Tag Archive for: parenting

Miracles: Contest Entry


This is the 400-word essay I entered as part of a contest with the prompt “miracles.”

A man who came home from war in Vietnam so scarred that his wife didn’t know him.

A mother of two whose doctor told her that if she got pregnant again, it would kill her.

A baby girl living in an orphanage in Saigon whose best chance for a good life lay in America.

This five pound baby whose identification bracelet is so small it fits my adult-size thumb like a ring, was strapped onto an airplane with some 300 other orphans and nurses to find her way to the promised land. The plane skidded through a rice paddy after taking off and burst into flames as it crashed, but this little fighter managed to survive.

An American businessman who opened his heart and his personal bank account to fly the survivors to the US despite the fact that they didn’t all have homes to go to.

The pilot who knew that his buddy from Vietnam was a good man with a wife who desperately wanted more children. He put in a call for help to see if they might who might agree to foster one of the children.

This is the story of a tiny baby girl, suffering from malnutrition and desperate for a family, who ended up bringing love to my mother, hope to my father that something good could come of the war, and a precious playmate to my brother and me. She has brought laughter, redemption, and a world of acceptance to our family and today she has her own little girl whose wide-eyed wonder at the world brings each one of us joy.

HURRY UP!!!

Every time I see the advertisement on television for this product I cringe. And I thank the Lord above that I am not a new mother, sleep-deprived and desperate to make sure that my child has every possible advantage available to her. Feeling badly that I enrolled her in preschool without the ability to read, speak a foreign language and leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Why are we in such a hurry? What happened to babyhood? We’ve already begun chipping away at childhood by giving our elementary students hours of homework and standardized tests and expecting them to go to soccer practice three days a week. Our society places a high value on getting the jump on things. The day after Christmas, the Target store in my neighborhood has ripped down the trees and ornaments and images of Santa Claus and replaced them with shiny red hearts and boxes of candy and lacy doilies. Suburban mothers are encouraged to sign their newborns up for baby swim classes and begin shopping for preschools.
By mid-February there are bikinis displayed in the kids’ section of Macy’s and if I wait until May to look for sandals I am out of luck. Even if I get the sandals early, it is impossible to find any without a two-inch heel. Even the flip-flops in my eight-year-old’s size have a wedge heel.
Parents do mental gymnastics after playdates, wondering how they can ensure that their child gets rid of the training wheels before Johnny does or graduates to a big-boy bed before anyone else in their kid circle. And now this. Before your child learns to walk (read: captive audience), they can read. If you just buy this and sit them in front of the DVD for an hour at a time. You must capitalize on this narrow window of time when your child’s brain is ripe for language and TEACH THEM TO READ NOW!!! Or what?
I can remember agonizing over whether or not to let Eve quit violin after six months. She was five. It seems ridiculous now, but at the time, I honestly couldn’t decide whether I was letting her “give up” or “cop out” if she stopped lessons. I didn’t want to waste the six months she had put into the violin and, even though I had only rented the instrument, it seemed as though I might be giving up an opportunity to have her truly excel at something she had shown talent for if she quit. Thank goodness some rational voice came out of the skies and said, “She’s not losing any brain cells if she quits. If she isn’t enjoying it, why should she do it? She’s five years old. And if she regrets it, she can always start again sometime later. Even when she’s forty.”
And that was it. I mean, what if she gets hit by a bus tomorrow? Do I want her entire childhood to have been crammed with educational opportunities instead of mud pies and lazy days swinging at the park? When I look back at my favorite memories, they don’t involve getting straight A’s on my report card. I remember hide-and-seek with my cousins, climbing trees, riding my bike down the steepest hill in town and the day my girlfriends and I skipped school and drove to the beach to act like five-year-olds for the day.
I don’t want my life or my children’s lives to be fraught with competition, every moment measured against some arbitrary standard or some other kid’s accomplishments. I don’t want to be burdened by always doing more than the next guy or defending my lack of ability. If you are a new parent, let me tell you a secret: the things that your child needs to learn, they will. As you’re agonizing about potty training, let me reassure you that eventually, your child will learn to use the toilet. They may be three or four or ten, but they’re not going to go to high school wearing Pull-Ups. Now, do yourself a favor and substitute “sleeping in their own bed” or “sleeping all night” or “reading” or “writing their own name” or “talking” or any other milestone for “potty training” and read it out loud. In front of a mirror. These things will happen, probably regardless of your blood, sweat, and tears.
We could all buy into this notion that we OUGHT to be doing more and being more and kill ourselves each and every day to get the educational/financial/social advantages that may (or may not) come along with those things, or we pour the Kool-Aid down the drain and get a nice glass of water instead, give it to our kids, and watch their little faces light up when they pour it out and play in it. Because when I look back at my favorite memories of my children’s childhoods so far, they have nothing to do with reading or writing or potty training. Nope, I remember the first time Lola discovered that her food could double as finger paint and she coated the window in butterscotch pudding and yelled “Ta-da!” I remember Eve shoving her baby doll up inside her shirt and “breastfeeding” her all hours of the day while pushing her play vacuum around the house. I remember touching worms and splashing in puddles and their first experiences with snow. I remember those moments when they discovered something nobody set out to teach them and they were first astonished and then proud of themselves. It’s not rocket science. There’s plenty of time for that. But there isn’t enough time to be a kid and just play. The least you can do as a parent is protect this time for them.

The Days are Packed


With book reviews, visits from family, and birthday celebrations.

We had a houseful over Thanksgiving and it was pure joy to watch my girls play with their cousins in the snow. The two-year-old twins got to experience their first glimpse of the white stuff along with their family’s puppy and my girls and CB were only too happy to introduce them to snow angels, snowballs, rolling in the snow and hot chocolate to warm up afterward. The house was full of noise and a clutter of dishes and coffee mugs, snow boots, jackets, board games and truly creative Lego creations and I was sad to see it end, but exhausted and ready for a break. At least until we do it all over again in four weeks.

My mom came up this weekend to help us celebrate Eve’s birthday, a tradition she started eleven years ago when the little monkey was born. Capitalizing on the tween girl attraction to everything shopping mall, I created a scavenger hunt for Eve and her friends that had them sleuthing through stores to find things like the ugliest pair of shoes, a sweater they all would wear, something with more than ten buttons, Hannukah decorations, etc. They were armed with digital cameras and had to snap photos of each of the items on their list and they only got kicked out of one store for taking a picture of “copyrighted information.” I’m pretty sure that they weren’t trying to re-create the stinky perfume they were photographing…

The final item on the list was to find a gift for a child in need to put underneath the giving tree at Lola’s school. Bubba and I gave each team some cash and it was so sweet to watch them pick up the toys that they used to covet not so long ago and all talk at once, lobbying for the gift they wanted to choose. They made excellent budgeting decisions and were sure to pick things that, as Eve put it, “kids really want, not NEED.” We finished off the evening gorging ourselves on Thai food and hot fudge sundaes and the girls played tag and hide and seek until they finally fell into sleeping bags around midnight. I’m certain that every year I think Eve is at my favorite age, but the rapid chameleon shifts from child to young woman that take place before my eyes are so miraculous. One moment they are rolling their eyes at the grown-ups tailing them in the mall, insisting that they’re old enough to be left alone, and the next minute, they’re oohing and aahing over a cute stuffed animal in the shop window. They chatter about how cute some celebrity boy is and then pretend-vomit as they catch sight of lacy underwear in the store, wondering who in the world would wear something like that!


Saturday, Lola had her first basketball game of the season and these girls are firmly in the land of little-girl. They are still working out how to be aggressive with each other, too timid to put their hands up to block the other team’s shots and trying to figure out how to politely dribble around their competitors without knocking into them. When someone makes a basket, the entire team stops to scream and hug the lucky girl before running down to the other end to resume play, and often they cheer on the other team when they make a basket as well. Lola’s cheering section consisted of Eve, Bubba, myself, my mom and both of Bubba’s parents. Every time she glanced into the stands and saw us with our eyes attached to her she grinned that grin that warms you from the inside out.
Today, everyone is back at work and school and CB and I are here alone listening to Annie Lennox sing Christmas songs and wrapping Christmas gifts. I will slowly put the house back together, stopping to reminisce about the last two weeks with every turn. These moments more than any other are filling me with peace and love and hope. When the house is back to its normal state, I will light a candle and send out my wish to the Universe that everyone can experience some measure of family connectedness and joy today and every day.

A Visit from JoAnn Deak


I attended a Parent Information Series at Eve’s school last night and the speaker was
Dr. JoAnn Deak. She is a psychologist who has done some amazing studies on the brains of adolescent girls and has written extensively on her findings. I discovered one of them a few years ago on my own, but was turned on to her most recent book by the headmaster at Eve’s school, never knowing that JoAnn is actually on the advisory board at the school.

Monday, she spent the entire day with the teachers at the school, talking to them about how to recognize, validate, and work with the unique structure of the adolescent female brain. She then spent two and a half hours in the evening presenting her findings to parents and fielding questions of all types.

Some of the highlights:

The lubrication of nerve cells and brain cells is largely made up of water. When children are not drinking water or other fluids throughout the day on a regular basis, they are literally not thinking as well as they could be. It has been shown that even with 1-2 oz. of water every hour, children’s brains perform far better than if they only drink during lunch breaks.

Between the ages of 10 and 20, the emotion center (the amygdala) of a child’s brain is literally swollen. The information they receive through their senses travels first to the amygdala and then through the logic/thought processing portion of their brains.

The brains of girls are designed to choose flight over fight, theoretically because of their role in caretaking of the young of the species. It is our job to help build their self-esteem by encouraging them to take risks despite their fears in order to prove to themselves that they are capable. They no longer need to run from saber-toothed tigers to protect their young. They can choose to take on difficult tasks without risk of dying.

While testosterone is the prevalent hormone in male adolescent brains, oxytocin (the tend and befriend hormone) is most prevalent in girls. Want to spur them to action? Threaten something they care about. They are more likely to protect a pet or a loved one than stand up for themselves.

Self-esteem is affected by actions. The more girls do, the more capable they feel, and the better they feel about themselves. Girls tend to do more with their fathers and talk more with their mothers. Fathers have the single biggest affect on an adolescent girl’s self esteem when compared to anyone else in her life. Make one snarky comment about her weight and you’re setting her up for an eating disorder. ONLY ONE REMARK. Spend more time with her just hanging out or building something and she will feel capable and loved.

Girls have two language centers in their brains and boys only have one.

If a girl is not making eye contact with you, she is not processing what you are saying.

If a boy is making eye contact with you, he is not processing what you are saying. He is probably obsessing about that mole on the side of your nose.

Information intake and information processing cannot take place simultaneously in the brain. Talk for a bit and then ask your child a question about the content (even if you have to pretend to lose your train of thought and say, “where was I?”). This switches the activity from the intake to the processing portion and they are more likely to retain and assimilate the information.

For more, check out Dr. Deak’s books. She is a lively speaker and a brilliant researcher.

Before and After


There are so many milestones in life that we take for granted after they’ve come and gone. Those acts that we wait for, sometimes prepare for hour after hour, and once they are performed, there is no going back.

Driving.
Passing a momentous exam.
Having sex for the first time.
There are others that are not quite so enormous, but still have an impact. Getting your first cell phone or laptop. Your first library card.
Bubba and I are holding out on Eve. Despite her carefully calculated attempts to convince us otherwise, she is not getting a cell phone anytime soon. She has interviewed all of the other girls in her classroom to determine how many of them have their own phone. She has banded together with a classmate who is similarly deprived and they have made bar graphs and pie charts to display the cruelty with which they must contend. Eve, knowing the limits of my patience, is an expert at the art of parry and thrust. She pushes pushes pushes until I am just about to the wall and then she retreats. Sometimes for days at a time and just when I least expect it, she strikes again from a different direction. I can hear the gears in her brain turning, working on new angles to use.
I don’t really remember when I got my first cell phone. For me, the equivalent pre-teen angst was most likely being allowed to wear makeup or shave my legs. I never had my own phone in my bedroom and, as a latchkey kid, the lobbying to be left home alone was not an issue. I was struck this morning by the thought that, although I must have pleaded with my mother to wear eyeshadow and mascara, I don’t really recall that first day I went to school all made up. Ironically, I can count the number of times I’ve worn makeup in the past ten years on the fingers of one hand.
I have a friend who refused to own a cell phone for years. While the rest of us had ours tucked into our purses or pockets, she held out on some principle that was mysterious to the rest of us. She didn’t need the ‘toy,’ wasn’t intrigued by the notion of calling people whenever she wanted to, and as soon as Skype became available, she even got rid of her home phone. She does have a cell phone now, I suspect due to the fact that she has two kids in two different schools and lives in a large urban city and works part time outside the home.
Whatever the reason she finally capitulated (and I know Bubba and I will, eventually, too), I wonder if she looks back on that moment and senses something pivotal about it. I’m betting she doesn’t. I’m betting that the majority of times she is compelled to pull her cell phone out of her purse to answer or make a call, she simply takes it for granted. No matter how much Eve fights to have one or how strong my friend’s conviction was not to have one, the moments, months, and years that follow the actual acquisition of the cell phone almost instantly erase the memory of the ‘before-time.’
I wonder how much of that is due to human nature. How many times have we as individuals and as groups of like-minded people, fought hard and long for something that we truly wanted or believed in and, once we accomplished it, taken it for granted? I know that Eve feels that getting a cell phone will have a domino effect in her life that will make it so much better. My friend thought that the slippery slope she would get on simply by purchasing a cell phone wasn’t worth it. I am willing to bet that neither of those things is true.
There are some times in our lives where the before and after are markedly different. For those people who lived before indoor plumbing was widely available in the US, the after had to be unimaginably glorious. Not having to pee in a bedpan in the middle of the night or walk outside in the snow to poop in a wooden shack? Priceless. But for so many of the things we fight for or against, the changes are minimal or it takes us such a small amount of time to incorporate them into our lives that it makes me wonder what we’re really fighting for.

Tough Conversations

The trio of girls huddled together at the kitchen table giggle nervously.

“It’s not bad,” Lola insists quietly.


“I don’t even think it’s true,” her friend and classmate pipes up. “I think that she probably just made it up.”

Eve’s eyebrows raise in a combination of skepticism and discomfort. As the eldest, she doesn’t want to betray her interest too much by adding her opinion, but she clearly has one.

“What’s up, guys?” I ask, not wanting to overstep my bounds, but curious as to what has them acting like international spies.

Caught, they whirl to face me, on the other side of the kitchen and blurt, “Nothing!” Giggles erupt from behind their sweet, soft hands and their heads come even closer together as if pulled by an invisible drawstring. Just as I’m about to shrug it off, they decide to tell me.

Haltingly and from a distance of at least six feet away, Lola begins talking without meeting my eyes. It seems that there is a book on the shelf in her classroom that has prompted the girls to discuss and wonder and whisper. It is a book of stories authored by teenage girls that is meant to inform and inspire other girls, but at least one of the stories has them disturbed. Not necessarily unhappy, but certainly upset in the sense of the word that calls to mind a stick stirring up sediment in a clear pool of water.

Lola speaks slowly, starting from the beginning of the story and it soon becomes clear to me that the essay depicts one girl’s experience of being sexually molested by her babysitter over a period of several years. Lola is too embarrassed to tell me in the same terms used in the book, so she tries to write it down. Before she can finish, I turn to Eve and ask her if what she knows about it. Standing next to me, she talks with a flat tone, looking into my eyes.

I am aghast. The phrase, “it’s not bad“ continues to run through my brain. How can she think that isn’t bad? How did this book get into a classroom for first, second, and third graders? How many of these girls have read this book and how long have they been discussing it without any adult mediation?

We stand in the kitchen and talk about what each of these girls, seven, eight and ten years old, would have done in this situation. Lola and Eve are confident that they would physically fight back, kicking and hitting and the look of disgust on their faces convinces me they would. Lola’s friend maintains that the story is probably not true.

They are all three shocked to hear me say that such things happen a lot more often than they know. Lola asks me whether I know anyone who was treated that way and I assure her I do, but that I won’t name names because I don’t think that is fair. She accepts this explanation, but wants to know more. I don’t want to rattle off the statistics, that at least one of every four females in the world experiences sexual abuse of some sort in her life, and those are only the ones who are reporting it. Others like this young girl who were too frightened or confused go unaccounted for. I simply say that it is important for us to find ways to talk about these issues without embarrassment and share our experiences with adults we trust so that the people who are attacking women and girls can be held responsible for it.
I am so happy that these three girls were courageous enough to share this with me. While I am not thrilled about the way it was brought up to them, I know that the book will be removed from their classroom and the teachers will handle it thoughtfully. It turns out that the book was donated by a parent this summer and was not thoroughly vetted before it was put out on the shelf. (Upon doing some research, it seems that there are many such books, aimed at girls, kids, grieving families, pet owners, retirees, etc. and I discovered that they are full of difficult stories. Unfortunately, without reading the entire book, it would be hard to know whether or not it is age-appropriate.) I appreciate the intention of the book, but I can’t imagine letting my seven or eight year-old (or even nine or ten-year old for that matter) read such stories without an adult present who could help them interpret and fully understand many of the concepts.
The fact that a mainstream, American publication like this contains multiple essays about sexual abuse (it does, I found the book and read it) makes me wonder how much we as a society have accepted the fact that our girls will be raped and molested. So much so that we can talk about it years after the fact and encourage girls to “tell” on their abusers. I think that doing so is important, but maybe it means that we need to have a much more aggressive campaign to prevent sexual abuse in the first place. Perhaps we need to teach girls and women to be open about the fact that their bodies belong to them and send the message that this kind of act will not be tolerated. We will not be objectified, groped, talked about lewdly or disrespectfully, or put in situations that are dangerous. Our civic leaders need to be completely upfront about the fact that the rules have changed and women will not be victimized any longer, and if they are, we will not waste time hiding or feeling ashamed. We will not, in any circumstance, decide that “she deserved it” or “she wanted it.”

All Will Be Well


Bubba sometimes accuses me of being too forthcoming. Especially when it comes to our children. I’m certain he’s got a point, but I was one of those people who were born wearing their heart (and mind and opinion) on their sleeve and I see no reason to change now.

Fortunately, neither Eve nor Lola is squeamish, because often my oversharing comes in the form of family discussions around biology or anatomy. All in the name of curiosity and science exploration, except for the few times it has to do with them understanding their own bodies more fully, I generally give them as much information as I think they can process and entertain questions until Bubba is nauseous (or leaves the room) and the girls are satisfied.
Yes, I am one of those horrible mothers who teaches her children the correct anatomical words for even the most embarrassing parts of the human form and I encourage them to use them correctly when appropriate. For those of you who find it more decorous to use words like hoo-ha or pee-pee, I completely understand, but it’s only a matter of time before Eve points out that your little boy’s “thing” is called a penis. Just sayin’.
I also believe that it is destructive for my family to keep things from them unless the knowledge will do them harm. So when my mother’s husband went into the hospital last week with an advanced infection in his big toe that was rapidly spreading due to poor circulation in his legs, I was honest with them that Grandpa was in a little bit of trouble. The girls quickly set about making cards to mail to him and we had a nightly update on his condition at the dinner table. One angiogram, an attempted cleaning out of his blocked leg vessel, and a bypass graft later, it seemed that things were looking up a bit, although Grandpa was going to be in the hospital for a few more days.
Last night, I let them know that Grandpa just might have to lose his toe before coming home. The infection was too strong and the circulation had been compromised for too long to save it.
“Can I keep it in a jar in my bedroom?” Eve’s eyes lit up.
“No way! I want it!” Lola was not to be outdone here.
Notwithstanding their concern for their grandfather, the girls were fascinated. Bubba, having missed the first part of the conversation, joined us at the table and asked, “What’s up, guys?”
Lola wasted no time in filling him in, “They’re gonna whack Grandpa’s toe off cuz it’s dead and Erin and I both want to keep it. Maybe we can put it in the playroom where we can both have it, okay?”
“Nah, I think it has to go to the Toe Fairy. Sorry to disappoint you,” Bubba chimed in quickly. I’m certain the notion of having a preserved big toe in the house was enough to make him move out.
I wonder how much you get for a toe from the Toe Fairy. It is the big one, after all.

Do You Smell That?


Have I mentioned that Lola is unusually perceptive? Among her most unique senses is the extraordinary sense of smell she has, which is often a trial to her. She can smell things most human beings can’t and she has a wonderful way of describing them to me – the mere mortal who doesn’t possess this ability.

This morning she informed me that every person has their own smell. This isn’t exactly a new idea, right? I can remember going in to my grandmother’s bedroom and being overwhelmed by her Estee Lauder perfume and the smell of mothballs. But what Lola is talking about is their very essence, their aura, if you will. Even if you switch from Estee Lauder to Calvin Klein’s Obsession, Lola will still suss out your scent and notice that it is the same.
“But,” she admonishes, “sometimes the smell changes a little bit. Like if you’re really upset. When Abigail is upset (Lola’s best friend) she smells a little bit sour on top of her normal sunflowers and clean laundry smell.”
Apparently the dog smells like fur and lemon kisses “which is a very good smell, almost the best,” my mother-in-law smells like light perfume and my mother has the essence of apple pie. It may sound ridiculous, but when Lola explains it, I can get the sense of it exactly. The way she experiences each of them, this is exactly what they feel like. I’m convinced she knows.
“Did Papa have his own smell, too?” I ask, hesitating. She only knew him for six years and he was pretty sick for the last year of that.
“Yup. He smelled like warm chocolate and blankets. And when he was sick it was still there, but with a little sad thrown in.”
She is absolutely right. That is what my dad smelled like as her grandfather. She is so dead-on with her assessments that I didn’t dare ask what she thinks her sister smells like. Or me, for that matter. I’m not sure I want to know…

Split Shift


Graveyard shift – aka the “night shift.” Most often seen when children are under the age of two and require night feedings and diaper changes, but can stretch in to the toddler years if a child is prone to night terrors or has other special needs. Can be revisited multiple times during childhood colds and fevers.

Swing shift – Can be employed during the same time as the graveyard shift if a child’s parent is lucky enough to have a partner who is willing to help out on a regular basis. Stretches from birth through adolescence.
Split shift – Welcome to my world.
It has taken me the first month of the school year to work this out. Well, the first month of the school year plus the previous four years of school where I occasionally found myself with several “free” hours during the day while the girls went to school. This is another “re-inventing the wheel” moment for me as a parent.
Since I left my part-time job in June, after getting the girls off to school in the mornings, I am most often faced with six or more hours that stretch in front of me where I can do pretty much whatever I want. My plan was to use the bulk of these hours to write and work on selling my book, knowing full well that I would also go grocery shopping, do laundry, take the dog to the vet, prepare meals, exercise, garden…you get the idea.
Since September 1st, my days start at 6:00 AM in the way millions of other parents begin their day: waking children, getting breakfast, packing lunches and locating desired items before we run out the door. I figured out a system last year to do most of these things without losing my mind and more often than not, I pat myself on the back for a job well done when nobody leaves in tears or tells me they hate me.
Several times in the past few weeks, I have hit the mid-day mark and realized that, even though I could probably find other household things to do, I don’t want to. What I really want to do is sit down on the couch with a handful of dark chocolate covered raisins and a book and read for an hour or so. Last week, I finally succumbed to that temptation, but I kept wondering when I was going to get busted. I was paranoid that a neighbor would stop by, Bubba would come home to get something he forgot, or someone would call and ask what I was doing and I would have to admit that I wasn’t. Doing. Anything.
Yesterday it hit me. I work a split shift. I don’t get the opportunity to sit on the couch with a book at night like some other people. I don’t usually have hours of free time on the weekends to indulge myself in relaxing. The first part of my workday starts at 6AM and ends around 9:30, and the second part begins at 3PM when I leave to get the girls from school and help with homework, shuttle to after school activities, talk about difficult issues, cook our main meal, clean up the kitchen, and shepherd the girls through their bedtime routine.
So maybe it is okay to take a couple of hours in the middle of the day to do “nothing.” Even if there is laundry or shopping to do or the dog “ought” to be walked, I need to start treating my mid-day free time as a much needed break. A way to recharge before I ramp up again at 3:00.
This may be a total “DUH” moment for most of you, but for me, it’s one of those things that I needed to be hit over the head with before I realized it. For now, I’m working the split shift. It may not always be like this, but I made it through the graveyard shift and I’m lucky enough to have the swing shift when Bubba is in town. I’m taking my breaks when they come so don’t be surprised if one day you walk past my house and see me lounging on the couch with a smile and a book. And if I’m under a blanket taking a wee nap, leave a note and I’ll call you when I’m up.

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The image above is the Abraham Hicks Emotional Scale. This is a concept put forth by Esther and Jerry Hicks that essentially says that different emotions have different vibrations and the closer we can get to the top of the scale where joy, love, and appreciation reside, the closer we are to being in touch with our true selves and in touch with the source of all energy and love.

Whether or not you believe in the vibrational scale, we can probably all agree that spending our days in the top two portions of the list looks pretty good. The trick is supposed to be finding ways to jump up one or two “feelings” at a time when you are dealing with a difficult situation. So if you are feeling a lot of fear about a particular incident, you would do well to find some anger about it. If you’re angry, see if there is a way you can simply be frustrated or irritated with it, with the hope of eventually becoming bored with the situation altogether.
One of the things I find most intriguing about this scale is that anger is higher up than fear and despair. As women and girls, we are taught that being angry is generally unacceptable. Guilt is a better alternative to lashing out, as is sadness about something. As a teenager, I actually sought out situations where I could be justifiably angry because it felt so good. When it was clear that I had been wronged and I didn’t need to explain away my rage to anyone, I felt powerful and righteous. Maturing brought me back around to thinking that anger, even if it feels good to me, is not a useful tool and I ought to find less volatile ways to express myself.
Watching my girls argue with such passion on a regular basis, I have come to realize (and point out to them on many annoying occasions) that their disagreements generally focus around two things: power and misunderstandings. Whether or not they’re buying my logic, I don’t know, but it hasn’t seemed to change their behavior much. On Sunday, Eve was particularly cranky and sensitive, crying one moment and railing at the unfairness of her life the next, and Lola was at her wit’s end. As we sat at the dinner table and Eve spat out yet another snarky comment across the table, Lola crumpled into a ball on her chair, hair dangling over one side and toes poking out the other. She gasped and choked and dripped tears on the floor beneath us, her back rising and falling dramatically.
Lola is particularly sensitive to her older sister’s bad moods and Eve knows it. She rolled her eyes and asked to be excused from the table. Bubba and I waved her away, both of us too irritated with her to risk opening our lips to speak. When Bubba had moved into the kitchen to stack the dishes in the sink, Lola scooted over into my lap like a giant tortoise and gradually rose up until her face was right in front of mine.
“You know, I never get angry, Mom. Sometimes it might seem like I am, but underneath I’m really just sad or confused. I don’t think I can remember a time in my life where I was truly mad at anyone. It’s just really sad.” I smelled the milk on her breath and felt my heart stop. This sweet, sensitive, little girl who leads with her heart says the most profound things and sometimes I just don’t know what to do with them.
I hate the thought of encouraging her to turn her sadness into anger, especially if it has to be directed at her sister. I don’t know enough about this model to have a truly enlightened conversation about it, but I think that my discomfort with the anger vibration is that it is outward – directed into the universe. Not that I want Lola to direct it inward. I want her to be happy and joyful, and I truly believe she has a handle on her own feelings, more than most adults I know.
We sat together, holding the weight of her sadness until she could release it. By bedtime she was just slightly melancholy and insisted on giving this message to everyone in the house: “Goodnight, I love you, I’ll see you in the morning.” And with a salute, she went off to her room.