Motherscope LLC | San Diego, CA motherscope.com Cover Illustration by Alexandra Harvey | Mothershaped The Mom Salon logo by Samantha Acker | Gemini Designs Copyright © 2021 by Motherscope LLC and the individual contributors. All rights reserved. Leonard, Jackie (editor) The Mom Salon | August 2021 The Mom Salon features the writings of Motherscope’s 2021 Contributors, appearing in rotation from Mar. 2021 through Feb. 2022: Kate Bailey, Eunice Brownlee, Kelsey Cichoski, Heather Cleaves, Laci Hoyt, Micah Klassen, Shanthy Milne, Alyssa Nutile, Holly Ruskin, Kaitlin Solimine, Colleen Tirtirian, Megan Vos, Melaina Williams
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In This Month’s Mom Salon: Kaitlin Solimine | Weaning is a Transitive Verb
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Jackie Leonard | Four 7 Laci Hoyt | Weathering 12 Micah Klassen | The Massage
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Colleen Tirtirian | Fear is a Four-Letter Word
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CONTENT GUIDANCE “Fear is a Four-Letter Word” (p. 24): pregnancy loss, infertility
Weaning is a Transitive Verb By Kaitlin Solimine I’m feeding something from the inside while outside me, the toddler can’t sleep without his mouth on my nipple. The older child, five years old, who can multiply numbers and speak two languages, asks me to put a diaper on her and begs for milk from my breasts before bed. Body is body is body holding body growing body and I don’t know where I am in this. The beginning is obvious: a crawl up stomach to breast, newborn slick with vernix peck-pecking at chest, mouth agape and missing, missing, now finding the nipple. Ahhh, I say the first time. How the sucking is a relief. But when will it end? I read about elaborate weaning rituals, like in Genesis 21:8: “And the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.” I wonder: when will the last day be? What meal will we eat? Whales nurse from inverted nipples nurslings nudge loose from mammary slits; some nurse as long as three years, their young trailing the ocean’s currents, attached like a child to hip, nipple in pursed lips. Kangaroos live their earliest months close to the breast, a pouch literally grown from the body to ensure the nursling stays close, gives the mother two free hands to forage, to fight. Nipple slips from mouth, casual as late night sin but even in the dark the toddler gropes, little tongue a singe, little tongue a hummingbird, little hands that squeeze, milkmaid to teat. “Enough!” I say, because
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there’s another hiding in the gestational sac in black and white on that screen today, the room with the sign that said “No Video Taping” while the ultrasound wand (Is it magical? No: too much power in Western medicine, medical terminology) was probing, not so unlike that doctor’s fingers decades earlier, how at least I got paid $15k in reparations for that. “Enough!” I say again but the toddler doesn’t listen in the dark, is an open-mouthed fish grappling to connect, swimming across the sea of bed sheets and pillows to attach again. *** Weaning is a transitive verb, the transference of acting upon one object to another. Weaning is active, a process, not exactly a state of being as much as a sliding scale, a spectrum — “Is she weaned yet?” they ask, and I shrug, “Just down to the before bed feed.” They want to say she’s too old for “Mama’s milk.” I want to say the normal historical weaning age for humans is four to seven years old. Today, the worldwide average age for weaning is 4.2 years old. She’s sitting on her grandmother’s lap drinking cow’s milk from a plastic margarita glass. My breasts ache but my heart aches more: how could the thing she loved so much — we loved so much — suddenly be gone without any fanfare? Without a celebratory last hurrah? *** In Britain, weaning means the opposite of what it means in the United States; it means to feed a child food. There’s no pulling away. But here in this pandemic era, I feel the suck and draw, the dissent, discomfort. Aversion rising like the bile that meets the antacid, my tongue probing for anything sweet or salty because there’s a yolk sac inside me and the older child is obsessed with the idea there are eggs inside her that were inside me that were inside her grandmother. Generations of deceit: so many eggs just to grow one human. I’m feeding three humans simultaneously. What masochistic vein runs through this mother who cannot wean a five-year-old and a greedy toddler while harboring a new child inside? (Read: infertility journey; read: anxious attachment; read: lazy parenting.) We focus on the nighttime first but that’s the hardest, when the toddler
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screams as if there’s been a murder in the bed, thrashes and kicks, and I instinctively curl my arms around the new one inside, bird-like embryo nesting in uterus, how the older child is desperate to find a Google image where the baby doesn’t look like a worm but has eyes. She only likes the ones with eyes. We crave the familiar, eagerly forget our origins. They say to write a weaning letter only this is the end of her nursing, not mine. But when was the end? It’s been two weeks and I’m still waiting for her to ask again — *** My daughter and I lie on a swinging hammock, examining the night sky. The stars that look like they’re jumping are binary stars, I tell her. “I know!” She exclaims. “I learned that on Wild Kratts.” “They’re two stars dancing around each other,” I say. But binary stars aren’t always just two celestial bodies, I learn. As many as ten percent of binary systems may be three stars, wide apart but rotating around each other’s gravitational pull. As astronomer Bo Reipurth explains: The group starts their lives close together, but interactions between the three eventually result in one of the stars being hurled from the group. A strong enough push could remove the star from the system completely, but a weaker one results in a distant orbit. Sometimes the system may last for tens of thousands of centuries before losing the distant star; other times, it may stabilize enough to last billions of years. *** I had envisioned an elaborate weaning ceremony, the two of us standing together in the back garden, planting a new tree, scattering old, defrosted breastmilk to help it grow. I’d pull her close to my breast for the last time. We’d both cry. But no: it was a dental surgery that prevented nursing for a few days. It was a flight east for the first time in two years. It was a forgetting, a turning of the page, a loosening of thread and off she spun, away, away,
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away —
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The day the third child was conceived, the oldest found a baby zebra dove on the roots of an acacia tree near the horse barn, the overheated horses indifferent to another creature’s suffering, prostate to the thick grass they mulled between hearty teeth. My husband bent down with his daughter, affirmed the species, but cautioned her not to touch the bird. “What can we do?” she asked. “Nothing,” he said, while in the nest above, the mother chattered and we wondered if the baby fell or was pushed. A day later my husband returned and found the baby dove unmoving, dead. He carefully moved the corpse to a patch of grass further away so our daughter wouldn’t know of its passing. “Why did you do that?” I asked him. “We never shield her from the realities of life and death.” “I know,” he said. “I don’t know why but I didn’t want her to see the bird like that.” And I realized we all protect our children in unexpected ways. *** The third star is key to the ejection, the astronomer Reipurth explains. “It’s a fact of nature that, if you have two bodies alone, then they move in a completely deterministic way — it’s possible to say exactly where they will be later on in their orbits,” he is quoted. “As soon as you put a third body in there, the system becomes completely chaotic.” In other words: Two bodies together will simply orbit one another, if not otherwise interrupted. But a third body creates a “kick” that eventually results in the ejection of one of the stars to a distant orbit. *** Sometime into the third week of weaning, she falls into the habit of falling asleep at night in a swivel chair at her grandmother’s house, her long legs draped over the sides, her cheek to my chest.
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Is this sadness? Relief? I can’t name what I’m feeling as she wraps her arms around my waist, burrows inward, but there’s comfort in knowing my heart is still there, beating for her, a rhythm that will always be more familiar to her, trailing her somewhere, no matter the span of universe quietly expanding between us. Source quoted: https://www.space.com/18777-binary-triple-star-systems. html
KAITLIN SOLIMINE is mother to Calliope and Rafael, author of awardwinning novel Empire of Glass, cofounder of Hippo Reads and Hippo Thinks, and a childbirth and lactation activist. Her writing has been featured in The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, Guernica Magazine, LitHub, and more. She lives in San Francisco where she is at work on a second novel, The Blue Lobster, which explores themes of midwifery, climate change, and New England Native American history, as well as a book of essays on home and motherhood.
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Engage with Kaitlin’s Story: Reflect on your unique feeding experiences with your child(ren). What was your reality and how did you navigate it, taking into considerations your expectations before, and feelings during and after.
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Four By Jackie Leonard In a matter of days, I will cross yet another invisible milestone in life, alongside my oldest child. As he turns four years old, I become a mother for the fourth year. Wiser, more experienced, the novelty of this new role is slightly more subdued than the year before, and still, I am just as clueless about whatever comes next. Four feels like the completion of something. A closing. Which is fitting because in this last year, we have gone from a family of three to four. We transitioned from a triangle to a square, four sides to make one whole. There was a finality that washed over me at the birth of our second child that surprised me, even though I’d said over and over throughout the pregnancy that I sensed this would be the last. In the span of four years, I’ve made big decisions, decisions that will impact the rest of my life, and that of my family. Whether it’s my age, or becoming a mother, or a combination of that and more, most decisions during this period of time feel big. This huge shift is what motherhood asked of me, four years ago, as I gave birth to my son and reconfigured what I knew of myself. I’d look into my baby’s eyes and, partly due to sleep deprivation, those big eyes, so like mine, would quote Mary Oliver, accusingly, “What will you do with your one and precious life?” in a way that also begged the question, “What will you do with mine?” When clothes go out of season, when our bodies change, when what we liked before doesn’t spark joy, it’s time to change it. We replace it with things that fit better. Alongside the pile of outfits that were meant for a past version of myself, I’m also letting go. I can no longer wear complacency. Comfort no longer provides the same . . . well, comfort. We are also closing a chapter in our lives, packing our belongings past and present, into boxes. We’re selling our home to a new family, a family of two. Six years ago, this was us — newlyweds and a dog — with plans to put down roots and grow into this home. Instead, we outgrew it in ways that have nothing to do with square feet.
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I’ve learned there is freedom, not shame, in changing our minds and plans. We are moving. Far enough away to prepare for many goodbyes. Like I said, big decisions. It is a decision I am romanticizing, that I am resigning to faith, that I’ve rationalized to death, and that I also am grieving. By the time I was four I had gone from a family of three — my dad, my mom, and me, to just my mom and me, to my mom remarried and pregnant and me. In therapy I’ve learned to be mindful of these parallels. Be aware that they have an effect on me, which can impact how I parent and how I see my child. It’s not hard to believe that as my son ages, he can be — has been — a mirror, a portal back to my own “things.” I stare at him. The sweet boy who still needs help getting dressed, who runs away from spiders and toilet flushes, and who looks up at the moon at night and tells me things like “The moon loves you.” — and I think, How? This boy who misses us when one of us is gone an hour. How? This boy who cried when we got rid of the couch without preparing him for it. How? This boy who has rejected every Disney movie I grew up watching because they are too scary. How would my child navigate what I did as a toddler? Over time the answer to these questions has become more clear and also more complicated. I see more and more how I, the mature-beyond-heryears child, likely responded the same way I know my son would. It just looked different, or was responded to differently. Four. By four I had moved homes at least three times, maybe more. New lives with each new roof. I’d even learned to communicate in a new language to adjust to this new life. I was always described as “so good,” “perfect,” “so easy” since birth. I look at my son, who proclaims “I love our home.” Who has picked up phrases in Japanese from the car videos he watches on YouTube. Who mixes his “you’s” and “me’s” and “I’s.” Who has occasional meltdowns over brushing his teeth, or going to Target, or someone touching his toy the wrong way. Who rough-houses and doesn’t fully understand the concept of personal space just yet, especially with his mom and dad and
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sister. Who I would never describe as “perfect” at anything though he is perfect to me, and who I would never rationally expect to be “so good” at just three. The closer we get to his birthday, the more we are packing our lives away into boxes. In my joy and excitement for this big step, this new chapter, I also hold a sadness that easily brings me to tears. For myself, sure, and mostly for my four-year-old son, who will be saying good-bye to the only home he’s ever known. The home he was born in. The home that he now confidently moves through without needing me beside him. The stairway railing he sends Hot Wheels down en masse, the big bathtub he swims laps in like a minnow, the backyard he digs in alongside an excavator and dump truck and sunbathing lizards. I brace myself for the “I want to go home’s” and the unexplained meltdowns that even he won’t be able to connect to this change. I ready for my guilt, the urge to be defensive, and the habit to deflect. I prepare to have a better response, to be the comfort he needs, and also prepare to be bad at this sometimes too, far less than perfect. To be clear, I am just as aware of these truths as I am that kids are resilient, that our family is unique and different than the one I had, this world different. That alongside my son’s own grief he will also experience joy and excitement and his own complex set of feelings about this change, some that I will see and some that I will not. That this experience is an adventure, one that we will walk together and process uniquely, and that the best I can do is model all the feelings for his reference. Mostly, I am aware that a lot of “this” swirling inside me isn’t about my son at all. Four. It just could be I’m riding the high of selling an unused item that’s lived in our garage for $80 to someone who can actually use it, but my attachment to things has lessened, extending to the power this house has had over me. So much so that I can see now, that these four walls we are leaving behind are not the stability he needs, or I need or needed. Maybe all we need instead — the thing we can provide freely with certainty
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— is the security of a hug. Maybe that’s enough. This is four.
Jackie Leonard is a life-long writer, Southern California girl, and the founder of Motherscope. She has an MFA in Creative Writing and years of experience as an editor for college and literary publications. However, it was the birth of her first child in 2017, and her experiences in those early days of motherhood, that inspired what would eventually become Motherscope. The things that make Jackie feel most powerful are: the community of women who surround her, writing, and her children. Her garden, cooking, and husband bring her peace.
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Engage with Jackie’s Story: Write about a time when your child’s age, actions, or experiences reminded you of your own childhood. What are the similarities in this shared moment between you? What are the differences? Give attention to the obvious and the subtle.
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Weathering By Laci Hoyt I found a stone the other day. It was lying in the freshly greened grass along the stone walkway to our front door. The stone was flat, roughly the size of a silver half dollar, characteristics that distinguished it from the thousands of one-fourth-inch pebbles filling the walkway. The thing that drew me in, though, was the rippled-looking surface, dark grey, wetlooking but not wet. I bent down and looked closer. I took my pointer finger and stroked the surface before I pinched the sides between my thumb and pointer and brought it closer to my face. The surface felt like weathered sandstone. The edges formed a rough and wide heart shape. I set it on the palm of my left hand and stroked the surface again, some childlike sense of wonder settling into my tissue. I felt myself smile. I brought the rock inside and washed it off in the kitchen sink. The weight of it is different than I expect it to be, as is the feel, and for reasons I cannot explain, this stone is now precious to me. I love small delights like this. Things like bubbles spontaneously erupting on the surface of an asphalted country road or the tiny flowers that grow in the grass between mows. All those easily overlooked bits of magic that are present every day if only we look. *** My teenage son went dance-skating across the kitchen floor recently in a moment of pure childlike fun. He is so often serious these days, but at this moment he was just himself, unfiltered and unrestrained, sliding across the linoleum floor. He didn’t know I was watching until I giggled and then I saw him hide a smile, satisfied with himself. I collected this moment and stashed it away in my mind with all the other gems he’s gifted me over the years. Like the time I found a Han Solo action figure in the refrigerator lying on the bottom shelf next to the soy milk. I asked my then five-yearold why Han was in there. He looked at me straight-faced through his little glasses and said, “He’s in for carbon freezing” and then went right back to playing, unaware of just how much this delighted me.
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At six years old, I feel like he is angry a lot but I am also aware that I don’t entirely understand his personality. He is a partial mystery to me. What if I could pick him up and look him over carefully, inspect all the minute parts of him, see all the pieces that I usually don’t? Who would I say he was then? *** My son enjoys arguing. He will play devil’s advocate to whatever we say, even when he has to craft an argument out of the ridiculous. He’s assertive, self-confident, and decisive. He can also be controlling, intimidating, and explosive. Mothering this person has weathered me. He’s made my edges smoother and rounder, softened my rough surfaces. It was painful becoming this way. I made so many mistakes over the years. I wished he was more eventempered, that parenting him didn’t feel like walking into a gale-force wind. I wondered when he would grow out of this phase or that phase. It was, at times, difficult to see his progress. I often responded to him with sharp-edged words when what he probably needed was comfort. I frequently lost my temper when he challenged me with arguments or resistance. I engaged in far too many power struggles. And the truth is, we continue to clash with each other at times, though with less frequency now. Currently, I am learning to clamp my mouth shut every time I feel a criticism boiling up under my tongue. I am embarrassed to admit just how often this is. I am equally embarrassed about how often I fail to keep these criticisms to myself. Why is it my instinct to pester him, to attempt to refine his edges in a way that I think will be appealing rather than allowing him to weather naturally? Why am I compelled to act like an erosive force? *** As a toddler, he had big feelings that were too large for his body. Rage poured out of him in loud outbursts, both auditorily and physically. He’d thrash his body around while he screamed, a terror being birthed from the very core of him. This happened two or three times a day for 45 minutes apiece. Anything could set him off. I loaded him onto my lap and held 13
him in a safety hold to keep him safe. He fought against my body, threw my arms off of him, and then immediately grabbed my arms again and rewrapped himself in them. A push and pull of needing to lash out and needing to be comforted. His voice has deepened now. His protestations have grown less intense. There is still no way to win an argument with him. He will always have the last word no matter how long it takes nor how much trouble it causes him. So I’ve learned not to engage in this battle. Instead, I rephrase things. No more demands. Let go of control. I say things like, “It’s your choice.” I say, “Please remember, you are also choosing the consequences that go with whatever choice you make.” He has to grumble audibly so that I understand that he doesn’t want to do what is being asked of him but he actively makes the choices now and I choose not to mind the grumbling. Still, even after the passage of ten-plus years, I can feel my body brace for what might come when I ask something of him. Some memories live inside our muscles. I wonder what memories live inside him? *** He was outside shooting hoops on the driveway one evening. I lingered nearby, careful not to be watching or looking expectant. I inspected various parts of our yard, checked the tension on the clothesline strung up between two trees, pushed some rocks off the asphalt back onto the stone driveway while waiting quietly. Getting him to talk to me is a kind of dance. Eventually, he smirked and started to bargain for permission to drop out of school. I’ve learned to gently interrogate these kinds of statements, looking for something that is hidden somewhere below. “Where would you go,” I asked, “And what would you do?”
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He thought for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “There aren’t any opportunities here, though. If I don’t have a job and I don’t have a car and I don’t have any savings, how will I ever leave? I’m stuck here.” I kept my mouth closed and waited. “I’m going to die in this town,” he eventually concluded. “And I don’t want to.” More often than not, it feels like he and I are so vastly different. I am sensitive where he is resolute. But his fear landed in the softest part of my chest, in the folds around my heart. I have a similar fear that has settled in my bones. This house, this town, are sore spots that won’t go away like a blister on the back of the heel. I wanted to take him in my arms and rock him then, comb back parts of his hair and stroke his soft skin, reassure him that he can do anything, go anywhere. We are never done evolving. And we are resilient. But I cannot predict the future and I don’t like pretending that I can. Maybe he will be stuck here and have to find a way through that. Maybe his journey of weathering will be difficult like mine or maybe he will soar through the challenges of his life like he does so many other things. It is impossible to tell. One thing I do know: his edges, too, will continue to smooth over time and he will become refined. It is inevitable. Living is weathering.
LACI HOYT wants to live in a world where kindness is a priority and everyone owns at least one hand-knit sweater. She writes from her home in upstate NY about living with chronic illness, love and relationships, and any other thing she can’t get out of her head. Her writing has been published through The Kindred Voice. When she’s not writing, she can be found with knitting needles and yarn, hunched over the sewing machine, or creating unique dolls and bags for her Etsy shop. Every Sunday, you can find a new haiku published on her blog. Visit Laci at www.liviatree. blogspot.com.
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Engage with Laci’s Story: What are the ways in which motherhood has weathered you?
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The Massage By Micah Klassen A weighted blanket is draped over my body, its pressure strangely comforting. My belly, chest, and thighs marinate in the warmth of the heated bed beneath, scents of peppermint, lavender, bergamot, and ylangylang mingling in my nostrils. Silver lamps mounted to the walls of this small, angular room send out an apricot glow; soft, melodic piano drifts from hidden speakers. I adjust my limbs a little, shuffle further back under the blanket and nestle my face into the doughnut-shaped head support in front of me, its cool material pressing against my forehead. Is this what it feels like to be inside the womb? I wonder, noticing the sensation of being enveloped in softness, supported completely — almost weightless. Maybe this is how it feels to be swaddled, I muse, smiling to myself. Somewhere, somehow, I bet adult swaddling is a real-life thing. I make a mental note to google it later. For the next hour, however, I am going to step off the mental treadmill of mothering two very active little boys and let my mind go where it wants, unhurried; I will allow my overstressed body to be gently nurtured, and I will shed my impenetrable caregiving uniform in order to bare pieces of my scarred postpartum skin to a complete stranger — I’ll be completely vulnerable for awhile, just like a newborn. Tap-tap-tap! A gentle knock on the door interrupts my thoughts. “Come in!” I say, without lifting my head. I hear it slowly swing open as footsteps approach and a female voice asks “All ready?” I murmur something affirmative in reply, grateful for spa etiquette which stipulates: “No obligation to converse.” Today, my conversational energy has already been used up on my toddler, who recently turned three and loves plumbing the depths of his rapidly-expanding vocabulary. Clicks and swishes fill the silence between us as she goes about setting up, placing essential oil bottles on the counter adjacent to the massage table, readying necessary equipment. After a few minutes, she sprays something divine-smelling under my
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nose, instructs me to “take a nice deep breath in-and-out” and I do so, slowly — mindfully. Then, experienced hands begin to glide down over my neck and shoulder muscles, identifying tensions and knots (of which there are many), forming a rhythm of controlled motions: palms applying gentle pressure — kneading, smoothing — then easing, releasing. Up and down, around — around; up, and then back down again. Pressure, and release. Pressure — release. It’s like poetry. *** I couldn’t have anticipated how much of a sensory overload it would be to go from one child to two. Naturally, I’m an introvert who loves spending time outdoors in the sun, exploring wide open, wild spaces; I love comfortable clothing and deep conversations (over coffee). I feel emotions acutely. I firmly believe a scented candle can change the whole atmosphere of a room, and I like to shower at least once a day, otherwise I don’t sleep properly. Sustained loud noise, such as the noise in a busy mall or at a party, will drain my energy pretty quickly. I’m a quality time person. Before I had kids, time alone was my go-to way of restoring a sense of equilibrium and wholeness when I felt overwhelmed or out of whack. I would go to a favourite cafe overlooking the ocean, sit and read, journal, or listen to new music. I would wander along ocean cliff tops taking pictures, breathing in big draughts of salt air, allowing my skin to be baptised and brightened by the sun. This did wonders for my mental health. But of course, having children drastically reduces these opportunities, which is something I’ve struggled with a whole lot more after having my second son, Wilder. With our firstborn, the overload I felt was less sensory and more to do with being solely responsible for another human being, as opposed to just myself. I actually didn’t mind the constant physical contact. Though an introvert, I’m a very affectionate person and in this sense I’ve always
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felt like I was born to nurture. I could snuggle Asher for hours at a time and not get tired of it, and of course, I only had him to worry about. So when he slept, I would shower or clean the house, or rest. If I felt inclined, I could binge watch a whole Netflix series while breastfeeding (and I did — hello Downton Abbey)! However, when Wilder was born in February last year, he didn’t sleep as easily as Asher did, and breastfeeding was challenging for the first couple months. I had really bad engorgement, painful chafed nipples and ended up contracting mastitis around Week Two postpartum. I was surviving on three to four, sometimes two hours of sleep at night, and then spent my day learning to split my attention between the constant demands of a newborn and an active, almost two-year-old. There were times it all felt impossible. I had no time to myself whatsoever, and I felt as if I was in a perpetual state of physical contact. On top of all this, Australia went into lockdown shortly after Wilder was born, which meant some of my birth check-ups were cancelled. The healthcare system suddenly seemed fragile, preoccupied with COVID — inaccessible. My husband took two weeks of paternal leave during this time (he runs his own business) and I remember breaking down in tears the night before he was due to go back to work because I literally felt like I couldn’t face the next day alone with a newborn and a toddler while my body was still recovering from birth. Plus, I was already more exhausted than I’d ever experienced before and this alone was overwhelming. But somehow — I did. I survived that day, and I did it again the next, and the next, and the next. I had no capacity for housework, or cooking meals. I remember simply doing what I had to do to keep going from one hour to the next, focussing wholly on the needs of both boys, taking showers when my sister (who lived with us at the time) was occasionally home and offered to watch them. Fast-forward to now, today. Wilder is fiercely a mama’s boy who loves being held and rocked to sleep. He’s passionate and strong-willed, physically robust and is constantly getting onto everything he shouldn’t. Asher just turned three and still needs a lot of physical affirmation and connection; he also has a whole lot of energy that regularly needs to be dispensed and though we’ve found our feet since those first months of adjusting, there are still days when I become a human jungle gym and
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constantly have someone touching me or clinging to me. If I’m not helping Asher with something, I’m chasing Wilder out of the bathroom or lifting him down from our glass-plated coffee table or pulling him out of the kitchen cupboards. The fact is, early motherhood is physically, mentally, and emotionally challenging. It sometimes feels like the exception to the rule everyone else automatically gets to abide by — maybe even the ultimate Groundhog Day. It comes with a whole lot of pressure and not a ton of release. We don’t have forced (or endorsed) breaks in our “workplace” — no one checking in regularly on us to ask, “Hey, have you had your lunch break yet?” or “Go take a ten-minute breather.” (I use the TV for that!) Even though “rest” and “self care” are a necessity for most people, these things can feel like a luxury for mothers — something designated to our “free” time, which is rare; yet the physical demands we face daily would most likely be a concern for Human Resources in any other field or profession. Imagine how much our experience would improve if something like relaxation massage was offered weekly, at a low cost (or subsidised by the government), to mothers/parents/caregivers? I find them to be incredibly helpful for my mental health and physical wellbeing, especially since becoming a mother of two; my back and shoulder muscles are constantly tight. I’m still recovering from pelvic issues from Wilder’s birth, and one hip is overworked due to routinely hoisting his weight. This is aside from (and in addition to) routine housework, carrying heavy grocery bags, lifting strollers, carseats and bikes in and out of vehicles, etc. Our bodies go through so much when we have children — it amazes me! But they are not invincible, and I know I’m not the only one who keenly feels the physical and mental load of mothering. This past year, my request to my very obliging husband on every giftgiving occasion — my birthday, Christmas Day, Mother’s Day — was a relaxation massage at my favourite spa, and that is where I find myself now. *** I’m so relaxed, I could fall asleep.
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“Your treatment is complete” my masseuse says. “Feel free to lie here as long as you’d like (Does she really mean that?!) and I’ll meet you in the hallway when you’re ready.” My eyes are closed, but I hear her leave the room quietly. I let out a long breath, stretch my limbs, slowly open my eyes. Sixty minutes always goes by like five.
MICAH KLASSEN was raised in New Zealand and homeschooled by her mum, who was the first to spark a love for creative writing in her during primary school. That spark quickly morphed into flame — writing is such a cathartic expression for Micah and has helped her through some very difficult seasons. In 2010, she moved to Australia, fell in love and married her Canadian sweetheart — They now have two babies and Micah is doing her best not to fall off the wild rollercoaster ride that is Motherhood! Currently writing from Vancouver, Canada.
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Engage with Micah’s Story: What do you wish was offered at low-cost or subsidized for parents that isn’t available currently? How would it improve your quality of life, the way you parent, society at large?
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Fear is a Four-Letter Word By Colleen Tirtirian Weeks ago, my husband and I were lucky enough to score a weekend getaway without our kids. We packed our overnight bags and hit the road, leaving our twins behind with the babysitters (aka, my parents). After a year of strict lockdown with three-year-old kiddos, we finally received our coveted COVID vaccines (bless the scientists and healthcare workers), and thus, decided a parenting break was well-deserved. It was a two-hour drive to the mountains in New York. We drank in the scenery as it changed from cityscape to forest; windows down, music up. Freedom. My Type A tendencies were thrown to the wind, ready to enjoy a few laid-back days, planning be damned. On our first full day, we decided to go hiking among the greenery and rock formations. The air was inviting and fresh unlike our usual city air, and I was feeling a bit high on life. As we ascended the rocky landscape, I caught a vision. And I am not talking about the kind of “vision” where I think of how I want my life to be and my positive thoughts and energy make it happen. It was, instead, a literal vision: A group of five or so adults in helmets and harnesses, scaling a rather tall rock-face. I stopped and stared in awe. I turned to my husband and without hesitation said, “I need to do that.” He laughed. “Umm. You’re crazy.” He thought I was joking. The gall! Well, if there’s anything you need to know about me, it’s that once I set my mind on something, it’s very difficult to talk me out of it. I reaffirmed my intention. He responded with another chuckle. “Wait. But aren’t you scared?” He asked. “No way!” I quickly replied. Was I crazy to think scaling a rock looked thrilling and was something I needed to do? Okay, maybe. Was I afraid? Definitely not. After all, I gave birth to two babies in two minutes, and after that experience, there’s not much fear left in me. After that trip, I decided to head to our local rock gym. The first time I
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went, I was alone. Before kids, there’s pretty much no way in hell I would have done something like that without a friend in tow. Since that visit, I’ve been heading to the gym whenever I can squeeze it between my ever-growing pile of “to-dos.” Learning a new skill and challenging myself mentally and physically got me thinking: Am I being reckless with my safety? Or, am I simply exhausted of living in fear, ready to take on all the things I was too afraid to do years ago? I weighed the two questions carefully and know the answer is in the latter. So what changed in me? And what does it have to do with giving birth and raising kids? For me, the answer is, a lot. I used to spend a lot of time worrying, living in fear, waiting for things to go wrong. Historically, and perhaps naturally, there’s always a low after a high. I lived in a state of hyper-vigilance, waiting for whatever low was lurking around the corner after any victory. I was used to living in wait of the valleys after the peaks, and I became accustomed to the fear that came hand-in-hand with it. This was especially true when my husband and I started trying to build our family. Worry and fear began to take over my life during a time that was meant to be joyous. It started with stressing over failed, natural cycles. I worried: Will we ever conceive? Stress turned to fear after my first miscarriage: Will I ever carry a baby to term? The fear stayed with me in subsequent pregnancies and amplified after our second loss and again through more fertility treatments: Will this ever happen for us? I was in a deep spiral of fear-based thinking. After another round of treatments, I became pregnant with our twins. Even after the 12-week mark, the supposed time you can “relax” – whatever that means – fear was still my albatross. There were countless mornings during that pregnancy where I would wake up believing it would be my last day carrying them. That unease stayed with me until 37-weeks when I heard my doctor tell me it was time to be induced. My doctor performed every intervention possible to get me into active labor, but it was not meant to be. Enter c-section. I naïvely believed that once the babies were born, I would feel at ease – that somehow, my fear would be gone. I can recall the relief that washed over me when I heard the first cries of my babies, followed by the doctor announcing their weights, on the morning they were born. I figured that feeling would stick around for at least a little while. But within days of arriving home with two babies in tow, things got crazy really fast. The colicky cries, the loss of sleep, and the lingering body aches and pains of pregnancy and a c-section left me traumatized. I was far from “at ease.”
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When things finally started feeling easier for our family, enter COVID and a collective shock over this new way of life. After a year of being in lockdown, I feel that I am coming out of this haze with a new perspective. Fear is no longer part of my vocabulary and is a four-letter word for me. Starting a new hobby that may be, admittedly, a bit dangerous, is just one way I am surmounting my fear-based thinking. I explained this to my husband recently, and he said, “Yeah, but . . . fear is what keeps us alive.” I disagree. Living in fear made me feel like a hollow version of myself and I told him as much. He restated, “A healthy level of fear keeps us alive.” Okay . . . that, I can agree with. I don’t walk around acting as though I am invincible. I don’t take my health or the health of my children lightly, and I have a responsibility to be careful. But I also believe in being a role model to them in ways I know how: by pursuing things that create a sense of self, that build confidence and resilience. For me, learning a new skill (in this case, rock climbing) is one of the ways I am doing that. Starting a family, giving birth, and parenting feels a lot like missing a hand-hold on the rock wall in a very compact way. When climbing, you try to grab for something that is nearly within reach, but it requires serious effort and mental focus. Sometimes you feel you’re going to overcome the obstacle, other times, defeat. But you keep going. I keep going. I want my children to see a mom who tries her hardest. For me, rock climbing isn’t about racing to the top (unless that’s what you’re going for, which, by all means . . . ). It’s about resilience. You fail but you keep going. Adrenaline enters the picture, and you get crystal clear in your mind about what you have to do to negate that fear. Just like raising kids, it’s a mental game.
COLLEEN TIRTIRIAN is a mother, writer, editor, and New Jersey native, currently writing from her home office in Hoboken. She believes that sharing the journey of motherhood, especially taboo topics, can help to normalize the difficult moments we all feel from time to time. When she’s not writing and juggling mom-duty, Colleen enjoys playing guitar and crafting (specifically, miniatures). Some may say she’s a bit quirky, but she chooses to embrace her eccentricities and channels them into her creative endeavors.
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Engage with Colleen’s Story: Fear and motherhood often go hand-in-hand. How do you live with, embrace, or confront fear in your life?
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Continued Thoughts:
Every mother has a compelling story. What’s yours?
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