Growing pains

His little hand would encircle mine and he would plead with the deepest blue eyes, “I wanna hold you, I wanna hold you.” Now those same eyes can slice through my heart with the most hateful glare or tone and declare any question an inquisition or invasion into his privacy. Yes you guessed it I have a 16-year-old son who is living under the same roof.

After a particularly difficult day I took solace in my younger son Jack and hugged and pleaded with him, “Jack can you please not hate me when you are 16?” He laughed and replied, “Tom does not hate you because he is 16, he despises you because he is 16.” Out of the mouth of babes.

At one time he was moon and stars what orbited my Mommy Planet. We went everywhere in our jogging stroller and wagon. I was lucky enough to have 5 years with just my Tom before another sibling came along. There were many little golden moments with my Tom in Michigan and Minnesota and even in Kansas. Farmer’s Markets and the garden were special places for the 2 of us. In Michigan we had a large lot on a Biological Station where I planted numerous gardening experiments. Tom would roam the garden eating fresh peas from the vines pulling weeds or what he thought were weeds and happily watering the plants and me. He would throw the zucchini dog toys after a disastrous miscalculation and over production of 8 zucchini plants.  With the zucchini logs that were produced from this mistake, I could have constructed a small addition to our home. Instead Tom used them to entertain the 2 beautiful chocolate labs.

Our time together as best buddies making homemade pizza dough and cooking from the fruits of our labor was our golden age. Walking to Har Mar Mall and Como Park and its attractions are memories that I treasure and will carry me through the tough teen years.

As with all Golden ages there must also be Dark Ages to go through. I know that the time spent with my fair-haired little Tom helped make him a kind and confident young man. Growing apart is a natural process and if he was a clingy Momma’s boy I would be disappointed in myself for not making him independent enough to strike out and be free from my apron strings.

Tom is a charming young man and I know will be a fine warm adult male who will be a wonderful husband, father and a most loving son but the transition to my little guy and my man is a tough and bumpy road that is more heartbreaking than I expected. It maybe because we spent so much time together and he was such a desired child that his mutiny from my ship is so painful and heartbreaking. I called him my ¼ of million-dollar miracle baby and it is just so naïve of to me to think that this was going to be a smooth process. Nothing about him has ever been all that smooth or easy. (This process is again another blog topic, I digress yet again, damn you circular thought)

The fact I am also a well thought of teacher at his high school maybe contributing to the force of his rebellion and need for independence. It is hard for me to understand as the eldest child of 6 to live in a shadow and I know that this cannot be easy for him either. I see even in the disgusted sneers he hurls at me a bit of regret and longing when I hurl my acid tongue at him after a hurtful moment in defense, “I know you hate me now but if you could just be civil we might have something left to repair after you grow up.”

So I guess it will take time, patience and understanding and remembering my little buddy and our forays into the farmer’s markets when he was my moon and stars. And I will take comfort in the fact that all my hard learned lessons could be so much worse and like my Mom said this too shall pass and when they have children smile because you know that soon he will finally get you and you can then be just a little smug as his 16 year old decides he no longer needs to orbit his universe.  

Tom at 16 in Ireland this summer. 

Jack's video.

Often Jack is attacked by the self confidence game of quicksand. I am awful at this, I am the worst, no one will ever love me, I will never have a boy friend, no one likes me, I have no friends,  I am the worst skater Yada Yada Yada. It maybe part of his age and it maybe part of who he is part filled with self doubt somedays  and mister self confidence the others. I hope as he grows he will have more I am confident days. I worry though that faced with junior high it will be quite the struggle. He is too bright to play the mind game of self confidence building with because he can argue an apple into thinking it is an orange. He will be one heck of a prosecuting or corporate lawyer. I can foresee this talent of verbal sparring turning into a highly profitable career if the whole gold medal winning olympic skater does not work out.
So his father has decided to let Jack make these little videos. This is his creation, he picked the pictures and the descriptions. It is an idea that allows him to create on video what he sees in his mind. (This could be scary.) I will be posting these on occasion  just so I can talk a little about them and how I hope this will boost his self confidence.
As a parent I struggle not just with the obvious difficulties of raising a child in today's society but arming Jack with confidence and coping skills keep strong against so many haters I find out there for LGBT individuals. As part of several groups that support and vote for rights for those we love in the LGBT community, I am always looking for new ways to arm my child make him safe to be who he is and confident that he is and always will be loved. I am just hoping these little videos help build a strong confident young man.

Game of life: Tag...

Tag you’re it…

Ever feel like you are always IT? The past few weeks, I have had trouble putting my finger on the exact feelings I have been struggling with and then this morning it hit me. I am stuck in the game of life tag game and I have been unable to tag anyone else.  I am IT.

I am the oldest out of 6 kids and the first person my Dad would call for when he got home when my Mom was not home. The first words always out of his mouth when he came home from work were…”Where’s your mother?” When it was apparent that she was out of the house the next sentence out of his mouth would be “Where’s Annie?” I guess my mother was also it. Maybe I should have had a first clue when my baby sister Jean’s first word was my name, in a hollering tone, “Ann!!”

I do think there was a brief period in time that I actually got to tag someone else when I lived alone. I could tag the dog Opie. This lasted about one year then I married ever since then I have been IT. Maybe I tag myself in some situations and have created a vortex of being it. Kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy of female guilt. You know the type, Oh, I will do it because the response or action was not fast enough or the way you wanted. So you gave up and tagged yourself.

I am not sure if anyone else can now be tagged because I have enabled so many of the members of my family I seem to be the default button for their lives. Mom will do it. She can handle it. She can find it.

I am sadly not even sure I want to tag anyone else because I wonder if I was not it would they still want me around or need me? So I guess I am stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Damned if I do and Damned if I do not. 

Remembering Maggie

My little sister Jean and Grandma Peggy 

Brave little Maggie.

I have had the profound good fortune to have my life fabric intertwined with strong vibrant women with amazing stories. Many people may think I make this stuff up about my relatives but if you know me and my family you know, we may shine the brass of a story a bit but the real luster to us are in our dents and scratches and are all mostly true.

My Gram was one amazingly strong wild Irish lass. As a prepare my eldest son to take a journey back to Ireland this summer for a school trip, I am trying to in vain to remind him how his own great grandmother Peggy made this trip in reverse almost 100 years ago to this country for a new life. Tom is a sweet, kind son who has sensitivity and an open warm soul. He is however a sixteen year old who has the gift of omniscience and obviously is burdened by an overbearing intrusive mother. Join the club kid, we all have that type of mother in this family. It is this type of mother that could collect her meager belongings in 1919 leave her home town for the first and last time for a new unknown foreign country alone. She was not only brave but a bit fearless. I can remember asking her when she was still with us if she was scared and she said a little but she was just too naïve and stupid to be scared. She really had only 3 choices: stay and marry a local, become a nun or leave.  She chose to leave.

My Gramma Peggy was known as Maggie Kneafsey and was born in 1900 in County Mayo Ireland. She lost her parents in her tales when she was 7 and 8 but when I did a little digging in records it may have been when she was 10 and 11. Her parents were illiterate farmers in Ireland who scratched out a hard life for themselves and their 8 children on a small farm by the river Moy. She went to school for a short time and learned the basics.  After her parents passed away, she was taken out of school to work on the farm and was raised by her eldest brother Michael and sister Bridget. She was a bit of a hellion and had a spirit that drove her to be internally busy always. She fretted and was a worrier and planner. We call it “being Peggy”. She left for a better life to the US at 19, worked hard for a German businessman who leapt from his office after Black Tuesday in 1929. She won a 20 dollar gold piece in a step-dancing contest in Chicago and she caught the eye of a Canadian Railroad man name Morgan O’Neill who was devilishly handsome but a bit of a womanizer and a serious drinker with a bad temper. She once cooled that temper dumping a pot of boiling peas on his head after he came home with a bit too much drink.  She raised 4 children with Morgan until his death in his 50’s. She went to morning mass, was a devout Catholic and whether she had sinned or not without fail went to confession every 2 weeks. She worked rosary beads like no other and was the fastest novena in the Midwest. My strong pangs for the need for faith I am sure are rooted in watching my Gram and taking her to Mass. Gram learned to cook from her Canadian mother-in-law and made a killer Date nut cookie. Although no one would describe Peggy as a beauty, her personality and no none sense approach to life, people and her faith made her one of the most beautiful stunning interesting people I have known. I could only hope to be half as interesting and strong as she. 

When I was 6 weeks old my Dad moved my Gram into our home after she was left a young widow with my Uncle Joe still in the home. Joe was headed out soon for the army and my father wanted to provide a place for his mother. She was a little woman who stood maybe 5 feet tall with pearl white hair, steel blue eyes, creamy skin and sweet little cotton dresses and shoes that looked like she stole them off of Minnie Mouse. She shopped Evergreen Plaza long and hard for that uniform of sensible shoes and cotton cap sleeve dresses for the summer and long sleeve housedresses for the winter and fall with a cardigan. Never in my entire life did she ever wear pants or go without stockings. It was shameful to have “Naked legs”. Her hair was white as snow, curly and always kept short. She wore White Shoulders perfume used cold cream and always wore just a touch of powder and the same shade of petal pink carnation for years.  She had a fine sense of style was proud and always a lady.

She could be a force to be reckoned with, had a glare that could melt steel and was a fierce protector of her children and grandchildren. Her temper was legendary. She once defended me after my Dad came home with a bit of the drink and teased me to tears. Gram came to the rescue and never have I seen my father so humbled and sorry when she shook her little crooked finger at him.  I remember her words that echoed in the large hallway as she let him have it. I can still recall her brogue scolding him as if I was that 13 year old to this day, “Jack, you are a better man than this! Shame on you for making that little girl cry. You are acting just like your Father with Mickey.  (His older sister) You are a better man than that. Shame on you.” As she walked away she clipped those Minnie Mouse heels on the tiles leaving an echo that scratched wounds in your heart.

She was the center of our gyroscope as a family. She was the one all her children, grandchildren, sisters and family ran to for sage advice and comfort. Although she was not one to display affection openly if a hug was offered she would hold you tight and you know there was love and strength in her arms. Once my Mom came to her upset that a woman she was friends with at church had ignored and acted dismissive to her. Gram in her usual blunt force trauma honesty said to my Mom, “Don’t pay her any attention. Your ass would make her a good Sunday face.”  Comments like that floored us all but she was our rock.

After Gram left us at 94 it was the last time the whole family was together and our family has lost a bit of its center. We are a bit of a wobbly gyroscope banging into walls without her. We have scattered ourselves all over her new land but are still bound together by her brave fearlessness in our hearts and souls. 

It is my hope that when my eldest son travels back to Ireland and sees the places she came from he will help establish a bit of that center in himself to the connection of his past and the brave little Maggie who ventured far to give him a chance at being here today. 

Know Thyself ... gift or curse?

“Know Thyself to be wise, the unexamined life is not worth living.”

To understand and know yourself is a completely ongoing process for me but seems for my Jack he seems to understand himself and the world around him more clearly than most adults and it makes me wonder; is his gift of self-awareness a gift or a curse?

As a parent you go through so many emotions on a daily basis in no particular order and on random repeat:  joy, sadness, doubt, angst, frustration, anger, loneliness, dread, fear and astonishment. Jack has the talent of taking his observations and distilling them down to profound little glib quips that make me breathless. The most soul shaking was when he was about 3 maybe 4 and he looked up at me and said, “I waited a long time for you to be my Mommy.” This left me dumbfounded. Had this little imp been waiting for me or have I been waiting for him?

He exasperates me daily and many times he is the most incessant being either in constant motion or constant speech. My Dad a kind, soft and profound little Irishman, said to me one day after spending an afternoon with my young son and his namesake Jack, “You know it is a wonder that he just doesn’t collapse after all his talking.”

So when my husband took Jack for a father/son bike ride then a movie, I was more than happy to welcome the silence, solitude and time to catch up on the 15 tons of laundry my family has managed to accumulate this week.  Somewhere between the 3^rd load of towels and a first pass through Mount filthy whites my men returned. I asked my little man Jack how was the film; he gave me a thumbs up and ran off to play in his homemade Tardis and Dalek in the basement. (Doctor Who references) My husband came in and I asked him how he survived the day. He was happy and thought that Rio was one of the best-animated features he had seen. He then went on to explain a bit about the movie how many of the featured cartoons were grounded in little love stories about the animated animals. He then explained how after the film he had asked Jack how he liked the movie. Apparently Jack had a lump in his throat and said it was an okay movie but asked rhetorically why all the characters in love in the film had to be straight? Upon retelling this, my husband’s head hung low and was a bit overcome with emotion. As I type this, I too am filled with mixed emotions and some sorrow about isolation for my Jack.  I get that Disney or Pixar is not ready nor is society willing to introduce openly gay cartoon characters so my kid can relate but… even with my sense of adult understanding about the media’s need to feed the masses entertainment that is accepted by most of society, I am saddened that my little boy will not see anything he can relate to about falling in love or give him a film he can watch over and over and fall in love just as the characters did. I cannot tell you how many times I watched, Cinderella,  Ice Castles and Ladyhawke and imagined myself in the roles of the leading ladies with the handsome men swooping me away.  This kind of breaks my heart a bit. I know things are changing and with Glee and Modern Family. There is hope and Jack watches these and feels connected. So there is some bright light at the end of the tunnel for him.

It just makes me wonder about his sense of self, intelligence, confidence and courage to be Jack. Although his self-understanding is a wondrous thing it can come at a high cost to his happiness. When I was a little girl the concept of self-perception and societal judgment was never a worry for me. I could see me reflected positively in society in the bedtime stories, movies and books I read. These children were like me and I know I felt comfort in being part of the club. Jack is not in this club, he often tells me how he feels alone and no one is like him and he is worried he will never find another person like himself ever. He is sure he is the only openly gay little boy in our town and already even before junior high school is isolated.  Even though I have surrounded him by many of my friends and family who are homosexual and tell Jack things are better the older you get, I worry about his isolation. His intelligence is a gift; his self-awareness is a gift and he is my gift. 

Way to go Hillary!

I just read the statement made by Our Secretary of State Clinton.

I know at times she can be brash but I love her, always have and always will. She is smart, intelligent and has serious courage. Not just for this but for numerous other things I have seen and admired. I know she "stood by her man" when he was a pratt but she did what SHE wanted she called the shots and she made a decision that may not have been popular but for her it was what she wanted. I love this about her and I love her more for standing up for what is right. In her statement she made today about the LGBT community  she said,
            
"So to combat this terrible scourge and break the cycle of fear and violence, we must work together to improve education and support those who stand up against laws that criminalize love and promote hate. ...On behalf of President Obama and the people of the United States, I am proud to reaffirm our support for LGBT communities at home and abroad, and to call for an end to discrimination and mistreatment of LGBT persons wherever it occurs. ... These are not Western concepts; these are universal human rights."




This is one time I can honestly say I am proud to be an American. 

Statement By Clinton: Secretary of State:

Raising Jack

Raising Jack:

He bounded into the house on Saturday morning filled with glee, “Mom, Mom, Mom! Look what I got from Diane’s garage sale!” Without a hint of any self-consciousness he proudly and carefully laid out his dollar and 2 dollar purchases and treasures from the free bin. His treasures included: cat-style reading glasses (sadly without rhinestones), a Mary Kay make-up mirror with case, a black velvet spaghetti strap cocktail dress and a pair of black slide mule medium heels. He immediately disrobed and slipped the dress on and was a tad disappointed to see that the straps were too long and needed to be shortened in order to make it a perfect fit. The begging for instant alterations commenced. I promised to fix it and his smile returned. Jack has worn the shoes every day since getting them at the garage sale and asks me is the dress done yet?

As a Mom I am torn.  I am so happy and so proud that Jack has the confidence and courage to be who he is. He is my Jack, my wild imagination boy who has always preferred girl toys and dress up. I am also grateful that he knows he is loved and perfect just the way he is and is safe. I have done my job giving him personal security, love and support. What worries me is how others will see my sweet, highly imaginative, intelligent and creative child. Jack knows he is different. He is no fool to criticism and stings from others that do not accept him for Jack. Even at the tender age of 10, he has to check the crowd before he speaks and this breaks my heart. I am so saddened by the lack of support and understanding and the narrow-minded people that believe it is okay to pass judgment so freely on my son and myself.  

Jack is who he is. He has always been Jack, always will be and was born with a gifted mind and engaging personality. He is talented, bright and true gift to our family as all children are to their parents and families. Raising gay, lesbian or transgendered children today is by far a much easier job than in years past. Many people are more accepting and can offer insight helping us as parents raise confident, caring, productive, and happy members of society. Even with all the advancements, it is still a heart wrenching process. I struggle with worry about Jack being accepted and finding love and a partner more than I do about my other son who is straight. I want the same things for both my wonderful boys but know Jack’s road although easier than in years past will be harder. He will face scorn, bullying and teasing at a higher rate than my eldest. He will be a target at school just for who he is and will face a higher chance of depression and suicide rate in his coming years. He will be the object of hate and distain from overtly religious groups including our own church and faith. He will be faced with legal issues for partnerships his married brother will not have to face. His life at 10 is already different and a bit lonelier than his older brother. He at 10 has been the object of hate, threats, bullying and the object of ridicule and distain from his classmates, teachers and from his own grandparents. He already although loved by my Mother has been ridiculed for his choices of clothing, toys or Disney movies to watch. When he tries to show his Grammy something he thinks is wonderful but highly feminine she will with her words be supportive but with her facial expression be somewhat filled with distain and a bit disgusted. He notices and feels the rejection and I can see the hurt in his eyes. Believe it or not she has come a long way. In the beginning she accused me of being too accepting and being a bad mother because I needed to remove or discourage any thing feminine with him and change him.   (this is another blog for another day I digress )

So as I struggle to be a better parent, teacher and member of the society, I make this wish in the vapors of the blogosphere. Be kind, be aware and remember judge not least you be judged because it is from loving and acceptance in others we find love and acceptance for our own self. How you treat others is a reflection of what you think about yourself.