When Finding A Babysitter Feels Like Online Dating

The breakup happens, as many often do, over the phone. “I need to concentrate on me,” she says, explaining her decision to leave. “I can’t do this anymore.” I’m heartbroken that my kids’ regular babysitter, who we have had for over a year, is suddenly leaving us. It stings, but I know I have to move on, and find someone new.

I create a job posting on a popular sitter search websites, and I’m hopeful. That is, until I realize how much searching for a new babysitter online starts to feel eerily similar to online dating. And – as in my days of online dating – how difficult it is to not favor those people with the more “attractive” looking profile pics (regardless of whether they’re suited for me). 

I admit, I have a “type” when it comes to my babysitters (and it applies to both male and female sitters): Creatives, performers and actors. This demographic tends to be good looking, and they also tend to leave as soon as they get a better job or opportunity. “Eights or above,” my husband’s friends joke, when referring to our cache of good-looking babysitters.

But even the applicants seem to be confused about how to go about the online thing. Based on their profile photos, I begin to wonder if the younger generation is simply unable to comprehend self-promoting online without imbuing sexual overtones. As I scroll through my Inbox of would-be Mary Poppinses, I’m faced with “sexy selfie” after sexy selfie. One young lady’s pouty lips and half-closed eyes, accompany a profile in which she’s describes herself as a “young, vibrant student, looking for a regular source of income!” (Maybe she landed on the wrong kind of website, I wonder?). Yet another applicant has exclusively featured her cleavage as her profile pic – no neck or face – perhaps to show her “nurturing” side. Every other applicant in my inbox is either giving me Duck Face, Bedroom Eyes, or Cleavage Shot. 

After what feels like endless scrolling, I have to stop and ask myself: Am I searching for a loving caregiver to watch my children, or a hot date or sidepiece for my husband? I focus back to my task, and message a few prospects who have more “work appropriate” profile photos, and who look good professionally on paper, too. 

But then I find that the interviews feel like the kind of dates you have with someone you meet online. I meet with a cute young actress and we spend two hours at a café, talking about our favorite authors, social justice, and our writing. I decide to have her do a trial day with our family, but once the glow of our meeting is gone, start to have second thoughts. I realize how little we discussed her babysitting experience during our meeting. When I ask for current references, she gives me a strange excuse as to why she can’t share them. I later find out she suffered a nervous breakdown a mere three weeks ago. No surprise here: People aren’t always what they appear to be online.

My next interview is a total “meet cute”. I’ve given her the address to the Starbucks, but apparently she’s at a different Starbucks a few blocks away. We spend the next half hour running past each other on the street before we finally connect. She’s an all-American cheerleader type – all long blonde hair and a figure that would amuse the neighborhood dads. I buy her tea, and she doesn’t meet my eyes the whole time we talk. It’s awkward. “I’ll text you,” I lie, when we say goodbye.

And, as it also often happens with online dating, some people are complete duds – or worse, felons! A pretty brunette who messages me about how much she loves kids “and dogs!” (she is very adamant about her love of dogs), suddenly starts following my Instagram. I decide to do some spying too, but a quick Google reveals her mug shot and several arrests. 

My experience with the would-be Criminal Babysitter cools me off the sitter website for a while. I get a few recommendations from online mom groups, but I can’t will myself to contact any of them without a photo. 

Of course, once past the pleasant exterior, I look for all the other qualities a person must have before I allow them to look after my brood. But I also wonder what wonderful people I may be missing during my search, because of my focus on attractiveness. It’s the same thing I used to ask myself when I exclusively responded to the good looking guys who messaged me online, rarely giving the “nice guys” (who had less than stellar pictures) a chance.

The Swipe Right mentality – the tendency to make a snap judgment about someone or something based on looks alone – extends to nearly everything I look for online, from clothes, to yoga studios, to, I guess, caregivers. I think that has something to do with the fact that searching for most things online that have visual components, feels a little bit like shopping. How can all that liking and swiping that we do everyday, as we take in digital information on apps, and on social media – not trickle down into how we assess other things we perceive as “commodities”?

“Give me the Bearded Lady,” says one mom friend. “I don’t need a hot young nanny walking around my house in front of my partner.” Maybe one day, I’ll join her camp, and hire a School Marm type to watch the kids. In the meantime, I’m working on my sitter bias as I continue to search for The One (FYI open to any leads.) I’m still seeking “eights or above” – but doing my best to use that to describe the caliber of applicant, and not simply how they look on their profile pic.

This piece was originally published on Mother Mag, but was removed because of "too much backlash". 

Image: "Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead" (1991). Image may be subject to copyright.

Why I Don’t Want to Call My C-Section a “Belly Birth”

The latest chapter in the birthing wars.

Just when I think the “birthing wars” have gone too far, I recently learned  the term “C-section” is becoming passé. We now need a whole new way of describing a surgery that’s been happening since the time of Caesar himself. Behold, the new term, “belly birth” – the alternative way of talking about what many view as an otherwise cold, and/or invasive medical procedure. 

The “belly birth” is an attempt at giving women a more empowering way to reframe undesired birth experiences – i.e. those who feel they have been robbed of the joy of delivering an entire human through their vaginal canal. According to online trends, more women are renaming their C-sections as belly births, in an effort to take back their agency in birth experiences that felt largely out of their control, as well as to normalize C-sections. The idea being: A belly birth is something that you participate in, whereas a C-section is simply done to you. 

According to the Mayo Clinic, a cesarean section (C-section) is defined as: “the surgical procedure used to deliver a baby through incisions to the abdomen and uterus.” There are many reasons why physicians opt to go this route, including; the baby being in distress, the baby being in an abnormal position, or labor not progressing, to name a few. 

Despite these very legitimate reasons for surgery, the stigma around C-sections still persists. People sometimes point to the moms who have undergone them as having gotten away with an “easier way out” (remember the phrase “too posh to push”?); and some women who have had them feel ashamed of their own birth experiences.  

But wouldn’t naming C-sections something else – particularly something like “belly birth”, which almost sounds like a mystical event – be further reinforcing that stigma? Barriers are seldom broken when we dance around the thing people are afraid of, or when we make them more palatable to the people who don’t understand them. 

Renaming a C-section birth a “belly birth” disassociates the surgery from the birth experience. The term itself evokes an  image of a woman magically bringing forth her baby from the depths of her uterus, and out of her stomach, by sheer will. Is everyone supposed to pretend that a surgery never happened in order to get that baby out of the woman’s belly? 

Admittedly, for the people behind this movement, removing the surgery aspect of the C-section is probably the point of calling it something like “belly birth” in the first place. In their view, they would like the emphasis to be on the birth of the baby, rather than the surgery itself. But why erase any reference to the surgery that made that baby’s birth possible? There’s something about that act that reeks of shame, too. It doesn’t feel inclusive, but more like a rewriting of history.

I have had two C-sections. One was an emergency C-section: after I had labored for over 24 hours, my body wouldn’t fully dilate, and my son’s heart rate plummeted. The other was a planned section, for the same reasons I had to have my first C-section, under the advice of the doctor I trust with my life (and those of my babies). I love telling people about my C-sections, and, if they’re willing to hear them, I enjoy regaling them with the gory details of each one. I didn’t choose my first C-section, but there’s a lot about motherhood that I don’t get control over. My C-sections are my birth stories, and I am proud of them.

When you think about it, what isn’t empowering about lying AWAKE on a table, as a doctor slices into your abdomen? How can you not feel like a badass after you have lived through having your stomach opened, then rummaged around in, and then having a baby pulled out of it? And then, while your guts are still open to the heavens, you most likely have a moment with your brand new baby to pose and take a photo, because that is just how #momboss you are. You’re so amazingly tough, in fact, you get to witness your doctor sewing you back up, possibly feeling just a few tugs around on your insides, and maybe the ol’ burn of a cauterizer. That’s some superhuman sh*t. And then someone has the nerve to tell you that it wasn’t a real birth worth being proud of? That you had a “belly” birth? Ha! That’s cute.

Mamas of C-sections, I think the issue isn’t what we call the damn procedure. I think it’s the fact that we feel we need to rename it in the first place. The idea of the C-section being “less than” the vaginal birth feeds into that same comparing and competing that’s so rampant in the mom world. You know; things like how a vaginal birth with epidural is “less than” one without. Or how a birth in the hospital might as well be a back alley birth when compared to a beautiful home birth in a birthing tub surrounded by dancing doulas. You get the idea.

That’s not to say that I’d wish a C-section upon someone who didn’t want one. It is not an easy surgery to recover from. It requires support from friends or family members (or hired help) to help with the baby in order to allow your body to heal properly. It can take up to a year (or more) for your body to fully recover internally from the trauma. But a C-section is not a death. It is, in most cases, (nefarious doctors aside) a medically necessary means to a birth. 

So what if we cheered each other for having undergone successful C-section births instead of grieving over them, or worse, not speaking their name? Calling a C-section by any other name puts us at further distance from overcoming our fear, hate, or distrust of this surgery; and our ability to accept – and even embrace it.  

Photography by @tash.things.

Originally published here.

This Is What Happened When I Tried To Quit Antidepressants

In a recent New York Times article, “Many People Taking Antidepressants Discover They Cannot Quit,” the authors detail how the withdrawal effects can be so severe, Americans would rather keep using these drugs than suffer the consequences of getting off of them. This finding may come as a surprise to many, but not to me. I had recently tried to sever my own six-year affair with my antidepressant of choice, Zoloft, and the consequences were nearly tragic. 

My doctor prescribed Zoloft to me after a deep bout of postpartum depression and anxiety following the birth of my first son. It was, for me, a miracle drug. After weeks of crying for more hours of the day than not and irrational thoughts spanning from, “Does my baby want to kill me?” to “Is my baby evil?”, I was a person again. I had every intention of staying on the drug forever (why mess with a good thing?), until a surgery earlier this year required that I cease taking any SSRI’s to decrease the risk of a hematoma. 

My psychiatrist put me on a somewhat abbreviated weaning schedule to time with my surgery — which we knew would be risky, but I still was not prepared for what was to come. As the authors of the aforementioned New York Times article point out, the medical profession lacks scientifically backed guidelines or strategies for people struggling to stop taking antidepressants.

My doctor prescribed Zoloft to me after a deep bout of postpartum depression and anxiety following the birth of my first son. It was, for me, a miracle drug.

One morning, I woke up feeling like I was at the bottom of a black hole coated slick with oil, and couldn’t crawl out. I couldn’t will myself to leave the house. My children couldn’t make me smile. Sometimes my own voice felt like it was coming from somewhere eight feet below the ground whenever I spoke. I tried to tell my children that I wasn’t feeling well, because that’s how you explain when Mommy is Weaning Off of Zoloft to people under seven. 

If it were possible at the time, I would have laughed at how much my symptoms made me feel like an advertisement in a magazine – some sad sack woman sitting on a park bench, staring at her kids having fun in a park. The text above her head says something like, “You’re not yourself when you’re not on [insert drug of choice here].” 

By week three or so, things were abysmal. My whole body ached, like the worst flu I ever had, and no pain reliever could alleviate it. Several times a day, I wanted to tear off my flesh, or rip off my head – anything to take away this bad feeling. 

One morning, I woke up feeling like I was at the bottom of a black hole coated slick with oil, and couldn’t crawl out. I couldn’t will myself to leave the house.

Around that time, my family and I were walking down the avenue by our house. I’d made the mistake of finishing my husband’s Greyhound at brunch, hoping it would help take the edge off a little. My older son was being kind of a jerk that day, and as we were walking home, we were fighting about his iPad time and I lost it. My younger son started joining in on the whine-fest, and I screamed at them both, and they both continued not listening to me, and all my pain felt amplified. I walked ahead of them a bit, trying to relieve them of my wildness.

I looked at the cars and trucks rushing frantically down the avenue, leaving a slight tremble under my feet in their wake. The most bizarre idea came into my head: What if I just turned to my left, and began walking, Virginia Woolf-like, into the flow of traffic? No announcement, no farewell, just a straightforward decision to turn away from everything else and turn instead towards nothing. I could see my body as if I were observing from some distant place, like the tree next to the overpass where I had been standing, and could picture myself walking onto the avenue. In that fantasy, there was no suffering – no crushing limbs, no gore, no grieving family – just the feeling of being freed from pain. The option seemed so straightforward.

It was one of those feelings like when you’ve been sick for so long, you forget what healthy feels like, and then you finally feel healthy and you can finally say, “Wow. Life feels so damn good.”

But before I could dip my toe off the edge of the sidewalk, my older son came running up to me, asking about when he would get his iPad minutes back. Bam. My strange impulse and vision from moments before was gone, and I was reminded of my purpose and duty – to continue to be a mother and wife and child and friend – in spite of my own personal pain. I’d never before that moment, imagined in my wildest dreams, taking my own life.

After my surgery, I was given the go-ahead to go back on Zoloft. At first, I resisted – thinking, well, I made it this far. If, for some reason I ever needed to go off of this drug again in the future, I would never be able to face the withdrawal effects that go with it a second time. When I told my doctor about my “Virginia Woolf” moment, she insisted I go back on it immediately. And since martyrdom never looked good on me anyway, I took her advice. Within a week, I was back to myself. A whole person. It was one of those feelings like when you’ve been sick for so long, you forget what healthy feels like, and then you finally feel healthy and you can finally say, “Wow. Life feels so damn good.”

I am in good company when it comes to failing at quitting antidepressant use. As Carey and Gebeloff note in their New York Times piece, a recent study of 250 long-term users of psychiatric drugs revealed that nearly half of those in the study who tried to quit could not do so because of withdrawal symptoms. In another study, 130 of 180 long-term antidepressant users reported withdrawal symptoms. 

As mothers, we need all the help we can get by way of support systems. This system can look different for many people. My support system includes antidepressants – a fact of which I am certain won’t change for me anytime soon if ever. I’m frustrated that I don’t seem to have a viable way out of getting off of this particular antidepressant, and fully switching to something else. But that likely still would not have changed my original decision to have gone on it in the first place. All things being equal, this isn’t all a bad story. Zoloft saved my life once, back when I first became a mother; when I thought it wouldn’t be possible to see the brightness in motherhood. Zoloft allowed me to experience joy again and helped me finally fall in love with my baby. And when I tried to walk away from Zoloft, the effects of that nearly ended my life. So I guess, like many kinds of relationships, ours is complicated. 

Please seek medical advice before taking any antidepressants. All opinions in this article are those of the author.

Originally published here.

What Do You Do All Day?

We've all been on the receiving end of the question. #MINDRMAMA Alexis Barad-Cutler reports. 

When you’re not in the trenches of early motherhood, it can be hard to grasp the kind of mental and emotional work that it entails. From the outside, it seems like a cushy job that lets you work from home, nap during the day, and maybe even watch some daytime TV. But as any new mom eating over a sink and calling that lunch can tell you, early motherhood has little to do with rest and relaxation. It’s hard work, full of sour milk, boob sweat, and lots of tears. And yet, any new mom constantly gets asked the question, “So what is it that you actually do all day?”

The first time I remember being asked the “what do you do all day” question was during a trip to visit family in Florida with our first-born. We were walking through town, trying to get our then-infant son to nap, when my mother-in-law spotted some family friends in one of the outdoor cafes. We went over to say hi, and all I could think was, “Can we just keep walking?” (As every mom knows, babies not in motion don’t stay asleep.) Suddenly everyone was staring at me, and that’s when I realized the husband was asking me a question:

“So what is it you do all day now that you’re a mom?” he asked, an amused look on his face, like he expected me to melt in a pile of maternal bliss just thinking about how great my days were. “Do you guys, just, you know . . . hang out?”

I stood there, speechless, and my brain started to overload with the millions of things that my baby and I did during the day that did not by any stretch of the imagination feel like “hanging out.”

I wanted to scream about the four times a night I was still waking up to soothe my baby back to sleep, which made my attempts at napping during the day a necessity and not a luxury. But then I would also have to mention that the terror of waking to the sounds of a cat being skinned from chin to tail – i.e. my child’s shrieks anytime he was put down in his crib – didn’t really make the naps seem worth it. I wanted to tell him about the hours per week I spent hooked to a wheezing, huffing breast pump. And how pumping while taking care of a baby is like trying to chew gum and walk, except instead of chewing gum, you’re trying to hold a baby out in front of you so that you don’t knock your pump shields off your nipples and you’re walking to the changing table to deal with a poop situation.

And that wouldn’t even have touched the daily logistics of caring for a baby; like the fact that the minute you get them changed into a clean outfit, they’ve already managed to pee up the back of it and you need to start all over again. Or what about the Amazon orders, or signing up for baby music classes and movement classes, scheduling doctor’s appointments (there are so many in those first few months), doing laundry, washing bottles, cleaning breast pump parts, and making sure to never, ever run out of diapers. It is monotonous. Relentless at times.

It’s not easy to be with a child all day. The ones who are too young to move or talk have very big needs – the feeding, the diapering, the swaddling. By the time a baby is mobile, you can’t even think about sitting down or looking away. Every moment feels like you’re playing defense against “Team Death.” And when your child is older, it sometimes seems like they never stop talking – to the point that there’s no room for a single thought of your own. It can make spending a day with a kid feel like you’ve been trapped inside a free-association method acting exercise – except that’s just how elementary school aged kids talk.

So, hanging on by a thread? Yes. Hanging out? Absolutely not. The good thing is, as time goes by, and you earn more of your parenting stripes, the logistics get a little easier to manage, but of course, they get even bigger. I have two boys now, and I work part time, but a huge chunk of my day is spent managing my children’s schedules. It’s like I’m a personal assistant to two very important, high-up execs. For example, sometimes it takes ten texts to various nannies or several rounds of emails before I land a play date for one of my kids because Yes I Live In New York City and we are crazy here.

I’m not alone, or special. Women – moms – are mostly the ones who carry the mental load when it comes to the care of their children. Even when they are at work, the mother is the one doing all the stuff behind the scenes – advocating on behalf of their child with a learning disability, or seeking out support for a child with an emotional problem, or a medical issue – society has decided this is women’s work. Personally, I think women would take it on either way. 

There was something else that troubled me about this stranger’s question, more than the fact that he asked me and put me on the spot to explain my day (I could easily have asked how he spends his retirement, but I didn’t). His question felt like an accusation. “You must have it good. What could you possibly have to complain about, Miss I Get To Stay At Home With My Baby?” When I was finally able to respond, I was grasping at anything I could think of that others would deem “important work” and muttered something about random freelance projects I was doing in my spare time.

But why did I do that? It was because I knew – from his question, his tone, and from the look on his face – that he didn’t think my life as a mom was difficult, or important. Unfortunately, he’s not an outlier in his perception of motherhood. Women must continue to share their stories of motherhood, and to speak about their important work. I wish I didn’t give that family friend the satisfaction of any stumbled or insecure answer, all those years ago. Mothers shouldn’t have to defend or explain their days to anyone.

Photo credit: Stylish & Hip Kids.

Originally published here.

The Imaginary Hotel Room Where Mom Wishes Come True

We dreamed up the perfect Mother’s Day getaway. If only it was real.

Looking to splurge beyond the ho-hum engraved jewelry, flowers, and breakfast in bed this Mother’s Day? Give the Superwoman in your life the gift of her dreams by sending her for a night (or three) to a place where her wildest fantasies and deepest desires can be fulfilled. Give her the gift of a stay with us at: A Hotel Room Anywhere Alone Without You And The Kids.

What makes A Hotel Room Anywhere Alone Without You And The Kids so special? Guests come to us knowing that no matter which property they choose among our vast collection, they will have a room to themselves with none of you people in it. We provide a welcome escape where she can sit back, relax, and relish in an unforgettable experience of being alone without being asked to do things for goddamn everybody.

Begin the day by waving goodbye to her, and wonder briefly if this may be the last time you’ll see her sweet ass as she high tails it out your front door. Because, as both of you know, she’s about to experience the restorative effects that a stay at A Hotel Room Anywhere Alone Without You And The Kids can have. Yes, in just one night, she will receive the gift of something she hasn’t enjoyed in months, if not years: Sleep. Sweet, motherloving, stretch out in a bed without bumping into someone else’s limbs kind of sleep. Sleep that has not been interrupted by a small human. Sleep that is not punctuated by a tap on the shoulder from you, asking for a little somethin’ somethin’.

Treat her to breakfast in bed, of course – but let us take care of the mess. With many of our hotels offering room service, that special lady of yours will get to experience this iconic Mother’s Day pleasure without the spectre of the fucking mess this is all going to make in her bed (not to mention the kitchen), hanging over her.

If you want to really surprise her this Mother’s Day, get her the “Pampered Mom Package,” which includes:

• A mid-morning nap for no reason.
• That book she’s been trying to finish since she first became a mother.
• A bath in a tub with nary a naked Barbie or moldy bath toy in sight.
• A quiet morning without PJ Masks, Daniel Tiger, or Caillou as the soundtrack.

We also offer “The Full Mommy,” our most exclusive package yet. This package gets you access to some of our hotel’s best amenities and some special take-home gifts, like:

• Judgment-free indulgence into the contents of the mini bar.
• Complimentary access to HBO Go for shameless binge-watching of The Leftovers (because Justin Theroux!).
• A house that has been thoroughly cleaned when she returns home.
• Children who are grateful for her return, but who lay off the guilt tripping.

Celebrating Mom has never been more wonderful! We have hosted guests from who-gives-a-crap-nobodies to sponsored AF Influencers, and every one of our guests agrees that a night in A Hotel Room Anywhere Alone Without You And The Kids is the highlight of their year. And that’s important to us. So don’t waste any more time, and give us a quick Google.

We are located in almost every major city and offer a variety of price points and exciting add-ons to help you customize her stay. With so many options to choose from, you’ll find the perfect getaway for your very own Wonder Woman from our portfolio of A Hotel Room Anywhere Alone Without You And The Kids hotels. Give her an unforgettable day, by leaving her the motherfuck alone this Mother’s Day.

Photo by Yuni Stahl on Unsplash.

Originally published here.

Confession: I Like My Home When My Messy Family Isn't In It

Most parents bemoan their inability to unglue themselves from their smartphones. I am pretty sure my children will remember me stalking the house with my fist clenched around a canister of Clorox wipes. Sometimes I wish I could go back to the good old days, when the only person I had to clean up after was Yours Truly. So on the occasions when my husband is away, it is actually nice to have one less human to play maid to. In fact, some of my happiest moments in life are when my husband is away and my kids are asleep, and I am in my apartment by my own goddamn self with no one to mess anything up.

I have little tolerance for the things that take up space in my house that I don’t find worthy. In my view, this is basically anything that does not serve a purpose to, well, me. “Why do we need this thing again?” I’ll ask, pointing to my husband’s electric water pick, which (he reminds me) he uses every night. “Are you sure you want to keep this?” I’ll say, holding his high school yearbook over the recycling bin. I’m way too quick on the draw when it comes to throwing important things out – everyone’s things – and it gets me in trouble, especially come tax season. I have, however, been generous enough to allot my husband a small cubby in our shared closet, where he can keep whatever he pleases without the threat of losing it to the trash bin.

To be fair, my husband is in no way a slob. He cleans as he cooks dinner – as the best chefs do. With the exception of the “shoe garden” that grows by our door over the course of the week, and an occasional unopened amazon.com box – I have it pretty good. But that would be if I were a normal person. 

I am not a normal person. I imagine most people can move on with their lives if some folded socks haven’t been put away after a day. Not me. Even if I’m dead tired, and it’s past midnight and I know I’ll be up at sunrise, I’ll put away all the laundry, risking waking my kids to get it done. The standard of clean to which I hold my home is “Listed Apartment On The Market Ready To Be Shown By Realtor”, at all times.

The standard of clean to which I hold my home is “Listed Apartment On The Market Ready To Be Shown By Realtor”, at all times.

Long, long before I had children, I had imagined I’d have the kind of home where creativity would thrive – where there would be art stations organized by medium, musical instruments, a mini dance studio and all manner of imaginative spaces to inspire young minds. I had a space like this in our finished suburban basement when I was a kid. I figured I’d find a way to recreate my childhood “basement haven” on a small scale for my own children, when I eventually had them. 

But after seeing how much effort it takes to clean up after three humans (plus one dog), I realized that the dream of a creative oasis would have to go live in some other home, presided over by some other, more loving, more patient mother. I needed my apartment to be largely under my jurisdiction. These other people living with me? They would just have to fit into the corners and cubbies I’d assigned to them.

When people enter our apartment, they often tell me it doesn’t look like children live there – which is either the highest compliment or a deep dig at my mothering habits. Children’s artwork is strictly limited to one corner of the house – behind the front door – so you can’t see it when you first enter our place. I’ve written extensive lists to our babysitters so that they understand which bins are for what toys, and how – under no circumstances, should anything belonging to a child be left in the living room by the end of the day. 

When I’m home, “playing” with the kids, I perch on the floor, darting my eyes around the room, bird-like, for signs of toys that could be put away. “You’re done with these paints, right?” I’ll say, when my three-year-old has merely left to grab himself a juice box.  It’s a skill I believe I picked up from my own mother, who, halfway through any meal, would spray Windex around the perimeter of our plates to signal that she was ready to get the kitchen back in order. 

When people enter our apartment, they often tell me it doesn’t look like children live there – which is either the highest compliment or a deep dig at my mothering habits.

My husband has this thing he does when he comes home from work, where he pulls out one of the chairs from the table so he can take off his work shoes. Which I guess is fine, except, for some unexplained reason he does not push the chair back in. Ever. On nights when my husband is away, I like to admire my dining room chairs because that’s the only time when the chairs stay where I’ve put them, like good little soldiers.

The downsides to him being gone: There’s only one of us to handle our older son’s night terrors, and what will I do when he calls for “Dad” but Dad isn’t there? Who’s going to go into the spooky, dark living room in the middle of the night when the dog starts barking for a new toy to chew on? Or worse – who will comfort me when the dog does that creepy dog thing and barks at the corner of my room by my night table and nothing is there? Then there’s the simple fact that I find it hard to fall asleep without the weight of my husband’s body near mine. I know I’m imagining it, but sleeping without him on the other side of the bed feels like being on a seesaw alone.

Does it sound heartless to be happy when your other half is gone? Probably, but that’s only if you don’t know the full story. My husband is grateful that at least I have one reason to be happy when he is gone and that I’m not resenting him the whole time I’m left to fend on my own with our kids. The kids learned early on not to act like frat boys and trash the house, and they also know not to come between Mom and her broom when I get a certain look in my eye. And no, they’ll never have that imagination-capturing art station or dress up nook. But they’ll always be able to find their toys, organized by type (and disinfected regularly), and floors they can eat off of. And whenever they smell Clorox, they’ll feel warm and fuzzy inside, and think of me.

Originally published here. 

When Self-Care Is Not The Answer

It’s hard to read any women-marketed websites without seeing the words, “self-care” sprinkled across multiple headlines and advertising, or crammed among social media hashtags. You often see these two words in ads and articles featuring images of  toned, slim, (usually white) women, mid-yoga-pose; or a perfectly staged cup of tea next to an expensive looking candle. Today’s industry of self-care seems to have led to a near cult-like belief that the act of engaging in it will relieve us of any physical, emotional, or spiritual pains. But what happens when self-care isn’t the miracle cure-all, but in fact, is damaging to our health? What if, as I recently experienced, trying to practice self-care makes us feel worse than before?

I’d undergone what should have been a straightforward surgery, that resulted in some major medical complications requiring a couple weeks of recovery. The recovery entailed a lot of laying low, very limited physical activity, lots of popping painkillers, and a lot of sleeping. “Pamper yourself,” the ER recovery nurse had said, as I was sent on my way home. “Do whatever it takes to feel good, OK?” All I could think about was the opportunity I’d have to catch up on the six years of sleep I’d lost since having kids. As a working mother of two very “spirited” boys, the idea of resting and sitting on my ass for a week or two sounded like just what the doctor ordered.

When loved ones called to check on me, I’d trot out all the gory details that led me to the operating table twice in an 8-hour-period (fun!), and tell them about the pain I was currently experiencing from the surgery site itself. Then I’d get to what was really hurting me — on a more emotional level: Feeling guilty about not being able to play with my kids while I was recovering, and feeling guilty for not being able to work. To this, people would almost all say, “But you just had surgery! You should be taking care of yourself!” And then that would often be followed by orders to, “Rest! Pamper! Practice self-care!”

I decided to give in and take their advice, plus that of literally every health and beauty Influencer on the ‘Gram. Because what better time to do all those ubiquitously listed self-care type things than when you’re stuck inside, unable to care for your own children, and unable to work? In the first week that I could barely move without wincing in pain, I tried to busy myself in a never-ending loop of lovely-sounding activities: napping, spending time with my dog, trying a variety of face masks, binging on magazines, watching daytime TV, and dipping my toes in meditation apps.

As a working mother of two very “spirited” boys, the idea of resting and sitting on my ass for a week or two sounded like just what the doctor ordered.

As my many days of recovery wore on, and trips to the doctor multiplied, my mood worsened. Things weren’t healing as they should have been, and every procedure I endured at my doctor’s visits felt like the most painful thing I’d ever experienced, until the next procedure would top that one. It seemed that no matter what I did, my body was rebelling against me.

I still was not able to fully participate in the everyday care of my boys. I couldn’t pick them up from school, or take them to any classes, I couldn’t rough house, I couldn’t do their bath-time. The painkillers I was on made it near-impossible to concentrate on work long enough to produce anything meaningful. (In an act of self-care, I wrote to all my editors and pushed my deadlines out.) I’d wake from a Percocet-induced nap to the joyful sounds of my kids coming home from school, and see that somehow it was already dark outside – a marker of the day I’d spent selfishly succumbing to and caring for a body that seemed to refuse to heal. Still, I remained hopeful that meditation and aggressive use of Matcha tea (the most “self caring” of teas, in my opinion) would get me through the doldrums I was feeling.

I felt like I was losing my “self” in all that self-care. I wasn’t a mom. I wasn’t a professional writer. I was a bandaged, patchwork, couch potato in a twelve-dollar facemask and I was depressed. “Screw self-care,” I remember thinking to myself. “I just want to get back to my goddamn regular life.“ And as fun as it had sounded in theory to spend most of my day taking care of my body and having the opportunity for quiet and an excuse to not have to go anywhere or take care of anyone, I did not want any of it. I decided that, in the end, self-care just wasn’t for me. And for a long while, I carried around the idea that I wasn’t “the self-care type”. Even the two words themselves made me roll my eyes whenever I heard or read them.

I would have been better served to practice accepting where I was in life at that moment in time – and that place was “recovery”. 

What I realize now, many months later, is that there actually can be room for self-care in my life, if I change how I look at and define it. Self-care can have a far wider-ranging definition than a lot of the “lady” sites (whose tones are largely influenced by the way products and brands market to women) typically attribute to it. Self-care can mean pampering, meditation, yoga, or coffee-dates with girlfriends, sure. But it can also be defined as doing whatever the hell you need to do so you feel like the best version of YOU, and in order to feel good and whole.

When I was going through recovery from my surgery, the self-care that may have worked better for me probably would have been to work on accepting that life was out of my control at that time. Despite my desire to be a “Mother” and “Professional”, I simply could not embody either of those roles while I was trying to heal. The pampering and indulging types of self-care I was engaging in were escapist at best, and frustrated me every time I came back to reality. I would have been better served to practice accepting where I was in life at that moment in time – and that place was “recovery”.  

If I had really been able to have been kind and generous to myself during that period, I would have allowed myself to see that being unable to participate in my life in my usual ways did not make me less of a mother or less of a writer. To have given myself permission to hold onto my identity – to have freed myself of all that guilt during that time– now that would have been the ultimate act of self-care.

Originally published here.

How to Talk About Informed Consent with Kids

What the horrific trial of Larry Nassar has taught us.

Teaching our children about consent and their bodies has never been more urgent. Many of us have watched in horror as the details emerged in the trial of former doctor to the American gymnastics team Larry Nassar, who, under the guise of medical care, abused over 150 young women — some as young as 6 years old. It’s been a sobering parenting lesson in communication with our children, about boundaries and bodies and authority figures.

And yet, there are subtle, everyday ways we undermine the lessons we teach our children about consent — through our own actions and the actions of others, many with whom we are complicit. 

This especially hit very close to home during a recent visit to the pediatrician with my 6-and-a-half-year-old. We were at a routine annual checkup with a female doctor. While performing my son’s body exam, she was peppering me with questions about his health, and I admittedly wasn’t carefully watching what she was doing with her tools or her hands. My son was trying to get his own two cents in, as 6-year-olds often do, so I tried to remain focused on what the pediatrician was saying. Suddenly, my son shuddered, his cheeks turned bright red, and he said, “Mooooom, she just touched my PRIVATE PARTS!” 

“It’s OK,” the doctor said. “I’m a doctor.” I found myself agreeing with her, maybe to reassure him in the moment, or maybe because I was embarrassed at his outburst. “Yes, she’s a doctor,” I parroted. “So this is her job. She’s making sure all your body parts are healthy, and that includes your genitals.” 

The second I said it, I regretted it. She hadn’t alerted him (or me) to her touch, nor had she asked for permission. It wasn’t OK. And, judging by his face and how his body had tensed up, he wasn’t OK. 

As soon as we left, I explained that what the doctor had done was wrong and that I was also wrong in agreeing with her. I apologized; and I explained that she should have alerted us about her touch; that she should have asked for permission before touching; and that since it didn’t happen, I should have spoken up.

While the mind of a 6-year-old boy is often quick to move on, this experience clearly stayed with him. On the way home, he talked about it with me. At his play date, he talked about it with his friend. And at breakfast the next morning, unprompted, he talked it about it with my husband.

What happened at the doctor’s office goes against everything we try hard to teach our two boys about consent: “Your body belongs to you, and no one can touch it without your permission.” And yet, I allowed it to happen right in front of me, and worse – I was complicit in it by agreeing with the doctor while we were still in the exam room. I can’t help but think about some of the survivor testimonies in the Nassar case, in which the mothers were in the exam room with their daughters, naïve to and unaware of the abuse as it was happening. 

Of course, what happened to my son is a very, very far cry from what these women experienced at the hands of this sick criminal, but in a way, I identify with the mothers. Like them, I trust the people who are supposed to take care of my children to do their jobs in the most professional and respectful way. 

Since then, I’ve been thinking about the mixed messages I have been sending my children, and it turns out, I haven’t been so great at modeling consent with my kids. While I do tell them that no one can touch their bodies without their permission, I’ve also said, “no one, except me, Dad, your babysitters, and the doctor.” After all, there are baths to be had, tushies to be wiped and, of course, health exams to be done. But I now realize that I should have included one very important distinction: even among that elite group of people who are allowed to touch their bodies, there is still the prerequisite of, “only if you say it is OK first.”

It may seem extreme to some parents, but I am no longer taking my children’s voices for granted when it comes to their bodies and their ownership of them. I want my sons to know that their bodies are their own and that they get a say in what is done to them, whether the person doing them is a doctor, a dentist, a babysitter, or even me. 

Now does this mean that I will be asking my three-year-old his permission to wash his hair at bath time? No. But I will tell him what is about to happen, so that he understands that prior to someone touching him, there can and should be a conversation. And if he says no, I’ll give him the soap, and let him have a try at it!

In the future, I will not ignore my child’s questions at his own doctor’s appointments, and I will be wary of the doctor that doesn’t read a child’s cues when they seem fearful and instead continues to examine their body. I will choose my child’s comfort and my own over the desire to finish an appointment. I will ask the questions my kids don’t have the ability to ask yet, because I am their advocate, and that is my job. At the next checkup, I will say, “Can you walk us through what you’re going to be doing today?” because being in a doctor’s office is scary for a lot of people, especially for children. 

Cases in the news like that of Dr. Nassar remind parents the scary truth that abuse of trust can come from even the most respected of people in our children’s lives. We must be consistent in our messages to our kids about what is and what is not OK with respect to their bodies so they know when to speak up – as my son did in that moment on the exam table. And we must listen when they do.

Originally published here.

Bare

When I became pregnant with my first son, I was not shy about showing off my belly. My growing womb was something I presented to the world with pride. I couldn’t wait to flaunt it in stomach-clinging shirts and tight dresses. And when I became a mother, I shrugged my blouse off my shoulders easily at my baby’s hungry cries, not even bothering with the nursing cover. It was almost with an exhibitionist’s glee that I would unbutton my shirt or pull up my dress anywhere from the local coffee shop to the tearoom at the Plaza. So why was it so difficult for me, after everything, with the pregnancies and the births and the breastfeeding, to bare my makeup-free face to the world? Why was this last reveal the hardest?

I come from a long line of women who take very good care of their appearances – almost to a fault. There is a famous story in our family that pretty much captures the value that the women in my life place on aesthetics: My late grandmother, after hearing about a tragic teen who had committed suicide in the library of a local university asked me as if trying to puzzle out a simple explanation, “But was she ugly?” From the tender age of eleven, I was taught never to leave the house without lipstick. I thought it was completely normal for a woman to do her makeup in the morning before leaving the house, and then to come home at noon, wash her face, and do it again before eating her lunch while watching an episode of Dynasty. I remember once, when my mom was in the hospital for a minor surgery, that her twin sister came and applied all of her makeup so that she could look presentable for the doctors. When I was pregnant with my first son, I agonized over the possibility of being in the hospital and receiving visitors without having the ability to have first put on a little makeup. The prospect of being barefaced, and therefore, looking ugly, was terrifying.

This is not to say that up until that day, I had never ventured out into the world without makeup. It happened once before, and I was tricked into it. Years ago, pre children, the man who would later become my husband and I were on a vacation in the Loire Valley, and he had woken me up with the promise of a quick drive to get coffee and croissants, but instead, kidnapped me for a day trip to the countryside. I remember initially feeling such rage about it, when I first realized that I had been duped, like he had made me parade around the town square in the nude. “I don’t even have my powder compact with me!” I remember yelling at him. Of course, it ended up being one of the most memorable days we’ve ever had together. We drove through country roads flanked by fields of lavender and drank lots of wine and ate fantastic tomato and cheese salads and strolled hand in hand through cobble stoned streets. In the pictures he took of me that day (to great protest), nearly nine years ago, I look lovely and in love. No makeup, glasses and all.

For the birth of my first son, I had packed makeup with me in my hospital bag, but I never got to wear it in all the five days of my hospital stay. Between nursing the wounds of my c-section, nursing my newborn baby, fighting the oncoming first waves of postpartum depression, and greeting the countless family members that came to visit, there just wasn’t time for mascara. Even the lure of the professional baby photo shoot in the hospital room couldn’t get me to muster up the energy for a dab of concealer.

Once I was settled at home, however, I somehow conjured back my makeup mojo. My firstborn was a colicky child. He needed to be held nonstop. I hadn’t ascribed to any particular ideology of parenting, but looking back, I guess I was an Attachment Parent by default, namely because my baby was always attached to me since if I tried to put him down he would scream. I discovered that the path of least resistance was to hold him in one arm at all times. I became very skilled at applying BB cream, concealer, blush, and brow pencil with just one hand, often while bouncing.

When I got pregnant with my second, I prided myself on making sure I was a Pretty Pregnant Person – one who thoughtfully dressed around her pregnant belly, put a curling wand to her hair, and yes, did her makeup. Of course, this was all very exhausting with a toddler running circles around me, but at the time, I convinced myself it was all worth it because it was for my SELF ESTEEM. If I didn’t feel good about myself, then what kind of energy would I be projecting for my son, and my baby? It is amazing the kinds of inner narratives we can spin to help justify less than helpful behaviors.

And then . . . the second born arrived. And he was needy as all get out, and on top of that, his older brother needed me even more. And between both my hands being full of children and the fact that I hadn’t yet learned how to apply makeup with my toes, putting on a full brow and eyeliner just wasn’t physically possible. And I think there must have been one day when I was just so tired that I must have looked at my makeup drawer, sighed, and decided to venture outside with a bare face. And you know what? Nothing happened. The sky did not fall down. The Earth did not shake. A house did not land on my head. I had a normal day and I didn’t scare off any small children with how hideous I looked. So the next day, when presented with the choice between taking the time to put on my makeup or enjoying a cup of coffee in the five minutes that my baby wasn’t nursing, and my three year old wasn’t asking me to build something with Magnatiles while he sat on my lap, again I ignored the call of my makeup bag. And then day after day went by and still, no makeup, unless it was a special day where I had something important to do or somewhere cool to go (which was not very often, as anyone with a newborn and a toddler knows). And like anything that you do enough times in a row, it became my new normal, and suddenly, I became a person who does not wear makeup on the regular. Years and years of conditioning reversed, just like that.

Motherhood forces upon you so many changes and shifts in identity. It brings with it a rawness and honesty you can’t escape from even if you try. At first it was hard when I caught my reflection in a mirror. I couldn’t believe that this was the face that I was allowing the world to see. Eventually, I got used to this new face – a face that my grandmother, were she alive today, would strongly discourage showing off in public except in extreme case of emergency. Another gift that motherhood bestowed upon me: I no longer have the time nor the desire to linger in front of the mirror and mess around with what I see. But when I do catch a glimpse, I like what is there. Without makeup, I can see my freckles. I’m not chasing after imaginary shine with a powder puff like I’d done for so many years, and instead I’m letting my skin be a little shiny sometimes which actually, can pass for a “glow” on the days when I’m being kind to myself. If I have an extra minute, I’ll put on mascara before heading out but most of the times I just say whatever, and skip it. Sometimes people tell me I look tired and I know it might have something to do with the fact that I’m not wearing makeup (in addition to the fact that yes, I am really tired) but I try not to let that get to me. This is how motherhood looks on my face, and on most days, I think I wear it well.

Originally published here.