conveniently troublesome
March 13, 2017 § 9 Comments
Our daughter’s school trip utilized social media for the purpose of sharing photographs with parents and permitted cell phones for communication, time (in place of a watch), and camera use. When they first outlined these details in the family pre-travel meeting, my daughter was uninterested in bringing a phone. My husband and I suggested she use her phone for photographs but resist the temptation to check in with us. To disconnect from her phone and connect with her environment.
In the same meeting we listened to humorous anecdotes of previous trips, parents calling the chaperones to ask questions based on social media snapshots of the trip. My husband and I laughed along with the collective amusement of the other parents at the obvious interference of helicopter parents and pledged not to disrupt our daughter’s exercise in independence.
Then, our daughter left home and early online images of her trip challenged our conviction. Looking at the social media snapshots of our daughter’s first day, I wondered such insignificant worries. Why are some chaperones so much more thoughtful in their documentation, while our’s appears lacking. Other times I would catch the corner of my daughter’s image and wonder if she were warm enough, tended to.
The pictures were inconsequential to my daughter’s experience and their value disproportionate to my doubts.
It is a strange disparity in pictures. The stories we tell ourselves and the meaning we infer. This age of hyper-connectivity invites unwelcome comparison and worry. These conveniences meant to lend comfort, invite opportunities for troublesome interference and undermine the illusion of independence our children need for maturity.
Modern conveniences let us meddle in a way that sabotages mindfulness with a distortion of truth. At the end of the second day it took every ounce of willpower not to pepper my daughter with reminders, to use the information I had been given to assume and infer, interrupt and instruct.
Today I’m celebrating the invitation to succeed with an imperfect practice of patience. Setting aside the stories I’ve created for my daughter’s photographs, to better fill in the space of her absence with the stories she tells face to face. Honoring the spirit of our first instructions with actions, disconnecting online to reconnect in realtime.
to my daughter
March 12, 2017 § 2 Comments
Saying goodbye, as you prepared for your first trip without us, was almost too easy. The effervescent enthusiasm of your anticipation was contagious. You were eager to leave; waking hours too soon, ready to take flight.
It was barely after one in the middle of the night when you woke me, draped in a blanket and wide awake. Worried you had overslept and ready to begin an adventure, you were restless. You curled up beside me, completely unable to sleep, perpetually checking the time and losing the struggle to silence with fragmented bursts of disconnected chatter.
When at last I conceded the hopelessness of sleep, you raced efficiently through your morning routine. It was, perhaps, the first time all year you were untempted to play when there were tasks undone.
At school, as the groups of families gathered for goodbyes, you bounced between friends and raced through impatient hugs. I tenderly and with great amusement remembered the little girl who clung so tightly to my legs each morning of kindergarten drop-off. Gone was the hesitation that informed an uncertainty, in its place a fierce independence.
It is as it should be and so your father and I were pleased when you messaged us late your first afternoon away that you missed us, but only a little.
Soon we will sift through photos of your school trip, a visit to a place we once traveled as a family. I’ve been peeking at old images in your absence, lost in the space of so many changes. The shape of your smile as you’ve grown further into yourself and the lingering traces of an essential self that sparks humor with a twinkle in your eye.
I wish for only a moment, to be your companion on this trip; to share your awe and gather your wit. Instead I am contentedly eager to be the recipient of your stories. To save you a place of homecoming.
Love, Mom
to my daughter
February 9, 2017 § 5 Comments
Tuesday someone treated you unkindly, a new harm in a recent series of unhappy events. This experience of manipulative acts of mean spirited aggression is not new.
The first time you saw a child mistreated, it was your brother. Standing up and speaking out you held everyone accountable to their words and choices. Later you would do the same for classmates when peers were unkind.
It was in elementary school that you learned telling an adult did not insure safety, sometimes it emboldened the aggressor with a language of entitlement and misunderstanding by explaining away unkindness with empty platitudes.
It happened at the playground, in the lunchroom, after school in organized activities, and in living rooms between neighbors.
Generic statements of kids will be kids and vague I’m sure they didn’t mean it. Instructions to turn the other cheek or forgive and forget. We quiet the words that call us to action because they make us uncomfortable.
I failed, too.
When other parents didn’t want to talk about bad behavior, I smiled away the harm with polite silence. Other times I named the unkindness but failed to hold other adults accountable outside our conversations. I let discomfort create a passive permissiveness, but you haven’t.
This week, in the face of unkindness, you voiced your value and insisted on respect. Even when tears threatened to fall and your voice wavered, you knew your worth and you didn’t disappear into polite silence.
You said that it’s not okay to treat others unkindly. Period.
I wish I could say that things will get better, easier, but I can only tell you that it gets harder to stand up for yourself once you settle for silence.
Love, Mom
changing expectations
February 3, 2017 § 2 Comments
When we moved, our family began creating new expectations for one another and ourselves. The speed of change left us all a little bewildered and we settled into the discomfort of not knowing the otherwise predictable parts of our days with curiosity.
My children were used to me knowing what comes next. My routine circled my children’s in a way that kept me distractedly tethered to their needs with an invisible thread of communication between home and school. It was a once necessary open-ended energy that had been left running like a forgotten switch to a burned out bulb.
In our new space we had to trust one another to move through the murky unknowns, alone; to lean on strangers and navigate new challenges outside the familiar relationships of old experiences.
There were times it was tempting to exercise old habits, for myself especially. To draft messages that lent insight and history to our new community of teachers, but it was the occasions my children spoke for themselves or muscled through the difficult frustrations independent of my support that we fell into true appreciation and greater pride, humor and humility.
Some were substantial, like the morning the school called and my phone volume was muted because we no longer carry our phones like life lines. There were simpler occasions, too, of classroom confusion or forgotten materials. Then, there came the novelty of my decision to return to work and the subsequent patience and independence that guided my children to look further within when they might have previously reached out.
Yesterday as the hour of our daughter’s band solo neared, I marked the minutes with borrowed nerves; internalizing my daughter’s worries and dancing around a temptation to interrupt her attention with words of encouragement. Only, it occurred to me I was hijacking her experience with my eagerness to help.
Instead I waited for the impossibly long end of day to collect my daughter’s story in the lines of her posture and the angle of her smile. I listened as she talked about running late and loosing her place, the judge’s critique and the unexpected kindness in a stranger’s encouragements. Each moment was a gift I watched my daughter unwrap in her telling, something of her own to share.
It is perhaps an overdue epiphany, one I procrastinated passively out of a sense of purposeful self-importance. What felt like a kindness, protecting our children from emotional struggles, was quite possibly an error of affection. I’ve begun listening more than I speak, leaning quietly into a posture of faith that informs an expectation of strength.
Changing my expectations of self.
a question of quitting
February 2, 2017 § 2 Comments
There is no greater measure of truth than the weighted minutes of nervous anxiety on the eve of a much dreaded day. One year ago it was a time for my daughter to confront self-doubts and insecurities as she procrastinated preparing for her band solo by sounding out the language to quit. Not one for standing alone under a spotlight of attention, I understood her pause and kept her company as she waded more deeply into her discomfort.
Last year she found the notes among her nerves and conquered her fears in a messy and brave posture of determination. This morning my daughter woke early to another performance, but this year’s ghosts were dressed in last year’s doubts. Two nights ago she unraveled into a memory from last year’s experiences. One new to my ears, but well worn in the quiet of my daughter’s thoughts. Her teacher, counting out a song, begged a question. My daughter asked why the pattern was different to which her teacher asked, “Don’t you even know how to count?”
It was a criticism in place of a question, a small condescension that directed quiet and silenced my daughter’s learning. She didn’t ask again and has since created her own cues to find her place in a collective melody. As part of a whole, she has disappeared in the silence between notes, but on her own she is lost in the sequence of unanswered questions. Without answers to fill what she does not know, she is certain only in the deficit she measures in doubt.
Such a small space between learning and letting go, wanting to grow and giving up.
Last night I listened as she fought her way through her sheet music until she had exhausted whatever joy might be had from each success. It’s a sad truth, a weighted reminder – our answers invite questions just as clearly as our questions invite answers.
One person has the power to inspire or intimidate.
My daughter wants to quit as much as she wants to play, to learn as much as she wants to leave. For all the words of comfort and empathy I’ve offered, the balance of my encouragements and another’s criticism rests in the silence somewhere between the music.
save me a space
January 16, 2017 § 8 Comments
It’s the smallest request, to hold a space for someone to belong. There is perhaps no greater kindness than to offer such generosity of acceptance to one another; no greater space than home in which to teach belonging except school. This is the heartache I have been sounding out for over a decade as I help my children navigate the broken spaces of their education.
I have written often these past years of academic challenges and the emotional harm of exclusion, but these themes were offered new insight last November through an online parenting course offered by Brené Brown. I’ve long admired her research on shame, but this course offered a discussion on belonging and fitting in that gave me a new language for contextualizing the challenges I have encountered as a mother raising special needs children.
I posed this question (specific to my son) towards the end of the curriculum:
How do we address subjects of shame and belonging when raising children with special needs? My sixteen year old boy (son) on the Autism Spectrum cries openly, fails colorfully and speaks genuinely, he has been made to feel “other” for these behaviors/qualities we celebrate and cultivate in adults.
In an effort to keep my question concise, I edited the following from my submission to the live Q&A session:
He has given his younger sister a model of masculinity I think is both rare and exceptional; his emotions and vulnerability, the brave and authentic way he navigates mixed messages underscores a deficit in social norms.
Maybe one day there will be a parenting class to discuss the significance of belonging over fitting in as we look to inclusive classrooms to model empathy and diversity.
Privately, in my personal notes, I mused:
I’ve also been thinking about how we categorize children, offering preferential treatment that harks back to an unhealthy selection mentality; students who are deemed gifted are granted an exclusivity of privileged resources that in turn limit the potential of a larger population with an assumption of inequality.
This last wondering was specific to my daughter’s experience, but inclusive of so many misunderstood, stereotyped children. Those students ranked by generic test scores that exclude intelligence we cannot gauge in standard testing, but whose grit and resilience have made them stronger learners for their personal challenges. What might these children become if offered courses that encourage and inspire new passions?
I want to pause here to acknowledge the obvious deficit of editing. I debated tidying these thoughts into something beautiful, but there is an uncomfortable truth in the mess that I want to preserve for the integrity of my own experience. I am publishing them today to move them from the stagnancy of my drafts to better own them as an essential part of my story.
I considered offering a shorthand of harmful past experiences in the interest of identifying a pattern of exclusion that illuminate the essence of fitting in over belonging, but I want to speak instead to the rare moments of extraordinary kindness – of invitations to belonging.
For my son it was one teacher offering a safe place where others could not push, mock, tease or taunt for one period each day of his middle school career. During those three years she provided him his first experience of belonging, in which he was allowed to invite friends and breathe a sense of safety and acceptance not available outside her walls.
For my daughter, the experience came last year as a result of an administrative oversight after our move when she was allowed to perform academically by assumption of ability over predetermined restrictions. Her school saved her seat when paperwork dictated they shuffle her into another space. It was only after our daughter was offered an opportunity to thrive outside the limits of labels that we watched her excel along a trajectory of her own determination that exceeded expectations.
This is the truer gift of parenting children with special needs, the way in which we reframe understanding by potential; looking past the unspoken rules of fitting into social scripts for success to a more wholehearted place of belonging just as we are. It demands championing learning over testing, character over accomplishment; teaching children to save a space for one another with acceptance and appreciation.
I think we are on the verge of something remarkable and I’m saving a space for all of us to consider the difference between fitting in and belonging.
priceless
January 9, 2017 § 4 Comments
Yesterday, in a loud high school cafeteria (six hours into a rescheduled extracurricular competition) my daughter appeared in the periphery of my attention, accomplice in tow. Two eager faces on a mission I was happily unaware; any caution they endeavored to exercise made irrelevant by the unveiled delight they held recklessly in check.
The girl, a stranger to me, stood taller for the enthusiasm that threatened to buoy her from my daughter’s side. My daughter weighted them both with her aggressively polite certainty.
Fifteen dollars for a store-bought package of chocolate chip cookies priced unapologetically, and without any effort at deception, for $5. My daughter’s request was for $10, the balance of money needed (her own funds presently scattered in disheveled nooks of her bedroom).
My mouth and posture had already curled themselves, preemptively, around the shape of my no when instead my voice betrayed me with a whimsical, yes.
My daughter quickly drafted me a note of debt and I conceded curiosity to her obvious certainty. Watching her pick her way among the crowded tables, I lost sight of her momentarily.
It was the box I noted first. A large unremarkable cardboard rectangle, an almost institutional off-white shade that suggested mass-produced fare. My daughter walked with the box propped open, rounding the tables like a veteran waitress topping off half-finished beverages.
I marveled at the brazenness of her easy greetings as she navigated children from other schools with the familiar ease of one who has shared weekends in friendly competition. She returned to me, box almost empty, laughing over the pieces of humor and kindness that were volleyed between bites.
It was a completely irresponsible expense, a lavish gesture of goodwill that contradicted every ounce of good sense or frugality I possessed with an exponentially priceless return on a temporary investment.
sharing words
January 2, 2017 § 3 Comments
My daughter is sounding out her One Little Word. Each year I invite both children to join me in my New Year’s practice. Lending them printed pages with rows of words, I challenge them to read the words aloud, to strike through those words that fall flat and create space for those words that whisper recognition.
It is a treasure hunt of sorts, there is magic in scavenging tidy rows of words for suggestions of self; fragments of dreams we see only in our mind’s eye and private hopes, intimate challenges and new habits. More than goal setting, it is a mindset for the days to come.
Last night I came upon my daughter stretched purposefully beside her lists, red pen in hand, striking and circling with a confident flair. Her posture was the same form she uses for drawing and writing, painting and molding clay; her hands moving with the same certainty she shapes thoughts into art.
I looked over her papers, marveling at the key code she had created for her thoughts, the place her marks stopped, and the large circle where she explained her choice.
She landed on one brief word, four letters that held together four other words. I won’t share her word, instead I want to honor some of the words that framed our conversation at bedtime.
The first was seek, so that she might seek out new roads. The next two left me chasing down a pencil to guard her thoughts. Adding my handwriting to her own this is what I transcribed for my daughter:
“Self-love (means) to love who you are and don’t let anyone else say otherwise. Shine so that when other’s don’t feel like they are enough, I can reach out to them.”
Her last word lead to others and we fell into a conversation about the intricacy of our words, the impossibility of a singular choice and the subsequent supporting characters.
Whatever our words, I hope there will be many more late night ramblings. That my children will continue to allow me to guard their words among my own. To share traditions and explore new goals as we support one another in becoming our best selves; collectively and individually.
rush delivery
December 22, 2016 § 3 Comments
Fifteen minutes before the mad dash for the bus, on the last day of school before vacation, my daughter unraveled over a missing sweater. The calendar called for an ugly adornment to culminate a week of playful spirit wear.
We had nothing beyond my confusion and my daughter’s quiet crocodile tears. Disappointment and confusion sat heavy among frustration and false cheer.
Communication unraveled into staccato questions? A triage of information to properly assess the severity of the preteen meltdown.
Is this important? Will you have regrets? What do we have at our disposal and is this solution an acceptable compromise?
Like Cinderella’s mice, we scavenged our surroundings for resources. The sweater off my back, a garland of red ribbon, and a bow from Christmas past.
We solved the physical problem but between sloppy, hurried stitches we learned a few important self truths, too.
My daughter learned to speak up when something is important to her. Those trips to stores searching for a bargain ugly sweater were all met with a postured acceptance of frugality.
She learned to prioritize her needs rather than crumpling into honesty out of disappointment.
Lastly, she learned to problem solve with what she had is a far greater comfort than crying over what she cannot change.
I learned a few lessons, too. Anger was an unfortunate response to frustration. I let my insecurities about short changing my daughter’s experience predict failure and that bitterness tainted the miracle of my feverish stitch work.
I criticized my daughter for not speaking up sooner, being honest, and getting emotional. I can’t imagine why she might have hesitated to speak up at all.
Rather than high-fiving and hugging over our last minute miracle of sheer stubborn determination, we were quietly pulling ourselves together from the stomach churning exhaustion of our fears and insecurities.
What will the other kids say? Am I a bad mother?
Will she be disappointed in me?
I succeeded in crafting the much needed sweater, but I missed a stitch mothering. This is the moment, the scrap of knotty ends I don’t want to unravel into forgetfulness:
I confessed to my daughter that I had wanted to provide perfectly and I thought I needed more time, more resources when what we had between us was enough. A fragment of string, an old sweater, and a partially crumpled bow all held together with effort and love. Sometimes the things we are most worried about failing at, missing out on, or not having are all just under our nose.
to my daughter
November 22, 2016 § 10 Comments
It’s been six days since we picked up your back brace. In that time there have been no complaints, zero drama. You’ve been stubbornly independent and quietly determined as you muscle through the awkwardness of limited mobility and disrupted sleep.
Your doctor, orthotist, and nurses encouraged you to take your time, to settle into new routines, but each day you’ve challenged yesterday’s goals with your own ideas.
It was your idea to try sleeping through the night that first day; your idea to invite friends over to share your news quietly; your idea to wear it to school without a plan.
When teachers and staff offered to educate peers, you postponed the extra attention and planned for an upcoming health unit; a time when your experiences might complement the curriculum rather than interrupt routine.
You aren’t one to call attention to yourself, make excuses or seek special treatment. Humor and humility have armored you with a resilience that fortifies the tenderness of your self-awareness with grit.
A time will come when you don’t remember the sore muscles or cumbersome brace, so I’m stealing a moment today to remember your grace that you might one day know how very proud Dad and I are of your unassuming nature and uncommon courage.
At an age when so many worry about how they look, there is no vanity to your pride; no boastfulness in your effort.
Only the beautiful way you walk tall.
Love, Mom
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