August 27, 2014

End of the Month Controversy- Israel and Palestine

street art by Banksy

Once upon a time, civilization emerged in what we call Mesopotamia.

Mesopotamia means "land between rivers," and the rivers it refers to are the Tigris and the Euphrates, in modern day Iraq.

Many civilizations emerged there. many cultures and religions. Many more emerged nearby, each spreading deeper into the three continents that Mesopotamia bridged.


One of those culture and religion is my own. Five thousand years ago, the Jewish people were nomads, wandering through the deserts that surrounded Mesopotamia. Four thousand years ago, they became the dominant culture in land at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, to the west of Mesopotamia. Three and a half thousand years ago, they were conquered, and their country fell, and they once again became wandering nomads. They wandered to Egypt and were enslaved.

Or at least, some of them were. But a great many Jewish people remained in the former Israel, farming and shepherding, living under the rule of other peoples. So many, in fact, that for another thousands years or so, they remained the dominant culture. Part of what kept them so dominant was the assistance of another nearby people- the Persians. After Xerxes (known in Hebrew as Ahasuerus) took a Jewish girl named Esther as his queen, the Persian Empire was one of the first places and times in human history where Jews were allowed to live as they pleased- worshipping their own God, controlling their own commerce, and existing in their own communities. The Persians even allowed the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem. But the land that was once Israel was on the border of another two continents, and constantly at play in the wars of other people.


It was around that time that the Romans, living to the north of Mesopotamia, took over what was once a desert belonging to no-one, and then a Jewish country called Israel, and then the property of Assyrians and Persians and other assorted middle eastern peoples. Within a few hundred years, Jesus was born, and the number of Jews living in the modern day middle east began to become a number of Jews and a number of Christians, and even more numbers of people of neither faith or heritage. A tribe of Jews wandered off into Africa and became lost for millennia, the Christians moved farther north into Europe.


Half another thousand years after this, Mohammed was born and an empire began growing around him, in the land to the south of Mesopotamia. This new culture pushed north into Europe, and east into Asia, and west into Africa- through the land that previously belonged to the Romans and the Assyrians and the Persians and the Jews and nobody.

So now Israel was part of the massive empire of the Caliphate, which covered all the northern part of the African continent, modern day Spain, India, and Turkey. It was a massive empire.

And the Holy Roman Empire fought with the Caliphate, and the land that was once Israel and had belonged to dozens of passing tribes over the past four thousand years traded hands many times.


The Holy Roman Empire didn't only fight against Islam. It also fought against Jews, now living in Europe. They were tortured and killed, and many fled. Some wandered deeper and deeper into Europe, some went back through the former Mesopotamia into India, and some went to their former territory, the former Israel, because they believed it to be their homeland.

When the Ottoman Empire came, that land once again traded hands, and still the Jews who had decided to remain there after the fall of the Jewish country, and the fall of the Persian Empire, and the fall of the Romans, etc. etc., lived in that place- with the slowly accumulating European Jews, and all the other peoples who had come and gone, building their shrines and temples, and taming the desert.

Meanwhile, persecution against the Jews continued in Europe. The Jews wandered farther north, farther east, and as pogroms grew in frequency in Russia, many European and now American Jews embraced a new philosophy- Zionism- and began immigrating to the land to the west of Mesopotamia in larger numbers. In the decade before World War 1 alone, forty thousand Zionist immigrants landed on the shores of what they knew as Israel. And tensions between the Jews and Arabs, which had always been fraught, began to rise.

With the first world war, the Ottoman Empire was cut into pieces and distributed as spoils to the victors- assorted European powers.


The British took what they called Palestine, and kept it under their direct control. European and American Zionists continued moving back to the desert, planting apricot groves and building settlements and cities.

And then came the Holocaust.

When World War II ended, the new United Nations agreed that in order to prevent another Jewish genocide, the Jews needed a home. The British offered Palestine, where many of the Jews were going anyway, and gave it to them.

There were already Jews there. What overnight became Israel again was already home to hundreds of thousands of Jewish people.

America was hostile to Jews. Europe was hostile to Jews, with the exception of a several Scandinavian states who had welcomed Jewish refugees as early as the sixteenth century. Nobody wanted to offer their protection, but Britain had a sliver of land that happened to already be home to more Jews than almost anywhere else on earth, and only having owned it for a few decades, they figured they wouldn't really miss it when it was gone.

But as we know, Jews weren't the only people in Israel. The two thirds of the non-Jewish population in the territory was made of all sorts of people. There were Muslims, who had been living there for half a thousand years, since the Caliphates spread up from what was now Saudi Arabia.

There were Christians, who had been living there since the Roman Empire.

There were dozens of other tribes, with their own religions and their own cultures, who had been living in the land to the west of Mesopotamia since before history.

So the great powers of the world agreed- send the Jews to Israel, a country the size of New Jersey, and the problem is solved. Within a year the Jewish community grew from 30% to 80% of the populations.

The day after the British left, every Arab neighbor attacked the new state. Miraculously, Israel survived. Twenty years later Egypt announced plans to "destroy Israel,"and Israel went to war with its neighbors again, this time expanding territory into the Sinai and the West Bank. After that, the Arab neighbors met and announced their conditions: No recognition of an Israeli state, no peace, and no negotiations. It's an attitude that has continued in Hamas.

And so, despite the existence of a modern Jewish state, there have only been three places in the history of Judaism where Jewish people could live essentially in peace.

The first was Israel as it was four thousand years ago, in its half millennia of autonomy and prosperity.

The second was Persia, when Jerusalem was returned to the Jews to administer as they saw fit.

And the last is the United States, in the last half century, after the struggles of the Civil Rights movement suddenly changed the perception of Jews in America from a maligned "other" to "white." (Ironically, American persecution of Jews had gained momentum during the Civil War, when Ulysses S. Grant issued orders evicting Jews from American territory.) But as the government of Israel continues to grow more and more conservative and aggressive in its fight with Hamas, even America is less welcoming.


There are 8.3 million Jews living in America, spread out through all 50 states. There are 6.3 Jews living in Israel- a territory the size of New Jersey. There's another three million scattered across the world. That's all the Jews on earth.

Everywhere but here and Israel, Jews are a persecuted minority. Hate crimes against Jews continue in France, the country with the third highest Jewish population. Hate crimes against Jews continue in Russia, where they aren't given citizenship.

And Israel's neighbors continue to threaten its total and absolute destruction.

Israel's government is in a position that most of us cannot begin to comprehend. Vastly outnumbered by enemies who take every opportunity to attack, but still they MUST abide by expectations of far distant allies.

And in this situation, the Israeli government has done very, very bad things.

The way Israel treats the peoples of Gaza and the West Bank is unacceptable. The hardships they inflict are often compared to apartheid, and not without reason.

But each time Israel eases the restrictions they place on Palestinian territories, Hamas responds with attacks.

This does not excuse the actions of the Israeli government.

Many Jews (even in Israel) are not Zionists. Many Jews don't believe a Jewish state is a good idea. Many Jews don't believe the Jewish claim to the land that is now Israel but was once Palestine and Roman and Ottoman and Persian and Assyrian and just a desert to the west of Mesopotamia is a valid claim. Some Jews interpret the Torah in such a way as to forbid a Jewish state in Israel.

Source
But Many Jews feel compelled to support Israel, because nearly half of the Jews on earth are there, and part of being Jewish is the constant awareness that somebody is coming for you. Somebody is coming, bent on destroying the entire Jewish people. And Israel is a damn fine target for those people who want to destroy the Jews.

Nearly half the Jews in the world live under the constant threat of annihilation from their next door neighbors, who explicitly demand their destruction. Nearly half the Jews in the world spent the last two months running for their bomb shelters over and over again as Hamas fired rockets. Nearly half the Jews in the world are faced daily with a choice to live in the land where their people have lived for five thousand years, or to flee alone into a world that despises them.

THAT is what's happening in Israel.

There is no doubt that the Israeli government is doing criminal things. But that is not the same as the Jewish people.

Yet, because Israel is THE Jewish State, and because Jews, as all minorities are, find themselves compared to and represented by the most visible entity with the same label, the rest of the world takes out its frustration at the Israeli government on "The Jews."

That's why Jewish students at American universities are being assaulted on campus. This is why random Jewish couples in New York City are being attacked by strangers on the street. That's probably why a 65 year old historian was beaten to death this month in Philadelphia. Because all across the world there was already a nasty streak of anti-semitism, and it is being fed by fury at Israel. The factions of people already attacking Jews has adopted the same language and set of complaints used to attack Jews a century ago.

It is much more complicated than a country ripped from the hands of one people and given to another.

It's more complicated than Jews versus Muslims. The majority of Jews in Israel are not religious, but the ultra-orthodox members of the Knesset have passed laws excusing ultra-orthodox Israelis from their mandatory military service. In what is, for Israelis, not a religious war, the Jews with religious motivation have eliminated themselves from the lines.

It is even more complicated than Jews having their own country to run as they see fit, because the increasingly conservative and violent government of Israel is making it harder for non-Israeli-born Jews to become citizens.

And it is more complicated even that that- because American Evangelical Christians are founding and promoting charities with the sole purpose of moving more Jews out of Europe and into Israel, with the hopes that when ALL the Jews are in Israel it will bring about the second coming of Christ, and the world will end.


But it also serves to convince the growing Anti-American movements in the Middle East, like offshoots of Al Qaeda, that America is connected with the Zionist movement, creating more hatred towards Israel and Jews, and funneling more rockets and fighters into Gaza.

THAT is how complicated the situation is.

Hamas and Israel agreed to another ceasefire yesterday. After fifty days of death and destruction, mostly in Gaza, another shaky attempt at peace is here.

When it fails, as it probably will, be careful in where and how you assign the blame. It is not anti-semitic to be anti-Zionist. Just remember that a people and a country are not the same.

Remember that if the Israeli government wanted to kill Palestinian civilians, they'd all be dead already.

Remember that if the Palestinians weren't oppressed, they wouldn't accept Hamas.

Remember that the people living in Israel, people living EVERYWHERE, have only ever wanted to live free from persecution, regardless of which Empire erased or redrew the borders last time around.

All of this fighting- it is all based on invisible lines in the sand. The same sand we've been fighting in for five thousand years.

Remember that five thousand years is a long time. And remember that we can't change history to suit our needs. It is not black and white, good and evil, right and wrong.

It's a series of events that occurred, and if we are careful, we can learn from them.

And maybe, then, we can build a lasting peace.

August 25, 2014

My Body, My Choices- Thoughts on the Chicago SlutWalk


Over breakfast on Saturday morning, I reminded the children that we were going to a rally. To protest, as I simplified for the children, when people are mean and hurt other people, then say it's the other person's fault because of what they were wearing. I told them, as I often told them, "You're in charge of your body, and nobody is allowed to touch your body without your permission."

"There will be lots of people with signs there. I think most people will have signs. Would you like to carry signs, too?"

"Yes!"

"What would you like them to say?"

DD answered in typical DD fashion: "You should wear whatever you want to wear because you get to wear what you want and people shouldn't be mean to you because of what you wear and you get to wear what you want and if people are mean that's not okay because they don't get to choose what you wear and you do get to choose what you wear and they don't get to be mean to you."

"That's an awful lot to put on a sign. How about, Wear What You Want To Wear?"

"Yes! Can it be pink?"

"Yup! SI, what do you want your sign to say?"

"How about, I'm in charge of my body?"

And so I made the kids signs, and RH freaked out. "I want a sign! I want a sign!"

As we were on our way out the door, I grabbed a sharpie and whipped up a quick little sign for her, without asking first. Considering that RH is the most stubborn kid I've ever known, I thought a message she's approve of was that she makes the decisions regarding her body. This is already as true as it can be for a two year old. "What's it say, mommy?"

"My body, my choices."

"MY BODY! MY CHOYZIZ!"

"Good enough."

Forty minutes later, we were at the fourth annual Chicago SlutWalk.

Of course the kids were a hit. Everybody who stopped and asked what their signs said got an earful. SI especially loved telling people EXACTLY what her sign said, and what that meant. She got a lot of high five from essentially topless women.

I was so proud of them. I was so proud of them for asking intelligent questions all afternoon, and being patient through over a mile of marching. I was so proud of them for being polite and kind to the people there.


I took a picture of them with their signs, and when we got home, I put it on the Becoming SuperMommy facebook page and twitter.

Within hours, the backlash came.

Let me be clear- I have taken my children to SlutWalk twice before. I have published pictures of my children at SlutWalk twice before.

Never have I experienced anything like this.







Maybe it's because all the responses I've had to previous year's SlutWalk posts have been so positive, I was blindsided. And more than that, I was hurt.

Because, knowing full well that one should NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER engage with a troll... I responded to them.

And what they said pained me in my soul. Not because of the personal nature of the attacks, that didn't bother me at all. It was their profound blindness to reality.







What got to me was knowing that in attempting to help my children escape and change a culture that devalues them for being female, that will condemn them for what they wear and blame them for their own victimhood, I have exposed them to a form of that violence.

I knew it was possible that as we marched people would shout unkind things. I was ready to talk to them about it. To teach them.

What I wasn't ready for was being personally attacked for teaching them. And I realize now how profoundly naive that was.

The fact is that we live in a culture where events like the SlutWalk are still necessary, because we live in a culture where college students are devoting their time to inventing nail polish that detects date rape drugs. We live in a culture where thousands of people think it's a good business idea to produce rape-proof jogging shorts.

And there IS a need, and a market for those things, because sexual violence is RAMPANT.

When they go to college, I don't want to have to take my daughters shopping for anti-rape pants and nail polish that changes colors when exposed to roofies. I don't want my children going to high school and being able to relate to a new generation of teen political anthems, like this punch-to-the-gut country song:




Yes. There's a country song about Steubenville-esque high school date rape. Because this story is so damn common that it's horrifically relatable.

THIS is the world we live in.

This is the place I have to teach my daughters to navigate. To survive and thrive in.

This is the world I have dedicated myself to changing so that the burden my daughters bear will be lighter.

I took my children to a place where women were dressed provocatively, some wearing only thongs and pasties. Because the point is that IT DOESN'T MATTER. It doesn't matter what a person wears- they are STILL a person. They are STILL in charge of what happens to their body.

It doesn't matter if they expose their body, that's not an invitation to ignore their autonomy. It's not an excuse to dismiss their ability to say 'no.' It's not public property, even when it's visible.

After the hate mail started coming, I asked M if he was glad we took the children.



"Of course I am," he said. "While I was walking, and reading all the signs and everything, it really hit home for me in a way it never had before. How one out of three women... and we have three daughters..."

I will not apologize for taking my daughters to SlutWalk.

If I had sons, I would be even more determined to take them. Because it is our sons more than our daughters who constantly hear messages that women exist for their pleasure. While I've had many fears about raising girls in my years of motherhood, until Saturday I hadn't really understood what it must be like to fear raising boys. To fear the mechanism of our society that wants to taint them, to train them, to pat them on the head and permit them to become abusers.

I would take my sons to the SlutWalk, and say to them- "These are people. All of these people are PEOPLE. And when you see somebody in next to nothing, or naked, they do not stop being people. They don't suddenly lose their right to control what happens to them. Remember that for the rest of your life."


I will not apologize for teaching my daughters that they control their bodies, and their fates.

But I will apologize for this world, because I am a part of it. And until I can be confident that I have more than done my part to make it safe for them to exist here, as girls and then women, the guilt that has plagued me most of my life will continue.

I am responsible for them. For now. For a short window in time, I am in charge of keeping them safe- and more importantly, teaching them to remain safe.

I'm going to keep doing it the best way I know.

At SlutWalk '14


At SlutWalk '12


At SlutWalk '11




August 18, 2014

The Best I Have to Offer

My favorite small humans
Tomorrow is M's birthday. We're going on a date, and that means tonight we're having a little family party.

The girls planned it.

That is why we're having a strawberry cake with chocolate ice cream, and the cake will be decorated with pictures of the whole family standing under a rainbow.

Yes, I'll post pictures.

That's why I'm still unshowered and my house is a mess. Because the priority right now is birthday.

Wrapping presents. Baking cake. Mixing frosting. Making ice cream.

And yes, picking flowers. And making a giant freaking mess.

I always feel bad about the way my home looks. Always. Because my home is always a disaster zone. Take the dining room right now- there are dress ups under the easel, there's laundry on the rack that's been dry and ready to hang up for three days. There's a mountain of coloring books and picture books under the toy table. The dining room table still has breakfast dishes, and craft supplies, and random crap all over it. My desk is a an organizational nightmare. There are random trucks and clown shoes and neck pillows scattered on the floor. There's dryer sheets and bean bags and a puppy in a baby carrier just hanging around underfoot.

That's just one room. And barely the tip of the iceberg.

That laundry has been there since Thursday.
I tried to clean it last weekend, so that a professional housecleaner could come to my home and do the deep cleaning.

She deemed it uncleanable and gave me my money back.

I am constantly embarrassed by my home. I go to other family's homes and I see their floors. Their carpets, and I see their spotless countertops, and their little rows of matching shoes... and I feel ashamed and incompetent.

That's how I feel most days.

But there's one person in this world who always makes me feel better about my home.

I've never seen her home. I've never seen her family. But she's in my home twice a week, every week, and she knows when I make some pathetic excuse about how busy we've been, it's nonsense. This is just how we live.

And that person is RH's physical therapist.

You might recall RH started physical therapy about a year and a half ago to help her compensate for a possible spinal cord tether. Since then, two times a week, this woman comes into my home and plays with my children. She takes all three of them to the yard so I can take a shower. She plays games with them, and she compliments them.

And before she goes, she compliments me.

I am not the best parent in the world. Despite what my husband and kids say, I know I'm not. I know there are parents out there who make more nutritious meals for their kids, every day, from scratch, and at least once a week my kids have veggie corn dogs or fake chicken nuggets courtesy of Morningstar Farms, smothered in ketchup that's 99% corn syrup.

I know there are parents out there who keep their homes clean. Like, REALY clean. Who have EVER wiped down the baseboards. Who go through the house putting away toys once the kids are in bed. Who never leave dishes "to soak" in the kitchen sink overnight.

I know there are parents out there who are more engaged than me. Who spend all day homeschooling, or unschooling, or going on adventures. Who ration out screen time carefully. Not like me, who uses Disney Princess movies that I despise as a nearly daily opportunity to brush my teeth without being interrupted.

I know there are parents who get out of bed before the kid so they can get in an uninterrupted workout routine, whereas I stay under my covers until the very last moment it's humanly possible.

I know I'm not the best mom out there.

This is one of DD's "collections." You can find them in drawers, corners, baskets,
and hats all over the house. Only the flowers don't look so good anymore.
I know that today I've already threatened my kid with a spanking for screaming and crying and ignoring me when I tried to talk to her about headbutting her sister so hard in the face that it gave her a nosebleed. I know that today I ignored the fact that my toddler was wearing "princess shoes" before "princess shoe time" because it was the first time all day she's stopped yelling about anything and everything, even though our downstairs neighbors have more than reached their limits when it comes to the constant noise of three small children above them. I know that I've got a pee soaked cloth diaper draped over the edge of a diaper pail with no bag in it because I'm not going to risk waking a sleeping toddler just in the name of sanitation.

I know I'm dirty, and exhausted, and I smell like days old migraine sweats and somebody else's piss, and in a few minutes I'll take the world's fastest shower so I can finish baking a fresh-from-scratch strawberry birthday cake and write "Happy Birthday Daddy" on it.

But an hour and a half ago, when RH's physical therapist left my home, she stopped to talk to me as she does every Monday and Wednesday.

"RH is doing so well," she says.

"And SI and DD are so smart and so polite," she says.

"And they're so good with her. They're such good big sisters," she says.

"I don't know how you do it. You must do a lot of reading," she says. "Your girls are so sweet. I'm so impressed with how you deal with the temper tantrums. All the talk about choices and talking them through what they did. I tell my sister how good you are with that kind of stuff."

And I am flabbergasted that she says these things. I cannot imagine that she could mean them. This sweet woman, with two kids of her own- also four and two. She thinks I'm doing something right.

This is the woman who, one particularly rough day, SI greeted by announcing, "Mommy THREW DD onto the floor!" Which isn't what happened, but it had JUST happened. And I was sitting on the floor, hugging DD and telling her I'm sorry she fell when I yanked her out of her seat, but she needed to use TWO HANDS when she grabbed for a full cup of milk and I needed her to move instead of freezing so I could get to it before all the mess all over the dining room was soaked in milk. And while I panicked that now a state child welfare worker was going to have to report me for potentially abusing my child, she looked at me and said, "Would you like me to take the kids outside so you can have breakfast with a little quiet?"

I'm a mom who snaps more than I'd like to. I get angry, and I get frustrated, and I'm constantly outnumbered. Outnumbered by three kids who are all going through growth spurts and won't eat cheddar cheese if they know there's gouda in the house, and hate mangoes until all they want to eat is mangoes, and trash every room the moment I've finished making it livable again, and no matter what I do I can't keep up with them.

But I'm lucky. Because twice a week, another mom who's constantly outnumbered and exhausted and can't keep up with her kids either comes into my home and tells me I'm doing a good job.

Part of me hopes RH needs twice weekly physical therapy for the rest of her childhood, so I'll always have that twice weekly moment of reassurance.

Part of me feels intensely guilty for my gratitude that this woman has no choice but to come and relieve me for an hour twice a week of the constant attention of my own kids.

My little chaos machines
Today we're baking a cake, from scratch, and I can do that. I can do these fun things, and take pictures, and laugh, and have a great time with my kids.

I can help them wrap presents and I can enjoy this time with them, and I can make a gourmet freakin' dinner for M's birthday- grilled tuna steak with tequila salsa for him, quinoa garlic patties for the rest of us, a spinach strawberry salad for us salad eating adults, and curry roasted cauliflower for everyone. I can acknowledge I'll be cleaning up those dishes for another three days. I can acknowledge that while the cake cools, the children will be trashing the living room.

I know it's coming.

I know what my life looks like, and what it looks like is chaos. These are my priorities.

And although I'm ashamed, constantly, of the results of those priorities when it comes to my shabby house, my monstrous dust bunnies, my perpetually nearly-not-dying house plants and the random used bandaid that turns up in the middle of the floor, I'm not ashamed of my choices.

I'm happy with them, because they are the choices that make me happy. Rather than force myself to feel the constant frustration of my children's enthusiastic mess, I just let them live in it.

Rather than feel the constant exhaustion of not looking beautiful enough, I put my hair in a ponytail and settle for an Ariel assisted tooth-brushing.

Rather than argue with an obstinate two year old that she's making an invisible neighbor miserable, I accept the tongue lashing I'll get in ten minutes on the phone.

Facts are facts. The fact is that my house is a disaster.

But my life isn't.

And even when it feels like it is, because people can see my disastrous home and therefore must have access to my disastrous life... the physical therapist smiles and tells me my kids are great, and I must be doing something really right.

Today is our celebration of M's birthday. Fresh fish, a pink cake, chocolate ice cream, home-made wrapping paper covered in his daughters' drawings.

He deserves it.

I deserve it.

And my children deserve the best of what I can give them.

I can't give them a spotless home. I just can't. But I can give them the best of my love. I can give them the majority of my attention and affection. I can give them hugs and kisses, and songs, and stories, and green eggs and purple oatmeal, and teach them to squeeze lemon onto sliced strawberries.

I can let them make a mess.


For me, I think that's the best I can do. Because my life is messy, and they're a part of it.

And I think they know what a big part they are.

August 14, 2014

Personal Truths

Who is that masked man?
As you are probably aware, I a big believer in being honest with my kids. Most of the time.

And as my children have gotten older (Today, my almost-five year old told me, 'When I was a little kid I didn't know so many things.') they have become more inquisitive, and have longer memories.

And they remember my lies.

Recently? Santa Claus. Somehow, the topic of Santa Claus came up. SI was so excited to talk about Santa. "Santa gave me my velveteen rabbit!" she said, over and over.

And I got really uncomfortable.

Because I gave her that rabbit. And Santa isn't real. And it's starting to feel like a REAL lie, and not a cute lie.

So you can imagine how welcome it was yesterday when they insisted on wearing their sundresses, "From the Easter Bunny!" and wanted to talk all about it.

I grunted instead of answering a bunch of questions, but SI and DD... they're sharp kids. They figured out I was being evasive pretty quick. And then they asked me...

"Mommy? When you were a little girl, did the Easter Bunny give YOU pretty dresses?"

I sighed, and my mind raced through all the borderline heated discussions my husband and I have had about whether or not Christmas is secular and who Santa is and where our religious backgrounds meet and diverge.

"No, honey. The Easter Bunny never gave me things."

"But... why?"

There is was. There were two honest answers, and I was going to have to give at least one of them.

"The Easter Bunny doesn't bring things to Jewish children," I began. But the children pointed out to me that I was obviously wrong.

"The Easter Bunny brings things to US, and WE'RE Jewish."

"Well, that's because Daddy's not Jewish, he's Christian."

They frowned at me. This didn't make any sense. I knew it as well as they did.

"Look," I said, sitting on the floor and trying not to sweat. "The Easter Bunny wasn't real for me when I was a little girl. But the Easter Bunny is real for you because Daddy makes it real for you. Just like Daddy makes Santa real for you. When I was little, Santa and the Easter Bunny weren't real for me, because my whole family is Jewish, so we didn't have Easter or Christmas. But because Daddy is Christian, you have Easter and Christmas, and the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus."

SI accepted this, and launched into a monologue about how she photobombed everybody's pictures of the Easter Bunny this year, which she definitely did. But DD wasn't sure this whole situation made sense.

"Santa's not real for you?" she asked.

Is it Santa? Or Uncle Robot in a wig?
"No, honey. Not for me."

Her eyes filled with what could only be sympathy. "And the Easter Bunny? He's not real for you?"

"No, sweetie. He's not."

"But he's real for me and SI? And RH?"

"Daddy makes him real for you. Does that make sense?"

She nodded, but not like she meant it. And that was the end of the conversation.

For now.

To be honest, these questions are easier than the ones I really want to avoid. "What are you watching?" while I stream footage from Ferguson, or "Why are you crying?" while we watch Night at the Museum.

It's hard to know how little control we have in the world, how little we can dictate what our kids see and feel, and what the world will do to them. And lying feels wrong, some days more so than others.

Some days, the idea of lying to my kids that Santa is in any way real hurts me to my core, makes me feel the bitterness of exclusion and the smug superiority of being right when somebody else is just plain wrong. And I don't like those feelings.

And some days, I love thinking about the little things I do at Christmas to make Santa real for them. Because despite being the Jewish parent, it's mostly fallen on me. I pick out the gifts. I fill their stockings when they aren't there. I coordinate with friends to come by in their Santa suits and read a story with my ecstatic children. And I take pride in seeing them so happy, and their joy brings me joy.

But the truth is pretty much always preferable to lies.

So what is mommy watching? "Mommy is watching the police, who we know are supposed to be good guys, shooting rubber bullets at people who just want to know why they hurt somebody."

Why is mommy crying? "Because there's a man in this movie who was a wonderful person, and he died, and it makes me sad."

Those truths hurt more than whether or not Daddy makes Santa real ever could.

I think I can let them hold onto that lie a little bit longer.

August 11, 2014

At A Loss for Words

"I'm gonna miss you."
A lot has happened this summer that I've had a hard time putting words to.

Several months ago, you, my lovely readers, helped me reach my fundraising goal for the Postpartum Progress Climb Out of the Darkness.

It was a strange experience, to be surrounded by women who have also survived PPD, with their husbands and children in tow, gleeful and motivated.

We didn't talk about our shared experiences. Nobody wants to drag those things up, to trigger anyone else's emotional distress. But it was there, silent, below the surface.

It made me feel a little naked for the truth of my experience to be so exposed.

The Chicago Climbers
So I didn't know what to say about it. And time after time, as I sat down to write about it, I couldn't find the words.

Today, the world lost a brilliant light. Robin Williams killed himself, another victim of depression lost their fight.

I knew Robin Williams had battled depression. I don't remember him talking about it explicitly, but I had seen enough interviews with him. I'd seen enough of his roles.

Depression, like any disease, has symptoms. And many times over the course of his iconic career those symptoms were visible. They were visible to me, somebody who didn't know him, but knew them. And they must have been visible to other people. So why didn't he get help?

The thing is, I know he did get help. You don't live to 63 without coming to terms with your disease, at least a couple times. But like any chronic condition, coming to terms with it a few times isn't enough. It's something you have to live with. To manage and control. Forever.

And when you're in the midst of what one might call a "flare up" if it were any other sort of disease, forever is too long. Forever is too goddamn long to bear.

How many times did Robin Williams spend an afternoon in the company of other people who had shared his disease, none of them talking about it?

I want to talk about it. I want all of us to talk about it.

Robin Williams had a disease. He was Bipolar, and with that comes depression.

If Robin Williams had been battling cancer all these years, what would we be saying now?

I ask myself those questions a lot. I have depression, and sometimes it flares up. Sometimes I get the fun-pack of flavors of depression. The postpartum, the manic, the situational, the biplar, and even the suicidal. It's a disease I may never be cured of, and I have to accept that. I have to be aware that when it flares up, and there is always that awful when, I will need to get help all over again.

I don't want to be the parent who kills themselves when my kids are in their twenties. I don't want to be the mom who straps her kids into the car and drives off a cliff. I don't want to be that person.

But that's what depression does. That's what it did to Robin Williams, who's career included some of the greatest of comedy and the greatest of drama my generation knows. Robin Williams, who made me cry in the Dead Poets Society, who made me cry in Hook, who made me laugh in Death to Smoochy and became the bedrock of my childhood in Aladdin.

Depression is real. It is a disease. As surely as cancer can kill if left untreated, so can depression.

And just as surely as cancer can be treated and beaten, so can depression.

I don't want us to look at Robin Williams as some sort of cautionary tale. As some sort of quitter, or failure, or somehow less than the sum of his incomparable accomplishments because this is how the story of his life ended.

Robin Williams was the victim of a disease that we need to take seriously.

And as the words, "Robin Williams was," start to sink in, I'll pop in "The Birdcage," and raise a glass to a man who fought a long fight, and lost.

As someday, we all will.

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

A windy day for a ball game

You may have noticed that the blog has been relatively quiet this summer.

There's been a lot going on for the SuperMommy family. A week and a half in Minnesota, a few trips to Michigan, me- traveling solo not once but twice in the course of a single season.

But so far, one of my favorite of our many chaotic excursions has been our trip to Target Field in the twin cities.

M is from north of the twin cities, and he's a big fan of the Twins. Which normally I don't make fun of him for, being a Pirates fan, but the last couple years have been nice. The kids love going to baseball games, but this was the first time we've been to one where the kids really paid attention.

DD sat next to me the whole game, double and triple checking which team were the good guys (that would be the Twins, in white), and which team were the bad guys (that would be the White Sox, in grey. You can see how confusing this is for a four year old.).

It was a really exciting game. The Twins held onto a lead for the first couple innings, then the Sox tied it. And then it was just time to bite our fingernails and root root root for the home team until they had a killer inning and tripled the score.

So I did what any self respecting baseball fan would do when they have their four year old daughter trapped in the glow of a tight ball game. I taught her to heckle.

"Swing, batter batter batter!" she shouted. The little old ladies two rows up from us turned around, grinning.

"Hey, batter batter batter! SWING! Batter batter batter!"

Aunt Engineer joined in the fun. "Hey DD- say, 'We want a pitcher, not a belly itcher!'"
"We want a... what is it again?"

And two innings later, "WE WANT A PITCHER! NOT A BELLY ITCHER!"

RH got in on the heckling, too. "Hey, badoo badoo badoo! SING BADOO BADOO BADOO!"

RH in sparkly shoes and Batman pants, ready to rock the ball game
But maybe my favorite bit of heckling the kids enjoyed was when DD and SI screamed together at Paul Konerko- "Hey Paulie! Go back to Bronzeville!"

Sad though I am to say, the Twins have taken the spot of "favorite team" in the girls hearts, stolen right away from my beloved Pittsburgh Pirates.

I harbor no ill will. Sharing in the jubilation and misery of their father's team is something I never experienced. Poppa kindly shielded me from becoming a Mets fan, and I will forever be grateful. Instead, I formed a lifelong abusive relationship with the team from my first home town, where my father took me once in a while to attempt to reconcile that the Pirates were actually the good guys, when they were... well... pirates. Even after we moved to New Jersey and the Mets were so much closer, even when we moved to Detroit during Cecil Fielder's prime... my love lay with the Pirates.

And that's kind of what baseball is about. Blind faith. Unfathomable and illogical loyalty to a team who plays whether or not you're watching, who trades you favorite players and falls apart at the end of August.

It's about falling in love with being in the ball park, and reveling in the insanity caused by a stomach full of ice cream and pretzels, and the smell of spilled warm beer.

I remember vividly when I was about their age, my father's best friend taught me to heckle the players. Somebody on the away team had been caught corking their bat earlier in the season, and under Alan's careful tutelage I leaned over the rail at the old Tiger's Stadium and screamed, "PUT A CORK IN IT!!!"

I had no idea what I was saying. And yes, I recognize that in general, being the loud, screaming, oblivious fan in the stands is not something you want to do. But there is something magical about the belief that if you scream loud enough, and clap hard enough, and heckle thoroughly, you can actually help your team win. You can be part of the victory, or the defeat.

It's addictive. And glorious.

We're taking the kids to another White Sox game this month. I know, we live on Chicago's south side, and they should be our team... but M is a Twins fan, and being a Pirate's fan makes me entirely sympathetic to the Cubs, so if we must pick a Chicago team, it's going to be Wrigleyville any day of the week. But there's never a bad reason to go to a baseball game, and teaching the kids to heckle with delight is as good a reason as any.

Slowly but surely, they're learning the rule. Maybe next year I'll teach them to scream obscenities at the ump.

Okay, maybe I'll save that for when they're in high school. Or college.

M and the twins watching the Twins win
For now, I'm happy to keep taking them out to the ball game, buying them peanuts and Cracker Jacks, and root root rooting for the home team.

So long as it's not the White Sox.

August 7, 2014

Reinventing Your Fate - #Change #FindTheWords


As the school year begins, too many children are already falling behind. I am 1 of 30 bloggers helping #FindtheWords with @SavetheChildren to raise awareness of the need for early childhood education for all kids. I am participating in this social media campaign to highlight 30 words in 30 days -- to symbolize the 30 million fewer words that children from low-income homes hear by age 3.

Save the Children provides kids in need with access to books, essential learning support and a literacy-rich environment, setting them up for success in school and a brighter future. Learn more about Save the Children’s work in the US and around the world: http://www.savethechildren.org/site/c.8rKLIXMGIpI4E/b.6153159/k.C8D5/USA.htm


Read to the end for a Giveaway!

When I was about nine years old, I fell in love with the All-Of-A-Kind Family books.

I don't know how exactly they came into my hands, but they were the perfect blend of familiarity and fantasy. A pre-WWI family with five daughters living in New York, Jewish and American, wearing beautiful dresses but also destroying them as they climbed trees and hid in Papa's rag shop.

As a Jewish American girl with two sisters, living in New Jersey, I was in love. I fantasized about my parents having a gaggle of additional children- the idea of being the second oldest took root, and I thought it would be MUCH better than simply being in the middle. The stories the family in the book told about Elijah the prophet and the obviously archaic but still fascinating way girls weren't permitted to study Hebrew, which I began to take particular joy in doing at synagogue on Saturdays, stayed with me as I stayed up all night, reading and re-reading the stories.

And then I had the most incredible discovery- there were more All-Of-A-Kind Family books.

I snuggled under the covers to read the second, All-Of-A-Kind Family Downtown, and read with total obsession the story of the birth of the five sisters' new baby brother.

He was sick, and it seemed he might die. So one day, in the midst of all the worry, Papa takes the baby to the rabbi, to change his name. Papa explains that sometimes, when somebody is very sick, the only thing left to do is change their name. That way, when the angel of death comes looking for them, they'll be looking for the wrong person and pass them by.

Silly, I know. The idea that you can change your name and be so profoundly changed that your own fate can't find you. But it resonated with me.

It was around that time I had become not only an insomniac, but also depressed. As my childish depression deepened into something more profound, I kept thinking about that story. About changing your name and changing your destiny. And so when I was ten years old, I made the decision to change my name.

My grandmother mocked me. She would call me "Rachel," and I would answer, and she would point out that if I didn't want people to call me that I had to stop answering to it. So I did. From that point on, the only name I would answer to was my middle name.

I was determined to stop being Rachel. I was going to be somebody else. Somebody less frightened of being made fun of, somebody bolder and braver and more confident. To me, 'Rachel' was a shroud I'd been wearing my whole life, and had done nothing to make me happy. So I shrugged her off, and assumed the identity of my middle name, 'Lea,' who wore whatever the hell she wanted to instead of trying to fit in with the WASPy pre-teens in her girl scout troop. Claudia, from the Babysitter's Club, became my style icon. I cut off my long hair and embraced the "New Jan Brady" style 'fro that puffed up in its wake. And then my family moved.

I embraced every aspect of this change. I was a new person, with a new look, a new outlook on life, and now- a new location. I showed up for my first day of middle school with my hair puffed in a halo around my head, horn rim styled pastel glasses, a floor length gold skirt, and a blue cropped faux turtleneck t-shirt.

And while it was true that everything on the outside had changed- my appearance, my name, my location, my school... things were fundamentally the same. I was still woefully unpopular, still the butt of ceaseless jokes and the recipient of incessant bullying, and still profoundly unhappy.

But I was more confident in who I was. I was a person who had defined myself, and although my attempt to change my life by changing myself hadn't exactly worked the wanted it to, it had worked in some way. I had, mysteriously, kind of grown up a little.

I was changed by the act of changing.


----

Books had a profound impact on me during my childhood, but not every child is so lucky. Having books in the house helps children learn not just to read, but to appreciate and cultivate language. 65% of young children in need have no access to books, and more than two thirds of poverty level households have no books appropriate for children in the house.

By the age of three, children from low-income homes hear on average 30 million fewer words than their peers, which puts them at a disadvantage when they start school- a cognitive delay of eighteen months.

But we can change that.

Join in the #FindTheWords campaign! If you see a picture of my word, "Change," tweet it with the hashtags #FindTheWords and #Change. Help raise awareness of what Save The Children is doing to help kids reach their potential, and move out of poverty.

...if all the student in low-income countries learned basic reading skills, 171 million people could be raised out of poverty.



You can help.

And to thank you, I'll be able to give one of you a $100 gift card, from Save The Children. All you have to do is comment on this post, telling me about when reading has changed you. Or helped you change the world for the better. (Please leave your email address in the comment, a link to somewhere I can find you via social media. Facebook, twitter, the usual.)

#FindTheWords. Be the #Change you wish to see in the world.

August 6, 2014

Losing a Friend You Can Always Find


Ten years ago, I met this girl.

I have to admit, at first I had some reservations about her. I knew her through our mutual friend, her roommate, and she was a bit... odd.

At barely 18, she had left home and moved across the country to where her boyfriend lived. A boyfriend she'd never met in person, but had known online for several years. A boyfriend I only met twice in seven years.

She was a vegan self-made expert on feminism and human sexuality, and although her quiet snark could cut, she was sweet and conscientious to a fault.

We became friends. Close friends. I helped her get a job with me, working eldercare. She made herself incredibly unpopular with management of the senior center building when she brought to light the sexual abuses undocumented women were experiencing at the hands of the people they were caring for.

She was always looking out for other people.

I liked her a lot. Truth be told, I loved her. She was one of my closest friends. She stood up in my wedding. She helped me move furniture. She modeled for me when I painted.

She was a good friend.

I probably wasn't so good a friend. I went through a lot in those years. I needed a lot. And maybe, I didn't realize that she needed more from me. She was such a giver, she made it easy to ask favors, to ask for help.

She helped me when M and I moved in together. She helped me when he was going through chemo. She helped me get ready for the wedding. She helped me move again, when I was six months pregnant with twins.

And then one day, I called her. I'd seen on facebook that she and the long time boyfriend were engaged, and I wanted to offer my congratulations. She didn't want to talk to me. She was angry at me. I'm still not really sure about what, but she had a list.

The strange thing was, most of the things on her list? They weren't real. She told me I'd never liked her fiancé, who I'd only met twice (once at my wedding). She accused me of stealing a DVD, which I promptly bought and had shipped to her. She told me she hated the portrait I'd painted of her.


I sat on my bed and listened to her list my faults and my transgressions, and I apologized. I couldn't think what else to do. And when I asked what I could do, she told me I could never contact her again.

I agreed, and she glibly told me goodbye, and hung up.

It took me a few months to do everything she wanted me to do. To unfriend her on facebook, and take her off my google chat list.

It sucked. Every second of it sucked. Because she was my friend, and I loved her, and I was heartbroken that when it seemed she was so happy and life was going so well for her, what she wanted most from me was to leave her alone. Forever.

I've kept my word, for the most part. I haven't contacted her. But when her new husband sent me a friend request, I took it. And although it's been four years now, I can't help myself. I check in on her.

You see, people are easy to find now. Particularly when you have mutual friends. A quick googling, a run through photos on somebody else's wall, a few unflattering minutes searching...

You can kind of stalk anyone you want to. And you shouldn't.

But it's hard. It's hard when I see her name published somewhere, and know her career is going well, it's hard to know I can't send her a note telling her I'm happy for her, and I'm unaccountably proud, and I'm glad she's doing exactly what she knew she wanted to do when she was eighteen.

Social media is amazing. With social media we can keep up instantly with the news. with our celebrity icons, with television shows we like, with bands we follow, with the teams we root for. Thanks to social media, I can find out nearly instantly when my friends have babies, or get new jobs, break up, or have a really awesome meal at a restaurant I want to try.

But it also makes us, all of us, accessible in a way we never have been before. Anybody can probably find me, if they try hard enough. Just as I can always find somebody I knew once upon a time, but lost touch with, somehow.


I miss her, and being able to see her whenever I want, from a distance, makes it linger. Makes it impossible for me to just pull the plug and unfriend her husband (who I have never disliked), and tell myself to stop looking for her articles.

But I keep hoping one day she'll miss me, too. And one day she'll check and see how I'm doing, and maybe just click "like" on just one thing, just once.

Because she was a good friend, and I miss her.

I've been thinking about it a lot lately, as the release date of the new HerStories book about the end of female friendships approaches. I have a piece in the book, but it's not about this friend. This ex. Because whenever I think about the idea that our friendship is really over, that it's really done and everything that could be said has passed... it still hurts.

Four years later, it hurts. And I still wish I could call her up to let her know how glad I am that she's happy. How glad I am she was my friend. How no matter what has happened, I'll still always be there for her. If she ever wanted me to be.



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"My Other Ex: Women's True Stories of Leaving and Losing Friends" comes out next month. You can pre-order below



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