Archive for September, 2007

Save the Cheerleader, Save the World

My daughter came home last night. I have to wonder if maybe I’ve saved her life.

I know too many kids whose families are divorced. They found living with one parent too difficult and either left or got thrown out and sent to live with the other parent. Of course it was only ever a matter of time before things got rough there and the kid is faced with going back to the first parent (if they’ll even have them back) and the alternative of setting out on their own, running away, moving in with someone they shouldn’t, or the unknown. The kids who bounced from one parent to another to a grandparent always described feeling alone, lost, like no one cared. I don’t want my daughter to ever feel that way.

So even though we’re in a tough place now, my daughter knows I love her. She knows I want her. I haven’t given up on her, sent her to live with her father, put her in foster care, or chosen one of the many other options I was presented with over the past week. I want her here.

I’m sad that she’s so unhappy, but with the team of professionals that is assembling, we’re going to do our best to see that she doesn’t slip into an unsalvageable disaster of a life. It’s hard when you see someone with so many talents, so much potential, just throwing it away.

I’m looking at the longterm, and I guess that’s both the joy and the burden of parenting. I have to think about what’s best for her longterm, what will give her the best opportunities in life, and not just what will make her smile today, in the short term. Parenting is more than ice cream and Lego. It’s also about hard and unpopular decisions, like moving to a better school district, toothbrushing, and dark green leafy vegetables. As her parent, I have to consider her future, and not to dragged down by her teen angst.

Home again, home again, jiggety jig

My daughter should be home by 4:30 p.m. today. Today the judge ordered her father to return her to me. He was found in contempt of court and read the riot act.

What a relief. It’s been a week and a half since he took her.

I’ll buy you a pony

Every divorced parent’s nightmare is probably that their child goes for visitation with the other parent and never comes back again.

I never thought it would happen to me. But it did.

My daughter went for the weekend with her dad, didn’t go to her aikido class, hasn’t been to school all week, and didn’t come home again.

The police say it’s not a criminal act, to contact my lawyer, to get to court. If there’s nothing criminal they don’t get involved.

I cannot believe that violating a court order is not a criminal act. Isn’t this kidnapping? My middle son cried in bed last night missing his sister. Thankfully the boys are safe here with me.

The school is recording her absences and will contact the attendance counsellor sooner or later — but how long does she have to miss school before someone will do something?

He’s been served, told to return her immediately…an urgent motion for civil contempt is being brought before the court… but still my kid is not at home.

How can he think that this is a responsible parenting choice? A week of school, sneaking around, hiding at her grandparents’ house? Is this what he calls good parenting?

What good is a court order if it cannot be enforced?

I’m boggled by the system.

It must be some pony.

About Citing Wikipedia

School’s started up again and if I hear another caveat from a professor telling students not to cite Wikipedia I think I’m going to lose it. In each instance it’s gone something like this:

(Prof): In writing your papers this semester, you’ll be required to use outside sources. When you’re looking for material, do not cite Wikipedia. Anyone know why not to cite wikipedia?

(Student): Because it’s inaccurate.

(Prof): Why is it inaccurate?

(Student): Because anyone can edit it.

(Prof): Very good.

the end

Whether or not you accept Nature’s study that showed Wikipedia to be more accurate than Britannica or Thomas Chesney’s smaller study at Nottingham University Business School in which experts found Wikipedia entries to be highly credible, the reason not to cite Wikipedia is completely different. At the university level we don’t cite the encyclopedia. Any encyclopedia.

When you’re just getting started on a research project, by all means look up information on Wikipedia. You’ll probably find Wikipedia more helpful than Britannica because (1) it’s online making it easily accessible; (2) it’s free; (3 and most significantly) it contains links to other related subjects. I’ve yet to see a print document with linkage to other entries or sites.

Once you’ve found an interesting entry, read all the way to the bottom to the Resource section. Here you will find the footnotes, which contain the information you will need to find the original documents that form the basis for the wikipedia entry. See the titles of journal articles, books, and other scholarly sources? Make a note of these and then go to the library (physical and/or online). Look these up in your school’s journal database, library catalogue, etc and read the complete, original text. And then cite that.

So, there’s no need to even get started on the credibility/accuracy of either encyclopedia or the cooperative vs. competitive model of writing or any other debate.

Postpartum support

Canada’s most famous midwife (according to me at least),Gloria Lemay, wrote this sample letter in 2001 for families to share after the birth of a new baby. I don’t think she’d mind at all if you edited it to fit your family’s circumstances. The main point of it is that you please ask for help when you need it. It’s all part of mythbusting the incredible super-mommy-can-do-it-all agenda that mothers get coming at us from all directions.

And no, I’m not pregnant, nor have I any plans to be. The rural Ontario childbirth historiography I’m working on is putting me in contact with more of this kind of information than I’ve been near in the past few years and I thought this was important enough to share.

Postpartum support

-by Gloria Lemay

“Let me know if I can help you in any way when the baby is born.” … “Just let me know if you need a hand.” … “Anything I can do, just give me a call.”

Most pregnant women get these statements from friends and family but shy away from making requests when they are up to their ears in dirty laundry, unmade beds, dust bunnies and countertops crowded with dirty dishes. The myth of “I’m fine, I’m doing great, new motherhood is wonderful, I can cope and my husband is the Rock of Gibraltar” is pervasive in postpartum land.

If you’re too shy to ask for help and make straight requests of people, I suggest sending the following list out to your friends and family. These are the things I have found to be missing in every house with a new baby. It’s actually easy and fun for outsiders to remedy these problems for the new parents but there seems to be a lot of confusion about what’s wanted and needed..

1. Buy us toilet paper, milk and beautiful whole grain bread.
2. Buy us a new garbage can with a swing top lid and 6 pairs of black cotton underpants (women’s size____).
3. Make us a big supper salad with feta cheese, black calamata olives, toasted almonds, organic green crispy things and a nice homemade dressing on the side. Drop it off and leave right away. Or- buy us a frozen lasagna, garlic bread, a bag of salad, a big jug of juice, and maybe some cookies to have for dessert. Drop it off and leave right away.
4. Come over about 2 in the afternoon, hold the baby while I have a hot shower, put me to bed with the baby and then fold all the piles of laundry that have been dumped on the couch, beds or in the room corners. If there’s no laundry to fold yet, do some.
5. Come over at l0 a.m., make me eggs, toast and a 1/2 grapefruit. Clean my fridge and throw out everything you are in doubt about. Don’t ask me about anything, just use your best judgement.
6. Put a sign on my door saying “Dear Friends and Family, Mom and baby need extra rest right now. Please come back in 7 days but phone first. All donations of casserole dinners would be most welcome. Thank you for caring about this family.”
7. Come over in your work clothes and vacuum and dust my house and then leave quietly. It’s tiring for me to chat and have tea with visitors but it will renew my soul to get some rest knowing I will wake up to clean, organized space.
8. Take my older kids for a really fun-filled afternoon to a park, zoo or Science World and feed them healthy food.
9. Come over and give my husband a two hour break so he can go to a coffee shop, pub, hockey rink or some other r & r that will delight him. Fold more laundry.
10. Make me a giant pot of vegetable soup and clean the kitchen completely afterwards. Take a big garbage bag and empty every trash basket in the house and reline with fresh bags.

These are the kindnesses that new families remember and appreciate forever. It’s easy to spend money on gifts but the things that really make a difference are the services for the body and soul described above. Most of your friends and family members don’t know what they can do that won’t be an intrusion. They also can’t devote 40 hours to supporting you but they would be thrilled to devote 4 hours. If you let 10 people help you out for 4 hrs., you will have the 40 hours of rested, adult support you really need with a newborn in the house. There’s magic in the little prayer “I need help.”

Gloria Lemay, Vancouver, BC Canada 604 737 7063 August 2001

Needless to say, I had a bad experience after my third child was born, where I wish I’d asked for help instead of trying to entertain visitors. If I were doing it again I’d be a lot more assertive. I think.

Dreaming

I had a dream this morning. Getting ready for camping — enthusiast style: pack it in, pack it out. Bringing only a small pack, the rusty orange one I got for my daughter when she was about five, the one with the spot for a water botttle. Clean underwear, bug spray, mosquito netting. A rectangular woven basket in my arms with some other things that would be divided into the packs of the small group of us going, the one that I filled this weekend with towels and raincoats from my house, packing to move.

Grabbing my cell phone as I run out the door, giving instructions to my parents about childcare, how to reach me, rushing out the door so I don’t miss my ride.

Waiting in front of a house (some house, none I’ve lived in) by a no-parking sign — waiting and waiting. No ride. Knocking on the neighbours’ house to see if one of the group is still there, finding out that Patrick (in 1993 we did bad children’s theatre together in Toronto) — and everyone else, left hours ago. The group was long gone. They’d given me a false departure time, completely intending to leave before daylight. I was devastated. Crushed. But then not surprised, like this had happened before, with other people, in other circumstances, and would probably happen again.

edit:

I forgot to say the reason why I blogged this at all. When I woke up I felt totally sabotaged by my dreaming self. I wondered if my dream knew all along that the group was planning to ditch me, and if so, why would it do such a thing? Rob, the ever optimist, suggested that maybe the mind just watches the pictures as they appear, and interprets them as we go along.