So I don't generally look to MySpace to tell me what is moral and upstanding these days. In fact, the only reason I have a MySpace page at all is that my very cool and hip younger brother shamed me into creating one by making me feel insufferably boring and old. I have enjoyed finding friends from abroad, high school and college...not wandering too far off the path of 'my friends' as to not stumble into some sordid mess created by a teenage girl or something.
That being said, apparently breastfeeding mothers are the new 'bad girls' of My Space. That's right everyone. No matter all the half dressed drunken pics of 17 year olds. I'm sure I could find 100 pictures of nearly naked women (sans babies) in less that 5 minutes if I were trying. The pictures of mama's nursing their babes is so offensive that they are being removed by My Space.
Yaaaawn. How boring. I get that breastfeeding isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea. That's fine. It's the stupid Internet everyone...if you don't like the picture try not clicking on it. I'm trying to picture exactly who it is that has a sudden *gasp* the horror breastfeeding!! My Eyes MY EYYYYYYYES! I just never expected to be offended at My Space!! (he/she swoons and collapses to the floor under the musty weight of their velvet Victorian era robes...)
Actually it's probably more along the lines of someone prowling around looking for something more sexxy, less maternal, and is mad that the baby was blocking the boob shot.
This is the thing that baffles me most. How is it that a site that has been repeatedly landblasted for allowing provocative sites of underage girls to be public is now so suddenly upstanding and moral that they must protect us from a picture of a breastfeeding child because it is just so 'offensive'? Seriously? They don't take a stand when it comes to the safety of young girls but they are 'cracking down' on those whorin breastfeeders?
I don't actually look to My Space to keep children or adults safe. Parents and adults should be responsible enough to police their own usage of My Space. Why on earth does My Space pick breastfeeding of all things to get all prim and proper on us? They seriously have no idea who they are messing with. 'Lactivists' as they are called take breastfeeding very, very seriously. A petition against My Space has already been organized. They are the kind of folk who go to places filled with prudish non breastfeeding people and whip out what God gave em to nurse their 6 year olds because they can. The only way My Space could have made this worse for themselves is if they simultaneously pissed off the 'intactavists' or those who are against routine infant circumcision.
I'm all about breastfeeding babies and not chopping body parts off at birth. I don't know that my My Space page adequately reflects that, nor do I really feel the need for my 6th grade boyfriend to know how I feel about all things related to my parenting. There is a rebellious piece of me that wonders if I should edit my page just 'cause...
Monday, February 26, 2007
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Letting it go
From time to time I get really reflective about my childbirth experiences with my two sweeties. Part of this is my nature and part of this is to sort out my feelings so I can be professional as a doula.
I became a doula before I was a mother. I have always been amazed at the capacity of the human body to bring forth life! Childbirth is a transformative experience even if it is a small part of the mantle of Motherhood. I believe in women's bodies to do the work of childbirth and have been at the side of laboring mothers as they find their inner strength and resolve to do something they have never done before. Even if a woman has had a babe before, each birth is a unique and different experience that requires every ounce of strength a woman has within herself.
How ironic that I hold such faith in the bodies of women and yet I can not have the vaginal delivery I have always wanted. It is a place that stings in my heart. It is the first real experience that involved just me that I couldn't make work no matter how hard I wanted it or tried. I fantasized about the moment when my baby would be born and that warm new little person would be placed on my chest for me to breath in and admire. A moment I have shared with other women but a moment I will never have myself.
It is not for lack of knowledge...It is not for lack of desire. I never doubted my ability to give birth. In fact, my labor with her was a beautiful experience. When my daughter became stuck in my pelvis when I reached 10 cm I was sure she would just move down, I had seen it happen. I rested, I pushed, I walked, I cried, I pushed, I moved....for 6 hours. Her heart did not like it. Her heart rate dropped and dropped and dropped. Being on the brink Motherhood, I would have given my life for her. I had a very unexpected Cesarean birth.
When I was pregnant with my son I was sure it would be different this time. If only I had moved more, given it more time, had a more relaxed atmosphere, I 'knew' I could have birthed my daughter. I picked apart every last detail of my unmedicated labor with my daughter to make sense of it all. I visualized my son being born. I drove myself crazy researching midwives and Ob's who were supportive of VBAC. I looked into homebirth. I read encouraging data about VBAC outcomes. I 'knew' I could do it. After a preterm labor scare at 33 weeks, 11 days of prodromal labor with contractions 2-5 minutes apart several times a day as his birth drew near I was excited.
My labor with my son was a beautiful and empowering experience. My husband, my doula, my midwife, and a lovely labor and delivery nurse were all with me; believing with me. Every breath. Every contraction. Every time I sank into despair.
When I reached 10 cm and my son became stuck in my pelvis I was sure he would just move down, I had seen it happen. I rested, I pushed, I walked, I cried, I pushed, I moved....for 3 hours. This time I knew he would not come. In the quiet space within I cried.
My body can not do it. And I am sad.
My gratitude that we are all alive and well is deep. My sadness that I won't have the experience that I thought I could create will leave in time. But it's here now. More pronounced as we quickly move towards my son's first birthday. More pronounced as I contemplate having more children and knowing that I will never be in labor again with the goal of a vaginal delivery. It's more pronounced because I don't know that I can have an invasive surgery again for someone who I do not yet know...who is not yet growing inside me.
I became a doula before I was a mother. I have always been amazed at the capacity of the human body to bring forth life! Childbirth is a transformative experience even if it is a small part of the mantle of Motherhood. I believe in women's bodies to do the work of childbirth and have been at the side of laboring mothers as they find their inner strength and resolve to do something they have never done before. Even if a woman has had a babe before, each birth is a unique and different experience that requires every ounce of strength a woman has within herself.
How ironic that I hold such faith in the bodies of women and yet I can not have the vaginal delivery I have always wanted. It is a place that stings in my heart. It is the first real experience that involved just me that I couldn't make work no matter how hard I wanted it or tried. I fantasized about the moment when my baby would be born and that warm new little person would be placed on my chest for me to breath in and admire. A moment I have shared with other women but a moment I will never have myself.
It is not for lack of knowledge...It is not for lack of desire. I never doubted my ability to give birth. In fact, my labor with her was a beautiful experience. When my daughter became stuck in my pelvis when I reached 10 cm I was sure she would just move down, I had seen it happen. I rested, I pushed, I walked, I cried, I pushed, I moved....for 6 hours. Her heart did not like it. Her heart rate dropped and dropped and dropped. Being on the brink Motherhood, I would have given my life for her. I had a very unexpected Cesarean birth.
When I was pregnant with my son I was sure it would be different this time. If only I had moved more, given it more time, had a more relaxed atmosphere, I 'knew' I could have birthed my daughter. I picked apart every last detail of my unmedicated labor with my daughter to make sense of it all. I visualized my son being born. I drove myself crazy researching midwives and Ob's who were supportive of VBAC. I looked into homebirth. I read encouraging data about VBAC outcomes. I 'knew' I could do it. After a preterm labor scare at 33 weeks, 11 days of prodromal labor with contractions 2-5 minutes apart several times a day as his birth drew near I was excited.
My labor with my son was a beautiful and empowering experience. My husband, my doula, my midwife, and a lovely labor and delivery nurse were all with me; believing with me. Every breath. Every contraction. Every time I sank into despair.
When I reached 10 cm and my son became stuck in my pelvis I was sure he would just move down, I had seen it happen. I rested, I pushed, I walked, I cried, I pushed, I moved....for 3 hours. This time I knew he would not come. In the quiet space within I cried.
My body can not do it. And I am sad.
My gratitude that we are all alive and well is deep. My sadness that I won't have the experience that I thought I could create will leave in time. But it's here now. More pronounced as we quickly move towards my son's first birthday. More pronounced as I contemplate having more children and knowing that I will never be in labor again with the goal of a vaginal delivery. It's more pronounced because I don't know that I can have an invasive surgery again for someone who I do not yet know...who is not yet growing inside me.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Could Church actually not suck?
I am reading a book that is completely blowing my mind. It is called The Shaping of Things to Come by Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch. Basically these authors are writing about the fall of Christendom and rise of the Post Modern era. They contend that we are in the midst of a massive paradigm shift of even greater significance than the Renaissance or the Reformation. Basically the Church (all of Christianity) has been in decline since the enlightenment and has been sputtering out its last bit of relevance since the end of the 20th century. Some say that all of its relevance ended at the turn of this century.
The authors suggest the radical stripped down notion of the missional church as the new type of Church. To be engaged with the culture in meaningful ways without being beguiled by the culture. To hold fast to the central values of the Gospel while meeting actual needs of the people in a relational spirit.
The church as it now is expects people to come to it. For people seeking spirituality to show up and be a good church person. Join this, do that, participate in the church culture to know God. Translation: jump through a whole bunch of hoops that are irrelevent to the gospel and learn how to act and we will let you know God like we do. The missional idea of church is the church moving out into the world in meaningful ways and knowing people, where they are at, out of love.
My favorite example in this book (so far, I am still reading) is about a pub ministry. These Christians bought a pub in England. The pub is a central social place for people to be together and know one another. The Christians running this pub get to know their patrons in a real way. They aren't out there making projects out of people. They are serving them their drinks and genuinely getting to know them. As the relationship develops opportunities to talk about spiritual things happen and God is able to work. This is relational ministry. It doesn't suppose people clean up and get pretty to come to God. It is God going to them as they are....purely biblical.
What would it look like if all of us Christians went to the places and people that Jesus cared about without moralizing all over folks? Jesus came down the hardest on the Religious people of his time. It was the tax collector, the prostitute, and the rejected that he spent his time with. What if we all went to the least of these instead of gathering all us Religious folk every Sunday? What if we genuinely loved people and let God work freely instead of sending our donation to the missionaries over there? What if our lives, our work, our shopping, our parenting, our breathing, and our everything was an act of worship and therefore mission? What if I woke up every morning and expected to used by God?
I will admit, it is scary to walk outside of the comfort of a church building and call my non-church attendance 'church'. Truthfully, I don't have a sense of community like that pub or like the early believers. Can I find that in the Suburbs? Are we too well off to have actual authentic community in middle class suburbia? Are there other's out there like me?
I have been listening to sermons via podcast by Greg Boyd from Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, MN for several months now. He wrote a book called The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church which was featured on the front page of the NY Times last July. His preaching is right in line with the ideas of relational ministry and the missional church. I'm pretty sure being home on Sunday mornings and listening to a podcast doesn't constitute church, but it is something really beautiful for me right now. We do go to church here and there, but as any mama of little children knows, the lack of a morning nap for the baby and the over stimulation of church for a toddler is enough to snuff out any mystical and spiritual thoughts I may be having.
I know I am way behind the 8 ball on these ideas. Lots of other people have way more to say on the subject and are doing it. I feel hopeful for the first time in years that there may be a place for me after all.
Personally, Church has been a struggle for me for several years. I have never liked the political distinctions...'liberal' & 'Conservative'. The 'liberal' churches seemed to be the ones engaging with the culture and meeting real physical & social justice types of needs but seemed so swayed by their environments. The 'Conservative' churches lay claim to theological authenticity but only appear to engage with the culture for an argument or to clean people up and learn the church culture so they can be good ____________ (fill in your denomination here).
On a more personal note, I can never seem to find people who want to be in community with me in a meaningful way. I have had authentic communal experiences before...spiritual and non spiritual. But now that I am all grown up and live in middle class America...I don't know anyone that well, save for a few people. I think that is what is so inspiring to me about all of this. I have to boot myself out of my comfortable station and get to work.
Any takers? Anyone want to be part of the subversive revolution with me?
The authors suggest the radical stripped down notion of the missional church as the new type of Church. To be engaged with the culture in meaningful ways without being beguiled by the culture. To hold fast to the central values of the Gospel while meeting actual needs of the people in a relational spirit.
The church as it now is expects people to come to it. For people seeking spirituality to show up and be a good church person. Join this, do that, participate in the church culture to know God. Translation: jump through a whole bunch of hoops that are irrelevent to the gospel and learn how to act and we will let you know God like we do. The missional idea of church is the church moving out into the world in meaningful ways and knowing people, where they are at, out of love.
My favorite example in this book (so far, I am still reading) is about a pub ministry. These Christians bought a pub in England. The pub is a central social place for people to be together and know one another. The Christians running this pub get to know their patrons in a real way. They aren't out there making projects out of people. They are serving them their drinks and genuinely getting to know them. As the relationship develops opportunities to talk about spiritual things happen and God is able to work. This is relational ministry. It doesn't suppose people clean up and get pretty to come to God. It is God going to them as they are....purely biblical.
What would it look like if all of us Christians went to the places and people that Jesus cared about without moralizing all over folks? Jesus came down the hardest on the Religious people of his time. It was the tax collector, the prostitute, and the rejected that he spent his time with. What if we all went to the least of these instead of gathering all us Religious folk every Sunday? What if we genuinely loved people and let God work freely instead of sending our donation to the missionaries over there? What if our lives, our work, our shopping, our parenting, our breathing, and our everything was an act of worship and therefore mission? What if I woke up every morning and expected to used by God?
I will admit, it is scary to walk outside of the comfort of a church building and call my non-church attendance 'church'. Truthfully, I don't have a sense of community like that pub or like the early believers. Can I find that in the Suburbs? Are we too well off to have actual authentic community in middle class suburbia? Are there other's out there like me?
I have been listening to sermons via podcast by Greg Boyd from Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, MN for several months now. He wrote a book called The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church which was featured on the front page of the NY Times last July. His preaching is right in line with the ideas of relational ministry and the missional church. I'm pretty sure being home on Sunday mornings and listening to a podcast doesn't constitute church, but it is something really beautiful for me right now. We do go to church here and there, but as any mama of little children knows, the lack of a morning nap for the baby and the over stimulation of church for a toddler is enough to snuff out any mystical and spiritual thoughts I may be having.
I know I am way behind the 8 ball on these ideas. Lots of other people have way more to say on the subject and are doing it. I feel hopeful for the first time in years that there may be a place for me after all.
Personally, Church has been a struggle for me for several years. I have never liked the political distinctions...'liberal' & 'Conservative'. The 'liberal' churches seemed to be the ones engaging with the culture and meeting real physical & social justice types of needs but seemed so swayed by their environments. The 'Conservative' churches lay claim to theological authenticity but only appear to engage with the culture for an argument or to clean people up and learn the church culture so they can be good ____________ (fill in your denomination here).
On a more personal note, I can never seem to find people who want to be in community with me in a meaningful way. I have had authentic communal experiences before...spiritual and non spiritual. But now that I am all grown up and live in middle class America...I don't know anyone that well, save for a few people. I think that is what is so inspiring to me about all of this. I have to boot myself out of my comfortable station and get to work.
Any takers? Anyone want to be part of the subversive revolution with me?
Thursday, February 08, 2007
meme
Little known Oddities about me:
6. My closest brush with Richard Simons happened when I was riding a Greyhound bus through Manhattan. I heard giggling from the front of the bus and as the bus pulled forward I looked out the window and realized I was eye to eye with a manic Richard Simons who was dancing on top of a DOT truck in a sparkly tank top and appallingly short shorts.. That may have been one of the most surreal sober moments of my life.
5. I attract the oddest ducks when out and about. (see number 6.) Just the other day I was in some big box hardware store with my family and ended up helplessly entangled in the strangest conversation about bird seed that one could have with a stranger. It moved on to her encouraging me to buy some $900 grill for the super bowl and a little vignette about her pastor's love of BBQ and football. Who knows this much about a stranger after 2 minutes?
4. I have the hardest time figuring out where my body is in the space it inhabits. We just got a bowflex machine handed down to us and I totally think I am doing it right and my husband has informed me I am no where near right. He shows me how to do it, then I do it, and he tells me that it isn't even remotely the same thing at all.
3. I love to dance. I love it so very much. However, given number 4 it is very questionable in my mind as to how 'good' I am at dancing. The good news for everyone is that I am aware of my shortcomings and will not be selling stuff on eBay to run off and audition for 'So You Think You Can Dance'. I do 'think' I can dance but am painfully aware that there are many of us with these same thoughts.
2. I adore playing piano. When I was a teenager I would play for hours at a time on a Saturday afternoon. It was soul feeding for me in a way that nothing else ever has been. I am far out of practice and it makes me sad. I know that I could and should create the space for me to pursue this again. I will eventually, but at the stage of mama-ing I am presently engaged in, it would be more of a frustration than soul feeding.
1. The last little known thing about me that I will share today is that I am mean mean mean in the middle of the night. My husband is most aware of this personality quirk/flaw that is a part of me. I take comfort in the reality that I have had near torture levels of sleep deprivation the last several months. I think any kind hearted person would eventually crumble. That being said, I am starting to hear my husband say things that he hasn't said and would never say to me. For example, last night he said "how can I help you?" when the baby boy was especially crabby and fussy due to teething. What I heard him say was "You never try hard enough". Needless to say, I completely flipped out on my poor unsuspecting husband. At least I had the wherewithal to to say WHAT did you SAY TO ME??!! At which point he repeated himself and I said... oh, sorry that's not what I thought you said.
It looks like the most insecure places of my psyche are coming to the surface in the middle of the night.
6. My closest brush with Richard Simons happened when I was riding a Greyhound bus through Manhattan. I heard giggling from the front of the bus and as the bus pulled forward I looked out the window and realized I was eye to eye with a manic Richard Simons who was dancing on top of a DOT truck in a sparkly tank top and appallingly short shorts.. That may have been one of the most surreal sober moments of my life.
5. I attract the oddest ducks when out and about. (see number 6.) Just the other day I was in some big box hardware store with my family and ended up helplessly entangled in the strangest conversation about bird seed that one could have with a stranger. It moved on to her encouraging me to buy some $900 grill for the super bowl and a little vignette about her pastor's love of BBQ and football. Who knows this much about a stranger after 2 minutes?
4. I have the hardest time figuring out where my body is in the space it inhabits. We just got a bowflex machine handed down to us and I totally think I am doing it right and my husband has informed me I am no where near right. He shows me how to do it, then I do it, and he tells me that it isn't even remotely the same thing at all.
3. I love to dance. I love it so very much. However, given number 4 it is very questionable in my mind as to how 'good' I am at dancing. The good news for everyone is that I am aware of my shortcomings and will not be selling stuff on eBay to run off and audition for 'So You Think You Can Dance'. I do 'think' I can dance but am painfully aware that there are many of us with these same thoughts.
2. I adore playing piano. When I was a teenager I would play for hours at a time on a Saturday afternoon. It was soul feeding for me in a way that nothing else ever has been. I am far out of practice and it makes me sad. I know that I could and should create the space for me to pursue this again. I will eventually, but at the stage of mama-ing I am presently engaged in, it would be more of a frustration than soul feeding.
1. The last little known thing about me that I will share today is that I am mean mean mean in the middle of the night. My husband is most aware of this personality quirk/flaw that is a part of me. I take comfort in the reality that I have had near torture levels of sleep deprivation the last several months. I think any kind hearted person would eventually crumble. That being said, I am starting to hear my husband say things that he hasn't said and would never say to me. For example, last night he said "how can I help you?" when the baby boy was especially crabby and fussy due to teething. What I heard him say was "You never try hard enough". Needless to say, I completely flipped out on my poor unsuspecting husband. At least I had the wherewithal to to say WHAT did you SAY TO ME??!! At which point he repeated himself and I said... oh, sorry that's not what I thought you said.
It looks like the most insecure places of my psyche are coming to the surface in the middle of the night.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Ah to have a verbal toddler...
How could a child as cherubic as this bring me to my psychological knees with her words?
Her new past time is to publicly point out attractive and unsuspecting men to me and loudly ask:
"Mommy, Mommy, Is That MY DADDY?!"
Twice this week she put the fear of child support in the heart of unsuspecting 'daddies' as she calls all men over the age of 12.
She adores her actual Daddy and misses him when he is at work. Maybe she is hoping I will take the bait and leave her to have her daddy all to herself.
Nice try little girl, nice try.
This was followed up today with her breaking the news to her uncle that his childhood cat was put to sleep.
That's right, the 2 year old told her 25 year old uncle "I have something sad to tell you, Oliver was sick and Died...she HAD TO DIE DIE DIE".
I fumbled for the phone to explain, but it turns out he understood completely.
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