Tag Archives: African American Single Adoptive Mom

July 11, 2016

Black Exceptions

By AdoptiveBlackMom

I am emotionally exhaustipated.

Hope has returned home from band camp, and we I am trying to get us back on our normal routine.  At about hour 38 this morning—not even 2 full days back home—I lost my ish dealing with Hope’s morning lag time that seriously makes me late for work every MORNING! I was an episode of Snapped and it wasn’t pretty.

I’m pretty keyed up and I’m not proud of it. Just lost in the throes of mourning, sadness, grief, and anger over recent events. I returned to work this morning and set about catching up and reaching out to colleagues in locations affected by death and protests. There is just a dark cloud of messy emotions.

Over the weekend I spent a fair amount of time on social media and ended up pruning my lists of friends and acquaintances. I typically keep the security settings fairly high on my personal FB page, only those close to me really get to see me unedited and uncensored. Amazingly, a lot of people don’t seem to bother self-censoring, editing or using security settings to do it for them.

I tend not to accept friend requests from colleagues or students, and if I do, most go on a special list of folks who get to see very little of what I post. #boundaries

So, if you follow social media you know that these spaces are still rather frenzied over the deaths of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile and the five fallen officers in Dallas. There is an enormous amount of noise.

Some of that noise included “friends” and colleagues posting all kinds of tom-foolery about the shootings. There were racist memes, pro-murder/lynching memes, articles from less than reputable “news” (I use the term so loosely here) sites about how awful those black men were. There was absence of civility for a diverse group of folks, unless of course you think you are exclusively among like-minded “friends.”

Then there were the “friends of friends” who posted all kinds of utter non-sense on their “friends’” walls, which because of their lack of privacy settings, turns up in my newsfeed too.

The trauma don’t stop, won’t stop. Ugh!

It’s ok to disagree on many things, really it is. But the willingness to spew venom and nastiness into the world is just beyond me. How angry and discontented with your life do you have to be to do that? Is that really what you want to spend time doing with your life? You’d rather post a racist meme than share a silly sloth video? #Iloveslothvideos

Hate is such a hot and bothered emotion. Meh.

As I scrolled and scrolled through newsfeeds and timelines looking at the mess, I thought to myself, “Self, what would happen if I “liked” any of these posts?”

What would their reaction be?

Would they feel any shame?

Would they think I was really that self-loathing?

Would they realize that I got a peek behind their personal curtain to see who they really were?

And what would their reaction be when we saw each other at an event or meeting?

Would they expect that we would still be cool? Did they expect me to just let it slide as a momentary lapse into episodic racism?

Or would they think that somehow I would understand that they weren’t talking about ME, because well, I’m different. I’m the exception to the rules that governed their racism.

I started slashing and burning through friend lists on Facebook and announced that I was doing so. I don’t mind divergent opinions, but I have limits on acceptable levels of foolery.

This idea that I might be different is troubling.

Do I defy their stereotypes? Do I exceed their low expectations? Is it because, well, I’m one of like 3 black folks that they know personally and so that makes me different? Is it because I can code switch? Is it because I don’t scare them? Is it because I don’t make them uncomfortable? Is it because I don’t make a big deal about their whiteness and often maleness and don’t indict them on what I see as deeply rooted, systemic racism, sexism and ageism in the community I work in? Or is it because I’m just not really black, or what they perceive as black so they can just recategorize me into the reserved space for special, super cool black folk who will take you to, and keep you safe at, the soul food restaurant when you come to town so that you can say you lived a little while you were on that business trip? #seriousprivilegeatwork

I’d like to think I’m a bad ass, that I’m exceptional. I think I’m good at what I do. I work hard; I always have. I think that I’ve benefitted from good mentoring, from good counseling, from occasionally affirmative action to just give me a much needed chance to show my work and from extensive hard work.

But the problem with being “exceptional” in this case is that it allows people to justify having a poor view of folks who look just like me. It gives folks an out when they really need to squirm on the hook.

It also puts an enormous amount of pressure on me to live up to the Magic Standard—be everything, do everything and make everyone exceptionally comfortable while doing it.

It’s impossible to do that. Black exceptionalism is not the move. #blackexcellenceistho

So no one who thought we were close enough to post something off the wall and allow it to permeate my newsfeed got a pass this weekend. Nope, not today folks, not today.

eyeroll#weaintrockingnomo

As Jesse Williams said, “The thing is though, that just because we’re magic, doesn’t mean we’re not real.”

jesse-williams

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Hard Stuff, Other Stuff

July 8, 2016

What Would They Say about Us?

By AdoptiveBlackMom

I am overwhelmed with grief and anger. My mini getaway was marred by Black and blue death. My heart actually aches.

Hope is away at band camp; she hasn’t been online in a couple of days now. I was bothered because I hadn’t heard from her, though I took it as a good sign that she was having fun and making friends. Now I’m relieved that she is cloistered away from the internet and news. I hope it stays that way until I pick her up.

It gives me a couple of days to figure out what to say to her about two more black men dying at the hands of police.

I’ve written a lot on my fears about being Black and raising a Black child in an age where the incidence of police brutality seems to be increasing.

I’ve gone back and forth on what I wanted to use this platform to say about the deaths of Alton Spalding and Philando Castile and now the officers slain in Dallas.

I don’t know what to say or even where to begin.

I can say that this is the terrorism that I am most afraid of.

I am grateful for friends of a many races and backgrounds who reached out, who commiserated, who were experiencing the same anguish I feel.

I am also acutely aware of crickets chirping in areas of my life, where nothing was said, nothing was acknowledged, or where Black humanity was seemingly ignored. #iseeandhearyou

I unplugged for a while because the anger and sorrow was just too much.

I am actively pondering what would people say about me if a traffic stop ended in my death or that of my daughter.

Would people look for a mug shot of me to use in the media?

Would people recast my diversity and social justice educational work as militant?

Would people dig into my background to find mistakes that would cast me as worthy of death by police execution?

Would people gaslight my family by saying, “Well, we don’t really know what happened; let’s wait for all the details?”

Would the body cameras mysteriously fall off or fail to record what happened to me?

Would there be anyone around using a cell phone camera that showed what happened to either of us?

Who around me would be silent about my death?

Would I be cast as the exception rather than the rule because I’m middle class, educated with no record?

What would they say about me?

What would they say about Hope?

Would the failings of her first family be used to crush her and explain why she was wothy of police execution?

Would my parental failings be broadcast widely in order to justify her execution?

How would the privacy of her story be violated, because we already know it would be?

Would they say she was troubled?

Would they say that she was angry and disobedient?

Who would stand with me as I grieved my child?

Would our deaths help the deniers get a clue about state sanctioned murder?

Would there be indictments?

Would anyone even really expect indictments?

If there was a trial how would our executions be portrayed in order to justify our deaths?

Would anyone give either of us the benefit of any doubt? Any reasonable doubt?

If there was a trial does anyone really think there would be a conviction?

Would our lives matter beyond a hashtag, some good speeches and a protest or two?

Would our deaths change anything?

Would our living have been in vain?

Have you ever had to ask yourself these questions? Have you ever needed to? Have they ever even crossed your mind?

I’m just pained, from the inside out.

12 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Finalization Life, Hard Stuff

July 5, 2016

Clouds of Sadness

By AdoptiveBlackMom

The range of emotions felt at Casa d’ABM is pretty wide. I’ve always been pretty high strung, and I’ve written about my own struggle with depression in this space before. Living with a teenager is pretty tumultuous. The hormones…O.M.G. It’s amazing, really. I am convinced that I didn’t display the full range of crazy that I was feeling during my adolescence—not that I didn’t have the emotional swings, but that I didn’t act out.

Lots of people think my parents were strict; to some degree they were, but really they set high expectations and I had absurdly high expectations for myself. With the bar so high I was mindfully cautious about acting out.

I was a bit jealous of kids who didn’t seem to approach adolescence the same way. I wished I’d sneaked out more; went to more movies I wasn’t supposed to see. I did a fair amount of boozing my senior year, but still there was a hard limit on what I would do. Not a bad thing, but a self-control thing that gave me hang ups later in life.

So, now, years later, having a teenaged daughter who is a trauma survivor, is impulsive, at times angry, and seeming always sad…well it makes for an emotional roller coaster for all of us.

Except for Yappy—world’s happiest dog.

20150816_175007

So I guess that should say both of us.

This is an especially hard time of the year for Hope. Lots were crammed into the summer months of her young life. This year the memories seem to be crushing. We get treatment, therapy, but sometimes the sadness moves in faster than a weather cold front.

And if you know anything about weather, cold fronts, hitting warm air means storms. Sometimes really, really, crazy storms.

That happens here. The storms are a bit quieter now than when we first became a family, but they are no less disruptive or worrisome.

I try to remind myself that the frequent presence of emotional storm, complete with downpours, represent that this is a safe place. Hope is able to express her full range of emotions in our home. This is a safe place to work through it all; she can emote here.

But here’s the thing, secondary trauma and compassion fatigue are real. It’s not just about loving Hope; it’s about demonstrating empathy (constantly); managing our life as a therapeutic case; navigating big and little decisions that may have triggering effects; always being anxious waiting for the other shoe to drop after stumbling over a trigger.

It is exhausting for both of us. Hope can sleep for hours and hours sometimes. I know that part of it is that her young body is run down and exhausted from fighting her own fight/flight response to life. I know the other part is just coping with the overwhelming sadness that she lives with.

On the weekends I am eager to resume my old life of running errands, hitting the gym, spending the afternoons and evenings doing something fun. I end up running the errands that I have to in order to keep the house running; taking Yappy to the dog park and waiting to see if I can help Hope get herself together. By evenings, I’m emotionally done and I don’t even feel like I’ve done anything.

We might’ve tried a new restaurant or rented but didn’t watch the Redbox movie I picked up in hopes of having some fun family time.

The reality is that a happy house is a rare scene around these parts. It’s about trying to survive and fighting to push the clouds of sadness away.

I hear that the hormonal part will settle down in another year or two; I hope so. Self-care helps with my ability to cope, but living with this level of stress is tough. It is exhausting. It is depressing.

So we both end up sharing her trauma. It ends up being cloudy and sad for both of us. I look forward to a day when it won’t be so overwhelming for Hope, that the depression she feels won’t consume her life, when so many things won’t be triggering.  When that happens for Hope, it know it will happen for me too.

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Dealing with the Past, Finalization Life, Hard Stuff, Lessons Learned, Parenting, Self Care, Teen parenting

July 3, 2016

The Losses are Real

By AdoptiveBlackMom

I never understood the gravity of real loss until I became Hope’s mother. I look back and realize that there isn’t much at all that I’ve lost in my 43 years around the sun. Sure, I have grieved for long gone family members; lost some friends. I have grieved deeply about my infertility. I’ve lost some sentimental tangible items along the way.

And certainly each of these losses have touched me and either created or smoothed my edges. But, honestly, beyond the loss of fertility, none of my losses have been earth shattering, grand scale life altering.

I am fortunate.

I am privileged.

I think about that every time I trip or kick over an emotional rock in an otherwise innocuous chat with Hope.

There is so much loss in her life; it permeates her skin, her breath, her beating heart. There are times when the memories of the loss are just overwhelming, all consuming and it’s like she watching things on a loop in her head.

I see this a lot with Hope. And I still struggle to really understand what that means, what that must feel like. I don’t know what it’s like to try to put the shred of memories in my life back together because they are like broken, scattered marbles that were dropped down the side of a hard faced mountain. #trauma

When I think about it, I mean really think about it, I totally understand why it’s so hard to get her up in the mornings. I wouldn’t want to get up and consciously ponder all those things for the next 18 hours or so either.

Hope has some summer reading to do for school; recently she commented that she had no interest in reading the books that were assigned. At my initial inquiry what was it about the books that she didn’t like, she indicated that it wasn’t really about the books.

Hope said she loved to read when she was little, would curl up with books and read for hours, but she stopped reading when she went into the system. Her beloved books were lost to her; she doesn’t know what happened to most of them. She only was able to salvage a few; they are on her book case in our home. Hope briefly talked about how some of the books were so sentimental and they were just…gone, gone like so many other things that were lost during that time.

As it turns out, sitting down to dive into a good book triggers memories of all that’s been loss for Hope.

I thought back to my various efforts to get her to read over the last couple of years. I tried everything I could to get her to read. She read a couple of things; mostly faked it, though. I had no idea I was essentially saying, “Hey spend the next couple of hours thinking about losing everything, especially the stuff and the people who meant everything to you. No, DO IT NOW!!”

I just had no idea, but now I do. I told her I understood.

I’ll still encourage her to read, but certainly with a lot more sensitivity than before.

I hope there will be a time when Hope’s life isn’t consumed about all she’s lost—not for my sake, but for hers. She’s still a little girl though (even at 15), and in reality, all the trauma wasn’t that long ago. The path to healing is a long one, with lots of potholes. I am learning to be patient with her. I’m also learning to empathize more deeply. I realize just how fortunate I’ve been in this life, and I want Hope’s life to flourish. I want her to have faith again.

To get there though, we have to wade through loss like we’re in a mud bog, praying that it doesn’t take us down. It might be all in our heads at this point, but make no mistake—it’s all very, very real.

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Dealing with the Past, Finalization Life, Hard Stuff, Lessons Learned, Parenting

July 1, 2016

Summertime

By AdoptiveBlackMom

These last few months were rough, like drag me and Hope through life kicking and screaming rough.

And then, the hassle hustle stopped. Just like that the stress melted away.

School ended last week, and we got a chance to breathe and I realized that this last school year was a doozy.

Hope started high school, rough by itself. All the academic gaps that she was able to hide became glaring. Her issues with executive function—or rather lack of executive function—manifested with a vengeance. Crushes, social anxiety and miscellaneous teen drama just made for a really hard time.

For my part, despite reading numerous blogs about how some kids who have traumatic histories and who have neurocognitive conditions really, really struggle with school, I utterly refused to accept that this might be my reality with Hope. Hope desperately wanted to be successful, and in retrospect I realize that she also wanted to please me. She worked as hard as she could with what she had and simply struggled, and it wasn’t until the last month or two of school that I began to really believe that something else could be affecting her performance.

How devastating for her it must’ve been to think she failed me over and over again. I could kick myself. It’s nothing but pride that prevented me from even considering that we wouldn’t follow a similar pattern. I am devastated that I piled on more pressure, more anxiety, more depression on to my daughter because I couldn’t bear to believe that she might have a problem beyond her control.

Although as the school year drew closer to a close, I did step my game way up in terms of advocacy and interventions, but I still could just melt away into the floor I’m so disappointed in myself that I couldn’t get past my own hangups earlier.

But, it’s a new day and I have another chance to help her and get it closer to right.

This summer I’m trying to keep the pressure light, give her lots of opportunities to be successful, to relish in that success and to help her work on developing the ability to say, “Help me please.” My girl’s pride is huge and she fancies saying that she can take care of herself. Ultimately my goal is to have fun this summer and to build up enough strength for both of us to go into the new school year more confident and armed with the tools and support that will aid success.

Today though, it’s all about grabbing some beach chairs and just chilling at the free neighborhood park movie night. #summertime

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Finalization Life, Hard Stuff, Learning Issues, Lessons Learned

June 24, 2016

Thoughts on Racial Identity Development

By AdoptiveBlackMom

I’ve been fretting lately…fretting about Hope and her Blackness or rather her racial development.

Did you know that moving from the initial stage (pre-encounter stage) of racial identity development to the second stage (encounter stage) is usually precipitated by a negative encounter around race for people of color?

In lay terms, we all are getting along peachy keen until some dingbat says/does something racist, pointing out that the brown or black kid is different and that difference is bad.

For me, this happened when I was little, before I even started kindergarten. It’s a moment that I have long likened to eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The evil is knowing that people hate me because of my skin color and might go so far as to hurt and/or kill me. The good is having this knowledge and avoiding the naiveté that might get you killed. Racial identity is built on this foundation. If you are privileged not to have to this experience then your identity as a racialized person is stunted, and your privilege is allowed to bloom, so says the research.

I know that there have been events in Hope’s life that meet the criteria that would push a regular kid to the next stage of racial development, but given all that she’s endured it doesn’t seem to have registered. So much of her development in general was negatively affected. The racial piece, well, maybe it just didn’t register when she was just trying to survive.

I get all that. I really do. That said, racial identity development then is recognized as just another area that has to catch up.

When Hope first moved in 2.5 years ago, I remember being a bit put off because all the posters of pop stars were white, with very, very few exceptions—Selena Gomez, the Black girl in 5th Harmony and Bruno Mars. Turns out there aren’t really any teeny bopper pop stars of color these days. Hope’s not really into Beyonce or Rihanna so…yeah, white kids on the wall it is.

We dealt a little while with colorism and issues around Hope wishing she had lighter brown skin. Ughhhhh, she still vocalizes this when we go shopping for tinted moisturizers (#damnmakeup).

Then I noticed she only liked white or Hispanic boys; there aren’t many Black kids in the band and only like one or two boys and ok, they aren’t her type. So there aren’t many kids of color in her social circles here; they heavily populated her circles back home, but it’s like she left it all behind.

Recently, I realized during a social outing that she deliberately avoids kids of color; she doesn’t even want to associate with them. Same with my efforts to have us “friend date” other families with kids of color. She wants nothing to do with it.

I know she struggled with my version of Blackness; I was really different than the Black folk she had previously experienced. She even told me one time that in some ways it was like I wasn’t really Black. I struggled with that, and I don’t know if it’s my perceived unicorn status or what, but she is ok with me and my bougie, upwardly mobile, educated black folk. But she doesn’t seem interested in accepting the black diaspora.

And maybe it’s too much for me to expect from her at this point. She is still healing from all her trauma, embracing Blackness as an identity is probably not even on her subconscious list of things with which to grapple.

It doesn’t stop my fretting though, as I watch my beloved Hope cloak herself in social Whiteness. Even if I hope it never happens, I know that something will happen, something that will hurt her. I hope that her friends will be wonderful allies. They are good kids, but they aren’t forced to think about the things I think about, the dangers that our color expose us to, they don’t have to think about it unless they choose to.

From a parenting perspective it’s odd; I am glad that she’s bridging some of her social challenges, but I feel some kind of way about her not having any brown or black friends and her refusal to pursue any of those kinds of relationships. I’d love to see a mix of folks in her life who love her and support her. I want her to have safe spaces—sure her White friends can offer that, but I fret that having no friends of color limits her safe spaces if and when something goes down.

Add to this, my abject horror in thinking about police brutality, microaggressions, the resurgence of laws codifying acceptable discrimination and a nation’s willingness to increasingly accept racist discourse.

I worry.

Actually, describing my emotion as worry is an understatement. I am afraid. I’m also aware that all of this has a huge impact on my own well-being. I think the current political environment has exacerbated my emotion around Hope’s racial identity development. It’s complicated. I also know that this process is a natural one; it is not something I can control. I can’t control when, where or how it might happen.

I can only be there for my daughter. That’s it.

But it doesn’t feel like enough. Hugging her tight and soothing her over what might feel like an enormously painful betrayal, just doesn’t feel like enough. Teaching her how to move past it doesn’t feel like enough. Nurturing her healing doesn’t feel like enough.

I wish I could make it all go away. I wish I could make racism all go away. I wish I could make the need for this kind of identity development vanish. I just wish I could protect her from every other thing that might make her path hard; she’s suffered enough. I just want to keep her safe.

But I can’t, not from everything.

I know that, but it still breaks my heart.

11 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Finalization Life, Parenting, Race

June 21, 2016

Being an Oasis

By AdoptiveBlackMom

I am still struggling with appropriate way of dealing with Hope’s various attitudes. Seriously, it is so dang hard to reconcile the way I was brought up with the way I’m raising Hope. I mean, I am still trying to inculcate the values and life lessons and such, but dealing with her attitudes and smart mouth remain a challenge for me.

My parents simply didn’t tolerate any of this and I didn’t expect to either. I kept my attitudes to myself, and my smart mouth was silenced until I was in my room with the door closed mouthing what I *wished* I could have said to my parents in the heat of the moment. #wishfactor

While Hope and I aren’t doing too many coordinated Year of the Try activities right now, I am plugging away at trying to parent Hope better. There is so much room to improve, so I continue to research and figure out what I can actually do consistently that will help us become closer, help her feel confident and help reduce the caustic emotions in our home.

So, here it is, here’s my latest attempt at improved parenting…Ready?

Silence.

Yeah, shutting my pie hole and ignoring the countless numerous things that annoy me. I am limiting my nagging to the barest of essentials that will keep us bug and rodent free. I am desperately ignoring outbursts that aren’t specifically directed at me or about me.  Those more personally targeted outbursts are met with an absurdly polite, quietly spoken “Please adjust your tone. I am not yelling, nor have I yelled at you. Please do not raise your voice to me. Speak to me with respect and I will do the same.”

It’s become a mantra, so to speak.

If I were to boil down this approach I would describe it largely as pretending I don’t see the crazy and if I do, I speak with my quiet “You must be crazy” voice.

Whenever I do this, Hope looks at me like I am speaking a foreign language. Seriously, her confused face is awesomely hilarious, but I don’t laugh. She has typically tightened things right up or just pulled back.

All of this has allowed me to place greater focus on speaking to her about positive things. She needs a lot of positive reinforcement; I mean about EVERYTHING. School, hair, eyeliner, toenails, boy stalking…She just needs lots of positive language.

Hope always demurs when I say nice things about her to her; she is a devotee of deflection. I know it’s because she doesn’t yet believe the nice things I say about her, so I have to say even more.

Shutting up about so much of the stuff that pisses me off has created some head space for me to focus on building her up.  And that’s a really good thing.

Oh, don’t be fooled, I am still in a state where I just stay secretly annoyed. Seriously, kids do some dumb ish and frankly, I am still a person who is easily vexed. I know it was pass though because I gotta focus on the bigger picture and that is building my kid up and showering her with positive reinforcement. I’m realizing that she’s just starving for it; she’s so thirsty that it’s killing her. When I put it like that, it’s easy for me to try to be a better oasis. She needs an oasis more than she needs anything else in the world.

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Finalization Life, Lessons Learned, Parenting, Teen parenting, The Year of the Try

June 18, 2016

She’s Got a Safe Place

By AdoptiveBlackMom

This week Hope was invited to a sleepover with a friend. She was invited to stay over a friend’s house last month, but I said no since I didn’t know the girl’s parents. This week, I did my due diligence, called the mom, had a nice chat and allowed Hope to go.

She was so excited.

So. Was. I.

Seriously, do you know what this means???????

Ok, here’s all the ish I’m supposed to say: OMG, my daughter is improving her social skills. She’s developing solid friendships. She’s being invited to parties and sleep overs. She’s finally, finally starting to blend in and find her groove socially, something that has really been so hard for her. Her social struggles, among other things, have been the source of much anxiety and depression, so I’m ecstatic about this development. Yay.

On the real, though, OMG!!!!! Hope’s social evolution also means some freedom for me. I might have some Fridays and Saturdays with Elihu and friends just cold chillin’ this summer.

Check it, last night after she happily kissed me good bye, tossing her backpack over her shoulder, striding out of the house confidently, I cabbage-patched my way to the coffee table to grab the remote. I cupid-shuffled on into the kitchen to pour myself a tumbler of red wine to go with some tortellini. I snaked my way to my beloved couch, clicked on Netflix and began what I expected to be a quiet evening with Yappy binge watching Orange Is the New Black.

dancing

I got through two episodes.

Just as I was padding into the kitchen to pour myself another tumbler of wine and smash another brownie, I got the wild hair to text Hope goodnight and that I loved her.

She called me back.

ABM’s internal millisecond monologue: “Awww, baby girl loves me! She’s actually calling me back. I bet she’s going to tell me what time to pick her up in the morning. Occasionally, she can be so darn sweet. I love this kid.”

What actually happened: “Um, hi mom. Um. I think I’m going to come home. I am not going to stay at XX’s house.”

1million

I’m sorry, what???

Wait, what? I’ve only watched two episodes of OITNB! I’ve only had one tumbler of wine and one brownie. I haven’t even put on my good lounge wear yet. Something must be horribly wrong.

No, nothing’s really wrong, the movie creeped her out she just wanted to come home.

Huh? The movie? The rated R horror movie that you insisted wasn’t a big deal and that I was being a stick in the mud about because I didn’t normally let you go, but this time I relented because you were going to a sleep over and well, horror movies are a part of sleepover culture?

That movie?

For realsies?

Yeah, that one.

Just when I think we’ve gotten all the missed developmental hoops out of the way, the one where you get scared on your first sleep away and need to go home hits us square between the eyes.

Sigh. There are just so many little landmines on this journey to emotional health and well-being that you really, just can’t catch them all. You just can’t!

There was a silver lining though.

Kids who get scared on their first sleep away want to go home because home is safe. Hope called her mommy (that would be me) and she wanted to come HOME to her MOMMY where its SAFE!!!!!

I smiled and started cabbage patching again.

It’s true sometimes when they say a setback is a setup for something better.

I was nervous about her being away. I enjoyed my evening so much, but I kinda missed just having her in the house. If she had been here she probably would’ve been in her room not talking to me, but she would’ve been here. It was strange to be in on a Friday night and not have her here. In truth there were a few mixed emotions there. I was thrilled for her and for this rite of passage, but it only reminded me that I may only have her this close for a few years before she flies off into adulthood. I want that for her, but gosh the time is flying by so dang fast. This week she will celebrate her third birthday with me. In a year she will be able to drive (I don’t know if she WILL drive, but she’ll be legally able to do so). In three years, she’ll finish high school and don a cap and gown and stride across a stage to pomp and circumstance while I cheer and use Elihu’s hankie to mop my tears of joy.

It’s just going so fast.

But Hope’s desire to come back to home base where it’s safe is so significant. Her willingness to share with me that she was scared and needed a hug is such a big deal. Her desire for me to toss some salt at her door and window (to ward off evil spirits and purify the space) and her desire for Yappy to cuddle for a while with her are all such big leaps for her, that I was happy to give up the remaining hours of my freedom.

I was happy to greet her at the door with a big smile and a warm, safe hug.

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Finalization Life, Parenting, Teen parenting

June 11, 2016

Time Ins

By AdoptiveBlackMom

Thanks to good friend Mimi, I recently started really trying to practice time ins as a consequence for Hope’s behavior. With my recent travels and surgery, I noticed that Hope was really struggling with being separated from me. Her struggles were manifesting in crazy behavior that drove me nuts when I was home and/or lucid enough to pay attention.

Interestingly, I had missed a lot of the signs that she craved more attention. Aside from doing stupid things that garnered negative attention, she was also doing things like dragging all of her homework into the living room, spreading it all out of all over the place and just sitting with me, working on the homework. She didn’t want help, she seemed to just want to be in the same room with me.  Occasionally she’d asked me to look over an essay. Sometimes she would jokingly suggest that we watch a movie or a favorite show on Netflix. Other times she seemed to simply pick a fight just to engage me. Unfortunately,  I’ve been so overwhelmed that I just missed the point. I missed the fact that my daughter missed me, even when I was still in the house.

I was talking about this with Mimi not long ago, and she said “Hey have you thought about time ins?”

No I hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about time ins.  Things have been so off the rails for the last couple of months, and all I’ve been able to manage is managing us and in an almost case-like way. Parenting hasn’t been fun; it hasn’t been fun for months. I imagine that being a kid hasn’t been fun for Hope for months either.  So I decided to give this time in thing a whirl.

We have a squabble,”Come sit next to me.”

She do something worthy of punishment: “Come let’s sit and watch a show.”

Freak out over homework?  “Hey look naked and afraid is on TV!”

Random spastic Behavior? “You know yeah Yappy loves to ride on your back; let me take video of him riding your back!”

Come here you know you want a hug; stop fighting it!

It is nice to hear my sweet Hope giggle again.  It’s nice to see her smile.  It’s nice to build a small bridge back to trust and safety.

I gotta say though it’s hard as a single parent to have so little time for solitude. When I get home from work sometimes I just want to sit and enjoy the quiet for 20 minutes or so.

That seems to be against Hope and Yappy’s religion. They don’t seem to believe in my need to take that time. This makes practicing time ins on a nearly daily basis a bit exhausting because I get very little time to just breathe.

The flip side, though, is that I see a positive change in my daughter, one that she needs probably more than my need for brief moments of solitude.  And there’s something to be said for a teenager who actually wants to hang out with her mother. As annoying as it is sometimes, I’m choosing to look at that as a positive thing because it is. It speaks to our growth and evolving attachment. That really is the best outcome: that’s what we’re striving for, to be a connected family– one that loves and trusts and one that is safe.

So time ins are where it’s at for now at Casa d’ABM.

So, anyone else using this discipline method effectively?  Is it working for you? Any suggestions? Help! 🙂

5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Finalization Life, Hard Stuff

June 10, 2016

We are Enough

By AdoptiveBlackMom

You are Enough

Parenting a child with trauma is exhausting, and often doesn’t feel as rewarding as we know it is. The return on our love and attention investments is a long-term proposition. And it isn’t about just us and our evolution in parenting, and it isn’t about finding all of the new folks that this quote suggests. It is about helping our children find themselves, their true selves. Our job is to help them realize who they are and who they can become in spite of all they’ve been through, all they’ve endured and all they survived.

And despite having so many unmet needs, as human beings and as parents, our job is to  show empathy and to help our children find themselves and their work. It really isn’t about us. That’s hard, and sometimes it’s very painful.

I hope one day I will look at my daughter and see the return on my investments. Parenting her is the greatest challenge of my life, and I learn about myself through her every day.
Some of what I learn I’m not proud of, and some of what I learn surprises me. I never would have thought I was this strong; I never would have thought I was this courageous; I never would have thought I could work this hard. I also never realized I was this weak; I was this sensitive, or that I was so easily hurt.

This journey changes you.

I hope it changes Hope too.

In the meantime, we are enough as we are.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Finalization Life, Hard Stuff, Lessons Learned

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