Questions | this woman's work

Processing and stuff

Jul 282009

Cynthia commented (on Madison’s picture post), “i think its sort of awesome how similar your (you and madison’s) styles of processing appear to be- do you ever think about that?”

I hadn’t ever thought about that but there’s nothing I love more than being invited to think more about something so I’ve been thinking about it ever since.

Actually I don’t think Madison and I do process things the same way. Noah and I are a little more similar; we are similarly entranced with our own feelings but he’s less prone to share them. He is the kind of kid who will come to us for comfort but won’t always tell us what’s wrong. Madison will insist that everything is fine even as she’s raging.

I have to be careful about being direct before I really know what’s up but I do trust my intuition. Sometimes it’s enough just to offer the sympathy and/or comfort without knowing the details (I mean, you can always hug someone who’s sad — you don’t have to know what’s causing the sad necessarily) but other times I can see they’re stuck in how they’re feeling and then it helps to state what I think is going on. Sometimes this is easiest for them if I can relate it to something I’ve felt that’s similar. It can be enough to open that door to sharing. Other times it’s not and I’m just hugging and hoping.

There’s a way of interpreting dreams that I have a lot of faith in, which is that whatever is happening in the dream — be it flying over a dark forest, showing up at math class in your underwear or kissing a boy you sat next to on the bus that day — you identify how you felt about it. Take that kissing dream, for example. Was it romantic? Scary? Hilarious? Regretful? Well, whatever the feeling, that’s the key to your dream. It’s not the boy you were kissing, it’s the feeling that accompanied it that will tell you what the dream means. For example, occasionally I dream about these two exes (never in the same dream) and they are both about writing. One is my most creative self and he shows up whenever I am feeling creatively neglected. The other one shows up whenever I’m frustrated by professional ambition. I used to think the dreams were about them — the actual memories of the actual boys — until I figured out the feelings I was having in the dream and then traced it back to my real life.

Talking to my kids is like that. No, listening to my kids is like that.

On Saturday Madison was heavy into fit throwing, which is something not quite like her. She had a big huge tantrum that evening the likes of which I have never seen from her. It’d be easy to say, “Oh it’s the baby shower” but then it’s hard to know what about the baby shower? And she wasn’t saying it was the baby shower so really, do I want to bring it up? So I watched her have the fit. I brought her upstairs and sat her on the bed and let her scream (and bounce) herself out. (I closed my eyes and plugged my ears and waited. I counted to ten a lot, too.) She screamed and screamed ostensibly for snacks. She was hungry, I was mean, etc. etc. Stomp stomp stomp, scream scream scream. Eventually she started to wear out and then she started complaining about her cousin Lucia (Lucia played with her that day) being bossy. Now, I know these two and I know that at least when the playdates happen at our house, it’s not Lucia who’s doing the bossing. But Madison told me Lucia was bossy and wanted to play baby games when she, Madison, is a BIG GIRL! And does NOT play baby games! She’s been harping on big girl stuff a lot lately and this is just so textbook typical of youngest child about to become a big sibling that I knew, yup, this was big sister stuff coming out in tantrum-for-snacks form. But I waited some more and she started to sob about playing in the sprinkler and some sadness about a game and then I realized that the over-arching theme to these particular complaints is that she was feeling left out. I figured (it doesn’t take a rocket scientist) that she was feeling left out of the baby shower.

Here is my sobbing girl who is crying about being so big that she gets left out of this sprinkler game and obviously what she’s crying about is that she’s a big girl and not a baby so she gets left out of baby showers. I said, “You sure are feeling left out today.” And she said, “Yes! Yes, I am!” and reiterated the Lucia story. I hugged her for awhile and then I said, “It was a big day today. Grandma and Aunt Erica came over to drop Lucia off so they could go to the baby shower…” and I ramble on a bit but I threw the baby shower part in just in case it might ring any emotional bells with her that she might want to talk about and it didn’t. I still think I had it right but it wasn’t what she wanted to talk about — she wanted to talk about feeling left out and she wanted to cuddle and get a lot of sympathy. She was feeling very self-righteous about how unfair the world is. Fair is a big deal with her right now. (This is why she didn’t come to the baby shower — I figured all those gifts NOT for her would push her over the edge. Who needs it?)

Now Noah, he’s different. At five he’d be much more apt to identify where his feelings were really coming from and he’d also be more interested in figuring it out. He likes to know the why of things. (Like me, he is one who dwells.) Madison just wants to not feel however she’s feeling and sometimes she will cast about to try to figure out what will fix it without figuring out what it IS first and we end up on a lot of wrong turns with her sometimes. She takes more detective work but once she’s there, she’s there. That night? She wasn’t ready to go there. And that’s ok because hugs for feeling left-out don’t really need to specific left-outness cause uncovered to work.

In any case, the tantrums have continued the past couple of days. Today she told Noah that I was a Poopy Face. I don’t think it’s all Roscoe either. She skipped the mouthy, rude 4-year old stage and seems to have saved it up for five. The fact that her baby brother is arriving right around the time she’s struggling with preschooler adolescence (the ungainly rung between baby hood and big kid world) just makes it more pointed for her but also the timing is pretty good since she definitely WANTS to be a big girl with all that goes along with it. At three, I think this would have rocked her world much harder.

(I wonder, too, how much of it has to do with her having an actual adolescent in the house, doing his own in-between dance. Maybe it’s catching.)

Oh this is rambling. Mostly I wanted to say that my kids process things differently but what they have in common is a want to communicate it (eventually) and great big mouths (I think I do model that well for them — the big mouth, whiny part). It’d be hard to have a kid who was tight-lipped and even Noah’s need for privacy is something that makes me grind my teeth and I’m happy that Brett will push me back to my boundaries when he catches me asking one too many questions. (This is what my children will complain about when their roommates ask them why they don’t want to go home for the holidays. “Oh god, my mom!” they’ll groan. “She always wants to know how I FEEL about things!”)

I am so impressed with us!

Adoption 4 Responses »

Jan 132009

3hearts2-1 I’ve been gone all day in meetings and haven’t been able to post but I’ve been reading the comments on this post as they come in and I was thinking about how the internet has made this unbelievable dialog possible. For so long, there’s been a great divide between adoptive parents and first parents but now we’re able to have these very heavy, never easy and sometimes upsetting discussions and really learn from each other. Even though we all come to it with different — not always complementary — perspectives, I am amazed at the level of courtesy and respect in the comments. (Because even though the internet has made these conversations possible, it hasn’t always made them civil.)

And I want to thank all of you who give me so much to think about and so many opportunities to reassess my own biases. I learn a lot from you and I’m grateful to get to be a participant and a witness to the discussion.

You guys are without a doubt some of the most amazing, thoughtful people that I’ve ever virtually met.

I’m all mushy about it because at writing group tonight we were talking about virtual community and it really got me to thinking about you all and what was happening in the comments. I’d see ‘em come in on my iPod while I was heading here or going there and wondered where it was all going to end up. I’m also grateful to the lurkers who were inspired enough to share their thoughts.

I’m hoping I have a chance to come back to some of it tomorrow. And special thanks to Suz whose question and continued questions really forced me to dig and think!!

Heavy adoption questions

Adoption 67 Responses »

Jan 122009

And now Marley and Suz shoot us right back into adoption territory!!

Not that I’m ignoring Joy, there’s a busy discussion happening in the comments to this post. But I’ve written so much of it before (that Pennie has a right to her decision, that I refuse to dictate how she or Madison should feel — good or bad — about the adoption) that I’m not up to writing it again. I understand, too, that the divorce anology is way imperfect but I think the parallels work — it’s a legal family decision made by adults that hugely impacts kids often negatively but is made without their input. Also it’s another place where adults tend to downplay how the kids feel about it. So that’s why I chose it.

Reading the comments did make me think more about the term “parent” and “parenting,” which segues nicely to linking up Thorn‘s thoughts on Shannon saying that open adoption can queer a straight family. While Pennie and I don’t co-parent (because I hold the legal reins in our relationship) I think she’s still a parent. I think that when she’s with Madison she does parent by definition. I mean if she’s a mother, wouldn’t she be a parent? She tells Madison to calm down or helps her pour herself some milk or wipes a tushie now and then. Plus she gave birth to her, which is pretty darn parental. I don’t know. The terminology sometimes makes me so tired. We get so hung up on what Pennie IS and what she ISN’T but there aren’t words to help people understand her place in our family and in Madison’s life that don’t have a whole lot of baggage.

Thinking today about the “queering” of our family made me think about how people sometimes say of a gay couple, “Wait, so who’s the husband and who’s the wife?” I feel like that’s what they try to do to Pennie — but who’s the real mom? On the Facebook relative widget, I have Pennie labeled as “My Daughter’s Mother” because that’s it, isn’t it?

(sigh)

Marley asked:

Why do facts mean nothing when working on “progressive” adoption legislation–or even talking to people about adoption. You can spew out a list of facts a mile long and all you get back is yabutt. If there is a response at all. Obviously people prefer their personal mythologies and you/we are “uninformed,” “uneducated” or plain stupid. And, of course, there are also agendas, which are sacrosanct. Adoption saves babies, for instance, and you’re just a baybee killer.

Marley, you answered your own question. Sacrosanct agendas and baybee killers. (sigh again) And being deathly afraid of queers of any stripe. There’s one way to be a family and that family can have one mom, one dad and a smattering of babies although one boy and one girl for best results. God forbid anyone screw with that. I DON’T get it — especially when adoptees and first parents are standing there saying, “BUT THAT WASN’T OUR EXPERIENCE!” Truthfully I am still naive as hell because sometimes I read Marley‘s blog and think, “You have GOT to be KIDDING.”

Now we throw up our hands in frustration and note that this makes for another smooth segue right into Suz‘s question:

Do you think women, infertile women, will ever come to realize that they dont have a “right” to take the child of another simply becuase they cannot have their own? Do they realize they are transferring trauma? Why do some women think they deserve a child and others dont? Is it true that as long as there is no “cure” for infertility women will be actively harvesting the children of others?

Well, I think this misses the mark. It’s true that “family building” drives the industry and that the people who generally want to build families are we infertile types but we’re all operating under these huge fallacies about parenthood and womanhood and motherhood. I mean, we’re all buying the same bill of goods that motherhood is the be all and end all if you can do it right (i.e., one mom, one dad, one of each kid) and that we are living lives unfulfilled if we don’t have kids. Couple that with a hard-driving biological urge and you’ve got some pretty fierce entitlement.

Plus for infertiles like me, you have a whole world telling us to never give up — your child is out there somewhere. (I think the infertility industry does a number on women, too.) And we all know that any serious issues with adoption are dismissed out of hand (look at Marley’s question) and so the whole issue is pretty loaded to tilt towards getting grabby.

Most individual infertile women I know (and I know a lot) are pretty lovely people just like anyone else and — other than some screwy ones online — I haven’t met any that are actively harvesting the children of others. I mean, most of us want to build a family through adoption and when we start down that path we’re operating pretty blindly. If we come across an unscrupulous agency or lawyer, it’s not always easy to tell. Plus we have a whole world telling us that adoption is grand (it’s the same world telling potential birth moms that adoption is the most unselfish choice they can make). And the adoption reform movement is still hampered by constituents whose education tends to skew toward caustic. But I feel like the internet has also made a stronger, more effective dialog possible and that with institutions like Ethica and the Evan B. Donaldson Institute there can be real change made.

I think it’s important to bring the discussion to people outside of the adoption world — to people interested in families and in women’s rights and in parenthood. I know that people outside the triad are interested because many of my readers (and most of y’all aren’t connected to adoption) tell me so. I also think that we have to work on the rest of the world, too, because you’ve got folks like Ann Coulter saying that single mothers can only raise strippers and rapists and murderers and it’s those views — far more than baby yearning — that makes adoption possible.

More of what Ann said on FoxNews:

HANNITY: Let me go to Ann. Let me go back to this single mother — this single mother issue here, because you make a pretty profound point that isn’t often made.

You know, I thought we live in a land of the free and home of the brave — brave. You have choices in life. You know, for example, if you decide to get in the back of a car, and you start making out with your boyfriend and girlfriend, and you start removing one article of clothing after another.

COULTER: Right.

HANNITY: This is a choice to get in the car. This is a choice to take off the clothes. This is a choice to have sex. You do it of your own volition.

COULTER: Right. And it’s a choice not to give an illegitimate child up for adoption, which is, I say, surprisingly, I think to me, an interesting statistic, is that adopted children rank better on every measure of well-being.

They don’t think about being adopted. Their parents don’t think about them being adopted. They have less use of drugs, less run away, less criminal behavior than non-adopted children.

And adoption is discouraged while legitimacy and single mothers are elevated as if they are, you know, the personification of selfless virtue.

She may be one of the most offensive people saying it but she sure isn’t the only one. The money from us infertiles may drive adoption but it’s our economic and moral damning of “inappropriate” mothers that keeps us supplied.

Ann Coulter isn’t getting paid by adoption agencies, she’s just steeped in anti-woman rhetoric and wants to create policy based on it. She’s not the only one.

Officially one year from 40

Writing, work work work 8 Responses »

Jan 112009

I had a lovely birthday that included lunch out with my family, a movie with my husband and I believe there’s to be cake after dinner. I like a low-key birthday so this was just my speed. But next year? When I turn forty? I’m throwing myself a big old party, you betcha!

I decided to answer some of the freelance questions to give me a break from the adoption ones and also because my birthday is yet another reason to assess my world.

Spring (and if you’re interested in fabulous writing or in adoption particularly older child adoption you should be reading her) asked:

Since you asked…what’s your number one tip for making more money as a freelance writer? I seem stuck in the low-to-mid level magazines and would like to move up to higher paying magazines in order to be more profitable. Perhaps there’s a flaw in my logic, because so far, this has not been successful.

Spring, what magazines? I’m just curious — no need to answer if you don’t want to! I’m no big magazine writer (truly) but from friends who have bylines in lots of ‘em and from what little experience I have, I’d say the answer is the same as getting into the low-to-mid level ones: Pitch ‘em, pitch ‘em, pitch ‘em. If you have what it takes to be where you are now then you have what it takes to publishe bigger (and I think you’re writing is lovely so there’s no doubt in my mind that this is true)!

Then Spring said:

Actually, if you wanted to do 10 Top Tips for improving your freelance career in 2009, I’d be very interested.

I’m game.

Get focused. Decide what you really want be it money or better bylines or a combination of the two or whatever else you want. But really figure out what you want in your dream of dreams.
Get specific. Figure out a path to get from where you are now to where you want to be. If you need to study the industry to understand what success looks like, do that. It’s important to understand the minds of the folks you’re trying to get to hire you/buy your work.
Get general. Don’t be hemmed in thinking there’s only one way to do it — there’s not. There’s usually a general direction but the specific steps are different for different people. Understand that industry but bring what you know to it.
Resist distraction. I don’t know about you but I struggle sometimes when an opportunity presents itself and I feel like I need to take it even if it’s not something I actually want to do. But if it doesn’t fit into my larger plan, it’s going to end up taking away from my goals so I’ve learned to say no when I have to.
Be open to possibilities. You never know where your next great job/assignment/connection is going to come from so don’t dismiss things out of hand; give yourself the opportunity to consider them first..
Be flexible. Don’t stick yourself with rigid timetables or unreasonable expectations. Sometimes you don’t know how things are going to work out until they work out.
Trust your greater plan. I know that there were lots of times this past year when I felt like I was spinning my wheels but if you’re focused on your goals and saying yes to what fits and no to what doesn’t, you will see forward movement. I promise. Just put your head down and keep doing the work. (I’m still seeing pay-offs from things I did last year — momentum is a beautiful thing.)
Give yourself time to stop and assess. See if what you’re doing is working. Note your successes and forgive and learn from your failures.
Get some mentors and a sounding board. Find people who do what you wish you were doing and listen to them. Don’t take their words as gospel but appreciate their wisdom and experience. You’ll still need to make your own way but having other people around as support makes a world of difference.
Don’t let fear do you in. Whether it’s fear of failure or fear of success, hang in there. If it all seems like too much, put your head back down and ignore what might be coming and focus on what’s going on right now.

Wow, I sound so much more new age-y than I mean to but that’s my touchie-feelie guide to freelance success. The number one thing I think anyone should do? NETWORK. People can’t hire you if they don’t know you (and/or your work). Work begets work. Assignmetns beget assignments.

And because this post seems to warrant it, from my mentor Julia:

If you could choose to repeat the last year or two career wise, would you try the freelance/Brett home thing again? – knowing what you know now.

Oh hell yeah! Only I’d do it smarter so we could have kept him here longer. Now that I’m out of the emotional pit I dug for myself, I feel even more positive about it. Listen, two years ago I wasn’t doing any marcom and now I’ve got a portfolio full. I’ve honed my talents and my interests, met a zillion new terrific people, discovered a whole new career path and side to myself and I’m not done yet! Brett may not be home anymore, but I’m still working and billing out more than I have since my heady ePregnancy days. (I still am not billing as much as I did then but I have high hopes!) I couldn’t have done that part-time — I needed to jump in with both feet and start swimming.

I’m really proud of all we accomplished over the last eighteen months and I feel like we’ve set ourselves on a new course. I feel more confident, less shy about marketing myself and my work and I have a greater belief in my ability to do what I set my mind to. Yes, there are things I would do differently (mainly around our budgeting) and it would have been nice if I figured out how to make networking work for me earlier in the game but ultimately? I think I’ve been really successful so far and I think I have it in me to be more successful as I go. And Julia? There is no way in hell I could have done any of it without you and I am so so grateful for all you’ve done for me!!!!!!!!!!!!! I only hope I can pay you back in some way (more than fixing your dang blog — I mean REALLY pay you back)!!

Two way street

Adoption 7 Responses »

Jan 092009

Shoot, I got all the way upstairs and wanted to add one thing to the post below so had to come back down.

Something I learned from working in shelter is that sometimes people in crisis need explicit instructions/promises/direction and I can’t think of a bigger crisis then losing your baby (even by choice). Before we left the hospital, after the papers were signed Pennie said she just wanted to focus on the visit before the concert. I told her she could see Madison sooner if she needed to and she said, no, she was holding onto that date of the concert. (I just checked the time stamp, Madison was about three weeks old at that first visit.) I told her she could call as soon as she needed to, whenever she needed to. I was explicit about this. I told her if she needed to call, to call. If she needed to come over, come over. I told her that she could take it one day at a time and that if today she didn’t think she’d need to call or visit sooner, that was fine and if tomorrow she felt different, that was fine, too. I told her that we wouldn’t hold to a schedule unless she needed the structure of the schedule.

Pennie took things very one day at a time and she took me at my word that she could call or come over. She told me when she felt like it would be too much for her and sometimes she called me because she wasn’t sure what she needed and we would talk. Sometimes talking to me was enough. Sometimes having another date in the future would be enough. But we did in many ways acquiesce to her greater need. Yes, it was hard to balance her emotions with my own; yes, it wasn’t always convenient to return phone calls in a timely manner with a new baby. But to our minds, her crisis was greater and while I did learn to honor my own boundaries, I also tried to stretch to accommodate what I felt was her greater need to come to terms with this new reality. I had my friends and family support team and she had hers but we also needed each other.

I understand that this wouldn’t work in every open adoption because Pennie is a pretty stable, emotionally healthy person who had a clear idea of her needs (even at her most muddled). I’d venture to say that this is true of most first parents. But that first year, it’s such a huge emotional and physical crisis and if I’d judged Pennie by her coping as if it wasn’t (as if the person she was in crisis was HER and not her in crisis) I would have sold her short. I mean, we are none of us bright and shining models of gracious behavior when we’re holding on in base survivor mode. The person Pennie was that first year is not the person she is now because the person she was that first year was a woman crashing hard. I won’t go into details because it’s nobody’s business but I know that any first mom who reads me knows exactly what I’m talking about. I have never ever ever experienced the kind of loss that Pennie has but I have had my own crises and I know that one day at a time, by the skin of my teeth I did what I needed to do to get through it and getting through it wasn’t always pretty. (I can remember a period in my late teens when I would wake up and start talking myself through the day, holding myself like I was thin glass filled with heavy water trying not to shatter or spill or drown. And I made concessions if it helped me get through things even if it meant sacrificing my pride or taking a step backward.)

The first year of an open adoption is about establishing yourselves and your caring for each other. It’s a time to be gentle with each other, especially we adoptive parents who need to understand that the mother (and perhaps father and perhaps extended family) before us is something that is not quite who they really are. Maybe some parents hide it better (from themselves, from us) and maybe some break out/act out more and are more self-destructive.

Maybe (I’m just suddenly thinking about this) we adoptive parents need a better understanding of what it means to be a person in severe crisis so that we can be more understanding and more flexible. (Like when the compliant woman who placed wakes up and becomes assertive. Or when the angry, pushy woman who placed is able to feel safe enough to not push so hard.)

My experience in shelter and my own experience living through a very bad time helped me because I knew we all just had to get through it until it got better and I believed — although I was afraid I was wrong — that it would settle down to what would be our new normal. And it has. For the most part, it has.