On Friday I wrote that I would post about the book Dave and I are reading that I hope will help me with my desire to raise emotionally healthy children. I started reading the Optimistic Child by Dr. Martin Seligman over a decade ago for a mentor program I participated in when I was in high school for which I studied depression independently. It has a slightly different meaning for me now and I feel as though I understand it a little better.

Seligman’s theory is that depression is caused by learned helplessness. Those who do not learn how to bounce back from failure eventually fall into the habit of just refusing to try. When they don’t try, they don’t see that they sometimes will succeed or, more importantly, that they will get better as they continue to try. Therefore, they begin to believe that they have failed before they have even tried. Understandably, this leaves them depressed.

The book is primarily focused on immunizing kids against depression by teaching them optimistic thinking. It’s harder than it sounds. You can’t teach a child to think optimistically by simply telling him or her that everything will be great all the time. Why? Because things are not great all the time and kids know it. If you try to delude them when things go badly, they know you are lying. It is important to acknowledge that while things may be rough at the moment, it is a temporary state and in the long run situations will improve if you work to improve them. Persistence is important for improving and learning.

It seems hard to acknowledge that your kid has failed. It is not intuitive for me to say, “sure things are rough right now”. I suppose it is easier to do that if you can follow it up with, “but if you keep trying it will improve. Let’s practice. It will be fun to learn and get better!”

What if I can’t think of a way to improve the situation? What if my kid tries and doesn’t get better? What if I let down my guard for one moment and my depression and pessimism creeps back in and rubs off on my kid?

Dave is further along than I am and told me there is a chapter that explains that it is important for parents to lead by example. If you do not try to succeed at something and make lame excuses for why you are not willing to try, your child will pick up on that. Even if you work hard to preach to him or her that s/he should be positive and persistent, it will not necessarily be effective if you do not practice the same skills.

I’m not very far in my re-read so perhaps I will feel more confident after I finish the book. I suppose that is all the more reason for me to work on these healthy habits for myself.

Do you see your emotional habits rubbing off on your kids? Do you make an effort to be more optimistic and persistent when s/he is within earshot?

On Wednesday I wrote about some of the fears I have about being a parent, but I needed a whole separate post to address my biggest fear.

Others probably vocalize it as, “will I be a good mom?” But I don’t feel like that question gets to the core of my fear. I know that maternal instinct will kick in. In Fact, it already has. I treat my cat like my child. I eat well because I’m motivated to have a healthy baby who is accustomed to vegetables and whole grains. I know that I will respond to cries and be on the look out for hazards.

What I’m more concerned about is my child’s emotional health. It seems like such an elusive thing to monitor. I said to my therapist months ago, “what if my kid is sitting in therapy in 20 or 30 years talking about these kinds of things just like I am now?”

She tried to calm my fear by pointing out that the fact that I’m in therapy shows my willingness to work on these things. That I think about the problems I have and try to solve them. It was encouraging. I do know that one tends to be more successful at something if she works at it, but I still feel as though mental health is so confusing.

I still present my doctor with situations I feel I can’t handle and she gives suggestions that sound so simple. “Why couldn’t I think of that on my own?” I ask. The answer is that it will probably come with practice, but what if it doesn’t? What if we work on all sorts of scenarios, but never get to the one scenario that I run into with my kids and I screw up really badly? What if I yell? What if I say mean things? What if I get exhausted by being a parent?

My doctor has addressed this too. She has pointed out that it’s ok to make mistakes and that I can turn them into learning opportunities. I can apologize for getting upset and explain that I need to take care of myself to manage stress. I can then show my kid the things I do to calm down and feel better. In that way I can teach healthy coping habits like working out the problem and assertively acting towards a solution, or calming myself with a hot bath, a brisk walk, listening to good music, asking for a hug, etc.

But I still have a hard time acting on these better coping habits myself. I still bring my problems to a therapist to have her help me so I’m afraid that I will be inconsistent. This concerns me because we talked recently about how inconsistency in parents’ behavior can be worse than not practicing the good habits in the first place. The child of inconsistent parents does not trust that he or she can rely on the parent and then pulls away as a coping mechanism even when the parent is supportive.

I suppose I can always continue with the therapy and through that teach him or her the importance of seeking help when needed and problem solving. I can talk to him or her later if I realize I’ve made a mistake, but I’m just not sure what affect that would have on a kid. It still feels so complex.

There is a book Dave and I have been reading that I’m hoping will help. I’ll post about that on Monday.

Do you feel there is something your parents did that especially helped you develop emotionally? Was there anything they did that you feel contributed to a healthy confidence and self-esteem?

Today someone posted on Freecycle asking for a Baby B’Air flight vest. I didn’t know what it was and since I’m more aware of baby products lately, I was curious. After a quick search on the Google I found a Youtube video.

Two questions: 1. Am I a bad person because I started laughing when the baby hit the ceiling? (ok, that’s kinda rhetorical ) 2. Should we get one?

Apparently, they aren’t approved for take-off or landing yet which seems pretty silly to me. Does the FAA think it’s more dangerous to use them than to just have the baby on your lap?

It sounds like the best option is to bring along a car seat and pay for an extra seat to put it in, but that is a large added expense, it’s rare to have turbulence so bad your baby hits the ceiling, and most babies I see on flights are simply held in their parent’s lap. Obviously, the added expense is nothing compared to the life of your child, but considering how rare these accidents are, is it really worth worrying about?

There are a lot of hazards out there, but I’m not about to wrap my kid in bubble wrap and lock him/her into a steel cage. Yeah, I know, that’s not comparable to buying an extra seat and lugging around a car seat while traveling. But we do plan on letting our kids go to the park and walk to school on their own, something that many parents are afraid of these days.

Thoughts?

I’ve decided that if I can get through this pregnancy and the subsequent adjustment to a baby without too much freaking out, that will show that I have made an enormous amount of progress in the anxiety realm.

I feel I’m getting to the part of the pregnancy in which I’m having more anxious thoughts. Sometimes I think, “is this what I really want?” I know that it is and I know that it is normal to have those kinds of thoughts. I remind myself of those things and it does help.

On the other hand, it is hard to avoid falling into the old fears I used to have about having children. I do feel that I probably would not have been ok with being a parent if not for the past year and a half of therapy to treat my anxiety. I realize now that at least some of my resistance to having kids came from fear. I was afraid that I would not be able to handle it. I had so many moments of depression and panic that I was afraid those moments would happen while I was responsible for the entire care of a completely helpless person. How do you take care of a baby when you feel like you can’t get out of bed or even make yourself something to eat? Basically, how can you take care of a baby when you can’t even take care of yourself?

I still feel afraid, but at least now I know that I have the therapy to fall back on and I am better at asking for help when I feel I can’t handle something. The awareness is also key. I know when I need to ask for help because I notice the rising anxiety and depression more now and I notice it earlier so I can act on it before it becomes panic or complete helplessness.

I am still afraid of being hit by post-partum depression, but hopefully this better awareness I’ve cultivated will help me deal with it if it comes. It won’t be just me dealing with it; I will have help from Dave, our moms for a couple weeks each, and friends.

It does scare me that after about a month Dave will go back to work and our moms will be gone, but hopefully by then I will have built confidence and be well adjusted. If not? Well, I guess I will still have ways to deal with it. Dave and I will figure it out together. I will still have an awesome therapist who is great at helping me understand and tackle my anxiety. In the worst case, we may be able to afford some child care a couple times per week, if necessary.

If I really don’t take to my role as stay-at-home mom/writer, we do have options. As much as the idea of getting a job just to pay for day care annoys me, it is an option and worth it if it turns out to be better for my mental health.

But I haven’t touched on my biggest fear yet. I’ll cover that on Friday.

Are you terrified of having kids? If you have kids, was it as scary as you thought it would be? What helped you manage your fear?

I’m feeling crappy today so this is an experiment in seeing if I can get a blog post out on a day when I am not feeling up to it, or doing anything for that matter.

I’m not sure why I’m feeling icky, sad, depressed, or whatever you call it, but I have a couple of ideas. One is that it’s so darn dreary today. It was warm and sunny the past few days so it’s surprising that one day like this can trigger such bad feelings, but it has happened before. Could just be that the crummy day is one ingredient in a cocktail of crappy mood.

The other is that I feel uncomfortable even sitting up straight in my office chair. It’s like when you lean against a railing right at the bottom of your rib cage for too long and the pressure on your ribs makes them sore. I’m assuming my torso is running out of space and either my uterus is pushing on my ribs or my uterus is pushing on all that other stuff in there and that stuff is pushing on my ribs. I’m not sure I can comfortably sit up much taller and I’ve still got three months to go.

I’m probably being fatalistic about it. It could just be something that feels bad today that my body will adjust to soon enough, but I keep thinking it’s just going to get worse.

Yesterday my doctor and I talked about accepting pain in order to avoid the anxiety that only makes the pain worse. The technique that finally made sense to me was to observe it, make note of it and accept it as something I cannot change, much like one would learn in meditation practice. I’ve been trying, but it’s a tough process that requires a lot of focus.

I had a cup of coffee, got something to eat, and looked over some funny old photos, many of which featured me looking very happy. I am feeling better now. Not sure if it came from acknowledging my unhappiness and letting it be, but I do feel better knowing that I didn’t wallow in it nor let it spiral further by being angry or feeling guilty that I was sad and hence being unproductive.

Who’s got tips for crawling out of gloominess and/or creating more space in a pregnant gut area?

Sometime in the past month I finally started showing enough that people take notice. Of course, I noticed before that, but who’s really gonna be tactless enough to approach a woman with a large belly and say “when are you due?”. OK, there are definitely people who will do that. In fact, I remember a man asking me that years ago when I was not at all pregnant, but wearing a shirt that flared out at the belly. I do understand the hesitation to bring it up for fear of being wrong, but it was really exciting when Dave and I met a woman touring our condo complex who asked, “you are expecting, right?”.

The critter has been kicking a lot, which is reassuring and still fun to feel, but I do find myself noticing the little movements less. Guess I must be getting used to them. Dave is finally able to feel them from the outside too. The first time he felt it was when he got kicked in the face. I’m assuming that will be the only time he’ll be so excited about someone giving him a boot to the head.

I am getting a little nervous about entering the third trimester, which happens next week at 28 weeks. Everyone makes the second trimester sound so great and I keep hearing that the third will bring me backaches, I’ll gain a ton of weight, I’ll have trouble sleeping, and I’ll experience the joy of hemorrhoids. (In fact, my doctor said they are the most common ailment in pregnancy, so much so that it’s rare NOT to have them.) I’m just hoping I won’t be nearly as miserable as I was during that last month of the first trimester. That was when I was wondering if I’d ever be able to get myself to do this a second time.

I’m also getting stressed about making sure we have everything ready in time. I tend to get gung ho about things in the beginning and then wait to finish up and then have to rush in the end. So based on past experience I’m a little worried about waiting on things. Dave doesn’t want to fill our house with stuff before we need to, but I don’t want to be stressed and do it at the last minute, especially if I’m feeling crappy and having a harder time moving around. I think I’ve convinced him that three months is not too much time to have some extra things around the house and the feeling of being prepared (or slightly more prepared) will be worth it.

Now we just have to figure out what the heck we need! Is there anything you couldn’t live without during that first month or so after the birth? Anything you regretted not having?

*Image borrowed from SearchViews

A couple weeks ago I wrote about Google Buzz backlash from the context of an overload of information, potentially useless information. Since then I’ve been doing some reading and realize there is a more important issue. Privacy. I’m not referring to the “advertisers are trying to sell me things I’m interested in” kinda of privacy issue, but rather the “Google just tricked me into giving my location to the man who is trying to hurt me” kind.

While researching (which is the fancy word bloggers get to use for wasting time on the internet) I came across a woman’s post, “Fuck you, Google”, pointing out that when Google Buzz automatically connected her with her most frequent contacts, one of them was her abusive x-husband and many others were likely equally as abusive men who like to troll her blog.

I get the sense that her post has gotten around, especially since it was referred to on Techcrunch. It appears that she has since made her blog private and I can’t blame her. I’m sure she was the victim of harsh criticism that is truly unfounded. Even as Techcrunch attempts to point out that privacy on the internet is a very real issue that affects personal safety for some, there are folks commenting on the article claiming that she has nothing to worry about, that she just doesn’t understand how Buzz works.

Well golly, call me simple, but neither do I. There is an elitism online that seems to scream, “because I’m smart, I win at the internet”. Well guess what? Just because you are smarter at the internet does not make your privacy more important. If someone opts in to a social network they should take the time to figure out how it works, assuming it works the way it claims and it doesn’t change how it works mid-stream (ahem, Facebook), but who opted in to Google Buzz?

Check out Jono’s blog if you’d like to turn off Google Buzz….maybe.

Yesterday I posted about outside pressure placed on women to have children and the difficulties encountered when deciding whether to have them or not. Today I will explain why I’m writing about women choosing not to have children while I’m currently pregnant.

Why am I writing this after I chose in favor of babies? For two simple reasons: to deal with my feminist guilt and to tell the I-told-you-soers to put a cork in it. It was a hard decision and I know that I led many people to believe that I was against it, but I mainly just wanted to be left alone. I don’t mean to say that one shouldn’t ask a couple if they plan to have kids, but if they say “no” or “we’re not sure”, just leave it at that. Condescendingly lecturing them that they definitely will want kids one day “when they’re all growed up” is rude.

You know what? I don’t like kids much. There, I said it. I’m not comfortable nor incredibly talented with other people’s children, but who cares? I’ll absolutely love my own and I have no doubts that I’m going to be an incredible parent, but I’m just not going to be opening up a day care center anytime soon. I’m also fully aware that Dave and I are going to give up a lot to be parents, but now we’re ok with that because the two of us decided together after ignoring outside pressure.

So to all those out there thinking to themselves, “I told you so”. You’re right, you did say we’d want kids one day (something we were pretty sure of ourselves, but not sure enough to share with anyone) and now we do. Go pat yourselves on the back. You’re, like, psychic or something. You should open one of those shops with crystal balls in the windows. But next time someone tells you they don’t or might not want kids, take my advice and believe them or you might be in for a shock when you realize decades have passed without baby prospects. Especially if your own kids tell you this. You might want to get a puppy or something.

In addressing the other reason I wrote this, I’d like to apologize to all my female friends who definitely don’t want children. I’m sorry! I may have muddled the track record and become one more woman who appeared to be sure she didn’t want children only to change her mind. I confused those people who actually believe that all women love all babies and children because their ovaries tell them to. All because I was too cowardly to admit that maybe I could handle a stinky little attention-grabber and even give it a name or to simply tell people that I’d rather not talk about my choice regarding children.

I’m writing this for you because I believe you when you say you don’t want kids and if you change your mind, that’s ok too. You’re allowed to change your mind and it doesn’t mean you’re wishy-washy, fickle or flaky or too weak to resist hormones. It just makes you a normal person, making decisions based on what you want and what’s best for you, not based on what is expected from your gender.

It’s true. For years I did not want kids. Not all that surprising for someone in her twenties, I think. Your life on your own has just begun, you’ve moved out of your parents’ house, finished or are just finishing college, and beginning to build a career. If you are married, it has only been for a few years. You and your husband/wife are still trying to figure who should take out the garbage and how you can get to sleep at night when one of you is always in bed at ten while the other wants to read until midnight. Babies would just complicate things further.

But here’s the problem, once you’re married people ask about babies a lot. It’s annoying. And if you’re a woman, don’t expect being single to help you avoid the barrage. Maybe in your early twenties you’ll be exempt, but once you start creeping up there family will start asking when you’re going to meet a “nice boy” and that implication that you can’t make babies without him is almost inevitably going to be there. Don’t worry, friends will join in too. Those with kids will tell you about how after 30, 35, or 40 it will be so much harder to get pregnant and don’t you want to be able to enjoy spending time with your kids while you’re still young?

No! I want to be able to enjoy spending time with me while I’m still young! I don’t mean to be cynical or unclear. I’m very happy to be pregnant. I’m prepared. I’ve wanted it for a while and it was my choice. Let me emphasize that, it was my choice (and Dave’s too, of course).

That’s the point. Like everything else in a woman’s life, the choice has to be hers when she’s ready. All the pressure to respond to the third degree about babies, which is really a private topic for a couple, led Dave and I to respond negatively and adamantly. We’re both stubborn people who don’t like being told what to do so when folks started to mention babies before we were even married we responded with rampant rants about how awful kids are — because when they aren’t yours and you’re not ready for them, they can be kinda awful, can’t they? Yelling and screaming and running in front of your shopping cart and whining because they can’t have the toy they want. I’m signed up for it now, but this time it’ll be my kid, not someone else’s badly behaved kid that I can’t pull aside and talk to calmly about a more effective way to negotiate with his or her parents.

What exacerbates the problem, of course, (you knew I was going to get around to it eventually) is sexism. The idea that every woman at some point or another will want to have children. If she doesn’t now, she will, because she doesn’t understand herself as well as thousands of years of stereotypes do. If she doesn’t have babies soon, she will regret it when she’s too old so she might as well just plan for it now.

Here’s another shocker for you, a lot of women don’t want children because they have to give up so much to have them. Right now we’re careening out of control towards equality, or so I’m told, but guess what? We’re not there yet. Nevermind that we’re not close to implanting uteruses in men yet and that no matter how you plan it the woman will always have to take a more physical, visible role. That’s just a given. But whose career will suffer more? If one partner decides to stay home for the first year or two, which will it be? It’s really hard to give up the higher paying of the two salaries — and since men still get higher pay for the same job, well, I guess we know who it’ll be most of the time — and so perpetuates the cycle as women become less of a force in the workplace because they slip out of it. Perhaps by choice, but also frequently by circumstance.

Ultimately, my point is that it’s a very difficult decision and not surprising that many women are simply choosing not to do it. So why am I writing this after I chose in favor of babies? Find out tomorrow when I post part II.

Who doesn’t love a good party that involves fire? Dave and I went to the Valentine’s Day party at the Indian Community Center (ICC) in Milpitas on Saturday night. Usually their events involve dancing, karaoke, an open bar and darn good food. This last one had a fire performance! A man and woman danced sensually across the floor holding props covered with fire that they occasionally put out in their mouths. All the doors were propped open to let out the smoke, but when I got home and blew my nose I found that a lot of the ash still went up in there. It’s ok, that’s what nose hairs are for.

One thing irked me about how these events are planned, though. We had thought it would be fun to have a table full of friends. The tables seat about ten so we figured we could find five couples of the Indian persuasion amongst friends and co-workers, but when our friend Sarah called the ICC to inquire she was told there was an extra cost to purchase a whole table. Huh? We wouldn’t get a group discount, but rather we would have to pay extra to be seated together. How does that logic work? Why would I come to an event if I can’t be seated with my friends (assuming we buy the tickets together)? It ended up just being four of us, but even with that small of a group we were left wondering if they would seat us together. They did, but at what point do they draw the line and tell you you must purchase an entire table for an extra cost? Could we have eight friends at one table and be seated with an unsuspecting random couple?

So sadly we’re not likely to draw in a bunch of friends to ICC events for that reason, but we’ll likely head to another one of their events ourselves. If they turn down the music a bit so I can hear it without plugging my ears, organize the bar better so folks don’t cut in at the front halting the rest of the line for 20 minutes, and do away with their silly extra charge for reserving a whole table I’ll have no complaints and will definitely go again.