Costly Kids?

A friend of mine shared the heartbreaking news that she chose an abortion over having her second child and the justification was that they couldn't afford a second child.  

My first reaction was that I was appalled, children aren't that costly.  My next reaction was one of sadness for all of my friends that have the means to raise a child, yet are unable to get pregnant. 

We have been coming head to head with our debt this year and the realization is this, we have amassed precisely the amount of childcare expenses that we spent this year as our new debt.  Meaning, we have made up for the expenses of one child and with the new child, we have gone exactly another $20,ooo into debt.  I guess they are that expensive.  

Knowing the second child and the amount of joy that she brings, I can't imagine choosing otherwise.  Tell your creditors that though.  In our currently conservative moralistic society, pleading that you chose to have a child and go further into debt, still doesn't sit well.  You can't call your bank and ask them to lower your interest rates because you don't choose abortion.  It is a moral conundrum. 

 In a mere two years, both girls will be eligible for the public school system and yet now, we are just irresponsible credit consumers.  We live in a confusing society where we contribute to public education for years before our children are actually eligible for it and when they are, we are just taking advantage of the system. 

In the Buddhist tradition, abortion means that at some point in your life you have to commit your life to care taking another human for the rest of your life.  It is a serious karmic offense which requires a deep commitment for reparation.

In the American system, it is a way out of your credit default.  

Reflections

My older daughter seems so needy sometimes.  It makes me want to jump out of my skin.  I know I should love being needed, but sometimes I just want to be left alone.  My whole life, I can't think of anyone that I wanted to spend a 14 hour day with.  Not even myself.  Today I realize that it is the mirror of my own interior world and neediness that drives me crazy.  I am as clingy and needy as she is.  If I could, I would cling to my husband's leg and plead with him to carry me if I could.  This is precisely  what drives me nuts about my daughter.   It is the reflective nature of having children that makes them so tedious.  Not their needs but what needs of your own that they reflect upon you. 

My Birthday

I hate my birthday. It doesn't help that it happens to be on Christmas Eve.  In my family,as a child, it was challenging to say the least. My parents decided to make a traditional birthday cake for me every year.  I think it is indicative of all of the later issues with my birthday, an quite frankly, of a lot of my issues. Steamed English Plum Pudding.  It usually had this soupy vanilla cream sauce with it, that wasn't really whipped cream, and a few times my parents soaked it in Rum and tried to light it.  

Everyone gets their favorite cake on their birthday, my dad gets German Chocolate.  Somehow I am supposed to keep up the  pretense that I love Plum Duff. 

 Just about the time I admitted that I didn't like Plum Duff, my  parents started a new tradition.   Every birthday morning breakfast, my dad would start in on me. How I have been unfocused in my life, and basically how I've failed. To make it worse, they still made my cake, but then refuse to say "Happy Birthday"  until; the hour I was born, which is right before midnight.   So I would cry all morning then think everyone had forgotten my birthday.  I would lie in bed feeling like a complete failure and then my parents would come in my room with silly hats on and sing happy birthday.  Then I would have to eat Plum Duff and pretend that I liked it. 

To this day, as my birthday approaches, I catalog all of my failures and sink into depression until...midnight.  Then I feel so guilty by the time I get the happy birthday call that I am dumbstruck.  I am willing to eat some crappy British food as my hairshirt and then when they finally wish me a happy birthday, I can't even begin to say what I really want for my birthday because I feel grateful that at least someone remembered on Christmas Eve that it was also my birthday..

Karma

We hear so much, "It's his karma". 

 How simple. How complicated. Depends on if you want to blame them or you.  I have such bad self esteem that it is hard not to blame the bad karma on me and the good on others.  

Where do you draw the line between oh well it's karma and I had better take responsibility for this?

My colleague  shared with me yesterday that his three month old grandchild never cries.  

How cool.   His mom has some great karma.  

My daughter cried for four months straight.  It must be her karma, because I didn't deserve that.  

My friend's three year old has never thrown a tantrum.  Whose karma?  Hers I am sure. My daughter throws two hour inconsolable screaming fits?  Whose karma?  Hers? Mine.  

The baby is generally happy.  My karma.  Sometimes she is a fighter and screams really loud.  Her karma. 

My favorite colleague was downsized.   Her karma.  

I was retained.   My karma?  

Not bad.   I think I like this view.

I know that karma is supposed to be an accumulation of your actions good and bad.  It's hard to give credit where it is due. 

It should be the get out of jail free and collect $200 dollar card at the same time.

I want to believe in karma, it's just that it is so convenient to use it for your own good.

More on this to come.

Fear can lead to nothing good.

I am afraid of love. I am not just afraid to be loved, which, after 13 years with my husband is evident in my fear of expressing my love to him. 

He and Irina spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Michigan with his extended family and he remarked upon the reaction that she had to her super loving Aunt Sue. It is the first grandma type that she has been around who is not emotionally guarded. Not only are her grandmas emotionally guarded, so is her mother. 

Kevin described how long it took him to get used to my emotional distance. He who comes from a family where his mother still wants to chat with me about the current events and I feel like every time I talk to her is the first time.
I am afraid to love. Why?  I am afraid that if anyone gets to know me, they will be truly disappointed.  Because my standards for my self are so high, not so for everyone else, just for me.  to me, I am ugly, fat, unaccomplished and a big loser.  

Now I know that that is the image that I will pass along to my daughters.  I certainly don't want them to feel that way.  

It is about time I empowered myself.  That I show love for my amazing husband for my beautiful daughters and for my family in-laws and blood relatives.  If I do not, it will be too late for all of us and my impossibly high standards will cripple us all.

THE SLAP

I haven't done it yet.
A friend of mine confessed to me that she has spanked her children a few times. She has parenting skills that I respect a lot. She is accomplished and has very well behaved children. She is also a stay at home mom, so it kind of goes with the territory. I can see how it would get to the point every so often of so much frustration that it manifests physically.
Irina was throwing one of her notorious tantrums after school and I embarrassingly looked at my babysitter who has an eight year old and asked if her daughter eventually got over that stuff to become a poised young woman. She assured me that it never happened because once, when her daughter was two she gave her THE SLAP and she never misbehaved again.
Another friend who has wonderful grown children said she attributes their great behavior to THE SLAP and recalled for me the incident with each of her three children. I remember THE SLAP for each of us children, but we were fairly old and I think we talked back. I hate to think that it is so simple as THE SLAP. I also hate to think of the day that I am so frustrated that the only solution that I can come up with is THE SLAP.
Here is a story told to me by one of the parents that I worked with.
One of the memorable stories from teaching parenting skills to inner city parents came from a Dominican dad who told the story of his conflict with child welfare services. He came from a family who, although they didn't beat their children, they did use spanking when necessary. His son was attending school in New York and had gone through the awareness raising seminars that Child Welfare conducts in the schools. His son had told him that if he ever raised a hand against him that he would land in jail. His son proceeded to cut school, engage in illicit activities and fully compromise his dad who was forced to bail him out in school repeatedly and feel that there was no way to really discipline his child.

Things had gotten way out of hand and the father's hands were tied, his son was out of control and he felt there was no more talking that would change the way things were going. They planned a trip to the Dominican Republic together for spring break and the moment they landed on Dominican soil, the father lashed out at the boy and gave him a 'spanking he would never forget'.

Am I the Only Bad Mom in the Room?

When is the last time someone was describing a root canal and it's excruciating pain to you, when they stopped in mid-sentence and said, "oh, but it's so great'!?
That is what it is like to try to have a candid conversation with a mom. They start talking about tantrums or bossiness that is driving them to exhaustion and then they stop and say "Oh, but it is so great"! Just when we are getting to a point of really sharing about the challenges of child rearing, they derail it with a comment like that. It is as if they aren't allowed to have other feelings about motherhood than the eternal bliss that goes hand in hand with three year olds' tantrums.
Give me a break, it is challenging, yes it is rewarding, but how are you ever going to get through all of this if you are in denial? Okay, when you push them through the birth canal, you are making a lifelong commitment to love them, but still...you bring your own stuff to the equation. It's okay to occasionally be irritated or disappointed. It's as if somehow saying that it is challenging, you are negating the child.
I attribute it to the thinking mom, attachment parenting model, where we are trying to undo our parent's damage. Somehow you are supposed to be supermom who overrides all of these mixed feelings about parenting. To be fair, upon reflection, they are really great, but that is something to tell them, not another parent who is struggling with parenting and wants to have a heart to heart. whatever happened to the village that was going to help me raise my child, did they all somehow move into the exurbs and leave me alone to parent with all of its' challenges?