Having recently watched part of Jean Kilbourne’s new video on Brene’ Brown’s blog and you tube, it appalls and saddens me that our society is going backwards when it comes to girls/women body image issues and the media.
Forty years ago I had these same issues as a sixteen-year-old. I thought I was fat, ugly and needed lots of dieting, make-up and help from Seventeen magazine to be attractive. I developed eating disorders and alcoholism in order to cope (among other reasons) as thousands of girls have through out the past decades.
Looking back at photos of myself, I realized years later that I was beautiful and wonderful just the way I was! And I couldn’t see it! I wasted years of my precious life focused on the scale! Think how many thousands of women in our culture have done this! Wasted years, obsessed with diets and looks!
It seems it is just a vicious cycle with the media attention now focused on obesity/junk food epidemic. Yes, many in our society have eating disorders on the other side of the spectrum. But dieting is NOT the answer!
Obsession with our bodies is not the answer!!!! Diet businesses (Jenny, Nutrisystem, and Weight Watchers among a few) are making millions off our obsession with body image and weight. The problem is it doesn’t work! Most people who diet gain the weight back! (Think Kirsty Alley) The problem is in our HEADS and HEARTS!
The answer is in loving and accepting ourselves the way we are. We are enough. The focus needs to be on WHOM we are INSIDE, rather than OUTSIDE! Geneen Roth has been writing about this for years. Her new book, Women, Food and God makes the point that our issues are spiritual as well as emotional rather than just physical. When you start focusing on the inside needs and wants, the weight comes off. You may not look like Keira Knightley but you will be the ideal weight for YOU!
As far as the media, as long as we as a culture continues to give the media power over our minds, they of course will run with it. The author Mary Pipher coined the phrase Lookism about thirty years ago in her book Hunger Pains. It is about the fanaticism with looks. Buying fashion magazines, dieting, checking the mirror/scales constantly is feeding the crazy machine. I know ads pay for magazines but I am disappointed to see all the ads that promote Lookism in Oprah’s magazine O. You’d think if anyone understood the media/weight/body image issue it would be Oprah!!!!
Please increase your awareness. Watch Jean Kilbourne’s videos on You tube, read books like Geneen Roth’s and Brene’ Brown’s. Think about whom you are on the inside, not about what size you wear or what skin cream you need to use to look twenty at fifty. We need to change the track on the media/culture’s obsession with looks. We are not who the media says we are! Please, help our daughters! We are SO much more and WE ARE ENOUGH!!!!
Monday, April 26, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
The Two Lives We Live
I just read a wonderful first novel by a great new writer (Losing Charlotte by Heather Clay) that triggered so many thoughts and feelings for me. It was about a family whose grown daughter died in childbirth. The family related to their daughter/sister as she had been as a child. While the husband of the dead woman, knew her as the adult woman/mother to be she had become and been. And of course those two people (in one body) were both so different and yet the same. As we all are. Hopefully we are a composite blend of all the stages (childhood, adolescence and adult) as we have grown to the adults we are today. And continue to grow and change our entire lives.
It triggers thoughts about my own family of origin. How my father has tried to keep my self and my sisters dependent on him and his wisdom, yet also has seemed derogatory of us if we took advantage of what he offered or if we didn’t. It has always been a no win situation. And more about him and his needs than ours. He has always resented our husbands and in some ways our children. He has continued to demand his place as NO.1 in our lives. And it makes me wonder if I seem that way to my grown children.
No one will ever understand (if they even do then) until they have children of their own and feel that bone deep need to love and protect this tiny being they have created. That feeling never goes away, even when your own children become parents themselves.
And they (the children) won’t understand THAT feeling until they become grandparents or even just parents of adult children who no longer need you because they now have their own family or spouse, who of course moves ahead in line of priority of you.
It is as it should be, as you know in your head that you have always been moving/growing toward this day. Raising your child to be a person of independence, love and integrity who can go out into the world and be whole. But as you are moving through every day of your life, loving them, nurturing them, they are growing away from you. You go from being the most important person in their lives to way down the priority list, though they always remain Number One with you. Which is as it is meant to be as time moves us on.
Life is all about growing, changing, and evolving. Giving, letting go.
Even as we know our child as an adult, part of us still holds on to the person they were as an infant, a toddler, a shy grade schooler, wild teen etc. We may love them, think we know them still, but we don’t know the person they are with their spouse on a daily basis, the parent they are to their child in every minute of every day, the friend they are. And that their priority is now their new family. The family they have created apart from you, their parent.
I remember vividly my first taste of this change. We had taken our newly married daughter and her fresh faced husband to the airport the day after their wedding where they would fly away across the ocean on their honeymoon. They were grateful to us for all we had done and hugged and kissed us goodbye. But as I wiped away my tears I watched my beautiful daughter who was now a wife, grab her husband’s hand, gaze happily into his eyes and gallop down the ramp excitedly, leaving us far behind, as in a time warp, in the past and out of mind.
This issue has so many facets I can’t begin to discuss them all here. It was just so obvious in this most beautifully written novel how parents of adults see their children in such a different light/reality so often from whom those now adults really are. It is always tinged by our view of them as children somewhat.
Now that all my children have spouses and some children and as proud as I am of them and what amazing parents/adults they have become, there is a small grief that only parents have known. When you know you would still lay down your life for your child and of course they would do the same for their own child. You as the parent have completed your job, for they have let go of you and moved on. You are no longer their first thought, their priority and that is as it should be. But so bitter sweet.
Which is why I have dogs who never grow up and happily lap up my entire extra love and attention!
It triggers thoughts about my own family of origin. How my father has tried to keep my self and my sisters dependent on him and his wisdom, yet also has seemed derogatory of us if we took advantage of what he offered or if we didn’t. It has always been a no win situation. And more about him and his needs than ours. He has always resented our husbands and in some ways our children. He has continued to demand his place as NO.1 in our lives. And it makes me wonder if I seem that way to my grown children.
No one will ever understand (if they even do then) until they have children of their own and feel that bone deep need to love and protect this tiny being they have created. That feeling never goes away, even when your own children become parents themselves.
And they (the children) won’t understand THAT feeling until they become grandparents or even just parents of adult children who no longer need you because they now have their own family or spouse, who of course moves ahead in line of priority of you.
It is as it should be, as you know in your head that you have always been moving/growing toward this day. Raising your child to be a person of independence, love and integrity who can go out into the world and be whole. But as you are moving through every day of your life, loving them, nurturing them, they are growing away from you. You go from being the most important person in their lives to way down the priority list, though they always remain Number One with you. Which is as it is meant to be as time moves us on.
Life is all about growing, changing, and evolving. Giving, letting go.
Even as we know our child as an adult, part of us still holds on to the person they were as an infant, a toddler, a shy grade schooler, wild teen etc. We may love them, think we know them still, but we don’t know the person they are with their spouse on a daily basis, the parent they are to their child in every minute of every day, the friend they are. And that their priority is now their new family. The family they have created apart from you, their parent.
I remember vividly my first taste of this change. We had taken our newly married daughter and her fresh faced husband to the airport the day after their wedding where they would fly away across the ocean on their honeymoon. They were grateful to us for all we had done and hugged and kissed us goodbye. But as I wiped away my tears I watched my beautiful daughter who was now a wife, grab her husband’s hand, gaze happily into his eyes and gallop down the ramp excitedly, leaving us far behind, as in a time warp, in the past and out of mind.
This issue has so many facets I can’t begin to discuss them all here. It was just so obvious in this most beautifully written novel how parents of adults see their children in such a different light/reality so often from whom those now adults really are. It is always tinged by our view of them as children somewhat.
Now that all my children have spouses and some children and as proud as I am of them and what amazing parents/adults they have become, there is a small grief that only parents have known. When you know you would still lay down your life for your child and of course they would do the same for their own child. You as the parent have completed your job, for they have let go of you and moved on. You are no longer their first thought, their priority and that is as it should be. But so bitter sweet.
Which is why I have dogs who never grow up and happily lap up my entire extra love and attention!
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Breastfeeding: The Pros and Cons (and get this: there are no cons.)
This is a topic I feel so strongly about and SO important, I can’t zip my lip any longer. The zipper has popped! It is too important to our children.
And in this new health care/healthy-eating climate, it should be the NO.1 Topic on any health expert’s tongue! With Jamie Oliver/Michelle Obama and how many others worrying about childhood obesity/diabetes, let’s start at the beginning! Way before McDonalds, school lunches and Pepsi.
Mothers who take offense to us pro breastfeeding gals, saying we are trying to make them feel guilty, imply they are bad mothers etc, Not true and I disagree strongly! I have never met any nursing mom who has said any such thing. We want all babies to have a healthy start! BUT I think it is just as important to put as much concern into what is nourishing your baby’s brain/body as to what kind of car seat, stroller, clothes he/she wears.
First: I think most of us know the pros. It has been proven to be the best food for your infant hands down. Anyone who says formula is equal is sadly deluded. The facts speak for themselves. Even formula companies admit it!
Antibodies, perfect temp, perfect container, designed by God herself!
Also hundreds of pros for mom and so convenient! Always available, no fuss, no mess.
If you don’t know the pros: google it!
And the bonding. Don’t get me started. There is no greater feeling in the world than when your infant is cuddled in your arms, oxytocin and prolactin flowing and your child holds your finger and looks up into your eyes as they suckle. If you haven’t experienced it, yes, you have no idea what you are missing!
Now I agree we need more education, more support, more educators and
more funding!!! I do not put down moms who didn’t have enough milk, had poor latch, sore nipples and hundreds of other issues that can happen when attempting to breast feed with or without support.
Yes, even though it should be the most natural act in the world, it isn’t in our fast paced, overworked, keep up with the Jones’s society.
I do have an issue with moms who aren’t willing to put their child’s health first. Not sorry either. Mom’s who don’t want their breasts to sag (guess what: it was the pregnancy anyway but even if it wasn’t: what is more important really?) Or think it is easier to mix up a bottle rather than sit down and nurse their beautiful baby? And as for the moms who “say” they are breastfeeding when they are pumping/bottling? I understand working moms have to pump and send a bottle of breastmilk to daycare. My own daughters do it. God bless them for pumping in some of the most unbelievable circumstances. That is a whole other blog. Breastfeeding or pumping in a bathroom stall is INSANE!!!!!! Would you eat YOUR lunch in a stall?
But pump all the time? No breast to skin contact? That is sad for both mother and child. Sorry but true.
There are a ton of other excuses I have heard that were totally sad. (like Dad wanted his time. Are you kidding me? Give the kid a bath, Dad. Rock the baby, change the baby, or when baby gets older, feed solids or even a bottle with breastmilk if necessary)
Also lack of sleep from getting up at night to feed baby. This blows me away. Thinking it is easier to get up and make a bottle. Yeah, right. You still have to sit up in a chair to feed the bottle.
Oh yeah: formula fed babies sleep longer!!! That’s because their stomachs are full of lead that takes many hours to digest (or not digest) where as breast milk, which is perfect for baby, digests quickly as God designed it. So they are hungry more often. My answer was to take baby into bed with me, nurse and go back to sleep. For parents afraid of overlying their babies (this really only happens with drugged parents) there are now many cosleeping apparatus on the market to keep baby close and safe.
And as far as it hurting. OK, sometimes it might hurt. Especially at first when your breasts are tender, you are sore from childbirth and sleep deprived, emotional from postpartum hormones, that’s when Moms need the support!
I have been there: sore nipples, cracked nipples that bled, mastitis, baby on nursing strike, etc. But this passes. I don’t remember when I first felt that inexplicable bliss but it wiped out every possible negative con I could come up with. The sad part is many moms don’t make it to the bliss. : (
They give up. And then they get defensive and some become anti breastfeeding and anti breastfeeding supporters/advocates.
I know I was lucky or just so damned stubborn nothing was going to stop me. I knew in my gut/heart that breastfeeding was best and that was what my kids were going to get. Yes, I had problems. It wasn’t perfect by far. But it was wonderful, rewarding; the bonding with my daughters was the most beautiful experience I have ever had. (and yes I do have a good relationship with my husband and am psychologically balanced.) And just as rewarding to me is two of those daughters have breastfed their children (five boys so far). I still have one daughter who even though not married yet, intends to breastfeed her someday babies. She has witnessed the magic. : )
I experienced the death of my daughter Lindsey, (our youngest) whom I never got to nurse. She was a preemie (placenta previa) and in the neonatal unit. I began pumping colostrum but she died of a brain hemorrhage at two days old before she could try nursing. I had been forced to wean my then two-year-old daughter due to the hemorrhaging of that pregnancy. It was difficult on everyone. But it was a healing/rebonding experience when I came home from the hospital to a traumatized two year old (six week separation from mom) we sat down in the rocker and nursed. Healing for both. Today she is a healthy independent twenty seven-year-old.
OK, I am ready for the agree to disagree pact I have made with my friends. Many of my friends did not breastfeed their children. Whether it was for lack of knowledge, support, a bad past history/experience etc. It is definitely a HOT Button Topic. Almost as bad as politics or abortion.
I have avoided blogging about till now. I have written some blogs and FB comments that have ruffled some feathers but nothing like when it comes to this topic, I am sure. I can’t believe that in the year 2010, this is still an issue! It makes me angry!!! I breastfed in the 70’s and 80’s. (My mom did not breastfeed but was very supportive of me doing it) When the only support was Le Leche’ League. (Yes, us fanatics.) Now days there are lactation consultants in hospitals, midwives, and breastfeeding centers (I worked at one of the first for four years!)
This is a very important subject to me. I believe in it as strongly as I believe alcoholism is a disease, my dogs are part of my family and we are each responsible for ourselves and can’t control anyone else.
I am sorry if you disagree but to be blunt, it’s a fact.
And in this new health care/healthy-eating climate, it should be the NO.1 Topic on any health expert’s tongue! With Jamie Oliver/Michelle Obama and how many others worrying about childhood obesity/diabetes, let’s start at the beginning! Way before McDonalds, school lunches and Pepsi.
Mothers who take offense to us pro breastfeeding gals, saying we are trying to make them feel guilty, imply they are bad mothers etc, Not true and I disagree strongly! I have never met any nursing mom who has said any such thing. We want all babies to have a healthy start! BUT I think it is just as important to put as much concern into what is nourishing your baby’s brain/body as to what kind of car seat, stroller, clothes he/she wears.
First: I think most of us know the pros. It has been proven to be the best food for your infant hands down. Anyone who says formula is equal is sadly deluded. The facts speak for themselves. Even formula companies admit it!
Antibodies, perfect temp, perfect container, designed by God herself!
Also hundreds of pros for mom and so convenient! Always available, no fuss, no mess.
If you don’t know the pros: google it!
And the bonding. Don’t get me started. There is no greater feeling in the world than when your infant is cuddled in your arms, oxytocin and prolactin flowing and your child holds your finger and looks up into your eyes as they suckle. If you haven’t experienced it, yes, you have no idea what you are missing!
Now I agree we need more education, more support, more educators and
more funding!!! I do not put down moms who didn’t have enough milk, had poor latch, sore nipples and hundreds of other issues that can happen when attempting to breast feed with or without support.
Yes, even though it should be the most natural act in the world, it isn’t in our fast paced, overworked, keep up with the Jones’s society.
I do have an issue with moms who aren’t willing to put their child’s health first. Not sorry either. Mom’s who don’t want their breasts to sag (guess what: it was the pregnancy anyway but even if it wasn’t: what is more important really?) Or think it is easier to mix up a bottle rather than sit down and nurse their beautiful baby? And as for the moms who “say” they are breastfeeding when they are pumping/bottling? I understand working moms have to pump and send a bottle of breastmilk to daycare. My own daughters do it. God bless them for pumping in some of the most unbelievable circumstances. That is a whole other blog. Breastfeeding or pumping in a bathroom stall is INSANE!!!!!! Would you eat YOUR lunch in a stall?
But pump all the time? No breast to skin contact? That is sad for both mother and child. Sorry but true.
There are a ton of other excuses I have heard that were totally sad. (like Dad wanted his time. Are you kidding me? Give the kid a bath, Dad. Rock the baby, change the baby, or when baby gets older, feed solids or even a bottle with breastmilk if necessary)
Also lack of sleep from getting up at night to feed baby. This blows me away. Thinking it is easier to get up and make a bottle. Yeah, right. You still have to sit up in a chair to feed the bottle.
Oh yeah: formula fed babies sleep longer!!! That’s because their stomachs are full of lead that takes many hours to digest (or not digest) where as breast milk, which is perfect for baby, digests quickly as God designed it. So they are hungry more often. My answer was to take baby into bed with me, nurse and go back to sleep. For parents afraid of overlying their babies (this really only happens with drugged parents) there are now many cosleeping apparatus on the market to keep baby close and safe.
And as far as it hurting. OK, sometimes it might hurt. Especially at first when your breasts are tender, you are sore from childbirth and sleep deprived, emotional from postpartum hormones, that’s when Moms need the support!
I have been there: sore nipples, cracked nipples that bled, mastitis, baby on nursing strike, etc. But this passes. I don’t remember when I first felt that inexplicable bliss but it wiped out every possible negative con I could come up with. The sad part is many moms don’t make it to the bliss. : (
They give up. And then they get defensive and some become anti breastfeeding and anti breastfeeding supporters/advocates.
I know I was lucky or just so damned stubborn nothing was going to stop me. I knew in my gut/heart that breastfeeding was best and that was what my kids were going to get. Yes, I had problems. It wasn’t perfect by far. But it was wonderful, rewarding; the bonding with my daughters was the most beautiful experience I have ever had. (and yes I do have a good relationship with my husband and am psychologically balanced.) And just as rewarding to me is two of those daughters have breastfed their children (five boys so far). I still have one daughter who even though not married yet, intends to breastfeed her someday babies. She has witnessed the magic. : )
I experienced the death of my daughter Lindsey, (our youngest) whom I never got to nurse. She was a preemie (placenta previa) and in the neonatal unit. I began pumping colostrum but she died of a brain hemorrhage at two days old before she could try nursing. I had been forced to wean my then two-year-old daughter due to the hemorrhaging of that pregnancy. It was difficult on everyone. But it was a healing/rebonding experience when I came home from the hospital to a traumatized two year old (six week separation from mom) we sat down in the rocker and nursed. Healing for both. Today she is a healthy independent twenty seven-year-old.
OK, I am ready for the agree to disagree pact I have made with my friends. Many of my friends did not breastfeed their children. Whether it was for lack of knowledge, support, a bad past history/experience etc. It is definitely a HOT Button Topic. Almost as bad as politics or abortion.
I have avoided blogging about till now. I have written some blogs and FB comments that have ruffled some feathers but nothing like when it comes to this topic, I am sure. I can’t believe that in the year 2010, this is still an issue! It makes me angry!!! I breastfed in the 70’s and 80’s. (My mom did not breastfeed but was very supportive of me doing it) When the only support was Le Leche’ League. (Yes, us fanatics.) Now days there are lactation consultants in hospitals, midwives, and breastfeeding centers (I worked at one of the first for four years!)
This is a very important subject to me. I believe in it as strongly as I believe alcoholism is a disease, my dogs are part of my family and we are each responsible for ourselves and can’t control anyone else.
I am sorry if you disagree but to be blunt, it’s a fact.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Making It Through Cycles and Coming Out Brighter on the Other Side
Having been ill with a virus and then pneumonia for the past month, I have struggled to keep my spirits up and not get buried under my low energy and lack of oxygen! As much as I have unending gratitude for the blessings in my life, day after day of feeling like crap can zap me and then I cycle into self recriminations /judging myself and how dare I feel anger, self pity or just low energy.
I seemed to have more Joy and creativity during the gray cold days of Winter than I do now as Spring is bursting open! I assume that is part of the reason for my slight depression. Just when I want to mulch, compost, garden and spring clean, I am congested and even the slightest bit of dust sets me into a round of coughing and wheezing!
Just before I became ill, I was reading Julia Cameron’s Veins of Gold (which I have had forever and never got around to reading!)
I had gained so much a few years ago from rereading The Artist’s Way and felt the need to stir my creativity/ spirit in those cold days of winter.
Well, becoming ill put an end to reading or anything creative. All I could seem to manage was sleep, cough, gag, sneeze, blow and maybe watch a movie when my head wasn’t throbbing. And just as I was so proud that I recovered from the virus /infection without an antibiotic (which seem to wreak havoc with me) I developed the pneumonia. UGH. So I convinced my physician that I still didn’t need an antibiotic but prednizone for my asthma which I knew was responsible for clasping down on my inflamed lungs and bronchial tubes! She made me promise to contact her immediately at the first sign of fever/infection. And now as I cough less and come to the last three days of steroids, I am manifesting healing lungs and fresh energy, just as the world is growing green and the sun moves farther north!
It is interesting to me that a wave of anger triggered my new burst of energy and creativity. I awoke to words and poems tumbling around in my head. I wrote and wrote, including some amends letters I have put off writing for months. I feel refreshed and ready to begin anew to nurture myself physically, emotionally, spiritually and creatively! I plan to sit in the sun today, reading Veins of Gold, listening to native drum music, soaking up birdsong and the fresh breeze. I am manifesting not only healing but forgiving myself for my human failings of not always being grateful or joyful. And hoping the eternal cycle of the seasons returns my Joy and Gratitude on the wind.
I seemed to have more Joy and creativity during the gray cold days of Winter than I do now as Spring is bursting open! I assume that is part of the reason for my slight depression. Just when I want to mulch, compost, garden and spring clean, I am congested and even the slightest bit of dust sets me into a round of coughing and wheezing!
Just before I became ill, I was reading Julia Cameron’s Veins of Gold (which I have had forever and never got around to reading!)
I had gained so much a few years ago from rereading The Artist’s Way and felt the need to stir my creativity/ spirit in those cold days of winter.
Well, becoming ill put an end to reading or anything creative. All I could seem to manage was sleep, cough, gag, sneeze, blow and maybe watch a movie when my head wasn’t throbbing. And just as I was so proud that I recovered from the virus /infection without an antibiotic (which seem to wreak havoc with me) I developed the pneumonia. UGH. So I convinced my physician that I still didn’t need an antibiotic but prednizone for my asthma which I knew was responsible for clasping down on my inflamed lungs and bronchial tubes! She made me promise to contact her immediately at the first sign of fever/infection. And now as I cough less and come to the last three days of steroids, I am manifesting healing lungs and fresh energy, just as the world is growing green and the sun moves farther north!
It is interesting to me that a wave of anger triggered my new burst of energy and creativity. I awoke to words and poems tumbling around in my head. I wrote and wrote, including some amends letters I have put off writing for months. I feel refreshed and ready to begin anew to nurture myself physically, emotionally, spiritually and creatively! I plan to sit in the sun today, reading Veins of Gold, listening to native drum music, soaking up birdsong and the fresh breeze. I am manifesting not only healing but forgiving myself for my human failings of not always being grateful or joyful. And hoping the eternal cycle of the seasons returns my Joy and Gratitude on the wind.
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