Shout, Shout, Let it All Out

When I was little I lost my dad. Let me rephrase… when I was six years old my dad died suddenly and unexpectedly, and that loss has been with me my entire life. It sits on my chest, and weighs on me heavily when I stand still long enough to think about it. In many ways, losing someone so pivital in my life at such a young age has seemed to shape me - it shapes the way I view the world, and I largely believe that my generalized anxiety disorder can be traced back to this first life altering event. And then I just kept losing the people that I love.

When I was 13 I lost my granddaddy Stewart, and it was awful. We were there at the end in the hospital with him, and it was horrific. He was dying. We were there to see him dying. And in my preteen brain, I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that there was literally nothing I could do about it. Although losing grandparents is probably most children's first introduction to the inevitability that everyone dies, my granddaddy had become a replacement father figure in my life, and therefore his loss was akin to losing my father all over again. 

When I was 14 my cousin Paul (who was more like a brother than a cousin) died by suicide. It was (and still is) one of the worst things that has ever happened in my life. It completely changed my family, our holiday traditions, and to this day, I still have nightmares about the night we lost Paul.

Because of these loses, since I was very young, my worst fear has been that someone I love dearly will die again. While I know that death is an inevitable part of life, losing people is terrifying to me. 

And then a few months ago, it happened again. My brother died unexpectedly. While he had been disabled for a very long time, and while my brain likes to play the game of “worst case scenario”, and play out how I would react or feel if someone I loved passed away (usually when I’m trying to sleep); nothing can ever fully prepare you for losing one of your favorite people.

My siblings aren’t just random people in my life (it seems like I know so many people that aren’t particularly close with their siblings, or who haven’t talked to their siblings in years). My siblings are my best friends. We don’t live close to one another, but we talk often; and when we see one another, we go out and spend time together like no time has passed at all. We play pool, we eat food, and we enjoy the time we spend together. They raised me when my mother simply wasn’t mentally capable (or even physically present). Losing my brother is one of my worst nightmares, one of my greatest fears, and it happened. And even though it happened months ago, feels like it’s still happening to me. My brain won’t let it go. I expect to be able to call him with good or bad news at every turn. I expected to see him this past Christmas. I expect him to see my daughter grow up. And he’s… just… Not… There… and when I let myself think about that, it’s excruciating.

And the worst part is, I don’t feel like I have time to deal with any of it. Or more accurately, I don't want to make the time to deal with it. When I start to think about it, I cry; and simply put, I don’t have time to cry. I have a job, I have responsibilities, I have a baby who I love dearly and I don’t want to cry in front of yet, not yet. As someone who grew up with an absent mother who was always crying when she was around (who always cries even now), I just don’t want to cry around my daughter. I know that’s not logical. I know I will never be like my mother. But I just hate crying anyways, and I really don’t want to cry around my baby. 

So I shove it down. I don’t have time, I have to get work done. I don’t have time, I want to be present for the little time I get to spend with my daughter because of working. I don’t have time, I need to sleep. Oh in the quiet moments right before I fall asleep, my brain tries so hard to think about it, to make me feel it, and I keep shoving it down. I don’t want to think about it. He’s still there… he’s just a phone call away… I’ll see him the next time I come to visit… it’s not happening again. He’ll always be there. It’s alright.

But it’s not alright. I’m anxious all of the time anyways. I’m terrified something will happen to my husband, or my daughter, or my sisters. I’m so anxious, my entire body is tense all of the time. I'm so tense, I keep hurting my back simply by existing. When I drive, horrible images float through my brain - I keep imagining horrible accidents that will take it all away with a blink of an eye. I’m on high alert. I need to keep my family safe. At night, I wake up all of the time even when my daughter isn’t stirring or awake because I need to check the monitor. I need to see that she’s OK. Everything in this life is so fucking fragile, and I just can’t seem to cope with any of it.

And then I shove all of that down too… and logically I know that this will only last for so long, that I can only put off these feelings for so long; but I spent so much time in my life feeling like shit. I worked so hard in my life to get to where I am now. I have such a good life (you know, aside from the loss and the anxiety). I just want to enjoy the good things in my life, and ignore the bad things… just a little while longer. But if I keep shoving it down, it's only going to get worse. The detachment/anxiety cycle is going to keep getting worse.

And what is the worst thing that could happen if I really let it sink it, if I think about it, if I let myself cry? It becomes real... if I actually let myself feel this, he's really gone. If I stop thinking that he's just a phone call away, he really isn't just a phone call away. If I stop expecting to see him, if I stop thinking about the next time I get to see him... he really won't be there. I'm not ready to accept it. I'm not ready to accept that he's gone. Over and over again, like a child throwing a tantrum, my mantra is that it's not fucking fair. It's not fair. It's not fair. It's not right. It'll never be right. And I'm just so fucking sick of losing the people that I love. I'm so fucking sick of feeling like I've been left.

A good friend of mine told me that I need to start writing; that I need to start dealing with these emotions. So I’m trying now. I’m trying so fucking hard to let it out, but I’m afraid. I’m afraid that if I think too much about it, I won’t be able to stop. But I have to start letting it out sometime. It may as well be pen to paper… or you know, typing words into a screen.

The Ignored Child and the Intensive Parent

The Ignored Child and the Intensive Parent

Recently, I’ve been seeing more articles coming out about “Intensive Parenting”. One that I ran across just yesterday “The Relentlessness of Modern Parenting” by the Atlantic (an article I found to be completely judgmental), had me thinking about my own parenting style. According to them, I am an intensive parent because I play with my daughter doing crafts and reading her books - or due to my intention to put Ahsoka into at least a couple of classes throughout her childhood. But what the article fails to really cover, is why parents have become this way. I mean, they talk about why rich parents are this way, but they fail to look at the middle class and what may drive us to make sure that our children get the most out of well, their childhood. They fail to talk about why those of us who grew up in vastly different households may choose to be more hands on with our own children.

I didn’t grow up middle class. I grew up poor. I wasn’t so poor that we were homeless at any point, but we were poor enough that my bi-polar, often absent, mother struggled to keep things afloat. We were poor enough that I can remember not always having food in the house (even if sometimes it was due to my mom simply not caring to buy food). And we were poor enough by the time I came along that things like classes and quality time with mom simply didn’t happen. I was fortunate that there were nearly free things in my community which enabled me to be in a Children’s quoir, or that my church had enough activities that allowed me to do fun things, such as girls’ camp when I was a teenager. But even so, I was raised with a large sense of detachment from my mother.

When I was six months old, my mother had her first mental breakdown, and was hospitalized for the first time because of it. After that, she suffered from migraines, and general depression that kept her in bed for long periods of time. When I was six years old, and my father passed away, she worked full time, and I saw even less of her. While I had an imaginative childhood spent exploring the woods behind my house, I also had a childhood spent largely in front of the television. My brother referred to me as “The Ignored Child” because being 10 years old than me, his early childhood experience was vastly different than my own. His memories of me as a baby and toddler are of waking up, changing my diaper, feeding me breakfast, and putting me in front of the TV before school. When he would return home from school, I would still be in front of the TV, often times still in the same diaper.

So when I read articles about this intensive style of parenting… It kind of pisses me off. Yeah, I do read parenting books, and articles, and have really thoughtfully considered the type of parent I want to be. And I did “breastfeed exclusively” for her first six months because, um, guys, that’s not a new thing… that’s a thing most developed countries do well beyond the 1 year mark that the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) recommend. Why is that even part of this article?

Yes, I do read to my child daily, and try to be present with her. I also encourage her to play by herself. I encourage her to explore the safe spaces in our house we have created for her. And when she is older, I will encourage her to explore more freely (she is only one year old after all). Yeah, I did make her a sugar-free birthday cake for her first birthday because I like her teeth to be healthy, and as this article may judge me for that, there are a million other articles talking about how prevalent childhood obesity has become in our society. There are so many damn contradictory articles and studies and books, it makes my fucking head spin. Why do I do all of this? Because I believe that my daughter deserves a better childhood than the one I had. While I do appreciate my childhood in many ways because I like who I am as a person at this point in my life, it took so much struggle to get here, and many MANY experiences, that frankly, I could have done without. I had plenty of “life experiences” to craft me into a strong person that occurred prior to the dumpster fire that was my 20s. So if I can give my daughter a childhood filled with the magic and wonder and exploration I had, but subtract the death and depression and neglect? FUCK YEAH I’m going to do it.

I don’t do these things because I think that it will make my daughter be rich, or because I think I can prevent all of the bad things from happening to her. I do these things because I love spending time with my daughter, and I want to enjoy this time we have together because once she’s a teenager, I know that I will not have these opportunities. But more importantly, I don’t want her to feel as lonely as I did as a child. I want her to feel loved. I want her to feel supported. I’m not going to spend countless hours doing her homework as this article states modern parents do, but I am certainly going to be a resource for her because frankly I did poorly in school throughout my childhood because I didn’t have resources. My siblings were teenagers by the time I really needed help in school, and being children themselves, they had their own shit to work through.

I’m also not planning on putting her into all of the classes, or doing all of the activities. But I do think that there’s some fun and learning to be had by doing some fun things together or independently. I believe that there is a healthy balance there. I think parenting is a constant balancing act between what we want for our kids, being there for our kids, and also letting our kids experience and make mistakes. And I think that instead of being helpful, these articles are painfully judgmental of what modern parents are experiencing. We have so much more data and information to sort through. In some ways, it’s amazing because it does allow me the opportunity to see what kind of parent I want to be. In some ways, it can be maddening because sometimes as a new parent, I just need some fucking help figuring out if it’s, for instance, diaper rash or something worse. Sometimes I just need some fucking help getting my house clean! But what I don’t need, is one more damn article telling me that I’m doing something wrong – too much this, but too little that! Fuck you! Parents are largely doing the best that we can with the resources and information we have.

And yeah, it sucks that not everyone has these resources, or abilities to put their kids in classes, or activities. My mom certainly didn’t – although frankly, she was resourceful enough to take advantage where she could, and I think that’s what we should focus on for families doing without. What we can do to offer activities for kids that aren’t so ridiculously expensive in communities that can use them? What can we do to provide these stressed out and busy parents with the information they need to get at these programs that they aren’t aware of - assuming that they even want to take advantage of those types of things, because some parents are happy with a completely free range style.

And that brings me to another point that this article seems to fail to mention. I think more parents would LOVE to leave their children unattended in their yard, or let them go to a local park after a certain age/ maturity level. But guess what? We can’t! In this modern day and age, your neighbors will literally call the cops on you, and you could have a mark on your permanent record for letting your child play in your front yard without you; even if you can see them from your kitchen window. Gone are the days of letting swaths of children plan and explore alone because our society has gotten so fucking judgmental. I hope more states pass free range parenting laws. But until then, some of us parents will have no choice but to always keep our kids in our presence when outside of our home. That’s not intensive, that’s just reality.