Otherwise Occupied

This blog has never been frequently updated, but my posts have indeed slowed to barely a crawl. It turns out that I'm pregnant once again and, just like last time, baby-growing has leached from me all ability and desire to write. As a result, even the sparse post schedule I had established will likely continue to falter in the months to come.

But I have not abandoned my blog. In fact, I have a few half-written posts that keep hissing at me from offstage, demanding to be finished. And my hazy brain is bound to clear up someday.

Not Nice

I recently ran into an old coworker at the grocery store. The last time I'd seen her I was six months pregnant and she was leaving our organization after having landed some version of her dream job. Now my thirteen-month-old peered up at her from behind my legs.

"Is this your daughter?" she asked.

"It sure is," I said.

She gave the requisite compliments. I asked about her job and she gave me a brief summary of its pros and cons.

"Where are you working now?" she asked.

"I'm still home with this one," I said.

"Wow," she said. "That must be nice."

If you ever want to watch me struggle against my temper, say something to this effect. A common variation:

"You are so lucky to be able to stay home with your baby!"

In fact, my partner and I have made and continue to make a number of very large sacrifices - financial, professional, artistic, and emotional - so that one of us can always be with our daughter. It's a constant struggle that we've prioritized from the beginning. As well as being the best thing I've ever done, it's by far the hardest for a million different reasons.

Let's just say it's a lot of things, but it's certainly not nice. And although I realize there are many people who can't stay home with their small children no matter how much they want to and no matter which way they rearrange their lives, these are never the folks who call me lucky. Luck has a part to play in everyone's life, yes, but I promise you that's an entirely different conversation than the one being rudely, wrongly, and self-servingly assumed in these instances.

In Praise of Co-workers

One of the hardest things about swapping a day job for stay-at-home parenthood for me has been the lack of co-workers. I miss the automatic interpersonal perks and challenges of seeing the same people on a regular basis, of striving to accomplish tasks with and sometimes in spite of them, of sharing a common professional environment, experience, and set of inside jokes. In my adult life, work friends have always been invaluable.

Which is why, I suppose, so many new parents sign up for groups and classes. Joining can provide much needed structure, support, and social interaction for those embarking on an all-consuming, high-stakes new way of life.

I get it. I totally do.

And I wanted nothing to do with it when my daughter was born.

I doubt that acquaintances peg me as an introvert. My friends and family often reject it as an appropriate descriptor for me. It's true that I'm friendly, that I enjoy people and good conversation and many aspects of socializing, but I absolutely love being alone. Anything that involves mingling is nothing I want to attend. Groups larger than five stress me out, whether comprised of close friends or strangers. I hate using the phone; lack of access to facial expressions and other physical cues renders me hopelessly awkward. I realize that I'm not an extreme introvert by any stretch - I adore spending time with my family or a few close friends, and I tend to enjoy even gigantic parties to some degree once I acclimate to the scene - but I identify with term for very real reasons.

My tendency towards introversion became more intense right after my daughter was born. Although the general consensus is that new mothers benefit from participating in parenting groups or mama-baby yoga classes or some sort of activity along those lines, I was far from interested. "The last thing I need is to spend more time talking about being a parent," I'd tell my partner. Or, "Just because someone has kids doesn't mean I want to hang out with them." Or, "I didn't like yoga classes before I had the baby, so I don't imagine bringing a fussy infant along would make it suddenly my favorite thing."

I was drained all the time and impressed if I managed to care for the baby and feed myself throughout the day; the last thing I needed was an appointment hanging over my head, much less one that entailed presenting my bedraggled self to new people. On top of that, the idea of going out of my way to further self-identify as a mother when motherhood was swallowing my life whole in the first place seemed ass-backwards. What I needed was a break from the baby. Some time alone. The chance to read a book. A drink at a bar with a friend. A walk without the dog. Anything that had nothing to do with being a caregiver. 

Now I see that the one-two punch of endless exhaustion and no free time might have been assuaged by the regular company of those experiencing the same challenges in service of the same goal. Like co-workers, stay-at-home parents share a line of work, speak a kind of jargon, and are generally eager to commiserate and trade notes, all of which provide some serious mental health benefits. It's true that I needed free time and sleep more than anything, but I didn't get either by not joining a new mothers' weekly stroller stroll (which I just made up but I'm sure exists). I wish I had handled my reticence about new parent activities the same way I've learned to handle my reticence about parties and other large, mingle-y gatherings: if any small part of me thinks it could be fun, I ignore my introverted self and just go.

Which, like everything, is much easier to do now that I get more than two hours of sleep at a stretch.

Dear IUP Readers:

I've been kicking around a few new ideas for this blog.
Mostly I'm thinking advice column.
Shall we try it? Let's try it!

introvertedurbanparent@gmail.com

If you're looking for a second opinion and would like to hear from IUP, lay out your situation/question/dilemma/concern in an email. I'll take it from there and we'll see how things go.

NOTE: Your correspondence will be re-posted here if chosen for a public response. Signatures will not be altered, although IUP will confirm before publishing anyone's full name or other potentially confidential information.

Little Monsters (Part Four)

Parts One, Two, and Three attempted to share the fodder behind my recent mediations on public parenting and the judging that ensues. Over the course of these posts, a bunch of really smart and thoughtful people chimed in with their comments and enriched this raw material into a meaty and complex conversation. No one was more thrilled than I, not only because I appreciate the feedback and added energy of readers but also because such comments help me to continue sussing out whatever topic is foremost on my mind and therefore under examination here.

As I've mentioned before, my primary reason for writing this blog is to provide myself with a place to process the trickier points of being a parent in the world in general and a stay-at-home feminist mother in particular. I'm happy to report that so far the author's mental health benefits are very real. Whatever frustration, angst, hurt, and/or confusion inspires me to sit down and compose a post in the first place dwindles by the time I share it via the internets. It tends to dissolve completely when others offer their points of view.

Which is to say that I'm feeling pretty calm about the whole being-judged-as-a-parent thing right about now. I found some kind of resonance in every perspective that was posted, whether or not I agree with each comment completely. This resonance reminded me that although different people, with our different personalities, often have different ideas of what's appropriate and helpful in any given situation, the majority of us are at least trying.

Maybe that's what's so frustrating. We're all trying and yet we so often find one another grating. Do we care too much? Should those of us who feel incessantly judged stop caring so much about what other people think? When we're irritated or inconvenienced by friends, family, or strangers and their rotten kids, should we take a deep breath and chuckle at the dynamic spectacle that is public life? Should we quash the voice inside our heads that automatically assumes we know better than the next person how to raise children and supplant it with a more humble, empathetic gremlin?

I believe the saying is, "Live and let live." Or, more succinctly, "Relax."

It's nice to know that most people have concern for the health and well-being of children in general.

It's a pain in the ass that different people have different boundaries regarding their concern for the health and well-being of children in general.

It's too bad that some people don't concern themselves with the health and well-being of their own children.

It's impressive but rare that people exhibit the grace to support parents instead of issuing criticisms or attempting to usurp their authority, tactics that are certain only to alienate and enrage.

As Bree suggested, perhaps the best approach is to "offer a kind word, a helping hand, and try your best to keep the judgemental tone out of your voice whether you have kids or not."

I suggest a quick and easy self-administered pre-test for those on the verge of jumping into the raucous parenting moments of others. As a parent, I always appreciate and warm to offers of support. Unsolicited help, on the other hand, tends to piss me off. I'll let you, dear reader, chew on that one yourselves, but here's a hint: the difference is a simple matter of intention, and no one likes being condescended to or colonized. We all think we know better, but that's missing the point completely.

Ketchup

This blog has been rendezvousing at Psych Central. I'll soon be referencing a bunch of comments that were posted to that site but cannot be read here. If you'd like to read up on those conversations and/or add your own thoughts, please go ahead and visit my reposts of The Handsome Daughter, Little Monsters (Part One), and Little Monsters (Part Two).

Little Monsters (Part Four) coming soon.

Little Monsters (Part Three)

Not long after the incident recounted in Part Two of this Little Monsters series, I received the latest installment of the Growing Parent Newsletter from Growing Child. In a piece entitled "Needed: The support of others," Carol Gestwicki gives calm and clear voice to a perspective I'd been needing to hear for months. I can't help but quote her at length. She writes:

A friend recently sent me a link to a blog that started with a mother asking the advice of others about how to travel with her several small children across the country by plane during the holidays— to visit a sick father, as it turned out.

What was fairly shocking was the amount of virulent anti-child feeling that her question elicited.

Readers responded with comments such as she should just stay home, and why didn’t she think of that before she had the children?

Now, granted, I have had my share of annoying experiences with kids kicking the back of my seat and wailing babies. But the idea that parents and their children do not have the right to participate in the world with the rest of us is deplorable.

There is probably not a one of us who has not felt the grip of desperation when our young children just were unable to be reasonable and self-controlled when out in public.

For whatever reason, perhaps fatigue and strangeness made them into persons with whom we would rather not have admitted kinship.

Surely those of us who are not currently in the throes of parenting young children can have a modicum of sympathy for those parents who are trying to get through an experience with their sometimes-out-of-control offspring.

Whatever happened to the notion that we’re all in this together, that those of us who are coping okay can lend a hand to those who need some extra help?

Parents are able to do their best job of being patient when they feel supported, not harassed.

When children feel that their parents are calm and in control, that helps them remember the life lessons they are gradually learning about appropriate behavior.

Why should parents even have to ask for the help and tolerance of onlookers, who have no doubt been in similar positions at some point in their lives?

Surely as a people we have not become so caught up in our own lives and preferences that we cannot help and support parents in doing their most important work -- guiding their young children and getting them through new or difficult situations.

Certainly it is difficult to not turn around and see where all the noise is coming from in a public setting. And it is human nature to wonder why someone is not tending to that child. And yet, a moment’s reflection will bring to mind with a memorable clarity those moments when we were close enough to that situation to see (or be) the parent trying everything possible to soothe a distressed baby or child.

So, whether you are a parent who has found yourself in situations where you desperately feel the need for help and support, or someone who could easily give that help (rather than disapproval), let’s remember that it is in the best interests of us all to help children feel that the world around them supports them and their parents.

Then they will want to become a part of that loving community, and we all are strengthened.

I felt a tremendous sense of relief after reading this. It was as if someone had taken the jumbled, exhausted mess of my thoughts, tended to them with patience and loving care, and now here they were again, clean and freshly pressed after a good long nap, hair combed and everything. "That's my post," I thought. "That's what I wanted to say."

But something was off. It seemed ... so simple. Suspiciously simple. Was it really this simple?

Of course not.

If human beings were regularly as even-keeled, forgiving, unselfish, and kind as Gestwicki invites us to be, things would be verging on world peace. I suppose her vision is possible in the same way that peace is possible - anything is possible, right? - but an honest look at history makes certain idealistic visions seem more than a bit naive.

Which is not to say we shouldn't give voice to such optimism, strive for it ourselves, and urge others to do so as well. I return to Gestwicki's words again and again the way my daughter seeks out her blankie when she's running low on her usual confidence and energy. And as we all know, having a blankie is golden.

Still, blankie or no blankie, we must cope with the real world. Which is to say: here comes the series finale, better known as Part Four.