Commentary Archives - Page 38 of 72 - Mothering in the Middle

Open Adoption: When What I Knew Was Wrong

by Lori Lavender Luz

Image courtesy of http://lavender.luz.com

When Roger and I embarked on the journey of adopting a baby several years ago, everything we “knew” about adoption was from decades past:

You waited on a long list until the agency matched you with a situation. Top of the list of criteria for the match? Your place in line.
You tried to make the building of your family as close to “normal” (read: biological) as possible. You didn’t talk much about the adoption, either inside or outside of the family, and you certainly didn’t have any contact with birth parents. The goal was to make it seamless, almost as if adoption were never part of the story. […]

Musings…

by Josie Iselin

The Chairlift

On the chairlift

amidst the peaks

the glorious sun and air

My friend and I agreed

we would not trade

those years with small kids

for anything

Our careers are stalled

earnings pitiful

retirement savings scary to contemplate

But our two girls banter next to us

in their round helmets and goggles

friends since the beginning

They own the hills with their confident and graceful bodies

lithe and masterful

thinking of me and my friend as weird parents

refusing to let me take their picture to put next to their two-year-old selves.

It was just so fun my friend reminds me

And it was.

They will carry this fun

these two

into their lives.

How could I be richer?

www.JosieIselin.com

Being an introvert and a mother of three seem to be at odds with each other. As an introvert, I tend to crave quiet and ALONE perhaps more than my extroverted human counterparts might. And yet my young children are constantly here…and there…and… everywhere!

This is my fantasy “happy place” in my mind: I am alone in the forest. Alone in the cabin – miles from any civilization. It’s only me and the woodland creatures. The songs of birds, the calls of the wolves, and the occasional growl of a bear. There is no internet. No telephone. But there are books (many books)! There is pen and paper. And God. […]

Why I Write: Explaining My New Life as a Midlife Mr. Mom-Writer

by Marc Parsont

The creator of MotheringintheMiddle.com thinks that as Mr. Mom (Mr. Stay-At-Home-Midlife-Mom), I’m also “EveryMan.”

Yes, I am a stay-at-home father, but frequently very comical in my attempts. I nearly burned the house down twice, once by cooking baby nipples down to a black tar with the second time gloriously wiped clean from my memory by six years of changing diapers, wiping tears from faces down to polishing poopy smeared backsides. Poop is close to writing in many cases or is frequently the end result. […]

One of Those Women? (In Honor of World Breastfeeding Week – 8/1 – 8/7)

by Ellie Stoneley

I’m old … a year away from 50 in fact. I’m a first time mother. I have an 18-month-old daughter. I drive along singing, “The Wheels on the Bus” even when she’s not in the car with me. I secretly love it when she wakes up needing me in the night, however tired I am. I am still breastfeeding her.

Right then, it would appear that, certainly according to much of the tabloid press, I’m practically the devil incarnate. A crazy breastfeeding, sagging old loon that a poor child has to put up with as a mother, a veritable harridan. Personally I don’t think I’m that bad. […]

Kids Keep You Young: The Myth

by Lori Shandle-Fox

You’ve always heard that kids keep you young. I want proof. Are there actual studies on this? I think not. I know that I’ve conducted my own studies and am here to report to you that it’s all a big myth. I admit, the core group I’ve focused on has consisted of a small informal gathering of neurotic people.

Case Study #1: My father-in-law. He has had neck and back issues for most of his adult life. To what does he attribute his cervical demise? One might guess the massive car accident that he had years ago that kept him in the hospital for months. According to him, that doesn’t even compare to teaching his children how to ride a bike. […]

Unearthing Diamonds at Midlife

by Lisa Garon Froman

Dear Reader: Please read author commentary and excerpts (in bold) from her new book, Tao Flashes.

For some reason, I’ve always been drawn to rocks. Maybe it’s my inner nerd, but I love the colors, the jagged edges, the imperfect lines, the untold stories and the history behind them. Even now as an adult, I collect rocks when I’m on vacation; I pluck them up from my path and save them as colorful mementos from my adventures. When I view them later, it’s like looking at a vacation photo. I am whisked back in time to the place, to the moment where I uncovered my piece of earth. And it brings me peace.

At midlife, I’m a lot more concerned about being peaceful than I was when I was younger. Caught up in the frantic day-to-day, gotta get it done–and get it done well–mode, I accepted a certain amount of chaos as the norm. As long as my son was happy, or safe, my happiness or peacefulness didn’t matter so much. […]

The PTSD of Adoptive Parents

by Michelle Eisler

Emotions are celebrated and repressed, analyzed and medicated, adored and ignored — but rarely, if ever, are they honored – Karla McLaren

I was driving to my doctor’s appointment when the morning radio host began talking about the second anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti. I had awakened that morning feeling fragile, and chalked it up to needing to adjust my hormones. I felt thankful that I was heading to the doctor.

But, suddenly, at the mention of the earthquake, I began crying, and found it hard to stop. Here I was seeing a collage of pictures and images I had seen on CNN during the weeks we felt helpless as we fought to bring my daughter home. Something I thought I had moved beyond was suddenly rearing its ugly head. […]

Dear Coffee, Oh Dear…

by Janet Madsen

Dear Coffee,

I have loved you for so many years, and yet I fear our days are numbered. When I started with you as a teen, it was instant; it was sweetened artificially and barely shaded with watery skim milk- teen love in a cup. You rocketed me through my twenties as I juggled two jobs and university. You were with me on first dates. When my kids were babies, a wee sip here and there perked me up for the necessary and endless tasks that went along with newbie parenting, then parenting of two. So why the potential break up?

Alas, I cannot bear you. That first sip in the morning is sublime- the cream, the brown sugar, the deep taste of possibility for the hours ahead. But my heart beats for you- a little too much. No make that, too, too much. […]

The Vacation

by Maggie Lamond Simone

The purpose of a vacation, they say, is to make us feel better. It is an opportunity to escape from real life for awhile, to pamper ourselves, to do things we ordinarily don’t do. It is meant to restore our mental health so that the usual daily routine isn’t so bad. That’s why we look forward to it each and every year. […]