On the consequence of confidence...

Today on the way home from dance Avery became upset about something she was not allowed to do last week.  In typical Avery fashion, she was deeply caught up in the tragic unfairness of it all.  She wondered out loud, “Maybe bad things keep happening to me because I don’t like myself or maybe it’s just that I don’t know myself.”  It was all I could do not to laugh out loud.  I figure this was probably not the most logical instant reaction, but I found humor in the depth of such a comment coming from such a young brain.  Aren’t these the very issues we grapple with through the toughest parts of our lives… the big transitions…  The more I thought about it the more I realized the comment really wasn’t funny.  It was a moment that caused me pause as I contemplated some interesting conundrums all parents face.

This child raising is risky business.  Any parenting style comes with consequence – for you, your child, their future children and all people who come into the lives of each of the latter.    For some reason it came up twice last week that I was a tad bit spoiled when it came to some material things.  I was given 18 (yes 18) Cabbage Patch Kids through the course of my childhood.  The second time it came up in a matter of days I felt compelled to defend my parents and their parenting choices.  I added that we were also spoiled with love and praise, and the result was assertive, outgoing adults.  I often describe our assertiveness this way; if we are in a room full of people and only two will get their needs met, we make sure we are among those two.  (Not to say we don’t care deeply about the needs of others because being raised with so much love created a nurturing side as well.)  The person I was talking with followed this up with the recent report that incoming college students have never been more confident according to self-reporting scales or less competent according to standardized tests.  The trophy for everyone, you can do anything, all are special mindset is to blame.  Were my parents wrong to make us think we walked on water?

I don’t think so.  The confidence we were instilled with caused us to thrive and survive.  I am not sure we could have gotten through a move to a whole new town during the most tumultuous of adolescent years if we did not have slightly inflated egos.  Surely athletes who push themselves are confident to the point of cockiness.  The doctors who discover never tried before life-saving cures have an arrogance and stubbornness that allow them to proceed despite risks. 

Listening to Avery wonder if she didn’t like herself, or just didn’t know herself, reminded me of just how important it is to raise self-confident children.  I was once told to not tell my girls they were pretty too often or it would go to their heads.  In this often cruel world, I hope it does.  Recently the girls and I were talking about what would happen if someone was allergic to candy.  Without thinking, I said, “Well that person would be skinny.”  Immediately, I regretted it.  I struggle with how to talk to them about making healthy choices without making fat be the ultimate undesirable confidence of not eating well.  I don’t want them to think that is the most terrible thing, because I do want them to know that I like myself.  At the same time, I do want them to be healthy. 

What I am getting at is this... Every parenting style, every way we frame the world for our children, has consequences.  Some might feel I should make the correlation between overeating and weight very clear to my kids.  Some might call my brothers and I spoiled brats.  Ultimately we have to go with what feels right to us.  Perhaps this generation of overly confident college freshmen will have the courage to be the next great generation.  Maybe the standardized tests have not kept up with growing skills needed to thrive in today’s world.  Maybe we shouldn’t spend so much energy figuring out how each generation is worse than their parents while blaming the predecessors for the failure.  My parent’s style felt right to them.  It was intentional as well.  My dad told me that he wanted us to win a few battles with them now and then so we could learn to win necessary battles outside the home.  Some would say that this may have led to us being overindulged, but I don’t think so.  We are also amazingly hard workers (modeled to us through example) and I don’t think that would be true if we didn’t somehow pick up discipline despite being showered with goodies from time to time and unconditional love all the time. 

These thoughts and more flashed through my head as I slowly approached home this evening.   Avery interrupted my mind wander with a hesitant, “I do think I know myself.”  I quickly asked her, “Do you like yourself?”  “I guess so…” she decided. I hope that whatever choices I make as a parent, more often than not  they help her slowly gain her voice as she answers that same question positively and certainly.  

On being the mother of a newborn

Two months ago I completed my comps making me ABD in my pursuit of a PhD.  In the past few years I have had four articles accepted for publication.  After my first year of teaching I was nominated for first year teacher of the year.  In high school I went from being the new student at school who didn’t even have anyone to sit by at lunch to being nominated student council president.  All of these accomplishments pale in comparison to the pride I felt Monday when I was able to load Maggie into the car, pick up both of my other girls at two different schools, change them into tights and leotards, and get them into the dance classroom before the class officially started.  Or on Tuesday when I showered in between feedings and then headed off to the grocery store where I figured out how to push and load a cart while holding the pacifier in Maggie’s mouth avoiding one of her classic scream sessions.  Newborns are tough…

            Whenever I meet a new baby I tear up as I listen to the new mother talk.  My heart breaks as I sympathize with the inadequacies, hormonal outbursts and sleepless nights that will be a part of the days ahead while being a bit jealous of the soft skin snuggles that come with the territory.  The momentousness of this life change is never lost on me…  Welcoming a new baby into the world is one of the most amazing, challenging, rewarding and scariest of live events.  In the past four weeks I have performed the following searches on my IPhone:

            How often do infants sleep?           

            Infants and goop in eyes

            Normal temperature for infants

Infants and loose stool, infants and smelly gas, color of infant poop…  (and various other questions about excrement)

When can babies track?

When can babies see color?

Infants and leg twitching (even texted a bunch of friends and bugged the poor pediatrician on FB over that one…)

Rock n play sleeper safe to sleep in

How do I keep my infant from catching our family’s cold?

How much breast milk to gain the benefits

Acid reflux in infants

Best formula for AR…

Mastitis or engorgement?

C-Section scar burning after two weeks

And a variety of other postpartum healing searches not fit for print…

No matter what I typed someone else had asked the exact same thing.  It’s normal to feel totally insecure in these early days.  The funny thing is that this is my THIRD time doing this, and think I feel calmer this go round!   I truly believe Maggie will breathe through the night, and I didn’t freak out when she did catch that family cold after all…  This just all goes to show that being a new mom is hard no matter how many times you have done it.

            Being a new mom can be isolating.  I always forget how much my identity is intertwined in the productivity and socialization integral to a day’s work.  I actually was jealous of Sephus when he headed off to work Monday.  Being home all day can cut you off from people that are normally an important part of your day.  (Yesterday I watched six episodes of Frasier and when I woke up I found myself instantly wondering how these fictional characters were fairing…)  Lack of sleep can make you cranky…  (Look at all those assholes who made it to REM sleep last night.  I bet they actually ate sitting down with both hands too!!!!)  Hormones can turn getting teary while watching The Descendants into an hour long cry session where you wonder, among other things, if anyone will ever be willing to watch a baby that cries so much, and if not, will you ever be able to leave your house alone again…???

            Being a new mother is also wonderful.  There is always that moment when you go from loving your baby because all babies are loveable in their wide-eyed, soft-skin, helpless little warm radiator kind of way, to loving YOUR baby.  There is that moment when they become a real person…  when their name suddenly fits…  when you want to literally eat them up because you cannot breathe their essence back into you to the point of satisfaction.  There was a time when I was not sure I would ever have a baby of my own, and then we were blessed three times over.  Three times I was allowed to fall in love – with Avery

And then Tessa

And now Maggie. 

I anxiously await those milestones that mirror her sisters and those moments that are all her own.  I know that in five short weeks I will sit at work like a school girl with a crush who simply cannot wait for that moment when I get to lay my eyes on one of the loves of my life once more come the end of the work day. 

It is important to keep it all in perspective…  to remember how lucky I am even in the throes of a terrible tantrum…  and of course, to keep watching Frasier. 

On smells, touch and being pregnant for the last time

            I have a gold compact that used to be my Grandma Rubin’s.  It smells like her.  I can open it and breathe in the traces of Clinique loose powder and her signature perfume.  When we went through her things in the summer of 2003 this was a must have for me.  To smell it evokes memories of her kind voice saying “Je t’aime Danielle,” and distant memories of her satiny tan skin.  Of course, I can also go through boxes of pictures of her brilliant smile deeply enjoying her family, but it’s these other sensory memories that I crave the most.  These take more to conjure up and make her past presence in my life more real to me.  For now, these images have to suffice as nothing resembling a camera has been created to capture the smells and touch of loved ones. 

            This is what runs through my head on my last night of what will be my last pregnancy.  I can feel our third girl tumbling in my belly.  What was at first just flutters, like a fish side swiping a tank, has turned into gyrations that feel as if they could throw me off the couch.  Though this pregnancy has been harder than the others as I battle what feels like carpal tunnel, intense heartburn, lots of pressure, etc, tonight I am trying to relish it.  It’s strange knowing that such a fascinating sensation will never be felt again.  These little finger scratches reminding me she’s here, the frequent kicks reminding me I must make way for her, the punches that make sitting in meetings more enjoyable as I anticipate her arrival…  Of course none of this is any match for rubbing your nose against the smooth head of your baby or brushing your lips on chubby cheeks, but it is still an amazing feeling.  I look at Avery and Tessa and am amazed that they once thrived inside of me.  I look at my mom and can’t believe she was my home for nine months, and her mom hers…  Women are so lucky to be granted this privilege even as it comes with months of giving up Riesling and Mountain Dew.  Tonight I want to relish these movements for the last time. 

            Technology has come so far, but it still has not found away to capture memories outside of the sound and visual realm.  Perhaps this is why my favorite recollections come in the form of the smells and feel of the moments and people I have loved the most.  Perhaps technology would cheapen this nostalgia…  

On those last three miles...

             I enrolled in a doctoral program in the summer of 2006.  I have always been overly achievement motivated, and I was in a bit of a career rut in the sense that I felt like I was out of ideas when it came to helping certain students.  But most importantly, after 18 months of infertility I was ready for a new goal.  I was tired of living by cycles.  I thought a new goal would refocus me.  Four days before my first class began I found out I was pregnant with Avery.  I stayed in regardless of the then irrelevant real goal.  In the past year, as I have struggled to complete comps I wondered if I made the right decision.  I felt like I had no real reason not to quit except for the need to save face. 

            A PhD program is broken into three stages.  The first is course work.  You take 75 plus hours of graduate level courses.  For me this meant spending 1-2 nights away from home to sit and discuss scholarly articles.  Sometimes this felt undoable, but looking back this was one of the easier parts.  The discussions and chances to write were invigorating.  The readings caused ongoing paradigm shifts.  If I allow myself to be totally honest, the socialization and snacks made for a nice break from the challenges of home life at times.  Most importantly everything had a deadline imposed by someone else with clear instructions.  The summer I committed to going part time at Oakland to knock out this course work I found out I was pregnant with Tessa. 

            The next step was comps.  About two and a half years ago I got five questions that I was supposed to answer through lengthy writing after reading numerous texts.  This is supposed to take about six months.  I could make many excuses for taking as long as I did, but it all came down to simply not putting any effort into the task.  I would dabble here and there, but ultimately I put anything and everything before this tedious task.  Self-motivation is the hardest of all motivations.  Finally I told myself I was calling my own bluff this summer.  I gave myself until the first week of September to finish because, really, when it comes to goals you have to eventually say, “If not now – when?”  The past months I have been locking myself up Friday nights, leaving the family on Sundays and not turning on the TV after bedtime.  Last weekend I wondered if I could make it.  I kept thinking of marathon runners.  I wanted to know how you push yourself to run the last three miles when the first 23.2 sucked the life out of you.  I reminded myself of my personal conversation I often had with myself that guided me since I picked up books my first semester as the song about being in over your head came on the radio… like a warning.  I was pregnant and working full time at the time.  I told myself I may be in over my head, but I would do this the same way the old cliché tells you to eat an elephant – one bite at a time. 

            Now I still have a new marathon to run – the dissertation (assuming I pass my oral defense of comps on the 20^th *crosses fingers) – and I am pregnant and working full time AGAIN J , but I have realized that I can do the things I decide to do.  Comps were never going to be any harder or take any longer than they were going to be/take.  The question became whether I was willing to do the time and the work.  I am glad now that I was.  I look forward to an even greater elation when I walk across the stage with my hood NEXT winter.  As a celebration, I wanted to share my final paragraph of one of my comps questions:

Final Thoughts

            As I type the last lines of this last comp on a perfectly temperate Sunday morning to the sounds of giggles and swings seeping up from the porch, I ask myself if missing so much has been worth it.  Were the lost tuck-ins worth it?  Were the moments when I told the girls that I could not play dolls this evening worth it?  Were the days when my patience with them had been worn thin by over commitments they did not ask for worth it?  And then I realize that if I can help make literacy education in Columbia a little better for all kids, I make it a little better for my kids as well.  Isn’t that an important goal?  I know I am not sure of much, but I do trust that I have thought about some things in ways others in the racing train of education have not given themselves times to think about.  Just last week, the principal at my daughter’s elementary school explained that they don’t see the value in giving the STAR early literacy test to kindergartners because it won’t teach them anything they can’t learn from sitting down next to students and reading with them.  This reminded me that there are voices of reason, or perhaps even more importantly, ears of reason in this age of accountability and standardization.  Someone said the right thing to the right person to allow Ridgeway to be an autonomous school.  On this brisk fall day, the sound of children playing reminds me that all of this thinking has been worth it and will continue to be as I seek more answers and more questions.