by Rosemary Lichtman, Ph.D. and Phyllis Goldberg, Ph.D.
Feeling down in the dumps now that the holidays are over? If you’re hoping for something uplifting on these dreary days and cold nights, you’re not alone. T.S. Eliot, in The Waste Land, said, “April is the cruelest month.”
But studies have found that for the majority of Americans, January is the most depressing month of the year. […]
by Winter Robinson
When we were young, we approached the holidays with anticipation because we “knew” they contained magic. We believed in a world of open-ended possibilities.
But then we grew up, and we moved further and further away from such things and, sadly, from our natural, spiritual, way of being. As adults, too often we allow the expectations of others (parents, religious leaders, teachers, family, friends) to be placed upon us, along with the associated guilt, if we do not live up to them. For many, the holidays have become nothing more than pressure-filled weeks chocked full of check lists and coping mechanisms. And now, deep down, we feel that we have lost something and we don’t know what it is. […]
Dear Reader: I was SO impressed by this group and its founder that I requested an interview. Please read more about their 4/7/13 Los Angeles-area event.
In 2009, having organized the purchase of school supplies for her then 4 and 10-year-old children and posting the event on facebook, Erika, then 39 years old, immediately recognized the innate power of combining cooperation, community and social media. Together with friend Katie Goldman, she decided to put that philosophy to work. Within a few short months, Erika and Katie co-founded 4Good, now a nonprofit designed to match families with organizations in need.
Mindful of creating the right message, Erika sought causes and venues which would be appropriate for both children and their parents. Today, 4Good helps nearly 30 organizations in and around Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley; and can boast a following of nearly 3000 people encompassing nearly 250 individuals who regularly work with them. In 2011, the Athanas Family won the Scholastic Parent & Child Family of the Year Contest. Their celebrity ambassadors are William H. Macy and Felicity Huffman.
Q: Good Day, Erika! I’m so pleased to interview you – I was most impressed with the work you’ve done in just three very short years. Please tell me a little more about what you originally set out to accomplish. What personal experience did you bring to the table to foster this organization?
A: Honestly, I had no experience. I was just a mom who wanted to expose her kids to giving back. I wanted to make sure I was actively showing my children that one’s […]
by Ellie Stoneley
(C) 2013 Paul Clarke – All Rights Reserved
March has two events of note, firstly, in the UK (and I know it’s different in the USA) there’s Mothering Sunday, and secondly, the Ides of March … and it struck me that ultimately both are about trust. One, the greatest kind of trust – that of a child of its mother, and the other – the betrayal of trust.
Reflecting on my own situation, I was an elderly primagravida and now I’m a geriatric first- time mother! I am sitting here having tucked my 14-month-old daughter into bed after bidding good night to my own mother, now eighty something and it sort of struck me that I am not just a midlife mother, but I really am a mother in the middle ( and generally a mother in a muddle too!). Trusting and trusted. […]
by Jane Samuel
All the recent media-hype about Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg’s new book Lean In has got me thinking again. Thinking like I did last year when Anne-Marie Slaughter’s piece
“Why Women Still Can’t Have it All” (Atlantic July/August 2012) hit the newsstands and the airwaves like an IED. Thinking like I did years ago when another, more senior, female partner tried to dissuade me from dropping to part-time status after the birth of my first child, arguing in part, “the men won’t like that.” Thinking again about my daughters, about their pasts when I put aside work to nurture them and their futures when they may or may not have a chance to lean in and have it all. Thinking again about the ultimate thing to think about: what it means in life to “have it all,” to be “successful” and to be a woman and a mother. […]
by Lori Pelikan Strobel
I am standing at my new desk, a desk that can be raised to a standing height or lowered to a sitting height. I love it! The room that this desk stands in is my office. It has been in a bit of transformation lately; just like my life. The walls are painted the softest of green. A small but dazzling crystal chandelier light hangs from the center of the room. It is pleasant here alone with my own thoughts.
Suddenly I hear the garage door open and footsteps. “Mom, I’m home!” yells my daughter from the kitchen as she loudly drops her book bag, coat and whatnot that I envision in a trail on the floor. My peacefulness is broken by her voice and I am suddenly transported back ten years ago when she would come home from school with the same declaration. Although times have changed, things have a way of staying the same. I am still here whether or not she is. […]
by Karen Maezen Miller
They love us in a different way.
I said that when someone asked what it was like to have a teenager.
I feel like we’ve lost a daughter.
My husband said that after a silent and inconsequential Sunday.
Just shut up.
I said that to her after a ride in the car yesterday.
And yet, there is love, so much love between us and it has gone nowhere! I am standing on the high bluff over death valley, infinite openness in all directions, stunned dumb in the emptiness, but I know the space before me is pure love. Pure love. Life grows here, even when we can’t see it. Refreshed in a cool night, fed by invisible rivulets. A whisper of sea sails five hundred miles across five mountain ranges, and the whisper is this.
They love us in a different way.
They love us in the space, the space that is nothing but love.
Love is not a feeling, not a thought, nothing given or got, not more or less. Not a precaution or warning, not a push or a prod. Not a reminder, not a teaching, not a performance. Love is not what I say and not what you hear. Not how was school how was the test what about homework what are you wearing wash your face eat your dinner pick up your shoes I don’t like her him that when if what did you do what did you say what about your terrible wonderful failure success happiness sadness what about me what about me what about me?
Love is the space between us. There is so much space.
What will you put into that space today, I ask myself before I hear the roar of my own echo.
Just shut up.
Reprinted with permission […]
by Rosemary Lichtman Ph.D. and Phyllis Goldberg Ph.D.
Long before it was a song, the saying was a part of our conversation: Love makes the world go ’round.
With all this whirling, love can make you feel off balance and dizzy. Sometimes it’s tricky to keep your personal world turning without having it spin totally out of control. Although our focus is most often on romantic love, there are many different kinds of love that help keep us grounded. […]
by Cyma Shapiro
Dear Reader: Heart Stones is my most favorite Valentine’s Day book, ever. I own and have given several of Josie’s books for presents. MitM is honored to feature her, for Valentine’s Day.
Q: Josie, your first book is called Loving Blind/Seeing Red: A Mother’s Decade. It features a series of images with connecting anecdotes about life with small kids which was inspired by your earliest path through motherhood. As the mother of three children, now ranging in age from 15 to 20, they appear to be your driving force, motivation and inspiration. Please tell me more about your journey with them and how it has contributed to your finding your life’s work.
I had my first baby (20 years ago nearly today in fact!) at midwinter break in the second of three years of an MFA program and when done, I thought I would be teaching pretty consistently. But teaching in the arts is initially a transient thing…The reality was that the best economic model for our family was for me to be home with the kids…and it was a gift to us as a family and to me as an artist. My studio is just downstairs (through the backyard) from the kitchen and my work and life are intertwined, physically as well as psychically. My kids and my husband always inspire me to do better work. […]
by Marc Parsont
Please welcome our first regular “Mr. Mom,” stay-at-home-midlife-father-contributor. His perspective will be most welcome!
Dear Reader: It’s 5:30 a.m. and my son wet his bed. Since I was up, I set a camera to record my daughter sleeping to see if she has apnea and following this lead in will try and learn Quick Books in time for our taxes, all the while hoping, no praying that the dog won’t bark and that I’ll remember to turn off my alarm before waking, you guessed it—my wife.
As a “Mr. Mom,” I thought that writing on a midlife mothers site would be daunting. Women writers, and midlife mothers, in general, have me at a general disadvantage. My experiences, while similar, can only skim the surface. Since I’ve been asked to present my perspective, I’d like to start with this post. […]