The Next Level

Matching outfits for camping

My stay at home mom

I dropped off my son at his dorm room this morning. This is my "baby", the last child to be sent off into the world. Nine years ago, as I dropped my daughter off at college, I expected that she was to be home summers and I still had one at home. While I knew it would be different, it didn't seem like a drastic change. My son's college encourages internships each summer, so today seems to truly be the end of the Children at Home era.

Reflecting back on the "liberation" I experienced in the '70's, I try hard to remember what we learned about motherhood. I remember that there was a push for stay at home fathers, as well as fathers who participated in raising the children in a big(ger) way. There was focus on picking the right day care, hours of research went into how stimulating, nurturing or enlightening the facility was. It went without saying that you would continue to pursue your career while having babies. But my field of study was child development, and it seemed important to be there with your children. In addition to this, no matter what the world was telling me, I didn't want to leave my daughter with anyone other than my mother. Although newly graduated, licensed and ready to go, I chose to stay at home with my baby. I felt "stupid" for doing this. I was losing ground on the competition for advancement, I would forget everything I had learned, my vocabulary would decrease. Looking back this is one of the best choices I made. I was there to see her first steps, her discovery of the soft fur of the cat, her problem solving how to get down the stairs without falling, her smile at finger painting, her excitement at catching tadpoles in the lake. All those things I would have missed if she was in that state of the art day care facility. I caught up in my career once she started kindergarten. (Nine years later I took a break in my career when I had my son! This didn't hurt either, in fact it helped to point me in a whole new direction, and I added the MFT license to my wall).

Role model. I remember that as liberated women we had the chance to become role models for our daughters in the new way. Equal pay, equal opportunities for advancement in our careers, the chance to be a professional. We should encourage our daughters to feel good about math, to become scientists, to break into the "male" fields. It all seemed so wonderful, such an opportunity. I do believe that my daughter developed her talents and is an accomplished woman. And now as my son is launched I have confidence in his independence and motivation to make the world a better place.

What was the reality? It is very, very hard to be a working mother. One is constantly juggling priorities. At the same time that I had a career and a family, the intensity of what one needed to provide for children increased tenfold. Gymnastics, pony riding class, soccer, baseball, Girl Scouts, Odyssey of the Mind, Art classes, Space Camp, music lessons...the list went on and on. As a result, those hours when I should have been home (cleaning? cooking? resting?) were spent sitting in a lawn chair watching swim practice. Along side me were my friends. They were correcting papers, mending clothes or catching up on paying bills as we "watched" the kids practice. What I wouldn't have given for a lap top then...but that was a few years away. My children didn't always understand. "None of my friends have to do their own laundry, Jenna's mother makes her lunch every day, Spencer's father does things for him" there were complaints. Yes, some of those moms had the luxury of staying home, for by this time that is what I had started to feel. Having a career was not liberating, it was crazy hard work. I was split, I was so jealous of those women staying at home with their kids. I was angry when the PTA representative called and asked me to bake something for the teacher appreciation lunch. Yes, I did appreciate those teachers, but just when was I supposed to bake the #^(&* cupcakes? My kids ate fast food, processed food, leftovers, popcorn and oranges for dinner. Oh, to have been a stay at home mom. I would have time to focus, to give my best to one thing, instead of splitting and not doing a very good job at anything.

It seems that now I will have my opportunity. While I can jokingly say that I gave up my career AND my motherhood this summer, the real truth is that I am just catching up on all those years of things I never had time to finish.

Medication and Meditation

I have suffered from crazy mood swings all my life. I have early memories of horrible tantrums, my body exploding with frustration, kicking and screaming on the family room floor or in the doorway to the kitchen. My mother handled it well...she completely ignored me. Throughout my life, as I have trained in my profession as child therapist, I have changed my opinion frequently about what one should do with a tantrum in their child. But I do think she probably did the right thing. I try to relate how I act now, as an older adult, when I want to have a tantrum. Because there are times when I want to lay on the floor, kicking and screaming. Currently these strong emotions are more likely to come out in wanting to run away, my teenage coping method of choice. I remember fighting with my parents at a McDonald's. We were getting into the car at the time, and I simply turned and walked away. I walked miles before finally coming home. I sat on the wooded hill across the street and watched through the windows of the house, trying to decide what I could do instead of going back in. I saw my mother leave in the car, probably to go looking for me (it was late at night by this time),and return a short while later. She hadn't looked very hard. Cold and hungry (though why I was hungry, didn't I eat my hamburger before running away?), I climbed out of the tree and walked to the front porch as my mother was getting out of the car. She screamed with anger at me, grabbed at my long hair, pulling me up the stairs into the house. She pushed me to where my father was laying in bed watching TV (yes, it was a somewhat strange floor plan and their bedroom was just inside the front door.) Do something about her, she yelled. In his typical Carlos Castaneda style, he simply stared at me, shook his head with disappointment and said "Go to bed."

In my early twenties the emotional roller coaster continued, with thoughts of suicide when I was really troubled. I was never at an actual attempt level, just so sad that I needed some sort of escape, and thinking about escaping the unhappiness was comforting in itself.

Behold the dawning of anti-depressant medication. My doctor initially prescribed this for migraine headaches, but the side effect was a dulling of the pain. After a year on the medication I noticed a dulling of other things. A dulling of my vocabulary, a dulling of my motivation, a dulling of my excitement about life. At about that time Imitrex, a new migraine medication came onto the market. The Imitrex was the first (and only) medication that truly licked my migraine headaches. It was wonderful! There was a problem with taking the anti-depressant and the Imitrex (too much serotonin manipulation) so I stopped the anti-depressant.

Recently, while attending a conference put on by a well known therapist, I was shocked to learn some little known information about anti-depressant medications. To make a long story short - there really aren't good scientific studies to show that serotonin re uptake medication makes any difference at all. In fact, it might be that the only reason drug companies focused on this type of medication is the following: Our brains are filled with numerous chemicals, each filling functions we are just beginning to understand. Years ago we weren't even able to measure these brain chemicals. Serotonin just happened to be one of the medications we learned how to measure early on. There was never really any strong evidence that Serotonin actually has any thing to do with depression levels. BUT since we could measure it, why not? So this was the direction drug manufactures took the research. So now, on the basis of limited research, with very weak results, our whole country is taking anti-depressant medication. Don't get me wrong, there is about a 25% decrease in depression with the medication. The problem is there is also a 25% decrease in depression with a placebo. So it may not be the actual medication that is making folks less depressed.

What does current research show? That MEDITATION or other mindful practices actually work better than either the anti-depressant or the placebo medications.

That was a really long introduction to my next goal. As I have tried to increase my physical care through daily exercise and changing my eating habits, I am now adding the mental goal. Because, of course, the studies which show that meditation and mindfulness help, also show that CONSISTENT AND DAILY activities in these areas help. Just like eating and exercise these have to become part of my daily routine, not just events which occur when I remember or when I feel like it or when I have extra time.

It's certainly worth the effort to try.

Exposure

My photos haven't been turning out the way I think they should. My brother-in-law taught me about photography when I was in seventh grade. He had a dark room and a great camera. I fell in love with the art of recording things in visual media, but even greater for me was the magical feeling of manipulating the photos to just how I wanted them. Time in the bath, dodging, laying objects on the negatives, there was no end to creative exploration.
"Robin is such a great photographer. " "Will you give me copies of your pictures, they are always so much better than mine." "I just love your pictures." Over the years I held these comments on my talent in reserve, basking in the comments of others, feeling like I was finally good enough at something.
But lately my pictures are weak. A little blurry, not exposed just right, composition off. I resorted to the "automatic" feature on my camera, frustrated and depressed. On the road trip I handed my camera to my daughter, as she could use the same settings, be in the same place, but her pictures came out better. I am in mourning over the loss of my talent, my ego taking a dive. What will I show off to others? How will I please them? Will there be anything that they will seek from me?
For my friends and colleagues working in the field of education the summer is almost over. Back to work comments are scattered on Facebook, phone calls made for that last get together of summer. I should be ecstatic that I am not going back, but after so many years with an identity built around my career, I have a lump of emotion sitting in my chest. No, I am not sad that I don't have to face the end of summer. It is more like anxiety, but even that fails to describe the feeling. A plunge into icy water? Opening a door in a dark and scary room? No, not that either. It is like standing at the top of a long staircase. Concrete steps covered with moss. No hand rail. Stone walls on either side covered with a green slime, making it impossible to gain extra support as I carefully place each foot on the next step down. Eager for what is at the bottom, but overwhelmed with the feeling of descending into the unknown. I consider sitting on the step and sliding down to avoid falling, but the green slime will ruin my clothes.
I just have to keep at it, carefully, slowly feeling my way down. I have to hand off some of my glory to others. I have to play with the exposure until I get it just right.