When I was getting married some of my friends from college joked that it was a sign of the Apocalypse. That’s because all through college I vehemently proclaimed that I would never get married and I’d certainly never have kids.

Yes, I eventually learned that I should never say never.

But even after deciding there was a place for a child in my life, I didn’t immediately feel comfortable in the role of mom.  Her infant years were hard for me - I ran back to work as soon as maternity leave was over. I wanted to be where I knew how to do my job and people could tell me what they needed (as opposed to me trying to guess what all that crying was about).

To some of you I’m sure that sounds harsh, but I really think it’s a myth that all women naturally have some instinct for mothering.  Instead of being proud, I resented when my husband would say I was better at some element of parenting than he was.  It wasn’t because I had any more practice at it than he had (never did the whole babysitting thing and was the baby of the family). If I was better at something it was because I poured over books, magazines and websites to learn how.  Something he could have just as easily done.

Toddler years had their own challenges. Getting a mug with “World’s Greatest Mom” on it was still far from my idea of success; but, things at least got a little better once she was able to verbalize her needs and wants. This may still sound uncaring, but to the contrary, I began to realize during this time that I had a love for my daughter I couldn’t explain. It runs deeper and more differently than anything else I’ve experienced. Maybe I do have some sort of instinct after all - like the one that means you never want to get between a mother bear and her cub.

That doesn’t mean I didn’t often wish for the days when going out didn’t take the advance planning of lining up a babysitter. I still cringed a bit when someone would call me a mommy blogger even though I blog here about issues related to motherhood. But, I also found myself becoming more vocal about support for girls and representation by women - not for advancing myself, but in the hopes of better things for women of her generation.

Then, an interesting thing happened the other day. I was watching the news with my laptop in, well, my lap and I saw a couple of guys I follow on Twitter mention that they were heading to San Francisco where the weatherman had just said it was going to rain.  So, I tweeted to them about packing an umbrella and David Armano replied “you’re such a mom.”

And I didn’t flinch. There was no cringe. No resentment.

Instead, I replied with another “mom” retort: “And eat your vegetables young man!”

I think maybe, seven years into this mommy gig and entering my fifth generation of life, I might be finally becoming comfortable with the whole “mom” label.

Photo compliments of Leandro Queiroz via Creative Commons.

Those three words are still echoing in my mind and heart. They only brushed past my ear for a few milliseconds, but the vibration of them continues, an acoustic double-espresso of emotional energy.

“Love you, Dad!” Tossed over his shoulder as one of my adult sons headed out.

A simple phrase, really. Easy to tune out or even brush off. Until your kids grow up, that is.

Thinking back, the “I love you’s” flow easily when the kids are young. Then they get older, and it’s not so cool to say it. What was once common becomes rare, replaced by the silent hope that it’s still true. The unspoken is now taken for granted.

You get used to near-silence after a while - uncomfortably reconciling yourself to a season of affections assumed, though your ears miss the words even as your eyes interpret the almost imperceptible gestures. You were there, once, some years back - you know how young men keep it in check. Especially when their budding independence comes up against your not-quite-so-confident-anymore leadership.

Then, as they leave the cocoon into the responsibilities and privileges of adulthood, their parents seem to undergo a metamorphosis as well. No longer a mere “bad cop” figurehead at the helm of a prison ship, or some retro dunce from another planet, those parents transform into human beings again.

Mom and Dad again.

And every “Love you, Dad!” rings that much louder. Makes the moment that much brighter. Means more than the young man can possibly know.

Fame, titles, riches - they all have their place. A pretty distant second place, overall. Every “Love you, Dad!” is pure gold.

It was a young man looking clearly into my eyes this morning.

Back from a successful 3 months at boot camp, being forged into a United States Marine. Completing a month off to see family and friends over the holidays. Now having the final Dad-breakfast of this chapter of his young life, before heading out tonight for advanced training and a career going who-knows-where in coming years.

It was a young man across the table. So short a time ago, a little tow-headed boy. Now, a strong-jawed Marine, quite a sight when in his dress blues. We looked into the future together, with both confidence and excitement.

For years, we held him close…with the ultimate parental goal of finally letting go.

And as we had a last talk to cap off this stage of the father-son relationship, it was a young man who was thinking responsibly. Aware of his duties, and of the needs of others. Someone for whom I always felt deep love, but now, another, very profound sense was emerging.

Respect. Mutual respect.

This boy had given us a run for our money. Growing him up was definitely not a trouble-free process. There was heartache and grief. But underneath all the teen folly, a young man was lurking, ready to shed the cocoon and fly.

We’re at the launch pad, and this one is fueled up and ready to go. It’s lift-off time. My heart is oscillating wildly with more emotions than I can even identify. My keyboard, even now, is stained with tears.

Go, David - Go. May God bless you.

Love, Dad

I’m one of those children of the 70s/80s who grew up thinking I should “bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan,” and never let my man forget he’s a man. We were supposed to strive to be “Supermoms” who were able to do it all.

And, according to the recent Advertising Age white paper “The New Female Consumer: The Rise of the Real Mom,” most of us do “do it all.” Their research showed that “…women with children still handle the bulk of the household and child-care responsibilities, the so-called ’second shift’ — whether they are working full time, staying at home or something in between.”

This is in an age when the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports both parents were employed in 62 percent of the 24.6 million families made up of a married couple with children under 18. And, in the 2006-2007 academic year, the U.S. Department of Education noted women earned a majority of higher-education degrees.

The full report embedded here is filled with many more such statistics, including a 48-year comparison on education, purchasing power, and wages. But, the “real mom” to which its title makes reference is what they are really making a case for in the paper.

They posit that “the second half of this decade has brought a backlash against the mythical Supermom — that hyperactive type-A personality who whips up perfect cookies and perfect children — and an embrace of the likable, more relatable real mom, who doesn’t obsess over the little things.”

The case is made that millennial women (born between 1980 and 1995) are leading this change in attitude. They are apparently not as “conflicted” as my generation — Generation X. While I grew up being told I was equal to men, what I saw was my own mother doing an unequal amount of work to keep our family running - that “second shift” we women are apparently still working.

“[Millennials] grew up with seeing a lot of moms working, being outside the home a lot, and decided ‘Hey, this isn’t what I want,’” Aliza Freud, founder and CEO of SheSpeaks said in the AdAge report. “So they may be at peace more with their not working or working.”

Nearly have of the women surveyed for the report said finding balance between family and career is “a joke” for working women and I will certainly agree with that. The tagline for this blog used to say that it wasn’t about balance, but about juggling.

As one journalist put it: “While no longer striving to be supermoms doing everything for everyone, mothers are looking toward being pragmatic and good enough, and making a real impact in the areas that matter most for them and their children.”

This AdAge report implies that marketers should help empower women to delegate responsibilities to spouses, children and even brands so that they will have “more time to be who they want to be.”

As Carroll Trosclair on Suite101.com rightly points out, “marketers have been helping women delegate work to products, services and brands for decades. But delegating work to husbands and children may be a new and controversial challenge for advertisers.”

Interesting Side Note:
While researching for this post, I came across a blog that mentions one of the ways information was gathered for the whitepaper. Kitchen Table Conversations, “a new user-generated video research service revolutionizing how qualitative research is conducted” was used to gather information on grocery shopping habits. If you’re interested in qualitative research methods, check it out.

What does my new iPod stereo have to do with this book giveaway? Because when I moved things around to make room for the new stereo on my office shelves, I found a stack of books that I’ve been meaning to give away to readers since… well, whenever.

Less parenting books than books for parents, the books document the life adventure of raising kids with humor, wit, inspiration, love, heartache, and sometimes schmaltz — all the stuff, I guess, that rolls into parenting itself.

If you’d like to receive one of these, leave a comment below with the title you are interested in. I’ll pick winners randomly. (Please be sure to include a viable email address so I can contact you if you are a winner!)

Because I Said So by Dawn Meehan

Meehan, the author of a blog by the same name, has penned this read inspired by life with her husband and six children. From Amazon: “One of the most popular mommy-bloggers thanks to a humorous eBay listing about her child’s baseball which was circulated rapidly until she became a household name, Dawn Meehan offers readers a hilarious journey along with her six kids on madcap adventures, underscoring the notion that a sense of humor is an essential parenting skill. Because I Said So affirms that parents are not alone in the daily chaos, struggles and joys of child-rearing. With a huge dose of laugh-out-loud, real-life examples, Dawn shares hard-won wisdom gleaned from life with six children.”

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Like Mother, Like Daughter by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hanson, with Amy Newmark

Motivational speakers Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen have published more than 100 collections of these short, inspirational stories and essays since their original “Chicken Soup” title debuted in 1993. From Amazon: “This new collection from Chicken Soup represents the best 101 stories from Chicken Soup’s library on the special bond between mothers and daughters, and the magical, mysterious similarities between them. Mothers and daughters of all ages will laugh, cry, and find inspiration in these stories that remind them how much they appreciate each other.”

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Moms and Sons by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hanson, with Amy Newmark

More soup, this time with Moms and sons. From Amazon: “There is a special bond between mothers and their sons and it never goes away. These heartfelt and loving stories written by mothers, grandmothers, and sons, about each other, span generations and show how the mother-son bond transcends time.”

Interested in any of these three? Give a shout below…!

It’s Wednesday morning. I love Wednesday mornings.

For now, anyway. Sometime next year, I’ll probably hate them. But I’ve come to accept that such duality is part of my life as a mother. It started at the very beginning. When my son was born a little more than four years ago, I hated motherhood.

After the colic and the breastfeeding struggles and the sleeping through the night struggles abated at about six months, I settled into a love-hate relationship with motherhood. Life was way better  than newborn-hood, but I still missed my pre-parental life more than I liked my present.

Between a year and 18 months, a period when I got a new job and we found reliable child care that we’re still with, the scale tipped toward the love end. So much so that the idea of a second child was broached, mulled and then manifested.

Said second child was born 11 days before first child turned three. We did not experience the alleged “terrible twos,” but three put me right back on the cliff of motherhood. Multi-round daily battles of will with my son poised me to plunge back into the abyss of regret and resentment. I was walked back from the edge only – to my abiding amazement – by the second child.

She was darling. She was sweet. She took naps. There were no breastfeeding struggles, no hours-long evening crying jags. My second maternity leave was one of the happiest times of my life.

And I felt guilty.

Parents are supposed to love their kids equally, right? Favoritism is unfair, breeds sibling rivalry, keeps therapists in business, etc. etc. etc.

So I tried to hide that I preferred her. I tried so hard, and since she was easy to handle and my son’s behavior – especially potty training – was all-consuming, I didn’t even realize how disproportionate my attentions became over her first year.

Which brings me back to Wednesday mornings. Wednesdays are one of my days off and until this fall, I spent them home with both kids. But my son started preschool in September. He goes Wednesday mornings, giving me three hours alone with my daughter.

One of those first Wednesdays, I realized I didn’t have to hide my preference. Since my son wasn’t there to see it, I could snuggle and kiss and coo and babytalk his sister as much as I wanted. (Plus there’s the fact that she’ll still take a morning nap, giving me precious writing time.) As I let it all flow out, I realized how much I’d choked myself back – in the name of fairness to my son.

How fair was that to my daughter?

But before succumbing to yet another wave of guilt (you do that, too?) I managed to somehow scramble up to a higher perch. Surveyed from above, I could identify my motherhood pattern. Call it duality, a pendulum, yin-yang, a see-saw, call it whatever, but it is a fact of my life as a parent. Now that I’ve experienced this pattern repetition, I’m no longer all that concerned with the conflicting rhythms between each child or each day, and forces that push and pull me toward one one or the other. Now that the three-year-old battlefield is behind us, it’s shifting already in the pleasure and gratitude I feel being with my finally four-year-old son.

It’s taken me four years to learn, but my norm is to yo-yo both between the kids, as well as between deep contentment as a mother and nagging, grass-is-greener thinking about a different choice. To fight it or wish it away is to deny myself. To realize it, accept it and say it publicly here is huge.

Gotta go. Less than two hours left this Wednesday morning.

A recent headline in Virtual World News certainly caught my eye: “FTC Study Finds ‘Explicit Sexual Content’ in Teen, Kids Virtual Worlds.”

Having written several reviews of kids virtual worlds here, I was at first relieved to not see any of them named in the article. Then, I got nervous when I found three of them listed as part of the survey sample: Build-a-Bear-ville, Handipoints and Pixie Hollow. However, after searching the report, the only mention of them I can find is in the appendix list of the survey sample; so, I’m hoping that is a sign that explicit content was not found in them.

But, to make sure, I dug into the FTC’s Virtual Worlds and Kids: Mapping the Risks - a 92-page report to Congress. All-in-all, I think it is rather balanced.

From a “master list” of 187 virtual worlds, the Commission constructed a sample of 27. Six were deliberatly included because they’d been identified as potentially containing explicit content. These worlds were Gaia, IMVU, There.com, Second Life, Red Light Center, and Kaneva - none of which are targeted at children under 13.

Fourteen of the 27 online virtual worlds in the Commission’s survey were open to children under age 13. Of these 14 virtual worlds, the Commission found at least one instance of explicit content on seven of them. All of that was observed when the Commission’s researchers visited those worlds posing as teen or adult registrants, not when visiting the worlds as children under 13 (with the exception of one world named Bots).
In six of these seven kid virtual worlds, the amount of explicit content observed was considered low.

Only in Stardoll, did the Commission find a moderate amount of explicit content. That’s one world I had thought of reviewing, but wasn’t sure it was right for my seven-year-old. Sounds like I might be wise to wait.

It’s interesting to see that they also note: “Because the Commission’s researchers examined these worlds with the express purpose of uncovering sexually and violently explicit content, it is unlikely that a typical user would stumble upon such content unintentionally.”

Almost all of the explicit content they found in the kid virtual worlds was text-based and was found in chat rooms, message boards, and discussion forums. In Stardoll, almost all of the explicit content observed was in the form of “violently explicit text posted on discussion boards. Again, however, none of the explicit content observed on Stardoll occurred when the Commission’s researchers registered as a child under age 13.47.”

Not surprisingly, the Commission found more explicit content in the online virtual worlds that are supposed to be closed to children under age 13 (“teen- and adult-oriented virtual worlds”). They found a greater concentration of explicit content in worlds that permit teens to register.

“Although some of the teen- and adult-oriented online virtual worlds in which the Commission observed explicit content have taken steps to restrict minors’ access to explicit content, their efforts have not fully succeeded. Virtual world operators can do more to limit youth exposure to explicit content. Given important First Amendment considerations, the Commission supports virtual world operators’ self-regulatory efforts to implement these recommendations.”

Some of the things they are suggesting include:

• better age-screening practices
• segregating users by age
• stronger language filters
• more community moderators, and
• parents and children alike should become better educated about online virtual worlds.

That last one is always the most important. Parents should never totally rely on age-screening mechanisms to keep their kids out of virtual worlds they shouldn’t be in — they’ll always find ways around registration restrictions.

It’s up to us to monitor where our kids are going online, teach them how to behave online, and teach them how to keep themselves safe when we’re not there.

As the Commission put it, “even properly registered children should be taught to make safe and responsible choices when communicating online, and to be cognizant of the risks posed by playing games and congregating in venues that may be designed for older audiences.”

What was the ultimate conclusion of the FTC Commission regarding explicit material in virtual worlds?

“Online virtual worlds provide children and teens with educational, social, and creative opportunities. However, as with other aspects of the Internet, youth may be exposed to explicit content while participating in online virtual worlds. Parents, therefore, should familiarize themselves with the features offered by the online virtual worlds their children visit. For their part, operators should ensure that they have mechanisms in place to limit youth exposure to explicit content in their online virtual worlds.”

I think that sums it up nicely.

I was at an industry conference (Blogworld Expo), coming down with the flu, when I was confronted by someone who didn’t like something I had blogged about on one of my personal blogs. The person accused me of lying, but then kept asking me for more “evidence” and examples to prove I wasn’t lying. Finally, in what was most likely a moment of anger on their part, they asked:

“Aren’t you on medication?”

“Yes, I replied evenly. “Of course, you know I am. I blog about it openly.”

“Well, it must not be working. You obviously have a problem,” they said. After that, I tuned them out. The conversation had disintegrated into petty meanness.

I couldn’t believe it. Someone actually used the fact that I was on a low dosage of an anti-anxiety medication for treating post partum depression against me because they didn’t like or agree with the things I was saying on my blog. And they said this to me at an industry conference, no less.

That’s when it hit me: Post partum depression is still grossly misunderstood and - like any form of depression or mental imbalance - is regarded as shameful and the “root of evil.” So I thought I’d blog again about my year of silent screaming - and loud screaming. The year after my daughter was born.

I had a good pregnancy, my 5th in 2 years and the only one that held on for 9 months.

I had a horrible labor where the highlight was being given Ambien after over 30 hours of laboring to “help me sleep.”  Despite my concern that it might not be a good thing for me, I was told it was fine and safe. Then I proceeded to hallucinate for hours in the middle of the night, hitting myself and talking about the many people standing in my room, watching me. My husband had to hold me down to keep me from hurting myself. Scenes from the movie “The Sixth Sense” come to mind as I retell this.

I had a horrible breastfeeding experience after the first night in the hospital when a nurse gripped and twisted my breast so callously, causing swelling. I ended up with double mastitis (infection of milk ducts) within a week of giving birth. Nobody believed I could have double mastitis so early into attempting to breastfeed so it went untreated. When I eventually sought help from a lactation consultant, she actually took photographs of my breasts because she couldn’t believe how bad the infection had gotten.

My daughter refused to breastfeed. To her, breastfeeding meant pain, blood, mommy crying and near starvation. I was devastated. I pumped breast milk for my daughter for almost a year after that.

I knew I’d have sleepless nights in the first week after giving birth, but I was so exhausted a month later that I was starting to hallucinate, this time without sleeping aids.

Then the anger started.

I screamed. I ran around the house screaming. I cursed. I threw plates full of food into the air or at the walls.

Once, I ran out of the house screaming with car keys in my hand, and my husband had to chase after me and carry me back in the house.

Another time, my husband took our infant daughter into another room while I was freaking out, and I proceed to follow him screaming that he can’t keep her away from me, that he can’t take her from me.

Looking back, I can’t imagine what my husband was thinking or feeling. To this day, I try to get him to talk about it so we can keep working on healing all those deeply-placed wounds. The fact that he stayed with me is a true testament of the power of love.

Six months into this hell, my mother finally told me something I had never heard her talk about before: she thought she might have had “something like this” when she gave birth to my sister.

She told me that she felt like she was screaming inside, but nothing would come out.

I asked my dad about this. Did he remember?

He said that he used to say my mom was “climbing the walls.” So he would take me and my baby sister out of the house to give my mom some “quiet time.”

My mother also revealed that her mother may have had “something like this.” Apparently my grandmother used to scream. Just scream and scream.

I vowed that when my daughter grew up and contemplated a family, I would tell her to keep an eye out for signs of “something like this.”

This. Post Partum Depression.

After nearly a year pumping breast milk, I decided I had done what I could and stopped. My health practitioner was relieved.

“Now we can finally treat you,” she said then referred me to another practioner who said she wanted to put me on medication.

No way, I said. I was in the Tom Cruise camp that this stuff could be treated with vitamins, natural remedies, exercise.

I cried. I pleaded. I said I feared for my life and my sanity if I were to go on medication.

“That’s the depression talking,” she said simply.

I eventually agreed to try the lowest dose of the medication that day.

That night, I finally really slept for the first time in almost a year.

That next week, I could no longer feel the screams inside.

That next month, I realized how much pain I had caused my family and how much I had to make up to them.

It took me a year to warm up to my daughter who was so distant from me at first that I couldn’t even believe I was her mother. I had to admit that during her first year of life, I wasn’t really her mother. I was a jumbled mess with an out-of-whack hormone cocktail surging through me. I was red hot lava. I was anger.

I think it took my daughter an entire year to forgive me in her own instinctive child’s way.

It took me even longer to forgive myself or actually to realize that I wasn’t to blame in the first place.

I’ve stayed on the medication - still at the lowest dose - and feel “normal” again, whatever that means. In my life, it means that I can think straight, be productive in my work, and bond deeply with my husband and daughter.

And I no longer feel the screaming inside.

What more can we do to break the taboos around post partum depression so women can seek help without shame and more readily support one another?