2 posts tagged “parenting”

Originally published at this woman's work. You can comment here or there.

We figured out why Madison calls her favorite blanket her Ovaltine blanket -- because the balloons the bears are holding are oval-shaped. Well, that makes sense, doesn't it?

Madison is very nosy. I like to call it interested. She eavesdrops on other conversations at clay class and she'll insert herself at other people's tables at the library. Last week I was looking through picture books while she wandered up and down the same aisle with a piece of paper she'd scribbled on ("I'm looking for my books like you, Mommy") and she found an agitated mother leaning down and whispering harshly at her preschooler.

"Hey mommy!" she hollered back. "This mommy is counting just like you!"

(The mom was doing, "I'm going to count to three and then..." I do this all the time because Madison is so easily distracted from the task at hand, like putting on underwear. I never have to actually get to three. I have no idea what I'll do if she doesn't jump up at two. Probably I'll need to retire from parenthood because my one useful Madison tool will be broken.)

Speaking of counting and other disciplinary techniques, now that Noah is ten and incredibly mouthy, I've become a lot stricter. In some ways, things have loosened up a lot as he's gotten older. I don't dictate his eating or his toy-picking-upping anymore but man, we're working hard on the old "show your parents some respect" thing. I'd worry that Noah was on the way to being a Dead End Kid but all of his friends have suddenly become eye-rolling, sigh-heaving, smirking and rude. I listen to them playing downstairs and they're all awful. For one, they brag like crazy ("I can complete this level in like ten minutes without even trying") and they feign coolness in that terribly indifferent tween way. Other people's kids are still nice to me and I hear Noah is still a pleasant play-date to other parents so I have hopes that they will all grow out of it in five or six years. Meanwhile, Noah is on the receiving end of "respect others" lectures at least once a week. (Who am I kidding -- at least once a day.) Being a tween and not a teen, his response is always contrite and apologetic but being a tween and not a ... well, what's just below a tween? ... anyway, we're talking a lot about "watch your tone" and "don't roll your eyes when I'm speaking to you."

My mom was not so much stricter than me as she was a more stern disciplinarian. There's a lot of her techniques that I don't use but standing firm and with confidence comes easily to me. I may not have liked the way she enforced her rules but her rules usually made sense to me up until I was about fifteen and decided that she was insane and I had all the answers and no longer need to pay her no mind. (Although the truth is, I still came to her for advice and reassurance -- I just no longer felt like a curfew was a reasonable thing for me to have see as how I was practically grown and was it my fault my mom couldn't accept that?)

Confidence is a biggie for successful parenting. I'm all for parents questioning their motives and taking a hard look at their means but ultimately, you've got to feel like you know what you're doing or these smart kids will loophole you to death. That's what my mama told me and I think she must be right.

Originally published at this woman's work. You can comment here or there.

I'm trying to work my writing muscles by blogging before I get down to my to-do list.

Yesterday I ended up talking about Madison's adoption some without intending to. I need to figure out how I'm going to handle this. See, Jessica is an everyday part of our lives and she comes up in everyday conversation. Like someone might say, "Man the movie I saw the other day was incredible" and I'll say, "Oh Jessica was just telling us about that movie! She said the lead actor was amazing!" And they say, "Isn't Jessica Madison's" pause "birth mother? Do you see her that often then?" And ta-da! We're talking about Madison's adoption.

There's a lot to think about with this. I know some adoptees don't want to talk about their adoptions or have people know they're adopted and that there are parents who keep quiet until their child is old enough to say yea or nay to the discussion. That makes sense to me. But I also think it's about a billion times easier to do in a more closed adoption/less open because those families are living adoption differently than we do. It would be odd to keep Jessica set aside in a little corner of conversation marked "adoption" just like it would be odd to set aside my sister and only bring her up only if we were discussing "siblings." I talk to my sister all the time; she's a regular part of my life. Likewise Jessica is a regular part of my life. We talk about a lot of things besides Madison so it feels pretty natural to bring her up when I'm talking to someone about raw foods (because Jessica eats semi-raw) or when to pierce a kid's ears (because Jessica and I disagree on when to pierce Madison's).

These are some of the things people ask when Jessica comes up in conversation so you can get an idea of how things get complicated very quickly:

• Do you see her often?


• Does she lives around here?


• How is that?


• Does Madison know who she is?


• So it's like she's an aunt to Madison/daughter to you (I get this a lot -- I say, no like a sister to me like Madison's birth mother to Madison. I understand the need to find a simile to make sense of it but I strongly resist the "aunt" comparison.)

I don't mind answering most of these -- they're pretty innocuous. I don't like answering specifics to why Jessica placed (heck, I don't pretend to be qualified to answer those questions) but usually those questions are so vague because people know it's personal and they want to give you room not to answer.

But then there's this other thing. I'm a huge proponent of open adoption, obviously. And I'm also a huge proponent of helping people make sense of open adoption because it's a mind-shift, you know? Like saying, "No, not like an aunt -- she's Madison's birth mom." (Again, I'll say that this is the title Jessica chose so it's the one we use.) It's like I'm trying to physically shoehorn the reality of who Jessica is to us in someone else's conception of adoption. Why? Why do I want to do this? (I'm thinking as I type.) I guess when I sift through the feelings I have when I'm having these kinds of conversations is that I want to: counter some of the myths about birth moms and adoption; make it clear that this is a subject that is normal and comfortable for our family (that Jessica is a member of our family and not a special event). See, the more that people in our everyday lives understand how things are for us, the less we'll have to worry later. So if I'm sitting around with friendly homeschoolers explaining our adoption once, I won't have to again. And no one will be weird if Jessica shows up at a class with us (a distinct possibility).

For Madison, I really want to pave the way for normality when it comes to Jessica and people who are in our lives. It's not like the grocery check-out person needs to know, but for a mom who's going to circle our social and homeschool events, it just seems nice to put that out there.

It gets more slippery when people want to applaud our adoption; it feels uncomfortable. I mean, I'm proud of our family and I understand that it's interesting to people but you all know that my feelings about adoption are complicated and I haven't figured out how I want to react to statements like, "How great for Jessica! How wonderful of you! And she still gets to be a part of Madison's life! It's really working out for everybody!" I should just smile, right? But I'm always compelled to say, "Well, it's complicated. Well, credit really goes to Jessica. Well, we don't consider it a sacrifice. Well, it's been a blessing for the rest of us, too; we're so grateful to have Jessica in our lives. Well, I love Jessica for herself -- not just because she's Madison's mother."

It gets people in too deep and I need to learn to shut up. It just bothers me (and maybe it shouldn't) when people think open adoption cures all adoption ills. I think open adoption is fabulous and all but but but ... I guess I'm uncomfortable with the credit ("It's so good of you all to welcome her!") and I have to counter it ("It's not a sacrifice"). And I'm uncomfortable with people assuming that this is "the best of both worlds" (people say this) because Jessica doesn't have the burden of parenting but gets all the fun of visits. (That's the great myth of open adoption, isn't it? I used to believe it.)

And then there's Madison, of course, running in circles listening in. I'm not sharing personal secrets but still -- it's her life and it's her life story. So when someone asks, "Does she know who Jessica is?" and I say, "Sure, she knows Jessica is her birth mommy and what that means" she's hearing that and I don't know if it bothers her. (I asked her yesterday and she said, "No, it doesn't bother me but when you use your whiny voice I say, 'Please use your grown-up voice, Mommy' because that bothers me." Gee, don't know where she heard that.) I mean, I talked a lot about Noah's birth when he was this age and we'd be trading birth stories but people generally just wanted me to finish blathering on about my birth story so they could get to telling about theirs. This is different because even if it's everyday to us, it's not to other people and really, it's the other reactions I worry about for her. But I don't want her to think that her beginnings are less valid and thus need to be hidden.

On the one hand I think, "This is her reality; she's adopted and people are curious about adoption." And "This is her reality; Jessica is a part of our lives and people are interested in that." And then I think we'll just continue on this way and I'll keep checking in and will alter the way we handle it as needed. But then I wonder if I should be more cautious. If we had a mostly closed adoption, it would be easier because it would come up a lot less -- it would likely only come up in adoption context. Or I could censor mention of Jessica, (which would be hard for me and also my gut tells me would be wrong). Or I could somewhat censor (like when someone comments on Madison's height and I say her birth mom was also tall for her age -- I could skip that) but again, to me that makes it seem like there's something secret or shameful because I wouldn't stop myself from saying, "Noah loved that toy at this age, too" although of course it's not the same because no one's head would swivel and no one would say, "So do you still keep in contact with Noah? How is that?"

I don't really want to "protect" Madison from people's assumptions about adoption as much as I want to model ways to handle it and I can only model it if we're talking about it. I'm just figuring out the boundaries and I guess I'll always be reevaluating them.

Ok, off to get some work done.