How Animal Planet Ruined My Kid for Life

AKA

Yet Another Bad Mommy Moment

I’m a relatively intelligent human being.

I feel the need to stipulate that fact before I tell you this story.

I feel that need because I worry that you will think that I am the antithesis of intelligent after you read this.

Indeed, this is probably one of those stories that a weaker person would keep to herself. After all, if the world doesn’t know you are clueless, are you really clueless? Still, I’ve decided to share it because so many of you have thanked me for allowing you to feel normal. If nothing else, I can use this moment for good—to make the rest of you realize that you are better parents than you thought you were before you read this post.

I also feel the need to tell you that, as a health writer, I am well aware of the research about kids and media. I know all about how televisions, video games, the Internet and cell phones are melting their eyeballs, giving them all sorts of learning disorders, and fattening them as if they were Thanksgiving turkeys.

I know all of that, but I’m a self-employed working mom, and I’m not blessed with kind of income that would allow me to afford a live-in Nanny.

Therefore, when I have a humongous looming deadline, I have been known to do the unthinkable, which is this: use my television to baby-sit my child.

There. I said it.

But that’s the least of the story. There’s more. A lot more.

This has been a busy workweek for me. I’ve been writing with a “your deadline was yesterday” deadline. I was falling behind and needed some extra hours to catch back up.

So, last night, I asked my daughter if she wanted to watch TV while I worked.

There was a nice show about sharks on Animal Planet. My 5 year old loves sharks almost as much as she loves Star Wars (more on Star Wars in a second). So I turned it on.

My computer is in the same room as the TV, so it’s not as if she was completely unsupervised. I mean: I was right there.

Sort of. It must be said that when I write, I get really focused, so focused that my husband could completely disrobe and do 100 jumping jacks and I would not notice.

So focused that Hugh Jackman could walk up to me, offer to give me oral, disrobe, and do 100 jumping jacks and I would not notice.

When I write, it’s as if the rest of the world does not exist. It’s just me and my keyboard.

That’s why I didn’t truly hear my daughter when she told me that she needed me.

That’s why, when my brain picked up the faintest hint of the words, “Mommy, I need you,” I said what I generally say when she asks for my attention and I’m not really paying attention to what she is saying. It was this: In a minute.

She asked again. I said “in a minute again.”

She whined, “It’s been more than a minute.”

I said, “I just need one more minute.”

She said, “But Mommy! I’m scared.”

I said, “Yeah, right.”

I felt one of those prickly sensations on the back of my neck, the kind that you get when someone is staring at you. I looked up. She was standing there and tears were running down her face.

I looked at the TV. For some reason the nice show about sharks was not playing. Instead it was a show about what happens when some clueless human being like me gets the bright idea to sneak into the animal enclosure at the zoo.

A woman was holding onto a rope. People were trying to hoist her out. She was screaming. A polar bear was eating her rear end.

I thought, “How do I turn it off? How do I turn it off? How? How? Where’s the remote? Where is that stupid thing? Where? Where?”

I finally turned it off.

I hugged her. I apologized for being the worst mother in the entire universe.

She said, “When I tell you to sit next to me, I really mean it!”

I told her that I was sorry. Again.

And then I let her watch Phineas and Ferb to take her mind off things.

The very next morning, she asked if she could watch You Tube on my computer. I agreed, but this time I was smarter. I stood right next to her as she clicked on various videos. I’d learned my lesson.

She found a video that someone had taped at Disney World. It depicted various Star Wars characters dancing to music.

It was as rated G as rated G gets. I decided it was safe to take a bathroom break.

While in the bathroom, I heard her yell, “Can I watch the next video that has a dancing Storm Trooper?”

Assuming that it was a part 2 of the Disney video, I said, “Sure honey.”

After finishing in the bathroom, I headed right back to the computer. I found my daughter watching this video and imitating the dance moves. If she teaches this dance to her other kindergarten friends, I’m toast.

After all of that, I can understand why you might not trust my judgment, but I feel the need to tell you this anyway. I recently did a podcast with Corey Allan at SimpleMarriage.net and Gina Parris of GinaParris.com. It was about how to have sex after marriage, among other things. You can find it here.

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You think I’m being sarcastic, don’t you? I’m not.

She’s the next female feminist role model, not to mention the female superhero for every Geek, Nerd, and Out-of-Place-Feeling Person in the entire world.

If you don’t believe me, just you wait and see.

In the event you have no idea what I’m talking about, let me back up a tad. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the bestselling crime novel by Swedish author Stieg Larsson. I don’t normally read crime novels because I like to think of myself as above all of that. Thrillers, crime novels, mysteries and romance novels are to book snobs what box wine is to wine snobs. They are so easy to read that one feels as if one is cheating.

Therefore such books cannot be devoured in public.

That said, I also rarely read books by foreign authors because the long foreign sounding names and the varied cultural differences make them a tad, em, too hard to read.

Just being honest.

But I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – which is both a crime novel and foreign—because my friend Julie Roads told me that I would love it.

And I trust Julie’s taste in books.

After about 100 pages, the long funny-sounding Swedish names stopped slowing me down. And then I got completely sucked in.

I’m not even going to attempt to summarize the plot for you because it would ruin everything. What I will say is this: this is not your typical crime novel. The hero and heroine are actually real characters who could exist in real life. The villains are real villains who could exist, too. As a result, the book is creepy, scary, and engrossing—because you completely bond with the main characters and you completely believe that the villains are right there in your living room about to torture you to death.

The movie debuted a few days ago in Florida and will play in most theaters starting March 19.

But it played in my living room last week.

That’s right. I got my hands on an advance copy DVD because this blog is part of a scavenger hunt designed to promote said movie. (See the end of the post for more about the hunt). And, yes, I’m bragging about it. I got to see a movie before anyone else got to see it! You must understand what an anomaly this is. I JUST saw Slum Dog Millionaire two weeks ago. I saw Million Dollar Baby earlier this year and Annie Hall not long before that.

And I still haven’t seen the Godfather.

Or Titanic.

See? That’s why I feel special, as I’m usually the last person on the planet to see anything.

But I was one of the first to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

And so was my husband. My husband usually only watches action, horror, and dumb guy (defined as anything with Will Ferrell and/or farting jokes) movies. When I told him that I wanted to watch a foreign film with subtitles, he told me that he was feeling sleepy and was thinking about going to bed. It was only 8 p.m.

But then he caught a glimpse of a lesbian sex scene. He sat right next to me for the rest of the movie. Unfortunately for him, there was only one lesbian sex scene to be had. But there were plenty of really scary parts.

But I’m not going to tell you about those because I don’t want to ruin it for you.

I’m just going to tell you about Lisbeth. She’s tiny. She dresses in black. She rides a moped. She has about 6 nose rings. And she can swing a golf club and hack into a computer like nobody’s business.

She also has a huge tattoo on her back.

Whether or not you think that her tattoo looks like a dragon might depend, in part, on whether you’ve read the book. Case in point: after the movie ended, my husband asked, “So who was the girl with the dragon tattoo?”

The makeup crew might want to do something about that before the second movie comes out.

Anyway, despite the fact that her tattoo doesn’t look like a dragon, Lisbeth (aka The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo!) is my new imaginary heroine. She’s mesmerizing.

She’s smart.

She’s strong.

She kicks ass.

She overcomes some major hardship.

She sticks it to a misogynist. And I mean that quite literally.

Just thinking about her makes me feel as if I can do anything.

She is the next Lara Croft, but better. She makes geek and nerd and misfit and small boobs seem ultimately cool.

Read the blog about the movie.

Learn more about the movie,including when it will be playing near you.

Join the Dragon Tattoo Blog HUNT - an Internet wide scavenger hunt tied to the feature film launch of bestselling book The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Win great prizes – free movie tickets, books, movie soundtrack, posters and more. To join the contest, start at the beginning of the HUNT by visiting www.dragontattoofilm.com/contest for full details and the first clue. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is in theaters near you starting March 19th.

THE NEXT CLUE:

Like they say, it’s all in the family. In Dragon Tattoo, there are some good eggs and some really, really bad ones. This blogger, Mr. Eastman, kept his first genealogy database on 80-column punch cards, thankfully, he now has an online genealogy newsletter.

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In this free e-book, you’ll learn some of the strategies I used to turn my Mr. Good for Nothing into my Mr. Good for Something, including ten Relationship Rules.

Toward the end of my 4-month marriage improvement project, I read a book that suggested I get to know my husband on a deeper level by asking him about the meaning of life.

Before I go on, I’m just curious. How many of you think that’s a swell idea? Don’t read on until you’ve decided. Really, don’t. Just think about it. Good idea or bad idea? I’d really love to know what you think. And if you read on, my story will bias you. So think about it. Then read on.

Whether you thought about it or not, this is how my meaning of life discussion went.

Me: What’s the meaning of life?

Him: Beer.

Me: No, really. Be honest.

Him: Yes, really. It’s beer.

Me: I don’t know why I stay married to you.

See? It didn’t get us anywhere. Maybe we should have smoked a joint first.

Oh, man, there I go again—putting things out in cyberspace that are going to bar me from ever working in corporate America again.

Although the Meaning of Life Question did not help me grow closer to my husband, I do like the idea behind it. I like it for two reasons.

1. Part of what attracted us to our spouses all those years ago were those long telephone talks and late night discussions. Do you remember those? You could not get enough of each other. And you felt so special and adored because your spouse kept asking you question after question. Didn’t you love being listened to? And didn’t you love learning about your spouse? I know I did. Yet, if you are like me, then those heart felt discussions stopped somewhere after you discovered how you each lost your virginity and before the birth first of your first child. If you are like me, your conversations eventually were reduced to one-word answers, grunts, and surface talk about the weather and your bank account balance. Yawn. Boring. Midlife crisis waiting to happen, right?

2. During a lifetime, people change. Your spouse is not the same person you married. You are not the same person your spouse married. If only you could find a way to unlock the mystery of one another! You’d have something interesting to talk about! Just imagine it. You could fall in love with each other all over again. Dinner would suddenly become the most exciting part of your day!

The problem, of course, is two fold. One, you need to have faith in the idea that your spouse really is an interesting human being who is capable of talking about things other than the weather. Two, you need to ask the right questions, ones that will stimulate discussions about all of those things you still do not know about one another.

What to Ask

Here are some questions that might work for you. Please report back and let me know if you tried them and how it went, as I’m supposed to talk about “Conversation Starters for Conversation Starved Marriages” on TV in a couple weeks. Ladies: please know that I put all of these questions through the Cave Man Test. In other words, I asked my husband whether or not he would answer them, evade them, make a joke about them, or refuse to answer. He said that he would answer every single one of them. By the way, he said he would not answer the question, “What most embarrasses you?” so I suggest you stay away from that bombshell.

1. Is there anything you are afraid to tell me?
2. If money were no object, what would you do for a living?
3. Heck, if money were no object and you never had to work a day for the rest of your life, how would you prefer to spend each and every day? (Note: my husband said he would answer this, but he said the question was rather long. Speak slowly and shorten as needed.)
4. Do you have any regrets? Is there anything you wish you could do over?
5. Why did you fall in love with me?
6. Why do you love ________? (For instance, “Why do you love riding your bike?”)
7. What would make life no longer worth living? (Note: when I asked my husband this question, I was convinced that he would tell me that life would not be worth living if he could not ride his bike. Instead he said, “My penis could fall off.” See? That was interesting! I had no idea!)
8. Is there anything you want to do before you die?
9. What’s the hardest thing you ever accomplished?
10. Of what are you most proud?

Postscript: I happened to read “Sweet Romantic Pick Up Lines That Work” at ItMightBeLove.com as I was thinking about this post. I realized that most of the pick up lines double as conversation starters for married couples. They’re worth checking out. But please know that I have not put any of them to the Cave Man Test. So tread carefully.

Do you have any conversation starters that you’d like to share? Have you ever talked about the meaning of life? If so, how did it go?

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In this free e-book, you’ll learn some of the strategies I used to turn my Mr. Good for Nothing into my Mr. Good for Something, including ten Relationship Rules.

I’ve Lost a Great Mentor, and This is My Tribute to Him

Earlier this week, I got the news that Jeff Bredenberg—a colleague, mentor, and man I’ve greatly admired—had died of a brain tumor.

Immediately I thought back years—nearly 20 years in fact—to the day that Jeff interviewed me for my first post-collegiate job. I interviewed with him in 1992, during the first George Bush recession. Before interviewing with Jeff, I’d applied to nearly a hundred newspapers. I’d been rejected from all, including a newspaper in the middle of nowhere in Texas. That paper was situated in a town that had no running water—in a town that was plagued by a cholera epidemic.

With so many qualified newspaper reporters out of work, getting a job seemed impossible. So I’d talked with a couple journalism majors about going to Prague post graduation, where we dreamed of living in youth hostels and surviving off the income we received from working at the one English language newspaper there.

Out loud, I said it was my dream. Out loud, I even said that I didn’t want to find a job, because Prague seemed so much cooler.

In reality, the idea of traveling to Prague scared the crap out of me. Where would I live? How would I earn enough money? What if I didn’t know what anyone was saying?

Truth be told, I’ve never been one of those interesting US citizens who has the courage to live in other countries like Prague. No, I’m a regular everyday person who likes to live in places she knows—where everyone speaks her language and where the comfort of a good hamburger is never far away.

So when the News-Journal, a paper where I’d completed two internships, advertised an entry-level position for a community reporter, I applied.

You must understand that, at age 21, I was quite the nervous little bundle of energy. With my hands shaking, my voice an octave or two higher than normal, and sweat on my brow, I showed Jeff one clip after another. I showed him clips from my internships at the News-Journal, from my internship at the Pueblo Chieftain, from my days at the student run college newspaper, and even from my time at my high school newspaper.

It was a rather large pile of newspaper.

In my nervousness, I knocked that great big pile on the floor.

Jeff helped me to pick it all up. And then with the kindest expression on his face and with a twinkle in his eyes, he asked, “Are you a little nervous?”

There was no sarcasm there. His tone of voice was one of compassion.

With a head tick and full body tremor, I answered, “Just a little.”

He said, “There’s nothing to be nervous about. You have the job. You had it before you sat down. Congratulations. You’re hired.”

He shook my sweaty hand.

For the next few years, I worked with Jeff at the News-Journal. Then I followed him to Rodale, Inc., where we both worked in the books division. He recruited me to work at Intelihealth.com after that, and I almost followed him there, too. But, at that time, I had a seriously cush position as an editor at Runner’s World magazine. They paid me to run a marathon in Hawaii. Who would give that up?

Jeff and I both went freelance around the same time, and, as freelance writers, we worked on some projects together, too.

At his memorial service, I only knew two other people, but I soon realized that we all had something in common. We all had known the same Jeff. I knew Jeff as the quirky guy who described the experience of appearing on the Rachel Ray show as, “a hoot.” The scouts he led described him as a quirky guy who woke them each morning of a camping trip by singing, “Zippity Doo Dah.”

I knew Jeff as the guy who always seemed happy, no matter what was going on in his life. His closest friends and neighbors said he even faced death with a smile. Indeed, Jeff, an author of a popular how-to book series called “How to Cheat at____” started writing his final book after his diagnosis. It was to be called, “How To Cheat at Death.” He never finished it, but he read a portion of it during a service he designed for himself about a month before he died.

As I listened to so many people describe him, I wondered whether I had ever thanked him for hiring me for that first job and for being so kind during the interview. I could not remember.

I thought about other people in my life—people who are still of this world. Had I thanked them? Had I told them how much I’ve admired them? Had I told them how great they are?

Or had I kept these feelings to myself, under the flawed assumption that they would still be around another year or 5 or 20?

Do I take people for granted? Does my inherent shyness prevent me from being effusive and telling people how wonderful they are? Are there some people, like Jeff, whom I see rarely and, by default, I rarely remember to thank, until it’s too late?

Why does it take the death of someone I love for me to wake up and realize that life is fleeting?

I don’t know the answers to those questions. What I do know is this. I am going to try my hardest to learn two lessons from Jeff’s life.

1. I will strive to be more like Jeff. Like Jeff, I want to honor the goodness in others rather than fixate on their faults. Like Jeff, I want to help and mentor others whenever possible. Like Jeff, I want to take on life with bemusement. Like Jeff I will cheat death by facing this terminal illness called life with my all.

2. I will live each day as if it’s everyone’s last. I will not wait until it’s too late to tell others how much they mean to me. I want “I love you” and “thank you” and “you are awesome” to be phrases that I use several times a day. I will use these phrases with my husband, my daughter, my parents, my siblings, my friends, my colleagues, and the random people I encounter wherever I go.

What have you learned from the passing of others? How have you honored the memory of those who you’ve loved? What are some things that we can all do to remind ourselves of fleeting nature of life? How can we motivate ourselves to continually live each day as if it were the last day we all had to live? Let me know your thoughts.

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I might be the only woman in the world who did not finish Elizabeth Gilbert’s famed Eat, Pray, Love. I did read the Italy part of the book, and part of India, too. And that much of the book affected me in a major way. For instance, before I’d picked up that book, I’d thought Italy was overrated. It was the place where everyone else went. Therefore I did not need to go there. No, people like me? We went to unusual places, like South Africa and Iceland. We did not go to Italy.

This summer, I will turn 40. Thanks to Gilbert, I’m going to celebrate that milestone by going to Italy—Tuscany to be precise—so I can take some cooking classes, not to mention eat a lot of fattening food and drink a lot of wine. I suppose I’ll have to eat a cream puff in Gilbert’s honor as well. I don’t know how I’m going to fund this trip. But I do know that it’s going to happen.

Before I picked up Eat, Pray, Love, it had never occurred to me to write about my life. My life? BO-RING. That’s really what I thought. But Gilbert’s voice was so fresh and so fun and so something that it made me think, “Maybe I could have as much fun with my writing as she is having with hers.” Now I blog and I have a memoir coming out in January.

Indeed, the half of Eat, Pray, Love that I did read changed me.

I suppose the half that I didn’t read might have changed me even more had I not gotten bored in India. At some point after reading about meditation and floor scrubbing and that Texan guy, I closed the book, put it down, and let it sit for months.

That book sat unloved for so long that I eventually felt sorry for it. I gave it to my mother.

I don’t know if she ever opened it.

What I do know is this. People tell me that I should not have stopped at India. They tell me that I really ought to have kept going. They say that Indonesia is the best part of that book. They’ve even said that my life will be forever incomplete unless I resume my reading and get to the end of the book.

I found this intriguing. Wouldn’t you? So not long ago, when I noticed Eat, Pray, Love on my mother’s bookshelf, I asked her if I could have it back.

I put it on my bookshelf. There it sat.

And it sat there for months as I read other novels, other memoirs, and other self-help books.

Then a friend mentioned that she’d always wanted to read Eat, Pray, Love. I gave her my copy. The book deserved to be loved. Maybe she would give it the love that I had not.

Alas, I am still Indonesia deficient.

But that did not stop me from buying and reading Committed, Gilbert’s follow up to Eat, Pray, Love. I bought it for two reasons. One, it’s about marriage. I write a marriage blog. Duh.

Two, I have developed a wicked crush on Elizabeth Gilbert. If I were a lesbian, I’d be stalking her.

The crush started long after I didn’t finish Eat, Pray, Love. It started about a year ago, after I watched Gilbert’s TED lecture about trying to write a book after one has already written the biggest book one will probably ever write. I laughed. I cried. I commiserated.

I wanted to get in her pants.

And I began looking forward to her upcoming work with bated breath. I planned to read Committed and then write Gilbert, telling her, “It’s a fantastic book. You worried all this time for nothing. It’s even BETTER than Eat, Pray, Love. I didn’t even finish Eat, Pray, Love, but I finished Committed!”

And finish it I did. I finished it in just 1.5 days.

Committed is based on the year Gilbert spent coming to terms with the fact that she had to marry Felipe, who, had I read to the end of Eat, Pray, Love, would have already been familiar to me as the Brazilian guy she meets in Indonesia.

Gilbert had to marry Felipe because he was not a US citizen. Homeland Security barred him from ever entering the US again unless he married Gilbert.

Gilbert spent a year traveling through Southeast Asia with Felipe as the two waited for attorneys in the US to take care of the essential paperwork that would allow the two to marry. As they traveled, Gilbert fretted about the meaning and purpose of marriage. Could she possibly do it again? Would a legally binding marriage destroy their relationship? Was she cut out for marriage?

Oh, she had a lot of questions. How can one know for sure that one will not cheat on one’s spouse at one point in the next 60 years? Why do some people have affairs and others stay monogamous? Is it possible to love just one person and only one person for life? What is the difference between infatuation and love? Is there really a way for a woman to marry a man without losing a big piece of her self in the process? Why do some people fall out of love?

Her questions led her to interview women who lived in the small villages in Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. She also interviewed her mother, her friends, her sister—basically anyone who might have a take on the meaning and importance (or lack there of) of marriage. She read philosophical texts, historical texts and religious texts.

As I read, I found myself staring into space and thinking deeply about the many questions she raised. I imagined myself sitting down to beer and a slice of pizza with Gilbert. I would soothe her fears by telling her about my bad marriage gone good. This is what, during that imaginary meeting over pizza, I told her:

Elizabeth, yes, you might lose a part of yourself during marriage. Yes, you’ll probably have to compromise. Yes, you might one day find yourself doing things for him that you never in a zillion years thought you would find yourself doing. For instance, you might one day find yourself nicely folding his tightie whities and putting them in a neat pile in his drawer. Yes, you the intelligent, creative career woman might do that. Indeed, marriage changes a woman. But in exchange for whatever parts of yourself that you lose, you will gain something in return. Marriage, in its healthiest essence, is a partnership—it’s a business partnership, a child rearing partnership (if a couple chooses to spawn), and it’s a spiritual partnership. It’s about two people growing together and sacrificing together and supporting each other.

Elizabeth, let me tell you this. Five years ago I worked like a dog so my husband could start a business.  Would I have done that had we not been married? I don’t think so. Lately, he’s been doing 80 percent of the household chores because I’ve been focused on my career. Would he do that were we just living together? I don’t know for sure, but I kind of doubt it.

Elizabeth, marriage allows you to take greater risks.

Marriage gives you the security you need to help each other chase down dreams.

In marriage, two halves do not make a whole. But two wholes can add up to a greater sum than two.

This, of course, doesn’t happen in all marriages. In some, the opposite takes place. In some, two halves remain two halves that are glued together by co-dependence. In others, two wholes add up to two wholes that have nothing in common.

But, Elizabeth, Felipe sounds like a wonderful husband who is a complete person. And you sound like a wonderful wife who is a complete person. Because of this, I know that your 1 plus 1 will add up to more than 2. It might not add up like that today or tomorrow, but it will eventually add up to 2.5 or 3 or possibly even 4. And, when it does, you’ll understand what marriage is all about. Trust me.

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How to Stop Nagging Your Spouse

Last week’s Marriage Improvement Monday gave you a strategy for forgiving your spouse of past indiscretions. Someone rightly asked in the comments, “But how do I forgive my spouse for something he’s doing right now—and keeps doing over and over again?” I’m glad she asked.

You can’t forgive until you see a change in behavior, and you can’t see a change in behavior until you ask for one.

But then, sometimes, even when you ask for a change in behavior, you still don’t seem to get it. So you resort to nagging. “Could you PLEASE vacuum the floor? I’ve already asked you 10 times!” And nagging usually leads to one thing: you planning your spouse’s funeral.

My Story

I went through this with my husband with two issues. One was housework. The other was The Voice, and the way he talked to me as if I were stupid. There was a time in my marriage when I didn’t think either issue would ever be solved. There was a time when I thought that I’d be doing 90 percent of the housework for the rest of my life. And I thought he’d be talking down to me for the rest of my life, too.

But now neither is the case. Although he certainly regresses every now and again, we’ve addressed both issues. The rest of this post explains how we did it.

Pick One Grievance

You probably have 2 or 3 or 168 issues that you’d like to solve in your marriage but, for now, pick just one. Discussing more than one issue at a time is not only overwhelming, and it sets you and your spouse up for failure. Your spouse is probably capable of changing one small aspect of his or her behavior in the short term. She or he probably isn’t capable of changing 60 million aspects of it.

Explain How the Problem Affects You

It’s important not to blame here. As soon as you go down that “you are a bad spouse because you do this” road, your spouse will check out. Therapists will tell you to talk in “I statements,” which are great if you can pull that off. I never could. Trying to talk in “I statements” made talking seem too dang hard, so I almost stopped talking all together. Instead, now I just try to explain how a behavior affects me. Sometimes I don’t even mention the behavior. I just state a problem.

For instance, about housework I might say, “I’m stressed and overwhelmed right now. I wish I could spend more quality time with you and Kaarina, but I just can’t get on top of things. Could you help more with the housework? I was thinking that we might all work on it together at the same time. Like every Sunday morning we all do housework together until it’s done.”

Actually I did say that, and that is what now we do.

About the talking down to me, I said, “Sometimes when you talk to me, I feel like you think I’m stupid.”

My husband had no idea. He really didn’t. He felt horrible that he’d been affecting me that way and he promised to stop.

Create a Code Word

Now, your spouse is going to regress. Expect that. And understand it. It takes an enormously long time to change a bad habit. If you are a parent, you already know this because you know just how long it took to, say, teach your child not to whine at the dinner table. Also, think about any self-improvement you’ve done in the past. Have you ever tried to stop gossiping or to stop lying or something else? Then you know it took a very long time before you completely stopped. You regressed a lot.

Your spouse will, too.

The irritating problem with regression, though, is that you will start to feel like a broken record, saying things like, “You agreed to do the housework and now you are sitting on the couch watching football!”

That’s why you need a code word, code sentence or code phrase regarding this change in behavior—and you need your spouse to know what it is. When I was trying to get my husband to stop talking down to me, my phrase was, “Please don’t talk to me like that.” Toward the end, when he hardly did it at all, my phrase was “you did it again” with a playful smack on the ass. It was just enough to help him see and correct the behavior, but not so much that I felt as if I was nagging.

With the housework, it was, “Can you help me with this?” and “I could really use some help.”

Reward Your Spouse

Too often in marriage, we function only with punishments. He doesn’t do the housework. You decide that you no longer wish to have sex. She nags you about the housework. You decide to ignore her because she knows you hate it when she nags.

After a while, the punishments fail to motivate.

Instead, switch to rewards. Whenever your spouse does what you’ve asked, say, “Thank you.” If appropriate, offer a hug. Or a kiss. Or the beauty of your naked body.

Be Patient

This is important. People don’t change overnight. Keep reminding yourself of that. Try to notice the positive changes and forgive the backsliding. Eventually, you’ll solve this problem and you’ll be able to tackle another one.

Let me know how it works for you.

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I also grew up knowing the story of my mother, about how, not long after my birth, she was driving one day and thought, “I should just drive the car off that bridge and get it over with.” Then her milk let down and she thought, “Okay, I’ll nurse her, and then I’ll kill myself.” Then something else happened to occupy her attention, so she told herself she would take care of that, and then she would kill herself.

The story became known as the day my mother could not find the time to kill herself.

My mother and my grandmother had all of the classic symptoms of post partum depression, don’t you think? But when, roughly 6 years ago, I filled out that intake form that every pregnant woman fills out, I checked “No” for the question that asked, “Do you have a family history of post partum depression?”

At that time, I didn’t know I had a history because I didn’t understand what post partum depression was. Had the form asked me whether any of the women in my family had attempted suicide after birthing a baby, I would have answered, “Yes.”

But no one asked me that question.

So, despite the fact that I am a health writer, it never occurred to me that I was at a higher risk of getting this disease. And when I suffered hot flashes after my baby was born, I blamed it on fluctuating hormone levels. And when the rage erupted–causing me to scream at my husband, the dog, my mother, and yes, even my own baby—I blamed it on sleep deprivation.

And when I came so close to shaking the life out of my baby one night because of that rage, I blamed it on displaced anger. The person I really wanted to shake was my husband—because he was sleeping peacefully and I wasn’t.

And by the time I was fantasizing about driving my car into telephone poles, I just wasn’t thinking much of anything. The ability to suss out normal from abnormal? I no longer possessed that.

It wasn’t until years later, when I was reading a book called The Female Brain that I finally realized what had been wrong with me. The book’s author described post partum depression in a way that gave me pause, because it was as if she were describing me.

Discovery Health Channel will air a documentary next week about this important topic. It’s called Post Partum Nightmares, and I’m one of the women interviewed.

When I learned that the documentary was airing next week, my first sensation was one of embarrassment. I thought, “Oh my God, now every single person in the United States is going to know that I am a bad mother.”

Yes, that was my first thought. Indeed, post partum depression leaves behind a sense of shame and failure that can be quite hard to overcome. Until I had a baby, I’d experienced nothing but success. Then, I had a baby and I felt like a failure. I had no idea what I was supposed to do with a baby all day long. I didn’t know what my baby wanted when she cried. And, some of the time, I just didn’t want my baby anymore.

How could I admit that to anyone? I felt so shameful about those feelings.

But that’s precisely why I agreed to participate in the documentary, why I’m blogging about it today, and why I’m planning on giving a presentation about it to a large regional hospital. It’s my hope that the show will start an open discussion among women and their doctors. It’s my hope that it will help mothers shed their own feelings of shame and inadequacy.

Because if you’ve been through this, I can tell you: you are not a bad mother. You are not a pariah. You are not a failure or a weak person. You have or had a disease, one that should have been diagnosed and treated.

Twenty percent of new mothers suffer from this disease. Think about that stat. That’s one in every five mothers. I suppose that stat does not include the countless women who — like me and like my mother and like my grandmother – were never diagnosed.

Now, nearly 6 years after I lived through it, I wonder what we can do to change that. Is there a way to help more mothers? Is there a way to normalize this condition? I think there is.

First, I think medical professionals need to ask the right questions, and they need to ask them often. And, I believe, the right questions are:

• Do you ever have moments when you feel so overwhelmed with the job of being a mother that you wish you could just end it all?
• Do you feel like a bad mother?
• Do you feel like a failure?
• Have you ever wished that you could give the baby back?
• Have you ever thought about hurting your baby?
• Are you so exhausted that you can’t get out of a chair or off the floor?
• Do you feel embarrassed about your ability to be a good parent?

Second, I think we, as women, can help new mothers. Rather than putting them through the Baby Olympics (Is your baby sleeping through the night? Is your baby rolling over? Is your baby crawling yet? Is your baby talking yet?), why don’t we just compliment them? Why don’t we do something helpful, such as dropping off a week’s supply of frozen dinners or hiring them a cleaning service? Why don’t we talk about our own experiences? Why don’t we say things like, “Early motherhood was one of the hardest stages of my entire life. There were times when I wasn’t sure I was going to live through it. Honestly, I felt like such a failure. How are things going for you?”

I don’t know for sure that such things would solve the problem, but I think they would definitely help. What do you think?

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It was there that we worked on a book assembly line. One day I’d be writing tips for a chapter on dizziness. The next it might be about vegetables. And the next it was anal itching.

All right, truth be told, I never did have the displeasure of writing about anal itching or anal fissures or even about butt plugs—but other writers on the assembly line did. And we all joked about it. For instance, we’d be sitting at lunch, wolfing down 40 grams of fiber at a time, and saying things like, “I really hope I don’t end up with the anal fissures chapter. What are those things anyway?”

And then someone would answer the question, because someone had already done that chapter.

And then we’d all walk back to our desks absolutely convinced that we all had anal fissures, not to mention various forms of cancer and that ringing in your ears disease.

It’s not the type of work that any non-boredom-loving woman wants to do for the rest of her life, though. So within a few years Jennifer and I soon left for bigger and better things. She got a job as a magazine editor, and so did I. She switched jobs and started working at a women’s magazine in New York. I went freelance.

We lost touch.

I heard through a friend of a friend of one of Jennifer’s friends that Jennifer had gone back to school to the prestigious Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Through that friend of a friend of one of Jennifer’s friends, I also heard that, upon graduation, she was offered an impressive book deal.

And then? I heard nothing, as I also lost touch with the friend of a friend of one of Jennifer’s friends.

It wasn’t until I happened to be at an airport bookstore, trying to find a book to read on the airplane, that I found out what Jennifer had done next. There, facing out on the bookshelf, was Mrs. Kimble, Jennifer’s first novel. It had earned her the Pen/Hemingway Award and had made the bestseller list.

I nearly finished it before the plane landed. I then recommended it to my book club.

Before my book club meeting, it did cross my mind that I might get back in touch with Jennifer. Wouldn’t I be the Book Clubber of the Month if I showed up to a meeting with inside information I’d gotten directly from the author?

But I got scared. We’d once eaten mesclun greens together. We’d run 5-Ks together. We’d had long and involved discussions about the relative benefits of running and strength training. I don’t remember if we ever talked about butt plugs or not, but it wouldn’t surprise me if we had.

Still, I didn’t feel worthy. She was a great novelist. I was just a ghostwriter.

Flash forward a few more years. It’s roughly a month ago. A bookstore near me is going out of business. Everything is half off. I’m there hunting for bargains. I pick up a David Sedaris and a Seth Godin. And that’s when I see it. There on the shelf with the rest of the novels is The Condition. It’s facing out. I recognize her name instantly.

Of course I buy it.

Of course I read it.

Of course I am in total awe, because the characters are completely developed, the sentences are stunningly beautiful, and the plot is equal parts complicated, engrossing, and perfect.

And I’m struck by something. It’s this. The book is therapy. No, not the kind of therapy that leaves you happy and stress free and with temporary amnesia regarding the fact that you are still neurotic and will be for the rest of your life. No, not that kind of therapy.

It’s marriage therapy. It’s relationship therapy. It’s family therapy. It’s “I’d better stop acting like a neurotic dolt like these characters in this book, or I am going to screw up my life, too” therapy.

Indeed, the book delves into how a marriage and a family is done in by jealousy, secrecy, and the inability to communicate. Paulette McKotch is exceedingly jealous of every woman her husband comes in contact with—even though her husband obviously loves her dearly. As a result she pushes him away. She tries to control her children as if they were prison inmates. As a result, her children become strangers to her.

The entire McKotch family keeps secrets. They talk about inconsequential things, but they never broach the topics that matter most. They are a family who knows nothing about one another, but who still gathers around the table at Christmas and who goes through the motions of pretending to still care.

Throughout the book I wanted to smack Paulette. Woman, you are ruining your own life! Look what you are putting your children through! Wake up!

But she didn’t hear me.

I heard me, though. The book challenged me to be that much more authentic, that much more accepting, and that much more compassionate.

When I got to the last page, I sighed a satisfied sigh, but I was not ready to let go. So I read the acknowledgments. And then I read the author question and answer. And then I put the book on my chest and I ran my fingers over it and made love to it for a while.

And then I did something that, after reading Mrs. Kimble, I did not have the courage to do. I emailed Jennifer’s publisher and asked if someone wouldn’t mind letting Jennifer know how proud I was of her. By the end of the day, Jennifer and I were emailing back and forth. We were reminiscing about all of the fiber we once ate for lunch. More important, she knew that I was proud of her. I knew that she was proud of me. She agreed to sign a book copy for this site’s January Reader of the Month, and I put her in touch with a blogger who wanted to profile her.

We were back in touch. We weren’t talking about our fear of anal fissures, but that’s probably a good thing. I’m now one of her biggest fans. And I think you should be, too.

Buy the book.

Fan her on Facebook.

Learn more about her writing career.

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In this free e-book, you’ll learn some of the strategies I used to turn my Mr. Good for Nothing into my Mr. Good for Something, including ten Relationship Rules.

Q: We’re struggling with my wife’s parents. They are controlling, and want to dictate every situation. Even with our children, they want to take them and raise them. We have stood our ground on numerous occasions, but they repeatedly provoke the situation. I’m struggling to work this out with my wife. She doesn’t like it either, but she also doesn’t want to be caught in the middle. Where should we draw the line? How do we set better boundaries? – Stuck in the Middle

Readers: this is going to be a juicy one, I suspect. I can’t wait to read your responses.

Here’s mine.

I recommend you make a few firm rules with your wife. For instance, here are some rules that might work:

1. If the in-laws make a request, neither you nor your wife makes a solo, on the fly decision. You say, “I need to talk to [the husband/the wife] about that. I’ll get back to you.”

2. You are in charge of confronting your parents. She’s in charge of hers. My husband and I use this rule (as with #1). I find this one particularly important because my parents are much more forgiving of me that they are of my husband. My husband’s parents, oddly, are also more forgiving of me than they are of him, too, but that’s a topic for another day. Anyway, if I lose my patience or temper with my parents, it’s one thing. If my husband does, it’s another. So, for example, let’s say we’re visiting my husband’s parents and his mother starts telling me how to cook my scrambled eggs. My husband knows I hate being told how to cook, so he comes over to the stove and finishes cooking my scrambled eggs for me. That way he has to deal with his mother’s back seat cooking instead of me.

3. I highly recommend your wife have a sit down with her parents and tell them how uncomfortable she feels. Controlling people usually have zero clue as to how they affect others. They see themselves as being helpful. She might say, “When you do this, it makes me feel as if you think I am too immature/stupid/inadequate to raise my own children. I am a good mother and it hurts that you don’t see that.”

4. If all else fails, stop counting on them. If you depend on her parents to baby-sit your kids, help with financial things, or something else, you’ll always have a hard time standing your ground. More important, they will always see you both as children rather than grownups. The more independent you are, the easier it will be for them to release their control.

Readers: do you have advice for Stuck in the Middle? This couple needs your help. Remember: play fair. Be kind. Share differences of opinion, but do not single out others because they do not share your opinion. Oh, and regarding yesterday’s post, the true grudges were the turkey and the closet. Kelly J guessed correctly.

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We are probably all guilty of doing any number of not-so-functional things during a marital argument, and one of the most common is this: stockpiling. The argument might have—at one time—been about the snotty comment your spouse made while you were cooking dinner. But now it’s about the time he forgot to buy you an anniversary gift.

And it’s about the time he smoked the Thanksgiving turkey so long that it tasted like parking lot gravel, and he did this because he left the smoker to fend for itself while he rode his bike all afternoon.

And about the time he was an hour late to his own wedding.

And about the time, when you were just dating, when he let it slip that he thought your best friend was a whiney princess, and he let this revelation slip right in front of her.

Thing is, while all of these incidents were definitely angering and incredibly disappointing, mentioning them all during your current argument is not going to resolve things any faster. If anything, it’s just going to cause the argument and the anger to drag on even longer. It may very well even thwart you from getting your true point across, because your spouse will feel so under siege that he’ll stop listening. As you shout about all of the indiscretions that prove that he is indeed a despicable human who is not worthy of the likes of you, he’ll hear something that sounds a lot like the teacher on Peanuts. You know what I’m talking about: wah-whawha-wha-wah.

Indeed, if you really want your spouse to stop making snotty comments, keep your discussion focused on the latest snotty comment and how it made you feel: hurt. Don’t bring up the past.

Yes, of course, it’s easier said than done. That’s where the grudge list comes in.

Make Your Grudge List

This is what you’re going to do.

You and your spouse both make a grudge list. Write down every single maddening incident that you can possibly remember, dating all the way back to the day you met. Don’t go on and on about it. Just write down enough so that you both know what you are talking about. Start your list with the phrase, “I still feel hurt because of …” and then list specific incidents. For instance, your list might look like this.

I still feel hurt because of …

1. The time you didn’t have a closet cleaned out for me when I moved in with you.
2. Last Thanksgiving, when you told my sister in law to eff off.
3. When you missed our daughter’s birth because you were working late at the office.

You get the idea. Don’t worry if your list has 25 or more items on it. Just write them all down.

Once you both have a grudge list, share them with each other, using these Grudge List Sharing Rules.

Rule #1: You share your lists one at a time, moving through each and every item on one list before you deal with the other list.

Rule #2: The person who is sharing will try not to blame, use curse words, sigh loudly, perform acrobatic eye rolls, or raise his or her voice. You just read from the list. That’s it.

Rule #3. The person who is listening to the list does not try to convince the reader why he or she should not be hurt. He or she also does not use curse words, sigh loudly, perform acrobatic eye rolls, or raise his or her voice.

Rule #4. The person who is listening says just two words after every item on the list: “I’m” and “sorry.” It’s okay to expand on those words as in, “I’m sorry I did that” or “I’m so sorry I hurt you.” But it’s not okay to say, “I can’t believe you keep bringing that up! What is wrong with you?”

Rule #5: After you’ve both read your lists and said your sorries, burn your lists, hug and PROMISE to never, ever bring up these grudges again.

Does this technique seem sort of silly? Are you thinking that it could not possibly work? It’s just too simple, right? All I can tell you is this: I did this with my husband and, I have to say, it worked. Once I read my list and heard my husband tell me that he was sorry, a soft forgiving spot opened up in my heart. It’s my hope that this challenge will help you find your soft spot as well.

Try it and let me know how it goes. Also, if you’ve been practicing last week’s Marriage Improvement challenge, let me know how that’s going as well.

Oh, and today’s post comes with a fun little challenge. I listed 7 seemingly imaginary grudges in this post, but two of them were based on real issues that took place in my marriage. Can you guess which ones were the fake grudges and which ones were the real ones? The first person to guess correctly gets a signed copy of my latest co-authored book Back to Life After a Heart Crisis.

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Download your copy of Project Happily Ever After: Relationship Rules.

In this free e-book, you’ll learn some of the strategies I used to turn my Mr. Good for Nothing into my Mr. Good for Something, including ten Relationship Rules.