Well Thanksgiving is finally come and gone, so I am now comfortable preparing for the Christmas holiday season. Unlike Starbucks and Michaels craft-mart, I am not chomping on the bit at Halloween with Christmas decorations already in hand to ring in the jolly season. I mean, one holiday at a time, please!
Did I mention I only recently started to like Christmas again? Of course I loved the holiday as a kid. Lights, presents, treats, family... what's not for a child to like? Even though I felt a perennial guilty deep down that the non-custodial parent was alone that day, I nevertheless managed to have a bang-up time.
In college, something happened, though. I got some politics in me. I took issue with two aspects of Christmas then. One was a deep resentment that there were no girls whose birth we celebrated globally. "It's always the boys," I soap-boxed, and "I'm tired of a society that treats boys and men like they are the saviors of the Earth, when really they just destroy it!" Where were the girls who needed celebrating? Why weren't there any historico-religious female figures who got the world all up in a tizzy for two months? Growl growl. Well, not that there's anything too wrong with that, but how much traction does that griping get? (Not much.) Plus, even I have to admit that Jesus was a pretty amazing person, but just not in the way that Pat Robertson claims.
But the much more substantial issue I took with Christmas, one with which I still wrestle, is the consumerist aspect of the holiday these days. Late in high school, some friends and I started to critique the commercial culture we lived in. Adbusters came onto my radar and it resonated with me throughout my teens and twenties. I started to notice and really feel upset by the way that a holiday commemorating a real and important event was being exploited for "the almighty dollar." Even though I wasn't brought up in the Christian church, I found this morally objectionable (and yes, I realize that since I am not technically Christian, some might find my celebration of Christmas morally objectionable too.). So I observed Buy Nothing Day on Black Friday (sort of- I didn't buy Christmas things, anyway) and I complained all season-long about the hypocrisy and pathetic-ness of our society. I longed to skip the holiday, but other family members were not about to let me have that pleasure. So I tried to make presents, but even I had to buy some gifts- it's time-consuming to make stuff and plastic is not easy or safe to make by hand!
Then a few years back, I made a fascinating discovery that revitalized my ability to celebrate Christmas merrily again. I was looking online to research the Tomte, a little gnome who figured in Christmas books my mother read me as a child. Her mother was from Sweden and the Tomte was a part of their Christmas tradition, as it is across Scandinavia. The deeper I dug, the more I learned about northern European Christmas traditions and their relationship to Christmas traditions across The Continent. Turns out, the winter celebration of Christmas has its roots in pre-Christian traditions. The importance of celebrating light, for example, during the darkest time of the year. Even Santa Lucia has her origin in a pre-Christian figure.
I don't consider myself pagan, but I am totally down with Mother Nature and with the need to brighten the darkest days of winter with bright lights and songs. And food. And a special present here and there. What I learned about the origins of Christmas helped me identify the parts of the holiday that I love: the candles, the shiny things, reading old Christmas books, listening to music, spending time with friends and family. And food. Presents are fun, too, don't get me wrong, but that's not the part to which I look forward.
My mom told me back when I was feeling Grinch-like that I would like Christmas again, once I had children. This is true, but only because I enjoy sharing the things I like about Christmas, not because I particularly like buying my kids presents (more things to fit into our tiny living space/for me to clean up) or seeing their expressions when they open them (which, at 2 and 13 range from mild interest, to indifference, to total disappointment). I still avoid the Black Friday crowds and try to make a lot of my presents. Those presents are more rewarding to give, for me, because they are more personal and represent my wishes for others.
This is the kind of Christmas I can deal with: Cheerful and bright, with love and light.
Amen.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Coming back for seconds.
My son is two and most of my mom friends have first-born children around the same age. Out of nowhere, an astonishing proportion (in my estimation) of them are pregnant again. I have been very clear with myself and my family that I don't want to raise any more children. This was a really easy decision for me to make, but now that my mama friends are having more babies, I have had confront some unexpected emotional challenges. I feel mostly embarrassed by these feelings, but on the off-chance that others have confronted similar feelings, maybe my own admissions will be helpful.
Quickly, though, before I continue, I want to be really clear that my feelings about having more children myself are in no way a reflection of how I feel about other people having more children. I have nothing but admiration for my friends who are going for more. There are days when I really miss the feeling of being pregnant, days when I wish I could give birth again, days when I wish I had a newborn hold and smell (divine!). I wish I could do it again. That's part of what makes this so hard:
The first feeling I came up again is loneliness- I will be the only one without multiple children of my own. I feel like I'm out of the club!
The second, related, feeling is fear of losing my friends; will we lose touch because we have different parenting challenges? Will I be able to relate to them?
The third feeling is self-doubt: Why don't I want more children? What is wrong with me?
Reflection upon these questions brings on a wave of emotion #4: guilt. There is something wrong with me. I am a bad mother and a bad woman for not wanting more; I am weak for not being able to handle motherhood; I am selfish for wanting something else in my life, for not wanting to sacrifice so much for so much of the time; I don't get the satisfaction from mothering that all my friends get, or that I am supposed to get. Do I not love my son enough? Why do I want something more than caring for him? Isn't this supposed to be the best thing I can do with my life? Bad mommy!
Let me back up a minute and explain how I got to the "No more for me, thanks!" decision, but not because I feel I need to defend my choice. Okay, maybe I do feel like I need to defend my choice. It's the guilt... First of all, I have a step-son already. He is 13, I have been in his life since he was six, and while I think we have a pretty good relationship now, it has been a difficult road for me to get there. So I'm a little tired. Second of all, 13 and two. Think about those phases of life. I get both at the same time. Let's just be understated and call that "challenging," shall we? If I were to add more to that mix, I would lose my mind.
That's straight-forward enough, but it isn't the whole story. So here's my secret: mothering is really hard work anyway, but I especially didn't handle the transition well. I didn't really mind giving up my job, but I lost a lot of other things too. I was the first of my friends to have a baby and after my son was born, we lost touch. I was busy with a newborn and they just couldn't relate. I couldn't relate to them either, and I had some resentment thrown in too. I had to create an entirely new circle of friends, which was not easy for me. As a result, I was extremely lonely and isolated for a long time. Relatedly, I gave up social interactions. No more nights out. I was breastfeeding a baby who demanding small helpings of milk on an hourly basis. He never would drink out of a bottle, so I just never left him for longer than he could go between feedings. No evenings at the theater, no movies, no drinks with friends.... I also gave up my extracurricular activities because of the nursing and because I had been scared by parenting literature which made me feel like my son would be damaged for life if he was left with anyone else for more than five minutes. So I wasn't going to the dance and yoga classes I had enjoyed before I got pregnant. I had no time to paint, or read, or do anything else for myself.
Moreoever, my husband didn't get any leave from work; he went back to work the day I went home from the hospital. I had some help from my mother and other adults, but no friends came to see me and I didn't have the support I needed to eat well, take a shower, take care of the house and also take care of the baby 'round the clock. I lost weight and felt badly about myself.
So I got depressed. Not just sad, but not psychotic either. I functioned and I took excellent care of my exquisite child, but I was a wreck in my head. I don't know if it would be classified as post-partem depression, because it seemed pretty clearly to be circumstantially-driven, not biological. It's not like everything was going swimmingly and I was overcome with inexplicable sadness. No, I could have explained it. But I didn't. It was so humiliating. I felt defeated, like I was a failure because I didn't find ceaseless joy in my new baby and my new role. All of my mom friends seemed to handle motherhood well enough and I didn't want them to know how pathetic I was and how deeply I was grieving the loss of my sense of identity. So I didn't talk about it. And of course that just made it harder, because I felt that much more alone in my sadness, and that much more alone in what I perceived as my own incompetence. I was really overwhelmed with the guilt, too, of knowing that I didn't just slip comfortably into my new role as a mother, that it wasn't just naturally easy, and that I didn't just relish it as the best thing I ever could have wanted to do.
And the truth is, I didn't grow up thinking very much about being a mother. I had dolls and I played house as a child, but I wasn't one of those girls who grew up dreaming about having a family. I babysat, but I didn't like most children very much. I didn't plan not to have children, but it wasn't on my list of things I wanted to do in my lifetime. Learning classical Indian dance and becoming fluent in Italian were on there, but not having children. It is obvious to everyone who knows me and my family that I could not possibly love my son more than I do. He is absolutely the apple of my eye and I adore him more than I though humanly possible. Yet I do not find ultimate personal fulfillment in the day to day life that I provide for him. I work as hard as I can to make sure I do right by him every day, in every way, from what he eats to how I discipline him. I am glad to see what a delightful person he is becoming, but it has come at a tremendous personal cost to me. And even though a lot of things have changed in my life since becoming a mother- more friends with children and a better support system are notable examples- the thought of giving up the fractions of personal time I have struggled to justify and use sends me into a panic.
So what's wrong with me? I don't know. I won't believe that I am a bad mommy, though I sometimes have to talk myself out of that one. I have a lovely family and I have to give myself a little credit for how well cared-for its members are. Maybe I don't have the stamina or the patience; maybe I am just too easily overwhelmed and exhausted; maybe it's that 13 and 2 are enough challenges for me; maybe it's all of the above, or maybe there is no answer. The story ends with me not having any more children. Actually, no, the story doesn't end there; it's just a chapter break. The life I need to create more of is mine.
Quickly, though, before I continue, I want to be really clear that my feelings about having more children myself are in no way a reflection of how I feel about other people having more children. I have nothing but admiration for my friends who are going for more. There are days when I really miss the feeling of being pregnant, days when I wish I could give birth again, days when I wish I had a newborn hold and smell (divine!). I wish I could do it again. That's part of what makes this so hard:
The first feeling I came up again is loneliness- I will be the only one without multiple children of my own. I feel like I'm out of the club!
The second, related, feeling is fear of losing my friends; will we lose touch because we have different parenting challenges? Will I be able to relate to them?
The third feeling is self-doubt: Why don't I want more children? What is wrong with me?
Reflection upon these questions brings on a wave of emotion #4: guilt. There is something wrong with me. I am a bad mother and a bad woman for not wanting more; I am weak for not being able to handle motherhood; I am selfish for wanting something else in my life, for not wanting to sacrifice so much for so much of the time; I don't get the satisfaction from mothering that all my friends get, or that I am supposed to get. Do I not love my son enough? Why do I want something more than caring for him? Isn't this supposed to be the best thing I can do with my life? Bad mommy!
Let me back up a minute and explain how I got to the "No more for me, thanks!" decision, but not because I feel I need to defend my choice. Okay, maybe I do feel like I need to defend my choice. It's the guilt... First of all, I have a step-son already. He is 13, I have been in his life since he was six, and while I think we have a pretty good relationship now, it has been a difficult road for me to get there. So I'm a little tired. Second of all, 13 and two. Think about those phases of life. I get both at the same time. Let's just be understated and call that "challenging," shall we? If I were to add more to that mix, I would lose my mind.
That's straight-forward enough, but it isn't the whole story. So here's my secret: mothering is really hard work anyway, but I especially didn't handle the transition well. I didn't really mind giving up my job, but I lost a lot of other things too. I was the first of my friends to have a baby and after my son was born, we lost touch. I was busy with a newborn and they just couldn't relate. I couldn't relate to them either, and I had some resentment thrown in too. I had to create an entirely new circle of friends, which was not easy for me. As a result, I was extremely lonely and isolated for a long time. Relatedly, I gave up social interactions. No more nights out. I was breastfeeding a baby who demanding small helpings of milk on an hourly basis. He never would drink out of a bottle, so I just never left him for longer than he could go between feedings. No evenings at the theater, no movies, no drinks with friends.... I also gave up my extracurricular activities because of the nursing and because I had been scared by parenting literature which made me feel like my son would be damaged for life if he was left with anyone else for more than five minutes. So I wasn't going to the dance and yoga classes I had enjoyed before I got pregnant. I had no time to paint, or read, or do anything else for myself.
Moreoever, my husband didn't get any leave from work; he went back to work the day I went home from the hospital. I had some help from my mother and other adults, but no friends came to see me and I didn't have the support I needed to eat well, take a shower, take care of the house and also take care of the baby 'round the clock. I lost weight and felt badly about myself.
So I got depressed. Not just sad, but not psychotic either. I functioned and I took excellent care of my exquisite child, but I was a wreck in my head. I don't know if it would be classified as post-partem depression, because it seemed pretty clearly to be circumstantially-driven, not biological. It's not like everything was going swimmingly and I was overcome with inexplicable sadness. No, I could have explained it. But I didn't. It was so humiliating. I felt defeated, like I was a failure because I didn't find ceaseless joy in my new baby and my new role. All of my mom friends seemed to handle motherhood well enough and I didn't want them to know how pathetic I was and how deeply I was grieving the loss of my sense of identity. So I didn't talk about it. And of course that just made it harder, because I felt that much more alone in my sadness, and that much more alone in what I perceived as my own incompetence. I was really overwhelmed with the guilt, too, of knowing that I didn't just slip comfortably into my new role as a mother, that it wasn't just naturally easy, and that I didn't just relish it as the best thing I ever could have wanted to do.
And the truth is, I didn't grow up thinking very much about being a mother. I had dolls and I played house as a child, but I wasn't one of those girls who grew up dreaming about having a family. I babysat, but I didn't like most children very much. I didn't plan not to have children, but it wasn't on my list of things I wanted to do in my lifetime. Learning classical Indian dance and becoming fluent in Italian were on there, but not having children. It is obvious to everyone who knows me and my family that I could not possibly love my son more than I do. He is absolutely the apple of my eye and I adore him more than I though humanly possible. Yet I do not find ultimate personal fulfillment in the day to day life that I provide for him. I work as hard as I can to make sure I do right by him every day, in every way, from what he eats to how I discipline him. I am glad to see what a delightful person he is becoming, but it has come at a tremendous personal cost to me. And even though a lot of things have changed in my life since becoming a mother- more friends with children and a better support system are notable examples- the thought of giving up the fractions of personal time I have struggled to justify and use sends me into a panic.
So what's wrong with me? I don't know. I won't believe that I am a bad mommy, though I sometimes have to talk myself out of that one. I have a lovely family and I have to give myself a little credit for how well cared-for its members are. Maybe I don't have the stamina or the patience; maybe I am just too easily overwhelmed and exhausted; maybe it's that 13 and 2 are enough challenges for me; maybe it's all of the above, or maybe there is no answer. The story ends with me not having any more children. Actually, no, the story doesn't end there; it's just a chapter break. The life I need to create more of is mine.
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