Browsing Tag

no bullshit motherhood

Guest Posts, Grief, No Bullshit Motherhood

The Thing About Grief Is…

March 21, 2018
grief

By Stacey Shannon

The thing about grief is:

I can’t trust myself.

No matter how I rail against this part of my life/year/self, that is the bottom line.   It is part of me.  And though I may disregard it for 11 out 12 months of the year, it’s always there.  It WILL come  at me like Shane Stant came at Nancy Kerrigan with a club. When it arrives, it does what it always does.  It hobbles my knees and runs away as I fall to the ground, asking “Why, why?”.

No, I’m tired of asking why.  I’ll never really know.  Moving on, next question:

When?  Nope, done asking when.  When will it be over?  The answer to that one is always the same and it is this: never.

How?  That’s a good one. Let’s unpack that. (Don’t you hate when people say that?  It’s so douchey. “I know you are feeling rotten right now, let’s unpack that’!  How about, NO?)   How best to navigate these two weeks every winter, every fucking winter, 18 winters and counting.  How?  I’m not going to answer that.  Because when I do answer that question, I  immediately discount my own answer. Simply because: I can’t trust it. Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, parenting, Yoga

This Surrender

February 26, 2018
surrender

photo courtesy of Suzi Baum

By Suzi Baum

I go to a yoga class with babies.

A college student tends a cluster of children in a room behind the yoga studio while mothers, fathers, people who I don’t know well enough to know if they have kids or not and it does not matter at all, here we are with students, elders, people of all shapes and abilities-all of us stop on our mats for an hour, stop all the else we are about, and center, together.

We are marbles off track.

We run the edge of the singing bowl that is this class, spinning around the rim until the centering pull of breath and asana brings us to the center, of the bowl, of our selves, of this moment.

There is often a shout or a cry at just the perfect moment. We chuckle. We breathe. We go on.

I did not always attend yoga classes with babies. Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, Divorce, No Bullshit Motherhood

Where the Love Is

February 16, 2018
love

By Danielle Scruton

Her voice was muddled by dreamsleep, but I heard the words nonetheless: “This is where the love is…”. She had that look of peace about her. The one that melts me every time. The one that helps me feel less like a mother who can never get it right and more like a hand of love: helping her, guiding her. Her face lit softly by the nightlight, she looked years younger than ten. She would lose this babyface soon and while- as a mother- I was far from ready, as a woman I smiled within at what the tween and teenage years would bring.

It’s a bit unusual, her situation. Her father and I are divorcing and she has two other men in her life. It’s not something I give much thought to, but it is different I suppose. She will never have a stepmother, though it is very likely she will have two stepfathers. My bond with my daughter is as unshakable as any other mother-daughter relationship, but it’s possible she needs me even more because of where the chips have fallen. I could be wrong. In any case, I feel the importance of my influence in every exchange we have.

And her slumber-filled words meant more because the day had been hard. It was like that sometimes and more so with her than with my son. She had spent a weekend with her father. Her emotions loomed around her and came at me with defiant words. Tons of attitude. She was annoyed and yet wanted me close, only to push me away again moments later. Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, No Bullshit Motherhood, parenting

There’s No Such Thing as a Perfect Parent

February 2, 2018
perfect

By Sally Lehman

My Mom taught me how to fold sheets and iron pillow cases and measure flour with the dipping method, and how to pinch the edges of a pie crust to make it bake pretty, and how to hammer a nail and hang a picture and paint a wall, how to swaddle a baby and change a diaper and repress bad memories because we don’t talk about those kinds of things, and how to not cry or I’ll give you something to cry about young lady, and how to bite the webby part of my hand instead of screaming because when things are just too much and I can’t stand to live with it all anymore, no one else should find out.  She taught me to be ashamed for thinking sad thoughts and how to avoid people I dislike and how to hold a grudge for years, and how to sew and crochet and work if I have pneumonia because the phone company doesn’t give a shit that I have pneumonia.  Mom taught me how to drink a gin and tonic and how to make a decent cup of coffee, the kind that will rip a stomach apart after three cups, and how to order a glass of wine at a restaurant when I was only sixteen.  And how to pretend I was asleep when a crazy drunk person woke me up at 3 in the morning to say they are sorry for every single little thing they might have ever done ever.

My Dad taught me to shut the fuck up already.

My Mom also taught me to hold my head up, chin out, no matter how out of place and lonely I am, and how to look a person right smack in the eye when I talk to them. She taught me to look just the right way to the make children do what I tell them to do, and that I should be ashamed for taking antidepressants every day because it made her a failure as a parent. Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, No Bullshit Motherhood

The Love Jail

December 31, 2017
love

By Jennie Lee

My 16–year old son just tackled me onto the couch. I was mid-email and in no mood to play. I struggled to get free, but he held me down until I caved in to laughter. I can’t blame him for these antics. He learned them from me a long time ago.

I am a lucky parent actually, to be tackled by their teenager. Even luckier since he talks to me too, hugs me, hangs out with me and trusts me. How is this possible? I credit the Love Jail.

Don’t think for a minute that I have one of those easy kids, the ones that rarely cry when they are babies, are content wherever you place them, even-tempered and jovial. No, mine never napped, has always been explosive, and perfected his “NO” even before he knew how to say it. When he was small, I studied the parenting books and leaned not to indulge his tantrums, just ignore the behavior rather than give it attention.  But I also believed in raising my son to speak his mind and know his feelings, so I couldn’t very well shy away when he let them all hang loose. As a single mom, it was overwhelming at times to stay present while he screamed and thrashed; inconsolable, irrational and escalating. Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, No Bullshit Motherhood, parenting

Mommy Wars

December 18, 2017
motherhood

By Callie Boller

I’ve only been a mom for 6 years, so I am definitely still a rookie, but one thing that I’ve learned during my short time with this parenting gig is that everyone is an expert. Whether it’s the woman in line behind you at the checkout stand, or your co-worker down the hall, EVERYONE has an opinion on the right way to do motherhood – and they are willing to go to WAR over it.

I can go on social media right now and find countless mom-shamers with thousands of followers, you know…the ones who only let their children play with wooden toys, wouldn’t even speak the words “formula fed,” and have a PhD in being a perfect fucking parent. Something about the combination of a keyboard and those damn Instagram squares makes people delusionally entitled. The judgmental comments, the better than attitudes – I’m so over it.

So here it is. This is MY WAR on Mommy Wars – and here are my rules of engagement: Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, No Bullshit Motherhood, The Hard Stuff

Fail, Birth

December 10, 2017
fail

By Sara Nolan

You can’t fail at birth, they tell you.

But you sure fucking can, and here’s how you do it.

It starts when your baby’s heart rate slows down so much that even a novice midwife, or, for that matter, even a four year-old, would know something was wrong.

In my case, you could think whole profound thoughts between those heart beats.  You felt like John Cage, because the silence was as loud as the noise. You felt like a Buddhist Monk whose awareness is so attuned she can see through the holes in time and space to an eternal present where your baby’s next heartbeat never comes.

Well, it wasn’t that bad.

Yes, it kind of was.

My husband doesn’t freak out.  Generally.  But stooped in the desk chair by my bedside, he had the same look on his face I get when I burn toast, or when the baby (yes, there is a baby at the end of this) gets a little too pinkish red around the lips, or when my computer doesn’t save my hard-won revisions.  Panic.  In him, though, it’s only detectable by those who know that slight agitation in the corner of his eyes means the earth went off its axis to court Mars. Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, No Bullshit Motherhood, Racism

Blue Blazes

November 27, 2017

By Jane O’Shields-Hayner

“It’s hot as blue blazes!” I said, wiping the sweat from my face with a faded, red bandana. I wet it under the garden hose and lay it, cool, around my neck.”

“Can we get more ice cubes, Mommy?” Rebekah asked.

“We’ve used them all. They go fast when it’s a hundred and six.” I answered, stepping into the soupy water of the plastic pool where my daughters sat with squirt toys, dolls, and blades of grass bobbing on the surface.

Rachael hugged my bare legs and lay her cheek against my knee. “Can we go to a real pool, Mommy?” She begged. “…a big one with a divey board and everything, … please?”

“I think it’s time we found one…” I said, …but let’s eat first!”

Both girls stood up in the tepid water and began to dance. “Swimmy pool, swimmy pool!” they chanted.

I stepped out, brushed the green cuts of grass from my legs and headed for the house.  “You-all play in the sprinkler while I make lunch!” I called back.

“OK, Mommy!” shouted Rebekah, dragging a hot hose with a sprinkler ring spraying behind it.

I walked up the back steps, where three air conditioners roared from windows in our rented home. The one near me sounded a loud boom and the walls and wood floor lurched, as the thermostat switched it off or on. I had learned to sleep through it, in fact, it comforted me; for I was born and raised in the blistering heat of North Central Texas. Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, Bullying, No Bullshit Motherhood

In Trump’s Tomorrow, A Muslim Mother Confronts Her Past

November 19, 2017
muslim

By Kulsum Tasnif

“Hi, I’m Cricket–and welcome to my world! Let’s be friends, we’ll do things together, we’ll have a great old time…Let’s be friends, just you and I–I’ll be talkin’ to ya!”
Cricket Doll commercial, 1987

It’s the song that still pops into my head sometimes while driving my kids to school. I don’t tune it out any more like I used to. I’m a mother of three. I’m in my 40’s. But I still feel like the bullied 13 year old when I look back at my 8th grade experience.  That sound brings it all back.

“Lez” Be Friends
Her name is Shawna. She is an animated blond, blue-eyed tomboy who smells of stale cigarettes and BubbleYum. I am a short, brown, scrawny introvert with a

“flat chest” she whispers. We’re in homeroom and everyone laughs. I fold my arms across my flat chest and retreat to the safe place in my head. Shawna sits behind me with her legs propped up on the creaky desk. She has full access to the back of my head–which she taps with her Payless wing-tipped shoe.

“Does my shoe smell like dog shit?” she asks with a baby voice.

I sit still. She then calls Ms. Hollander a “bitch” and gets sent to the principal’s office. I can rest at ease until P.E. My mind calculates the steps I would need to take to avoid Shawna today. Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, No Bullshit Motherhood, parenting

Hey Parents, Chill Out

October 16, 2017
chill

By Jackie Boeheim

I was at the park the other day with a group of moms and we were discussing various topics on preschools, pacifiers and bedtime routines. I was becoming very stressed out, second guessing myself as a parent and breaking out into cold sweats. In fact, as I looked around the group, all I saw were panicked faces of worry filled moms.

The conversation prompted me to call my own mother and relay the chatter that happened at the park. “I just don’t know if I have my son in the right preschool,” I said. “The one I attend has a smaller class size, the one I toured yesterday has more complex activities…” my mother started laughing. Wait, let me correct that statement, my mother interrupted me with a bout of laughter. Does she not understand how serious this is? My mom finally told me to just chill out, have a glass of wine, paint my toenails and stop worrying so much. Continue Reading…