Loving Your Kids and Loving Motherhood Are Not The Same Thing...

Right after my daughter was born, someone told me that what’s best for the mama is what’s best for the baby.

(But at the time I was too wrapped up in the dangerous idea that dark under-eye circles,  scraggly hair, and spit and shit stained sweats made me a Good Mother. Sleep deprivation meant I was tending to my child’s every need. The two tell-tale wet spots on my shirt meant I was too busy breastfeeding to care about personal hygiene. Matted hair? Awesome. Pit stains? Bring it on. Oh, and do me a favor, bring over a large pot from the kitchen because I’m too busy shushing and swaying my colicky child to use the bathroom. Thanks.)

“Go out with a friend for coffee!” my mother-in-law said.

“When can we see you?” my friends asked. “We miss you!”

I missed me, too.

But I thought that women who waltzed off for a night out with a friend or–God forbid–their husbands, were selfish bitches.

Really.

And in between obsessing about germs and aspiration pneumonia, in between counting M’s poops with religious fervor, in between pouring boiling water on one of the organic wooden toys made by magical elves in Scandanavia, I realized this: Would I die for my child?  You bet. Would I kill for her? Touch her before washing your hands with antibacterial soap, and you’d find out.

But, I hated being a mother.

When I found out I was pregnant again when my daughter was 8-months-old (um, you guys? Breastfeeding is not birth control, just saying) I started writing as a means of survival. I couldn’t live the way I had been living any longer and bring another baby into the world, so I took a (very) deep breath and started writing. And wearing a push-up bra.

Maybe it was also a hormonal thing. Maybe growing a teeny tiny penis in my uterus gave me the balls to take myself less seriously. Or more seriously.

Regardless, I started to enjoy my kid. And the idea of having another kid.

But it still wasn’t enough.

And when we moved to Israel–when I left the community I loved in Los Angeles for a place that confused me, while we dealt with a barrage of illnesses strange and new, while the idea of sleep seeped down the drain and I tumbled headfirst after it into a world of manic exhaustion, I lost it.

Take a break, take a break, take a break my friends back home told me on Facebook and g-chat. But I couldn’t when it felt like there was no where to go.

This isn’t why my marriage imploded. This isn’t why I’m living 30 minutes away from my children in an apartment in Tel Aviv. But my fragile sense of myself–of what I liked and what made me happy–certainly contributed to the collapse of the family I worked so hard to protect.

So please, mamas who think they can “do it all,” take me as a cautionary tale. Take me as an example of what NOT to do.  And go take a fucking break.

This post originally appeared here on Kveller.com.

Kveller.com offers a Jewish twist on parenting, everything a Jewish family could need for raising Jewish children--including crafts, recipes, activities, Hebrew and Jewish names for babies...and advice from Mayim Bialik.

Seven Years Gone

Seven years ago today, I crawled into bed with my mom for the last time. Dry lips yanked back into a rictus of pain, she lay there, shriveled, on the bed. She fidgeted and moaned. Someone gave her morphine. She sighed.  Her breath was slow and coarse as gravel. Her skin stretched taught and transparent over her perfect cheekbones.

I picked up her hand. A large vein twanged with the thump of her tired heart.

Anemic sunlight flitted through the room, playing with the shadows on the wall.

I cried without a sound.

Her eyelids fluttered.

This was my mom, but it wasn't my mom.

My dad came in and lay next to her in the bed they had shared for almost 30 years. He held her hand. He kissed her face.

He told her she could go.

She shuddered, knocking her head against the pillow.

The primordial sound of death rattled in her throat.

And she was gone.

Whirling Together Out of the Darkness...

 

Two months ago, I took one of our twelve suitcases out of storage, dusted it off, opened it up, and crammed in all my clothes, three photo albums, my mom’s journals, a bag -- (ok, fine, three bags) -- of assorted hair and makeup products that I had collected before leaving Los Angeles, the soft zebra dress M wore as a baby, and the tiny cotton onesie with the sheep parading up and down the middle that Little Homie wore for the first month after he was born.  

And I left the kibbutz.

And while the taxi roared out the big yellow gate and down the winding road lined with fragrant eucalyptus trees, shattering the stillness of the starless night,  it occurred to me that I had forgotten something:  My family.

B and I tried, but we couldn’t make it work.  

Our marriage was broken.  And over the last several months instead of trying to krazy glue the fuck out of the pieces, I ground my high heel hooker boot into them.  

Dust to dust.  

“Where the hell am I going to go,” I asked myself over and over and over during dark nights while I rode around and around and around the kibbutz on my shiny purple bicycle.  “What am I going to do.”

I don’t do well when I feel trapped - I get twitchy and edgy, and  I lash out like an angry beast:   I hiss.  I growl.  I bite.  And ultimately, I knew the only way out, was to get out.  

Usually, when a couple splits, they follow the standard protocol:  The wife stays in the family house and maintains primary custody of the children, while the husband holes up in a seedy motel until he can find an apartment.   The wife has support from her community -- her family and the friends who are like family, while the husband has his people who stand behind him. 

But what do you do when you’re all alone in a new country, and the only so-called community you have has your husband’s back and not yours?  

You build your own community.  That’s what you do.  In moments large and small, you create a home for yourself, even if you have to start from scratch.  And slowly, slowly, slowly, that’s what I’m doing.  I have work - a job I love with coworkers who have given me more support than I could ever imagine.  I have a few friends scattered around the country -- and yes, on the kibbutz as well -- who have humbled me with their compassion.  And through the internet, I have my 
family and friends back home, and of course my virtual community at Kveller.  

But still, I wake up in the middle of the night with a jolt, my heart pounding, convinced that through the cloying darkness I can hear my babies crying out for me to take them into my bed.  

And yet, I know that they’re miles away.  The children I nursed through toddlerhood, that I coslept with until just six months ago, are tucked in safe and snug on the kibbutz with their father while I sleep alone in a new city.   

“Why can’t you take them with you,”  so many have asked.  

Because the kibbutz is kind to my children - it’s Gan Eden - a place they’re free to roam and explore, and over the past year, they’ve blossomed like the red poppies that bloom in the Springtime.  Yanking them by the roots and taking them out of preschool, and away from their father and grandmother, and their community, and transplanting them into my life in a shabby apartment in a foreign city would be devastating.  

And so, three times a week, I take the train or cadge a ride to my childrens’ home -- where they thrive. 

And here I thought it was hard being on the kibbutz before I left:  You know the pivotal moment in the nature video when the zebras are all chillin’ by the watering hole? It’s all idyllic and peaceful, until  out of the shadows, a lion appears.  The zebras know what’s up and the get the hell out of Dodge.

 Well, when I visit the kibbutz, I am the lion.  With leprosy.  

Even though divorce isn’t a contagious disease, when I take the kids to the small grocery store, or the park, or even the cafe, most of the mothers bolt.  A few are brave enough to talk to me.   And these are the women I count as friends.  

I try to avoid being in public on the kibbutz.  I pick the kids up from gan  and either take them back to their house, or go to a friends.  (See, it’s kinda hard to hold your head high when you’re ashamed that you couldn’t make it work for the sake of your children.)

Anyway, last night was the annual Kibbutz Hanukkah party when all the families gather together in the Hader Ohel for celebration and song.  Last year, we stood as a family and wiped the powdered sugared remnants of sufganiyot from each others’ cheeks.  But not this year.  My desire to be at a public event on the kibbutz ranks right up there along with moldering in a cell in Gitmo or having tea with Sarah Palin.  But this is Hanukkah - the first Hanukkah where both M and Little Homie will be old enough to remember the festivities, and so I sucked it up and we went.  And I watched my strong and sturdy children run pell-mell into the fray, shrieking with laughter, while I thought of creative ways to disappear into the darkness.   

But M would have none of it.  “Come on, Mama,”  she said, grabbing me by the hand.  “Dance with me,”  and while the loudspeakers played the Hanukkah song ‘Banu Choshech Legaresh’ we twirled in a circle.  I couldn’t breathe.  I felt about a thousand eyes boring into me while I held my daughter's hand.  What kind of mother leaves her family... Faster and faster and faster we spun, while my daughter sang the words aloud:  “Go away darkness black as night.  Go away, make way for light.”  And while we danced, the rest of the world disappeared, and all I saw in that moment were my daughters eyes shining like twin moons in the light of the menorah as we whirled together out of the darkness.

This post originally appeared here on Kveller.com. 

Kveller.com offers a Jewish twist on parenting, everything a Jewish family could need for raising Jewish children--including crafts, recipes, activities, Hebrew and Jewish names for babies...and advice from Mayim Bialik.

Missing Christmas

While living in the United States, I reveled in my Jewishness because it made me different.  Yes, even in LA, where you can float away on a sea of yarmulkes down Fairfax Avenue...  Still.   

The "Holidays"  -- and I use that term loosely because let's be real:  Jinglebells, Santa Claus and red and green everythings have nothing to do with Hanukkah or the fight for independence from the Assyrian army 200 years before the Common Era  -- has traditionally been a time when I would assert my Jewish independence from the Christmas caroling majority.

I never hummed along with the "Holiday" songs trickling through the loud speakers at the mall.

Instead, I blasted Adam Sandler's Hanukkah Song (the first and second one, because the third one is kind of lame even with the Osama Bin Laden reference).  This made me feel a little special.  

(Ok, in hindsight, I wasn't a little special.  I was a lot obnoxious.)

I never dressed in red or green or (God Forbid!) red and green together during the "Holidays."   I would scoff at my friends for wearing Santa hats.  And once, I yelled at my high school  principal for allowing a Christmas tree to prominently decorate the main office without any real religious parity.  (I'm sorry, but no, that pissant menorah buried in the dusty  corner next to the Tardy Slips does not count.)

I wasn't a total Grinch:  I'd bake meringue cookies with my mom to bring to Nancy's Christmas party.   I'd go to gift exchanges, and thrill at the rhinestone barrettes from Claire's or Country Apple lotion from Bath and Body works. When the weather dropped to a frigid 63 degrees (yes, Europe, I know you hate me) my parents and I lit a fire, and we'd sip hot cocoa.

And when I got a little older, I'd get my drink on at the occasional office "Holiday" party.

Still, I was Jewish and the "Holidays" were not really my thing.  

And that was cool because I got to be different.  I could scowl my way through “Holiday” movie marathons at friends’ houses, and sigh loudly about how unfair it was that My People were not given any real representation, oh and “could you please pass the pitcher of  egg nog and bowl of red and green M&M’s, oh and Fight the Power!”

But now, I am no longer a minority. 

You know how as soon as the Halloween decorations come down from Longs Drugs,  it’s like Santa blows up in the middle of Aisle three, and it’s  red and green and glitter and fake snow and reindeer shit  everywhere?

Well, the  Kibbutz market was already selling dreidals and Hanukkah candles when we landed in mid-October. 

Mid-October.  It was 80 degrees out.

Suddenly, I stopped feeling special. 

And I started missing Christmas. 

I longed for mistletoe.  I yearned for sleigh bells.  I missed Santa Claus. I craved figgy pudding (whatever the fuck that is.)
It's like  January 2^nd and back to business as usual around these parts because without Christmas to compete with, Israelis don't get all bling-bling with the Hanukkah decorations. 

I wanna go home for "The Holidays." 

 
There is no Christmas here on the kibbutz, so when a friend of mine invited me to come with her to a little shop in Ramle known for selling Christmassy things, I was thrilled.   I imagined a secret hide-away buried deep in a maze of alley ways.  There would be no sign.  The door would be barred with a medieval looking bolt type thingy, and you’d need a secret password or handshake to get through.

“I’m going to a Christmas shop!”  I whispered to B, thrilled by the taboo.

“Whatev.”  He said.  “Have fun.  Can you take Little Homie with you?”

And while the shop  – Konstantin’s Gifts (yes there was a sign) -- was waaaaaay more mundane than I had imagined, at least it was in an alley.

And this year, for the first time in my entire life, I bought a Christmas tree ornament.   I ate sugar cookies on Santa Claus napkins.   I sang God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen – and not in sotto voce, I might add – while walking back from the Kibbutz dining hall after lighting the Shabbat candles. 

And while reveling in the “Holiday” spirit with a few other closet Christmas-celebrants, it occurred to me that it isn’t about the colors or the mistletoe or the songs or the reindeer shit.  It’s about getting through the darkest days of the year with a little extra light.
 
Sometimes, I just want to feel part of a joyful, boisterous celebration.

Even if figgy pudding tastes like ass.

Instead of a Toaster.....

Imagine if you will: It’s the first night of Hanukkah.  Y’all gather around the menorah, and with a crack and a hiss, the match ignites and the shamash glows.   The room is bathed in the golden light of the Hanukiah while your family chants the ancient blessings over the candles.

After a succulent dinner – brisket and latkes with applesauce perchance? –  it’s time to open presents.  The kids go first because that’s how you roll.  And then it’s her turn: She reads the card. She unties the blue ribbon.  She peels back the layers of silver and white wrapping paper.  She opens the box, and takes out… a shiny new toaster?

Uh uh. 

Oh Hell no.                     

Please please PLEASE don’t let this happen to her!

So, a toaster is out.  But what does she want?

When I started to think about what women want for Hanukkah, I took to Twitter and Facebook with a vengeance and posted the following question:

“Ladies:  What do YOU want for the Hanukkah?”

(Ah cyberspace. The ultimate cheat-sheet.)

Mom’s with newborns were pretty much united in their desires:

“All I want for Hanukkah is five freaking minutes to pee alone.”   

“A night nurse. And a bottle of vino.” 

“Um, a nap?”

(Still, one mom with way more foresight than I ever showed wrote that all she wants for Hanukkah is “World Peace.”)

Moms can attest that having kids creates a massive shift in paradigm:  Your first shower after giving birth – you know, when your boobs are leaking, and you keep popping your head out from behind the shower curtain to check the video monitor even though your partner absolutely swears that they have everything under control – still feels like a spa day. 

Moms work hard.  And yeah, so do Dads, but this isn’t about them.  They have their own list.  

The good news is once things balance a little, it gets easier, and Moms can have the luxury of fantasizing about Hanukkah presents other than getting an extra hour of sleep or fifteen minutes to drink a latte and skim through People.  

So, here ya go.  The best Hanukkah gifts for Her directly from the women who want them:

1.      The Kindle Fire seems to be a popular choice with the ladies.  The sleek interface is a convenient alternative to schlepping around a book when you’re on the go.  And for women who commute on public transportation, the Kindle Fire makes an interesting travel companion.  If she already has a Kindle, the new iPhone 4s or a great DSLR camera seems like great alternatives. 

And on that note, a gift certificate to amazon.com is always welcome – especially if someone bought her the Kindle Fire.  (Hint hint.)

3.      

Let’s take her craving for a power nap and a little down time and kick it up a notch.  Why not send her off on a spa day?  She’ll come home glowing.  

4.     

And if you want to get her something sparkly, I have one word for you:  Tiffany’s.  

5.      But if your budget is limited, why not offer her a service? Significant Others can score a lot of points with a cute coupon book with messages like “A cuddle coupon. Good for 2 hours of cuddling with the coupon-issuer in one of the following locations: in front of a roaring fire, on a porch swing, on a cozy couch or in a bed. TV is prohibited. Radio is permitted.” (le sigh) Grandparents, extended family and close friends could also offer (free) babysitting services so that Mom and Dad can actually use that, um, “cuddle coupon.”  (Ahem.)

6.      

Do something original:  Find a first edition of her favorite book.  Find a photograph with special meaning and have it framed. If she paints, get her art supplies.  If she likes to write, buy her a beautiful journal and a cool pen.  If she’s into music, concert tickets are a great choice.  If she likes basketball, baseball, soccer, rugby, whatever, then she won’t turn down tickets to see her favorite team.  These are just a few ideas .

7.      Disclaimer: The following gift should not come from her parents.  Or Aunt Esther and Uncle Bob: While she probably knows just how sexy and desirable she is, a little reminder never hurts.  Yummy scented body lotions from Bath and Body Works will leave her feeling pampered.  A cute camisole or bra and panty set from Victoria’s Secret is almost always appreciated.  And if you want to give her something with a little more, um, shall we say, oomph then I suggest you check out Good Vibes.  ‘Nuff said.

8.      Gandhi was on to something when he said “be the change you wish to see in the world.”  So, if she’s passionate about something – whether it’s ending world hunger, or the whole Occupy movement, or saving the spotted owls, then making a donation in her name is another thoughtful gift, and one that will touch her altruistic side.  So while World Peace seems a bit out of reach,  Tikkun Olam – Healing the World – is a step in the right direction.

This post originally appeared here on Kveller.com.

Kveller.com offers a Jewish twist on parenting, everything a Jewish family could need for raising Jewish children--including crafts, recipes, activities, Hebrew and Jewish names for babies...and advice from Mayim Bialik.