Life as Art » Parenthood

For the Love of Children

Natalie — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 19:26:17 +0000

Huge insight lately about children and love.

Do you think children are born empty of love and our job as parents is to fill them up with love them to make them feel loved ? No! This makes no sense does it? We are so backwards sometimes! Our job as parents is to actually open ourselves up enough to receive their love and all their fantastic expressions of it. That’s true acceptance.

Children need to love. And they need to have their love received. Maybe even more than they need to be loved by others. Children already have a deep infinite source of love and joy that they are connected to because they are children and it’s innate in them. They need to have their love and bouncy joy accepted and taken in. They need to have their love and all their creative expressions of it appreciated with gratitude. They need others to receive it with full presence.

Recently I read a journal I wrote when I was eleven years old. It was poignant, funny and full of longing. Longing to love. NOT longing to be loved. I was struck by the distinction. From my adult perspective it’s easy to think that children simply want to be loved, but this is actually not the whole truth. When children see suffering or pain around them, their natural instinct and desire is to love and to try to help. This reading of my own eleven year old perspective really reminded me of this.

I remember feeling sorry for my parents as a very small child. I remember not so much the feeling of needing their love, but I wanted them to stop suffering. SO BADLY. Children can see their parents suffering. It’s as plain as day to them. I saw how stuck in their heads they were, trapped in the self imposed suffering of their worrisome doubts, thoughts and fears. I tried everything to get them to feel better. Cuteness, loving kindness, servitude, being funny, being loud and silly, being rambunctious, being quiet and good and eventually being BAD, to try to get them to snap out of it. Rarely did they have the willingness to peek out of the window and see me, to see how hard I was trying to make them feel better. They were blind to me. I was just an annoyance and I’d get a reprimand, and back into their heads they went. Lost. In the cocoon of misery.

So what if you are a parent who (let’s face it) is grumpy a lot of the time or worried all the time, lost in thought and just not really there? Do you think you can accept their love when you are so focused on your miserable thoughts? Do you think you are capable of enjoying them, or truly seeing them and appreciating them?

Are your children already angry and acting out because they feel so invisible? If so, then sorry, it may already be too late. They may already have learned that their energy is useless, worth nothing and not important to you and therefore the world. Their love was not received. God knows they tried, but you were too stuck with your head up your ass to notice them. They were powerless. That hurt. So they hate you. Maybe, I don’t know. But this is how children learn to loathe their parents and to feel worthless. Can you see this now?

And when those children grow up and eventually feel so desperate to be accepted, and decide having children is the best way, they soon repeat that lovely cycle of not being able to take in their own children’s love. Their hearts were shut down and locked up long ago. YEP. Around the misery-go-round we go.

Stop the cycle. Please. Start by being willing to learn how to love yourself. Be willing. That’s all that it takes. And then some baby steps. Be willing to listen to yourself. Be willing to take care of yourself. Be willing to be present with yourself with loving kindness. Yes it may feel really unnatural at first, but as an act of will, it will actually begin to feel more normal and actually good. The more you love yourself, the more present you will be for your children and their open expressions of affection and adoration of you. Yes you.

And when our children see and feel that their love is valued, good and important because we are willing to take it in to our hearts, then they feel worthwhile. They feel like they can contribute something useful to humanity. And they can be free to explore and enjoy their world and not constantly be burdened with worry about their unhappy family members.

Can you see this? Can you see how important it is to learn to love yourself?

Ding Ding. Round One.

Natalie — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 05:07:18 +0000

Hey now now.
I’m all gimped up and sore wristy, because Max is so freakin heavy and strong now that I keep wrenching it when I pick him up. So these days, me and my muscley baby have been having SHOW DOWNS. I’ve started disciplining. Seriously. He’s 14 months old tomorrow and HE TAUNTS me while standing in his high chair and flings his food on the floor with glee. He laughs when I get pissed. He’s also started to have short tantrums which are gradually but surely getting longer about not getting his way all the time, like not being allowed to go down the very steep and dangerous stairs down to our basement laundry room. He’s been wailing at the door now for a few days, just tormenting us with his indignant hollering. He lies flat on his stomach and cranes his neck down so he can look under the five inch gap under the door like he’s planning his escape. Also, he’s been enjoying throwing anything he can get his hands on down the stairs, so anytime I go up and down stairs I have to collect an armful of random stuff while trying not to break my neck and get whipped by a bottle of nail polish coming tumbling down. Then I have to put it all away, or find a hiding spot for it so Max won’t chuck it down the stairs again. About a week ago Grant and I were in bed talking about our kids. Oh so romantic by the way. I said: I think it’s time to discipline Max. He answers without hesitation, lying back and staring at the ceiling : yup. Inner deep breath and a bracing. Time to have NERVES OF STEEL. Time to wrap up the reactions and be all blandy ass faced and give him clear consequences of time outs on a designated spot in the hallway. One minute- yes can you believe he actually stays in the spot, and if I have to place him back there I don’t give him ANYTHING!!! No eye contact, not a facial twitch, just DEAD MOMMY. Look kid, you just killed your mommy with your food throwing. She’s a zombie now. Well for the most part the one minute time outs are working… sort of…if I’m consistent with not reacting to his taunts. As soon as he sees a dirty look shot his way though, he grins and shouts his victory at me and then if he catches me laughing, like i often do, he REALLY revels in his victory. Like scrambles onto a table and pounds his chest and pumps his fists in the air. Sometimes he has me in such conniptions I have to hide my face and curl up in a ball to hide the fact that I’m laughing my ASS off. He actuallly gets a bit concerned, like, oh dear, now mommy is sobbing. Yeah, sobbing with LAUGHTER. Then he eases up a bit. Finally a line to his empathy..i was wondering if it existed. He hugs my back and wacks me a bit to try to uncurl me. Laughter and anger. Walking the line, walking the line. But who can stay mad at such a cute little bugger? Welcome to power struggle. Gotta love it.

Holiday Truth

Natalie — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 21:13:39 +0000

December always brings about a great deal of ambivalence for me. Actually, it starts in November but December is the real count down to Christmas. I hate it, I love it, I hate it, I love it, I resent it, I don’t want to give anyone a damn thing, I want to give every soul I meet on the street a present, I am totally ambivalent. I like that word: it means to feel two opposite feelings at the same time. Not somewhere in the middle, but OPPOSITES at the SAME TIME. I resent Christmas because a lot of people get sketchy around this time of the year. Down right WIERD. Super controlling, strangely cheerful, and totally anti-anti-Holiday spirit. It’s not ok to be a scrooge. It’s not ok to dis Santa. The cultural code of conduct is strong around this time of the year. And if you don’t know anything about me by now, it’s I HATE THAT KIND OF SHIT.

I’ve been having attacks of guilt about lying to my Lula about the existence of Santa. Like I do EVERY TIME this time of the year rolls around. When she realizes that we’ve LIED all these years, will she resent us and will everything we’ve ever told her seem like a LIE? Will she doubt everything we say after this big revelation? I’ve heard that for some people, the finding out about the lie of Santa is a HUGE shattering of trust of their parents…like, what else did Mom and Dad lie about….waitasecond…there’s the tooth fairy, there’s that bunny that lays eggs, there’s the virgin mother, there’s how raisins used to be grapes, WHAT ELSE IS A LIE???? But then I compare the Santa Fairy lies to years of crushing disappointment that I experienced when I would come racing down the stairs to look in a very lame burgundy stocking I made for myself only to find it empty, I just don’t know what is right. Even though I was never fed the lie of Santa, I wanted to believe. Clearly, I’m ambivalent and well, maybe this is all just the time of the year where I get to really grapple with my human nature as a CONTRADICTORY AND LYING COW OF A BEING. Maybe that truth-about-Santa- moment is the beginning of the life lesson that some lying sons of bitches are a.) actually somewhat still loveable and b.) our parents.

It’s never more apparent than in this season, that LYING is ok. Like going to all those damn Christmas parties, because you want to see all these people you never hang out with normally and that you’d never ever call in a million years. All to make small talk where you pretend to care about the fucking turkey and to stuff down your feelings with a disgusting remnant of mince meat pie. Hey, I admit it, I am not immune to the bullshit. I do it. We all do it. So embrace the bullshitter in you this season. Unless you live far far away on a tropical island that does not celebrate the winter season because you don’t have one, then, it’s time to HUG YOUR INNER LIAR. Maybe even have fun with it. Tell a made up story and watch people react to it, just for fun….oh, hey! waitanuthersecond, we do that to our children!! We are totally screwed up. (This is the real Holiday message, yah?)

Yet the truth is also that I STILL want a full stocking when I wake up. I want to see the DELIGHT on my children’s faces when they see a bunch of Christmas lights that some wackos spent crazy amounts of time and energy putting up. I want to eat that fucking turkey with stuffing and gravy and cranberry sauce and pumpin pie. I want to drink eggnog and mulled wine. And I want to be surrounded by people whom I consider my kindred family. The people I can let my hair down around, the people whom I have the most fun with, basically the people who are comfortable enough with themselves to be comfortable around me, because I’m a different sort of wacko.

And This Is How I Carry On

Natalie — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 07:31:11 +0000

So one of my goals in this thing called Parenting Small Children is to do things for myself whenever I can. I’m acutely aware that children learn the most about how to live their lives by observing their models. Sure, sure, I do stuff for myself so I don’t go nutso living in only one narrow reality of diapers and snot, but when I feel that old guilt trying to tell me that ‘i shouldn’t', for any number of idiotic reasons, I have to remind myself that the less I actually do for myself, the more likely I am to tempted to take on that worn out and bloodied cross called MARTYR, which I’m so so sorry to say ladies and gents, is a card us humans like to hold up and wave around, LOOK AT MEE LOOK AT MEEEE< I SUFFERED SO MUCH FOR YOU, SO YOU COULD HAVE THE BEST BLAH bLAH blah. Hey, not to say I don’t do it, I just try to nip it a bit, so my kids can remember that I tried on different Jesus garb…like his velveteen robes with gold trim that he wore when he sat with the who’es. Kidding, I actually have no idea what he wore when he sat with the who’es, for all I know he could have been in a loin cloth. but i digress.

I just took two months of acting class after more than a year of not training. That was a lot of time off training. Most actors I know train and train and train and train some more, it’s constant learning, constant evolution. I really missed the work, and at first I was, like: What the hell am i doing here, I’m exhausted, this is lots of work, why do i need to add to my workload. But then after I started working and getting into the imaginative world that acting is, and connecting it to the feelings inside of me and seeing other actors push themselves in very vulnerable and courageous ways, I realized yet again, that it’s just what I need to keep me going. It’s a craft unlike any other, and it’s all about learning more and more about me and somehow meshing it with the life of a character. It’s an indescribable feeling, when I’m on.

Having Lula is what pushed me to pursue acting, actually. I know some people feel like their kids forced them to push away their dreams, but for me, my kids pushed me towards them. This is how they push me, the little rugrats, they push me to be more honest with myself, and honest with what I know to be true, not because I heard it, or it’s the latest research, but because I feel it right inside of me. And if I’m honest with myself, I know that kids learn one of two major ideas from their early childhood and then hopefully, they figure out that they get to choose: It’s safe out there to do what you want to do and you can do anything you set your mind to do. And the other path, is : It’s not safe out there for these reasons, and that justifies why blending in is better than stickin’ your neck out. I experienced the latter when I was a child and I choose to model to my kids the former, because IT’S WAY MORE FUN.

Three Wobbly Steps, One Giant Leap for Max kind

Max took his first three steps today!!!! It was in our chiropractor’s office, she put him down in his sturdy green converse and let him go… Three wobbly steps forward and I did a double take, and hi-fived Shamira. He did it again for her, like another two steps, outside in the hallway. Then when I tried to get him to walk, he went completely limp like, NO WOMAN, YOU’RE MY DONKEY, i don’t walk for you.

The Truth of Motherhood at 5:15 pm

Natalie — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:46:20 +0000

If any of you are stay at home mothers, and have just spent all day long (10 plus hours) alone with your young children, engaging, playing, soothing, teaching, cleaning and picking up after them and picking them up, I get that you want to scream and I get that you want to cry and I get that you can’t even look at your children right now. I get that you may want to run screaming from the house right now, and I get it if you do. All I can say is: don’t feel bad for having these feelings. This is an opportunity for deep compassion for yourself. Everyday you live this reality, is a day you just climbed Everest AGAIN. This is what being a committed conscious full time Mom is. It’s grueling, thankless work, and it’s full of all the piss and shit in between. I know from my experience RIGHT NOW that it’s difficult to make any coherent communication and that I just feel stripped, shattered and raw.

Yet the paradox of this journey of motherhood is that it’s also amazing, and every day there are moments of pure joy unlike any I’ve ever experienced and unlike anything I will ever experience again. It’s a total mind fuck, because I’m living my dream raising a beautiful healthy family, but I’ve never felt so completely used up and trapped like a caged wild animal at the end of the day.

And all day long, I see how my children teach me. Teach me about myself- about what really pushes my buttons. (Constant high pitched screeching does it to me. Oh, and biting, just to name a couple) Teach me where my limits are. (How many times do I have to say something before I start shouting it?) Teach me how I behave when my limits are reached and when my limits are passed. (My heart races, growing anxiety and panic- the tip of the iceberg) Teach me about my own unique coping mechanisms, (rocking in fetal position, screaming in pillows and good ol’ sugar and caffeine, just to name a few) Teach me about the spectrum of human emotion. Teach me how to eat my words. I watch myself and I’m at times horrified and at other times awed at the range of feelings I get to experience in a day.

All I have to say to those of you who are not with children is : be absolutely SURE in the depths of your depths, without a shadow of a doubt that you want children, and if you want to give it a whirl to experience a fraction of the reality, please become a full time live in nanny. DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN BECAUSE YOUR MOTHER WANTS GRANDCHILDREN-she can adopt! DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT ALL YOUR FRIENDS ARE DOING- go get a good therapist. And if you decide that this experience is not for you, but you still want to experience having children in your life, go give your girlfriend or sister or cousin a break, who probably hasn’t yet had a shower, who may very well need to sit on the toilet because she’s been holding it for far too long, but mostly, because, if you can’t hang out with this woman who you used to be able to have a conversation with, you may as well get to know her children who are adorable versions of her and get a little shot of kid wisdom while you’re at it.

Compound this raw human reality I just described with the very real possibility that Mom isn’t getting more than two hours of sleep at a time and you can understand why those Mom’s at the supermarket with her screaming baby can’t muster the energy to pick up her baby and why she has that desperate crazed rabid look in her eyes. These are a whole nuther couple of topics…

And honey, if you’ve got some stupid ass ‘Leave it to Beaver’ idea that you gotta have a hot meal ready for your man by 6 o’clock, while you try to do dishes with a baby that won’t let you put him down without screaming bloody murder, then I ask you this: How many children do you have? and include him in the count. Remember, he gets to shower and he gets to leave and go work with people who can cooperate and communicate and who don’t throw food at him and play with their poo in front of him.

I’m hoping for your sakes, he’s rushing home and cooking you dinner while he gazes lovingly at you and tells you you are simply AMAZING and BEAUTIFUL.

Because you are.