Posts Tagged ‘perspective’

 

Gender Roles

Tuesday, October 4th, 2011

I recently took my child to visit his grandparents for a week. It’s always interesting hearing the things he comes up with in this completely different – often dysfunctional – environment; a setting that brings out in him a renewed confidence to speak his mind … ironic considering I tended to forget I had one when I was living there.

Sitting at the dinner table one evening, we were talking about someone we had met on a picnic, commenting on his wonderful sense of humour and eclectic flair. My father seemed out of the loop so my mother leaned in close and filled him in. “He’s gay!” she said in a whisper that made it sound criminal, her eyes flashing over to where my child was sitting.

“Pffft,” my child muttered, drawing himself up tall, folding his arms and mustering all he could of his six-year-old ego. “You do know that men can marry men and women can marry women, don’t you? Don’t you?” he demanded. I gave him the proud mum look … with a touch of amusement … then sniggered into my pumpkin risotto, waiting for a response. There was a stammering from the other side of the table … then silence … before my – much older – niece broke in with, “And men can marry women.”
“Ha!” came the reply. He smiled, relaxed and uncrossed his arms. “OB-viously!” he chuckled and continued with his dinner.

I don’t always know where he gets his information but I try not to shush him when he’s expressing himself even when it is at the expense of ‘normal’ dinnertime conversation in a house where even I am still learning how to fully express myself. I’ve learnt, though, since a recent conversation with my mother that perhaps we both need a lesson in boundaries when visiting there. There is a possibility my house will be sold and I will need to be out before Christmas. I have been telling everyone I’ll be going to Durban to stay with my folks for a while until I find somewhere to live, taking the unconditional love of my parents for granted. Prematurely it seems! My mother’s response to my suggestion was, “Haha, it’s not going to happen.” Clearly she has no trouble expressing herself … loud and clear!

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Falling

Thursday, May 5th, 2011

fall |fôl|

verb (past fell |fel|; past part. fall-en |fôlen|) [intrans.]
1 move downward, typically rapidly and freely without control, from a higher to a lower level

A friend of mine, recently, challenged me on my definition of being in love. I love, fall in love, wrap people in love … all with effortless abandon. But what if the good is purely for the other and there just isn’t enough for myself? And what if, in falling in love, I am missing my own seemingly hidden agenda?

“It’s a delicious feeling learning to live with an open heart”, I enthused between sips of warming post-Atlantic Ocean swim tea. I don’t want to question something that feels so good. “Is it a heart thing or some other part of you?” he quizzed me. I automatically jumped to the obvious conclusion: he was asking about the sex. But, no, he meant something that highlights a fair amount of emotional instability. Somewhere hidden below the surface, I am allegedly blind to the fact that I am purely seeking those things in the other person that I lack in myself; I am giving love in exchange for affirmation … and I am giving it not from an open heart but from a depleted one. It’s a Band Aid patchwork.

Well, that’s the left-brain perspective.

The simple truth is that you can’t choose when you fall in love and who the falling’s with. It’s called falling for a reason and, like a girlfriend once said, “Falling in love; I wouldn’t wish it on anyone!” “Why?” I wanted to know. “Well,” she said, “hiking on the mountain, you lose your footing and you fall. Not only is it painful, it is also embarrassing, inconvenient and the recovery time can be long, frustrating and can really screw with your routine.” There’s really not that much lovely about it.

You can’t – and wouldn’t want to – plan a fall but, when it happens, the best you can do is relax, minimize the impact and make sure you don’t lie there bleeding for too long before you call for help … or before you slide even further down the mountainside. And the recovery? Well, I reckon you just have to sit it out and be patient because falling again sure isn’t gonna help.

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My Voice

Tuesday, April 5th, 2011

I have been working on several blog posts lately, working and reworking but never quite completing them. It wasn’t difficult before … before people actually read my blog or before they de-friended me on Facebook or just de-friended me in general.

And then I read http://networkedblogs.com/enz7C by Cath Duncan and pulled out this line:
“Grief needs to be expressed in some way – either privately or with witnesses, in order to heal.”

I grew up in an environment of repression and hidden secrets, a home where sweeping was obligatory and the carpet was lumpy with unexpressed emotion. Food was always the blanket that smothered the fire. And I married a man who held the same sentiment … for the obvious reason that that was my comfort zone. But as I evolved into the free-spirited writer, traveler and mother my perspective changed.

I became isolated and part of my means to break through to the other side involved sending out these messages into the ether – I didn’t know where they were going, I just wrote and posted and in a sense that was the release my issues needed … a public airing with seemingly no consequences and no obvious recourse that usually comes with discussing things face-to-face with someone who could quite easily instantly judge me.

The more isolated I became, the more I worked on finding my voice and in the midst of paradox, my blog was born, anonymous at first … and then not so. I broke free from fear of embarrassment and in a sense I embraced the inevitable judgement, fearless of the repercussions that would come from my admission that the thought of throwing my baby against the wall crossed my mind … and more than just the one time.

You ask what place grief has on a baby blog? I believe that every time you walk through the fire of transformation, be it willingly or at the hand of the universe, there is a fair amount of healthy grieving that needs to be done in order to heal. Not everything can be fixed with a roast chicken and a chocolate bar. When I got married I had to grieve my singledom. When I had my child, I had to grieve the life I had lost to motherhood. Sure, many women continue as they were, employ nannies or harness the help of family and friends to support their existing lives. But I had changed too much. And when I left my husband, I had to grieve … well, I had to grieve and grieve and grieve for all that was lost.

I remember blurting out how crap it was that I had fallen pregnant, only to fall prey to a barrage of criticism for my insensitivity considering one of the women in the group had been suffering with fertility problems. “But I didn’t know!” I claimed. It didn’t help. Another friend had a miscarriage and told no one so issues to do with abortions, for example, became a taboo subject … impossible if you were not part of her closely guarded secret. I have noticed on so many occasions how easily people have judged me for getting divorced … until I realized it’s not so much the doing as it is the telling. The telling exposes people’s vulnerability around issues. The telling makes them take a closer look at their own fragile situation. And in my case, for 14 years my marriage was perceived as a union of the perfect couple and if such a tragedy could befall the prom royalty, then what chance did others have when their relationships were far more ‘of this world’.

I have had to deal with therapy sessions that paint me as a tough piece of work who is terrified of displaying any vulnerability, hence creating a host of relationship issues around neediness. I took that on and practiced really hard to be vulnerable … when all along my blog is the very proof that I wear my vulnerability on my sleeve and the fact that it doesn’t line up with how my partner is needed has little bearing.

But I digress in my explanation. My laptop screen is littered with a variety of Text and Word documents, all posts waiting to be born but, ironically, as my healing begins to feel like it is close to completion, I struggle to deal with my audience. I lost my voice for months and it only returned recently. The posts on my blog were written by a woman who now forms only a part of me and the fate of the unfinished documents scattered over my desktop lie sealed by the hand of their author who no longer exists.

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Favouritism or just a different perspective?

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

I was speaking to a mother of two girls and a boy – someone who claims to love her two daughters but to be ‘in love’ with her son. The topic of favouritism came up and she denied she has one … a favourite.
Is her denial just self-preservation because she doesn’t want to seem like a bad mum or does she really not see it? … because, really, it’s quite normal isn’t it? … to prefer one child over the other/s since, in the big mix up of DNA, the more children you have the greater the chances are of having one that is so like you, you just can’t help loving that one more. We show them that they are ok because someone else has the same quirks as they do. We provide a comfort. My mum favours one of my sisters while my dad favours me. I always wanted to be my mum’s favourite but, like my friend, she always insisted we were all equals. If she had just made it clear from the start, would it have been easier? Would I have been under less pressure to try and please her? Children always pick up on stuff anyway so surely we need to make it clear how things are so they don’t spend half their lives trying to find a way through the fug … and the other half in therapy.

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Who’s the best?

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

They say mum is the best. They say no matter what happens in your relationship, children must be with their mum. They will be fine as long as they are with the mum. I can’t help but wonder, is there ever a time when mum isn’t the best there is? Does mum just get too much credit sometimes because she is the female parent and grew the child from scratch? What if mum was the type to don a wig and tote a plastic gun and hold up convenience stores … would she still be considered the only person who can make her child’s life complete and safe?
Some children get lucky, I suppose. Some children get the type of mum who makes their world safe. Others get the totally fucked up variety that just adds to their baggage and ruins a previously perfectly good package. They come out so pure and full of light and joy. We don’t make them into who they are – that’s born with them – but we meld their perspective. We define their attitudes to life. So is it better to tear apart their reality and say it’s fine because they have their mum with them. Or do we play martyr mum; one who suffers for the sake of their happiness. It seems to me the latter would be the equivalent of taking their true mum away from them. But then I’m no expert.

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Perspective

Saturday, April 3rd, 2010

Talking about dummies and nappies when you have small children can become something of an obsession. When do you toilet train? When should a child throw their dummy away? Is it a problem if your child sucks their thumb beyond the age of three? Shouldn’t my child be walking by a year, talking by two and wiping his own bum at four?

As long as you don’t get sucked into all of that, there will come a time only a few years later that you can’t even remember any of these milestones because your own child – as well as all the children you know – is walking, talking and wiping his own bum. And I have never seen a sixteen year old sucking a dummy. That child who couldn’t walk till one and half or wipe his bum till five or … shock and horror … sucked a dummy until he was six, will turn into a perfectly well balanced teenager, regardless … or a perfectly unbalanced teenager, regardless.

Take that same sixteen year old who has been having sex for a couple of years already. From the perspective of this great generational change, we could say we are becoming too permissive. Jump forward a decade or two and you will see that that teenager who got everything wrong in terms of milestones has turned into a perfectly well balanced thirty year old.

We all end up in nappies again anyway, someone else wiping our bums and washing our bodies, while we suck on our false teeth. I have a feeling the sex dries up though.

Everything evens out eventually and the key is not to stress over the individual milestones but the individual itself.

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Feeling pensive

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

I remember walking to school, the park, piano lessons. Walking slowly in the hopes that each slow step would make me another minute late. It didn’t of course – I was way too close to all those places for a slow walk to make much of a difference. Or maybe punctuality was inherited. I would give the storm water drains a wide berth for fear of falling down and joining lives with the sewer rats. I used to get this feeling walking on the jetty at the yacht club too – I thought I would fall through the gaps. I remember those dreadful childhood tails about the boy who had long hair and never cut his nails and the girl who didn’t eat enough and went down the plughole with the bathwater. They terrified me. My parents threatened me – I was not a big eater as a child – I was destined to disappear with the bathwater. That was the reason for the wide berth. I remember being told I was a ‘sweet little thing’ I was. That was when I wasn’t being a ‘two-faced little horror’. I remember the fear of disappearing; the pressure – trying so hard to remain despite gaping holes ready to swallow me up because I didn’t want to eat my peas.
I remember the long walk down to school taking care not to step on the lines between the paving stones. But there were no cracks or gaps. And those dreams – I remember those dreams – of arriving at school without my bag, my shoes or even my entire uniform. Naked dreams; exposed, embarrassed and guilty. I remember the normality.
I remember running away from home. My sisters packed my bag. They said I’d have a great time. I remember not knowing where to go once I got to the bottom of the road. I remember getting home before anyone really missed me.
I remember Jonathan Eacon, the minister’s son. The first boy I ever took a bath with. I always had crushes on minister’s sons. I remember they never had crushes on me.
I remember walking home when my mother forgot to fetch me … I remember she forgot a lot … and I remember hiding behind each tree I passed in case she was driving past to fetch me. I remember she never panicked about not finding me because when she forgot me, she forgot me for the whole day.
I remember the fear of the leather slipper, the wooden spoon or the cane. I remember the defiance as I stood there and took my punishment. I remember the tears that came once I had closed my bedroom door.
I remember being stolen.
I remember good times too.
I remember the surgeons in wellington boots.
I remember the time I didn’t have to try and stop myself from hitting my child. I remember the relief when the need for willpower slipped away. I remember when my child said I love you for the first time. I remember the fear of losing him. I remember that daily. I remember when things began to feel right. I remember the feeling of the tear rolling down my face when I heard his first cry. I remember when I started loving him.
I remember when perspective began to change my world.

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The perspective of knowledge

Monday, October 13th, 2008

I was accused recently of not knowing anything about bringing up kids … by my mother-in-law no less. I think this has less to do with my lack of knowledge than my lack of enthusiastically asking advice from her on a regular basis. I have had an affinity with children since I was one myself, I have worked with children and I have studied developmental psychology. Where there have been any gaps in my knowledge … and I freely admit there have been plenty … I have filled a lot at my child’s clinic – TLC in Hout Bay to be exact – where I have sponged up as much knowledge as possible while keeping my head down and pretending not to be a mum. The rest have been filled by the ubiquitous books on childcare as well as the wonderful world of the web which is, if not holistic, an informed substitute for the village all children – and parents – need to grow up healthy. My favourite website is Dr Greene the best book I have found is Steve Biddulph’s Raising Boys.

With the gift of all this access to information, you have the choice to read as little or as much into the advice given. You have to pick what suits you and stick to it because consistency is the master challenge. Gina Ford was invaluable when I had a baby but I am glad to be rid of her – she just proved to be too severe for an obsessive compulsive personality … but then that was my doing, not hers.

It’s got nothing to do with how much you know really – you can never know enough when it comes to raising kids – but how willing and able you are to look beyond the normal available channels for information and insight into this common yet mysterious dilemma we all face of how best to bring up baby.

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Person to person

Wednesday, August 6th, 2008

In case my last post caused people to wonder about my ability to actually be a parent, I am surprisingly a really good one. Perhaps not from a traditionally maternal perspective but definitely from the
perspective of perfectionism. Everything by the book … and then some. I love my child to the point of obsession and that may not make me the perfect mother but it’s a good start. I nurture him just enough,
discipline him, and ensure that he has all the tools to help him grow into an intelligent, pragmatic (well, the fact that he’s a Virgo may help there), well-balanced man. He is not mine. He is a perfect little person who has chosen to come to me and I am going to do my best to ensure he gets everything he needs … from an adult perspective.

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Scathing sceptic

Tuesday, August 5th, 2008

I always believed I was the proverbial optimist … one of those rare breed that believe everything is wonderful unless proven otherwise. I have proven myself horribly wrong. It seems I cannot believe that anyone would actually enjoy … I mean enjoy to the point of elation … this terribly common thing called parenting. When told by a woman I met through one of those dreadful classes that I am loathe to call ‘moms and tots’, that having a second has been absolutely wonderful and that she is loving it so much … well, I balked. Honestly, she must surely be hiding something … a dark secret that involves all those awful things I imagined doing to my child when he was such a tiny baby.

I can’t help but wonder how people can be so overtly happy about being a mother. Happy fathers I can understand to a point – they are, after all, relatively removed from the drama and mayhem (and I mean this from a purely emotional perspective).

I’m not convinced.

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From mouths of babes…

Monday, April 14th, 2008

I was beginning to think my child saw me as a screeching psycho. Loopy, animated, vocal, loud, but never serene. Then one day at age 21 months when he was paging through the Elle fashion supplement (his
creative flair coming through), he alighted on a statuesque model in over-sized sunglasses. He instantly beamed up at his dad, pointed to the pouting babe and said, ‘Mummy!’

My first instinct is to think cynically of the genetic coding in males to be sycophants. But I had only to look at that shimmering smile and cherubic locks and think how beautiful it must be to perceive things
from such naiveté. To double-check my first instincts were indeed incorrect, I allowed a further thumbing of the glossy rag only to discover the identical reaction on reaching the page with, who is now termed, ‘my twin’.

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