Strange Girls and Random Laundry - Life With Teenage Boys

I am typing this while sipping my morning coffee, recounting the odd moments in my bedroom just minutes ago. As I lay in foggy sleep, I felt a movement on my pillow and an odd pressing feeling on the back of my head that was completely unfamiliar. I reached up to see what it was, and got a handful of soft fluffy fur, which immediately began humming. No... purring. It was purring. It was a cat. A very soft and large cat who was perfectly comfortable on my pillow and as I began to realize this, a glaring flaw in the arrangement propelled me to nearly jump out of bed. I don't have a cat!

How did it get in here? A cat who I have never laid eyes on found its way into my house and felt so comfortable doing so that he strolled into my bedroom at five o'clock in the morning and parked himself next to my head? I'm sure it has something to do with the five teenage boys currently camped out in my backyard. It's just one of those odd occurrences that is becoming all the more typical around here. It's just part of life with teenage boys.

As a new mother, I had the vague feeling that my life was no longer in my control. Staring at those cute little faces, knowing that my entire sanity resided with them being relatively well-behaved and of course, healthy and whole. I thought I had lost control of my life when they would shriek and wail and I would scamper to soothe and console, or I would rush around to get what I knew they wanted. I thought I lost control when they would get into my fingernail polish and decorate the coffee table with it - or when the foul odor that was plaguing my kitchen turned out to be moldy broccoli that they had cleverly hidden in the recess beside the refrigerator knowing that I never looked there.

When my kids were younger, I still had a great deal of control. The messes were, to me, fairly predictable. Permanent marker on the refrigerator, chocolate syrup splattered on the wall, what parent doesn't have to deal with those things? Strange cats in my bed, kneading the back of my head at 5am is just one of the many unpredictable events that comes with the territory of living with teenagers.

Living with teenagers is having a house that is always wrecked. I thought I had a hard time keeping it clean when they were toddlers. I've learned that once they hit a certain age, they're like Gizmo. Get them wet and the little suckers multiply. That's why I have a hoard of them asleep in my backyard as we speak. I will be sitting here minding my own business and suddenly there are all of these people milling around my house. This happens frequently. And that's not the only thing that inexplicably multiplies around here either. I don't know what to do with half of our laundry, because it's not ours! I am constantly asking, "whose shirt is this? Where did it come from? What am I supposed to do with it?" only to look up and everybody shrugs.

And the girls? Yeeeeeeahhh. It's not uncommon for me to walk into my livingroom and see some girl I have never met sitting on my sofa who is completely nonplussed by my arrival and doesn't even look up to see that my eyebrows have disappeared into my hairline. Why would she notice me? I am of no consequence. This isn't my house after all, it is my sons house and to her I just live here. I am not offended, I remember thinking along those lines when I was their age.

Living with teenagers (at least the boy variety) means my house is not my own anymore. Not only is it always dirty, but it's always full of people - some I know and others I don't. They just show up here. I could turn them away, I suppose, but then my kids would go hang out at their houses and given the propensity for teenagers to get into trouble, I'd rather they be here in my safe, gun-free, drug-free, alcohol-free environment. At least I can do a head count on the girls and when one is no longer in sight, I can ask the others where she went. Girls, after all, are much easier to spot than the boys. It's funny, because they all know I'm watching and it doesn't bother them at all (yet). They have no desire to go to another household where they can get more privacy, they like it here where they feel welcome. And eat all of my chocolate cake.

I'm in a different game now than I was when my kids were in elementary school, that's one of the few things I can say with certainty. Living with teenagers is wild, unpredictable, sometimes hilarious and sometimes infuriating, and I've only just begun. I have yet to face the scenario of trips out of town and wild parties, my oldest only starts high school in a couple short months. If it's like this already, what the heck am I going to find in my bed two years from now? Don't answer that, I'm afraid I already have an idea. There are some things I can still predict after all, even if it's becoming less and less everyday.


Photo Rights: Moodboard

Thank Goodness For the Mommy Wars

Yes, you read that right. Thank Goodness for the Mommy Wars. Thank goodness for the ability to communicate with each other, whether we are reaching out for support or to tear each other down. That's not to say that I think we need to be fighting with each other, of course not. Let me paint a picture for you.

In 1997, I went into a hospital in the Midwest to have my first baby. I was a new mother and a teenager still, at the age of 18. But I was surrounded by my in laws who had several babies and I had plenty of support - not to mention my own mom on speed dial. At the hospital, right after my son was born, one of the nurses asked me what type of formula I wanted to feed. I paused, knowing nothing about formula or feeding a baby. I looked at the two choices she was holding up and pointed at the yellow label, Enfamil. Nifty.

After we passed our second day check ups we were sent home. Within two days, I knew something was very wrong. My baby cried constantly. My in laws knew that this wasn't normal, but they couldn't tell me why he was crying so much. I seemed to be doing everything correctly. I took him to the doctor and was told that the formula I had him on was too hard for his system. He told me to try a different one and so I did. No help. Per doctors orders, I tried another. Again, no help. Over the course of our first three months, we tried five or six different types of formula, as our pediatrician would advise. We wound up on lactose free, and ultimately soy and my child still screamed bloody murder whenever he was awake. I spent so much time and energy rocking and bouncing, singing and soothing, just trying to keep him asleep because that was the only time he wasn't in terrible pain.

On top of that, he developed angry red eczema patches on his cheeks, which I was told were part of the allergic reaction. Finally, a doctor confirmed what I was beginning to suspect. My baby was allergic to baby formula. Not a certain kind, but all infant formula. By the time I figured this out, my mothers milk was long gone. I admit, I was quite a bit angry that I had never been informed such a thing could occur. There was no disclaimer at the hospital when the nurse held up the two innocent looking formula samples and told me to pick one. There was (and still is) no warning on the label. I had no way of knowing that my first choice as a mother could be such a huge mistake!

In 1999, I had my second baby. I knew I was going to breastfeed. The nurse rolled her eyes at me when, once again, I was asked what type of formula I wanted and this time I told her none. I was treated quite a bit differently after that. I remember the nurses kept coming into my room at night and trying to make off with my newborn. They told me it was hospital policy to not allow mothers to keep their infants in the rooms while they slept.

Bullshit, I knew they were sneaking him off to the nursery to give him a bottle behind my back. But I didn't know how common that was or that I had the right to stop it. As I was leaving, a nurse hastily pressed a card into my hand and told me, "We have to give these out to all the women who say they want to try and breastfeed." It was a card with some L's on it, and it was clear that she thought the whole thing was silly. There were no lactation consultants at the hospital. The books I read, even with their cute little diagrams, did little to explain the true realities of breastfeeding. I had no idea what I was doing and no one to show me how.

So I spent the next month trying to learn to breastfeed out of a book. The Internet existed but it was like stone-etchings compared to the world it is today. We did not have Kellymom.com, Nursingfreedom.org, or even Cafemom.com or Justmommies.com. There was no expansive online community of mothers to give advice, educate or even slam us if they didn't like our choices. It was a very isolated world back then, kids. If you didn't know someone who breastfed, you were on your own. And women like me were stuck trying to sort it all out, having no idea why our nipples hurt so much or if that white film on our babies tongue was supposed to be there (thrush!), or what it means when your breastmilk turns pink (bleeding milk ducts).

I gave up after a month, breastfeeding was making me sick and I didn't know why (raging case of mastitis that left large patches of scar tissue inside my breasts). My husband begged me daily to give it up, he could see how miserable I was and he didn't like the idea of me breastfeeding anyway. He didn't understand why I was so hellbent to nurse and seemed to take it as a personal affront to his ability to provide food for his child. Not to mention a highly squeamish attitude, having grown up in a culture who views a womans breasts as man-toys. Within a week of giving up nursing, my baby had blood in his stool from the harsh nature of the manufactured milk. We began playing musical formulas again and with in the month, the angry red eczema welts cropped up on his cheeks and were worse than they had been on his brother. As if to taunt me with my breastfeeding failure they would crack open and bleed, and no solvent or balm I tried could get rid of them or make them less painful.

We got through the bottle months (this one too wound up on soy, for all the good it did), but my failure to learn to breastfeed was a constant regret. When my third child came along, we had the Internet. When I discovered message boards and online communities of parental support, it was simply amazing! There were so many people who could answer my questions, give me REAL advice and even listen to me complain when all I needed to do was blow off steam.

There were claps on the back when I was successful at something. There was understanding when I fucked something up. And I was able to offer advice that others found useful. I joined a mommy group, and we bonded so securely that we still talk to each other six years later - even though we've long since moved out of our old "Playroom". These women are my friends for life, even though we all make extremely different choices when it comes to how we raise our children.

There was SO much information was available to me now that I was able to find it's not so uncommon for babies to be allergic to infant formula (can we get a friggin warning label about that, please?), I was also able to look back on my past breastfeeding issues and see what went wrong. I wish I could say that I was successful nursing my third baby, but I was gun-shy (you bleed out of your milk ducts and judge me for that), and on top of that, I got horrendously sick shortly after I got home from the hospital and it just wasn't happening. I did everything I could to "relactate" and spent three months popping pills that my gyno gave me, ate oatmeal several times a day, and milked my boobs constantly (I learned with this baby that I'm unable to use a breastpump - something that probably would have salvaged my nursing relationship with my second child). Ultimately I threw in the towel again and cried for days about it.

I then had a fourth baby and with my past experience - but mainly with the support and advice of my online mommy community, FINALLY had the knowledge, confidence and support to breastfeed my daughter successfully for two years.

This online thing isn't perfect. People here can be incredibly rude. They say things to each other that they would never say in real life. Things can get hairy, as people scream at each other in ALL CAPS, embolden their text to emphasize strong emotions, they take things the wrong way or fail to read each others tone of voice. They unfriend each other from Facebook out of anger. They rip each other apart for not agreeing with each others choices. They stand up and shout. They use their online voice, a voice they didn't have until a decade ago.

So scream at each other. Make yourself heard! Stand up for what you believe in and be grateful when you do that you have the ability to do so. Honestly, I would much prefer all the fighting to stop. I wish people would stop and think for an hour at least before they post something nasty. I wish we would all be as reserved online as we are in person, or get up and walk away when we get too upset to play fair. But when I see all of these people arguing and bickering and "warring" with one another, I cannot suppress a tiny grin that ten years ago these people wouldn't know each other - they wouldn't know about each other. They wouldn't be standing up to argue or educate or speak softly and teach, because they had nowhere to stand.

America: A Great Big Horny Teenager

Last week, a friend of mine and fellow mama Dionna Ford announced to our collective local Attachment Parenting group that she and her family were being flown to NYC to do a photo-shoot for Time Magazine on Attachment Parenting. I was totally thrilled not only for her, but the fact that Time would want to do a piece on this. So for the past week, I have been keeping a watchful eye out, waiting to catch word when the images would be released for public viewing. As it turns out, I didn't need to keep a lookout, once the images went into circulation, it was like a time bomb went off!

I myself am very proud of Dionna and all of the women who were photographed. I love all of the pictures. But I am also very uneasy and upset about the way AP was being portrayed as an extreme form of parenting, that it was all about breastfeeding - especially past infancy, and that fathers were somehow kept out of the picture, not to mention the nasty insinuation that AP or breastfeeding mothers feel superior to those who feed formula. None of that is true from my perspective.

What really upset me though, as it always has, are the comments from people about breastfeeding and how gross/disgusting/inappropriate it is. There have been so many negative remarks, some claiming that they felt the image on the cover of Time was incestuous. One woman stated that she hopes the children are homeschooled (I presume to keep them away from the regular children). On Fox 4's poll, more than half of those who voted felt that Time went too far by putting such a scandalous picture on their cover. One person stated that breastfeeding is fine in public, so long as there are no children around to see it.

Here is what I find so disparaging about those remarks: These people seem to be unaware of the fact that breasts were made for children. Children, not men. That is their purpose, that is why we have them - to feed our young. Breasts were not made so that men can gawk at, touch, play with, suckle, or otherwise enjoy sexually. If they want to do that with them, fine - ok. But that is NOT their intended purpose. God, or Allah, Buddah, or The Powers That Be, or Nature, whatever your belief system tells you is responsible for us being here- created breasts for kids. To believe or claim that they exist for sexual pleasure implies that women who breastfeed are pedophiles. People think of breastfeeding as sick and gross and creepy, because they forget that breasts do not exist simply for men to enjoy.

This picture of a child holding an Oreo while nursing from his mothers breast is said to be from South Korea. It's actually an advertisement for Oreo Cookies. Images such as this are not uncommon in other places in the world, but in the United States a great many still find this image and others like it offensive. Women are legally allowed to breastfeed in public, under the stipulation that they do so as discreetly as possible. There are rooms in public facilities that women can closet themselves away to nurse. They are routinely asked to cover up or move to a more private location, or turn around and face the wall. When I first saw this image of the Oreo Cookie breastfeeding baby, I felt a pang of jealousy. Other countries are open about breastfeeding, why in America (who is largely considered to be a progressive culture), are we so scared of a breast performing it's duty?

We live in a country with a deeply repressed sexual history. We were founded by Quakers and Shakers and other religious groups who came here searching for religious freedom. Many of these groups reviled the female body as a place of sin, and considered sexual acts to be a perverse necessary evil. Up until the 1970's sexual revolution, sex was by and large, a deep taboo and women were taught that their normal biological processes were "dirty" and not be discussed, let alone indulged. My mother was born in the late 50's to a couple that were in their middle age. She told me many of the backwards beliefs her parents held to - like the fact that she was never even told about menstruation, because her mother couldn't bring herself to talk about it.

What does that have to do with breastfeeding and our squeamish attitudes when we see a child nursing? A few things come to my mind.
Firstly, I think we get a little carried away with our sexual freedom because it is so new to us as a culture. Kind of like a young person does when they first begin to explore forbidden realms. We have become, as a nation, a great big horny teenager. Sex is such a large part of our society now that we see it everywhere.


Secondly, I feel that many Americans have an unhealthy view of sex. Many abuse it, others continue to repress it, we constantly exploit it. Many still fear it.


Thirdly, and I think this is key, many women still don't know (or care) how their bodies really work because until very recently, we were not even allowed to ask or find out. Breastfeeding is a normal part of being a woman but it feels unnatural and off-putting to a culture who was brought up to disdain it. Incidentally, as breast cancer rates continue to rise in countries that primarily feed formula, it is no surprise that studies show a dramatically lower risk of breast cancer for women who breastfeed - and that rate continues to drop the longer she nurses her child.
The truth is, I don't really know how or why the breast became an over sexualized object to the point that so many people today seem confused about the fact that breasts are meant for children, not for sex. But I do think it has to do with our unhealthy attitudes towards sex and towards women's biological functions (which are currently under assault up in Washington).

What I do know is there is something really backwards about a society that readily accepts images of breasts in lingerie, but freaks out about a child breastfeeding the way he is meant to. Just some food for thought:

Yesterday, when this image of a breastfeeding child had all of Facebook and the rest of the country up in a tizzy...

This image of Lady Gaga also appeared in my newsfeed. It didn't make the evening news, nobody even batted an eye.

Time Photographer: Martin Schoeller
Gaga Photo: No idea
　

We Co-Habitate

It's called co-habitation.

When I first became a mother, I put a lot of emotional and mental stock into the cleanliness of my house. If anyone were to drop by when my house was ransacked, I would be so embarrassed that I wouldn't let them inside. When someone would drop by my house unexpectedly, I would feel relieved that I had cleaned it recently so they would go home thinking what a clean person I was.

There is a lot of pressure placed on us as adults (and by here, I mean women*) to keep our houses pristine. Millions of dollars are spent every year on marketing research by cleaning product manufacturers, to learn just how to tap into our insecurities enough to prompt us to buy their goods.

I used to get extremely upset if my children made a big mess, or got themselves filthy and I would simply go nuts if one of my kids intentionally trashed a room. As they got older, I had the expectation that they would learn to keep the house clean and if I yelled and punished enough, they would eventually become trained to pick up messes automatically.

I know, that sounds really crazy. And as any parent of an adolescent and teen will tell you, completely unrealistic! Most kids are lazy, that's the plain truth of it. You can argue that they are only as lazy you let them be, but I was making myself completely crazy trying to MAKE them not be.

I have finally realized something. Keeping my house clean - even though I am a home-maker - is not entirely my responsibility. There are some things that are, of course. I do scrub and clean the bathrooms weekly (or at least, I mean to), but I no longer get livid about the fact that on the weekends when my kids are home from school, the house gets messy. Really, really, messy. I fought it for years, and would feel just plain awful about it and pray nobody would come by. But then it hit me. I am co-habitating with five other people! And yes, they are all lazy! So why am I placing unrealistic expectation on myself, and assuming responsibilities for messes that I'm not even making?
Realizing this, I stopped taking the messes they made as reflection upon myself, or a show of disrespect. If someone drops by my home on a Sunday and finds my floors dirty, grime on the stove, and kids belongings shoved into corners or cast aside, I'm fine with that. If they want to nit-pick my presumed lack of cleaning skills, that's their problem. But I no longer make it mine.

Releasing this expectation on myself, I no longer pitch fits or become so very flustered when the house isn't completely tidy. Not only that, but this realization spawned right about the time I began to look at my children differently than I had before. I think in our society, we place so much emphasis on parental control, that when children act in undesirable ways, we blame the parents. Or as parents, we blame ourselves. This is not realizing that children are people in their own right. By taking responsibility away from children and placing it on the parents, we are not teaching them to be responsible at all.
You can see here, that I was being counter-productive. By assuming responsibility for my childrens behavior, I was not only putting too much expectation on myself and therefore trying to force them to behave the way I wanted, I was failing teach them that they are responsible for themselves.

I have since given up feeling like I have to control my children - not only the messes they make, but all of their behavior. Now that my two oldest are teenagers, I can look back and realize how little control I had over them in the first place. I have redirected my energy from trying to control, to teaching and guiding in a mutually respectful way. I am not only enjoying a much more peaceful household, but my children are so much more responsive to me now and take my requests (notice I do not say demands) without resentment... most of the time, they are still teenagers, after all! And I can relax on the weekends, let things be, rather than walk around like an angry shrew, bitching at every little mess I had to clean up.

　

*I say women, because men are not taught that cleanliness is an aspect of manliness. It is not only fully acceptable for men to be "dirty", it's practically expected. Cleaning commercials which depict or target men are incredibly rare, while women are taught from childhood that cleaning comes with the gender and they are expected to be good at it.