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

RIDDIKULUS!

G’s latest invention is a Lego Boggart game. Boggarts are a type of magical beast in the Harry Potter books known for taking the shape of your greatest fear. In The Prisoner of Azkaban, the students learn how to conquer boggarts by facing one who is kept temporarily in a wardrobe in the teachers’ lounge.

G attached a spinning tube to a play board. You spin the spinner around and something appears -- “like the boggart coming out of the wardrobe.”  G spun the “wardrobe” to reveal a headless Lego guy mounted on the back with a scrap of paper that said “[G]” on it.

“That’s your greatest fear, Mom: a headless or dead [G].”

GULP. Yes.

I love my children equally. But Z will trounce anyone or anything that gets in her way, while G has a more tender, awkward way in the world. So I don’t really worry about Z’s survival. Whereas G could trip over his own foot and fall off a cliff, and he’d be yelling “Love you, Mama!” as he fell, just for example, not that I am actually thinking of this scenario.

Then another spin: “This one is [Z’s] greatest fear: a dead Mama.”

Um, whoah. The label now reads “Mom.”

Right again! It’s becoming clear that G is a LOT more perceptive than he lets on, or than he – not being a verbal processor -- can express.

Z’s greatest fear may well be losing me, as she is a most devoted daughter despite some of the challenges of our relationship. I am struck lately by how little she resents me, in spite of my (attachment-disorder-dictated) extraordinarily strict boundaries and constant monitoring. I am all over her like white on rice (I guess in our household I should say brown on rice) to make sure she feels safe, stays within important boundaries, and does right. And – unlike many strangers and even loved ones who look askance at therapeutic parenting -- mini-girlfriend just gets it. She knows her Mama does this all for her. She knows she needs it, maybe even better than I do. And she loves and respects me above all.

“And here’s mine, Mom…Mom?”

I’m still speechless.

“Here, look!”

I dare to peek: his scrap reads, “pokemon never existed.”

                                                     Figure I – “pokemon never existed.”

“And don’t worry, Mom. I made the spell to fix everything!” says G. Then, as he learned to from the book, he declares, “Riddikulus!”

Another turn, and the clasp on the side of the tube holds a scrap with a funny face.

                                                                 Figure II – “Riddikulus!”

Harry and his friends know the trick with your greatest fears is to make them funny.

Apparently, so does my son.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

PAIN – SQUARED

Parents who have children who were adopted from orphanages often have to ‘teach’ their children to acknowledge pain to themselves and to express pain to others. Although Z came into our family at only nine months of age, she had already learned not to react to her body being hurt, or to express hunger or thirst through a baby’s only language (tears).

Instead, she expressed herself primarily through screaming if being put down at any time. Once she found someone to hold her at length, a single person devoted only to her and her brother (to whom she was immediately attached as well), she was not about to be abandoned. This was particularly acute during her first weeks with her family, during which not only did she demand to be held at all times but also to be walked around while being held, resulting in SEVERE sleep deprivation for all concerned.

Arriving home, we embarked upon a plan. I had heard that children whose most basic needs for comfort have not been met may present a range of developmental and emotional challenges and I had bright ideas to “fix” some of these potential issues. Reacting to pain came first: a strategy of exaggerated response to any possible injury quickly taught Z that if something happened to her that potentially did not feel good, and there was someone nearby to help, she could get a response to her feelings and be the beneficiary of comfort measures, such as an ice pack or the proverbial band-aid.

To this day, though, Z doesn’t even blink an eye at pain when she thinks no one is looking! I have watched from the kitchen window as she has fallen – hard, or been accidently but vigorously wacked with something from afar by her clueless brother. She never makes a sound…or even a face. I wonder: did she somehow never develop some important aspect of the neurology to feel pain because of those early months of neglect? Is she just brave as heck? Does she feel the pain, but less?

G and I, being highly sensitive personages, have to work really hard not to scream when we, like, step on a stray drop of water (no - really), so this is definitely a germane question in the Full Spectrum family.

Whereas a casual hidden observer could probably catch G or I writhing privately in agony several times a day, I’d wager that observer would never see the same in Z. Z has learned that public expression of discomfort leads to results, but when there is nothing to “gain” by reacting, she seems to have decided not to waste her energy.

Similarly, she doesn’t seem to notice hunger or thirst unless in the environs of potential indulgers, in which case she will avail herself of various and sundry treats. G and I, within an hour or two of not eating, invariably find ourselves starving, even trembling, with hunger. Much longer and we become vague, lightheaded, nauseous. I happen to be hypoglycemic, and G may be too; perhaps equally significant is the fact that we both had our needs met as infants. Our physiology (sensitive) and our early environments (sensitive to our needs) matched. 

Z, in contrast, seems to be able to function indefinitely without eating, unless food is offered to her. That is, her energy stays high, her focus sharp, her spirits strong -- whether she eats regularly or not…[Obviously, I haven’t performed experiments on her, I am going on seven+ years of observation.] It’s hard to imagine she could be experiencing hunger in the profound and extreme way that G and I do and still function so well, but, as must be asked vis-à-vis her pain, doesn’t she feel some hunger? She knows her situation now is one in which her needs can be met, and yet she still self-limits on those needs…unless – and this is a real possibility -- her physiology just really is that different.

That her response varies so widely according to context potentially indicates a reduced sensitivity to her own body’s cues and/or a self-imposed (conscious or un-) denial of self-nurturing and/or a really advanced mastery of social capital. Would Z be more sensitive overall, and therefore more vulnerable, had she been nurtured differently in her first months?

People sometimes ask me to blurb their books or products or blogs on this blog and I recently agreed to read a novel about reactive attachment disorder (RAD) by a reader named Michelle Weidenbenner. Her book is called Scattered Links (http://www.amazon.com/Scattered-Links-Michelle-Weidenbenner-ebook/dp/B00HP3X6R4) and it is about a Russian orphan’s journey. I haven’t finished it (and it seems to have some Christian undertones, which may be a plus or a minus or neutral for different readers), so I haven’t yet got a blurb. I was struck powerfully, though, by this sentence from the preface, which is written in the orphan’s voice:

“We never learn how to ask for what we need because when we do, no one listens.”

I’d never connected Z’s inability to acknowledge pain or hunger with her inability to ask for what she needs or wants. Z’s refusal to ask for things comes across as regal, but it’s at base a survival strategy, a sad concession to a disappointing start.

The other day we saw a “Wild Women Don’t Get the Blues” bumper sticker and Z asked what it meant. I explained that women have often been taught to do as they are told and that doing so, just for the sake of obedience, makes women unhappy. Women should follow their own dreams and beliefs, I told her, and then they won’t get “the blues.” But sometimes the other people who make the rules -- and the other people who follow the rules -- don’t like when you make your own rules, and they might call you “wild” or “different” or “crazy,” even. And that’s okay, because you will be happier -- and stronger -- for following your own heart.

Of course, she’s still too young to make up her own rules. And I assured her I still get to boss her around for a Long Time. But I want her to know, and I will continue to say to her:  if something (or someone!) hurts you, or if you are hungry for something, speak up, my daughter!!!! How we feel – in our hearts, our bellies, our bodies, our beliefs – matters. YOU MATTER.

Now, let’s eat!

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

The Quick Brown Fox Jumped over the Lazy Dogz

On the final day of camp there was a performance by all the children. An acquaintance who has an eleven-year old daughter with a mild attachment disorder (the daughter, like Z, was adopted) was in the audience. Before the show, this mother and I sat slumped next to each other, sharing knowing sighs and stories of power struggles while our daughters prepared to rule the stage.

“It’s like with [her daughter’s name], we always say, if you ask her does she want an apple or a banana she will say, ‘Can I have an orange?’”

“Oh yes, I said. “That’s Z all over. And it NEVER ENDS. That’s what’s so tiring!”

“I know,” she replied. “And people will say, ‘oh, that’s just normal’ but it’s not; it’s so much more.”

I shared the story of being at a fundraiser where a friend was selling jewelry. We had gone to a previous fundraiser and the friend had been charmed into giving Z not one, but TWO beautiful and valuable Svarovski crystal bracelets. This time, as we approached the house, I told Z that she was not to accept any jewelry from my friend. I explained that Friend Ayi (auntie) was trying to raise money to cover her bills, which were mounting because of serious health problems. Z agreed.

“Since we don’t have enough to contribute to buy ANY jewelry,” I added, “we will simply make a donation and keep her company.”

Somehow, though, Z found herself with two bracelets in front of her. This time, at least, the bracelets were less valuable, less likely to garner real money for this family in need than the other baubles scattered over the table. It seems, unsurprisingly, that Friend Ayi simply could not resist the adorableness and apparent giftworthiness of such a fetching child. As my daughter looked winningly at me in front of a bunch of people, I finally caved in and told her she could make a choice of one of the two bracelets.

“Hmm,” she thought for awhile, tapping her chin. Then, pointing at a very costly, bedazzling necklace she asked, “Can I have that one instead?”

She and I had a good laugh over that one. We both knew everyone else at the party thought Z was simply being cute, and that is a part of it…said part being rooted in such Will to Power, such persistence…It was nice to just sit with someone who knows.

Wanna know someone else who knows? Z. She could persuade almost anyone about almost anything. Children are particularly vulnerable. In fact, one of her classmates last year informed his mother that Z knows “EVERYTHING.”

We were at dinner the other day with the Full Spectrum Grandparents and somehow the sentence “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs” came up. We talked about how it uses every letter in the alphabet and how great it was for practicing writing or keyboarding.

“It has to be 'dogz' with a 'z,'” Z informed us in a very confident, professional-sounding tone. “Because the alphabet does not end with ‘s.’ Everybody knows that.”

It’s a potentially perilous combination, Z’s desire for total control with her appearance of total knowledge. We just keep hoping she will use it for the greater good.

Over and out, dogz,

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

Holding Hands

                                                 I. Far From the Tree:

For a variety of reasons, it wasn’t until my second year of college – when I fell in with a diverse bunch of women from intact families who remain among my closest friends - that I realized that many families are happy ones. Oh, I don’t mean perfect, but…in the balance…happy.

In retrospect, in a very real way it was I who caused the unhappiness in my family unit. Perhaps if they’d had the knowledge we now have around neurological diversity and Asperger’s syndrome (I know, I know, autism spectrum disorders), they’d’ve coped better with my obsessions, my ideas about justice and fairness, my literality and hypersensitivity.

My teen obsession with King Arthur, Queen Guinevere and the Lady Morgan le Fay made me think I lived not just with the wrong family but in the wrong era. What I saw as truth, honor and nobility was called “judgmental” or “black and white thinking.” I informatively let my family know, on the regular, what I thought of their [normal, neurotypical] values.

With more knowledge of differences my family might’ve known how to address my deep feelings of betrayal at the alarmingly wide variety of turns of events that felt to me like lies and injustice:  if people didn’t do just what they said they would, or bent the truth, or acted unfairly, or didn’t get the right consequences for misbehavior I was devastated. But they didn’t, and we weren’t – happy.

We weren’t a natural match.

By now, most of us in my family have figured most of this stuff out [Hi mom! Not your fault! Different era!], but as Andrew Solomon shows at length in Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity, families with major internal differences struggle to accept and understand each other.

Which brings me to my daughter. I habitually find myself thinking as to how we’d be one of those normal (-ish) happy families if only Z would just stop acting out.

Having been the “problem” in my family, I never want my daughter to feel that way – consciously or unconsciously.  I am sure she does, though. Here is one little way I am trying to change that.

II. Holding hands in the past:

Typically, we’d be walking along and Z would grab my hand in what felt like a slightly aggressive way (maybe I’d be holding a bag or package, or have my hands clenched together for warmth, or in my pockets), because she’d decided she wanted to hold hands - pronto.

Then I, wanting to be a good therapeutic parent, wanting not to be manipulated (because that makes children with reactive attachment disorders feel scared, out of control and obligated to get even more manipulative), would remove my hand from hers.

After awhile, I would take her hand back, in an effort to show her both who was in control and that I was happy to hold her hand. 

That was our sad little pattern. It felt pathetic, like I was/we were circumventing “natural” love and interaction with a series of control-related scenes, vignettes of mini-failures of affection.

We went along like this nigh on a couple of years ‘til I finally had a bright idea…

Solution? Grab her hand first.

Sweet.

III. Holding hands now:

The funny thing is, the more loving I am able to act in our relationship --  in this case essentially via pre-empting Z’s demands -- the more I feel…loving!

As with my revolutionary (to me) hand-holding paradigm-shift, this loving-revelation might be a real “duh” sort of insight for some, but for this Full Spectrum parent very little is obvious. So much interaction is attributed to what feels instinctive, or comes “naturally,” yet I don’t believe in my heart that such reactions are based merely on genetic relatedness – or the lack thereof.

And another thing: People often assume I know what the “difference “ is between how one feels about a child who was adopted and a child who is biologically ones “own.”*

I don’t.

How can one distinguish between the love one feels for one’s children except insofar as it relates to that child, that person, as him- or her-self? I love each child with my whole heart, as anyone loves anyone they truly love…

What I do know: it’s challenging to parent children with autism and children with attachment disorders for very, very different reasons. It definitely makes you feel ALL the feelings.

As to the rest, there are only more questions: What if my child who was adopted had autism (somewhat similar to me) and my biological child had an attachment disorder (relatively dissimilar to me)? Would I still have the same reactions - the same instinctive understanding and empathy with G’s autism; the same chagrin and desperation around Z’s attachment disorder?

For clues, I look at the way people react to each.

With G, some children are cruel, or merely “tolerant;” the occasional adult is an ignorant so-and-so; mostly, once people get to know him, they see his huge heart and adore him.

I see that some of Z’s peers are intimidated by her; but most charmable humans are charmed by her and, eventually, yes, adore her. 

As the major players in Z and G’s lives know, spend a lot of time with either child and you will encounter exasperation. The more attached Z becomes, the more she may test that connection; and G's listening and focusing skills are "developing at this time" (as they say on Vermont report cards). Chances are the adoration will continue apace. Plus, occasional exasperation with children is…normal, right?

It’s hard to imagine Z would ever be compelled to pluck my hand away from what it is busy doing because she wants to hold hands Right! This! Instant! if she’d been in my arms from birth. It’s taken longer to bond with a daughter who can be aggressive (powerful) and manipulative (perceptive), than it did with my son, a helpless newborn in the NICU.  What love has grown, though, is profound – perhaps the more so for being hard-won.

Every time I grab Z’s hand first it gives her some extra sugar and gives me hope, and, as Solomon says, “Hope is the engine of social changes that mitigate disability and difference.” **

Funny how that works.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

* Grrr.

** http://www.farfromthetree.com/hope

For V-Day: Daughter of Power, Daughter of my Heart

Today we celebrate V-Day, a day to come together and give voice to the global movement to end violence against women and girls. Today, I, as a mother, celebrate my strong daughter, in the hope that she will never suffer violence to her body or spirit. 

Z, a.k.a. Shorty Tai Tai,* can be pushy. She’s always first in line, getting what she wants, being where she wants to be. She doesn’t value self-effacement, and she doesn’t mind shoving to get to her desired destination. We have a lot of interactions where we probably aren’t quite seeing eye-to-eye on some basic issues around taking turns, or giving instead of taking. It’s hard to tell how much of Z’s powerful behavior is attachment-disordered (controlling, hoarding) behavior and how much is personality-driven.

Anyway, she is a child of power.

Over time, though, I have come to love that my tiny daughter (she has stretched into the 15^th percentile in recent years, up from off-the-chart itty-bitty) has such authority and strength. She’ll need it in this world, where racism and sexism still prowl.

Here are some recent incidents of Z-power:

Walking home from school:

“Mama, I did something kind today.”

“You did? Great! What was it?”

“When it was somebody’s turn in line ahead of me, I let them go!”

At the dinner table:

I asked Z if she would support us when she is very rich and powerful someday, just joshing around of course, and she said, “Ask me another time.”

Waking up in the morning:

“I woke up and I just thought, ‘I am going to choose to be good the whole day at school today!’”

“Wow…The WHOLE day?”

“Yes!”

“Doesn’t your teacher have something to do with that?”

“No.”
 

“So…it’s just up to you?”

“Yep.”

            At lunch at school:

Two boys were teasing Z, saying that she was “weird” because she had hummus in her lunch.

She stood up and told them, hands on hips, “Don’t yuck on my yummy!” Having asserted herself and resolved the situation to her satisfaction, she marched over to the teacher to give a full report. But only to let her know what was up, not because she needed anything!

Safe to say those fellas are no longer “yucking” on anybody’s “yummy.”

Although I cannot applaud Z’s corny turn of phrase, I was reassured that in the rare instance that anyone dares to give her a hard time, she’ll be ready for it! Z came home pretty upset that day, but not because she had been put down. She’d already embodied the advice I had in my motherly tool kit: that she should never let anyone treat her with disrespect. She recognized unfair treatment and stood up for herself. In our home, in her school, and in every way I can, everywhere I can, I mean to make sure she continues to do so.

I used to wish that as Z healed, she wouldn’t need to exert her power so constantly. Now, especially on this V-Day (http://www.vday.org/home), I hope for her healing AND for her continued power.

Go Shorty.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

* Tai Tai: literally: “great great” – the Mandarin term for Madame or Mrs.

Suite: Shorty Hedgehog Eyes

I. A List of Who Can Stand in Front of Me, and When

Z was holding a scrap of paper at pickup the other day. From a quick glance, I saw there was a dividing line drawn down the center of the paper, with ten or so names on either side. Underneath this was another line with two names below that one, and some numbers. 

“Whatcha got?” I asked, curious.

“A list of who can stand in front of me, and when.”

“Oh.”

II. The Sad Fairy and the Broken Fairy

We have an iron garden fairy with downcast eyes and a sad expression. She was a gift from a dear friend and has lived, with her friend Hunk of Rose Quartz, on a nice stump in our yard for some time.

We are preparing to move and I brought up the fate of the sad fairy with Z: “This fairy is so sad, maybe we should leave her here for the next people and then she will get happy.” Part of me thought maybe we’d be leaving some of our travails behind with the sad fairy.

Z looked at me with horror. “No, Mama! She wants to come with us! I will take very good care of her and find her a home in our new home so she will feel better.”

Although I’d considered abandoning her as well, I also packed up the painted resin garden fairy with the broken wing.

III. Hedgehog Eyes

“That seagull is a girl,” G announced.

“How can you tell?”

“It has the eyes of a mother.”

“How can you tell?”

“Well,” G explained, “it just has a certain expression. There is a look of love in its eyes. That’s ‘the eyes of a mother.’”

This, from someone who has a hard time telling similar-looking people apart – and who generally cannot read facial or body language, we-e-ell, verymuchatall. Traits which, basically, did not fall far from the proverbial mama tree.

The first night of being Z’s mother, I looked deeply into her eyes as I tucked her in. I have never been big on direct eye contact with adults but children, especially babies, seem to look through their eyes in non-threatening/-confusing/-overwhelming ways. Z’s eyes were unfamiliar, alien, so round and black that the first thought that popped into my mind was “hedgehog.” My second thought was, those are – beyond the shadow of a doubt -- the eyes of my daughter. They were bright and a little fierce/scared like those of a wild animal that might, with care, be loved into feelings of trust and safety.

IV. Team Good

On Election Night, G was goofing around at the dinner table, cracking himself (and Pardner and me) up with talk of “Demo-Craps” and “Re-Butt-licans,”(the finer implications of which I hope escaped him). Sometimes, though, G gets “stuck,” and he would not stop saying these words despite my telling him he was not using language suitable for a seven-year-old.

Z covered her ears and, with her clear, dark, never tame but perhaps increasingly civilized eyes, looked right into mine.

“That is not appropriate, G,” she announced, holding my gaze, “and I am not listening!”

Since I am Z’s primary caregiver, she focuses a great deal of oppositional energy on me. It was such an incredibly nice feeling to have a moment where I felt she and I were so clearly on the same “team,” a brief respite where she felt safe enough to let down her defiant defenses and join with me in an effort to give her shelter – even if that shelter was merely from a grody eleven-year-old.

I think she felt it too. Later, she wrote me a letter, “thak you for that diner” [thank you for that dinner] and signed it “love form shorde” [love from Shorty]. 

V. The Hope of a Mother

When glimmers of empathy and Do-Right shine through the daily power struggles they are a balm for the Full Spectrum soul.

Z showed me we have plenty of love and caring to share with every member of this forever family, even those of us who might be referred to as imperfect…or inanimate.

She’s showed me that although it may take a little longer than we’d like, a frightened creature can learn to trust – and that with that trust comes the possibility of walls coming down.

I’ve begun to hope that, in the fullness of time, Z will use her substantial magnetism and undeniable, very tall and large will for the sake of goodness and justice.

I leave you with this Emily Dickinson poem about hope. It often pops into my mind both when I feel hopeless, and, like now, when I feel the power of hope.

254

"Hope" is the thing with feathers—

That perches in the soul—

And sings the tune without the words—

And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—

And sore must be the storm—

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm—

I've heard it in the chillest land—

And on the strangest Sea—

Yet, never, in Extremity,

It asked a crumb—of Me.

Emily Dickinson

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

Safe Boundaries, or, More Toilet Stories

Another way to approach my Full Spectrum household is through a lens of boundaries: Z habitually smashes them, while G is often unaware of them. Until recently, when he told me it hurts his feelings and embarrasses him, I would publicly joke (say, when he hugged someone he’d never met) that G’s superhero name was “No Boundaries Man.”

The issue of bathrooms is just one example of this phenomenon. Now that G is older (and he’s very tall, so he seems even older than he is) I can’t take him into the Women’s Room any more. This is anxiety-provoking. I offer the following four justifications for why this is so:

1. Because G is so friendly, he will strike up a conversation with just about anyone. Anywhere.  After a few too many overheard bathroom conversations, and several attempts to gently explain how inappropriate that was, and dangerous, I told him explicitly and in strong terms not to talk to anyone in the bathroom.  Period.

After taking Z to the bathroom the other day, we were waiting for G outside the Men’s Room for a few minutes.

“G?” I called. No answer.

Increasingly frantic, I called him several more times.

Just as I was about to barge into the Men’s Room, G emerged.

“What’s the matter, Mama?” he asked. “You told me not to talk to anyone in the bathroom.”

2. Same scenario, but this time G gets out of the bathroom first.  From inside the Women’s Room I hear him striking up conversations with, basically, any man who is coming out of the Men’s Room.

“Hello, my name is [full name]” he chirps, over and over.

“Please don’t talk to people outside of the bathroom either,” I say, having rushed Z’s hand-washing to forestall the next greeting.

“But I made a friend,” he protests. “He seems like he might have been a little weird when she was a kid. Maybe she was made fun of too. In the past.”*

Score: one for making difference seem like a prestigious club; zero for safety.

3. En route to Grandmother’s G announces that we need to make an emergency stop. I manage to exit and pull into a gas station in record time. Z is asleep. Since I have parked right in front of the entrance, I allow him to run in by himself. Relieved over having made it to a bathroom in time, it takes me a few minutes to notice that we are in a really sketchy area. I watch a spectrum of shady characters entering and exiting the building with mounting dread. I decide to wake up Z, but she is in a deep sleep so I grab her and carry her inside. We make our way to the hallway and to the bathroom door…which is wide open.

There sits G on the toilet, pants around his ankles, jacket on the filthy floor, chin resting in his hand like a small, live, No Boundaries Man “thinker.”

4. A few days before school ended, the hallway bathroom lights, which are on an automatic timer, went off while G was sitting on the toilet. He began screaming in terror and by the time someone heard him and turned on the light he was in a full-on panic attack. He was still red and on the constant verge of tears when I came to pick him up.

The two problems I was later able to glean from him were as follows: First, he knew he was in a stall, but didn’t have a mental picture of the space he was in or how to get out “in the pitch dark;” second, perhaps more importantly, he “was not done wiping [his] butt.”

This, in fact, was a sign of progress: the wipe/flush/wash hands trifecta has been a challenging one for G, with at least two out of three typically forgotten.

And then we have Z. Unlike G, Z is exceedingly aware of boundaries. She tends to see boundaries, however, as mere niceties that do not apply to her. This, too, raises safety issues. And bathroom issues. For example, we have to monitor Z’s bathroom visits at home after her consumption of a few too many bottles of skin and hair products.

Outside of the bathroom, Z’s iconoclastic confidence is an invaluable tool in achieving sovereignty. Once, she told her teacher she had to go use the microwave, marched into the fourth grade classroom, placed her food in the microwave and turned it on to fry her Tupperware and food to a melty, smoking crisp.  Curiously, no one thought to question her actions once she’d assured them she “knew what she was doing.”

She pushes boundaries with words as well. We were at a plant show in a greenhouse with my extended family when I heard her tell her 4-year old cousin, “It’s so f___kin’ hot!”

“What did you just say?” I gasped.

Z looked me right in the eyes, and said, “I said it’s so freakin’ hot, Mama.”

And Z looooves her Papa (my Pardner)…Maybe a bit too much.

"I’m gonna marry Papa," she once informed me.

"No, honey, I am married to Papa," I said. "You're his stepdaughter and that’s a different relationship that is just as wonderful. You'll always be together like that."

She stared at me like I was a fool. "When you're dead," was her nonchalant response.

Another time, Pardner was in the bathroom when Z began a world-class tantrum in line at the basement food court in Grand Central Station. Upon his return, Pardner thought Z had been injured and swept her up into his arms and away from the others in line, asking with sincere concern, “What happened, sugar dumplin’?” As he walked away, she paused in her screams long enough to request -- from this apparent new ally -- “Could you poop on Mama’s head?”

Z has such a deep, scurvy, belly-chuckle of a laugh that it sometimes seems she understands just how funny her transgressions can be.

In short, both children represent a Full Spectrum of relentlessness when it comes to boundaries. Whether because of willfulness or cluelessness, in both of their lives so far boundaries are neither perceived nor approached/avoided as society expects.

By the way, speaking of toilets, and boundaries, when I myself am on the toilet BOTH children often deem it a great time to talk to me.  I’m not talking about after I’ve been lounging for ten minutes – I mean right away. They enjoy “keeping me company” and sharing important information, such as keeping me abreast of all current cat locations. Recent urgent, through-the-door inquiries – from both children at once -- include, “How do you spell my name backwards?” “How do you say my name backwards?” “How do you say your name backwards?” and “How do you spell your name backwards?”

Love,

Lluf Murtceps Amam

* Re: s/he: Yes, G does sometimes struggle with pronouns, but in this case the individual in question was transgendered and the fact that G was so casual about this gave me hope for the world!

   Re: “In the past:” I also am so glad that G believes me when I tell him that grownups are less cruel than children and that many people who struggle with being accepted in childhood and adolescence fit in fine as adults because stuff like being cool no longer matters. Is this true? I hope so.