Big Birthday #21: You Asked for It (Notes for a New Mom)

NOTE: As I approach my 70th birthday, I’ll reprise a milestone post here each day until the end of May. Today – from April 29, 2007.

That’s me with my older son, Josh, in Muir Woods outside San Francisco — pretty many years ago. I don’t know if you can tell but I’m pregnant with his brother. Happy to join the virtual shower although despite my adoration of and respect for both Liz and Catherine, I’m from the generation that put their babies to sleep on their stomachs and so may sound a little old-fashioned*.

1. Don’t do anything that doesn’t feel right no matter whose advice it is.

2. Trust yourself.

3. Remember that everybody makes mistakes and anyway a child is not a product, she is a person. You’ve heard that kids are resilient. They are. Do your best with love and if you don’t dwell on your mistakes neither will they.

4. You can’t turn a child into someone. You can only help them become the best somebody they already are.

5. Don’t be afraid to say no. Parents who don’t set limits and help their kids learn self-discipline are selfish. It’s easier but it’s not right.

6. No experience is wasted on a child. Maybe they’re too young to remember, but if it happened, it had an impact. So share as much of what you love as you can – music, museums, trips to Timbuktu or Target — poetry, cooking, washing the car.

7. No child ever went to college in diapers.

8. Listen to experienced people you respect, preschool teachers, friends, even, God forbid, your mother. Experience really is a great teacher. Then, though, think it through and then do what you think is right.

9. Everything is not equally important. Pick your fights and win them. 10. Leave time to just be. Lessons are great but quiet time is where imagination and a sense of self emerges.

10. LISTEN to your kids. They are smart and interesting and wise and if you respect them you have a far better chance of having them respect you.

11. Did I say trust yourself?

With love, admiration and the joy that comes from knowing all you wonderful, poetic and caring, committed and in one case, very new mothers on the occasion of this lovely virtual baby shower.

*This post was part of a “baby shower” if pieces by friends of this about-to-be new BlogHer mom.

Notorious RBG: the Gift of Her Story with Thanks to Her, Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik

Notorious RBG cover - book by Irin Carmon — Notorious RBG cover – book by Irin Carmon

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is an enormously compelling figure. How do I know this? Authors Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik have given us the gift of this book, that’s how. Described by the New York Times as “a cheery curio, as if a scrapbook and the Talmud decided to have a baby,” it is a lively, engrossing, humanizing introduction to a revered figure.

Born in 1933, six years before World War II, she remains, at 82, very much a part of our present, and our future. Hers are the shoulders so many of us stand upon, proud of what we’ve fought for for today’s young women and men, parents and professionals, teachers, truckers and temps — all of it so much less than she faced down and conquered. For all of us.

Beyond the exploration of her remarkable intellect and judicial virtuosity, Carmon reveals the warmth, spirit and personal moments that transform an icon into a person. Her unlikely close friendship not only with Justice Scalia but also with his family, is intriguing, of course. The genuine partnership she shared with her husband Mary for 56 years is a unifying thread through much of the book; the story of his last days one of the most moving.

Of course, threaded through the narrative are the legal and policy changes she championed and often brought from idea to reality — and, in recent years, fought, not always successfully, against the reversal of some of them. From her days at Harvard Law School to those on the O’Connor Court, the impact of her passion and intellect is clear.

So. If you want to have fun and be inspired at the same time, or need a gift for anyone who cares about women, or law and policy, or just loves a great story, this is it. (Full disclosure: I DO know Irin but I never expected to write about the book until I read it. Couldn’t help myself….)

My Miscarriage: Memories that Don’t Fade

A Lost Possibility: Women on Miscarriage - from The Nib — A Lost Possibility: Women on Miscarriage – by Ryan Alexander-Tanner, from The Nib

NOTE: In a newsletter, Nona Willis Aronowitz posted two stories about miscarriages. As I began to respond, this emerged:

My sons are 40 and 35. Between them I had a miscarriage. She was a girl. It was the first day I had told anyone I was pregnant and begun wearing maternity clothes.

It happened on Election Night 1978 and I was in the studio producing the “house desk” results.

When the pain got serious I raced home, lost most of the fetus in the bathroom, and called our OB. We went immediately to the hospital; in the morning I had a D and C. It was devastating.

Then came the reaction:
VP of News: You work too hard.
Secretary to Pres of News: What were you doing working all night? Didn’t you want this baby?

On the other hand, I also got notes from people ranging from my aunt to a colleague, all with the same message: “I’ve never told anyone before but I had a miscarriage (anywhere from 1 to 30) years ago.” The pain for each was still real.

I was lucky though. My OB was from Czechoslovakia. He had a real (maybe European, maybe Socialist, maybe just father of daughters) respect for professional women and, as he had been in my first pregnancy was wonderfully supportive. He ran a cell test to determine whether there was a distinguishable cause (there was – a serious genetic issue – although we didn’t learn that for months, it has been a comfort.) He explained the D and C, urged us to take time to grieve but also reminded us that we were far from finished with efforts to have more kids, kept me in the hospital an extra day so I could pull myself together before I went home and had to tell our nearly-three-year-old son.

He wanted to know where the baby went. I just couldn’t handle a literal answer so even though I wasn’t at that time religious at all I told him the baby was with God. I needed him to understand that she was somewhere where she would be as loved as he was on 79th and Broadway.

Several years later when I worked at TODAY, with the support of our Executive Producer, I produced a series about miscarriages. The narrator was an OB himself, one of the TODAY stable of experts. I’m not naming him because this is what he told me (to his credit:) “Thank you so much for doing this series with me. I’ve been an OB for 25 years and I never realized the pain that this causes women.” Seriously. I was grateful that he was emotionally available to admit this but can you imagine? Never realized.

One more thing – partners are NOT sufficiently supported when this happens. They need FAR more attention than they usually receive. My husband has said for years that he wished we could have had a funeral or some sort of service so he too could have a vehicle to grieve.

NONA thank you so much for raising this and for the links to those powerful pieces. The graphic one was particularly evocative as it reminded me of small moments I’d forgotten.

For the record – our second son was born 2 years later. Both my boys are fabulous men and exquisite spouses and dads. I am grateful for them both and the sorrow of our loss is not in any way linked to how I define my unambiguous and grateful love of them.

Even so – the fact that, 32 years later, the silence and shame and insensitivity remains is a travesty. Please share this with doctors, nurses, midwives, preschool teachers and others who are on the “front lines.” Maybe we can help to break the chain.,

WHO EVER THOUGHT RAISING SONS WOULD BE SO GREAT!

NOTE: This is another 2008 virtual baby shower post – to Julie Westerbeck Marsh when her first son appeared.

OK so I grew up with sisters. And I went to a women’s college. And most of my life I’ve worked in offices with more women than men (amazing, no?) So, when I was pregnant I was terrified at the idea of having boys. They were so strange — so noisy — I just had no idea what was coming. Except that what was coming was Josh. And then Dan. And it turned out that — hang on sisters — boys are a blast, great company, luuuhhhv their moms and — boys are easier! I know this because I’ve watched my friends raising daughters and the tensions are fierce. Girls and their mothers — boys and their dads. Not easy.

But let’s get back to basics. Little boys run around a lot and make noise. They jump off things. They ride the dog around and fall off and hit their heads and need stitches. They, later, seem to be trying to kill each other much of the time. And before I go any further – let me tell you that there’s an old shrink saying that therapists never believe that babies are born with personalities until they have their second child. This is also true with many women regarding gender differences – it hits you once they show up. My kids are feminists and very good to the women in their lives as far as I can tell – but they are men and they were boys and that is not like being a girl. Nope.

I have great memories from when they were little – stomping around singing Free to Be and Da Doo Ron Ron Ron and The Garden Song and Abiyoyo, skiing down black diamond slopes and going to Yankee Stadium to see Billy Joel and Carnegie Hall to see Pete Seeger and Madison Square Garden to see Sesame Street on Ice and being dragged to an infinite number of Police Academy and other disgusting movies.

And I lived in alien space much of the time. Some of our hit toys (ie things I would NEVER have had in my house if there were not these strange male creatures inhabiting the premises — and pre-video game age of course):
One of those Radio Shack electronics build-your-own thingy kits that make bells ring and bulbs light up if you hook them up correctly.
Legos
Anything aviationary
Anything Star Wars
Anything GI Joe
Voltron
Weird wrestling stuff (boy did I fight that one!)
Folk music (that’s my fault though)
Baseball cards (and proudly, I did NOT throw them out)
Stuffed animals
Ernie

No Mary Poppins books (I tried) but I did get to read all The Great Brain and Ralph S Mouse and Timothy Goes to School and a gazillion baseball player bios.

There’s serious stuff to having sons, of course. We have to be sure, no matter how much we love hanging around with them, that they get enough alone time with their dads or some other male figure. And wave bravely as they off together on a Sunday (also your day off after all) without you. We have to accept and celebrate the guy stuff.

Just like girls, but differently, we have to let them know we think they can take care of themselves – enable independence at each landmark, if we think they can handle it, even when we really want to help. It’s so easy, with a boy, to want to remain more connected than is useful for them as they grow. At certain points they may pull back for a while, when they need to untangle. We have to let them and respect the struggle

With regard to respect for women – I am deeply impressed with my sons’ perspectives. I hope that being honest and respecting their developing attitudes, helped. I never threw a Playboy out of our house but I made it very clear how I felt about them in the (brief) period they were around. Anything like that, of which I (or my husband) disapproved, had to come out of their allowance. They had to put their money on the line – and I think that helped more than locking it all out of the house and pretending they weren’t interested. It also helped us understand where their heads were. Although that is easier for boys because they are, honestly, more straightforward.

Of course none of what I write here applies to all boys. Much of it may apply to plenty of girls. But it was my experience and in a kind of stream of consciousness baby shower kind of way it’s what rose to the top. The bottom line though, is that even though it’s scary if you’ve lived in a world of women, as I had, they are just wonderful. Most of all, because I know Julie, from reading your blog for so long, you would be a great mother to any child with whom you were blessed, this kid is in for a great life. And where advice is concerned, I say take it only as far as your gifted mother gut takes you. Where the two collide, trust yourself. Girl, boy or android, that way your little one will always be in the right hands.

YOU ASKED FOR IT: Advice for New Moms

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NOTE: In the early years of BlogHer “virtual baby showers” – posts on a topic new moms might like – were frequent. This, one of the first, sought advice for new moms. In honor of two new grandchildren, here’s what I wrote then, in April of 2007.

1. Don’t do anything that doesn’t feel right no matter whose advice it is.

2. Trust yourself.

4. You can’t turn a child into someone. You can only help them become the best somebody they already are.

5. Don’t be afraid to say no. Parents who don’t set limits and help their kids learn self-discipline are selfish. It’s easier but it’s not right.

7. No child ever went to college in diapers.

9. Everything is not equally important. Pick your fights and win them.

10. Leave time to just be. Lessons are great but quiet time is where imagination and a sense of self emerges.

11. LISTEN to your kids. They are smart and interesting and wise and if you respect them you have a far better chance of having them respect you.

12. Did I say trust yourself?

With love, admiration and the joy that comes from knowing all you wonderful, poetic and caring, committed and in one case, very new mothers on the occasion of this lovely virtual baby shower.

Attachment Parents, Anxious Parents, Sanctimommies and Skinned Knees

This morning I helped to produce a conference on parenting and "over" parenting. It was designed to help anxious young parents who are often under pressure to be "better" and more attentive than their peers. They feed on each other and worry all the time, and in cases beyond my community (I don't see it here) they compete, sometimes with cruelty, to see who's the best.

If you're a "mommy blog" reader you'll see it all the time. One of my favorites is Liz Gumbinner, proprietor of Mom-101. She has a gentle, loving, yet often hilarious and almost always moving take on life as a parent. She also has a keen-eyed abhorrance for what she calls " Sanctimommies." She writes about them often, and their thoughtless comments and judgments. No matter how much we detest what they do, which is more often judgmental than well-meaning, they can get to us. They plant scary, painful doubts, especially when we are vulnerable.

I remember this torment so well. You don't want your child to feel bad. You don't want her to fall off the monkey bars. You certainly don't want him to be sad because he lost a T-Ball game and didn't get a medal or got a lower grade than the kid who sits next to him and didn't get a sticker on his paper. It's terrible. I think what's worse though is over-compensating to preserve delicate feelings.

And that's what much of this conference was aimed at. Speakers told parents that kids needed some autonomy, needed their own territory. That protecting them prevented them from learning how to solve problems and bounce back from the adversity that is part of life. They also made an interesting point that I think is controversial but tough to contradict. YES, moms and dads are both important, but dads have a different role. And mothers too often, in their frequent role as gatekeepers between the kids and daddy, set standards that are too squishy, not allowing the dads to find their own way to deal with their children.

This does not mean there is no overlap – nurturing dad and outward-facing mom. But both perspectives – female and male, have value. Many times as our kids grew up, my husband and I stopped one another from going too far in one way or the other. I wanted to send money to bail them out of a jam. My husband would remind me that if we ran to the rescue we were telling them that we didn't think they could take care of themselves. "If they really need help", he'd say, "they'll ask for it."

Other times he'd go nuclear in the punishment department or refuse permission for something perfectly acceptable because he didn't think first. That was my cue to step in and moderate things. I often thought sadly of friends raising kids alone, without this valuable balance.

I guess this is just a meditation on parenting in the 21st Century. It's painful to see wonderful parents whose instincts are sound and who love their kids get tangled up in these issues, and it was wonderful to watch the dialog today and the passions in the conversations that continued over lunch and will go forward in several after-sessions. In fact, it was very Web 2.0. The speakers may have set things off, but now they're working with one another, strengthening not only their families but also the community around them.

Mommy Wisdom Across the InterWeb

This week I took dinner over to a couple who just became parents of an infant son. It had been a long time coming and it was very moving to sit in their living room and sense the peace and – to be honest – blessedness of their parenthood. I started out "doing something nice" by taking dinner and of course got far more out of it myself. Being in that room is a memory I will cherish.

I told them about all the parenting tips offered in virtual baby showers I'd been part of, and about all the other posts I'd done about my children and my life as a mother. Then I kind of promised I'd send them the links. I figured, though, that as long as I was pulling it all together I'd make a little package for anyone else looking for the kind of parenting advice that A) might be really good and B) you can ignore without hurting anyone's feelings. So here they are — and as The Band wrote, "take what you need and leave the rest."

First of all, since you have a son, here's a Julie's gift: a blog list filled with wisdom — a virtual baby shower of advice and warnings about raising boys. There's a list of "boy songs" too. That's a bonus. If you want to read my contribution, it's here.

And what about just plain good advice about being a mom? That was the first shower, and it's full of funny and often very moving posts. Here's mine.

This one's kind of funny, and will look like it's a million years away – but it's fun: what to do when a second kid shows up and makes everything crazy all over again. I wrote for that one, too.

My favorite is the one whose subject was "memories of the first thirty days." It was an emotional whopper; once I started I had trouble stopping. Here's what I remember.

Finally, as you enter this amazing new life, a preview of what it's like when your kids are grown and gone. They're from December of 2006 and this past Thanksgiving. For some reason both struck a nerve with readers; it's an amazing adventure you've embarked upon – and it's glorious in all its phases. I wish you half the joy I've known.

For My Friends with Young Children, or My Annual Post-Thanksgiving Meditation

Here's the thing. My children live far away, one six hours to the west and the other, with his fiance, six hours to the east. We've been together for Thanksgiving week – all of us – hanging out, cooking, touring around DC, running errands and just being — and being thankful. It's always special when the whole family is together; it seemed so natural when the boys were little and now it's a treat. I cooked a million meals with them banging around in the kitchen. Now it's a precious thing when I make turkey meatloaf with my younger son. I watch him, an accomplished cook, chop like a pro, listen as he reassures me that this new thing will taste great, laugh with him, trade recipes. I rode around in cars, subways, buses with them all the time, and, along with their dad, dragged them into a million stores from grocery to toys to clothing to antiques. Now it's the pleasure of serious shopping at Ikea with my older son and his fiance, getting to be around while they choose a sofa. Seeing what a fine woman she is, watching them seamlessly making decisions together, measuring, taking photos, laughing, planning. It feels great to see them launching themselves so well together and makes it OK that much of their life is lived far from us. That's how it is.

I know though, that when kids are little, schlepping them in and out of car seats and strollers, keeping them occupied while you try to cook, keeping little hands out of the Ikea toy bins, mediating murderous sibling battles, keeping a home running while keeping kids in line – it's a lot. I remember. It doesn't matter whether you work outside your home or stay home with your family; either way there's so much to handle. I kept thinking about that as I wandered around Washington with these adults who are also, forever, my children, reminding myself how long it would be before we would all do it together again. Reminding myself that it's a credit to us that our kids are self-sufficient, productive and wonderfully decent, funny, loving men — and how blessed we are that they chose to come to us for the holiday — and that it's right, and good, that they have their own lives and homes and futures.

But though that's true, I wanted to tell you about this because it goes so fast. All the cliches are true. Turn around and they're grown. That doesn't mean it isn't hard to keep things going now, it just means that those days will be gone, sooner than you think.

My youngest is approaching 30. My oldest is getting married. They have money market accounts and careers and fiances and plans and even some gray hairs. They teach me more than I teach them (although that was always true.) They are, like those of you reading this, grown ups, and my husband and I have our own rich and happy life together. But it still can be, for those few moments of farewell at the end of each visit, desperately painful, on both sides.

As we drove to the airport last night, I (sort of) joked that I had to hook my iPod up to the car radio so that, when I was sad after leaving them off, I could blast Bruce, or Great Big Sea to make me feel a little better. When we arrived at the departure entrance, I got out of the car to help unload the bags. My son the chef was still in the front seat of the car. I was worried that a cop would throw me out of the parking place so I went toward the door to ask what he was doing. He turned around. "You iPod's all hooked up" he said, and reached out to give me a hug goodbye.

A BIT OF BABY SHOWER WISDOM FOR MOTHERS OF TWO

Well here they are. My two boys some years ago, on a boat someplace in Germany. This photo is probably 20 years old; it’s from one of many wonderful trips covering territory all the way from Israel to Hawaii. Each was an adventure, enriched by the presence of these two little (and later bigger) boys, as were all our days. Most visitors to the baby shower know that I’m the sentimental one – not able ever to be as arch and irreverent as many of my sister bloggers. SO CONSUMER ALERT — this is mostly a riff on the treat it is to watch your two kids grow, change, interact, fight, become real friends, care for one another and grow up to travel together and meet up to go to concerts.

When I was pregnant with my second son, I was afraid that I could never love another child. The delight we felt with our first son was so complete that I wasn’t sure whether there was room in my heart for another. That summer, as we awaited his brother’s arrival, I insisted that our son, my husband and I – go to the beach to have a last vacation with "just the three of us." It was going to be tough to get used to dividing my time so I wanted one more golden moment with just one.

It was the year The Muppet Movie came out, and I remember sitting on the little deck outside the beach cabin we’d rented, my son in my lap, playing The Rainbow Song on the boom box we’d brought with us, just about overcome with emotion. Listen to it – if it doesn’t get to you I don’t know what will.

"Some day we’ll find it, the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreams and me." So sentimental but absolutely perfect for my pregnant, hormonal self.

And then he arrived – this little, amazing, intense infant, and as soon as I saw him I knew all the worry was for nothing. Of course you can’t love an abstraction as much as a little blond sweetie who loves Kermit and Ernie and Bert — and you. Once that abstraction arrives though, he’s as real and exciting and mysterious and loving as his big brother. As each of their personalities emerged so did their differences, but each revealed a piece of them. Each individual talent and temperment and allergy and grace reminded us of the unique treasure that each of them was to us. So here are 10.5 thoughts on the question at hand – moving from one child to two:

Continue reading A BIT OF BABY SHOWER WISDOM FOR MOTHERS OF TWO

JULIE’S SHOWER: WHO EVER THOUGHT RAISING SONS WOULD BE SO GREAT!

OK so I grew up with sisters. And I went to a women’s college. And most of my life I’ve worked in offices with more women than men (amazing, no?) So, when I was pregnant I was terrified at the idea of having boys. They were so strange — so noisy — I had no idea what was coming. Except that what was coming was Josh. And then Dan. And it turned out that — hang on sisters — boys are a blast, great company, luuuhhhv their moms and — boys are easier! I know this because I’ve watched my friends raising daughters and the tensions are fierce. Girls and their mothers — boys and their dads. Not easy.

No Mary Poppins books (I tried) but I did get to read all The Great Brain and Ralph S Mouse and Timothy Goes to School and a gazillion baseball player bios.