Doing My Part to End Racism for the Next Generation Means Coming to Terms with My Own
In the places I called home, racism blared with shouted slurs between cafeteria tables and revisionist history classes crafted by the Daughters of the Confederacy.
To the NICU Mom Who Blames Herself
I know your child’s birth and the days that followed weren’t like you imagined when you became pregnant. I know that on the day your baby was born, after you blew a kiss goodnight to him in the NICU, you headed back to your room, and, as you tried to sleep, you heard the cry of a healthy, normal baby in the room next door, being calmed and snuggled and fed by his mother, while your baby was on oxygen on a different floor, weeks away from being able to eat on his own.
The Book Report That Landed My Kid on the School’s Suicide Watch
Imagine that phone call, in which you as parent have to tell your child’s brand-new counselor they’re three years behind the curve.
Now imagine guiding that same kiddo through Of Mice and Men, wherein the intellectually disabled character, prone to violent outbursts, is put out of his misery with a bullet in the back of his head, fired by his guardian. Or To Kill a Mockingbird, featuring the “not right” Boo Radley spending his adult years under family-imposed house arrest. Next up, Romeo and Juliet, the story of obsessive teenage lovers kept apart, wherein one character decides faking suicide and running away from home are her best options, and the other character kills himself in despair.
Is this canon really the best we can do? If the literary characters with mental health issues students read about are always marked for confinement or death, then we’re not moving the ball on diversity, acceptance, or even opening pathways to conversation.
Learning to Let Go of Gender Boundaries
I am Mom to a one year old girl, and I’m still learning about the type of parent I want to be. Recently, I have been thinking a lot about gender, and how my actions directly affect the way my child will grow up seeing herself and seeing others. I saw a post going around…
Parenting in the Gray
A baby’s ability to see shades of color develops by five months old. However, I think that black and white tunnel vision merely changes to a moral world view of black and white.
You Get What You Get, and You Don’t Get Upset
Kids pick up all sort of phrases (and germs) in group care. “You get what you get, and you don’t get upset” happens to be one I embrace. Inevitably, my girls will be at a birthday party where someone else gets the last chocolate cupcake or the green balloon they really wanted. It’s only natural to feel disappointed when you see something you want and receive something else. And for things like cupcakes and balloons, the phrase works well.
Don’t sweat the small stuff. Be thankful for what you have.
This week, as I’ve watched the fallout from the presidential election, this phrase came to mind.
Motherhood At 18: A True Story
Here I am, 18 years old and a lifetime worth of responsibility was placed in my care. I remember thinking, “Nika, you can’t do this. You are going to mess up this child’s life. You have nothing to give her.” I was too scared to even pick her up.