Category: Angry Rant

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When Mom is a Mom Blogger

I have three kids.  One is a newborn my husband and I adopted last month, one is a four year old who is brilliant and sweet (of course), and one is dead, the victim of an aggressive brain tumor at four years old.  That’s my family in a nutshell.  To me, these children are the most precious creatures that exist on this earth, probably a lot like yours are to you.  I treasure them and wonder how I got so lucky in this life to be surrounded by such love and joy.  I am blessed.  Truly.

The child I write the most about is my beautiful daughter, Donna.  Anyone who reads Mary Tyler Mom knows of my girl, as she is a central figure in both my life and my writing.  She guides me through my days, reminding me to choose patience, choose joy, choose hope.  These are lessons I need each and every day and my dear Donna is my constant teacher.  I am grateful to have been her Mom and miss her utterly, completely, thoroughly.

Donna

My four year old is only referred to as Mary Tyler Son in my posts.  He is a bright, beaming, curious, funny, smart boy.  He is every inch four years old, which means he can be challenging at times, aggressive at times, endearing at times, playful most all of the time, and so, so beautiful.  This boy saved me after Donna’s death.  Rather than run down the rabbit hole, he reminded me, every day, with his ten month old self, that I was still a mother of a child that needed me desperately.  He deserved no less than I gave Donna, which was all of me, everything.  Mothering him pulled me through the thick of my early grief.  Mary Tyler Son will always be my light.

School

And now, through adoption, we have been chosen to parent again.  I honest to God can think of nothing more sacred than asking another human being to care for and love and raise your child.  Think about that and just let it marinate a moment.  We honor our selection, being chosen, and this beautiful boy by parenting him, just as we did Donna, and just as we do Mary Tyler Son.  We are all in.  All in.  Mary Tyler Baby is what I will call him here and you will come to know him through my words.  I don’t know much so far about Mary Tyler Baby, other than he fills me up, makes me smile, blesses me every day, and needs me to love and care for him.  I am his Mom.  That’s heady stuff.

Feet

That’s how parenting works, yo.

Right now my kids are of an age or a circumstance where they don’t give a fig about me being a mom blogger.  Mary Tyler Son is intrigued by it and knows that when I am sitting in front of the computer screen I am blogging or Facebooking, which these days, is almost an extension of blogging.  He calls me a writer and that’s just about the coolest thing I could imagine.  Sometimes, he wants me to post about him, “Tell your blogging friends X, Y and Z,” he will demand of me.  What can I say, it charms me.

There are strangers around the world who are charmed by Mary Tyler Son because of what I share in my blog and Facebook page.  And I gots to say, it’s a great feeling when others find your kid charming, right?  It happens in your life, too, even if you’re not a mom blogger.

What’s not so cool are some of the other things that happen when you’re a mom blogger.

  • Sometimes, when I write about the more challenging behaviors of Mary Tyler Son, strangers call him a brat or “full of himself.”  Who in the hell says that about a four year old boy?  Strangers tell me what I am doing wrong and that my poor parenting choices will absolutely result in raising a future law breaker, jail bird, loser.  Oh!  And how could I forget the woman who damned poor Mary Tyler Son’s soul to eternal hell and the gratitude she expressed at having children whose soul’s were not black like his.  Sheesh.  Fire and brimstone ain’t my thing.  
  • Some folks don’t understand why I still write about Donna four years after her death.  She has been called worm food and I have been told to “get a new angle,” as the Donna angle was “wearing thin.”
  • Earlier this year when something I wrote about adoption was featured on the Huffington Post, I was on the receiving end of two weeks of strangers lashing out at me, consistently and repeatedly, in the comment section from hell.  I was called a baby thief, rich white bitch, narcissist, entitled, opportunistic, manipulative, and a few other choice words.  I’m not gonna lie to you.  That episode really ran a number on me and contributed to a depressive episode that made me question our wish to adopt.  
  • A couple of years ago I posted a photo of Mary Tyler Son on Facebook that involved a parenting mistake I had made at the end of a stressful week.  I captioned it with the words, “Worst Mother Ever.”  A rabid pack of fellow mothers saw that and rather than acknowledge, yeah, that Mary Tyler Mom made a mistake, they wished for my son’s death.  They then described the death they wished for in great detail, in hopes that I would learn a lesson.  After that didn’t get a rise out of them, the image of my son was stolen, copied, and several Facebook pages were started with him being the poster boy/profile shot of new pages focused on what a bad mother I was.

So being the child of a mom blogger is not all it’s cracked up to be, you see.  That is why I protect my kids.  That is why I don’t post photos of my living children with their faces exposed.  That is why I don’t use the names of my living children openly attached to my blog.

They didn’t ask me to be a mom blogger, to have their exploits, both good and bad, publicized for all the world to see.  It’s not my place to call them names or endlessly complain about how they are ruining my life.  Other mom bloggers do that and it’s super cool for them, but it just isn’t my cup of tea.  And that is okay, cause you like what you like and there’s all sorts of fish in this mom blogger sea.

If you don’t care for what I’m doing, like the Facebook commenter this week who asked what the benefit of my page was if I only show my baby’s feet and don’t even give his name out, well then, it is easy as pie to hit the “unlike” button and go about your day.  There are literally thousands of other mom bloggers who will fill up your news feeds with adorable photos of faces instead of feet.  I promise, I won’t mind in the least.  Most likely, I won’t even notice you left.  That sounds harsh, but honest to God, I am sleep deprived these days and don’t drink coffee.  I don’t keep up with the numbers like I used to.

For those of you who do stick around, who don’t mind a parade of baby toes in your news feeds, or a series of hilarious and wacky questions from the back seat that Mary Tyler Son asks on an almost daily basis, well hells bells,  I am so happy to know you!  You make my life richer in a thousand different ways that are hard to convey.  I so appreciate your company and your respect and your empathy.

This parenting is tough stuff.  My husband and I do the best we can.  For us, that means no photos and no names of our boys.  Other mom bloggers make different choices, which is A-OK!  Hey, you can enjoy as many of us as can fit on your feed, and no doubt, that will involve a whole lot of feet and faces.

 

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A Depressing Post About the Current State of America

Did you ever have an older relative who used to wax poetic about “the good old days?”  You know the one, cause we all have at least one.  I so distinctly remember listening to mine when I was in my early 20s.  Good God, were those rants depressing, not to mention annoying as hell.

Well, boys and girls, my transformation into that older cranky relative appears to be complete, cause right now, right here, Imma unleash some words about the “good old days” as our country hovers over the cliff of default and remains in partial shutdown.

America, America, God shed his grace on thee

And if you don’t know about things like raising the debt ceiling and why our government is currently shutdown, WHY THE HELL NOT?  You should.  This is about you, my disinterested friend.  That disinterest, that apathy you wear like a badge, is part of the problem.  We’ve got some rogue politicians running amok in our capital these days, brandishing machetes and hurtling towards our well being.  Do yourself a favor, your kids a favor, your neighbors a favor, and your favorite blogger a favor and spend a few minutes Googling. Start slowly with phrases like, “government shutdown,” and “debt ceiling.” Go ahead, the rest of us will wait for you.

You done yet?

Good.

Something I like to do first thing in the morning is scan the headlines of a few favored news outlets along with my Facebook feed.  I’ve got some friends on both sides of the political spectrum, so typically get a fairly broad, albeit biased, selection of headlines.  With a newborn now, I have mastered the one hand bottle hold, leaving the second hand free to swipe and scan. It’s not enough, but it keeps me informed.

And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea

This morning, among ever more posts about how stupid conservatives are, and others about how stupid liberals are, I had just about had enough. Enough.  I wrote a barbaric yawp and posted it on the Facebook.  (Please tell me you know what a barbaric yawp is.  If you need to Google again, yes, we’ll wait.  That is important information to have, cause you never know when you will need to sound your own barbaric yawp.  That shit is therapeutic.  You should try it sometime.)  Anyway.  This morning I sounded my own barbaric yawp and it went a little something like this:

A few words about our government: What happened to the concept of the greater good? When did Americans, left or right, red or blue, stop acknowledging they serve a people and not a party? We call ourselves the greatest country on earth, and yet are acting like we can’t wait to self-mutilate, self-destruct, and implode, wreaking havoc not only on ourselves, but those around the globe who used to look to us as an example, a guiding light, an ideal. It is a damn shame.

What I forgot to write is the line, “We are better than this.”  But now I think I didn’t forget to write that line, I simply think it is no longer true.  We used to be better than this, but now I’m not so sure.

Confirm they soul in self-control

More and more it feels like we only want to hear what we want to hear.  We only tune into media sources that confirm our already solidified sense of the world, namely, we are right and they are wrong (or, conversely, we are left and they are wrong).  Doesn’t matter which way you vote, cause that particular sin is absolutely bipartisan.  We take glee, glee, in stories or headlines that tout how wrong/awful/horrible the other side is, accepting no responsibility for the issues and problems that our own party brings to the table.

It takes two to tango, you know?

As soon as one side, one party, is absolutely right and the other side is absolutely wrong, there will be no progress.  And this whole no progress thing is becoming increasingly dangerous.  Not just for the poor or vulnerable who have no voice and are easy to marginalize, but for the middle class, who whether they know it or not are completely dependent on a healthy operating government, and for the corporate class, who may be laughing all the way to the bank right now, but will rue the day that they chose not to trouble themselves with things like health care or retirement benefits for their workers.

O beautiful for patriot dream, that sees beyond the years

Has anyone stopped to consider what happens when huge swaths of people don’t have health care or retirement benefits?  It ain’t pretty, folks.  But with patience, we’ll find out soon enough, cause that is the direction we are headed.

Greater good, people.  We need to put our differences aside for the greater good.  We need to take an interest in how a handful of politicians, liberals and conservatives, are hijacking our futures for the chance to say, “We won!  The other side cowered under the pressure!  We are the champions!”

Truth is, right now, every single American is losing, and come later this week, many more global citizens will be losing, too, all at the hands of a very few fanatics in Washington, D.C., full of pride and self-import, and greed, and hubris.

And if you need to Google hubris, well, I’m not waiting any longer.

Til selfish gain no longer stain the banner of the free

America, America

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Feeding Your Adopted Infant

As a two time mom myself, I am grateful to have breastfed two babies.  For me, the experience was uncomplicated, fulfilling, empowering, lovely.  I wrote about it here in one of my favorite parenting posts ever.  Long story short, it’s hard to argue that breast is best.  Scientifically, it just is.  GO BREASTS!  GO LACTATION!  WOO to the HOO-TERS!

That said, breastfeeding is not always easy nor possible for all women.  I assumed that with our third child, a child we knew would be coming to us through adoption, that bottles and formula would be the only options.  And I was A-OK with that.

Breastfeeding never defined my being a mother, and it was never a huge part of my mom identity.  It was just something sweet and intimate and amazing I got to do with my kiddos and I felt lucky for it, all 28 months of it.

Then a few days ago, I read this piece from Huffington Post about an adoptive mom breastfeeding.  What the what?  The headline alone kind of grabbed me.  I knew somewhere, in the back of my mom brain, that breastfeeding an adopted child was possible, but assumed it was the tube taped to your nipple and the plastic bag of formula thrown over your shoulder kind of breastfeeding.  More like “breastfeeding.”  Nope, not for me.

But the gal in the article (Catherine Pearson) described her own experience of breastfeeding her newly adopted infant.  It involved inducing lactation with prescribed synthetic hormones.  Now mind you, these prescribed hormones are not approved by the FDA for this purpose, so are not covered under insurance.  Inducing lactation also involves days to weeks of prepping with manual breast stimulation and pumping to simulate an infant’s sucking.  The author describes it best:

I pumped every three hours for the six weeks before our son was born, even at work. I got up in the middle of the night. For the first week, I made literally drops. But slowly, I was able to increase that to about 5 ounces each day.

She goes on to describe that she was never able to pump enough herself, so had to rely on supplements for her baby to get the proper nutrition necessary for proper growth and development.

Honestly, a third of the way into the article, I knew that inducing lactation was not a choice I would ever make.  There is something decidedly unnatural about taking synthetic hormones to induce lactation.  And, for me (not you, me), inducing lactation after adopting an infant seems as if I would be fighting nature.  There is more to motherhood than breastfeeding.  There, I said it.  Yep, I did.

But still, Catherine Pearson’s article grabbed me, and I was having a hard time letting it go.  I am a huge advocate for live and let live.  The fact that Ms. Pearson was willing to do things that I was not in order to breastfeed her adopted child should not impact my life in the least.  Maybe it was this sentence that did it:

Within the first hour, I was able to breastfeed him, and I stayed with him and breastfed him every time he woke just like any normal mom would.

Yep.  That’s the one.  What, on earth, I wondered, was a “normal mom”? Seriously.  And because I am hoping to be an adoptive mom, is that somehow less than normal?  It seemed as if Ms. Pearson was working awfully hard to help herself feel like a “normal mom,” and in doing so was casting judgment on other adoptive moms who opt out of round the clock pumping and taking synthetic hormones.

I posted a link to the article on my personal Facebook page (yes, along with my outrage) and one friend made the point that the author wasn’t disparaging other moms, just writing about her own personal experience, which is true, but as I always say, language is powerful.  POWERFUL.  POWERFUL, people!  By suggesting that she felt like a “normal mom” by breastfeeding, just like she had with her other children, anything other than breastfeeding would be less than normal.

Yeah, whatever.  I don’t need to breastfeed to feel like a normal mom for a few reasons:

  1. I know there is no such damn thing as a “normal mom”
  2. Motherhood is about more than genetics and biology
  3. I feel secure enough in myself and in my mothering that I don’t need to go to such extremes to prove my maternal worth or my mothering abilities
  4. Bonding is about more than breasts

The other thing that got me is more an issue specific to moms who parent children who come to them both biologically and through adoption.  I will be the first to admit that part of the reason we want to adopt an infant is so that we have baby stories for ALL our children — that we can share as much with our kids as is possible.  I would hate to talk to them in a few years and be able to share intimate details of Mary Tyler Son’s very early days and when it comes time for our youngest, not have that information or experience. Selfish?  Yes, absolutely.

But it leads to a larger issue I grapple with myself on many days.  I know our children will be different.  They just will be.  Our oldest is dead and buried. Different.  Our middle is biological and looks just like Dad.  Different.  Our youngest will have two moms and two brothers, only one set of which will live with him.  Different.  Not less than, not more than, just different.

Adoption is its own unique and amazing and lovely experience.  Isn’t that, even minus the biology and lactation, inherently worthy and special?  I hate the notion that if biology cannot be duplicated or simulated, it is somehow less than normal.  Why can’t adoption be celebrated for what it is — the coming together of adults who make the most sacred of pacts to honor and ensure the health and well being of a child.

And that, my friends, goes so far beyond a bottle or mammary glands or synthetic hormones that I haven’t figured out how to put it into words yet.  But, yes, my bottles are ready and my nursing bras are long since gone.  And I’m okay with all of it and so very, very grateful.

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