April, 2005 Adoption Day for Jamie

            Her name is Jamilet — Jamie. For seven months, she was our foster daughter. We adopted her April 28, and now, she is as much our daughter as Jacob and Liam are our sons, so her days of privacy are over — with a mom who’s a columnist, the best she can hope for in terms of privacy is that her brothers will do newsworthy things more often than she does. In yet another God-incidence (not coincidence) the court-decided adoption date of April 28 was Bill's mother's birthday, and she is also adopted.   

Jamie’s older biological sisters named her, and while Bill and I already have a Jamie as a brother-in-law, a Jamie for a boy cousin and a Jamie for a good (male) friend of the family, we figure we can handle one more. Keeping her name is one way we can honor her family of origin. We hope it will also be one fewer question to answer when she’s older.

            The question I hear the most since the adoption is, “Does it feel different?” I wish I could say it did. I wish that I had some dramatic story to tell about how, at the moment of adoption, everything changed. I never liked those questions on my birthday as a kid, either. “How does it feel to be eight?” an uncle would ask. It didn’t feel any different.

For me, growing to love Jamilet as a daughter began the first day I met her, as a foster daughter. Just as I didn’t know newborn Jacob and Liam, I didn’t know 1-year-old Jamilet. Yet, with all three, I felt an almost instant sense of responsibility and protectiveness. I’m not a fan of babysitting for other people’s children, and one of my fears before I had Jacob, and then again, before I became a foster parent for the first time, would be that I would feel about the child like I did about my friends’ children — fondly, but not passionately. But with both of my biological sons, my two foster daughters, and now, with adopted Jamie, the passion kicked in right away. For me, there was something about knowing I was a child’s mother — whether for a month or for a lifetime — that clicked on a sense of interest and purpose I do not feel for other children. With Jacob and Liam, with my other two foster daughters, and now with Jamie, the passage of time deepens the love. I can’t say I love Jacob more now, at 10, than I loved him when he was 2, but I can say I love him more fully now. Jacob is a more complex person now; there are more aspects to love, and as I discover those aspects, I can more fully know him as God knows him. The same is true for Liam and Jamie. As they grow into who they are, I love them more fully.

In Jamie’s adoption, the court recognized officially what Bill and I had long felt. She is a member of our family. There is a bond here that cannot be broken.

On adoption day, we went to the courthouse with both sets of our parents, Bill’s sister and her family, Jamie’s original foster mother, and my grandmother and uncle. We brought with us a bunch of pink helium balloons, and an enormous, 20-foot long, 3 foot wide pink banner, made by Liam, proclaiming, “Happy Adoption!” in big first grade block letters. He taped it to the front of the judge’s bench.  I got so choked up on the first question (“Please state and spell your name”) that I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to continue. Jamie raced around the courtroom in a pretty white dress and brand new patent leather shoes, excited that everyone she knew was all together in the same room. And after all the questions were answered and the forms were signed, the judge invited the boys up to the bench. They each got to pound the gavel and say, “This adoption is final.”

Finally final. We are so thankful.

April 2005 We're Center of the Universe, and holding...

For most of their lives, our children will not live with us. If they take the same path Bill and I did, they will fly the coop for college at 18, returning only for summer and winter breaks until they graduate and have their own places. For most of their lives, our children will see their roommates, friends, co-workers, and eventually, their own families, far more hours each week than they will see us. And while I hope that they will call their dad and me when they’re in a tight spot or need help working through a problem, I know that it’s more likely that first, they will turn to each other and their friends.

            But we have them for now. 

            At 10, 6 and 1, our children still see Bill and me as the center of their universe. And we are by no means unique in our high status. Studies repeatedly show that without exception, children look first to their parents as role models.

Yet, looking around me, I am amazed at how willing many parents are to share the stage — to allow their young children’s values to be shaped and shifted by strangers who do not have their children’s best interest in mind. In pockets around me, I see parents too willing to share their precious time that center-of-the-universe spot with the TV, movie theater, computer, GameBoy and MP3 player.

 Parents who wouldn’t think of skipping a babysitter’s reference check have no problem leaving their kids alone with The Bachelor. Parents who hope their children will wait until marriage — or at least adulthood — for sex, nevertheless allow their young children to see sexually suggestive movies and listen to explicit songs. Parents who downplay materialism themselves, yet invite clothes companies and car companies to come into their family room and make a pitch to their children.

            It’s not that I think these parents are bad or purposefully abusive as they expose their children to a radically different value system than that of the Gospel. Instead, I think they have been swindled just as their children are being swindled. They have been convinced that if you can’t speak the language of pop culture, you’ll be left behind. These parents may even believe that media executives are looking out for their children — that a program or commercial can’t be that bad if it’s allowed to be shown during a time slot when kids are watching. Their gut may say not to let their 9-year-old see the PG-13 movie with her friends, but they override their conscience with an exception — just this once. And in doing so, they sell their children’s childhoods, bit by bit.

            Maybe it’s the teacher in me that understands that consistency needs to drive all decisions we make with our children. As an adult, I can see the occasional raunchy movie or watch an eye-candy reality show without it shaping who I am, but that’s because my value system is already set.  A child, repeatedly exposed to advertising, casual sex, materialism and back-talk in the media will need to try some of them on for size. Parents and teachers’ values are suddenly weighed against the glossy and glamorous world of primetime.

            I know I can’t protect my kids forever, but they’re all mine right now. And it’s my responsibility to keep them true to their chronological age. Limiting TV and media exposure is one of the easiest things I can do to make sure they stay young. Six-year-olds and ten-year-olds have no need to be repeatedly told by anyone what brand of shoes to buy. They have no need to see sit-coms where everyone sleeps together by the third date or reality shows with little basis in reality. They don’t even need to hear the flippant back-talk and sassiness of the average cartoon. What they need is for Bill and me to stand guard of our home — to monitor the words and images they are exposed to through the media. 

Our children need for Bill and me to protect our place at the center of their universe, for in protecting that place, we protect them.

March, 2005: Wondering about Life after Death, and the Tooth Fairy

This morning, when I woke up, I heard my two boys whispering in their bedroom. Because they aren’t very good at whispering, I ended up overhearing their whole conversation.

            “The tooth fairy came last night,” Liam, 6, said.

            “Great! What’d you get?” Jacob, 10, asked.

            “A dollar and a note,” Liam said. “But I know it’s Mom.”

            “How do you know?” asked Jacob, 10, who figured out the truth about nocturnal gift-bearers himself a few years ago.

            “The note sounds just like Mom,” Liam said. “It even said that each ZIP code has its own Tooth Fairy, and that’s just what Mom told me last night.”            

            “Maybe Mom told you that because it’s true.” I had to give Jacob credit. He was really working to keep Liam believing.

            “No. I know Mom’s the Tooth Fairy,” Liam answered.

            “Well, okay,” Jacob said. “But don’t let Mom know you know.”

            Don’t let Mom know you know. To me, those words were more significant that the fact that Liam no longer believes in the Tooth Fairy. Those words showed me that Jacob was somehow trying to protect me from knowing that Liam doesn’t believe.

The older my children get, the less I am able to control what they believe or don’t believe.

            A couple of weeks ago, I was alone with Jacob in the kitchen, and somehow the subject of bodies decomposing after death came up. As I was explaining what happens to the body, Jacob suddenly started to cry.

            “Don’t talk about that,” he said. “I hate thinking about that. It scares me. I know we’re supposed to believe in Heaven, but what if we’re all wrong? What if there’s really nothing after death and you just die and that’s it?”  He put his head down on the kitchen table, still crying, and also embarrassed, I think, to have voiced his doubts.

            I was grateful Bill had the two younger children upstairs so I could give Jacob the time his question needed. At first, I started talking about faith, and how believing in something without really knowing is what faith is all about. But then, as I listened to myself from the perspective of Jacob I heard his underlying worry — that sometimes he didn’t have the faith to believe in life after death. Jacob didn’t need me to say, “Have faith.” He had doubts and he needed something to answer to his doubts. He needed to build his belief on something he already believed in.

            I skipped the faith talk and went right to love. I asked him if he believed that he loved his dad and me, if he loved his brother and sister. If he believed that love was real.

            “Of course,” he said.

            “Well, that love is God,” I said. “In the Bible, it says ‘God is love.’  So every time you feel love, you are feeling the presence of God.” I explained how when he loves someone, he’s believing in God, whether he knows it or not, and love cannot die, even if the body dies.

            We talked for a little while longer, until I saw the fear leaving his eyes a bit. Then I prayed for him. I prayed aloud, telling God that Jacob was having trouble believing in life after death, and that he needed help building his faith in this area. I asked God to send Jacob a sign that there was really life after death, because that would help him to believe.

            When I finished the prayer, I told Jacob to be on the lookout for signs.

            “I don’t know what your sign will be or when it will happen,” I said. “It might be something someone says to you. It might be something you see walking home from the bus. But you’ll know it when you see it.”

            Two weeks later, I had just about forgotten about our conversation. Jacob and I were alone in the kitchen again. An open book was sitting on the kitchen table. Our toddler, Jamie, was always dragging out forgotten books and leaving them around the house. This one was a book one of the boys had received as a Baptism gift, called I Believe.

            “Mom, it’s my sign!” Jacob suddenly said, pointing to the page that the book was open to.  I looked at where he was pointing, and read:

            Death frightens people — even people who trust in God. For death means departure and separation. Everything that makes up the life of a person is left behind. But none of us should be ashamed of our fear at the moment of death. Even Jesus called out to his Father from the Cross.     . . We believe that in dying we meet God. Our eyes, closed by death are opened once more.

            I looked at Jacob and we both laughed, amazed at what a clear sign God had chosen to give him.

            I can’t control what my children believe — and in some ways, they can’t either. Faith is often a gift, not a choice. I can only pray that they will continue coming to me, with both their beliefs and their doubts, and together, we can put them before God.

February, 2005: My almost ashless Wednesday

I hurried to Ash Wednesday Mass across the slushy mess of the church parking lot, carrying 18-month-old Jamilet.  Repositioning the diaper bag on my shoulder, I mentally checked off the things I had packed that I hoped would buy me 20 minutes of quiet time from my toddler. Twenty minutes — that’s all I really needed — enough time to get through the readings, the homily and the ashes. The rest of Mass, I knew from experience, I could kind of absorb while chasing after Jamilet in the back of church, but if I missed the readings and the homily, I had nothing. Readings, homily and ashes — those were my goals for the Mass. I wanted to start Lent off right.

Lately, I had been feeling like my spirituality was withering a bit. The winter cold and mounds of snow were providing an excellent excuse to skip my daily run, which often was my best time to pray. I had a huge overdue fine on my library card (Tarzan had been lost for over a month) and rather than pay it I was spending my usual reading time at night watching TV, and I knew my brain was turning to mush. In addition, my husband Bill and I were struggling to find time for uninterrupted conversations about anything deeper than whether or not to paint the back hallway. So here I was, on Ash Wednesday, putting my hopes for spiritual rejuvenation in a baggie of graham crackers, four board books, a doll with a working zipper on her dress, goldfish crackers, and the big prize — a Tootsie Roll sucker. I prayed it would be enough to keep Jamilet still.

I slunk into a pew next to my good friend, a mom attending Mass child-free because her youngest was in third grade. She shared her songbook with me as I concentrated on immediately giving Jamilet a graham cracker so she would be busy right off the bat. I glanced at my friend, and thought I glimpsed serenity in her eyes.  Having your youngest old enough to put on her own shoes could lead to serenity.

I don’t know if it was my friend’s air of calm rubbing off, or if I finally happened upon the right combination of food and interesting books to keep Jamilet occupied, but whatever the reason, my normally super-active little girl stayed settled and content on my lap. The readings were strong, the homily was inspiring, and it felt like a new beginning. The priest compared us to batteries, and said that Lent provides an opportunity for the positive and the negative to come together — the positive being the good we try to do during Lent, and the negative, the bad habits we try to curtail. A car needs both to run properly, and so do we.

As the homily ended, Jamilet started to get restless, and I brought her to the vestibule, where four or five other mothers were standing in a cluster, watching their toddlers run. Perfect, I thought. I’d let Jamilet burn some energy while the congregation went up to get their ashes, then I’d jump in line at the end. Readings, homily, ashes.  I was almost home free.

Except I missed the ashes.

I’m still not sure how it happened. I chatted quietly for a few minutes (wasn’t it just a few?) with another mom of a toddler. I put everything back in the lost-and-found box after Jamilet emptied it. I distracted her with the Tootsie Roll sucker when she tried to bang on the glass door leading to the school. But then, when I peeked back into the church, to check where the line was for receiving ashes, I was appalled to see the final two people receiving their ashes from the second grade teacher. How did I not notice the other mothers, one by one, leaving the vestibule to get in line?  I briefly considered running for it, a mad dash for ashes with Jamilet on my hip, but this seemed to lack a certain solemnity, so I decided against it.

The rest of Mass was a bit of a blur. I went back to my pew, where Jamilet remained relatively quiet. Going up to Communion, I couldn’t help but note the black mark on every person’s forehead. Everyone managed to get themselves to the front of church for their ashes. Everyone but me. What did that say about me? Yes, I had listened to the readings, the Gospel, even the homily. But I had missed the ashes. I had missed the main event. I was annoyed at myself, annoyed at Jamilet, and slightly bewildered about my strong feelings about a small black mark that I knew was just a symbol.

After Mass, my dad came up to me. We had arranged to meet at Mass, so he could take Jamilet home and baby-sit while I went to work. He was putting on his baseball cap and making a silly face at Jamilet as he walked over to join us.

“I missed the ashes,” I said.

“You did?” He looked at Jamilet, laughed and poked her in the tummy with his index finger. Then, he took his thumb, rubbed it on his own ashes, and traced a cross on my forehead.

“Have some of mine,” he said.

October, 2004: What degree of difficulty is your parenting?

I am fascinated by the sports of gymnastics and figure skating. It’s not because I have any background in these areas. I could never do the straddle roll to pass beginning gymnastics, and my favorite part of ice skating is the hot cocoa afterwards. In spite of my limited talents — or perhaps because of them — I love to watch athletes defy gravity and leap, spin and flip their way to the awards podium.

I can’t say I completely understand the scoring in either of these sports, but I do understand the oft-used phrase, “degree of difficulty.” The more complicated a routine is, the higher the possible score the athlete can get if he or she does it perfectly.

I have decided we need to apply this phrase to parenting. Every child equals one point, or one degree of difficulty. Two additional points are awarded for each child age four and under. Parenting while pregnant earns an additional point, as does parenting anyone who is not yet sleeping through the night.

 Therefore, my friend Carol, who has four children —  ages one, three, five and seven, is working with a degree of difficulty of 8. My own degree of difficulty, now that we’ve added a one-year-old foster daughter, is up to 5, having been recently down to 2, when we just had the boys — ages 6 and 9.

My friend Patty, whose five children are now between 6 and 12, once had a degree of difficulty of 10, when she was pregnant in addition to having 4-year-old twins, a two-year-old and a one-year-old. 

I don’t have preteens or teens yet, but from what I’ve heard, they may require an additional point of difficulty, just as the very young children do. And teenage boy drivers may add even more, just as they do to insurance premiums.

Degrees of difficulty would be helpful for two reasons. First, because they would be applied to everything a parent does, they would turn small daily successes into major triumphs. “Did you see that, ladies and gentlemen? She’s going grocery shopping with her children. That’s a degree of difficulty of 8, remember. Look at that. She’s actually moving down the aisle. She’s keeping the three-year-old away from that display of sugared cereal, and handing a cracker to the baby — all this while getting the best price on spaghetti noodles and answering the seven-year-old’s questions about dinosaurs.”

Degrees of difficulty would also be good because they would be a concrete way for parents to gauge when their lives would get easier. “Hmm. When the baby starts sleeping through the night and Johnny turns five, my degree of difficulty will drop by two.”

I think the main reason I am in favor of degrees of difficulty, however, is that conscientious parents are often too hard on themselves. I’ll go over to a friend’s house who has three children six and under (degree of difficulty, 7) and she’ll apologize because there are toys on the floor and the kitchen’s a mess. But her crazy climbing 17-month-old is alive and relatively unbruised, and so is her three-year-old, who has been known to wander away from the house and down the street. Toys on the floor or not, we need to call  it a successful morning.

Perhaps it’s my contact with the foster care system that also makes me want to publicly give voice to the difficulty of parenting. I know firsthand that what most parents consider the basics — keeping their children clothed, fed and attended to, all while making a living — can be an insurmountable task for some parents. I’ve seen firsthand that a parent can love a child and still neglect him or her. That the all-consuming task of parenting can become downright impossible in the face of addiction. My degree of difficulty scale did not even include parenting while in poverty, parenting while living in a dangerous neighborhood or parenting while in an abusive relationship. At some point, the degree of difficulty becomes so high that some parents give up.

And if parents are the athletes, we are also the judges. We judge each other and we judge ourselves. We judge our next door neighbor, whose degree of difficulty may be similar to our own, and we judge those who live across town, who are dealing with degrees of difficulty that we cannot even imagine.

But the thing that we too often forget as we’re balancing and leaping (and judging), is that parenting is not a competition. In ice skating, athletes may not rush out onto the ice to help each other. And a gymnast certainly may not lend a supporting hand to a teammate about to fall off the beam. But parents aren’t bound by these rules. As we acknowledge our own degree of difficulty — and forgive ourselves for our missteps — we must simultaneously reach out to other parents. We must cheer for each other and be ready to spot without being asked. And after a fall, we must remind each other just how complicated the routine of parenting really is.