It is interesting to contemplate; this relationship between sons and their mothers.

Especially when the mother in question is parenting on her own.

I have talked extensively in this space about my darling daughter: her wit, her intelligence, her perseverance in the face of circumstances that might hobble another child.
​
But I don't say nearly as much about my son.

​Possibly because, in my own mind, I'm not really sure how to talk about him.

There is a certain group of mothers whose sons can do no wrong.  No matter what is going on in their lives, their sons are heroes.  Everything they touch turns to gold, or will, eventually.  In all honesty, they have every right to be proud of the accomplishments their sons have made.  They have made every correct turn, always taken the right path, and have remained steadily on course for eventual success.

​On the other end of the spectrum are the mothers whose sons made terrible choices, and are either incarcerated, dead, or well on their way to either fate.  Some of these mother tried everything they could to make sure that their sons had decent lives, but in the end, none of that mattered.  This is NOT the way their sons were raised, and the man they see is not the boy they saw growing up.  This is the group most vilified in popular media.  Especially if there was no father in the home.  The reason for the absence of the male parent doesn't matter; there was no male role model, so any and all parenting was pre-determined to end in failure.

And then there are those sons that fall into neither group.  Neither reaching the lofty heights of perceived success, nor the terrifying lows of a life gone tragically off course.  They are flailing somewhere in the middle, quite literally neither here, nor there.  Sometimes they are continuing their education post high school; sometimes they are working; most times they have no idea what they really want to do.  They are not bad people, often telling those that inquire about their latest change in direction because in all honesty they've changed their mind so many times even they can't remember what they originally wanted to do.

It is in this wispy gray area that my son exists.  Funny, talented, and utterly frustrated by his own shortcomings as he embarks on his latest run at getting his life to the point where the world determines it should be: a 23 year old should have a job, a car, and his own apartment, excuses be damned.  It is a different relationship, this one between a parent, and an adult child with an issue or two that may be hindering his ability to move as fast as his peers or get the same results.  Me, the parent, trying to be both understanding, as I have been through a great deal of this already, (with a child to take care of to boot), and nurturing but firm, without being pushy or nagging; and Him, the son, wanting badly to be the independent young man, running to make up for past missteps, and trying to deal with the issues that are preventing the move forward.  All while dealing with a certain level of snarky condescension from adults who are supposed to be in a position to help, advise, or at least encourage him get to the next steps in his journey, but are far too jaded to be of any real assistance.

As I watch him crawl, walk, run, stumble and fall, then start the process all over again in an effort to reach this or that goal, I marvel at  his willingness to keep trying until he find out what fits him in a world that expects all young people to identify a goal as soon as possible, then stick with it until the end.  There was no promotion ceremony from Elementary school or Middle school for this son. And after going far too long without any help for a learning difference, and it's related co-morbities, no high school graduation either, as he dropped out.  I observed during a frustrated conversation with him one night that I have spent most of his life waiting for him to FINISH something.  As I study his hurt, defeated and angry eyes, I realize that I just want to be able to brag about my son the way I hear my friends bragging about theirs, which is completely unfair to him.  We have come up through some strange and trying times, this young man and I, and as hard as it is for me to realize that it is even harder for him, this teetering between where he is and where he wants to be.  The burden of managing other people's expectations, as ridiculous as they sometimes are, is now on his shoulders, and he is finding that the yoke of adulthood can strangle just as fast, if not faster, than the one he wore as a child.

Occasionally, I look back over the times and struggles we've had over these last going on 24 years now, and wonder how he made it through, even when I admittedly was still learning how to be an adequate parent. I love my son, obviously, and was always determined to do right by him, even at enormous personal cost to myself, if that's what it took.  I look at him now, and see traces of both his father, and myself: His father's temperament, mellowed by my sense of the absurd; his father's hair and chin, with my eyes and nose; His father's nonchalance about most politics, mixed with my passion about issues that affect me directly. In the midst of this, he still manages to be uniquely himself, which is all he should ever be required to be.

Really, this is the story of patience for a late bloomer, in a world that expects early and continual success.  But the rose that blooms latest smells just as sweet as the rose that bloomed first.  We just have to continue to nourish, water, prune, and WAIT, until the rose is ready.  Like all things in nature, it will happen when the time is right, not when we want it to.

​As it should be.

Well, Dear readers, this is something new. Although I have been down eviction road before, it has never gone this far. I've usually been blessed to find another place rather quickly, and pull it all together, and move on. Not this time. Although I am making every effort to get it together, I have to be gone by COB on Monday. Or, first thing Tuesday morning, I lose everything that I haven't moved.

Once you have an eviction on your record, most PMFs will not rent to you under any circumstances. Even if the circumstances that caused the eviction have changed, or you have tamed (sort of) the payday loan beast, an eviction is an eviction, and owners mostly don't want to take that chance anymore. le sigh.
I wish I had never taken out even one of those doggone loans. I feel like not only am I going to be paying for it for the rest of my life, now it's affecting my daughter as well, which is the one thing I was trying to avoid. This has been quite the learning experience. One that I fear is not quite over yet.
​
This is going to be one long, strange weekend.


ETA:  A friend of mine suggested the I do a Go Fund Me to help with my living situation in the meantime. Pride-wise, especially since I have been through this before, AND very recently, at first I rejected the idea. But I swallowed my pride and did it anyway: https://www.gofundme.com/2r62yfjs

​Sometimes, I hate my life.  Will I ever live down my mistakes?  Only time will tell.

Eleven is a magical age.  You have hit the sweet spot where you are not a little kid, but you are not yet a full on teenager, so you have license to indulge in the slightly silly for just a little while longer, while slowly trying on the image of the young adult.  Eleven is a time of transition, from the safe routine of elementary school, to the busy uncertainty of middle school, which prepares you for the race that will be high school and college.  You become more aware of your emotions, as you begin to understand more of what's going on in the world around you, and your reactions start to take on an adult complexity.

I was reminded of this recently when my daughter and I went to see the movie "Inside Out", which details the emotional inner workings of an 11 year old girl after her family makes a major transition, moving from suburban Minnesota to San Francisco.  Up until that point, while I realized that my daughter had been through quite a bit in her short 11 years, I had completely forgotten how her processing methods themselves might be changing, from that of a child  to those of a young adult, while all of these things were going on.

Talking with both kids after watching the movie, I started to notice that all of us had major change going on in out lives at the age of eleven.  Changes that eventually shaped our pursuits, as well as out overall outlook on life.

At the age of eleven, my son was dragged along with me as we experienced the functional homelessness of living first with my then boyfriend (who eventually became my daughter's father), then with my sister.  As with most people living in overcrowded situations, tensions abounded, and no matter how much I tried to shield him from it, he couldn't help but noticed the strained silences from the adults around him.  Still struggling with ADHD, one day, his medication disappeared, never to be seen again.  This would start the longest, worst period of school for him, the time when he knew what he needed to do, but did not know how to stay focused enough to do it.

He became a big brother at the age of eleven. I remember him being woken up in the middle of the night, and told to throw on sweatpants, and pile into the car while I drove myself to the hospital.  I recall him pushing my wheelchair into the waiting room, and waiting with me for whatever my next instructions were to be.  I also remember the fascinated look on his face when he met his little sister for the first time, marveling out loud about how tiny she was.

He also resumed taking capoeira, a martial art he had started at the Lutheran school he had attended, and he also started cooking, as he was finally tall enough to see completely over the stove.  With capoeira, he would form friendships and mentor relationships that he still has to this day, and he eventually became such a good cook, he is in the process of pursuing it as a vocation.

My daughter only turned 11 in January of this year, but she has already experienced having to pack and move quickly from a place we had lived since she was a toddler.  She has experienced the death of a very young friend that she saw and played with daily.  She has dealt with adults that had no issues with treating her like a stereotype rather than an individual. She has experienced peer racism, sexism, and class-ism, and had to figure out how to NOT respond to any of these things, as she has unfortunately found out that any response to provocation will likely get her into more trouble that  those doing the provoking.  Such is the life of the bullied.

She has also discovered a love of learning, especially math and science subjects, and has a great deal of fun with the engineering kits created by GoldieBlox.  She has just completed her third trip to a week long camp conducted by the Lutheran church, and while she doesn't always enjoy her cabin mates, she absolutely LOVES the experience of going to camp: the hiking, swimming, sleeping outside, and simply getting out of the city, and around different people, for a little while. Soon, she will be part of two mixed generation choirs, and with one has performed as both a singer and a dancer for well over a year.

At the age of eleven, my older sister and I were in a state of flux.  Our mother and younger sister were living in Hawaii, our father was here in Los Angeles, but not living in a big enough place to care for the two of us, so we were living with his cousin.  I was in my final year of elementary school, and completely unaware of how to deal with my unusual personality.  Becoming a nerd was not cool in 1981, and my appreciation for, well, EVERYTHING, was not looked upon anything close to favorably.

In the middle of all of this, I received my very first Bible from the husband of the cousin we were living with.  This was in response to my complaints about the pew bibles at his church, and I treasured that small white bible with my name written on it in gold letters until it was lost in storage 9 years ago.  One of the sons in this family introduced my sister and I to rock and roll, via local radio station KROQ, often by acting out the lyrics to some of the songs for our amusement.  I've since taught the movements to at least two of those songs to my own children, which they find hilarious.  It was also during this time that I made my first halting attempts at writing at the suggestion of this same cousin, who suggested that I try to write down my feelings about everything that I was going through at the time.  After seeing a little poetry, and a few paragraphs, she then uttered the magic words:  "You are actually pretty good at this.  You should keep this up."

I sit here contemplating this as, eleven years after the birth of my daughter, my son prepares to leave the nest.  My daughter is losing her longest, closest friend, and I feel like I am losing the longest, hardest job I've ever had. We are both happy for him, of course, and in our own little way, will miss him.  But if eleven is our family's number for changes and transitions, then now is the time for him to start moving on.  It will be interesting to see what the next eleven years will bring.

The Sunday after Thanksgiving marked the end of a very long, strange, and ultimately revealing trip in my life.

What started with a 3-day notice back in October, and ended with my eviction in mid-November, has now morphed into a beautiful combination of blessings, revelations that I am far from the only one that I know personally that has had to go through this, and a new resolve to help those that will go through this situation in the future.  If a well lived life is about a life spent helping others (or simply keeping one's head out of one's own ass), then what I learned that week was that admitting to mistakes and failure was not the same as BEING a failure, and that people will genuinely want to help you, and sometimes in a way that inspires you (or in my case, strengthens your resolve) to help others.

This story picks up in a courtroom, where I am trying to plead with the owner of my former apartment for some sort of deal to work things out, and failing miserably.  To the the point where even the judge noted that I had made extraordinary efforts to make some sort of deal to stay in my apartment.  No such deal was to be had on that day, and I had to leave.  ASAP.  I sat in the courtroom after everyone had left except the court clerk, and cried my eyes out.  The court clerk listened to my pathetic sobs as I told my story, and related to me in that she sat in the court everyday, day after day, and heard story after story of people's slow descent from the middle class.  She also became the first of three people to tell me to forget my pride, and figure out where my kids and I were going to live.

Later on that evening, I found myself posting about the whole humiliating ordeal with some long time online friends, and I heard again that dropping the pride might be the best thing to do, and admitting that I needed help.  I realized then that Pride, that old friend that I would wrap around me like a warm quilt that magically warded off hurt and anger, would be my undoing if I didn't put it away and talk about what happened to the kids and myself, and what would happen if I didn't get any assistance.  I had to ask myself if it was more important to find and finance a place to live, or to maintain the "everything is okay" image I had been cultivating for so long.

After a day of stalling and trepidation, I finally set up a GoFundMe page, and told my story to a wider world.  If there is anything more damaging to one's pride than admitting that you royally screwed up, and now need help to right your ship, I am not sure what it is.  What I feared most by admitting that I had an issue and needed help was the judgement of others.  What would people think of me, that I had failed so obviously at so elementary a task?  I reviewed and edited my page, said a fervent prayer, then released my request to the internet.

I never expected the overwhelmingly positive response I got.  After publishing my story in a few places, I found out that my story is so common, especially right now, as to almost be passe.  The court steps are populated by those that were living on the financial edge, and only needed one unexpected incident to push them over.  We are a brotherhood: those who were once financially okay, now just barely getting by, and sometimes,  not even that.

Because I had no idea how any of this would work out, I formed two plans.  The first  was to hurriedly find a place, and, if I could raise the money, pay the deposit, and move in as soon as possible.  Barring that, I would just put everything into storage, and move the children and myself back into the residential motel that we had lived in before.  But more than anything else, I absolutely had to vacate the apartment before the first of December.

Everything I am about to tell you happened in the space of roughly 10 days.

Tuesday, I lost my court battle to stay in my apartment.

Wednesday, I posted the GoFundMe page.

On Thursday I got a call from a dear friend, asking what on Earth had happened. I stood in an empty-ish hallway at work, telling the Reader's Digest condensed version of the events of the past several months. This phone call would turn out to be a Godsend, but I will  get to that later.

I got off work on a Friday, and decided to ride up and down three city blocks, collecting phone numbers on For Rent signs.  My goal was to collect between 5 and 10 numbers, call all of them, and seriously hope one of them worked out.  After leaving several messages, I finally got a live person on the 4th call, and arranged to look at an apartment the next day. I tell the kids that we are going to look at a place tomorrow, and if the person likes us, we are applying, and we are going to take it if approved.  We have to go, and this is no time to be picky.  They agree.

Saturday, we look at a place.  It's smaller than the place we currently live, but there is a garage where we can store the extra stuff, the kids are happy to not be going to a motel if we get it.  We meet the manager, who seems to really like us, even after my son makes a Romanian gymnast joke (and I cringe!), and I fill out an application.  We have to wait until Monday for an answer.

My campaign has actually brought in some money, for which I am insanely happy, and by Sunday word has gotten around my small church community that all is not necessarily well in my world.  Here was another place I was afraid to admit I had an issue, as, being both an introvert, and socially awkward, sometimes people take that as being snobby or standoffish.  Definitely NOT a good impression.  I figured most people didn't realize I didn't talk much for fear of accidentally inserting my foot in my mouth.  I figured I didn't have many friends here, but I was offered very discreet help, and left church with enough to put a serious dent in covering my moving expenses.

Monday, I got the call I had been waiting for.  I had been approved for the apartment.  The dear friend I spoke with the prior Thursday, had offered to be my Angel investor, and completely covered the deposit on the new apartment, and made an extraordinary effort to make sure I had it in a timely fashion.  I immediately make arrangements to pay the deposit, sign the lease, and get the keys.  I also begin to transfer utilities and mail, reserve a truck, and have my son begin soliciting what of his college aged friends can help us with the move, which, out of necessity, is going to have to happen the day after Thanksgiving. I purchase the first set of boxes today.

Tuesday, I meet with the manager and pay the deposit, Wednesday, I get the keys, and begin moving small items into the apartment.  We also continue packing, with my 10-year-old daughter proving herself to be the MVP of packing boxes.  I have never seen a more organized effort to fill, tape, and mark boxes, as the effort put forth by my daughter during her first major move.

Thursday, Thanksgiving day, is spent packing, eating, then packing until we run out of boxes.

Friday morning is a whirlwind of activity that sees me running to get more boxes (and donuts to feed my "crew"), running to replace a suddenly destroyed tire, running to finish packing before my son's friends arrive, running to pick up a U-Haul truck, running home, trying to get all of the heavy furniture out of the house and onto the truck before my college-aged crew has to leave, especially considering the limited amount of time I had the truck, getting the first load done and unloaded, running back to the old place to try to hurry and get the boxes loaded onto the truck, realizing that two ten year olds and a twelve year old with dollies do an EXCELLENT job of neatly loading boxes onto a truck, running back to unload the truck and return it to U-Haul, then running home to clean up, and run to my sister's place for Thanksgiving leftovers.

Saturday and Sunday were spent retrieving what we had left in the old place (my clothes dryer was the largest item) and doing what cleaning we could, as I had re-aggravated a hand injury, and my son and I were both extremely sore.  My knees have yet to forgive me for the move into a second floor apartment.

And yet by the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we were done.  There were still cries of "What box/bag is that in?", and beds still needed to be assembled, but by the Grace of God, we had landed safely in a new place.  We are exactly where we need to be, as we are close to my daycare, and my daughter is now in the district she needed to be in in order to go to the middle school she wanted to go to.  Yes there are some things that were lost in the move, and some things we will have to purchase to complete the adaption to this new space, but we made it, we are safe, at home.  

It is after midnight here, and all is...quiet.

And I realize in this quiet that it is now my job to continue to bring attention to the plight of those whose lives are entangled in a system that routinely turns people out on to the street, at what is perhaps the worst financial moment in their lives.  For me, for this moment, my fight is over, assisted along the way by many wonderful people.   But my fight for others in the same and similar situations is just beginning.

But on that Sunday night, after Thanksgiving, it was time to relax, and rejoice in my many blessings.  A glass of wine, a slice of leftover pie, and the knowledge that, so long as you reach out, honestly and humbly, you are never really alone.

I certainly didn't think I'd find myself back in this same place after so many years.  Then again, my luck hasn't always been great, and making desperate decisions based on which was the lesser of two evils doesn't exactly make for the best of circumstances either.  I know, based on the most recent financial news, that I am not the only person going through these issues.  There are two entire generations that are struggling financially, and can no longer make ends meet where they used to be able to.  More are joining our ranks everyday, and the cries for relief are getting louder.

But I am getting ahead of myself.  Should I start from the beginning?

With the exception of some short stints of living with others (I'll get to those later), I have been living on my own since my early 20's.  I readily admit that I was ill-equipped to handle this responsibility, as the jobs I was qualified for back then never actually paid enough money to afford rent in Los Angeles, but I have also never really had a choice in the matter, as my family is not the type that lends itself to long term co-habitation.  Those situations were sticky at best, and explosive at worst.  So I did what I could to make the best possible go at living on my own, then with my son, now with my son and daughter.

Back then, I worked as a temporary employee.  Before I learned to be registered with multiple agencies, I generally only worked for one at a time, staying with one agency until they stopped calling, then moving on to another agency.  When there is rent, childcare and bills to pay, temp work doesn't always cover everything, so I was always on the lookout for that elusive permanent job. In the meantime, I learned to dread dry spells, those seasons when the temp jobs dried up for a couple of months due to the comings and goings of college students that are often used as unpaid interns for the companies that usually employed me.  It was during these dry spells that I became very familiar with evictions.

The pattern would go something like this:  While I was working, everything would be okay, but just barely.  I had no car or bank account, so I would pickup my check at the temp agency, cash it either at the bank the check was drawn on (before that option was taken away by the banks) or the check cashing place, then on Saturdays, hop on the bus with my son to go pay bills.  It was always a careful dance on the edge, quite literally living paycheck to weekly paycheck, while trying to move forward.  Whenever an assignment would end, two things would invariably happen:  There would be just enough of a wait before the next assignment to put me behind on bills and rent; and I would also have to repair or replace an (always purchased used) appliance.  It never failed.  It would be a tragic comedy if it had not gotten so predictable that I could pinpoint, almost to a day, when something would go horribly wrong.  Shortly afer putting out that fire, the 3-day notice would appear in such a way that there was no way to answer it in a timely fashion, followed by the Unlawful Detainer, followed by a tear filled court appearance (which usually cost me a day of work from the assignment that I had usually JUST STARTED, which I was not going to get paid for and usually made a poor impression which hastened the end of that assignment as well) that generally ended with me getting a crappy note in my credit record, and a extremely small amount of time for me to convince someone to rent to a single parent that worked low-paying temp jobs.

If this sounds familiar, it is because this has been the subject of quite a few recent documentaries, most notably HBO's Paycheck to Paycheck: http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/paycheck-to-paycheck-the-life-and-times-of-katrina-gilbert#/ , and more recently, Spent: Looking For Change:  http://www.spentmovie.com/.  Both films detail the lives of those who, 20 years ago, might have been squarely middle class, but due to inflation, accidents, illness and other unexpected circumstances, have found themselves in deep financial holes, struggling to meet basic daily needs for themselves and their families.  In these scenarios, even two parent families aren't spared, especially when the other parent (or partner) either can't work, or is unable to find stable employment.  Spent specifically focuses on the the financial lives of those who for various reasons are unable to participate in the mainstream financial systems in the United States.  These are people unable to have bank accounts, or get needed small business or personal loans, or have faced some crisis that started a painful downward financial spiral. Those without the ability to participate in a regular banking relationship, are all too often at the mercy of all manner of high interest, theoretically short-term loans, utilization of check cashing services, and associated bill paying services which charge additional fees of their own, which all adds up quickly, and can be devastating to low-income, and middle to low income families.



Setbacks only too easily become the last step before complete financial collapse for families already on the edge.  The car that either broke down or got repossessed that was the only link between the only employed person in the house and the well paying job that required it.  The emergency room visit that empties a checking account, or worse, has to be billed as it comes up at an extremely inopportune moment.  Having to make a heartbreaking choice when you realize that you can either eat or pay a bill, especially when there are children involved.  Wanting to be strong for everyone else, and be the stable provider that you feel like you should be, but being denied the resources needed to remain on your feet through a storm, so that you have to rely on less than palatable sources that become the anchor that finally sinks your situation.


For me, it was the discovery of payday loans.  Let me start by saying that of all of the Seven Deadly Sins, I have the largest issue with Pride.  I refused to let anyone know that I was having money issues, lest they think me incapable of "handling my business".  Being unable to handle one's business is a cardinal sin among minorities, and will get you singled out for derision and long term condescension very quickly.  Having been bullied relentlessly as a child, teen and young adult, I was willing to do just about anything to avoid being perceived as a failure for not being able to adequately care for my children and myself.  With a payday loan, I could discreetly handle any shortages that came up, and there were many since, as I stated earlier, I wasn't making enough money to cover everything, and soon between the loans to cover the bills due to the loans, and my bank's love of re-ordering the transactions to create as many overdraft fees as possible, 13 years ago, I found myself in an impossible situation.  I had been laid off from a long term assignment right in the middle of a dry season, I was having a hard time finding another assignment, so I decided to go to trade school to help me change careers, 9/11 happened, and before I could find another job, I got evicted.  My credit was destroyed, I couldn't get another bank account for a long time, and for the next five years, my son and I alternated between living with my older sister, living with my soon to be daughter's father, a brief stint in a 3rd floor walk -up apartment that ended when the above scenario repeated itself, and, when my daughter was a little over a year old, a year spent living in a residential motel.  Somewhere in the middle of all this, I finally acquired a driver's license and a car, hoping to expand my options in terms of both where I would be able to live and work.  Although I had sworn off payday lending, auto repair emergencies on an overpriced car would conspire to bring me back into the very expensive fold, especially considering that I lived somewhere not readily accessible by frequent, convenient public transit.


I've talked extensively earlier about making do as a single parent: http://www.houseofperpetualdistraction.com/thoughts-feelings-impressions-blog/song-of-the-single-mother , and trying mightily to create a life for my children where, at the very least, their needs are met, and they may even get a couple of wants, here and there.  What I didn't mention was the fact that I never wanted them to know when things got really bad, although they knew that we were barely making it, and could not afford things.  Like most of the parents you see in the documentaries, all we want is to take care of our children to the best of our ability.  We love them, we want the very best for them, and despite less than optimal circumstances, we don't want them to suffer from our mistakes and missteps.  It's crazy making that even when you work a job making a decent wage, no matter how hard you try to live within your means, even allowing for a little extra, there is always something that comes up to create a wrinkle in even the best of plans.  Since moving into this apartment seven years ago, I've endured two separate judgments, where substantial money was removed from my paychecks, two rounds of furloughs, a change in apartment ownership, bank shenanigans with transaction order and overdraft fees, several cars with huge mechanical issues, a voluntary car repossession for the aforementioned car that ALWAYS had something wrong with it, a car accident that I am still paying for as it was not covered by insurance, and due to trying to keep everything paid in the meantime, more payday loans.  Believe it or not, for a few months a couple of years ago, with the assistance of Lexington Law Firm, my credit score had actually gone from Poor to Fair.  Then I traded in a car that had a low payment, but a transmission that was on it's last legs, for a new car with a huge payment and insurance cost, but lower maintenance costs, which was crashed 9 months later.  Which killed my credit, and started the payday loan cycle all over again.  Like so many others, all over this country, I made a decision out of the desperation that arises when someone is trying to hold it all together for those they love, and is reduced to choosing between the lesser of two evils.  It wasn't really that much lesser, however.


I opened my front door this morning to find a 3-day notice taped to my screen door, ironically dated October 1st, which means I got it one day later than the time I was supposed to be given to respond to it.  


The cycle begins again...

It came in the middle of her answering the standard question, "So.  Anything interesting happen at school today?"

I rarely get to pick my daughter up from school, mostly because I work a full time, day shift job.  Mercifully, I work a 9/80 schedule, which means that although I still work 80 hours over the course of two weeks, it is compressed into 9 days, giving me one day off every other week.  My daughter loves my days off because they mean that not only does she get to sleep until 7:00 (a decided improvement over getting up at 5:30), I generally take her to school and pick her up, which gives us time to talk and spend a few minutes together at the beginning and end of her school day.  It's only a few minutes, but we try to make those few minutes count as much as possible.  Especially considering the conversation that followed.

"So, you remember XYZ?"  I rather vaguely remember the little girl, as the same rotating group of kids has basically been together since Kindergarten.

"Yeah, sorta. Why?"

A 10-year old version of OMG enters her voice: "Well XYZ had some shorts on today, and at some point she rolled them all they way up to HERE (using her hands to indicate where the upper thigh connects to the hipbone), and she was showing a little bit in the back!  She got sent to the office, but she hurried up and rolled them back down before she got there."  At the next stop light, I turned around and looked at my daughter.  "You have GOT to be kidding me?"  "Nope.  She hangs around with a group of girls that call themselves "The Strippers". (And yes, she did the Air Quotation Marks with her fingers!)  That is NOT cool."

The light changed, and we continued running a few errands but I was floored by her story.  Understand, I am not a person to get into slut-shaming, and I believe in a woman's right to make her own choices at all times, regarding everything from what she chooses to wear, to what career she decides to embark on.  Note I said, a WOMAN's choices.  These are 9 and 10 year old girls.  In Elementary school.  Identifying with strippers, the ultimate projection of oneself for the approval of the male gaze.  This is troubling in that, while we are trying to get children to begin to imagine themselves in business or science or medicine or technology by pointing out those that have succeeded in those fields as examples, there are still those out there that are so mesmerized by the false glamour and faux wealth presented to them by music, television and movies that more reasonable voices are being drowned out.  Worse than that, however, is the loss of innocence implied by these young girls knowledge of, and desire to emulate, such an adult concept.

We can all remember a time when we were not burdened with the trials of adult life; when our concerns were Barbies, Hot Wheels, Legos, playing hide and seek or riding bikes for hours on end.  And we can all tell you when that concern turned away from our childhood fascinations, and we started becoming more interested in the opposite sex as something more than one more person to play Tag with. I find it alarming that the innocence window is shrinking every year.  Why not allow kids to be kids for as long as possible?  I know that there are products to be sold, and money to be made from those that want their children to have the latest, and most fashionable clothing and gadgets, but 7 year olds in booty shoots, boots and cut off tops (worn to school by one of Ashley's classmates a few years ago) gives one pause.  Certain clothing, worn in certain combinations, are generally meant to have the effect of gaining favorable male attention.  Of course, the flip side of that is just trying to cool off, and being on the receiving end of unwanted, and often vulgar, male attention.  Being that I live in a fairly diverse, working class urban neighborhood, I am hard-pressed to speak to which of those two scenarios was at play here.

It has become very difficult to create safe spaces for children to have full childhoods.  Especially in inner-city neighborhoods, where the rush to assume adult identities and characteristics is exacerbated by a media obsessed with a certain image of inner-city inhabitants, popular culture that celebrates and markets pornography based images of women as ideal, and parents determined to give their kids everything they didn't have as children, even at the cost of a hurried leap into adolescence.  Or emulating adult entertainment professions that in reality they should know nothing about.

I was a kid once.  I gamed my mother a couple of times by wearing one thing out of the house, then changing once I got to school. I got caught, obviously, and subsequently was closely scrutinized by my mother everyday after that to make sure I didn't do it again.  I don't fault my mother for this, as I realize now that she understood that whatever you think of yourself, people are going to perceive you based on whatever they were taught about how people present themselves.  Meaning dressing scantily to attract male attention/approval might backfire if those same males were taught to perceive scantily dressed women, not as the sexually liberated women they see themselves as, but as the loose or amoral, according to whoever raised them.  I was also 16, and a junior in high school at the time. This is not a conversation anyone should be worrying about with elementary school aged children, girl or boy.

I know I can't protect my daughter from everything.  That's impossible, and I can't even begin to try.  But I can make a small place for her to safely explore her world without having to learn to understand an adult world, and adult concepts before she is physically, mentally or emotionally ready.  It's a small thing, but the least I can do to make sure that she has a COMPLETE childhood before she is launched into the grown-up world.

I was born on a cool, Fall Saturday morning in 1971.

That might explain why Saturday mornings are my favorite times during the week.  It's often quiet in my house, which gives me time for prayer, devotion and reflection.  Creaking bones and sore hips and knees when I rolled out of bed one such Saturday morning, reminded me that I had driven almost 200 miles the day before, both in the course of work, and transporting a group of kids from an amusement park.  Clearly, I am not the long driving road warrior I used to be.  Time passes quickly.

I remember being a small child, running through the house, chasing my older sister.  I got my first lesson in watching where I was going when I caught a doorknob in the eye from a door my sister suddenly closed during the chase.  Mostly I remember those days as ones of tireless exploration, even if we could never wander far from the house (we were not allowed to wander anywhere our mother couldn't see us from any window in whatever house or apartment we lived in).  We always made our own adventures, playing out whatever stories we had scene enacted on our favorite cartoons, or we had read in a book earlier that week.

I remember elementary school as a time of expanding boundaries, frequent moves and learning the art of making friends quickly.  We changed schools multiple times during those years, and I rapidly figured out that if I didn't want to spend a lot of time alone, learning to read kids and seek out those willing to be friendly was going to have to become an art form I needed to master, the sooner the better for each change of location.  During that time I developed the ability to talk to anybody, at any time, about any subject you can think of or make up.  I also learned that carefully placed silences can be as comforting as conversation, and becoming a good listener is a talent few people really cultivate.  Being a constant outsider had it's advantages

Middle and High School brought some level of stability, as I was able to start and finish at the same schools, and I learned that relationships could be sustained over longer periods of time.  Here I was told that it was time to start planning my future.  Of the many iterations of What I Want To Be When I Grow Up that passed through my mind (and out of my mouth), the final two I settled on were actress or journalist.  I left high school, that became Actress (despite my crippling stage fright), Director, Producer and Writer.  I drifted far away from these goals as early motherhood became my reality, and all dreams artsy drifted into the frenzied background of a life spent in the constant care of and attention to first one, then two children. False starts, seminars, weekend classes, and eventually a sideline into IT later, all that remained was my desire to write.

I look back over my life in the 20+ years since the State of California legally declared me an adult, and I see not only a world that's changed, but a person that has had to learn and adapt to whatever the world threw at her.  Jobs, found and lost.  Frequent changes of residence.  The ups and downs of relationships.  New technology, both necessary and extraneous.  With all of these things, what I sincerely hope, is that I have learned things that will help me with my own children.  I truly believe that you learn to parent by remembering your life as a child, so that you can reference every stage they experience balanced against your own life.  We are not authoritarian strangers who don't understand what it's like to be young.  We've been where they've been, and once our children realize that we might just actually "get" them, without condemnation or condescension, we might finally find them listening to our offered wisdom and warnings.

It's not for the faint of heart, this business of shaping new adults.  Time transforms us all, from infant to child to teen to adult, with all of the lessons learned and wisdom earned along the way.  It's our job to remember, and pass what we know and all that we've learned on to the younger ones, enabling the next generation to build on whatever we started while innovating their approach.  This is how successful societies are built and sustained, and the one thing I hope will continue into the future.

In 10-15 years (Knock Wood!), I will likely add grandparent to my list of titles.  By then I will have had even more experiences to add to the education I'll be passing on to my own children.  And will be able to start anew passing on the stories, lessons and wisdom of my childhood years on to my next generation.  As I should.

There were ten of us in the room that warm Thursday evening.

All mothers, of various ages and races, from every corner of Los Angeles County: From the middle class suburbs of the San Fernando Valley, to the hip, laid back Westside, to two of us from the working class South Bay.  

Although we were all drawn there by the promise of a few dollars for a couple of hours of our time, answering a few questions for market research, once we introduced ourselves and began to tell our stories, a feeling washed over the room that women like us rarely feel.

We realized that we were surrounded by people that we didn't have to explain ourselves or our children to.  When you have multiple children with ADHD, isolation is the norm, and you get used to it.  With each answer to each prompt, every time another one of us told a story of dealing with multiple doctors and their varying opinions, of school teachers and administrators only too ready and willing to write a child off, of struggling with the unknown, then the search for answers once you found out what you may be dealing with, you could feel the breeze from all of the other heads nodding in agreement.  We all knew all too well what each other was going through.  We had all been there at one time or another.

We had all felt the sense of panic of knowing there was something not quite normal about our children  I would watch my son exhaust himself, and everyone else, racing from one activity to another, never staying with anything for long.  Or if there was nothing else to do, he would just crawl around in endless circles on the floor, completely freaking me out.  I had heard of ADHD, but hadn't really done much research on it when I took him with me to a research study appointment at UCLA.  The research assistant quietly observed him for the length of the appointment, then gently suggested that I bring him to be screened for another study they were doing on a medication for children with ADHD.  I spent the next month or so reading everything I could get my hands on about ADHD, and the writing on the wall could not have been any clearer.  I was prepared to put in work, because this was not going to be easy.

We talked of diagnoses, and the medication merry-go-round.  All of us had gone through a minimum of two medications and multiple doses before hitting on that perfect combination that worked.  Then realizing, for those of us with more than one child with ADHD, that the same magic combo that worked for Child One was highly unlikely to work for Child Two.  There is the ultimate juggling act of keeping up with Doctors, appointments, meds, school-related issues (and believe me, there are many), and the sneaking health issues that come up on the side.  Two of us have children that are perpetually underweight, (inviting scrutiny from the pediatricians) both because they are naturally small people, and because the prescribed medication kills their appetite.

We knew each others stories, and when the facilitator stepped out of the room, the relieved laughter started.  We were finally with other women that weren't judging us because our kids weren't hitting all of the same milestones at the same time as other kids.  And that was okay. We could admit that while we loved our children, we were glad to be away for a little while.  These kids require exhaustive micromanagement, and although this is entirely doable, none of us kid ourselves.  These children are WORK, with a capital W, and it gets tiring. Not that we don't love our children, obviously we do.  We were just realistic about the demands on our lives.

As we were leaving, a few of us talked on the way to the elevator.  It was nice escaping for an hour or so, and making a little extra cash to cover the endless extra expenses associated with child-rearing.  It was also nice to decompress from always having your guard up when talking about your children.  No Judgy McJudgerson mothers here, ready to alternately snark or condescend  at the mere mention of difficulty, or the slightest indication of any small triumph. The mother next to me was happy not to have to say "No" for an hour, and planned to extend her time away to the actual time she said she was going to be home by making a solo trip to the mall.  Not to buy anything, mind you.  Just for the quiet time alone.  We all understood perfectly.

This is the way of the parent of the child that needs a little more parenting than average.  There is always one more: one more teacher to talk to, one more form to fill out, one more evaluation to complete, one more medication to convince them to try.  It is a train in constant forward motion, often speeding, that just might change directions on a dime, frequently.  And as a parent, it's all you can do to try to keep the train on a set of tracks, any tracks, long enough to complete a trip.  All the while keeping your own train on track, just barely.

My son, my daughter and I all have some level of ADHD.  My daughter is the only person on any type of medication for it, as my son refuses to even consider it anymore, and I figured out how to deal with the worse parts of it before I knew what it was.  Not to say that any of us deals with it all particularly well, but we deal.  I finally admitted to myself once my daughter started elementary school that anything not written down was lost, and Google Calendar was a Godsend for a person who consistently forgot about appointments.  A friend taught me years ago how to create simple budgets that tracked where my money was going, and once combined with budget tools provided by my bank, I finally got control of my finances.  I am still broke all the time, but at least now I know where it all went.

My son has good intentions, but is struggling.  Even if he remembers daily tasks (going to class), details (assignments and due dates) escape him, and he refuses to write anything down. I understand that he wants to live without what he sees are crutches, but my role in this is to make sure that he realizes that real men DO get help when they need it, and there is no harm in admitting that you can't do everything by yourself.   He is also dealing with an LD related co-morbidity called Auditory Processing Disorder.  Meaning that what people say, and what he hears are often two entirely different things.  Oh the misunderstandings that arise from not hearing EXACTLY what was said!  Just learning to double-check verbal instructions and directions, and just follow normal conversations, has been a hurdle that took years to overcome.

My daughter is an extremely intelligent ball of energy, and having learned my lesson with my son, I make an effort to stay on top of everything going on at school.  Academically, there are no issues, but her occasional emotional outbursts, and out of left field health issues, keep me glued to my phone during the day, as I never know when THAT phone call will come, and she will need to be picked up immediately.  I find that teaching her to manage sudden change (and her emotions regarding those changes) is almost a full-time job.  Anyone that has ever worked with a highly strung child will agree that having to be on your toes at all times gives you the balance of a ballerina after several years of managing these children's fragile emotions.

But we manage.  All of us.  The women in that room, and parents around the world that have children that for some reason or another, require just a bit more work that the usual amount.  Especially when we ourselves take additional self management just to get through the day. We appreciate the little accomplishments because of the almost herculean effort it took to get to that point.  We finally get a little something we can celebrate.

And for a brief hour in a conference room in West Los Angeles, we got a moment to let go of all of the work, all of the hassle, and all of the judgement, and just breathe.

To say that Mother's Day means different things to different people is likely the understatement of the century.

For a lot of women, Mother's Day is the day when their successes and value as a Mother is applauded by all far and near.  If they have adult children, they call home or come visit for some combination of food, flowers, conversation, and possibly a walk or a movie.  Those with younger children may be treated to all manner of homemade gift by teachers that love any excuse to break out the arts and crafts.  This is all wonderful, obviously, but there is another group of mothers who we don't readily acknowledge for whom Mother's Day looms as a painful reminder of exactly how much they don't fit the norm.

This post is for them.

For the mothers whose children yell at inappropriate times, garnering them hard side-eye and loud whispers from everyone around them;

For the mothers who have children with behavior issues are that aren't as easily handled as the people giving you condescending, contradictory advice that you have already heard 50 times, tried, and already know that it either won't work, or will only work for a few minutes;

For the mothers who did everything they knew how to do: made sure their children went to school, took them to church, loved them, disciplined them, asked them about their day, and REALLY listened when they answered, and the child still made one or more truly bad decisions and is now incarcerated or dead;

For all of the mothers whose inner demons drove them to unspeakable pain, pain that translated into absent, neglectful or abusive parenting, and now their children are no longer with them;

For the mothers whose children have given up on life, despite their best efforts to encourage them;

For the mothers who children exist in that grey area where they doing neither poorly nor well: in reality, they aren't doing much of anything;

For the mothers who were imperfect, whose children are struggling, who now face down stares, whispers and judgment from family and friends;

For mothers for whom Mother's Day is a reminder of their frayed relationships with their own mothers:

I am one of you.  I understand, and I salute you.  I know the road you walk is not an easy one because I am currently on that path.  We are those who will never really know what kind of parent we were because are children are not on the same path other children are.  We get the occasional pat on the head or hand as assurance that we have not totally screwed up, but internally we can't help but look around us, wondering what our lives would be like if we were "normal" mothers.

We will do all of the right things on Sunday.  Some of will go to church, smile with everyone else, and accept the greetings of the day.  Someday, we hope, everything will be alright, or normal at least.  Until then, at least on the inside, Mother's Day is just another day.

Sometime around the end of January, I decided it was time to take my daughter to her first art museum.

My decision was aided by the fact that for one day each year, art museums around the city offer free admission, which was enough motivation for me to plan a trip to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  I had never been there and had always wanted to go, so my excitement when I first broached the subject with Ashley was matched only by her phone distracted apathy.



Me (to Ashley): How would you like to go to LACMA on the 25th?

Ashley (staring at phone): What's LACMA?

Me: It's the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.  It's free that day.

Ashley (still staring at phone): What do you do at a museum?

Me: Look at paintings and sculptures and stuff. 

Ashley (looks up skeptically from phone)

If you have ever gotten the side eye from a kid when trying to convince them to do something that will separate them from their beloved technology for more than a few minutes, you will know that the next sentence in this exchange is CRUCIAL: it will mean the difference between an affirmative cultural experience with your child, or another Saturday spent watching her watch a screen.

Me: We can have lunch while we are there, and make a day of it.

Ashley (shugs, then goes back to the phone): OK, I guess.

We got up early on a Saturday morning, and started the cross town journey to the museum on the bus.  My normally talkative and observant daughter was engrossed by the games on her phone during the long ride, and I quietly wondered if she was going to get anything out of this experience.  I didn't get into art until I was a senior in high school, and Impressionism was one of the subjects I had to study for Academic Decathlon.  Up until that point, I was aware of paintings and sculpture, but only in a peripheral way.  I knew it was there, and I knew what it was, but that was about it.  I didn't understand beauty or expression, or point of view until much later.  I was determined to remedy that lack of knowledge with my son, and took him to the Getty Museum twice, so that at the very least, he could say that he had been exposed to fine art.

When we finally got off the bus in front of the museum, my daughter was immediately charmed by the hugeness of the structure.  To my surprise, she decided to use the phone on her camera to take pictures of whatever we saw on our walk through the museum.  We got in line to get whatever free tickets, passes and maps we needed for the day, and started our walk in the gallery closest to the ticket boot which featured a display of Chinese and Japanese art and artifacts.  After warnings not to get to close to anything, and definitely not to touch anything, and encouraging her to read the small letter board displays at each piece, I allowed her to lead the way as we explored the first exhibit.  She just looked at paintings and took pictures for a couple of minutes, until she stopped and pondered a wooden sculpture of a horse decked out in fine livery.  She stared for a full two minutes, before I asked her what she was thinking.  

"This looks like the horse from "Mulan".

A couple near us heard her, and gave me the pressed lip smile that let me know that they thought it was funny, but they didn't want to discourage her.  I smiled back.  You gotta start somewhere.

We finished that particular exhibit in about 30 minutes, and by then, she was ready for lunch.  While we were eating, Ashley took the map from me, and started looking at the names and description of the other exhibits, and talking about what SHE wanted to see that day.  I was happy to let her lead.  This day was about her, and exposing her to something she might not otherwise see, so I fell back, and let her pick what sounded interesting to her.

We next went to a Latin Art exhibit, where she saw paintings by Diego Rivera for the first time, as did I.  We also got to see some of the early film work of a pioneering Latin filmmaker, which started freaking her out a bit because of the early 20th century special effects, so we had to move on.  As we were exiting the Latin art exhibit and about to make our way into the next pavilion, we came across what looked to me like giant spaghetti, drying on a rack:

This was one of the many outdoor art installations that invited visitors to experience art through play.   It made me dizzy, but she thoroughly enjoyed twirling herself around in the long strings.  She was having a great time with other kids in the long spaghetti, but we eventually moved into the next pavilion where we settled, after looking at four entire floors worth of choices, on European art.  When we walked into the room where the impressionist paintings and sculptures were, and she immediately looked for a bench and sat down.  I asked her if she was starting to get tired.  We had been there for two and a half hours, and in all honesty, I was up to my ears in culture by now.

"Well yeah.  And all this stuff is starting to get a little inappropriate."

She pointed behind me, to the sculpture Eternal Spring by Auguste Rodin.  She had this same reaction to other partial nude paintings in other parts of the gallery.  I had forgotten to explain to her that artists throughout history have viewed the human body as a work of art, and painted and sculpted it regularly.  The only way she is used to seeing the human body portrayed is on television or in movies, and then only in a sexual way, so what else would she think?  Even as I explained about the human body as the subject of art work, I could see her really starting to consider the human body as more than a sexual object.  Maybe this visit was paying off in ways I hadn't thought about...

Our last exhibit for the day was a room with art from Southeast Asia and India.  Ashley was quickly burning out, and spent as much time looking for someplace to sit as she did looking at the stunning art pieces.  While I was fascinated looking at the hindu gods and goddesses, Ashley mostly looked at doors and archways:

Occasionally, I can take a hint.  We made our way out of the pavilion, down into the sculpture garden, into a beautiful light installation, then out into the street.  Ashley asked me right away when we could come back to see the rest of it.  She figured we already saw part of it, we might as well see the rest.  A small part of me thinks she was also more than a little fascinated by being exposed to something outside of her everyday experience, and eager to continue the adventure.  I asked her if maybe next time we could go to the Getty instead.  I immediately threw in the fact that they had beautiful outdoor gardens, and we could have lunch there as well.  She asked if she could bring her phone.  Just to take pictures of course.

I'll be planning that trip for later in the spring.