tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22654818639471767672024-03-14T05:16:06.059-07:00Bad Mommy LAYou've heard ad nauseum about the joy, gratitude, and unconditional love that makes motherhood so great...
But what about the other thoughts and feelings that arise?
Welcome...Mick Kubiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16660219111109914555noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2265481863947176767.post-29764753274849660352015-05-12T17:46:00.000-07:002015-05-12T17:46:32.122-07:005 Reasons Why It's Good To Be Bad<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">1. It makes other mothers feel better about themselves, rather than worse. Wanna feel crappy? Read an article about some celebrity mom who wears a size zero and spouts garbage like,</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">“When I feel overwhelmed and think I might raise my voice at my child, I just remember to </span><i style="font-family: Helvetica;">breathe.</i><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">” Um. I'm sorry. <i>What? </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i>2. </i></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">I</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">t's funnier</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> The worst thing, I find, about moms who try really hard to be "good" all the time, and come close, is that they have no sense of humor. What could be more harmful to a child, I ask you? The irony! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">3. </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">It makes you mysterious to your children, even if only for a moment, putting them in the position of being The Responsible Ones. Now, you don’t want to push this one too far at all (hint: getting drunk and arrested=way too far), but even just a moment where you lead your child to think you’re going to do something outlandish like eat the flowers in your neighbor's yard, or park your car in the middle of an intersection, turns the tables in a delightful way, and puts them on the defensive for once. I love the shocked expression and the "Mom! NO! What are you </span><i style="font-family: Helvetica;">doing</i><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">?!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">4. It's an act of rebellion, born of self love. If being good means torturing yourself into being perfect, then you've got to be bad in order to save yourself from that torture. It's simple self-defense! Your children will thank you for it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica;">5. </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">It mellows everyone out. Bad Mommies don’t take being a mom SOOO seriously. We’ve done this for thousands of years. We do have some healthy instincts. Put down that parenting manual and trust yourself for a second. Bad mommies don’t get hung up on every little mistake they make. This sends a message to their kids that they don’t have to get so hung up either.</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"> Welcome to humanity, people! Let's have some fun with it. </span><br />
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Mick Kubiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16660219111109914555noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2265481863947176767.post-87018987661798863572013-10-29T18:26:00.000-07:002013-10-29T18:26:02.315-07:00Bad Mommy Scares Children<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">"This is a picture of me at a Halloween party with my daughter and her friend. This was shortly before I began to get the feeling that not everyone appreciated my elaborate face paint. First, it was the funny looks from the other moms, all of whom, without exception, were dressed as witches. Not scary witches. Generic witches with pointy black hats and black or purple dresses. Their looks askance didn't bother me too much. I thought, </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: italic;">Maybe they're jealous because their costumes aren't as interesting.</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;"> </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">"It was when three-and-a-half year old Romeo saw me from across the room and collapsed in tears on the floor that I thought, <span style="font-style: italic;">Hmm. Maybe I've overdone it a bit.</span> When little Charley Mae, not yet two years old, began to visibly shake from the safety of her mother's lap, and yell, summoning her limited vocabulary, "GO 'WAY! GO 'WAY!" I had to face facts. I had seriously misjudged the situation. I had gone too far. These mothers were looking at me, not with envy, but with justified concern. <span style="font-style: italic;">I was scaring the children."</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">That's an excerpt from an essay I wrote, <a href="http://advancedstudiesininnerwork.blogspot.com/2009/05/other-mother.html">The Other Mother</a>, and posted on my blog, <a href="http://advancedstudiesininnerwork.blogspot.com/">Advanced Studies in Inner Work</a>, in 2009. I reposted it last Halloween, and am posting it again this year with some additional follow up thoughts. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Now, if you've ever actually really scared a child, you know it doesn't feel good. For example, I have a friend who found himself outside his living room window one night after taking the trash out. He saw his young son inside, playing, completely unaware that he was being watched. In an impulsive moment, he thought it would be <i>funny</i> to press his face up against the window, thus distorting his features in a ghastly way, and knock. His child looked up, turned white as sheet and then broke down sobbing helplessly. It took more than a few minutes to restore the child's central nervous system to health. The horror! For the dad! Right? </span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">It's difficult to explain what I think happened on the Halloween of my embarrassing miscalculation, but I do mark it as the moment Bad Mommy was born, and I wanted to share the memory and the essay itself as a way of saying 1. Happy Halloween! and 2. Have you ever scared the crap out of <i>your</i> child accidentally? Please share. Finally, 3. Do you have a costume idea that would pay some homage to your worst fears of what you could be if you were the worst mom ever? (Drunk, mean, scary?)</span><br />
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Mick Kubiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16660219111109914555noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2265481863947176767.post-70525891312466157872013-09-03T11:37:00.004-07:002015-11-20T11:11:18.257-08:00We All Fall Down<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When my husband and I first separated, I went through a dark period. I remember being with my five year old daughter at that time, and inside my head, my inner critic was on a tear. It was so loud, I couldn't hear anything else. I felt panicked at the awareness that I couldn't even hear the words my child was saying to me as she chatted on about her day at school.</div>
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I wasn't lying on the floor with a bottle of gin, in the dark, or anything like that. I was just having a hard time listening to her many words, and employing the appropriate maternal responses such as the ever popular "smiling" and that good parenting classic, "looking interested." Outside my head, everything was going "blahblahblahblahblahblahblah," including my daughter. Inside my head, the voice was crisp and clear: <i>You are a failure at marriage and relationships and now, because you feel so terrible about that, you can't even listen to your daughter. In addition to dealing with divorced parents, she is going to have to deal with you, her depressed, vacant mother. </i><br />
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I was in so much pain I had to write down what I was thinking, to externalize it, in the hopes of clearing it out to create space for my actual self. When Elva asked me what I was writing, I shared an extremely watered down version of my pain so as not to scare her. I said something like, "I'll bet you wish you had a different mom right now." She said, "Mom, your head is wrong." I asked her what she meant. She said, "Your head is not right. That's not how I feel." Aside from the fact that I had just been diagnosed by my five year old daughter (see page 47 in the <span style="font-weight: bold;">DSM V</span>: Head Not Right), it also struck me as interesting that she wasn't thinking of getting rid of me and replacing me with (enter name of your favorite idealized mom here).<br />
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That was <i>my</i> projection. She just wanted me to come back and be the halfway normal mom she's gotten used to over the years. Which reminded me to remember for myself that even though right then I felt like Julianne Moore in The Hours, it would pass. It would absolutely pass. And I would be funny again, and present, and sane. On a good day, I would even be vaguely wise.<br />
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I also felt a sweet kind of heartache that even though I was kind of sucking at the moment, my daughter still wanted me. Me. Imperfect, occasionally pathetic, sometimes scary <b>me</b>. My inner critic prods, <span style="font-style: italic;">What choice does she have? She's stuck with you. She doesn't have her driver's license. Yet.</span></div>
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Okay, yeah, that's true, but then again, driver's license or no driver's license, what choice do any of us have? We're all stuck with ourselves, for certain, and in many cases, each other. Many of us choose to be stuck with our mothers, no matter how screwed up they were or are. We even love them, as our children love us. This is a real blow to perfectionism, and I welcome it with open arms.<br />
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However, I don't want to be misconstrued as giving myself permission to be screwed up as a mother; nor am I suggesting that you shouldn't set healthy boundaries with <i>your</i> mother. We've all got to do our best to take good care of our inner children and our outer ones. But we all fall down from time to time, and it is then we must remember that being inspired by our children, and loving ourselves anyway, is the only sensible thing to do. Children who love themselves come from parents who show them how. So if you can't do it for yourself, do it for them.<br />
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Mick Kubiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16660219111109914555noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2265481863947176767.post-14154898689135408982012-05-18T12:59:00.001-07:002015-07-05T13:37:54.794-07:00What If Bad Mommy Gets Better?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Last week, for three days, I attained enlightenment. Laugh if you will, I am telling you, I was liberated from suffering. For three days. If you want to know what it was like, I'll tell you: I was without fear. I was at one with the belief that my true nature is happiness. I wasn't ungrounded. I didn't fall down and stop moving or forget to pick up Elva at school. I just knew that all I needed to do was experience my own innate joy and that all the mundane tasks I had to perform would naturally flow from that happy place, and when they did, they would just be part of the fun. I laughed with my daughter in a way I barely recognized. We sat on the floor throwing popcorn into each other's mouths, which we both found hilarious. I thought, "Holy shit. This might be the first time I've ever actually <i>played</i> with my child."It was truly Heaven.<br />
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Interestingly, during those three days that felt like I had blessedly fallen into a pool of light, I actually had a flicker of concern about Bad Mommy. What would happen to my snarkiness and my 17.5 devoted followers if Bad Mommy attained enlightenment? Who would be bad for the moms who need a bad mom's confessions to make them feel better about themselves, and less alone? What kind of example would I be setting, being all happy and peaceful? Who would be irritable, exhausted, and short-tempered? Who would let the world know, "Hey! This motherhood shit is seriously hard!"<br />
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And then, as mysteriously as the enlightenment had arrived, it left, and I was back to business as usual--tons of fear and anxiety about the future, multiple story lines that end with Elva in a straight jacket or dead, me alone and homeless, fighting to protect my shopping cart full of trash, naked, with a stick as my only weapon. In a dark alley. And everyone hates me.<br />
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So, I'm back. But I am, I think, a little lighter. Bad Mommy is not, essentially, contrary to enlightenment. In fact, just as Jung would predict, she is, as a shadowy figure, one of the keys to it. Bad Mommy exposes the truly dark goddess of perfectionism (Good Mommy) for what she is--an unhappy, uptight, self-harming killjoy who needs a big hug, a long cry, and a shot of bourbon, followed by a good night's sleep. Bad Mommy, God love her, can give her those things, until enlightenment arrives in a more permanent way.<br />
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<br />Mick Kubiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16660219111109914555noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2265481863947176767.post-85791956749507975302012-03-02T11:14:00.000-08:002012-03-02T11:43:33.135-08:00Bad Mommy Don't Play That<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwHrrAV6ujjl8W6kd-ktAcnGOWXqpB3z4RunkUNiYucCXZUWRirvkcDXyKQ1ctDLhyphenhyphenyRw4oRz925Ar5h9j-eke70dOsSEtJJhTO_PELrbqQwtSx-U1rkJ3vdJlhy5IOeYAmKmfchiINak/s1600/Picture+2.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 128px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwHrrAV6ujjl8W6kd-ktAcnGOWXqpB3z4RunkUNiYucCXZUWRirvkcDXyKQ1ctDLhyphenhyphenyRw4oRz925Ar5h9j-eke70dOsSEtJJhTO_PELrbqQwtSx-U1rkJ3vdJlhy5IOeYAmKmfchiINak/s200/Picture+2.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5702172735363115218"></a>One of the things I love about my friend Claire is her complete comfort with being brutally honest. I was eking out a confession recently that (shh! don't tell anyone) "I don't really <font style="font-style:italic;">like</font> to play with children, even my own." As I waited to be struck by lightning from the hand of a displeased God, Claire said loudly, "Ugh. I HATE playing with Veronica. I used to feel so bad about it. But then I talked to my mother-in-law and she said, 'Please. Do you really think I played with my <i>children</i>? I had no interest in it. And besides, I was too busy cooking and cleaning and running the house.'" Ah, the old days, when the line between the world of adults and the world of children was intact.<br /><br />My husband and I used to call each other from the park we took our daughter to each and every day for years (<i>each and every living day. for years</i>) and say, "If I never see this God forsaken place again it will be too goddamned soon. Okay?" <div><br /><br /></div><div>"Totally." </div><div><br /><br /></div><div>"Okay. I gotta go. She wants me to push her on the swings." </div><div><br /><br /></div><div>I remember one Saturday afternoon, digging a hole in the sand with my daughter and thinking,<font style="font-style:italic;"> I can't take this any more. The only thing that could possibly counterbalance this experience for me is a three hour discussion with a deeply intelligent adult about Kierkegard or the implications of the French Revolution on American Foreign Policy in the 1800s...</font> Help me. Somebody. Help me, please.<br /><br />Meanwhile, I judged myself for not enjoying digging a hole in the sand as much as she enjoyed it. Why am I not more patient, more relaxed, more playful? But then, I had <font style="font-style:italic;">this</font> aha moment: I am not supposed to enjoy this. She <i>is</i>. This is fun for a three year old. She's learning. I learned all I needed to learn from this experience of digging a hole in the sand about 35 years ago. It's not a parenting issue; it's a developmental issue. I need to talk to a grownup! Help!!! Get me out of here!<br /><br />The other thing my daughter loves to do that I want almost no part of is wrestling. Meanwhile, her father can wrestle with her for close to an hour before he's over it. So that's his job. I don't want to play Barbies or pretty ponies or pet shops. I don't want to "make guys talk" which is what my friend Caren's daughter Olive calls giving voices to small plastic figures. Don't make me make guys talk! I'll go crazy.<br /><br />Basically, what I realized is that when it comes to playing, I have to pick my poisons and pick them well. I can't afford to do things that significantly deplete my energy and my will to live, like getting on the play structure at the park. I drew the line in the sand on that one: That's for children. Mommy doesn't play that. You play that while Mommy drinks her latte and talks grownup talk with any adult who will engage. Mommy glares at the other adults who get on the play structure. Don't they know that's for <i>children</i>?<br /><br />And just in case you think you're going to make me feel guilty that I'm not connecting with my child enough by giving me "the look", think again. I read out loud for hours. I braid hair. I pack a mean lunch and sometimes I get creative and put love notes in her lunchbox. I make art and draw. I facilitate the making of books. I talk about feelings and snuggle in bed. I connect in a million ways. Digging a hole in the sand at the park just isn't gonna be one of them. And if you do dig holes in the sand, and that works for you, you go for it. But I hope you're cutting yourself slack somewhere else, then. Not joining the PTA, for example, or saying, "Sorry, kid. I don't make Halloween costumes from scratch. And guess what? I don't even feel bad about it."</div><div><br /></div>Mick Kubiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16660219111109914555noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2265481863947176767.post-38226721905925353622012-01-26T13:22:00.000-08:002015-11-20T11:22:46.406-08:00Slap or Run<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgltcka-PBSF7NIWmfS9qleYppf3fiDBwjUEWHPXo9BfgAIey4mN3kxhZRWrUiWGwz2nO-18AAFqpAqxe_1pwNzFjCrGo0ns77vdtT1mJWPpqb2tYPL-gRebnf9Oub3H_wmaZNiqoK-y60/s1600/Picture+1.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5702067564122417570" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgltcka-PBSF7NIWmfS9qleYppf3fiDBwjUEWHPXo9BfgAIey4mN3kxhZRWrUiWGwz2nO-18AAFqpAqxe_1pwNzFjCrGo0ns77vdtT1mJWPpqb2tYPL-gRebnf9Oub3H_wmaZNiqoK-y60/s200/Picture+1.png" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 170px;" /></a>I recently slapped my mother across the face. In my therapist's office. <br />
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She wasn't actually there, of course. I mean, I'm not crazy, for God's sake. But the thing is, I had never slapped my mother before--in my mind, or in a dream, or in my journal. I didn't even know I wanted to. I had always thought of her as a very nice woman. But once I slapped her, I realized I was long overdue. I needed that! <br />
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Here's how it happened. I have been doing a lot of inner work these days and have come upon some key moments in my childhood that define how I relate to life. I would like to understand them better so that I can stop being unconsciously enslaved by them. In this vein, I was describing to my therapist an incident from when I was around six years old and my mother really flipped her lid after a fight with my dad. She was not even remotely adult in her behavior on the night in question, and I became, for the first time I remember, but probably not the first time, the grownup in the room. At six years old, I took on the responsibility of managing the whole situation, trying to calm her down, trying to get my father to do something other than stare blankly at the television as if nothing were happening, running up and down the stairs between them <span style="font-style: italic;">for hours</span> trying to secure my life as I knew it. Trying to get my mother to stop throwing her clothes into a suitcase. Trying to get my mother to act like my mother. <br />
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And this is one reason I slapped her, in my mind, in my therapist's office: it was that old-fashioned approach to putting a stop to hysterical behavior, like Cher slapping Nicholas Cage in Moonstruck. "Snap out of it!" But I won't deny that the primary reason was pure rage at how overwhelmed I felt at being put in the position she was putting me in. She was terrifying me.<br />
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This is significant because I still feel sudden upsurges of rage and overwhelm and terror when people--like, for example, my daughter--go to pieces emotionally around me. I just want it to stop. I can do a little cajoling, a little comforting, but at a certain point, I start to unravel. I want to run away, screaming, and never come back, because I definitely don't want to slap anybody, and in those moments of total internal panic, those seem to be the only two options. Slap or Run, my version of Fight or Flight. I am pleased to report that so far, I have done neither.<br />
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My hope is that, in processing this early childhood experience, I will become conscious enough to stop confusing my mother with my daughter, or any other hysterical person. I won't panic. I'll be calm enough to actually be of use. I'll realize it's okay, because I'm not six years old, and that's not my mother, and <span style="font-style: italic;">I can handle this</span>. And I think it's a valid hope. I'll keep you posted.Mick Kubiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16660219111109914555noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2265481863947176767.post-44589410604439032192011-09-12T09:15:00.000-07:002015-11-20T11:27:04.156-08:00Have You Tried Yelling?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4lv4LOd49sE9FSuGq9tui9C_TqhxGPxopauZuk4zqcERo2wvFVL0aEYSpDHHxVYid1kk-lYdlbnradc71jro5VtpJkxamIQ3vwOwMAqRbmgeVQth_9k6ZM9Aq5yinbz2FGQwD_QJtbLE/s1600/Picture+2.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5649016372070844946" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4lv4LOd49sE9FSuGq9tui9C_TqhxGPxopauZuk4zqcERo2wvFVL0aEYSpDHHxVYid1kk-lYdlbnradc71jro5VtpJkxamIQ3vwOwMAqRbmgeVQth_9k6ZM9Aq5yinbz2FGQwD_QJtbLE/s200/Picture+2.png" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 198px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 200px;" /></a>As anyone who reads my column regularly knows, I have a temper. I don't like it and I am devoted to working on it and when that fails, working with it. One of the ways I've found to go with the flow of my rage, when it's too late to stave it off at the pass, is to do a little impromptu performance art, in which I dramatize whatever I'm feeling so that it's so over the top that it's more entertaining than scary. I call this technique Theatrical Yelling.<br />
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I remember my own mother tilting her head skyward, raising her hands in the air and pleading, <span style="font-style: italic;">Dear God, why have you cursed me with such a child as this in my old age? What have I done to deserve this? </span>For whatever reason, I found this hilarious. I never once took it seriously or believed my mother felt cursed. There were three reasons for this: One, I knew she was an atheist; two, I knew in my bones (and still do) how completely she loved me; and three, I was raised to have a sense of humor. It was the only effective way to survive my family.<br />
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Recently I was cleaning and running around while "everyone else" (names withheld to protect the entitled), as far as I could tell, was sitting around doing nothing. My daughter dropped something right next to her chair--right next to it--and, instead of leaning over and picking it up herself, she asked me to do it. I was on the other side of the room doing three things at once and I felt my temperature rise. Now, a so-called normal person might say, "I'm busy, sweetie. Pick it up yourself, please." But a person with a temper like mine, well, the first thing that crossed my mind was to throw the pile of clothes I was holding and yell, "Are you out of your effing <span style="font-weight: bold;">mind</span>?!" So, rather than fight it, I just kind of went with it. <br />
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(One tip. It is more theatrical and less frightening for your child if you mainly address God, and not your child, in your spontaneous outbursts. This is true even if you don't believe in God. And if you do, don't worry. God knows what you're doing.)<br />
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I dropped the clothes, raised my hands above my head and made eye contact with the ceiling, "Am I a <span style="font-weight: bold;">servant</span>? Is <span style="font-weight: bold;">that</span> what I am?!" Pause. I could see my daughter's six-year-old mind thinking, "What's a servant?" But she just watched me in silence. I had her attention. I continued. "All I do all <span style="font-weight: bold;">day</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">night</span> is wait on <span style="font-weight: bold;">this child</span> hand and foot and <span style="font-weight: bold;">this</span> is the thanks I get?!" Pause. "Is this not insane?! I mean, am <span style="font-weight: bold;">I</span> crazy or is <span style="font-weight: bold;">this</span> crazy? Sweet. Mother. Of. God!" <br />
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Or something like that. You get the idea. Be creative! You can follow your rant with a wink, and a calm "I'm busy, sweetie. Pick it up yourself, please," as you return to what you were doing. In the end, you've made your point, you've made your child think you're a little bit nuts, you've both laughed, and you've expressed your shadow side. Bada boom, bada bing. Now that's what being a bad mommy is all about.Mick Kubiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16660219111109914555noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2265481863947176767.post-1787554005120865472011-07-22T21:14:00.000-07:002013-07-08T19:09:43.987-07:00Why I Write This Blog<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9HKiZ12wlbYy87KdQ66L3NCUE3Ig8c_-LCIolYd0BtCQan6QzETz9OsfipKimSK4rN4cWKS42Z5P5MvjyQoAtymnD7miLqSgMYB4ATebb0i5HF03Lfak-vqcZyTRRY2AuT0LaCBj5tCw/s1600/Picture+1.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5624236755198551826" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9HKiZ12wlbYy87KdQ66L3NCUE3Ig8c_-LCIolYd0BtCQan6QzETz9OsfipKimSK4rN4cWKS42Z5P5MvjyQoAtymnD7miLqSgMYB4ATebb0i5HF03Lfak-vqcZyTRRY2AuT0LaCBj5tCw/s200/Picture+1.png" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 151px; margin: 0 0 10px 10px; width: 150px;" /></a><br />
"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. This procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not very popular."<br />
Carl Jung<br />
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In Jung's opinion, generally, the world was going to hell on a speeding train, and when people asked him if human kind had any hope at all of surviving, he said, <span style="font-style: italic;">only if we do our shadow work</span>. In Jung's analysis, every person has a shadow, a part of the psyche that she rejects. And acknowledging that part is what he's talking about when he talks about shadow work. To extrapolate, the only way to be a decent parent is to expose your shadow parent--your dark side of the mom; the opposite of everything you saw on TV growing up. Because when you look at it, own it, even, occasionally, <span style="font-style: italic;">embrace</span> the mother fucker (I use that term literally here), it doesn't knock you on your ass the same way it does if you're trying to pretend it isn't there and <a href="http://advancedstudiesininnerwork.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html">it shows up anyway</a>, as it is wont to do. The idea is that you start to have a relationship with it. You see your shadow, and instead of hating yourself for having one, and trying to pretend you never threw that craaaazy tantrum when your kid wouldn't go to sleep that one night, you say, yes, I did. And you just sit with it. You look at it.<br />
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Sitting with it is different from indulging in it, and this is an important distinction. I question myself on this point, because I don't want badmommyla to turn into a vehicle through which I expose my bad behavior and then continue on with it, writing one humiliating/amusing post after another about how I lost it in the grocery store, or forgot to feed my child one day, or whatever madcap adventures we might associate with "badmommyla". That's not what I mean to be doing. What I mean to be doing--why I write this blog--is to share my experiences so that others will feel less alone. It is my mission to increase awareness and reduce shame and guilt. Because I believe that free of those things, we are freer, and better, mothers. <br />
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Sitting with it means neither repressing nor indulging. It means accepting. It means accepting not only that you are not perfect, but that you actually might be a little screwed up. I fantasize that there are mothers out there who don't do things they regret. Either they behave perfectly, a la Stepford Wives, or they are so at peace with their own darkness that they just accept themselves completely. Whatever the case, it ain't me, babe, no, no, no, it ain't me, babe. And if you're reading this post, it probably ain't you, either. Thank God we have each other!<br />
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The shadow side of motherhood is vast and sometimes downright terrifying. At the very darkest end of the spectrum, we have mothers who kill their children; a little further towards the light, mothers who chronically abuse their children; mothers who abandon their children. In Jung's opinion, this kind of acting out is the surest symptom of repressing the shadow. So maybe some of these truly "bad" mothers are trying so hard to be June Cleaver that the pressure not to be honest about how overwhelmed they are, or how much they sometimes resent their children, just completely overtakes them. Psychotherapist Robert Johnson explains, "The refused and unacceptable characteristics do not go away; they... collect in the dark corners of the personality. When they have been hidden long enough, they take on a life of their own--the shadow life... If it accumulates more energy than our ego, it erupts as an overpowering rage." <br />
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This is why I write this blog. I want to expose my shadow--the shadow of motherhood in general--to the light and create space for others to do so, in the hope that if we can look and laugh, and sometimes cry, and be honest, together, the gnarly beast of all that we don't want to be might be defeated, or tamed, or, at the very least, witnessed. Because I believe, as Jung did, that we can grow through our shadows into more enlightened human beings and, naturally, more enlightened mothers.Mick Kubiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16660219111109914555noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2265481863947176767.post-84413259679540113042011-05-27T22:17:00.000-07:002015-11-20T15:52:08.049-08:00This Home is Not Broken<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihxr382U5o8fUAvGlauMC_PHt-jCiJFxO_EWUL0nsk-1uwKSuZxljn5YMYzA4XdRwtgbIjL-nsDEUyihVyfzptPH4OKTegfkGbUmEMRjGxbb7Ccb7y41mQhOR-ub9bNNRvtQqb-USmDSU/s1600/Picture+1.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5611629459532587474" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihxr382U5o8fUAvGlauMC_PHt-jCiJFxO_EWUL0nsk-1uwKSuZxljn5YMYzA4XdRwtgbIjL-nsDEUyihVyfzptPH4OKTegfkGbUmEMRjGxbb7Ccb7y41mQhOR-ub9bNNRvtQqb-USmDSU/s200/Picture+1.png" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 200px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 197px;" /></a>I'd like to file an informal complaint about Judith Wallerstein. For those of you who don’t know who Judith Wallerstein is, she has been the preeminent talking head in the US since the 1970s on the effect of divorce on children. And the answer as to why I am filing said complaint will also answer another question recently asked by badmommyla readers: “Where the hell have you been for the last nine months?” <br />
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The short reply would be: in the last nine months, I separated from my husband. I have my daughter with me five days per week; he has her for two. We are getting along as well as can possibly be expected, and I mean that literally-- we are kind to one another and we put our daughter first in all our choices and actions. She is doing well, as far as we can tell. Still, as you can imagine, there has been plenty of grist for the bad mommy mill—more reasons to feel bad!<br />
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And if you want to feel bad about divorce, Judith Wallerstein would like to help you feel even worse. She speaks with authority, and gets loads of airtime in our popular media. She has credentials and a New York Times Best Seller. This is the case in spite of the fact that her research is seriously <a href="http://www.wayneandtamara.com/judithwallerstein.htm">flawed</a>. Wallerstein strongly discourages people from considering divorce, except in extreme cases, and she burdens those who have already made the decision to divorce with the following narrative: you have now traumatized your children and condemned them to a lifetime of suffering--trust issues; broken relationships; an inability to commit. And this is where I have a problem with her work and her confidence in the story she tells based on her—let me say it again—flawed research.<br />
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I don't doubt that some children of divorce do struggle with the aforementioned issues, but I struggle with those issues and my parents have been married for over forty years. I see many of my clients and friends and family members, whose parents' marriages are intact, struggling with those same issues. And, conversely, I have seen others who, even as the product of divorced parents, somehow maintain satisfying and committed marriages. And yes, my evidence is anecdotal. Still, I can't ignore my own experience and the fact that it highlights the possibility of another story about divorce and the children of divorce.<br />
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And that possibility is: <span style="font-style: italic;">there is no predetermined story--no absolute truth--about any of it.</span> The Greek philosopher Epictetus proclaimed that "we are disturbed not by what happens to us but by our thoughts about what happens." In light of this, when I feel myself in a negative emotional state, I stop and ask myself, <span style="font-style: italic;">what story am I telling myself right now?</span> And I find that there always is a story. Sometimes it’s my own story; sometimes it’s Judith Wallerstein’s; sometimes it’s off the news or from the annals of my own family history. “I am ruining my daughter’s life,” for example. “I am traumatizing my daughter.” This is the kind of thought that makes my blood run cold. It makes me feel physically sick. <br />
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I am indebted to Byron Katie for her simple, direct process of inquiry, called <a href="http://www.thework.com/index.php">The Work</a>. Now I know how to find the thought I’m thinking--or the story Judith Wallerstein is spinning--and question it, hard. I take a really good look at it. Is the story--the thought, the belief--true? Can I absolutely know that it's true? No. I can’t. And so, why on earth accept it, especially if it causes me pain and hampers my ability to think straight, and be a good mother? Because the truth--which is both scary and liberating--is that I have no idea how any of this plays out, or ends up, and neither does Judith Wallerstein, or anyone else. <br />
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Trauma has been a fact of existence for living things since things started living. Things that don't tell stories about it, like animals and plants, and enlightened masters, recover relatively quickly from trauma. We humans, on the other hand, tell ourselves stories that keep the synapses in our brains firing along the same miserable pathways, reliving the past event and re-traumatizing ourselves long after the source of the trauma has passed. Mental health means stopping that. Continually replaying a tape--in your own head or via listening to a talking head--about how traumatized you and your children are is dangerous. <br />
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And yet, it’s challenging to let go of our stories, even our sad ones. Having a story is reassuring. At least then we know what support group to join and exactly how to flagellate ourselves, or who to blame. We know how to explain why we’re so fucked up, or why everyone else is. We can define ourselves as victims, or perpetrators, and have an identity. We humans like having an identity. I know I do, although in this current scenario I find it burdensome and limiting to think I know what’s going on and who I am in relation to it.<br />
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If I listen to the scary stories out there, I am the single mother of a traumatized child living in a broken home. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! I could trip on that story for hours. I have tripped on that story for hours, and yet even the most cursory inquiry into it reveals it as fiction, in no uncertain terms. I am not a single mother because my daughter's father is still a daily presence in our lives, and I am surrounded by people who love me and my daughter and want to help. My home is not broken. My daughter's father and I have two homes now, both of which are whole, so long as we believe they are. The bonds of a family are not always visible, but my experience is that they are always intact. Our family is not broken, although it is non-traditional.<br />
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If I l believe the thought that I, my home, my family, are <i>broken</i>, I feel awful--hopeless and exhausted—and that’s how I come off to my daughter. When I am able to let go of that thought, and just be open to what is actually happening--a transition, a transformation, a shift from the known to the unknown--I can breathe. I have room to create something new; or to let something new unfold.<br />
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If you find yourself in my position, do yourself a favor and watch your thoughts, and be very careful about what you let yourself believe. Question everything you hear, everything anyone tells you, about divorce. What you believe, and how your perceive yourself in the midst of this change is one hundred times more powerful--and more real--than statistics and research and stories concocted by talking heads will ever be.<br />
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.Mick Kubiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16660219111109914555noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2265481863947176767.post-18100075978092006962010-09-13T14:00:00.000-07:002015-11-20T15:56:44.443-08:00Attach. Release. Repeat.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3JkX5Ud42zKu-U9IbWjEZU04aWDix_6lRu_hRq-RpAgV0vtsqeT52MEROjVf0s_k99mTXaxf0r4UwocdVfqZD5gDGDc2DcTolKqv7Y7QRalP_wL5S2ZLqbXkU4GzFr_rtJstFtLTs_CQ/s1600/mail.jpeg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5516507610506805154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3JkX5Ud42zKu-U9IbWjEZU04aWDix_6lRu_hRq-RpAgV0vtsqeT52MEROjVf0s_k99mTXaxf0r4UwocdVfqZD5gDGDc2DcTolKqv7Y7QRalP_wL5S2ZLqbXkU4GzFr_rtJstFtLTs_CQ/s200/mail.jpeg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 166px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 124px;" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">"Renunciation is not giving up the things of this world; it's accepting that they go away."<br />Shunryu Suzuki</span><br />
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I used to pride myself on being unattached to things. I liked to say that I could fit all my possessions into my car, and that's the way I liked it. I couldn't imagine that motherhood would change me into a thing collector, hanging onto ancient pacifiers and faded locks of hair. My humbling proceeded swiftly, when the day came that I had to admit, really admit, that my daughter had outgrown her first wardrobe—the truly tiny, surely no one is <span style="font-style: italic;">this</span> small, hats and shoes, shirts and pants, dresses and pajamas. “We have to keep this one,” I said to my husband, clutching the giraffe sleeper I had put her in at the hospital. I felt tears welling up in my eyes. I felt almost sick. I couldn’t remember which of the white hospital shirts was the first one she had ever worn and I wanted to know because I wanted to keep <span style="font-style: italic;">that</span> one. <br />
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As it turned out, I wanted to keep almost everything. I felt my attachment like a hot hand clutching the core of my being—the very same attachment that Jesus, the Buddha, Patanjali, and myriad other enlightened masters have clearly pegged as the source of all human suffering. Clinging to the material world creates pain because whatever you are clinging to will absolutely, positively, no two ways about it, change. Disappear. Transform into something different. Become obsolete. Case in point: the teeny tiny giraffe sleeper bag. And of course, it wasn’t the clothes I couldn’t bear to let go. What I couldn’t bear to let go was already irretrievably gone. <br />
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When you hold something beautiful and sublime in your hungry hands--your baby, your lover, a moment, a phase--you want to hold onto it forever. It's human nature. And yet, letting go, over and over and over again, is the only sane response. Being a mother seems to be all about this paradox, of needing to hold on and contain and attach profoundly to our children--that's the job--followed by the necessity of letting go, with some measure of confidence, but absolutely no guarantees--that's also the job. We have to do both. We have to embody, daily, these opposite impulses. It's not easy. This is why there's so much weeping at graduations and weddings and the first day of Kindergarten--the sadness of what is passing and the joy of what is coming to be arise simultaneously in equal and opposite measure and the next thing you know, your mascara is running down your face and your kids are embarrassed.<br />
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In the end, I kept two tiny hats and a pair of shoes, and you can pry them from my cold, dead fingers when I finally give up the ghost. They are symbols of the ego softening truth of impermanence and my own human frailty. And, I can fit them in my car, in my glove compartment, even. I'm still like, totally Zen, right?Mick Kubiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16660219111109914555noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2265481863947176767.post-68140332885205206182010-08-30T07:43:00.000-07:002010-09-06T21:15:47.589-07:00The Buddha, the Babies, Saturn, and Suffering<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA47E0q2Q2LifeYPkz-iTAYUNblNTUlBEF8dEd5QQbiVDTrsNakqkrdEuabnMwZPfYBcEDU5MgLnayMwV427U-ZPwP4OHTucMzqlKAmHcmMOR6gGtIT5ux_Zwaq-0PijzyDB1hKi1_x9w/s1600/Picture+2.png"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 158px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA47E0q2Q2LifeYPkz-iTAYUNblNTUlBEF8dEd5QQbiVDTrsNakqkrdEuabnMwZPfYBcEDU5MgLnayMwV427U-ZPwP4OHTucMzqlKAmHcmMOR6gGtIT5ux_Zwaq-0PijzyDB1hKi1_x9w/s200/Picture+2.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5514020311755452818" /></a>“Life is suffering,” said the Buddha, upon attaining enlightenment. He chose that sentence as the First Noble Truth. Numero Uno. As a mother, I can tell you, infancy provides plenty of evidence for his theory. In many ways, there’s nothing cute about the lives of these small humans--colic, teething, gas, birth complications, difficulty breast feeding, difficulty pooping, and any number of injustices any mother can tell you about. To ask, “Why is it like this?” is probably to bark up the wrong tree. If you do and you’re like me, you’ll end up thinking it’s your fault somehow. <br /><br />There is so much romanticizing of motherhood that I found it difficult to bear the flagrant contrast between the projected ideal and my reality. I mean, we had our moments of being the beatific mom with the sleeping baby, but more often, we were the harried, anxious mom with the baby who would not stop crying and could not be put down for one minute. In her early infancy, my daughter cried without stopping for hours at a time. We'll never know why. She got an ear infection even though I was doing everything “right”. She struggled with seemingly incurable gas; we tried physical exercises, homeopathy, gripe water, chamomile tea, all of it; nothing we could do took away her pain. And, as if it were not hard enough to have a screaming infant on my hands, my mind tormented me: "DO SOMETHING, YOU INADEQUATE FOOL! MAKE IT STOP! THAT'S YOUR JOB! AAAH!" <br /><br />I had a breakthrough one morning when I read an essay on the meaning of Saturn in Greek mythology. The author said that Saturn’s purpose is to teach us that life has a harsh side. Everyone has to deal with it; there are no exceptions. Through Saturn, we experience constriction, pain, powerlessness, and loss. These are human experiences, built in to the fact of being alive on planet earth. Suffering is as natural and unavoidable as breathing.<span style="font-style:italic;"> It just is, man.</span> Don't fight it. It's like trying to fight the sky. In spite of six years of meditating and studying Buddhism, I had somehow not really understood the First Noble Truth, not in terms of mothering anyway, and it was as if I were hearing it for the first time. I felt like a massive burden had been lifted from my chest. Life is harsh, I said to myself, and felt a strange enthusiasm rise up within me. "Life is harsh," I said again, out loud. <br /><br />By the time my husband woke up, I was jumping around like a street corner prophet broadcasting The Truth: "Life is harsh! Life is harsh!" I handed him a cup of coffee and explained excitedly, “It’s not my fault that Elva got an ear infection and that she cries and nothing I do helps. It’s not my fault that she has gas. It’s not my fault that our birth plan didn't work out the way we planned it. Life is just like that sometimes. Being born is hard. Being a baby is hard. It’s not because <span style="font-style:italic;">I’m</span> doing something <span style="font-style:italic;">wrong</span>.” Apparently, he already knew this. For me, it was, and still is, news I can use. Every time I let go of feeling responsible for suffering I can't control, I have more energy to throw at the suffering I can control, or the things I can do to relieve the suffering that just is. And so, I'm very grateful for the bad news, and the good news, that my daughter will suffer and it will not be my fault and a lot of the time there's nothing I can do about it. It's just her birthright, along with joy, of course, and beauty, and love. All of which she's getting, and giving, in spades.Mick Kubiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16660219111109914555noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2265481863947176767.post-14274472367748627082010-07-09T11:30:00.000-07:002010-07-09T11:41:37.024-07:00What It's Like<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRM-TqTKYsuTe-zcIB230Vcs2wUPzY9cNgYPfq-96gt3FeFCwop7ziI__KYvSm_KWiPD1dY2jzt8ijot02CCRJdovGF2tEh9bkfXc1gz-8pdsfEJ9FYbfXc9xrLeY0HvHiiKen4BB9aA/s1600/IMG_1234.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 146px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRM-TqTKYsuTe-zcIB230Vcs2wUPzY9cNgYPfq-96gt3FeFCwop7ziI__KYvSm_KWiPD1dY2jzt8ijot02CCRJdovGF2tEh9bkfXc1gz-8pdsfEJ9FYbfXc9xrLeY0HvHiiKen4BB9aA/s200/IMG_1234.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5471613591306911570" /></a>When my daughter was a toddler, my friend Dean asked me what it's like being a mother. I tried to think about how to describe it to him, a thirty five year old perennial bachelor, in terms that he could understand. I asked him if he had ever gotten stuck taking care of a friend at college who was really, really drunk and maybe tripping on acid, too. "That's what it's like," I said. At a social event, you turn your back for what seems like a moment and when you turn back around, your child is completely naked spreading yogurt dip on her private parts. And then eating it. At the park, where you turn away for just a second, one single second, you turn back around to find her chewing on a cigarette butt. And you spend a lot of time trying to reason with someone who is resisting you, uncoordinated, stumbling around. You talk in a loud voice, as if the problem is that they just can't hear you, saying things like, "I KNOW YOU DON'T LIKE THE CAR SEAT, BUT YOU HAVE TO GET IN THE CAR SEAT. IT'S THE LAW. I WILL GET YOU OUT OF THE CAR SEAT WHEN WE GET HOME. JUST LIKE WE ALWAYS DO. OKAY? I'M SORRY, I'M FORCING YOU INTO THE CAR SEAT NOW. IT'S OKAY." They are constantly falling down, hitting their heads, sobbing, getting back up again, falling down, hitting their heads, and... sobbing. <br /><br />But just like your wasted college friend, they have these sublime moments of seemingly divine comprehension and connection. Waving their hand around in a sunny spot on the floor and laughing. Chasing pigeons as if they know what to do if they actually catch one. Rolling around in the grass with no thought, only the sheer joy of sensation. They will suddenly, when you don't expect it, give you a big hug, look you straight in the eye, and tell you they love you, so open hearted that your heart can only open in response. They are immersed in the moment in a way that's not possible if you're not drunk, enlightened, or under the age of five. And as nice as all that is, you still can't wait until they pass out for the evening so you can have a little time to yourself before <span style="font-style:italic;">you</span> pass out, only to wake up and do it all over again the next day. <br /><br />When your friend finally crashed, you may have taken a few photos to post online, or share with friends in some other format. The same is true when you have little children, only more so. My husband and I could not wait until our daughter was asleep--<span style="font-style:italic;">we were so exhausted</span>--and then we would spend those few hours of potential "down" time looking at pictures of her on the computer. Unless your college friend was really hot, the comparison likely ends here. But up to this point, seriously, it's the same basic deal, only much more extreme. Your patience must extend considerably beyond a six hour odyssey holding the hand of someone who overdid it at a frat party. This is why nature makes little children so incredibly beautiful that it just doesn't feel right to abandon them.Mick Kubiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16660219111109914555noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2265481863947176767.post-62413146016042882392010-06-05T08:03:00.000-07:002010-06-05T08:03:32.694-07:00In Defense of RegretI’ve noticed a lot of people take pride in saying they have no regrets. It sounds great, but I’d just like to say a few words in defense of this humble feeling, because it has gotten me places I would never have gone without it. It’s interesting, dark, and rich; a great deal of art and literature flow forth from regret; and, it is as natural an accessory to motherhood as a diaper bag. Personally, I did not know the true meaning of the word until I had my daughter, who stirred in me a love so deep and powerful that I would not have to think before taking a bullet or throwing myself in front of a train for her. I had never felt that way about anyone before. And in light of this great love, I wanted to make no mistakes. I wanted to be perfect. I wanted to be The Best Mother EVER.<br /><br />This is not rational. It is not reasonable. It is not possible. And it’s stressful as hell. But it’s what many mothers are dealing with and it has deepened my relationship to thoughts like, “If only I had known then what I know now!” and “If I could do that moment over again, I would do it so differently.” At their worst, these kinds of thoughts can make you so mad at yourself that you drain precious energy from your life force beating yourself up. This, I believe, is a misuse of regret. Used properly, regret can galvanize you to do things differently, to do it better, to make up for what you messed up. Used properly, regret can inspire you to actually change.<br /><br />What I regret most when I look back on my early years as a mother is my lack of understanding, at times, that my daughter was developmentally incapable of doing what I wanted her to do. I also really struggled with my temper, and I regret every time I ever “lost it” with her. The depth of my regret over these mistakes inspired me to do some serious inner work and I have made more progress taming my anger than I ever have in my life. Now, when I start to get off track, usually my regret alarm goes off--a visceral nausea that reminds me, "Don't go there. You will regret it if you do." And 9 times out 10, I don't. The other times, I get a chance to say "I'm sorry" and model for my daughter how human beings can take responsibility for their mistakes, and how they can't be perfect, and how every moment is a chance to start over.Mick Kubiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16660219111109914555noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2265481863947176767.post-50003990538426928892010-05-23T00:00:00.000-07:002015-07-05T14:11:43.012-07:00Listen To That Voice<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0CzeUA23QOsL0W11BYBd3wqUrKolxAXdHLbdR0I7jelMEzUHH9wyGE2y86Nu2Fmkww57QgdCwnVttUWYny671c7YCJ1cxRSBEFaauPD7SobAYKdIkp2PVtyhaJjNRs1TgvW1e70kV1Og/s1600/Picture+1.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5471597556351594178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0CzeUA23QOsL0W11BYBd3wqUrKolxAXdHLbdR0I7jelMEzUHH9wyGE2y86Nu2Fmkww57QgdCwnVttUWYny671c7YCJ1cxRSBEFaauPD7SobAYKdIkp2PVtyhaJjNRs1TgvW1e70kV1Og/s320/Picture+1.png" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 320px; margin: 0 0 10px 10px; width: 250px;" /></a>I often feel I have two women living inside me--the Mother and the Artist--and they are always fighting. They fight over resources--time, money, energy, attention. They are philosophically at odds, one believing that serving another is of the highest value, the other believing that expressing the self is what it's all about. For the past five years, the Mother has been almost completely dominant, the Artist locked in a closet in the basement, and drugged. Now that my daughter is moving out of the super needy infant/toddler stage, the Artist is BACK, and boy is she pissed. She wants what she hasn't been getting these past four years, with interest. And for better or worse, she's not going to get it. She knows this, and it makes her moody and petulant, mean as a snake sometimes. She feels dangerous, like she might run off to Mexico without notice, or smoke a cigarette, or not go to bed until 3 in the morning, just to be BAD. Keeping her in check, while giving her enough of what she wants to prevent a total disaster, is a balancing act. <br />
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In some ways, the Artist is good for the Mother, and the child. She sets limits the Mother does not set. She admits she has needs <span style="font-style: italic;">beyond eating and bathing</span>. She takes space from her children whether they like it or not (they never like it). I have a friend who's a father and a songwriter and he told me recently that he has always taught his children never to interrupt a songwriter at work. This may be the difference between mothers and fathers, I don't know, but I suddenly thought, <span style="font-style: italic;">Sweet Jesus, why didn't I think of that?</span> We no longer live in a world where "Daddy does lots of interesting things, while Mommy is all about you," but, when I am stuck in the Mother role, I still play by those rules a lot of the time. Our children need a lot of love and undivided attention from us, true, but they also need us to model, at the appropriate time, independence, autonomy, and self-actualization. In the end, if I do so, I send my daughter an important message: If it's okay for me to stake out my personal space so that I can write songs and paint, it is okay for you to claim your space from those who would stand in your way when you want to make art, or jump out of planes, or meditate, or pursue your dreams in whatever way makes sense to you.<br />
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I know not all mothers are artists, but I think every mother, at a certain point, has one of those days when, suddenly, she looks up from the peanut butter and jelly sandwich she's making, or the child she's bathing, and thinks, <span style="font-style: italic;">This sucks</span>. That voice is the voice of a self that has seen no time, no attention, no air, no light, nothing, for too long. That self needs you. I am here to urge you to listen to her. Give her a shot. Give her half an hour at the end of the day, or two days every month. The sooner you do, the safer you'll be from waking up three years from now in a cheap hotel in Tijuana not even caring if your kid got to school on time. If you're like me anyway.Mick Kubiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16660219111109914555noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2265481863947176767.post-91285789097935263892010-04-28T10:13:00.000-07:002010-04-28T13:40:00.605-07:00You Are Not Alone<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBeHh-6KPiUEACOJ7p72ZmvDb1jTqFuoaFKAqDkMWM3raJQ6jLcqov8mTvYo8IMaBmfT3tfA1OO8M3ZJHHd0yk61SH6nsXgX37TrwUbKVjKeq5ggjpXv_hvZu28CdKgNAOvw4ExXBOrHo/s1600-h/laurabrown.gif"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 131px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBeHh-6KPiUEACOJ7p72ZmvDb1jTqFuoaFKAqDkMWM3raJQ6jLcqov8mTvYo8IMaBmfT3tfA1OO8M3ZJHHd0yk61SH6nsXgX37TrwUbKVjKeq5ggjpXv_hvZu28CdKgNAOvw4ExXBOrHo/s200/laurabrown.gif" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5450583510277196530"></a>"Bad Mommy" moments are often born out of the perfectionism that grips so many mothers. It is because I carry within me the image of the perfect Good Mommy that I also carry within me her shadow, the Bad Mommy. My inner Good Mommy never needs a break from her children. She provides nourishing, organic fruits and vegetables at every homemade meal, and never speaks harshly or, God forbid, yells. She knows how to handle everything. She is not tired and her children never cry or freak out in public. She is not depressed, resentful, or angry.<br /><br />Meanwhile, back on planet earth, I do my best but still find myself stubbornly human and flawed. Many days I don't look even remotely like the Good Mommy of my dreams. Yesterday, for example, I desperately wanted to be alone (which already makes me a bad mommy, by my own definition; see above). On top of it, I <font style="font-style:italic;">was</font> alone--<font style="font-weight:bold;">alone with my emotionally reactive, demanding, talkative four year old!</font> I couldn't get an inch of space or a second of silence. She broke down weeping repeatedly. It was like a regression to the terrible twos. I kept trying to make it better, but given my limited energy and patience, instead I made it worse. I know enough to know that she just wanted to connect, but I felt like that was the one thing I couldn’t do. My inner resources were seriously depleted. I needed some time to be there for me before I could be there for her in any kind of real way. As the day progressed, I began to get the “Julianne Moore in <font style="font-style:italic;">The Hours</font> face”--the glazed, almost frightened look of one who is, only with great effort, masking a riotous desire to run screaming into the street like a mad woman and do God knows what, anything, <font style="font-style:italic;">anything</font>, to make it all stop!<br /><br />I made it through to bedtime without fleeing the apartment, and I guess that's success of a sort. Still, I am not proud of the memory of my daughter hitting my butt repeatedly with her princess shoe while I tried to ignore her and get the dishes done. I am not proud of yelling, "Go away from me! Go away from me! I need some space!" She cried and threw herself on the floor. This definitely landed me solidly in the "Bad" Mommy category. A lovely friend of mine recently confessed that she fears her neighbors are not talking to her because all she seems to do lately is lose her temper with her two kids. It’s a true friend who tells you things like that, because otherwise you’re left utterly alone, thinking you’re the only one who fails to live up to your best intentions to be a great mom. The truth is, we all fail some of the time. We go through phases when it seems we are failing almost all of the time. And still, the great majority of us get up the next day and try again. In the end, I think that if there is such a thing as a good mother, that’s what it looks like.Mick Kubiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16660219111109914555noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2265481863947176767.post-50295077550125674512010-03-11T22:22:00.000-08:002010-03-15T23:03:33.032-07:00Bad Mommy Caught On Tape<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:Geneva">I recently heard a recording of myself talking to my daughter when she was two years old. I was scolding her, saying, “Now that’s exactly what I DON’T want you to do. I spent a lot of time making that food for you and I don’t want you to pour water in it.” I sound like a complete jerk. And so confident! It’s even worse when I hear her adorable little voice on the recording—so innocent and sweet. I can’t stand myself in that moment. And yet, I’m happy I heard it. It’s so easy to think I am more conscious than I really am, especially when it comes to my child.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:Geneva">If I overheard another mom talking to her child in that tone with the completely unrealistic expectation that a two year old would do anything other than pour water into her food, or should be concerned about how hard this self-important woman worked on making her food, I would judge her ruthlessly. And yet, clearly, I have been there and done that, and I have only myself to judge.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:Geneva">And judge myself I do. And then I judge myself for judging myself, because I know that how I treat myself is how I will treat my daughter. Case in point, that nasty voice lecturing her about her food is the same voice going in my own head all day, commenting on my own behavior, judging me. I don’t want to be judgmental with her, but how is that possible if I’m doing it to myself all the time? It’s a crazy little feedback loop that just keeps on giving. Now that she’s four and a half, she gives as good as she gets. Half the time, I wonder where her attitude comes from. The other half, I realize with horror that it comes directly from me. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:Geneva">So my goal this week is simply to notice the tone of my voice, both inside my head and out, and to own it—to see and accept how hard and critical and mean I can be. Then, for the coup de grace, I am going to try to love myself anyway. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:Geneva"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:Geneva"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Mick Kubiakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16660219111109914555noreply@blogger.com4