I recently had the pleasure of doing a long form interview with TraumaMamaDrama! I’m grateful for the opportunity to talk about these race, adoption and parenting with her.
Take a looksee at Part 1 of my interview!
Author Archives: AdoptiveBlackMom
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Triggers, Triggers Everywhere
Hope’s life is a filled with trigger land mines. I’ve learned where most of them are; every now and then a new one will pop up. I make a mental note and try to just push on.
It’s hard though because sometimes I feel like I have to give up some aspect of my life in order to avoid triggering her.
Sure, parenting is full of sacrifices. There’s always something, right? I try to remember that someday I’ll get to live fully again, but the reality is that I know that this parenting thing is life altering. Once some things are gone, they are just gone. I won’t go back to them. There are simple luxuries that I miss, like not having the same sad story told a million times because we stumbled over a trigger.
I mean, yes, I get it. Yes, I try to appropriately respond; yes, I know that it’s a good sign that Hope feels comfortable enough to tell me and share things over and over again.
All of that is true, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t grate on my nerves. #realtalk
So, of course the end of the year holidays are a trigger-fest.
Trigger, here!
Trigger, there!
Trigger, trigger everywhere!
It’s exhausting.
So, Christmas Eve, Hope and I open presents (or rather I open my 1 present, she opens her 25 presidents). This kid has a vendetta against headphones. She breaks every pair that she take possession of, even the borrowed ones. After buying her what feels like 872 pairs this year, I ponied up and bought her a decent pair of over the ear headphones. They have bells and whistles and were reasonably priced at Ross.
Cool. She oohh and ahhh’d. And then it came….
“I used to have a pair of blue Skull Candy headphones, but a foster parent took them from me. I got them at a giveaway and she really liked them so she just took them.” Hope frowned as she was looking at the box of new headphones.
I’ve heard this story many times. It’s one of the reasons I went with over ear headphones rather than more earbuds. I guess I knew it would trigger her, but I thought maybe she might have moved a little bit forward. #nope
She hadn’t. So I prompted her to, “Yes, sweetie, I know that was hard for you. Someone took your stuff and that wasn’t right. Now you have a new pair of headphones that are really nice. I won’t take them from you. They are yours forever.”
“I know…but…she…” “No, Hope, look forward, you’re missing out on opening that box and checking out the ones in your hand, right now. They are yours. This is real.”
It took her 2 days before she opened the box to really take a look at them.
Sister M has a new dog, a gorgeous, 6 month old pit bull puppy who is goofy as all get out.
Trigger alert.
“I had a red nosed pit bull puppy once. She was pretty. She was supposed to be mine. But they gave him to my dad’s girlfriend’s son. He was supposed to be mine.”
I’ve heard this story what feels like 1000s of times.
“Yes, Hope. I know that was rough. You lost so much stuff along the way. I’m sure the puppy was special to you. I know that she can’t really be replaced, but remember that you have a family now and Yappy is a part of our family. Aunt M’s dog is a part of the family too. We will go visit him and one day, when you’re grown you can get your very own puppy.”
“I know but that puppy…she was mine.”
“Yes, I know sweetie.”
At the jewelry show…”I want a watch like my dad’s.” We visited 10 watch booths. None had an exact replica of her father’s watch, which she seems to have trouble describing.
I was pleased to see that this year she didn’t cry when we didn’t find the watch.
Could we find a watch “kinda” like it? Was this one close enough?
Nope. It needed to be exactly like her father’s watch.
After three years, I’ve gotten much better at being compassionate and empathetic during these moments, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t also trigger a place in my own brain that screams, “Oh God when will we be able to move past this?????”
Of course, it’s only been three years after how many difficult one’s she had? Um, yeah, more than 3, quite a few more than 3, so I guess I had better get over myself.
But the repetition, the triggers, they always make me feel like we aren’t making progress. I know that’s not true, but it’s hard. You push through to some new stuff and you feel like your kid is doing the dang thing and whoops, you trip over a rock and out comes the story you’ve heard a million times complete with all the emotion that was there the first time you heard it.
It’s a bit demoralizing.
More than anything I want Hope to heal from her trauma. I know that this is part of getting there. But I’m impatient, easily annoyed and occasionally, really selfish.
The truth is that in many ways these three years feel like I’ve lived a whole lifetime because there’s been so much upheaval. I’ve got a lot more gray hair. I’m carrying another 20 15lbs or so. I’m tired. I’m on more antidepressants. I have more crinkles around my eyes. I feel like 10 years have passed.
On the other end of the spectrum, this time has flown by. I struggle to remember how many Christmas’ we’ve been a family. It’s hard to believe that The Furry One has been gone nearly 2 ½ years and that Yappy has been with us for all of our Christmas’s. I’m shocked that it seems just yesterday I was enrolling Hope in 7th grade and now she’s in 10th.
The journey has my sense of time all jumbled up, which also makes my expectations of Hope’s healing speed a bit messy as well. Why isn’t she healing from the trauma as quickly as it feels like I’m aging while trying to help her heal from the trauma????
The upside in all of this is that I know what most of the triggers are, and now, Hope is stronger and can talk to me about her triggers. That’s progress. Actually, that’s a lot of progress.
While I can see and acknowledge all this progress; It’s still true that side stepping Hope’s land mines is hard, exhausting work. Both things are true. Being there for her isn’t always easy. It’s just not. Wishing that I didn’t have to hear the stories for the zillionth time is still true.
But I’ll listen for as long as it takes.
Thoughts on Acceptance
Christmas was lovely. Good times with family and friends. There was lots of eating, minimal exercise, movie watching, more eating, lots of laughs and lots of catching up and dishing about life.
There was also a decision to just consciously accept some stuff that my typical hot headed self wouldn’t bother to accept.
In life, there are countless things that we must reconcile between our greatest desires and our greatest disappointments.
It isn’t easy. Some times, even after years and lots of work, we find ourselves so easily triggered. The flood of disappointment and sadness come crushing back over us like a tsunami wave. Sometimes it feels like we have to start the grieving process all over again just because of one little innocuous sentence.
For me, I know that two big triggers in the last 4 years are folks with commentary on raising a child with a trauma background and having a baby.
It’s amazing how many people have so much to say about these topics. The former I know is really because the issues are largely masked for folks outside of my and Hope’s home. They don’t know what I know or see and experience what I do. They make assumptions about my parenting, and draw conclusions about me and Hope.
The latter is more complicated because most folks don’t know that my journey towards Hope came after a pretty traumatic life event that left me unable to bear children or that my chances of having a biological child were iffy even before the event.
In the early days of this journey, I never anticipated that folks would have so much to say. Well, they do. And, well, that sucks because it hurts.
It hurts a lot sometimes.
I’ve read a lot about other people’s journeys through parenting trauma and infertility; my story and my sensitivity around these issues aren’t unique. In fact, daily folks are posting about conversations and announcements that pierce their hearts and reduce them to tears.
Over the years, I learned to live with my deflector shields half way up. Having them all the way up creates too much of a barrier between me and the people I love. Besides, after a few years, my ability to react and respond has improved along with their level of sensitivity.
Well, I realized on this trip that my emotional shields were fully lowered, but it’s ok. It forced me to make a decision that I think will be healthier for me.
I mentioned that there is a new baby in the family. My sister gave birth to a baby boy recently. Our family is over the moon. He’s just perfect.
This triggered some comments about how folks thought me and my sisters would never have children or that it’s such a blessing that my parents are finally now grandparents.
Oh, great, we’re two for two!
In the moment on Christmas day, I gave myself the gift of acceptance. I shared that gift and sprinkled it liberally all about.
The reality is these are people I love deeply. These are people who want the best for me. These are people who would never knowingly hurt me. These are people who may not always know what to say.
Some of these folks are a bit older and aren’t necessarily hip to all of the ways folks might be hurt or offended. Some of these folks have reached the age where even if they did, they don’t have to be uber-sensitive about much anymore because: old.
The long and short of it is, no one means to hurt me or stick their foot in their mouth, and even if they did, what does it cost me in that moment to just accept it and move on?
Oh it hurts. It does; there’s no denying that.
But accepting that there is no malice, that they may be caught up in the euphoria of having a much-desired baby around (which frankly I am as well), well, it doesn’t cost me much.
Sure, I could politely correct them. I could gently educate them. I could do all kinds of things. But frankly, that just exposes more of me and whatever emotions I’m wrestling with. It also makes me feel like I have to bring the dark cloud I keep on the shelf in my mind closet out and drag it with me everywhere I go.
I’m tired of living like that.
Just accepting folks and assuming and believing the best in them saves us both. In some of those moments, they are expressing their own joy about whatever. I don’t need to temper their joy just because they used poor phrasing or were insensitive or just didn’t remember my ouchy places.
So, I made a conscious decision to just accept the presence of commentary that occasionally dredges my wounds.
It’s life, man. It just life. I can’t have hazard cones all over the place all the time. It’s exhausting, and frankly, it’s exhausting being hurt and/or angry. It’s exhausting having the same conversations over and over. And frankly, it’s ridiculous for me to think that my life is so big that everyone should speak in whispered tones around me about babies and trauma related behaviors.
I’m a grown ass woman. This life has put me through harder paces than that.
I mean, I could write my own list of things not to say to an infertile woman or a parent raising a child with a trauma background, but guess what? It wouldn’t make that much of a difference because the folks who typically make those comments don’t run in the blogging circles I do—it’s not going to be read by them.
So, I’ve decided to practice some grace and accept these moments as they come. It’s ok.
I also know that Hope watches me, and while I teach her to advocate for herself, I want her to see when and how I choose to do it for myself. Not everything needs a response. Not everything needs a bark and a bite.
Acceptance is a good thing for me. It allows me to just put things in context. It allows me to focus on the good. It allows me to not ache. It doesn’t mean that things don’t hurt, but it makes it manageable.
I can’t change people. I only have the power to change my reaction to people.
In the end that is the power play.
I Can’t Stop Crying
In a little over a month I will be 44; Hope will be 16 in 6 months and in a few short weeks we will begin our 4th year as a little family.
Last night was our third Christmas together; and without question, it is our most meaningful, impactful Christmas yet.
Each of our years together have been amazing, but they have been fraught with grief, painful healing, flashbacks, emotional challenges and just, well, challenges that are largely invisible to our IRL friends and family. I can’t even say that one year has been harder than another; they’ve been hard in very, very different ways.
I would like to think I’ve gotten better at this momming thing over the years, but sometimes I just screw up royally. It makes me sad, often frustrated, usually furious with myself. I tend to give myself very little grace, a horrible characteristic of my perfectionism.
And then there are the times when I feel like I nailed this momming thing. In those moments, I am enormously grateful for this community, for my family and friends, and for my God who never fails me even when I’m at my lowest, most miserable place.
Holidays, all of them, even frigging Earth Day, can be tough around here. They are triggering; they bring about thoughts and memories that I have had to make room for in this life Hope and I have created. Despite her age; Hope’s emotional age is much younger, and she doesn’t always have the words to explain what she’s feeling or why. That is often really, really hard to deal with.
This year has been no different, right down to our unnecessary visit to the urgent care earlier this week. But there is something about this Christmas that is different.
Maybe it’s that I made the conscious decision to spoil her and buy lots of material things. Maybe it’s that I’ve gotten modestly better at making my own jokes about our challenges during a holiday that is always bittersweet. Maybe it’s that my love and joy about the recent birth in my family has finally manage to overpower my own infertility grief. Maybe it’s all the folks around us who we managed to bless with a little something sweet from our kitchen. Maybe it’s my own preparation for the end of the Year of the Try and the beginning of the Year of the Stretch. Maybe it’s that Yappy is with the boarder, and I realize that I am as attached to him as he is to me.
I don’t know really, but I’m seriously emotional because something is different this Christmas.
I am so emotional, and I cannot stop crying.
I think it might be that I have achieved a deeper level of love for my daughter. A better explanation is that this surly teen has really just gotten to me.
It’s funny; we love our kids right? I loved Hope the moment I first saw her picture. My heart has broken for her a million times during the last three years. It aches every time I think about what she has endured in her young life. It swells when I see her march in the band while I sit on disrespectful bleachers. It races when I have to chastise her or discipline her. It seems to stop when the tells me about her crushes.
My heart beats for her. but the reality is that often I still guard it…a lot. Hope has a lot of issues and I spend an enormous amount of time managing said issues. I do it because it needs to be done and because I love my daughter. That said, I often take a hard clinical approach to case managing our life. There’s a calendar to keep, appointments to schedule, medications to dispense, meetings to attend, testing to have done. I am a natural fixer, so all of this is firmly set in my skill set wheelhouse, but as emotionally exhausting as it can be; there is a part of my heart that I keep really, really hidden away from parenting Hope.
I think this Christmas got to that little chunk of my heart and soul this year.
Hope gave me one material gift this year, which she purchased when we were at a jewelry show together. It was so thoughtful; she has such a kind heart. I cried.
When she prayed over our Christmas delivery pizza feast, her prayer made me cry; her love for her family—all of it, first and second family—is so deep.
I went a bit hog wild with gifts this year, but her unabashed joy at an inexpensive robe from Walmart zeroed right in on that hidden away part of my heart. She wore it all night, dressed it up with jewelry, used it as a cape running up and down the hallway of the condo building, and fell asleep with it on late last night. She said, “It’s fantastic!!!” She just emerged from her room with her robe on.
I feel that in my chest.
One of my biggest gifts to my daughter was an investment account. We are by no means rich, but we are comfortable. We are blessed, but I know that my daughter hasn’t always known affluence. Sometimes it is hard for her to knit together the history of financial marginalization with the resources available to her now. I sat her down and explained to her how I would teach her so she would always feel financial safety. It’s humbling. So many of my friends and I talk about investment as a way of building wealth. We talk about being financially free. It is humbling to think of money through my daughter’s eyes and realize that this is another way I can teach her to just feel safe.
I cry both for the need to teach her about this kind of safety and that I’m in a position, blessed enough, to be able to do so.
I am overwhelmed by with joy, gratitude, love, and hope. Being Hope’s second mother is the best thing I have ever done in my life [ugly cry]. She has expanded what I know about love. She has taught me things I never thought I needed to know. She has forced me to grow even when I resisted. She has taught me selflessness. Of all the things I have done in this life, guiding her into adulthood will unquestionably be my crowning achievement. Everything else will pale in comparison.
This kid has changed me. This journey has changed me. It hasn’t always been pretty. It doesn’t always feel successful.
But there was something about Hope in that robe…that unmasked joy of a silly robe…It reached that part of my heart that I always protect for my own sanity. It opened the flood of my tears.
I love her so much it hurts.
So, I’m weepy this Christmas morning, and that’s a good thing.
Merry Christmas & Happy Hanukkah.
A Night at the Theater
Every now and then Hope and I go through this absurd production written, starring and exclusively produced by Hope to get my attention.
These plays typically occur close to major holidays, schedule disruptions or anytime Hope apparently doesn’t think she’s getting enough attention.
[Cue Sophia Patrillo Voice]
Picture it: abdominal pain, usually cramps (which can legit be a problem).
Cramps worsen and ‘spread’ to the entire stomach.
Becomes accompanied by either constipation or diarrhea; initially faked.
She works herself into a frenzy, at which point the constipation or diarrhea become legit.
Pain worsens.
Cry and moan, occasionally hyperventilating, like a bad actress in a bad horror movie.
Other side show ailments begin to emerge, including but not limited to short term amnesia, ear infections, inability to swallow, inability to talk at all, and something akin to what looks like a druggie nod.
Crying and gnashing of teeth; sometimes yelling.
[End Act I]
We’re regulars at the local Patient First; always the same diagnosis. Nothing wrong, maybe a little dehydrated. Go home, drink some water, eat some fruits and veggies.
Anyhoo, after our girl-fest weekend, I thought I’d fed the attention beast enough to sidestep her need to put on this play of Two Acts., but no, she managed to orchestrate her drama today with minimal warning.
The only warning I had was when I called to check on her this afternoon and she indicated that she didn’t know where I was; I didn’t tell her I was going to work (I did) and she wondered when I would be home.
Well, I missed my cue, because while I was at the grocery store she called in full on hysterics, yelling into the phone, moaning, screeching and vocalizing in an incoherent manner so loudly that other line-mates looked on with concern.
I tried reasoning with her, and she just couldn’t finish a sentence—she was clearly dying a quick and horrible death.
She could not get it together—not at all, so I eventually hung up.
We’ve been here before.
I set my basket down, picked up Yappy from daycare and headed home. On my way, I try to figure out why she got triggered. I also tried to control my own rage at having to “Play” this thing out with her tonight. It’s exhausting, expensive and while I intellectually get it, I find it to be over the top manipulation.
I get home to find a child who is now calm.
[Cue my simmering anger]
“Come on, let’s go to the urgent care.”
“Oh, I don’t need to go to the urgent care, I just wanted to know when you were coming home.”
“Bull sh!t, you know the drill; put your shoes on and let’s go play this out.”
Off to the urgent care we went. Somehow on the way she developed amnesia and a busted knee which brought about an exaggerated limp—gotta make the most out of this urgent care visit.
In triage, I made her tell the nurse what was wrong with her because well, this was her drama. I’m just here to pay for the front row tickets.
Lots of concern.
Blood pressure and oxygenation: Perfect:
Fever? No.
Flu test: Negative.
Blood work: Great, if not sludgy because of dehydration.
Urine: Clear.
Abdominal palpation: She flinched a tiny bit, triggering the newbie nurse practitioner to ponder appendicitis.
Meanwhile, Hope is giggling, chatty. It’s like giving a dry flower water.
No, she does not have appendicitis.
Will I bring her back to check in tomorrow?
Hell naw, this play is over.
They gave her some Tylenol (that no doubt cost $50), and handed me a discharge slip.
Something different happened this time around though. Typically this drama is so predictable…I know my lines, she knows hers. But she added some this time.
While waiting for the urinalysis she said, ”I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry for what?”
“I’m sorry I yelled at you on the phone. I just wanted to know when you were coming home.”
I did not know what my lines were supposed to be, so I had to improvise.
“Um, I told you I had a couple of errands and I had to pick up Yappy. All of the drama was not necessary. I would’ve been home soon. All of this drama is ridiculous and you know that. You could have just called me to see if I was on my way.”
“I know.”
On our way home, she apologized again.
“I know I do this over and over again, so you probably don’t think I’m really sorry, but I am.”
“I know. What will you do next time?”
-silence-
“You can just call me without the drama. This girl who cried wolf has gotten old. How will I be able to tell if something is really wrong?”
“I know.”
[End Scene]
I know she is sorry. I don’t know if she has the skills to do something different and better next time. I expect that there will be more visits to the urgent care.
What’s frustrating is that I know she can’t help it. She knows I’ll take care of her. She knows I’ll drop everything to see about her.
But her trauma brain still doesn’t know that. This is how she survived; she is how she got her needs met. I know that even though she knows on some conscious level that she doesn’t have to do this, that that primitive brain of hers will continue to put on this kind of drama every few months.
And we’ll go through the motions again and again until that hurt brain realizes I’m not going anywhere.
By Any Other Name
I had chosen names for the children I would never give birth to. I only chose what would be first or middle names so that they could be adapted to names desired by my would be husband/life partner.
Those names were so important to me; each had special meaning. Each were strong names on which my children could scaffold their identities.
And then, one day, the realization set in that I would not get to use any of those names for biological children.
Even now, writing this, the sting of quiet tears fill my eyes.
And then Hope came along.
Hope got her pseudonym from being my “Hope Kid.” When I started the blog, I had just received her profile. I remember sitting in my office, opening the email, reading the little bit of information attached and then opening the attachment to see her picture.
I immediately fell in love with her.
In my heart I felt like she was my daughter. I just knew, which was ridiculous because she was the first profile I received having just started the national search with my agency the week before.
I also knew that there were many steps to be made before she and I might be matched. I dubbed her my “Hope Kid.”
After we were matched, I started just calling her Hope in this space.
It’s turned out to be a good strong pseudonym for her. She and I are both so hopeful.
At 12, I never once thought about changing her name. Her in real life (IRL) name is unusual and lovely.
A few folks asked if I considered changing her first name.
No. I mean, she was 12 and It. Is. Her. Name. And well, Hope had lost everything else, everything, why on earth would I take her name from her too?
And she’s feisty, why on earth would I want to start our life with a fight about changing her name?
As we neared the date of our finalization, I did have to make a decision about her last name.
Sounds like a no brainer, right?
I mean, she would just drop her given name and take my name.
No.
It was her given name. It was hers. It was given to her by her parents, who loved her even if they didn’t always love themselves.
I thought about all those adoptees who talked about their birth names and the surnames of their birth family. How hard it was to find people when names changed. How challenging taking on a new identity could be.
Because Hope is an older adoptee, I had the luxury of having a real conversation with her about her name. I’d like to think that even if she had been younger, I might have come to the same conclusion because it works for us.
Hope had just assumed that I would make her change her name. She understood why I might do that. She has resolved that it was just the way of the world, or rather the way of her world. In Hope’s world, she rarely got to make decisions, she lost lots of things and well, she supposed she was just happy to be getting a forever family.
I asked her what she thought about a third option.
I asked her what she thought about just adding my last name to her existing name.
The first thing she did was write it all out and count the letters.
There were a total of 29 letters in this proposed name. Four names, two of them last names, no hyphens and 29 letters.
She asked if the name would fit on forms.
So, I cruised the internet and found a few forms that we would have to eventually fill out and printed them and let her practice filling them out.
It worked.
I asked her if taking my name would be hard for her; she said maybe. I told her that she could drop it she wanted, and just sign things with her birth name. The four-name thing would just be her “government name.” I explained the times when she would need to use it.
I asked her to think about it.
When I told folks that this third option was on the table…well, there were so many questions. So many.
Why couldn’t I just change it? Why didn’t I want her to be fully a part of the family? Wouldn’t this be confusing for her? How would this help her move on?
There was a lot of criticism.
I stayed focused on me and Hope during the whirlwind.
In the end, extending her name was our choice.
During our Facetime finalization, Hope exclaimed to the judge that her new name was 29 letters.
She continued to use her birth name for a while, and then one day, she didn’t.
I’m not sure exactly when she started using both last names, but I know that now she wouldn’t dare sign her name without both.
When her birth family found us, they were surprised that I didn’t drop their name. I think it brokered some trust with them; I had no intention of erasing her identity.
Again, I have the luxury of having an older child who is capable of telling me her feelings. I know that even during the worst of times she endured, she would leave me in a flash if she had the chance to be parented by her birth parents again.
I’m hardly a saint and I’m judgmental as hell, but I’ve also had the luxury of having my birth family my whole life. I get it and I don’t blame her at all. If I had known them before, and known what I know now, I would’ve been rooting for them.
But our paths were different, and all I can do now is honor her family by supporting her in keeping the names she was given.
Our family is stronger for it.
And what have I really learned from this part of our journey?
I learned that I’m glad that we didn’t have to make a choice based on her safety and a desire not to be found. I think this would have been so much more difficult for her if that was necessary. For her to have to change her name, her identity, to remain safe, is a whole other level of trauma. We are fortunate that we were not faced with that situation.
I learned that even though I have replaced Hope’s birth parents in parenting her, I am additive in her life. For Hope, I didn’t just replace them. I am her mother, without question, but I am her second mother. I can never replace Hope’s birth parents; I can’t erase them. Even with a name change, that history, however brief, is still a real part of her life.
I learned that Hope’s name is her name. I am honored that my name has become a part of her name and a part of her story, but her story didn’t start with me. It won’t end with me either.
I imagine that her name will change again sometime in this lifetime.
And again, it will be Hope’s choice to shape her identity.
I learned that there are various ways to integrate a child into your family.
I learned that a last name can be more than enough of a connection to a new family.
I realized just how much power adoptive parents have…to change a child’s whole name…or just to get to name a child…it is a privilege that should be acknowledged as such.
I learned that the sting of not being able to have biological children rears its head more often than I care to admit. A discussion about changing a child’s name precipitates asking what might you change it to? And then your list of dream names springs to mind…and it drags that little bee sting with it.
I learned to treasure my own name even more. I love thinking about the origins of my name and the story my parents tell me about naming me.
I don’t know that at this point in my life I will change my name even if I get married. I’ve been with this name a mighty long time.
I do know that I’ll still be ABM whatever name I chose, and that Hope will always be my Hope and joy, no matter what her name evolves into during the course of her life.
A Sad Mystery
There was a time when we would hear about police violence and people of color. We would see evidence, but without excessive documentation and a stand-up witness, it was easy for folks to just look the other way with little effort.
Today, technology has changed everything. We have the ability to capture real-time evidence of the good, the bad and the ugly.
We also have a much better idea of what happened in the absence of cameras.
The ugly part is that it hasn’t changed much. It seems that the only thing it’s changed is that we now require a bit more effort from those who are determined to look away as injustice persists.
Two years ago, in November, we learned that Darren Wilson would have no consequences from killing Michael Brown.
Last December we learned that the police who murdered Tamir Rice just seconds after pulling up in their car would not face charges.
There was a video of the whole thing.
One juror said he just couldn’t find Michael Slager guilty.
That juror looked away. When the judge heard about the hung jury days ago, he sent them back in to work it out. That juror essentially turned his chair around.
That’s a lot of effort.
And now more jurors “have questions.” #really?
And so, now, with a video that shows a man being shot in the back, there is no justice. Oh, sure, his family has already reached a settlement with the city, but the larger question of social justice…it remains unanswered.
So, how do we talk about this? Do I just tell Hope, “Ooops, they did it again?”
It really does become exhausting having some kind of hope that one day my daughter will be able to really see justice.
It’s like I’ve concluded that I won’t see it. My parents probably have only seen it fleetingly, but probably not.
What does the future hold for us?
And in the current national climate?
What should those of us parenting children of color think? What should we teach them? What will keep them safe? What will ensure they get justice if they ever need it?
It is a sad mystery.
Empty Wrappers
I have a checkered history with food. It didn’t really start until I got into college. It was a way for me to have control when I felt I had little. I went on a pretty restrictive diet, dropped 40lbs and was rewarded with positive attention, a boyfriend, and cute clothes. Of course I gained it back, but the damaging behaviors that led to all the great attention had taken hold.
I’ve struggled with food periodically ever since, well, maybe except recently.
Parenting Hope leaves limited time for my own problems.
Or rather, Hope’s problems are my problems.
Well, Hope continues to struggle with food.
So, now we’re struggling with food.
I remember years ago, when she came to visit me for the first time, she asked me to buy some gummy vitamins.
She ate them in one day. All of them.
We’ve since moved on to fruit snacks, PB crackers, granola bars, cereal bars…just about anything that you can get individually wrapped at Costco. Oh, and anything that you can put in a snack size bag.
What’s both intriguing and frustrating is how she’ll leave an empty box, but hide the wrappers in her room.
It’s irrational, like I don’t see the empty boxes, can’t see how 80 snacks are gone in a few days, or how I don’t know to just look in her desk drawers for 80 fruit snack wrappers.
I tried limiting access, but I knew that wasn’t right. I mean, this stuff is primal. It’s compulsive. It’s not just emotional eating; it’s emotional ish that’s left skid marks everywhere in her life.
So, I buy more snacks. I throw away the empty boxes. I wait until she goes to goes to school and then I go and clean the wrappers out of her desk.
I’ve tried to confront her. It’s difficult because Hope avoids conflict with me like the plague. I try to be gentle.
Can we start with just properly throwing away the wrappers?
Would you like for me to prep snacks for you so that you can pace yourself and not binge?
What are you feeling when you eat a lot of snacks?
How do you feel when you finish?
What else could we do to satiate your need to eat all the snacks?
Silence. There’s only ever silence.
The whole exchange, if you can call it that, is less than 5 minutes.
I’m not really sure how bring some resolution to this issue. I know it’s a deep seated one. I see the pattern associated with it. I understand the stressors. And yet, figuring out the puzzle piece that will redirect the behavior remains a mystery.
So, I let it go…and go back to Costco.
AdoptiveBlackMom 