Category Archives: Social Science

Now

Increasingly I live in the time called Now. My days are full; as Bean becomes more active and engaged, the more present I become. Oh, I do think about future things (my tasks for the next day), and I find past ruminations intrude often. When I “come to” my mind gnawing a past experience like a bone, I stop myself and let the thought go. I’m sure this happens at least dozens of times daily. However, by the end of the day I creep into bed having felt I really lived all day. Besides, by bedtime all I am aware of is that it is time to sleep. I’m tired, very tired, at sunset, but I enjoy my life more than ever. I’m never bored anymore.

I love watching Bean when Husband reads to her. There are a bunch of books that we’ve read often enough that she squeals when we get to parts that make her happy. She’s sitting entirely on her own now. I observed as Husband sat on the floor next to her reading Barnyard Banter (a book we like so much I wrote a review for Amazon) that she squeaked with happiness and alternated between looking at the book and looking up at him. If there was ever a moment to feel adoration, that was it.

I myself am adored beyond my wildest expectations. I am desired, needed, demanded. Bean haaaates the new play yard. Hates it, hates it, hates it. It is prison. It is a place of betrayal and abandonment. It’s where Mommy puts Bean when Mommy needs two free hands and for Bean to be safe. The instant she is set onto the mat she begins wailing. I do what I need to do quickly and talk to her when I’m near enough. If I must leave the room I tell her and say that I’ll be right back. The tears aren’t just sadness. Oh no! She’s screaming mad too! Do not want! I’m going to report you to management!! So I believe separation anxiety has begun.

Another vocal development is what I call the Groan of Concentration. There’s a sound she makes when she examines a toy closely or when she’s trying a new move; it sounds like she’s softly clearing her throat, but it’s not a long “harrrumph.” It’s got a little staccato to it. Her repertoire over the months has grown so much. As a newborn there was the Cindy Lou Who coo. Then the Beavis and Butthead chuckle (which became a dulcet laugh). Then the Poop Shriek; she inhales sharply as though she’s watching a shocking event unfold. When we hear that sound, we know what needs to happen. And now the Groan of Concentration. What an interesting little person she is!

A New World

I marvel at how Bean’s existence has opened my life. It’s also reassuring to see how people react to her. We go out daily (for my well-being as much as hers).

On Thursday we went to the mall. I’m not a fan of malls, but I thought it would be interesting (anything different is inherently interesting to her). The sunlight streamed through cathedral-type ceilings, and there colors and noises galore. The first store I entered was the Build-a-Bear Workshop. An employee approached to greet me and as soon as she saw Bean she said “Oh hello!” I’m sure they say that to every baby. Well, Bean is always ready with a smile, so she gave that gift. The woman cooed and exclaimed, and called her coworker over. And of course the more they talked to her and me, and used encouraging happy tones, the more Bean cooed and babbled. And the women said things like, “You know this baby gets talked to a lot!” “She’s so happy!” “Look how interested she is!”

Later we sat on a bench watching people. An elderly lady in a loud pink floral blouse and blazer approached and said, “Look at you!” Bean smiled and wiggled. The woman continued, “Does my colorful outfit rock your world?” and Bean babbled, and the conversation continued. As she departed, she said, “You’re a happy, happy baby. I feel it in my heart.”

I went into LUSH and a similar encounter occurred. A staff member approached to greet me and upon seeing Bean, smiled and said hello, and Bean responded. Among the many exclamations uttered, the woman said, “Oh, you’re beautiful! You have such a spark. You’re going to have love and joy all your life.” Then she spoke to me how she loves babies, and of her nephew. Bean opens up all sorts of conversations for me.

It was interesting watching Bean as we waited for the elevator. A ‘tween and her mother were also waiting. Bean gazed at the young woman, studying her intently. The girl looked at Bean and I saw Bean’s cheeks twitch, ready to smile, but the girl did not smile at or speak to her. (That would have been so uncool.) I watched the smile die, but Bean continued to watch the girl, who would glance at her occasionally.

We encountered one more person in the mall, an older woman, who commented on her alertness. (This woman also felt free to grill me with questions about how I feed her, since Bean’s petite, and whether I intended to have more kids. Irritating!)

At Central Park, similar incidents occur. A couple weeks ago a woman came rushing over as though she were greeting a long-lost friend. At first I thought Do I know you? Should I know you? because of how familiar she acted, but it turned out to be all for Bean. The lady said she just loves babies, and that she’s all done having kids (she had a 6-year old with her). She got down on her knees, cooed and spoke to Bean, said blessings in Hindi. I asked if she’d like to hold Bean and the answer was yes. She kissed Bean and hugged her, and when she handed Bean back, she said I’d made her day.

Yesterday at the park, a man with a leashed black dog was there with his grandchild. Bean is fascinated by dogs and cats (thank you, Sandra Boynton). She wriggled in my arms, and I asked if she could meet the dog. The man said yes, the dog is friendly. So I kneeled down and the man helped us pet her. The man commented on how curious and friendly Bean was, how much she smiled, how bright her eyes. And Bean got her first doggy kiss on the face (unexpectedly, and the man apologized, but Bean didn’t mind).

With her grandparents, aunts, and uncles being far away, and with no cousins, Bean is truly a singular child. So the fact that people are drawn to her and that she likes people makes me feel joyful and hopeful.

The Inconsolable Child

This observation was included in an article about adult discomfort with a crying child who won’t be comforted, and what to do for the child. The answer: just stay near. The excerpt articulates what I struggle with when my child cries.

“The inconsolable state of grief, or what feels like an intolerable level of loss or disappointment, is a very important point where the child begins to deal with our most fundamental relations — call it existential despair, or call it, ‘damn it, don’t you understand, this tragedy is unfixable!’. If a precious toy is lost, or a trust betrayed, or some such tragedy, it may evoke the feeling that this is not something I will be negotiated out of. I won’t be seduced by offers of warmth or food or entertainment. This is non-negotiable. (Is this what is known as integrity?)

“Somehow it feels as though what we ask for in that inconsolable state is the acknowledgment that, ‘yes, it is unfixable. No, nothing could be worse than this.’

“What prevents the so-called adult from being able to truly BE with the inconsolable child? I mean the child seems to know exactly what to do and how to do it. It wails and moans with great stamina. What about the adult, though? Do adults experience the exact same level of inconsolability? What has really changed in ‘growing up?’ What has changed is that the adult has acquired a learned ability to deny, and negotiate the unnegotiable tragedy. We are considered grown up when we no longer behave childishly, but the really vital question is whether we have faced the unfixable tragedy of life. Have we faced it, or have we negotiated it into a managed state? Doesn’t the child show us exactly where we stopped in growing up ourselves? The impulse is to calm the child, to make things better. But the scream comes back, ‘Don’t even try to calm me down!’ whether in words or equivalent. Why is this so unnerving? Doesn’t it evoke all the fear, resentment, frustration, which hasn’t really changed at all since our own childhood? And isn’t the impulse to get the child calmed down, by any means possible, an impulse to stifle this Pandora’s box? It’s an enormous challenge to really be with the child in its inconsolable state.

“That child is ourself. We want love, which is always going to turn out to be less dependable than the infinite we hoped for. We want psychological security and it will never be enough. We want physical security. We want to continue as me forever. Our wants, and perceived needs come up bang against the wall of aloneness which wanting and hoping and grasping creates. Then, can we be with the sadness this evokes? Can we feel it, the impulse to run away from it, the absoluteness of it, the non-negotiable nature of our predicament as a vulnerable, scared human being? Perhaps if we truly perceive the fact that there is nothing I can do, then the child/adult may for the first time be free from an enormous burden of managing the unmanageable.

“The notion that I, as an ‘adult’, should know what to do with the inconsolable child is a myth which can only add pressure and fear when I realize I don’t know what to do. As soon as there is a formula of how to deal with inconsolability, then I am the adult raising the child. But in truth, the child and I are both trying to grow up together. Why should I know what to do? And he or she has something to remind me of here.

“You say to stay near. I agree. What ideas, fears and so on separate us from the child? Whether it’s the child or ourselves, it’s the same pain, isn’t it? Whether we are 2 years old, 32 years old, 92 years old, we face the same fear of the unknown, and the same unnegotiable grief when someone or something we love isn’t available. Can we openly not know the answer?”

“Doesn’t such a state of openness communicate itself? — to a child, to a dog or a cat, or to the people we live with?”

–Kevin Frank, When a Child is Inconsolable: Staying Near

123 Meme

This meme has been making the rounds. I’m not certain how I feel about the relevance of posting three sentences from a nearby book (and skipping the five preceding sentences), but what the heck.

I’ve been tagged by The Friendly Humanist for a new blog meme. Here are the rules:

Pick up the book nearest you with at least 123 pages. (No cheating!)
Turn to page 123.
Count the first five sentences.
Post the next three sentences.
Tag five other bloggers.

The book nearest me with at least 123 pages is a book I’ve had in queue for at least 10 years. I pulled it off the shelf the other day to think about reading it (so little time, so many books). Here are the sentences:

R’tu enabled the sisterly cooperation and dietary control women needed to successfully bear larger-brained babies. R’tu braided the mental, physical, and spiritual together in ever-expanding spirals of cultural expression. We thus led ourselves along the course of our evolution by enacting consciousness.

This begs the question: What is R’tu?

It’s a Sanskrit word. If Wikipedia is correct, it means:

Ritu (?tú) in Vedic Sanskrit refers to a fixed or appointed time, especially the proper time for sacrifice (yajna) or ritual in Vedic Religion. The word is so used in the Rigveda, the Yajurveda and the Atharvaveda. In Classical Sanskrit, it refers to an epoch or period, especially one of the six seasons of the year, Vasanta “spring”, Grishma “the hot season”, Varsha “the rainy season”, Sharad “autumn”, Hemant “winter”; and Shishir “the cool season”, or the menstrual cycle.

This link doesn’t define it, but it gives a sense of the concept’s importance in Sanskrit literature.

The book I used for the meme is Blood, Bread, and Roses: How Menstruation Created the World. Here is how the author defines the term.

Ritual, fromt Sanskrit r’tu, is any act of magic toward a purpose. Rita, means a proper course. Ri, meaning birth, is the root of red, pronounced “reed” in Old English and still in some modern English accents (New Zealand). R’tu means menstrual, suggesting that ritual began as menstrual acts. The root of r’tu is in “arithmetic” and “rhythm”; I hear it also in “art,” “theater,” and perhaps in “root” as well. The Sanskrit term is still alive in India, where goddess worship continues to keep r’tu alive in its menstrual senses; r’tu also refers to special acts of heterosexual intercourse immediately following menstruation, and also to specific time of year.

This should be an interesting book. The author, Judy Grahn, is an American poet, was a member of the Gay Women’s Liberation Group, helped establish The Women’s Press Collective in 1969, and is co-director of the Women’s Spirituality MA program and Program Director of the MFA in Creative Inquiry at the New College of California.

As for tagging others, I’m copping out on this one. I barely have the energy to finish this post, and I’d like to eat dinner. Besides, I don’t want to wear out my welcome with friends and recently tagged five people for another meme. If you want to play along, feel free, and leave a comment.

Playing Hooky

I stayed up too late last night, until 11 p.m., and I woke at 5 a.m. I’m paying for it today. I’m heavy-lidded, weary, and feel like spun glass.

Today I don’t want to deal with Bean crying, so I’ll hold her whenever she sleeps, unless she is willing to go into the swing.

Today I don’t care if I should have tried to get her to go back to sleep at 6 a.m. to finish her night sleep rather than keep her awake until 6:45 when it was clear she needed to sleep, so that she needed what will be the first of many naps today.

Today I don’t care if the Las Madres play date from 1-3 p.m. at Central Park happens during Bean’s typical afternoon nap time; if I want to go, I will, because my sanity requires it.

Today I don’t care what dinner will be.

Today if Bean whines because she’s bored with her play gym and wants me, I will let her whine awhile so I can drink my morning coffee, or eat a snack, or check my email. (And guess what? The whining didn’t kill her. She self-amused for about 20 minutes, punctuating it with grunt-whines of frustration, before she really cried. And by then she was tired, so we read a story and I put her in the swing. Just because she makes that noise doesn’t mean I must engage her every single time.)

Today I don’t care if other people think I’ll raise a spoiled brat because I am not teaching her to sleep in her crib.

Today I will remind myself that Bean and I are not adversaries.

Today when I leave the room and Bean cries (I believe separation anxiety is beginning), I won’t rush through the task I’ve left her for to get back more quickly. Yes, I will allow myself to go to the bathroom without trying to force my body to go more quickly. (Sometimes I do bring her in with me.)

Today when I change her diaper, if I don’t feel like smiling and cooing and interacting, I won’t. If I cry instead, that’s okay. (I did cry earlier, and she didn’t seem to notice that I wasn’t doing our usual routine.)

Today I will eat when I’m hungry, and I’ll actually chew the food well before swallowing.

Today I will try to let go of the “supervisor” in my head and when I look into Bean’s eyes, I will settle into them and just be with her.

Today I don’t have to try so damn hard. So I won’t.

I thank dear Karen for taking the time to listen to me and help me give myself permission to play hooky today.

Someone Please Stop Me

Please stop me from reading news reports like this from Florida:

A medical examiner found dozens of internal and external injuries on Ariana’s body. The infant had five new fractures on her ribs and more than a dozen old fractures. There was a hematoma and a cut on her spleen. Her liver was bruised, as was her jaw.

When questioned by a Polk County sheriff’s detective the day after Ariana died, Gomez-Romero said he was angry when his daughter was born because he wanted a son, reports said.

Gomez-Romero, who lives in Winter Haven, told a detective he called his daughter an “ugly girl, a prostitute and deny [sic] she was his daughter,” a Sheriff’s Office report said.

Gomez-Romero said he picked Ariana up by her hands to carry her. He said he spanked her several times out of anger because she would not stop crying.

When a detective asked Gomez-Romero what a 4-month-old could do to warrant such severe punishment, the report said he stated, “Nothing.”

“Gomez-Romero made it clear that his anger and hostility towards his daughter was due to the fact that she was a girl and he had wanted a son,” the sheriff’s report said.

Sheriff’s detectives also interviewed Ariana’s mother, Juana Rodriguez-Perez, who said Gomez-Romero would carry Ariana by her hands into the bedroom and close the door.

Shortly after, the report said, their daughter would begin to cry.

Rodriguez-Perez told the detective when she threatened to call the police on Ariana’s father, he would threaten to leave with their 2-year-old son.

Polk Dad Charged in Baby’s Death

The baby girl died Christmas Day.

Why do I read these? It doesn’t help the victim. It doesn’t help me. Is it to feed some pathetic “better than thou” insecurity in myself? Is it a voyeuristic impulse to look at a train wreck? I suppose knowing why doesn’t do much — the only way to spare myself is to simply stop reading. The world would be better served if I donated time, money, or effort to a cause that helped abused children.

I’ve Been Reading

Being There: The Benefits of a Stay-At-Home Parent
This short book discusses the issues of attachment disorder and behavioral problems that may arise from inconsistent care-giving provided in day care centers and by nannies at home. Its purpose is to provide a rationale for having one SAHP (stay-at-home parent) care for the child until at least 2-3 years of age, when the child is no longer in the pre-verbal stage. The book does provide supporting information from studies and reports as well as case studies. It also has a section providing financial ideas and solutions to help families make it feasible. It is definitely not a “feel-good” book. The author clearly states she is not against day care, just that most day care has so much staff turnover and that the frequent change of caregivers (even nannies) is damaging to infants. It’s a compelling book. If I needed reinforcement for my decision to stay home, this book is it.

Hot Flashes Warm Bottles: First-Time Mothers Over Forty
This book had once been on my wish list, and I’m so glad I borrowed it from the library instead. The basic thrust of the book is that women over 40 who have children face competing needs: those of their child versus their own “need” to assess their life purpose and explore themselves in solitude. It also focuses on how motherhood makes women feel frumpy and asexual, and how women over 40 become “invisible” in our culture; so it’s supposedly a double-whammy. Oh, and that women over 40 don’t have as much energy to give to their children because their bodies are aging. And that women over 40 have to deal with caring for aging parents as well as children. Well. My view on this is that a woman over 40 doesn’t typically become pregnant by accident for the first time; it’s often a conscious choice and frequently the result of expensive, painful fertility treatment. Women over 40 who never had a child before have had decades to find themselves, and by having a child they enter into a relationship where they understand they are trading solitude and autonomy for the joys and challenges of nurturing a human being. If you want time to still explore yourself in the second half of your life, then remain childless. As for grieving the loss of being the focus of wolf whistles and men’s appraising glances, this is something I don’t relate to, since being a sex object wasn’t important to me before, either. I’m not saying this is a bad book; it simply didn’t tell me anything new or interesting.

Motherhood Without Guilt: Being the Best Mother You Can Be and Feeling Great About It
A book full of questions submitted by mothers. This book might be helpful to women who are much younger and/or less insightful about who they are and what they want in life. Again, not a bad book, but one that covered issues I’ve either resolved or am aware I’ll need to contend with at some point, such as: You don’t have to be a good housekeeper or cook to be a good mom and taking care of yourself can be good for your whole family.
If you need validation or permission for being human and a mother (and who doesn’t now and then?), this book might be useful.

The Mother Dance: How Children Change Your Life
Of all the books, this one contained anecdotes that resonated. I still skimmed most of it, because it again told me nothing new. However, Lerner is a psychologist and pretty transparent when sharing her own experiences; she’s capable of a humility that drew me in. And the following did capture my attention:

Maybe love is the word we should be unraveling. I don’t believe in “unconditional love,” as it is conventionally prescribed for mothers like so much sentimental pap. Only highly evolved Zen Buddhists look at their difficult, out-of-control children and feel nothing but immense respect, openness, curiosity, and interest as to why the Universe has brought these small persons into their lives and what they are here to teach them. To achieve the transcendent state of unconditional love, it is best to have a cat, although even here you may discover your limits.

–Harriet Lerner

I suspect the Zen Buddhist mother I know would say that it is not achieving transcendence but rather the moment-by-moment process that matters, and that even Zen Buddhist mothers can feel frazzled and angry at times. However, I do like how Lerner summed up the question of whether children are worth the effort:

Children are never easy, so don’t bring them into the world or adopt them to bolster your happiness. And don’t have them if your life’s purpose is to dwell in complete stillness, serenity, and simplicity; or if you have a great dread of being interrupted; or if you are on a particular life path that demands your full attention and devotion. Also keep in mind that children are not a “solution.” As Anne Lamott reminds us, there is no problem for which children are the solution.

To opt for kids is to opt for chaos, complexity, turbulence, and truth. Kids will make you love them in a way you never thought possible. They will also confront you with all the painful and unsavory emotions that humans put so much energy into trying to avoid. Children will teach you about yourself and about what it’s like not to be up to the demands of the most important responsibility you’ll ever have. They’ll teach you that you are capable of deep compassion, and also that you are definitely not the nice, calm, competent, clear-thinking, highly evolved person you fancied yourself to be before you became a mother.

Your children will call on you to grow up. You will have the opportunity to achieve a more complex and textured view of your own mother. Your marriage, if it lasts, will be both deepened and strained. And whether you stay married or get divorced, the stakes are so much higher for how you navigate your part in the relationship with your child’s father.

…I also think that kids are the best teachers of life’s most profound spiritual lessons: that pain and suffering are as much a part of life as happiness and joy; that change and impermanence are all we can count on for sure; that we don’t really run the show; and that if we can’t find the maturity to surrender to these difficult truths, we’ll always be unhappy that our lives — and our children’s — aren’t turning out the way we expected or planned.

–Harriet Lerner

Hear, hear, sister!

Never Getting Divorced

We have a bank account with the Bank That Owns Everything. An added wrinkle is that this account was opened in Texas. When we moved here, we were told that California is Special, and we’d need to close the Texas account and open a new one in this state if we wanted to use the ATM to make deposits — except that we’d lose the long-time customer privileges that we had with the current account. The only other hitch to keeping the Texas account is that any time we need to make a change with the account, we are transferred a zillion times from representative to representative until we are connected with the appropriate person in Texas.

I called the Bank ahead of time to ask what I needed to do to change my name on the account from Kathryn Petro-Harper to Kathryn P. Harper and was told a visit to a branch bank with an I.D. would be enough. So I went in and said, “I want the account to reflect my name as it is legally on my Social Security card and driver’s license. I want to drop the hyphen and use an initial instead of my full middle name.” I was told I had to come back with a copy of my marriage license. I said the marriage license was irrelevant and actually showed me listed by my maiden name, and iterated that I had several forms of identification that sufficed, and that I’d been told by their staff this would be enough. The Customer Service Drone repeatedly said, “You need to bring the marriage certificate. These aren’t legal documents.”

So I had to turn into the customer I dislike: the one who won’t go away, take a lame excuse for an answer, who requests to speak to a manager because she smells bullshit and doesn’t want to get any on her. I said I had arranged for a babysitter and that I was not leaving until my request was fulfilled. I didn’t get rude, but the situation became a little tense.

I walked out having negotiated the following (through the California Customer Service Person who spoke with a Texas Customer Service Person and wouldn’t let me speak with him directly): they would drop the hyphen but said they had to keep Petro on the account legally, though I could have our checks reprinted using the initial. Never mind the fact that when I was put on the account in 2004, I was unmarried and signed on the account as Kathryn M. Petro using my driver’s license as proof of identification. In 2005, they did need a copy of the marriage license to drop the M. and make it Petro-Harper (as did Social Security and CA DMV but once those records are amended this should be enough). So what changed in two years? (Please don’t attempt to answer that.)

Anyhow, I now need to do this or something like it with all my financial accounts, medical records, library cards, online shopping accounts, the IRS, our will and trust, friends, family, etc. (I’m fortunate that family and friends won’t require identification before accepting this news.) So I called Husband and told him we were never going to divorce, because this is the second time I’ve gone through the process and never will again. He laughed. Oh, foolish me, that I didn’t foresee this change of heart and mind once I became a mother!

So again, to reiterate: I am no longer using Petro-Harper as my surname. Now it is, simply, Harper. A fine name it is!

Hibernation

I felt woozy the past couple of days. Every time I stood up or got up from the floor, the blood would rush from my head, I’d hear ringing in my ears, and the edge of my vision would go white. I also felt hot but not feverish, as though the room was just too warm. I was a little dizzy — not room-spinning dizzy, just off-balance. I thought perhaps that, being sleep deprived, I’d also neglected eating decently. So I ate a hearty meal and took a three hour nap yesterday. (Thanks to my MIL, or that would not have been possible.) I awoke still feeling weird, called my doctor, and they fit me in.

After a brief visit and two blood-pressure readings (one sitting and the other standing), the preliminary diagnosis was simply dehydration. I drink enough water, or so I think, but apparently not. My blood pressure dropped significantly when I moved from sitting to standing. It had been awhile since I saw him, so the doctor also ordered blood tests: anemia, blood sugar, thyroid, vitamin B12, and cholesterol, just to be sure. I went home, drank a quart of water, and I did feel much better.

However, I still feel a little funky. Possibly this is just exhaustion. Husband came home last night commenting that he too felt a little woozy. I ran an errand last night to Baby Depot, where I searched for long-sleeved bodysuits (no legs) in a slightly larger size, as Bean is getting too big for the ones she has and we’re still using the legless outfits because she’s being changed so frequently. I found one package and made my way toward the registers. When I saw the line of customers snaking out the front of the store (probably 75 people in line) and two registers open, I promptly returned the package to its location and left. I thought: what folly to have attempted this! Yet it had seemed so important I get out to find these. I returned home empty-handed and rued having wasted the gas, time, and effort.

Today it is rainy. There are no errands to run. It’s a good stay to stay indoors to read and play and nap. Bean’s bottom is better (not entirely but much), and the tummy problems are slowly clearing up. She’s still not feeling up to a lot of play. We’ve done a lot of cuddling.

How interesting that this is a season of pushing ourselves to make merry, do more more more, decorate, buy gifts we hope will please and impress, when it’s the very time of year our bodies want to rest. Winter is a season of restoration. Yes, we need reminders that the light will return, and it’s enjoyable to see twinkly colored lights everywhere, but a little bit goes a long way. How can you enjoy it if you’re busy fighting for a parking space? Stay home. Nestle in. Put on your jammies and make a cup of cocoa. Maybe bake a batch of cookies (no need to make 15 different kinds; one will do). Let yourself sleep when your body is tired. Eat when you’re hungry. Give yourself over to the real season.