Parenting: A Pandora's Box

I am now emerging from what feels like the seventh circle of parenting hell - the extended tantrum. My son generally has quite a sunny disposition. We have been blessed with a creative, loving, engaging child with a magical imagination - and a huge stubborn streak. While this capacity to cling to his convictions may serve him well through the upcoming years of peer pressure, a few short days away from his 5th birthday, his one track mind has called up all kinds of questions for me about my capacity as a mother.

What began as a quirky trait has now morphed into an incredibly limiting habit. He hates new clothes! (This is how I know that he did not get this particular stubborn streak from ME! At least that is the trump card in the case I am making to my husband about whose DNA fostered this strange obession!)

Okay, I understand that this is a world where kids don't get much opportunity to exercise their personal power. Wanting my son to be able to express himself, I decided clothing is a place where I can give him free reign to make his own choices within seasonal boundaries. The resulting combinations might be dubbed Rag-Bag Chic if they were endorsed by haute couture. Problem his, his flat out rejection of anything other than sweatpants has taken on a maniacal overtone.

A few years ago we were on vacation in Ireland and by the last evening we had come to the end of clean toddler clothes. We had picked up some new items during a shopping trip a few days earlier and felt this would be an excellent solution for the special farewell dinner we were about to enjoy at local fine dining establishment. We approached my Napoleonic little emperor with caution knowing from past experience that new clothes were likely to evoke a frosty reception. He grudgingly put them on with the carrot of adventure dangling before him.

Once in the car with time to think he began to loudly voice his objections. After 40 minutes crammed in a European economy car with a screaming toddler trying and nearly succeeding in completely removing his clothes while strapped into a car seat (Houdini lives on!), we arrived at the restaurant with an inconsolable child, ringing ears and short fuses. At this point I thought, "Is it worth ruining an entire evening for everyone just because I want to have my kid in clean clothes? Was this more about my image as a parent than about my child's happiness and enjoying time together?" So I chose to relent and end the stand off by fishing out some dirty clothes from the trunk, all the while feeling contrite for having let my let my rules interfere with my child's empowerment.

Fast forward a few years and I now see that this is not a phase he has grown out of at all. In fact he has staked out his position very clearly and with tight little borders - very few items of clothing make it past his rigorous scrutiny. I had mistakenly assumed that as he grew older and had more opportunities to make choices that he would loosen his grip a bit on this one - NO WAY!

And this is where things have become a source of agony for me. As a result of his clothing obsession, he is now missing out on new activities. Activities that he enjoys but refuses to dress for. A case in point was last week's meeting of the local Beaver's troupe. He was having a blast at the meetings - until the uniforms arrived. He steadfastly refused to wear the vest. It all came to a head last Wednesday during the initiation ceremony when the kids receive a scarf. My son's tolerance for new clothing items hit overload and he staged a revolt. My frustrated husband, who is generally endlessly patient, ended up removing him from the meeting since it was clear that he was not going to budge on his position and it was causing massive disruption.

And this is not the only place to pose a problem for him - there are special clothes required for skating, swimming, and a myriad of other adventures. Yesterday was the turning point when my son decided to dig his heels in while getting ready to attend a special dinner where a dress code was in effect. We had all been excitedly anticipating this event for well over a week. My son had choosen his clothes well in advance. It seemed like clear sailing until the moment of truth arrived and he refused to get dressed. This time, with the writing on the wall after the Beaver meeting fiasco, I took a stand. After some preliminary discussion, bargaining and ....I'm not proud about this one - threats.....I cancelled the event thereby unleashing the perfect storm of Pre-schooler revolt.

Now, I'm sure that many of you by this point think that either my son or I need some kind of psychiatric help and you may be right! But bear with me as I continue to make sense of this for myself as I think, that like many things in life, this is not really what it appears to be on the surface.

Having had lots of sensations wash through me....actually "wash" is such a gentle term for the extended tsunami that has been roaring away.... I have largely moved through the many thoughts I have been having about how poorly qualified I am as a parent.

I had to first get past my embarrassment and then my irritation. Beyond that I ran smack into a pit of grief for my son's lost opportunities because of his inflexibility and inability to see the larger impact of his choices. I then felt the sinking feeling of despair at resorting to the tried and true parenting methods that have been passed down generation to generation of shame and deprivation. And now today is a new day and I realize that no matter what has been unfolding, I have continued to communicate to my son that I not only love him, but that because I love him - it is time for him to begin to experience the direct consequences of his choices. I have begun a campaign to help him notice repeatedly that he can make a new choice at any time if he doesn't like what his choice has created. We both got curious about why he keeps making choices about simple things like clothes that limit the big picture of the fun he was looking forward to. No answers yet but lots of questions I know he had never thought about.

My heart aches for him when I imagine the disappointment he will feel when he realizes that one of the consequences of his choices may be that he will not be re-joining his friends at Beaver's or learning to swim with other kids his age - that is unless he decides to make some new choices to navigate past the clothing issues he has created for himself.

I certainly feel guilty that I did not see that this situation needed correction earlier in his life - AND I firmly believe that guilt is useless energy but can fuel movement in a new direction. So, today marks a change in direction for our household. Who says you need a long time to turn a ship around....hang on to your seats for this course correction!

I'm pretty sure that any of us as parents set out with only the best of intentions as we enter the Pandora's Box of raising children. I know that my curiosity has served me well so far. I have far more empathy for my own parents than I had ever imagined...although I'm sure I was a little angel (wink!). More significantly, the lesson that my son has taught me about stubbornly holding fast to one point of view so that it eclipses all kinds of new experiences that lie beyond it has been nothing short of profound.

I know that we both must be willing to change and that that change does not require that either of us have to give up our personal power, only that we must both honestly see and accept the consequences of our actions to date and to use them as sign posts as we navigate forward, creating more room for expression and expansion in our lives.

I'm sure one day my family and I will find this whole period in life hysterically funny. Right now, I'm just moving out of the "hysteria".....I'll let you know when the "funny" rolls in...assuming I'm still blogging 20 years from now!

A Woman's Worth

Lately I've been wondering how does one measure a woman's worth?

I've now played for both teams in the Career vs. Stay-At-Home-Mommy game and I can tell you that's its a sad state of affairs to realize that there are no winners. There just a bunch of pissed off, jealous, guilty, self-loathing women roaming the streets! If you are a woman in either of these groups and don't occasionally feel like this....And you're not in deep denial....then you might as well skip to the end of this missive.

If you work and have children the push-pull of career satisfaction and financial need competes head on with a desire to be with your children. Never mind the myriad of child-rearing, house-keeping tasks that exist in even the most liberated of households. And if you are married to an unenlightened cave-man type, well .... I don't think I need to press the point. We have a job at home that requires loads of physical and emotional input and a job outside of it .

But no, my dear reader...the prospect of having 2 full-time jobs is not enough for working mom's. You must also factor in the occasional jealous single coworker who assumes that when you nip out no later than 20 minutes after the work day is done in order to pick up your runny-nosed, cranky kids from a babysitter who is in a near state of collapse after 8+ hours of minding your darlings along with 6 other runny-nosed, cranky pre-schoolers - that you aren't pulling your weight at the office.

And then there are the other women in your life who have made the choice to sacrifice career and many lifestyle luxuries in order to stay at home with their children. Naturally the grass is always greener - no matter what side of the fence you are on. Escape into the working world becomes elevated to near utopia in those weak moments that follow a sprint across a lego strewn floor in order to dive in between and unhappy dog whose tail is firmly in the grip of a gleeful kid. No amount of zen training in the art of walking on hot coals can prepare one's feet for biting pain of lego.....makes stiletto, pointy-toed shoes sound downright luxurious!

As women, we have been sold two competing, seemingly mutually exclusive bills of goods about what is valued. Our incomes, our careers, our responsibility to make the most of our "liberation" go head to head with our culturally conditioned roles as the caretaker of our relationships, the nurturer of our children.

Who loses in the end? WE DO! Now before you say "Amen to that sister", give some careful thought to how much you have bought into aspects of these two competing roles. You see, I think that as women, we have been very quick to mindlessly buy into all kinds of externally imposed expectations. In our defense, they are deeply conditioned beliefs that we carry about what it is to be a woman in Western society.

Now imagine if you could shed all of the thoughts that pop up as you consider your particular set of beliefs about women in the working world and women in the home. Both genders have their own unique composite of ideas, perceptions and beliefs that have been acquired along the way....just begin to notice some of them.

Now if you are a woman, imagine life with no judgments, no guilt. A life that is filled with joy, fulfillment, expression and expansion. I'm happy to say that it can exist....sometimes for fleeting moments and sometimes for extended periods. How do you reach this Mecca, this promised land?

Its actually is an inner journey in which, after paying attention to the many beliefs you hold that leave you feeling breathless, hopeless, guilty, resentful, martyred, stuck, unhappy and ask yourself, "Am I willing to let go of this belief and replace it with what I know, deep in my soul is right for me." And for all you guilt addicts out there...chances are if its right for you, then it IS right for everyone else in your life....they just may need to see the evidence of how this new choice affects you.

Not only do you deserve more, your partner, your kids, your co-workers all benefit too. There is nothing more draining than living or working with someone who is unfulfilled, resentful and /or exhausted. Not to mention the fact that every child deserves a parent who is able to meet their own needs and show up happy, vital and fully present for them. You just can't give what you haven't got. We all know this but we continue to let our guilt and fear of being judged get in the way of living it.

Martha Beck comments in this month's Oprah magazine that there was a unique group of women who emerged in her research about career women and those who had chosen to stay home. She dubbed the group The Mystics. These were women, some at home and some in the workforce, who had transcended the cultural mythologies about work and home-making, moved beyond the competing definitions of women's value and contribution and began to follow their own inner promptings about what was valuable to THEM.

What was striking was that these women refused to be defined by cultural beliefs and tacit rules, they looked inside themselves and created their own unique role. That is an incredible act of honesty, creativity, courage and self-preservation. You can bet that there are many invitations to discover old patterns of beliefs as you choose to create your own unique identity and then reveal it in the world at large...and yet I know this is the true definition of liberation...and its doesn't come from anything or anyone outside yourself.

Want to know a woman's worth? If you are a woman, look inside yourself to discover your own unique identity. Woman or man, the contribution you make to world from that place of authenticity is priceless.

And that is my two cents worth on the topic! What do you have to say?

Creative Constipation

Writing anorexia...that is what I am suffering from today. Creative constipation!

It seems that when I move away from regular writing, the whole system clogs up. I notice how sensitive I am to the moods and needs of others and how willing I am to dam the flow and attend to those needs. I will quickly sell myself out based on a sniffly nose, email distraction or out of misplaced empathy for another's creative drought. Somehow it feels self-righteous to withhold my pleasure and play in the face of competing demands for attention.....very martyr-like of me don't you agree?! That's my good old alter ego, "Francis" at work. (See "Perfectionism" for an intro to Francis)

This clenching up, shutting down process affects every avenue of life for me. What usually fills my writing space is the random observations of life. Little oddities like noticing the sea monkeys swimming in an aimless vortex on my son's desk and wondering why they don't look anything like the ads I used to see in the back of comic books when I was a kid. Do modern sea monkeys eschew the formality of the crowns they were always pictured with back in my day?

Then there are the bigger oddities - like enjoying the various reactions to my dog as we walk the trails. Yes, my dog wears a T-shirt which leads to many a raised eye-brow, a laugh or spontaneous "hello" from a usually quiet passer by. I was once told by one startled neighbor, "Hey! Your dog has a t-shirt on." To which I gasped and responded, "Really?!" amidst a bunch of shared giggles. To my dog's credit, he really loves all the attention it gets him. He seems to really enjoy strutting along, being noticed.

The T-shirt thing happened quite by accident. After he had some minor surgery and wouldn't leave the healing incisions alone, I resorted to putting one of my son's old sweat shirts on him. I swear my dog was euphoric! My doggy mind reading abilities are somewhat limited but I'm pretty certain that he saw this as one step closer to becoming "boy".

His "Pinocchio Complex" has been evolving ever since we brought my infant son home from the hospital and he was de-throned from the centre of attention that he had enjoyed for a few years. With the donning of the sweatshirt, I could see he felt he had moved up a few notches in the world. His love of T-shirts persists.

What is startling is how quickly our t-shirt clad dog/boy became an accepted fact around our household. It takes that daily walk around the block to remind me just what a spectacle it all is! And it reminds me of a few key observations about my world in general.

I notice how acclimatized I have become to the number of unique perceptions, thoughts, ideas that are my expressions in the world. It is often not until they are trotted out in a public domain that I begin to notice them based on the responses of others. I notice that unlike my dog, this recognition and occasional curiosity leaves me feeling uncomfortable while another, more playful part of me craves the attention and a witty joke. Most of all, like my dog, I love it when the otherwise silent passer-by smiles and is jolted into a conversation.

Blogging, walking the dog - 2 sides of the same coin! And both a cure for creative constipation!!