are acidifying because of carbon dioxide build-up, and the glaciers and polar ice are melting far more rapidly than predicted. When the rest of the world appears to be in agreement that we all need to limit CO2 emissions and wean off oil, the US, dominated as it is by oil-company-interests and lobbyists, seems determined to believe that we're the smart ones and the rest of the world has been suckered by a hoax (roll eyes). Here in the States we've picked up the pace of natural gas extraction using techniques called "fracking", techniques that pump millions of gallons of water and chemicals into the ground to liberate the gas. The problem is, it's polluting ground-water, and drinking water is already in short supply world-wide. How terribly short-sighted of us.
Southern Europe is in a financial crises, and seeing as Italy accounts for nearly 20% of the GDP for the EU, it cannot be allowed to fail. However, the corrupt politicians and even more corrupt mafia are making people extremely reluctant to co-operate with austerity measures. Greece is on fire, literally. The people of Greece are protesting the way the world banks and the European Union are handling that nation's debt crisis -- a problem created with the help of Goldman Sachs, who helped Greece's politicians conceal it's debts so it could get into the EU in the first place.
I'm not sure what the Internet is going to look like for you when you're old enough to use it. Powerful lobbies are at work to make it easier to monetize media traffic and invade people's privacy in the name of copyright and IP protection. Between that and the increasing amount of money that corporations are pouring into PACs which influence the political landscape, I half-fear that Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash will be far more prophetic than any of us will like. Will you come into adulthood living in a corporate enclave in a corporate town policed by corporate security in an America in which the line between the haves and have-nots is sharply delineated? Or will you grow up in Canada, your father's homeland, because we had to flee the insanity here in the US? I don't know, but more and more it is looking like it may be a necessary option.
Everywhere in the world there is ideological oppression of one sort or another. Right now in the US women's rights are being targeted by politicians on the Right, hoping somehow to invigorate their conservative Christian base to get out and vote in November. The Republicans are having their primaries and caucuses right now, and it looks like less than 5% of eligible voters are actually showing up at the polls. I think all the negative super-PAC ads and attacks are alienating all voters, regardless of party. And I'm not sure this is accidental. It is in corporate interests to keep voter participation to a minimum. It is easier to control for a smaller electorate than a large, active one. It costs them less money to buy votes and politicians that way, and they've a much better chance of making sure things go their way.
Currently we're embroiled in a health care debate over whether or not employers should be required to provide health insurance that covers prescription contraceptives. The argument is it violates the freedom of religion in this country. The irony is that the Founding Fathers weren't concerned with preserving religious freedom from government interference. They were concerned about keeping religion OUT of government. Most of them were Deists, and most of them were appalled by the control that the various religious sects exerted over their congregations, cities, counties, and even states. The Christians of a couple of hundred years ago were not shy about running people out of town if they weren't of the same denomination, and weren't shy about trying to expand theocracy, which the Founding Fathers considered antithetical to their Enlightenment-Period beliefs and values. But most Americans are woefully ignorant of what happened yesterday, never mind what happened 200 or 300 years ago. Most are sheeple who are willing to believe what someone else spoon-feeds them, as long as it is dressed up to suit their ideological bent. It's sad, and discouraging, and frankly, disgusting.
But for all that, I am hopeful. I'm looking for ways to make the world a better place for you. I'm working on developing community in our neighborhood. I'm planting fruits and vegetables on our property and helping in Rachel's community garden. I'm looking at ways to develop and expand the Green Economy. I envision a world in which people live in harmony with the planet. A world in which every person lives a sustainable lifestyle and every company does business in a sustainable way. I believe it is possible for humanity to leap toward a new level of consciousness that unites, rather than divides us. If I didn't think it was possible to turn the tide of the world toward such things, I could not bring you into it. I hope when the time comes that you're self-aware and world-aware that you won't hate the older generations for what we've done, and what we've failed to do. I hope, I really hope, to make this a better world for you.
Love,
Mom
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Is it responsible to bring a child into this world?
I'm working to resolve my pregnancy ambivalency. On the one hand, it's a wonderful, exciting, and beautiful gift to grow a new life within my own body. On the other hand, I'm concerned about what happens to that new life once he's born. What kind of future is he being born into? Is it responsible to bring a child into this world?
One of my serious reservations about bringing more children into the world is my awareness of the unsustainability of the American lifestyle and the effect that over-population and resource depletion is having on the planet.
I worked for nearly 7 years with inner-city kids. They amazed me very day, and broke my heart every day. I knew that for some, the meals we gave them were the only meals they'd have that day. I knew that for others, the attention we gave them was the only healthy adult interaction they had. I saw desperate parents working two and three jobs, single mothers going to school to try to provide better lives for their children, and, yes, I saw the crack-addicted parents, and the pimps and exploited women, and the drug-dealing teen gangers. It broke my heart, knowing what my kids went home to every night. And it gave me hope, seeing how much those children wanted to thrive, how hard some of them worked at school, and how readily they responded to positive feedback and influences. Many of my kids finished high school. Some died before they were 18 due to accidents, neglect, and violence. Some went on to college and climbed out of the ghetto. Some ended up as parents before their mid-teens.
Scarcity of resources and opportunity had a lot to do with the conditions in that inner-city -- has a lot to do with what is going on in the world today. As more and more people in developing countries come to enjoy non-subsistence lifestyles, the pressure on the planet grows. And I'm not just talking about things like scarcity of food and water and energy sources. I'm talking about things like the acidification of the oceans.
Ocean acidification is a serious problem no one seems to know about. Current pH levels are already interfering with the ability of corals and mollusks and crustaceans to calcify -- ie, to generate their shells and exoskeletons. It is quite possible that shellfish could become extinct in my son's lifetime -- or at least so rare that they're no longer a foodstuff. Which affects the entire food-chain in unimaginable ways. Humans have used the oceans for waste disposal and now the huge amounts of CO2 that the oceans are absorbing are affecting the basic chemistry of life in those oceans. Combine that with rising temperatures and we're sitting on a time-bomb -- and passing it like a hot-potato down the line for later generations to deal with.
The breakdown of social systems and social responsibility, the breakdown of families and communities, also have a lot to do with the conditions in the inner-city, and the problems in the world today. With the scarcity and hoarding of resources, people and corporations become numb to social ramifications. We become concerned not just with having enough to meet our needs, but more than enough. We want excess. We become obsessed with ourselves and our needs and put them before the needs of our families, communities, and society at large. People not "us" become "other." We dehumanize them so we can see them as little more than bothersome competitors for the better things in life, or worse, tools to be exploited in pursuit of the better things in life. And when enough people do that, we experience what is known as The Tragedy of the Commons. Not to mention wars and human rights violations and famines.
I'm an optimist and a pragmatist, and while I believe in the possibility that humanity will do what we need to do before it is too late, the pragmatist in me recognizes that we're already in a Global Tragedy of the Commons situation. And I'm knowingly bringing a child into this mess.
At this point, I'm choosing to be an optimist, and actively so. I'm re-committing myself to being a responsible consumer. Cloth diapers, not disposable. Recycling and re-purposing. Growing more of my own food. Using renewable, clean energy. Sharing with neighbors. Walking more and driving less.
If I don't, the future just seems too grim, especially for my unborn son, and I'd feel wrong about my decision to bring him into the world.
One of my serious reservations about bringing more children into the world is my awareness of the unsustainability of the American lifestyle and the effect that over-population and resource depletion is having on the planet.
I worked for nearly 7 years with inner-city kids. They amazed me very day, and broke my heart every day. I knew that for some, the meals we gave them were the only meals they'd have that day. I knew that for others, the attention we gave them was the only healthy adult interaction they had. I saw desperate parents working two and three jobs, single mothers going to school to try to provide better lives for their children, and, yes, I saw the crack-addicted parents, and the pimps and exploited women, and the drug-dealing teen gangers. It broke my heart, knowing what my kids went home to every night. And it gave me hope, seeing how much those children wanted to thrive, how hard some of them worked at school, and how readily they responded to positive feedback and influences. Many of my kids finished high school. Some died before they were 18 due to accidents, neglect, and violence. Some went on to college and climbed out of the ghetto. Some ended up as parents before their mid-teens.
Scarcity of resources and opportunity had a lot to do with the conditions in that inner-city -- has a lot to do with what is going on in the world today. As more and more people in developing countries come to enjoy non-subsistence lifestyles, the pressure on the planet grows. And I'm not just talking about things like scarcity of food and water and energy sources. I'm talking about things like the acidification of the oceans.
Ocean acidification is a serious problem no one seems to know about. Current pH levels are already interfering with the ability of corals and mollusks and crustaceans to calcify -- ie, to generate their shells and exoskeletons. It is quite possible that shellfish could become extinct in my son's lifetime -- or at least so rare that they're no longer a foodstuff. Which affects the entire food-chain in unimaginable ways. Humans have used the oceans for waste disposal and now the huge amounts of CO2 that the oceans are absorbing are affecting the basic chemistry of life in those oceans. Combine that with rising temperatures and we're sitting on a time-bomb -- and passing it like a hot-potato down the line for later generations to deal with.
The breakdown of social systems and social responsibility, the breakdown of families and communities, also have a lot to do with the conditions in the inner-city, and the problems in the world today. With the scarcity and hoarding of resources, people and corporations become numb to social ramifications. We become concerned not just with having enough to meet our needs, but more than enough. We want excess. We become obsessed with ourselves and our needs and put them before the needs of our families, communities, and society at large. People not "us" become "other." We dehumanize them so we can see them as little more than bothersome competitors for the better things in life, or worse, tools to be exploited in pursuit of the better things in life. And when enough people do that, we experience what is known as The Tragedy of the Commons. Not to mention wars and human rights violations and famines.
I'm an optimist and a pragmatist, and while I believe in the possibility that humanity will do what we need to do before it is too late, the pragmatist in me recognizes that we're already in a Global Tragedy of the Commons situation. And I'm knowingly bringing a child into this mess.
At this point, I'm choosing to be an optimist, and actively so. I'm re-committing myself to being a responsible consumer. Cloth diapers, not disposable. Recycling and re-purposing. Growing more of my own food. Using renewable, clean energy. Sharing with neighbors. Walking more and driving less.
If I don't, the future just seems too grim, especially for my unborn son, and I'd feel wrong about my decision to bring him into the world.
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