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The Mommy’s Pen Podcast: S2, E2: Worldview Genre and “Spirit Riding Free”

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This week we take a look at the Worldview genre.

You can also listen using any number of podcast platforms and apps including Spotify, Breaker, Pocket Casts, Radio Public, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts.

Show Notes:

Season 2, Episode 2: The Worldview Genre and “Spirit Riding Free”

We start our exploration of genre with the help of the excellent kids series “Spirit Riding Free” from Netflix. The episode “Lucky and the Treacherous Trail” (season 1, episode 2) is a great example of the Worldview genre with a Maturation subgenre. (Other subgenres in the Worldview genre are: Education, Disillusionment and Revelation.)

Read the full transcript.

Things we mention that you should check out:

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The Impending Doom Shawl and Other Snowy Thoughts

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It’s snowpocalyse. Portland has had a foot of snow on the ground since Wednesday. Life as we know it has pretty much ground to a halt.

Two big lessons have come out of this:

  1. You know that post office claim of delivering come rain, sleet, snow, no matter what? Bullshit.
  2. And cabin fever? That’s totally real. And it causes you imagine being transported by Amazon drone to warm places with ripe tomatoes and low carb cocktails.

Naturally, I’m using the time to knit as much as possible. About two days before the election, I started what I EXPECTED to be a fun shawl project to distract me from my tummy butterflies about the election. I thought I was being silly for worrying that Hillary would lose. We all EXPECTED her to win.

And then. Well. We know what happened. But I kept trucking on my shawl, despite my misgivings about the 70s color scheme I had chosen. Hey, I checked with Nora and she liked the color combo. Good enough for me.

Now it’s a few days before inauguration and I’m finished with it. It’s so ugly, it’s cute.

The Impending Doom Shawl
The Impending Doom Shawl

Or maybe ugly times call for ugly shawls?

I tried not to let election feelings leak into the project, but since it was knit from election to inauguration, that was impossible. Therefore, I’ve decided to name it the “Impending Doom Shawl.” In the event of an actual apocalypse, I can use it to wrap my children around me while we struggle through a nuclear winter as opposed to just the strangely snowy winter we are currently facing.

Have I mentioned I haven’t been out of the house since Tuesday? This fact may be clouding my perspective somewhat.

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A Plea to Those Wading Into the Vaccination Debate

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The point of this post is not to get you to change your opinion on whether or not to vaccinate your child.

I’m not even going to tell you whether or not my kid is vaccinated.

The minute I do that, I lose half the people I want to reach. I will become an opponent.

Because this debate has become toxic.

I get why. We’re talking about our kids. We’d do anything to protect them. Including fight. Especially fight.

And what better place to fight than on the internet? We can get all wound up while sitting comfortably on our couches, and not see the effect we’re having on each other.

We can rant. We can insult. We can moralize and demonize.

And we can shut down when the other side starts talking.

So why bother to talk about it at all?

Have you ever changed your mind in the face of someone shouting you down?

In the last week, I’ve read proclamations from both sides that explicitly say: you’re a bad parent/citizen based on your choice.

Here’s the thing — and we all know this — when you start hurling insults at the other side, it’s not going to do any good. In fact it’s doing damage.

The people in your choir will nod their heads and everybody else will turn their backs.

You’re better off not even opening your mouth.

Battling breaks down any trust that exists — or has the potential to exist — between two people. And when there’s no trust, there’s no changing hearts and minds.

The fact is, we don’t have any control over the choices of others.

Everyone makes decisions based — at least in part — on their biggest fears.

So what to do?

I believe the way we talk about this matters.

Remember: you have far more in common with other parents than you have differences. Everybody is making the best decision they can with the information and values they have.

I have friends on both sides of the debate. They are all good people and good parents. I love and care about all of them. I value those relationships.

What we need to do is figure out the best way to move forward with the circumstances we have in place.

Right now, I worry that’s not happening. Can you picture a group of parents from both sides sitting down and talking about what to do during a school outbreak without any vitriol?

It’s not realistic to think the pendulum of public opinion is going to swing to one side or the other during a toxic debate. There are no winners.

Here’s what we can do:

Listen with compassion.

Speak respectfully.

Reflect on our own opinions and choices.

Change our own minds on the issue, or don’t.

But above all, keep our hearts soft and take our armor off.

All over the world, everybody always strikes out at the enemy, and the pain escalates forever. Every day we could reflect on this and ask ourselves, “Am I going to add to the aggression in the world?” Every day, at the moment when things get edgy, we can just ask ourselves, “Am I going to practice peace, or am I going to war?” — Pema Chodron

Humans are Terrible at Making Resolutions #Day3

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Notice I said making resolutions, not keeping resolutions?

Just before the new year, Nora, age 7-1/2, decided she was going to wake up early every day. She was making a New Year’s Resolution without realizing it.

Why did she want to wake up early? So she could have extra time to do fancy things with her hair.

From a mother’s perspective, this is a terrible idea. I don’t give a shit about your hair, kid; as long as it doesn’t stink or make the county think you’re neglected.

What I care about is that you get enough sleep so you can go to school and function happily, without being a complete train wreck in the evenings. If you’re sacrificing sleep in the name of vanity, we’re in trouble.

Seven-year-olds aren’t the only ones who have a hard time setting goals and resolutions for the right reasons. Grown-ups are just as bad.

So often, our reasons involve how we look to others, not how we feel. We resolve not to act in our own best interests.

That’s why we are so terrible at keeping resolutions, because we’re terrible at making them.

With this in mind, the only resolution I’ve set for this year is to work with whatever comes my way and make it part of my spiritual growth, instead of struggling against it or running from it. It’s not an easy one to keep, that’s for sure.

But at least I know it’s good for me. I’m finally old enough to realize that running from reality or trying to fight it is where all the trouble starts.

As for Nora, her early rising resolution lasted about three days. I was damn glad to see it broken.

If you’ve already broken your resolution for this year, maybe it’s time to look at the reason you made it in the first place. Maybe it’s for the best and a new one would serve you better.

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This week I’m doing the #YourTurnChallenge. One blog post a day for seven days. Today is Day 3.

Please, Confine Me #Day 2

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Warning: Graphic pregnancy truths, ranting and a certain amount of self pity lay ahead. This post is not for the squeamish — or any male relative or co-worker of mine.

Sunday morning I wake up disappointed that a night of minimally interrupted sleep didn’t work any miracles on my body. Before I even stand up, I know I’m in trouble. Once I’m on my feet and the blood has a chance to rush to my nether regions the pressure “down there” is so intense I can barely walk. I employ Tucks pads and take a sitz bath (in the tub my husband has lovingly cleaned for me) and tearfully accept that I just need to put myself on bed rest for the rest of the day. I lay on my left side moaning and feeling sorry for myself.

It’s been seven months since I felt comfortable in my own body. And just as annoying, seven months since I’ve been able to respond to the question, “How are you doing?” without a rueful frown.

I guess it’s good practice in telling people what they don’t want to hear. When most people ask you how your pregnancy is going they want you to say: “Fantastic! I’m an earth mother and it’s all a beautiful fucking miracle!”

I usually say “I’m tired.” Which is always true. Then I mentally suppress of my list of other complaints: hormones have me perpetually on the brink of tears, my hips, vulva and butt all hurt, and my doctor won’t let me have sex when I crave it most because it makes my newly discovered cervical polyp bleed.

Even the bland “I’m tired” answer makes me feel like a sad sack. But it’s better than faking some sunny disposition and perpetuating the American tendency to paint pregnancy as something to be powered through with green smoothies and prenatal yoga classes.

It’s true, some women love being pregnant and experience minimal discomfort. That’s great for them, but the rest of us — dealing with nausea, insomnia, heartburn, hemorrhoids and varicose veins in our vulvas — deserve some tender loving care and a fistful of get-out-of-obligation-free cards.

Even well meaning people have a tendency to assume that if you just took better care of yourself you’d be feeling just fine. And they begin dispensing advice along those lines.

Worse are the people who look at you like complaining about your pregnancy somehow means you don’t want your baby. Maybe I’m just reading into things too much, whacky hormones will do that, but sometimes it feels like there’s judgment imposed when you provide honest answers to questions that are supposedly asked out of empathic concern.

What I want is a fucking time machine so I can skip ahead to the healthy full-term baby part, the truly beautiful part. And feel like I inhabit an almost normal body again.

I’m not laying out all these complaints for the shock value or merely to whine (though whining is certainly part of it). And obviously, I got myself into this (as I can hear so many childless people saying).

I mainly want to raise awareness that when you see a pregnant woman, there’s likely lots of ugly stuff happening behind the scenes that she’s not talking about.

Be kind. Send her some subliminal — or better yet overt — messages that it’s okay to be a hot mess right now.

I’m starting to appreciate the old fashioned concept of “confinement” during pregnancy. I want me some of that. Social permission and a private place to be a hot mess for the next few months.

But I’ll settle for my close cadre of people who know the truth, try to make my life a little bit easier, and love me anyway. I don’t know what I’d do without them.

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This week I’m doing the #YourTurnChallenge. One blog post a day for seven days. Today is Day 2.

 

 

 

I’m at BlogHer.com and My FIL is Guest Posting: Portlandiacs

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Good news, friends!  I managed to snag a gig as a result of attending BlogHer. Please head over and check out my piece, How to Succeed in Portland Without Really Recycling at BlogHer.com. 

And I’d so appreciated if you’d hit the “sparkle” button while you’re there, so maybe they’ll invite me back sometime. I only have to manage 16 more of these babies for the conference to pay for itself! 

You don’t have to have an account to “sparkle” something, you do need to have an account to comment. That said, I’d really love it if you left a comment, too.

When you’re done reading that, come back and read my father-in-law’s rebuttal, of sorts.  But really, go read my piece at BlogHer.com first or what Larry has to say won’t make any sense. Take it away, Larry…

I loved your description of success in Portland. Perfect. And funny.

You know, here in the Midwest some of us have a similar lifestyle. But we don’t make a big deal out of it like you Portlandiacs. We just modestly go about our business.

Yes, we live in the suburbs and have a too-big chemically-infused lawn. But we also compost — it’s right behind the shed where the neighbors won’t see it. Nobody knows. And that is just fine, because we are from the Midwest, you know.

When Ben and Iss were babies we used cloth diapers. You haven’t had fun until you dunk diapers in the toilet umpteen times a day, doing your best to not splash. Or gag. The diaper pail was in the hall closet, of all places. No one knew it was there, of course, because Midwesterners don’t make a show about such things.

As you know, we have been vegetarians for more than 30 years. I suspect that on some days we have been more vegan than not. Our friends eat meat, but what other people choose to eat is no business of ours. Eat meat if you wish. We wouldn’t want to impose our values on other folks. Midwesterners would never do such a thing, you know.

We recycle as best we can, checking the little number in the middle of the triangle. Part of it is about frugality. But the rest is just doing what it takes to make the world a bit better, as modestly as we can. After recycling and composting, there isn’t much left. When it comes to trash, we make a game out if. How many weeks can we go without putting any trash out by the curb? But we would never expect the neighbors to notice. Or care. Not in the Midwest.

We use paper napkins? Gasp! But after each meal we slip them under the placemat to be reused again and again. If we haven’t been eating too many meals with ketchup or other goopy stuff, a napkin can last a week or more. Then it gets composted. But here in the Midwest, we do it quietly and modestly.

Maybe it’s not so much what we do, as how we do it. Portlandiacs, get over yourselves! Be like us here in the Midwest. As Garrison Keillor says, “Be well, do good work…” and don’t make a big deal out of it.