yesterday, when the monkey and i drove through kosciusko, mississippi, i said to my three-year-old-turned-captive-audience, “monkey, your great grandfather was from kosciusko.” i said this with full awareness that if  i had told him that oprah is from kosciusko, he’d have the same reaction, which was, “oh.”

a couple of hours later, when we passed through jackson, i said, “monkey, your great grandmother was from jackson.”

 i explained that he was named for these very special mississippi-born relatives, and then, in order to spark some interest where there clearly was none, i began to launch into stories about my beloved maternal grandparents.

i told him all about the time they took my brother and me to el chico’s for dinner and the waiter dropped a giant beer on my granddaddy’s head. suddenly, there were gales of laughter coming from the back seat. i told him that my grandaddy once worked really hard to build a giant tent on the beach for our family to play in. being an avid tent connoisseur himself, the monkey’s eyes widened. i told him about my spend-the-night dates with these grandparents that involved pancakes in the morning and sharing the bed with my grandmother on the nights preceding. we would stay up late, and she would tell me stories about her life and her relatives and about my parents’ childhoods and courtship. i loved these stories.

so i don’t know why i was surprised when, on two different occasions and after the passage of hours, the monkey pushed the stop button on his video and said, “tell me some more stories about your grandma and grandaddy, mommy.” and so i did.

i have read to the monkey and practiced with him his letters and numbers. i have potty trained him and tried (rather unsuccessfully) to teach him to share. but yesterday, i had the distinct sense that i was passing along something more important than all of those things. so much of enduring and enjoying this harsh and beautiful world depends our our ability to appreciate and tell a good story.

i began to understand the power of story when i read about vicktor frankl’s holocaust experiences in man’s search for meaning. surrounded by death and defeat, frankl kept his spirit alive by crafting a redeeming a narrative about his purpose in the world and the manuscript he would live to publish. we can make sense of our lives any way we want to. we can construct that stories that inform us in any way we choose. this process is what frankl called, “the last of human freedoms.”

 i experimented with this when my husband was diagnosed with a chronic illness, and i found that indeed, we can keep our spirits alive by choosing narratives that infuse our lives with meaning and purpose.

so today i am remembering with great fondness the one who sparked in me the love of a good story. what a privilege it is to pass along the last of human freedoms to her little namesake.

[the source for this post can be found on the bibliography page located on the sidebar to your right.]

i think it is very telling that the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM), the giant tome published by the american psychiatric association to aid mental health professionals in diagnoses and treatments, is revised regularly, in part, to reflect changes in our culture.

in other words, there is an evolving cultural consciousness that helps determine what sorts of behaviors are disordered and what sorts are not. and perhaps, more importantly, sometimes societal norms change to CREATE new disorders.

without further explanation, here is my letter to the american psychiatric association, suggesting that they consider adding a new disorder to the upcoming DSM-V:

dear american psychiatric association,

my name is mary allison, and in many ways, my life is a reflection of today’s motherhood and vocational trends for young(ish) women. i have a hard-earned master’s degree and two long-awaited small children, a part-time job in the world, and a full time job in the home. these conditions have led me to the following pattern of disordered behaviors, called  maternal part-time hybrid disorder (M-phD) from here on out. please consider adding M-phD to the DSM-V.

overcommitment: as one who suffers from M-phd, i commit myself to too many work-related projects in order to compensate for my fear that my four-year masters degree and growing passion about my work will forever lie dormant.

vanderbilt divinity school graduation with my friend maria

self-applied pressure: because my full-time work in the home means that my presence in the working world is abbreviated, i feel that my vocational output must be of exaggerated quality to make up for its lack of quantity.

failure to live in the moment: i have come to measure the worth of my days by the amount of work i have accomplished, which is silly when my days are full of soft, curly, wiggly embraces.

the above behaviours produce an array of symptoms ranging from feelings of inadequacy, guilt, and the permanent “storage” of junk under the couch.

i would greatly appreciate any strides your esteemed association could take in the diagnosis and treatment of M-PhD.

sincerely,

mary allison

• where is the monkey going to school next year?
• where do you live?
• do you work outside of the home?

these are just examples of the myriad questions moms encounter weekly in conversation with one another, all of which require nothing more than a one to two word answer. but far be it from me to offer up a curt couple of words and move on. i find myself launching into laborious explanations about why i have made particular choices; acknowledging the negative associations with the institutions, locales, and lifestyles at hand; and making careful assertions that i am not a summation of my child’s school, my neighborhood, and my mode of working.

but why do i do this?

apparently i am not alone. ayelet waldman, author of bad mother, recounts a conversation she had with a complete stranger in line at a local bakery. waldman is feeding her six-week-old baby with a bottle, and the stranger chides, “breast is best!” waldman then tearfully recites the litany of her breast-feeding woes, not the least of which is caused by her baby’s palate abnormality:

“all this i told the woman standing in line behind me at the cafe. i told her how i had weathered plugged ducts and breast infections; i showed her that the milk in that very bottle was colored a faint shade of purple from the gentian violet i’d been applying to treat a brutal case of thrush. to establish my breast-feeding bona fides, i even told her how especially traumatizing my failure to feed this baby was, given that i’d successfully nursed three children, one for nearly three years” (61).

sometimes i gush forth with too much information because i am trying to convince myself that i’ve taken the better path. sometimes i over-speak because i feel as if it is my obligation to give a thorough answer so as not to appear dismissive. and sometimes i simply want to be known on a deeper level than one can glean from the categories offered by our world.

but no matter what my reasons are, my explanations are a bit ridiculous.  it exhausts me to speak them, so listening to them probably makes people wish they could will themselves into a coma.

in the next few months, i’m going to enter into a little experiment. i’m going to try to resist the urge to insert words where there should be silence. i’m going to try not to control how i am perceived by others. i am going to allow for a little mystery to surround me where there was once a tumultuous sea of language.

if you see me in line at the bakery, babbling on to a stranger about how i’m not going to explain myself because i have given up the tedium of explaining myself, you have my permission to shove a baguette between my poor, jabbering jaws.

[the images displayed above are “wordles” created of the onslaught of language people encounter when they ask me simple questions.]

[the source for this post can be found in the bibliography page located on the sidebar to your right.]

first name: Mary

age: 27

current city: Denver, CO (hometown Memphis, TN)

living situation: I live with my (soon to be) five year old son, Wally, and my boyfriend, Jeff. 

occupation: As of now, I’m a mom and student. My photography degree is collecting dust. I hope that medical school is in my near future.

how do you structure your time and space? For the first years of marriage and motherhood, I found myself feeling guilty for wanting personal time and space; I thought the world would stop if I took 90 minutes of the day to enjoy myself in a yoga class.

Now that I have broken that bad habit, I never feel satisfied with what I choose to do in my free time. There are so many things to be done! Even if I spend half the day cleaning, I can think of a million things I could have done instead. The worst is when I am playing with Wally, and I feel like I should be doing something else. It’s really not fair for him or me. I haven’t quite figured out how to manage MY time. Taking in each moment and being thankful for each moment is what I am working on.

One of many things that I tried giving up for lent was bad thoughts. It’s really easy to let those thoughts in when I am having a bad day or am overly tired, but I have made a conscious effort to acknowledge those thoughts as just thoughts and let them pass. This helps me enjoy the moment that I am in. I’ve started trying to meditate for 30 minutes in the mornings and evenings. In the morning meditations, I allow my “What-Ifs” and “Shoulda Woulda Coulda’s”, to come in, just to give those thoughts a time and place in my stream of consciousness. The evening meditation is MUCH more difficult; I try very, very hard to let all thoughts go in one ear and out the other. If I don’t allow myself that time, I will spend hours in bed over-analyzing everything!

We recently moved to Denver, and Wally’s schedule was changed the most. In Durango, he was in a full day preschool program. Now, he is in a part time play-based pre-kindergarten program. I wish he were in a longer program, but I am always amazed at what he teaches me at the end of the day. I hope he will be going to an expeditionary style school next year, which uses the teachings of Outward Bound. (I think it is especially tailored to high energy boys.)

I feel best when I am elbow deep in some concoction I’m making in the kitchen. I spend most of my day in the kitchen. Cooking presents so many possibilities! I am working on perfecting mozzarella right now for our pizza nights, and I’m trying my hand at crackers.

I am seriously considering going to medical school. This notion has been a small voice within in me for years, and it has only gotten louder. It has taken me years to gain the self-confidence to own this medical school dream. I’m older, with a child, and I know I want more children in the future. Is it okay to sacrifice a few years of being the active kind of mother I am now? Whethor or not I could cut it in medical school is no longer the question. Now it’s about deciding what I really want for my future. Is it really possible to have it all?!

using the metaphor of seasons to describe the phases of women’s lives,

-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? A challenge in this season is accepting that it takes time to regain structure after a change. In our recent move, I had hoped that all would fall into place and that things would calm down. I guess they have in some ways. I do have a much clearer idea of how I want to live out the rest of my life, what I want for my family, and how I want to spend my time.

-What season(s) preceded this one? Before my current season, I had seven years of hibernation and feeling lost. I built a cocoon around myself and let things happen without being fully engaged (marriage, giving birth, moving across the country, getting divorced, finally finishing school, finding my love, and moving again). I am just now realizing that I was probably dealing with depression while living my life at warp speed. I never felt like I had a grip on things. But, life has finally slowed down (or I am getting used to warp speed), and things are much clearer. I wouldn’t change how my life has panned out; I’ve learned a lot and still keep discovering parts of myself. Where I am currently in my life feels perfect! I feel like I finally have a handle on everything!

-What season(s) might your future hold? Full fledged spring: a time of growth, renewal, a new spring in my step, and shedding skins.

Favorite family activity/activities: Friday night is pizza-and-a-movie night. I make enough pizza dough for about 4 pizzas. Some nights, friends will come over, and other nights it’s just the family. I really love that we have made a family tradition into it and that it is an open invitation for our extended family to take part. Wednesdays are breakfast-for-dinner nights. I love those nights, also. 

favorite solo activities: imagining, creating, reading, taking in the sunshine, gardening, and being quiet

sources of inspiration: My grandparents. My grandfather was a doctor, but never let go of his creative, artistic side. He currently has a wood workshop, and he had a metal workshop and a darkroom for many years. My grandmother has a painting studio.  My grandfather loves digital photography and Photoshop, and neither of them has ever put down the paintbrush! My biggest issue with figuring out what I want to be when I grow up is finding that balance of left and right brain activities. My grandparents are the epitome of that balance.

Wally is also an inspiration to me. I would not be the person I am today with him.

Jeff keeps me grounded. I have an enormous amount of friends and family who offer 100% support to every, single idea that I have. Jeff offers that same support but he knows me well enough to know when one idea probably isn’t the best (law school, for example). 

My mom was a pioneer makeshift mom. Some of her makeshifting may not have been the best ideas (see below). She never seemed to be worried about the latest trends in parenting.

best MakeShift moment: I’ll tell you my worst! When I was in kindergarten, my mother would send me to school with a bottle in my lunch box. My brother was bottle feeding, and I guess my mom didn’t have any drink containers for me. I would get made fun of by the sixth graders! I called my mom everyday saying I had a tummy ache. Lesson learned: Don’t send elementary-aged children to school with bottles!

If I am making dinner and Wally is bored, I’ll give him a bowl of water with food coloring and expired herbs, he’ll spend hours making potions and spells.

I do most of my school reading on the toilet, while Wally is in the bathtub. When he was younger, he never had a real crib (just a pack and play), or his own room, or a chest of drawers. He lived in the living room and his clothes were in a little nook on the bookshelf. We also didn’t have a chimney, so for Wally’s first Christmas, I drew and cut out a chimney and hung up stockings on the faux fireplace.

[if you know someone who would make a good “mothers of invention” feature, check out the nomination process detailed on the sidebar pages to the right.]

i read karen horney’s book, our inner conflicts, when i was a 25 year old hospital chaplain and divinity school student. i had the painful and liberating experience then of seeing my personality spelled out in its pages. now, as a 33 year old mother of two, i see myself again in horney’s theories.

essentially, she explains that part of being human (or say… being a mother) is having to manage conflicting ideas and difficult choices. these things produce a natural anxiety which can be addressed in healthy ways or in a number of unhealthy patterns or neuroses. one such neurosis is “the formation of the idealized image.”

this way of dealing with life’s complexity and the darkness within ourselves involves “creat[ing] an image of what, at the time, [we] feel like [we] ought to be. conscious or unconscious, the image is always in large degree removed from reality, though the influence it exerts on [a] person’s life is very real indeed…. if the focus is upon the discrepancy between the idealized image and the actual self, then all [we] are aware of are [our] incessant attempts to bridge the gap and whip [ourselves] into perfection. in this event [we] keep reiterating the word ‘should’ with amazing frequency” (96,98).

i believe monday’s mother of invention, jessa, captured this notion more succinctly with her proposed motherhood book title, get a grip: stop shoulding all over yourself!

as a young adult, my ridiculous standards had to do with academics, body image, and being admired and adored by all. thankfully, i don’t feel so tied to these notions anymore. but motherhood comes with its own set of ridiculous standards that we often simultaneously despise and reinforce, both consciously and unconsciously.

i must confess that a couple of days before last christmas, i decided that i SHOULD sew each of my children the perfect pair of christmas pajamas. i did this partly because i love to sew but mostly because i had this picture in my head of my children opening their designated christmas eve packages, gleefully donning their new jammies, waking up in style on christmas morning, and beaming from head-to flannel-clad-toe as they posed for photos in nests of gifts and wrapping paper.

as you can see, the SHOULDS won, as they often still do.

but karen horney gave me the invaluable gift of being able to at least recognize (and sometimes even in the present moment) whether i’m being driven by my true self or some neurotic, culturally-informed idea of who i SHOULD be.

maybe there is hope for me yet. maybe there will come a glorious day when mothers everywhere stop shoulding all over ourselves. this is an idealized image i’m going to hold on to.

[it’s not too late to enter the “billboard bag” giveaway. also, the source for this post can be found in the bibliography page located on the sidebar to your right.]

if there is one thing that sets contemporary motherhood apart from its historical roots, it’s the element of choice. though finances often remove from the equation issues such as working outside of the home or staying home full-time with the kids, a perplexing maze of options still abounds.

cloth or disposable diapers? breast milk or formula? let the baby cry it out or rush to his bedside? organic food or regular? the traditional vaccination schedule or an alternative? buy him the video game or hold out? enroll her in competitive soccer or stick to rec league? give him a car when he turns 16 or let him ride with teenaged friends? set the curfew at 10:00 or midnight?

according to psychologist and author of the paradox of choice, barry schwartz, “researchers have found that as choices proliferate past a certain point, people tend to get overloaded. they have increasing difficulty making decisions and end up less satisfied with the choices they do make. they are likely to experience regret over their choices, even those that turn out well, because they can easily imagine that other options may have turned out better. they develop unrealistically high expectations about the results of their decisions, and when decisions disappoint, as they almost always do because of those high expectations, they blame themselves. all of this can result in stress, anxiety, and unhappiness.”

in our brief three-and-a-half years of parenting, my husband and i have made our fair share of choices, all of which seem small now that we are trying to decide up on a preschool/elementary school for our older child. and, in keeping with schwartz’ observations, our expectations are sky high. not only do we want our little monkey’s mind to expand in a setting that is not over-structured, we want to meet dozens of fellow parents that will instantly become our new best friends!

but at the risk of becoming stressed, anxious, and unhappy, i do not want to part with the choices available to me. there must be some way to enjoy the freedom and agency involved in decision-making without drowning in a sea of options. to that end, here are some ideas i’ve come up with regarding choices:

1. i’m going to try to part with (or at least pare down) my expectations. let’s all have a moment of silence as i begin to let go of my notion of dozens of instant new best friends.

2. i’m going to… well… MAKE A CHOICE about which decisions in life merit serious attention. in other words, i’m not going to lose sleep trying to decide what color flashlight to give a three-year-old for his birthday.

3. this is my favorite: befriend people who are smart and informed about all the possible parenting decisions and copy their choices. yes, this is how my husband and i purchased our car seat, selected a pediatrician, and devised a sleeping schedule for our infants. thank you gretchen, anne, and sharon, respectively.

4. go with the easiest option: let your small children make their own decisions because you have no more energy for such things. this is how the monkey came to eat donuts for lunch today, for example.

okay, so number 4 is clearly absurd as a regular parenting principle but you get the idea…

[the source for this post can be found in the bibliography page on the sidebar to the right.]