Why We Must Put an End to Kissing on the Playground

The other day, a friend posted the following status update on her Facebook page:

At school pick up, [my son in pre-K] tells me, ‘A girl kissed me at school, even though kissing is not allowed. She kissed me two times.’

She followed it with an emoticon expressing surprise, and a follow-up comment made it clear that her son had not wanted to be kissed by this little girl. Many people “liked” the status update, and comments were overwhelmingly positive: “That’s SOOO cute!!” “Heartbreaker.” “Love it!” There was exactly one comment expressing concern: mine.

There was a time when I would have grinned at my friend’s story, as well. Both of my big boys have had crushes on girls in their classes, and several girls have had crushes on my middle son. In fact, he used to come home every day from kindergarten grinning broadly about all the girls who chased him on the playground. My big guy could hardly sit still when he excitedly told me about his first crush. My littlest makes eyes at every girl he sees. And I vividly remember carefully grooming my brows with my Brownie pocket comb for my first crush, Brad, before school each day in first grade. There’s just something so sweet and innocent, giggly and fluttery about those first crushes. But in my friend’s story, the unwanted kissing crossed a line in my mind. The little girl who kissed her son was surely just as sweet and innocent as those who chased my son last year, but what do we do about the fact that her son didn’t want to be kissed?

When we tell our children it’s “cute” when others kiss them against their wishes, what are we teaching them about their ability to make decisions about their own bodies? When we don’t stop our children from kissing another child when he doesn’t want to be kissed, what are we teaching them about consent? Because we are teaching them something. I just fear it’s not what we wish to be.

In light of the horrific stories coming out of our nation’s colleges, in particular, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about sexual assault, rape culture, and consent. As the mother of three boys (ages 10, 6, and 3), I think especially about the possibility that, one day, one of my boys might, heaven forbid, perpetrate an assault (though I certainly understand that they could, also, be victims). It’s a horrible thought – it’s difficult to force my mind to go there – but I must. I must because, apparently, not thinking and talking about this subject has gotten us to this awful place in which sexual assault among friends, acquaintances, and significant others is commonplace.

It would be easier for me to say, “It can wait.” A three year old is, after all, too young for discussions about sex, so how does one teach about something as weighty as consent? And I feel woefully unequipped to tackle such a big, important subject. But waiting doesn’t make it easier, just more urgent, and surely, there is something that can be done now. After all, parenting is about teaching our children, even the littlest ones, critical lessons that will guide them throughout their lives. We are constantly laying the groundwork to help them become amazing adults.

So Mister and I have three, simple rules for our boys that we view as precursors to the bigger, harder discussions about rape and consent that must and will come later:

1. When someone says “no,” screams, cries, or in any other way expresses displeasure, stop. Immediately. This pertains almost exclusively to play right now, and it just about kills the boys, who delight, as siblings sometimes do, in some good-natured brother torture (pinning each other down, wrestling, tickling). But it’s very easy for a child to assume that because he’s playing, everyone else is in on the game and having fun. Almost daily, I have to break up play that has become too rough or frightening for one of the boys. 
2. Take responsibility for your actions/reactions. Yes, your brother may have antagonized you by “not touching” you until you snapped and hit him. He shouldn’t have done that. (I’m looking at you, Froggy.) But that doesn’t excuse the inappropriate reaction; you can’t use that as a justification. You are capable of self-control, even under the most tempting of circumstances. 
3. You never have to hug or kiss or otherwise touch anyone you don’t want to, any time you don’t want to. To be sure, this one doesn’t win us a lot of points with the boys’ grandparents. They want hugs every time they see the boys. I understand – so do I! – but it’s far more important to me that the boys learn that they have control over who touches their bodies and when. Also, their reluctance to hug any given relative is likely just a stage in which touching anyone else seems a little weird, but it could be a red flag. It could be. And I need to be paying attention.

Children learn through play. When my children play, they aren’t engaged in meaningless activity; they are exploring social cues and physical laws and so much else while they’re on the playground or building a Lego castle or playing dress-up. By the time my boys reach puberty, the groundwork for countless lessons, including consent and self-control, will have been laid, whether Mister and I did it passively or actively.  I hope by teaching our boys these three, simple rules early and by keeping them consistent in childhood and the teen years, we will avoid any confusion that might arise if we were to have contradicting rules and expectations for play than for sexual activity. It’s not the end of the conversation, to be sure; it’s merely the beginning. But I hope our boys will understand that they must stop if and when their partners signal they’re in distress, in part, because we insisted they stop rough-housing when a brother was no longer having fun. I pray that our never allowing the excuse that a brother got what was coming will lay the groundwork for our boys’ understanding that they are, similarly, fully in control of all their choices and should never, ever, EVER use any variation of “but she asked for it” as an excuse for assault. I hope our boys understand that they, as well as their partners, have the right to say “no” in any encounter and demand that their denial be heeded, in part, because we allowed them to decline relatives’ hugs and kisses and other unwanted touches.

Including kisses on the playground.

My Grandmother's Hands

Grandmama had the most beautiful hands I’ve ever seen.

She was 58 when I was born, and she was born to a farmer, married to a farmer, so her hands were certainly not conventionally pretty. In fact, her fingertips were often so badly cracked open that they would be covered in tape to prevent the cracks from deepening. But when she sat still long enough (which wasn’t often), she would let me play with her hands. I didn’t hold her hands or fix her nails (goodness, no); I would play with the bulging, purple veins that spread across the tops of her hands. She would run her index finger firmly up a vein on the opposite hand, making the purple bulge disappear, then lift her finger, releasing the blood to surge back down her hand. Then it was my turn to try. The backs of her hands were as soft as her fingertips were dry. We would grin at each other, sitting together at her kitchen table.

I loved this time with Grandmama. In a long list of wonderful memories of her, this may be second only to seeing her cradle my newborn sons.

She wasn’t at all self-conscious of her weathered, aging hands. In much the same way that she would wiggle the plate containing her false teeth and reveal the gaps in her mouth whenever a grandchild asked, I suspect she simply accepted that this is where life had brought her body. So she freely allowed me the intimate opportunity to touch her hands. The hands that had known the hard work of the fields and of the home. Hands that worked the garden, gathered eggs, drew water from the well, ran laundry over a washboard. Hands that prepared the food that fed our bodies and souls. Hands that turned every page of her Bible at least thirty-two times as she read. Hands that wiped her eyes when she buried her beloved husband and two granddaughters. Hands that gripped a steering wheel for the first time in her 70s when she realized she had to learn to get herself from place to place now. Hands that were as gentle as they were strong.

My mother has her mother’s beautiful hands.

As a girl, her hands, too, knew the hard work of the farm. The same hands dance across the piano, create heirloom-quality needlework, and prepare meals into which she pours all of her love to feed her family. They have braided my hair and rubbed my back and bandaged my scrapes. Hands that are never idle, whether at her home or mine. The hands that reluctantly learned the work of a husband who left. Hands that give my favorite hugs.

My mother has always cringed when I touch the soft veins on the backs of her hands. She is more self-conscious of her hands than her mother was. But she needn’t be.

Last night, as I was peeling clementines for the boys’ lunches today, I happened to glance at my hands. Like my mother and grandmother before me, my hands were engaged in holy work, as I know they so often are. And I couldn’t help but hope that, one day soon, I will look down and see the bulging of beautiful, soft veins. My mother’s hands. My grandmother’s hands.

Grandmama meeting her 12th grandchild, my precious Bubba, at age 5 weeks.

This Is My Brave

Anxiety gripped Froggy this morning.

Ten minutes before it was time to leave for school, he perched himself on the side of my bathtub, hugging his knees, head down, breathing big, deliberate breaths. He didn’t ask for a hug. He knew I wouldn’t – no, couldn’t. Shouldn’t. It would just make it worse, feed the emotions. Time to head downstairs to put on coats, he slithered under my bed. I repeated that it was time to go, and he reluctantly fought his way back out. I heard him bump down the stairs on his bottom, one painstaking step at a time, as if he couldn’t bring himself to think beyond the next step. But that one step right in front of him, maybe he could sit on that one next. Maybe that was doable. He put on his coat and grabbed his backpack, resigned to the inevitability that he would have to go to school. I cupped his chin in my hands and lifted his eyes to mine and told him, again, how very much I love him and how proud I am of his bravery, for doing this very hard thing. And I turned him over to his big brother, who took his hand and headed for school, this big brother who, five minutes ago, was yelling at Froggy as brothers sometimes do, but was now supporting his little brother with such tender, unspoken care. I watched Froggy walk away, anxiety still gripping him, wondering if this ever gets easier, wondering why doing the right thing sometimes feels so very wrong.

These are the hard days.

You see, Froggy has an anxiety disorder.

He’s not worried about going to school. He’s not afraid. Those are almost the right words – the ones we used for months, in fact – but that implies that there is something about which Froggy should be worried or afraid. There’s not. Sure, we’ve had some bumps in the road, but school is a safe place, a fun place, a place he usually loves when he’s there.  The right word is “anxiety,” that fear and worry that is disproportionate to any actual risk. Froggy has anxiety about school. (And about being alone anywhere in the house, especially at night.)

When we discovered that Froggy has an anxiety disorder, there was, more than any other emotion, tremendous relief that washed over me. It explained so much about what had been going on for over a year, but especially in the previous four months.  And, as I always do, I started researching and emailing and making phone calls. I was going to figure out how to best tackle it. There had to be a plan.

And there was a plan, a plan that has allowed for far more good days than hard ones. But as I was making new connections and establishing new routines, I was, also, feeling stuck. I knew I wanted to – needed to – write about this.

When I started sharing my writing more widely, I knew there would come a time when the story I needed to tell would collide with someone else’s story, and I know that I need to be very careful about telling others’ stories. Because their stories belong to them.

But when that story belongs to your child and you write about mothering and your stories are inextricably intertwined, what do you do?

I wrestled.

I thought about how I teach my children to be truth tellers and to listen for people’s stories and about the beauty in realizing we’re not alone in our struggles, in finding connection. I thought about how I freely talk about Froggy’s stutter and the boys’ speech delays and an infinite number of other parenting challenges. I remembered turning to Mister one evening and saying to him, “We have a child with a mental illness. Are you okay with that?” and how he looked at me, utterly perplexed, and answered, “Of course, I am.”

And I realized that what had been holding me back is stigma. The stigma still surrounding mental illness.

It’s a stigma that hasn’t led me to a place of “This is bad! How did this happen? No one can ever know!” but rather to a place of “Well, maybe this is just best left private.”

But why?

What if the person I don’t tell is the person who has a piece of advice that is the key to helping Froggy talk the next step in effectively managing this illness? What if the person I don’t tell is the very person who is desperately waiting to learn that she and her child aren’t alone?

And, let’s be honest, people already know something: Froggy invites friends to have lunch with him in the guidance counselor’s office each week. Neighbors have witnessed the ugly mornings when it’s a fight to get Froggy to school. Family has seen the panic that grips him when he’s faced with the possibility of being in part of the house by himself. I’ve shared with friends how Froggy had debilitating stomachaches for weeks after a brutal GI bug tore through the family. His teacher has witnessed his perfectionism. His classmates watch him get out of his seat without permission, touch the post-it note on the teacher’s desk, and slip into the bathroom for a few minutes.

I’d rather people really know than speculate about what they almost know.

Froggy gave me permission to tell people that he has “some anxiety,” as he refers to it. When he gave me permission, he was dancing half naked in my bedroom, singing. He told me I should tell you that, too.

Here’s the thing about Froggy: If there is anyone who could single-handed destroy every iota of stigma associated with mental illness, it’s Froggy. He is kind and generous, an excellent student and a better son. People are drawn to him – teachers, sales associates, family, and friends. He’s goofy and joyful and just a delight to parent. He has fully embraced the fact that he has an anxiety disorder. When I was planning to hold off on telling his classroom teacher what was going on, assuming she’d rather wait and receive a plan for action along with the news, Froggy had other plans. He woke up one morning and asked to be reminded of the “e word.” (He obviously hasn’t mastered yet how to spell “anxiety.”) He then went to school, marched right up to his teacher, said, “I want you to know I have some anxiety,” hung up his backpack, and sat down to start his school work.  This kiddo embodies brave. And for him, there is no stigma.

There is a relatively new campaign called “This Is My Brave,” which seeks to talk openly about mental illness and share stories of those with or those who love someone with mental illness in the hopes of breaking down the stigma of these diseases. I share their hope that “[o]ne day we will live in a world where we won’t have to call it “brave” when talking about mental illness. We’ll just call it talking.”

So that’s what I plan to do: keep talking. And I pray that this is the right choice for Froggy, for me, for the rest of our family, and for those who live with mental illness.

Friends, meet Froggy. He is my brave.

Thanksgiving Giving

I popped into Michael’s (craft store) yesterday to pick up some picture frames for some of my boys’ artwork. I love to display the boys’ art, but I don’t frame it often. So when I do, they know I truly love the piece they created, and they walk a little taller.  Because the public school system and the framing industry apparently haven’t (yet) sat around a conference table together, I wandered the aisles for half an hour, trying to figure out how to get the boys’ 5.5x7” and 8.5x14” artwork (typical sizes for school projects) to fit in standard size frames. Ultimately, I found myself at the framing counter so I could have a mat cut for the larger piece.

There was an older couple in front of me. On the counter, they had carefully laid out his jacket, his hat, and a handful of medals from his time in the army during the Korean War. I watched as they chose a shadow frame and mats and a plaque. And as I did, my heart started beating faster, tears welled in my eyes, and I started feeling a little twitchy.

Twitchy is how I describe that feeling that means I’m supposed to DO SOMETHING. I tried to convince myself that this was neither the time nor the place to do something, but the twitchiness wouldn’t stop. In that moment, I was overcome with the notion that, try as I might to be extravagantly kind and generous, there was nothing I could do that was as extravagant as putting one’s life on the line for countries’ worth of people one has never met, but that, be that as it may, I couldn’t use that truth as an excuse to do nothing. So when the sales associate told the couple how much the work would cost, I leaned into them and managed to squeak through tears, “Excuse me.” They looked my way. “But would you do me the honor of letting me pay for this.”

They were momentarily speechless. “Oh, no. No, we couldn’t. It’s just too much,” they said.

“Please, I would very much like to,” I said as I handed my credit card to the wide-eyed associate.

“I couldn’t let you. I wouldn’t feel comfortable,” the husband said, never lifting his head.

And so I finally decided to take my card back. Because the point of being kind and generous is never to make the other person feel uncomfortable.

I wiped my tears, as the couple and the sales associate began to finalize the transaction, but the weight of what had just happened hung awkwardly in the air between us. I stepped out of the space to the end of the counter and busied myself pretending to look at mats, hands still trembling. After a minute, the wife followed me, and said, “Thank you,” reaching up for a hug. We clung to each other, as she quietly said, “You made my day. No. You made my year.” She released her embrace, still holding my arms, and looked me in the eyes and said, “You are a good woman.” I was speechless.

When I walked back to the front of the counter, the couple began sharing some of their story with me. The husband (a formal army corporal) had been “dropped” in Korea on Christmas Eve 1952 and served for a year and a half. Only a couple of months ago, he lost his brother, who had, also, served but after Korea, never seeing active combat. When he died, the couple took special notice of his army jacket and two flags, framed and displayed in his home. They went home and dragged the husband’s uniform and medals from the cedar chest, ready to turn them into a “museum piece” for their descendants.

The husband was a quiet man, bordering on gruff. I didn’t see him make eye contact with anyone in the fifteen minutes I was with him. But as he and his wife turned to leave, he stopped in front of me (maybe feeling a bit twitchy himself) and reached out to me, unsure whether a hug or a handshake was the most appropriate response. We hugged, as he simply said, “Thank you.” I thanked him for his service and for sharing some of his story with me and wished them a happy Thanksgiving. As they walked away, the wife, smiling, called out over her shoulder to the sales associate, “Take good care of her.”

Sometimes an act of kindness doesn’t turn out the way we planned it. Sometimes we are turned down. Sometimes our only gift is an offer of help. But it is precisely those moments that serve to remind us that acts of kindness are never best judged by the amount of money exchanged. Acts of kindness are about connecting to other people. And that cannot be measured.

The couple at Michael’s politely declined my offer to pay for the framing service, yet they were clearly moved at the gesture. I will never know what they took from our encounter – a chance to share their story, a heartfelt thank you, softened hearts, a needed connection – but I know they took something. The husband didn’t strike me as the type who often hugs strangers.

Thank you for your service, Corporal. Thank you for sharing part of your story with me. Thank you for the hug. And…

Happy Thanksgiving.

It seems fitting that one of the pieces of art I was framing was a bald eagle.
(Scratch art by Bubba, spring 2014)

Do You See My Child?

To the teachers of my sons,

In about a week, we will be sitting down for our first, and perhaps our only, parent-teacher conference of the year. I will be listening intently to everything you tell me, but there is really only one question I need you to answer:

Do you see my child?

Everything else hinges one this one simple question.

Do you see him?

What have you learned about him beyond his grammar skills or the grades on his math tests? Have you watched his body language when he talks? Have you observed him interact with friends on the playground? Have you looked at the details in his artwork? Have you read between the lines of his poetry?

Do you see that my oldest is easily frustrated and quick to anger or tears? Do you notice how his eyes light up when you say there will be an experiment during today’s science lesson or how he talks a mile a minute when he’s excited about a new theory he’s been noodling? Do you see how vulnerable he makes himself when he shares his intensely personal fears and goals?

Do you see that my middle son has expectations of himself that border on too high? Do you feel the pride in his sweet smile when you compliment him on a job well done? Do you see how hard he works to be “good”? Do you hear the beautiful inflection in his voice when he reads aloud?

I know that what you see in school and what I see at home won’t line up perfectly and that you can’t provide a comprehensive description of my child. I’m not looking for that. I’m just listening for a little nugget that tells me that you’re watching and listening and that you’ve dug just a little deeper. You’ll probably tell me what I’m listening for without even trying. It might be a profound insight into my child, but more likely, you’ll just let slip a little something you don’t even know will resonate with me. But it will. Because it’s something only someone who’s truly paying attention will notice.

Last year, my oldest’s teacher laughed with me about his bizarre obsession with road kill, and my middle son’s teacher mentioned in passing that he sits just a little taller when she notices a job well done.  I knew then that my children were seen, and I relaxed because I knew everything else would fall into place.

Because when you truly see my child, when you take the time to notice his strengths and weaknesses and quirks, I instantly know two things:

I know you love your job. You’re not burned out or disillusioned or tired (as I know it is so easy to become in your profession). At least not most days. You still have a passion for teaching. And you almost certainly don’t see just my child. You see all of them.

And when you see my child, our children, and when you love your job, you will give them exactly what they need. You may do it consciously or subconsciously, but you will do it.

You will teach my oldest that future engineers and scientists must learn math. You will create space for him to share his ideas. You will take a step back when he’s upset and let him come to you when he’s ready. You will smile when he asks you for extra-challenging science work. You will make sure he runs hard enough at recess that he can sit still in social studies.

You will tousle my middle son’s hair or sneak up behind him and playfully cover his eyes because you sense he needs a little extra love in that moment. You will proudly display the picture he painstakingly drew just for you. You will celebrate his attempts, even when he fails. Especially when he fails. You will be the safe space he needs at school.

And, in turn, I will talk less during the precious thirty minutes we have because I won’t be struggling desperately to make sure you know my child. Because I will know you do. And I will hear all the other things you tell me about my children – that this one needs to practice his multiplication tables at home or that one is confusing the letters b and d – because you’ve already told me the most important thing you could.

You see my child.

Warmly,

A Mother

A Life in Transition

When I was in the process of deciding on a name and tag line for my blog, one of the phrases that popped into my mind was “a life in transition.” Ultimately, I decided against it, in large part because it seemed a little too, well, dramatic, I guess. In fact, my life would certainly appear quite stable to anyone looking in, and in many (big, important) ways, it is stable. Still, there are days that the shift occurring inside the confines of my home and my heart feels downright seismic. My fortieth birthday is days away, and this milestone has shaken me in ways I never would have predicted even just two months ago. I have three children in school this year. Granted, Monkey is just in preschool three mornings per week, but in two short years, all of my boys will be full-time students. Bubba’s tenth birthday is next month, and I’ve become a reluctant witness to the slow transition between childhood and the teen years. And his growing up is causing a huge shift in the dynamic between the boys. But, perhaps, the area currently undergoing the greatest change involves deciphering what my next big calling in life will be.

For almost ten years, I had a career as a certified genetic counselor. For all but two of those years, I coordinated NIH grants to learn more about genetic causes of hearing loss. Although my day-to-day responsibilities primarily involved contact with our research participants and our lab, I, also, regularly presented for various local and national audiences and was an author on over a dozen, peer-reviewed journal articles, in addition to co-authoring two book chapters.

After Froggy was born, I made the difficult, though obvious (for me) decision to step away from my career for a while.  The longer I stayed at home, the more fully I realized I was just where I needed and wanted to be. And then one day, it finally dawned on me that I wasn’t going back, and I made the (again, difficult but obvious) choice to let my genetic counseling certification lapse.

It was around this time that a book arrived in the mail. It was an author’s copy of what is widely considered to be the go-to reference for genetics and deafness. I had co-authored a chapter a couple of years before, not long after leaving my job and when I still thought I would return to genetic counseling. The book was slow getting published, so my copy was just arriving.

I opened the box, pulled out the tome, cracked it open, and peered into a world that was, at once, comfortingly familiar and oddly foreign. These authors were my people, and this was the language I spoke for so many years. But here I was, standing in my home, listening to the boys playing upstairs, wondering what I should cook for dinner, and I didn’t know what to do with the book. Should I show the boys? Should I share the news with my friends? I felt so disconnected from my work, from this writing. I remember being so excited when my former supervisor contacted me to say that, even though it had been a couple of years since I left work, she wanted to write this with me. Where did this accomplishment fit, if anywhere, in my current world of preschool and diapers and school lunches and homework and first steps and doctor’s appointments?

Was I still the same person who co-authored this book chapter?

Since that day, I have slowly begun to see that I am not formerly that person; I am that person. Still.

I may not be able to call myself a genetic counselor anymore because I’m no longer certified and no longer doing the work of a genetic counselor. But that doesn’t change the fact that it was I who earned a masters degree. It was I who passed the board certification exam. It was I who routinely threw around terms like GJB2, heterochromia, compound heterozygosity, and assortative mating. It was I who co-authored book chapters, contributed to journal articles, counseled clients in American Sign Language, and helped hundreds of people understand why they are deaf.

So I’ve made the deliberate choice to no longer look on my former career with a longing that suggests that I was more worthy then. That my value was determined by having a paycheck, being booked for speaking engagements, or actively publishing. That I’m wasting my degree. That I’ve turned my back on something at which I excelled and could again. Because that’s simply untrue. Because all of the skills and lessons I learned as a genetic counselor are beautifully and inextricably woven into the fabric of who I am today.

I am the mother who answers her children’s questions about nature and medicine and our bodies and our world. I am the friend people turn to when they have questions about prenatal testing or when they get an abnormal test result. I am the mother who easily says no to morning cartoons but has a hard time limiting access to the Discovery Channel. I am the patient who has mastered the art of providing a thirty-second history, so the doctor and I can immediately get to addressing my concerns. I am the author who channeled the skills learned from a decade of scientific writing into a blog. I am the woman whose ears perk up whenever a medical story airs on NPR. I am the person who delighted in helping families understand why they were deaf and now delights in serving families in myriad other ways.

I am the sum of my past and my present – my jobs, relationships, mistakes, experiences, and accomplishments. I embrace all of me, as who I was once is who I am still.

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This week, I’ll be sharing some exciting news about what’s coming next

for me and for an organization that I love.

Stay tuned!