Why are you so loud? And direct? And maybe crude? And kind of rude about your kids and life? And why do you swear so much?
I guess the question is really, why do I write this blog, and more specifically, in writing it, why am I so painfully honest and/or fucking intense?
(Surprise! It’s not alcohol that makes me honest!)
There’s a few reasons. First, it’s selfish. I cannot overstate (except I DO! Regularly! In this very blog!) exactly what an emotional roller coaster I have found this process, from deciding to try to have children at all despite my own history of trauma and personality difficulties, to not being capable of physically having children, to the analysis of whether and how to have children when the easy way didn’t work and weighing the pros and cons of so many different alternatives now that “just relax and have some sex” isn’t useful advice. Shouting into the void gives me a way to organize my thoughts and, often, to let the immediacy of the emotions slide away, and to bring some logic to the pure emotion of the situation. Life is nothing but decision after decision and I can’t even start the pros and cons list until I get my general belief system sorted out. I have almost always done that by writing. And I feel a real sense of calm and release after I write and post blogs. It’s not just venting endlessly to friends, it feels more contained and process-oriented, even though it is descriptive of experience.
OK, sure, but why so PUBLIC?
When I started walking this path, I didn’t know anyone who had done this. I knew lots of people who had done parts of it – I knew women with miscarriages, I knew families that had adopted, I knew some adult adoptees. I was not close with ANY woman who had lots of miscarriages; I was super-lucky to have one friend who had, and who gave so much more of herself to me than any human should have to. But she was the only basis I had for personal journey. The internet has A LOT of support for women experiencing infertility, but very few to none of those writings felt like ME. There is a lot of god in many infertility stories, and a lot of “being a woman is…” – none of those felt particularly accessible. None of them helped me process my own journey. None of them made me feel “normal”.
Then, when we moved through the different ways of adopting, and the idea of adopting through foster care in particular, I looked everywhere for true and honest discussion of this journey of adopting non-private and more specifically, non-infants…and I just again did not find much that matched the road we are walking. You can find some saccharine shit about being some sort of saviors and the joy of being a child’s last hope. You can find religion-based journeys, but those do not resonate to my own journey – different motivations and positive feedback loops. You can also find a LOT of absolute horror-stories of people who reversed adoptions and/or placed their adoptees in basically asylums for being psychopaths. I especially was not able to find any long-term honest journeys of BOTH the joys and the pain. And I still haven’t found any stories that start in misery and move into joy. I really want to be the success story that I was looking for when I started – the honest one, so people fee connected and supported and NORMAL.
But why are you so MEAN?
I actually do not think that the way I talk about my kids is MEAN but I do think it is way more honest than many parents are – or should be, with their kids when they are kids. In contrast, I believe that honest discussion between adult parents and their securely attached adult children about the reality of parenting is really important and could help a lot of people make a lot more informed choices and walk forward with intention. But in general, I think most of us have negative thoughts about the weight of parenting. And some of us, who CHOSE this, but are not NATURAL at it, (surely, surely, I am not the only woman like this!) have more than most. And I share that because we all know that visibility matters – I talk to women all the time who wonder if they are bad people or bad moms because they have so many doubts, and fears, and even anger. And moments where just falling apart seems so much easier than going on, but it would be so EMBARRASSING to tell anyone how HARD it is to do this thing that is supposed to be the pinnacle of human (or at least women’s) existence.
I am a lot more direct than many people – some people find it stressful and off-putting. Which is totally fair! I find Minnesota-nice, passive-aggressive, beating-around-the-bush, being nice over resentment, off-putting and I deal really really well with people just calling me on my shit and then we deal with issues. Since I cannot be the ONLY person in the entire world who has ever found direct honest self-reporting and self-reflection refreshing, I feel totally fine with my tone. There’s plenty of bubbly happy mom-blogs out there for those that are looking for that version.
You really swear…a lot.
I DO! Well, I do on this blog. Amazingly, since we got kids I think I have only dropped one f-bomb in front of X3! She came already full of swear words and as a result we have cut our own usual use of swearing down to almost nothing – way more that we would have with natural-born or opted from infancy children. With her, we REALLY have to live the life we describe, there is no “do as a I say, not as I do”. We have to model every second of every day. As a result, I swear ALL THE TIME when I am not around children. It’s like a swearing pressure that must be released! Also, I think swearing is really important punctuation when used appropriately. Also, I think swearing is just funny. So, if swearing is not your thing, my blog is probably just not really your thing either! That’s ok, there’s lots of mommies out there that DON’T swear. Go read THEIR blogs you fucking prig!