Absolutely and Amen: "Why I Want My Sons to See Me Naked"

I was starting to doubt myself and feel self-conscious about my boys seeing me naked, as I get out of the shower and change, or strip down in my bed room to disentangle myself from a snotty yogurt-encrusted shirt that I just can't bear to wear anymore. We talk so.much. about bodies and nakedness and it seems like few other families do, at least with 2yos and 4yos. My oldest son already knows the basics of how babies are made and the correct anatomical names of his body. He's seen me naked just about every day of his life. Was I just being too open? Was I making a drastic overcorrect?

Ha! I really only wanted to address whether or not my kids should see their parents naked, but I can't think about that topic without thinking about 10000000 other aspects of nakedness as it involves my children and their perceptions of the body and its purposes.

So. Narrowing focus to the question "should my children ever see me naked?" this article helped me remember one of many reasons for my answer of "yes!":

Because for right now, for these few formative years, my flab is their one and only perception of the female body. And I want them to know that it's beautiful, even in its imperfection.

[http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5797920?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000037]

Enjoying Toddlerhood

I can very much relate to the sentiment expressed in this blog post:

But the older my kids get, the more I enjoy them. I thought I was a baby person, until I birthed my own. Now I look back on both the years my children were infants and think those were the hardest months of my life. Hormones, recovery, fogginess, I didn’t do so well back then. I know a lot of moms are able to see that time as ethereal and beautiful - many women love the baby stage the best - but now that I’m more rested and less hormonal, I can see that I’m a better kid mom than I was a baby mom. At almost five and almost three, I am enjoying the kids so much right now.

"Parenting Through Trembling Lips"

Ezra screamed down the hallway to his BSF class today. He was mostly being defiant, so it wasn't as heart-wrenching as it could have been, but I hate to hear/see him cry for any reason. That recent memory, combined with the fact that it's hours and hours past my bedtime, was likely the impetus for my tears as I read the following prayer from "Parenting Through Trembling Lips" in my blog reader just now.

Lord God, you sent your only Son into this world knowing he would die for others. Deliberately putting him in harms way. How great is your love for me, but how greatly your heart must have broken. Keep breaking my heart for my children, Lord. Guide my steps as I guide theirs.

Proverbs 30:15b-16

Three things are never satisfied;
four never say, "Enough":
Sheol, the barren womb,
the land never satisfied with water,
and the fire that never says, "Enough."

Discipline as an Act of Grace

The article "Blessings Too Big" on Desiring God described disciplining as a blessing, which is a foreign way of thinking about discipline for me.

So in a healthy Christian home, we spend a goodish bit of time correcting, disciplining, training, and spanking. The path to the proverbial wood shed is well worn, shall we say. The thing that is often hard to remember when the two-year-old is going red-faced and screaming, when everybody’s getting their feelings hurt and fussing — the thing that is really hard to remember is that this is part of the blessing too.

God is sovereign, and he has given you children that fuss and quarrel. If your heart is already bent out of shape, and the next kid that walks by is going to be a sinner in the hands of an angry god, then you’re well on your way to forfeiting the blessing God is trying to give you.

 The line most convicting for me?

[F]or discipline of children to be a blessing, the act itself must be full of Jesus and his gospel of grace.

"The Feminine Mystique at Fifty"

Jessica Hong writes about the impact of Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique fifty years after it was published. Her article has (and will) take me a long time to process. I still haven't read Betty Friedan's book. I want to... and I don't want to. But I do feel like I need to.

Here are two concluding remarks from this article.

I imagine I wouldn't have received my Master of Divinity at a conservative evangelical seminary, nor other countless opportunities I take for granted, had it not been for the questions Friedan's book raised. Yet the identity crisis persists in women today as it did back then: different circumstances, same problem.

Men are not the answer, but they're not the problem, either. My own brokenness, which keeps me from finding the fullness of my identity in who I am in Christ, is the real problem. In Christ, any role can be carried out with joy and neither anxiety on the one hand nor resentment on the other.

[http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/09/30/the-feminine-mystique-at-50/]

Measles, Vaccinations and Herd Immunity

This blog post recently went viral. I've always been scared to talk (or post) about vaccinations vs. no vaccinations/delayed vaccinations, because there are SUCH strong feelings about it. But I also want to "save" this post here so that I can continue to look through the links provided.

[http://gianelloni.wordpress.com/2013/09/13/why-all-the-measles-outbreaks/]

"School Has Become Too Hostile to Boys"

Schools must enforce codes of discipline and maintain clear rules against incivility and malicious behavior. But that hardly requires abolishing tag, imposing games of tug of peace or banning superhero play. Efforts to re-engineer the young-male imagination are doomed to fail, but they will succeed spectacularly in at least one way. They will send a clear and unmistakable message to millions of schoolboys: You are not welcome in school.

[http://ideas.time.com/2013/08/19/school-has-become-too-hostile-to-boys/#ixzz2cXmWRymR]

"More than anything, they’re going to miss the ordinary days."

This is one of those articles that is rather sappy... except that it's also a profound reminder.

It’s easy to think it’s enough to be there for the big stuff. But I’m here to tell, dads, it’s not the big stuff she’ll remember, and it’s not the big stuff she’ll miss. 

It’s the ordinary stuff, the stuff you never thought twice about because it was just life.

[http://fiveintow.com/2013/06/16/ordinary-days/]

Loss for Christ's Sake

Last week as Ezra's eye teeth struggled to pop through, I forgot this:

We lose not for our sake and really not even for the sake of our children, but for the sake of Christ. We live to Christ and we die to Christ. It is for his sake that we give our lives to the service of child-rearing.

[http://cbmw.org/women/motherhood/a-risky-life/]

The Nightlife

Friday night I worked until 10pm at the studio, filling in for the usual office manager, to cover a birthday party. As I worked away on summer registrations, I listened to the singer/guitarist (Kim Archer) singing covers next door at the cafe and watched people - all dressed up and holding hands - walk past me along the sidewalk.

My observation was largely dispassionate. I felt very much like I was observing a different culture. An unfathomably different culture.

I often stay up past 10pm these days, thanks to my child-who-refuses-to-sleep, but never in "real clothes". I listen to a lot of music these days, thanks to my children-who-love-music, but it's my own rendition of "The Ants Go Marching"/"London Bridges"/etc. I get plenty of physical touch, thanks to my children-who-are-obsessed-with-touching-me, but it's not accompanied by flirtation.

I live a very different life these days, and I don't even know that I realized how devoid it was of about-town-ness in the twilight until last night as I watched other people flit about. I'd forgotten that some people do such things. Four years of total immersion in childcare (plus that last year of writing) have made me forget any life before.

"Growing into Motherhood"

Hmm, what an interesting way of relating to your child...

The aching made me realize just how far I've come as a mother. When Henry was born, I didn't feel that overwhelming unconditional bear-mama love that mothers are "supposed to" feel. I didn't feel like I loved him more than anyone or anything in my life. I felt like I needed to get to know him. I knew that the roots of deep love were planted, but I didn't know how long it would take for them to grow tall and strong.

And although I took care of him lovingly, patiently, and diligently through the infant stage, it wasn't until around 16 months into our relationship together when the joy started to outweigh the hardship.

[http://www.feedingthesoil.com/2013/05/growing-into-motherhood.html]

"Why Have Babies?"

The article "Why Have Babies?" made me bristle at times. I really didn't enjoy reading it, but I'm still trying to figure out exactly why. Perhaps there's a bit of conviction, but I do think that, to some extent, it was also this author's tone (both specific to this article and in other pieces).

[http://www.boundless.org/adulthood/2013/why-have-babies]

"Evolution of a Feminist Daughter "

This article, "Evolution of a Feminist Daughter" was published a number of years ago by Rebecca Walker. I remember reading it back then, perhaps in particular because I'd recently read The Color Purple and was interested in Alice Walker. (Actually, that may even be the reason I found the article in the first place...)

But it floated up again and I once again found it fascinating. So, if you haven't read enough articles regarding feminism, motherhood, racism, gender, etc., here's another that I consider a "must read":

“Mine is the first generation of women to grow up thinking of children as optional,” Ms. Walker writes in the new book. “We learned that children were not to be pursued at the expense of anything else. A graduate degree in economics, for example, or a life of renunciation, devoted to a Hindu mystic.” 

Children, she writes, “smelled of betrayal and a lack of appreciation for the progress made on behalf of women’s liberation.”

[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/fashion/18walker.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all&]

"...being daily grace to the small souls nearest to you."

I want this to be true of my life:

Being pro-life means putting the life of another ahead of your own. It means being daily grace to the small souls nearest to you. It is not just an opinion or a position or a lobbyist group. It is the glory of maternal self-sacrifice that begins at conception and runs through labor and midnight feedings and diapers and sandwiches and crayons and homework and flu seasons and graduations and on into grandkids. It is an avalanche of small and large sacrifices. It burns bright in kitchens and bedrooms and backyards. It is the real life of the pro-life movement, and it will change the world.

[http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/the-real-life-of-the-pro-life-home]

"The Struggle to Trust God with My Child’s Salvation"

Convicting words from Lindsey Carlson's post, "The Struggle to Trust God with My Child’s Salvation":

But God may choose to answer my prayers for my children’s salvation through brokenness and trials. Yet I pray,“Please Lord, not this way! Not through hardship!” It’s a hard reality that sin precedes redemption, and all have fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). This is all the more reason that I must not grow weary of doing good, speaking of and singing the songs of salvation even if it’s through fear and trembling.

If my greatest desire for my children is “Lord, please let them come to faith in you,” then shouldn’t I be willing to trust God to redeem any situation they’re faced with? Am I willing to trust him in the painful times he has purposed for his glory?

Take heart, Mom & Dad. Jesus is sovereign over your children’s salvation. And he faithfully goes after his lost sheep (Luke 15:4), whether they’re in the time-out corner of their preschool class or walking through cancer and chemotherapy. Our Father is more concerned with redeeming our children for his glory than we are.

[http://www.domestickingdom.com/2013/05/08/the-struggle-to-trust-god-with-my-childs-salvation/]

"The Power of Talking to Your Children"

In the blog post "The Power of Talking to Your Baby," Tina Rosenburg writes about the disparity between the number of words spoken at home to children from "poor" vs. "professional" families. She writes:

By the time a poor child is 1 year old, she has most likely already fallen behind middle-class children in her ability to talk, understand and learn. The gap between poor children and wealthier ones widens each year, and by high school it has become a chasm. 

It turns out, evidence is showing, that the much-ridiculed stream of parent-to-child baby talk — Feel Teddy’s nose! It’s so soft! Cars make noise — look, there’s a yellow one! Baby feels hungry? Now Mommy is opening the refrigerator! — is very, very important. 

All parents gave their children directives like “Put away your toy!” or “Don’t eat that!” But interaction was more likely to stop there for parents on welfare, while as a family’s income and educational levels rose, those interactions were more likely to be just the beginning. 

The disparity was staggering. Children whose families were on welfare heard about 600 words per hour. Working-class children heard 1,200 words per hour, and children from professional families heard 2,100 words. By age 3, a poor child would have heard 30 million fewer words in his home environment than a child from a professional family. And the disparity mattered: the greater the number of words children heard from their parents or caregivers before they were 3, the higher their IQ and the better they did in school.

Her observations are drawn from the work Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley at the University of Kansas, did, including their 1995 book Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children (summary here).

****

I have certainly found this to be true in regards to Ezra's speech as well as understanding. People (us, his grandparents and aunts and uncles, my piano students) have always talked to him, explaining their actions or making observations of their surroundings, or explaining traditions and histories to him, reading to him, etc. And his language skills and understanding definitely attest to the almost two years + nine months he has experienced a constant stream of language.

Now I'm (overly) concerned that Isaac won't get the same stimulation, largely because he won't exist in the "world of grownups" that Ezra has. I want to prioritize speaking to Isaac in the same way I've spoken to Ezra.

[http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/the-power-of-talking-to-your-baby/]

"Learning a New Kind of Love"

A great article on motherhood: 

None of this is to say that motherhood makes you a new person (I’m shocked how exactly the same I still am), or that motherhood gives you some superhero power that no non-parent will ever understand (no). And I certainly don’t know all the kinds of love now (each of you knows kinds of love I’ll never even be able to imagine). But instead, I simply mean, seven and a half weeks ago, I learned a new kind of love.

"Sleep of the Parents"

Quoted from All and Sundry, from the book Waiting for Birdy by Catherine Newman:

Nothing can prepare you for the Sleep of the Parents. If sleep is an ocean, then I used to sleep on the floor of it, a sunken thing among the catfish, bubbles blooping from my dreaming mouth towards the surface. Now I sleep in a little rowboat. In a thunderstorm, during a war, with cannons going off all night long. And also sharks.

 (Not that I can exactly relate, or at least complain, because I still sleep exceptionally well despite Ezra. Just not as well as before Ezra...)

Colors and Toddlers

This article, "Why Johnny Can't Name His Colors," is particularly fascinating to me because of the fact that Ezra knows his colors pretty well. (And he's only 19 months old, as opposed to the 2 and 3 year olds in this study.) He can usually identify pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, white and gray. He has the most trouble with red, or has, though it seems as if that's a thing of the past now too. And of course when he sees "maroon" he often calls it purple, etc. But we didn't actively try to teach him colors. He just started saying them (consistently) about a month ago and hasn't stopped. So we do point to colors now and ask him what color this or that is. Or we'll ask him to bring us the blue car, etc.

I guess it's because "teaching him to name his colors" was so easy it's interesting to me to read about the process of doing so. I just never thought about it until it happened.