Commentary Archives - Page 42 of 72 - Mothering in the Middle

Teaching Our Children to Remember: Memorial Day

by Jane Samuel

This morning I stood at my kitchen sink washing dishes and planning out our Memorial Day as the morning news droned on in the background. I suspect our daily agenda looked like many other mid-American households: yard work, house work, work work, pool-time and barbeque time. Our children’s day would also include my husband’s annual instruction in honor and patriotism. He is his father’s son, and this year for the reasons I share here I am even more proud of that.

Each year he pulls out the newspaper, checks the time of the service at the Lexington Cemetery and corrals our daughters off to witness the true meaning of Memorial Day. Depending on the hour of the service, the heat index, and the level of grumpiness there is often a dispute about which children must attend. The younger one – unless she has already donned her swimming attire for the day – is willing to go along for the ride. The older ones are – par for the course – a different story. There are time worn comments about it being “their summer vacation” or it being “too hot.” Each year I push my husband to take them all. Yes, I believe in his lesson to them and usually reflect briefly on its importance. But mainly, I just want some peace and quiet for a few hours. That is until this year. […]

Late Bloomers

by Jenilyn Gilbert

Seems I live in the most fertile house in history. Everything about this house is fertile and that’s partly why this house was so appealing to buy. Eight children and two parents lived here before we bought it last summer. Later I learned that the mother was expecting her ninth baby.

The neighbors joke, “Don’t drink the water in that house!” I was drinking water by the gallons, are you kidding me? Although normally I’m pretty conscious of drinking only filtered water, I started drinking straight from the tap as well as offering it to all of my fertility clients. […]

Parenting Colour-Blind

by Michelle Eisler

Illustration courtesy
of Jodi Queenan

I prayed for the woman in Haiti who would be the mother of the child we would be adopting. I felt in my heart it would be a little girl. The required adoption course seemed like a mundane step on the journey to getting “her,” but it was necessary, so I travelled three hours to be there.

I sat at the “Adoption Education” course with a group of other adoptive parents, everyone ready to learn our government-mandated course material. When the course came to the “Transracial Parenting” selection we leaned into it; this was our part. This was also the most controversial part of the course. The bulk of the parents were adopting from a different culture and many had some definitive ideas about “why it would be ok.” Obviously, most of us didn’t see colour – that’s why we weren’t shy in pursuing international adoption. […]

Midlife Mothers, Teenage Daughters, and Prenatal Care

by Stephanie Tillman (a.k.a. the Feminist Midwife)

As a healthcare provider, my work is to listen to the unique experiences of people throughout their lives. My favorite visits lately have been witnessing teenage daughters attend the prenatal visits of their midlife mothers. I have spent some time trying to figure out what makes this experience so special for myself and for the other women in the room, and I share a bit of that thought process here.

I am a midwife, serving women in an inner city. Many of my patients are non-English speaking, birthing in a new country and living at a crossroads between teaching family tradition and learning new approaches as their children grow. […]

Top 10 Natural Herbs for Relieving Menopause Symptoms

by Kris Smith

The most effective way to manage the pain and plight of menopause are Kris’s top 10 natural herbs for relieving menopause symptoms. Menopausal symptoms can at times be extreme, and definitely hamper a productive and comfortable life routine. Most women find it easy to turn to hormone based medication, that some experts suspect, is likely to harm the body in an attempt to control this natural part of a woman’s fertility cycle. The best alternative to such hormonal therapies are natural and herbal therapies. […]

My Child’s Guardian Angel

by Jo Beth Young

Healing Angel
by Jo Beth Young

Have you ever wondered if your child has a Guardian Angel? If you have had your own first-hand experience of Angels, then you’ll already be in doubt that they do! However, if you’ve yet to see or sense the angelic realm around you, help is at hand!

I’m looking forward to sharing my experience and insights with you to help you make this loving heavenly link which not only brings a whole new exciting dimension to parenting but can help us understand our own children on an even deeper level.

I have connected consciously with Angels since childhood myself and I can tell you that not only do your children and yourself have these beautiful benevolent beings of light loving looking over you, but that far from being ‘wishful thinking,’ they actually have a very important and integral role during the different stages of your child’s development. […]

Cyma Shapiro Interviews Suzanne Braun Levine, Author of You Gotta Have Girlfriends

Q: On the heels of your last book How We Love Now: Women Talk About Intimacy After Fifty, what compelled you to write this new book?

With each book about women of my generation – Inventing the Rest of Our Lives, Fifty Is the New Fifty, How We Love Now – I talked to more women, did more research, and learned more about the exciting new stage of life we are exploring. Every interview, no matter how wide-ranging, eventually got to the subject of girlfriends. “I couldn’t have done it without my girlfriends!” was the phrase I heard over and over again. I realized that I needed to write a book that focused on that life-enhancing subject. Hence, my just-out e-book You Gotta Have Girlfriends: A Post-Fifty Posse is Good for Your Health. […]

A Community of Mid-Life Mother Bloggers (In Celebration of Mother’s Day)

by Cyma Shapiro

Nine years ago, while sitting in the Moscow Marriott at age 46 with my newly adopted year-old daughter, I realized that I was going to be old when she graduated from college. The “old” was nearly my grandmother’s age – old! This was the very first time I’d ever felt my mortality and had ever even stopped to consider my chronological age. I had long ignored the biological clock theory thinking that it was mere hyperbole.

Although it came as a shock to me that I had not previously become pregnant, on that cold winter’s night nearly 9,000 miles from home, I finally felt my life begin. My age was a nagging problem, but at that moment I was filled with pride, joy and the fullness of starting a new family. I could see nothing but rosy times. Or so I thought. Little did I know that I had just joined a new club – moms over 40 – with no dues-paying members and no glue to bind them. Little did I know that in reality, I was one of them. (Two years later, we adopted our son).

Since then, I’ve made it my mission to expose the world to the group I call “Midlife Mothers” – that is, women choosing motherhood over 40. I have been featured on NPR and written for numerous online sites including Psychology Today and the Huffington Post. MLM entities MotheringintheMiddle.com and NURTURE: Stories of New Midlife Mothers (the only art gallery show dedicated to presenting women choosing motherhood over 40; now traveling North America) are intended to present a voice, face and forum.

Together with other midlife mother/women bloggers, we are helping redefine women in mid-life, dispel myths about who we are […]

Mother’s Day Cards

by Cyma Shapiro

Dear Reader: I wrote this blog post a handful of years ago for MotherhoodLater, but have rerun it every year. I also received those flowers from my stepson several years ago. However, the two experiences have reaffirmed the power of motherhood and my joy at being a mother.

It’s amazing how one year can change things; how motherhood makes us forget what happened when our children were younger or youngest; how they came into our lives and what changes we needed to make once they were here.

I can honestly say that I am nearly fully comfortable in my Motherhood-clothes, a role that I played well in the beginning, but one that I now don each day with ease in the same way that I donned singlehood for many, many years. I won’t say that there aren’t days I wish I could wake up, yawn, and go down for coffee all on my own time, my own rhythm. I will say, however, that I’m the happiest that I’ve ever been – now that I have children. […]