MOMumental: A Parenting Book Even I Can Endorse

May 11, 2012 By Ellen Painter Dollar 2 Comments

Let’s be clear: I do not “do” parenting books.

I don’t read books about how to be a better mother (or, for that matter, how to follow a menu plan that will make me feel 10 years younger, or how to know God better). In my experience, self-help/advice books don’t really change me for the better. What kind of books do change me? Absorbing novels. Beautifully written, honest memoirs.

My favorite writing about motherhood is about as far from self-help as writing can get. Anne Lamott’s Operating Instructions, Catherine Newman’s Waiting for Birdy along with her many poetic and hilarious blog posts, and Kelley Corrigan’s eloquent memoir on being both parent and child in The Middle Place, for example.

So I’m about to do something out of character, in honor of Mother’s Day this Sunday. I’m going to recommend a book about mothering that, if not quite a self-help book, definitely has one foot in the “here’s some advice for being a happier parent and raising well-adjusted kids” camp.

Given my aversion to parenting books, I would not likely have picked up MOMumental: Adventures in the Messy At of Raising a Family if I saw it in a book store. Or, I might have picked it up, but only to feel the cover and figure out how on earth they managed to make the spilled milk and Cheerios look so real. But I wouldn’t have bought it. I wouldn’t have read it.

But I did read it, for one reason. It was written by a friend and colleague whom I both admire for her wisdom and just plain like for her wit, warmth, and honesty. I picked up Jennifer Grant’s latest book because I knew it would allow me to enjoy her way with words while also peeking behind the scenes of life with her husband and four children.

Once I started, though, I kept reading MOMumental because I really liked it. Really liked it.

The book’s basic structure is simple. In each chapter, Jen starts with an anecdote from her family’s life, ranging from her son’s tendency during toddlerhood to see everyone else’s pain through his own self-absorbed lens (“On the bwight side,” little Ian would say, “it wasn’t me who….” fell down, lost my toy, threw up) to a family road trip with her tweens and teens that was devolving into grumpy chaos before a serendipitous stop at a coffee shop in Amish country.  She then broadens whatever small (but huge) lesson her family anecdote taught her to apply to other families, bringing in research (on the importance of family dinners, for example), additional anecdotes, and large doses of humor.

Jen tackles topics including the importance of having a family culture, complete with its unique lore; raising compassionate kids; and not mistaking kids for mini-adults. I particularly loved that last section, which reminds parents not to either assume that your young daughter’s pettiness with a sibling means that she is going to become an axe murderer, or that your young son’s way with crayons means that you should start saving up for art or architecture school.

Like my favorite mommy writers and bloggers, Jen is utterly honest about her shortcomings as a mother. This book does not leave you feeling inadequate as the author waxes eloquent about how easy it is to get your kids to stop pining for TV; all you have to do is come up with creative nature crafts to fill their time every day after school! But is also honest about her striving to do her best for her kids. Yes, they do give up TV for a while. And put great effort into having family dinners. And look for opportunities to model and foster compassion for people who are struggling. This combination of honesty about our failures combined with an earnest striving to do better is the balance we need to strike as parents.

It is nearly impossible to live in today’s culture without absorbing plenty of parenting advice via playground conversation, Facebook, and trending news stories. I pay attention to very little of it. But perhaps the best piece of advice that I’ve heard, and would offer to other parents, is “Don’t judge parents whose children are older than yours.”

I would amend that advice to read, “Don’t judge parents whose children are older than yours, and occasionally, listen to them, because they might know things that will help you the next time you are sure you have ruined your child forever.”

Nothing teaches us what works and what doesn’t, what is important and what is not, than living with our children, hour after hour, day after day, year after year, as they grow from babies to toddlers to school kids to tweens to teens. We learn that they are not a project to which we can apply lofty principles, but full-faceted human beings, full of dark and light, bringers of heartache and happiness.

Jennifer Grant has many years of mothering experience behind her, and quite a few more to come.  Beyond her years of experience, she possesses humor, a gift of expression, and the ability to share her hard-earned wisdom with self-awareness and without being snarky or self-righteous.

To all mothers who strive to be the best mother possible for their children despite knowing they will sometimes fail, and who are willing to both give and take advice gleaned from the hardest moments of loving little people—Happy Mother’s Day.

And check out MOMumental.

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How a Diagnosis Can Both Help and Hurt

February 2, 2012 By Ellen Painter Dollar 10 Comments

Looking back again at my post last week on prenatal screening for disabilities, I was arguing that many diagnoses (including my own bone disorder) have inherent qualities that cause suffering; that is, I believe that the suffering of disabilities does not stem solely from social exclusion, lack of accommodation, and cultural tendencies to see people with disabilities as “less than” people without disabilities. However, I also wrote:

It may very well be that certain diagnoses that we currently perceive as disabling really aren’t disabling once we remove social and cultural barriers and prejudices.

I had two specific disorders in mind when I wrote that: Down syndrome, and high-functioning autism disorders, such as Asperger’s syndrome. Because kids diagnosed with Down syndrome today routinely receive early intervention and special education services in mainstream schools, the average IQ of people with Down syndrome is actually increasing. Parents routinely report that their kids with Down syndrome are happy, loving, and valued members of their families and communities. Down syndrome is frequently not nearly as “disabling” as it once was, when kids get the help they need, and the perception of Down syndrome as a dire diagnosis—a perception that leads about 90 percent of parents whose child is prenatally diagnosed with this condition to choose termination—may be misguided.

As for Asperger’s, one can argue that this is not so much a disorder as a different way of interacting with the world—a way that actually carries many benefits. People with Asperger’s focus on topics obsessively, which makes them well-qualified for detail-oriented work requiring people to know a whole lot about fairly narrow topics, in areas such as science or computers. (I wonder how many people with Asperger’s pursue Ph.Ds. It seems a perfect match for their gifts—an opportunity to research a narrow topic in depth, and then talk about it at length before a dissertation committee.)

So are children (and adults) diagnosed with Asperger’s being unfairly labeled as having a disability, when in fact they just have an unusual, but perfectly functional, way of interacting with the world?

In a New York Times op ed, psychiatrist Paul Stein wonders if the increasing diagnoses of Asperger’s syndrome are an unfortunate side effect of a “tide of ever more pathologizing.” He argues that, because people with Asperger’s don’t have language acquisition deficits typical of other types of autism, perhaps it should be categorized as a social disorder rather than an autism-spectrum disorder. Stein writes, “Social disabilities are not at all trivial, but they become cheapened by the ubiquity of the Asperger diagnosis, and they become miscast when put in the autism spectrum.”

To me, this conversation raises a core tension in how we, as individuals, as people of faith, and as a culture, perceive disabilities and those diagnosed with disorders of various types. On one hand, getting a clear diagnosis of something like Asperger’s can be a relief to parents (and in the case of older children and adults, to the person diagnosed). Once we have a label for what’s going on, not only can we understand it better, but we can connect with others living with that diagnosis, and access services (early intervention, special education, various therapies) that require a concrete diagnosis for access. (My fellow Patheos blogger, Christian Piatt, wrote yesterday about his son’s reaction to the new understanding that his obsessive interests and frustration with his peers stem from a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome.)

On the other hand, a diagnosis, particularly when it is made on a purely clinical basis—that is, when the diagnosis is made based on observable symptoms, but cannot be verified by any kind of diagnostic test—can potentially pathologize characteristics that might be better perceived as part of the normal range of human behaviors, traits, and capabilities.

Autism exemplifies this tension well. Autism-spectrum diagnoses have exploded in recent years, and some of that increase is due to increased awareness of disorders such as Asperger’s. In previous generations, someone with Asperger’s would not have received a diagnosis at all, but would have been perceived as “quirky.”*

Does Asperger’s belong on the autism spectrum? Does increasing diagnosis help or hurt those living with such conditions? Does the increased self-understanding and access to help that come with a diagnosis outweigh the potential for others to perceive people with certain diagnoses as disabled, sick, or “less than”?

I’m not even going to venture an opinion. I can see both sides. And of course, if we, as individuals and as a culture, valued everyone no matter what their physical and psychological traits, we wouldn’t have to worry about how a diagnosis might become a label that tempts others to write people off as burdensome or less valuable than their peers.

 

*I have actually wondered about whether my children have some kind of Asperger-like “thing” going on. All of my children, particularly the oldest and the youngest, are very bright and prone to honing in on particular topics obsessively. My oldest daughter, like her father (ahem), tends to go into “lecture mode.” They will both go on and on about something that is fascinating to them, having no clue that their listeners’ eyes glazed over about 15 minutes ago. (My husband knows that I have noted this quality about him, but doesn’t seem to take my observation personally given that I still enjoy his company very much.) All three of my children “stim” (jargon for the self-stimulating repetitive physical behaviors common in children with autism-spectrum disorders). The arm flapping and hand rubbing in this household can be completely overwhelming; I have to firmly tamp down my impulse to scream, “Will you all please stop moving so gosh darn much?” or to grab their hands to just Make. Them. STOP. My oldest daughter no longer flaps, though she did quite a lot as an infant, toddler, and preschooler, so perhaps my other two children will also outgrow this behavior.

I have wondered what’s going on with these kids, though have chosen not to pursue any kind of diagnosis further. We have enough diagnoses to deal with, given my and my oldest daughter’s bone disorder. And while I do see challenges for all three kids in how they relate to others socially, thus far we’ve been able to support and strategize with them without additional interventions. I have three very quirky kids, and those quirks will no doubt make their lives harder at different points. Yes, all of us have quirks. But I still think some are quirkier than others, and for some, personal quirks cause greater difficulty than for others. So be it. We’re taking it one day, and one child, at a time.

 

 

 

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What My Dog is Teaching Me About Grace

January 11, 2012 By Ellen Painter Dollar 8 Comments

These first two months with our rescue dog, Eddie, have taught me more about grace, about unconditional love and acceptance of others as they are, than even twelve years of being a mother to three children.

Eddie's many fears include all beeping mechanical things, including cameras. This photo, taken by his foster mom before he was ours, is the best photo I have of him.

I’m a little embarrassed to write that, and surprised that it is true. I’ve always struggled a bit with how pets fit into the spiritual life. When the Feast of St. Francis rolls around every year, I think it is sweet, this idea of bringing our pets to church for a blessing. But nothing more than sweet. Aren’t pets, after all, a first-world luxury? Isn’t there something a little misguided about spending our money feeding and grooming and outfitting these non-working animals, when families the world over dream of having a scraggly goat or a few skinny chickens in their dirt yards to provide milk and eggs worth a few cents from their neighbors?

Eddie, our white pointer/lab mix who is right now snoring away on his red monogrammed dog bed next to me, is certainly a first-world luxury. But he is something more too.

We know only bits and pieces of Eddie’s story. He was born in Mississippi and meant to be a hunting dog. Apparently, he wasn’t a very good one. He is timid, and especially scared of loud noises. So I imagine gunshots made him skittish. Or maybe his fears aren’t innate. Maybe he was abused by those original owners, and came to associate loud noises with pain. We have some evidence of neglect at least—a poorly healed foot fracture, a missing canine tooth, which my vet says is almost always the result of trauma.

Once his Mississippi owners gave him up, Eddie traveled up north, and was adopted by a family with teenagers and an extended network of relatives. Constant comings and goings kept Eddie, who thrives on routine and is shy around new people, on edge. His new family didn’t have a yard in which he could freely roam. They handed him over to a relative who owns several dogs and regularly fosters rescue dogs. She took Eddie to adoption fairs, knowing that white dogs like him often get lots of attention. But he was so shy, so timid, that adoptive families overlooked him.

I thought he was the perfect dog for us. We wanted a larger dog, but with a fundamentally calm temperament, rather than a ball of boundless energy. I thought adopting an older dog (Eddie is four) would be much less disrupting to family life than getting a puppy.

I was wrong.

Those first few weeks with Eddie are a bit of a blur. About two weeks after we got him, most of the state shut down after a freak October snowstorm that left 96 percent of my town’s residents out of power. For ten days (six of which my husband was in sunny Charleston, S.C. for a conference, I might add) I was stuck at home with a dog, a cat, and three children (school was cancelled for days) in a dark, cold house. Several times a day, Eddie and I would take a walk, plucking out a safe path through downed wires and tree limbs, because the electric fence in our yard that Eddie had just learned to use was, of course, not working. One day, I clearly did not walk him enough, because we awoke the next morning to find he had done his business—all of it—on the living room rug.

Those weeks were also a blur because it was not unlike having a newborn baby at home. We were trying to go about our usual routines while also accommodating a new family member whose wants and needs were not always easy to decipher. In fact, the first few weeks with Eddie were much harder for me than the first few weeks of having a new baby. My babies were all pretty easy little things. They nursed and slept and pooped. They didn’t screech for hours or have trouble gaining weight. While of course I was sore and sleep-deprived, it wasn’t really hard. I could usually tell what they needed, and provide it.

But with Eddie? I didn’t know what he needed, and often felt like I was failing to provide it. For example, I knew from taking Eddie to my parents’ fenced yard to frolic with their golden retriever that, when freed from any kind of tie-out, Eddie becomes a different dog. When he can run free, his tail leaves its usual tense between-the-legs position to become upright as he runs, the muscles of his chest rippling under his white coat. But when we installed the electric fence to give him that freedom in our own yard, he was terrified of the “beep” it gave out when he got too close. For several days, he would only go outside if Daniel put him in the car, drove him to the top of our driveway, and then took him for a walk.

Plus our cat, Stormy, kind of hated him. Eddie paid her very little mind, but she avoided him at all costs, and wouldn’t come in from outside if Eddie was anywhere near our kitchen door.

For the first time, I understood what other moms mean when they talk about being at home with a new baby and feeling like you have no idea what to do with this little creature, because you can’t figure out what it wants and when you try to do something you know it needs, like feed it, all it does is scream and flail.  And your other kids are confused and jealous. And you feel powerless to make any of them happy.

While the newborn period wasn’t especially hard for me, there have, of course, been plenty of hard times as a mom to three beautiful, exasperating, complicated children. Caring for Leah through eleven broken bones caused by the genetic bone disorder we share. Negotiating Meg’s volatile emotions.  Encouraging Ben to be himself, while also protecting him from those who would tease him about his preferences for things like the color pink and dolls and dress-up clothes. Being present to three chatty, extroverted children when my soul often craves silence and solitude.

But through even the hardest moments—when Leah is in physical and emotional agony after yet another broken bone, when Meg tells me I have broken her heart by punishing her for some angry outburst, when I overhear two moms in the pool locker room talking about how I shouldn’t let Ben wear “girl” (as in, pink) swim goggles—even then, there is no question that these children are mine forever. While I might occasionally retreat from them, to my bedroom or a book, I will never, ever give them up.

That’s the difference with Eddie. At any time, in those first few weeks and even now, I could choose to give him up. The foster mom said that she would gladly take him back if we decided it wasn’t working out, and find him another home. We could find another dog, one more easygoing, less timid, less damaged by a past that we will never really understand.

There were times in those first weeks that I was so baffled by this animal and so certain I could not ever understand what he needs, much less provide it, that the foster mom’s offer was tempting.

But we are not giving Eddie up. Not even after he snapped, teeth bared, at Ben last week when Ben startled him by coming too close as Eddie slept in his bed. Instead, we told the kids that Eddie needs a safe place, and that when he’s in his bed, they are to imagine him in a protective bubble that we are not allowed to penetrate. I figure that, whatever Eddie has been through, he deserves a safe place, along with a family that will not give him up, despite his quirks and fears and even his ability to lash out at us when we unknowingly remind him of how it feels to be unsafe.

It is loving Eddie—not only Leah or Meg or Ben—that has helped me to see how radical is God’s acceptance of us as we are, with all our quirks and fears and ability to lash out at others with teeth bared when they cross into our hurt places, even unintentionally. It is loving Eddie that has made me stop seeing pets as merely a first-world luxury, and instead as family members capable of both breaking and mending our hearts, just as our spouses and children and parents do. It is loving Eddie—no, keeping Eddie— that has reminded me that God dwells in that place where vulnerability and woundedness meet acceptance and love, where we promise never to give up on each other, no matter how scary or confusing or messy things get.

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