[Parenting] is a job in which you need to put forth your very best effort.

admonishes one parent to another (who apparently isn’t meeting the author’s standards).

This? Is such bullshit.

Yes, our parenting choices matter. No, [...]]]> I’ve run across this a thousand times before, but here’s the most recent example which inspired the following (no, I’m not linking):

[Parenting] is a job in which you need to put forth your very best effort.

admonishes one parent to another (who apparently isn’t meeting the author’s standards).

This? Is such bullshit.

Yes, our parenting choices matter. No, not “anything goes”. Yes, kids deserve so much, and no, a lot of kids aren’t getting what they need. But who can possibly sustain a Very Best Effort at every moment for at least 18 years? I’d say no one can. I surely can’t. And the pressure this puts on women — for it is indubitably mothers who receive the brunt of this admonishment — is untenable.

Much like in the attachment discussion, kids have needs, and often we ignore those needs, or try to fill them with things that aren’t quite right. There’s nothing wrong with trying to do better, especially if one is trying to go against the standards of a society that marginalizes children and alternately exalts and belittles them. There’s nothing wrong with putting effort into parenting, or spending a lot of time researching decisions, or thinking of parenting as the most important job of your life.

But there’s nothing necessarily wrong with not, either. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with just doing what you do and not putting extraordinary effort into parenting, either.

What does it even mean that we “need” to use our “very best effort”? So what, if we don’t, we’ll fail at parenting? We’ll ruin our kids? But if they’re not ruined (and how do we measure??), then I guess it was enough? But if we ruin them, is that proof we didn’t try hard enough? Or that failure is OK as long as we tried hard enough?

How messed up is that is that philosophy? According to that thinking, if we spend 23 hours a day with our children, does that mean if we “fail” we should have spent 24? If we sleep only seven hours a night, does that mean if we “fail” we should have slept only six? How much is one’s very best? Do we have to collapse, push ourselves to exhaustion and past it (to death?), before we can rest safely knowing that no one will say of us that we should have done more? But no — someone will say we should have rested more. That wasn’t our best. We could have tried harder for balance.

Kids do not need perfection — which is wonderful, because none of us can achieve it. They need good enough. They need their basic needs met: for interdependence and attachment, for freedom and responsibilities, for a stable base to jump from and a safe place to land. But they don’t need every need met perfectly every time. They don’t need a mistake-free upbringing. And they certainly don’t need us to break trying to meet impossible standards — or impossible standards of effort.

I’m not a particularly laissez faire parent (though I might call my parenting free-range inspired), nor a laissez-faire-in-parenting advocate. I think some decisions are better than others. I think some decisions are worse than others. And I don’t think “but I was ____ and I’m Just Fine(TM)!” is a particularly good justification for continuing practices we know are harmful and for which we have accessible alternatives. But at some point, we need to say that it’s enough. Our effort is enough. We are enough. Even if we don’t do everything the ideal way, even if we perform the blasphemy of not even trying to. Our good enough effort is good enough.

You are a good enough parent. And even if you’re not, your good enough effort at doing better is good enough. Maybe you could try harder, research more, up the pressure, increase the guilt when you (inevitably) fall short — but why? If there’s something you think you could be doing better, and want to be doing, and have the ability to do, then do it. Not because you’re not good enough right now (you are), but simply because you want to. Or because it would make you life easier. Or your parenting more joyful. Or your child happier or healthier. Not, please, because you’d be failing if you didn’t, because unless what you’re doing now is likely to kill your child in the near future, better is probably not a requirement. It’s probably just better.

And good enough? Is enough.

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Family-avoidance interlude

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As I’ve alluded to before, there are things I haven’t been mentioning on the blog, in part because my [...]]]> Dear family: please stop reading. Auntie (!!!), and SIL, and brother, and mom, and dad, this means you. Really. Please. Stop. If you want me to keep blogging, ever, stop reading, right now.

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Family-avoidance interlude

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As I’ve alluded to before, there are things I haven’t been mentioning on the blog, in part because my family reads here.

When I’m not saying anything about those things, I find it hard to say much of anything at all. Which can, without exaggeration, drive me crazy.

So here they are:

I’m trying to make a book. And we’re trying to make a baby.

I have, in fact, conceived the book (the one I alluded to recently, Martyrdom Not Required: Attachment Parenting in the Real World). And I did, in fact, conceive a pregnancy.

The book might yet, if I am very, very lucky (and very, very diligent), make it to fruition.

The pregnancy did not.

It was not, you might be surprised to hear, the most recent cycle, nor the cycle that I missed blogging about. Nor was it the cycle where my back went out. No, it was the one before that, and it was so very, very short that I hardly feel justified in calling it a miscarriage. We never had a chance to fully confirm, much less celebrate, even privately, before there was nothing to celebrate, and the confirmation was a resounding “not this time”.

This was not the first miscarriage I’d ever had — not even the only I’d ever known about.

I was seventeen, The Man was nineteen, and I was known for having long, heavy, irregularly timed periods. But one was later still than my unusual-usual. I didn’t suspect anything — I had no particular reason to, and I was as bad about tracking my periods as my body was at regulating them. But when I bled, finally, it was harder than anything before. And there was… something. Something very, very small. Maybe the size of my pinky fingernail, in memory. Probably even smaller than that, if we try to factor out memory’s magnifying focus. But there was something unusual, something unexpected, something I hadn’t seen before nor since, resting atop the plastic pad, when all the rest of the blood and serum and fluid had soaked in.

I didn’t tell anyone, not for years. I still answer “one” when filling in number of pregnancies on medical forms. After all, I don’t “know”. There was no stick with multiple lines, no disturbing, distorted black and white films from an ultrasound, no diagnoses scribbled near illegibly in an official medical chart somewhere. I don’t “know”. Just as I don’t “know” this time, this so much earlier time, with even less physical evidence for support.

But I know.

Three times now, my body has been home, temporarily, to DNA that was of me but was not mine. One became a baby, now a bubbly, blond, aggravating, adorable child. Two… didn’t. Once, over a decade ago, it was a strange, spikey knowledge — something unasked for and unwanted disappearing, without my having to do anything about it. This time, it was pain I didn’t let myself feel for a month, when finally, bleeding again, I sobbed on the floor in part from pain in my back and in part because I was surrounded by fecundity, by women with proven fertility, and I should have been one, I should have been like them, I so wanted to be and almost was like them and it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair, and it hurt so much. And so I cried, and sobbed, and gulped for air and breath, and keened with anger and grief and fear and envy and so many kinds of pain.

But everywhere else, with all but a very small few, I was silent.

I don’t know if I can explain my silence, because I’m not sure I understand it. About everything else, I am vested in full disclosure. I’ll write about craziness, self-injury, pelvic organ prolapse, the -isms I am infected with. I’ll write about mundanities and profanities and even, if you ask nicely, the time I talked to Jesus. But this? This desire for baby-baby-now? This trying and trying and waiting and trying and the interminable months of failure? This I have a hard time disclosing.

I think I want to present a fait accompli — I don’t want the kibitzing and second-hand second-guessing along the way. I want the congratulations — I don’t want the commiserations that it takes us so damn long. I want, in one area of my life, to not be made to feel that I am damaged, deficient, that nothing will come easily to me, or for me.

Neither do I want to publicly perform pious self-pity. I don’t want to be anyone’s maybe-baby show. I don’t want to declare woe-is-me when so many have it so much worse, require hard-to-access technological intervention in order to reproduce, or are not able to at all. What right have I do bemoan my circumstance when odds are decent that, eventually, a pregnancy will stick, virtually free, and societally approved?

I think also that I don’t want to have to explain or defend or justify my desire or my timing or any other part of this. I don’t want to try to explain to the childfree what this compulsion feels like, nor defend from the childless my grief over the loss when I’ve already had a baby, nor justify to the environmentalists or the anti-child feminists the decision to try to bring yet another person into the world.

With both the baby and the book, I think I want to be able to quit quietly. I want to be able to fail, without failing anyone. I want to be able to give up, without being seen to. I want perfection — mission accomplished, see what I made! — or to pretend I never wanted it in the first place. (I admit: as coping mechanisms go, I could perhaps find healthier.)

And I really, really don’t want my family to say one damn thing to me about it, good or bad or anything. (If you’ve ignored my previous warnings, family dearest, you’ve only yourself to blame.)

Yet… I’m tired of silence. I’m tired of Not Talking about something that matters to me. I’m tired of not being able to write because I’m not writing what’s most pressing to me. I’m tired of my desire for privacy from my sometimes-draining family blocking off the soul-sustaining support of my friends (whether I’ve been blessed to meet you in person yet or not). I don’t want this to become a baby-making or book-hocking blog, but I don’t want to have to censor every impulse I have to mention a major undertaking — which informs almost every area of my life — either.

So that’s it. Baby, book: gimme. I don’t know how I’ll manage, I don’t know whence the time and energy and space in my life will come, but I don’t care, because I’m doing it anyway. And I’m not going to keep it a secret any longer.

Except from my family.

She was not a writer. Or rather, not the kind of writer I am — writer by requirement. [...]]]> Someone asked me the other day how I remembered to update the blog regularly. My mouth flapped open, and stuck that way, as my brain tried to understand a question for which it had no frame of reference.

She was not a writer. Or rather, not the kind of writer I am — writer by requirement. Vocation, not avocation. Payment doesn’t matter; this is a lifeline, not a hobby.

Words? Are not optional for me. They are as required as water, as food, as air.

Or more germanely — as required as sleep. Go too long without either, and there goes any semblance of stability, of sanity. I might live, but I wouldn’t be able to continue my life. So, because this is how much the universe hates me, my life is structured such that more of one requires less of the other. And I don’t always get to pick which will happen. And sometimes, neither will, and there’s the conditions for a flash flood of crazy.

I am drowning.

*****

Four days ago: the words would not stop. Post after post, perfectly composed, popping into my head, long after I was done for the day. Lying in bed, begging for respite, for sleep.

Three days ago: Stay up, waiting for words, they don’t come. Shrug, go to sleep… eventually.

Two days ago, I would have asked The Man to stay home so I could write — but he was (is, forever will be I fear) on mandatory overtime, so I couldn’t, and didn’t. So I said screw the sleep, and stayed up.

And they didn’t come.

All day — driving, in appointments, in class, while parenting, parenting, parenting — neverending words, a torrent of words, a flood of words, brilliant thoughts, important points, cleverly composed. But no time to stop, no time to sit, no time to get them down.¹

And later, when everyone else is in bed, when I stop, sit, wait — silence. Or nonsense.

What do you do when the two things required for sanity are denied to you? Why, go crazy, of course.

You know what’s not crazy? Heavy traffic. Crowded grocery stores. Hyper children. Chaotic playgrounds. Inconsiderate or reckless drivers. Overwhelming course loads. Racist or sexist bullcrap. (Though, if you’re like me, those all might drive you crazy.) “Traffic/the store/those kids/the playground/that driver/this semester/that new law is crazy!” is as linguistically lazy as it is offensive. I am not your metaphor. I am crazy. I am not heavy-crowded-hyper-chaotic-inconsiderate-reckless-overwhelming. Stop it.

Not a fun night-on-the-town crazy. Not a productive crazy. Not a foreshadowing-visions crazy.

Crazy like this: Twitching twitching, chest constricting. Breath coming fast or not at all. Thoughts circling: out out out no no no. Losing it because I couldn’t lose it because there’s a child in my lap and he won’t go to sleep — until I dump him on his sleeping father and run away and we both cry for an hour.

*****

This is a minor wobble, as these things go (…I hope. I think.). It seems self-indulgent to go on about it, but it’s this or even less healthy coping techniques, and I can afford a concussion even less than I can afford the night of sleep missed thusly.

I worry that I’ll lose you, my readers. “Didn’t she write that gone-crazy-back-soon post a few months ago?” Well, yeah. But this is life for me. Mostly fine. Sometimes… this. It doesn’t go away. Not ever, not completely. As tired as you, hypothetical bored reader, might be of these repeats, I promise I am a thousand times more so.

*****

Sometimes, I know where it comes from.

Sometimes it’s my choices.

Sometimes it’s my circumstances.

And sometimes? It just sneaks up on me. Sleep eludes me. Words scramble into garbage. I don’t know why.

Sometimes I don’t know where it comes from, I only know it’s coming.

I feel its hot breath on my neck. My hands twitch at its groping touch. My breath is shallow, my belly tight, anticipating its presence. I am running from it — yet it is the running.

Did I cause it by trying to avoid it? Could I have breathed more, shut down the computer sooner, laid wide-eyed in the dark longer? Did I tempt it by rejecting the words offered? Was my error to think I could write in the first place, could have some success and stability?

All the answer I can bring forth now is the equivocating maybe.

*****

I don’t know if I’ll ever be “successful”. I don’t know if these mood regulation glitches, these writing/sleeping imbalances will let me do the things I long for — have I told you about my book idea? Martyrdom Not Required: Attachment Parenting for the Real World ‘Cause I’m obviously so damn skilled at this parenting-life-balancing-gig – but they are a part of my life. They always will be. As much as I hate this — and oh, right now, I do — I don’t hate my life. I can’t hate me, as much as I curse my brain at times. And so I deal.

*****

I don’t have a witty conclusion. There’s no insightful point, no cue for you to nod your head and declare “That’s so deep.” There’s just me, exhausted, face salty from sweat and tears, wrung out, done — yet knowing I have to get up in the morning, to the chirp of “Where’s my dad?” and answer “He’s at work again, little one, but I’m here with you again” alone with you again, make it through the day, no time to break down, no time to stop, no time to be and be drained and be done and have that be enough. There’s just me, thinking this will have to do — not enough writing, not enough sleep, but if I make do with this, I can get just enough sleep to make it through.

Wish me luck.

*****

Oh, I do not think so.

What infants and toddlers and preschoolers need is attachment — loving, responsive care from people they know and trust, preferably have known for most or all of their lives but at least with whom they have [...]]]> “A mother shouldn’t leave her child until about the age of three”, declares a father.

Oh, I do not think so.

What infants and toddlers and preschoolers need is attachment — loving, responsive care from people they know and trust, preferably have known for most or all of their lives but at least with whom they have built a relationship. They need to have older people — adults, yes, but also teens, older children — who know them and love them and who they know and love, accessible to them when needed. The placement of that responsibility exclusively on the mother makes it not a joy, a task of life easily fulfilled, but a burden, under which so many of us are breaking.

Something is wrong with a culture that expects a six week old to sleep through the night, that tells a four month old her hunger is inconvenient and needs to be scheduled, that is surprised when a one year old doesn’t want to be left with a stranger. Some of us recognize this, and some have decided the problem must be because women are employed outside the home, have chosen to have lives that do not revolve around our children.

Not that we have moved away from our families of origin.

Not that we have built fences real and psychological between us and our neighbours.

Not that we have tiny families and a dearth of siblings and cousins.

Not that we have segregated adults and children, and alternately marginalize people with fewer years as second class citizens and exalt them as angels on earth (but never simply honor them as perfectly imperfect persons).

Not that we hold ideal a single family home, and define family as up to two parents and 2.5 children.

Not that we have taught half the population to deny and repress any nurturing potential, for fear of being “unmanly”.

No, it is, as always, entirely the fault of women. Of mothers, for daring to stand up for our humanity and our autonomy, for daring to do the work that earns power and prestige and some amount of protection, for daring to say we have needs and wants and goals too, for daring to take even an hour away to nurture ourselves so we have something to give to our children.

How dare we?

What some misguided whistleblowers (on the problem that is our parenting culture) have deemed is the solution — a mother, subsuming her own desires entirely to her offspring for a full three years each, minimum, accessible at all times of day, all days of the week, all weeks of the year — is just as unnatural and damaging as the model it rebels against.

We are not supposed to do this gig — which risks becoming labor and work and mind-breaking, body-destroying toil the less it is shared with loved ones — all by ourselves. We are not. That some can do it and survive, even enjoy it and would pick it first over any other idealized options, speaks far more to the diversity and flexibility of humanity than it does to the failure or unnaturalness of any woman who doesn’t choose or wouldn’t enjoy (possibly wouldn’t survive) 24/7/365 sole caregiving.

Kids don’t need one person, if that person is going to break if she has to clean up one more fecal-smeared surface.

Kids don’t need one person, if that person is snapping and yelling and cannot catch her breath alone.

Kids don’t need one person, if that person’s back is breaking from twelve hour shifts of bending and lifting and carrying and holding.

Kids don’t need one person, if that person has lost herself and her center and has no core around which her child can revolve, no life from which her child can learn.

Kids need people, people they know and love and trust, people who are with them and responsive to them day after day, who know their rhythms and their personalities and their needs and their wants, who have done the work of endless toiletings and feedings, who have assisted nap times and play times, who have tickled and carried, who have been there through laugh fests and crying jags. Kids need as many of those people as possible. Blood relation entirely optional.

One? Is a bare minimum. The kid might survive, even thrive (because humans are fantastically adaptable); and the parent might as well (ditto): but it comes at a high risk of burning out the carer, torching the relationship, scorching the child. And if that happens, there is no one for the child to turn to.

Two is better.

Three or four are better still.

Half a dozen is getting closer to ideal.

Half a dozen? Sure: a parent or two, a grandparent or two, a parent’s sibling or two, a couple teens or older kids: it’s not a big family, as primate evolution (or human tribal history) goes. But good luck growing it in this society.

(My infant only wants me. She’ll have nothing to do with her dad!

Has her dad been there? Does he know her? Does she know him? Did she hear his voice in the womb? Did she breathe in his smell within hours of birth? Did he carry or wear her her first day out of the womb? And the second? And the third? Does she sleep with his breath on her face, his heat keeping her warm, his body keeping her safe? Does he respond to her attempts at communication about her hunger and elimination? Does he help keep her clean? Does she know him?)

Kids — the younger they are the truer this is — need to be with people they know, and trust, and love (who among us doesn’t, really?). They need attachment; this is immutable biological fact. They’ll make do with almost whatever we give them, but the more the better. It is only our messed up society — or the very rare, very exacting child — that says that this means all-mom all-the-time.

(Oh, the breasts. The sweet, sweet breasts. Yes, infants need near-immediate access to milk at basically all times; known and trusted lactating breasts are biologically expected to be on call 24/7. Only humans — and only some humans — would translate this as mother’s-breasts-only, and even fewer as mother-as-primary-minder-at-every-moment. But a ten, a twenty, a thirty month old gets ever less in need of such omnipresent access, even as their need for it sometimes, and their need for constant nearby presence of trusted caregiver(s), might remain unabated.)

Do you, caring mother, have to leave your less-than-three? Of course not. (If there’s no one around we trust our children to trust, why would we want to? If we have enough people to share the load with that it is still a joy and not a toil — however many that is for us, zero or a dozen — why would we want to?) But you could. If you wanted. If your child wanted. If there are other people your child knows will care for them.

And I promise — it wouldn’t destroy them.

* You know what one of the risk factors for atherosclerosis1 is? Burning proteins and lipids for energy. You know one of [...]]]> * Knitting as a method of self-soothing and to avoid the temptation to slap one’s classmates and/or teacher sort of backfires when one finds oneself contemplating the garotte potential of circular knitting needles. Ahem.

* You know what one of the risk factors for atherosclerosis¹ is? Burning proteins and lipids for energy. You know one of the times that happens? When your body is starving. Such as, I dunno, from severe calorie restriction in the hopes of losing weight? AKA dieting? But teh death fatz is bad for you! So you better start dieting!! …right.

* Listening to people go on and on and on about how much life must SUXORZ if you have diabetes or Crohn’s disease or hypothyroidism makes me go all stabby. Or garottey. At least in my imagination.

* Everything can be blamed on obesity, apparently.

* If you’re unhealthy in any way whatsoever, it’s because you’re making bad food choices. (And, of course, you have ultimate control over what you eat. Even if you don’t actually have a farmer’s market, grocery store, produce stand, or farm anywhere within walking or busing distance of you. Or the money to shop at such. Or the time, skills, energy, or spoons to do anything with said foodstuffs.)

* The United States of America doesn’t have an official national language, but if you want to be a licensed massage therapist in the state of Oregon, you fucking better be literate in English. Right in the Statute regulating the profession of massage in Oregon, it reads: “the examination shall be administered in the English language”. Not just “yeah, we’re gonna give it in English because we’re Anglocentric and don’t care enough about brown people and immigrants to bother offering it any other language”, no, it’s in the fucking law. And yeah, massage therapists need to be able to communicate with their clientèle in some fashion, but y’know what? That means that monolingual I cannot be a good LMT for a large portion of the population. Because I am only fluent in English. But heaven forbid we allow people who are monolingual in any other language (or multilingual in a whole variety of languages none of which happen to be English) to become LMTs! Who knows what they’d gossip about when they know we can’t understand them?? Or something.

* One may be disallowed from practicing massage in the state of Oregon if one “Has a physical or mental condition that makes the licensee unable to conduct safely the practice of massage.” If you can’t safely do massage, you can’t safely do massage, and I don’t have a problem with the Board doing its job and protecting the public from that. But that “has a physical or mental condition” clause scares the shit out of me, given the culture I live in and what stereotypes some people actually believe about things like bipolar disorder (that’d be me!), schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, and so on. Why “has a condition”? Why not “is unable to conduct safely the practice of massage”? My answer? One word, starts with “able” and rhymes with “ism”. Bet you can’t guess it.

* I have knitting skilz. Not just in the refraining-from-murder-with-craft-supplies department, but I can, while simultaneously taking notes, participating in discussion, fighting fatphobia, (and refraining from murder), provisionally cast on 40 stitches in the round (without making a mobius), make a picot edged drawstring casing (which is harder than it sounds), flawlessly pick up the provisional stitches using a second 60″ circular needle, and (three inches of mind-numbingly boring stockinette stitch later) kitchener stitch the bottom closed. Without a pattern. Or reference to stitch guides or tutorials. Because I rock like that.

So what did you learn this week?

But.

And.

So.

How we talk about our [...]]]> I have no desire or intention to police others’ bodies. We can talk about the social pressures that lead to high rates of cosmetic surgery, dieting, body hatred — but to confuse a need for systemic critique with a right to criticize individuals is one of the worst uses of feminism.

But.

And.

So.

How we talk about our bodies — our own bodies — matters. It affects how other people feel about theirs, and that matters. When we say “I’m too fat to wear a bikini”, we’re saying fat is bad, and those as fat or fatter than us also shouldn’t expose themselves. When we say “I can’t get away with going without a bra”, we’re saying to flop is not a subjective choice but an objective assessment. When we say “My hair’s an ugly mess unless I straighten it”, we’re saying everyone’s hair that’s curly like ours is ugly too.

Does that mean we have to pretend to a false enlightenment, never let a negative word slip our mouths? Does that mean we have to suppress our own truths and desires for the sake of others (always, for women, are we supposed live for the sake of others)? I cannot accept that either. We must be able to tell our truths, to take the dark things inside us out so they can be seen, to exert our rightful autonomy over our own bodies, to do as we choose with them.

How do we resolve this? Is it resolvable?

I propose this:

We start with I.

I feel. I fear. I want.

We reject kyriarchical assignments of some bodies, some ways of being, as wholly bad, or inherently good; we know better than to rely on what “everybody knows” about fat, and flop, and tresses. Instead, we get deeper: what are we afraid of? What are we reaching toward?

I feel better in a one-piece. I’m afraid people will stare at me if I don’t wear a bra. I want my hair to be straight.

Can we talk about where our senses of style come from? About male gaze and comfort in public? About the ramifications of hair choices? Absolutely. But we don’t have to. We don’t have to analyze every single choice at every single opportunity; we don’t have to let those analyses dictate our choices for fear of “giving in” to kyriarchy and all its bullshit. We can, we are allowed to, simply say “Fuck it, this is what I want right now.”

How radical is that? How much could we change the world by doing something just because we want to? What would happen if we reject the “need” for excuses, for justifications? Not “I’m too fat to wear that”, not “I ran a mile earlier, so this brownie is ok”. Just — I want to wear this. I want to eat that.  I want. Sometimes, that can be enough.

The Man is in his fourth week of mandatory overtime, and I’m very very tired of him being very very tired and us having no time together, but that wasn’t why I was grumpy.

The kid has entered the most aggravating contrarian phase, where he automatically disagrees with whatever we say, even [...]]]> I was really grumpy today.

The Man is in his fourth week of mandatory overtime, and I’m very very tired of him being very very tired and us having no time together, but that wasn’t why I was grumpy.

The kid has entered the most aggravating contrarian phase, where he automatically disagrees with whatever we say, even if it’s “Hey, let’s go get some ice cream now!” But that wasn’t why I was grumpy.

The house is a wreck (in large part because of the two above points), and I can’t cook simple fried eggs without having to stop and clean a pan, but that wasn’t why I was grumpy.

I’m menstruating and cramping and exhausted and brain drained, but that wasn’t why I was grumpy.

I was grumpy simply because I was grumpy.

The things I listed above don’t exactly lend themselves to an effortlessly joyful mood, and they might be enough to challenge even the most calm, zen-like person, but they didn’t make me grumpy, because they can’t make me anything.

I just went with it. I was grumpy, nothing was going to make me less grumpy (because nothing was making me grumpy to begin with), and that was that.

No, this is not the story where I submitted to the suckitude and suddenly everything became rainbows and kisses — but it is the story of a day I survived, and it didn’t even feel like a big deal. I took the kid to the park, and didn’t yell at him once. We went grocery shopping, and I didn’t abandon him in the cart. He punched me, and I didn’t punch him back. I didn’t even really consider it. Because I was grumpy, and that’s just how it was, and it wasn’t his fault, and that was OK.

And that? That I simply didn’t care, and wasn’t attached to any particular outcome (such as happiness, or lack of grumpiness)? That meant that today was a pretty good day. Challenging, sure. Not the most fun I’ve ever had — but there was fun. There were kisses. I didn’t see any rainbows, but we baked sweet potato fries together, and that was pretty darn cool.

We have this belief in the culture I live in that our moods are always to blame on something. Either something external (we need x and y and z to be happy — so why are people with x and y and z still not happy?) or internal (we just have to think our way to happiness, and have only ourselves to blame if we “fail” — how can anyone be happy with all that pressure?). While I am all for choosing joy, as much as we are able, I also think that we are setting ourselves up for misery if we think it is possible, much less if we expect, to be 100% happy 100% of the time.

It’s just not gonna happen. Take it from someone with a mood disorder¹: moods, sometimes, just happen.  Yeah, if your lifemate dies, you’re going to grieve, and it might look a lot like depression (or it might trigger full-on depression), but being depressed doesn’t “require” some catastrophic event. Sometimes it just happens.

Conversely, sometimes happiness just happens. Happiness is a lot easier when we’re not lacking basic rights — societal recognition of our humanity and freedom from marginalization and oppression; enough food and shelter and health care and free time to not worry about surviving the day, or the week, or the year; a network of family and friends, people who care for us and who we can care for in turn; a vocation that gives us satisfaction and a feeling of contributing to something greater (such as our family, our cause, or our culture) — but happiness is possible even without great good things happening to us, and even, sometimes, without those basics. Sometimes it just happens.

If we spend all our time trying to hold on to our happiness, or resenting our unhappiness, we never get to simply experience the good possible in each moment. Even when we’re grumpy. Even when things aren’t going “right”. Even when we have a child who disagrees with simply everything.

We don’t have an obligation to be happy in each moment — we don’t have any obligations or shoulds around our moods at all. Today, I was not particularly happy, ever. But because I was ok with being grumpy, I didn’t suffer my grumpiness.

So now I can look back and say: it was a good grumpy day.

****************

Sea Pearls menstrual sponges

Although I’m a happy home-made cloth pad user most of the time, I decided to invest [...]]]> Warning: This post contains explicit descriptions of internal menstrual products and the use thereof, cervical and menstrual fluids, and my sex life. If you are particularly squeamish, or a member of my family, navigate away now.

Sea Pearls menstrual sponges

Although I’m a happy home-made cloth pad user most of the time, I decided to invest in an internal product a couple cycles ago, for the (rare, for me) occasion when a pad is ineffective or inconvenient (swimming and massage come to mind). Because of my pelvic organ prolapses, neither traditional disposable tampons nor menstrual cups, reusable or disposable, work for me; that left, to my knowledge, Sea Pearls¹.

And so I ordered some from a friend of mine, Zoom Baby Gear², and after picking them up I spent nearly an hour giggling at the, as advertised, full-color pamphlet. I’m not sure what I found so amusing about it; maybe the starfish and shells on the cover, the obligatory bisected woman picture (to show insertion), the endorsement from Cleopatra³, or what. Perhaps I’m just not quite as enlightened as I like to think. I did, eventually, get over the giggles, and looked forward to testing them out.

Because it was the end of my period, I didn’t get a chance to try them until nearly a month later. And that is when I experienced Backpocalypse 2010, and about all I can say from that cycle is that 1) at least I didn’t leak while I was collapsed on the floor for nearly two hours then standing up wandering around in agony for another nearly two, and 2) The Man had a hell of a time getting it out for me (back spasm = couldn’t even reach to wipe myself, much less retrieve the sponge), but did, eventually, manage it.

The next month, I finally had them, a period, and the ability to get them in and out unassisted. So, I’ve had one cycle and one day of using these puppies, and finally feel like I can give a decent review.

Yes, you have to touch yourself: getting the Sea Pearl in and taking it out

Let me start by telling you that I’ve used disposable tampons with an applicator all of maybe twice in my life, and I hated it; I used non-applicator tampons throughout high school and for years afterward; I’ve charted my cervical fluid and cervical texture, position, and os width for years; my idea of a brilliant used-book-store find is A New View of a Woman’s Body: A Fully Illustrated Guide⁴; and I masturbate, rather a lot, including while menstruating. So I’m kinda used to the idea of touching myself, reaching into my genitals, and, when called for, getting my hands pretty darn messy. (Hey, skin cleans up great.) If you are not, consider this an opportunity to discover that our bodies really aren’t as gross as we’ve been led to believe: we can touch them, and survive!

So, the sponge. When dry, it is hard, kind of scratchy, and not at all squishy. But, run it under the tap for a moment, and, as a sponge should, it becomes soft, pliable, and very compressible, which are all very good things when looking to insert it into one’s vagina.

(A note: the sponge should, as the pamphlet says, be inspected⁵ and cleaned — more on that below — before first use.)

To insert, I get it wet, squeeze out as much water as possible, and compress what had formerly been a perhaps 1″ diameter, 2″ long sponge into the size of a very large pill capsule between my thumb and first two fingers. Sitting on the toilet, or standing up with a leg on the back of the toilet, I then insert it into my vagina; I try to at least get all of it between my vaginal walls at this stage so that it does not expand in the air, although it is not yet in its final place.

Next, I use my forefinger or fore and middle fingers to navigate the compressed (but slightly more expanded now) sponge into place in front of my cervix (which, because of my prolapse and sideways tilt, means it winds up in a sort of crevice high up and off to the right); I find it helpful to bear down slightly while keeping my fingers in place, effectively bringing my cervix to my fingers rather than vice versa: when I relax, the sponge is pulled back up. If necessary, I poke it around a bit more to get it just so, but at this point, I usually find I can’t even feel it anymore, and everything is quite comfortable.

The pictures and instructions have the sponge more in the vaginal canal rather than right in front of the cervix; that doesn’t work for me, since around menstruation — when the ligaments relax and the uterus and cervix usually drop a bit anyway — there’s not a whole lot of vaginal canal to use, and having anything there feels pretty uncomfortable. But it might work better for some to place it there, more like a traditional tampon.

When it comes time to remove it, I find the sponge has expanded (makes sense, since it’s filled with fluid now, right?), has moved/expanded more into the vaginal canal, and I am able to reach it fairly easily between my two fingers to gently pull it out. This can, if my flow has been heavy, squeeze some menstrual fluid out of the sponge, but since I always do this step over the toilet, I don’t find that to be a problem.

Some people, apparently, tie floss or string around the sponge, making it even more like a tampon, and so you only have to pull, rather than reach, to retrieve it. I suppose you could, but I have no desire to do so; either way, unlike a single use tampon you’re going to plop in the toilet, you have to hold the thing to get it to the sink, so your hand’s gonna get messy anyway.

Isn’t that messy?? Well, yes. Rinsing the menstrual sponge

This bit is the part I find really cool, but also sometimes annoying: I get the sponge from my vagina (or rather, from in my hands sort of floating in the toilet basin) to the sink, and rinse it out. (I have so far been lucky/able to plan it so I am only removing it in a toilet from which I can reach the sink; this stage would be a lot more complex logistics-wise if using a public toilet or one not in reach of a sink, and frankly, I hope I never have to figure out what to do then.) If my flow has been heavy, this has sometimes left drips of bloody fluid along the path it travels through the air, but so far has not landed on anything not easily wiped off.

The cool bit? The sponge usually (except on really heavy flow days) doesn’t look like much; there might be some red bits on the outside, or a brownish tinge around the sides, but it certainly doesn’t look like the movies lead us to believe a blood-soaked sponge should look like. But! When I start rinsing it, out comes all this bright-red water. Almost out of nowhere. I find this fascinatingly cool. (See above statement of midwifery/sex ed geekery.)

The annoying part is that there is almost always a spot on the sponge, I believe where it was pressed against my cervix, which is simply plastered with mucus⁶. And that stuff does NOT like to come off. I’m getting better at it, and no longer need to run the water for five minutes (!) to get it off; I find a bit of friction, and scraping it with my finger nail, breaks it up enough to let go of the surface of the sponge, and I can get it thoroughly rinsed in a minute or less. I’ve never read a mention of this elsewhere, so I assume it has to do with my placement of the sponge directly against the cervix, but since that’s where I’m gonna keep using it, I’m gonna keep having to deal with it, so I might as well tell y’all about it, right? Right.

After it’s rinsed, you can 1) disinfect it, and then leave it out to dry for later use, 2) set it aside to disinfect later (keeping in mind that the longer after use and before disinfection, the longer bacteria etc have a chance to settle in and multiply), or 3) pop it back in. I’ve done all of these; although I don’t use the sponge as my primary menstrual collection product, I find it easier to rinse and reuse than try to store until I can get home and clean it.

A nice relaxing soak… in vinegar: cleaning the sponge

The Sea Pearl pamphlet lists a number of ways to clean the sponges. They recommend against boiling or using soap, as these break down the sponge more quickly, but have a number of other suggestions, all of which come down to soaking in a disinfecting solution of some kind. Suggestions include baking soda, vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, tea tree oil, sea salt, and colloidal silver.⁷ I’ve so far only used apple cider vinegar (since I have it in the bathroom for my hair anyway), and it seems to be highly effective, leaving no odors and only one spot of discoloration.

ETA: I just tried a hydrogen peroxide soak (about 1:4 H2O2 to water), leaving it in for, ah, about two hours (I was watching Doctor Who and got distracted…), and it not only got clean, it got clean, and is now the same color it was when I first bought it. No more stains whatsoever. I would recommend very thoroughly rinsing afterward, as the same reason H2O2 is an effective disinfectant makes it rather harsh on living tissue.

The sponge requires slightly more attention than disposable tampons (though there’s no risk of clogging the toilet *cough*), and a different sort of attention than cloth pads, but overall I find it quite easy to care for.

Yeah, but does it work?

Yeah, it really does work. Other than slight spotting that comes from putting it in when my vagina already has menstrual fluid in it (and thus it continues to work its way out), I haven’t had any leaks or failures from the sponge. It expands to fill the space given it, so there’s little chance of a leak past, and I haven’t yet “overfilled” it. What I do find is that when it starts to get full, I start to feel it — and that prompts me to take it out, rinse, and reuse or return to primary pad use. It’s not uncomfortable, unlike a full tampon used to be (I used side-expanding ones, and those things had some edges!), but it is there, and nags at me until I do something about it.

Because I don’t use the sponge regularly, and haven’t used it overnight ever, I haven’t had a chance to test out the claims that it’s fine to leave in during penetrative sex, and I don’t really see that happening soon. I do think it would be fine, though. My main concern would be if the sponge was already “full” — I’d worry both about leaking (from compression) and being more in the way (from having already expanded). There’s also the cleaning issue; if cervical mucus is tough to clean off, how much more so the abundant mucus of ejaculation? But, it’s good to know the option is there, unlike with disposable tampons or a reusable menstrual cup.

FDA, TSS, and pollution, oh my!

(You can calm down, those are three different topics.)

Now, what does the FDA⁸ have to say about this? Way back in 1980 (the year before I was born!),

twelve “menstrual sponges” were examined by the University of Iowa Laboratory and found to contain sand, grit, bacteria, and various other materials. The sponges were voluntarily recalled by the distributor.

(As the pamphlet points out, Sea Pearls, just like single-use tampons, are not sterile, and — unlike single-use tampons — might have minor debris and thus should be inspected and cleaned before use.) I have read in many places that their sale is, because of this, “technically illegal”, but what the FDA actually says is:

Sea sponges labeled as “menstrual sponges,” “hygienic sponges,” or “sanitary sponges,” intended for use as menstrual tampons, are regarded as significant risk devices requiring premarket approval under Section 515.

I have been unable to discover whether Jade & Pearl has obtained such or not.

Does this scare me away from their use? No, not at all. At the risk of sounding conspiracy-theorist, the businesses with money to spend are, in general, the ones who get products approved by the FDA. The disposable tampon and pad industry have lot of money; sponge harvesters and distributors, not so much. While this doesn’t make sponge sellers “good” and disposable menstrual product manufacturers “bad”, it does make me take any promotion of the ones with more money, and defamation of the ones with less, with a grain — haha — of salt.

As for TSS⁹, I have found reference to one confirmed case of TSS due to menstrual sponge use, in 1980 (compare this to “more than 800 cases and 38 deaths” in the USA in 1980 from tampon use). TSS risk from tampon use, primarily found during the era of using hydrogels in tampons (the same super-absorbent polymers still used in abundance today in disposable diapers), is caused by microscopic wounds created in the vagina’s mucosal walls when they get too dry (and then are roughed up by friction, such as the removal of a tampon), allowing a common bacteria, usually Staphylococcus aureus, to enter the bloodstream. The Jade & Pearl Sea Pearl pamphlet reads “Rest assured that Sea Pearls sea sponge tampons do not have the same drying effects as single use tampons.”

I, however, am not completely sure: the sponge is absorbent, though not greedily the way a tampon is (consider: the sponge is inserted when damp; a cotton or rayon tampon when dry), and at the end of my period, when there is not so much menstrual fluid, but my vaginal and cervical fluids haven’t yet geared up in anticipation of ovulation, I find the sponge more sticky, as it were, to remove. Do I think, therefore, I am at high risk of toxic shock? No, certainly not. Definitely no more so than using a conventional tampon (whose risk is already quite low), and, based on comparative feel alone (and worth what you paid for it), probably less.

A concern that some people have raised which I find more compelling than TSS is pollution, and the potential of toxic chemicals embedded within the structure of the sponge. Sea sponges are (very simple) sea creatures; they grow wild in the ocean, and although they are quite low on the food chain (as opposed to, say, tuna, or swordfish), they still spend their entire life-cycle soaked in the oceans we have made nigh-unlivable. How much of that gets absorbed in the matrix we use as a sponge? And how much of that then gets absorbed into our bloodstream via our highly permeable vaginal membranes? Could it possibly be worse than the dioxin-traced tampons millions of people use every day? I have no idea. But it’s something to think about.

But… a sea sponge?? A conclusion

Totally, a sea sponge. Granted I can’t compare it to a menstrual cup, single-use tampons haven’t been comfortable for me for years, and I’m still gonna stay loyal to my cloth pads for most of my menstrual needs, but for when I want to really get my gluts worked on, or long for a dip in the hot tub, or simply want a back-up? Sea sponge, all the way. They are soft, comfortable, easy to use, effective, and fit my body like no other internal device I’ve tried. I’m definitely going to keep them around.

Your turn: Have you ever used a menstrual sponge, and what did/do you think of them? What internal menstrual products have you used? Do you have any questions or concerns about the use of sea sponges as a reusable tampon? Might you now take a second look at those strange lumpy things you’ve seen in the health food store?

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I’m sitting up, bleeding, supposedly trying to work but really just letting myself be distracted by the sundry wonders of the internet, yawning and unfocused and unmotivated, wondering why when my brain was so bubbly and productive just a few days ago it now feels blanker than [...]]]> Living room, 11:45pm, Friday night

I’m sitting up, bleeding, supposedly trying to work but really just letting myself be distracted by the sundry wonders of the internet, yawning and unfocused and unmotivated, wondering why when my brain was so bubbly and productive just a few days ago it now feels blanker than [insert witty metaphor here]¹, thinking I’ll go to sleep as soon as I get a post up, I missed last month’s, really need to get one up now or I never will, damn I wish I’d prepared sooner, when –

– oh. Right. I’m menstruating. It’s the end of a hard week, the end of a menstrual cycle: of course I’m tired. Rather than pushing myself, ignoring my body, pretending that this cycle doesn’t affect me so I can write a post about my cycle and how it affects me (hah!), I could… Stop. Let it go. Go to bed. Before midnight, for once this week.

Kindness, to myself. What a strange idea.

I think I’ll try it.