Luke Stettner, Other, 2012.
Category Archives: Maternal Health Month
The Question
Who am I
but a mother
a purveyor of school lunches
and snacks and dinners
a laundry-washing, clothes-sorting, stain-sticking fiend
a tear-stopper, an instigator
laying down the law, but finding no joy in being in charge.
For being the boss should have its benefits, no?
I’m paralyzed by free time.
When I hit the kill switch on motherhood for the night,
the juice still flows.
Like cell phone minutes that carry over, my to-do runs ad infinitum and I think how I can get a jump start on tomorrow.
Then my psyche calls.
Hello, it’s me.
Who is me?
Someone who needs nurturing.
Who needs slowing down,
sleep.
Something.
Something to make her heart sing.
Something to take it all away
so she can decide what to build on.
But what?
How
do I get past this feeling of unrest that is the only thing about me that sits
Still
in my heart
my being
my soul
To whom do I report?
To whom do I direct complaints?
To whom can I go,
when I know not what I need,
know not what I ask.
But there is the question
Luke Stettner, Can’t See the Forest for the Trees, 2009.
Waiting for the Bus
Don’t climb that tree
Come over here
Zipper your jacket
Put your jacket back on
You won’t need it later, but you need it now
Look both ways
Get out of the middle of the street
Did you comb your hair?
Let me comb your hair
“She called me a nerd”
I’m sorry.
Give me a hug.
I love you.
Have a good day.
Would you change a thing?
Just as I bowed my head today at mass, to honor and reflect upon the bread becoming Jesus’ body, my three year-old, who was gathered up in my arms and perched on my knee, looked up and kissed me. My first reaction was that she was distracted at a solemn time. Then I realized, remembered that she’s all about love. Jesus became the bread, a sacrifice, gave His life, out of love for us. Or at the very least, for His father, God.
Did I receive that kiss upon my nose at that very moment to teach me that I, as a mother, must lose myself to them out of love or in love? That is my sacrifice since Jesus gave his life for us, I must give mine for them?
But, though I am a stay-at-home mom and mothering is a vocation, is not my husband called to the vocation of fathering? He is not asked to give up his life. Or is not having the struggles I am.
Or is the kiss a reminder to surrender myself to a life of love?
To serve others and fulfill God’s will by helping them – and through helping God, receiving all I need through Him?
Happiness? Fulfillment? Peace? Well-being?
Am I being selfish balking at the idea of giving my life over to my children? Or does God want me to preserve some parts of it for me? Why would he have made me how I am if not for me to find some pleasure in it? Parts of me must have been made with successful mothering in mind, but there are other parts I get to develop for me, right? But then, it’s still for others, right? Which then, isn’t it all for God?
I do need to stop thinking of my children as burdens, though. I can be of service to them just as I can to others. I need to see the needs right under my nose and not take them for granted.
The above reflection is taken from a piece I wrote in February 2013. Maybe it’s because I was/am an only child that I find it hard to relinquish my individual needs for the collective. For me, the jury is still out as to whether self-care is a right or a privilege. Where does self-care end and selfishness begin? Are modern societal mores at odds with Christian teachings? And I was worried about breastfeeding! I always feel a certain sense of guilt when I see memes like the one at the top of this post. But should mothering negate personal desire?
A Thread of a Different Color
I am an only child. I was usually more comfortable around adults than other children, used to the gentle progressions of conversation, safe in the shadow of my mother. My extended family was small; there were no scads of younger cousins to follow, entertain, and torture. I wasn’t used to hitching a child on my hip from a young age. When I did babysit, it was for short stints, while the mother busied herself in other parts of the house or ran to the store quickly. I was not one of those girls who had planned out the exact size and shape of her family, fixing the outcome of games of MASH. I figured the fates would sort that all out for me. I didn’t goo and gaa over pudgy, pinched faces at the grocery store. I didn’t swoon when a teacher brought a baby to visit a classroom. I was relatively unimpressed. They were little people. We all were once. Even when I was pregnant and attended a family function (on my husband’s side) where extended relatives tried to pass off babies, telling me I should practice, I declined, saying I’d be getting plenty of that soon enough. I didn’t want to hold other people’s babies; I wanted to hold my baby.
And when I held my own child, it was a different experience. Sure, I still had misgivings about my performance, about baby’s well being– as all new mothers who are finding their way do – but there was no doubt I was totally devoted to the cause. This was my baby, flesh of my flesh, bone of my bones. I didn’t have to worry about breaking someone else’s child. She was all mine, totally my responsibility. I decided how to raise her and why; what to do with her and when – and most importantly, I was totally comfortable with her.
The idea of a certain mold all mothers are meant to fit into is where trouble begins. Because of the vision of motherhood society had shown me, I grew up doubting that I had the skill set and temperament to be a mother. If I had stuck with that vision and hadn’t tried motherhood, I’d have missed out on a truly life-giving, life-altering process. And the world would’ve missed out on a truly amazing kid (and two subsequent others).
This brought all this to mind.
1871 by Joe Cunningham
Joe Cunningham is not only counterculture because he is a male quilter, but also the content of his quilts. It’s modern art on muslin, mind boggling batiks. The piece above looks to me like a full-scale photograph or an etching – and yet it’s tiny stitches that form the image. If Joe Cunningham had listened to society’s prerequisites for quilters, the art world would’ve missed his cotton canvases. Joe Cunningham’s quilts wrap my argument up in a nice, neat package, as well, because they turn a predominantly female practice, done as part of homemaking duties, on its ear.
There is room to function and flourish outside the confines of stereotypes. I can swaddle my child just as well as the “perfect” mother – even if I didn’t make the quilt myself. Each and every type of mother should craft her distinct square to add to the quilt of our calling. And our catalog should be as diverse as Joe Cunningham’s portfolio.
It is a fallacy to think that original design can only be achieved after years of training.
— Inspiration of Embroidery, Constance Howard, 1966
It’s a $%#@ vacation
“There were constant battles . . . between those who had chosen to have children and those who had chosen not to – all ostensibly for the sake of our publication, but more accurately as a way to work out personal differences under the cloak of business discussions. Our boss was happily childless (“When I see children, I just want to put them in cement,” she once admitted), and she was unimpressed with the fact that mothers needed to return to their families earlier rather than later each evening. Her right-hand woman also had no children. They didn’t like to do extra work to make up for the women who went on maternity leave, and they didn’t appreciate having sacrificed portions of their personal lives to the office when others hadn’t.
“Well, what does the woman who chooses not to have kids do? asked the boss. “She should take a maternity leave to fulfill herself.”
A new mother grunted from her position at the table, her breasts sore from pumping milk into bottles, her eyes swollen from nights awake. “Right,” she said, “it’s a fucking vacation.”
— from Marcus of Umbria: What an Italian Dog Taught an American Girl about Love by Justine van der Leun
Advanced Screenings
They didn’t ask me to fill out the maternal mood questionnaire when I arrived for my annual physical today. I guess I’m no longer in the danger zone of postpartum. I no longer have a baby. My children are older. I’m more experienced. Everything should be easy-peasy at this point.
Or maybe they didn’t ask because my doctor knows. My chart already says ‘depressive disorder’. She just refilled my script for a low-dose of antidepressant. There’s no point in screening because we’re post-diagnosis.
She asked how I was feeling, how I was faring. A shrug of the shoulders. An approximation of one on my lips. Hunky-dory, doc. Some days are worse than others. I’m not cured, if that’s what you mean. I don’t want to run screaming from the house with my hair on fire – and haven’t for a while – but I still tend toward blah.
Maybe I’m expecting too much. I mentioned that I still have down days, but perhaps that’s the normal up and down of life. Yes, she said, you shouldn’t feel numb; you’ll have high points and low points. The lows seem so miserable, though. I know everyone has days when they don’t want to get off the couch, but my reasons seem so much more melancholy. A hollow near my heart, scooped out of the space where my joy once was. It’s not non-existent, but I haven’t noticed yet a day when the balloon inflates fully to fill that space.
I felt cheated somehow in not being ‘screened’. That it doesn’t matter since I’m beyond the threat of postpartum? That I’ve been given my happy pill so I should just shut up and take it? That I’ve been asked the same questions before and still don’t have any definitive answers?
But I suppose the screening isn’t perfect anyhow. A mother I know posted this status update after one of her trips to the doctor’s office.
At my physical I had to answer depression screening questions. One question was: “Do you feel like you’re failing your family or letting them down?” I laughed! Instead of circling the sometimes, often, or usually, I wrote in “Of course I do – I’m a working mother!”
No one questionnaire is going to get at the heart of each and every mother’s difficulties. I suppose it’s a step in the right direction that someone, anyone is asking – even if it’s a sheet of paper on a clipboard. But it should only be a beginning. Precisely because that question was laughable to that mom in its ironic understatement, we need to illustrate and represent all facets of a mother’s struggle – and give her the tools to do so – in order to help her when she needs it.
Click for an online screening tool via Kent State University (not specific to maternal mood disorders)
May is Maternal Health Month
May is actually Mental Health Month. If you were hanging around these parts at this time last year, you’d know that all too well. Every day of May, I posted something germane to that topic: reflecting on my own struggles and successes, reviewing symptoms and warning signs, offering hopefully helpful resources. While I got increasingly more depressed the more posts about my own depression I logged, it was a valuable exercise. So much so, that I’ve decided to do a similar one this year.
Since the plot line of my mentally-ill life spiked with the birth of my third daughter, I decided to tighten my focus onto maternal mental health. In no way am I discounting any of the other myriad aspects of mental illness and/or health, but those surrounding mothering and the female hormonal system are an animal in and of themselves – a big, nasty, brutish, spiky-haired one, may I add.
Colloquialism has us turning into fierce mama bears when our children are threatened, but what of the threats that come from inside us?
This month, I hope to explore that and perhaps lay some of that hair back down.
Join the pack.
There are so many of us out there, even if it feels each of us is trapped in a dark cave all alone.
A general banner for Mental Health Month, but I chose the image of this woman alone on the beach because very often, our family is fine; we’re the ones (feeling like we’re) struggling all alone; that there is something we must fix within ourselves before we can connect with the family.
Chopping Potatoes 