DETECTIVE WORK

The Full Spectrums went to see a movie a few weeks ago, which is, in itself, a rarity. We went with my Meeting Friend and her family, and chose the only movie that was playing in a matinee, Mr. Holmes.

During a sad, moving part of the movie where Sherlock is really, really old and feeble and decrepit and does something pathetic, Z suddenly laughed aloud. I cringed. Perhaps she was uncomfortable, but it just felt very awkward and inappropriate...I tried to convince myself it was a mistake, but it happened again a few minutes later during a similar part. Everyone else in the theater was quiet...real quiet.  

“Good luck getting old,” said my Meeting Friend as we left the theater. As we always do, my dear MF and I looked for the bright side: “She’s very practical and realistic!” we assured one another; “Great sense of the absurd!”

On another note, the Full Spectrum children are very into any and all Secret Agent/Detective-y stuff, and were absolutely fascinated by the way Sherlock Holmes can detect things about people just through observation. As we walked back to the car, I asked them what Sherlock Holmes could know about them just by using his powers of discernment.

Z answered immediately:”That I’m a sister, and that I was adopted.”

All G had to say was, “That I’m awesome!” [See forthcoming post, “AND MODEST, TOO.”]

I wanted to hear more from both children, though I found Z’s response quite touching, so I told them, “For me, I think Sherlock Holmes could tell that I am a mother, wife, and artist. Those are the most important things to me.”

“I’m awesome,” G repeated.

“I’m mean,” said Z. Though it’s sometimes true, I don’t think mean is who Z is. I looked at her skeptically. “Well...I can be mean,” she amended.

“Don’t you want to change that?”

“What do you mean?” One thing that IS who Z is is a master obfuscator.

“Don’t you want to not be mean?”

She paused. For a while. “...Yeah.”

“Do you think you can change? I do! You’re just a kid still!”

“I think” – very matter-of-fact – “I will always be a little bit mean.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, but I can tell I always will.”

“Well...that is something you will always have to work on then,” I assured her. “I know you can do that.”

“Huh?”

Hmm. Guess that conversation was over. (WHO, exactly, is in control all up in here?)

When I started writing this blog, I did not know anyone “like us;” I felt alienated, alone, and, much worse, so confused about parenting my two very different – from each other, from the “norm” -- children.

I felt like a failure in the most important role I’d ever had: motherhood.

I did not know, back in the day, that Z’s seemingly cruel laughter, her obfuscation, her self-proclaimed meanness are all attachment-disordered behaviors. I would have blamed myself for not raising her to be kind...I would have blamed her for being unkind and manipulative.

A number of factors (my own kinds of detective work: reading, researching, developing an online community, meeting others through the blog, finding a good specialist in attachment disorders, having a Meeting Friend) have helped me to become someone who is able to share the fruits of my detective work  in hopes of reaching people who feel as I have felt in the past (confused, alone) and feel now in the present (confused, alone, AND inspired, connected, and – every so often – just a little wise in my old age).

As for Z, if I were to name a third fundamental aspect of her identity that Sherlock Holmes might have discerned, I would say that she has a fabulous, quite broad sense of humor. That may be her, and OUR, saving grace.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

THE F-WORD AND THE B-WORD

As anyone who deals closely with female children knows, young girls can be difficult. There isn’t a whole lot of “sisterhood” in upper elementary school, it’s more “survival of the fittest.” And Z is fit, oh yes, very fit.

Accordingly, that social piece is not a big fear for me, which is nice because for Spectrum Child Sr. it’s worrisome enough for two. But some of my major concerns about Z are nonetheless directly related to girlhood. I see her acting “cute” and using a demanding yet “girly” voice to get what she wants from lots of other people and it makes me uncomfortable. The undercurrent of my very visceral reactions to Z’s “bratty,” “manipulative,” “sneaky,” “spoiled” behavior always seemed to me to be apprehension about her Attachment Disorder and how it might affect her and make her act in these ways. But my darling friend Wise Ayi recognized a deeper source and schooled me on the root of these concerns.

I was telling Wise Ayi about a particular interaction of Z’s that I had observed and how it set me on edge and – I felt – reinforced Z’s unhealthy, Attachment-Disorder-related manipulative tendencies.

“Whoever that was with [Z] isn’t a feminist. That’s what was really getting to you,” Wise Ayi explained. Her words sank in with revelatory force, opening up a full-to-exploding can o’ worms.

I flashed on a big ol’ worm: the memory of being at a celebratory dinner when Z’s brother G got his Orange Belt in Tae Kwon Do. This was a huge occasion for G and I had invited my ex, who at the time was dating a very skinny woman with a 13-year old daughter who’d recently become alarmingly thin. We ordered scallion pancakes and my ex’s ex – in front of both of our daughters (and my son) – started going off about how they were “So fattening” and “all that saturated fat…” 

I was furious! All I was able to spit out at the time was “Some fats are good for you!” but I was steaming for days over the prospect of ex's ex “infecting” Z with that kind of body consciousness. It was my first intense encounter – I live in a very progressive community – with the idea that Z could be indoctrinated into such destructive aspects of “normal” girl culture as healthy girls seeing themselves as (and being seen as) “fat,” as diets and appearance taking center stage in girls’ lives.  

But here in the manipulative, “cutesy” behavior we were talking about demeanor, not exactly appearance – a more subtle thing, but another worm nonetheless.

Wise Ayi was right, as she often is...When Z is “sassy,” when she ends all her statements so they sound like questions, when she strikes a pose after speaking, she is implicitly buying into the construct that that is how girls get what they want. And it makes me cringe, -- partly because of the Attachment Disorder aspect, but much more, I now realize, because I am a feminist. Apparently, these affectations don’t make non-feminists cringe – but I think they should.

We all suffer when one half of the population is taught to be cute in order to get their way rather than owning their power.

Admittedly, in a way, this is a form of misogyny on my part, in that I don’t want Z to use “feminine wiles” to get what she wants. On the flip, non-mysogynistic side of this stance, I want her to succeed on her own formidable skills and merit.

I don’t want my daughter’s power to be gendered any more than it inherently will be by others – especially by her own actions.

“Feminist” should not be a dirty word or an insult, though it is taken as such by many. But “bitch” sure is. The voice of misogyny calls women in power “bitches.” Misogynous culture trains women with one insidious tentacle to be coy and “sassy” -- while with another it slaps them down for just such behavior.

Is it too idealistic or naive to hope that a straightforward, strong person of any gender might avoid the moniker “bitch”?

Perhaps.

Still, I want my daughter’s voice and actions to be as strong as her heart and mind. And I want her to CHOOSE her voice, even to subvert stereotypes -- not be trained by those around her to be “cute,” or celebrated and rewarded for being coquettish or cunning. And if she gets called the F-word or the B-word along the way, I want her to have the true meaning of the F-word – the knowledge (and the endeavor to disseminate this knowledge) that women are equal to men, and deserve to be treated as such – to fall back on… whatever she chooses to call herself.

Something funny happened on the way to this can of worms: I realized that “girly” behavior and Attachment-Disordered behavior have something extremely important in common:

The impulse to get what you need by any means necessary. In case you can’t. In case you don’t “deserve” it. 
So, along with a strong voice, I want for my daughter

the inner knowledge to take root and to animate her voice and heart

that she does deserve

that she can do

…anything and everything.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama