SUMMER 2009
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Photo and Art Credits: Cover photo titled Into the Light from the Darkness by Mark Hood. To see more of Mark’s photography, visit markhood.net.
Happy and You Know It? Corey Radman
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To Breed or Not To Breed Kyndra Wilson
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Page 14 collage titled Ladies of the River by Barb Pearson. For more of Barb’s art, visit her at barbpearson.com
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Page 19 satirical digital collage untitled by Makeesha Fisher - redfrogdesign.net
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Shreds & Comments: letters@getbornmag.com
SAY WHAT? You, our readers Jinx Heather Janssen
Advertising: advertise@getbornmag.com
Self Righteous Baby Food Christiana Thomas
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Nude Phase 2.5 Stefanie Freele
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Why We Medicate Marcy Neth
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Solitary Mother Lover Caren Kennedy
The opinions expressed in articles and advertisements are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher or other contributors.
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Going Out Stephanie Rayburn
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Editor in Chief & Publisher Heather Janssen Managing Editor Corey Radman Assistant to the Editor Stephanie Rayburn Art Director/Designer Makeesha Fisher Marketing Consultant Kyndra Wilson
I don’t need a magazine to help me potty train or to choose trendy vacation clothes for my baby. My children are no longer super-small, but the reality of owning a mother’s (sometimes broken) heart is everlasting.
My 3 year old girl, Avarie, is really into gender differences these days. She says things like “Nolan is a boy and he has peanuts. We’re girls, right Mommy? We have other kind of nuts.” Or “Girls wear panties and boys wear diapers. That is unless they are not little boys. Then they wear boxes- which kinda look like panties.” Shannon, mom of a 3 year old girl named Avarie and a 2 year old boy named Nolan
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Summer, 2009
rney dealing with rage chronicling my difficult jou ces, Spa The ghters. led cal ce pie footing with two small dau n, I published a ts I’d had while trying to find my In the third issue of get bor I’d ugh ts tho ugh us do tho le ren kab hor pea the mostly uns to admit to some of e rag cou the and depression, and the had I’d t ress their gratitude tha Many women wrote to exp had. se friends with whom esty. Aside from a few clo hon my for de p my titu gra and , I’d learned to mostly kee pouring of support lings about motherhood I was shocked by the out fee therhood ting mo stra into fru n y, tio ugl nsi en ulge my oft less-than-joyous tra my s cus dis to ts I’d felt safe enough to div mp I atte s, my thoughts; felt days of my mothering, any pletely alone in my feeling com felt I mouth shut. 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Photo from istockphoto.com
Happy and you Know It?
I’m sitting in the gymnastics waiting area with a glazed look on my face. I’m so bored and lonely. I decide to strike up a conversation with an interesting looking woman. She’s reading a scientific magazine (score one for intellectualism); she’s eschewing the competitive mommy-talk about who’s signed up for what activities (another point for self restraint). Plus, she is also pregnant like me. This is someone who I could enjoy talking to, someone with similar interests. I really want her to like me, you know?
As we chat about our girls and our common pregnancies, I wedge in (apropos of nothing) that I’m a freelance writer. After the awkward pause, she gives me a raised eyebrow look like, “Well, goodie for you.” There it is again – my wheedling need to be validated for grown up work. It’s really not that different from my fouryear-old’s incessant mantra, “Look Mom!” This desire for people to know that I’m a world-class mom who can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan … it perplexes me. It also gets me into tight spots, socially speaking. I’m the goober in a bar, who while chatting amiably with a new girl, drops such a clunker of a one-liner that she immediately heads for the exit. There is always an announcer in my head, impatiently waiting to shout, “Sheeee’s a Supermom. Yes, she bakes cookies, she irons shirts - but wait! There’s more! She also writes – for money!” I hate to admit it, but this mommy gig that I really do love, isn’t quite enough for me. That shouldn’t be a controversial statement. After all, how many adults are fulfilled by spending their days playing Candy Land and making peanut butter sandwiches? But when I utter that statement in a room full of mothers, the horrified gasps and following guilty, downward stares are telling. The gaping silence is judgmental. It’s as if I’ve admitted to switching my preschooler’s apple juice for beer to extend nap time. (And who among us hasn’t done that or seriously considered it?) Why isn’t motherhood enough? And why is it so hard to admit that I need a little something on the side? The uncomfortable expressions from those pseudo-scandalized women tell me they agree, but would never admit it. Even the expression, “something
on the side,” indicates that I feel like I’m being unfaithful to my children, carrying around this big sack of guilt, Santa Claus-like, as I seek to claw just a fingernail or two back into the shiny grown up world of dress clothes without spit up or conversations with multi-syllabic words.
The Literature Proves It – Nobody Values this Job A 2003 study in Gender & Society found that childless women avoid having babies because they consider it dreary and unfulfilling. Further, the study notes how much feminine identity is linked with motherhood and how some women reject the entire premise because they fear having a baby will take over their identity. Well, duh! Anyone who has done this job can tell you that motherhood can suck the life out of you like a zombie in Night of the Living Dead, leaving you a brainless shell of your former, lively self. When so much of who you are is defined by the question, “What do you do?” it can be very hard to respond with only, “I’m a mom.” The same study notes that the idea of parenting is particularly repellant for women who are looking for a “satisfying job.” Implied, of course, is the idea that motherhood is wholly unsatisfying.
“
There is always an announcer in my head, impatiently waiting to shout, “sheeee’s a supermom. Yes, she bakes cookies, she irons shirts - but wait!
”
There’s more! She also writes – for money!”
Remember your feminist theory from school? Betty Friedan brought this dirty little secret to light in 1963 with her book, The Feminine Mystique. While it’s not a new idea that domesticity does not provide the sole recipe for female happiness, it bears repeating for each generation of mothers who strive to look like the perfect homemakers gracing the glossy pages of Better Homes and Gardens. Admit it, somewhere in your house is a Martha Stewart Living clip 9
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file of projects that you will get to someday. I have the Halloween issues saved so that I can make plush, furry animal costumes (with zippers!) and homemade bat decorations. Last year, we hung the pumpkin art from school on the door and bought a used bunny costume last minute. When moms of the ‘80s and ‘90s busily got to work and left those kiddos (us) at day care, the pendulum swung far in the opposite direction. Women abandoned the idea that happiness is found at home, donned grotesque shoulder pads and invaded the work-a-day world. However, by embracing an equally skewed view, that satisfaction lies exclusively in the male-dominated bowels of the office, dissatisfaction was ultimately bound to return. A recent paper in Perspectives on Political Science by Elizabeth Kaufer Busch proposed that feminism has failed. Busch suggests that proof lies right in the evening TV we watch where post-feminist heroines like Ally McBeal and Carrie Bradshaw find themselves perpetually miserable. Think Bridget Jones, drinking alone, and singing “All by myself, don’ wanna’ be,” at the top of her inebriated lungs. The article, “Ally McBeal to Desperate Housewives,” argues that women who embraced the masculine values of work are just as miserable as Friedan’s Vicodin-popping housewives. “Women’s confusion is a direct result of feminism’s internal inconsistency,” Busch states. “Feminism taught woman that her nature is no different from man’s… The feminist mystique sought to destroy the natural
foundation of gender norms, because ‘nature’ had historically been used to promote women’s subordination.” Busch concludes her paper with the suggestion that women should feel less pressured to perform according to feminist expectations, but rather pursue endeavors that engender “true liberty that comes with self-discovery and self-awareness.” For example, look at my muscleflexing conversation at gymnastics: by showing off in a rather adolescent way and bringing up earning potential, I neither impressed that mom nor did I further feminism. I get nowhere by behaving like a man would. But I’m not going to accept a life without a few adult pursuits. There must be more to motherhood than gymnastics waiting rooms.
I think this is definitely progress, and aim for the same flexibility myself. I want it all – motherhood and validating work – all at the same time. However, part of me feels that corporate muscle is truly accessible only to a small number of suit-wearing women. For those of us who work in yoga pants between unfolded laundry and cracker crumbs, the negotiation is with ourselves. “Can I spare the time now to finish this project and ignore my other responsibilities, or will the house fall down if I type another word?” Making up a job and actively pursuing it from home definitely provides flexibility and autonomy. It also means that the Mom hat and the Professional hat are worn simultaneously – a deathdefying balancing act for sure.
Progress or Paradox?
My Two Cents
Being a mom is simultaneously unappealing and jubilant. It is dull, thankless and an amazing privilege. It is because of this paradox that the feminist and post-feminist models of all or nothing, work or stay at home, have failed Western women. Women on either end of the so-called Mommy Wars will tell you that each choice alone is not enough.
All my thinking about this topic has unearthed one strange nugget: when I’m alone with the kids and we’ve got a good groove going, I’m blissful – happier than at any other time. Flying kites at the park, or watching the milky drool snake down my baby’s chin as he grins at me creates joyful mommy vibrations that pulse to my bones. This mommy gig really is exactly what I want to be doing just now. It is strange that only when I view it through the bell jar of other people’s opinions and 40 years of feminism does it seem so dissatisfying.
The recent book, Womenomics, by Claire Shipman and Katty Kay contends that women have now entered an era where enough female corporate clout has been earned to assertively negotiate for the balance women need through flexible hours and more control over how the job gets done.
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It must be all those ‘80s movies I watched growing up. Melanie Griffith in Working Girl did not pause in her rush to the top of the corporate
ladder to pick the playdough from the carpet. Those empowered, lipstick wearing women dance at the back of my head as I stand, the luckiest mom on the block, with toes in the mud and heave a sad sigh. I didn’t realize it was out loud until my daughter said, “Mommy, don’t you like playing with me?” Mud pies with a side of guilt, anyone? I sigh because this blissful Buddahmama state is difficult to achieve. Often, no matter what I am doing, I feel it’s the wrong thing. Right now, as I type, my baby jabbers and smiles at me to come play. When I’m playing, I’m worrying about how I’ll ever meet my deadlines. Though it’s cliché to say so, for me happiness really comes with balancing the responsibilities. I’ve come to understand that I’ll never be free of the nagging ghosts in my head telling me that I must have grown up pursuits in addition to raising children. Personally, I am just more settled when I have a professional answer to the dreaded question, “What do you do?” As I cast about for role models, I see very few who do both. (Perhaps, because it’s a crazy thing to do?) I feel like I stand smack in the middle of the
Mommy Wars, not firmly on one side or the other. The progress made in the last four decades has been slow, and lacking in the one aspect that might eventually banish my nagging voices and deep sighs. For real progress to be made, society (and by society, I mean me) needs to truly value the contribution mothers make. I love the statistics that report that the real dollar value of fulltime motherhood is over $120,000 per year. But isn’t it sad that to feel like valued contributors, we, who shape the future generation, have to count each kissed owie and ride to soccer in dollars? Until pigs fly then, I’ll be here, standing in the gray area between working and caring for children with a distracted look on my face (and a sink full of dirty dishes). I’ll also keep seeking out other moms who identify with the guilty impulse to work, and who forgive my attention-grabbing urges during conversation.
“Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one’s own Trojan horse.” ~ Rebecca West
❀ Corey Radman is a freelance writer, whose new friend from gymnastics thinks she’s a little peculiar but endearing.
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suddenly fulfilled or feel their most womanly or some such thing. I don’t know. I have a very hard time explaining something that isn’t there but everyone and the stranger on the street seems to expect to be there…immediately, naturally, instinctively.
Here’s the deal. At thirty-five, I am happy to be back in the shape I lost close to four years ago when I got pregnant the first time. I’m happy in my job. I’m happy in my marriage (usually) and I am, what some have called of an “advanced maternal age.” No, not old. Still smoking hot enough to shag an eighteen year old if I wanted to; old enough to see the pros and cons of actually doing so. But old enough to have to teach my three year old about “grown-up words” and to make up rules like “They only allow one visit to the park a day.” (She’s young enough not to question who “they” are). Not old old, but old enough to have problems getting pregnant and old enough to worry obsessively about the increased risks for me and the baby.
When my firstborn arrived, I didn’t have the gush of unconditional love bonding thing. The unconditional love thing has grown as she has grown and now I love that little monkey like crazy. But loving my daughter has also been accompanied by the difficult process of figuring out where and how motherhood fits into my life. I have had to make peace with the way I do and feel motherhood. For me, motherhood has been much like adult maturity itself—not a single moment of insight from which I never looked back but the happy, slow realization that at thirty-five, I like myself much more than I did at twenty-five. For me, it would seem that the urges and feelings of motherhood are more like a slow burn rather than a flash of white hot light.
I’m old enough that I have random strangers stopping me on the street to ask me when we’ll try for number two. I’m old enough that if I’m going to have a second child, I’d better get to thinking about it, because let’s face it; I live in Colorado, not Hollywood, and most women don’t have the medical teams they’ll need on speed dial to facilitate their decision to have babies when they’re fifty.
But at thirty-five, I also feel I’m running out of time for the slow burn. If we’re going to do it, we’re going to have to get on it. Then, the other day when my husband and I grabbed a quick and stolen hug in the kitchen, my three year old ran from across the room to do what she often does; she nuzzled in between our legs and sat quietly, her little fuzzy head tickling our knees, she in her human tent. It was then, that I had the thought, “Yeah, maybe another one would be welcome in this family. Maybe we need to be four.” And that, in my particular, personal parenting track record is about as earth-shaking a realization as I have; it qualified as good enough of a biological urge to try for another baby.
So what’s the holdup? It’s me. It took me seven years to decide that I was ready enough for the first one and I fully expected that after having her, I’d be informed and broken in enough by the process to get on board for baby number two without all the anguish. But it didn’t happen that way. For the most part I can’t think of a good reason for me to have another kid. Sure, there’s the goal of providing my firstborn with a sibling and my husband wants another one, but me? I’m the one that has to endure the feeling of full hugeness topped off by boobs the size of small planets and I can’t answer the “What’s in it for me?” question. Truthfully, babies just don’t enter my mind that often. I can never think of a good time to get or be pregnant; at some point in the nine-month process, I just know I’ll have to be hot, fat, tired, sore, irritated and unable to breathe through my congested nose all at the same time and I can’t find a good place to schedule that into my calendar.
So this morning, after I was roused out of a deep sleep when my three-year-old licked my forehead, I peed on the ovulation tester stick to see if I was ready to experience my LH surge. Not purge, not splurge, surge. Who knew a surge could happen and I scarcely be aware of it? It sounds so forceful, so powerful and obvious. Of course, since I have the body awareness of a statue, I wouldn’t know my own surge if I was bowled over by a wave of hormones and my biological clock gave me a sunny smile and a “how-do?” as it rode the crest of the surf past me. Nonetheless, it felt right enough at the time.
When I try to share my misgivings with my husband, he is always quick to point out how great our first child is. And he’s right; she’s great. My disinterest in having another child doesn’t have anything to do with the first except perhaps that the experience hasn’t changed me as transformatively as it seems to do for some women who find themselves
...or Not to Breed Kyndra Wilson
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Kyndra Wilson lives in Colorado Springs and is currently 8 months pregnant. Her ankles are swollen and her boobs are in fact the size of small planets but she’s ready to get the show on the road and meet her boy.
[get born] provides a connection to other mothers who share similar experiences. In our world, it has been difficult for me to find likeminded women.
get born provides a support network for me. It provides honesty about the struggles of motherhood, of raising children in a culture that so often does not fit with my values and to laugh at it all. That is what get born provides that no other magazine or publication has come close to.
h w y a S
get born. The aders why they read re r ou d ke as e W among the >> born’s readers rank t ge hy w ed al ve re responses . nest women around most articulate, ho
It’s the only magazine around that gets past all the wonderhood of being an parent and gets to the nitty gritty.
nitty gritty
honest
er parenting clean like the oth not d an est r’s offices hon It’s ad but see in docto re ’t don I (which magazines from time to time.
It fulfills a need for the messy side of parenting to be aired and normalized.
messy
More than other magazines it fills a connection to a woman’s spirit.
edgy
...The ONLY reason I read and recomm end get born to others is that yo u include articles that may be considered edgy o r offensive in the mainst ream.
It provides an unvarnished (and therefore comforting) view of parenting.
? t ha
unvarnished
When I feel like I am the only one experiencing things – I realize I’m a normal mom, with normal kids, with normal problems.
Juicy
It has
real
It doesn’t feel like it needs to tie a bow on every story before it gets published. I love that it is REAL.
I read get born to ward off the ever-looming insanity of motherhood
stuff.
JINX!
Heather Janssen
Being the children of a slacker mom, my kids learned to self-entertain early, realizing I wouldn’t amuse them.
recollect that it involved chips and carrots, hamburgers and hot dogs.
I don’t do Barbies or dolls, can only occasionally be counted on, though not reliably, to play blocks for awhile, and when forced, grow quite groggy and bored with “kitchen,” particularly after the 324th time I have to say, “Mmm….that (fake) tomato and (wooden) stew go oh-so-nicely with the (plastic) apple” with my falsely cheery voice, followed by a very unlady-like slurping as I suck up the drool that’s been snaking out of the corner of my mouth. Because I play so seldom with my children, the times I have played with them shine brightly in their memories. All the better for them, I say, and for me. They’ll remember those few times and look fondly upon their ever-present, kind, nurturing mother. The multitude of times they played amongst themselves while I read a novel or typed on the computer, or chatted on the phone will go the way of the dim bulk of memory, making the play time seem the norm and the other seem, well, dim.
When she asked which was more healthy, juice or water, my husband and I simultaneously crowed, “Water!” At which point my husband, being the overly mature individual that he is, shouted, “Jinx!” To those unfamiliar with this game (and if you are, you’re either living under a rock or your kids aren’t school-aged yet), this means that the person “jinxed” isn’t allowed to speak until someone says their name. One can’t even begin to imagine the nineteen levels of drama involved in the “Jinx” game. “Mooooommmmm, Sally jinxed me and I couldn’t talk for FOUR hours!” “Mooommmm, tell her to stop jinxing me.” Lord, have mercy. So, I was jinxed. The daughter playing the “What’s More Healthy?” game posed another question, and, true to the jinx, I didn’t answer. “MOM,” I heard from the back seat, “ANSWER ME!!” (It’s never really a request, is it?) My husband, smirking, tossed back, “She can’t talk. I jinxed her.” Cue the junior-high adolescent boy giggle.
This leads me to an afternoon recently, when on the way to a family camping trip, one of my daughters started a game she came up with. Honestly, when left to their own devices, these little humans come up with the most clever games. Their imaginations are so very darling. To watch them work, mind you, not in which to actively participate. At any rate, the game of the day involved parental interaction. (I know, gasp. Right?) My husband and I were up for it, so we played along. This particular activity started with a question posed by said daughter: “What’s More Healthy?” She then went through a series of foods and drink, asking after each, “What’s More Healthy?” I vaguely
So another daughter said, “Mom.” I still didn’t talk. She repeated, “MOM!” Finally, my husband said, “That’s not her name.” “Mom’s not her name? But that’s all we call her,” came from the back seat. He replied, “Mom’s her vocation, not her identity.” Wait for it………holy wow.
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It’s OVER demanding.” Sweet solace of community, she reflected my feelings with eloquence: “You could fill their little buckets all the day long, and there they’d be at the end of the day, holding up that damned bucket, ready for you to fill it again.”
I’m still reeling from his flippant, succinct, oh-so-validating remark. I don’t think he even knew the gift he’d given me. I’ve often been torn between the tremendous responsibility of being a mother versus the subterranean pull to not be “only” mom. When my five-year-old crowed, “Heather” from the back seat, successfully unjinxing me, I smiled. The sound of my name, not my position, coming from my daughter’s lips was music.
Of course this isn’t to say that, since there’s that pesky hole in every one of their buckets it’s useless to even try to fill it. Of course not. We all fill at the rate and pace with which we can feasibly maintain some sanity. But eventually, just like us, they’ll have to learn to fill that bucket on their own. I’m thoroughly gratified that they will have watched me filling my own bucket faithfully, knowing that even in their most self-absorbed moments, their mom, while loving them, went out with her friends or wrote her essay or devoted a day to help a friend move even when they wanted to while the day away playing. The way I see it, it’s a both/and situation rather than an either/or situation. I love you AND I love myself and my life, not I either am a good mother or I take care of myself. I am your mom AND I’m Heather. Yes, sometimes that’s going to piss off my children. Well, frankly, sometimes it pisses me off to have to put Heather on the back burner while I attend to their needs. But I do it. It’s the right thing to do, and it’s my responsibility. AND then I pour myself a glass of wine and watch a grown-up movie.
My dad was a teacher and a coach at both my junior high and high school. Being in such demand as he was, neither “Dad” nor “Mr. Lowell” could reliably catch his attention when I wanted it. So I started calling him “John.” It got his attention. My mother thought I was inappropriately cheeky, but he found it humorous, and took to calling me “Bill,” since, as he said it, “John really isn’t my name, to you, so I’ll call you Bill.” Nonetheless, it was the way I got his attention, and it gave afforded us a unique connection. I like to believe that he secretly appreciated my innovative approach, and admired my moxie. Subconsciously, I must have known that my dad’s adult identity, being known by his peers as “John” had a different sort of currency than “Dad” or “Mr. Lowell.” Not better or worse, per se, but an identity that afforded him a role as equal, devoid of the heady responsibility of fatherhood or educator. It’s the same for me. I love my girls. I love being their mom most of the time. But I can’t deny that I think it’s really good for them to know that I have an identity in addition to, and often even separate from “mom.” Discovering and retaining this separate, “other” identity is the only way I maintain sanity and self within the overwhelming responsibility of motherhood. As a good friend identified recently, “Your role isn’t just demanding.
❀ Heather can be found camping often where she, predictably, feeds her daughters wieners and Doritos and then lets them loose on the babbling brook, tree stumps and pine cones veritably begging to be played with while she sets up her cozy camp chair and settles in with the most recent Twilight installment. She produces and edits get born in the rest of the time that she’s benignly neglecting her children. 17
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Self Righteous Baby Food CHRISTIANA THOMAS
Ingredients: All ingredients are ORGANIC unless noted otherwise: 1/2 Onion 2 Carrots 1 Tomato 1/2 Chicken Breast 3 T rice 6 dried Apricots (these are going to require a special trip to your local health food store, as they just don’t carry the organic version in the store where you buy all your other food) small handful of raisins pinch of Cumin (see apricot note above, duh)
Recipe Rating:
4.5/5 happy babies
Directions: 1. Wash your hands thoroughly. 2. Make sure your hair is pulled back - you don’t want any strays in Cherub’s dinner. 3. Crap! Did you just touch your hair? Wash your hands thoroughly, again. 4. Put Cherub somewhere nearby - door frame jumper is perfect. Wait, is that spit-up? Grab washcloth and clean it up, then wash hands again. Thoroughly. 5. Chop the onion, place in an All-Clad saute pan with organic EVOO over medium heat. If you only have teflon-coated saute pans, just give up right now, and consider starting the recipe again after you’ve invested in a proper pan. 6. Start to feel guilty that you are not interacting more with Cherub and begin singing nauseating children’s songs. 7. Chop the carrot and add to pan with onion. 8. Chop the tomato. Be sure to look at Cherub while you’re singing. Extended eye contact has been proven to... 9. Shit! Band-Aid! 10. Wash your hands thoroughly. 11. Proceed to chop the tomato without the use of your left thumb. Chop chicken in similar manner. Add both to skillet. 12. When chicken is cooked through, add remaining ingredients with your right hand. 13. Add a cup of water. 14. FILTERED water, for fuck’s sake. You didn’t traipse all the way out to the damn health food store for two stupid ingredients only to ruin the whole thing with unfiltered water. 15. Simmer for 20 minutes or until rice is soft. Take cherub out of jumper and show him the awesome meal that he’s going to get shortly. 16. Blend into a mushy paste. 17. Feed cherub with a smug half-smile on your face. 18. Swear when he spits the whole mess up five minutes after you’ve finished. 19. Pour yourself a vodka tonic. 20. Repeat tomorrow with “Pasta Shapes with Cheesy Tomato Sauce and SelfSatisfaction.”
❀ Christiana Thomas makes her own baby food and feels damn proud of it. Also, she writes grants and enjoys raising two kids in southern California.
Nude Phase 2.5 Stefanie Freele
“Condone.” I whisper. “Impressive.”
Are you going through a nude phase?” Dad asks our son who is standing naked on a chair running a rolling-pin through purple play dough across the kitchen counter. “Answer me son. This is important. We must resolve this immediately. ”
Clothesless, the monster-child flings ‘Mr. Tatohead’ - pieces – arms, legs, mustache – across the kitchen floor. “Mr. Potatohead!” Dad announces gravely and intimidating on his way to the other room where he disappears for several minutes.
The nudie crawls off the chair to the refrigerator, opens it with two and a half year-old gusto and places the fourth play dough container, this one red, onto the bottom shelf. He pauses for a moment to line up his containers. “A project Dada.” He importantly returns to his chair, taking over the dough-rolling that father has been toying with during son’s absence.
That’s it. The extent of his punishment is to call out the words: “Mr. Potatohead.” ### The return of Dad to say, “What kind of a mess has your mother created this time?” He has a clean shirt on and wet combed-back hair.
“It is you,” the father of our child points to me and yawns, emphasizing the critical destruction of his after-work nap, “that is the cause of the demise of mankind.”
“I haven’t taken a shower in two days.” I say. I pout.
“Does that mean this is a good time for me to take a walk?” I ask while not waiting for an answer, but instead lacing my hiking boots.
“No shower for you Ma’am until he is eighteen.”
He rubs the hair on his belly. “Never. Never again shall you take a walk. Chained to the kitchen you are.”
“Eighteen!” is the little-voice coming from the entire collection of books piled on the floor.
We look away for .0000009 seconds and our son is standing in the cat food. He peeks over the counter and whispers.“In trouble.”
“Is that our son under there?” clean shiny Dad asks. It might be. It sounds like him. For now, I’ll just assume yes. And, since he’s still coherent, I’m going to assume he’s just fine.
“Why?” Why we both ask.
I leave for my walk wondering if I’ll return to windows “washed” with cheddar cheese, blocks and books thrown off the deck, various kitchen utensils in the toilet. But really, it’s okay I tell myself; Dad cooks, pays the bills, locks the doors at night and out here the trees sway in the breeze, the birds chirp nicely and no matter where I look, there isn’t a diaper to be found.
A very small voice answers. “Standing on cat food.” “Maybe you don’t want to be in trouble.” Dad says. “Trouble is something your mom would do.” And the chase is on. “You’re in trouble! Stinker!” The nude runs behind me for safety. The dad follows. There are screams, squeals, an upside down two-year-old, giggles, “In trouble! Stinker!”
❀ Stefanie Freele’s short story collection Feeding Strays will be published by Lost Horse Press in September. She is also the author of MOTEL, an artbook/chapbook with Bannock Street Books. Recent and forthcoming work can be found in Glimmer Train, American Literary Review, Night Train, and Literary Mama.
The tiny little bottom blurs by to snatch a piece of cat food and shove it in his mouth. “Trouble!”
Stefanie has an MFA from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts: Whidbey Writers Workshop. She is also the Fiction Editor for the Los Angeles Review and an editor with SmokeLong Quarterly.
“We don’t condone such behavior here.” Dad says. 20
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Why We Medicate Marcy Neth
I felt the same way you do. I have seen the exposés. Kids are too often medicated for just being kids. The parents are lazy or didn’t think about the consequences. The child is too young. The side effects are devastating. Why would anyone do that to a child?
talked to. He got in trouble daily. We tried separating him from others, but things were sliding downhill. One brutal afternoon he told me that he thought he should kill himself since he could not control himself. He is 8 years old. Immediately I told the special ed teachers and started calling psychiatrists. Our psychologist didn’t seem to be able to do anything; his approach to talk therapy was going nowhere. We found a doctor who immediately prescribed a strong antipsychotic. The possible side effects were chilling, but it seemed to be either this or a dead son.
But when I think about it, I don’t actually know a child who is medicated for just being a kid. I’ve read about them, or heard the rants of the childless standing behind the mom at the pharmacy. Personally, I know none. The child I do know who is medicated is my son. This was not an easy decision and I think daily about ways we will withdraw him when the time is right.
As it happens the only side effect we have seen is an increase in weight. Now, our once skeletal son looks rounder. The drug’s primary effects show, not the side effects. The boy who lived in a world that was turned up too loud now lives at a volume much closer to what the rest of us experience. Little things that used to cause screaming fits are now brushed off. He is still himself, but he can converse with an ease we had never seen before. He is happy.
Last year I wrote an essay for this magazine about getting him to school every day. His escape attempts and screaming fits were daily occurrences. Things were better in the summer, when there were no demands and I could keep the house as quiet as possible. Better, but not good. He could not watch a video with someone in the same room, almost in the same house. Any extra noise would send him into fits. Someone breathing in the next room caused him to scream in fury. He wasn’t eating because the flavors and textures of every food around were too strong or rough. Outings were restricted to places without crowds because being touched might make him hit or bite. It seemed as though the volume knob on the world was turned up too high for him. We couldn’t figure out how to turn it down.
As I write this, he is in the same room watching a video with his younger siblings. I walk back and forth in front of the screen to help the baby with something. He chats with his brother. There is no screaming. No throwing of toys. Nobody gets hurt.
Third grade started. He immediately had problems with boys who roughhoused on the playground. I had to control my own anger that a boy was able to hit my son secretly, but my son’s retaliatory actions were usually seen by teachers. He had to face punishment. Luckily, the special education teachers know and love my son. They believed him, but had no proof. Then he fell in love with another classmate. She is a sweet, playful girl, pretty and full of fun. She is a friend to everyone. My son began to bite all the other children she
I usually keep our therapies and family habits close to the chest. I broke one of my personal rules and happened to mention the medicine to an old friend who then casually sent me a pamphlet and diatribe on the horrors of this medication. She suggested diets and enzymatic therapies, most of which I have tried and found useless. Though she has never met my son, she is certain we are medicating away his childhood. No, I am medicating to ensure he has a childhood.
❀ Marcy Neth lives in Aurora with a husband, three children, an empty garden and lots of yarn. She can be contacted at mcneth@gmail.com.
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getbornmag.com
Solitary Mother Lover Caren Kennedy
I turned 40 today and if I have one regret it is this — I didn’t turn 50. Menopause aside, I’m craving the solitude my senior years will bring. At 50, I’ll be getting my life back and days like these, filled as they are with lone parenting, blocked toilets, and doomed shags, will be a thing of the past. For now though, I’m stuck in the present — a mother struggling to make ends meet on a single, shrinking income. Hence, I’ve joined the sex trade. Not in the physical sense you understand. Frankly, I couldn’t give it away. But in the literary sense of writing romantic stories. Unfortunately, with my own love life having gone the way of the dinosaurs, hot and heavy meditation was needed to spice up the limp prose. A romp down memory lane, as it were, to shake loose my dormant libido for translation onto the page and into my purse. And for this I needed some time alone. A chance would be a fine thing. These days I can’t even fart in private. Despite being single, I’m never alone. Negotiating a Middle East peace agreement would be easier than persuading my five year old daughter to sleep in her own bed. Worse than her is my teenage son. Last weekend he arrived home from a late night party and shook me awake to say it was him making all the noise and not a burglar. I screamed again at 5am when my daughter pulled back my eyelids to announce she’d wet the bed. Not even the bathroom is safe. The only time either of them wants to use the toilet is when I’ve locked the door. School should guarantee me some private time but with children, as with life, nothing is ever easy. Take this morning, for example. The plan was simple — tackle chores, get children to school, do some work. By 7.30, I had wrestled an epic pile of laundry into the washing machine and loaded the dishwasher. Right on schedule, I hopped into the shower. Two minutes later my daughter joined me in the bathroom. With herself perched on the toilet warbling a commentary on poo-poo’s progress, I showered and scrubbed. Then, just as she squealed “It's hoooge!” and proceeded to flush acres of loo-roll down the pan, the washing machine spun, the dishwasher rinsed and I was scalded into leaping out of the shower to land at her feet, scaring her into a whirl of tears and snot. Ten minutes later we were calm enough to risk flushing the backed-up toilet. In slow, technicolor motion it inhaled its contents, gurgled gently before exhaling a rising tide, 22
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“Soon you’ll hear the lock turn in the door announcing his arrival,” I whispered, slipping off the heels and curving a leg. “You’ll stand up to greet him. He’ll take you in his arms and turn you round in a sexy little dance. His fingers will feather lightly down your spine. Reaching your panties, he’ll pull you closer and murmur into your hair, ‘I need you.’ ”
the celebrated poo-poo twirling to the fore. The only consolation in the whole sorry affair is the threatened flood receded within a whisper of reaching the lid. Meanwhile, my son carried on snoring, oblivious to the drama and forgotten by me. It was only when I was hustling my daughter into school that I remembered him. I ran home to find him slumped in the hall looking more like a lifer than ever — shirt-tail hanging out, knuckles bouncing off the floor, jacket yanked on skew-whiff as if he’d been dragged through a forest backwards . “Why didn’t you wake me?” he grunted. “It’s your fault if I get detention for being late.” And with a slam-bang of the front door he was gone.
I buried my face in a cushion. “You’ll tilt your head back, lips quivering at the searing heat radiating from his throbbing manhood promising imminent fusion into a single being. The Bolero drum-rolling in the background will get louder and louder, reaching crescendo in line with . . . .” The sound of the doorbell choked me silent. The mailbox clattering open propelled me to standing. “Mom, let me in, I’ve forgotten my keys!”
Peace at last. I counted to 20, poured a coffee and sat down at my desk to write a sizzling sex scene by first focusing on previous relationships. But no sooner was I back inside the tangled sheets of one lost lover than I was wondering what the heck I ever saw in him. Fast forward five years and a different lover’s hands were slithering up my legs. Our eyes met, sparks flew, and the argument we never got round to finishing kicked-off again. Hah! At least this time I got the last word in. Oh, but it wasn’t always thus. In my twenties I was enamored with a mechanic. The no-holds-barred-upagainst-the-bumpers-type enamored. Then I remembered the 300 bucks he still owed me.
Angels wept, I thought sprinting to the bathroom. I’ll be six foot under pushing up the daisies before I get peace in this life. I doused my hair under the tap in manner of shower interrupted and shrugged on a robe before returning to the front door. Fortunately teenage tunnel vision blinded my son to anything amiss, including mascara trickling down flushed cheeks resembling a beard rash.
As an exercise designed to get the creative juices flowing, this clearly wasn’t working. Instead of feeling frisky, I felt like a Tylenol.
“I’m dying Mom. Must have been something you fed me. Teacher sent me home sick.”
A change of tack was needed. Or, as Victor Hugo once said, I needed to exercise my imagination with an erection.
Teacher needs glasses. The teenage son is the healthiest looking sick person I’ve ever seen. He stalled a lecture on cutting school by handing over a bag and a card.
I went into the bedroom and stripped off back to the time when I was not a mother and getting ready to go anywhere meant dressing up. With utmost care, I pulled on stockings and attached them to a garter belt. Next, I wiggled into panties and a camisole. I looked in the mirror. Something was missing. I tied my hair back into a loose chignon, applied red lip-gloss, overloaded my eyes with mascara and climbed into a pair of high heels.
“Happy birthday,” he said, flopping onto the sofa. “What’s for dinner? I’m starving.” I rolled my eyes and read the card “Unless you’re a cheese, age doesn’t matter.” I opened the bag and pulled out his thoughtful present, a can of air freshener. “Take a chill pill,” he laughed, deflecting the cushion I chucked at him. “You’re still young enough to take a joke aren’t you?”
“Voila!” purred Dita von Teese in the mirror. “Any minute now a man you’ve never met before is going to come here. First, he’s going to tease you. Then he’s going to ravish you.” Making a final adjustment to the stockings, I sashayed back to the lounge and threw myself on the sofa to wait for him.
My point exactly. Still, if you can’t laugh, what can you do?
Nothing. All this effort and nothing. Honestly, what is the point of running round like a scalded cat if lover-boy is just going to swan in here whenever he feels like it? Closing my eyes, I cupped my breasts, relaxing under the feel of silk caressing bare skin.
❀ Caren Kennedy is a freelance writer living in Dublin, Ireland. She is a single parent twice over and co-author of Fake Alibis, an almost true novel which will be published in September 2009. 23
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getbornmag.com
Stephanie Rayburn
at message from hat. The. Fuck. W It’s 1:00pm and I get a ch end’s girlfriend has my husband. His best fri out of my way to try er to celebrate her So now that I have gone just invited us out to dinn so ) and them. At ate your last-minute plans ild od ch r mm ou co d ac (an to us t jus y... birthda we end up our cranky twojoy an evening together, th en n wi ca ng pi we co am I e, tim e th you picked a place has refused to take a being uninvited because and-a-half year old who out how on earth I am that is not only nap, and am skeptical ab urant in just a few not kid-friendly going to get him to a resta on r ca e th asleep in but downright hours without him falling al ion ot em an ing en be dangerous and you the way to dinner and th o int ke him up to go don’t want to alter mess when we have to wa t las e annoyed at th your plans? I wasn’t the restaurant. I’m a little rry wo o als I t tion, bu expecting them to minute nature of the invita we if em th to ment want to go to Chuck that it will be a disappoint in d seen his best frien E. Cheese or Pizza can’t go, plus we haven’t n rio O t see if I can ge Hut or anything. a while. So I say, “Let me I ” . go n ca a nap, we I think we could to take a nap. If he takes n so my ce er co to ing have successfully then spend 45 minutes try s! es ally it works! Succ made it through into taking a nap. Eventu an evening at even We can go to dinner! a relatively nice t. There are a lot to e th to on s sse cloth-napkined restauran I tell my husband, so he pa one. for dinner. t please don’t pick THIS em jus th n m joi fro n se ca oo we ch at th l gir birthday ren, and I responds, asking if I know these people don’t have child e sh er, lat s ur ho of le up A co t seriously? fondue restaurant will shouldn’t hold that against them, bu cy an hm -sc cy fan al loc e th re, let’s take our small work at 7:00pm? Um. Su u go enjoy your ce with the open Alright, well, the two of yo and willful child to the pla going to boiling pot, and day dinner ALONE. I’m e th th bir p, to cy lefan tab e th on flame lf into eight-month pregnant se . Not to mention my rks fo le y dd int wa po ng -lo tra ex e th thing edible to make My husband tells her the kitchen to find some the snooty atmosphere. d n’t be a good for dinner. I hope you choke on your boile wo t an ur sta re lar cu rti pa that that we go someplace lobster. Happy birthday. place for our son. Could , another time then.” else? She responds, “Well
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