Mama Musings, February 2024
There's a genocide happening, WEIRD parenting, a break up, who are you in service to/with?
A new monthly post coming out around the 20th of each month- Mama Musings… cos I need to get some things off my chest :) Please like and share this post with another Mama who might appreciate it.
Also dang I need an editor! It seems no matter how long I wait between posts and re-read them before scheduling I always miss spelling and grammatical errors that I don’t catch UNTIL the post actually comes out to the subscribers… sigh…
BABIES ARE STILL BEING MURDERED
A UN piece titled “New evidence of unlawful Israeli attacks in Gaza causing mass civilian casualties amid real risk of genocide” and I can’t think about that line- "Amid real risk of Genocide” at what point is it an official genocide I wonder? Who gets to decide? I’ve been noticing for months now that there has been RADIO SILENCE from every single one of the feminist writer moms I follow here on Substack. As if the terror in Gaza is not somehow related to liberation here in the states? How white women collude white supremacy and have and have and will continue to do so b/c that’s how we have any power at all- by staying adjacent to the dominant/colonial thoughts.
But with the images coming from Palestine right now - how can any Mother keep quiet? I remember Mothers flooding my feed several years ago about the traumas at the US/Mexico border- children in cages (that terrorism hasn’t ended by the way- it just gets subsumed into the news-cycle for other stories- just like anti-black racism has never ended- if anything it’s getting worse in many ways home ownership is EVEN LOWER today than it was a decade ago… and yet those same Mothers aren’t flooding my feeds now.
While I made emails, signed petitions over the past few months, I’ve been silent online as well so here I am reminding myself, remind you…
How are things really going folks?
ARE YOU MY MOTHER?
During a recent shuffle-out-the-door-post-toddler gymnastics class, a little girl reached up and grabbed my hand. I held her hand for a brief 5 seconds before her Mother, wide eyed when she noticed me holding her daughters hand, exclaimed, "I’m your Mother!” I awkwardly laughed, and the little girl looked up, realized I was not in fact her biological Mother, and quickly shuffled over, reaching up her hand again, a move now so ingrained in her body to be second nature- reach up, feel a reassuring hand, know I am safe- and out they door we all went.
I told this story later to my therapist, and then at dinner time on the phone to my exhausted husband who had just spent the entire day removing siding from our two story home in the midlands of South Carolina. Both of them brought up how the little girl must have interpreted this exchange and we all shook our heads sadly.
There is a particular isolation that comes from knowing. There is also a particular isolation that comes from not knowing. Having seemed to have been born staunchly in the former, I confess that I regularly long to join the club of the not knowing/ the rosy colored glasses club, knowing full well I cannot join that club and I’ve never been in it. Sigh….
And that’s why the hand holding incident after gymnastics upset me so. It almost upset me as much as getting dumped recently from a man I’d been seeing for several months, who thinks being friends and having occasional lunch dates, runs the risk of making him fall for me too much, while he’s in the midst of possibly divorcing, and yet his wife has the liberty to gallivant around Europe with her lover… but ya know having lunch with me 1x a month and occasionally holding hands is WAY too much of a threat to…. I don’t know exactly what?
Both my therapist and my husband said they feel more sad for the little girl, for her Mom’s reaction tells more about the scenario- her latent fears probably born from a lifetime of white bread American family values- don’t talk to strangers (even though we have been going to this same Thursday morning class for almost a year), don’t trust your children’s bodily awareness and their innate sense of their surroundings. In Gavin DeBecker’s classic book, The Gift of Fear, he advises parents teach their young children that if/when they are separated/lost, to look for a Mother to help, because statistically speaking Mothers don’t commit violent crimes nearly as often as men. So in that moment I felt both invisibilized for the Mother I am (oh and since my teaching cert is still legit in WA and I subbed last year, I’m a mandated report and my fingerprints are up to date- i.e. run through the WA state patrol system to prove I’m not a criminal or pedophile) and angry that the status quo of individualized Mother/nuclear family is the God being prayed too in that moment.
In both these examples is a theme of Traditional American Family whereby children are owned by the parents, and the parents own one another. Or WEIRD parenting as in Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic- a parenting style where parents, devoid of community and decisions are not collective, stress over every single detail from what non-toxic water bottle to send their kid to lunch with to shoes to wear to extracurricular activities to how to budget for that $6,000 price tag for braces. In that world it makes sense so many of us are on edge all the time- in survival mode due to economic stresses, a time where fertility issues are on the rise, affordable housing is hard to come by and we have a deep lack of truly intimate co-committed mutually beneficially relationships to help us shoulder these burdens. Thus, outside forces, another Mother holding your child’s hand, a woman becoming your husband’s friend, as benign and actually beneficial to the health of the overall web of growing children and lonely adults as these things are, are being interpreted through these lenses of lack, isolation, and private property- of which marriage and modern day parenthood seem to re-enforce at every turn and mostly unconsciously. For as I’ve written before monogamy culture, reinforced since the inception of this country known as the United States by law and religion, is literally the water we swim in. Hard to see the sky while deep in the currents.
“Settler marriage with its compulsory monogamy, nuclear family and property obsessions, its couple-centricity, its respectability roleplay—is such a drag.”
- Dr. Kim TallBear
WHO ARE YOU IN SERVICE TO?
One of the ways I’ve come to understand my modern day iteration of animism is that I am in service and in relationship to/with many many beings. And by beings I mean not just my neighbors Cedar, Maple, Spruce, Cottonwood and Indian Plum for example but these days especially the domestic gods. The gods of Housework, Pregnancy, Potty Training, and when I’m lucky and have time/space- Writing- a god I’ve been in devotion/relationship with since I first dictated my stories to my mom and she wrote them down for me.
I’m writing this now while listening to Dr. Kim TallBear via my headphones and my daughter practices her flips on her indoor climbing gym and listens to Raffi’s "Best Of.” Due to sickness I’ve had ZERO childcare this week, which means I’ve had no breaks from my child until after she goes to sleep; at which point I am simply too tired to do anything other than read, watch TV or my recent weird zone out activity- watch make up tutorials on YouTube. I don’t think most people in my life quite get that since last August my husband has been in SC, meaning he’s missed most of this pregnancy. With two 3 week breaks. When my friend L. came to stay with us in December for a couple weeks while I recuperated from RSV that blossomed into a 6 week stint with bronchitis, on a daily basis I noted just WHAT A DIFFERENCE even one more capable adult in the house makes when you have children or elders to care for.
Some days it feels like I am more in service to the God of Isolation than I am to the God of Community. I have to remind myself constantly that so much of this has nothing to do with me- it has to do with county zoning regulations, car culture, white supremacy culture, and simply as David "Lucky” Goff, an elder I spent many hours in deep work with in a circle process called "community building work” once noted- "The economy depends upon our isolation.” He said this in Sebastopol, CA back in 2006 and it’s as true now as it was then.
LONELY MOTHERS CLUB
I’m starting a new club…
I put myself back in therapy this past Fall as an act of self-compassion and radical self-love b/c I KNOW MYSELF- going into the dark time, the isolation of semi-rural living and stay at home Motherhood, my MIL whose Parkinson’s is slowly but surely taking her life force energy alongside the gods of Age and Decay, my son schooling elsewhere, my husband working out of state, and of course this other great unpaid work I’m doing of growing yet another human!!! Trying to cobble together some kind of support as best I can.
As a low-income person I have state insurance- Apple Care they call it. I’ve had it for almost the entire time I’ve lived in WA. The actual provider is Molina. My son’s doctor told me a couple years ago that Molina is notorious for delayed payments and paying as low as possible. Thus, here in Whatcom County (and across WA), you are hard pressed to find quality providers outside of the main hospital system or large private clinics that take Molina. It’s often months to get in to see a healthcare provider. It’s a fucking issue especially glaring for mental health services.
During my volunteer work for Perinatal Support WA over the last year the average wait time for a low-income new Mom/parent to get in to see a qualified mental health professional was 6 weeks to 3 months- I’m sorry but when you are a freshly postpartum person dealing with extreme anxiety, suicidal ideation and the like- you need to see someone NOW! Regularly I would see posts from new therapists advertising openings in our closed FB group- on more than one occasion I’d head to their webpage which would be blazoned with cute icons depicting their allegiance to BLM (black lives matter) and/or the LGBTQIA- and yet they weren’t taking state insurance!
Which brings me to say that I have a new (since fall) therapist who takes my insurance. She also birthed her last child when she was 42 and her Mother had Parkinson’s. So I feel fortunate to have found a good fit, which is not easy to find. One thing she suggested to me was to start my own group for Moms and toddlers since it’s so hard to make friends as a stay at home mom.
Here’s the image I made and then posted to two FB local Mom groups… stay tuned to see how it goes.
CAN YOU KEEP YOUR HEART OPEN?
This has been one of my prayers lately…. how do I not stretch myself too thin, but also stretch myself to love more, be more patient and keep my heart open? I’m hard on myself and hard on my loved ones. We absolutely deserve better, and yet many people just don’t have the bandwidth or grief muscle to confront things in the way I wish they would… sigh… I’m sure someone would attribute this attribute of mine to an astrological placement.
My father in law is a second generation Norwegian who loves to wax nostalgic about the days of yore. He’s also a card carrying Republican and a fan of people like Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson. He’s been coming weekly to his one and only granddaughter’s gymnastics lessons, which he, generously is paying for this session. Thus, I’ve been seeing more of him lately than ever before.
If one of the Gods I believe needs to be tended is the God of Elder Care, then I am in it now in these small ways.
This morning the old codger surprised me by sending me this story from a local PBS affiliate. WA state once again showing up. My father in law has not once asked me about doula work, he rarely asks me anything about my life, preferring to talk about his own aging and ailments (of which there are many), but then thinks to forward me this story. That warmed my heart and reminded me of one of my favorite lines from an old birth preparation book I got years ago, Birthing From Within, "be grateful for every little mercy.”
HELL YES TO DE-GROWTH CANDIDATES FOR GOVERNOR!
Tell your WA state friends! Not only is this a presidential election year, we are up for a new governor in WA this year. The current democratic darling is rumored to be head of the DNR (Department of Natural Resources) who has been slowly but surely working to eradicate all vestiges of old forests in here but a quick internet search just confirmed she withdrew her bid for governor now setting her sights on congress.
Chaytan Inman has my vote.
Check out his campaign here and listen to this in-depth interview with him here and his desire to enshrine the rights of nature.
TRY A LITTLE TENDERNESS
In closing - feast your eye upon this image of immense tenderness and solidarity by Palestinian men as they rescue children from rubble. It’s blurry from being a screen shot from an Instagram story I found from Midwife Robina Khalid’s stories from months ago. I honestly can’t imagine men here in the US, especially white men acting this way.
This image breaks my heart in so many ways.
Don’t turn away.
