Barnmaven

Being there

I love my job.  I love my company.  If I had to pick a commute (provided not commuting was not on the table), I'd pick this one over most - but grudgingly, what with gas prices exceeding anything resembling reasonable anymore.

Working or not working has never been a choice for me as a parent.  Like most parents, the kind of choices I can make have more to do with what kind of work I will do, what kind of hours I will accept, what kind of pay is necessary to keep us housed and fed and reasonably healthy.  Less often anymore is it a choice over whether a parent will stay home.  So many families are struggling to find jobs in this nerve-flogging environment of unemployment that for many families, both parents might be home full time. 

And when work is available, for most families, both incomes are necessary to pay for the necessities.  I have much respect for those families where parents have made the sacrifice of spending any time with one another to work separate shifts so that the staggering cost of child care doesn't make working untenable. 

When families do have a choice of a parent staying home, more and more Mom isn't the automatic default.  While I still think the career/parenting paradigm is more of a struggle for women than for men, I'm gratified to see many fathers being engaged in the nurturing and care of babies, some to the point of being the parent who is present for daily activities.

I used to think that if I had an actual choice to work or to stay at home, I'd always choose work.  Of course, back then I didn't have fence to mend, irrigation to repair, painting to do or horses to ride.  I know better now.  I am also faced with the fact that as my children age, the time is soon coming when their need for an available parent close to or at home will wane.  What if I had the ability to meet my family's financial needs and still be more available to my kids?  What if that came at the potential cost of delayed promotions down the road?

Deborah Spar, president of Barnard College, suggested in a article in Newsweek that too many women these days think they are supposed to do it all and do all of it perfectly.  That even when we know better, even when we tell other women its OK to not be able to do it all because no one can possibly be a full time career person, homeschooler, designated team driver and keep a perfectly immaculate house and have dinner on the table each night, we don't allow ourselves the same leeway.

Spar quotes a former student:

 'Girls need to have all their grandmothers wanted them to have, while looking as pretty as their mothers wanted them to look ... You try so hard to be who everyone wants you to be while attempting to maintain some kind of individuality and in the end you seem to lose everything.'

I think I'm old enough now to appreciate - and more importantly, accept - that there is no way to win the game when half the cards I'm holding are still face down on the table. 

The upcoming months signal a big transition for me and for my company.  When the rubber meets the road, I will likely be making some decisions about where I want to go right now career-wise, and it will probably be the nearest opportunity I have to work toward a path that - for now - means I do something that affords me the ability to be there for my kids in a way I can't at the moment. 

I think its OK to accept a career path that has a flat point in it for a while and then re-evaluate down the road a little bit what it is I'd actually like to be when I grow up.  And, truth be told, I'm ambivalent about what it really means to be "successful."  Does that mean making lots of money, having lots of power or having a personal life that is stable and enjoyable and where I have the leeway and time to be the mom I think I should be?  In a perfect world, those things wouldn't be mutually exclusive, but in the real world they most certainly are.  I don't want to take a back seat to anyone, but does taking a path where I have fewer people to manage and more time for my family really mean that I'm not still in the game?  Maybe it just means I've swapped out a few of my cards.

 

 

Miles, time and diesel: Someone made a difference for me.

 

Well, HAY THERE!

(Haha, I crack myself up sometimes).

That's Bumi in the picture.  She's one of the guest horses I've had since March.  She's a real sweetheart and a very lovely horse to ride.  She very cooperatively walked around with her breakfast stuck on her face long enough for me to whip out my phone and capture a photo.

I know I've written about it before, but I am struck constantly by how much I owe where I'm at horse-wise to the loving support of other people.  My horse journey has been influenced so much by my parents and my husband, all of whom have willingly given up whole days to make sure my children were fed and cared for so I could go enjoy time on my horse.  My deepest gratitude is for my friend Michelle, who has unselfishly driven hundreds of extra miles over the last three years to pick up my horse and me for trail rides and clinics.  She's kept horses at her place for me, she's shared her doctoring skills and her advice, and most importantly she has shared her friendship. 

The love of horses, or "the sickness" as some call it, is somewhat indescribable.  When you have it, one of the things you simply need in order to feel truly happy, to be truly yourself,  is a horse in your life.   Its also a real luxury, because horses are expensive to feed and maintain, and if you don't live somewhere you can easily ride at home or have the money to find a good boarding facility nearby or don't have a truck and trailer, you can't really ride your horse much, and that sucks.  My relationship with my horses is as deep and as meaningful as it is with thanks to Michelle's willingness to sacrifice her time and diesel to make sure I got lots of rides in.  I owe most of the miles I put on my horse the last few years directly to her.

This year I was lucky enough to find a truck and trailer I could afford.  They're far from new, the trailer especially, but they have made it far more possible for me to just go and ride when I want to.  Michelle doesn't have to go 30 miles out of her way to collect me when there's a clinic or a trail ride the opposite direction from her place.  I can get my own hay when I need it and not pay extra to have it delivered.   It makes a huge difference for me, and this summer I've gotten to ride even more.

I have a couple of friends who don't yet have a way to haul their horses and pick up their hay.  I sincerely hope this doesn't come off as sounding preachy, but I have it in my mind that I have a responsibility to be a "Michelle" for others, to make it possible for them to enjoy their horses.   They are big shoes to fill, and I'm pretty sure I'm not as generous or gracious as Michelle, but I commit to making the effort.  Its worth it to see more horse people getting to do what they love, and having more friends to go on our trail rides with us. 

My friend Debbie gives riding lessons to kids for prices most trainers wouldn't dream of giving, because her mission is to get as many little girls to fall in love with horses as she can.  She does this not just to create the next generation of riders and keep the sport of riding alive, but because research shows us that by age 10, if a child doesn't have a passionate interest in something, they won't have something to keep them focused and on track during their teenage years.  A sport or hobby can mean the difference between graduating and maybe going to college vs. getting involved in drugs or getting pregnant.   Make riding lessons affordable and therefore putting horses within reach of more families is just her way of paying it forward.  The great feeling of watching little girls beaming with pleasure the first time they are able to canter or go over a jump, that's just the frosting.

I was cleaning stalls a couple of weeks ago and I heard feed sacks rattling.  I figured SG was just out throwing scratch to the chickens and he would eventually come and find me, but after a while I didn't hear anyone.  When I went to put the poop fork away, I found someone had left three bags of horse feed outside my feedroom door.  I had just been thinking that day about what supplies we needed and fretting about a lack of both time and finances.  Someone paid it forward, and it made my day. Hell, probably my month.

There are times we pay it forward and the people we help don't appreciate it or they take advantage of our kindness.  But we don't do this to get something in return from others; the return comes from within, from our own sense of being OK with who we are and what we do.  Intent is important.  I can't set expectations for how others will react or what they will potentially do in return for me, that only muddies the waters of my giving.  I struggle with this sometimes, but I know what's right for me and so I have to continue to strive for healthy thinking.

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by this world.  Its easy to feel the weight of all the tension and fear from our crumbling economy, our bitter political rivalries, the horror of war and violence.   Focusing my attention on the things I can do rather than the problems I can't solve helps me feel somehow less frightened of the enormous challenges we all deal with.  Doing something positive helps take away the sting when one of my kids is having a tough day or I come home from work feeling defeated.  Maybe we can't change the whole world, but we can sure change something small for someone else today. 

How do you pay it forward?  What ways have other people paid it forward that made a difference for you?  Share your stories!

 

The What What

I like writing conceptual pieces, I like thinking through an idea or my reaction to an idea and fleshing it out into words.  Seems I've been doing a lot of that lately, so I suppose I'm overdue on oversharing about our life these days.

I'll go ahead and remedy that.

Race Car Man turned 8 last Friday.  So far this year he hasn't had a bad day at school, he hasn't had a day he had to spend with the school counselor.  He's more focused, and more flexible.  When he has had a diffculty in coping with something it hasn't completely undone his day.  He's really begun to use his toolbox to manage his behaviors at school, and we are thrilled with the progress he's making.  He's not happy with how often we're forcing he and his sister to play outside, he'd much rather be hyperfocused on Skylanders, but eventually out he does go.  Amazingly, he even enjoys himself.  Now that the days are getting shorter, I want the kids to take advantage of every opportunity to be in the outdoors.  We'll be cooped up in the house trying not to stab one another soon enough.

Amazon Girl is in the fifth grade this year. She loves her teacher, but as usual struggles with social skills.  One of her therapists advised me that due to the ADHD she will tend to be about two years behind her peers when it comes to social maturity.  While I look at her and contrast her to four or five years ago and see a tremendous growth emotionally and socially, she's still not quite as sophisticated as her classmates.  The toys she likes to play with are often more suited to someone younger, and I think the topics of conversation the other girls are interested in are a little beyond her.  She gets along wonderfully with the neighbor girls across the street, who are both younger than her.  I'm glad she has friends that she can really enjoy playing with, but I sometimes wish I could wave a magic wand and make her relationships at school less angsty for her. 

She's been taking riding lessons and I've promised her that when her trainer tells me she can tack up her own horse and walk, trot and canter safely enough to handle her horse outside of the arena, then not only will I take her trail riding with me but that she will be responsible enough to have her own horse and I will transfer ownership of Zenon (the horse in my blog header) to her.  I let her make plans for lessons with her trainer and I try not to be there when she takes them or to interfere one way or the other.  If the goal is enticing enough to her, she'll do the work. 

And speaking of riding, one of the main reasons I'm blogging less is because I'm riding more.  Bugs and I have been trail riding almost every weekend, and midweek have attended open team sorting the last few weeks.  Its a blast.  The goal, if you're not familiar with it, is to move ten cows from one pen to another, in numerical order with a partner.  You ride into the empty pen and when the caller tells you to start, one of you heads to the cows.  After you've passed through the gate, they tell you which number to sort first.  All the cows have a marker on their back with a number from 0 - 9.  Whichever cow you are to get first must go through, and then your partner gets the next number and so on.  When one person is sorting a cow, the other person's job is to keep the other cows from passing through. 

Bugs was a little hesitant to ride into that big group of cows at first, but once he got to chase them he figured out that he really liked it.  We have maybe another week or two, then it will be too dark at night and the weekly sort will be over until next summer.   Its a great opportunity to work on our skills at turning and backing, and for him to find his "cow sense."  He comes from a long and distinguished line of cutting horses, so it is gratifying to find that he really might have some innate skill.

We also tried something new this last weekend - jumping.  Holy smokes, what GREAT FUN it is.  I had jumped years ago, but not very much.  I don't know why I didn't want to get into it more then because right now all I can think about is "when can I do it again???"  Bugs enjoyed it too, and he's athletic enough and willing enough that I think we can probably plan on trying some schooling shows in the spring.   At the very least we will keep working at it and see if we can't get to the place where we're jumping a few feet higher.  My friend Debbie has a passion for jumping and most of her horse career she has ridden jumpers and trained jumpers and their riders.  She's very enthusiastic to work with us and I'm thankful to have someone coaching who knows what they're doing.

I tell you what, I would not have thought that at this point in my life Iwould be doing the things I'm doing now on a horse, but I could not be happier.  I look forward to every minute I can spend learning new things with Bugs.

We also bought another horse, a very sweet little 5 year old quarter horse mare we call "Penny."  For a fairly young horse, Penny is just as kind and calm as you could ask for.  She will make a very nice horse for the kids to ride, and SG too once we get some weight on her.  Her prior owner had her pastured underneath black walnut trees, which happen to be toxic for horses.  As a result, she was underweight and in the beginning stages of laminities and where here hoof wall was separating from the sole she was developing thrush.  We'll be rehabbing her feet for a while, but I've gotten to ride her and work with her a little bit and I have high hopes for her. 

My stepson is in Florida now and preparing to start flight school.  Since its not a permanent post, the Navy doesn't allow as much for housing and for the move, so his German Shephard dog Kylie has come to stay with us for a few months.  She's absolutely gorgeous, sweet and smart.  It hasn't taken her long to fit in as a country dog.  She isn't afraid of the horses at all, and she'll chase the chickens but with no intent to harm them.  She clearly knows she's smarter than the other dogs, and she tolerates them kindly, but maintains her boundaries with them.  We're just hoping some of her brains will rub off on T-Bone, whom SG keeps threatening to coat in bacon grease and turn loose in the desert north of town for the coyotes if he doesn't stop trying to kill chickens and stealing food off the counter.

SG spent the summer at home with the kids, and now that school has started, its time for him to join the ranks of the gainfully employed.  Since we decided he wouldn't be going on the road anymore, finding the right fit for his skills is a little challenging.  He can always do the spring outage at the local nuke plant, but that's not for some time, so he's considering all options at this point.  In the meantime, he gets the kids on and off the bus and keeps our little farm as spic and span as he can, and his cooking skills have come along very nicely.

On Friday he got neutered a vasectomy.  As if on cue, I must have run into no less than ten brand new babies on my next trip to the grocery store.  Is there some kind of universal karma that happens when you decide to opt for permanent birth control that tries to instill regret?  Fortunately, the sweet, squooshy, adorable little babies were soon followed by a mom desperately trying to corral her older children who were begging for toys while simultaneously attempting to keep her screaming toddler from jumping out of the cart.  Oh, yeah.  THAT's why we don't want any more babies.  Well, that and I'M TOO OLD FOR THAT CRAZY BUSINESS.

Summer flew by this year, and while it seems we were just watching fireworks a couple of weeks ago, already the Halloween costumes are on the shelves.  The time, it flies.

I hope your summer was every bit as good as ours was.  Pretty soon we'll be wondering where the heck the sun went!

Welcome to our world, fellas.

Have you ever listened to the BJ Shea morning show on Seattle's KISW? 

Me either.  I hate talk radio and morning programs.

Except we were stuck on 405 trying to get out of Bothell and back to the dry side of the state after seeing Bonnie Raitt at Chateau Ste. Michelle the night before, and my random station surfing landed me on this particular show right as the hosts were discussing a most interesting topic.

According to a recent study, women are now more interested in men for their looks than for their money.  Men?  They're more interested in a woman's intelligence than her looks. 

From the reactions of the shock jocks on the show, you'd think this was the worst news EVER to hit the airwaves.  At one point one of the guys was going on about how male movie stars are too good looking and it sets women up to have unrealistic expectations of men and how they look.  Dude, did you really just say that????

Imagine.  Men bemoaning a double standard created by movies and the media that sets an impossibly high standard of physical perfection for one gender.

One of the hosts, I'll assume it was BJ, went on to say how the over-50 women he and his wife knew that weren't married were simply unhappy and that women had better learn to be less picky or they might end up (horrors) alone and unmarried.   Spinsters.  GASP! 

I think he might have been taking the study results a little too seriously and reaching a fairly unlikely conclusion, but then again, it was talk radio, and I know ratings depend on the hosts' ability to get their audience lathered up about something, anything at all.  Even so, as deliciously entertaining as it was to hear men object to being treated like arm candy, I think BJ has a couple of good points. 

I disagree that one needs a husband (or wife) in order to be happy.  Being partnered is great for many people, but there truly are men and women who are quite content to live unattached.  Relationships are hard.  Relationships can help us accomplish our goals, but there are times they can hinder us as well.  When you hook your wagon to someone else's star, you take on each others' concerns, desires, frustrations, needs and wants.   Personally, I'm happy that SG is as hands-off as he is when it comes to giving me space.  As much as I love him, as much as he loves me, we both have things we enjoy doing alone or with our individual friends.   I know myself well enough to know that mostly I am one of those people who wants to be in a relationship.  Even so,  I'm grateful for the times I've been on my own, for learning not just to be okay with that, but to actually like it.  Finding your bliss is a more pure evolution when it isn't being influenced by a partner.   

When it comes to looks, though, my gut reaction is that BJ Shea is correct.  Yes, we are attracted to the people we're attracted to, but there is more to a person than their physical appearance.  If someone is just looking for the chemistry of a fling, I suppose limiting your criteria to simple appearance is fine, but when it comes to seeking relationship material, looks don't count for nearly as much.  Research indicates that the more time we spend with someone, the more likely we are to enter a relationship with them.  Chemistry grows when we find someone who matches our emotional needs, not just our physical desires.

BJ also contends that most men aren't really that shallow.  I agree, but I'll take that to another level and say that most people aren't really that shallow.  I think we all have certain types that we are attracted to, and certainly everyone can appreciate visual appearances, but I think the majority of people are looking for long-term commitment really do pay attention to a lot more than looks. 

Even so, people have the right to be where they are, even if that happens to be a place of depthless interaction and missed opportunity to appreciate others' finer qualities.  Its true that I can still work up a head of steam if I dwell too long in the false standards of beauty our film and print media create for our daughters (and apparently, now, our sons), but its also true that I'm less bothered by this phenomenon than I used to be.  I give less credence to arbitrary rules of beauty set by people whose opinions matter little to the reality of my life. 

Is it more important for one to look good or to be good?

Is it more important for one to be beautiful or to be interesting?

Is it more important for one to be flawless or to be self-reliant?

Its not that you couldn't be both, but if I had to pick one characteristic over another, I'll choose character over looks every single time. And the amazing thing about that, is that the more you know and appreciate a person, the more you are able to see the beauty of them.

Arms around the whole world

It was a gray, wintery day, the clouds angry and spitting sleet.  The kids and I were headed to the local Target to pick up a few needed items.  As we pulled into the parking lot, I saw her -- a somewhat older woman in jeans and a heavy jacket, gray hair pulled back into a long ponytail.  She was sitting on a pavement bulkhead just at the parking lot entrance, holding up a sign.

Husband sick, can't work.  Lost our home.  Please help if you can.

I winced in empathy, sorry for her situation.  Divorced, feeding a zoo and a household on one income, I understood (and still do) very well how most people are just a paycheck away from disaster.  Before we'd gone ten feet past her, my daughter asked in a very concerned tone, "Mommy, what's wrong with that lady?" 

"I think she's homeless, honey.  She's hoping people can give her some money."

We all got out of the car and headed in to the store.  My daughter pulled on my hand, and I turned to look at her.  Two wet streaks glistened on her cheeks.

"We have to help her, mommy!  Its so cold and she doesn't have anyplace to live!  That's horrible!"

I glanced across the parking lot to the woman, and I thought of my empty wallet and my tight budget.

"Honey, I don't have anything but some spare change in my wallet right now.  When we check out from the store I'll use my card to get a little money back and when we leave you can give it to her, okay?"

"Okay, mommy.  Thank you."

By the time we left the store, however, she was gone.  At my daughter's insistence we drove around and around the various stores on the boulevard, hoping to find her, but we never did.  I realized just that day how deep her compassion and regard for humanity really go.    She has the heart of an angel, longing to heal the world and take away its pain.

The other day I was recalling to SG an account my neighbor related to me.  An old man came up her driveway and wanted to talk about a horse he was boarding (he'd seen the horses in her pasture and decided she might be able to help him).  Suddenly out of nowhere he asked her, "Will you take care of me?"

Obviously taken aback, she said "What?"

"Will you take care of me?"  He was 96, he explained, and he lived by himself.  He didn't have anyone to care for him and would it be alright if she came over to his house every few days just to make sure he hadn't fallen down or died? 

How can you say no to that?  She certainly couldn't. 

About thirty seconds after I finished telling SG about this, I heard sobs coming from the back seat of the truck. 

"Amazon Girl, are you okay?"

"THAT'S SO SAD, MOMMY!" she sobbed.  "That man is all alone!  I feel so bad for him!"  She cried, loudly, for about the next fifteen minutes.  She was completely undone.  I promised her I would touch base with my neighbor and perhaps we could go visit him as well.

I recall a younger me, a young adult who couldn't pass a dog or cat on the side of the road without stopping to collect them, or couldn't stop crying if she saw one that had been killed by a car.  I remember being the person who always gave change to someone begging if I had it to give.

Even though I have grown more cynical in my old age, that younger me is still present.  I don't always stop for strays, which causes my daughter to lose her temper with me, but I try to help when I can.  I am not always the person I want to be, like most people I have times when I feel selfish about giving away what I have. There are times when I have to be realistic about my capability to help every creature - I've had to say "no" to fostering and my husband is trying to convince me to allow our critter count to drop via attrition.     

Her giving nature is something she was born with, but its also something fostered, just as mine was.   My parents were always volunteering their time, to the food bank, to the literacy groups, donating blood. My dad was a volunteer ambulance driver and EMT long after his firefighting days were over.  In his younger years he rarely hesitated to pick up a hitchhiker, even though it kind of drove my mom nuts.

Just as my parents modeled giving for my brother and me, I hope I do an adequate job of model those values for my own children. If I never pass anything else along to them, I can rest easy knowing that at least one of them is growing up to be a person who will do what she can to help others.  I ache a little for the inevitable pain she will suffer when she encounters situations where the help is too little or too late and for the scorn she will likely receive from those who are less compassionate.  I know she will learn, as I have, that its worth it, even when it hurts.  

"I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending love letters to the world."   ~ Mother Teresa