I was born the day after Trinity, the first atom bomb test. From age 5, duck-and-cover, hide-under-our-desks drills in my Catholic school were as frequent as tests. I was terrified of nuclear war. We lived one mile away from an air force base. Whenever I heard planes, I ran out into the backyard and tried to to determine if they were American or Russian, using my library book on aircraft identification. When I was 7, Stalin died. I asked my parents if this meant we would not be killed by atom bombs.
In 1954 I had a severe case of the measles, and my Grandma came to help nurse me. Grandma was a lifelong Democrat since she voted in the first election open to women. With loathing, she was listening to the Joseph McCarthy army hearings. My eyes hurt too much to read, so I listened obsessively. Hatred of McCarthy's voice probably shaped my entire political development.
In 1956, just turning eleven, I fell madly in love with Jack Kennedy as he made an unsuccessful bid for the vice presidential nomination. I was initially attracted by his Catholicism; ten minutes later I was smitten by his intelligence, wit, and charm. I was luckier than his other women. Loving Jack Kennedy was wonderful for me. From 1956 to 1963, I read everything I could about Kennedy, politics, American history.
What JFK believed in, I believed in. Gradually I moved to the left of his pragmatic liberalism. Certainly Kennedy was responsible for my decision to major in political science in college. Kennedy's assassination,during the fall of my freshman year in college, devastated me. I felt like there had been a death in my immediate family. I quickly transferred my political allegiance to Bobby Kennedy, who was the keynote speaker at my graduation from Fordham in 1967.
Planning to get Ph.D. in political science, I attended Stanford University where resistance to the war was at its height. Almost every afternoon, David Harris, Joan Baez's future husband who was later jailed, spoke out eloquently against the war. I was studying political science as a quantifiable science. I knew Harris and the protests were the real political science, and I dropped out, throwing away my free ride to college professorship.
After Stanford, I worked for Victor Riesel, the blind labor columnist. When he was exposing waterfront racketeering. acid was thrown in his eyes. He was too proud to learn Braille, so he hired bright young political women to be his eyes, so he could write his daily colulmn. I skimmed 8 newspapers and 40 labor newspapers and read to him anything that might provide column ideas. The Internet equivalent was a constantly running ticker tape. All day, everyday I read and discussed the assassinations, the riots, Vietnam. The shattering world was my job.
I had gone to bed very late the night Bobby Kennedy won the California primary. As the radio woke me up, I didn't understand what they were saying for several minutes. I thought they were talking about someone else. When I called my finace, I was crying so hysterically he thought something had happened to my parents or brothers. JFK's assassination was 10 days before my wedding. The day after I had a final dress fitting. I cried the entire time, not caring if I had a wedding dress of tears.
I became a pacifist. Opposition to the Vietnam War right from the beginning was the catalyst. My husband Chris applied for conscientious objector status and was willing to face jail rather than be inducted. We became very active in the Catholic Peace Fellowship, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and the War Resister's League, all pacifist organizations. I have mostly seen Washington behind a picket sign. Freezing,I stood in front of the White House I stood in front of the White House and shouted the name of a dead soldier during the March of Death.
My husband was turned down for Conscientious Objector Status, as most Catholics were, even though he appealed the decision up to the Presidential Appeal Board. We knew he was going to be jailed, probably for 3 years, for refusing induction. But in 1969 the Selective Service instituted the First Draft Lottery. The days of the year, represented by the numbers from 1 to 366 (including Leap Year Day), were written on slips of paper that were placed in capsules. The capsules were mixed in a shoebox and dumped into a deep glass jar. Capsules were drawn from the jar one at a time.
The first day number drawn was 257 (September 14), so all registrants with that birthday were assigned lottery number 1. Men of draft age (those born between 1944 and 1950) whose birthday fell on the corresponding day of the year would all be drafted at the same time. Only the first 195 birthdates drawn in the 1969 lottery were called to serve. The lottery night was among the worst of my life. I arrived home from work when they had reached 50. As time when on and they didn't call out Chris's birthday, I was convinced he had been in the first five. His number was 339. He was spared jail.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
NYC, 1974-1976, Nonsexist Childrearing in Action
Emma belonged to a Chelsea Manhattan playgroup for two years, from 1974 to 1976. She was 17 months when it began, 3 and ready for nursery school when it disbanded. Playgroup met 5 mornings a week in the basement of the Y on West 23rd Street. Parents had the option of coming 1 to 5 mornings. Scheduling was a nightmare that I had naively accepted. I kept the minutes of playgroup, and I wrote a paper about it for a social work class in group dynamics 20 years later.
I thought you might be amused by parenting, Manhattan style, 1974. How earnest and how absurd we were in so many ways. But we were absolutely committed to allowing our kids to be free to be you and me.
Ranging in age from 28 to 40, we all lived in Chelsea and Greenwich Village. With one exception, our playgroup child was our first child. At 28, I was the youngest mother, but the only one from a large family. We all were college educated, with serious careers before we had children. There was an editor of psychiatric books, a writer, a teacher, an artist, an art therapist, two social workers, one vocational counselor, two psychology graduate students, and and a psychiatric nurse.
Most of us were struggling with our decision to stay home with our children. Confirmed apartment dwellers, we saw little relationship between mothering and housework. All of us planned to remain in Manhattan. Dreading winter cooped up with newly mobile, newly negative toddlers in one-bedroom or two-bedroom apartments, several mothers were contemplating returning to work to regain their sanity. Significantly, no one returned to work full-time during the life of the playgroup.
None of us had long-time friends who were staying at home to raise young children. We needed to build a new circle of friends; our friends from work no longer sufficed. We were not traditional wives and mothers. We desperately wanted intellectual colleagues fascinated with child development, determined to raise children without our own inhibitions and neuroses. All of us considered ourselves feminists, committed to nonsexist childrearing.
Playgroup was supposed to give us time off. The first year the ratio was one mother to two children; the second year it was one to three. Many mother who weren't on duty stayed anyway, particularly those with younger children. When we weren't playing with our toddlers, we engaged in ongoing group therapy. All of us had been or were currently in therapy and could talk comfortably and knowledgeably about conflict, repression, projection, and denial. We endlessly analyzed our marriages, our families, our psychological makeups, our childrearing philosophies, and our children's personalities.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Happiest Days of My Life
 |
| April 4, 1973, Emma |
 |
| June 17, 1975, Michelle |
 |
| November 8, 1978 at home, Jane |
 |
May 8, 1982 at home, Molly |
 |
| May 9, 2007, Michael |
 |
| September 12, 2008, Penelope |
 |
| December 18, 2008, Miriam |
 |
| September 13, 2009, Abigail |
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
1971, At 25 I Saw the Future
As I have mentioned, I was very active in the feminist movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Although I described myself as a radical feminist, I always had misgivings. I explore them in this journal entry from October 1971. Talking about a 20-hour work week seems preposterous now, but it seemed a realistic goal once upon a time in the 1970's.
Are men necessarily the enemies? Adopting that logic, couldn't women be categorized as the enemies? Must there be an enemy? Must the movement have a scapegoat? There is a danger of generalizing for all women from a few women’s (typical, atypical) experience with men. Perhaps many men are baffled rather than hostile. They have been socialized to believe the myths, so they do believe them. Why does the movement assume that their motives are vicious?
Perhaps the myths are harsher than the realities. Individual women are treated better and respected more than social mythology about women dictates. The movement shouldn't present what seems to be a fatal choice: true autonomy or loving, intimate relationships with men. If all men are despaired of, shouldn’t most women be despaired of? Have women tried hard enough to explain themselves? Or would they rather renounce men than fight through to an accommodation?
The movement stresses relationships with women because they are easier (at least for many women). There is no need to confront the enemy directly. Women often have bravely attacked men in coffee klatches, but they then have gone along with their own men, having worked out some of their hostilities with other women. I don't understand; because of my five brothers, I have never had any trouble confronting men.
At times Women's Liberation is vulgarly careerist. There is very little speculation on changing the nature of work. There is no recognition that women’s jobs, not men’s jobs, may be the desirable jobs of the future. Many dominant economic values are accepted. A job’s value is measured by its pay or its status. There is total denial that raising young children is a uniquely demanding job, calling forth an infinite range of talents and imagination.
Feminists lack a strong grasp on job alternatives. I am frustrated with so much loose talk about expressing creativity in jobs. Don't women recognize what most workers do, not only blue and white collar workers, but professional and managerial ones as well? Creativity is the value much stressed by woman’s magazines. Be a creative homemaker. The movement often seems to accept this definition of creativity. There is no recognition that post -revolution many, if not most, women might have less creative jobs than they do now. Volunteers are often allowed more autonomy and outlet for imaginative change than regular staff would be permitted,
Emphasis could have been completely different. Feminists need not have accepted the male value that your job is everything, completely determining your value and what people think of you. Alternatives include--more leisure, 20 hour week for everyone, change hierarchical nature of work, decentralize it, recognize that much work is unnecessary in a more rational society that won’t need 100 brands of detergents, toothpastes, and feminine hygiene deodorants. Many jobs now are completely unproductive. Most jobs are not inherently creative. What is a creative job anyway? The solution may be to give people more time, real time, to be creative off the job.
My close friend said almost any job is preferable to staying home with the kids. That is a preposterous statement, particularly from a so-called radical who pays lip service to human values. That is not to say that childrearing as it is now arranged is perfect. We might benefit from more stress on communal childraising, not necessarily so parents can get a “job,” but because it may be a better way to raise children from both parents’ and children’s point of view. I am the oldest of six; growing up in a large family with a positive experience. My parents seemed to have less need to control our direction in life than the parents of my friends with fewer siblings.
The nature of work must change in our society. Women should be at the forefront of the battle for change. Autonomy and self-sufficiency cannot be pictured as depending on capitalist recognition of worth. Rather the economy should be made to value and reward the kinds of work that woman do. Men have problems with women’s lib on this point. They can’t seem to believe that women would want to have equality in men’s world. How many men would trade roles if only the objective nature of what they had to do was the consideration and not society’s evaluation of it?
Perhaps the major emphasis must be on changing society’s evaluation of women. Otherwise, when women enter or take over traditionally men’s fields, they would only decline in relative prestige. It can’t be difficult or challenging job if mere women can do it. Emphasis should not be on merely putting women in out-of-home jobs. The nature of reward for jobs should change. Money must cease to be the major incentive. The gap between low salaries and high salaries needs to be dramatically smaller. If raising young children had prestige of being a pediatrician or a child psychologist, for example, and it need not be done in social isolation, might not women and men feel differently about it? I seem to be getting away from 20-hour week. If all men and women worked, the work week probably would be less than 20 hours. Low productivity and make work have kept the work week from declining for over 20 years. Even without women’s going to work en masse, it might sink to 30 hours.
Are men necessarily the enemies? Adopting that logic, couldn't women be categorized as the enemies? Must there be an enemy? Must the movement have a scapegoat? There is a danger of generalizing for all women from a few women’s (typical, atypical) experience with men. Perhaps many men are baffled rather than hostile. They have been socialized to believe the myths, so they do believe them. Why does the movement assume that their motives are vicious?
Perhaps the myths are harsher than the realities. Individual women are treated better and respected more than social mythology about women dictates. The movement shouldn't present what seems to be a fatal choice: true autonomy or loving, intimate relationships with men. If all men are despaired of, shouldn’t most women be despaired of? Have women tried hard enough to explain themselves? Or would they rather renounce men than fight through to an accommodation?
The movement stresses relationships with women because they are easier (at least for many women). There is no need to confront the enemy directly. Women often have bravely attacked men in coffee klatches, but they then have gone along with their own men, having worked out some of their hostilities with other women. I don't understand; because of my five brothers, I have never had any trouble confronting men.
At times Women's Liberation is vulgarly careerist. There is very little speculation on changing the nature of work. There is no recognition that women’s jobs, not men’s jobs, may be the desirable jobs of the future. Many dominant economic values are accepted. A job’s value is measured by its pay or its status. There is total denial that raising young children is a uniquely demanding job, calling forth an infinite range of talents and imagination.
Feminists lack a strong grasp on job alternatives. I am frustrated with so much loose talk about expressing creativity in jobs. Don't women recognize what most workers do, not only blue and white collar workers, but professional and managerial ones as well? Creativity is the value much stressed by woman’s magazines. Be a creative homemaker. The movement often seems to accept this definition of creativity. There is no recognition that post -revolution many, if not most, women might have less creative jobs than they do now. Volunteers are often allowed more autonomy and outlet for imaginative change than regular staff would be permitted,
Emphasis could have been completely different. Feminists need not have accepted the male value that your job is everything, completely determining your value and what people think of you. Alternatives include--more leisure, 20 hour week for everyone, change hierarchical nature of work, decentralize it, recognize that much work is unnecessary in a more rational society that won’t need 100 brands of detergents, toothpastes, and feminine hygiene deodorants. Many jobs now are completely unproductive. Most jobs are not inherently creative. What is a creative job anyway? The solution may be to give people more time, real time, to be creative off the job.
My close friend said almost any job is preferable to staying home with the kids. That is a preposterous statement, particularly from a so-called radical who pays lip service to human values. That is not to say that childrearing as it is now arranged is perfect. We might benefit from more stress on communal childraising, not necessarily so parents can get a “job,” but because it may be a better way to raise children from both parents’ and children’s point of view. I am the oldest of six; growing up in a large family with a positive experience. My parents seemed to have less need to control our direction in life than the parents of my friends with fewer siblings.
The nature of work must change in our society. Women should be at the forefront of the battle for change. Autonomy and self-sufficiency cannot be pictured as depending on capitalist recognition of worth. Rather the economy should be made to value and reward the kinds of work that woman do. Men have problems with women’s lib on this point. They can’t seem to believe that women would want to have equality in men’s world. How many men would trade roles if only the objective nature of what they had to do was the consideration and not society’s evaluation of it?
Perhaps the major emphasis must be on changing society’s evaluation of women. Otherwise, when women enter or take over traditionally men’s fields, they would only decline in relative prestige. It can’t be difficult or challenging job if mere women can do it. Emphasis should not be on merely putting women in out-of-home jobs. The nature of reward for jobs should change. Money must cease to be the major incentive. The gap between low salaries and high salaries needs to be dramatically smaller. If raising young children had prestige of being a pediatrician or a child psychologist, for example, and it need not be done in social isolation, might not women and men feel differently about it? I seem to be getting away from 20-hour week. If all men and women worked, the work week probably would be less than 20 hours. Low productivity and make work have kept the work week from declining for over 20 years. Even without women’s going to work en masse, it might sink to 30 hours.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
"When I Whisper, Everyone Listens"
Machiavelli, the Whisperer, and Her Baby Sister Jane. Wouldn't You Be Bamboozled?
Michelle was almost grown before I realized that she had gotten her way much more than Emma had. She is the ultimate iron fist in a velvet glove. I was in awe how she handled doctors and nurses whenever my mom was hospitalized. Both my husband and I have named Michelle to be our health proxy. Once, when her dad and I were squabbling, teenage Michelle suggested, "Mom, you should wear more perfume." I have taken her advice in my second marriage.
Michelle has a BS from Yale, an MS from Harvard, and MBA from MIT. She is a director of strategic planning at a leading biogenetics company. and the mother of a 3 year old girl and an 8-month-old son. She has been strategically planning since she was born on her due date after a labor of one hour and 45 minutes in 1975. None of my other labors were anything like that, but then her sisters' don't strategically plan as brilliantly.
Michelle has a BS from Yale, an MS from Harvard, and MBA from MIT. She is a director of strategic planning at a leading biogenetics company. and the mother of a 3 year old girl and an 8-month-old son. She has been strategically planning since she was born on her due date after a labor of one hour and 45 minutes in 1975. None of my other labors were anything like that, but then her sisters' don't strategically plan as brilliantly.
My favorite Michelle story occurred when she had just turned 3. She fell in the playground and needed ten stitches in her head. The ER was a horror as I had to fight tooth and nail to stay with her. Right after the accident we went on vacation with my parents, my brother Joe, his wife, and their three kids from Kansas City. Michelle was very close to my parents and had no experience sharing them with anyone but Emma. Immediately upon arriving , my chatterbox ceased talking. After a day of absolute silence, she deigned to whisper, but only to me and my mom.
Her absolute command was terrifying. Even after she woke up from a nightmare, she remembered to whisper. When I was playing with her in the water, I could coax her to make sounds, but she refused to utter sounds that were words. I was frantic, convinced that her fall had caused brain damage or a lasting emotional trauma. Was she upset that I was 6 mothers pregnant with Jane?
When her grandma asked why she wouldn't talk, Michelle whispered. "With my cousins here, when I talk, nobody listens. But when I whisper, everyone listens." Her ingenious scheme worked wonders. Everyone spent the entire ten days trying to trick Michelle into talking. I had just gotten a tape recorder, and the impact of Michelle's silence is documented. The main topic of conversations recorded was the strange silence of a certain three year old. The minute Joe and his family drove away, Michelle started talking and has never stopped. Study those pictures. Would you suspect that sweet, smiling little girl in the green bathing suit was a junior Machiavelli?
Michelle told this story on her college applications. "It is rather funny to think that in my large family of overachievers, a three-year-old's decision not to speak in one of our fondest and most memorable stories. To this day, I cannot speak a word to my Uncle Joe without receiving the loud surprised reaction, "She talks." Harvard and Yale eagerly accepted her.
Have you ever tried not talking for an hour at an immediate family gathering of 11 people? As my first grandson turned 3, I appreciated again Michelle's incredible feat. When Michael isn't talking, he is asleep.
What Is Your Birth Order?
To Only Children: Being the oldest child dooms you to the responsibility chip, whether you have no siblings or 7. Until both your parents die, you are being parented by people who have no clue what they are doing. They get better with younger children, but they don't know how to parent a 25 year old, a 40 year old, a 55 year old anymore than they knew how to parent an infant or toddler. Their grandparenting skills are nonexistent. Children raise their parents to be grownups. Being outnumbered makes the job more challenging and stimulating, but you are always up to it.
In the first picture, I am two and one half; Joe is one. In the second, I am four, Andrew is six months. In the third picture, I am seven; Bob is newborn. In the fourth picture, I am 12; Gerard is 1. In the fifth photo, I was 13, Brian was 1 month.
Studying the pictures helps me clarify my family dynamics. Sibling closeness has mattered more to me than to my brothers. I try much harder to keep the family connected. Being both the oldest and the only girl seems central. I was my adult height when my two younger brothers were born; they were only 5 and 7 when I left home for college. I must have seemed a maternal figure to them. In some pictures I look like their young mother.
We did not grow up in the same family. My mother returned to school full-time when Brian was 5; when he was 7, she started teaching high school. Joe, Andrew, and I had had a stay-at-home mother until we went to college. Brian doesn't remember my mom staying at home full-time. My father retired before Brian finished college. Recently, my brother 11 years younger told me he felt abandoned when I left for college when he was 7. He confused me with my mom.
We have very different perceptions of our parents. Joe, Andrew, and I remember our dad as a brilliant intellectual and mathematician; Gerard and Brian remember a grail old man who disappeared into Alzheimer's Disease. The three oldest remember our childhood perceptions of my mom as "just a housewife" who never went to college. My younger brothers remember her the way her obituary describes her: "teacher, activist, trailblazer."
With the death of my mom, Joe, 18 months younger, is my only collaborator for family history. Fortunately, Joe was too busy climbing on the roof as a kid to remember very much. I could write family fiction and convince everyone it is family history.
I struggled not to favor my first daughter Emma in sibling squabbles, because she, like me, is the oldest of several siblings. Both my first husband John and I were the oldest children of oldest children of oldest children--not the best recipe for marital harmony. Certainly Emma shows the same sense of responsibility for her younger siblings that I felt. John,Emma, and I lament that younger siblings are not sufficiently grateful to us, oldest, who fought all the battles necessary to whip parents into shape.
In my constant discussions with friends about baby spacing when my kids were young, I noticed that adult relationships with your siblings greatly influence you. If you love your sibs, you might think a brother or sister is the best gift you will give your kids. If you don't talk to your sib, you will feel guilty about the trauma you are inflicting on the oldest. As people only have two children, there will only be younger and older older. Middle children seem to have special gifts society will sorely lack. When I told 6 year old Michelle, I was pregnant with Molly, she rejoiced, "Now I won't be the only middle child."
Faced with the challenge of caring for my mother during the last years of her life, my brothers and I had to confront and heal lifelong conflicts and misunderstandings. It is so easy to fall into childhood roles. My mom was always the family switchboard. We would call her, not each other; she would relay the news to everyone. I struggle very hard not to play the same role.
I adore my brothers and wish we saw each other much more often. We are scattered from Maine to North Carolina. My mother had five brothers as well. As a teenager, I used to reproach her, "Mom, how could you do this to me? You knew what it was like." My mom, a long-term care activist, used to begin her speeches, "I have lived with 12 men--long pause--only one of them intimately." Growing up with my brothers, I acquired a lifelong comfort around men. Daughters were a challenge; sons would have been easier. Taking care of my grandson revives many wonderful memories of my brothers as children.
What is your birth order? What impact has it had on your life?
Studying the pictures helps me clarify my family dynamics. Sibling closeness has mattered more to me than to my brothers. I try much harder to keep the family connected. Being both the oldest and the only girl seems central. I was my adult height when my two younger brothers were born; they were only 5 and 7 when I left home for college. I must have seemed a maternal figure to them. In some pictures I look like their young mother.
We did not grow up in the same family. My mother returned to school full-time when Brian was 5; when he was 7, she started teaching high school. Joe, Andrew, and I had had a stay-at-home mother until we went to college. Brian doesn't remember my mom staying at home full-time. My father retired before Brian finished college. Recently, my brother 11 years younger told me he felt abandoned when I left for college when he was 7. He confused me with my mom.
We have very different perceptions of our parents. Joe, Andrew, and I remember our dad as a brilliant intellectual and mathematician; Gerard and Brian remember a grail old man who disappeared into Alzheimer's Disease. The three oldest remember our childhood perceptions of my mom as "just a housewife" who never went to college. My younger brothers remember her the way her obituary describes her: "teacher, activist, trailblazer."
With the death of my mom, Joe, 18 months younger, is my only collaborator for family history. Fortunately, Joe was too busy climbing on the roof as a kid to remember very much. I could write family fiction and convince everyone it is family history.
I struggled not to favor my first daughter Emma in sibling squabbles, because she, like me, is the oldest of several siblings. Both my first husband John and I were the oldest children of oldest children of oldest children--not the best recipe for marital harmony. Certainly Emma shows the same sense of responsibility for her younger siblings that I felt. John,Emma, and I lament that younger siblings are not sufficiently grateful to us, oldest, who fought all the battles necessary to whip parents into shape.
In my constant discussions with friends about baby spacing when my kids were young, I noticed that adult relationships with your siblings greatly influence you. If you love your sibs, you might think a brother or sister is the best gift you will give your kids. If you don't talk to your sib, you will feel guilty about the trauma you are inflicting on the oldest. As people only have two children, there will only be younger and older older. Middle children seem to have special gifts society will sorely lack. When I told 6 year old Michelle, I was pregnant with Molly, she rejoiced, "Now I won't be the only middle child."
Faced with the challenge of caring for my mother during the last years of her life, my brothers and I had to confront and heal lifelong conflicts and misunderstandings. It is so easy to fall into childhood roles. My mom was always the family switchboard. We would call her, not each other; she would relay the news to everyone. I struggle very hard not to play the same role.
I adore my brothers and wish we saw each other much more often. We are scattered from Maine to North Carolina. My mother had five brothers as well. As a teenager, I used to reproach her, "Mom, how could you do this to me? You knew what it was like." My mom, a long-term care activist, used to begin her speeches, "I have lived with 12 men--long pause--only one of them intimately." Growing up with my brothers, I acquired a lifelong comfort around men. Daughters were a challenge; sons would have been easier. Taking care of my grandson revives many wonderful memories of my brothers as children.
What is your birth order? What impact has it had on your life?
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Parental Anxiety and Children's Wings
My mother's combination of fearlessness, faith in God, and experience with 5 younger brothers made her wonderful mother of 5 boys. She didn't worry; she didn't clip any wings. She didn't let little things like sons on the roof or a son out of touch hiking the Appalachian trail for months upset her. Joe looks so pleased with himself, without any fear he might fall off the roof or get in trouble with is parents. Her shy, timid, anxious daughter was a mystery to my mom. I am a lifelong worrier, from early childhood telling my parents: "I'm scared."
What my mom did effortlessly, I have had to struggle with every day of my 37 years as a mother. All my daugters are braver and more adventurous than I am. For the most part, my anxieties have not infected them. They respect my fears. I have decided to concentrate my worries when their planes are in the air, not when they are on the ground for days or years in Kosovo, Rwanda, Niger, Sydney, Shanghai, etc.. They always call, email, or text when the plane lands, at any hour, in any part of the world. Flight Tracker is my best friend.
My oldest daughter Emma has inherited her grandmother's bold fearlessness.
From my journals, 1974-1975
From the time Emma was 10 months old, I took her twice a day to Central Park, particularly one very large playground. Emma would casually wander off almost 100 yards away. As long as I was within eye range and met her eyes and waved when she glanced at me, she seemed perfectly confident. One nightmarish day, she managed to slip out between the playground bars and head for Central Park West. I didn't know I could run so fast.
At 15 months Emma would go down slides and climb up jungle gyms that three year olds would avoid. By 2 she was so physically competent that I felt confident about sitting on a bench and watching from a distance as she clambered over a climbing structure designed for children 6 and up. She hardly ever cried if she fell down or bumped into something. Emma was happiest learning new physical feats. She loved the water; at age one she would fearlessly walk into the ocean and laugh if she were knocked down. She was physically fearless yet not particularly reckless except about things she could not possibly know about. She was always ahead of other kids in trying something new physically like walking up the slide backward.
Emma in Niger, 2000
One month ago, I sat in a grass hut in a small village in Niger called Koyetegui, and watched democracy in action, Nigerien style. The five members of the Bureau de Vote sat on overturned pestles normally used for pounding millet, and offered me a seat on a woven mat. And so I sat, as the sun set and the kerosene lantern was lit, and watched as the chickens were chased out of the hut and the entire village crowded into this cramped space to watch the solemn counting and recounting of the 132 votes that had been cast in this tiny district. When the vote counting was over and the report had been filled out and duly sealed with wax, I rode back to the regional capital of Dosso with the ballot box to turn in the election results. It was only the next day that I learned from my driver that the chief of the village had presented me with a gift of an enormous river squash. I spent the entire ride back to Niamey replaying the events of the past few months in my mind, wondering how I had ever gotten to be so lucky.
From applications to graduate schools in International Relations in 2000:
In three and a half years, I visited over 75 cities in 53 countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. In several countries–Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Nepal, Benin, Curacao–I was the first AIRINC representative to conduct a survey. I have had the opportunity to do amazing things in my life. I have seen some of the truly wondrous places in the world, from the Sahara desert, to Machu Picchu, to the Mekong River Delta. I have jumped out of a plane in Maine and been seventy feet underwater in the Caribbean. I have witnessed one of the poorest countries on earth usher in a new era of hope and democracy.
My post to a Salon Group, 2001:
My 28-year-old daughter has just accepted a summer internship in Rwanda. Seven years ago, a million people were killed in three months in the worst genocide since the Holocaust. At Columbia she is specializing in human rights, transitional justice, and Africa. If she wasn't going to Rwanda, she would have gone to the Congo. I am fiercely proud of her. But I worry about how to handle my fears as she goes from one world flash point to the next. I want to support her, not burden her with my anxieties.
After two years in Kosovo, Emma is working for an international peace organization in Manhattan and mothering her 4 -year -old son and 2-year-old daughter. If she hadn't fallen in love in 2002 and gotten married in 2005, she probably would still be in Iraq. However, I have not learned my lesson. A globe beachball was one of the first presents I give each grandchild. By age 2 my grandson could locate Madagascar, Papua New Guinea, Japan, Ghana. Emma has recently terrified me with her plans to spend a year in Nepal when her children are 4 and 2.
Letting your fear of what could happen clip your children's wings and undermine their confidence and autonomy endangers them most of all
Thursday, October 6, 2011
What Is Wrong with My Three Year Old?
I am distressed by how many parents of preschool boys worry that their sons are autistic when their sons' behavior would never have been considered autistic even ten years ago. The autistic spectrum seems to become ever wider, capturing many more children in its diagnostic net. I have known, am related to, men who would now be diagnosed along the autistic spectrum. Yes, they are eccentric; yes, they are not the most stimulating conversationalists; yes , they don't have a huge number of friends. But they can be good sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers. If you can relate to your computer, you can have a successful career. Is the alarming epidemic of autism, along with the similar epidemic of childhood bipolar disorder, created by greatly expanding the criteria for diagnosis? Are we losing tolerance for divergent thinkers to maintain a society hostile to children and families?
When my kids were young, 25-30 years ago, even in therapy-obsessed Manhattan, preschool kids weren't frequently diagnosed, weren't taking psychiatric medications, so I am skeptical about this epidemic of very young children with serious problems requiring psychiatric drugs. If our kids were having problems in nursery school, we might decide to wait another year and find a better school. What is going wrong with the way we are raising children? Why do we look in children's brains for the answers to be found in social reform? Are we being encouraged to worry needlessly about our own kids that we don't have any time or energy for political activism on behalf of all children?
Who is blowing the whistle? Who is questioning the wisdom of babies and toddlers being cared for by strangers? Who is wondering whether group care is appropriate for most children under three or four? Thirty-five years ago, children were five before they were expected to adapt to group standards of behavior. Who is crusading for a shorter work week and greatly increased parental leaves? Who is is dedicated to make caring for preschoolers a viable career path for college graduates, comparable to teaching in salary and benefits?
Who is demanding the economic changes required to enable parents to care for their babies and toddlers themselves? Who is comparing our rate of childhood mental illness with rates in the rest of the Western world? Who is outraged about preschoolers taking multiple psychiatric drugs that have never been tested on children? Who is fighting to outlaw drugs ads in magazines and on TV? Why are we teaching our kids that drugs are the solution to every problem? Thirty years ago we felt like bad parents if we let our kids have caffeine.
The aggressive drug treatment of mental illness in the last 30 years hasn't been a success story. When yesterday's wonder drug becomes generic, its ineffectiveness is suddenly discovered and its dangerous side effects are no longer covered up. Today's expensive wonder drug will save your life after being tested for a shockingly short time on shockingly few people who don't share your diagnoses. Witness the latest advertising blitz to treat bipolars with antipsychotics; all the tried and true mood stabilizers are becoming generic, so they obviously can't help.
Preschoolers are so unformed, so in process. This year's four year old can seem like a different creature than last year's three year old. These diagnoses of autism, bipolar disorder, ADHD imply lifelong, incurable brain disorders for which there are no medical tests, no verifiable proof of their existence. How do we know that today's experts on autism are any more correct than the world acclaimed psychiatrist who attributed autism to "icebox mothers" 40 years ago? Why do we expect little boys to adapt to schools better suited to girls? Why don't we train and recruit more male teachers in preschools, who might be better role models for little boys and help create more welcoming schools?
It is politically correct to be very tolerant and open-minded about emotional problems, but that enlightenment is only surface deep. I mourn for the three year old already cursed with a lifelong diagnosis. Loner, loser, geek, and nerd seem far kinder labels. In this fall's TV season, geeks are the new Prince Charmings. The confidentiality of medical records is a myth. Many adults not diagnosed along the autistic spectrum have successful careers in math, science, engineering, computer programming. Would that have happened if they had been diagnosed and stigmatized as preschoolers? What special services would you have prescribed for Bill Gates?
When my kids were young, 25-30 years ago, even in therapy-obsessed Manhattan, preschool kids weren't frequently diagnosed, weren't taking psychiatric medications, so I am skeptical about this epidemic of very young children with serious problems requiring psychiatric drugs. If our kids were having problems in nursery school, we might decide to wait another year and find a better school. What is going wrong with the way we are raising children? Why do we look in children's brains for the answers to be found in social reform? Are we being encouraged to worry needlessly about our own kids that we don't have any time or energy for political activism on behalf of all children?
Who is blowing the whistle? Who is questioning the wisdom of babies and toddlers being cared for by strangers? Who is wondering whether group care is appropriate for most children under three or four? Thirty-five years ago, children were five before they were expected to adapt to group standards of behavior. Who is crusading for a shorter work week and greatly increased parental leaves? Who is is dedicated to make caring for preschoolers a viable career path for college graduates, comparable to teaching in salary and benefits?
Who is demanding the economic changes required to enable parents to care for their babies and toddlers themselves? Who is comparing our rate of childhood mental illness with rates in the rest of the Western world? Who is outraged about preschoolers taking multiple psychiatric drugs that have never been tested on children? Who is fighting to outlaw drugs ads in magazines and on TV? Why are we teaching our kids that drugs are the solution to every problem? Thirty years ago we felt like bad parents if we let our kids have caffeine.
The aggressive drug treatment of mental illness in the last 30 years hasn't been a success story. When yesterday's wonder drug becomes generic, its ineffectiveness is suddenly discovered and its dangerous side effects are no longer covered up. Today's expensive wonder drug will save your life after being tested for a shockingly short time on shockingly few people who don't share your diagnoses. Witness the latest advertising blitz to treat bipolars with antipsychotics; all the tried and true mood stabilizers are becoming generic, so they obviously can't help.
Preschoolers are so unformed, so in process. This year's four year old can seem like a different creature than last year's three year old. These diagnoses of autism, bipolar disorder, ADHD imply lifelong, incurable brain disorders for which there are no medical tests, no verifiable proof of their existence. How do we know that today's experts on autism are any more correct than the world acclaimed psychiatrist who attributed autism to "icebox mothers" 40 years ago? Why do we expect little boys to adapt to schools better suited to girls? Why don't we train and recruit more male teachers in preschools, who might be better role models for little boys and help create more welcoming schools?
It is politically correct to be very tolerant and open-minded about emotional problems, but that enlightenment is only surface deep. I mourn for the three year old already cursed with a lifelong diagnosis. Loner, loser, geek, and nerd seem far kinder labels. In this fall's TV season, geeks are the new Prince Charmings. The confidentiality of medical records is a myth. Many adults not diagnosed along the autistic spectrum have successful careers in math, science, engineering, computer programming. Would that have happened if they had been diagnosed and stigmatized as preschoolers? What special services would you have prescribed for Bill Gates?
I am not questioning that some preschoolers will benefit from early intervention to cope with their idiosyncratic learning styles or developmental delays. I am not questioning that some children with severe problems require evaluation and treatment from infancy. But preschool services should not necessitate a lifelong diagnosis.
Why would you accept that your young child has a permanently broken brain? Why not take him out of day care, find a different nanny, change nursery schools, reduce your working hours, live more frugally, borrow money and take a leave of absence from work, ask your parents and relatives for help, search out books and activities about his particular obsessions, learn the recommended interventions yourself?
Does your child need more relaxed time with his overscheduled parents rather than tense sessions with experts comfortable with diagnosing him after a few testing sessions?Why not wait until the picture becomes clearer? Why it is so urgent to find the answer when he is 2 or 3? We are not dealing with meningitis or childhood leukemia. here Are we doing far more harm than good? When I hear a 7 year old rattle off all his psychiatric labels, it breaks my heart and makes me want to man the barricades. I would love to find some comrades.
Does your child need more relaxed time with his overscheduled parents rather than tense sessions with experts comfortable with diagnosing him after a few testing sessions?Why not wait until the picture becomes clearer? Why it is so urgent to find the answer when he is 2 or 3? We are not dealing with meningitis or childhood leukemia. here Are we doing far more harm than good? When I hear a 7 year old rattle off all his psychiatric labels, it breaks my heart and makes me want to man the barricades. I would love to find some comrades.
Friday, September 30, 2011
To My Oldest Daughter on Her 13th Birthday, 4/4/86
THIS IS NOT COPYRIGHTED. I URGE YOU TO USE IT.
Dearest Emma,
Dearest Emma,
Happy 13th birthday. This will be such an exciting year of change and growth for you that I particularly want us to keep in close touch with one another. Both of us are undergoing major transitions, so I hope we can understand and empathize with each other. I asked Grandma what she wished she had said to me on my thirteenth birthday. She didn't have to think about her answer. "Tell me everything. There's nothing you could conceivably do or say that I don't handle. You don't have to protect me from anything you feel or do." I liked that. I wished she had told me that when I was 13 What was left unsaid did far more lasting damage than anything that was said. So that's part of what I want to say to you as you blossom into womanhood.
I have lived 27 and 3/4 more years in the world than you have. I will be delighted to share any of my experiences with you, well aware that you have to find your own path. Sometimes I will forget and try to turn you into a newer, better me. I want you to point out what I'm doing when I do that. As you grow older, I identify more and more with you, so I will have to struggle not to force my old aspirations on you. But I have tried very hard in the past to respect your individuality. You were a distinct, dynamic individual from the moment you were born. I remember looking into your gorgeous, alert, intelligent eyes the day you were born and wondering if you would be too much for me. And sometimes you are. I am trying very hard to grow up enough to be a good mother to you. I have always loved your spirited determination to be your own person, what Barbara Williams, your nursery school teacher, called "your considerable sense of self." I want you to continue to feel free to tell me when I am making an obvious mistake with you or a not so obvious one.
I am glad you are so close to your father. My own teenage years would have been far happier if I hadn't been so intimidated by my father, so afraid of arguing with him, so afraid of getting close. You never have to choose between us; we will try to give you opportunities to be alone with each of us. You already know what very different people we are, but we are equally proud of our beautiful, brilliant, spirited daughter.
The worst thing that happened to me as a teenager is that I felt compelled to choose between my feminine and my intellectual sides. You live in a very different world, but you still will receive a lot of contradictory messages about what is really important. Don't choose. You can be both. Look at Aunt Jackie and Aunt Lynn, for example. A boy who holds your intelligence against you isn't capable of befriending or loving the real you. Don't waste time on such boys or men.
At this stage of your life close female friendships are far more important than boyfriends. At no stage of your life will close women friends cease to be vitally important. The longer I live, the more convinced I am that men and women are very different. Our world desperately needs women's unique qualities. Women need not become like men to succeed in life. Women need to support and understand one another. I would never go so far as one psychologist did when she wrote a book entitled, "Men Are Just Desserts." But don't ever neglect your girlfriends for some boy. I hope you continue to have friends like Michael who happen to be boys. I think that is particularly important because you don't have brothers or male cousins you see regularly. Peer pressure still discourages men and women from being "just friends," but I hope you can withstand that premature emphasis on pairing off. Daddy was my friend before he was my lover and my husband.
For most of this century mothers and daughters have been at odds with each other. That has been a tragic loss for women in general. Ideally your mother should be your most ardent supporter and confidant. No one, except your future husband, will probably ever love you more. In fact mothers have an even better track record than husbands. I hope we can continue to be friends. I know we will fight, but fighting doesn't diminish our closeness. Look at me and Daddy. When you were born, Uncle Stephen said, "Good, Mary Jo has a daughter she can fight with. That should make her very happy." He remembered my epic battles with my mother.
I hope we can continue to share books with each other. That might be one of the best ways for you to teach me lessons that you think I need to learn. Find me the right book to read. I often learn more from books than from my own mistakes. And you can always write notes to me if you find something too difficult to say. I can express myself in writing far better than I can face-to-face. I don't know if you're the same way, but you could try. I promise to save all your letters to hand down to your daughters. Wouldn't you have loved to see a letter from me to my mother at age 13? I would love to see it too. Recently I have remembered more of my teenage years. I'm glad. Getting to know teenage Mary Jo again will help me to be kinder to teenage Emma.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Twitter Is a Librarian's Paradise
Three months ago, my two tweeting daughters helped me discover the real value of Twitter. I tweet as @RedstockingGran. It is a librarian's paradise. I don't twitter about personal stuff, but about feminism, building a family friendly society, inequality, poverty, family-work balance. I am slowly discovering people who share my crusade and retweeting their posts, replying to them, sharing ideas and resources.
If facebook is where you discover people you went to school with, twitter is where you discover people you wish you went to school with.
Why the dandelion puffball? Blogging and twittering are the ways I blow the dandelion seeds of my ideas and convictions as far as I can, without any knowledge where they land or whom they influence.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Dylan, My New Muse and 24/7 Grandbaby
This was written during our honeymoon with Dylan, the Villain, who could give Michelle a run for her money in strategic planning. We need three water pistols to avoid being consumed by the tiger.
I have had cats almost all my life. Our senior cat Fibi died peacefully two years ago, and I seemed to need time to mourn. Monday evening we got Dylan, an eight-week-old tabby. Already Dylan has become my 24/7 grandbaby.Dylan is a very curious, affectionate cat who likes to be as close to me and Andy as possible. He takes his daytime naps on my macbook.
If the macbook is not closed, Dylan takes possession and practices keyboarding.
We live on a busy street, so Dylan has to be an indoor cat. Over the 27 years I have lived here, two of our cats and two unknown cats have been killed by traffic in front of our house. He likes to sit by an opened screen window and watch his version of TV. I might get a bird feeder close to a window. We have an old fish tank in the basement. That might lure Dylan away from cables and cords, his favorite toys.
Less than 24 hours after we brought him home, I spent 90 minutes frantically searching for him. The purple pan is his second favorite napping place; it is filled with printer paper.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
How to Cheat on the Mental Mini-Status Exam
Given that researchers plan to diagnose Alzheimer's Disease ten or twenty years earlier, no one is too young to practice cheating on the Mini Mental Status Exam .
The Mini-Mental Status Examination offers a quick and simple way to quantify cognitive function and screen for cognitive loss. It tests the individual’s orientation, attention, calculation, recall, language and motor skills.
Each section of the test involves a related series of questions or commands. The individual receives one point for each correct answer.To give the examination, seat the individual in a quiet, well-lit room. Ask him/her to listen carefully and to answer each question as accurately as he/she can.
Don’t time the test but score it right away. To score, add the number of correct responses. The individual can receive a maximum score of 30 points.
A score below 20 usually indicates cognitive impairment. ___
Whose home is this?
Ask the individual to repeat the following: “No if, ands, or buts”
Give the individual a plain piece of paper and say, “Take the paper in your hand, fold it in half, and put it on the floor.”
Total Score:_____
Make sure all the answers are on your smart phone before your neurologist visit.
If the examiner asks you not to look at your smart phone, offer to teach him how to use it so he won't have to waste so much time "remembering" Smirking casts doubt on your sincerity.
Mini-Mental Status Examination
The Mini-Mental Status Examination offers a quick and simple way to quantify cognitive function and screen for cognitive loss. It tests the individual’s orientation, attention, calculation, recall, language and motor skills.
Each section of the test involves a related series of questions or commands. The individual receives one point for each correct answer.To give the examination, seat the individual in a quiet, well-lit room. Ask him/her to listen carefully and to answer each question as accurately as he/she can.
Don’t time the test but score it right away. To score, add the number of correct responses. The individual can receive a maximum score of 30 points.
A score below 20 usually indicates cognitive impairment. ___
What is today’s date?
What is the month?
What is the year?
What is the day of the week today?
What season is it?
Whose home is this?
What room is this?
What city are we in?
What county are we in?
What state are we in?
Examiner: Confiscate all smart phones and ipods before administering this part of the test. Be aware your patient will be hiding them.
Ask if you may test his/her memory. Then say “ball”, “flag”, “tree” clearly and slowly, about 1 second for each. After you have said all 3 words, ask him/her to repeat them – the first repetition determines the score (0-3):
Examiner: Suspect surreptitious text messaging to oneself.
Ask the individual to begin with 100 and count backwards by 7. Stop after 5 subtractions. Score the correct subtractions.
Patient: Make sure to teach your child to count backwards first so they can ace this exam.
Ask the individual to spell the word ”WORLD” backwards. The score is the number of letters in correct position.
Ask the individual to spell the word ”WORLD” backwards. The score is the number of letters in correct position.
Patient: Silly you, learning to spell forwards. No wonder there are so many people with dementia.
Ask the individual to recall the 3 words you previously asked him/her to remember.
Ask the individual to recall the 3 words you previously asked him/her to remember.
Ball Flag Tree
Examiner: Suspect his mental acuity if he isn't consulting his cell phone.
Show the individual a wristwatch and ask him/her what it is. Repeat for pencil.
Examiner: Don't award any points if patient says the wristwatch was a primitive cell phone and a pencil was a primitive ipad.
Ask the individual to repeat the following: “No if, ands, or buts”
Examiner: "No if, ands, and buts, this is the stupidest test I have ever taken" still earns full credit.
Give the individual a plain piece of paper and say, “Take the paper in your hand, fold it in half, and put it on the floor.”
Examiner: Duck the paper airplane headed toward your eyes.
Hold up the card reading: “Close your eyes” so the individual can see it clearly. Ask him/her to read it and do what it says. Score correctly only if the individual actually closes his/her eyes. âª
Hold up the card reading: “Close your eyes” so the individual can see it clearly. Ask him/her to read it and do what it says. Score correctly only if the individual actually closes his/her eyes. âª
Examiner: Disobedience is unmistakable proof of dementia.
Give the individual a piece of paper and ask him/her to write a sentence. It is to be written spontaneously. It must contain a subject and verb and be sensible.
Examiner: "You are a fucking idiot" is an eminently sensible sentence. Control your emotions.
Give the individual a piece of paper and ask him/her to copy a design of two intersecting shapes. One point is awarded for correctly copying the shapes. All angles on both figures must be present, and the figures must have one overlapping angle.
Give the individual a piece of paper and ask him/her to copy a design of two intersecting shapes. One point is awarded for correctly copying the shapes. All angles on both figures must be present, and the figures must have one overlapping angle.
Patient: The examiner is testing your motor skills. Informing him you still skateboard will not improve your score.
Total Score:_____
DISCLAIMER: ANYTHING WRITTEN IN BOLDFACE IS NOT PART OF THE TEST. ANYTHING NOT WRITTEN IN BOLDFACE IS THE ACTUAL TEST.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Confessions of Misogyny
I wrote this at the height of the 2008 primary.
You have undoubtedly gotten the wrong impression of me because all the crap dumped on Hillary elicited my Joan of Arc persona and I was in full polemic mode. My four daughters would reassure you that I am one of the worst misogynists they know. Until I became a mother at age 28, I would always join the circle of men, never the circle of women. I was positive the conversation would be more stimulating. I despise women's fashion magazines and all the talk of diets , hair, shoes, and makeup. Being forced to watch Sex and the City would be cruel and unusual punishment.
Spending a year in a Catholic girls college in Rochester was the most alienating experience of my life. I was sarcastic, and no one seemed to realize I didn't necessarily mean it. One night my friends and I stayed up all night, discussing politics, sex, religion, life, death, etc. The rumor rapidly spread that we were gossiping about everyone on the floor. Learning from the college dean that "there was something in the nature of a woman that unsuits her for intellectual debate with men" elicited my jail beak to being the only girl in the political science classes at Fordham.
Working in the female-dominated fields of public librarianship and social work was a disaster for me. I never can accept that is the way it is and you can't do anything about it. I am a trouble maker pure and simple. When I am upset, I defend myself by getting more ascerbic and intellectual. I perceive that men enjoy gutsy women who giggle and smile and tease and insult and debate with them lots more than women do. I have always gone to male shrinks.
My most successful social work job was working with a great group of seriously mentally ill guys who were absolutely trapped in the system. Some had been in jail; most had substance abuse problems. I never was so appreciated by a group of people in my whole life. They were so wonderful to hang out with. I excel at eliciting the sanity in crazy people and the craziness in apparently sane people. There are lots of the latter in social work and public librarianship.
I also did extremely well with male gay clients. One told me I must have been a gay male in a previous lifetime I understand him so well. I Another paid me the greatest compliment I got as a shrink: he said I was his only experience of unconditional love. We had a strange therapeutic relationship. Until I treated him, an Irishmen from an utterly abusive family, I never realized how Irish I was.
I have never been hassled on the street by a guy in my entire life. I do smile a lot. I am perfectly comfortable being the only women in a subway car full of men. African American men and immigrants tend to find older, curvier women attractive, which is lovely fun. In the early days of women's lib, women whined incessantly about street hassles. I wondered if I was the ugliest woman in the entire women's liberation movement. I often have long conversations with homeless men. One street person teased me that I looked very friendly ,approachable, happy to talk, sometimes generous depending upon whether I had exceeded my day's handout limit, but I subtly conveyed that I could turn him to stone if he messed with me.
Two days later, I realize that the attacks on Hillary by women both reflect their misogyny and evoke mine. This week, all three female columnists for the NY Times , Maureen Dowd, Gail Collins, and Judith Warner appear to despise women who are not as brilliant, rational, skeptical, and educated as they are. They show little respect for the women who voted for Hillary because of her supposedly manipulative exploitation of gender issues; they seem obnoxiously smug that they understand women's real reasons, not the fantasies the poor little darlings tell themselves . I am not as guilty as they are of despising "regular" women, but I love to hate all highly successful women who, instead of supporting and mentoring younger women, seem to want to push down other women so they will remain in all their glittering exceptionalism on the top.
You have undoubtedly gotten the wrong impression of me because all the crap dumped on Hillary elicited my Joan of Arc persona and I was in full polemic mode. My four daughters would reassure you that I am one of the worst misogynists they know. Until I became a mother at age 28, I would always join the circle of men, never the circle of women. I was positive the conversation would be more stimulating. I despise women's fashion magazines and all the talk of diets , hair, shoes, and makeup. Being forced to watch Sex and the City would be cruel and unusual punishment.
Spending a year in a Catholic girls college in Rochester was the most alienating experience of my life. I was sarcastic, and no one seemed to realize I didn't necessarily mean it. One night my friends and I stayed up all night, discussing politics, sex, religion, life, death, etc. The rumor rapidly spread that we were gossiping about everyone on the floor. Learning from the college dean that "there was something in the nature of a woman that unsuits her for intellectual debate with men" elicited my jail beak to being the only girl in the political science classes at Fordham.
Working in the female-dominated fields of public librarianship and social work was a disaster for me. I never can accept that is the way it is and you can't do anything about it. I am a trouble maker pure and simple. When I am upset, I defend myself by getting more ascerbic and intellectual. I perceive that men enjoy gutsy women who giggle and smile and tease and insult and debate with them lots more than women do. I have always gone to male shrinks.
My most successful social work job was working with a great group of seriously mentally ill guys who were absolutely trapped in the system. Some had been in jail; most had substance abuse problems. I never was so appreciated by a group of people in my whole life. They were so wonderful to hang out with. I excel at eliciting the sanity in crazy people and the craziness in apparently sane people. There are lots of the latter in social work and public librarianship.
I also did extremely well with male gay clients. One told me I must have been a gay male in a previous lifetime I understand him so well. I Another paid me the greatest compliment I got as a shrink: he said I was his only experience of unconditional love. We had a strange therapeutic relationship. Until I treated him, an Irishmen from an utterly abusive family, I never realized how Irish I was.
I have never been hassled on the street by a guy in my entire life. I do smile a lot. I am perfectly comfortable being the only women in a subway car full of men. African American men and immigrants tend to find older, curvier women attractive, which is lovely fun. In the early days of women's lib, women whined incessantly about street hassles. I wondered if I was the ugliest woman in the entire women's liberation movement. I often have long conversations with homeless men. One street person teased me that I looked very friendly ,approachable, happy to talk, sometimes generous depending upon whether I had exceeded my day's handout limit, but I subtly conveyed that I could turn him to stone if he messed with me.
Two days later, I realize that the attacks on Hillary by women both reflect their misogyny and evoke mine. This week, all three female columnists for the NY Times , Maureen Dowd, Gail Collins, and Judith Warner appear to despise women who are not as brilliant, rational, skeptical, and educated as they are. They show little respect for the women who voted for Hillary because of her supposedly manipulative exploitation of gender issues; they seem obnoxiously smug that they understand women's real reasons, not the fantasies the poor little darlings tell themselves . I am not as guilty as they are of despising "regular" women, but I love to hate all highly successful women who, instead of supporting and mentoring younger women, seem to want to push down other women so they will remain in all their glittering exceptionalism on the top.
Friday, April 1, 2011
What Is Your Problem, Mr. Rashkolnikov?
My MLS in library science has enabled me to help more clients than my MSW in social work. Shrinks put diagnostic DSM numbers on people; librarians only label the books. Matching someone up with the perfect book for his present crisis can save years of meds and shrinkage.
A friend of mine, who is the psychiatric social worker at Montifiore Hospital in the Bronx, has an office full of books. Chris says lots of patients unknowingly come to his ER for the best book for them in the present crisis in their lives. They don't need admission. I recommend a young Irish client struggling with his sexual identity read James Baldwin; Baldwin did most of the therapeutic work.
I do know there is some magic in making the client/book connection.; trusting one's intuition is key. One high school librarian characterizes librarians as the last alchemists. I talk to kids long enough to determine whom he/she reminds me of. Then I recommend their soulmates favorite books. It shouldn't work, but it frequently does. So does not thinking what I am doing..
Rarely explored is the role that a common literary experience plays in therapy. My best psychiatrists have been English majors. If a client refers to particular books, poems, songs, I would try to track them down. If I didn't have time to read them, I at least skim them long enough to understand the basic themes or characters..I answer immediately when clients ask about my favorite novel. Some analytically oriented shrinks might spend the whole session analyzing why a client wants the answer to that question.
I had two clients who were reading the same novels as I was, even though we had never discussed the books before. I was comfortable revealing the coincidence since I think it indicates a strong therapeutic alliance. If a client brings up a movie she has seen this weekend and I saw it too, I would certainly reveal that. My most helpful, most destructive psychiatrist and I saw Nuts with Barbara Streisand and Richard Dreyfuss the same weekend. We both admitted we thought of each other. Dr. Klein observed: "I was thinking it is going to be a lot easier to walk out of that movie than to walk out of this therapy."
In my experience, just as clients of Freudians have Freudian dreams and clients of Jungians have Jungian dreams, clients of therapist librarians spontaneously talk about books, even though they don't know about their therapist's secret identity..
In my 20's I was a supervisory editor for Basic Books, the American publisher of Freud and many other psychiatry books. The psychiatrists I encountered were mostly refugees from the Nazi's. They were immensely cultured, learned men, deeply committed to music, literature, and art. Too many psychiatrists today are narrowly educated pill pushers who are ignorant of the classics of world literature.
Patients could go to a psych ER, give the name of their favorite literary character, recite the plot of the book as their symptom, and be admitted as a paranoid schizophrenic. Maybe this could be a successful reality show for English majors.
Imagine how appalled I was in 1993 when I discovered my new psychiatrist had never heard of Jane Austen. You need a therapist with a similarly furnished literary mind.
A friend of mine, who is the psychiatric social worker at Montifiore Hospital in the Bronx, has an office full of books. Chris says lots of patients unknowingly come to his ER for the best book for them in the present crisis in their lives. They don't need admission. I recommend a young Irish client struggling with his sexual identity read James Baldwin; Baldwin did most of the therapeutic work.
I do know there is some magic in making the client/book connection.; trusting one's intuition is key. One high school librarian characterizes librarians as the last alchemists. I talk to kids long enough to determine whom he/she reminds me of. Then I recommend their soulmates favorite books. It shouldn't work, but it frequently does. So does not thinking what I am doing..
Rarely explored is the role that a common literary experience plays in therapy. My best psychiatrists have been English majors. If a client refers to particular books, poems, songs, I would try to track them down. If I didn't have time to read them, I at least skim them long enough to understand the basic themes or characters..I answer immediately when clients ask about my favorite novel. Some analytically oriented shrinks might spend the whole session analyzing why a client wants the answer to that question.
I had two clients who were reading the same novels as I was, even though we had never discussed the books before. I was comfortable revealing the coincidence since I think it indicates a strong therapeutic alliance. If a client brings up a movie she has seen this weekend and I saw it too, I would certainly reveal that. My most helpful, most destructive psychiatrist and I saw Nuts with Barbara Streisand and Richard Dreyfuss the same weekend. We both admitted we thought of each other. Dr. Klein observed: "I was thinking it is going to be a lot easier to walk out of that movie than to walk out of this therapy."
In my experience, just as clients of Freudians have Freudian dreams and clients of Jungians have Jungian dreams, clients of therapist librarians spontaneously talk about books, even though they don't know about their therapist's secret identity..
In my 20's I was a supervisory editor for Basic Books, the American publisher of Freud and many other psychiatry books. The psychiatrists I encountered were mostly refugees from the Nazi's. They were immensely cultured, learned men, deeply committed to music, literature, and art. Too many psychiatrists today are narrowly educated pill pushers who are ignorant of the classics of world literature.
Patients could go to a psych ER, give the name of their favorite literary character, recite the plot of the book as their symptom, and be admitted as a paranoid schizophrenic. Maybe this could be a successful reality show for English majors.
Imagine how appalled I was in 1993 when I discovered my new psychiatrist had never heard of Jane Austen. You need a therapist with a similarly furnished literary mind.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Happy Halloween
My daughter took this picture from her living room. The pumpkins are on her 6th floor terrace.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
The Worm Turns; the Younger Sibling Fights Back
I had always been fascinated how early the younger sibling figures out how to annoy the older sibling. From a journal entry in 1974, when Michelle was 15 months old, Emma was 3.
When Emma came home from nursery school, she asked me to read Green Eggs and Ham. She settled on my lap in the small black chair, and I began to read. Michelle immediately came over protesting, tried to climb into the chair. I assumed she wanted to listen to the story so I asked Emma to move to the couch, so we all could fit. But then Michelle started grabbing the book, bringing me her books to read.
When Emma came home from nursery school, she asked me to read Green Eggs and Ham. She settled on my lap in the small black chair, and I began to read. Michelle immediately came over protesting, tried to climb into the chair. I assumed she wanted to listen to the story so I asked Emma to move to the couch, so we all could fit. But then Michelle started grabbing the book, bringing me her books to read.
I discouraged her, feeling she had had my exclusive attention for 4 hours; now it was Emma's turn. My friend Terry offered to read to Michelle, but she struggled down from her lap 2 or 3 times. I finished reading Green Eggs and Ham. Terry started to read to Emma and Erin, so I could read to Michelle. Michelle got down from my lap and tried to grab the book away from Terry. When that failed, she tried bribery--3 books, her blanket, a slip, her rabbit skin. Erin wanted the rabbit skin, but every time she took it away from Michelle she protested and only stopped when Terry took it back from Erin.
Finally Michelle used one of the cardboard blocks to climb on the ottoman; from there she lunged for the big black chair where Terry was sitting with Emma and Erin. She didn't quite make it and had to be rescued, but she had achieved her purpose--the reading stopped. I've noticed that she often starts fussing if someone picks up Emma, reads to her, pays her exclusive attention in any way, shape, or form
I'm glad to see such self-assertion on her part, even though I feel pulled in two directions now with both of them clamoring for exclusive attention. It frees me from being Michelle's defender. More and more I can let them learn to handle their disputes by themselves. I know Emma's worst won't really hurt Michelle, and Michelle's protests more than enough to warn me if any mayhem is actually occurring. Once or twice lately I've rushed in ready to scold Emma, when Michelle's protests had absolutely nothing to do with her. For the first time since Michelle was born, I can't read to both of them at the same time. Her big sister's being away at school mornings seems to have encouraged Michelle to increase her demands. If she could get rid of Emma in the mornings, why not all day?
Finally Michelle used one of the cardboard blocks to climb on the ottoman; from there she lunged for the big black chair where Terry was sitting with Emma and Erin. She didn't quite make it and had to be rescued, but she had achieved her purpose--the reading stopped. I've noticed that she often starts fussing if someone picks up Emma, reads to her, pays her exclusive attention in any way, shape, or form
I'm glad to see such self-assertion on her part, even though I feel pulled in two directions now with both of them clamoring for exclusive attention. It frees me from being Michelle's defender. More and more I can let them learn to handle their disputes by themselves. I know Emma's worst won't really hurt Michelle, and Michelle's protests more than enough to warn me if any mayhem is actually occurring. Once or twice lately I've rushed in ready to scold Emma, when Michelle's protests had absolutely nothing to do with her. For the first time since Michelle was born, I can't read to both of them at the same time. Her big sister's being away at school mornings seems to have encouraged Michelle to increase her demands. If she could get rid of Emma in the mornings, why not all day?
Handling Sibling Rivalry Between 3-Year-Old and 17-Month old Sisters
After observing how 15-month-old Michelle could hold her own with 3-year-old Emma, I earnestly tried to establish rules for myself . As the oldest of six, I probably overidentified with Emma. I read this to her recently, when her son Michael was Michelle's age, and we collapsed in helpless laughter. How earnest and intellectual I was trying to be, pretending I could objectively stay above the fray. Some of my advice is excellent; too bad I wasn't able to follow it. I had obviously read too many parenting books and taken too many contradictory parenting classes.
Since they have become mothers, their rivalry seems to have evaporated, although each is hypersensitive to any perceived criticism of their childrearing by their sisters' husbands. When I am excessively judgmental, I get in trouble with all of them. Andy, their stepfather, a miracle of tact, consideration. and understanding, never makes my mistakes.
- When in doubt about what to do, don't interfere.
- If I am concerned that one of them could really get hurt, always intervene. In practical terms, that means always being within interfering distance when they are both playing on the slide, on the climbing structure, or on the terrace.
- When other people are around who would tend to think very badly of Emma if she made Michelle cry, intervene.
- Protect Emma from Michelle. She should have time alone in her room to paint, to build with blocks, when Michelle is not constantly at her back, intent to destroy what she has just made. When Emma complains that Michelle is bothering her, respond and help her out. It is completely unreasonable to expect Emma to handle Michelle's interference by herself. I find it hard enough to distract single-minded Michelle.
- Encourage Emma to find solutions to the problem herself. "I'm sorry Michelle keeps knocking down your blocks. Do you have any idea how we can stop her from doing it." Poor Emma. No wonder, she told me, a few years later, "Don't give me any of that active listening crap."
- Try to spend one hour special time with Emma after dinner. Now that she will be away from me three hours a day in nursery school, this is particularly important.
- Make a firm rule about no hitting with things. The thing used as a weapon gets put in the closet until the next day. "Blocks are for building, not for hitting Michelle. You can have it back tomorrow."
- When I find it necessary to intervene, use actions not words. No screaming, no getting angry. Separate them physically. Then, and only then, try to help Emma. "I think you are trying to say something to Michelle. Talk it. You can talk; you don't have to hit. I know how you feel, but I can't let you hurt Michelle. It makes her feel like hitting you."
- When one of them is likely to continue hurting, use physical restraint. Take her to another room to calm down, telling her she can come back when she can play without hurting.
- Don't get angry. If I can't intervene without getting angry, don't bother. Michelle is not a helpless baby, and she is not always an innocent victim. Don't always assume I saw the curtain-raiser to this particular squabble.
Since they have become mothers, their rivalry seems to have evaporated, although each is hypersensitive to any perceived criticism of their childrearing by their sisters' husbands. When I am excessively judgmental, I get in trouble with all of them. Andy, their stepfather, a miracle of tact, consideration. and understanding, never makes my mistakes.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Diagnosing Children with Bipolar Disorder
I am concerned that gifted, creative children, who march to a different drummer in our regimented society, are being misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and threatened with a lifetime of dangerous medications and social stigma. Having that dire diagnosis imposed on you at age 6 severely compromises your ability to lead a normal life, marry, have children, go to college, have a career. How would you have reacted at age 6 if you were told you had a broken brain that could not be fixed, only treated with lifelong drugs with dangerous and/or unknown side effects? Having been diagnosed as bipolar at age 40, I know what a sentence of doom such a diagnosis too often is. I have always thanked God I had my four brilliant daughters before I learned the genetic doom that supposedly awaited them. Ages 37, 35, 31, 28, they are doing splendidly both professionally and personally.
Twenty years ago, psychiatry believed that bipolar disorder strikes in the late teens, that it was impossible to diagnose children or adolescents. Now psychiatrists occasionally diagnose bipolar disorder in four year olds, after too brief examination. Is diagnosing kids as bipolar sometimes an unthinking way to squelch kids who are divergent thinkers, who think too fast, talk too fast, question authority, get bored too easily in our increasing test-oriented schools.
Twenty years ago, psychiatry believed that bipolar disorder strikes in the late teens, that it was impossible to diagnose children or adolescents. Now psychiatrists occasionally diagnose bipolar disorder in four year olds, after too brief examination. Is diagnosing kids as bipolar sometimes an unthinking way to squelch kids who are divergent thinkers, who think too fast, talk too fast, question authority, get bored too easily in our increasing test-oriented schools.
Are other countries undergoing the same childhood bipolar epidemic or is this an American phenomena? When and how was the supposed epidemic of childhood bipolar disorder suddenly discovered? How many of the early pioneers were funded by drug companies? Have any longitudinal studies been done, comparing the life trajectory of kids diagnosed and medicated and of kids whose parents refuse medication? Is there any evidence that kids diagnosed as bipolar grow up to be adults with bipolar disorder?
Has the breakdown of the extended family and small, isolated families increased the number of kids in serious trouble? Why is there such a striking absence of social criticism about the so-called epidemic of bipolar children? For the last 30 years American society has conducted an experiment in having babies and toddlers cared for by a rapid turnover of strangers--not parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, neighbors, friends. Babies as young as two months spend their entire days in group care, with almost inevitable disregard for their individual temperament and biological rhythms. Parents have no choice. Both mother and father work long exhausting hours without the support of nearby grandparents, aunts, uncles. Schools are obsessed with testing, neglecting the art, music, writing, sports, exercise, play that nurture a child's creativity.
I only have the questions, not the answers. But the psychiatrists writing the prescriptions too often are unwilling to admit they don't know the answers either. That these drugs work is not proof of their diagnoses. I promise if any of you took an atypical anti-psychotic, you might appear calmer and more obedient.
I have personally ingested the medications now being inflicted on young kids. Even my strong intellect and excellent education could not prevail against the onslaught of depakote or risperdal. My IQ seemed to drop thirty points; I lost my lifelong writing ability as well as any motivation to write. Now Big Pharm runs advertisements on primetime TV and popular magazines to convince patients that atypical anti-psychotics such as risperdal are the magic bullets to make their lives wonderful. Antipsychotics used to be reserved for chronic schizophrenics. Now they are used to make Alzheimer's patients and children easier to manage.
How many psychiatrist prescribing drugs for young children have taken them? Is America in danger of regarding children as high-end luxury items that parents insist on purchasing and then demand that society should take some responsibility for them? Any decent society is committed to all children. We are the least child friendly society in the Western world. Is that why so many more of our children take psychiatric drugs?
Since therapy and daily meds have helped me, I am not denying the reality of adult bipolar disorder. I did spend ten years as a psychiatric guinea pig, taking medications far worse than my illness, I found the medication that does more good than harm through exhaustive internet research. I then found a psychiatrist willing to learn along with me how it would work. Now he prescribes that medication for many of his patients, and I didn't get a cut:) I have always been uneasy with my diagnosis. No one suspected it when I lived in Manhattan. At my most manic, I still get the admonition "too slow" when I swipe my Metro Card through the subway turnstile.
I question whether bipolar disorder can be distinguished from normal crazy behavior of children and teenagers. At various stages, I was convinced each of my four unruly brats was bipolar. But these spawns of Satan who have cleaned up remarkably well as adults. However, when they all return home en masse, they regress to childhood bipolar disorder again, unless their guys are around to embarrass them into adulthood:)
Early Diagnosis of Childhood Mental Illness
This post was a reaction of another mother blogger who worried that her three year old was autistic, when it appears he just didn't fit in with his daycare center.
Reading parent blogs, I have been taken aback by how frequently mothers worry that their preschool boy is autistic. I don't want to offend any of you great parents, trying to do what is best for your child. In all my years around young children(5 brothers, 45 younger cousins, 4 daughters) none were tested for autism as a preschooler. Has autism increased so dramatically or is there now so little tolerance for divergent thinking and unconventional minds? I am desperately uncomfortable with psychiatric diagnoses for preschoolers. And some of the softer austic symptoms bother me.
I always wondered why I was different, but being told I was a manic depressive at age 7 when my mom worried about my worrying would have been nightmarish. My dad just told me I was smarter than other people and read much more, and I could live with that:) I wouldn't have dared to have my 4 wonderful children if I knew I was mentally ill. Thank God I was diagnosed until the youngest was 4.
If being a scientist happily working all hours in a lab is being a loner, so what? Both chemistry professors, my brother met his wife in the lab at MIT, and they are happy loners together. Another brother who is an elementary school teacher is very dubious about special ed for kids within normal limits. He thinks the stigma is far worse than the extra services justify.
People who weren't diagnosed, who wish they had been, haven't been exposed to the stigma and discrimination and mistreatment that accompany diagnoses. They possibly exaggerate the wonderfulness of the special services they didn't receive. We are not an enlightened society; stigma is very real. I would have never gone to social work school at age 46 if I had realized that many mental health professionals obviously don't believe in the efficacy of their own treatments and would fear an open wounded healer..
Loners and losers outgrow it, invent software, have TV shows made about them:) Nerds and geeks are the new prince charmings; they make great husbands. Diagnoses are forever. How do kids "along the autistic spectrum" do with chemistry sets and microscopes? I suspect they make microscopes. I recall a kid in my daughter Jane's traditional kindergarten class. The teacher insisted he be tested for developmental disability. He tested at genius level.
My kids desperately needed to be intellectually challenged, and only the two-day-a-week pullout gifted program was adequate. I let Michelle, my scientist,stay home from school so much because she was obviously learning at a higer level than she could reach at school. Using her sister's math textbook, she brought herself up two grade levels in three days. She managed to run fevers only on nongifted days.
I always thought I could do something for my kids, that I knew and understood them better than the "experts."I admit my dad's legacy was intellectual arrogance. I could read the same books and journals as the experts, and I knew my weird kids better. Certainly that approach was the key to taming my own bipolar disorder 15 years ago. I researched psychiatric journals and the net to find the best possible medication and shopped for a psychiatrist who was willing to prescribe it. My psychiatrist has frequently expressed his gratitude for my educating him, since he now frequently prescribes the med I told him about.. I needed a psychiatrist who was a partner, who would discuss journal articles with me as a peer, who was as willing to learn from me as I was from him, who would admit when he didn't know and when he was wrong. Only then would I feel comfortable enough to be fully honest with him about my medication.
Using what you learn from blogs, books, and journals about autism is brilliant. I am sure they would have helped me cope with my dad, two brothers, two husbands, and two nephews:) I am very curious to read them; I love to think about how different minds work. Learning all you can is different than a formal diagnosis that might convey to a child, his teachers, his peers that there is something wrong with him. Different, original minds can't and shouldn't be fixed.
Do read For Her Own Good: 200 Years of Experts Advice to Women, by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English. Thank God I first read it when it only covered 150 years in 1979, the year after my writer was born. Thank God I never consulted experts about her. Some minds are too mysterious to be meddled with. She probably would have qualified for bipolar disorder, autism, and social anxiety disorder, with a subtle oppositional defiant disorder.
The label "autistic" might be less frightening to your generation, but in 62 years I have never personally known a child so labeled. I have known many children who could have been so labeled, but they found their ideal career niche and the spouse who can translate for them. The more I read about it, the more I suspect it explains so much about my men:) My father was an actuary. Two brothers are accountants; one is a chemistry professor. My first husband is a radiation physicist; my second husband is a computter programmer.
Reading parent blogs, I have been taken aback by how frequently mothers worry that their preschool boy is autistic. I don't want to offend any of you great parents, trying to do what is best for your child. In all my years around young children(5 brothers, 45 younger cousins, 4 daughters) none were tested for autism as a preschooler. Has autism increased so dramatically or is there now so little tolerance for divergent thinking and unconventional minds? I am desperately uncomfortable with psychiatric diagnoses for preschoolers. And some of the softer austic symptoms bother me.
I always wondered why I was different, but being told I was a manic depressive at age 7 when my mom worried about my worrying would have been nightmarish. My dad just told me I was smarter than other people and read much more, and I could live with that:) I wouldn't have dared to have my 4 wonderful children if I knew I was mentally ill. Thank God I was diagnosed until the youngest was 4.
If being a scientist happily working all hours in a lab is being a loner, so what? Both chemistry professors, my brother met his wife in the lab at MIT, and they are happy loners together. Another brother who is an elementary school teacher is very dubious about special ed for kids within normal limits. He thinks the stigma is far worse than the extra services justify.
People who weren't diagnosed, who wish they had been, haven't been exposed to the stigma and discrimination and mistreatment that accompany diagnoses. They possibly exaggerate the wonderfulness of the special services they didn't receive. We are not an enlightened society; stigma is very real. I would have never gone to social work school at age 46 if I had realized that many mental health professionals obviously don't believe in the efficacy of their own treatments and would fear an open wounded healer..
Loners and losers outgrow it, invent software, have TV shows made about them:) Nerds and geeks are the new prince charmings; they make great husbands. Diagnoses are forever. How do kids "along the autistic spectrum" do with chemistry sets and microscopes? I suspect they make microscopes. I recall a kid in my daughter Jane's traditional kindergarten class. The teacher insisted he be tested for developmental disability. He tested at genius level.
My kids desperately needed to be intellectually challenged, and only the two-day-a-week pullout gifted program was adequate. I let Michelle, my scientist,stay home from school so much because she was obviously learning at a higer level than she could reach at school. Using her sister's math textbook, she brought herself up two grade levels in three days. She managed to run fevers only on nongifted days.
I always thought I could do something for my kids, that I knew and understood them better than the "experts."I admit my dad's legacy was intellectual arrogance. I could read the same books and journals as the experts, and I knew my weird kids better. Certainly that approach was the key to taming my own bipolar disorder 15 years ago. I researched psychiatric journals and the net to find the best possible medication and shopped for a psychiatrist who was willing to prescribe it. My psychiatrist has frequently expressed his gratitude for my educating him, since he now frequently prescribes the med I told him about.. I needed a psychiatrist who was a partner, who would discuss journal articles with me as a peer, who was as willing to learn from me as I was from him, who would admit when he didn't know and when he was wrong. Only then would I feel comfortable enough to be fully honest with him about my medication.
Using what you learn from blogs, books, and journals about autism is brilliant. I am sure they would have helped me cope with my dad, two brothers, two husbands, and two nephews:) I am very curious to read them; I love to think about how different minds work. Learning all you can is different than a formal diagnosis that might convey to a child, his teachers, his peers that there is something wrong with him. Different, original minds can't and shouldn't be fixed.
Do read For Her Own Good: 200 Years of Experts Advice to Women, by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English. Thank God I first read it when it only covered 150 years in 1979, the year after my writer was born. Thank God I never consulted experts about her. Some minds are too mysterious to be meddled with. She probably would have qualified for bipolar disorder, autism, and social anxiety disorder, with a subtle oppositional defiant disorder.
The label "autistic" might be less frightening to your generation, but in 62 years I have never personally known a child so labeled. I have known many children who could have been so labeled, but they found their ideal career niche and the spouse who can translate for them. The more I read about it, the more I suspect it explains so much about my men:) My father was an actuary. Two brothers are accountants; one is a chemistry professor. My first husband is a radiation physicist; my second husband is a computter programmer.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Silver Princess: My Hair Wars
Wedding Day, June 1968 ( Hair Permanented)
Wedding Day, December 2001 (Hair Dyed)
2007, Real Hair
I have always had thick, absolutely straight hair that I was grimly determined to curl. The first picture of me in curlers was taken at age 4. I either set my hair every night or had permanents until I got married. I was a blonde until I was 3; then my hair turned to dark brown. My aunt found my first gray hair when I was 12 .When I was 23, a colleague asked me whether I streaked my hair because I had so many gray hairs. My mom had dyed her hair from the time she was 30; I vowed to let my hair go gray like both my grandmothers had done.
Around age 38 I sold out and periodically attempted home dye jobs. I stopped when a woman asked me in the supermarket whether I had purple hair. I started to have it dyed professionally when I was 42 (depressed over my dad's death). It was expensive and time-consuming; about a week after I walked out of the beauty parlor, I would have dramatic silver roots.
At age 47, I impulsively decided to go gray. If you use permanent dye, you have stark choices. You can cut your hair very short and endure looking like a skunk while it grows out. Or you can bleach your hair ash blonde and let it grow out a bit less conspicuously. I opted for the latter. Walking into my social work field placement and my classes as a blonde, I was the focus of attention that I had never been before. It took a year to grow out while my hair felt like straw, but I was pleased with the results. My hair was silverish white.
Two years later, I was meeting my mom in Manhattan for a Broadway show. As I watched her walk down the block, I thought, "I can't stand it. She looks much younger than I do." So I dyed it dark brown again in 1995. My 28-year marriage ended in 1996, and gray hair did not seem the best advertisement for a new husband.
My mother died on Good Friday, 2004, almost 83. We asked the undertaker to touch up her roots because we knew she would have hated mourners seeing her gray hair and realizing she was old:) My 5 brothers made tasteless jokes about hair growing after death and needing touchups six feet under. That was a moment of truth. I went the bleached blonde to silver route and have not changed my mind in 5 years. For about six months I was shocked when I caught an unexpected glimpse of myself in a mirror.
I was brave. My husband is 16 years younger than me, and I dreaded being asked whether he was my son. That hasn't happened, but he is not allowed to shave his beard off and look younger. Andy calls me his silver princess. I can spend a whole day in Manhattan and never see another woman with long, straight silver hair. Too many older gray-haired women have unbecoming permanents. In contrast, when we visit England, I see lots of women in their 50's with gray, silver, or white hair. The second most important man in my life, my grandson Michael, has always loved my hair.
I believe my gray hair struggles are all about my relationship with my mom. My mom hated it when I wore my hair gray. It is not an accident that I waited until she died to revert back to silver. At least 3 of my daughters, 36, 33, and 30, have noticeable gray streaks. Mysteriously, the men in my family go gray 20 years later than the women. I have been asked if it's platinum blonde; I have been asked who is my hairdresser. Being silver is much more fun than being brunette, naturally or artificially.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)