Jennifer Lambert

A Sacred Balance

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Confidence

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Years ago, I was searching and wondering if I was on the right path.

My kids were very young. I felt worthless, exhausted, and mostly a failure in all aspects of my life.

I went to university to become an English teacher. I sailed through a master’s in education, then got a job teaching high school English. I was able to teach two semesters of college writing as an adjunct and it was a dream that shattered when we had to move out of state. I never returned for that coveted Ph.D.

I left the world of academia to be a stay at home mom, homeschooling my four kids. To many, I was considered a failure.

I grew up in a time that mere mothers were ridiculed (and I think they still are). The Supermom had to do it all – career, marriage, family, extensive social engagements, church, charity.

It’s too much.

It seemed like so many women had it all together, seemed at peace with their place in life, had a successful life doing whatever they were called to do.

I struggle. I feel like I am fighting something or someone all the time.

It took me many years to figure out my priorities as a parent and homeschool mom. I still have moments, days, weeks, seasons of doubt.

When we first began homeschooling, I made so many mistakes. I didn’t know really how to begin. I looked to other homeschool moms who had perhaps been homeschooled themselves or who had older kids and had been homeschooling them for years.

I questioned everything. I questioned my abilities as a mother and teacher. Even though I had gone to college for education and earned an M.Ed., I didn’t feel confident teaching my own kids for a very long time.

Some wives and mothers I knew who did not homeschool felt the need to speak up about how they thought it should be done. And many homeschool parents criticized me for not doing it their way.

I was criticized for answering the phone during the day or running errands with or without kids in tow. I was told to just get a nanny for the babies so I could be social. Or that I should do more for the kids and less for myself, that I was selfish to want any time or self care.

I’ve been criticized for attending church, not attending church, reading the wrong books or watching the wrong media.

Eyebrows raised over what I did and didn’t let my kids do.

So I’ve been told my entire life that I am just wrong. After so long of being told all these things, I started to believe it. And it wore me down and I got depressed and anxious. Then they want to throw pills at me and tell me it’s all my fault anyway, something wrong with my brain chemistry.

I worried about fitting in with the moms who seemed to have it all together. They look like magazine models and their kids seem perfect and their husbands and parents are proud and doting. Theses moms have lots of friends and social engagements, but somehow seem never rushed or stressed. How did they do it? Why did they do it? It was like Stepford and did I really want to be like that?

Would I ever get to that point of confidence?

After a women’s conference years ago, I met up with a group having breakfast at the airport before flights. I asked a very well-known Christian homeschool mom, author, and speaker if we ever get to that point of…

And she cut me off with an emphatic “NO!”

I was shook at her attitude, her rudeness, her anxiety. This lady is supposed to be a mentor to other wives and moms? Her curated perfection on social media, in her speaking engagements, and in her books seem all lies compared to her real self shown to us in that airport.

Almost ten years later, I want to understand where she was coming from, but I’m not even sure what she meant. That we are always a work in progress? But her delivery overshadowed any lesson she was trying to impart.

Some of the most self-conscious, cynical people I’ve met are self-professed Christians.

Forget about your life situation for a while and pay attention to your life. Your life situation exists in time—your life is now.

Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

Confidence means many things to different people.

To me, confidence means becoming unashamedly more of myself.

I’ve been told that I appear confident. But they mean intimidating.

Why is it that confident women are considered brash, angry, hostile, arrogant, aggressive?

I am quiet. I am not shy. I am introverted. I do not have social anxiety. I think carefully before I speak. I observe.

I have felt a vast shift since I hit my 40s.

I am less concerned about what people think of me – my appearance, my parenting style, my kids’ dyed hair.

This summer, I bought new clothes that I never felt I could wear before: shorts, sleeveless tops. I am not ashamed of my thighs and arms. I spent most of my youth desperate for my body to change and when it never really did get curvy, I was so disappointed. I’ve never had a flat tummy or a big chest and that combo is unfortunate in our society and both women and men humiliated me for not looking like they thought I should. I’ve had so many ask if I’m pregnant because I’m thin all over but with this round soft tummy. I will never look like a magazine model and that’s ok.

I know that I am not stupid. I am not uneducated, but I still have so much to learn and I try to be humble and not insert myself where I am not wanted or needed. I trust my intuition more now. I made lots of mistakes with my kids and I am making amends now. I am ending generational trauma and healing my own self. I love seeing my kids become who they are meant to be – dyed hair, piercings, tattoos, unique clothing, whatever.

I wasn’t allowed to express myself and it’s good to see my kids live free.

I’m remembering who I am, who I was when I was a little girl, before I got stifled, and I feel more safety to express myself now.

I have long straight mousy blonde hair. I even have a few silver streaks. I’m tired of going to salons where they want to make me look like everyone else. I’d rather have dirty tomato-scented fingernails than have a manicure. I have stretch marks, forehead furrows, a vertical line between my brows, and an indention on the left corner of my mouth. I earned these marks. Why would I want to erase them with Botox?

My first three decades or so brought much anxiety with doubting myself and my circumstances with education debt, job security, marriage failures, pregnancy and motherhood.

I’m tired of the comparison trap. I don’t subscribe to shopping emails or newsletters. I loathe the social media ads. I don’t care about the blogger or influencer recommendations as much as I used to. I see the hot trends that everyone “has to have” and I just don’t really need any of it. I am more confident in myself and my style and personal needs. I actually really hate shopping.

When you do not know who you are, you push all enlightenment off into a possible future reward and punishment system, within which hardly anyone wins.

Richard Rohr, Falling Upward

I do long for more than this mediocre suburban life and maybe I will find it someday.

I do get depressed by events happening in the world and by mean people who only care about themselves.

I’ve streamlined and minimized our life. I am prioritizing rest.

We homeschool based on interests and annual rhythms. I refuse to rush or stress over things I can’t control.

I’m excited by what the next few decades may bring.

I don’t have all the answers and I usually don’t even know what the questions are.

And that’s ok.

As we move into the second half of life, however, we are very often at odds with our natural family and the “dominant consciousness” of our cultures.

Richard Rohr, Falling Upward

Resources:

What does confidence mean to you?

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Tired

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My daughters were 7, 2, and newborn.

We had just completed a transcontinental move from Texas to Hawaii.

I was recovering from a Caesarean section.

We had one car.

We moved into our house on base to find out lots of broken and stolen items from the Texas packers.

My husband began his new job.

I was homeschooling my eldest child.

I couldn’t find any friends with whom I felt actually comfortable.

I was so tired ALL.THE.TIME.

Then the pastor’s wife at our new church came to visit me at our home.

I was grateful that it was naptime for my younger girls and I had my eldest read and play quietly in her room.

I had set out fresh baked sugar cookies and lemonade. Because I was raised always to serve food to guests.

After the pastor’s wife shoved our friendly cat off the sofa, shamed me for my daughter not having made the cookies from scratch, she proceeded to tell me that I was doing everything in my life wrong, wrong, wrong.

I’m not sure what I expected her to do or say, but that wasn’t it.

I was so stressed. I was anxious. I was depressed. I was cooped up in a house with three young children all day every day, homeschooling, nursing, making food, doing laundry, cleaning, barely surviving. Still in recovery from major surgery of a C-section, never resting.

Why couldn’t I lost weight and look like I did before the pregnancies?

My house was spotless. Meals were on time. Chores were completed every day. Homeschool checklists were checked.

I ran a tight ship. I was very efficient.

The visit from the pastor’s wife was the equivalent of telling me just to “calm down and smile more.”

The pastor’s wife didn’t even quote any Bible verses at me.

Surely, I was the epitome of the Proverbs 31 woman?

The pastor’s wife’s visit only made me feel worse.

I felt like I was drowning.

I went to a medical doctor for a physical later that month.

He prescribed lots of mineral supplements, light exercise, and a Paleo diet – before that was even a thing.

Within a few weeks, I felt loads better physically.

But I was still exhausted mentally.

The mental load of a mother is tremendous.

Why is it so hard to make sure everyone in a family of six has good shoes that fit? Why must I remind everyone every day to brush their teeth? Why must I keep track of the family calendar? Why must I purchase all the presents for every single holiday? Why must I do all the research for every little thing?

Life was just hard with young children. I felt isolated with so many neighbors putting their kids in school so they could socialize with each other during the days. They made me feel outcast since I was homeschooling and keeping my kids close at home, with me. These moms made me question my values.

I reevaluated what I needed to do and wanted to do.

I had to focus and let some things slide.

Medication for anxiety and depression actually made me feel worse. I don’t allow myself to be a guinea pig and try lots of new meds or dosages. I just stopped the rx meds and managed my lifestyle and made lots of changes.

But even doing all the “right” things – exercise, getting fresh air and sunshine, eating well, meditating, reducing stress…the depression is still there. But if I don’t do those “right” things? The depression rears up like the monster it is.

Parenting with depression is really hard. There are some really bleak days.

But there are lovely days too.

We’ve moved so many times, starting over in new places, all hopeful – to have those hopes dashed for various reasons.

As my four kids are growing up and becoming more independent, many things become easier and other things become more difficult.

We’re now busy with sports and extracurriculars. I’m sad that most of these classes and practices are right in the middle of dinnertime.

I’m disappointed by so many people just assuming we are like average, mainstream white Americans.

We homeschool, but not like that. We don’t go to church, but we are spiritual. We don’t like guns. We are trying to be not consumerist. We are actively anti-racist. We seldom eat fast food – or out at all. I don’t work outside our home.

It’s really hard to fit in with families who all have known each other for generations.

I don’t have any family. And I’ve never had any friends.

While I happen to be alone, I constantly try to teach my kids how to have healthy relationships. I don’t want them to be friendless or awkward or anxious. I want them to recognize dysfunction and abuse. I want them to be open and friendly. I’m learning along with my kids how to have healthy emotions.

I feel dismissed when I meet new people. I say and do all the right things and I am begging to be liked but tryin not to fawn. I see in their eyes that I don’t have anything to offer them and they smile with only their lips and say, “Nice to meet you.” but turn away to talk to their friends.

It’s like high school all over again. They have no need to make room for me. They don’t make room for me.

I am more than a stereotype. And I’m sure many of these parents I see are too…but how would I know?

I’m still tired.

I’m still isolated.

I’m not unhealthy tired, physically.

My heart and soul are tired.

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Raised Better

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I remember being spanked, backhanded, pushed, yelled at, belittled, called “stupid” and “worthless.” I was told to stop crying or I would be given something to cry about. Nothing I ever did was good enough.

I was not a bad kid. I got good grades. I seldom got in trouble at school. I did home chores, anything I was asked to do. I helped with cleaning and cooking and yard work.

All grown-ups were once children…but only few of them remember it.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

My parents stole so many wonderful memories from me that I longed to happily share with them – moving out in a healthy way, graduating college and grad school, having my first baby.

I did my best to drag myself out of the pit I made. I struggled. I learned. I grew.

What if I had been raised better?

What if I had been protected, loved, cherished, validated?

I can reparent myself as I learn how to gently parent my four children. I can repair and heal myself as I learn better ways.

I’ve spent over twenty years stressed and anxious about my four kids.

I have running commentary inside my head all the time:

Am I doing this right? Am I doing enough? Should I back off? Should I do this? Should we stop that? What can I do differently? What is working or not?

And I have so many regrets about doing the wrong things when I was a younger and more inexperienced parent.

What are my expectations and are they about my ego or what’s best for my child?

We sometimes struggled to give our kids the life we didn’t have. We have no guidance or role models.

When children are little, parents do have to make (sometimes hard) decisions for the child. I try to include my kids and respect them, but sometimes I have to override their wishes to make the best choice for their well-being.

Children naturally trust parents and are attached to them as caregivers. They have little choice, so it’s very important that I do the best I can and treat them well and respectfully. I want my children to grow up healthy in mind, body, and spirit. Better than I was.

I made sure we enrolled the kids in recreational sports, dance, gymnastics, music, art – whatever was available and they expressed interest in. The kids often shared my enthusiasm and we were careful not to pressure them. If they expressed they wanted to move on or update their interests, we welcomed their input and made necessary changes.

As my kids grow into teens and young adults, they sometimes express themselves to me and their dad in ways that hurt. I try really hard not to be triggered or take it personally. I try to listen and understand. I cry alone, in secret. I don’t want my kids to feel guilty or wrong for telling me their thoughts, wishes, dreams, feelings. I want them to feel safe to tell me anything. I don’t want to put pressure on my children to rescue me.

I worry constantly if I’m saying or doing something like my parents did to me.

I have to update my expectations often as I continually remind myself and realize that my children are individuals with their own lives to lead. Parents surely have dreams for their children, but we can’t and shouldn’t impose that or try to live vicariously through our kids.

I have spent over twenty years meeting physical needs and trying my best to guide my children into being healthy adults – mentally, emotionally, psychologically.

If the consequences of my child’s action or inaction does not affect me, then I must force myself to back off.

My kids this spring are 11, 14, 15, and my eldest will be 21 this fall.

I have imparted my values to them. I guide them and answer questions. I try to be proactive. I tell them what my experiences were in similar situations.

I can only be as concerned as my child.

My child’s grades do not affect me.

My child’s hair, skin, makeup, clothing is their personal choice.

My child’s possessions are their responsibility and I cannot dictate how they treat their possessions.

It is not up to me how my child spends her money (whether money is earned or a gift).

My child’s choice to quit or postpone college is not about me.

My child’s car (after age 18) is her responsibility for maintenance, insurance, gas, repairs.

My child’s choice to move into an apartment is not my fault nor can I control anything about it.

My adult child’s food choices are not my concern unless they become disordered or extreme.

My child’s tax return is her responsibility to gather paperwork and to file.

It is not my job to say “should.”

It is not my job to offer unsolicited advice.

It is my concern to help my child manage her personal hygiene and keep her room relatively clean and neat for physical and mental health and to learn executive function.

My child’s health is my concern. No matter her age. I worry about physical, mental, and dental health. I worry that my adult child has to buy her own health insurance this fall. I worry about some of her personal choices that could pose problems later. I worry that I will want or have to rescue her from herself.

While I will, of course, rescue my child in an emergency (in most cases), it is not my duty to be anxious that she makes different choices than I did or would in her circumstances.

I do intervene when a child’s mistake, words, physical abuse, action, or inaction affects her siblings or others. It is often difficult to parent a child who doesn’t react to natural consequences or is constantly flippant, expecting the problems to just go away on their own. Lack of empathy and refusal to make amends is not ok.

It’s been hard having a child who laughs at consequences and no punishment matters.

Parents are still constantly learning.

I am so glad I am out of the baby, toddler, and young child stages. I love having older kids and teens. Conversations are lively and exciting. I love seeing my kids still act like kids and wanting to be together and show affection to each other.

Look at how much love and joy comes from just letting people be who they are.

Dan Levy

Linking up: Pam’s Party, Random Musings, Mostly Blogging, Anita Ojeda, April Harris, Marilyn’s Treats, Uncommon Suburbia, InstaEncouragements, LouLou Girls, Jeanne Takenaka, Grammy’s Grid, Our Three Peas, Grandma’s Ideas, Soaring with Him, Anchored Abode, Ridge Haven, Ginger Snap, Fluster Buster, Girlish Whims, Ducks in a Row, Katherine’s Corner, Penny’s Passion, Crystal Storms, Debbie Kitterman, Slices of Life, Answer is Choco, Momfessionals, Simply Sweet Home, Embracing Unexpected, OMHG, CWJ, Create with Joy,

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I am not insignificant

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I’m in my mid-40s and I still fight my inner thoughts that tell me I am worthless, unimportant, insignificant.

It doesn’t help that my parents still remind me, if not so much in the words they used to use during my childhood and youth, but in their action, inaction, criticism of myself and family, my parenting choices and lifestyle. They mostly just ignore me and my children. They’re uninterested in what we do. I don’t bother to share our triumphs with them. I rarely call them and when they call me, it’s only to list their medical appointments and complain about everything.

As an only child, I didn’t know anything different than my life with my dysfunctional parents. Since I wasn’t sexually molested or physically beaten, I didn’t realize I was being abused verbally, emotionally, and psychologically. I think many of us just wave away abuse and think others have it so much worse.

I often didn’t eat lunch at school. I remember sitting at the dinner table many nights, refusing to eat. I had frequent migraines for many years. I remember having painful digestive issues. I don’t have many memories of my mother comforting me or caring for me when I was sick or not feeling well. I remember my father with cold, wet washcloths and massaging my eyebrows.

I felt like a burden whenever I was sick, like I was inconveniencing my parents.

I struggled to make friends at school. I struggled with school, but I managed to make good enough grades and stay out of trouble for the most part.

I didn’t know other families were happy, loving, accepting while mine was demeaning, humiliating, intolerant.

Kids can’t be expected to recognize dismissal, emotional neglect, narcissism. I just learned to cope and avoid and cater to my parents’ sporadic moods. I woke up every single morning with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, worried what tantrums my parents might have that day and over what minor inconvenience or misspoken word by me.

I had a lot of freedom as a kid in the 1980s.

But it was mostly neglect.

I had no escape, no safe spaces.

We didn’t attend church. I mostly felt lost and alone at school. I was sent outside to play if I was home.

After school and during summers, I ran the neighborhood, often having lunch at a friend’s house and not coming home until the street lights came on.

My dad traveled a lot and it was more peaceful when he was gone. I wasn’t allowed to have friends over if he was home. I didn’t know this was unusual. I always accepted an invitation to a friend’s house to get away from my own home.

I avoided most of my friends’ parents while also silently begging for attention. They probably thought I was weird. I feared all adults, all authority.

My jack o’lantern was always smashed in the street on Halloween. The yard was often TP’ed and the house and mailbox egged. I didn’t know what this meant, but I realized much later that my dad was hated in the neighborhood for years for his outspoken intolerance and criticism. My parents didn’t have any friends.

My bedroom door didn’t close; the hinges were warped. I wasn’t allowed privacy. Closing the bathroom door never mattered; my parents would walk in without knocking.

I was encouraged to try many activities, but they never lasted long. I longed to do ballet and learn piano, but it never happened. Ballet lessons were “too expensive.” We had an old, out-of-tune organ and I got lessons for a few months when I was in fourth grade, but it was hard to practice. They wouldn’t pay to tune the organ or get me a piano keyboard. I didn’t know there were recreational sports, but I’m sure it was also too expensive.

I was a cheerleader in eighth grade and I can’t remember a single game where my parents attended to watch me cheer. They didn’t even pick me up from games. I had to bum rides from other parents to Pizza Hut and my parents would pick me up there. It was embarrassing to be the only kid without parents.

I tried basketball and tennis in school but I felt very out of place and didn’t know all the rules of the games.

I wasn’t allowed to take art in high school except for one semester as an elective. It was a tiny victory.

When I became a teenager and expected to do teenager things, my dad criticized me for wanting to hang out with friends or date. He acted jealous and irrational. I had no privacy. There was no trust. I’m surprised he got me a car – a 1974 VW Bug for $650. I’m surprised he let me have a part-time job and keep all my money. I had to lie and deceive just to go meet a friend at a store or restaurant or the library. He acted jealous I wanted to have other relationships.

I was never a bad kid. I was too scared to ever really do anything. I was always home on time, but I was yelled at if I was even one minute late. There was never any grace.

It hit me hard the other day that my parents told me I was unlovable and made me break up with my boyfriend when I was about eighteen. He was a lovely boy and his family were great. They loved me. They were kind and good to me.

Who knows where it could have gone if it had been allowed to progress naturally? Would we have grown apart during college? Would we have grown together? I will never know.

My parent’s selfishness and unwillingness to relinquish control broke both me and him. I never got to apologize to him. I found him on social media and he’s divorced with a couple kids and remarried. I won’t contact him to dredge up anything because why should I now, so many years later. It would be selfish of me. None of it was his fault.

My parents also gaslighted me after my suicide attempt when I was 21, that I was just being used by the man I was seeing. Again, they told me I was unlovable and stupid to put myself in this vulnerable position where they continued to control me.

My parents found therapists and doctors to tell them what great parents they were and how childish I was. I hadn’t reached individuation. I had no autonomy. I mean, really? I was 21, being treated like a 12-year-old.

A child that’s being abused by its parents doesn’t stop loving its parents, it stops loving itself.

Shahida Arabi, Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself

I was weak and hurt and fragile. I felt trapped.

This pushed me over the edge to run away and marry him.

I regret this, but it is what it is. What if I had been stronger? What if I’d had any support from anyone?

After I ran away, my parents found another therapist to tell them what a bad daughter I was – selfish and childish and ungrateful.

But I wasn’t a bad daughter. I was a desperate daughter, seeking connection.

My parents love to remind me all they did for me. They bought me clothes and kept the groceries stocked and paid for the house we lived in.

They provided for my basic needs.

They bought cars and paid for the insurance until I ran away. I never really asked for or wanted the cars that they traded in every couple years. It was like a weird game for them. They claimed newer cars were safer. Obviously I needed a way to get to school and work and I appreciated not having the bills.

They paid for my divorce. My parents co-signed for my apartment. Then my father co-signed on my home mortgage.

But, they never paid for my education. I did that with scholarships for my bachelor’s and a loan for my master’s. They maybe paid some tuition when I dual enrolled as a high school senior and paid for some books and admin fees.

Oh, how they love to remind me about every little thing.

Everything had strings attached.

They don’t value emotions or struggles or triumphs.

They refuse to discuss anything they don’t like.

Moving away was probably the best thing I ever did.

I had panic attacks the first two years. Then I spent a few years trying on personae to see who I liked. I didn’t know who I wanted to be. I couldn’t remember what I had ever liked.

It took many years to learn how to be myself. Sometimes I still forget.

Yes, I have been to various therapists. Yes, I have tried various medications for depression and anxiety. It’s been a long, hard road – to nowhere.

I am healing myself.

My parents have never expressed interest in maintaining contact with me or my children via snail mail, social media, or any communication technology. They just don’t want to. They sometimes complain that my emails go to their spam folder, but I don’t understand how that would happen.

My parents only visited us a few times times during all these sixteen years. They always stayed in hotels, which is a small blessing.

My parents drove out to San Antonio, Texas, twice, for the births of my middle girls. They were no help to us during that time. I had to entertain them and go out to dinner with them – all sooner than I should have left the house.

They flew to Hawaii for a vacation during December – the rainiest dreariest month. My father was sick almost the whole time and the plane ride for hard for him.

He couldn’t be bothered to come back out for the birth of my son a year later. My mother came alone and it was stressful. I had to rely on her for help. After all, wasn’t that why she was there? She was cruel to my daughters and I was unavailable and didn’t know until after she had flown home.

Then they visited me and the kids in Utah while my husband was deployed. My kids’ schedules were greatly disrupted and my parents wanted me to cater to their needs – to the detriment of my children. They got mad at me and left early, then sent me hate mail about what a bad mother I am and such a disrespectful daughter.

They never visited us while we lived in Germany.

We stayed with my parents before PCSing to Germany and when we PCSed back to The States. It was stressful. My dad had tantrums and left for an entire day, disappointing my son. Promises were not kept with my eldest. Everything was performance-based and we were all so confused.

They came up to Ohio for Christmas when my husband was deployed the second time. It was mostly ok. They stayed at a hotel and my kids are older and busier and less bothered by them.

They surprised my husband by driving up for his promotion ceremony in spring. They adore my husband.

Over the years, my relationship with my parents is superficial at best.

I reply to their emails every day or two. If I don’t email every day, I get criticized for not caring. They use Yahoo email like the rest of us use Messenger and they think my replies should be instant. My dad still has an ancient cell phone that only makes and receives calls. My mom got a newer Android phone but she doesn’t really know how to use it.

It’s been a lot. I’ve spent years trying to heal myself and this generational trauma.

I’ve struggled to make healthy relationships with others all my life. I worry my kids don’t know how to make and keep friends because they don’t see me or their father succeed in this. I feel alone and lost.

My parents have ignored me since January 6 and I really don’t know why this time.

They periodically do this and I always contacted them to apologize – for nothing, anything, just to make amends to whatever imagined ill they felt I inflicted.

Perhaps they’re mad that I voted differently and have different political views. My father emailed my husband, telling him he bought a gun and carry license.

I carry all this heaviness around with me all the time. My kids and husband don’t have these weights. They will never understand.

I am not insignificant.

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Linking up: Random Musings, April Harris, Little Cottage, Marilyn’s Treats, Mostly Blogging, InstaEncouragements, Lou Lou Girls, Create with Joy, Our Three Peas, Grandma’s Ideas, Anchored Abode, Soaring with Him, Ridge Haven, Ducks in a Row, Girlish Whims, Fluster Buster, Debbie Kitterman, Slices of Life, Grammy’s Grid, Imparting Grace, Penny’s Passion, Crystal Storms, Katherine’s Corner, Ginger Snap Crafts, OMHG, Answer is Choco, Wordsmith, Momfessionals, Pieced Pastimes, CWJ, Try it Like it, Embracing Unexpected, Anita Ojeda,

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Red Flags

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It’s important for me to teach my kids about red flags in relationships.

I didn’t have anyone guide me in healthy relationships when I was a teen or young adult and I found myself in toxic patterns.

We seldom see the red flags while we’re walking past them or living with them.

We want to ignore the red flags. We’ve been taught to only see the best in people. We’ve been taught to be polite and compliant.

I realize there were so many red flags in my previous relationships that I should’ve seen, that maybe my parents and friends should’ve said, “Hey! This isn’t ok!” but they didn’t. Even when I knew I wasn’t healthy enough to protect myself and relied on them for help. They didn’t vet my relationships well. They didn’t see it either or didn’t care.

I was deceived about so many things. I had no power to discern the truth.

I was so naive. I was so gullible.

Big Red Flags

Communication

He made fun of me, belittling me, humiliating, shaming. I took it because he was “older and wiser” and I just thought I surely must really be dumb.

He was often distant. He monopolized conversation. It was always about him. He didn’t want to hear my stories. He didn’t want to know what I did at work that day. He only wanted to talk about himself.

As an introvert, I’m a great listener. This wasn’t a red flag at all for me. I loved learning about his past and hearing the stories that were important to him.

But I failed to realize that I wasn’t important to him.

Trust

I want to be trusting. I want to believe the best. I’m still devastated that people will lie and deceive.

Years later, I’m still realizing how he lied to me and about the stupidest things. Things that shouldn’t have really mattered.

He lied about dealing drugs. He lied about stopping the dealing. The gallon bag in the hall closet was not full of catnip.

He left me at a party with his friends. I wasn’t that comfortable with his friends. I didn’t know what to say or do around them. I had to wait hours to get a ride home.

After the separation and divorce, he lied about my daughter. I was a puddle of emotions every weekend she visited him. I wondered who she stayed with, what she ate, where she slept. I asked why she returned with infected bug bites all over her legs and the worst diaper rash anyone had ever seen in history of diaper rashes. He had no good answers. She stayed with his father, his niece, his girlfriend. He had to work and he wasn’t that involved or interested.

And I just recently found out (eighteen years later!) he plotted to start a custody battle. But he never paid the child support or the credit card that the court mandated.

His narrative to his family and friends about the divorce are vastly different than the truth.

Abuse

He was addicted to porn. He made fun of me. He didn’t like my lack of experience. He said no one had every criticized him in bed. He didn’t like the way I looked. He didn’t like where I had hair. He wanted me to look fake and plastic like the porn models.

So many red flags before he ever hit me.

Then I really believed I deserved that first time. I calmly patched the hole in the wall of our rental house and fixed the windowpane.

The second time he hit me, I left. I didn’t want my daughter witnessing that.

He was furious with me for being so hands off while our daughter toddled around, learning to walk. She stumbled and bumped her head on the coffee table and he lost it.

Earlier that day, he had been talking about wanting another baby. I was barely hanging on financially. We had just bought a house near his parents. I was commuting to work about an hour each way. He made about $10/hour, developing photo film.

His family is Pentecostal evangelical. This was the first taste of any real religion or church I had. It all but broke me. They didn’t like questions. They didn’t like women being intelligent or leaders. It was hard and I tried to conform to what they wanted. I thought it must be right and good. I never could live up to their standards. We got married because his church said it was sin to live together.

I don’t even remember what my wedding ring looked like. I do remember picking out one together at a shop, but he lapsed on the layaway, so I didn’t get that one. He wore a borrowed, too big suit to our small wedding in their warehouse church. The “reception” was at his parents’ house. I remember cubing cheese in the kitchen and there wasn’t enough food to go around. My father didn’t go at all. My mother attended the wedding and went home. There was only one night in a local hotel I was comped as a kickback from work. Nothing was idyllic. Nothing was looked back on as charming. It was sad and devastating and embarrassing.

I can’t remember him ever giving me gifts. I remember maxing out the Best Buy credit card for electronics for him. I remember explaining and then arguing that the bank card was attached to our joint account and if he blew money on cigarettes and soda, I didn’t have enough for gas to work or monthly bills.

I was criticized by his family for negotiating the purchase of vehicles from his cousin, who worked as a local Chevy salesman. I was encouraged to use that dealer because that’s where his whole family went. I also went to another dealer just to check pricing and loan info. I was able to get a better deal than from his cousin. They accused me of disloyalty to their family. I still find it ironic that they thought it was better to pay more for loyalty.

I should have seen and reacted to the red flags sooner. Hindsight is always 20/20.

It takes a long time, years…to heal from abuse. Trauma reactions continue with my current relationships. I try to recognize where my triggers occur and deal with that so I don’t confuse my husband and children. It’s never about them.

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Grieving Family Who Are Still Alive

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We don’t have any family nearby or any relationship with any family really anyway.

When my daughter and I told our therapists about my parents and the in-laws, they were just like, “Well, that’s a clusterf*ck.”

I really needed the affirmation that it’s not me. I needed an outsider to tell me that I tried really hard to develop a relationship and was met at every turn with negativity, disdain, ridicule. I needed a third party to tell my my parents aren’t the nicest people and that I’m not a bad child.

I’ve always felt out of place – at home, at school, with my own aunts and uncles and cousins, with people whom I thought were my friends over the years and at various places where we’ve lived.

May all that is unforgiven in you Be released. May your fears yield Their deepest tranquillities. May all that is unlived in you Blossom into a future Graced with love.

John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us

It was nothing new to me to feel a little awkward around my new family. I just tried harder. and more.

I don’t have any good role models for healthy relationships. I am winging it and reparenting myself and doing my best to raise four healthy children without trauma.

We live in a generation that is highly skilled at allowing connections to fade away. Because of social media and cell phones, we think people are replaceable, and that’s silly. You cannot replace the energy of someone who is genuine especially if they’re putting the consistent effort out, to be in your life. Appreciate them, cherish them, those people are gold.

Sylvester Mcnutt

Grieving Family

My husband’s parents passed away the first year we married.

I know it’s really hard for him even still, probably forever. I never had time to build a relationship at all.

While most newlyweds stress over which holidays to spend with which inlaws, I never got to have that delight. We’ve never had the ability to travel over the holidays to visit my parents in Georgia or Aaron’s two sisters in Illinois after his mom passed.

Neither my husband nor I really know our cousins or extended family.

I am the youngest grandchild and many of my aunts, uncles, and older cousins have been passing away frequently the last few years.

We moved to Texas our second year of marriage and I tried really hard to develop a relationship with his paternal uncle living there – which was my husband’s entire reason for wanting to move there. A relationship just never developed after two years. We had dinner a couple times and that was about the extent of it. We were just never accepted. It doesn’t help that he raves about the two sisters and their kids online and travels annually to Illinois to visit them and extending family. He just completely ignores us.

Grieving Sisters

I tried and tried and tried to develop a relationship with my husband’s two sisters but it has always been a failure.

They don’t want me.

As an only child, I am equally devastated and indifferent.

I didn’t see them from our second year of marriage at his mom’s funeral until about four years later.

I flew from Utah to Chicago for his youngest sister’s outdoor July wedding with four children, alone, while my husband was deployed. At the time I felt honored my middle girls were requested to be flower girls. My son was barely a year old and spent too much time with babysitters who were strangers to us. My eldest daughter (from a previous relationship) was asked to be an usher until I pitched a minor fit for her to be a junior bridesmaid like the other sister’s daughter. The uncle was even rude to me at the wedding and reception, seriously?

I was picked up from the airport by the middle sister and put my son in a filthy borrowed carseat. She took us to her house and fed my kids eggs and ramen. I was stressed and exhausted and I felt like a burden the entire week as I tried to compensate by cooking every meal for 9 people, cleaning, doing laundry, buying presents. I even disposed of a rodent family in her basement and cleaned up cat pee when the cat freaked out with all the air mattresses my kids were using in her territory.

That might have been the beginning of the end for me.

They drove down to visit us our last summer in Utah before we even knew we were moving to Europe. It was stressful. I felt like an entertainer, cook, tour director. We were constantly on the move since it was their vacation. Nothing I did seemed good enough and I was exhausted.

They haven’t visited us since we moved to Ohio. They couldn’t fit us in their schedule between sports tournaments that they traveled to/from on the road right near us.

I had to stop following my husband’s sisters, brothers-in-law, cousins, and uncle because their entire social media is softball, baseball, sports, kitschy crafts, home remodeling, and how great their friends and family are – except me and my children.

They’ve told my husband to tell me to quit writing and posting online about homeschooling since they feel it’s a kick in the teeth to them, as public school teachers. As if I didn’t teach in various school environments for ten years before committing to homeschooling. I’ve examined my posts and my heart and I’ve tried to be kind, welcoming, open, forgiving over and over again. I realize many families have vast differences and I want to accept and learn from those differences. I have a voice and I will use it.

For a long time, I just told myself it’s because we didn’t get a lot of time to get to know one another before I married Aaron and we move frequently with the military. I want to understand they’re closer to each other than they can ever be to me and my kids. But it’s becoming obvious that I’m not wanted nor welcomed.

I stressed for ten or so years to send the perfect thoughtful presents of equal value to my husband’s middle sister’s three kids at Christmas and birthdays while receiving handmedowns that I wouldn’t even donate to thrift stores and dollar spot junk in return. When I asked to exchange gift cards instead since we moved overseas, it was met with exasperation and online gift lists. I asked to just stop exchanging gifts or gift cards and I know that didn’t go over well.

We offered to meet any or all of them for dinner when we visited Chicago, which is about an hour away from where they live. We drove 7ish hours for an event that got canceled last minute. They couldn’t fit us into their schedule.

His youngest sister and husband fostered and recently adopted a little girl and I didn’t even know. I found out on social media.

I just always wanted to be a part of a big family and have my kids be loved by a big family and it just hurts me that we’re not wanted nor welcome.

Grieving my Parents

My parents adore my husband. They adore my son.

They don’t care for me or my daughters and they aren’t even trying to hide it. We even often get lesser gifts at holidays.

My parents claim they’re on “a fixed income” which is a great reality for many elderly people, but they own a 3500 sq. ft. house, 3 vehicles, no bills, and a mortgage of $850/month as they sit back and receive several retirement checks and social security that total more than my husband makes.

I try not to be bitter and I seldom ask for anything.

When my parents casually ask any of us what we want for a birthday or Christmas, we never know what the right answer is because we’ve been told so many times to choose something else, that they won’t be able to get that.

I received hate mail after my parents visited me during my husband’s deployment – in May, but not the week of my youngest daughter’s birthday or over Mother’s Day. They refused to stay at my house and instead opted for a nearby hotel. They sauntered over midday, about lunchtime and then naptime for my son. It disrupted our whole schedule and they kept telling my girls to go away and play outside or in the basement. I was super stressed and confused. My mom made my middle daughter cry about something irrelevant. They didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything except sit on my sofa and they were upset my TV was in the basement. Then, they got mad and left early and I later received an actual letter in the mail, outlining everything that’s wrong about me, my children, and my lack of good mothering skills. Also, that I should hit my children to make them never cry and behave perfectly.

I just always envisioned my kids having loving generous grandparents and it hurts me so bad that they don’t.

I never know what to say to my mother. She is disinterested in what the kids or I are ever doing. She doesn’t pay attention when I do tell her anything.

At least once a month, I realize I’ve really messed up again because my father quits communicating with me until I apologize and make amends for asking him to please stop sending me racist emails or he told me what an awful mother I am again and how worthless my almost twenty-year-old daughter is.

After 44 years of hearing how stupid and worthless I am, I wonder if I should just believe it.

I know I am an awful daughter.

They know what they’ve done.

I grieve the loss of relationships that never happened. I grieve my husband’s parents whom I never knew and only met a couple times. I grieve the uncle who doesn’t want us. I grieve the sisters I longed for my entire life who don’t want me. I grieve the cousins my children don’t know.

Just like mourning a physical death, my grief is real too. My grief comes in waves, at various times – suddenly and unexpected. I have never chosen to sever ties with anyone. I try and I try and I try again and again and again. I suffer the loss of something I never even had. There will probably never be closure. It’s never easy.

You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.

Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
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My Father is a Racist

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I tried to set a necessary boundary. I asked my father to please stop sending me racist emails.

After ignoring me and pouting for a week, he sent me a hateful email telling me that he is proud of being a racist and he can cut me off if I don’t like it.

Well then.

He just told me that he wants to complain about Black people to me and speaking his mind is more important than maintaining a semblance of relationship with me.

My parents are racists.

I am 44 years old and my parents are turning 80. I am an only child.

My parents have disowned me before.

I was 21. They sent me a torn-up copy of their will in the mail and informed me that they had a new one filed with their lawyer, leaving their estate to a local college.

He has ignored me for weeks, months, even years.

I didn’t realize I grew up in an abusive household until very recently. I was spanked as a child, but that was normal for my generation. He seldom hit me after I was a teen, but I have extreme trauma responses to certain verbal phrases and tones of voice. I was frequently told I was stupid and worthless when I disagreed with my parents or didn’t meet their expectations. I was often negatively compared to my father’s mother.

My mother doesn’t have a thought of her own. She just echoes my father. She brags about her selfishness as a teen, young adult, and her years of marriage before I was born thirteen years later. My family and I have seen her selfishness in action numerous times.

I was not allowed to socialize with anyone who wasn’t White and appropriate. This wasn’t exceptionally difficult until I was a teenager since there really just weren’t that many non-Whites in my elementary school or neighborhood and races often separated themselves at lunch and on the playground throughout high school and college. I didn’t understand or think much about it then. It’s just the way things were.

My father was often traveling for work when I was growing up. He always said he hated it and he had anxiety from the stress, but it was much more pleasant for my mom and me not having him around much.

I couldn’t have friends over to the house if he was home.

I don’t remember him being at any of my birthday parties.

He didn’t come to the hospital when I attempted suicide.

He refused to come to my first wedding.

He refused to attend my graduation ceremony when I earned my Master’s degree in education.

He didn’t visit me when I gave birth to my son.

He sent me hate mail while my husband was deployed the first time, telling me what an awful mother I am, after they cut their visit short in rage.

He had a tantrum and broke promises to my children when we stayed briefly at my parents’ house during our PCS from Germany to Ohio.

He’s told me many times that it’s all my fault, that I am disrespectful and selfish.

Since I always put myself last, it especially hurts deep when I’m called selfish.

It’s really hard sometimes.

Therapists makes it sound so easy that I should find and have a support system. Moving every 2-4 years with the military makes that harder than it should be.

I’ve never had a support system. I am all I have.

I’m tired of walking on eggshells all the time.

Grief is real.

Though its way is to strike
In a dumb rhythm,
Stroke upon stroke,
As though the heart
Were an anvil,
The hurt you sent
Had a mind of its own.
Something in you knew
Exactly how to shape it,
To hit the target,
Slipping into the heart
Through some wound-window
Left open since childhood.
While it struck outside,
It burrowed inside,
Made tunnels through
Every ground of confidence.
For days, it would lie still
Until a thought would start it.
Meanwhile, you forgot,
Went on with things
And never even knew
How that perfect
Shape of hurt
Still continued to work.
Now a new kindness
Seems to have entered time
And I can see how that hurt
Has schooled my heart
In a compassion I would
Otherwise have never learned.
Somehow now I have begun to glimpse
The unexpected fruit
Your dark gift had planted
And I thank you
For your unknown work.

John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us

I just tried to set a small but clear boundary: stop sending me racist emails.

There’s a lot of white folks out there hanging on to their God-given right to look down on some other class of people. They feel it slipping away and they’re scared. This guy says he’s bringing back yesterday, even if he has to use brass knuckles to do it, and drag women back to the cave by their hair. He’s a bully, everybody knows that. But he’s their bully.

When men fear the loss of what they know, they will follow any tyrant who promises to restore the old order.

Barbara Kingsolver, Unsheltered

I couldn’t reply to his email or call him like he requested. I knew I would make it worse since I was so hurt, upset, and angry.

I try to capitulate. I try to write his attitudes off as old, retired Army, the way he grew up in the 50s. But those are just lame excuses. There are numerous others his age, military, with similar circumstances who are not racist.

Every time I think things are good, going well, I am shocked into this twisted reality where my parents are not good people, not nice people.

Then he sent me another email over the weekend that he had received his birthday card and orchid and apparently all is well.

This is not normal behavior. I shouldn’t have to appease him with gifts like he’s a god, like he thinks he is.

Is this the precursor to dementia, Alzheimer’s? I grew up with this kind of abuse cycle, but is it getting worse or is it that I’m just older and won’t abide it?

This can’t be ok.

We cannot control another’s behavior, but we can control our own response to another’s behavior.

Happiness is letting go of what you think your life is supposed to look like and celebrating it for everything that it is.

Mandy Hale

Want To Have Better Conversations About Racism With Your Parents? Here’s How

He finally reluctantly came around and pretended we never had that email exchange, but he occasionally refers to “not being to talk about politics” in a sulk.

But it’s way more than politics. It’s more than the financial differences of the two parties in America for the past several hundred years. It’s about lives. For a man who is proud to have voted straight Republican his entire adult life, I can’t excuse it. For someone who voted for Trump twice, it is sheer hatred of other and I can’t excuse it.

All the effort to be antiracist and teach my family to be antiracist is worth it. Loving others and healing from our own abuses and trauma and relearning how to live well is worth it.

Resources:

AntiRacism Resources:

How do you maintain boundaries in toxic relationships?

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Lessons from Quarantine

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I didn’t even realize my normal introverted stay-at-home-homeschooling lifestyle was called “quarantine” until people started having real meltdowns on social media about being forced to stay home, work from home, not eat out, not socializing with friends at bars, restaurants, parties, etc.

People seem to really not like their kids, cooking at home, staying home, or walking in nature.

For years, everyone has underestimated my desire to stay home. I’m an introvert and I’m tired of apologizing for my simple lifestyle.

Schools are canceled. College classes are canceled. Churches are closed. Restaurants and stores are closed. Sports are canceled. Libraries and other fun places we would occasionally go to are closed. The kids’ gymnastics and ice skating lessons are canceled.

Very little of this really affects me but I’m trying so hard to empathize with people who are upset about it all. I am amazed at how well my kids handle disappointment and I’m sometimes struggling.

While I understand these times are hard for extroverts like my teen daughter, we can adjust and help each other through this.

What can we learn from quarantine?

Let us live in hope of a better day.

Lessons from Quarantine

Love Your Neighbor.

I’m very concerned by people who are living in denial that this virus is dangerous and deadly. I’m concerned about people who are still traveling and vacationing.

I’m worried about the people who can’t get their needs met – the people laid off, unable to work, immunocompromised, starving children, abusive families, those with mental illness.

The economy is surely hurting and will take a while to recover. Perhaps this is the time our leaders can rethink how wealth is distributed and what programs should be in place as societal safety nets.

I love seeing people offering to help others – by picking up groceries or however people need help. All the online threads with GoFundMe and payment apps to help pay bills. As long as it’s not caremongering – posturing and flashy “look at me and all the good I’m doing!” Performance-based-Christianity is a virus itself.

But it’s sad we weren’t more prepared as a nation and world. May we come out on the other side of this with new perspective in how to serve others.

Many church leaders are posting mini services and prayer chains on social media. They offer hope and connection to those who are anxious and scared.

We’re all learning how to love and it’s so, so sad to still see hate, exclusion, blame, and negativity out there.

Boundaries.

While I’m used to being at home with my kids all day, every day…the mental load of realizing that we shouldn’t go out and all our extracurricular courses are cancelled and no one can play or socialize with friends is still very hard.

I’m not really much of a rule maker, but I have to institute some boundaries to make sure we don’t regress into chaos since weekends aren’t anything anymore. I’ve never really stressed about screentime, but I will not have disrespectful attitudes.

My almost twenty year old daughter is struggling with having her freedom sucked away. I do get it. It’s difficult for a fledgling adult to have her wings clipped and it’s not her fault. Her anxiety is running rampant. Her college classes were canceled for the whole semester and everything is online and she doesn’t do well with that education model. She has a part-time job at a local bank and she’s at least able to work a few days a week at their drive-thru (the inside bank is closed) when many cannot work. It hurts me that she would prefer greasy fast food instead of our home cooked meals. I will not have her treating her young siblings like her peers, showing them inappropriate Tik Tok videos, Instagram, or Snapchat, and wanting to watch unsuitable films and shows with them.

There have been lectures, slamming doors, angry texts, and rolling eyes. It’s really hard to be a gentle parent sometimes. I’m not sure what to do or say since it all seems wrong.

My husband works from home most evenings and weekends while still going to work Monday-Friday 7-5. He’s a military medical lab manager and it’s stressful everywhere in the medical communities right now. I’m feeling sometimes like I did when he was deployed. He’s here, but he’s not really here.

Sometimes, I really just want to be alone for an hour – in my home office, on the deck, in the bathroom. In silence.

Simplicity.

I like the simple life.

We cook all our meals at home. Restaurant closures don’t affect us at all since we rarely dine out and rarely get takeout and never delivery. I’ve never used a meal delivery service and I don’t plan to start. I’m concerned for food service industry and their jobs and well-being more than my lack of ability to get prepared or precooked food.

We’ve been striving to get debt-free for years and we are getting pretty close. Our investments took a hit as I’m sure many others have noticed. We’re not especially worried since we’re in that for the long haul.

I’m not much of a shopper. I mean I order tons of things online for our homeschool and when the kids ask for something (and they rarely ask for anything!). But I really loathe going inside stores. I don’t care about fashion or accessories or jewelry or makeup. I love seeing the beautiful regular people using this time to show us their tutorials online though.

Of course it’s easier not to spend money and pay off debts when there’s nowhere to go and no one to visit. There’s no point in buying anything.

We read Deuteronomy 15 along with history read aloud of the 2008-09 housing crash and that really was interesting in light of current events. Perhaps we really need a Jubilee?

We’ve been cleaning and purging for spring. Making much needed updates and repairs that have been on our list for ages. We just bought our house!

We read lots. That doesn’t change. We’re bingeing dystopian film and books too!

We do lots of creative things like art, crafts, jewelry…

We play Legos, board games, Switch and Wii, iPads…

We evaluate our priorities and lifestyle all the time and continue to simplify.

Going Outside.

I’m seeing so many more people outside – walking, running, skating, biking, with dogs. They mostly keep a good distance and wave or call hello. It’s pleasant and I hope it continues.

The outdoors aren’t closed or canceled except when they’re getting swamped with people not following the distancing rules.

We love nature and the outdoors and we still do our almost daily walks around our pond and hike off in the woods in our backyard. We play in our driveway and yard.

We love seeing the blossoms and buds that are new each day as the seasons change. We watch the birds and squirrels. We await the new babies.

The warmer weather and sunshine are very welcome.

Making Memories.

We’re pretty doing the same things we’ve always done.

Our life is mostly unchanged.

I wonder what memories we will have of this time in the years to come… What will our kids tell their children? What will history say of us?

We baked brownies and breads, learned how to perfect homemade pasta, had more meals with our families, bought bidets during the great tissue shortage, and shared more of our lives online with our neighbors, friends, and family.

Sometimes, we have to go offline and protect our anxious minds. Perhaps we can grow from this time of rest.

Maybe we’re understanding what community means.

We’re learning what love means in a time of crisis.

How are you passing the time?

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A Decade Later

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So much has happened in ten years.

We lived in Hawaii for three years. We explored Oahu, Maui, and The Big Island.

My husband adopted my daughter.

I was pregnant with my son.

We were and still are shifting to gentler, more respectful parenting, constantly reevaluating methods and learning.

I’ve homeschooled our four kids for over fifteen years now. I’ve come full circle in my educational and religious beliefs after exploring so many options, many of which were very harmful to me and my family.

We’re a military family. We moved from Hawaii to Utah to Germany to Ohio.

Looking back over the last decade, I realize there are few photos of me since I’m usually the one behind the camera.

I rarely take selfies. We rarely get family photos. My kids don’t have a record of me in pictures.

This picture was taken in fall 2016.

Here’s a photo of me in the same outfit in May 2019.

It’s a bit of a glow up. I feel more confident and healthy.

It’s been an adventure for sure.

I’m trying to do better to ask my family to snap photos of me, preferably when I don’t have my mouth full.

I’ve changed quite a bit in the last decade, especially the last couple years. I think I’ve improved. I’m never content with a status quo. I’m constantly growing.

If we are not regularly deeply embarrassed by who we are, the journey to self-knowledge hasn’t begun.

Alain de Botton

Self Improvement

Health

I lost 20+ pounds the last couple years.

I’m not concerned with weight as a number. I’m not concerned with aging gracefully. I just want to be healthy.

The first picture is the heaviest I ever was, not pregnant. I weighed in at about 175. I didn’t feel good. My knees hurt. I felt tired all the time. I was too sedentary. I didn’t eat well. I didn’t exercise enough or correctly. I was depressed. I needed to jumpstart my metabolism.

I have no medical complications or issues. Thank God.

I take supplements that work for me. Glutathione and progesterone before bed. B vitamins and evening primrose in the mornings.

I massage castor oil into my hands, scalp, and thighs probably weekly.

I drink lots of water.

I only have 2-3 cups of caffeine each day. I have found I do better with tea than coffee.

I pray and meditate every day.

I try to go outside every day.

I don’t have social media on my smartphone or iPad.

I will say that I seldom have joint pain now and I feel happier and more energetic.

Food

I try to eat real foods.

I happen to really like almost all foods. I have no allergies or sensitivities.

Food has no morality.

Fiber and good fat is really important. I add collagen, chia, and flax to my smoothies.

I splurge and sometimes get takeout from Raising Cane’s. I actually seldom eat out. I drink a beer or glass of wine with dinners on weekends.

I don’t like this idea of “cheat days” or “being good” by eating more veggies or the idea that veganism will save the world.

I know sugar isn’t good for me and causes health problems, so I do try to limit my refined sugar intake.

I really like bread.

I eat mostly what I want, what I like, when I’m hungry. Sometimes, that means coffee at brunchtime and a sensible dinner. I suppose it’s intermittent fasting, but I just eat when I want to, not when society tells me to.

I teach my kids that balance and moderation is key.

Exercise

I do HIIT workouts about three times a week.

I had physical therapy for my knee last year and I continue to practice what I learned with my exercise ball, balance trainer, kettle weight, and hip band.

Here’s how I maintain my health. It’s not all about exercise and eating!

Everyone is different. I’m not competing with anyone but myself.

I try to walk outside 1-3 miles every evening after dinner. If I don’t get my walk in, I don’t feel well and I don’t sleep well. This is my down time to destress and listen to the birds and wind. It calms me. I get to think and work through problems or issues or conversations.

Rest

Rest is so, so, so important.

I try to not be too busy. I like being peaceful and not rushed.

Life happens.

Even good stress can affect us physically and mentally.

When I’m stressed, I get bloated. I don’t sleep well. I feel anxious. It’s a vicious cycle.

Moving every 3 or so years is stressful. Cats get sick. Finances get wonky. Car accidents or repairs that can’t be avoided. I take extra care during stressful life events.

I try not to overschedule the kids so we don’t have to hurry and we can almost always have dinner together.

We have leisurely mornings over breakfast. We do reading. I do work while they complete their lessons. We watch shows or run errands. Evenings are for sports, dinner, walking, more reading, prayers.

Learning

I am constantly reading. I love to read books about parenting, education, religion, psychology, politics, history, historical and speculative fiction.

I have stacks of books on my shelves and tables and oodles of Kindle editions. I get books from the library if I can.

I like to read articles about my many topics of interest. These often lead to more books from their bibliography and source notes and quotations.

Learning is very important to me. I want to keep up with everything. I want to fill in the gaps in my lackluster Georgia public school education.

My aunt and several elderly female cousins had Alzheimer’s and I worry about my parents and my husband and myself.

I am learning about anti-racism and how to counter prejudice and stereotypes. What can we do to improve our society and eliminate the wealth and class gaps?

I dream of a better future for all of us.

I’m constantly reevaluating my priorities as my family and I grow and change.

I don’t have a Word for the year. I don’t really do resolutions. I constantly try to improve and become who I am supposed to be. I want to exude love and kindness and teach my family what that should look like.

What are your priorities?

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Ashamed

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We aren’t born ashamed.

We have to learn how to be ashamed.

And then we shame others so we don’t feel alone.

Our culture thrives on shame.

I think we have to remember constantly that shaming is one of the deepest tools of Imperialist White Supremacist Capitalist patriarchy because shame produces trauma and trauma often produces paralysis.

bell hooks

Parents are told to shame their children into behaving. Teachers shame students in class to conform. Peers shame each other and it’s considered normal, but it’s really bullying. And when they grow up, these adults bully and shame others to keep control.

We feel guilty when we do something wrong.

We feel ashamed when we believe that we are bad.

I don’t dance.

I used to dance.

I first took lessons when I was in first grade.

I loved ballet and tap. I loved the pink and black practice suits and the recital costumes. I loved the music and the counting and the French words and the practicing and the barre with the stretches. I could point my toes in a perfect arch and suck in the dimples on my buttocks to please my teacher.

I love watching musicals and ballets – live and on TV…the pretty costumes and twirling and how easy it looks.

My parents couldn’t or wouldn’t pay for dance lessons after a year. I was heartbroken. I begged every year to be re-enrolled, but they didn’t take me seriously or couldn’t afford it until I was 12. The studio really didn’t have beginner courses for anyone as old as I was, so I was placed in a class for adults who just wanted the exercise. It was embarrassing. I was good and I was placed in the recital with other dancers my age. I could’ve possibly moved on to pointe the next year or so, but I was too ashamed to continue when I was awkward, lanky, developing. I hadn’t danced for so long and I felt so behind my peers.

I quit dancing and I still regret it.

That feeling of shame rears its hot face even now that I’m older. My husband loves to dance and he used to teach lessons. I don’t even want to dance with him in the privacy of my living room. Ballroom dance and contemporary dance are very different from ballet, but I just can’t bring myself to do it.

I love to watch him dance with the kids and teach them the classic moves.

The only thing that should ever make a child feel small is the great expanse of Mother Nature.

Nicolette Sowder

Shame isn’t an easy thing to ignore or overcome.

Shame permeates our society.

I’ve been bullied and shamed in parenting circles, at work, in church…it’s like an epidemic or an addiction. People think shame is normal.

We are taught with shame at home, in schools, and in churches.

Brené Brown poses the question of why people feel so disconnected from each other, and she answers it with a very simple response: Shame. Shame, she believes, is the culprit: “I ran into this unnamed thing that absolutely unraveled connection in a way that I didn’t understand or had never seen. And so I pulled back out of the research and thought, I need to figure out what this is. And it turned out to be shame.” (Brown 2010)

Now, I don’t know about you, but I can think of a whole number of other reasons that people experience deep wells of fear, alienation, and disconnection from one another: racism, ableism, homoantagonism, transantagonism, fatphobia, classism, ethnocentrism, poverty, white supremacy, the tyranny of normalcy, unequal distribution of wealth, violence, warfare, the prison-industrial complex, the disability gulag, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, sexism, and binarism. Just to name a few.

Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg

Shame at Home

Almost all the parenting books, blogs, experts teach shame.

We’re supposed to punish, cajole, bribe, humiliate, ridicule, coerce, abuse our kids into “proper” behavior.

I feel this idea of being shamed into obedience is even worse in Christian circles. There is this idea of a sin/shame cycle that must be beaten (literally or verbally) out of children.

At home, I was hit, belittled, told I was stupid and worthless. My parents thought negative conditioning would create in me a desire to improve. But, actually, it creates dissonance and a feeling of helplessness. Eventually, I began to believe I was stupid and worthless.

My interests weren’t important. I was ridiculed for loving art, music, literature – mere hobbies that wouldn’t offer a well-paying career.

I stopped trying in school about 11th grade. I almost failed algebra II and chemistry. I skipped classes. I didn’t see any point to any of it.

Shame in School

Schools rely on a shame model to produce compliant students.

I lived most of my school days in fear.

Fear of punishment, fear of humiliation, fear of being called on, fear of hearing my name, fear of stepping out of line.

My first grade teacher put a BIG RED X beside my name because I knew how to write it in cursive and we weren’t supposed to know that yet and she didn’t want me to show off.

But the BIG RED X seemed to symbolize a negation of my whole identity.

Teachers often seem to single out students who are different, bullying them just like kids. I’ve witnessed minority kids ridiculed. I’ve witnessed girls shamed. Schools are racist and sexist.

I saw these things as a student and as a teacher.

Of course, there’s the whole body shaming of girls.

I changed in a bathroom stall for PE in middle school and high school. I was skinny, but never had the desirable flat or toned abs. Someone once told me that my tummy wouldn’t be so noticeable if I had boobs. That didn’t help.

I also didn’t want to be singled out for having the highest grade in science when I was in 9th grade. I quietly asked the teacher to stop praising me in front of the class since I was getting teased by classmates. I was dumbing myself down to be popular. I didn’t do well in science after that year, perhaps on purpose or more likely, subconsciously.

Girls are silenced and shamed by boys, teachers, administrators, parents…and other girls.

Far from production as an ideal, it was consumption that had to be encouraged. School had to train in consumption habits: listening to others, moving on a bell or horn signal without questioning, becoming impressionable—more accurately, gullible—in order to do well on tests. Kids who insisted on producing their own lives had to be humiliated publicly as a warning to others.

 Weapons of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto

Shame in Church

The Christian church relies on shaming to keep members submissive.

Children are taught the sin model from parents, leaders, teachers, pastors.

There’s nowhere positive to go from there. What’s the point if you’re destined for a life of sin and eternal damnation? Different denominations teach different methods of salvation: say a little prayer, confess, flagellation, communion, accountability partners, fasting. Some preach that certain people are predestined, so it doesn’t matter what you do anyway.

It’s all outward appearance and makes us feel more ashamed for our failures, real or imagined.

At a Lent planning meeting at the church we used to attend, a deacon crossed my name off the children’s learning time and said she didn’t need me to do that. She acted like she was doing me a favor, releasing me from duty, but I know she just likes control and doing it all.

I felt like I was back in first grade, even if she didn’t use a red pen.

I’ve never gone back to a planning meeting nor am I really involved at all at church anymore.

We stopped going to church. 

And they are both of them naked, the man and woman, and they are not ashamed of themselves. Genesis 2:25

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. Genesis 3:7

Why did Adam and Eve become aware of their nakedness only after they sinned?

Chabad

Shame Online

I’m glad we didn’t have social media until I was an adult. I don’t think I could’ve handled the cyber bullying and humiliation I see every day online.

We monitor the apps our daughters use closely. I really limit my social media time because it depresses me.

I’m glad we homeschool, so I don’t think we experience it as much, but my eldest was bullied a few years ago within our homeschool community and online and it was ugly.

Some people are just always itching for a fight and I don’t want to engage.

People hide behind their avatars, screens, keyboards…anonymous. It’s easier for them to spew their hatred at people who don’t share their views.

We like to be noticed, named, not forgotten or dismissed.

I try to be very careful how I speak to my children and spouse. Of course, I fail miserably very often, but I try to make amends.

I don’t want to humiliate, shame, or ridicule anyone. I know too well how that feels. Words can hurt.

When have you felt ashamed?

Helpful: Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale for ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences)

Words have the power to normalize or devastate children.

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