17Apr

How to Be a Parent

When I was a teenager, I babysat several times a week. I loved every minute, and if I had written an essay called “How to Be a Parent” at age fifteen, it would have said this:

First, you play princess Barbies with your adorable four-year-old, then put her in her princess jammies to read princess stories before tucking her into her princess blankets for the night. Then you feed the baby his bottle while watching a romantic comedy and eating sugar by the spoonful dinner. Once the baby is asleep, you’re free to spend the next several hours taking sexy bubble baths, or whatever adults do with their copious spare time. The end.

In the 1,141 days that I have actually been a parent, I have taken exactly three bubble baths (none of them particularly sexy) and learned a few things. Like, the moms of the children I babysat were probably cleaning frantically for seven hours before I came over. Also, the parents had probably lost a cumulative year of sleep training that adorable four-year-old to stay in her princess bed all night. And normal adults, those with actual responsibilities during the day, don’t stay up until 2 a.m. drinking wine in their lingerie by candlelight. At least not often.

The relative who came to visit us when we brought Natalie home from the hospital was just trying to help, I know. But everything about her help got under my skin, crawled around, and gnawed at me like a swarm of chiggers. I scratched back pretty hard, I’m afraid.

I felt like all those years of babysitting had earned me a PhD in childcare, but I had no idea what to do with my own daughter. My mind boggled at the fact that this tiny person was completely dependent on me. What if I didn’t dress her warmly enough? How could I know if she was eating well? What was making her so miserable that she had to cry? I felt like I should be confident and relaxed, but I doubted myself at every turn, and my relative’s comments further prevented me from finding my own way of mothering. They made me feel 200% a failure.

The “I would nevers” started innocently enough: I would never leave my baby strapped into a swing all day. I would never use the television as a babysitter. I would never ignore my children. I wasn’t trying to be supercilious at all. I just knew I loved my little girl and wanted to learn from all the parenting mistakes I’d seen.

But then, the third trimester of my pregnancy with Sophie lumbered down and squished out my energy overnight. My energetic two-year-old was suddenly a pig-tailed tornado, and I kept falling asleep three words into story time. “Sesame Street” and “The Backyardigans” became very, very important to our survival. I started falling asleep at night under a palpable cloud of mother-guilt.

Natalie and I went out on a mommy-daughter date this week. We walked through a park, Natalie chatting incessantly about everything she saw (“Look, there’s a flower! And a bird! And another flower! Ooo, look, there’s grass! Did you see the grass, Mommy? The grass, over there? Did you see it?”), and then shared a cup of ice cream. It was perfect. I hadn’t paid attention lately to what an amazing little girl she is, bubbling over with sweetness and enthusiasm, and I was blown away.

I wish so much that I could do more for her. Maybe if Sophie cleaned the house for me, I could give Natalie the one-on-one time she deserves, but you know babies–too busy lying around, being cute. But despite my imperfections as a mother, my daughter has a vast, beautiful heart. She is happy and creative, and she knows I love her with everything I have. She knows, and that is enough for now.

We’re on the journey back into the sunlight, but this time, I’m not looking at other families for validation (At least our daughter eats her vegetables, yada yada yada). Instead, I’m deeply humbled by the other moms and dads who are struggling to be the right parents for their children. I’m encouraged to see other families who, through their aching, ache for one other. I’m so grateful to know I’m not alone in this shaky business of being human.

Things change. Children learn their way in life as parents temporarily lose theirs. “I would never” becomes “I’ll do my best,” and we fumble our way through apologies. We learn honesty and grace. Our rose-tinted glasses crack; we see our children for who they are. And through each struggle, each fight for the relationships most precious to us, we dive deeper into the mystery of unconditional love.

15Apr

Leafshade Living

I’m having a heavy week. It’s not bad exactly, just dappled in shadow like leafshades on the grass.

Sophie’s been a fitful version of herself. She’s allergic to bananas of all things, and I can’t shake the feeling that I betrayed her trust by feeding them to her, even though she loved them. Especially because she loved them. This is such a non-problem compared to Celiac Disease or lymphoma or epilepsy or spina bifida–should I go on?–but I keep thinking about banana nut pancakes on Saturday mornings and deflating in tiny puffs.

The weather is on crack, of course, but no one wants to hear more about rain. No, wait, sun. No, rain again. April, get thee to rehab.

I’ve started an intensive workout routine called “walking around.” I am enough of a wimp that circling the neighborhood every day leaves me breathless and sore and feel-goody the rest of the time. The idea was to build up my nonexistent energy, get my blood flowing enough to wash the breakfast dishes without collapsing into a puddle of wife-slush. What I didn’t count on was loving the effort. The steady push-pull of bright air in my lungs. The rhythm of feet on pavement. Wild wisteria, children playing soccer, twilight reflecting off the city’s peak. Twenty minutes a day to expand my hunchback life.

I’ve also been sorting through the tantalizing sludge of What Do I Want To Do When I Grow Up?, except this week, it’s I Finally Know What I Want To Do, So How Do I Do It? If I ignore the time factor (specifically, how I have none), I feel ready to write for broader surroundings. This blog is my cozy little house where I can wear pajama pants all day, let the dishes pile up, and spill my unedited guts. I feel safe and happy here, but I’m aching to get out the door, maybe wear heels and sparkly earrings, give my creativity a big breath.

Now that I’m looking for them, the opportunities are overwhelming. In fact, I’m having trouble staying in tune with my goals in the face of so many almost-rights. It’s like chugging a strange cocktail of doubt, hope, turmoil, and inspiration. Can you get a hangover from excitement? I’m ready to see myself as a writer, and it’s every bit as scary as you might expect… multiplied by a majillion or so.

Taxes are done, I have a functional computer again, and the kitchen floor may just get mopped this week. I am madly in love with my family, and I know what I want to do when I grow up. I’m thinking this heaviness won’t last much longer than the smoky crack-clouds pausing outside our window.

12Apr

Bragging Rights

Mr. Freeze was, without question, the most horrible apparatus I had ever seen. 1,450 feet of icy blue track shot out of a dilapidated warehouse, performing grotesque twists and gyrations at breakneck speed, finally careening straight into the sky with only gravity as a harness. And THEN? A backwards free-fall, upside-down corkscrews, 4G forces yanking at the tiny magnetized cars. I involuntarily clutched my stomach. “No. No, no, no. No way, no. I wouldn’t ride that for a million dollars. Have I mentioned the fact that NO?”

As I waited on a bench for my brothers and dad to risk their lives on the deathcoaster, I considered that I probably would ride it for a million dollars. Maybe even fifty–think of all the lip gloss I could buy! But no one was paying, and anyway, twelve-years-old was far too young to die.

But! whispered an unfamiliar voice from a shadowy corner of my brain. You’ll regret it if you don’t try. You know you will.

“Uh huh. And what, exactly, about not committing 70 miles-per-hour suicide will I regret?”

The experience, whispered my brain. The adrenaline rush. The thrill of speed. The wind in your face. The chance to see the world upside-down and sideways.

“Sorry, but no. I just… I just can’t.”

Somewhere, in the back of my brain, a devious smile–Even for bragging rights?

So, for the paltry prize of bragging rights, I rode Mr. Freeze. I trembled through the entire line, sweating and nauseous and imagining my funeral, but I got on the coaster nonetheless. Once buckled into the harness and staring straight into the first tunnel, the tracks underneath me buzzing with barely-leashed energy, I died at the rate of four thousand times a second. My fears spiraled madly. I pictured my head exploding into bloody shards of stupidity or gravity suddenly taking a lunch break. I was spectacularly dramatic.

However, the instant that rollercoaster took off, I became a different person. For the first time in my life, my heart pumped more adrenaline than blood. I felt the wind–really felt it–and the speed and the movement like an enormous daredevil ballet. I felt an entirely new kind of alive, the kind that comes with risk and determination. I loved every second.

The whispering stranger in my brain found a voice that day, and I have treated it as a friend ever since. Admittedly, it is the kind of friend that mothers tell their children to stay away from, but that just makes it more enticing. It has talked me into small things like jet skiing and eating grubs, and it has talked me into huge things like traveling the world and taking off down a snowy mountain with both feet strapped onto a flimsy board. My stomach still knots up whenever I face a daring situation–I would hardly call myself fearless–but I’ve learned to embrace what scares me for the sake of a full and vivid life, for experience. And, of course, for the bragging rights.

10Apr

Poll-ar Bear Politics

I miss the following about living in the US:
Early-release movies… in English,
24-hour superstores,
Marshmallows.

I do not miss the following:
SUVs,
Southern accents,
Political commercials.

I can never stop biting my nails during election season in the States. My stomach knots up at every commercial spewing venom about opposing candidates–people, all of them, hoping to do good for our country. Four years ago, two kind men’s faces were pasted all over the media like FBI posters — “Wanted for ignorance and warmongering: George Bush.” “Wanted for spinelessness and baby killing: John Kerry.” It wouldn’t have mattered who won; the influence of each man had already been crippled by hate long before Election Day.

I grew up on the moral battlefield of Texan politics. I dutifully hated Bill Clinton, cheering when he was publicly shamed for his affair. I worked the phone tree for the local Republican headquarters and held signs for hours in the cold on voting days. (The Governor sent me a certificate of thanks for being a “Poll-ar bear.” I’ll wait while you roll your eyes.) I went to meetings where women sporting giant American flag earrings prayed, fervently, for God to strike down the heathens who were demoralizing our country. They were referring, of course, to the Democrats.

Politics came down to three issues for my social circle: abortion, homosexuality, and public education. It didn’t matter that everyone I knew home schooled their children; they were still outraged that public schools taught evolution and “forbade” prayer. It didn’t matter that none of them knew a single gay person; homosexuals deserved no rights. It didn’t matter that none of them had ever been faced with a teenage pregnancy; abortion clinics and doctors should be bombed into oblivion.

I never once heard any of the adults in my life discuss terrorism or poverty or prison reform or medical research. They did mention environmentalism, only to make fun of it; preservation of the earth was just the ploy of immoral Democrats. During “election parties,” when large groups of Christians got together to discuss the takeover of our nation and compare hernias, not a single thought was given to the disadvantaged people in our world. We were too busy hating everyone on the other political team.

I could write entire books on the purposeful ignorance I’ve seen, the arsenic-laced bullshit I’ve heard from people who profess to follow God. I’ve witnessed plenty from non-Christians as well, but the particular brand of fundamentalist warfare I grew up with makes me deeply ashamed. I think Donald Miller puts it perfectly in Searching for God Knows What:

“How did a spirituality such as Christianity, a spirituality that speaks of eternity, of a world without end, of forgiveness of sins and a mysterious union with the Godhead, come to be represented by a moralist agenda and a trickle-down economic theory? And more important, how did a man born of Eastern descent, a man who called Himself the Prince of Peace, a man whom the sacred writings describe eating with prostitutes and providing wine at weddings and healing the sick and ignoring any political plot, a man who wants us to turn the other cheek and give all our possessions if we are sued, become associated with–no, become the poster boy for–a Western moral and financial agenda communicated through the rhetoric of war and ignorant of the damage it is causing to a world living in poverty?”

This isn’t meant to bash the love-less Christians any more than it is to bash people with different sexual orientations or educational philosophies. This is simply to explain why, come November, I will be voting for the presidential candidate I think will best be able to change what truly matters–whether that person be a prehistoric gun-slinging bureaucrat, an inexperienced Muslim pretty-boy, or a fire-breathing she-devil from the bowels of feminist hell.*


*Before you send the hate mail or the flaming bags of poo, make sure you realize that last bit was a joke. If you want to blast me for the “Poll-ar bear” bit, though, I’ll totally understand.

8Apr

Mortification Monday, Ch. 5

Mortification Monday, v. 1.0 (Disclaimers here)
Chapter 5: Not Your Typical Crush

Sometimes, a Monday just falls on the wrong day. Between a caffeine-fueled cleaning blitz (Lavazza coffee: Different kind of bean, different kind of gas!) and the subsequent mental crash, the author loses her funny. And perhaps her three-year-old coerces her into spending the morning “fishing” with a plastic straw, which is THE MOST BORING of all boring games in existence. Yes, even more than The Quiet Game, which was invented for the purpose of torturing prisoners of war with EXTREME BOREDOM. Anyway, things start going awry, and then haywire, and then dropped dishes/hunger-striking baby/stubbed toe disastrous. And then, because she is not thinking straight, the author looks online for a new swimsuit and subsequently changes her name to Flabby McBlimple. And by the time she opens her old diary to share it with the Internet, she is so overwhelmed by the patheticness and irresponsible use of underlining therein that she gives up on life and goes back to fishing.

So you see, sometimes, Mortification Monday has reason to fall on a Tuesday. You are kindly asked to get over it.

::Clears throat::

When we last peeked into preteen Bethany’s diary, there was mention of liking Igor and unholy amounts some underlines. That pretty much brings us up to date:

Tuesday, February 25th (Age 12)
“You know how in most crushes you usually don’t look at the guy you like, you usually don’t talk to eachother1, and you probably only see him once or twice a week or2 month?3 With Igor and I, we talk all the time, look in eachother’s eyes, (he has hazel-blue eyes just like mine) and see eachother4 quite a bit (not by ourselves, obviously5). Today when he got a haircut that I didn’t like a lot, that didn’t change anything. He’s still the same guy, ugly or cute.6 I’ve made a list of character qualities in a guy, and he gets 22 out of the 26, and the other 4, I’m not sure of.7

1 In elementary school, I spent long portions of every day doing grammar exercises and practicing penmanship like a good little Colonial girl (I also knew how to cross-stitch, evade the Tories, and throw tea into harbors, but that is beside the point). I only started to love the English language, however, during my rebellious stage when I looked up bad words in the Dictionary (I also started listening to Oldies AND wearing tank-tops in secret… shock! Though this, too, is beside the point). I started to love English even more a couple of years later when I fell head-over-heels for a boy who said things like “nary” and “hoary debacle” in an excruciatingly charming way (“Cogsarned!” “Tickles my lollies!” “Homoerotic binge with Yoga!” Swoon, I know. Yet still beside the point). I enjoyed tutoring writing classes in college so much that I married a tutoree, and my creative writing class was basically chocolate-flavored crack, and sometime in there, I decided I might as well get my degree in the field I love (as opposed to elementary education, which gave me seizures, or psychology, which made me neurotic and has nothing to do with the point). The Point is that I eventually learned “eachother” is actually two words. Glad we cleared that up.

2 Remember last time? When I promised this entry would have absolutely no underlines whatsoever? And through my clever lie got you to come back this week? And you’re still reading even though there is, in fact, an underline? HA.

3 Quick poll: Do you ever look at the guy you like? Do you ever speak to him? Do you see him more than twice a month? No? Well, congratulations! You have a Typical Crush™! If you’re interested in progressing to the next level, that being Social Contact™, you may want to try incessantly stalking him until he asks why you’re hiding in his shoe rack again. Casually mentioning his Social Security number is a good way to break the ice.

4 TWO words. Just a friendly reminder to diary-prone preteens everywhere. (Also two words: “All right,” “this morning,” and “anal retentive.”)

5 Obviously. Because unsupervised Social Contact™ could lead to other vices such as playing footsie, listening to rock music, and me stealing his pencil because it smelled like his delicious, clean, guy smell. Not that any of those things ended up happening, of course…

6 I was quite the saint in those days. First, I was not angry when the love of my life put his arm around me. Then, I was not offended when we got to play a pretend couple. Finally, I continued to feel twitterpated EVEN THOUGH Igor’s hair was temporarily on the short side. Folks, this kind of selflessness is what relationships are all about.

7 Regrettably, I do not have a copy of this list, but I can imagine some of the character qualities I found appealing:
+ Hazel-blue eyes
+ GOOD HAIRCUT (temporarily suspended from list)
+ Is really sweet
+ First name Igor
+ Last name Dreamboat
? Has already picked out my engagement ring

Next time on Mortification Monday: The saga of the unfortunate haircut continues!

4Apr

Worth [very nearly] 1,000 Words

If my week were a photograph, it would show a tiny corner kitchen. Crusty dishes swell like a wave out of the sink–a new black plate already chipped on one side, five (thousand?) saucepans stacked like Russian nesting dolls, a spaghetti server caked with dry tomato pulp that might as well be rubber cement for how easily it will come off. Brown-rimmed coffee cups lurk on the stove, under the dish towel, behind the water filter–self-medication for restless naps. That filmy tangle of plastic wrap in the corner is left over from Wednesday, when it shut out air from my morning and stuck my afternoon in all the wrong places. That gummy wad of Cheerio crumbs, smashed peas, and stray Playmobil pieces? Used to be the floor.

In the high chair, just visible to the side, sits a tired baby adorned head to toe in rice mush. Her cranky pout could be due either to boredom or to the angry red hives popping up around her mouth from tasting formula. From where I stand, it looks like a prescription: Exclusively breastmilk, five times a day, until college.

I am the one crumbling by the sink with stringy hair and yesterday’s makeup, looking exactly like those moms I used to pity. That white patch on my shoulder is spit-up, naturally, and that green glint in my eye is all the bad words I want to say…

…but won’t because of the short girl tugging on my shirt. It’s not evident from the photo, but she is chattering in Ancient Mongolian: “Fleeshle waboom botchgoin mickaiwogo toks meegwam clombish lobblelobblelobblelobble popcorn for breakfast?” She may have been wearing those stripey pink socks for three days straight now, but her mother declines to comment.

The photo shows grease splatters on the range hood, rainy pockmarks on the window, and dust bunnies curled in the least-reachable corners. It shows the nuclear fallout from last night’s souptastrophe. It shows the disparity between sticky note to-do lists and hours in a day. What the photo doesn’t show, however, is the front door, just out of sight around the corner. It doesn’t show the moment tonight when that door will open and my husband will be home again. It doesn’t show Natalie shrieking “DADDY!!!” (in English, praise be to Webster) or Sophie bursting into giggles or me sinking into his arms like a damsel quite suddenly out of distress. It doesn’t show the dirty dishes fading into the distance or smiles eclipsing my lack of makeup… but who cares? This is the point when I tear the photo into Cheerio-sized bits and toss it into the mess that used to matter.

4Apr

The Story

This story starts like a mystery.

A long, green-brown river snakes across Texas. Early Spanish explorers named it “Los Brazos de Dios”–the arms of God–but God’s reach only extends into the Great Plains, forgotten. Along its banks, stubby trees twist out of the clay, staking their claim in the eternal flatness of the Southwest. The river is quiet. Lonely. Uninhabited. Except for them. The 510-acre compound is a dense patch of green in the dusty fields north of Waco. Nestling among the shrubbery are a gristmill, a blacksmith shop, a communal farm. Work horses shuffle wearily in their stables. Small green lizards scurry under rows of sunflowers. Her face is dappled by the early morning light filtering through the church windows. She could have been one of the women in their floor-length dresses with each strand of hair obediently pinned out of sight. She could have been one of the close-cropped men sweating submissively in their long sleeves. But she was just a child, and not just a child but an outsider, cowering under a pew while hundreds of plain-dressed men and women simultaneously screamed in tongues.

This story almost ended a mystery as well. My memories flutter in confetti bits like young children’s often do… Chigger bites at the stained-glass shop. Pecan pie made with some healthy alternative to sugar. Six lanky brothers playing bluegrass on homemade banjoes. A gray-haired grandmother’s pregnant belly. Group songs about a man whose limbs were cut off for praising God. Moonlit rides home after the adults’ hushed meetings. The point is that I remember. When I finally got up the courage to ask about this group, several years ago, I was told I was never there. We both knew it was a lie–the forced shrug, the too-casual change of subject, the thin hope my questions would go away. But some questions can’t be shrugged away. I desperately needed to understand the first fourteen years of my life and why they were kept so far from my grasp. I’ve asked questions, I’ve scoured my memory, I’ve Googled every term I could think of. And finally, today, I found the answers. The group has taken a new name and is under investigation, but nothing has really changed. This part of the story is a history text, the factual treatment of shocking information that you expect to culminate in disaster. 

It started with a group of disillusioned New Yorkers and a mishmash of Pentecostal and Anabaptist beliefs, but mostly with a man. He claimed he was the voice of God. He promised to simplify their lives if only they packed up, moved across the country with him, and promised to pool their future resources for “the church.”Most of his followers enjoy the chance to play Little House on the Prairie in isolation from the secular world. They carve their own furniture and bake their own bread. They plow their fields à la Pa Ingalls and sing together instead of watching television in the evenings. But not all their beliefs are so innocuous. Wedding rings are banned for being a “pagan” custom, as are Christmas trees and makeup. Members are discouraged from visiting doctors, treating sickness instead with herbal remedies and prayer. They do not get Social Security numbers or college degrees, trying so hard to disassociate themselves from the outside world that they even cut off family ties. They are advised to use severe physical punishment on their children, including infants. Any member who disagrees with the leadership’s spiritual “revelations” is publicly humiliated and kicked out of the group. People are free to leave, of course, but they are reigned in by the terrible fear of lost salvation. The leader’s interpretation of theology says that no one’s place in heaven is secure, and his followers live a desperate existence of trying to adequately please God. Children who don’t speak “in tongues” (supposedly a special language that God understands though it sounds like gibberish) are told they aren’t saved. Families are told that their relatives living elsewhere in the world are not true Christians. Women are required to home school their children, men are required to work on the compound, and everyone is required to follow strict dress and conduct codes–all to earn their daily salvation at the word of the leader.

Maybe this story is really a John Grisham thriller and I’m the witness that escaped… names lodged in the recesses of my memory, faces peeking out like magazine scraps. However, I feel much more like a character in a psychological tragedy. Emotions broadside me in quick succession, each hit heavier than the last–shock, repugnance, comprehension, affirmation, pain. I’ve heard of support groups for cult survivors; what about those of us who were never officially part of the cult, but didn’t escape either? This kind of thing is only supposed to happen between book pages, snapped shut on a shelf in quiet disregard… Not in the real stories, the ones that are still being written and rewritten and survived.

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