Babywearing. This is literally the ONLY way I was able to grocery shop with my twins (six months old in this picture.) I wore them in different ways at different ages and I hope this review of the hows and whys encourages you to look into the many different babywearing options there are out there for parents these days. They are two now and our sling is still getting a work out, mostly around the house when I’m cleaning up and with light food prep for dinner these days.

Babywearing makes life easier and more comfortable for all, keeping our little ones close while also freeing up hands. Babywearing allowed me to tend to LIFE (including my two older kids) while also meeting my twins most basic needs. The need to be held. 

As my babes got older, another benefit I enjoyed was not having to drag not one but two VERY heavy baby seats around. Using my sling was especially helpful with grocery shopping as I’d put one of my babes in the cart and wear the other.

There are many great site that will give you ALL the benefits and research behind babywearing but here are the benefits of babywearing at the top of this mama’s list:

- It’s such a fun way for baby to gain head control. Baby gains as much from sling time as tummy time in terms of strengthening body and head control. So many babies in my weekly infant massage classes do NOT like tummy time. This is a great solution as it keeps baby close to mom and still helps strengthen their neck extensors.

-Soothes a fussy baby. Babies love to be held. And so do one year olds. And so do year olds. You see where I’m going with this. Slings save many a mama’s (and papa’s) back while freeing up their hands.

-Babywearing is especially great for parents early on when dealing with colic and reflux. The sling helps create a womb like environment for baby especially those first few months. Being up on your chest, your baby can feel your breathing, hear your heart beat and gets the skin to skin contact they love. All of these things together lower your baby’s stress levels (heart rates, blood pressures and respiratory rates decrease… a good thing!)

-Held babies cry less. It’s true. The original study by Hunziker and Barr (1986) (at portareipiccoli.com) discovered an average reduction of 51% in crying and fussing during the evening hours, when babies were carried an extra 2 hours daily.

Double ring slings are my personal favorite device for babywearing because they are SO versatile. Basically, you can wear your baby in any position you can hold them in. They are good for all ages/sizes AND work for mom and dad without needing to have straps adjusted, etc.

Safety:

Be active in your use of a carrier as you would with ANY piece of baby equipment… car seats, cribs, highchairs, etc.  Check in with your babe frequently to ensure their position is safe and comfortable.
1) Maintain an open airway, avoiding chin to chest position
2) Always make sure your baby has plenty of airflow – covering a baby’s head and face can cause her to “rebreathe” the same air (not good for baby… so don’t do that.)

Stick With It:

I hear sooo often from moms in my massage classes that they gave up wearing their baby early on because they had trouble figuring out how to make the sling “work” for them. In this video I walk you through front carry in a double ring sling good for 2 to 4 months of age on up until you start to use the hip hold which I started around 5 or 6 months of age with my twins. Stick with it and hopefully you’ll love it as much as I do.

Search baby wearing in the My Mommy Manual search box above and to the right for more on this important topic!!! Here is another type of sling called the Hotsling which is non-adjustable but works well for babyearing, especially the hip hold.

If you wear your baby, tell me about it in the comment section below – why, what sling, and maybe some of the benefits you’ve experienced.

Suzanne Tucker, aka Zen Mommy hopes if you liked this article you will subscribe and/or join other mindful mamas here. To keep the lights on, Suzanne runs a holistic health center in St. Louis, Missouri with her husband Shawn. She is passionate about the connection we are and to that end offers Infant Massage, parent coaching and YogaParenting.

Tears. Puddles. Choking feeling in my throat as I just clicked on this song, written for another mother with an angel baby. Baby Jack. Taken early in his life at just nine days old.

The song moves through me. Around me. Lifts me up even as it tears me down. The pain is still there (when I allow it.) This song brings me there. My breath carries me through it.

Thank you Spirit for this beautiful reminder today of my babies in heaven.

I love you my little angels. Thank you for the gift you are in my life. For watching down on me from the other side.

As I prepare to remember you each uniquely on Mother’s Day, fast approaching, this song is for you, my five sweet baby angels. I love you each dearly.

xoxo

mom

The Other Side

i’m over on the other side
where life and death softly divide.
left my skin and bones behind
now i’m over on the other side.

can you feel me there with you?
my breath is gone but i’m not through.
loved you then and i still do
from over on the other side.

i can fly. really fly.
below the earth … all through the sky.
tell em all i did not die.
i’m just over on the other side.

it’s good here on the other side.
the sweetest songs…the bluest skies.
thank you for the tears you cried
but it’s good here on the other side.

i can fly. really fly. below the earth…all through the sky.
tell em all i did not die.
i’m just over on the other side

the world is smaller than a needle’s eye.
where life and death softly divide.
when you leave your skin and bones behind
i’ll be waiting on the other side.

i can fly. really fly. below the earth … all through the sky.
go tell em all i did not die.
i’m just over on the other side.

Credits:

DonCon: all instruments, lead vocal, high vocal at end
Ellis Paul: harmony vocals

Suzanne Tucker aka Zen Mommy hopes if you liked this article you will subscribe and/or join other mindful mamas here. To keep the lights on, Suzanne runs a holistic health center in St. Louis, Missouri with her husband Shawn. She is passionate about the connection we are and to that end offers Infant Massage, parent coaching and YogaParenting.

ma-nip-u-late [muh-nip-yuh-leyt]

verb (used with object)

1.  to manage or influence skillfully.

2. to adapt or change to suit one’s purpose or advantage.

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I manipulate my kids, especially my youngest two.

Why do I do this evil thing? Most likely it’s because, like the definition says, it suits my purpose.

I get it sounds selfish, but truly, when I consciously attempt to manipulate my kids, it’s out of love. The unconscious manipulations? That’s a different post entirely. When I act from a conscious place though, I do it to suit my needs and theirs. An adaptation or change to suit our mutual purpose and advantage. Too theoretical? Let me give you an example.

Here’s a manipulation I pull on my youngest kiddos every day about 12:15 pm. It’s how I get my two year old twins to walk themselves up our steps to their room at nap time. And it happens (knock on wood) without whining; with smiles on their little faces no less. Lest you think I’m bragging, let me remind you that I’m admitting to manipulation as the cause of this cooperation. Me manipulating my kids with a little game we like to call DORA AND DIEGO GO GUMMY-BEAR-VITAMIN-HUNTING… UPSTAIRS!

Catchy huh? Way catchier than the GET UP THOSE @#%! STAIRS RIGHT NOW! game we could be playing. More fun too.

A few months ago when my arms started giving out to the seventy pound plus challenge of carrying my duo up our stairs (usually at the same time…) and well after the GET UP THOSE @#%! STAIRS RIGHT NOW! game failed to motivate, (imagine that) I resorted to outright manipulation instead. And it worked. So much so that today as my kids marched their happy though tired little selves up the stairs, I realized, I have a MORAL OBLIGATION to share my dirty little secret with you.

Here’s a break down of my evil game, step by step, in case you want to play it too:

Step 1: When I notice it’s getting to be that (blessed) time for naps, I secretly grab two gummy vitamins from the kitchen cabinet. Hiding them in my hand, I say with much excitement, “Hey guys. It’s time to find the vitamins!”

Step 2: Next, I just stand back and watch in awe as my kids shift from whatever they were doing and begin pretending they are great VITAMIN HUNTERS.

Step 3: Next, I get silly along with them. We are Dora (my daughter), Diego (my son) and Boots (yeah, that’s me) on a GREAT adventure to FIND THE VITAMINS.

Step 4: You guessed it. The vitamins are ALWAYS found at the top of our steps (go figure?) so that is where we three head. Two year olds are a quick study. It took them all of a day to figure that’s where the gummies tend to magically appear. Now, two months later, they practically trip over each other to get up the steps and find them.

Step 5: Now upstairs, that much clower to nap time, I do a little happy dance inside… and ensure each of my brave explorers has found one of the two prized gummies I secretly hid just before they got there, at the top of our steps.

Step 6: Finally, I corral them into their room with a few good books and the promise of “bita” (their word for nursing.) After books, bita and kisses, I tuck them in their cribs and shut the door. Sleep is ours!!!

With every successfully-inspired-to-walk-up-the-steps-on-their-own passing day, I give thanks for the powers this latest ritual of ours (created out of sheer exhaustion) has over my kids. But as any good super hero would tell you  (…I’m picturing Wonder Woman) with this awesome power comes responsibility .

We as parents can cross a line and take manipulation to an evil end. But we can also use our powers of persuasion to cause our kids to “do” for us in a way that benefits all. There is no shame in this sort of manipulation. In the short term, it has our kids behaving and doing the things we are wanting/needing. And in the long run, this creative approach can inspire us to grow closer together rather than further apart.

If you find yourself in a near daily battle around an ordinary, every day part of life with your child, like getting dressed, brushing teeth, picking up… or walking up the stairs, it just might be time for you to start manipulating your kids too. What one thing is consistently a challenge in your home? What do you do with your kids that has you feeling like a super hero? And most importantly… which super hero?

Suzanne Tucker aka Zen Mommy hopes if you liked this article you will subscribe and/or join other mindful mamas here. To keep the lights on, Suzanne runs a holistic health center in St. Louis, Missouri with her husband Shawn. She is passionate about the connection we are and to that end offers Infant Massage, parent coaching and YogaParenting.

How we parent. It’s a hot topic, full of judgment as evident in the recent TIME Magazine cover article “Are You Mom Enough“. It would seem the media likes this thing called the mommy wars. The controversy sells magazines and books I suppose. But what does it do for us moms?

Below is my response to TIME and other’s in the media that wish to judge. How we are mom and WHAT is enough. Nobody gets to answer these questions for us. We, each of us, get to write our own mommy manual. And we don’t have to pick a camp when writing it.  (updated 05/10/2012)

Is attachment parenting a feminist crutch? This question was posed first by Martha in a blog post by the same name in which she reviewed an article written by Amanda Marcotte. 

When I read the post and then Amanda’s article, A French Feminist Fights the New Feminine Mystique, as a woman who values both female liberties and the philosophies on which attachment parenting is based, I felt compelled to take my thoughts further than the comment section below either would allow.

The following statement made by Amanda (and affirmed by Martha) caught my attention for the assumption it makes about attachment parenting:

I suppose it could be a coincidence that lengthy breast-feeding and attachment parenting that interferes heavily with maintaining a career came into style right as it became passé to pressure women to downplay their ambitions for the sake of men, but it just seems highly unlikely. One thing I do know is that the more conservative women of my acquaintance don’t feel the same pressure to breast-feed until their kids are talking or to keep their kids by their side at all times, even bedtime. It seems that if you live in social circles where it’s simply expected that you curtail your professional ambitions and do most of the domestic work so as to avoid emasculating your husband, the psychic need to create elaborate parenting theories to achieve the same result—woman at home, tied to the kitchen—simply vanishes.”

Where to begin? It must be said here that the reason women like Martha and Amanda are even talking about feminism and attachment parenting is because last week, the English version of French feminist Elisabeth Badinter’s book The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women was released. And so it is that my comments are not only in response to these two book reviews, but to the questions the book itself calls into being.

Let’s start with one rather large false assumption made in the quote above by Amanda, affirmed by Martha and the book she was reviewing:  that Attachment Parenting (AP) is an elaborate parenting theory created to achieve the same result as the conservative movement — i.e. to hold a woman at home, tied to the kitchen.

Sorry. You lost me at hello.

By all accounts, I am an AP mama (though I resist the label for the division it creates) but the above quote about a woman tied, seemingly oppressed by the AP lifestyle? Well, it just doesn’t describe me, and I dare to say, many other AP mamas out there.

I love the philosophies on which attachment parenting is based. I’m a big time baby wearer. I teach baby massage. I’ve nursed all four of our kids, the second until age three. I am currently nursing our 27 month old twins (no, not as I’m typing this!!!) I love the freedom I’ve enjoyed to chose to work from home a few mornings a week OR NOT, depending on where I’ve been in life, in motherhood, etc. Our kids slept with us for the first few months in a cradle by our bed and then moved, each on their own time, into cribs in their own rooms. And though I love being home AND I love to cook… I am about as far away from the  stay-at-home mom type of my parent’s day as one could be. My husband and I share in parenting. We share in household chores. This is my way on the path of motherhood. It works for me and my family in this moment. It is not a right way or a wrong way. It simply is. And it stands in contrast to the false assumption made above.

Being an AP parent AND valuing female freedoms/rights are not mutually exclusive.

There is no one right answer to the working mom/SAHM battle or the which way is the best way to parent one either. Why do we insist on thinking this is a black and white issue? Hardly anything in this world truly is.

If you ask my husband on a bad day, he might tell you he WISHED I’d curtail my “professional ambitions and do most of the domestic work”, but that’s not what he signed up for when he married me and he knows it.

I’m just not down with the idea that AP infringes on my female rights. I celebrate the many freedoms I enjoy as a woman and a mother living in the present world. Could it improve? Yes. Is AP a step in the wrong direction for women’s lib? I don’t think so.

Amanda goes on to say:

No one should have expected the path to true domestic equality for women to be an easy one. The notion that being female means self-sacrifice and always putting someone else’s needs before your own isn’t going to be something we can shrug off in a generation after centuries of reinforcement.

Is she talking about motherhood here or PARENTHOOD?! I know my husband would say he’s also entitled to stand up and be counted when it comes to self-sacrifice and valuing the needs of our little people.

What parent does not experience a shift towards selflessness post bringing a child into the world?

I’m not suggesting in parenthood that we are to give until there is nothing left, but an inclination towards selflessness? Yes. This is not a crutch. It is actually one of the greatest things about being a parent. The intensely selfless sort of love that comes over you the moment you experience your child fully in your heart, be it in pregnancy… seconds after birth or days/months after they are born into this world. A self-less love for this little tiny being that can hardly even blink. This is one facet of the love of being a parent. There is nothing wrong with selfless love in and of itself. It is a gift to be held high.

But this I will give you. Self-love and self-less love are truly a delicate balance.

Balance. This is something I’ve wrestled with and have witnessed other mother’s struggle with as well. Working moms and stay at home moms. Neither one has the corner on balancing the self and the selflessness of parenting.

Within self-described AP parents and non-AP parents alike you are going to find moms AND dads that feel they’ve lost themselves after having kids. Or maybe they know who they are, but feel they lost their relationship with their partner as a result of the extra balls parenting added to the juggling act of life. This happens. But selflessness and balance are not AP issues, they are human ones, pulling for our attention in and outside of parenthood, men and women alike. One’s self need not vanish when parenting from a place that values connection and attachment.

I value introspection and for me, that’s the thing of value Amanda’s article  called forth from me (and I expect, the book she was reviewing though it is still next on my nightstand.) Not to be offended, but to look within.

For me, all the controversy has stirred up a few worthy questions. Why do we parent the way we parent? What drives us into different “camps”? What causes all the judgement and defensiveness? The mommy-wars?

If given the opportunity, I would invite the author and Badinter herself to explore the rights of women and the implications various parenting styles have in a different light. Instead of looking at AP parenting or ANY type of parenting as right or wrong, as women, let’s examine this:

There is a lot of guilt involved in parenting. In motherhood.

Yes. A lot of guilt. And not only because we judge each other, but because we judge ourselves, which I think hurts worst of all.

Motherhood is a dance unique to each of us, unique even unto itself as each of our children ask for different things of us. I know my four have. Coming at motherhood from an AP approach supports me. But just because I am pleased with how various attachment principles live for me and my family does not mean the practices I am choosing in motherhood are necessarily right or wrong FOR YOU. Isn’t freedom, truly the permission to follow our bliss both at home and in the workplace?

I am a woman passionate about her place in the world, both in and outside the home. This is not based on whether or not I work or what parenting camp I place myself (or am placed in) so much as if I am listening to spirit in my life. Am I tuning in and trusting the still small voice that lives within me to guide my thoughts and actions? Questions like how do I manage THIS situation with my kids?!! Do I take on more at my kids school or not? Do I help my husband with this project or not? Do I make time to write, to exercise, to see friends or not?

There is no book on parenting or motherhood in which we’ll find the “right” answers. I do not get to tell you how to mother and you do not get to tell me. We each get to ask, listen and follow. (Or not.) This is a freedom worth creating for and with one another. Sure we can share what is working for us and what’s not along the way… but in the end, it is for each of us to discern our way.

As women and mothers that stand in support of female liberties, let’s shift the discussion from, “Is AP a feminist crutch?” to “How am I led to mother… and do I experience freedom and support from the world around me in this?”

Whether you are a parent that adheres to attachment parenting principles or not, I think on this one piece of advice we can all agree.

Never be so selfless in parenting as to lose your self. May you find your way on the path of motherhood filled with freedom AND support.

——-

For more discussion on Badinter’s “The Conflict” visit PhDinParenting. Annie does a great job taking on the false assumption that parenting is a mother’s domain. She has a great list of links to other posts that flesh out the many false assumptions Badinter is putting out there (in this book AND others) which I’ve paste here as well:

• Take a look at the conversation between Hanna Rosin and Katie Allison Granju on Slate, which explores some of the issues around attachment parenting as raised in Badinter’s book and which also exposes Badinter’s undisclosed ties not just to Nestle, but also the rest of the infant formula industry.

• Read the features on the Huffington Post, including Lisa Belkin’s interview with Badinter, Badinter’s own post, and Melissa Fay Greene’s response.

• Take a look at the Blue Milk post on The Conflict, but more importantly scroll to the bottom to find links to her other posts about Badinter, including Oppressed by Breastfeeding and Feminism and attachment parenting and why they’ve more in common than in conflict.

Related Articles:

How to Lose the Mommy Guilt

How to Be Enough

How to Stop Should-ing on Yourself

Suzanne Tucker aka Zen Mommy hopes if you liked this article you will subscribe and join other mindful mamas here. To keep the lights on, Suzanne runs a holistic health center in St. Louis, Missouri with her husband Shawn. She is passionate about the connection we are and to that end offers Infant Massage, parent coaching and YogaParenting.

This is a place for us to share our stories. Stories of miscarriage, stillbirth and early infant loss. Together we can loosen the grip of pain on our hearts. Together we can be hopeful.

The topic of miscarriage and infant loss is close to my heart. I’ve long wanted to make a place for us to share our stories. Because our stories are powerful. Our lives are not our own, they are for us to share. Every few weeks I’ll share a new video message with you from a mother who has experienced pregnancy loss. These stories are real and they are full of wisdom… and hope.

This week’s story comes from Carol. She has much to share with us about her experience with first pregnancy miscarriage six years ago. Her journey is a great reminder that miscarriage is not for a day, month, or even a year. It is an experience we carry for a lifetime. Yes, we can be happy again, but we will always carry that place. She also reminds us of the power of sourcing support along the way and what helped her most.

If miscarriage has darkened the door step off your heart, I am so sorry. You have the right to grieve, to question, to scream and shout. Do not let anyone dismiss your pain. It is real and pretending it is not there does not make it go away or do anyone any good.

Related Articles:

Hopeful Miscarriage

How to Hurt

How to Fall

How to Share the Pain of Miscarriage and Grow

How to Accept the Unacceptable

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Suzanne Tucker aka Zen Mommy hopes you will subscribe to receive future posts and/or join other mindful mamas here. Suzanne runs a holistic health center in St. Louis, Missouri with her husband Shawn. She is passionate about the connection we are and to that end offers Infant Massage, YogaParenting and is writing a book about her spiritual journey in miscarriage. These interviews are a part of her journey…

I’ve been reflecting on what got me through that critical first year post-divorce and after talking to a few other single moms, decided that these two things are essential. I needed peers: I cherished times that I could be with or talk to other moms who were going through divorce too — who better to understand, in a truly visceral way, what I was going through? Who could cry AND laugh with me? These women and I share a unique bond, one rooted in our shared stories.

And proof: connecting with moms who had been through it and had come out the other side was equally as critical. Because of them, I could say, “Wow! You survived!” and think, “That means, I can too.”

These women and their stories are a lifeline. Through their words, whether spoken or written to me, I’ve learned so much: that there is a difference between being lonely and being alone, that grieving is normal — not just for a person but for a life, that there things that I gave up to be married — more than I care to admit — and that I can reclaim them. Stories are the pulse, that run underneath our experiences, reconnecting me to my humanity during a time when the ground seemed to be continually shifting and I couldn’t find a safe place to stand.

But I’m still standing! And now I’m honored to serve as peer and proof to others. It’s from this humble place that I share my own stories and what I’ve learned through them here.

—
What if you could be sure a whole self and a whole life awaited you on the other side of divorce? This is a possibility offered by hopeful divorce: field notes from a friend, an online journey offers practical, soul-fortifying support to help moms discover hope, healing and wholeness as they move through divorce.

Invite Them to Lunch

I said to a friend the other day, “I’m having my demons over for lunch. Would you and yours care to join me?”

I figure if I’ve got them, demons I mean… and I do, I might as well get to know them better. My friend couldn’t make lunch that day, but it sparked a great conversation and ultimately led to this post.

All this focus on examining my demons started after a soul searching night spent listening to Paul Coutinho speak in St. Louis, Missouri. Paul is an incredible speaker, the author of How Big is Your God, Just As You Are… and lucky for me, spends half his time in his homeland of India and the other half teaching theology at St. Louis University.

What was the topic of his talk you ask? For me, it was all about l-o-v-e. Paul shared a number of compelling ideas, but the part of his talk that intrigued me the most was when he encouraged us to make friends with our demons.

On this night, I had an ah-ha moment. In his simple way, Paul’s words brought home to me the idea that we, each of us, are mystics NOT in our strengths… but in our weaknesses. I wish I could insert a pause. I’d have one here. It bears repeating.

We are mystics in weakness and through weakness, we grow.

My friend Practical Mommy is a mystic when she looks at her demons and calls them out by name. She’s a mystic when she looks to her divorce for the wisdom and growth it offers. You go girl.

Practical Mommy has got the right idea here because our demons require us to know them. They do not like to be ignored. More than that, I would go so far as to say, they demand our love. There’s that word again. Yes, L-O-V-E. The better we can know, love and accept the motley crew of traits and tendencies EACH and every one of  us have, the better we can BE loving.

Our demons can only ruin things for us if we keep them hidden in the deep dark basements of our souls. Instead, let’s move them into the light where we can see them. Let’s invite them over for lunch because they are an important bunch to know. It’s not in spite of our demons that we grow, it is through them.

So how can one come to love one’s demons? It starts when we welcome them as friends, and take the time to get to know them. I’ve been spending time with mine. It typically goes something like this: “Oh hello control-freak, come on in! Hey self-doubt, grab a seat. Welcome back fear-of-not-having-or-being-enough, missed you!” These are my weaknesses. My fears. My demons. And they are also my greatest opportunities for experiencing divine wisdom and love. Instead of fighting or denying them, I’d like to call them out by name. I want to set a place for them at the table that is my life. They are all a very real part of that which is me. If I can’t love them, then I can not love me.

Today look at our dark sides. Have lunch with our dark sides. Love our dark sides. And in doing so, let’s be reminded of our light. Let’s experience the fullness of bliss and the greatness that lives within each of us even in, especially in, our weaknesses. Let’s remember always, whether dark or light, we are love. This is who we are. It’s our birthright, so let’s claim it!

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How to Accept the Unacceptable
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Suzanne Tucker aka Zen Mommy is co-creator of My Mommy Manual.com and co-owns a holistic health center in St. Louis, Missouri with her husband Shawn. She practices as a Certified Educator of Infant Massage and health education teacher. Certified in a number of healing life education approaches, Suzanne offers parent coaching one on one and through YogaParenting, an eight week online course helping parents create more joy and less stress.

… is that it’s one of those topics no one wants to talk about — like Suzanne’s miscarriages, like Heidi’s Postpartum Depression (or any sort of depression). It’s hidden under shame. It’s filed under F for failure. It’s a blemish on your permanent record — broken marriage, broken family, broken home.

Here I am, a blogger, writing and sharing for and with other moms for the last three years and not once have I addressed the subject of my divorce directly! I’ve often thought that I don’t want to use this space to throw myself a big pity party but instead, focus on the ways that my experiences can be helpful to other moms. For this reason, I’ve shied away from the subject, because I just didn’t trust myself to bring both honestly and growth to it until now. And to be honest, there were times when either the circumstances or the things I learned about myself through them were just too raw and painful.

What changed?
I’ve met other divorced moms. And moms going through divorce. And moms considering divorce. I have gotten phone calls or DM’s from people I barely knew, who wanted to talk about their struggles or meet for coffee. I listen. I tell them my stories. I am sure to say, “This is my story — it’s not pretty. It’s not comfortable. It’s not easy. But I couldn’t NOT do it, and I’m here. Everyone’s story is different and whatever decision you make is the one that’s best for you. Regardless, know that you’re not alone.”

To reinforce this message, I was drawn as if by fate, to connect online with three other divorced moms who are also talented authors and artists. Each are spiritually-oriented women and loving mothers who have made the conscious decision like me, that for themselves and their families, divorce was the best option. We discovered the treasure of each others’ stories… on the phone, on skype, via email and during a long soul-nurturing weekend in St. Louis. What we discovered through sharing is that we were learning more about ourselves through this ongoing journey of divorce, and this gave us a different perspective on the whole matter — a more hopeful one.

Although each of our narratives of marriage and divorce are different, there are common threads: we all have experienced a powerful and healing reclaiming of self. For us, the end of marriage marked the beginning of a new chapter of personal growth, renewal and integration. Often enough, I have shared this idea one-on-one with other moms. I feel it is time to share this supportive message with all the others (the 6.9 million moms in the U.S. alone) who are going through this important and often unexpected transition.

So for the past six months, I’ve been processing the best way to share my own divorce story — in a way that brings to light the lessons that have been incredibly transformational for me and also at the same time respects the privacy of my ex-husband and our children. I’ve decided to take tentative steps in this direction, to share my reflections here more regularly. If this subject hits home for you, I’m so glad you stopped by and hope you visit again.

I have also collaborated with Sage Cohen, Jen Lemen, and Jennifer New to create Hopeful Divorce — field notes from a friend, an online guided journey that offers the possibility of hope, healing and wholeness through divorce.

If this idea — hopeful divorce — speaks to you, whether because you are already a divorced mom, currently divorcing, or struggling in your marriage, consider Sage and Jennifer as your guides. If you are a friend to someone going through divorce right now, you could buy her a gift certificate to Hopeful Divorce.

The Details…

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Great Day St. Louis episode of the Tucker family’s experience of repeat miscarriage.

xo Suzanne and Shawn

Miscarriage is important. It matters.

If you’ve miscarried and we met, I’d ask you about it. If you felt like talking, I would listen, and if you felt like listening, I would talk.

I am a mother of nine, four from age two to eleven and five that earned their wings before birth. I think sometimes we’re scared to ask other women about miscarriage for fear of hurting or offending them, and we’re scared of talking about it for fear of looking like we’re not handling it well. But there is power in sharing our lives. Our miscarriages are worth thinking and talking about, honoring and remembering.

I know it can hurt. I’m embarrassed to admit how much I hurt. Miscarriage blind sighted me. Especially that first time. I knew something important was happening in the way of spiritual growth and that I was supposed to be paying attention, but I wanted to fight it with everything I had. When one miscarriage turned into two and then three, I thought, “My GOD, I got it! What EVER you are wanting for me to KNOW, I GOT IT! Stop with the life LESSONS already!” They didn’t stop

My next pregnancy, what would become my fourth miscarriage, was my hardest. It’s like I thought if I held my breath or willed it with everything I had, that this time, I would hold my baby. Smell my baby… I ached for it. It was only when we’d made it into the clear of my second trimester that I started to loosen the grip I’d had on life. And then, I miscarried. Our baby took flight and left me with a heart full of pain.

I’ve felt more negative emotions than I thought humanly possible because of miscarriage. Shame, blame, sadness, guilt, anger, pain, fear, emptiness, shallowness, jealousy, embarrassment, confusion, resentment. Paints a nice picture, huh? But I have. I’ve felt so many things. Way more than I thought I was supposed to feel. Maybe that’s where the embarrassment comes in. But I’ve also known that my feelings are valid and so I’ve done my best to allow them. I thought that somewhere in all the hurt there HAD to be some healing. I hoped so anyway.

Life brought me to my knees. It was quiet down there. And still. It was from this place I could heard Spirit’s voice in my life the clearest. I heard many things, but mostly, life and Spirit were inviting me to begin to accept. And not only to accept miscarriage, but life as a whole. The picture of me resisting things in my life both big and small came into sharp focus. I began to see my need to hold on tight to life and in seeing it, I began to hold on to letting go instead.

One of the things that Spirit whispered to me was this. I am not the circumstances of my life. I am love and I can love this day.

And love that day I did. It was the morning before what would be my fifth miscarriage. There were no outward signs that my baby was leaving, but inside, I feared it was time to say goodbye. I woke up and the peace I’d experienced all pregnancy long was replaced with panic and dread. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me because I had an ultrasound the next day, I thought. I didn’t look forward to ultrasounds anymore. They had become the bearer of bad news. I prayed for peace that morning and these are the words that came back to me. They were gentle, and clear.

I had gone to the park for a walk instead of work that morning. I wanted to tune in and trust, but all the noise in my head was making it difficult. My instincts told me I needed to get quiet. Maybe if I went to the park for a walk, I could get a grip on the fear that had a stronghold on my lungs. It was working. As I walked, my my breathing returned. I soaked in the cool November air and the crazy gorgeous colors the leaves were turning. Everybody walking by me was so nice. “Hi!” they said. “Good morning!” I walked and I breathed, and in that moment, I felt peace. All my earlier concerns were gone, and I was at one with the world around me in.

It was then as I walked, feeling so much love and aliveness, that a voice inside me spoke. “See mom. You are not the circumstances of your life” the voice said matter-of-factly. “I could be in heaven or in could be growing inside you. Either way, you are love. You can love this day.”

Words from my newest angel I thought. And peace I received. I was as full of peace as I’d ever been.

The next day we went to our ultrasound and it confirmed what my heart had already known. Goodbye my baby angel. You are so precious to me. Thank you for opening my heart.

This week, Virginia Kerr from KMOV Channel 4 interviewed me for this morning television segment on miscarriage. She has experienced miscarriage… only five weeks ago… and is taking time to be with her’s in a very open way. She shared with me that so many people have opened up to her about their stories of miscarriage since she blogged about her own. That’s it right there. When we share what is most personal, we are sharing what is also most universal.

I cried yesterday, the day after Virginia interviewed me. I was just driving down the street and it hit me. Talking with Virginia stirred something up within me, even now, all these years later. And I’m crying a bit now, as I write to you. Each time we share, a new level of healing is there for us.

If you have been through miscarriage and would like to share your story with me, I’d be honored. I am recording these interviews and plan to share our stories with others experiencing miscarriage in the form of a book. Together, we can remind people healing through miscarriage of what they already know somewhere deep inside of them, that their miscarriage matters. That it’s important to take time to think and talk about their experience with miscarriage.

Here are the questions I plan to ask in case you would like to reflect on them as well.

In your experiences with miscarriage:

What happened? How did you feel? How did you grieve? How did those around you feel and grieve? How did your experiences affect you spiritually? What was your greatest challenge with miscarriage? What, if any, was your greatest gift or life lesson?

That’s a lot of questions, I know. You are not meant to answer them all now. These are questions for you to be with over time. If you’d like to be interviewed, please email me at tuckersuzanne @ sbcglobal (dot) net and we can look at them together, or feel free to comment about them or anything else that is on your heart below. You can see the videos from other moms I’ve talked to here, on our page called Hopeful Miscarriage.

Blessings to you on your journey, and thank you from MY healing heart for listening.

Related Articles:

How to Hurt

How to Fall

How to Share the Pain of Miscarriage and Grow

How to Accept the Unacceptable

Hopeful Miscarriage
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Suzanne Tucker aka Zen Mommy is co-creator of My Mommy Manual.com and co-owns a holistic health center in St. Louis, Missouri with her husband Shawn. She practices as a Certified Educator of Infant Massage and health education teacher. Certified in a number of healing life education approaches, Suzanne offers parent coaching one on one and through YogaParenting, an eight week online course helping parents create more joy and less stress.

There is nothing like parenting to hold that mirror up to a grown person’s face (to my face, to your face…) and show us where we get to grow. Apparently I get to grow in patience and acceptance because these two keep showing up in my dang mirror. They were there yesterday, staring out at me. I recognized them right away.

My eight year old walked into the living room and saw it first. Instead of screaming at the horror she alone was witnessing (which, thinking back to being eight, could have been a fun thing to do) she ran to find me in the kitchen and broke it to me gently.

With big eyes and a shocked look on her face she said, “Mom, you are NOT going to like this.” She paused for dramatic effect. I froze and braced myself for impact.

“You are really going to freak out.”

Grateful for the cue, I realized in that moment that I already was freaking out. A quiet, still sort of freaking out, but a freak-out just the same. I took a deep breath, unglued my feet from where I’d been standing and prepared myself for the worst. Quickly, I walked into the next room wondering what could have happened in the last five minutes.

Who was I kidding. Anything could have happened. It had been far too quiet since I’d broken away to wash some dishes. My older two kids had been doing homework and my two year old twins had been playing on the floor beside them.

Parent or not, most human beings would agree, mindful living is a challenge and takes practice. And here’s the good news for us parents (or not so good news, depending on how you look at it) by definition, being a parent means we are going to GET a lot of practice. It’s part of the job description. Being a parent help make our lives a-parent to us. Every day. The laundry, the fighting, the whining, getting out the door in the morning without having a heart- attack or biting someone’s head -off, AND all the magical moments that fall in between. It’s in those sweet moments where your five year old comes down from snuggling with dad and announces “Snuggies are what life is all about.” Or when your three year old says, “Mom, snow is quiet.” We are teaching our children, and they are teaching us.

I get it. I get being mad. I get feeling frustrated. But back to the idea of spanking as discipline, to hit a young child in the name of teaching, this notion strikes me as both misdirected and ineffective.

Spanking denies both parent and child the opportunity to learn and grow from whatever trigger life has just delivered. And as life is persistent in it’s desire to help us grow, it’s going to keep on delivering (maybe through our kids or maybe somewhere else in life) until we figure it out. Why not stop to look at whatever it is we are upset about and allow the moment to teach us, even as we teach our children?

When there’s misbehavior in young children, more often than not, it is in the parent’s behavior, not the child’s, where a solution can be found. I’m not saying the parent of a child misbehaving is bad or wrong or even to blame. Take this instance with my little guy and the markers. It is what it is. I wasn’t in the room, the markers were out and the coast was clear. My two year old grabbed his favorite color and the largest canvas he could find. If you think about it, how fun would that have been? Why would a two year old whose j0b it is to explore the world around him, touching, pushing, pulling, tasting, climbing and jumping his way around the planet NOT do this? That might be a more logical question.

If I was a parent that believed in spanking, I might think that “sparing the rod” in this circumstance would be deny my son a learning opportunity. I might fear that I’m spoiling my child. Other people, well meaning family members for instance, might even tell me I am. Let’s look at this line of reasoning a little closer.

Is spanking an effective form of discipline? Could it have taught my son that markers belong on paper, not couches? I don’t think so, and here is why. Our true parenting power lies not in a quick swat on a child’s backside, but in taking a long, hard look at ourselves, the environment our child is in and other factors that contribute to their behavior. That’s a big statement, I know, but before though-st protest, let me make the case for it.

People seem to get where their true power lies in changing, correcting AND creating desirable behaviors when it comes to their pets. Just watch any of the pet shows where the pet expert is called in to help a pet owner whose dog is acting out. Who gets the training? The OWNER. They are taught to be consistent, to show love, to set boundaries, not to hit, not to yell, to reward positive behavior, to ignore, replace or otherwise correct negative behavior.

We’ve just described the basis for conscious parenting, but we were talking about our dogs.

Image from petsclan.com

Research on learning and brain development shows us that what’s good for Rover is also good for Bobby and Susie. Our power lies in love and connection, not force and fear. How can I say this? Studies show human beings learn far more from positive reinforcement than negative. In the face of fear, thinking moves out of the cerebral-cortex and into the brain-stem. The fight or flight mechanism takes over and no learning occurs. This is what happens within the brain of a child getting spanked. Fight or flight.

Spanking doesn’t teach. It might deter, but if we want to teach a child right from wrong, rather than spanking why not deliver the lesson in a way that the child can receive it? Why not teach to the thinking part of their brain?

If we as a society can understand how effective positive reinforcement is with our pets, surely we can make the leap to accepting positive reinforcement as superior to negative techniques, such as spanking, in parenting.

Back to my teaching moment. It didn’t take much for the light bulb to go on in my son’s head. I imagine it went something like this… “Mom took the marker away. She said “all done”, over and over. She moved me away form the couch and then wiped away all my cool circles. She sat me at the table and got out the markers again. She showed me where my marker belong. On paper. She gave me a marker and let me draw on the paper. I get it!”

Even as green swirls were taking over my once tan leather couch, the idea of parenting as a spiritual path jumped into my head. What am I needing to learn about today? Ah yes. It’s my old friends patience and acceptance. Come on in guys. Have a seat. Pick up a rag and help me scrub these circles off the couch.

In times of domestic chaos when I am near my edge it helps me to remember that I am indeed on a spiritual path. The spiritual path of motherhood. This realization alone helps me. It helps me pause, take a deep breath and wonder with each new day of skinned knees and blowout diapers, what is here for me?

Connection rather than spanking. Connection, first to ourselves and then to our children, a true gift for all as we grow along the spiritual path that is parenthood.

Spanking doesn’t work for the child, for the parents, or for society. Spanking… creates a distance between parent and child, and it contributes to a violent society.

- Doctor Sears

Related Articles:

How to: Attachment Parenting and Self Love

How to: Parenting with Boundaries… Peacefully

Zen Mommy Minute: Beautiful Boundaries

How to Parent Soul to Soul

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Suzanne Tucker, aka Zen Mommy
In addition to mommy-ing to two magical girls born in 2000 and 2003 and twins born in February of 2010, Suzanne co-owns a holistic health center with her husband Shawn in St. Louis, Missouri  where she practices as Certified Educator of  Infant Massage and health education teacher. Certified in a number of healing and life education approaches, Suzanne offers parent coaching and is the co-creator of the Yoga Parenting approach to positive parenting.