The Damage it Does to Families to Report them to CPS January 23, 2009

Today, I finally had an opportunity to discuss with the other mom who was wrongly reported to CPS what it is like. We both have had close to a year to distance ourselves from this evil thing. We both feel so very suspicious and  bitter over this. We both changed from being completely forthcoming and joyous, very out and about moms, to much more private, isolated, suspicious moms. For the first time, we compared notes on who we thought might have done this. We both felt highly suspicious of two people in particular. Not good! Not knowing means that the suspicion is still being directed towards some innocent people and the underlying hostility we both try to keep in check is undeserved!

Our children have most certainly suffered. Were there good intentions for us having been reported? Not really. Did anything we do in the way we parent change? Not exactly. Certainly not in the way the reporter must have intended. We just keep our precious children more in, more to ourselves, which is a shame for them and a shame for those that miss out on their company. A loss all around.

What horrified me even more than the fact that we were wrongly accused for malicious reasons is that other people were spreading around a few rumors, one of which was that I made the report on the other family and then lied about my family having been reported. What sort of people are women that they could be listening to crap like that and not shutting it down? I checked around and found that and another few rumors to have been quite widespread. This group is about as safe a place as one could expect and it deeply disappointed me to finally realize that this is just how women are. I aspire to be better than that. Gossip is some nasty business.

It’s not all that easy to be the most positive parent you can be when feeling bitter and suspicious. I would like my children to feel they have a loving and joyous mother. I have only just reclaimed my joy in the last month or so. I finally put my foot down and made a decision to focus on joy and have joy now and I really do feel the difference, thank goodness. It’s been, in so many ways, an unnecessarily rough year.

What is so wrong with gender in a baby? January 8, 2009

I’ve read articles in the type of parenting magazine I favor that ask the question, “Why do people always want to know if the baby is a boy or a girl?” They wonder what difference it makes. And go on to say that from the moment the person gets their answer, it changes how they interact with the baby.

But so what? Does that have to be a bad thing?

Sure, girls and boys are different. And some of that is nature, some nurture, dependent upon the culture.

But does it have to be so terrible to think of our boys one way and our girls another?

I have my third male cat. I always think of my male cats as somewhere between baby and boyfriend. Sometimes it’s all about the cuddling and other times a good smooch is called for.  So does it really make any difference that the cat is male?  I feel more flat towards my girl cats. It’s probably all in my head. There is probably no difference. But so what? I have loved these three mini-boyfriend/babies and will likely continue my love affairs with male cats for the rest of my life.

I also love that my girls are, well, girlie. Did I make them that way? Who knows. I grew up in a house with no mom after I was 6. And she was never girlie in the first place. Yet I have always been distinctly girlie. My younger girl has a lot of qualities typically consider masculine. And yet she will not wear pants nor shorts. No way. She just came that way. And she is actually shaping up to be quite girlie. Just because. So what’s so wrong with getting her a super pretty dress?

Actually, my girls are just people. I know my older daughter is highly sensitive, like me, and both my non-HS husband and I have always been much gentler with her. It doesn’t take much for her to get the message. My little one sometimes needs a bit more to even get her attention. If she were a boy, people would assume the different treatment was based on that, but really, it’s just based upon her personality and what seems to work.